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SOTT.net Editors
Sott.net 2013-05-06 05:40:00
Did you hear the one about part of a Boeing 767 wing and thick rope found wedged between two buildings a block away from the site of the old World Trade Center in Manhattan? No, this isn't a joke - they really did claim last week to find a chunk of one of the hijacked aircraft flown into the Twin Towers over 11 years ago on 9/11. Not only that, it was discovered at 51 Park Place, Lower Manhattan, site of the planned Islamic community center. Talk about "catapulting the propaganda"... or maybe that should be 'lowering the propaganda into place'?... Coming on the heels of the Boston Drill/Bombings on Patriots' Day last month, as well as a 'ricin poisoned letters' scare that transported us all back in time to that crazy week in September 2001 when letters laced with anthrax were sent to politicians, the spectre of the 9/11 attacks looms large as ever over the U.S. and much of Western civilization. "9/11 was an inside job," is by now a familiar mantra in the small but active alternative online community. It has even found its way into the mainstream, despite years of ridicule and the heavy presence of COINTELPRO types derailing efforts to investigate and publish the truth of what happened on 9/11. So, was it really an 'inside job'? Certainly, there is evidence that Israeli intelligence and elements in the U.S. government colluded to cover-up what really happened and used the event for their own gain. We know that prior to 9/11, certain high-level members of Bush Jr.'s administration dreamed of 'a new Pearl Harbor', the catalyst for expanding American hegemony. But does that necessarily mean they orchestrated it? What about the evidence for 9/11 being an 'outside job'? Many anomalous aspects of the attacks that day have been overlooked. This week we invited Dr. Judy Wood on the show to discuss the compelling evidence she has gathered and analysed in her book Where Did the Towers Go?, pointing to some form of 'exotic technology' may have been responsible for destroying the World Trade Center on 9/11. In the second part of the show, we tried to look at 9/11 from a broader perspective with Lisa Guliani, former internet-based political talk show host, political writer and SOTT.net editor. As you'll soon discover, however, even over 11 years later, it's no easier today to get a coherent discussion going about Israel and the NeoCons' role in 9/11... can we conclude that 9/11 as a psy-ops has successfully neutralized the so-called 'Truth Movement'?
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Comment: A sample of SOTT.net reports concerning 9/11:
9/11 Ultimate Truth (book) Mossad and Moving Companies: Masterminds of Global Terrorism Pakistan's ISI and The Secret Cult of 9-11 Evidence That a Frozen Fish Didn't Impact the Pentagon on 9-11 and Neither Did a Boeing 757 Pentagon Strike (video) Comments on the Pentagon Strike New Doctored Video of Pentagon Attack Release - Confirms Boeing Was Not Involved Ultra-terrestrials and 9/11 Alex Jones and the Scholars for 911 Truth: The Parable of the Shepherd The Destruction of the 911 Truth Movement Ruppert and Hopsicker Co-Opting the 9-11 Truth Movement Or Exposing the Big Con - Lies and Disinformation At The End Of Civilisation As We Know It | ||
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| Puppet Masters |
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Chris Hedges
Truthdig 2013-05-06 10:55:00
A tiny tip of the vast subterranean network of governmental and intelligence agencies from around the world dedicated to destroying WikiLeaks and arresting its founder, Julian Assange, appears outside the red-brick building on Hans Crescent Street that houses the Ecuadorean Embassy. Assange, the world's best-known political refugee, has been in the embassy since he was offered sanctuary there last June. British police in black Kevlar vests are perched night and day on the steps leading up to the building, and others wait in the lobby directly in front of the embassy door. An officer stands on the corner of a side street facing the iconic department store Harrods, half a block away on Brompton Road. Another officer peers out the window of a neighboring building a few feet from Assange's bedroom at the back of the embassy. Police sit round-the-clock in a communications van topped with an array of antennas that presumably captures all electronic forms of communication from Assange's ground-floor suite. The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), or Scotland Yard, said the estimated cost of surrounding the Ecuadorean Embassy from June 19, 2012, when Assange entered the building, until Jan. 31, 2013, is the equivalent of $4.5 million. Britain has rejected an Ecuadorean request that Assange be granted safe passage to an airport. He is in limbo. It is, he said, like living in a "space station." "The status quo, for them, is a loss," Assange said of the U.S.-led campaign against him as we sat in his small workroom, cluttered with cables and computer equipment. He had a full head of gray hair and gray stubble on his face and was wearing a traditional white embroidered Ecuadorean shirt. "The Pentagon threatened WikiLeaks and me personally, threatened us before the whole world, demanded that we destroy everything we had published, demanded we cease 'soliciting' new information from U.S. government whistle-blowers, demanded, in other words, the total annihilation of a publisher. It stated that if we did not self-destruct in this way that we would be 'compelled' to do so." "But they have failed," he went on. "They set the rules about what a win was. They lost in every battle they defined. Their loss is total. We've won the big stuff. The loss of face is hard to overstate. The Pentagon reissued its threats on Sept. 28 last year. This time we laughed. Threats inflate quickly. Now the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department intend to show the world what vindictive losers they are through the persecution of Bradley Manning, myself and the organization more generally." | |
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RT
2013-05-05 19:05:00
Israel used "a new type of weapon", a senior official at the Syrian military facility that came under attack from the Israeli Air Force told RT. "When the explosion happened it felt like an earthquake," said the source, who was present near the attack site on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday morning. "Then a giant golden mushroom of fire appeared. This tells us that Israel used depleted uranium shells." Depleted uranium is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process that creates nuclear weapons, and was first used by the US in the Gulf conflict of 1991. Unlike the radioactive materials used in nuclear weapons, depleted uranium is not valued for its explosiveness, but for its toughness - it is 2.5 times as dense as steel - which allows it to penetrate heavy protection. | |
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Glenn Greenwald
Guardian 2013-05-04 14:06:00
The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are. Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way. On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could: | |
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Chemi Shalev Former Bush administration official: Israel may be behind use of chemical arms in Syria
Chemi Shalev
Haaretz 2013-05-04 19:17:00
Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, says Israel may have conducted 'false flag' operation. Describes its government as inept and Netanyahu as 'clueless.' Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who once served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff, believes that the chemical weapons used in Syria may have been an Israeli "false flag" operation aimed at implicating Bashar Assad's regime. Wilkerson made his astounding assertion in an interview on Current TV, the network once owned by former Vice President Al Gore and recently purchased by Al-Jazeera. Wilkerson said that the evidence that it was Assad's regime that had used the chemical weapons was "flaky" and that it could very well have been the rebels or Israel who were the perpetrators. Asked why Israel would do such a thing, Wilkerson said: "I think we've got a basically geostrategically, geopolitical inept regime in Tel Aviv right now." | |
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Dan Roberts
The Guardian 2013-05-02 10:22:00
Lawyer who drafted White House drone policy says US would rather kill suspects than send them to Cuban detention centre The lawyer who first drew up White House policy on lethal drone strikes has accused theObama administration of overusing them because of its reluctance to capture prisoners that would otherwise have to be sent to Guantánamo Bay. John Bellinger, who was responsible for drafting the legal framework for targeted drone killings while working for George W Bush after 9/11, said he believed their use had increased since because President Obama was unwilling to deal with the consequences of jailing suspected al-Qaida members. "This government has decided that instead of detaining members of al-Qaida [at Guantánamo] they are going to kill them," he told a conference at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Obama this week pledged to renew efforts to shut down the jail but has previously struggled to overcome congressional opposition, in part due to US disagreements over how to handle suspected terrorists and insurgents captured abroad. An estimated 4,700 people have now been killed by some 300 US drone attacks in four countries, and the question of the programme's status under international and domestic law remains highly controversial. | |
Comment: Obama recently vowed to close Guantánamo, telling reporters, "I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,". He didn't say that they would instead just kill all suspects with drones.
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Syria chemical weapons allegations could be 'Israeli false flag operation' says former Bush official
Madison Ruppert
End the Lie 2013-05-04 07:28:00
In what was a quite astounding statement, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of Staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell under George W. Bush, said that the chemical weapons allegedly used in Syria could in fact be "an Israeli false flag operation." During his interview with Cenk Uygur on Current TV (now owned by Al Jazeera), Wilkerson said his unnamed sources in the intelligence community told him that the evidence supporting the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government was "really flaky." "This could have been an Israeli false flag operation," Wilkerson said. When Uygur asked why Israel would do such a thing and what the motivation would be, Wilkerson said, "I think we've got basically a geo-strategically, geo-political - if you will - inept regime in Tel Aviv right now." "I think we saw really startling evidence of that in the fact that President Obama had to tell Bibi Netanyahu, 'Pick up the phone, you idiot and call Ankara [Turkey] and get yourself out of this strategic isolation you're in right now,'" Wilkerson said, referring to the situation in March of this year. | |
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Richard Cockle
The Oregonian 2013-05-04 07:21:00
Two masked men wearing hoodies and wielding handguns burst into the Pine Eagle Charter School in this tiny rural community on Friday. Students were at home for an in-service day, so the gunmen headed into a meeting room full of teachers and opened fire. Someone figured out in a few seconds that the bullets were not drawing blood because they were blanks and the exercise was a drill, designed to test Pine Eagle's preparation for an assault by "active shooters" who were, in reality, members of the school staff. But those few seconds left everybody plenty scared. Principal Cammie DeCastro said it became clear very quickly just how many of the school's 15 teachers would have survived. The answer: "Not many," she said. Elementary teacher Morgan Gover, 31, said only two teachers would have lived to tell the tale. She admitted being scared, and also acknowledged she would have been among the casualties, having taken several fake direct hits from the shooters. "I'll tell you, the whole situation was horrible," she said. "I got a couple in the front and a couple in the back." | |
Comment: It's heart-breaking to see how brainwashed ordinary Americans are that when something like this happens, they cow even deeper into submission and thank the government terrorists for traumatizing them.
It's all over but the crying. | |
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The Guardian
2013-05-04 07:04:00
Sources say attack targeted shipment of ground-to-ground missiles not chemical weapons facility as first reported Israeli warplanes have bombed a convoy carrying missiles from Syria to Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, Israeli officials said. The air strike, which is understood to have been carried out from Lebanese airspace, took place on Friday after the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his security cabinet approved the attack in a secret meeting on Thursday night. The target was a convoy carrying a shipment of advanced long-range ground-to-ground missiles to Hezbollah and not a Syrian chemical weapons facility, according to unnamed Israeli officials. The attack was first reported in the US media on Friday, with US officials claiming the Israelis had hit a building. The US president, Barack Obama, reiterated on Friday that he does not foresee deploying US forces on the ground in the Syrian civil war. But the New York Times reported that US officials were on Friday considering military options, including carrying out their own air strikes. The details of the Israeli strike remain vague but Netanyahu has repeatedly warned in recent weeks that Israel would be prepared to take military action if chemical weapons or other advanced arms were to reach Hezbollah from Syria. | |
Comment: Chemical weapon lies being used as an excuse by Israel to bomb any Syrian targets they choose to.
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Uche Orieh
This was recorded before suspect # 2 was captured.YouTube 2013-04-19 07:12:00 I smell a rat. Some of the reporting on this hasn't added up. The family and friends of these two suspects gave a different accounts of the people they actually are vs. the image that the Govt. and media portrayed. Ask yourself this; if your image was plastered all over the TV and you're accused of a terrorist attack, what would you do? What could you do? My thoughts on this...
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The Caterpillar Flys
2013-04-29 07:05:00
Its been two weeks since the Boston marathon bombings and the smell of lies and corruption is pungent in the air. While the mainstream media has failed to do any sort of investigative journalism on the event (sans Ben Swann of Reality Check and Judge Napolitano of Freedom Watch) they have done a fine job of regurgitating and re-enforcing the same non-sense story that the FBI concocted. Even when that story changed, they changed their reporting to fit that story. How bogus! Thanks to the internet and to our divine ability to Think, people around the world have been probing, questioning and taking apart the official story since the day the news broke out. Of course, these people are the "conspiracy theorists" - always coming up with some crazy idea about the government being out to get them. But what happens when the crazy "conspiracies" have facts, evidence, eyewitness testimonials, motives and historical data that proves the involvement of government conducting terror attacks on its own citizens all the time? | |
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Alex Seitz-Wald
Salon.com 2013-05-02 06:55:00
It's good to be Alex Jones. Matt Drudge, the conservative Web entrepreneur and news aggregator, proved prophetic when he predicted that 2013 would be "the year of Alex Jones." The longtime conspiracy broadcaster is finally breaking into the mainstream consciousness after a buzzy interview with Piers Morgan and his Boston bombing conspiracy, and traffic to his websites has never been higher. The conspiracy business is booming. And make no mistake, it is a business. That's not to say that Jones isn't a believer - there are easier ways to make money - but Jones has built a multi-platform new media empire in his Austin, Texas, Free Speech Systems LLC that reaches millions of believers andpromises advertisers that it will "direct lucrative buyers to you from our daily audience of active enthusiasts." And all told, Jones is very likely raking in millions. Jones didn't invent the business model, but he may have perfected it. He comes from a long line of what historian Robert Goldberg calls "conspiracy entrepreneurs" that stretches back through at least the early Red Scare, and up through the John Birch Society, the JFK assassination and the Roswell incident to the Jones school of the New World Order. But while others merely got by on the sale of their books and tapes and lectures to a niche audience, Jones has industrialized conspiracy for a mass audience. | |
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Alex Seitz-Wald
Salon.com 2013-05-04 04:45:00
A gun activist is planning a massive march on D.C., with participants' rifles illegally slung over their shoulders Libertarian activist and radio host Adam Kokesh is hoping to get 1,000 people to march on Washington on July 4 - armed with loaded rifles. The plan, launched with a Facebook grouptoday, is to gather on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where gun laws are lax, and then march across the bridge with loaded rifles slung over their shoulders into the District, where openly carrying weapons is generally prohibited. "This will be a non-violent event," the Facebook group warns, "unless the government chooses to make it violent." Already, over 200 people have said they'll attend the march. Here's the message: Kokesh is a former Marine who was discharged in 2007 after violating the military's code against engaging in political activity while in uniform. Kokesh was highly active in the antiwar movement after serving in Iraq, participating in numerous protests and getting arrested on occasion. | |
Comment: Adam Charles Kokesh, an interesting character. He has his own Wikipedia page, where we read:
In no time at all, he became a fairly high-profile media personality on the alternative news circuit, an outspoken anti-war activist, 9/11 Truther, Ron Paul supporter, etc, etc.
Remember PATCON The following information is gleaned from the outstanding documentary about the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, A Noble Lie. Short for 'PATRIOT CONSPIRACY' - Patcon was an undercover FBI operation launched around 1991. Modelled after COINTELPRO, which officially ended in 1971 (yeah right!), the idea was to infiltrate every militia group, every neo-nazi group, in fact - every single group that was in any way critical of the government - by placing a combination of paid informants and sheep-dipped agents inside all of these groups. By the time this counter-insurgency program was active, they had sent young Tmothy McVeigh to Camp Grafton for explosives training in preparation for his role in the Oklahoma City Bombing. More than that, however, they created a 'terror cell' with other ATF and FBI informants and named it the Ayran Republican Army, members of which McVeigh hung around with in Elohim City in Oklahoma. This is what McVeigh was doing during the few months for which there is 'no record' prior to the OKC bombing. Besides explosives training, this quiet, obedient soldier developed a 'legend' for himself so that by the time he resurfaced in Oklahoma, he is playing the role of 'raving anti-government activist'. In short, McVeigh was 'sheep-dipped'. He never 'left the army'. There are no discharge papers because he wasn't 'discharged'. He was selected for Special Ops. McVeigh was even accidentally filmed at Camp Grafton in North Dakota during this time. Why he agreed to speedy execution remains somewhat mysterious for now, but the fact that he was visited repeatedly by notorious mind control hypnotist and CIA shrink Louis Jolyon West (of MK-Ultra and Sirhan Sirhan fame), coupled with his rigid obedience to the government he believed he was serving, meant that he was 'a good soldier' to the very end. Just something to keep in mind. | |
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| Society's Child |
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KHOU.com
2013-05-05 17:43:00
A 19-year-old male suffered severe injuries to his hand, lower extremities and face after a bomb he made detonated while he was carrying it in northeast Harris County, according to police. The Houston Police Department said that at about 7:40 p.m. on Saturday the teen and another 18-year-old male had gone down to a bayou near the 3100 block of Valley Rim Drive. The teens had materials to create what is being called a "combustible mixture" with the intention of going to go "blow up turtles." Police said that at some point, the 19-year-old lit a cigar, and the ashes from his cigar fell near his pocket where he was carrying the explosive cartridges. Police said it is likely that the ashes ignited the cartridges. | |
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Newser.com
After being charged with ... sexual assault2013-05-06 17:35:00
The first rule of preventing sexual assault: don't sexually assault people. That's some free advice for the head of the US Air Force's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, who was removed from his post today after being charged with sexual battery,NBC reports. Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski, 41, allegedly approached a woman in a parking lot in Arlington, Virginia, early Sunday morning and grabbed her breasts and buttocks. According to the police report, he was drunk and she fought him off before calling the cops - scratches can be seen on his face in his mug shot. | |
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Dan Box
The Australian 2013-05-06 17:30:00
Giving evidence at the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into child sex abuse, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox said he discussed these fears in 2002 with the current state Nationals MP, Troy Grant, then a serving officer. Mr Grant "was highly critical of some senior police at Newcastle in what he perceived to be hindering his investigation" into alleged child abuse by clergy, Detective Fox said. The MP, who will give evidence tomorrow, used the phrase "Catholic mafia" to describe two particular officers he felt were deliberately asking him to work on other criminal investigations, Detective Fox said. "He was referring to what he perceived to be police who he felt to be aligned to the Catholic Church, who were attempting to discourage investigations into clergy," he said. | |
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Ellen Cantarow
Tom Dispatch 2013-05-02 15:38:00
Gary Judson had just been removed from his shackles when they slapped the handcuffs on him. The 72-year-old Methodist minister had chained himself to the fence surrounding a compressor station -- part of the critical infrastructure associated with hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking -- a stone's throw from Seneca Lake in upstate New York. The sheriff and his deputies freed him only to arrest him for trespassing. "They don't have the right to do this -- to put the lake in jeopardy. We'll all end up paying for their mess," Judson told a small group of supporters on hand to witness his act of civil disobedience. The "this" he was protesting, Sandra Steingraber recounts in a recent issue of Orion magazine, was the plan of Missouri-based Inergy Midstream to turn abandoned salt caverns beneath the lake's shores into storage areas for millions of barrels of natural gas piped in from Pennsylvania's fracking fields. "Inergy has been in violation of the Clean Water Act at this facility every single quarter for the past three years," Judson said. "Since 1972, there have been fourteen catastrophic failures at gas storage facilities. Each one of them has been at a salt cavern." A "failure" at Seneca Lake could be particularly catastrophic because, Steingraber writes, it provides the drinking water for 100,000 people. (Last month, Steingraber was jailed for 15 days for her own act of civil disobedience against Inergy.) In Pennsylvania, where gas is currently being forced out of the shale rock in which it's resided for millions of years, "failures" are already an everyday affair, as TomDispatch regular Ellen Cantarow reports in the latest in her series of articles from fracking's front lines. | |
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Al Jaazeera
Hefazaat leader forced to leave Dhaka as clashes between anti-government protesters and police continue for second day.2013-05-06 15:23:00
The government in Bangladesh has cracked down on protests, taking a television station off-air and transferring the man at the head of the group that instigated the deadly protests out of Dhaka under police escort. Allama Shah Ahmad Shafi was taken out of the Hefazaat-e-Islam headquarters on Monday before being put on an aircraft to the country's second largest city, Chittagong. Police said, however, that Shafi had not been arrested. Tens of thousands of Hefazaat supporters rallied near a commercial district of Dhaka early on Monday. Violence soon began spilling beyond the city, with at least two police officers and a border guard reported dead in Narayanganj, about 20km outside Dhaka. At least 24 people have reportedly been killed in clashes on Monday alone. | |
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Adam Ray
3 News, New Zealand 2013-04-30 17:18:00
New Zealand - A large animal carcass that washed up on a Bay of Plenty beach left some locals wondering if they'd come across the remains of a prehistoric animal. The carcass was discovered by a group of quad bikers on a beach about 5km east of Pukehina Beach. The animal's jaw and teeth and parts of its body were still intact. "People have been asking about it all weekend. It's caused a bit of 'What is it?' in the beach," says Luana Lovell-Dewes, one of the quad bikers who found the remains. "We haven't seen teeth like that on an animal that's washed up." Photos of the animal have been sent to the Department of Conservation and Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium for identification, but Mrs Lovell-Dewes says it has proven difficult to get any confirmation. | |
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Boston Globe
2013-05-05 14:49:00
A limousine traveling on a major bridge in the San Francisco area burst into flames, killing five female passengers who were trapped inside and injuring four others who escaped, authorities said Sunday. The limo was carrying nine female passengers and a male driver when it caught fire late Saturday on the San Mateo bridge, California Highway Patrol officer Art Montiel told The Associated Press. Five occupants became trapped, while four others suffered injuries but managed to get out after the vehicle came to a stop on the bridge, the patrol said. The driver escaped uninjured. Montiel said that the victims were all in their 30s. Authorities said the names of the dead would be released once families have been notified. | |
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Alyssa Newcomb
ABC News 2013-05-05 14:45:00
A soccer referee who was allegedly punched in the face by a teenage player and slipped into a coma has died. Ricardo Portillo, 46, had been in critical condition since the April 27 incident and passed away Saturday night, according to the Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake in Utah. Authorities will consider additional charges against the 17-year-old suspect this week since the referee died, police said in a statement. Lt. Justin Hoyle with the Salt Lake Unified Police Department said that Portillo was a refereeing a game at Eisenhower Junior High, in Taylorsville, Utah, last weekend when he flagged the teen for a foul. | |
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RT.com
2013-05-03 11:35:00
The unemployment rate in the United States is at a four-year low, but another labor stat is shrinking in not such a favorable way: a decline in the number of self-employed Americans suggests the personal business will soon be a thing of the past. Since the Great Depression, the number of Americans who identify themselves in the work force as "self-employed as a share of non-farm employment" has been getting smaller. Some economists now say though that the major US recession that started in 2007 will soon send that stat straight down to zero. The number of self-employed Americans at the end of World War II was roughly one-quarter of the country's population, but during the length of just the 1960s that section shrank from nearly 20 percent to being barely in the double digits. From the 1970s through the first half of the '90s that rate stayed constant, but since just before the start of this century the stats have been smaller than ever. That figure is continuing to decrease, and the result is a major drop in the number of self-employed workers due to the recent recession is ravaging what was once a viable way of making a living. Although the proportion of self-employed workers has been shrinking during the last few decades, the sheer number of workers who identify as such dropped drastically as a result of the recession - all the while, of course, the population of the country as a whole got larger. | |
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Robert Bridge
RT.com 2013-05-02 23:58:00
More Americans now die of suicide than from car accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a disturbing statistic that some experts say points to the true depths of the US economic crisis. From 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among US citizens between the ages of 35 to 64 soared by about 30 per cent, to 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, a jump from 13.7. In 2010, there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides. Although suicide has been traditionally viewed as a problem among the youth and elderly, the recent study, published in Friday's issue of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, shows a marked rise in the number of suicides among middle-aged men and women. The suicide rate for men aged 35 - 64 years jumped 27.3 per cent, from 21.5 to 27.3 per 100,000, while the rate for women increased 31.5 per cent, from 6.2 to 8.1. | |
Comment: Considering the extent of income inequality in the U.S., the devastation the ongoing financial crisis has dealt, along with the massive drugging of the population, these statistics are not surprising.
Economic Downturn Taking Toll on Americans' Mental Health An Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in the U.S. Warning: Antidepressants May Led to Suicidal Tendencies Understanding and Overcoming the Myths of Suicide | |
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RT.com
2013-05-03 08:29:00
While questions over the severity of ExxonMobil's March 29 oil spill in Mayflower, Arkansas still remain, the same pipeline has now ruptured, this time to the north, in Missouri. The 70-year-old Pegasus pipeline, which released thousands of barrels of tar sands oil in Arkansas, has now caused another, albeit far smaller incident in Ripley County, Missouri, 200 miles north of Mayflower, Arkansas. A resident notified ExxonMobil after spotting a patch of oil and dead vegetation in their yard outside the town of Doniphan, according to Reuters. Luckily, unlike the spill that is still ongoing in Mayflower, the latest breach seems so far to be minor, with an estimated one barrel of crude oil having been leaked. According to an Exxon spokeswoman the cleanup operation there was "close to completion." Originally built in the late 1940s, the Pegasus is now the subject of severe scrutiny, as many environmentalists argue that the increased corrosive impact of transporting tar sands oil presents a greater concern than other forms of oil. It is worth noting that the pipeline was shut down following the Arkansas spill, and leaked in Missouri despite being out of operation. | |
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| Secret History |
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Lawrence LeBlond
RedOrbit 2013-05-06 17:47:00
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon have long been regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, although not without controversy. It seems that the Gardens have also been regarded as purely legendary, with no evidence that this ancient site ever existed in Babylon. For centuries, historians, archaeologists and others have imagined what the Hanging Gardens may have looked like and several artists, most notably Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck in the 16th century painted his concept of the Gardens, complete with the Tower of Babel in the background. Now, a historian with Oxford University may have cracked the case wide open, potentially solving centuries-old theories of the Hanging Gardens. Dr. Stephanie Dalley, of Oxford's Oriental Institute, said the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon were not actually located in Hillah and were not built by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. In fact, she says the site was not even in Babylon at all, but rather 300 miles north in Nineveh, and built by the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib. | |
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Tia Ghose
LiveScience 2013-05-06 14:00:00
The ancestors of people from across Europe and Asia may have spoken a common language about 15,000 years ago, new research suggests. Now, researchers have reconstructed words, such as "mother," "to pull" and "man," which would have been spoken by ancient hunter-gatherers, possibly in an area such as the Caucusus. The word list, detailed today (May 6) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help researchers retrace the history of ancient migrations and contacts between prehistoric cultures. "We can trace echoes of language back 15,000 years to a time that corresponds to about the end of the last ice age," said study co-author Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. | |
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Owen Jarus
LIveScience 2013-05-06 08:44:00
An ancient astronomical alignment in southern Peru has been discovered by researchers between a pyramid, two stone lines and the setting sun during the winter solstice. During the solstice, hundreds of years ago, the three would have lined up to frame the pyramid in light. The two stone lines, called geoglyphs, are located about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) east-southeast from the pyramid. They run for about 1,640 feet (500 meters), and researchers say the lines were "positioned in such a way as to frame the pyramid as one descended down the valley from the highlands." Using astronomical software and 3D modeling, the researchers determined that a remarkable event would have occurred during the time of the winter solstice. [See Images of the Pyramid and Solstice Alignment] "When viewed in 3D models, these lines appear to converge at a point beyond the horizon and frame not only the site of Cerro del Gentil [where the pyramid is], but also the setting sun during the time of the winter solstice," the research team wrote in a poster presentation given recently at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Honolulu. "Thus someone viewing the sunset from these lines during the winter solstice would have seen the sun setting directly behind, or sinking into, the adobe pyramid," they write. "Thus the pyramid and the linear geoglyph constitute part of a single architectural complex, with potential cosmological significance, that ritualized the entire pampa landscape." (The word "pampa" stands for plain.) The flattop pyramid is 16 feet (5 m) high and was built sometime between 600 B.C. and 50 B.C., being reoccupied somewhere between A.D. 200 and 400. Finds near the pyramid include textiles, shells and ceramics. The stone lines were constructed at some point between 500 B.C. and A.D. 400. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Deborah Byrd
Those in the Australian outback and parts of the Pacific Ocean will be able to view an annular eclipse of the sun - in which a ring of the sun's surface appears around the body of the moon's silhouette - on the morning of May 10, 2013 at shortly after 8 a.m. local time. About 95% of the solar disk will be covered, and yet this is considered a partial eclipse. At no time will the sky darken, or stars pop into view. The remaining 5% of sun is so bright that those in the right place on Earth to see the eclipse will need to look at it through specially filtered glasses for the entire event. View the illustrations below to learn more about the May 10, 2013 annular solar eclipse.EarthSky Org 2013-05-06 13:16:00
The May 10 annular eclipse as seen in Australia. The annular phase will start in extreme northwest Australia in the state of Western Australia, where some veteran eclipse chasers will try to see it at sunrise. The 300-km-wide path will include Tennant Creek, about 500 km north of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The path of annularity will leave the Australian continent well north of Cairns, where tens of thousands of people saw a total solar eclipse in November, and even north of Cooktown; Cliff Island and Flinders Group National Parks will be in the zone. Annularity will last about 3 minutes at Tennant Creek and about 4-1/2 minutes at the centerline, about 50 km north of Tennant Creek. The path of annularity will leave Queensland with about 4-3/4 minutes of annularity. | |
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The Daily Galaxy
2013-05-05 16:16:00
Radical new research is attempting to characterize the properties of a fifth force that disrupts the predictions general relativity makes outside our own galaxy, on cosmic-length scales. University of Pennsylvania astrophysicist Bhuvnesh Jain, says the nature of gravity is the question of a lifetime. As scientists have been able to see farther and deeper into the universe, the laws of gravity have been revealed to be under the influence of an unexplained force. Two branches of theories have sprung up, each trying to fill its gaps in a different way. One branch - dark energy - suggests that the vacuum of space has an energy associated with it and that energy causes the observed acceleration. The other falls under the umbrella of "scalar-tensor" gravity theories, which effectively posits a fifth force (beyond gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces) that alters gravity on cosmologically large scales. "These two possibilities are both radical in their own way," Jain said. "One is saying that general relativity is correct, but we have this strange new form of energy. The other is saying we don't have a new form of energy, but gravity is not described by general relativity everywhere." Jain's research is focused on the latter possibility; he is attempting to characterize the properties of this fifth force that disrupts the predictions general relativity makes outside our own galaxy, on cosmic length scales. By innovatively analyzing a well-studied class of stars in nearby galaxies, Jain and his colleagues - Vinu Vikram, Anna Cabre and Joseph Clampitt at Penn and Jeremy Sakstein at the University of Cambridge - have produced new findings that narrow down the possibilities of what this force could be. Their findings, published on the Arxiv, are a vindication of Einstein's theory of gravity. | |
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Steve Robson
The Daily Mail 2013-05-02 07:34:00
Scientists believe they have made the first ever recording of a tree gasping for water. Just as humans make a noise as they desperately try to gulp air, living trees make ultrasonic popping noises as they draw in as much moisture as possible to survive during a drought. The sounds are a hundred times faster than can be heard by the human ear, but a team led by French physicist Philippe Marmottant at Grenoble University believe they have been able to slow the process down sufficiently to be heard during a recent lab experiment. Using slivers of dead pine tree wood bathed in hydrogel, they recreated the conditions of a living tree. | |
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Jasper Copping
Scientists believe they may have hit upon a cure for baldness - but it is not for the faint-hearted. The Telegraph, UK 2013-05-05 09:49:00
Researchers found they were able to regrow hair on the bald patches on people's heads by injecting them with a solution derived from their own blood. The so-called "vampire" treatment involved taking blood from the patient and processing it in a machine that extracts "platelet-rich plasma" (PRP), which is then injected back into the head. Scientists believe the solution then stimulates new stem cells below the skin which can aid the regrowth of hair. Such "vampire" treatments are already used in some cosmetic procedures, where injections of PRP are used in an effort to reduce the effects of ageing on the face and hands. The new treatment could have helped Sir Elton John, inset, who invested in a hair transplant. The research, published in the latest edition of the British Journal of Dermatology, was conducted among a group of people suffering from alopecia areata, which affects about 2 per cent of the population. | |
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NASA
2013-05-03 22:10:00
These delicate wisps of gas make up an object known as SNR B0519-69.0, or SNR 0519 for short. The thin, blood-red shells are actually the remnants from when an unstable progenitor star exploded violently as a supernova around 600 years ago. There are several types of supernovae, but for SNR 0519 the star that exploded is known to have been a white dwarf star - a Sun-like star in the final stages of its life. SNR 0519 is located over 150 000 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Dorado (The Dolphinfish), a constellation that also contains most of our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Because of this, this region of the sky is full of intriguing and beautiful deep sky objects. The LMC orbits the Milky Way galaxy as a satellite and is the fourth largest in our group of galaxies, the Local Group. SNR 0519 is not alone in the LMC; the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope also came across a similar bauble a few years ago in SNR B0509-67.5, a supernova of the same type as SNR 0519 with a strikingly similar appearance. | |
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Deborah Byrd
EarthSky Org 2013-05-04 14:42:00
NASA said late in the day yesterday (May 3, 2013) that a record-setting blast of gamma rays from a dying star in a distant galaxy has wowed astronomers around the world. The eruption is a gamma-ray burst (GRB), one of the universe's most luminous explosions, thought to take place when supernovae erupt in distant galaxies. This particular GRB is designated GRB 130427A. On April 27, NASA said, it produced the highest-energy light ever detected from a gamma ray burst. The animation here shows how the sky looks at gamma-ray energies above 100 million electron volts (MeV) with a view centered on the north galactic pole. The first frame shows the sky during a three-hour interval prior to GRB 130427A. The second frame shows a three-hour interval starting 2.5 hours before the burst, and ending 30 minutes into the event. In other words, the animation demonstrates how bright the burst was relative to the rest of the gamma-ray sky. Julie McEnery, project scientist for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which observed the event, said:
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Todd Martens
Shortly after the gates opened for the second weekend of the 2013LA Times 2013-04-19 10:08:00
Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, those waiting to get in bore witness to a rare site at the now annual music party in the desert: patience. Security lines at 12:15 p.m. weren't all moving incredibly brisk - a 20-to 25-minute wait to get into the grounds seemed about right - but everyone was on their best behavior as security made its way through the backpacks of attendees. Perhaps the second week, in which most every band will perform in the same time slot it had last week, doesn't bring as much anticipation at the gate. Or perhaps everyone was in a subdued and compliant mood after this week's tragedy at the Boston Marathon. Those making their way into the festival said they anticipated security measures to be upped after the Boston bombings. | |
Comment: The key phrase from the article: "Local residents, whose homes surround the polo field, also have to wear one [Unique numbered RFD bracelet] just to get to their houses". Pogowasright points out "It's not clear by whom, or by what authority, nearby residents or their guests and visitors could be "required" to wear devices each of which transmit a unique tracking ID number any time it is requested by private parties."
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| Earth Changes |
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Newser.com
Bugs will overrun Eastern states looking for sex in 'Brood II'2013-05-06 17:47:00
Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the East Coast. The insects will arrive in such numbers that people in the southern state of North Carolina to Connecticut in the northeast will be outnumbered roughly 600 to 1. Maybe more. Scientists even have a horror-movie name for the infestation: Brood II. But as ominous as that sounds, the insects are harmless. They won't hurt you or other animals. | |
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sky.com
Tens of millions of the insects are preparing to inflict a 17-yearly noisy hell on people living along America's East Coast.2013-05-06 15:28:00
Colossal numbers of cicadas - quietly growing underground since 1996 - are about to emerge along much of the US East Coast to begin an orgy of passionate singing and mating. Billions of so-called 17-year periodical cicadas, with their distinctive black bodies, buggy red eyes, and orange-veined wings will begin to settle along a roughly 900-mile stretch from northern Georgia to upstate New York. The good news is they do not sting or bite, and are not harmful to crops. But the eerie, cacophonous mating music they produce has simultaneously amazed and infuriated people for centuries. In central Connecticut, particularly dense concentrations of so-called Brood II cicadas, named Magicicada septendecim, should arrive in late May or June this year as soon as the soil temperature exceeds 18C (64F). Chris Maier, entomologist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, said the first scientific recording of Brood II specimens was in 1843. | |
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UPI
2013-05-04 15:17:00
Officials in eastern France ordered evacuations Saturday after torrential rains hit the Burgundy region. Some residents of Dijon were ordered out of their homes to escape the rising waters of the Ouche river, which overflowed its banks, after a month's worth of rain poured down over 12 hours. Dijon firefighters had to rescue three people trapped in a car, and ferry service in Lyon was suspended because the water in the Saone river had risen to the point the boats could not pass under bridges, Radio France Internationale said. Flood alerts in seven departments were lifted Saturday, however the downpour was expected to continue in other parts of France. | |
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US Geological Survey
2013-05-06 09:01:00
Event Time: 2013-05-06 03:13:42 UTC 2013-05-05 21:13:42 UTC-06:00 at epicenter Location: 42.608°N 111.947°W depth=11.3km (7.0mi) Nearby Cities: 28km (17mi) W of Soda Springs, Idaho 50km (31mi) SE of Pocatello, Idaho 54km (34mi) SE of Chubbuck, Idaho 72km (45mi) SSE of Blackfoot, Idaho 205km (127mi) N of Salt Lake City, Utah Technical data | |
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The list of locations that have received record May snowfall from a storm that brought up to 2 feet of over the central Rockies continues to grow over portions of the Plains and Upper Midwest. The storm will continue to drop accumulating snow through Friday morning and reaching even more unlikely locations over the Plains, Midwest and the South before it is all said and done. Omaha, Neb., Mason City, Iowa, and Rochester, Minn., are but only several cities that have been clobbered by their biggest May snowfall on record. In many cases in the major cities in the Plains, those records date back to the 1800s. While snow is not unheard of away from the Rockies and northern tier states during May, it is the amount of snow and the extent of that snow that is so unusual. Snowstorms during May in the Midwest are typically highly localized. Minneapolis/St. Paul managed to avoid the heaviest snow from this storm. However, areas less than 50 miles to the southeast of the Twin Cities received between 6 and 12 inches of snow Wednesday night into Thursday. As much as 18 inches fell on part of southeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. | |
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Stephanie Joyce
KUCB 2013-05-04 23:26:00
Cleveland Volcano is erupting once again. Three small explosions shook the volcano Saturday morning, and a low-level eruption is ongoing. John Power is a seismologist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory. He writes in an email that the explosions were "similar in size to what we have seen over the past several years," although he notes that it is unusual to have three in a row. Power says satellite imagery and a webcam in the nearby village of Nikolski show that the volcano is continuing to emit small amounts of gas, ash and steam, with plumes rising to 15,000 feet. There's no real-time monitoring network on the volcano. Cleveland lies on a major international flight path, and in light of the explosions the Observatory has raised the aviation alert level from yellow to orange. They warn that there is the possibility of sudden explosions reaching above 20,000 feet, but so far there have been no reported disturbances to air travel. Cleveland is one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutians, erupting roughly two dozen times in 2012. It's last major eruptive period was in 2001, when the volcano sent ash clouds up to 39,000 feet. | |
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The Canadian Press
2013-05-04 22:13:00
Two First Nations and a rural municipality have been added to the list of Saskatchewan communities under flood emergencies. The James Smith First Nation, the Cowessess First Nation and the regional municipality of Fish Creek bring the total number of communities that have declared emergencies to 13. "We're still seeing in the rural areas significant impact to infrastructure such as roads either overtopping or having to be cut, so most of the rural municipalities are still facing some challenges," Duane McKay, Saskatchewan's commissioner of emergency management, said Saturday. Highway 3, just west of Spiritwood, was closed Saturday because of flooding. Meanwhile, the Water Security Agency said sandbagging and other efforts to keep the water out of the town of Radisson, northwest of Saskatoon, were holding. The agency said the good news is that water levels appear to be going down a little around Radisson. "With the snow cover there being decreased and it seems it's calming a little bit and we're hoping that we've seen the worst of that situation," said agency spokesman Patrick Boyle. "The town has done a lot of mitigation work to facilitate the flow of water away from the community in Radisson." | |
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Eagles Mere - Dead fish found at one of our area's most pristine lakes has caught the attention of state officials. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat commission is trying to find out what caused the dead fish to wash ashore at Eagles Mere Lake in Sullivan County. In these clear blue waters in Sullivan County, dozens and dozens of dead fish have been floating to the surface. Mostly sunfish, trout and bass have been found dead. Some people who work in the Eagles Mere lake community say it's more than fishy. "It's scary because people fish out of there, there's kids in here in the summertime," said Brittany Mapes of Forksville. Doug Rider is a realtor in Eagles Mere and says he walked by the lake just this past week and didn't notice the dead fish. He isn't too concerned just yet. "When I heard about it it was surprising to me, but I have heard in the past that after the lake turns, the ice melts that the oxygen level is a little low for the fish," said Rider. Maintenance crews have been combing the beach and shallow waters for the dead fish and burying them a short distance away in the woods. They contacted the Fish and Boat Commission and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Officials with the Fish and Boat Commission say they can't say for certain what's causing all of these dead fish to turn up here at Eagles Mere Lake, but they will be investigating. | |
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Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers
2013-05-03 14:27:00
Thousands of dead fish were reported Thursday afternoon on the west bank of the Indian River Lagoon about a mile north of the Martin-St. Lucie county line near Indian River Drive and Mockingbird Lane. Tony DiChristofaro of Stuart, said he saw "thousands and thousands of dead fish coming ashore" about 2 p.m. Thursday as he was walking along the lagoon beach. DiChristofaro said the dead fish extended along the shoreline for about a mile. "They were still coming in," he said, "but some of them looked like they'd been there for several hours." Kevin Baxter, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission lab in St. Petersburg Baxter said samples of the dead fish will be collected Friday. | |
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Russia Today
A strong tornado hit the Italian region of Emilia Romagna on Friday at around 1400 GMT according to Italian media, injuring 11 people and damaging several houses. Numerous fields were damaged by the strong storms and the harvest could be ruined.2013-05-04 09:31:00
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Christina England
Gaia Health 2013-05-06 17:35:00
It's illegal for children to vote. It's illegal for children to choose to drink alcohol. It's illegal for children to drive. It's illegal for children to give consent for medical procedures. Yet, New York is planning to let children give consent for vaccinations, a potentially life-changing or destroying procedure, without parental consent? On Monday, May 6, a new bill is to be brought to the New York State Assembly floor which will allow licensed physicians to administer preventative medical care for sexually transmitted diseases, including vaccines to minors without their parent's permission. This will include the vaccinations for hepatitis B and HPV. The reasoning behind the bill is that section 2305 of the public health law currently permits a licensed physician or a staff physician to diagnose and treat a person under the age of 21 infected or exposed to a sexually transmissible disease without the consent or knowledge of the parents or guardians. The bill states that the current law does not allow young people the same access to care as adults to prevent sexually transmissible diseases. The bill states: When a bill of this nature becomes law, minors can be vaccinated without their parent's permission, and vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases could also be able to be given to newborns without parental consent. | |
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NIH.gov
NIH study documents gender variations in brain activity2013-05-06 14:30:00
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have uncovered firm evidence for what many mothers have long suspected: women's brains appear to be hard-wired to respond to the cries of a hungry infant. Researchers asked men and women to let their minds wander, then played a recording of white noise interspersed with the sounds of an infant crying. Brain scans showed that, in the women, patterns of brain activity abruptly switched to an attentive mode when they heard the infant cries, whereas the men's brains remained in the resting state. | |
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Daisy Luther
Activist Post 2013-05-03 14:21:00
If we didn't have enough to worry about in the grocery aisles, with GMOs, toxic additives, and pesticide-soaked foods, we can now add a new concern: nanoparticles. What exactly is a nanoparticle? As You Sow, a non-profit consumer advocacy group,explains: Nanomaterials are often heralded as having the potential to revolutionize the food industry - from enabling the production of creamy liquids that contain no fat, to enhancing flavors,improving supplement delivery, providing brighter colors, keeping food fresh longer, or indicating when it spoils. It is reported that nanotechnology is already used in food and food related products, but due to lack of transparency about the issue, concrete information has been difficult to obtain. Because of their small size, nanoparticles are able to go places in the body that larger particles cannot. Nanoparticles in food or food packaging can gain access via ingestion, inhalation,or skin penetration. When ingested, the nano-sized particles facilitate uptake into cells and can allow them to pass into the blood and lymph where they circulate through the body and reach potentially sensitive target sites such as bone marrow, lymph nodes, the spleen, the brain, the liver, and the heart. Nanoparticles penetrating the skin can distribute through the body via lymphatic channels. Inhaled nano TiO2 has been found to act like asbestos and silicone in that it accumulates in the lung and causes inflammation and can impact DNA proteins and cell membranes. (download the entire report on nanoparticles HERE)So, much like GMOs, nanoparticle technology was not properly tested before it entered our food supply. | |
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Jon Rappaport
Activist Post 2013-05-05 12:33:00
There are several reasons why the medical cartel is too big to fail: the enormous amount of money at stake; its aim to control populations. In this article, I want to examine a related reason. Suppose it was discovered that thousands of bridges around the US were in imminent danger of collapsing? Not because maintenance and repair were lacking, not because the materials used to build them were cheap and shoddy. But because the original designs were inadequate and broke basic rules of engineering. Suppose five or six major manufacturers built their automobiles so the vast majority of power derived from the engines was transferred to one wheel? Suppose the US Dept. of Agriculture recommended that all farmers spray their crops with heavy chlorine instead of water? In other words, the science itself is fraudulent. | |
Comment: For additional information on the topic of the medical cartel, corrupt medical science and it's effects on the population listen to the SOTT Talk Tadio Show:
Is Science a Force for Good in the World? - Modern Medicine | |
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Russ McSpadden
Earth First! Newswire 2013-04-08 11:58:00
Pollinators participate in the sexual-reproduction of plants. When you eat an almond, beet, watermelon or sip on coffee, you're partaking of an ancient relationship between pollinators and flowers. But since the 1990s, worldwide bee health has been in decline and most evidence points to toxic pesticides created by Shell and Bayer and the loss of genetic biodiversity due to the proliferation of GMO monocrops created in laboratories by biotech companies like Monsanto. But never worry, those real life pollinators - the birds and the bees, as they say - may soon be irrelevant to the food needs of civilization. Harvard roboticists are developing a solution to the crisis: swarms of tiny robot bees made of titanium and plastic that can pollinate those vast dystopian fields of GMO cash crops.
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Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com 2013-05-04 17:05:00
When you order sushi at your favorite restaurant or pick up a pound of coffee from your local supermarket, you assume you're getting the red snapper or Columbian beans as stated on the menu or label. But not so fast. A growing number of cases of "food fraud" are occurring in the United States, such that you may not be able to tell what you're really eating just by looking at the label. Worse still, most of these cases are not highly publicized incidents like the recent scandal of UK supermarkets selling "beef" burgers that actually contained horse and pig meat. Instead, they're ongoing cases of blatant misrepresentation among some incredibly common foods. | |
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Everybody feels stress and knows it intimately, but very few of us think about what stress actually is. Stress is a thought. That's it. No more, no less. If that's true, then we have complete control over stress, because it's not something that happens to us but something that happens in us. The dictionary definition of stress is, "bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium." It is your thoughts out of balance. The medical definition of stress is, "the perception of a real or imagined threat to your body or your ego." It could be a tiger chasing you or your belief that your spouse is mad at you (even if he or she is not). Whether it is real or imagined, when you perceive something as stressful, it creates the same response in the body. A cascade of adrenaline, cortisol, and other stress hormones floods your system, raising your heart rate, increasing your blood pressure, making your blood more likely to clot, damaging your brain's memory center, increasing belly fat storage, and generally wreaking havoc on your body. | |
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Éiriú Eolas Stress Control, Healing and Rejuvenation Program is the modern revival of an ancient breathing and meditation program which is being acclaimed around the world as THE TOOL that will help you to:
The Éiriú Eolas technique is available right here for free check it out! | |
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Steve Connor
The Independent, UK 2013-05-02 14:58:00
Senior scientists have criticised the "appalling irresponsibility" of researchers in China who have deliberately created new strains of influenza virus in a veterinary laboratory. They warned there is a danger that the new viral strains created by mixing bird-flu virus with human influenza could escape from the laboratory to cause a global pandemic killing millions of people. Lord May of Oxford, a former government chief scientist and past president of the Royal Society, denounced the study published today in the journal Science as doing nothing to further the understanding and prevention of flu pandemics. "They claim they are doing this to help develop vaccines and such like. In fact the real reason is that they are driven by blind ambition with no common sense whatsoever," Lord May told The Independent. "The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring. They are taking it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It's appallingly irresponsible," he said. The controversial study into viral mixing was carried out by a team led by Professor Hualan Chen, director of China's National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute. Professor Chen and her colleagues deliberately mixed the H5N1 bird-flu virus, which is highly lethal but not easily transmitted between people, with a 2009 strain of H1N1 flu virus, which is very infectious to humans. | |
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Do Americans have the right to know what's in our food? Do we have the right to chooseto NOT eat Genetically Modified (GMO) food? The next round in the years-long battle has begun, as Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Congressman Pete DeFazio (D-OR) introduce the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act (read the Senate bill here, House bill here) The good news:
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Sayer Ji
Greenmedinfo.com 2013-05-02 12:05:00
Promoted for decades as a "safe" sugar alternative, presumably to prevent or reduce symptoms of diabetes, Splenda (sucralose) has been found to have diabetes-promoting effects in human subjects. The artificial sweetener sucralose, which is approximately 600 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar), and marketed under a variety of brand names, such as Splenda, Cukren, Nevella and SucraPlus, has recently been found to diabetes-promoting effects in human test subjects, despite containing no calories and being classified as a 'nonutritive sweetener.' A new study published in the journal Diabetes Care, lead by researchers at the Center for Human Nutrition, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, set out to test the metabolic effects of sucralose in obese subjects who did not use nonnutritive sweeteners. Seventeen subjects underwent a 5-hour oral glucose tolerance test on two separate occasions preceded by consuming either sucralose (experimental condition) or water (control condition) 10 min before the glucose load in a randomized crossover design. | |
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Adelaide.edu.au
2013-04-30 07:17:00
Research from the University of Adelaide suggests that mothers who eat junk food while pregnant have already programmed their babies to be addicted to a high fat, high sugar diet by the time they are weaned. In laboratory studies, the researchers found that a junk food diet during pregnancy and lactation desensitised the normal reward system fuelled by these highly palatable foods. Led by Dr Bev Mühlhäusler, Postdoctoral Fellow in the University's FOODplus Research Centre, this is the first study to show the effects of maternal junk food consumption at such an early stage in the offspring's life. The study was published recently in The FASEB Journal. Opioids are produced by the body as a reward response, including in response to fat and sugar. These opioids stimulate the production of the "feel good" hormone dopamine, which produces a good feeling. | |
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Emily Deans, M.D.
Vegetarian diets are correlated with an increase in mental health problemsPsychology Today 2012-11-11 04:00:00
Entirely vegan diets are unknown among traditional human cultures. Back in the early part of the 19th century, dentist and explorer Weston Price went looking for vegans, but found only cannibals*. Since vegan diets in nature provide no vitamin B12 and very little in the way of usable long chain omega3 fatty acids, it is not surprising that humans have continued to eat animals and animal-derived products. Nowadays one can obtain algae-derived DHA (the major long chain omega3 fatty acid present in the brain) and supplement B12. That wasn't possible until a few years ago, and there's little evidence that supplementation with DHA alone is helpful for the brain. We have been encouraged to eat more plants and less animals. Various writers have suggested it is healthier for our bodies and our planet. I have no objections to a mostlyplant-based diet as long as attention is paid to protein requirements and micronutrition. However, since little things in animal products (some essential like B12, some that can be created in our bodies but perhaps not in the amounts we need, such as creatine) seem to be very important for the brain, it's interesting to look at the literature on vegetarian diets and mental health. Here is the latest (and the best) observational study: Vegetarian diet and mental disorders: results from a representative community survey. It's a German study, and for a large population-based retrospective observational design, it's actually fairly thorough and sensible. And if you are a vegetarian, it certainly doesn't say that vegetarianism causes mental health problems. But in all but two studies done in the past, vegetarianism has been linked with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and particularly eating disorders (bingeing, restricting, and purging behaviors).But to be perfectly honest, all those studies had some serious limitations (they were small, done special populations, and often measures based on just a few answers to general survey questions). I've reviewed a few of them. (My favorite has to be the one where they calculated arachidonic acid ingested to the hundredth of a gram based on data from a food frequency questionnaire, which seems very unlikely to be accurate) I don't think it is a coincidence that the two positive studies were done by the same group of researchers in the Seventh Day Adventist population. | |
Comment: Despite the author's attempt to stay neutral on the Vegetarian Mythcontroversy, one clear picture emerges. A vegetarian low fat diet doesn't have enough nutrition for our long-term body's maintenance and repair. It doesn't have the nutrients required to nourish your brain. It is long being known that a lack of active vitamin B12 -found universally only in foods of animal origin - makes your brain shrink.
Our happy mood brain chemical - serotonin - is made from the amino acid tryptophan, and there are no good plant sources of tryptophan. Plus, animal fat is required to actually make our brain chemicals work properly. Vegetarians are at risk for problems such as anger, depression, anxiety, insomnia and bulimia. For more information see: Do You Have to be Mental to be a Vegetarian? Lierre Keith on 'The Vegetarian Myth - Food, Justice and Sustainability' Academic Impacts of Vegetarian Childhoods The Naive Vegetarian Vegetarianism, Eating Disorder - Study Reveals Worrisome Relationship Among Women Why Vegetarians Are Eating Meat Adolescent Girls with ADHD Are at Increased Risk for Eating Disorders, Study Shows The Vegetarian Myth Going Vegetarian Poses Own Set of Potential Health Risks Why I Stopped Being a Vegetarian The Truth About Vegetarianism 7 Reasons Why I Will Never Be A VegetarianBurying The Vegetarian Hypothesis | |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Emma Innes
The Daily Mail 2013-05-02 09:38:00
Children who are brought up by two parents grow up to be cleverer than those raised by just one person, new research suggests. Being with both parents in the earliest years of life leads to a child developing more brain cells, the scientists believe. However, the benefits vary between the sexes. Being brought up by both parents causes boys to have better memory and learning functions. By contrast, it causes girls to develop improved motor co-ordination and sociability. It is believed that babies with two parents tend to get more attention and more stability, and that they are less likely to suffer emotional distress in the first years of life. This leads to greater brain cell production - for boys it is grey matter brain cells that develop and for girls it is white matter brain cells. The researchers from the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) of Calgary University, in Canada, studied mice and experimented by creating one parent and two parent family groups. They then measured the offspring's brain cell development from birth to adulthood. Adult mice with the highest number of brain cells turned out to be those who had been brought up by two parents rather than one. | |
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Rachel Reilly
The Daily Mail 2013-05-02 20:00:00
Brain scans can be used to identify children who may be potential psychopaths, new research has shown. Scientists have found that certain areas of a psychopath's brain showed a reduced activity in response to images of others in pain. The regions affected are those known to play a role in empathy, the ability to relate to other people's feelings. Scientists say the patterns could act as a marker to single out children at a risk of becoming adult psychopaths. A total of 55 boys aged 10 to 16 were assessed in the study. Of these, 37 met the criteria for children with 'conduct problems' (CP) according to questionnaire answers provided by parents and teachers. CP children display a plethora of antisocial traits including aggression and dishonesty. Like the central character in Lionel Shriver's novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, they can be callous and cruel. Youngsters with conduct problems are not likely to follow in Kevin's footsteps and commit a school massacre, but the research findings suggest at least some could grow up to be psychopaths. Comment: Psychopathy is genetic, therefore one cannot "grow up to be a psychopath". This point should be emphasized, especially when it comes to children' diagnosis and misguided attempts to "cure" psychopathy. It's important to note, that psychopathy can be both categorical and dimensional. That is, there are types and gradations of psychopaths. Martha Stout makes this pretty clear in The Sociopath Next Door. Some of them can be very covert, some can be "raging" mad dog types, others can be pitiful/poor me game players, etc. Or, there can be individuals who are not psychopaths who react psychopathically when triggered because that is the kind of programming they have from their upbringing and exposure to pathological behavior. In that case, it is not really a psychopath, but rather a sociopath/ a "situational psychopath" who can also be described as a secondary psychopath. Read the following books to learn more on the topic: Political Ponerology - A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes byAndrzej M. Lobaczewski. The Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckley, M.D. Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak, Ph.D., and psychopathy expert Dr Robert D. Hare. 'Our findings indicate that children with conduct problems have an atypical brain response to seeing other people in pain,' psychologist Professor Essi Viding from University College London said. 'It is important to view these findings as an indicator of early vulnerability, rather than biological destiny. | |
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| High Strangeness |
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Kate Webber
Central Telegraph 2013-05-07 16:56:00
More Gladstone residents have confirmed the appearance of a strange light in the sky over Tannum Sands on Saturday night. A reader yesterday shared how he had seen the UFO, which appeared as a bright orange light moving quite fast at first, then becoming almost stationary before moving off again. "It came back several times and moved the same way each time. We saw it three different times, as did our neighbours and some friends in Gladstone. Definitely no ordinary aircraft or satellite." Reader Natalie said: "We were in Booth Ave and saw a bright orange light shoot into the sky, and then it stopped and was still for at least five minutes. | |
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The Canadian
2013-05-04 16:47:00
A witness in San Lorenzo, CA, US, reported sighting strange orange lights in the sky, after hearing a loud boom, on 2 May, 2013, after sunset. This report has been obtained from a testimony included in the database of Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). The witness describes how he came to see the strange lights. He also describes the location, shape and colour of the lights. "Went out to the back yard with the dog to enjoy the 78 degree weather. It was just after sunset and the air was still. Sitting down relaxing heard a distant pop boom sound that got my attention and all the dogs on the block began to all bark. Looking almost straight up and about 10 degrees to the west so at 80 degrees I saw a very bright object that was flashing or pulsing orange red yellow blue white lights randomly across its shape that appeared to be rectangle." | |
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Mike Kilen
DesMoinesRegister 2013-05-03 23:36:00
Imagine what a smartphone in 1903 Van Meter could have accomplished. Instead of shouldering shotguns and blasting away at an eight-foot winged creature with a forehead horn that cast a beam of light, panicked citizens could have quickly posted a YouTube video. Case closed. Monster confirmed. Camping out all night 110 years later, at an old coal mine outside of town where the alleged creature is believed to have lived, a researcher of odd legends is still trying to get sight of it. Chad Lewis survived the assignment. He was not abducted nor scooped up by a flying creature, but he has a good story to tell. In his wanderings of Van Meter, he unearthed a legend that was dying out with the old-timers, and tonight he will tell it at the old high school gym. The story offers a glimpse of rural Iowa history and lore. The superstitious mindset at the turn of the last century, oddly, mirrors a resurgent 21st century trend of Bigfoot hunting and paranormal investigating that populate cable television today. Lewis also has appeared on network and cable shows to discuss his monster/alien chasing across the globe, but the Minneapolis 38-year-old said he was particularly captivated by a creature he dubbed the "Van Meter Visitor." He purposely chose a non-threatening name. One shouldn't assume the winged creature did not come in peace. | |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Chris Hunter
Jenna Krehbiel's first trip to the circus with her family is one she never will forget after she came face to face with a jungle cat in the women's bathroom.Salina Journal 2013-04-22 11:52:00 Krehbiel had finished watching the large cat show during the 7 p.m. show at the Isis Shrine Circus on Saturday at the Salina Bicentennial Centennial Center when she decided to step out go to the bathroom but instead got a close-up view of a tiger she had just seen perform in the arena. "I went in to use the bathroom, and a lady came in to get her daughter out and said there was a tiger loose," Krehbiel said. "I didn't know it was in the bathroom, and I walked in the (open) door, which closed right after I had walked in. I saw the tiger; it was at most two feet in front of me, and I turned around calmly and walked back toward the door. Someone opened the door and said get out." Krehbiel said the tiger "wasn't the biggest one" performing, but she estimated it was more than 250 pounds. |
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The Daily Mail UK
This owl may have been left wondering if turning her head completely upside down was a very wise thing to do.2013-05-01 15:39:00 The intrigued bird spun her head around as she listened to a camera busily snapping away at her. The owl, called Minerva, twisted her head in confusion and continued until it had moved a full 180 degrees.
The bizarre sight was captured at the World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park, Missouri, U.S. Owls cannot move their eyes in their sockets because of their large size that enable them to catch prey in the dark. Therefore, they rely on a deceptively long and flexible neck that enables them to rotate their heads. As the sound continued Minerva turned her head a full 180 degrees The birds can move their head up to 270 degrees in either direction to see their surroundings. |
