 | |||||
 |  |  |  | ||
|
 |
|
Lisa Guliani
Sott.net 2013-06-22 08:14:00
If you really 'supported the troops', you would be asking questions as to why they're being misused, set up, and shipped off to foreign lands to fight, die and kill masses of innocent human beings (many of whom are being murdered and remain unidentified, for example, in Pakistan) without any verifiable supporting evidence that there is a genuine need to do so. The government has NOT proven any of its allegations (as usual), yet you still 'support the troops'? Let's please remember that these men were not drafted into service. They were coaxed, courted and cajoled, and basically enticed by offers of money and 'college education' and illusions of 'heroism and patriotism and 'national service'. In other words, a carrot was dangled in front of them and they took the bait. How can you say you support the troops when the troops are engaged in the outright murder of people who have never done a damn thing to the American people OR the U.S. government? It makes ZERO sense. They are not protecting our 'freedoms' here at home, because, in case you haven't noticed, as the deployment of US troops overseas has increased over the past 10 years, that list of 'freedoms' has grown shorter and shorter. Do you think there is a connection? So what actual 'service' are our troops performing? They are enforcing pathological mass murder campaigns conceived, designed and orchestrated by psychopaths for purposes revolving more around achieving total power and control over peoples' lives, as well as their land and resources, in every nation around the globe, including in the USA. The objective is not to 'keep America safe', but to keep the interests, investments, and goals of the psychopaths in power SAFE FROM AMERICANS and all normal people around the world. | |
 |
|
Duncan Campbell
New Statesman 1988-08-12 04:23:00
. . . and they don't give a damn about personal privacy or commercial confidence. Project 415 is a top-secret new global surveillance system. It can tap into a billion calls a year in the UK alone. Inside Duncan Campbell on how spying entered the 21st century . . . They've got it taped American, British and Allied intelligence agencies are soon to embark on a massive, billion-dollar expansion of their global electronic surveillance system. According to information given recently in secret to the US Congress, the surveillance system will enable the agencies to monitor and analyse civilian communications into the 21st century. Identified for the moment as Project P415, the system will be run by the US National Security Agency (NSA). But the intelligence agencies of many other countries will be closely involved with the new network, including those from Britain, Australia, Germany and Japan--and, surprisingly, the People's Republic of China. Comment: ... and yet, in the aftermath of the Snowden 'leaks', German and other world leaders seem surprised that the NSA is watching and listening... what's up with that?! New satellite stations and monitoring centres are to be built around the world, and a chain of new satellites launched, so that NSA and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) at Cheltenham, may keep abreast of the burgeoning international telecommunications traffic. | |
Comment: Well, there you have it folks.
The global mass surveillance system has been operational for quite some time. In addition, it was being reported on in great detail a quarter of a century ago. All the world's superpowers (and not-so-super powers) are in on it, linked together through 'back-channels' of spies who all ultimately work on the same team: the psychopathic elite against humanity. So what's really going on here with these June 2013 'NSA Leaks'? Andy why are the Russians, Germans and Chinese pretending to be surprised about it? PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel Through the PRISM of public amnesia | |
|
|
TheMarker
Haaretz 2013-06-08 07:34:00
Israeli high-tech firms Verint and Narus have had connections with U.S. companies and Israeli intelligence in the past, and ties between the countries' intelligence agencies remain strong. Were Israeli companies Verint and Narus the ones that collected information from the U.S. communications network for the National Security Agency? The question arises amid controversy over revelations that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans every day, creating a database through which it can learn whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the United States. It also was disclosed this week that the NSA has been gathering all Internet usage - audio, video, photographs, emails and searches - from nine major U.S. Internet providers, including Microsoft and Google, in hopes of detecting suspicious behavior that begins overseas. According to an article in the American technology magazine "Wired" from April 2012, two Israeli companies - which the magazine describes as having close connections to the Israeli security community - conduct bugging and wiretapping for the NSA. | |
Comment: See also: PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel
| |
|
| Puppet Masters |
|
Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog 2013-06-24 17:48:00
Did you know that you are involved in the most massive Ponzi scheme that has ever existed? To illustrate my point, allow me to tell you a little story. Once upon a time, there was a man named Sam. When he was younger, he had been a very principled young man that had worked incredibly hard and that had built a large number of tremendously successful businesses. He became fabulously wealthy and he accumulated far more gold than anyone else on the planet. But when he started to get a little older he forgot the values of his youth. He started making really bad decisions and some of his relatives started to take advantage of him. One particularly devious relative was a nephew named Fred. One day Fred approached his uncle Sam with a scheme that his friends the bankers had come up with. What happened next would change the course of Sam's life forever. Even though Sam was the wealthiest man in the world by far, Fred convinced Sam that he could have an even higher standard of living by going into a little bit of debt. In exchange for IOUs issued by his uncle Sam, Fred would give him paper notes that he printed off on his printing press. Since the paper notes would be backed by the gold that Sam was holding, everyone would consider them to be valuable. Sam could take those paper notes and spend them on whatever his heart desired. Uncle Sam started to do this, and he started to become addicted to all of the nice things that those paper notes would buy him. | |
|
|
The New Zealand Herald
2013-06-24 13:07:00
The United States is disappointed by Hong Kong's "troubling'' failure to arrest fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden before he fled the territory, an official said Sunday. A Department of Justice spokesperson insisted US officials had fulfilled all the requirements of Washington's extradition treaty with the autonomous Chinese region and were "disappointed'' by the decision to let him go. Snowden, a 30-year-old former intelligence contractor, is wanted by the United States on espionage charges, after he quit his job with the National Security Agency and fled to Hong Kong with a cache of secret documents. Yesterday Snowden left Hong Kong and fled for Moscow, despite Washington having requested his arrest and extradition. He's been offered asylum in Ecuador. Hong Kong officials said the documentation supporting the extradition request had been incomplete. But the US Department of Justice denied there was anything missing. "The US is disappointed and disagrees with the determination by Hong Kong authorities not to honour the US request for the arrest of the fugitive,'' the spokesperson said in a statement. "The request for the fugitive's arrest for purposes of his extradition complied with all of the requirements of the US-Hong Kong Surrender Agreement. "At no point, in all of our discussions through Friday, did the authorities in Hong Kong raise any issues regarding the sufficiency of the US's provisional arrest request. "In light of this, we find their decision to be particularly troubling.'' The statement said senior US officials had been in touch with their Hong Kong counterparts since June 10, when they learned Snowden was in Hong Kong and leaking details of secret surveillance programs to the media. On Wednesday, US Attorney-General Eric Holder spoke to Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen and urged Hong Kong to honour the request for Snowden's arrest. The Hong Kong government had said that, as it "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong.'' Source: Agence France-Presse | |
|
|
tayyard.org
2013-06-22 16:06:00
WASHINGTON - White House officials refused to comment Friday on a Los Angeles Times report that CIA operatives and U.S. special operations troops have been secretly training Syrian rebels with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons since late last year, saying only that the U.S. had increased its assistance to the rebellion. The covert U.S. training at bases in Jordan and Turkey began months before President Obama approved plans to begin directly arming the opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to U.S. officials and rebel commanders. "We have stepped up our assistance, but I cannot inventory for you all the elements of that assistance," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said. "We have provided and will continue to provide substantial assistance to the Syrian opposition, as well as the Supreme Military Council." The Supreme Military Council is the military arm of an umbrella group that represents more moderate rebel factions, including the Free Syrian Army. The training and Obama's decision this month to supply arms and ammunition to the rebels have raised hope among the beleaguered opposition that Washington ultimately will provide heavier weapons as well. So far, the rebels say they lack the weapons they need to regain the offensive in Syria's bitter civil war. The tightly constrained U.S. effort reflects Obama's continuing doubts about getting drawn into a conflict that already has killed more than 100,000 people and the administration's fear that Islamic militants now leading the war against Assad could gain control of advanced U.S. weaponry. The training has involved fighters from the Free Syrian Army, a loose confederation of rebel groups that the Obama administration has promised to back with expanded military assistance, said a U.S. official, who discussed the effort anonymously because he was not authorized to disclose details. | |
|
|
Kieren McCarthy
The European Parliament published its report into the Echelon spying system last week in which it concluded it did exist, was against the law and that the UK had a lot of explaining to do.The Register 2001-09-14 15:50:00 We've sifted through about 100 of the 194 pages and decided that since no one had yet to officially admit its existence, you may be interested in how the European Parliament decided it was definitely out there. The report admits from the outset that the existence of Echelon can only be proved by gathering together as many clues as possible so that it remains the only possible explanation. Since we are talking about an extremely secretive spying mechanism run by some of the most secretive (and powerful) organisations in the world, this is the only method at our disposal. |
|
|
Thomas C Greene
Relax, it's for your own good, and the sake of your children.The Register 2001-03-07 15:24:00 A core objection to paranoid rants regarding the US National Security Agency (NSA) electronic eavesdropping apparatus called ECHELON is the simple observation that spooks trying to use it are literally buried in an avalanche of white noise from which it's quite difficult to extract anything pertinent. But now the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), no doubt with some assistance and guidance from NSA, is making strides towards cracking that little inconvenience. The CIA's Office of Advanced Information Technology is developing a number of data-mining enhancements to make life easy for those who would eavesdrop on electronic communications, Reuters reports. First up is a computer program called Oasis, which automatically converts audio signals into conveniently readable, and searchable, text. |
|
|
Zacheryd Taylor
2013-06-13 14:20:00
By now most people have heard the "new" disclosure of "Prism;" but for the most part there is little or no mention of the possibility that this program is virtually identical toECHELON which was reported years ago; in fact it was exposed before the attacks on 9/11 or even when George Bush was inaugurated president. Anyone that takes a close look at this would almost certainly come to the conclusion that they're very similar if not virtually the same thing and perhaps that the biggest thing that is news isn't that the program was exposed but that they're covering it in a high profile manner, and that they're making a major appeal to emotions that is getting much more attention. (This has been cros-posted on Open Salon) The vast majority of the coverage in the commercial media about this clearly seems to imply that this program is a few years old and that it was created after the attacks on 9/11; yet this almost certainly isn't true. ECHELON was created first and then after 9/11 they passed laws that made it legal without reminding the public that this was already in place. This was previously reported in several outlets, including an article in the National Geographic although none of them were nearly as high profile as the coverage that is going on now. The way they covered it in the past was, mostly to ignore it when possible or to refuse to acknowledge or deny the existence of this program. Some other countries admitted that they participated in it; but it received so little coverage that only a fraction of the public knew about it. One notable exception was when it apparently appeared on 60 Minutes in 2000 (for transcript of segment see http://cryptome.org) and there wasn't nearly as much hype surrounding it nor was the whistle blower threatened with prosecution as Edward Snowden is now being threatened. Mike Frost disclosed most if not all the same material that Edward Snowden covered except for the possibility that they have apparently been searching Google and Facebook, but these two companies weren't nearly as big, if they existed at all at the time. Expanding the program to cover this would have been predictable and the way it was described was a blanket surveillance program that would have covered most if not all internet activity anyway so even though they didn't directly report on this they did so indirectly. | |
|
|
New Statesman
"Black programs," in which technology is covertly developed and deployed, have long been standard fare for the government of the United States. The term has almost become synonymous with the aerospace firm Lockheed-Martin, whose "Skunk Works" facilities undertook the "black programs" that brought us such revolutionary aircraft as the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, and, most recently, the F-117 Stealth Fighter. But the U.S. has not confined its black programs solely to the development of aircraft. That fact is becoming abundantly clear as Echelon, perhaps the blackest program of all, is dragged kicking and screaming into the light.2000-03-27 14:08:00 Echelon is the name given to the super-secret SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) collection network allegedly operated by the most secretive of all U.S. agencies, the National Security Agency (NSA). But it is not simply an American endeavor. Also taking part in the massive eavesdropping scheme through a diplomatic construct known as the UKUSA Alliance are Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Together they operate a system that is reputedly capable of recording every digital transmission relayed throughout the world each day, including telephone, FAX, and e-mail messages. According to the International Herald Tribune, the system has the capacity to "record up to 2 billion telephone messages daily." What's more, using "dictionary" computers, the system can search all the collected messages for keywords, easily and quickly identifying those messages with intelligence implications. |
|
|
BBC News
1999-06-16 13:42:00
The UK Government tapped all telephone messages between Britain and Ireland during the past 10 years, it has been alleged. Channel 4 News said a tower in Capenhurst, Cheshire, was used to intercept all telephone signals between Ireland and the UK from 1989 to when it closed down earlier this year. The 13-storey windowless tower used electronic equipment to collect and store all faxes, e-mails, telexes and data communications, the programme said. Their contents were then allegedly scanned for key words and subjects of interests. The report said the tower was situated in north-west England, directly between British Telecom towers sending messages to Ireland. Channel 4 said sources told the programme that "although the primary justification for building the tower was anti-terrorism, the information it gathered was also of economic and commercial significance". | |
|
|
Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger, Nick Hopkins, Nick Davies & James Ball
The Guardian 2013-06-23 05:30:00
British spy agency collects and stores vast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with NSA, latest documents from Edward Snowden reveal Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA). The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate. One key innovation has been GCHQ's ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for some 18 months. GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects. | |
Comment: Same as it's always been...
UK monitors all Irish phone calls BBC, Friday, July 16, 1999 Does no one remember Echelon? See also: PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel | |
|
|
Tania Branigan & Miriam Elder
The Guardian 2013-06-23 04:54:00
NSA whistleblower left on Aeroflot flight to Moscow, Hong Kong government confirms, two days after US charged him with espionage NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has flown out of Hong Kong, where he had been in hiding since identifying himself as the source of revelations on US surveillance programmes - despite a US request for his arrest. The 30-year-old had previously said he would stay in the city and fight for his freedom in the courts. But the Hong Kong government confirmed that he left on Sunday, two days after the US announced it had charged him with espionage, saying documents filed by the US did not fully comply with legal requirements. It also said it was requesting clarification from Washington on Snowden's claims that the US had hacked targets in the territory. Snowden had been at a safe house since 10 June, when he checked out of his hotel after giving an interview to the Guardian outing himself as the source who leaked top secret documents. | |
Comment: Great show, Powers That Be! Beats Hollywood anyday, a real movie in real time!
All together now...
PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel | |
|
|
Sayer Ji
Greenmedinfo.com 2013-06-21 17:07:00
In a breaking development, the FBI confirms that 1,500 GM Sugar Beet plants were destroyed this month in Oregon, in what they are calling an act of "Economic Sabotage." When GM pollen blows into a non-GM farmer's fields and irreversibly contaminates his crop with 'biopollution,' who does the law side with? Historically, Monsanto. Also, it's not called 'economic sabotage' but rather 'copyright infringement,' and the victim not the aggressor is threatened with economic ruin. When Monsanto's unapproved and therefore illegal GM wheat is found years after open field trials growing freely in an Oregon wheat field, the entire state crop's export fate is held in limbo, jeopardizing the present and future living of thousands of farmers and their dependents, with Monsanto receiving little more than a reprimand, followed by rapid USDA assurance that despite a lack of approval their GM wheat is "safe." Given the unfair rules of the game, no wonder some folks in Oregon, having been treated much like feudal peasants lately, are taking things quite literally into their own hands. | |
|
|
Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
The Guardian 2011-10-16 15:54:00
Lambert, an expert on Islamophobia, posed as environmental activist then ran police spy unit that infiltrated anti-racist groups An academic and prominent supporter of progressive causes has been unmasked as a former spy who controlled a network of undercover police officers in political groups. During his current career as an academic expert on Islamophobia, Bob Lambert has regularly spoken at political rallies to promote campaigns against racism and fascism. However, in his previous career as a special branch officer, which lasted 26 years, he ran operations at a covert unit that placed police spies into political campaigns, including those run by anti-racism groups. The unit also disrupted the activities of these groups. Lambert became head of the unit after going undercover himself. Since becoming an academic three years ago, he has made no secret of the fact he was a special branch detective between 1980 and 2006, working on what he describes as "countering threats of terrorism and political violence in Britain". | |
Comment: Today it transpires that Lambert was instrumental in arguably the biggest waste of activists' time in the whole history of British activism:
COINTELPRO: 'McLibel' leaflet was co-written by undercover police officer Bob Lambert Lambert's and all the other snitches' job is too vector anyone who gives a damn away from the the root issue that unites us all: psychopaths rule our world. | |
|
|
Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian 2013-06-21 15:44:00
McDonald's sued green activists in long-running David v Goliath legal battle, but police role only now exposed An undercover police officer posing for years as an environmental activist co-wrote a libellous leaflet that was highly critical of McDonald's, and which led to the longest civil trial in English history, costing the fast-food chain millions of pounds in fees. The true identity of one of the authors of the "McLibel leaflet" is Bob Lambert, a police officer who used the alias Bob Robinson in his five years infiltrating the London Greenpeace group, is revealed in a new book about undercover policing of protest, published next week. McDonald's famously sued green campaigners over the roughly typed leaflet, in a landmark three-year high court case, that was widely believed to have been a public relations disaster for the corporation. Ultimately the company won a libel battle in which it spent millions on lawyers. Lambert was deployed by the special demonstration squad (SDS) - a top-secret Metropolitan police unit that targeted political activists between 1968 until 2008, when it was disbanded. He co-wrote the defamatory six-page leaflet in 1986 - and his role in its production has been the subject of an internal Scotland Yard investigation for several months. At no stage during the civil legal proceedings brought by McDonald's in the 1990s was it disclosed that a police infiltrator helped author the leaflet. | |
Comment: See also:
COINTELPRO in the UK: Undercover British police officer was pivotal in extreme actions of environmental campaigners COINTELPRO in the UK: Undercover Police officers stole identities of dead children to become 'anti-capitalist hippies' COINTELPRO: British prosecutors suppressed key evidence to protect undercover 'environmental activist' Protest movements are crawling with COINTELPRO: Sixth police spy unmasked in British protest movement How to Spot COINTELPRO Agents | |
|
|
BBC
London underground users will be gassed by an "odurless, colourless, tasteless" gass in an alleged simulation of such an attack on the London Underground.... "just in case" it really happens.2013-06-15 15:31:00 Recorded from BBC London News, 14 June 2013.
| |
Comment: Remember this 'terror drill'?
| |
|
|
Julian Pecquet
President Obama's visit to the Group of Eight summit has created a political row in Ireland after an outspoken liberal lawmaker on Wednesday denounced the U.S. president as a "war criminal" for his drone use and his decision to arm the Syrian rebels.Information Clearing House 2013-06-22 15:25:00 Parliamentarian Clare Daly said her country's government had showcased the country "as a nation of pimps, prostituting ourselves in return for a pat on the head," The Irish Timesreports. The "unprecedented slobbering" during Obama's two-day visit to Northern Ireland, she said, had even led to speculation that "you were going to deck the Cabinet out in leprechaun hats decorated with a bit of stars and stripes to really mark abject humiliation."
| |
|
| Society's Child |
|
Scott D'Arcy
Swindon Advertiser News 2013-06-24 09:00:00
Witchcraft is suspected in the mysterious cutting of a Shetland pony's mane. Little Elicia Curtis was devastated to find the animal she has been grooming had had its mane cut off by an unknown attacker. The 11-year-old had been helping out with the horses on a farm near Wroughton after her own pony, Muffin, had to be put down last year. The police suspect it may have been done as part of a rite or spell, but a local Druid has put the blame on New Age Travellers rather than witches. Elicia had been training the unbroken Shetland, called Tyrone, and was hoping to enter him into shows this summer. That hope has now been dashed by the criminals who came on the night of Sunday, June 16 and cut the five-year-old horse's flowing mane. The Wroughton Junior School pupil said: "I'm really shocked someone would come in and hurt him. | |
|
|
Peter Beaumont
The demonstrations in Brazil began after a small rise in bus fares triggered mass protests. Within days this had become a nationwide movement whose concerns had spread far beyond fares: more than a million people were on the streets shouting about everything from corruption to the cost of living to the amount of money being spent on the World Cup.The New Zealand Herald 2013-06-24 13:52:00 In Turkey, it was a similar story. A protest over the future of a city park in Istanbul - violently disrupted by police - snowballed too into something bigger, a wider-ranging political confrontation with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which has scarcely been brought to a close by the clearing of Gezi Park. If the scenes have seemed familiar, it is because they shared common features: viral, loosely organised with fractured messages and mostly taking place in urban public locations. Unlike the protest movement of 1968 or even the end of Soviet influence in eastern Europe in 1989, these are movements with few discernible leaders and with often conflicting ideologies. Their points of reference are not even necessarily ideological but take inspiration from other protests, including those of the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. The result has been a wave of social movements - sometimes short-lived - from Wall St to Tel Aviv and from Istanbul to Rio de Janeiro, often engaging younger, better educated and wealthier members of society. What is striking for those who, like myself, have covered these protests is how discursive and open-ended they often are. People go not necessarily to hear a message but to take over a location and discuss their discontents (even if the stunning consequence can be the fall of an autocratic leader such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak). If the "new protest" can be summed up, it is not in specifics of the complaints but in a wider idea about organisation encapsulated on a banner spotted in Brazil last week: "We are the social network." |
|
|
The New Zealand Herald
2013-06-24 13:21:00
The photographer who took pictures of Nigella Lawson being assaulted by her husband says the attack lasted for "27 minutes of madness" but he didn't intervene because he feared being arrested himself. Snapper Jean-Paul says the incident outside a London restaurant shouldn't be brushed under the carpet and the celebrity chef Lawson was "properly abused" by art collector husband Charles Saatchi. "What I witnessed was 27 minutes of madness," Jean-Paul wrote in the British tabloidSunday People, which first published his shocking pictures last weekend. "That's how long the abuse lasted from start to finish so it was most definitely not a fleeting moment." Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg came under fire last week for suggesting Saatchi's clutching of his wife's throat could have been "just a fleeting thing". | |
Comment: Charles and his brother Maurice Saatchi were instrumental in selling Margaret 'The Witch' Thatcher to the people of Britain in 1979.
The toxic influence of such nasty people really does permeate everything: The Plot Against Art Spitting Mad Jews and Angry Artists | |
|
|
US politicians and bureaucrats have less compassion and common sense than an average Londoner "You've heard of Live Aid? Well, this is Drive Aid," an ardent young man says, as he approaches London pedestrians. "Greedy people in developing nations are eating huge amounts of food that could easily be turned into biofuel to power our cars. African acreage the size of Belgium is being used for food, and we're saying it should go to cars here in the UK. Can we have your support?" Londoners reacted with disbelief and outrage, the ActionAid UK video shows, and refused to sign his mock petition. The amusing stunt drove home a vital point: Biofuel programs are turning food into fuel, converting cropland into fuel production sites, and disrupting food supplies for hungry people worldwide. The misguided programs are having serious environmental consequences, as well. Why, then, can't politicians, bureaucrats and environmentalists display the common sense exhibited by London's citizenry? Why did President Obama tell Africans (many of whom are malnourished) in July 2009 that they should refrain from using "dirty" fossil fuels and use their "bountiful" biofuel and other renewable energy resources, instead? When will Congress pull the plug on Renewable Fuel Standards? Ethanol and other biofuels might have made some sense when Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and established mandates (or "standards") requiring that refiners and consumer purchase large quantities of ethanol and other biofuels. Back then, despite growing evidence to the contrary, many people thought we were running out of oil and gas, and believed manmade global warming threatened the planet. But this is not 2005. Those rationales are no longer persuasive. |
|
|
Violet Blue
ZDNet 2013-06-23 00:00:00
Facebook said Friday it fixed a bug that exposed contact info for over six million accounts. The admission revealed its 'shadow profile' data collection activities, and users are furious. Friday Facebook announced the fix of a bug it said inadvertently exposed the private information of over six million users when Facebook's previously unknown shadow profiles accidentally merged with user accounts in data history record requests. According to Reuters, the data leak spanned a year beginning in 2012. Sunday, June 23, 8:15 PM PST: Updated at page bottom to reflect response statements from Facebook. The personal information leaked by the bug is information that had not been given to Facebook by the users - it is data Facebook has been compiling on its users behind closed doors, without their consent. A growing number of Facebook users are furious and demand to know who saw private information they had expressly not given to Facebook. | |
|
|
Radley Balko
Earlier this week, an anonymous public defender sent Gothamist this photo of an NYPD warrant squad officer wearing a t-shirt with a pretty disturbing quote from Ernest Hemingway:Huffington Post 2013-06-21 19:09:00
The Village Voice reports that the quote was also printed on t-shirts worn by NYPD's infamous Street Crimes Unit, which was disbanded after shooting unarmed immigrant Amadou Diallo 41 times in 1999 as Diallo reached for his wallet. The Voice also reports that at least two NYPD police commissioners have used the phrase "hunter of men" to describe police work -- Bernard Kerik and Howard Safir. | |
|
|
April Flowers
RedOrbit 2013-06-22 16:34:00
More than one-third of all women around the world are victims of physical or sexual violence. The World Health Organization (WHO) released a new report this week, in partnership with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), calling this problem a public health epidemic. Two companion papers were also published in The Lancet and Science. The report, which is the first systemic study of global data on the prevalence of violence against women by both partners and non-partners, claims that 38 percent of all women murdered were killed by their partners. As BBC News reports, the study also reveals that such violence is a major contributor to depression and other health problems in women, such as broken bones, bruises, pregnancy complications, and other forms of mental illness. "This is an everyday reality for many, many women," Charlotte Watts, a health policy expert at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine told Reuters. Recent high-profile rape cases in India and South African have highlighted the treatment of women worldwide, said Claudia Garcia-Moreno of the WHO. A 23-year-old woman was brutally gang raped on a bus in New Delhi last December. She later died of her injuries. The event sparked a global outcry and unprecedented protests in India demanding better policing of sex crimes. "These kinds of cases raise awareness, which is important, and at the same time we must remember there are hundreds of women every day who are being raped on the streets and in their homes, but that doesn't make the headlines," Garcia-Moreno said. | |
|
|
Jeri Clausing
Associated Press 2013-06-20 23:45:00
It's the age old and seemingly unanswerable question: What in the world is my dog thinking? It's also one that has spawned a growing market not only of scientific research but of everything from decks of pet tarot cards to books by pet psychics. Whether any one of them can provide real answers is a matter of opinion, but pet owners can spend a lot of time and money trying. Andrea Gladstone and David Radis wanted to know more about what was going on in their rescue dog's head, so they bought The Original Dog Tarot, a set of 30 cards and a guidebook developed by Heidi Schulman, a freelance writer and former television news producer from Santa Fe, N.M. They spread the deck on the floor, and asked LoLa why she chewed up her puppy training book and the Dog Tarot guide. The answer they divined from the three cards she picked - The Cat, the Pack and Justice - was that she was insecure in her new home and wrecked the books to establish her security and see if they held grudges. "For me it is more the fun of it than the life lessons to be learned. But I respect the tarot," said David Radis, of Encino, Calif. "I have done one reading for each of my dogs and they were both spot on. I spread the cards out and ask the dog to touch the cards with their nose or paw." Not everyone consults the latest books for fun. Cathy, an entertainment paralegal in California who asked that her last name not be used, called on pet psychic Jocelyn Kessler, author of The Secret Language of Dogs, to help her communicate with her 11-year-old lab Champ when he fell ill. | |
|
|
Cherri Gregg
CBS 2013-06-14 08:42:00
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled this week that authorities can seek custody of a child, even where there's no evidence of abuse or neglect. The case involved a divorced Camden County mother of 9-year-old twin girls. In 2007, she asked New Jersey's Division of Child Protection and Permanency for help, claiming she was unable to care for the girls who had psychological and developmental disabilities and needed to be placed in residential care. "You can turn to the Division for help, but it may come with a cost," says Diana Autin, executive director of Statewide Parent Advocacy Network of New Jersey. The group filed an amicus brief in the case. Autin says under the court's ruling, the state can get custody of a child with behavior problems if it proves that the parent can't provide the type of services the child needs and the services are in the child's best interest. She says the division can get custody without using the state's abuse and neglect law. "It could end with an award of custody to the division for at least six months, maybe even longer," says Autin. "We're going to encourage parents to get voluntary services from the division, because if the parent is then uncomfortable about what the parent wants to do, they can withdraw consent." The twins' mother, identified as "I.S." in the court ruling, went to child welfare seeking help. According to court papers, the department had received more than a dozen reports, including allegations of sexual abuse, but none were substantiated. Eventually the mother told authorities the girls needed residential care, which she was unable to provide. The court acknowledged no neglect or abuse by the mother, but gave custody to the state under New Jersey's abuse and neglect statute. After the girls got help, one daughter was returned to the mother. Custody of the second daughter was awarded to the father. "By seeking help," says Autin, "she lost custody of one of her children." | |
|
| Secret History |
|
Owen Jarus
LiveScience 2013-06-24 07:09:00
An ancient city in Syria, which was the site of the earliest known case of urban warfare, now finds itself threatened by the effects of a modern-day war. Around 5,500 years ago, before writing was even invented, the people of an ancient city called Hamoukar, located in modern-day Syria, were subjected to the horrors of urban warfare, the earliest case of this style of combat that scholars know about. They were assaulted by a force armed with slingshots and clay balls. The attackers, possibly from a city named Uruk and perhaps motivated by Hamoukar's access to copper, succeeded in taking the city, destroying part of it through fire. "The attack must have been swift and intense. Buildings collapsed, burning out of control, burying everything in them under vast piles of rubble," Clemens Reichel, one of the team leaders of the University of Chicago Oriental Institute's Hamoukar Expedition, said in a 2007 University of Chicago news story. Today, more than 5 millennia after the battle, the horrors of urban warfare are being revisited on the modern-day people of Syria. But rather than slingshots, they face automatic gunfire, helicopter gunships and, as Western intelligence agencies have now verified, chemical weapons. The conflict has killed more than 60,000 people and resulted in more than a million refugees being forced to flee the country. It has also damaged and otherwise put in peril numerous historical sites, including Hamoukar. | |
|
|
Lisa Grossman
New Scientist 2013-06-21 22:00:00
A mysterious and beautiful 15th-century text that some researchers have recently deemed to be gibberish may not be a hoax after all. A new study suggests the text shares quantifiable features with genuine language, and so may contain a coded message. That verdict emerges from a statistical technique that puts a figure on the information content of elements in a text or code, even if their meaning is unknown. The technique could also be used to determine whether there is meaning in genomes, possible messages from aliens or even the signals between neurons in the brain. The Voynich manuscript has baffled and captivated researchers since book dealer Wilfred Voynich found it in an Italian monastery in 1912. It contains illustrations of naked nymphs, unidentifiable plants, astrological diagrams and pages and pages of text in an unidentified alphabet. Although the patterns of word lengths and symbol combinations in the text are similar to those in real languages, several recent studies have suggested that the book was a clever 15th-century hoax designed to dupe Renaissance book collectors, and that the words have no meaning. One study showed that techniques known to 16th-century cryptographers would have allowed someone to create these patterns using a nonsense set of characters. Another study concluded that the statistical properties of the script are consistent with gibberish. | |
|
| Science & Technology |
A genetic similarity between snail fossils found in Ireland and the Eastern Pyrenees suggests humans migrated from southern Europe to Ireland 8,000 years ago. The slimy creatures in Ireland today are almost identical to snails in Southern France and Northern Spain. Whether an accidental visitor on a ship or brought along as a snack, the boat they were carried on did not appear to stop in Britain. The findings are published in PLOS One. As Britain emerged from the end of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago, sea levels rose and landslides are thought to have triggered a great tsunami. Britain was transformed into an island, separated from mainland Europe and Ireland. Land-dwelling animals were therefore no longer able to migrate from Europe over the seas without a little help. It has long perplexed scientists that Ireland has plants and animals that are genetically different, and in some cases are even unique, to ones found in Britain. Now scientists have found that a common garden snail, Cepaea nemoralis, is almost genetically identical to one found in the Eastern Pyrenees, but seems to have missed Britain on its journey over. | |
|
Dutch researchers drilling into the glaciers of Greenland have discovered that climate change occurs more rapidly than previously believed - indeed, the most recent ice age ended abruptly in just one year. The NordGrip drilling project in Greenland has extracted ice cores from the ancient ice sheets there which reveal that the world's most recent ice age ended precisely 11,711 years ago. An ice core is a long cylinder drilled out of the ice, made up of layers of snow and ice that have fallen in the region for millennia. By examining the amount of snowfall buried in those layers, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen have determined the exact year the ice age halted and gave way to our current climate. | |
|
|
Daily Mail, UK
2013-06-23 00:00:00
The biggest and brightest full moon of the year graces the sky today as our celestial neighbor swings closer to Earth than usual. The supermoon will appear 14 percent larger and 30 per cent brighter than normal - the outcome of a cosmic quirk as the moon orbits within about 222,000 miles (357,000 kilometers) of our planet.
Some viewers may think the shining orb looks more dazzling, but it's actually an optical illusion. The glowing disc is simply larger on the horizon next to trees and buildings. But don't worry if you missed it. The supermoon's effect should still linger until at least Tuesday.
| ||
|
|
Daily News and Analysis, India
A new asteroid has been discovered by two students from a Delhi school and the find has been confirmed by the international space community, an NGO for popularising space said Saturday. Shourya Chambial and Gaurav Pati from Amity International school in south Delhi's Pushp Vihar made the discovery as part of the All India Asteroid Search Campaign.2013-06-22 19:25:00 "The discovery has been confirmed by the international scientific community and the asteroid has been provisionally named as 2013 LS28," said Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) who organized the campaign with International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC). "We are waiting for it to be placed in the world's official minor body catalogue maintained by International Astronomical Union (Paris)," it added. According to Space, which has been organizing such camps since 2012 and is providing training to students and amateur astronomers for asteroid hunting, the project was started with an aim to increase the love for science, astronomy and scientific research in Indian students. "The project has provided opportunities to more than 500 students and amateurs in India to discover asteroids till now, 15 new asteroids discoveries have been discovered," said Space. Sachin Bahmba, of Space said: "Indian students have beaten students all over the world in asteroid discoveries and India is now looked upon as a leader in bringing revolutionary changes in the field of astronomy and space science education and research." |
|
| Earth Changes |
|
US Geological Survey
2013-06-24 17:26:00
Event Time 2013-06-24 22:04:13 UTC 2013-06-24 19:04:13 UTC-03:00 at epicenter Location 10.726°N 42.616°W depth=10.0km (6.2mi) Nearby Cities 1242km (772mi) ENE of Remire-Montjoly, French Guiana 1248km (775mi) ENE of Cayenne, French Guiana 1252km (778mi) ENE of Matoury, French Guiana 1265km (786mi) ENE of Kourou, French Guiana 1359km (844mi) NNE of Salinopolis, Brazil Technical Details | |
|
|
Meteoweb.eu
2013-06-24 16:12:00
A violent tornado, as we can see in the photo, made landfall in the early afternoon (just after 3pm) near Termoli on Italy's Adriatic coast, where a storm that had formed inland in the Molise region moved towards the city. The Air Force's own weather station in Termoli measured winds up to 148km/h (92mph). For about 15 minutes violent rain fell along with heavy hail storms. Homes, shops and the train station of Termoli were flooded. The tornado, which lasted about ten minutes, uprooted trees, ripped roofs off houses and downed billboards. Many sea-side resort buildings experienced serious damage as the tornado swept through the area. Firefighters, police patrols, municipal police and traffic police were all called to the area. | |
|
|
Meteoweb.eu
Exactly as expected in recent days, the Riviera of Romagna and Marche in Italy are the areas most affected by the weather this afternoon: a real "water bomb" is affecting the area on the border between Marche and Emilia Romagna. In Riccione 81mm of rain has already fallen, with 73mm in Rimini and 33mm in Ancona. There are reports of flooding and blackouts, with traffic mayhem. Check out the images below that depict this rather apocalyptic scene. Up to 12cms of rain fell in one hour in some areas.2013-06-24 15:33:00
| ||
|
|
Elmwood - Local beekeepers are finding millions of their bees dead just after corn was planted here in the last few weeks. Dave Schuit, who has a honey operation in Elmwood, lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees. "Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions," Schuit said. He and many others, including the European Union, are pointing the finger at a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. used in planting corn and some other crops. The European Union just recently voted to ban these insecticides for two years, beginning December 1, 2013, to be able to study how it relates to the large bee kill they are experiencing there also. Local grower Nathan Carey from the Neustadt, and National Farmers Union Local 344 member, says he noticed this spring the lack of bees and bumblebees on his farm. He believes that there is a strong connection between the insecticide use and the death of pollinators. "I feel like we all have something at stake with this issue," he said. He is organizing a public workshop and panel discussion about this problem at his farm June 22 at 10 a.m. He hopes that all interested parties can get together and talk about the reason bees, the prime pollinators of so any different plant species, are dying. At the farm of Gary Kenny, south west of Hanover, eight of the 10 hives he kept for a beekeeper out of Kincardine, died this spring just after corn was planted in neighbouring fields. What seems to be deadly to bees is that the neonicotinoid pesticides are coating corn seed and with the use of new air seeders, are blowing the pesticide dust into the air when planted. The death of millions of pollinators was looked at by American Purdue University. They found that, "Bees exhibited neurotoxic symptoms, analysis of dead bees revealed traces of thiamethoxam/clothianidin in each case. Seed treatments of field crops (primarily corn) are the only major source of these compounds. Local investigations near Guelph, led to the same conclusion. A Pest Management Regulatory Agency investigation confirmed that corn seeds treated with clothianidin or thiamethoxam "contributed to the majority of the bee mortalities" last spring. "The air seeders are the problem," said Ontario Federation of Agriculture director Paul Wettlaufer, who farms near Neustadt. This was after this reporter called John Gillespie, OFA Bruce County president, who told me to call Wettlaufer. Unfortunately, Wettlaufer said it was, "not a local OFA issue," and that it was an issue for the Grain Farmers of Ontario and representative, Hennry Vanakum should be notified. Vanakum could not be rached for comment. Yet Guelph University entomologist Peter Kevan, disagreed with the EU ban. "There's very little evidence to say that neonicotinoids, in a very general sense, in a broad scale sense, have been a major component in the demise of honeybees or any other pollinators, anywhere in the world," said Kevan. But research is showing that honeybee disorders and high colony losses have become a global phenomena. An international team of scientists led by Holland's Utrecht University concluded that, "Large scale prophylaxic use in agriculture, their high persistence in soil and water, and their uptake by plants and translocation to flowers, neonicotinoids put pollinator services at risk." This research and others resulted in the Eurpean Union ban. The United Church is also concerned about the death of so many pollinators and has prepared a "Take Action" paper it's sending out to all its members. The church is basing its action on local research. The Take Action paper states among other things, "Scientific information gathered suggests that the planting of corn seeds treated with neonicotinoids contributed to the majority of the bee mortalities that occurred in corn growing regions of Ontario and Quebec in Spring 2012." Meanwhile Schuit is replacing his queen bees every few months now instead of years, as they are dying so frequently. "OMAFRA tells me to have faith. Well, I think it's criminal what is happening, and it's hard to have faith if it doesn't look like they are going to do anything anyway," Schuit says. |
|
|
YouTube
2013-06-24 14:29:00
| |
|
|
The New Zealand Herald
Indian officials estimate deaths at around 1000 as they try to reach thousands of pilgrims still stranded.2013-06-24 13:37:00
Soldiers in the north of India were battling against time to reach thousands of stranded pilgrims and tourists before the onset of further rains and landslides. As officials said the death toll from the "Himalayan tsunami" could be as high as 1000, troops and emergency workers were still trying to reach 50,000 people who remain stranded in the state of Uttarakhand. It emerged that soldiers had spotted around 1000 pilgrims close to the famous Kedarnath shrine; they have been taking shelter in ravines since the monsoon rains last week. India's home minister Sushilkumar Shinde visited Uttarakhand yesterday. With warnings from meteorologists that more rains were on their way, he set a three-day deadline to complete the rescue efforts. The authorities appear to be struggling to deliver hard data: reports say that the 10,000 soldiers have so far rescued anywhere between 35,000 and 70,000 people. But there have been reports in the Indian media that thousands of people remain unaccounted for. Officials said the death toll had reached at least 600 as Uttarakhand's Chief Minister, Vijay Bahuguna, said 560 bodies were buried deep in mud caused by the landslides. At the same time, it was reported that another 40 corpses were found floating in the Ganges, close to the holy town of Haridwar. But officials fear the final death toll could leap as rescuers reach more and more pilgrim sites that have been inaccessible for a week. "The death toll could be more than 750 - maybe around 1000," Bahuguna said. | |
|
|
"Looks like manmade global warming is terrifying in New Zealand," says reader Joshua Cooley. small payday loans "Wasn't it supposed to be, later winters, earlier springs, less snow, no snow, higher snow levels, kids won't know snow, etc., etc.?"
New Zealand just got hammered with snow (See It's Dumping Down Under!) At Mt Hutt the storm dropped 40 inches of snow in 20 hours! This led to 15 foot snow drifts and extremely high avalanche danger. And the snow keeps falling! Another 40 cm is forecast over the next 24 hours. According to the Mt Hutt website, the ski area "is closed again today as further heavy snow falls and low visibility have hampered the progress of snow clearing on the access road. We estimate at least 1.6m of snow has fallen since the storm began and drifts exceeding 3m deep are commonplace in many areas.... All lifts are currently heavily caked in ice." http://unofficialnetworks.com/ Thanks to Joshua Cooley for this link | |
|
|
Robert Felix
What melting snow can do.IceAgeNow.info 2013-06-19 04:18:00 Remember our article First time ever skiing in the Pyrenees in June - 'It's just like the middle of January'? Here's what happens when snow starts melting: Thaw causing historic flooding in Lleida - Spain
| |
|
|
Kabar
2013-06-19 15:59:00
Bishkek - The snowfall in Naryn oblast on Monday reached in some places 40-50 centimeters. In some areas 3,5 and 15-50 centimeters. The press service of the authorized representative of the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic in Naryn oblast reports. According to preliminary information, because of the snow 438 sheep and one mare with foal perished. Besides, water level of rivers and canals rose because of snow. Update - As a result of heavy snowfall on June 17-18 in northern Kyrgyzstan 1 thousand 866 sheep, 55 cows and 31 horses died in Naryn and Issyk-Kul oblasts. The press service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kyrgyzstan reports. The snowfall in Naryn oblast on Monday reached in some places 40-50 centimeters. In some areas 3,5 and 15-50 centimeters. The commission of Civil Protection of regions continues to ascertain the damage of livestock farming and farmland. | |
|
|
Dennis Dufrene
Across the country, entire communities have been reporting that strange, unidentifiable sounds have been heard in and around their areas.Top Secret Writers 2013-06-23 13:22:00 These various sounds appear to fall into two categories: living and non-living. Though the two categories of sounds appear to be unrelated, the reports keep rolling in. The living sounds appear to be originating from the ground-level and are often blamed creatures not yet known to science; such as Sasquatch, alien beings, or something else. The non-living sounds appear to come from the sky and are contributed to UFOs, solar flares, and even the mysterious skyquakes. Below is a list of the most recent reports of mysterious sounds that fall into each category. Incidents Around the World Umatilla Reservation Recently, TSW reported on the bone chilling screams heard in and around the Umatilla Reservation during the night. Locals and experts are at odds as to the sound's origin, but can agree that it seems to be biologic. |
|
|
CBC News
2013-06-23 06:10:00
The speed and extent of the flooding in southern Alberta has taken people in the province by surprise. "Yesterday, I was kind of being a little flip about it. I could see what was going on in the mountains and that didn't surprise me," says Arlene Dickenson, one of the judges on the CBC TV show Dragon's Den, who has been watching the scene unfold from her condo in downtown Calgary. "I woke up [this morning] and I went, 'Oh my god.' Shocked. I'm shocked."
| ||
|
|
Janet Davison and Lucas Powers
Record rainfall, saturated ground and unforgiving landscape lead to devastationCBC News 2013-06-22 03:26:00
Southern Alberta is no stranger to flooding, but this week's devastation from Canmore to Calgary and beyond was the result of a unique confluence of unexpected weather and a still partially frozen landscape unable to soak up the unprecedented deluge. Hydrologists who watch the waterways like the Bow and Elbow rivers say several factors were at play since the rain started to fall about four days ago. "To have these very large flood events ... the stars have to line up," says Uldis Silins, a hydrologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
| ||
|
|
Matt Daniel
In Alaska, old records are being crushed as a heatwave has carried temperatures into the 80s and 90s. In one part of Alaska, an unofficial 98°F!EarthSky 2013-06-22 14:15:00 Earlier this week (June 17-21, 2013), parts of Alaska began experiencing temperatures warmer than the daily averages for Hawaii or Florida at this time of the year: Alaska temps soared into the 80s and 90s. A large ridge of high pressure has provided sinking air and plenty of sunshine to help break many record-high temperatures across the state. This heatwave has been ongoing for the past several days. It has brought windy, dry, and warm conditions responsible for wildfires burning now in parts of Alaska, mainly in locations to the east of Fairbanks. This heatwave developed after Alaska experienced below-average temperatures throughout this past spring.
| |
Comment: Meanwhile, in Southern France...
Floods close Lourdes pilgrimage site in Pyrenees French meteorologists: Summer 2013 could be Europe's coldest since 1816 Tune in to SOTT Talk Radio tomorrow when we'll be talking weather weirdness! | |
|
|
The Inquisitr
2013-06-21 18:54:00
In South Fork, Colorado, fire may destroy the entire town. As dry conditions and high wind fuel the massive fires, authorities are concerned that they will continue to spread. Officials have ordered all 400 residents of South Fork to evacuate immediately. They estimate that the chance of saving the town from the blaze is "low to moderate." The Black Forest Fire has already claimed the lives of two and has destroyed 400 homes, making it the most destructive fire in Colorado history. | |
|
| Fire in the Sky |
|
Autumn Johnson
Danville Patch 2013-06-23 06:32:00
A dramatic meteor reportedly lit up the skies over the East Bay Saturday night, streaking over Alamo and crossing over the Las Trampas Regional Wilderness toward Moraga, according to one witness. "It looked like a missile," said a Walnut Creek Patch reader, who said it covered miles in a second in a fast, straight line, with a contrail. "We all jumped up." Meteors of course are a common occurrence, but sometimes they can create quite the buzz, as did the Orionid earlier this year. Read about how that impacted the Bay Area here. To report meteor sitings or find out news about sitings, here's a cool blog tracking such things: Lunar Meteorite Hunters. | |
|
|
CBS Pittsburgh, KDKA
2013-06-21 22:12:00
Mercer, Pennsylvania - There is a mystery surrounding a strange-looking rock that came crashing through the ceiling of a Mercer County business. It happened sometime late Thursday night or early Friday morning. Employees of the business discovered the shiny, sharp-looking object inside their warehouse Friday morning. They also found an eight-inch by eight-inch hole in the building's 30-foot high, steel roof where the object came into the building. The object left a nice dent in the building's cement floor where it landed, too. The owner of the company says he believes the rock could be a meteorite. However, there's been no official word as to exactly what the object is.
| ||
|
| Health & Wellness |
|
Lauren Noel, ND
Primal Docs 2013-06-22 10:38:00
I recently spent the day with the family at the Taste of Colorado, a food and music festival in downtown Denver. As soon as we got there, I spotted the bungee trapeze ride and ran to get in line. I was the only adult (past age 11) who was in line, but I didn't care. I'm a big kid and I'll never grow up. As soon as I got strapped in, my heart was in my throat. I realized what I had gotten into. I exploded into the sky and I could feel my blood pressure rise. I bounced up and down into the sky for a several minutes. It took me awhile to come off that high. If I had measured my blood pressure right after that craziness, I'm sure it would've been sky high. Unfortunately, for many of Americans, elevated blood pressure is happening on a daily basis - without the bungee trapeze. The most common diagnosis at the doctor's office is high blood pressure (hypertension). This affects Americans at a staggering rate, now reaching 1 in 3 Americans. Having a blood pressure reading that is greater than 140/90 on 3 occasions warrants the diagnosis of hypertension. Addressing this for one's health is crucial because high blood pressure is the single most important risk factor for the development of heart attacks and stroke. Health care costs related to hypertension reach several hundred billions of dollars per year, and that number probably won't change anytime soon. Hypertension costs 12% of total US health care costs - more than $185 billion per year. Madness, isn't it? | |
Comment: For more information on a healing diet, see Primal Body, Primal Mind by Nora Gedgaudas.
| |
|
|
Amy Myers, MD
Primal Docs 2013-06-22 10:31:00
From the beginning of time (well, at least since there's been fire), man has been eating bone broth. Have you ever wondered why? I'm sure you remember your mother or grandmother telling you to make sure to eat your chicken soup when you were sick. And likely when you did, you actually felt better. Have you ever wondered why? I recommend everyone make bone broth and incorporate it into your dietary routine. Here's why. 1. It heals a leaky gut. The gelatin in bone broth protects and heals the mucosal lining of the digestive tract and helps aid in the digestion of nutrients. 2. Fights infections such as colds and flu. A study published in the journal Chest shows eating chicken soup during a respiratory infection reduces the number of white blood cells, which are the cells that cause flu and cold symptoms. 3. Reduces joint pain and inflammation. | |
Comment: For more information on this miraculous food see:
Traditional Bone Broth in Modern Health and Disease The amazing health benefits of bone broth Broth: A Food That Heals Stock vs Broth - Are You Confused? | |
|
|
Daniel Boffey
The Observer 2013-06-22 16:00:00
Steady decline in number of women nursing their babies is blamed on lack of public efforts to counter prejudice The RCM has shared its concerns about the government's seeming lack of interest in the issue of breastfeeding. Claire Jones Hughes was mortified when she was told by fellow diners in a cafe that she should be more discreet when breastfeeding her four-month-old daughter. "It was very unpleasant watching you feed," she was informed. But this was affluent, liberal Brighton. Another customer came to her rescue, ordered the group to "get in the 21st century" and, rather than hide away, Claire decided to take a stand. She took to the internet and organised a breastfeeding "flashmob" attended by 60 mothers who, just days later, proudly nursed their babies by the town's clock tower. Claire, a customer services manager, had made her point and acceptance of public breastfeeding, even in this bastion of tolerance, was given what health professionals would say was a welcome nudge. Yet such a display of unashamed public breastfeeding is unlikely to happen in large swaths of the country, figures from the Department of Health suggest. In Brighton, 67.1% of new mothers were partially or totally breastfeeding their children when they reported for a checkup six to eight weeks following their child's birth, according to statistics for the first three months of 2013. Yet in other parts of the country the figures remain resolutely low. | |
|
|
Sean O'Riordan
Irish Examiner 2013-06-20 18:37:00
Swimming has been banned at a former blue flag beach in Co Cork due to excessive E.coli levels while the public has been warned of "potential risks" at three other bathing spots, including two current blue flag beaches. Cork County Council was forced to prohibit swimming at Fountainstown beach, 23km south of Cork City. A previous recipient of the coveted EU-approved symbol, the council did not make an application this year for Fountainstown to retain its blue flag status due to stricter bathing water criteria. Recent tests showed Fountainstown had more than double the EU permitted levels of E.coli. However, advisory notices have also been placed at three beaches in West Cork - Barleycove in the Mizen peninsula, The Warren at Rosscarbery and Tragumna near Skibbereen. | |
|
| Science of the Spirit |
|
spring.org.uk
2013-06-24 14:31:00
We quickly sense how others view us and play up to these expectations. A good exercise for learning about yourself is to think about how other people might view you in different ways. Consider how your family, your work colleagues or your partner think of you. Now here's an interesting question: to what extent do you play up to these expectations about how they view you? This idea that other people's expectations about us directly affect how we behave was examined in a classic social psychology study carried out by Dr Mark Snyder from the University of Minnesota and colleagues (Snyder et al., 1977). They had a hunch that people automatically sense how others view them and immediately start exhibiting the expected behaviours. | |
|
|
CARossInst
Paper by Dr. Colin A. Ross explains how to measure the eyes electromagnetic energyYouTube 2013-06-23 16:52:00 Noted psychiatrist and author Colin A. Ross, M.D., has published experimental data that supports his scientific hypothesis that the eyes emit energy that can be captured and measured. Dr. Ross paper, 'The Electrophysiological Basis of Evil Eye Belief', is published in the current issue of Anthropology of Consciousness, a journal of the American Anthropological Association. The full paper is available here. Although nearly everyone has experienced the sense of being stared at only to find that a person or animal really was looking, Western science has long rejected that the human eye can emit any form of energy. Dr. Ross says his findings move human ocular extramission, which he also refers to as an eyebeam, from the realm of superstition to science.
| |
|
| High Strangeness |
|
Mike Keegan
Manchester Evening News 2013-06-22 14:07:00
The 10-inch tall relic, which dates back to 1800 BC, was found in a mummy's tomb and has been at the Manchester Museum for 80 years. An ancient Egyptian statue has spooked museum bosses - after it mysteriously started to spin round in a display case. The 10-inch tall relic, which dates back to 1800 BC, was found in a mummy's tomb and has been at the Manchester Museum for 80 years. But in recent weeks, curators have been left scratching their heads after they kept finding it facing the wrong way. Experts decided to monitor the room on time-lapse video and were astonished to see it clearly show the statuette spinning 180 degrees - with nobody going near it. The statue of a man named Neb-Senu is seen to remain still at night but slowly rotate round during the day. Now scientists are trying to explain the phenomenon, with TV boffin Brian Cox among the experts being consulted. | |
|
Probe of unexplained humming noise widens past Calgary to other areas of Alberta, including Edmonton
Jeremy Nolais
Calgary Metro 2013-06-02 13:12:00
Buzz about a mystery hum that's confounded researchers and those who hear it has extended well beyond a Calgary neighbourhood where complainants first came forward. Victims of the so-called "Ranchlands hum" describe it as more of a vibrational feeling than a noise. It has the power to keep them up at night, ruin their mood and has even led some poor souls to question their sanity. The hum is a "genuine phenomenon," according to University of Calgary researcher Dr. Marcia Epstein, who's worked in her spare time to track the elusive source for a few years. "It's something we don't yet understand," she said. "They (hum hearers) are not crazy, they're not making it up, they're not losing their hearing." But the problem appears no longer to be Calgary-specific. Initially, most complaints stemmed from the northwest Calgary neighbourhood of Ranchlands, and a volunteer-led probe of the sound pinpointed the Bearspaw water-treatment plant as a possible source in 2011. | |
|
|
Mayra Moreno
Kens5.com 2013-06-21 17:00:00
Margaux Huckabay said her brother spotted the legendary chupacabra on Bitters. "At first he thought it was a coyote," said Huckabay. "It definitely looks weird." Her brother quickly grabbed his phone and started recording the animal as it tried to scurry away it glanced back at the camera. "It has a really long nose and a really long tail," Huckabay said. She couldn't believe it and still wonders if it was really the goat blood sucker everyone talks about. | |
|
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
|
Keith Ervin
No harm, no fowl, say admirers of McNugget, the rooster who shares a downtown Issaquah parking lot with Your Espresso and Staples stores.The Seattle Times 2013-06-16 15:41:00
He's not exactly a wild creature, but he's too independent to be considered a farm animal or a pet. He's a free-range kind of guy. Since the bantam rooster known as McNugget first showed up in a downtown Issaquah parking lot 11 years ago, he's stuck around and brought smiles to shoppers and passers-by. Michelle Schneider, owner of the Your Espresso stand on Front Street North, was terrified when the black-feathered bird suddenly appeared one day at her window. After calming down, she learned he had escaped from a customer of the nearby Grange Supply store. A Grange employee captured him, but he escaped again, and at that point, attempts to catch and return him to his owner ended. McNugget, who was named in a poll of Your Espresso customers, hasn't left since. He sleeps in a maple tree next to the espresso stand and splits his days between the coffee shop, a Staples office-supply store and Issaquah Creek. Baristas and a neighbor feed him chicken feed and mealworms. Customers and other admirers bring him treats. When he's hungry, he flies up to a serving window. "If I say, 'Down!' " - Schneider snaps her fingers - "he gets down. He's like a dog." | |
|
|
Claudine Zap
Yahoo News 2013-06-20 14:30:00
A pit bull rejected by its mother is being taken care of by an unlikely surrogate: A mama cat. When Noland was merely 1 day old, he was taken to the Cleveland Animal Protective League without his mother. "Obviously a 1-day-old puppy, even in the best of circumstances, [the chance of survival] is pretty iffy," Sharon Harvey, president and CEO of the CAPL, told Yahoo News by phone. "We want to give him every chance we could." The staff decided Noland's best chances were to join a litter of nursing kittens. The question: Would the cat accept a puppy into her brood of four? Amazingly, mom-cat Lurlene welcomed the outsider. The image says it all: The pit bull is being nursed back to health by a very tolerant feline. "They're a happy family now," said Harvey. |
