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Sott Editors
Sott.net 2013-05-14 15:19:00
This week we were joined by Dr. Colin Ross, a psychiatrist who received his M.D. from the University of Alberta in 1981 and completed his specialty training in psychiatry at the University of Manitoba in 1985. He is the author of over 170 papers in professional journals, most of them dealing with dissociation, psychological trauma and multiple personality disorder. He is a past president of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation and Trauma and a former Laughlin Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists. Dr. Ross is also the author of 27 books, including, 'The CIA Doctors: Human Rights Violations By American Psychiatrists', 'Military Mind Control: A Story of Trauma and Recovery' and 'The Great Psychiatry Scam'. In his book, 'The C.I.A. Doctors', Dr. Ross provides proof, based on 15,000 pages of documents obtained from the C.I.A. through the Freedom of Information Act, that there have been pervasive, systematic violations of human rights by American psychiatrists over the last 65 years. He also proves that the Manchurian Candidate "super spy" is fact, not fiction. He describes the experiments conducted by psychiatrists to create amnesia, new identities, hypnotic access codes, and new memories in the minds of experimental subjects. In 'The Great Psychiatry Scam', Dr. Ross provides evidence that modern psychiatry is actually a pseudo-science, with many of the main accepted theses about the causes of human mental illness actually disproven by psychiatric experiments and research.
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Finian Cunningham
Press TV 2013-05-14 16:17:00
It's an anthem that is usually sung with chest-thumping pride and misty eyes by British imperialists. "Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves". This jingoistic celebration of Britain's former global conquest may yet degenerate into "Rue Britannia, Britannia rues the waves". This is because, as The Guardian newspaper reports this week, the London government has at long last been forced into recognizing compensation payments for as many as 50,000 Kenyan nationals who were victims of torture and other crimes against humanity during that country's independence struggle in the 1950s. The eventual bill for compensation could run up to tens of millions of pounds. But the bad news for financially bankrupt Britain does not end there. With this precedent established of compensation for past British imperialist crimes, that now leaves the way open for a global flood of similar claims. Jingoistic British imperialists may therefore soon rue their often-made reference to Britain ruling the waves and so many countries the world over - at the height of the British Empire some 20 percent of the globe's land mass was under colonial domination. That's a lot of people who can claim recompense for past British horrors and deprivation. | |
Comment: There isn't a sinkhole deep and wide enough to bury Britain's crimes against humanity in. Much of the world's problems descend from - and continue to be perpetrated by - the nexus of British military, corporate and financial entities based in London.
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James Petras
Voltaire Network 2013-05-14 16:10:00
The relation between the suspected Boston Marathon bombers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) and the Boston Police (BP) is a point of contention and controversy. The FBI, at first, claimed no knowledge of the bombing suspects but later was forced to admit having received at least two sets of intelligence reports, one from Russian officials and another from the CIA, identifying one of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as a potential security threat -linked to a Chechen terrorist organization. Testimony from Tsarnaev's mother and father indicates that the FBI was active in following, harassing and interrogating the suspect before the bombing. Despite general directives from the US Departments of Justice and Homeland Security mandating US security to aggressively pursue 'Islamist terrorists', the FBI claims to have made no effort to follow-up on the Russian and CIA security alerts, especially after Tamerlan Tsarnaev returned from Russian state of Dagestan last year where he allegedly met six times with a known Chechen terrorist, Gadzhimurad Dolgatov, in a fundamentalist Salafi mosque. The official government and corporate media versions claim the FBI may have 'over-looked' the security risk posed by Tsarnaev. Congressional critics argue that the FBI was 'negligent' in following up leads provided by the Russians and the CIA. A more likely explanation is that the FBI was actively engaged with Tsarnaev and deliberately encouraged the conspiracy for self-serving purposes. | |
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Ron Unz
The American Conservative 2013-04-29 16:01:00
The major media overlooked Communist spies and Madoff's fraud. What are they missing today? In mid-March, the Wall Street Journal carried a long discussion of the origins of the Bretton Woods system, the international financial framework that governed the Western world for decades after World War II. A photo showed the two individuals who negotiated that agreement. Britain was represented by John Maynard Keynes, a towering economic figure of that era. America's representative was Harry Dexter White, assistant secretary of the Treasury and long a central architect of American economic policy, given that his nominal superior, Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., was a gentleman farmer with no background in finance. White was also a Communist agent. Such a situation was hardly unique in American government during the 1930s and 1940s. For example, when a dying Franklin Roosevelt negotiated the outlines of postwar Europe with Joseph Stalin at the 1945 Yalta summit, one of his important advisors was Alger Hiss, a State Department official whose primary loyalty was to the Soviet side. Over the last 20 years, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and other scholars have conclusively established that many dozens or even hundreds of Soviet agents once honeycombed the key policy staffs and nuclear research facilities of our federal government, constituting a total presence perhaps approaching the scale suggested by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose often unsubstantiated charges tended to damage the credibility of his position. | |
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| Puppet Masters |
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UK Independent
2013-05-14 17:10:00
Observers says the video shows Abu Sakkar - the prominent founder of rebel group Farouq Brigade - as opposition figures and Assad supporters condemn footage | |
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John Aravosis
Information Clearing House 2013-05-13 16:21:00
No terrorism please, we're gunmen. A bizarre story out of New Orleans, where two or three gunmen opened fire on a Mother's Day parade, injuring 19 people, including two children. Sure sounds awfully familiar, almost like a redux of the Boston Marathon bombing. But you'd be wrong. You see, when two guys use bombs to hurt people en masse at a marathon, it's instantly "terrorism." But when two to three people use guns to hurt people en masse at a parade, it's simply "the relentless drumbeat of street violence." What's the difference? A homemade bomb versus a gun, by the looks of it. | |
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Stephen Lendman
Information Clearing House 2013-05-13 16:13:00
US democracy is illusory. America never was beautiful. It's not the land of the free and home of the brave. It wasn't created that way. More than ever, it's not now. Freedom is a four-letter word. It's fast disappearing. It's an endangered species. Wealth, power and privilege alone matter. America's war on terror priorities advance them. International, constitutional and US statute laws are spurned. Rogue state ruthlessness replaced them. Boston's unprecedented lockdown suggests what's coming. It covered a two hundred square mile area. An important threshold was crossed. Martial law terrorized city residents. Constitutional rights were suspended. Perhaps it was prelude to what's coming. It can happen anywhere across America. It can show up nationwide. Thousands of heavily armed militarized police, National Guard troops, FBI Swat teams, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operatives, Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and perhaps other federal, state and local enforcers showed what full-blown tyranny looks like. Defying public diktats risked arrest or getting shot. Helicopters hovered low over neighborhoods. House-to-house searches ordered pajama-clad families outside. Without probable cause, some were handcuffed and/or placed face down on sidewalks. Others were publicly strip-searched. Imagine what's coming next time. Freedom in America's on the chopping block for elimination. | |
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Glenn Greenwald
Guardian 2013-05-14 14:59:00
The claimed legal basis for these actions is unknown, but the threats they pose to a free press and the newsgathering process are clear Associated Press on Monday revealed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) "secretly obtained two months of telephone records of [its] reporters and editors", denouncing it as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into the news gathering process. In a letter sent yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder, AP's President, Gary Pruitt, detailed that the phone records cover more than 20 telephone lines used by AP journalists, including their homes, offices and cell phones. He said the phones for which the DOJ obtained records also include ones at the AP bureaus in New York City, Washington DC, Hartford, and at the House of Representatives. Pruitt wrote that "we regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP's constitutional rights to gather and report the news." He added that while AP is "evaluating its options", he "urgently request[ed]" that the DOJ "immediately return to the AP the telephone toll records" obtained by the DOJ "and destroy all copies." AP learned of the DOJ's acquisition of these records only after the fact, and thus had no opportunity to raise legal and constitutional objections nor attempt to negotiate to narrow the scope of the records to be sought. Pruitt's letter uses some inflammatory language as it is designed to advance the AP's case and to generate public anger, but that's entirely appropriate. The phone records reveal, at a minimum, all of the telephone numbers called by those AP journalists over the course of two months. The ACLU last night condemned the DOJ's acts as "press intimidation" and said it constitutes "an unacceptable abuse of power". The Electronic Frontier Foundationdenounced it as "a terrible blow against the freedom of the press and the ability of reporters to investigate and report the news". The New York Times' Editorial Page Editor Andy Rosenthal called the DOJ's actions "outrageous" while Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron said they were "shocking" and "disturbing". Even Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said: "I am very troubled by these allegations and want to hear the government's explanation." | |
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Dave Scotese
Student Operated Press 2013-05-14 15:08:00
Etymology is the study of word origins. Over time, words often change their meaning. Sometimes this is a result of natural usage in a changing world, as in the case of the word "goodbye", which started out as "God Be With You" (or "with Ye"). As the farewell utterance retained its usefulness even among people who grew less religious, the four original words lost their utility. In other cases, as highlighted by George Orwell in his book 1984, authorities manipulate words in order to place new meanings on ancient and valuable texts, common sayings, or other influential bits of language. Deception is an instinctive tool creatures from bugs to humans use to improve the prospects of continuing their species. Most deception in nature happens between species, for example when a predator or prey accomplishes its goal by providing bad signals to its enemy. Camouflage is one good example. Human beings, however, often use deception on other members of our own species. Though this strategy tends to wane with age, wisdom, and maturity in most, there are certain kinds of people who employ the strategy of deception at an increasing rate as they get older and take on more responsibilities. This is because there is a sharp contrast between the group they favor privately and the group they favor publicly. Etymology is a useful tool for detecting and remedying the damage caused by such deception. For those who occupy positions of influence, there is always the temptation to get people to believe things that aren't true, or to look at things in a warped way. For example, when George W. Bush and his administration were pondering how best to protect the usefulness of the national currency against growing interest in using some other medium of exchange to trade oil, they concocted the story of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" to justify an attack on Iraq. It also seems likely that the destruction of the Word Trade Center Towers in 2001 was part of a "false flag" operation designed to justify the attack. There are many examples of such "false flag operations" throughout history. While the majority of the world's population suffers from the outcomes of these deceptions, any exploration of crony capitalism, fascism, communism, or other government structures will show that they provide great benefits to those who are in power and to their friends and business associates. | |
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Fars News Agency
2013-05-14 06:09:00
Senior Islamic Republic officials are still pursuing the case with the last year US accusations that Tehran aimed to assassinate the Saudi envoy to Washington in 2011. "To us, he (Arbabsiar) is a US citizen with Iranian origin who has been victim of a plot in which suspicious foreign and Zionist elements are involved," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Araqchi said in Tehran on Tuesday. He said that there are many doubts and questions on the judicial process in which Arbabsiar was tried in the US, and said, "Anyway, we pursue the developments related to his case closely." The Iranian government has denied any connection to Manssor Arbabsiar, the man arrested in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi envoy to Washington, and derided the claims, saying US officials have offered no proof. Arbabsiar is a 56-year-old naturalized US citizen who also had an Iranian passport. | |
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Fars News Agency
2013-05-14 06:08:00
The Israeli regime's security bodies are working on a plot to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by the help of terrorist groups and armed rebels in the country after Damascus showed strength and months of resistance against the terrorist attacks orchestrated by US, Israel and their Arab partners, the Israeli media reported on Tuesday. The Israeli Vala news website reported that the Israeli security and spy agencies were shocked at Assad's resistance against two years of terrorist and sabotage operations against the country and are mulling other ways to topple him. Meantime, the report underlined high security measures adopted by the Syrian forces in safeguarding the roads to Damascus where government buildings are located and Assad himself resides, and said the only way to assassinate the Syrian president is designing a complicated operation and coaxing the people close to Assad into betraying him. Earlier, a documentary movie posted on a Lebanese website unveiled details of a plot by the French and Turkish intelligence services to assassinate President Bashar al-Assad and other senior officials of Syria. | |
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Fars News Agency
2013-05-14 06:02:00
Iran said that the US decision to boycott the UN conference on disarmament due to Iran's presidency over the meeting will not affect Tehran's resolve and plans for the world gathering. Iran will take over rotating presidency of the disarmament conference from May 27 until June 23. The conference is struggling to craft a deal on nuclear disarmament, preventing arms from spreading to outer space and halting the development of other weapons of mass destruction. | |
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Carey Gillam
U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for overseas lobbying that promotes controversial biotech crops developed by U.S.-based Monsanto Co and other seed makers, a report issued on Tuesday said.Reuters via Yahoo News 2013-05-14 11:45:00
A review of 926 diplomatic cables of correspondence to and from the U.S. State Department and embassies in more than 100 countries found that State Department officials actively promoted the commercialization of specific biotech seeds, according to the report issued by Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer protection group. The officials tried to quash public criticism of particular companies and facilitated negotiations between foreign governments and seed companies such as Monsanto over issues like patents and intellectual property, the report said. The cables show U.S. diplomats supporting Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, in foreign countries even after it paid $1.5 million in fines after being charged with bribing an Indonesian official and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 2005. | |
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Stephen Lendman
Information Clearinghouse 2013-05-13 00:00:00
Since early 2011, Obama's been waging proxy war on Syria. Imported death squads masquerade as freedom fighters. The scheme's familiar. It repeats. It reflects US imperialism's dark side. In the 1980s, CIA-recruited Mujahideen fighters battled Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers. Ronald Reagan called them "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." He characterized Contra killers the same way. Naked aggression is called humanitarian intervention. New wars follow earlier ones. Ravaging humanity is called liberation. Propaganda convinces people that America is threatened. Truth is turned on its head. Syria is Washington's latest target. Plans haven't gone as expected. Ousting another government was supposed to be easy. US-enlisted terrorists are no match against Syria's military superiority. Implementing Plan B looms. It could come any time. Obama's heading toward full-scale intervention. Pretexts are easy to create. Assad's been falsely blamed for numerous insurgent massacres. Evidence showed he had nothing to do with them. More recently, he was unjustifiably accused of using chemical weapons. Insurgents used them several times. A previous article said Pentagon contractors trained them in their use. This is how imperial America operates. | |
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| Society's Child |
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Chris Hedges
Truthdig 2013-05-12 16:02:00
Murder is our national sport. We murder tens of thousands with our industrial killing machines in Afghanistan and Iraq. We murder thousands more from the skies over Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen with our pilotless drones. We murder each other with reckless abandon. And, as if we were not drenched in enough human blood, we murder prisoners - most of them poor people of color who have been locked up for more than a decade. The United States believes in regeneration through violence. We have carried out blood baths on foreign soil and on our own land for generations in the vain quest of a better world. And the worse it gets, the deeper our empire sinks under the weight of its own decay and depravity, the more we kill. There are parts of the nation where the electorate, or at least the white electorate, routinely and knowingly puts murderers into political office. Murder is a sign of strength. Murder is a symbol of resolve. Murder means law and order. Murder keeps us safe. Strap the criminal into the gurney. Plunge the needles into veins. Haul away the corpse. It is our Christian duty. God Bless America! And one of the next on the list to be murdered in Florida - a state that has decided, under its new and cynically named "Timely Justice Act," that it needs to accelerate its execution rate - is William Van Poyck. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. June 12 at Florida State Prison. He is a writer who has spent years exposing the cruelty of our system of mass incarceration. On June 12, if Gov. Rick Scott has his way, Van Poyck will write no more. And that is exactly how our political class of murderers wants it. "Only God can judge," Matt Gaetz, a Republican who sponsored the Timely Justice Act in the Florida House of Representatives, said during the debate. "But we sure can set up the meeting." Van Poyck, 58, knows what is coming. He has seen it many times before. He chronicles existence on death row in his blog, posted by his sister, Lisa Van Poyck, atdeathrowdiary.blogspot.com, where there is a petition to Gov. Scott asking for a reprieve. | |
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Maria Cheng
The Globe and Mail 2013-05-14 14:34:00
Angelina Jolie says that she has had a preventive double mastectomy after learning she carried a gene that made it extremely likely she would get breast cancer. The Oscar-winning actress and partner to Brad Pitt made the announcement in the form of an op-ed she authored for Tuesday's New York Times under the headline, "My Medical Choice." She writes that between early February and late April she completed three months of surgical procedures to remove both breasts. Jolie, 37, writes that she made the choice with thoughts of her six children after watching her own mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, die too young from cancer. "My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56," Jolie writes. "She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was." She writes that, "They have asked if the same could happen to me." Jolie said that after genetic testing she learned she carries the "faulty" BRCA1 gene and had an 87 per cent chance of getting the disease herself. | |
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Michael Allen
Some unidentified teens allegedly threw a small bomb, disguised as golf ball, at Michael Boggan on Friday afternoon (video below).Opposingviews.com 2013-05-13 09:22:00 As Michael picked the ball up, it exploded. The homemade bomb injured his legs and blew away most of his fingers. Michael's mother, Rebecca Boggan, wants the main teen prankster to be charged with attempted murder. |
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Robyn Dixon
The Catholic Church suspends Anthony Musaala indefinitely for shining a light on what he calls an open secret: Sex abuse is a problem in Africa too.L A Times 2013-05-04 09:12:00 He is a celebrity across eastern and central Africa, a gospel music star known to many as the "Dancing Priest." But for years he also was a keeper of painful secrets - his own and many others'. In going public, Anthony Musaala has forced the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda to confront a problem it had insisted didn't exist. And he may stir a debate far beyond Africa's most Catholic of countries. The Ugandan priest has been suspended indefinitely by the archbishop of Kampala for exposing what he calls an open secret: Sex abuse in the Catholic Church is a problem in Africa as well as in Western Europe and North America. |
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Gary Buiso
New York Post 2013-05-12 04:24:00
Eye of newt, toe of frog - and blood of pigeon? A recent ad in the Brooklyn-based, Yiddish-language Di Tzeitung newspaper boasts a use for the city's most ubiquitous bird as a cure for warts. The ad recommends that the bird blood be poured onto the offensive skin growth, left for an hour and then washed off. In two or three weeks, "with God's help, there is no memory thereof." The woman who placed the ad told The Post her daughter had a wart on her hand that disappeared after the treatment. "I did this to help people," she said. "You go to the market, you buy a pigeon, and the blood goes on the wart. That's it." | |
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The Raw Story
2013-05-13 13:34:00
Hundreds of factories which form the hub of Bangladesh's garment industry are to close indefinitely after worker unrest sparked by the death of more than 1,100 colleagues, employees announced Monday. As the search for bodies from last month's collapse of a factory complex wrapped up, the textile industry's main trade body said all operations at the nearby Ashulia industrial zone on the outskirts of Dhaka were being suspended until further notice. Shahidullah Azim, of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said the decision was made "to ensure the security of our factories". Local police chief Badrul Alam told AFP workers in 80 percent of the factories had walked out earlier in the day to demand an increase in salaries as well as the execution of the owner of the collapsed Rana Plaza complex in the town of Savar. Most of Bangladesh's top garment factories are based at Ashulia and there has been "virtually no work" there since the April 24 Rana Plaza tragedy, Azim said. | |
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Oliver Jenkins
Opposing Views 2013-05-13 00:00:00
A Florida woman forgot about more than her change while ordering a coffee at a St. Petersburg Starbucks over the weekend. The woman, who reportedly forgot she had a loaded handgun in her bag, accidentally shot her friend in the leg as she moved the bag to the ground. According to police, Pamela Beck was attempting to place her purse on the ground when it "hit the ground hard," ultimately setting off the fully loaded .25 caliber semi-automatic handgun. The shot ended up striking her friend, Amie Peterson, just above her knee. Peterson, who was not seriously injured in the accident, was subsequently treated and released from a nearby hospital. Beck told investigators her father had originally given her the gun about a year ago and she had no intentions to bring it out in public. Spokesman Mike Puetz of the St. Petersberg Police Department said Beck told officers "she had forgotten about it." However, Beck won't be able to forget about Saturday's incident anytime in the future. Because she doesn't possess a concealed carry weapons permit, officers reported the case has been transferred to prosecutors. Last weekend's Starbucks fiasco serves as yet another incident in a bizarre string of accidental shootings in the past month. | |
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Lauren Schiff
Opposing Views 2013-05-13 00:00:00
In Winchester, Virginia, a student onboard a special needs school bus began to get a little rowdy, reportedly attempting to unbuckle the driver and take the radio out of his hands. Local police were informed of the out-of-control student, and an officer arrived who wasapparently "specifically trained in crisis intervention team training." The officer was indeed able to calm the student down. However, while they were seated next to one another after the incident, the student reached down, grabbed the officer's gun, and accidentally pulled the trigger. "It was discharged on the school bus," explains Lauren Cummings of the Winchester Police Department. "The shot fired through the seat and hit the floor." No one was hurt, though the event has caused the Winchester Police Department to look into the matter. People question whether this may have been an issue with the holster or with the gun itself. | |
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Denise A Justin
Opposing Views 2013-05-13 20:55:00
On Friday afternoon, Maria McKay of Valencia Park notified local San Diego Station 10News that two Pit Bulls belonging to a neighbor attacked and killed her daughter's little pug, Suki, at about 11 a.m. that morning. She said the attack occurred in front of a house where Deborah Kirby runs a daycare and also just across the street from an elementary school. (Valencia Park is a community in the southeast area of the city of San Diego.) Kirby confirmed that her own children were almost attacked by the same Pit Bulls about two months ago while they were walking home. She said she screamed and told the kids to run. Another neighbor, Nancy Marquez, told 10News that she lives only a couple of doors away from the pit bulls and they killed her Chihuahua several years ago in her own backyard. Marquez' father, Cipriano Marquez, said the owners of the Pit Bulls had never even apologized. Lieutenant Dan DeSouza of San Diego County Department of Animal Services told 10News later that both pit bulls have been impounded four times while running loose and each time they were returned to the owners. The 10News team went to the home and tried to talk to the couple who owns the Pit Bulls, who said their dogs were locked up all day in their backyard on Friday. However, a neighbor told a different story. | |
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RT.com
2013-05-13 11:47:00
A fraudster serving 10 years in prison has alleged that two former attorney generals accepted thousands of dollars worth of free meals, hotel stays and other expenses from him after putting him behind bars. Businessman Marc Jenson, who is serving time for swindling millions of dollars from investors, claims he has receipts proving that former Utah Attorney Gen. Mark Shurtleff and his successor, John Swallow, accepted expenses on his behalf. "I'm telling you right now: they were extorting me, and they were from the very beginning,"Jenson told the Salt Lake Tribune in an interview from prison. The former businessman was charged with six felonies and was imprisoned after failing to pay $4 million in restitution. Jenson claims that Shurtleff and Swallow pressured him to provide them with costly vacations, meals and other expenses. The current and former attorney generals allegedly promised to help the businessman with his legal troubles in exchange for lavish gifts. The requests allegedly began after Jenson was convicted in 2009, but before he was imprisoned for failing to provide the restitution. Shurtleff and Swallow vacationed at Pelican Hill, an upscale southern California resort where Jenson had his own villa, on multiple occasions. The fraudster says his receipts show both men signing for thousands of dollars worth of food, massages, golf outings, and supplies at the Newport Beach resort. | |
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RT.com
2013-05-13 12:06:00
Two people are reported injured after an explosion rocked a supply company in Putnam County, West Virginia Monday. Emergency crews responding to the blast, which came at approximately 3:00 pm local time, reported high flames in the area. Investigators are still unsure what caused the initial explosion but a spokesman from the Putnam County, West Virginia emergency management office told the Charleston Gazette that as many as fifty canisters of acetylene, a colorless gas commonly used for welding and torch-cutting, blew up. One man suffered burns to his face and the other burns to his arms. Both victims were hospitalized, although the full extent of their injuries is not yet known. The explosion took place at the Airgas supply company, the largest US distributor of industrial medical and specialty gases, including welding supplies and other equipment, according to WOWK-TV in West Virginia. The plant is located in the town of Bancroft, where surrounding businesses have been evacuated as a safety precaution. | |
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Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss 2013-05-13 18:20:00
This shocking story-- of yet another "huge humiliation" of a non-Jew at Ben Gurion airport-- was posted by Mira Awad, an Israeli Palestinian singer, on her Facebook page, in Hebrew, today. Ami Kaufman at +972 provided a translation of the entry, and notes that Awad is a celebrity in Israel. Awad in translation: Thanks to Ofer Neiman. | |
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| Secret History |
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Mark Prigg
The Mail Online 2013-05-14 14:41:00
The same strain of killer bacteria that caused the Black Death and spread around the world in the mid 1800s may have helped finish off the Roman Empire, researchers have claimed. DNA analyses of skeletal remains of plague victims from the 6th century AD found traces of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, has already been linked with at least two of the most devastating pandemics in recorded history. Now researchers believe it also caused the Justinianic Plague of the sixth to eighth centuries, which killed more than 100 million people - and some historians believe contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire. | |
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Tia Ghose
LiveScience 2013-05-14 10:00:00
The Minoans, the builders of Europe's first advanced civilization, really were European, new research suggests. The conclusion, published today (May 14) in the journal Nature Communications, was drawn by comparing DNA from 4,000-year-old Minoan skeletons with genetic material from people living throughout Europe and Africa in the past and today. "We now know that the founders of the first advanced European civilization were European," said study co-author George Stamatoyannopoulos, a human geneticist at the University of Washington. "They were very similar to Neolithic Europeans and very similar to present day-Cretans," residents of the Mediterranean island of Crete. While that may sound intuitive, the findings challenge a long-held theory that the ancient Minoans came from Egypt. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Tariq Malik
SPACE.com 2013-05-14 16:35:00
The sun, it seems, is in overdrive. Late Monday night, the sun unleashed its third major solar flare in 24 hours - the biggest and most powerful solar storm of the year, so far. This latest sun storm erupted Monday (May 13) at 9:11 p.m. EDT (0111 GMT) and registered as an X3.2 solar flare, one of the strongest types of flares the sun can release, space weather officials said. It came on the heels of two other recent X-class solar flareson Sunday night and Monday, all of which were sparked by a highly active sunspot on the sun's far left side. Officials at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., appeared amazed at the intense activity from the crackling sunspot. | |
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Mike Wall
SPACE.com 2013-05-14 16:28:00
The super-active sunspot responsible for unleashing the three most powerful solar flares of 2013 within a 24-hour stretch this week is slowly rotating toward Earth and will likely be facing our planet by the weekend, experts say. Active Region 1748, as the sunspot is known, unleashed three monster solar flaresbetween Sunday and Monday (May 12 to 13). Every one of the solar storms registered as an X-class flare - the most powerful type - with each successive event stronger than the last, culminating in an X3.2 megablast Monday night. These solar explosions did not affect Earth, since AR1748 was not facing our planet at the time. But the sunspot is now circling into view, so future flares and any associated eruptions of super-hot solar plasma - called coronal mass ejections (CMEs) - could potentially target our planet, scientists say. | |
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Tia Ghose
LiveScience 2013-05-14 12:30:00
Dogs are more than man's best friend: They may be partners in humans' evolutionary journey, according to a new study. The study shows that dogs split from gray wolves about 32,000 years ago, and that since then, domestic dogs' brains and digestive organs have evolved in ways very similar to the brains and organs of humans. The findings suggest a more ancient origin for dog domestication than previously suggested. They also hint that a common environment drove both dog and human evolution for thousands of years. "As domestication is often associated with large increases in population density and crowded living conditions, these 'unfavorable' environments might be the selective pressure that drove the rewiring of both species," the researchers wrote in their article, published today (May 14) in the journal Nature Communications. | |
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Willis Eschenbach
Back in August 2010, WUWT ran an article wherein it was claimed that variations in the sun changed the rate of radioactive decay. This, of course, flew in the face of years and years of experimental evidence, starting with the Curies, that the rate of radioactive decay is constant, unaffected by pressure or temperature or anything else.Watts Up With That? 2013-05-13 14:48:00 However, this claim that the sun could change radioactive decay rates was shortly challenged by a follow-up article at WUWT and then a second follow-up, both of which threw cold water on the idea.
So I was interested to stumble across an announcement issued by Purdue University in August 2012, which strongly confirmed the reality of the phenomenon. Purdue has applied for a patent for the use of this effect as a means to supply advance warning of solar flares. I found this most interesting, however, not because it affords a chance to have warning of another Carrington Event, although that would be great in itself. Instead, I found it interesting for a curious reason involving the mechanism whereby the sun is able to affect the rate of radioactive decay. The thing I really like about the mechanism, about the way that the sun is able to influence the rate of radioactive decay, is that we don't have any idea what it is or how it works. | |
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Steve Conner
Depressed people live in parallel time zone, scientists findThe Independent, UK 2013-05-14 08:17:00
People with severe depression have a disrupted "biological clock" that makes it seem as if they are living in a different time zone to the rest of the healthy population living alongside them, a study has found. It is the first time that depression has been linked unequivocally to the internal circadian clock of the human brain, which regulates the body's day-and-night cycle over a 24 hour period, scientists said. The researchers found that they could estimate a healthy person's time of death to within a few hours by analysing the activity levels of a set of genes - whether they are switched on 'high' or 'low' - within certain regions of the deceased brain. However, this correlation broke down when they analysed the autopsied brains of people who had suffered from depression. Their gene activity bore little relationship to the hour of death, which indicated they suffered a severely disrupted sleeping pattern, the scientists found. The findings suggest that patients with severe depression could be better treated if there was some way of improving the relationship between the daily cycle of gene activity of the brain with the actual time of day or night, they said. "We think the depressed individuals are more likely to be out-of-sync with the regular wake-sleep timing," said Jun Li of the University of Michigan, the lead author of the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Our data also suggests that their daily cycles are not only shifted, but also disrupted. That is, they sleep by the wrong clock, and when they do sleep, the quality [of sleep] could be different from normal sleep," Dr Li said. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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P Gosselin
No Tricks Zone 2013-05-14 17:00:00
It's not every morning one wakes up and finds you've been quoted by the New York Times. That's what happened to me this morning. In his article, A Change in Temperature, Justin Gillis tells his readers that the issue of CO2 climate sensitivity has become more hotly disputed than ever, but warns catastrophe still looms. | |
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P Gosselin
No Tricks Zone 2013-05-14 16:54:00
Watching the reaction from the greens, media, climate scientists, and a number of politicians here in Germany reminds me of the time when I was in 6th grade and a friend of mine and I threw a dead mouse in a group of 3rd grade schoolgirls out on the school yard. That sent them off in all directions screaming hysterically. Well that's pretty much the reaction we've seen with many of the adults (grown men) here in Germany when Scripps announced that CO2 concentration had reached the 400 ppm level. You see, the day before when the concentration was 399.99 ppm, everybody was just going about their business; life was normal. But when the CO2 concentration reached 400 ppm, the gates of hell opened. | |
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The Guardian
2013-05-14 16:19:00
Many feared drowned as boat carrying Rohingya Muslims hits rocks during evacuation ahead of cyclone Mahasen A boat carrying about 100 Rohingya Muslims has capsized off western Burma with many feared drowned at the start of a mass evacuation from low-lying regions ahead of cyclone Mahasen, a UN official said on Tuesday. The boat struck rocks off Pauktaw township in Rakhine state and sank late on Monday, Barbara Manzi, head of the Burma office at the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told Reuters. She said an unknown number of people were missing. The UN warned last week that the tropical cyclone could bring "life-threatening conditions" to thousands of people living in camps in the west of Burma after their homes were destroyed in violence between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims last year. | |
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ScienceDaily.com
Remains of endangered Hawaiian petrels -- both ancient and modern -- show how drastically today's open seas fish menu has changed.2013-05-13 09:59:00
A research team, led by Michigan State University and Smithsonian Institution scientists, analyzed the bones of Hawaiian petrels -- birds that spend the majority of their lives foraging the open waters of the Pacific. They found that the substantial change in petrels' eating habits, eating prey that are lower rather than higher in the food chain, coincides with the growth of industrialized fishing. The birds' dramatic shift in diet, shown in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, leaves scientists pondering the fate of petrels as well as wondering how many other species face similar challenges. "Our bone record is alarming because it suggests that open-ocean food webs are changing on a large scale due to human influence," said Peggy Ostrom, co-author and MSU zoologist. "Our study is among the first to address one of the great mysteries of biological oceanography -- whether fishing has gone beyond an influence on targeted species to affect nontarget species and potentially, entire food webs in the open ocean." Hawaiian petrels' diet is recorded in the chemistry of their bones. By studying the bones' ratio of nitrogen-15 and nitrogen-14 isotopes, researchers can tell at what level in the food chain the birds are feasting; generally, the larger the isotope ratio, the bigger the prey (fish, squid and crustaceans). Between 4,000 and 100 years ago, petrels had high isotope ratios, indicating they ate bigger prey. After the onset of industrial fishing, which began extending past the continental shelves around 1950, the isotope ratios declined, indicating a species-wide shift to a diet of smaller fish and other prey. Much research has focused on the impact of fishing near the coasts. In contrast, the open ocean covers nearly half of Earth's surface. But due to a lack of historical records, fishing's impact on most open-ocean animal populations is completely unknown, said lead author Anne Wiley, formerly an MSU doctoral student and now a Smithsonian postdoctoral researcher. | |
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Richard Fausset and Cecilia Sanchez
Mexico's giant Popocatepetl volcano may generate lava flows, explosions of "growing intensity" and ash that could reach miles away, the National Center for Disaster Prevention said Monday. Officials were preparing evacuation routes and shelters for thousands of people who live in the shadow of Popocatepetl, located 40 miles southeast of Mexico City. Officials have created a 7.5-mile restricted zone around the cone of the volcano. Popo, as the volcano is known, has displayed a "notable increase in activity levels" in the last few days, including tremors and explosive eruptions, according to a statement from the federal government. The 17,887-foot volcano has been disgorging large towers of steam and ash since mid-April, but officials have become more concerned in recent days as activity has intensified. Webcams have shown large chunks of molten rock spewing from the crater, and ash has rained down on the nearby city of Puebla. On Sunday, the National Center for Disaster Prevention elevated its warning level to Yellow Phase 3, the fifth stage of a seven-stage warning scale.LA Times 2013-05-14 08:55:00
At thenext stage, Red Phase 1, a voluntary evacuation order would be issued for residents of nearby villages. Then, in a familiar ritual, bells would ring in town squares, residents would gather with their identification papers in plastic bags, and police and soldiers would offer to move them to safety. Popocatepetl, which means "smoking mountain" in the Aztec language Nahuatl, dominates much of the landscape in central Mexico, along with its nearby "twin" volcano, the dormant Iztaccihuatl. Popo was dormant for decades until 1994, when it began to stir. There have been moderate outbursts from Popo in recent years, forcing the government to evacuate as many as 75,000 people at a time. The government for the state of Puebla has already sent hundreds of police to three of the most vulnerable villages, where 11,000 people could be affected. Shelters have been set up and stocked with food, water and clothes. We're ready for any emergency," said Lidia Carrillo, a spokeswoman for the state. | |
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The Extinction Protocol
2013-05-14 08:53:00
Another volcano in Alaska is heating up, with seismic instruments signaling a possible eruption. The Alaska Volcano Observatory says tremors were detected Monday at Pavlof Volcano 1,000 km southwest of Anchorage. John Power, the US Geological Survey scientist in charge at the observatory, said satellite imagery shows the volcano is "very, very hot." Pavlof is 60km from the community of Cold Bay. The volcano last erupted in 2007. It's the second Alaska volcano to rumble this month. Cleveland Volcano, on an uninhabited island in the Aleutian Islands, experienced a low-level eruption in early May. Power said satellite imagery shows the volcano continues to discharge steam, gas and heat, although no ash clouds have been detected in the past week. Cleveland is not monitored with seismic instruments. - News 24 | |
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The Extinction Protocol
A Tri-Cities man has video of what appears to be a large chunk of ice that he says fell from the sky on Wednesday (May 8) and landed in a yard in Gray, TN. Andy Miller says his children were playing outside along Keeview Drive off Hales Chapel Road around 4 p.m. when they heard what sounded like a rocket. "They ran into the house shaking," Miller said. He used his phone to record video of the children inspecting the pile of pure white ice sitting in a gouged out hole in the ground near where they were playing. Miller did a quick web search and found information that lead him to believe it's a megacryometeor. For what it's worth, here's a quick definition we found on line: "A megacryometeor is a very large chunk of ice which, despite sharing many textural, hydro-chemical and isotopic features detected in large hailstones, is formed under unusual atmospheric conditions which clearly differ from those of the cumulonimbus cloud scenario (i.e. clear-sky conditions). They are sometimes called huge hailstones, but do not need to form in thunderstorms." -WBTW2013-05-14 08:50:00
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The Extinction Protocol
2013-05-14 08:45:00
The sun erupted for the second time in less than 24 hours Monday morning, releasing the most powerful solar flare so far of 2013. Monday's solar flare, which peaked at 9 a.m. Pacific time, came just 14 hours after the second largest solar flare of 2013, which occurred on Sunday evening. A solar flare is a huge explosion in the sun's atmosphere that sends out a burst of radiation. The Earth's atmosphere protects us from that radiation, but some satellites could be affected. Monday's solar flare is classified as an X2.8, according to NASA. Sunday's solar flare was an X1.7. In the language of solar flare watchers, an X class solar flare is the largest type of solar flare. An X2 is twice as powerful as an X1, and an X3 is three times as powerful, etc. The Sunday solar flare was the first X-class solar flare of 2013. Both solar flares originated from sunspots that are just hidden from view on the left-hand side of the sun. | |
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Associated Press
2013-05-13 08:36:00
State wildlife officers killed three mountain lions that had confronted dogs, strolled through yards and killed deer on city streets in the southwestern South Dakota community of Keystone. Game, Fish and Parks officers killed an adult female lion and two 40-pound kittens on May 5 and May 6. Regional wildlife manager John Kanta says Keystone is in the middle of lion habitat, and officials gave the lion a chance to move its kittens out of the city. But he says the mother lion didn't cooperate. Officers also killed a male lion at Angostura State Recreation Area near Hot Springs on May 6 because it was hanging out near a recreational trail, watching hikers and bikers. | |
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georgianews.ge
2013-05-08 03:39:00
Two dead dolphins were washed ashore by the sea in Batumi on May 8. The one meter-long sea pig dolphins were later found to have died as a result of the morbillivirus epidemi, Rustavi 2 channel reports. Head of the Flora and Fauna Association Archil Guchmanidze said ten cases of the sea washing dead dolphins ashore had been recorded this year on shores in Georgia. | |
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laurinburgexchange.com
2013-05-10 03:25:00
Health officials have confirmed that the fox that attacked a Scotland County woman earlier this week had rabies. The fox tried to bite the woman early Wednesday morning as she walked to her car. The incident occurred in the Leisure Living subdivision off Havelock Drive in Laurinburg. County health officials did not name the victim, but said that state officials confirmed that the fox had been rabid. It is the first case of rabies in the county this year. Ashley Cayton said she was headed out to work when she saw what she thought was a dog at the end of her driveway. "I didn't pay any attention to it," said the 26-year-old Cayton, who works as a newspaper carrier for The Laurinburg Exchange. "The next thing I knew, the animal had grabbed me by the leg and ripped a hole in my jeans trying to bite me." Cayton said she tried to shake the fox off her leg and finally got away by slamming her leg against the side of her vehicle. "Once I got it off me, I jumped in my car and called my boyfriend and told him that I had been bitten," Cayton said. "I told him not to come outside, but he didn't listen. He thought it was a dog, but I was pretty sure that it wasn't." Cayton said her boyfriend, who was armed with a baseball bat, whistled for the animal. "Nothing happened the first time, but after a second whistle, the fox came out from in front of the car and went after him," Cayton said. "When the fox got close enough, my boyfriend hit it hard and killed him." Cayton said that the fox "had only grazed her skin", but she immediately went to the hospital to begin rabies treatments. The couple also brought the body of the fox to the hospital so the animal could be tested by the state. State health officials alerted Cayton and county health officials on Thursday that the fox was suffering from rabies. | |
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US Geological Survey
2013-05-13 21:30:00
Event Time 2013-05-14 00:32:25 UTC 2013-05-14 10:32:25 UTC+10:00 at epicenter Location 18.753°N 145.261°E depth=603.4km (374.9mi) Nearby Cities 42km (26mi) W of Agrihan, Northern Mariana Islands 395km (245mi) N of Northern Islands Municipality - Mayor's Office, Northern Mariana Islands 395km (245mi) N of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands 420km (261mi) N of JP Tinian Town pre-WW2, Northern Mariana Islands 578km (359mi) N of Yigo Village, Guam Technical Details | |
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Associated Press
2013-05-13 18:00:00
A strange ghost town that spent a quarter century under water is coming up for air again in the Argentine farmlands southwest of Buenos Aires. Epecuen was once a bustling little lakeside resort, where 1,500 people served 20,000 tourists a season. During Argentina's golden age, the same trains that carried grain to the outside world brought visitors from the capital to relax in Epecuen's saltwater baths and spas. The saltwater lake was particularly attractive because it has 10 times more salt than the ocean, making the water buoyant. Tourists, especially people from Buenos Aires' large Jewish community, enjoyed floating in water that reminded them of the Dead Sea in the Middle East. Then a particularly heavy rainstorm followed a series of wet winters, and the lake overflowed its banks on Nov. 10, 1985. Water burst through a retaining wall and spilled into the lakeside streets. People fled with what they could, and within days their homes were submerged under nearly 10 meters (33 feet) of corrosive saltwater. | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Kelly Dame
Residents and Midland County sheriff's deputies reported seeing shooting stars over the weekend.Midland Daily News 2013-05-14 12:45:00 A media log entry states a Greendale Township resident reported seeing a light in the sky with a tail following it at 10:07 p.m. Saturday. Deputies saw several falling stars throughout the night, the entry states. One of those sightings was reported by a deputy over his radio at 10:14 p.m. Saturday, and was heard over the scanner. "I just saw a falling star to the north," he said. A dispatcher teased, "I did not realize you were an astronomer," and the jovial deputy replied that he was "just observant." According to the American Meteor Society, there were 14 reports of a fireball seen over Michigan and Ohio about 1:30 a.m. Sunday. One of those reports came from a Gorgia F. in Mount Pleasant, who wrote it "looked like a shooting star, just much bigger and beautiful. It was coming down at an angle and looked as if it was heading down toward Rosebush or Clare." Thirteen of the reports listed on the website are from Michigan, with the majority made from in Detroit area. |
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| Health & Wellness |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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| High Strangeness |
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Chris Savia
WhoForted? 2013-05-14 00:36:00
Astronomers across the world make a game of spotting secret government spy satellites, tracking them, and sometimes sharing the information with plausible deniability. Not everything in Earth orbit has a prosaic explanation like this object. First publicized in Disneyland Of The Gods, John Keel wrote of an object observed in polar orbit. Its size was beyond the known means of any terrestrial space program and once in the public consciousness more observations were recorded. Some ham radio operators, precursors to today's basement-dwelling neckbeards, claimed eavesdropping on strange signals from the satellite dubbed "The Black Knight". From the ground it was a glowing, red object moving in an east-to-west orbit contrary to contemporary satellites. Life gets more interesting as humans take their first steps into space. First known observation of TBK from orbit was by Gordon Cooper bringing forth explanations that Gordo was tripping balls from a build-up of carbon dioxide, but the sightings didn't stop there. One of the more famous photos floating around the internet is from STS-088 (1 2 3 4 5 6), spied from Endeavor back in 1987 long before Photoshop was a twinkle in a pervert's eye. | |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Times Live, South Africa
2013-05-13 10:53:00
Witches flying broomsticks in Swaziland above 150 metres will be subject to arrest and a hefty fine of R500 000, civil aviation authorities said, according to a report. Witches' broomsticks are considered similar to any heavier-than-air transportation device that is airborne, reports The Star. "A witch on a broomstick should not fly above the [150-metre] limit," Civil Aviation Authority marketing and corporate affairs director Sabelo Dlamini told the newspaper. No penalties exist for witches flying below 150 metres. The report said it was hard to say how serious he was, but witchcraft isn't a joking matter in Swaziland, where the people believe in it. |
