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Richard Sawyer
Sott.net 2013-06-27 03:23:00
The recent reports concerning National Security Agency (NSA) collusion with the world's largest IT giants provide an insight into surveillance techniques the US government is using to spy on its citizens (and the rest of the world), with blatant disregard of human rights, privacy and legality. As well as the Orwellian 'Big Brother' ramifications of Stasi cyber spying and digital tracking, the ongoing revelations from 'NSA whistleblower' Edward Snowden provide glimpses of the cooperation between government, the internet giants, private corporations, and private contractors profiteering from what might be termed the 'Surveillance Industrial Complex'. Despite their denial of any knowledge of the PRISM program, or any wilful cooperation with the US government, the 'leaks' raise serious questions over the extent of complicity between the big internet firms and the NSA. If the big tech firms were genuinely unaware of government monitoring then it exposes severe security flaws and poses the obvious question of whether they can be trusted to ensure users' data is safe. If, on the other hand, these firms were aware of PRISM, but have been forced to deny it for reasons of 'national security', it means individuals and international businesses are victims of total digital surveillance with minimal oversight. We are told Snowden worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defence contractor that is involved in virtually every aspect of US government intelligence gathering and mass surveillance, and is majority-owned by the politically-affiliated Carlyle group. How is it that private contractors have access to the most sensitive data concerning 'US national security'? Just how much of the state's intelligence infrastructure is being built, operated and maintained by totally unaccountable private interests? |
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Lisa Guliani
Sott.net 2013-06-29 07:34:00
Boy did my last article ever bring the fundie flag-waving authoritarian followers out of the wood work. I've been swamped with efforts aimed at trying to guilt trip me into supporting U.S. troops. Let me make myself perfectly clear: This guilt trip-circle-the-wagon-bullshit does not work on me. Save it for your fellow authoritarian followers in case they ever accidentally step out of the brain-dead zombie patriot line. Our troops have ZERO BUSINESS being deployed all around the world, ZERO business invading and illegally occupying other countries, ZERO business stealing the resources of other nations, ZERO BUSINESS raping and torturing the people of other nations, and ZERO BUSINESS MURDERING the people of other nations. These people have done NOTHING to US, NOTHING to our government crime syndicate. Wow, who'd have thought I (or anyone) would have to make such simple and humane ideas so explicit! |
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Russia Today
Egypt's protest movement has given the president an ultimatum to step
down by Tuesday or face a mass rebellion. Some 20 million outraged
citizens have flooded cities across the nation in a show of frustration
at Mohamed Morsi's failure to keep the promises he made when he came to
power a year ago. At least 7 people have been killed and more than 600
injured during the rallies so far. RT's Bel Trew reports from Cairo.2013-07-01 04:32:00
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Palestine Solidarity Campaign
How can it be any other way? The Palestinians have been tortured,
brutalized and systematically murdered by the Israelis for decades. That
they still exist is a testimony to the fact that they, more than any
other people, know what it is to teach life to their children.2013-07-01 01:16:00
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George Henton
Al Jazeera 2013-06-24 05:24:00
After weeks of violent clashes between police and protesters across Turkey a new form of resistance has emerged - the "Standing Man". Standing silently, and initially alone, Turkish performance artist Erdem Gunduz stood, with his hands in his pockets, facing the Ataturk Cultural Centre in Taksim Square, Istanbul, for eight hours. With extraordinary speed, Gunduz become the latest symbol of the resistance movement. In days that followed, thousands of people would emulate his solitary act, standing silently, for minutes or hours, in places across Turkey. The contrast with the images of tear gas clouds and water cannon could not have been greater. Faces obscured by masks and helmets were revealed to show expressions of quiet contemplation. Violent scenes are still occurring around Turkey, including in Istanbul once again this past weekend, but the Standing Man protests continue unabated. The following images explore one aspect of the protest in Taksim Square, ongoing since before the communal standing took off. Public reading and informal education has been notable since the earliest days of the protest, but has since merged with the Standing Man to form "The Taksim Square Book Club". The chosen reading material of many of those who take their stand is reflective, in part, of the thoughtfulness of those who have chosen this motionless protest to express their discontent. | |
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Comment: Let the elites eat data... while the people read books!
Imagine a sea of people reading Red Pill Press books... |
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Stefan Steinberg
In a document released at the end of May, the American banking and investment giant JP
Morgan Chase calls for the overturning of the bourgeois democratic
constitutions established in a series of European countries after the
Second World War and the installation of authoritarian regimes.RINF 2013-06-17 08:56:00 The 16-page document was produced by the Europe Economic Research group of JP Morgan and titled "The Euro Area Adjustment - About Half-Way There." The document begins by noting that the crisis in the euro zone has two dimensions.
First, the paper argues, financial measures are necessary to ensure that major investment houses such as JP Morgan can continue to reap huge profits from their speculative activities in Europe. Second, the authors maintain, it is necessary to impose "political reforms" aimed at suppressing opposition to the massively unpopular austerity measures being carried out at the behest of the banks. The report expresses satisfaction with the implementation of a number of financial mechanisms by the European Union to secure banking interests. In this respect, the study maintains, reform of the euro area is about halfway there. The report does, however, call for more action by the European Central Bank (ECB). | |
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Comment:
"Political systems around the periphery typically display several of the following features: weak executives; weak central states relative to regions; constitutional protection of labour rights; consensus-building systems which foster political clientalism; and the right to protest if unwelcome changes are made to the political status quo. The shortcomings of this political legacy have been revealed by the crisis. "Unbelievable! So, according to JP Morgan, the problem is not that they have the power to destroy the economies of the world in order to enrich the already obscenely rich members of the financial elite. The problem, you see, is that the masses still have a few rights here and there to protest the theft. Thus is the thinking of psychopaths. We wonder what this 'Let them eat cake' attitude will bring to the likes of JP Morgan. If history serves as an indicator, it might not be pretty. Then again, it is perhaps their fear of Madame Guillotine that encourages them to seek absolute power over the rest of us. |
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William Blum
Williamblum.org 2013-06-26 00:00:00
Edward Snowden In the course of his professional life in the world of national security Edward Snowden must have gone through numerous probing interviews, lie detector examinations, and exceedingly detailed background checks, as well as filling out endless forms carefully designed to catch any kind of falsehood or inconsistency. The Washington Post (June 10) reported that "several officials said the CIA will now undoubtedly begin reviewing the process by which Snowden may have been hired, seeking to determine whether there were any missed signs that he might one day betray national secrets." Yes, there was a sign they missed - Edward Snowden had something inside him shaped like a conscience, just waiting for a cause. It was the same with me. I went to work at the State Department, planning to become a Foreign Service Officer, with the best - the most patriotic - of intentions, going to do my best to slay the beast of the International Communist Conspiracy. But then the horror, on a daily basis, of what the United States was doing to the people of Vietnam was brought home to me in every form of media; it was making me sick at heart. My conscience had found its cause, and nothing that I could have been asked in a pre-employment interview would have alerted my interrogators of the possible danger I posed because I didn't know of the danger myself. No questioning of my friends and relatives could have turned up the slightest hint of the radical anti-war activist I was to become. My friends and relatives were to be as surprised as I was to be. There was simply no way for the State Department security office to know that I should not be hired and given a Secret Clearance. 1 So what is a poor National Security State to do? Well, they might consider behaving themselves. Stop doing all the terrible things that grieve people like me and Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning and so many others. Stop the bombings, the invasions, the endless wars, the torture, the sanctions, the overthrows, the support of dictatorships, the unmitigated support of Israel; stop all the things that make the United States so hated, that create all the anti-American terrorists, that compel the National Security State - in pure self defense - to spy on the entire world. |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Andrew Osborn and Alexei Anishchuk
Reuters 2013-07-01 17:37:00
Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden broke his silence on Monday for the first time since fleeing to Moscow to say he remains free to make new disclosures about U.S. spying activity. In a letter to Ecuador seen by Reuters, Snowden said the United States was illegally persecuting him for revealing its electronic surveillance program, PRISM, but made it clear he did not intend to be muzzled. "I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest," he said in an undated letter in Spanish sent to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa. "No matter how many more days my life contains, I remain dedicated to the fight for justice in this unequal world. If any of those days ahead realize a contribution to the common good, the world will have the principles of Ecuador to thank." |
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Jeffrey Heller
An Israeli who stabbed his mother and father to death was convicted of
murder on Monday partly because he searched online for tips including
"how to kill your parents and get away with it".Reuters 2013-07-01 07:27:00 Daniel Maoz, 29, wanted money from his inheritance in order to pay heavy gambling debts, the Jerusalem District Court found. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2011 murders. The case presented an unusual challenge to the prosecution: DNA evidence linking Maoz to the killings was found at the murder scene, his parents' apartment, and he tried to explain that away by accusing his identical twin brother of the crime. |
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Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research 2013-06-23 11:53:00
Lies, Perfidies and Tony Blair Having learned nothing from the catastrophes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, it seems President Obama, the equally clueless UK Prime Minister Cameron and his culturally challenged Foreign Secretary William Hague are cheer-leading another bloodbath in formerly peaceful, secular, outward looking Syria. Having covertly provided arms and equipment to insurgents from numerous different countries for over two years, they have now moved to the overt stage, a move over which even arch hawks such as former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, and former Republican Senator Richard Luger, six term leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged caution. Luger said such action would boost extremists, with Brzezinski dismissing Obama's talk of "red lines" as thoughtless and risking: "a large-scale disaster for the United States." |
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Philip Molnar
Monterey County Herald 2013-06-27 09:52:00
Security concerns cited in blocking Guardian news The Army admitted Thursday to not only restricting access to The Guardian news website at the Presidio of Monterey, as reported in Thursday's Herald, but Armywide. Presidio employees said the site had been blocked since The Guardian broke stories on data collection by the National Security Agency. Gordon Van Vleet, an Arizona-based spokesman for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, or NETCOM, said in an email the Army is filtering "some access to press coverage and online content about the NSA leaks." He wrote it is routine for the Department of Defense to take preventative "network hygiene" measures to mitigate unauthorized disclosures of classified information. "We make every effort to balance the need to preserve information access with operational security," he wrote, "however, there are strict policies and directives in place regarding protecting and handling classified information." In a later phone call, Van Vleet said the filter of classified information on public websites was "Armywide" and did not originate at the Presidio. |
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PressTV
2012-12-23 20:37:00
Jason Leopold, an investigative journalist for Truth-Out, has obtained FBI documents - through the Freedom of Information Act - relating to Occupy Wall Street. Most of the pages in the documents are redacted, and show concerns of cyber threats against the financial sector. However, there are questions of assassination plots against Occupy activists in Houston, Texas. Because the documents have redactions, it is not clear who or what group was planning the assassinations. On page 61, the section reads: "An identified [redacted] of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas, if deemed necessary. An identified [redacted] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [Redacted] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles." The bottom of page 68 and the top of page 69 reads: "On October 13, 2011, writer sent via email an excerpt [redacted] regarding FBI Houston's [redacted] to all IA's, SSRA's and SSA [redacted]. This [redacted] identified the exploitation of the Occupy Movement by [redacted] interested in developing a long-term plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire." ragingchickenpress.org | |
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Dave Lindorff
Whowhatwhy 2013-06-27 00:00:00
Would you be shocked to learn that the FBI apparently knew that some organization, perhaps even a law enforcement agency or private security outfit, had contingency plans to assassinate peaceful protestors in a major American city - and did nothing to intervene? Would you be surprised to learn that this intelligence comes not from a shadowy whistle-blower but from the FBI itself - specifically, from a document obtained from Houston FBI office last December, as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Washington, DC-based Partnership for Civil Justice Fund? To repeat: this comes from the FBI itself. The question, then, is: What did the FBI do about it? The Plot Remember the Occupy Movement? The peaceful crowds that camped out in the center of a number of cities in the fall of 2011, calling for some recognition by local, state and federal authorities that our democratic system was out of whack, controlled by corporate interests, and in need of immediate repair? That movement swept the US beginning in mid-September 2011. When, in early October, the movement came to Houston, Texas, law enforcement officials and the city's banking and oil industry executives freaked out perhaps even more so than they did in some other cities. The push-back took the form of violent assaults by police on Occupy activists, federal and local surveillance of people seen as organizers, infiltration by police provocateurs - and, as crazy as it sounds, some kind of plot to assassinate the "leaders" of this non-violent and leaderless movement. |
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Werren Brown
The Daily Telegraph 2013-06-28 14:18:00
Kevin Rudd is "a psychopath with a giant ego" tweeted the ALP's member for Bendigo, Steve Gibbons, last year. Calling someone a "psychopath" is a provocative and alarming term that shouldn't be thrown around lightly - instantly conjuring up images of Ivan Milat, Charles Manson and John Jarratt in Wolf Creek. It's also a term that's always fascinated me - as I'm uncomfortable with the idea our everyday lives are intertwined with people who are genuine, clinically diagnosed psychopaths. And they're out there. In recent times there have been numerous articles written about psychopaths in the workplace - psychologist Robert Hare even wrote a book Snakes in Suits about psychopaths in the corporate world. | |
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Comment: Making tough decisions is not a 'psychopathic trait'. Decisions
are only 'tough' when someone tries to take all the known factors, and all the interested parties' points of view, into account. Psychopaths don't do this: they just do whatever pleases them, and with complete disregard for others. |
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RIA Novosti
2013-06-30 13:31:00
The death toll in floods and landslides, triggered by heavy rains in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, has probably exceeded 10,000 people, China's Xinhua news agency said on Sunday citing local authorities. Previous estimates put the death toll at 6,500 people. Regional officials earlier said that nearly 3,000 people are listed as missing. |
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Yaniv Kubovich
Haaretz 2013-06-30 13:16:00
Nearly 350 Eritrean migrants being held at the Saharonim detention center were transferred to other wings or other prisons. In an attempt to end the hunger strike by Eritrean migrants being held at the Saharonim detention center, the Israel Prison Service on Sunday began transferring them to other wings in the prison, or to other facilities entirely. The Prison Service moved about 344 detainees - some to other wings in Saharonim and others to prisons in the south, including the Ketziot Prison near the Egyptian border and the Eshel Prison in Be'er Sheva. The IPS said that force was not necessary to transfer the detainees, although some passively resisted the move. This morning 113 prisoners resumed eating, the IPS said. But 230 people from another section joined the strike and refused to accept the breakfast served to them. |
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Jamie Doward
The Observer 2013-06-30 08:25:00
Germany 'among countries offering intelligence', according to new claims by former US defence analyst At least six European Union countries in addition to Britain have been colluding with the US over the mass harvesting of personal communications data, according to a former contractor to America's National Security Agency, who said the public should not be "kept in the dark". Wayne Madsen, a former US navy lieutenant who first worked for the NSA in 1985 and over the next 12 years held several sensitive positions within the agency, names Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain and Italy as having secret deals with the US. Madsen said the countries had "formal second and third party status" under signal intelligence (sigint) agreements that compels them to hand over data, including mobile phone and internet information to the NSA if requested. Under international intelligence agreements, confirmed by declassified documents, nations are categorised by the US according to their trust level. The US is first party while the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoy second party relationships. Germany and France have third party relationships. | |
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Comment: So now Wayne Madsen, ridiculed to date as a
'conspiracy theorist' by mainstream commentators, is being cited as an
authority in the Guardian?
Apparently the Guardian/Observer is already backtracking on this story because the article has been taken down, "pending an investigation." |
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Umberto Bacchi
Serving and former priests hired rentboys for sex in churches from
pimp who sold consecrated hosts to satanists, says defrocked clergyman. IBTimes.co.uk 2013-06-27 17:23:00
Italian investigators have opened an inquiry into claims by a convicted paedophile priest that an underage prostitution ring has been operating inside the Holy Roman Church with clergymen hiring rentboys for sex inside churches. Don Patrizio Poggi, 46, told Italian authorities that a former Carabinieri pimped boys for nine clergymen. Poggi, who served a five-year sentence for abusing teenage boys while he was a parish priest at the San Filippo Neri church in Rome, said he made the allegations to "protect the Holy Church and the Christian community." The boys were chosen because they were starving and desperate, he claimed, according to Il Messaggero newspaper. |
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YouTube
With friends like these, does the CIA need enemies?2013-06-29 15:46:00 A look at the evidence that the US regime created Bin Laden's 'al Qaeda' by recruiting disaffected and unemployed youths from Muslim countries and shuttling them to Afghanistan via the US embassy in Saudi Arabia.
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Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge 2013-06-29 15:36:00
A priest, a banker and a spook... not the start of a joke or a John LeCarre spy novel, but merely the latest addition to a long list of financial scandals involving the Vatican Bank. Yet despite its quasi comedian if convoluted plotline, the latest attempt to defraud the Catholic church will likely pale in comparison to the most infamous incident involving the Institute of Religious Works (or IOR) as the Vatican Bank is also known. That one involves one Roberto Calvi, the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, who in 1982 was found hanging from London's Blackfriars bridge, a short distance away from JPMorgan's gold vault, his pockets stuffed will cash and bricks in what at the time was a presumed hit by the mafia taking revenge for funds lost through the collapse of Calvi's bank - a bank in which the Vatican was a significant shareholder. That particular murder will likely remain unsolved, and the question whether the Vatican uses the mob as its tool of "retribution and righteous punishment" will remain unanswered, as the man who stonewalled the Vatican's response at the time on the grounds of sovereign immunity: the US archbishop Paul Marcinkus who was then-head of the Vatican Bank, took his secrets to the grave with him in 2006. This time, however, with plenty of living loose ends, we may finally get a glimpse into how deep the rabbit hole involving the legal, and more importantly illegal, (ab)use of Catholic funds really goes. Fast forward to today when we learn courtesy of the FT that the priest involved in the developing financial scandal is one Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, a banker-turned priest, who was ordained at the age of 35 after working for many years at the Banca d'America e d'Italia, a Naples-based lender which was acquired in the late 1980's by Deutsche Bank. His Vatican career began in the financial wing of the Holy See, or Apsa, where he worked his way up to a senior post in the organization's analytical accounting division. He had been recently suspended once the Vatican learned he was under investigation for alleged money laundering. |
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Glenn Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman
Guardian 2013-06-27 10:51:00
Files show vast scale of current NSA metadata programs, with one stream alone celebrating 'one trillion records processed' A review of top-secret NSA documents suggests that the surveillance agency still collects and sifts through large quantities of Americans' online data - despite the Obama administration's insistence that the program that began under Bush ended in 2011. Shawn Turner, the Obama administration's director of communications for National Intelligence, told the Guardian that "the internet metadata collection program authorized by the Fisa court was discontinued in 2011 for operational and resource reasons and has not been restarted." But the documents indicate that the amount of internet metadata harvested, viewed, processed and overseen by the Special Source Operations (SSO) directorate inside the NSA is extensive. While there is no reference to any specific program currently collecting purely domestic internet metadata in bulk, it is clear that the agency collects and analyzes significant amounts of data from US communications systems in the course of monitoring foreign targets. On December 26 2012, SSO announced what it described as a new capability to allow it to collect far more internet traffic and data than ever before. With this new system, the NSA is able to direct more than half of the internet traffic it intercepts from its collection points into its own repositories. One end of the communications collected are inside the United States. |
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Glenn Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman
Guardian 2013-06-27 10:36:00
- Secret program launched by Bush continued 'until 2011' - Fisa court renewed collection order every 90 days - Current NSA programs still mine US internet metadata The Obama administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata "every 90 days". A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011. The collection of these records began under the Bush administration's wide-ranging warrantless surveillance program, collectively known by the NSA codename Stellar Wind. According to a top-secret draft report by the NSA's inspector general - published for the first time today by the Guardian - the agency began "collection of bulk internet metadata" involving "communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States". Eventually, the NSA gained authority to "analyze communications metadata associated with United States persons and persons believed to be in the United States", according to a 2007 Justice Department memo, which is marked secret. |
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| Society's Child |
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Russia Today
2013-06-20 17:48:00
An FBI investigation has uncovered a plot by a New York state engineer with ties to the Ku Klux Klan to construct a radiation particle weapon, with the intention to sell the device to either a southern branch of the KKK or Jewish groups. Federal investigators first began to investigate Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, when he allegedly approached an Albany-area synagogue and "asked to speak with a person who might be willing to help him with a type of technology that could be used by Israel to defeat its enemies, specifically, by killing Israel's enemies while they slept." Crawford, an industrial mechanic with General Electric Co., evidently sought to assemble a radiation-emitting device "that could be placed in the back of a van to covertly emit ionizing radiation strong enough to bring about radiation sickness or death against Crawford's enemies," according to a complaint put together by an FBI agent on the case. The agent's affidavit indicates that Crawford then telephoned another Jewish organization in Albany and made a similar offer. Luckily, Crawford's visit to the synagogue raised eyebrows, and an unidentified individual later contacted police. | |
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Comment: We guess that approving the usage of TSA's "naked" x-ray scanners that cause mass waves of cancer, or planning to assasinate peaceful protestors in a major American city, or taking part in manufacturing
a "terror attack" on American soil is nothing compared to the threat
one "strange man" represents. Good for you, FBI, but we surely don't buy
this BS.
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Dylan Tweney
VentureBeat 2013-07-01 15:08:00
If headphones are too bulky and ear buds make your ear canals hurt, why not surgically transform your ear itself into a speaker? That's what body hacker Rich Lee has done, by implanting rare-earth magnets in his ears, so he can listen to music or amplified sounds even when he's not wearing headphones. "The fidelity is comparable to a cheap set of earbuds at the moment," Lee told me in an email. So these aren't the high-fidelity bone induction implants you might have read about in science fiction novels (I think Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash references them). They're not connected directly to bone anyway, so he's actually using his ear's cartilage as the speaker diaphragm. "However, in experimenting I have discovered ways to improve fidelity and possibly introduce stereo (currently it is just mono)," Lee said. In addition to music, he looks forward to connecting these embedded bio-speakers to a directional microphone or a voice analysis app, so he can do surreptitious spy-like activities, like listening to conversations across the room and detecting whether you're telling lies or not. He'd also like to connect his setup to a Geiger counter, so he can get ambient readings on radioactivity, or perhaps use it as part of a digital echolocation system of some kind. It's not the kind of project you'd undertake lightly. |
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Vancouver Sun
2012-07-03 00:00:00
On Canada's 100th birthday, Chief Dan George silenced a crowd of 32,000 with his "Lament for Confederation" at Empire Stadium. George's mournful speech began with, "Today, when you celebrate your hundred years, oh Canada, I am sad for all the Indian people throughout the land." George - chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, a Coast Salish band in North Vancouver - was also an author, poet and an Academy Award nominated actor. But above all, he was an activist and an influential speaker on the rights of native peoples of North America. Some of this activism may have stemmed from the fact that, at the age of five, George was placed in a residential school where his First Nations language and culture were prohibited. His "Lament for Confederation" - a scathing indictment of the appropriation of native territory by white colonists - was his most famous speech. What follows is the complete text: |
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Ashely Davis
Opposingviews.com 2013-06-26 20:29:00
A teen with Tourette syndrome and a developmental disorder killed himself days ago after suffering from years of bullying. But death wasn't enough to escape the taunting, as just after his suicide, a mean-spirited bully took over his condolence page to leave one last haunting comment. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA HE DIED!!!!!! I HOPE HE IS IN HELLLLLLLL," the student wrote. Gregory Spring was 17 years old when he took his life. His mother Keri said he suffered six years of relentless bullying. |
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RT.com
2013-06-28 20:24:00
Seven million college students will see their student loan costs double on Monday, after a group of bipartisan lawmakers failed to agree on a plan to keep interest rates down. The Senate adjourned for the July 4 recess on Thursday, but failed to keep interest rates on Stafford loans at the current 3.4 percent rate. The federally subsidized loans are set to expire on July 1, after which the interest rate cap will rise to 6.8 percent. Congress' Joint Economic Committee estimates that the average student will be paying $2,600 more starting July 1. On a $23,000 student loan repaid over 10 years, a student would be paying about $3,000 total interest. |
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Isis Almeida
Bloomberg.com 2013-06-27 15:54:00
The global food system will remain "vulnerable" in the years to come as a growing population boosts demand for crops and climate change makes weather disruption more frequent, according to the World Bank. The world will need to produce 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed a global population expected to grow to more than 9 billion from 7 billion now, the United Nations' Rome-based Food & Agriculture Organization estimates. The three biggest annual gains in food prices in the past 20 years occurred since 2007, with the FAO's food prices index of 55 items climbing to a record in February 2011. | |
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Comment: Food insecurity is already an issue and has been for many years:
Food insecurity hits almost 15 percent of US household World Food Prices Surge to Record, Passing Levels That Sparked 2008 Riots |
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Janet O
Dairymen across the state are struggling to stay afloat, and it won't
get any better without paying dairies market value for whey.KCRA.com 2013-06-30 19:30:00 When the California Department of Food and Agriculture set a temporary price hike until the end of the year, it gave producers 12.5 cents more, but didn't solve the main issue, said Michael Marsh, the CEO of Western United Dairymen. A big discrepancy exists in what the state dairies get paid for whey compared to other states where the farmers get paid according to federal whey standards, Marsh said. For example, the price of whey under federal guidelines is $2.20, versus the state of California, which gives farmers nearly 69 cents per 100 pounds of milk. Marsh said the temporary price hike may be a small relief to farmers, but it really hurts the consumers, who, he expects, will have to pay more for products such as milk, ice cream and sour cream -- as soon as Monday. AB31 addresses the whey price structure, said Marsh, adding that he hopes legislators pass a resolution soon. Last year alone, 105 dairies closed -- most of them located in the northern San Joaquin Valley. |
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Patrick Kingsley
Seven die, hundreds are injured, as rivals organise massive rallies on anniversary of president's ruleThe Guardian 2013-06-29 13:40:00
Egypt's leading Islamic institution has warned of a possible civil war as clashes between supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi spread across the country on Saturday - exactly a year after his inauguration as the first democratically elected president. Egypt's fate feels as uncertain as at any point since the 2011 uprising, which toppled Hosni Mubarak, with repeated rumours of military intervention. At least eight people have died and more than 600 have been injured in fighting between Morsi's Islamist allies - who argue that his democratic legitimacy should be respected - and his often secular opponents, who say that he has not shown respect for the wider values on which a successful democracy depends. |
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Ezequiel Moltó
ElPais.com 2013-06-27 08:39:00
María del Carmen García already had her suitcase packed, ready to enter the Fontcalent prison in Alicante on Thursday for killing her daughter's rapist. However, at the last minute, the court accepted the appeal filed by her attorney, Joaquín Galant, which called for the suspension of her sentence while the government considers her request for a pardon. "Thank you all for your support," said García, visibly emotional after learning that, at least for now, she won't have to return to jail to serve the remaining four-and-a-half years of her murder sentence. "They have to pardon me because I'm not a killer," she told reporters. Her daughter, Verónica, was 13 when she was raped by a neighbor in 1998. The offender was sentenced to nine years in prison. In 2005, while on parole, the rapist returned to their hometown, Benejúzar, and ran into García. "How's your daughter?" he asked her. María del Carmen's response was blunt. She bought a bottle of gasoline, walked into a bar, doused the convicted rapist and set him on fire. The man died a week later from the burns he suffered. |
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The Daily Caller
A University of Virginia student spent a night and good part of the next
day in jail after seven plain-clothes agents from the state's Alcoholic
Beverage Control division ambushed her.2013-06-29 20:55:00 The student, 20-year-old Elizabeth Daly, made the mistake of walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream in a dark supermarket parking lot near the UVA campus, reports The Daily Progress. The seven agents sprung aggressively into action, suspecting that the student was carrying was a 12-pack of beer. She was actually carrying a sky-blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water. Police admit that one of the high-strung agents vaulted onto the hood of Daly's car. She contends that one of them also drew a gun. It's not clear what about Daly's appearance gave the six police officers the belief that they had probable cause to confront her en masse. Daly, along with two roommates who were in the car, did what reasonable, unarmed people usually do when violently pounced upon by seven people. They tried to get away. |
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TVNZ
2013-06-29 18:31:00
An Australian man who bought a baby boy for $US8000 ($A8659) with his partner, sexually abused the child and handed him off to other pedophiles to molest, has been sentenced to 40 years' prison in the US. Judge Sarah Evans Barker, while sentencing the 42-year-old in the US District Court in Indianapolis on Friday, said he deserved a harsher punishment but accepted the plea deal because she did not want to subject jurors to the disturbing evidence. Prosecutors discovered videos and photos of the man, his domestic partner, also an Australian, and other men in Australia, the US, Germany and France abusing the child from the age of two to six. "For more than one year and across three continents, these men submitted this young child to some of the most heinous acts of exploitation that this office has ever seen," Indiana US Attorney Joe Hogsett said after the sentencing. |
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Steve Nolan
The armed man was shot at the Neptune Fountain close to Berlin City HallThe Daily Mail, UK 2013-06-28 16:08:00 Officers had surrounded him after reports of a man acting strangely They tried to persuade him to drop the knife but he began cutting himself He was shot when he moved towards an officer who went to stop him Shocking video footage has emerged of the moment police shot dead a naked man brandishing a knife in a landmark fountain in Berlin today. The man was shot once after being surrounded by officers at the German capital's Neptune Fountain, close to the city hall. Police tried to persuade the man to put the knife away but instead he started cutting himself.
As a policeman climbed into the water to try and stop him, he moved towards the officer and was shot. The footage appears to show the man walking towards an armed police officer who is heard shouting at him. |
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Jonathan Wolfe
Opposing Views 2013-06-27 10:43:00
A California woman has filed a chilling lawsuit against her employer, the California grocery store chain Albertsons. As noted by Think Progress, the lawsuit details work events throughout her pregnancy that culminated in the premature birth and death of her baby. The woman, Reyna Garcia, was a merchandise manager for the store. Her duties on the job included unloading and stocking heavy merchandise from pallets. When she requested to be moved to a section of the store that required less heavy lifting, her request was denied. Her manager told Garcia that he "thought nothing would change" because of her pregnancy. |
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Pat Flanagan
Irish Mirror 2013-06-21 05:42:00
Grim figures show tens of billions owed by a generation of Irish people Homeowners are sitting on a debt time bomb with over 180,000 mortgages in arrears, shocking new figures have revealed. Almost one in five home loans, worth €25.5 billion, were not being fully repaid at the end of March, the Central Bank confirmed. And between January and March, bailed out banks took back the keys of more than 160 homes as the problem escalates. Comment: Same old Land War by other means. Tenant evictions have returned to Ireland, and so has the need for boycotting (ostracising) anyone involved in this malicious practice of collecting usury on behalf of the banks. The grim data revealed:
"In order for those in debt to return to contributing to the economy, we need effective, swift, fair and certain resolution to the household debt crisis." |
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Ashley Davis
Opposing Views 2013-06-26 00:00:00
Almost one hundred Internal Revenue Service workers spent nearly $500,000 on useless items, including pornography, diet pills, romance novels, popcorn machines, wine and Nerf footballs using their corporate credit card. None of the employees were disciplined. The report found 94 employees used their cards to buy personal items between 2010 and 2011. Twenty-two of those had done it more than once in six months. It has sparked criticism over the agency's internal monitoring. Two cards were used to buy online pornography, but the employees said the cards were stolen. They also found that one IRS employee spent $2,655 on diet pills, romance novels, steaks, a smartphone and baby-related items. Other questionable purchases included $3,152 to rent a popcorn machine and buy prizes for an employee event, $418 on novelty decorations for a manager's meeting, and $119 on Nerf footballs. |
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| Secret History |
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Raw Story
2013-07-01 14:39:00
The centuries-old skull of a white man found in Australia is raising questions about whether Captain James Cook really was the first European to land on the country's east coast. The skull was found in northern New South Wales in late 2011, and police initially prepared themselves for a gruesome murder investigation. But scientific testing revealed that not only was it much older than expected, but possibly belonged to a white man born around 1650, well before Englishman Cook reached the eastern seaboard on the Endeavour in 1770. "The DNA determined the skull was a male," Detective Sergeant John Williamson told The Daily Telegraph. "And the anthropologist report states the skull is that of a Caucasoid aged anywhere from 28 to 65." Australian National University expert Stewart Fallon, who carbon-dated the skull, pulling some collagen from the bone as well as the enamel on a tooth, said he was at first shocked at the age of the relic. "We didn't know how old this one was, we assumed at first that it was going to be a very young sample," he told AFP. |
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Jennifer Laaser
Journal Sentinel Online 2013-06-29 17:16:00
Aztalan State Park is deceptively bucolic. On a sunny day, it's a field of green grass on sculpted mounds of earth. The sweltering silence carries whispers of wind and the nearby Crawfish River. Occasionally, a cry of a peacock from a nearby farm pierces the air. But 1,000 years ago, Aztalan was a hub of activity, a northern outpost of the Mississippian culture that spanned what's now the American Midwest. It was likely a vibrant, thriving community, full of people and children, scented with the smoke of cooking fires, noisy with the sounds of its inhabitants going about their daily work. And while Aztalan left a physical mark on the landscape of Wisconsin, it was abandoned long enough ago that there is little to no cultural memory or oral tradition about the site among any of Wisconsin's American Indian groups. Instead, archaeologists such as University of Wisconsin-Madison's Sissel Schroeder and Michigan State University's Lynne Goldstein must look to buried clues to reconstruct a picture of the society that once flourished at Aztalan. That's why they, along with the University of Northern Iowa's Donald Gaff, spent the last five weeks leading an archaeological dig at the site. Evidence shows that Aztalan's inhabitants "seriously altered, modified and created the landscape that they needed," said Goldstein, who is now a professor at Michigan State but spent the first 21 years of her career at UW-Milwaukee. The question is, why? And what do these manipulations of the land tell us about how the land was used? Goldstein, Schroeder and Gaff's dig, which ended Saturday, focused on two areas, referred to as the palisade extension and the gravel knoll. |
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Jonathan Paige
The Independent, UK 2013-06-28 17:36:00
Hollywood is not widely thought of as providing much support to Hitler's regime, instead producing a wealth of anti-Nazi films during the Second World War, ranging from Casablanca to The Great Dictator. But now a young historian says that in the years before the war, Tinseltown was marching to a very different tune. Ben Urwand, 35 has written a book, The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact With Hitler, in which he cites documents that prove, he says, US studios acquiesced to Nazi censorship of their films actively cooperated with the regime's world propaganda effort. "Hollywood is not just collaborating with Nazi Germany," Urwand told the New York Times. "It's also collaborating with Adolf Hitler, the person and human being." Urwand, reportedly a folk musician from Australia who has become a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard, said his interest was first aroused as a student in California when he read an interview with the screenwriter Budd Schulberg referring to meetings between the MGM boss Louis Mayer and a representative of the Nazi regime to discuss cuts to his studio's films. | |
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Comment: Try reading 51 Documents by Lenni Brenner to get some idea of the extent of Zionist-Nazi collaboration.
Psychopaths, like water, always find their level... |
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RIA Novosti
2013-06-28 15:17:00
Moscow - Ever heard about the curse of the pharaohs? Well, how about the curse of a 2,500-year-old chief of a nomadic Scythian tribe that brings about floods, droughts, livestock decimation and high atmospheric pressure? Though the curse of the pharaohs has repeatedly been debunked as myth, the Scythian curse is very real, say locals in a remote area of eastern Kazakhstan where the chieftain's remains were discovered - and where they will be reinterred this weekend to appease his spirit, to the chagrin of archeologists. In 2003, an archeological expedition dug up a burial mound in the Shiliktinskaya Valley to find a Golden Man - a presumed leader of the Saka tribe, a branch of the Scythian nomads that populated Central Asia and southern Siberia in the 1st millennium BC. The pagan Saka fought the ancient Persians and Indians, and grew rich through trading across the great steppes of Central Asia. Some of their wealth ended up in the tombs of their chieftains, who were buried wearing jewelry and gold-plated armor - like the man in the Shiliktinskaya mound, the third such find in Kazakhstan since 1970. |
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Mail Online
2013-06-29 14:05:00
It's easy to spot the newborn girls from the newborn boys in any hospital nursery - the pink and blue blankets are a dead giveaway. But it wasn't until rather recently that those two colors were relegated to the sexes. Jo B. Paoletti, a historian at the University of Maryland, has studied the meaning of children's clothing for 30 years. Later this year she will release her latest study of children's clothing, a book called Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls from the Boys in America. In an interview with Smithsonian Magazine, Paoletti says: 'It's really a story of what happened to neutral clothing.' It was only in the 1940s when children's clothing began to change, and become specific to gender. Gender-neutral clothing had always been the norm with boys wearing the same crisp white dresses as girls until age 6 or 7. 'What was once a matter of practicality - you dress your baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached - became a matter of "Oh my God, if I dress my baby in the wrong thing, they'll grow perverted,"' Paoletti says. While pink and blue and other pastel colors were introduced as colors for babies in the mid-19th century, it wasn't until just before World War I that they had any gender specificity. And not until much later that they were set in stone like today. Paoletti, says that it easily could have gone the other way - with pink being for boys, and blue for girls. |
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The Guardian
2013-06-28 15:42:00
Attempt to prove West Germany knew the senior Nazi was in Argentina in the 1950s frustrated by ruling. Germany's foreign intelligence agency can keep secret some of its records on Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi known as the architect of the Holocaust, a court ruled on Thursday. The federal administrative court ruled that the intelligence agency was within its rights to black out passages from the files sought by a journalist attempting to shed light on whether West German authorities knew in the 1950s where Eichmann had fled after the second world war. Thursday's ruling followed a decision last year in which the court said the Federal Intelligence Service had to release some files it had previously kept secret. Israeli agents abducted Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960 and brought him to Jerusalem for trial. Eichmann, who helped organise the extermination of Europe's Jews as the head of the Gestapo's Jewish affairs office during the war, was found guilty of war crimes, sentenced to death and hanged in 1962. The mass-circulation Bild daily, whose reporter sued for the files' full release, has reported that West German intelligence knew as early as 1952 that he was in Argentina. |
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| Science & Technology |
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Will Knight
MIT Technology Review 2013-07-01 17:30:00
Even a good teacher may not always be able to tell, at a glance, which students are quietly struggling and which need more of a challenge. Fortunately, laptops may soon come with enough emotional intelligence built in to do the job for them. A recent study from North Carolina State University shows how this might work. Researchers there used video cameras to monitor the faces of college students participating in computer tutoring sessions. Using software that had been trained to match facial expressions with different levels of engagement or frustration, the researchers were able to recognize when students were experiencing difficulty and when they were finding the work too easy. |
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Ewen MacAskill in Rio de Janeiro and Julian Borger
The Guardian 2013-06-30 17:16:00
Exclusive: Edward Snowden papers reveal 38 targets including EU, France and Italy US intelligence services are spying on the European Union mission in New York and its embassy in Washington, according to the latest top secret US National Security Agency documents leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. One document lists 38 embassies and missions, describing them as "targets". It details an extraordinary range of spying methods used against each target, from bugs implanted in electronic communications gear to taps into cables to the collection of transmissions with specialised antennae. Along with traditional ideological adversaries and sensitive Middle Eastern countries, the list of targets includes the EU missions and the French, Italian and Greek embassies, as well as a number of other American allies, including Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey. The list in the September 2010 document does not mention the UK, Germany or other western European states. |
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Thunderbolts project / Youtube
2013-06-29 22:38:00
The astronomers studying the atmosphere of Venus are facing a new mystery. The Venusian winds have been steadily accelerating for the last 6 years. Scientists monitoring the Venus Express orbiter since 2006 noted the stunning increase in the already super fast winds, from 186 mph to 249 mph. The astronomers acknowledge they do not understand why this enormous variation in wind speed occurred. What is it about the Venusian atmosphere that mainstream astronomers find so puzzling? |
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Phenomenica
Scientists have discovered a new language in northern Australia which
contains rare grammatical innovations and a unique combination of
elements from other languages.2013-06-20 07:14:00 The language, now known as Light Warlpiri, is spoken by approximately 300 people in a remote desert community about 644 kilometres from Katherine, a town located in Australia's Northern Territory, said Carmel O'Shannessy, a professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Light Warlpiri is known as a "mixed language," because it blends elements from multiple languages: Traditional Warlpiri, which is spoken by about 6,000 people in indigenous communities scattered throughout the Tanami Desert in the Northern Territory; Kriol, an English-based Creole language spoken in various regions of Australia; and English. |
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| Earth Changes |
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WGGB.com
A strong line of thunderstorms has caused serious damage in some cities
and towns in Western Massachusetts. One of our crews is on Hunt Street
in Agawam, where trees and limbs have come down, with one tree falling on top of a pickup truck.
The torrential, tropical rain also caused large puddles and some street
flooding on Canal Street in Holyoke, Liberty Street in Springfield, and
at the intersection of Grattan Street and Memorial Drive in Chicopee,
along with several other roadways in the area.2013-07-01 16:11:00
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Becky Oskin
LiveScience 2013-07-01 15:20:00
The biggest earthquakes also move mountains. The massive earthquakes that struck Japan and Chile in 2011 and 2010, respectively, sank several big volcanoes by up to 6 inches (15 centimeters), two new studies report. This is the first time scientists have seen a string of volcanoes drop after an earthquake. Even though the mountains are on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean, their descents look remarkably similar. The two teams have different explanations for why the volcanoes sank, according to the studies, published today (June 30) in the journal Nature Geoscience. However, both groups agree it's likely scientists will discover more examples of drooping volcanoes after big earthquakes, and find a single mechanism that controls the process. "It's amazing, the parallels between them," said Matthew Pritchard, a geophysicist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and lead author of one of the studies. "I think it makes a really strong case that this is a ubiquitous process." |
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strangesounds.org
2013-07-01 12:35:00
Here is a compilation of Waterspouts' videos that happened around the world (USA: Arkansas and Florida, Croatia, Bahamas, Honduras) in May 2013. Waterspout at Lake Ouchita in Arkansas - May 30 2013
A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water, connected to a cumuliform cloud.
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Comment: ...and then there were three or four off Nice in the South of France in early June, and another one recently in Louisiana.
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Arjun
Collective-evolution.com 2013-07-01 00:00:00
Shortly after 50,000 bees were found dead in an Oregon parking lot (read more here), a staggering 37 million bees have been found dead in Elmwood, Ontario, Canada. Dave Schuit, who runs a honey operation in Elmwood has lost 600 hives. He is pointing the finger at the insecticides known as neonicotinoids, which are manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. This also comes after a recent report released by the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) that recorded its largest loss of honeybees ever. You can read more about that here. The European Union has stepped forward, having banned multiple pesticides that have been linked to killing millions of bees. You can view the studies and read more about that here. |
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strangesounds.org
2013-06-20 12:22:00
Here is the video of the Grand isle waterspout! The eyewitness video shows the biggest waterspout many Grand Isle neighbors have ever seen, which stroke off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in Grand Isle, Louisiana, yesterday, June 19 2013. Here is the amazing video of this water twister captured by someone that lives in Grand Isle.
You can get a good idea of what is a waterspout and how they form here. For some reason these waterspouts form quite a bit in the Grand Isle/Port Fourchon area. |
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strangesounds.org
It was just a matter of time! After 3 following days at 35°C, violent thunderstorms hit all over Switzerland.2013-06-20 07:49:00
Storms sometimes accompanied by hailstones the size of ping pong balls or even as big as eggs in Zurich on June 18 2013. Yes you are not dreaming: some were even as big as eggs!
The first thunderstorms started in Graubünden and spread over the Rhine Valley to Zurich, Winterthur and Eglisau, where it was the strongest.
Hail was accompanied by stormy gusts of wind of up to 96 kmh. |
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Kate Dowler
Thousands of sheep have died across the Western District in recent weeks from phalaris poisoning.weeklytimesnow.com.au 2013-06-26 06:18:00
Vets have dubbed the condition "phalaris sudden death" but the causes are not yet fully understood and are different from the more commonly-known phalaris staggers. Part of the reason is believed to be a build-up of toxins in the plant over a long period of dry conditions in the lead-up to the autumn break. Livestock Logic vet David Rendell, who is based in Hamilton, estimated "thousands" of sheep would have been lost due to the phalaris sudden death outbreak in recent weeks. "We need to get more data on this so we can understand the factors influencing it," he said. Producers who have introduced sheep on to phalaris after the break are being urged to complete a survey at www.livestocklogic.com.au |
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FoxNews.com
2013-06-30 22:58:00
Yarnell - Local fire officials have confirmed that at least 18 firefighters have died while battling the Yarnell Hill Fire in central Arizona. The Prescott Fire Department confirmed to MyFoxPhoenix that the firefighters,all part of a group called the Prescott Granite Mountain Hotshots, had passed away Sunday evening. The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office has notified residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell to evacuate. Roxie Glover, spokeswoman at Wickenburg Community Hospital, told The Associated Press that the hospital has been told to expect residents with injuries and firefighters. Earlier Sunday, the fast-moving fire prompted the evacuation of at least 50 homes in the Buckhorn, Model Creek and Double A Bar Ranch areas about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix. | |
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Comment: What a horrible tragedy, the single worst such incident in the U.S. since 1933:
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Indian County Today Media Network
2013-06-28 21:54:00
Flooding fueled by heavy rains has driven hundreds of residents of east-central New York State from their homes in several counties, including Oneida, Chenango, Madison and Herkimer. Many downtown Oneida streets were inundated on Friday June 28 after the levy along Oneida Creek overflowed, the Oneida Dispatch reported. The water was expected to crest in the early afternoon, said Dave Nicosia of the National Weather Service, speaking to the Dispatch. Oneida creek was at "record levels," he said, up at 16.7 feet, which surpassed the previous record of 15.6 in September 2011. The Oneida Animal Hospital had to be evacuated as well, and numerous residents were moved to a shelter set up by the Red Cross at the city's armory. In addition severe rainstorms and flooding led the town of Kirkland to declare a state of emergency, the Dispatch reported. The National Weather Service also warned resident in vulnerable areas along streams and creeks to expect flooding and poor drainage conditions, according to Syracuse.com. "I haven't seen it this bad since the 1950s," said 71-year-old Joe Salerno to the Dispatch as he watched Oneida Creek overtake his back yard and flow into the cellar of his childhood home, where his son now lives. |
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USA Today
2013-06-30 21:56:00
A one square-mile wildfire burning in a central Arizona community has led to the evacuation of at least 50 homes that are threatened by the blaze. Yaenell - A fast-moving wildfire burning in a central Arizona community has led the evacuation of at least 50 homes that are threatened by the blaze, and by Sunday afternoon, authorities had asked even more residents to leave. The wildfire also forced the closure of about 15 miles of state Route 89, the Arizona Department of Transportation announced. The department did not have an estimate of how long the closure would last but advised drivers to use U.S. 93 or Interstate 17 as alternate routes. Fire information officer Mike Reichling said earlier Sunday that no homes had been lost in the fire northwest of the Yavapai County community of Yarnell. Early estimates put the number of evacuated homes at 120, but the number was downgraded by officials closer to the fire. Reichling says the blaze was within a mile of some homes but was burning away from them. The Yarnell Hill Fire prompted evacuations in the Model Creek, Buckhorn and Double A Bar Ranch areas about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix. The blaze also was within 200 yards of the Model Creek School. Crews cleared brush and did other work around the evacuated homes to help guard against the fire. |
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Ryan Robinson
Lancaster Online 2013-06-26 12:43:00
A large sinkhole opened up near Route 23 in West Hempfield Township on Tuesday - and it might be fixed very soon. The sinkhole is 20 to 25 feet deep and ranges from 8 to 10 feet wide at the surface to 30 to 40 feet wide underground, township police Sgt. Russell Geier said. The hole is in a retention-pond area about 50 feet north of Route 23, near Corporate Boulevard. Dale Getz has worked as the township's director of public works for five years, and in municipal government for about 20 years. The sinkhole is the largest of the five or six he has seen during that time, but curious residents should keep their distance, he said. "It wouldn't be advisable to get near it, because there's no stable ground underneath," he said. |
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DailyMail.co.uk
2013-06-30 12:01:00
What's that in the sky? What appeared to be an unusual and unexpected storm turned out to be a cloud of dirt, dust, pollen, bugs and even birds. National Weather Service forecasters in Dallas-Forth Worth Texas picked up the strange phenomenon on their radar on Friday while the weather remained hot and dry, reaching record highs of 105 and 106 degrees in the Austin area to the south. 'It looked like it was raining,' Jennifer Dunn, a meteorologist for the weather service office that covers the Dallas-Fort Worth region, told the Austin American-Statesman. 'We thought something was wrong with the radar, but we checked our instruments and measurements. Everything was working fine.' Dunn and her colleagues said their best guess was that the anomaly was a giant swarm of bugs. But a meteorologist for the weather service office in New Braunfels, which includes Austin, told the Statesman that insects likely made up less than 1 per cent of the unusual matter in the air over the Dallas-Fort Worth area |
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engrinews.kz
2013-06-27 09:00:00
Mass mortality of seagulls has been registered at Shalyga island in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, Interfax-Kazakhstan reports. 1,200 dead birds were discovered at the island in the end of last week, a special ecological prosecutor of Atyrau oblast Kairat Uteuliyev told Interfax-Kazakhstan on June 26. According to him, several dead birds were transferred for tests to the oblast branch of the state veterinary laboratory of the Veterinary Control Commission of Kazakhstan Agriculture Ministry. "We will get the test results very soon and only then we will be able to talk about causes of the mass mortality of these birds. After that the respective authority will react to the incident and evaluation activities of the state environmental protection authorities that are responsible for controlling the fauna," Uteuliyev said. |
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BT.no
2013-06-29 09:06:00
Snow fell on highway 7 over Hardangervidda on Saturday, but the snow plow came too late for this British couple. - They had not driven more than 400 meters before they ended up in the ditch, says Kari Varberg (50), who owns and operates Dyranut Fjellstov She sat at the breakfast table when it started snowing on Saturday morning. Shortly after, she was called upon to take care of the two British campers who ended up in the ditch. - They had woken up and seen that it was snowing, so they wanted to get out quickly on the fells, she says. |
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Space Daily
2013-06-26 00:00:00
A huge fragment of meteorite that slammed into Russia's Urals region in February was located on the bottom of Chebarkul Lake in the Chelyabinsk Region, a scientist said on Friday. On February 15, a meteorite landed with a massive boom that blew out windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, injuring 1,200 people in the area. The meteorite broke into approximately seven large fragments and one of them is believed to have fallen into Chebarkul Lake, forming a hole in the ice about eight meters in diameter. In late March, a radar probe of the bottom of the lake has revealed a crater possibly created by a fragment of a meteorite. Viktor Grokhovsky, a senior researcher with the Urals Federal University was among scientists who measured the magnetic field in the area where a meteorite chunk has presumably fallen. He said that the measurements indicated that an object, most likely a meteorite fragment about 60 centimeters (about two feet) in diameter and weighting approximately 300 kilograms (over 661 lbs), is lying on the bottom of the Chebarkul Lake. He added that an eyewitness caught on camera how the meteorite exploded above the lake and apparently crashed through the ice, sending a massive jet of water into the air. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Jason Graziadei
The Inquirer and Mirror 2013-06-20 14:17:00
A powerful noise believed to be a sonic boom from a passing aircraft swept over Nantucket Wednesday night, shaking houses and rattling the nerves of island residents in mid-island neighborhoods and areas of the south shore. The incident was reported around 9:45 p.m. Wednesday night by many island residents who took to social-media sites to describe the loud noise that shook their homes and ask if others had experienced the same thing. While the suspected culprit is a military aircraft that broke the sound barrier over the island, there was no definitive confirmation of the specific source of the noise. Nantucket Memorial Airport tower manager Patrick Topham stated in a message "we have no confirmation as to what caused it at this point. We have to assume that it was a sonic boom caused by a military aircraft." Nantucket police lieutenant Jerry Adams stated the source of the noise was a "sonic jet." A similar incident occurred several months ago on the evening of Wednesday, March 21, when Nantucket residents reported a loud noise that shook houses. | |
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Comment: A sonic boom from a military jet does not cause houses to shake...
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| Health & Wellness |
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Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com 2013-06-30 00:00:00
Cancer is now so common it affects about one of two of us and most will face it at some point in their lives, either personally or through a friend or relative. Compelling research indicates that the answer to our burgeoning cancer epidemic could be far closer than previously imagined, in the form of a ketogenic diet. Personally, I believe this is an absolutely crucial facet of cancer prevention and treatment, for whatever type of cancer you're trying to address, and hopefully, some day it will be adopted as a first line of treatment by mainstream medicine. A ketogenic diet calls for eliminating all but non-starchy vegetable carbohydrates, and replacing them with high amounts of healthy fats and low to moderate amounts of high-quality protein. The premise is that since cancer cells need glucose to thrive, and carbohydrates turn into glucose in your body, then lowering the glucose level in your blood through carb and protein restriction literally starves the cancer cells to death. Additionally, low protein intake tends to minimize the mTOR pathway that accelerates cell proliferation and lowers the amount of one particular amino acid, glutamine, which is also known to drive certain cancers. This type of diet is what I recommend for everyone, whether you have cancer or not, because it will help you convert from carb burning mode to fat burning, which will help you optimize your weight and prevent virtually all chronic degenerative disease. | |
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Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo 2013-06-29 16:30:00
A new animal study published in the journal PLoS sheds light on a possible mechanism behind the weight- and diabetes-promoting properties of wheat observed in humans, and perhaps offers some vindication for Dr. William Davis' New York Times best-selling but heavily criticized book Wheat Belly, wherein the argument is made that wheat is a major contributing factor to the epidemic of obesity and diabetes presently afflicting wealthier, gluten-grain consuming nations. In the new study, researchers from The Bartholin Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, explored the role that gliadin, a difficult to digest class of proteins within wheat, plays in promoting weight gain and insulin secretion in both animal and cell models, finding that gliadin-treated mice gained 20% more weight (by day 100) than gliadin-free controls, and that gliadin fragments induce insulin secretion in pancreatic beta cells, the cells responsible for producing insulin, and which in type 1 diabetes are destroyed or rendered dysfunctional. Gliadin does not break down easily in the body because they are extremely hydrophobic ("water fearing"), and contain disulfide bonds (the same kind found in human hair and vulcanized rubber);[1] as a result, undigested wheat gliadin fragments can enter through the intestinal wall, gaining systemic access to the human body. This can result in inflammatory and autoimmune conditions, among many other possible negative health effects (note: we have documented over 200 adverse health effects associated with wheat exposure). |
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Laurie Garrett, Maxine Builder
Foreign Policy 2013-06-28 23:28:00
A scary virus is sweeping Saudi Arabia. Six million religious pilgrims are about to descend on the country from across the world. The result could be disastrous. When the Black Death exploded in Arabia in the 14th century, killing an estimated third of the population, it spread across the Islamic world via infected religious pilgrims. Today, the Middle East is threatened with a new plague, one eponymously if not ominously named the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV, or MERS for short). This novel coronavirus was discovered in Jordan in March 2012, and as of June 26, there have been 77 laboratory-confirmed infections, 62 of which have been in Saudi Arabia; 34 of these Saudi patients have died. Although the numbers -- so far -- are small, the disease is raising anxiety throughout the region. But officials in Saudi Arabia are particularly concerned. This fall, millions of devout Muslims will descend upon Mecca, Medina, and Saudi Arabia's holy sites in one of the largest annual migrations in human history. In 2012, approximately 6 million pilgrims came through Saudi Arabia to perform the rituals associated with umrah, and this number is predicted to rise in 2013. Umrah literally means "to visit a populated place," and it's the very proximity that has health officials so worried. In Mecca alone, millions of pilgrims will fulfill the religious obligation of circling the Kaaba. And having a large group of people together in a single, fairly confined space threatens to turn the holiest site in Islam into a massive petri dish. The disease is still mysterious. Little is understood about how it is transmitted and even less regarding its origins. But we do know that MERS is deadly, with a mortality rate of about 55 percent -- a remarkably higher lethality than that posed by its close cousin, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus, which in 2003 terrified travelers across the globe but posed a fatality rate of only 9.6 percent. The MERS coronavirus is new to our species, so mild and asymptomatic infections seem to be rare, but the human immune response to infection is itself so extreme that it can prove deadly in some cases. |
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Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism 2013-06-29 15:29:00
The UK wants to be the first nation to have a "three-parent" in vitro fertilization (IVF) process approved to create babies without genetic disorders. The UK National Health Services (NHS) announced the 3-parent IVF with a draft of new regulations to be approved by the British Parliament. Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer for the NHS said : "Mitochondrial disease, including heart disease, liver disease, loss of muscle co-ordination and other serious conditions like muscular dystrophy, can have a devastating impact on the people who inherit it. Scientists have developed groundbreaking new procedures that could stop these diseases being passed on, bringing hope to many families seeking to prevent their future children inheriting them. It's only right that we look to introduce this lifesaving treatment as soon as we can." This new genetic manipulative process will develop from DNA of 3 participants to specifically target and prevent mitochondrial diseases. This genetic process involves transferring genetic material from the nucleus of an egg or embryo from one that is diseased to one that is healthy. This will prevent the inheritance of negative mitochondria. |
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Forrest Pritchard
Huffingtonpost.com 2013-06-24 17:11:00
A professional farmer redefines the term 'Value Meal' In 1996, I returned from college to my family's farm and found it in complete shambles. My parents had given up on ever making a profit from farming, and had taken jobs in the city to make ends meet. Our crops of corn and cattle barely covered our production costs, and the land didn't generate enough profit for us to even buy our own food. Our family farm, just like thousands of others across the country, was undeniably broken. Now, nearly 20 years later, we've turned our farm around. We raise grass-finished beef, and sell it directly to customers at farmers' markets. Because I sell my food directly to the public, I'm constantly asked: "Why is organic food so expensive?" This is an understandable question, especially because 'conventional' beef at the grocery stores is so much cheaper by comparison. But in order to understand why one type of beef is more 'expensive,' we should first examine why the other meat is so 'cheap.' | |
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Comment: For more on natural grass grazing and the
errors, toxicity and environmental destruction of modern agriculture
particularly, see Lierre Keith discuss 'The Vegetarian Myth - Food, Justice and Sustainability'.
Also readers can glimpse food and its effects from Nora Gedgaudas, in a talk titled 'Primal mind: A talk on nutrition and mental health' |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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HeartMD Institute
2012-12-21 06:39:00
Our bodies aren't shy about telling us that we are stressed out! Muscle tension, backaches, stomach upset, headaches, burnout and other illness states are ways in which the body signals to us the need to relax. Rather than run for that anti-anxiety medication, we can utilize our easiest, natural defense against stress: our breathing. The way we breathe can affect our emotions and mental states as well as determine how we physically respond to stress. Fight or Flight Response vs. Relaxation Response The general physiological response to stress is called the stress response or "fight or flight" response. When we experience stress, hormones activated by the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system flood our bloodstream to signal a state of readiness against potential threats to our well being. While these hormones serve to help us act quickly and with great strength during emergency situations, they exemplify the concept that there can be "too much of a good thing." Chronic stress results in excess release of stress hormones, which can cause immune-system malfunction, gastrointestinal issues, and blood vessel deterioration, among other health complications. Over time, such symptoms can evolve into degenerative diseases like diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. | |
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Comment: There is one proven technique that can assist
you with reducing your stress, calming and focusing your mind, creating
better links between body and mind and thus improving quality of life,
increasing sense of connection with others in your community. It will
help you to have improved overall health, a stronger immune system,
better impulse control, reduced inflammation, etc. It will also help you
to heal emotional wounds; anything that may hinder or prevent you from
leading a healthy and fulfilling life.
To learn more about Vagus Nerve Stimulation, through breathing exercises, and naturally producing the stress reducing and mood enhancing hormone Oxytocin in the brain, visit the Éiriú Eolas Stress Control, Healing and Rejuvenation Program here. |
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Jessica Mikulski
Anyone who's ever heard a Beethoven sonata or a Beatles song knows how
powerfully sound can affect our emotions. But it can work the other way
as well - our emotions can actually affect how we hear and process
sound. When certain types of sounds become associated in our brains with
strong emotions, hearing similar sounds can evoke those same feelings,
even far removed from their original context. It's a phenomenon commonly
seen in combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), in whom harrowing memories of the battlefield can be triggered
by something as common as the sound of thunder. But the brain mechanisms
responsible for creating those troubling associations remain unknown.
Now, a pair of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the
University of Pennsylvania has discovered how fear can actually increase
or decrease the ability to discriminate among sounds depending on
context, providing new insight into the distorted perceptions of victims
of PTSD. Their study is published in Nature Neuroscience.University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine 2013-06-30 13:03:00 "Emotions are closely linked to perception and very often our emotional response really helps us deal with reality," says senior study author Maria N. Geffen, PhD, assistant professor of Otorhinolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery and Neuroscience at Penn. "For example, a fear response helps you escape potentially dangerous situations and react quickly. But there are also situations where things can go wrong in the way the fear response develops. That's what happens in anxiety and also in PTSD -- the emotional response to the events is generalized to the point where the fear response starts getting developed to a very broad range of stimuli." |
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William R. Klemm, D.V.M, Ph.D.
Psychology Today 2013-03-14 09:52:00
Cursive writing makes kids smarter Ever try to read your physician's prescriptions? Children increasingly print their writing because they don't know cursive or theirs is unreadable. I have a middle-school grandson who has trouble reading his own cursive. Grandparents may find that their grandchildren can't read the notes they send. Our new U.S. Secretary of the Treasury can't (or won't) write his own name on the new money being printed. When we adults went to school, one of the first things we learned was how to write the alphabet, in caps and lower case, and then to hand-write words, sentences, paragraphs, and essays. Some of us were lucky enough to have penmanship class where we learned how to make our writing pretty and readable. Today, keyboarding is in, the Common Core Standards no longer require elementary students to learn cursive, and some schools are dropping the teaching of cursive, dismissing it as an "ancient skill."[1] The primary schools that teach handwriting spend only just over an hour a week, according to Zaner-Bloser Inc., one of the nation's largest handwriting-curriculum publishers. Cursive is not generally taught after the third grade (my penmanship class was in the 7th grade; maybe its just coincidence, but the 7th grade was when I was magically transformed from a poor student into an exceptional student). |
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RedOrbit
2013-06-29 22:49:00
While the general perception of people who are impulsive in nature is that they are self-centered, new research appearing in the journal Psychological Science suggests that the reality is actually quite different. In fact, the study authors report that when impetuous individuals are faced with a decision that involves either giving up their own time and energy to help a loved one or worrying more about themselves, they are more likely to sacrifice for others, according to The Telegraph. "For decades psychologists have assumed that the first impulse is selfish and that it takes self-control to behave in a pro-social manner," explained lead researcher Dr. Francesca Righetti of Amsterdam's VU University. "We did not believe that this was true in every context, and especially not in close relationships." To test their theory, Dr. Righetti and her colleagues conducted a study in which they told couples that they would have to approach twelve strangers and ask them embarrassing questions. They did not have to follow through with the task, but were not informed of that in advance. |
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Erin White
The minds of murderers who kill impulsively, often out of rage, and
those who carefully carry out premeditated crimes differ markedly both
psychologically and intellectually, according to a new study by
Northwestern Medicine® researcher Robert Hanlon.Northwestern University 2013-06-27 06:28:00 "Impulsive murderers were much more mentally impaired, particularly cognitively impaired, in terms of both their intelligence and other cognitive functions," said Hanlon, senior author of the study and associate professor of clinical psychiatry and clinical neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "The predatory and premeditated murderers did not typically show any major intellectual or cognitive impairments, but many more of them have psychiatric disorders," he said. |
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Stamatios Nicolis
A new study from researchers at Uppsala University and University of
Havana uses mathematic modeling and experiments on ants to show that a
group is capable of developing flexible resource management strategies
and characteristic responses of its own. The results are now published
in Physical Review Letters.Uppsala University 2013-06-28 06:18:00 Group-living animals are led to regulate their activity and to make decisions on how to manage resources, under the action of a variety of environmental stimuli and of their intrinsic interactions. The latter are typically cooperative, in the sense that the activity of a single animal increases nonlinearly with the number of already active ones. The researchers monitored experimentally and using mathematical modeling the activity profile of food-searching ants in a natural environment. The number of ants entering in or exiting the nest was recorded as well as the local temperature over several days. The study shows that the group is capable of developing flexible resource management strategies and characteristic responses of its own. This is achieved by operating in an aperiodic fashion close to a regime of chaos, where nonlinearity is especially pronounced and offers the group more options than just following passively the day/night temperature cycle. |
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Lisa M.P. Munoz
Divorce has a bigger impact on child-parent relationships if it occurs
in the first few years of the child's life, according to new research.
Those who experience parental divorce early in their childhood tend to
have more insecure relationships with their parents as adults than those
who experience divorce later, researchers say.Society for Personality and Social Psychology 2013-06-28 05:45:00 "By studying variation in parental divorce, we are hoping to learn more about how early experiences predict the quality of people's close relationships later in life," says R. Chris Fraley of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Psychologists are especially interested in childhood experiences, as their impact can extend into adulthood, but studying such early experiences is challenging, as people's memories of particular events vary widely. Parental divorce is a good event to study, he says, as people can accurately report if and when their parents divorced, even if they do not have perfect recollection of the details. In two studies published today in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Fraley and graduate student Marie Heffernan examined the timing and effects of divorce on both parental and romantic relationships, as well as differences in how divorce affects relationships with mothers versus fathers. In the first study, they analyzed data from 7,735 people who participated in a survey about personality and close relationships through yourpersonality.net. More than one-third of the survey participants' parents divorced and the average age of divorce was about 9 years old. The researchers found that individuals from divorced families were less likely to view their current relationships with their parents as secure. And people who experienced parental divorce between birth and 3 to 5 years of age were more insecure in their current relationships with their parents compared to those whose parents divorced later in childhood. |
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| High Strangeness |
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strangesounds.org
What is this smoke circle above the lake of Zurich? A Big Pothead? A new
type of UFO? A heat phenomenon? Someone smoking a large joint? American
Indians making smoke signals? A mirage? A volcanic eruption (but no
volcanoes around)?2013-06-19 15:43:00 Although this event remains a mystery even for scientists, lots of people were amazed in front of this odd sky phenomenon. What do you think? Have you ever seen such a smoke signal before? Do you have any idea what it could be? Then write us back !
At the beginning the bizarre small cloud ring had a diameter of about 10 meters. After a few miles of travel it was around 50 meters wide. During its trip, it always kept its spherical shape. The ring continued to rise in the air and got lighter and lighter until it finally completely dissolved. Then, the nightmare was over. |
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Jeffery Pritchett
Missing 411 is a book by Examiner 2012-03-05 13:17:00
David Paulides that need not be over looked or ever forgotten. The book is about missing people in North America and Canada that have been unsolved and unexplained. The book goes into each individual case and describes the scenario and facts of what happened. Some people vanish and then are found later with strange facts surrounding the circumstances. Others are never found and the book highlights on the events in honor of these missing people, alot who are taken from National Parks. The National Parks cover it up and do not maintain lists of these missing people or let it be known to the public. When David Paulides and company tried to get them to compile a list they wanted over a million dollars to do so. The book tries not to offer reasons or how these people vanished but evidence putting together a peculiar puzzle of how it happened. No one knows what happened to these people. Some would speculate common facts like kidnappers etc., but as you read more and more into the book you begin to wonder if it's something supernatural or even weird. But David never goes into this on his radio appearances or in the book in honor of the families who are having to go through these tragedies. Because this is about the missing people and to turn into a circus side show of speculation of strange stories would be a dishonor to the people missing and the emotions of their loved ones and families. After speaking to David myself on the phone and asking him what he thinked happened. He explained this to me and I found it honorable that he would not divulge that information publically in respect of those going through the ordeals of losing loved ones in such peculiar unexplained ways. |
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BBC News
2013-06-20 07:26:00
The Ministry of Defence closed its UFO desk because it served "no defence purpose" and was taking staff away from "more valuable defence-related activities", newly released files show. The desk was closed in December 2009 despite a surge in reported sightings. The disclosure came in National Archives files relating to reports of UFOs - Unidentified Flying Objects - between 2007 and November 2009. They show UFOs were reported at several UK landmarks, including Stonehenge. 'No benefit' The latest tranche of declassified files covers the final two years of work carried out by the MoD's UFO desk. The 25 files include reports alleging contact with aliens and UFO sightings near UK landmarks, and detail the decision to close the MoD's dedicated desk and "hotline". |
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Valerie Hauch
thestar.com 2013-06-28 00:00:00
Transport Canada says poop-like stuff that splashed down on a Mississauga yard wasn't from a plane; others are unconvinced. Mystery still clouds the origins of a brownish, smelly material that has fallen from the sky and fouled a backyard at one Mississauga property, dirtied cars at another and splattered on a Toronto highway and bus. Emma Gilfillan-Giannakos reported hearing a loud splash in her family's backyard on June 19, and then saw a lot of brownish, smelly matter covering the pool solar blanket, patio, garden and even bits floating in the pool. Although she and her husband both believe this was human waste that fell from a plane, Transport Canada has concluded otherwise. "After careful review, Transport Canada has concluded that the debris that fell on the Mississauga residence did not fall from an aircraft. The investigation is now closed,'' was the emailed response to the Toronto Star on Thursday, following a request for an update on the investigation. But Gilfillan-Giannakos said the federal agency, which investigates all reports of items purported to fall from planes, failed to first tell her the investigation had been closed. Transport Canada had told her in an email on June 24 that no aircraft had flown directly over her house at the time of the splatter, but eight aircraft did fly within 1.6 kilometres of her home during the period in question. The agency planned to contact the owners of those aircraft, and she was told in the email: "Each is expected to verify that the aircraft lavatory system is leak free, and to report the results of this verification along with any discrepancies to us.'' Transport Canada was supposed to get in touch with her once that process was finished and give her the results. | |
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Comment: The working assumption here is that it's fecal
matter. But the sheer number of incidents in the area, and over an
extended period, strongly suggests that there is some high strangeness
afoot!
Manure falls from sky -- for second time It's Raining Fish And Frogs: Mysterious falls from the sky |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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