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New polls show that 80% Americans think it's a bad idea for the U.S. to intervene in Syria. Meanwhile, 300 U.S. Marines have been stationed along the Syria's southern border with Jordan. Is the U.S. about to become involved in Syria? Answer: We already are. Ben Swann presents Full Disclosure on Syria:
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Was Edward Snowden spotted before he decided to leak documents, and set up by the NSA? Intelligence services have been feeding false information to known enemy informants in their own ranks for a long time, and they are very good at it. Today, the potential whistleblower is one of the most dangerous informants an intelligence service can confront. Was Edward Snowden spotted before he decided to leak documents, and set up by the NSA? Substantial evidence supports the possibility that he was. Numerous questions cast doubt on the authenticity of the Power Point slide show describing PRISM, but the UK Guardianhas not seen fit to release it to the public. Perhaps Glenn Greenwald should anonymously leak this file: In the words of Snowden himself, "The public needs to decide." Was Edward Snowden under surveillance at intelligence contractor Booz Allen in advance of releasing the PRISM document? In the wake of the Wikileaks scandals, the U.S. intelligence community has answered "Who shall watch the watchmen?" by introducing active surveillance and detailed profiling of their own analysts and contractors, looking for potential whistleblowers.[1] By his own account, Snowden often discussed perceived Agency wrongdoing with his co-workers, which suggests that he should have been profiled and flagged as a potential leaker by the NSA's internal surveillance process. | |
Comment:
Very possible!
Also very possible!
Something to bear in mind is that the NSA, like all US government organs of state, is heavily privatized. This means that far from being a 'national agency', it is in fact a corporate entity representing private interests. Which private interests? Well, let's just say that it provides the ideal 'backdoor' for certain interests to marshall the NSA's and other government resources in their favor... PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel | |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online 2013-06-28 16:34:00
This is the ultimate "Friend of Syria". But what is Qatar really up to? Word in Doha is that Qatar may have spent as much as a staggering US$3 billion to make sure "Assad must go". Yet he hasn't gone anywhere. Even the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, deposed himself this week, to the benefit of his son, former "heir apparent" Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani (see We are all Qataris now, Asia Times Online, June 26, 2013). But Bashar al-Assad stays put. What gives? Qatar has spent a fortune weaponizing the myriad Syrian "rebel" factions, buying everything from stashes in Libya to new stuff in Croatia, flown as cargo and distributed by Turkish intelligence (there's an alternative weapons flow by Sunni Lebanese connected to the Saudis.) The chief weaponizer is a Qatari general. Doha has dispatched Qatari Special Forces on the ground - just as in Libya - to advise "their" favorite batch of rebels. Crucially, these Special Forces are experienced instructors. They are not Qatari; they are Pakistani - as detailed in this must-read dossier. It goes without saying that these Pakistanis hail from the same tradition of schooling of the mujahideen in the 1980s and the Taliban in the 1990s. We all know what came out of it. Asia Times Online has extensively reported that Syria is the new Afghanistan - but now with extra bonus jihadi gore, developed in the Iraq war, such as suicide bombing, beheading and intestine-eating. It's no secret most of the rebels are mercenaries - usually paid $1,300 a month directly by the Qataris, with an extra $1,000 if they carry out a special ops. Quite a few have also developed a secondary career as YouTube videos uploaders, the weapon of choice in Arab networks (not to mention Western) to prove how "evil" the Assad regime is. | |
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The Guardian
2013-06-28 12:38:00
Report says Cartwright, once the second-highest ranking US officer, is under investigation over Iran cyber attack leaks. A retired US general, James Cartwright, is the target of a Justice Department investigation into the leaking of secret information about the Stuxnet virus attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in 2010, NBC News reported on Thursday, citing unidentified legal sources. NBC said Cartwright, once the second highest ranking officer in the US military, was being investigated over the leaked information about the computer virus, which temporarily disabled 1,000 centrifuges used by Iran to enrich uranium, setting back its nuclear programme. A "target" is someone a prosecutor or grand jury has substantial evidence linking to a crime and who is likely to be charged. The Justice Department referred questions to the US attorney's office in Baltimore, where a spokeswoman, Marcia Murphy, declined to comment. The New York Times published a detailed account of the Stuxnet program in June last year, in which it said President Barack Obama had decided to accelerate US cyber attacks, which began under George W Bush. | |
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PressTV
2013-06-27 22:39:00
Following the debacles and disasters in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has actually adopted a new role to avoid direct engagement, like in Syria, to go underground and conduct secret operations, an analyst says. "The decision to pull back on massive engagements of military force does not mean force is not going to be used. It just goes underground," Gordon Adams wrote on the website of Foreign Policy on Wednesday. "Arguably, today the U.S. military is more involved than ever overseas, on a global basis, carrying out missions that extend well beyond classic military competencies," he added. Adams said that the approach, described by the Pentagon and the White House as"building partner capacity" is a "stealthy" model which focuses on training and equipping the troops from other countries, allowing the US military to make smaller deployments to more countries across the world. | |
Comment: See ways the U.S. helps the
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The Local
2013-06-25 11:50:00
The Swedish Security Service (Säpo) embedded a spy to monitor activities in the Left Party beginning in the 1980s, according to revelations in the Aftonbladet daily on Tuesday. The newspaper reports that Säpo officer Hans-Erik Sjöholm infiltrated the party in the early 1980s tasked with keeping tabs on party members, including then party secretary, and later leader, Lars Ohly. "Säpo really has no bloody business collecting information about a party secretary in the a Riksdag party, that is completely out of order. I am extremely surprised," Ohly said to Aftonbladet when told of the claims. Sjöholm relates how he joined the party, then known as Left Party - the Communists (VPK), in the beginning of the 1980s and continued to report on members and from meetings over the following two decades. | |
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PressTV
2013-06-24 15:54:00
Government documents have revealed that the Obama administration is implementing a program that requires millions of federal employees to spy on their co-workers as part of a sweeping crackdown on security leaks across the U.S. government. The program titled "Insider Threat" which has gone almost entirely unnoticed in the U.S. media also presses managers to punish employees who fail to report their suspicions, McClatchy reported Friday after obtaining the documents. The program spans all federal agencies and mandates employees and their superiors to identify and report behaviors associated with someone who might leak sensitive government information. Those who fail to expose "high-risk persons" face penalties that include criminal charges, according to the report. The program was launched in October 2011 after Army Private Bradley Manning blew the whistle on U.S. war crimes, in the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history. | |
Comment: And so we see the real purpose of this contrived set of 'leaks': more fear, more paranoia, more suspicion, and more control of the population.See this SoTT Focusfor more on the NSA-Snowden affair.
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Michael Allen
700 Club host Pat Robertson gave his opinion today on the U.S. Supreme Court's recent rulings on two gay marriage cases.OpposingViews.com 2013-06-28 11:24:00 Robertson began by suggesting that the court's swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, might have some law clerks "who happen to be gays," notes MediaMatters.org. "Let me ask you about Anthony Kennedy, does he have some clerks who happen to be gays?" Robertson asked American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) founder and lawyer Jay Sekulow (video below). Sekulow seemed taken back by the bizarre question and said: "I have no idea. I think what Justice Kennedy did, if you look at a series of cases that he's been involved in, he's taken the view that sexual orientation is a special class." The ACLJ is a Christian law firm and activist group that was originally funded by Robertson.
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Comment: Well, we might have another 'Sodom' on our hands and 'something pretty drastic' indeed - but not likely at the hand of 'God', more likely something raining down on us that's cyclical and inevitable: Read Laura Knight-Jadczyk's latest
book Comets and the Horns of Moses to see how 'drastic' that just might be. | ||
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Rory Carroll
The Guardian 2013-06-27 10:22:00
Government renounces Andean Trade Preference Act even as Snowden's prospects of reaching Ecuador from Moscow dimmed. Ecuador has ramped up its defiance of the US over Edward Snowden by waiving preferential trade rights with Washington even as the whistleblower's prospect of reaching Quito dimmed. President Rafael Correa's government said on Thursday it was renouncing the Andean Trade Preference Act to thwart US "blackmail" of Ecuador in the former NSA contractor's asylum request. Officials, speaking at an early morning press conference, also offered a $23m donation for human rights training in the US, a brash riposte to recent US criticism of Ecuador's own human rights record. Betty Tola, the minister of political coordination, said the asylum request had not been processed because Snowden, who is believed to be at Moscow airport, was neither in Ecuador nor at an Ecuadorean embassy or consulate. "The petitioner is not in Ecuadorean territory as the law requires." Tola also said Ecuador had not supplied any travel document or diplomatic letter to Snowden, who is reportedly marooned in Moscow airport's transit lounge because his US passport has been invalidated. A document leaked to Univision on Wednesday showed that someone at Ecuador's consulate in London did issue a safe conduct pass for the fugitive on June 22, as he prepared to leave Hong Kong. The name of the consul general, Fidel Narvaez, was printed but not signed. | |
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Mark Townsend and Tony Thompson
The Guardian 2011-01-22 10:32:00
Undercover police officers routinely adopted a tactic of "promiscuity" with the blessing of senior commanders, according to a former agent who worked in a secretive unit of the Metropolitan police for four years. The former undercover policeman claims that sexual relationships with activists were sanctioned for both men and women officers infiltrating anarchist, leftwing and environmental groups. Sex was a tool to help officers blend in, the officer claimed, and was widely used as a technique to glean intelligence. His comments contradict claims last week from the Association of Chief Police Officers that operatives were absolutely forbidden to sleep with activists. The one stipulation, according to the officer from the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a secret unit formed to prevent violent disorder on the streets of London, was that falling in love was considered highly unprofessional because it might compromise an investigation. He said undercover officers, particularly those infiltrating environmental and leftwing groups, viewed having sex with a large number of partners "as part of the job". Comment: Yes, developing normal humans relationships (i.e., a conscience) was not allowed, but they could emotionally rape as many women as they wanted. | |
Comment: So the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was a secret unit "formed to prevent violent disorder"?
Its real role of course was to actually foment, instigate and propagate violent disorder that would then justify regular uniformed police intervening to 'save the public'. Psychopathic government; who needs it? | |
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Nicole Winfield
Associated Press via Yahoo News 2013-06-28 10:12:00
A Vatican official has been arrested by Italian police for allegedly trying to illegally bring 20 million euros ($26 million) in cash into the country from Switzerland with a private jet. Prosecutor Nello Rossi says Monsignor Nunzio Scarano is accused of corruption and slander stemming from the plot and was being held at a Rome prison. He was allegedly asked by friends to bring back the money that had been given to financier Giovanni Carenzio in Switzerland. Scarano is supposed to have asked Giovanni Zito, a military official, to bring the money back by jet, avoiding customs. Scarano was allegedly due to pay Zito a commission of 600,000 euros for the work. He paid only an initial installment of 400,000 euros before being arrested. | |
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Trevor Howell
Calgary Herald 2013-06-27 16:06:00
'It's just like Nazi Germany,' says resident RCMP revealed Thursday that officers have seized a "substantial amount" of firearms from homes in the evacuated town of High River. "We just want to make sure that all of those things are in a spot that we control, simply because of what they are," said Sgt. Brian Topham. "People have a significant amount of money invested in firearms ... so we put them in a place that we control and that they're safe." That news didn't sit well with a crowd of frustrated residents who had planned to breach a police checkpoint northwest of the town as an evacuation order stretched into its eighth day. "I find that absolutely incredible that they have the right to go into a person's belongings out of their home," said resident Brenda Lackey, after learning Mounties have been taking residents' guns. "When people find out about this there's going to be untold hell to pay." | |
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RT.com
2013-06-27 19:03:00
The Obama administration permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and Internet usage of Americans for more than two years, new documents reveal. According to two leaked NSA documents published by The Guardian on Thursday, a secretive surveillance program that put email and Internet metadata into the hands of the United States government was authorized after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by President George W. Bush and continued under President Barack Obama through 2011. Since then, claims The Guardian, the NSA has initiated new systems that collect and analyze the records of email communications sent in and out of the United States. The leaked evidence comes three weeks to the day after The Guardian first began publishing classified NSA documents attributed to Edward Snowden, a 30-year-old former intelligence analyst from the US who is now wanted there for espionage. He is reportedly in Moscow and has sought asylum from at least two foreign countries. On June 6, journalist Glenn Greenwald detailed how telephony metadata - basic information about the phone habits of millions of Americans - was being regularly supplied to Washington under a secretive orders authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In this week's article, Greenwald and co-author Spencer Ackerman say the latest revelation involves the collection of metadata involving emails that may have been sent or received by Americans. | |
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Jon Rappoport
NoMoreFakeNews 2013-06-27 18:43:00
The NSA is spying on everybody. That includes a major, major, prime target: Congress. So imagine this conversation taking place, in a car, on a lonely road outside Washington, late at night. The speakers are Congressman X and a private operative representing a covert unit inside the NSA: "Well, Congressman, do you remember January 6th? A Monday afternoon, a men's room in the park off - " "What the hell are you talking about!" "A stall in the men's room. The kid. He was wearing white high-tops. A Skins cap. T-shirt. Dark hair. Scar across his left cheek." "Jesus." "We have very good audio and video. Anytime you want to watch it, let me know." Dead silence. "What do you want?" | |
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Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser
Canada Free Press 2013-06-27 17:54:00
With his recent address to students at Georgetown University, Washington DC, President Obama has commanded: "Push Back on Misinformation. Speak up for the facts." What a wise command! In the following, let me provide some examples of misinformation: Examples of Misinformation I."Carbon Pollution" In this very address, President Obama used the term "carbon pollution" 30 times or so. There really is no such thing as "carbon pollution." Carbon is a vital constituent of all living organisms on earth. If the term "carbon pollution" is meant to be a short form for the term "carbon dioxide pollution," then it ought to be spelled out, at least once in the address. However, assuming that that's what he actually meant, let's look at carbon dioxide. II. "Carbon Dioxide Pollution" There really is no such thing as "carbon dioxide pollution." Except for some bacteria that use other carbon sources, all life on earth is derived from and requires continued presence of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the earth's atmosphere. If the concentration of CO2 in the air, currently around 0.04%, were to fall by one half, say to 0.02%, most life on earth would come to a screeching halt. The partial pressure of CO2 at 0.02% in the atmosphere would be insufficient to sustain photosynthesis in most plants. Without growing plants, the bottom of the food-chain would disappear. | |
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| Society's Child |
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RT
2013-06-28 15:48:00
A teenager from Texas could spend the next eight years in prison if a court decides that the sarcastic comment he made during an online argument is enough to convict him of issuing a terroristic threat. Justin Carter was only 18 years old when he and a friend got into an online spat over Facebook back in February with another person. They were arguing about the computer game "League of Legends," his dad told a local ABC affiliate, but one snarky remark made by the teen was apparently enough to raise suspicion in one woman who was watching the conversation unfold all the way up in Canada. "Someone had said something to the effect of 'Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head,'" father Jack Carter told KKVUE News, "to which he replied 'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts.'" | |
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Russia Today
The Brazilian government will deploy National Public Security Force in five cities hosting the FIFA football tournament in an effort to contain the ongoing protests across the country.2013-06-19 14:05:00 The announcement by the Brazilian Justice Ministry comes after a day of violent clashes between protesters and riot police. The ministry decided to deploy the joint federal police force on Wednesday in response to violent rioting across the country. The troops will reportedly be tasked with mediating the conflict, rather than punishing protesters. The National Public Security Force is usually deployed in Brazil to address serious security crises, such as prison riots or major gang violence. |
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Reuters
2013-06-28 11:22:00
South Africa's ailing anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is doing much better in hospital, his ex-wife Winnie said on Friday before a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama that will include a personal homage to the globally admired statesman. The faltering health of the first black president of South Africa, a revered symbol of racial reconciliation, has drawn world attention since the 94-year-old was rushed to hospital with a recurring lung infection nearly three weeks ago. Earlier this week, the government reported Mandela's frail condition had turned critical, but since Thursday President Jacob Zuma has reported that his health is improving. "I'm not a doctor, but I can say that from what he was a few days ago, there is great improvement," Mandela's ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, told reporters outside Mandela's former home in the Johannesburg township of Soweto. But, she added, he remained "clinically unwell". | |
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Billy Hallowell
The Blaze 2013-06-25 09:47:00
Bono, U2′s lead singer, made headlines this week after excerpts were released from his fascinating radio interview with Focus on the Family (FOF), a Christian organization. Today, the group made available the entire exchange, offering it on the FOF website. From discussing his passion for helping the poor to detailing an intense faith in Jesus Christ, the famed musician offered up a candid - and surprising - interview. Speaking on-air with FOF President Jim Daly, Bono offered a lens into both his personal and professional lives. Perhaps the most interesting tidbits were his statements about Jesus Christ and the gospel - favorable comments that are rarely uttered by A-list entertainers. "So often those that struggle with accepting Jesus Christ as their savior ... it's the idea that he's the Messiah. ... how did you respond to that?," Daly asked the singer. | |
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Carla Dauden
This video was recorded right before the recent protests started, but with all of this going on, it becomes even more evident that the World Cup and the Olympics should not be our priority. The world has to know about what's really going on. Please share.YouTube 2013-06-28 05:23:00 I know this is a brief overview, so if you want to know more about the problems discussed in the video, please check the links below:
A Nova Democracia Domínio Público Copa pra quem? Comitê Popular do Rio conectas.org theworld.org Marcelo Lacerda | |
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Terry Eagleton
The Guardian 2013-06-26 18:00:00
Bono the philanthropist is nothing but a crony of bankers and neocons, argues Terry Eagleton It is no surprise that Bono and Bob Geldof, the two leading celebrity philanthropists of our time, are both Irish. The Ireland into which they were born in the 1960s was caught between third and first worlds, and so was more likely to sympathise with the wretched of the earth than were the natives of Hampstead. As a devoutly Christian nation, it also had a long missionary tradition. Black babies were a familiar object of charity in Ireland long before Hollywood movie stars began snapping them up. Bono himself was a member of a prayer group in the 1970s, before he stumbled on leather trousers and wrap-around shades. Scattered across the globe by hunger and turmoil at home, the Irish have long been a cosmopolitan people, far less parochial than their former proprietors. Small nations cannot afford the insularity of the great. Besides, if you were born into this remote margin of Europe and yearned for the limelight, it helped to have an eye-catching cause and a mania for self-promotion. Rather as the Irish in general were forced by internal circumstance to become an international people, so men like Bono and Geldof could use their nationality to leap on to the world stage. Bono belongs to the new, cool, post-political Ireland; but by turning back to the old, hungry, strife-torn nation, now rebaptised as Africa, he could bridge the gap between the two. Even so, he has not been greatly honoured in his own notoriously begrudging country, or elsewhere. Harry Browne recounts the (perhaps apocryphal) tale of the singer standing on stage clapping while declaring: "Every time I clap my hands, a child dies." "Then stop fucking doing it!" yelled a voice from the crowd. | |
Comment: For more background information on Bono's character read:
U2, Bono? Celeb Partners with Monsanto, G8, to Biowreck African Farms with GMOs Bono and Bill Gates-Backed Global Health Charity Exposed as a Fraud | |
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Lucy Ash
BBC News 2013-06-27 20:51:00
For years tyre giant Goodyear has been trying to stem losses at a plant in northern France, but has failed to persuade unions to agree to its plans. Now it wants to close the factory, and the battle has moved to the courts. How much longer can the struggle continue? The burly man stands in front of me with folded arms like a bouncer at a night club. "No way," he says. "You can't go in. The lawyer is talking and that's secret." Through the glass doors I can see rows of workers from the American-owned Goodyear tyre factory, sitting and listening intently. Many wear red T shirts which say Patrons Voyous - the Bosses Are Thugs. They all belong to the CGT (Confederation Generale du Travail) the country's largest trade union. Eventually I am allowed into the hall to hear a rousing speech from Mickael Wamen, the union's representative at the Goodyear plant. There are loud cheers and fists in the air as he announces the latest tactic - blocking the factory entrance from 4am on Monday morning. He is in a defiant mood as he tells me about a string of legal victories which have so far prevented the US company from closing the factory with the loss of 1,173 jobs. Last week, for the first time, a judge ruled in Goodyear's favour. A court in Nanterre rejected the union's case that the tyre manufacturer had violated the correct procedures when informing the union about the closure plan. But Wamen and his union are undaunted, and will appeal. Employees have also filed a complaint in the state court in Akron, Ohio where Goodyear is based. Seeking $4m in damages and class-action status for their case, they claim the company has violated laws on both sides of the Atlantic. "Goodyear must certainly be the only multinational in the world where workers have resisted so much," Wamen says. "First of all they wanted to sack 400 of us then it was 800 then they said they wanted to close the factory altogether. But we have resisted every step of the way." | |
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Jethro Mullen
CNN 2013-06-27 12:55:00
Riots in the restive western Chinese region of Xinjiang have killed 27 people, state media reported, but overseas Uyghur groups questioned the official version of events. Frequent outbreaks of violence have hit Xinjiang, where the arrival of waves of Han Chinese people over the decades has fueled tensions with the Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim ethnic group. The latest bout of unrest took place early Wednesday in the remote township of Lukqun, about 250 kilometers southeast of the regional capital of Urumqi, Chinese state-run media reported. "Knife-wielding mobs attacked the township's police stations, the local government building and a construction site, stabbing people and setting fire to police cars," state-run newspaper China Daily reported, attributing the information to officials with Xinjiang's regional committee of the ruling Communist Party. The official broadcaster CCTV posted pictures of burnt out cars in front of a police station whose facade was singed black in places. Amid the violence, officials told China Daily, eight civilians, nine police officers and security guards, and 10 rioters died. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Caters News via Yahoo News
Tourist Michel Watson found this pink dolphin making a splash in Brazil. The unusual creature, which hides deep in the Rio Negro river, was spotted leaping out of the Amazonian water brandishing its bizarre bright bubblegum color. Weighing in at nearly 300 pounds, the curious animal, known as an Amazon Pink River Dolphin, looked unusually agile as it rose above the waves.2013-06-28 15:36:00
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Grants Pass, Ore. - Millions of krill - a tiny shrimp-like animal that is a cornerstone of the ocean food web - have been washing up on beaches in Southern Oregon and Northern California for the past few weeks. Scientists are not sure why National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer Bill Peterson says they may have been blown into the surf by strong winds while mating near the surface, and then been dashed on the beach. The species is Thysanoessa spinifera. They are about an inch long and live in shallower water along the Continental Shelf. They have been seen in swaths 5 feet wide, stretching for miles on beaches from Eureka, Calif., to Newport, Ore. Some were still alive. "There has definitely been something going on," Peterson said from Newport. "People have sent us specimens. In both cases, the females had just been fertilized. That suggests they were involved, maybe, in a mating swarm. But we've had a lot of onshore wind the last two weeks. If they were on the surface for some reason and the wind blows them toward the beach and they are trapped in the surf, that is the end of them." Or, they may have fallen victim to low levels of oxygen in the water, said Joe Tyburczy, a scientist with California Sea Grant Extension in Eureka. A recent ocean survey showed lower than normal oxygen levels in some locations. If the krill went to the surface to get oxygen, they could have been blown on shore, he said. | |
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Scott Sutherland
Yahoo! News 2013-06-28 13:10:00
After days of recurring storms, as much as a month's worth of rain is expected to fall over southwestern Ontario today, and much of southern part of the province is under a flood watch as a result. The situation isn't as grave as it was in southern Alberta just a week ago, mainly becausethere's no Rocky Mountains for this weather system to try to climb. However, forecasters are calling for up to 50 mm of rainfall today from this slow-moving weather system (which is about as much as the city of Kitchener-Waterloo typically gets for the entire month of June), with rainfall warnings issued from the central shores of Lake Erie up to the Bruce Peninsula. The rest of the province will be seeing rain as well, but so far the amounts aren't expected to get up to that warning threshold. | |
Comment: No reason to panic? Pack an umbrella?! True, there's no reason to panic, but there's every reason to wake up to what is going on with the weather all over the globe... and nearby:
22 June 2013: Calgary, Alberta devastated in deluge of biblical proportions | |
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Michelle Rindels
High temperatures have been baking Nevada, Arizona and parts of California, where thermometer hit 126 in Death Valley. Meanwhile, storms are rolling through the mid-Atlantic. NBC's Brian Williams reports. NBCNews.com 2013-06-27 13:51:00
Las Vegas - A high pressure system hanging over the West this weekend is expected to bring temperatures extreme even in a region used to baking during the summer. Notoriously hot Death Valley's forecast could touch 129 degrees, not far off the world-record high of 134 logged there July 10, 1913. The National Weather Service called for 118 in Phoenix, and 117 in Las Vegas on Sunday - a mark reached only twice in Sin City. "It's brutal out there," said Leslie Carmine, spokeswoman for Catholic Charities, which runs a daytime shelter in Las Vegas to draw homeless people out of the dangerous heat and equip them with sunscreen and bottled water. While the Southwest boasts the most shocking temperatures, the heat wave is driving up the mercury all over the West. Western Washington - better known for rainy coffee shop weather - should break the 90s early next week, according to the weather service. Dry southern Utah is forecast to reach higher than 110 degrees, and northern Utah - which markets "the greatest snow on Earth" - is also expected to see triple digits. The heat wave is "a huge one," National Weather Service specialist Stuart Seto said. "We haven't seen one like this for several years, probably the mid- to late 2000s." | |
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Volcanic eruptions rage in Alaska: Geologist, "for some reason we can't explain, activity picked up"
The Extinction Protocol
2013-06-28 11:51:00
Alaska volcano eruptions are entering a more powerful phase. After six weeks of Alaska volcano eruptions reaching five miles into the sky, covering nearby communities with ash and shutting down air flights, there looks to be no end. Alaska volcano eruptions 2013 started in May at the Pavlof Volcano, which is located about 590 miles southwest of the major city Anchorage, in the Alaska Peninsula. The most powerful phase of Alaska volcano eruptions started with low-level rumblings. According to scientists at the federal-state Alaska Volcano Observatory, the latest phase of Alaska volcano eruptions started late on Monday and continued through the night into Tuesday. The blasts emanate from the crater of a 8,261 foot volcano. Tina Neal, an geologist at the observatory said, "For some reason we can't explain, it picked up in intensity and vigor.' In May, Alaska volcano eruptions sent a smaller ash cloud 15,000 feet into the air. The ash was visible for miles. Residents were worried that it would damage power generators. The ash plume has so far topped of at an altitude of 28,000 feet, which is too low in the air to affect major air traffic, but high enough that small planes have to fly around it. | |
Comment: SOTT.net can explain it: the recent localized heatwave is probably the result of increased underwater and land-based volcanic activity, which in turn is the result of Earth Changes brought on by the grounding of the electrical current running through the solar system. Listen to this episode of SOTT Talk Radio to find out more!
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Energy shift? Popocatépetl volcano growing more violent, Philippine volcano shaken by 15 earthquakes
The Extinction Protocol
2013-06-28 11:48:00
Seismic activity has picked up, suggesting that the volcano could be headed for more vigorous activity soon. SO2 emissions on NOAA recent satellite data have been relatively high as well. A magnitude 3.6 volcanic quake occurred on Tuesday night 23:57 local time and was located SE of the crater at 2 km depth. Over 3 hours of low frequency and short amplitude tremor were recorded. An earthquake swarms occurred yesterday as well and another one seems to have started an hour ago. The rate of small to moderate steam and ash explosions was reported to about 2 per hour during yesterday, with ash plumes reaching up to 1-2 km height above the crater. Ashfall has been reported at Tepetlixpa and Ecatzingo. On 25 June, with the support of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Navy of México, a reconnaissance flight over Popocatepetl´s crater was carried out. It could be observed that the inner crater has grown to 250 m in diameter and 60 m depth, as a result of the explosions of recent days. No other changes could be seen. (CENAPRED) -Volcano Discovery | |
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The Extinction Protocol
2013-06-28 11:45:00
A new earthquake swarm started this morning, visible on INETER's seismograms. Telica has six cones, the tallest of which is 1061 meters high. There is a double crater at the top, 700 meters wide and 120 meters deep. Telica has erupted frequently since the Spanish Era. The most recent eruption was in 2011. In terms of explosive force, Telica's largest eruption has been rated with a VEI of 4. That eruption occurred in 1529. One of Nicaragua's most active volcanoes, Telica has erupted frequently, and ash from those frequent eruptions keeps the slopes of its cone bare of vegetation. - Volcano Discovery,Wikipedia | |
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Sherri Zickefoose
City road crews are working around the clock backfilling massive sinkholes left in the flood's wake. Torrential flooding that swallowed the city core is to blame for causing 70 crater-sized holes in roads and pathways, but just as quickly as crews can fill them, they're cropping up.The Calgary Herald 2013-06-26 09:19:00 "Over the next few months we'll probably see recurring sinkholes in the downtown and Beltline area," said Bruce Burrell, director of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency.
On Tuesday, crews repaired a large sinkhole on the 5th Avenue flyover that was caused by groundwater. Eroding pathways and roads near the river are posing another potentially deadly hazard for those who may venture too close, Mayor Naheed Nenshi warned. "We'll fix them when we find them, given the ground conditions there will be more," he said. | |
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Huffington Post CA
2013-06-28 09:07:00
While Edmonton escaped the worst of the flooding in Alberta, the city has been been hit with an outbreak of scary sinkholes. Heavy rain and floods earlier this week caused the sinkholes, which popped up all over the city. Calgary has also sprouted as many as 70 sinkholes, according to the Calgary Herald. Check out some of the craziest sinkhole photos in the gallery. | |
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John Vidal
A wet winter and cold, late spring have affected both flora and fauna - and gardens. How long will the summer last?The Guardian 2013-06-28 04:56:00
One week past midsummer's day and nature still has not recovered from the misearable, wet winter and the cold, late spring, say wildlife experts and gardeners. "Spring got seriously behind and was the latest since 1996; with bluebells still in bloom in early June and many butterflies very late to emerge," said National Trust naturalist Matthew Oates. "Summer is now running two to three weeks late." The long spell of cold weather caused insects to struggle, with a knock-on effect on tree and flower pollination and a lack of food for birds like swallows and swifts which depend on airborne insect food. The result has been late flowering plants and possibly many young birds going hungry. Snowdrops lasted into April, daffodils until May and wild roses and elder trees are now flowering but unusually late, said Oates. "Some aspects of spring failed altogether - with frogs and toads struggling to breed in ponds which remained frozen". The cold winter has left seas particularly cold. "This means the plankton is very late and we are only just beginning to see basking sharks, six weeks later than usual," said Joan Edwards, head of the Wildlife Trusts' Living Seas in Plymouth. "We also see that some seabirds look particularly undernourished, possibly because of the cold seas." | |
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Emma Graham-Harrison
The Guardian 2013-06-27 21:10:00
Hailstones the size of golf balls left some damaged helicopters out of action for more than three weeks A freak hailstorm over one of the biggest Nato airbases in Afghanistan grounded more than 80 helicopters, putting several of them out of action for more than three weeks, it has emerged. The half-hour storm in late April split rotor blades, cracked windows, ruptured the choppers' metal skin and damaged other parts. The hail was so intense that after an intensive repair programme eight of the choppers were still inoperable more than three weeks later, according to a Nato spokesman. Videos show hailstones the size of golf balls pelting down on the airbase, which is at the edge of a desert and in summer endures temperatures that can climb above 50C. | |
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Mark Hayward
New Hampshire Union Leader 2013-06-27 18:20:00
Manchester - The city cut off water to more than a dozen homes this morning, after a sink hole in an upscale south Manchester subdivision opened up and stranded an automobile in the early morning hours. Manchester Water Works officials said they hope to restore water to homes along Stonington Drive and Morning Glory Drive by 5 p.m. But they cautioned they are unsure of the extent that Morning Glory Drive has been undermined. Three other sink holes developed on a steep portion of the roadway, signaling the likelihood of further undermining of pavement. "It's like an earthquake," said Nancy Washburn, who lives at the corner of Stonington and Morning Glory. The streets are part of the Rosecliff subdivision. | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
| No new articles. |
| Health & Wellness |
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Radhika Sanghani
The Telegraph, UK 2013-06-27 15:04:00
Julie Redfern suffered seven years of being able to hear her eyeballs move and the blood move through her veins in a rare hearing condition. The receptionist, of Padiham, Lancashire, had to stop dining with friends because she could not hear them speak over the sound of her own chewing. Mrs Redfern, 47, also had to cut out crunchy foods like apples and crisps because of the loud noises they made. She struggled at work because the phone ringing on her desk would make her eyeballs shake loudly from the vibrations, but her condition is being cured with pioneer surgery. Mrs Redfern first noticed the condition aged 40 as she sat playing the computer game, Tetris, and realised she could hear her eyes squeak as they moved from side to side. She said: "I was playing on the game and I thought 'What's that noise?' Then I realised that it was my eyeballs. "Every time the block moved and I followed it with my eyes I could hear them squeaking. It was a horrible sensation, I could literally hear them moving, scratching, it was very weird." | |
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Medical research is a huge industry churning out scientific papers at quite a rate. How are doctors supposed to keep up and know what is deemed the 'appropriate' treatment for a condition? A supposed helping hand comes for doctors in the form of 'clinical guidelines' which can come from a variety of sources including one or more of the relevant professional college or society. However, a recent article in the British Medical Journal casts considerably doubt on the reliability of these reports. The article, written by medical investigative journalist Jeanne Lenzer, focuses on the drug alteplase, a clot-busting drug given for acute stroke. Earlier this year, three US professional societies recommended use of the drug. However, it turns out that only two of the 12 studies on the drug found any benefit, and five of them had to be stopped early due to the finding of a lack of benefit, increased risk of brain haemorrhage or increased death rates. So, how come the guidelines are at such variance with the science? Well, according to ms Lenzer: "Proponents of alteplase have launched projects to ensure uptake of the guidelines in the US, such as the development of "stroke certified hospitals," which require hospitals to commit resources to enable rapid administration of alteplase to eligible stroke patients. Since ambulances divert patients with suggestive symptoms to stroke certified hospitals, the project has substantial financial ramifications. These efforts, and others like the "Brain Attack" campaign, have been actively supported by the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association, which "partnered" with the Joint Commission (a quasi-governmental agency that accredits hospitals) to promote hospital stroke certification. Genentech, Boehringer Ingelheim and Novo Nordisk, which market alteplase, have contributed tens of millions of dollars to the associations." | |
Comment: Big Pharma's psychopathic greed and heavy influence on the curriculum in medical education has created an unprecedented and massive conflict of interest, effectively rendering medical doctors into very own profit-making mercenaries and anti-healing agents, all at the cost of wellbeing and lives.
The mental inertia and conformism in doctors today comes from an authoritarian mindset that is largely responsible for the corruption of science. For information regarding the authoritarian mindset, see: Bob Altemeyer's - The Authoritarians | |
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Ralph K. Campbell, M.D.
Orthomolecular News Service 2013-06-28 08:59:00
Advertising is a powerful and effective tool for promoting the sale of products, especially from the drug and food industries, due to their huge profits. Awareness of a need for government to keep advertisers in line goes back to the end of the 19th century. The very first US Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906, when Theodore Roosevelt was president. Currently, the Federal Trade Commission requires that advertising must be "truthful and non-deceptive." Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims. Advertisements cannot be "unfair," and must inform about anything that may "materially affect" the consumer's decision. However, those terms are not easily defined. And corporations redefine them for their own benefit. There has been a culture shift. We still like to stick it to the big corporations, but there is little concern for the nuances of false advertising. Many people today don't have the background to discern what they read, and may be inclined to trust a well-constructed ad. Even lawyers can barely determine what is "legal," let alone what is "right." More often, the aim is simply to construct effective advertising that boosts sales irrespective of morality. Historically the American Medical Association (AMA) was the official "ethics police" for advertising of drugs, hospitals, clinics, individual physicians and medical devices. Initially, most advertising was forbidden. Members of the AMA were fined for violations. Since social standing in the community is important to a practicing physician, this embarrassment was enough to effectively chastise most offenders. Claims of the superiority of one clinic, hospital or specialist over another were rarely made. Advertising of drugs was minimal for many decades, but recently has been growing exponentially. I attribute this to two factors: the pharmaceutical industry's great power and influence on medical practice, and the private insurance industry that provides accessibility of drugs to its clients by covering the cost---whatever it is. The uninformed patient is usually not aware of the actual cost covered by the insurer. This enables a for-profit insurance company to have full say of what expenses are covered, because it does not have to face challenges from those covered. | |
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Sophie Borland
Daily Mail, Uk 2013-06-27 19:18:00
Patients in life-saving operations could be up to 30 times more likely to die than others depending on their surgeon. For the first time the NHS is to publish the death rates of doctors performing operations to repair major blood vessels and prevent strokes. The figures are in a report due to be released today on the NHS Choices website. But last night there was speculation that its publication could be halted by legal challenges from some hospitals. Previously experts have warned that publishing death rates will discourage surgeons from carrying out operations on patients most at risk of dying - such as the elderly. Over the next few weeks, however, officials intend to release the mortality rates of surgeons performing nine other types of procedures in the hope that it will help patients choose where to have their operations done. The figures, due to be released today, cover operations between 2008 and 2012. They show a huge variation between the death rates of the 450 doctors in England who carry out vascular surgery - repairing blood vessels - mainly on the over-65s. | |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Kelly Fitzgerald
Our imagination may affect how we experience the world around us more than was previously thought, for instance, what we imagine seeing or hearing in our head can alter our actual perception, according to new research by a team from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.Medical News Today 2013-06-28 09:09:00 The finding, published in the journal Current Biology, explores the historic question in neuroscience and biology about how our brains puts together information from all the different senses. Christopher Berger, doctoral student at the Department of Neuroscience and lead author of the study explained: The study included a series of experiments that used illusions in which sensory information from one sense distorts or changes a person's perception of another sense. The experiments consisted of 96 healthy volunteers. |
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| High Strangeness |
| No new articles. |
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Devin Coldewey
NBC News 2013-06-25 13:44:00
A flock of human pigeons crowded the path of a Street View camera while Google was indexing Western Tokyo, generating a hilarious and lasting image. It's not the first prank like this, but it is delightful. The writers of Japanese comedy site Daily Portal Z got word of a Street View camera coming through the area near Mitaka Station, and decided to lay in wait with a few pigeon masks they'd been using to stage absurd photos throughout the city. The result is just as strange as you'd expect, though the Street View backpacker (traveling the city by sidewalk rather than car in this region) doesn't miss a beat. You can step your way through the flock by going to this location on Google Maps and clicking the path ahead. Source - Kotaku (In Japanese) |
