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Paul Williams
Irish Independent 2013-06-29 12:46:00
Tapes of David Drumm, just days before he lost his job as Anglo Irish Bank CEO, reveal the frenetic atmosphere in the bank. For the first time, Anglo's own executives speak about how the Brian Cowen-led government ignored the advice of international bankers Merrill Lynch to shut down Anglo, in recordings exclusively revealed today in the Irish Independent. The bankers even tell how their own institution is described as a "basket case" by the firm, which were the government's external advisers. "They're knifing us," Drumm tells colleague John Bowe, before telling him how he had prepared a plan to burn bondholders. Mr Drumm reveals a conversation he's apparently had with former Fine Gael leader and ex-finance minister Alan Dukes - the government-appointed member of the board of the bank, where the former politician allegedly reported that the Government had decided to keep the bank going. Mr Dukes was appointed as public-interest director at Anglo days beforehand.
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Real News
Bill Black is interviewed by Real News on the 'Anglo Tapes', which reveal how Anglo Irish Bank executives laughed as they manipulated the Irish Government into a 16 billion dollar bailout in 2008 that they knew neither the government nor the people would ever be able to repay...2013-07-12 12:23:00
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Julia La Roche
Business Insider 2013-06-28 10:37:00
Once again, we have more embarrassing conversations between bankers... The Irish Independent, a Dublin-based newspaper, has uncovered tapes of an internal phone conversation from September 2008 between two executives at Anglo Irish Bank during its bailout deal and they sound pretty scandalous. The Irish Independent points out that the recordings show they misled the Central Bank. The executives from the recording have been identified as John Bowe (head of the bank's capital markets) and Peter Fitzgerald (director of retail banking). However, Bowe "categorically denied" that he misled the Central Bank and Fitzgerald, who wasn't involved in discussions with regulators, said he was unaware of any intention to mislead, the report said. Either way, the newly revealed recordings are still embarrassing. | |
Comment: Note that the Irish Independent is no angel in this: part and parcel of the Irish political establishment, this mainstream media outlet sat on the tapes for the longest time...
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MarkDice
Media analyst, political activist, and author Mark Dice asks California beach goers if they'll sign a petition showing support for Obama in his quest to repeal the Bill of Rights.Youtube 2013-07-12 07:41:00
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Comment: Far from showing people willingly signing over their freedom, what this video demonstrates is that appealing to people's sense of freedom through the constitution and the Bill of Rights is a complete waste of time. People either don't know or don't care what these documents and ideals are.
Now, how many of these people would have signed if they were asked to support reducing the real value of wages and increasing home foreclosures in order to increase the elite's wealth? None. People are concerned with practical measures of freedom, not 'high-falutin' ideals. ' Will me and my family have enough to eat today?' 'Have I done enough to ensure we have a roof over our heads for the foreseeable future?' Only at the point where enough SEE this happening because they can viscerally FEEL this happening to them and the people immediately around them in their social networks are they motivated to DO anything about it. Then, and only then, when they're educating themselves in open fora like we saw at Occupy Wall Street and Tahrir Square, can there be any meaningful discussion about 'bills of rights'. | |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Masters in Accounting Degrees
2013-07-12 14:30:00 |
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Washington Blog
2013-06-07 14:11:00 Government Built Spy-Access Into Most Popular Consumer Program Before 9/11
In researching the stunning pervasiveness of spying by the government (it's much more wide spread than you've heard even now), we ran across the fact that the FBI wants software programmers to install a backdoor in all software. Digging a little further, we found a 1999 article by leading European computer publication Heise which noted that the NSA had already built a backdoor into all Windows software: | |
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Miriam Elder
The Guardian 2013-07-12 13:26:00
NSA whistleblower says he will stay in Russia until he can get safe passage to Latin America at meeting with activists The US whistleblower Edward Snowden said he has renewed his request to seek political asylum in Russia on Friday, in a meeting with human rights activists at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport that marked his first appearance since he fled Hong Kong. Snowden said he intended to stay in Russia until he could win safe passage to Latin America, according to Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch, who was at the meeting. In a statement to the meeting, released through Wikileaks, Snowden said he had no regrets over what he had done. Snowden has been trapped in a Moscow airport since arriving from Hong Kong on 23 June. He has made nearly two dozen requests for political asylum, most of which have been refused. | |
Comment: So Snowden wants asylum from Russia... while going against Putin's terms and continuing to release top-secret documents?...
Stop the presses! More top secret documents (leaked by Snowden?) show that Microsoft and the NSA conspired against the masses! Some more on this story from RT:
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Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, Laura Poitras, Spencer Ackerman & Dominic Rushe
The Guardian 2013-07-12 13:31:00
Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month. The documents show that:
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Comment: "Top-secret documents"; what a quaint term!
Who exactly is supposed to be leaking these "top-secret documents" to the Guardian? Snowden has been living in Moscow airport for the past 19 days! We're to believe that he can send them from there to Greenwald and Poitras with zero intervention from the NSA or anyone else?? | |
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Sott.net
Clare Daly asks Irish Finance Minister Joan Burton what action the government proposes to take in regard to the Anglo-Irish Bank bailout, especially in light of the recent release of the 'Anglo Tapes'.2013-07-12 13:10:00 The Irish Independent newspaper, which leaked these recorded phone conversations between Anglo-Irish bankers at the outset of the financial crisis in Ireland in 2008, sat on these tapes for some time (how long is unknown, but you can see in the first minute ofthis video that they're pretty defensive about it), and the Irish government has asked them to curtail the release of further recordings because of its "concern about the potential consequences of the emergence of certain other information into the public domain."
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Patrick Kingsley & Ian Black
The Guardian 2013-07-12 10:24:00
Obama administration agrees to go ahead with F-16 delivery to Egyptian army despite deepening unrest within the country US officials have agreed to donate four fighter jets to Egypt's army, in the latest indication of international support for the country's interim government despite growing internal unease at the new regime's management of the power transition. America's donation of the F-16s suggests the Obama administration is coming to terms with the downfall of the former president Mohamed Morsi, after initially displaying an ambiguous attitude to the military's role in the Islamist's ouster. The US gives annual aid worth $1.3bn (£860m) to the Egyptian army. There were concerns in Egypt that this support might be discontinued in the aftermath of Morsi's departure. The aircraft donation follows a telephone conversation between the European Union's foreign affairs representative, Lady Catherine Ashton, and Egypt's new interim president, Adly Mansour. It follows the issuing of $12bn in grants and loans from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, all conservative Gulf states known for their opposition to Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood. | |
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NY Daily News
2013-07-06 09:51:00
The president of Bolivia has called the rerouting of his flight home from a Moscow summit on the suspicion Snowden was aboard an intimidation tactic against him by the U.S. and European nations. NSA leaker Edward Snowden has yet another place to go, if only he can get there. Bolivian President Evo Morales says Snowden is welcome in his country. He said Saturday he is making the offer as a protest against the U.S. and European nations he accuses of temporarily blocking his flight home from a Moscow summit because they suspected his might have Snowden on board. | |
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Bassem Mroue
An Israeli soldier collapses onto the floor of a house in Lebanon, shot by Hezbollah fighters. As his squad mates clear out the second floor, a medic rushes over, pulling on latex gloves and digging into his first aid kit. Gunfire echoes down the stairs as he starts to work on the wound.The Associated Press 2013-07-12 08:00:00 The Israeli military experienced this kind of brutal house-to-house warfare during its inconclusive 2006 war with Hezbollah. As it trains in a mock village in its base in this northern Israeli town, it is recreating similar battle scenarios as it prepares for the next confrontation with the Lebanese militant group. Officials say such a conflict could erupt at any time. While the world has focused its attention on the turmoil in Egypt following the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, Israel is keeping a close eye on its northern flank, where officials say the Syrian civil war, and Hezbollah's increasing involvement there, have created a combustible mix that could draw in Israel with little notice. |
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Palestinian News Network
2013-07-12 06:56:00
UFree network to defend the rights of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails denounce in a press release, the new flagrant violations committed by Israel. The new violation concerns a Palestinian citizen named Wael Hasan Abu Raida, 35, who was abducted by Israeli Intelligence Agency "Mossad" from Sinai Peninsula in Egypt last month." It's reported that Abu Raida was in a medical trip (for his son who suffers cancer) in Egypt before he "vanished" and then appeared in Israel. He was contacted by unknown people who led him to Sinai from Cairo then he was taken to Israeli detention centres across borders. According to his family, he was due to obtain the Egyptian nationality. The abducted civilian appeared before an Israeli magistrate court Wednesday which ordered that he remains in detention for 8 days. According to Faris Abu Hasan, Lawyer for Solidarity Human Rights Organisation, the court imposed blackout on the details of the case or the reasons of the kidnapping for security matters. | |
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Alexandra Valiente
Libya360 2013-07-08 00:00:00
Who has the most to gain by fomenting a civil war in Egypt? Who benefits if genuine revolution fails? Unknown Snipers and Western backed "Regime Change"
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Simon Jenkins
The Guardian 2013-07-09 15:00:00
Whistleblower and writer both finger the enemy as their own side. But the full horror of truth always outdoes the imagination Shocked, or not shocked? The chasm widens. The New York Times this week carried a story from a whistleblower close to Washington's foreign intelligence surveillance court, known as the Fisa court - a secret body set up in 1978 to monitor federal phone taps. It now gives legal cover to intelligence trawling of millions of individuals, at home and abroad. The recent revelations by another whistleblower, Edward Snowden, accused the court ofbreaking the fourth amendment to the US constitution. This entitles Americans "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". The operative word, as so often, is unreasonable. The new leak alleges that more than a dozen new "rulings" have been passed by Fisa, declaring categories of data-scooping that were within the "special needs" of security, and thus no different from breath-testing or body-searching at airports. NSA operations such as Prism, Tempora and Boundless Informant - many in collusion with Britain's GCHQ - used covert access to Google, Apple and Facebook to go where they pleased. They could cite not just terrorism but espionage, matters of interest to a foreign power, cyber-attacks and "weapons of mass destruction". These judgments, all in secret, confirmed the gist of Snowden's evidence - and validated his motive. The reason why a previously loyal ex-soldier broke cover was not to aid an enemy. It was to inform a friend, his own country. He was simply outraged by the lies told to Congress by his bosses about NSA operations. As Harvard's Stephen Walt said, Snowden was performing a public service in drawing attention to a "poorly supervised and probably unconstitutional" activity. | |
Comment: For more information on the NSA spying scandal see:
Full Disclosure: NSA's Criminal Activity Ed Snowden's magic thumb drive and other NSA fantasies Did someone help Ed Snowden punch a hole in the NSA? | |
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| Society's Child |
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Jake Adelstein, Nathalie-Kyoko Stucky
The Daily Beast 2013-07-12 15:45:00
In Japan, where palm reading remains one of the most popular means of fortune-telling, some people have figured out a way to change their fate. It's a simple idea: change your palm, change the reading, and change your future. All you need is a competent plastic surgeon with an electric scalpel who has a basic knowledge of palmistry. Or you can draw the lines on your hand with a marker and let him work the magic you want. Missing a marriage line? That can be fixed. Wedding bells may ring. Need some good fortune? Add a money-luck line and you might win the lottery or be promoted to vice president in your firm. For the smart shopper - one willing to undergo palm plastic surgery - the future isn't what it used to be. "Doctor, I want you to change my fate. Please change my palm." Even in Japan, where odd surgery requests are not unknown - like the man who had his penis removed and served it as a special dinner - Takaaki Matsuoka, a plastic surgeon at the Shonan Beauty Clinic's Shinjuku branch, was taken aback. It was January 2011, and a female patient wanted her palm reformatted to bring her better luck. Matsuoka wasn't sure he could do it. He scoured medical journals until he found examples of such surgery being done in Korea, studied the methods, then confirmed with the patient what she wanted done, and performed the surgery for ￥100,00 ($1,000). It went well. The surgery had to be performed with an electric scalpel - which burns the flesh, creating the scent of burnt hot dogs, and leaves a semipermanent scar. | |
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Colleen Long
Two dozen bug bombs may have been set off at once inside a Chinatown beauty salon, leading to an explosion and fire that injured a dozen people, fire officials said Friday.Associated Press via Yahoo News 2013-07-12 16:40:00 Three people remained hospitalized in serious condition Friday. Nine others suffered burns and smoke inhalation in the Thursday blaze, including four firefighters. Fire investigators received reports that 24 pesticide cans, which release gas to kill bugs, were deployed at once in the first-floor beauty salon of the five-story brick building. The poisonous flammable fumes ignited, possibly from a pilot light or a spark from an electrical appliance. Fire officials were still investigating the blaze but believe it was accidental, spokesman James Long said.
Bug bombs, also known as foggers, are considered so poisonous and dangerous that New York City health officials have tried - so far unsuccessfully - to put restrictions in place so that only professional exterminators use the devices. The devices cause between four and eight explosions every year in New York City, and about 300 nationally, according to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and a 2009 letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from the city's director of poison control urging tighter restrictions on the pesticides. "Failure to read, understand or follow label instructions is widespread," according to the letter. "The use of foggers results in regular catastrophic events." | |
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Gabrielle Levy
Any early-morning explosion rocked southeast Corpus Christi, Texas, injuring at least three people and damaging homes as far as three blocks away.United Press International 2013-07-12 16:28:00 At least two people in critical condition were pulled from the house at the center of the blast and taken to Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital and later flown to San Antonio Military Medical Center's burn unit. A third person requested treatment but refused transportation. "The investigation is continuing," Corpus Christi Fire Chief Andy Cardiel said. "The gas department is checking their lines, their meters and their valves to see if they had any kind of release. It's going to be way too early to determine what a cause is at this point."
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Emirates247.com
A pregnant New Mexico woman has survived a bolt from the blue to give birth to a bouncing baby girl.2013-07-12 16:15:00 Authorities say Kendra Villanueva and the baby's father Ian Gordon were watching fireworks with friends on July 4 when lightning struck both of them in the front yard of an Albuquerque home. "We were actually going inside because we heard the lightning and the thunder," Ian Gordon told KRQE-TV . |
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Daily Mail UK
Crews removing Asiana Flight 214's plane wreckage early Friday morning encountered smoke coming from the aircraft's main body which had held passengers. The smoke was captured by KGO-TV cameras, and the news station said it occurred moments after crews used a sling to lift the fuselage. It appears that the wreckage has since been removed.2013-07-12 16:00:00 Calls to airport and fire officials to determine the cause of the smoke were not immediately returned. Airport officials hope to re-open the runway by Sunday. The closure has led to flight cancellations and delays. Meanwhile, nearly a week after Asiana Flight 214 collided with the rocky seawall just short of its intended airport runway, details of the crash that killed two people have emerged, citing airspeed as a major contributor.
'The first thing that's taught to a pilot is to look at the airspeed indicator. It is the most important instrument in the cockpit,' said Lee Collins, a pilot with 29 years and 18,000 hours experience flying a variety of airliners. 'Airspeed is everything. You have airspeed, you live. You don't, you die.' | |
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Christine Clarridge
When Eliza Webb found a cellphone inside her ransacked vehicle in West Seattle last month, she figured the cellphone probably belonged to the person who'd prowled her car and that that person was likely a teen. But Webb decided not to call police.The Seattle Times 2013-07-07 08:10:00
When Eliza Webb found a stranger's cellphone inside her ransacked car last month, it didn't take a lot of sleuthing to determine two things: one, the cellphone probably belonged to the person who'd prowled her car; and two, the culprit was likely a teen. Webb, who works with high-school students and is married to a man who has paid dearly for a youthful indiscretion, paused before summoning police. "I think bringing the police and courts into something like this can have long-term, devastating consequences for kids," said Webb, 29, of West Seattle. "I wanted to meet him, talk to his parents and see if there might be another way. I felt that if I could get him to own up to what he'd done and understand there were consequences, it could be a much better outcome." | |
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Cassandra Vinograd
Associated Press via Yahoo News 2013-07-12 13:44:00
A fire on an empty Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane forced Heathrow Airport to temporarily close both its runways Friday.The incident comes as unwelcome news for Chicago-based Boeing Co., whose Dreamliners were cleared to fly again in April after a four-month grounding amid concerns about overheating lithium-ion batteries. Heathrow said there were no passengers aboard the Ethiopian Airlines plane, which was parked at a remote stand of the airport, and runways reopened after about an hour. British police said the fire is being treated as unexplained. Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said in an email that the company had personnel on the ground at Heathrow and "is working to fully understand and address" the situation. Ethiopian Airlines was the first airline to resume using the 787, with a flight on April 27 from Ethiopia's capital of Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Kenya, after the battery incidents. The airline could not immediately be reached for comment. | |
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France 24
2013-07-12 11:23:00
A train derailed in the southern Paris suburb of Brétigny-sur-Orge on Friday evening, with authorities reporting "many casualties". Local media claimed that at least eight people have been killed. A train derailed on Friday evening at a station in Brétigny-sur-Orge, a southern suburb of Paris, causing "many casualties" according to rail authorities. Precise details remain unclear, but media reports indicated that passengers were trapped in the train and that some had been electrocuted. Daily newspaper Le Parisien reported that at least eight people had been killed. The Interior ministry called the accident a "code red" - meaning an accident in which "many people are victims". "The train came in to the station at high speed and it split in two for reasons that have not yet been established," a police source told AFP. "One half continued to move along, while the other was left on its side by the platform." | |
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Tomi Kilgore & Chris Dieterich
Wall Street Journal 2013-07-12 09:46:00
A global stock rally that began in the U.S. returned home to Wall Street Thursday morning, as signs that the Federal Reserve will keep its easy-money policies in place for the long haul put the Dow Jones Industrial Average on target for a new all-time high. Gains began late Wednesday after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the economy still needs "highly accommodative monetary policy for the foreseeable future." U.S. stock futures took off, then triggered gains in both Asia and Europe. Mr. Bernanke's comments also prompted a selloff in the dollar, a decline in Treasury yields and a rally in gold prices. The Dow climbed 149 points, or 1%, to 15443 in the minutes after Thursday's opening bell, putting it pace to top its all-time closing high of 15409.39, hit on May 28. Mr. Bernanke's statement reassured investors who in recent weeks were grappling with the question of when, and how dramatically, the Fed is likely to change policy, particularly a "tapering" of its $85 billion a month bond-buying program. | |
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Henry McDonald
The Guardian 2013-07-12 09:36:00
Irish parliamentarians passed a groundbreaking law early on Thursday allowing limited abortion rights in the republic. Enda Kenny and his coalition government pushed through the protection of life in pregnancy bill, which will allow for abortions only when a woman's life is under threat if her pregnancy continues or if she is suicidal. Despite threats of excommunication from cardinals and bishops, the privately devout Catholic prime minister eventually won the vote after a marathon two-day debate in the Dáil. Members voted by 127 to 31 to legalise abortion in cases of medical emergencies as well as the risk of suicide. However, pro-choice and anti-abortion groups have already threatened court cases to challenge the new law. | |
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RIA Novosti
A passenger aircraft with 45 people on board made an emergency landing in east Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Territory after one of its engines stalled, the Emergencies Ministry said in a statement on Friday.2013-07-12 07:43:00 An Antonov An-26 aircraft carrying 41 passengers and four crew members was en route from the city of Krasnoyarsk to the city of Igarka, when its right-wing engine stalled some two hours after the take off on Friday morning. |
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Sacramento, Calif. - Gov. Jerry Brown is making one final bid to delay a federal court order requiring the state to release nearly 10,000 inmates by year's end to improve conditions in California prisons. The administration on Wednesday asked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy to delay the order forcing the state to immediately take steps to further reduce its prison population. If he refuses to intervene, the state has said it will begin freeing inmates to comply with the lower court order, which is intended to improve care for sick and mentally ill inmates. Kennedy oversees appeals from western states. He is a Republican appointee who sided with the court's four Democratic-appointed justices in 2011 to cast the deciding vote requiring the state to reduce its prison population to about 110,000 inmates. | |
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Bart Jansen
USA Today 2013-07-11 09:18:00
Federal crash investigators revealed Wednesday that the pilot flying Asiana Airlines Flight 214 told them that he was temporarily blinded by a bright light when 500 feet above the ground. Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said it wasn't clear what could have caused the problem. Asked specifically whether it could have been a laser pointed from the ground, Hersman said she couldn't say what caused it. "We need to understand exactly what that is," Hersman said. "It was a temporary issue." Her comments came during a daily press briefing on the Saturday crash of Asiana Flight 214 that left two dead and 168 others injured. Federal crash investigators previously said that pilots recognized they were too low and not lined up precisely with the runway while still 500 feet from the ground. At 500 feet, pilots recognized that they were low as the Boeing 777 was going 134 knots and was 34 seconds from impact. They continued to make adjustments until hitting the seawall at the end of the runway at San Francisco International Airport. Evacuation of the plane didn't begin immediately. Airlines must certify that they can evacuate fully loaded planes within 90 seconds. But in this case, a pilot told flight attendants not to begin the evacuation immediately when the plane came to rest. But after about 90 seconds, a flight attendant near the second door reported seeing fire outside a window in the middle of the plane. He relayed that information to the cockpit and the evacuation began. | |
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The Raw Story
2013-07-11 06:37:00
As Prince William and wife Catherine mull over names for their royal offspring, they would do well to heed mounting evidence that a name can influence everything from your school grades and career choice to who you marry and where you live. Someone named Jacqueline or Steven will generally fare better in life than Latrina or Butch, say researchers, who also point to a phenomenon whereby the world's fastest man is called Bolt, a TV weather forecaster Sarah Blizzard, and the local librarian Mrs Storey. "Your name can influence the assumptions that other people make about your character and background, and thus the chances you are given in life," says Richard Wiseman - a case in point, he's a professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. "It can also be a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. If your name sounds intelligent, successful and attractive, you are more likely to act those things." A flurry of studies in recent years have examined names as predictors of success. | |
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David Ferguson
Opposing Views 2013-07-11 07:25:00
A Saudi Arabian princess was arrested Wednesday and charged with human trafficking in Santa Ana, California for allegedly holding up to five women against their will and forcing them to work for several families in an Orange County condominium complex. According to CBS News, police arrested 42-year-old Meshael Alayban, one of the six wives of Saudi Prince Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al Saud, and charged her with one count of human trafficking, a charge that could send her to prison for up to 12 years if convicted. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said that Alayban was arrested after a 30-year-old Kenyan woman contacted police saying that she was a victim of human trafficking. The woman, carrying a suitcase, flagged down a bus in Santa Ana on Tuesday night. She told the driver and fellow passengers that she was trying to escape a situation where she was being held against her will. The passengers urged her to contact police. The woman said that she had been hired in Kenya in 2012 to work for Alayban's family.When she arrived in Saudi Arabia, she was stripped off her passport and forced to work more than double the amount of hours she agreed to for less than half the money. | |
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| Secret History |
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Marc Lallanilla
LiveScience 2013-07-12 12:15:00
Archaeologists in Poland believe they've made a startling discovery: a group of vampire graves. The graves were discovered during the construction of a roadway near the Polish town of Gliwice, where archaeologists are more accustomed to finding the remains of World War II soldiers, according to The Telegraph. But instead of soldiers, the graves contained skeletons whose heads had been severed and placed on their legs. This indicated to the archaeologists that the bodies had been subject to a ritualized execution designed to ensure the dead stayed dead, The Telegraphreports. By keeping the head separated from the body, according to ancient superstition, the "undead" wouldn't be able to rise from the grave to terrorize the living. Decapitation was one way of achieving that; another way was hanging the person by a rope attached to the neck until, over time, the decaying body simply separated from the head. There were other, equally bizarre ways of dealing with vampire burials, according to research published by forensic anthropologist Matteo Borrini. He cites the case of a woman who died during a 16th-century plague in Venice, Italy. The woman was apparently buried with a brick wedged tightly in her open mouth, a popular medieval method of keeping suspected vampires from returning to feed on the blood of the living. The woman's grave might be the earliest known vampire burial ever found. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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| Earth Changes |
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John Le
WLOS.com 2013-07-12 15:08:00
As we gain ground on record rainfall totals, some businesses are losing ground in Weaverville. George Bielick of Asheville has seen enough. | |
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The Department of Environmental Quality confirmed its investigators are working to determine what killed hundreds of fish in a Colonial Heights creek. Neighbors who live near Swift Creek in Colonial Heights discovered the dead carp after a foul stench filled the air late last week. "It was a putrid smell. We thought something was dying. We took a walk through the woods and didn't see anything," Tina Wilson said. She said over the weekend her boyfriend finally found the source of the stench. "There was hundreds of dead carp from the bridge all the way down towards the dam," Wilson said. "They were stuck in the trees. You could see their white bellies up against the banks. They were everywhere. It stunk."
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The Extinction Protocol
A severe heat-wave that hit Japan a week ago has claimed at least a dozen lives, reports said Friday. The mercury has topped 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in areas right across the country for several days, with no immediate end to the misery in sight, forecasters say. Thousands of people have been taken to hospital suffering from heatstroke or exhaustion, with at least 12 of them dying, Jiji Press and other media reported. Most of those affected are over 65, but there have also been groups of schoolchildren who were participating in school activities outside. One recent death was that of a 90-year-old man whose body was discovered by his son inside an apartment. The air conditioner was turned off, Jiji said. On Friday, the day's highest temperature was 38.3 degrees Celsius (101 F) in Kawanehon town in Shizuoka prefecture. More than 40 other spots recorded highs of 35 degrees or more, Japan's meteorological agency said. News reports feature frequent reminders to drink plenty of fluids and avoid prolonged periods outdoors, in what has become a regular feature of Japan's sticky summer months. -Space Daily2013-07-12 09:12:00
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The Extinction Protocol
Flood waters entered over 100 villages in Bihar in the past 24 hours, forcing people to abandon their homes, as many rivers in the state rose and posed a threat to other villages too, officials said Thursday. All the inundated villages are in the flood-prone districts of Purnea, Araria, Kishanganj, Muzaffarpur and Katihar. "Flood waters entered more than 100 villages of Amaur block in Purnea, Forbesganj and Sikti in Araria and Kochadham in Kishanganj. In Muzaffarpur, dozens of villages were inundated in Aurai and Katra blocks," an official of the state disaster management department said.2013-07-12 09:09:00
The department officials told IANS that fear of floods is gripping villages again in Bihar, with water levels rising in several rivers following heavy rain in the state and in the catchment areas in neighbouring Nepal. "Water levels in the Mahananda, Bagmati, Kamla Balan, Gandak, Bodhi Gandak and Kosi rivers are showing rising trend over the past two days, threatening hundreds of villages in over half a dozen districts," the official said. An unconfirmed report said that at least eight people, including three schoolgirls, have drowned in the flood water. | |
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Nadia Drake
Wired 2013-07-12 07:13:00
Once a lush and healthy estuary, the Indian River Lagoon is now an enigmatic death trap. Running along 40 percent of Florida's Atlantic coast, the lagoon's brackish waters harbor a mysterious killer that has claimed the lives of hundreds of manatees, pelicans, and dolphins. Nobody knows why. Comment: Read the following article and the comment to learn about one of the possible reasons: Mysterious new virus found in sick dolphin In April, NOAA declared the spate of manatee deaths an Unusual Mortality Event, a designation granted when marine mammal deaths or strandings are significantly higher than normal, demand immediate attention, and are the result of a common but unknown cause. Soon, the bottlenose dolphin die-off may be given the same designation. "We have to hope we can find the answer, because until we do, we don't know how we can help prevent it in the future," said Jan Landsberg, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Since last July, 51 dolphins, 111 manatees, and as many as 300 pelicans have perished in the lagoon. The deaths don't follow an obvious pattern: Manatees are dying so quickly thatsome still have food in their mouths, while the dolphins and pelicans appear to be starving to death. | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Dan Even
Haaretz 2013-07-12 08:06:00
Still, no polio sufferers have been found, says Health Ministry, stressing that the virus has been located in sewer systems only. The polio virus has continued to spread through sewer systems across Israel, based on widespread sample surveys of sewer systems recently ordered by the Health Ministry. Still, no polio sufferers have been found, the Health Ministry said, stressing that the virus has been located in sewer systems only. The survey found the virus in the Ayalon sewer system that handles sewage from the cities of Ramle, Lod and Modi'in and the communities located in the Gezer Regional Council; in the sewer system that handles sewage from the Lev Hasharon Regional Council, including the community of Kalansua; and in the sewage treatment plant that serves the communities of Jaljulia and Kafr Bara. The discovery of the polio virus in these sewer systems follows the virus' discovery at sewage treatment plants serving Negev communities. The virus was first discovered in May in sewage from the Negev city of Rahat. | |
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Charlotte Woods
University of Southampton 2013-07-11 06:38:00
A University of Southampton Professor, in collaboration with colleagues at the BC Cancer Agency Research Centre, have discovered a novel way of killing cancer cells. The research, recently published in the journal Cell, has found a new potential treatment for cancer, which leaves the body's healthy cells undamaged, unlike traditional therapies such as radiotherapy. Chris Proud, Professor of Cellular Regulation in Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton says: "Cancer cells grow and divide much more rapidly than normal cells, meaning they have a much higher demand for and are often starved of, nutrients and oxygen. We have discovered that a cellular component, eEF2K, plays a critical role in allowing cancer cells to survive nutrient starvation, whilst normal, healthy cells do not usually require eEF2K in order to survive. Therefore, by blocking the function of eEF2K, we should be able to kill cancer cells, without harming normal, healthy cells in the process." | |
Comment: There is another way, already available, to starve cancer cells. One has simply to follow a Ketogenic (no sugar/low carbohydrates/ high fat) diet.
Wonders of the Ketogenic diet: The Andersen and Stefansson 'Eskimo Experiment' Ketogenic diet, calorie restriction and hyperbaric treatment offer hope for non-toxic cancer treatment and alleviation of multiple health issues | |
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Information Daily
2013-07-11 09:45:00
Could antibiotics routinely added to animal feed be a contributing factor to the raising levels of antibiotic resistance in human diseases? David Wallinga from Keep Antibiotics Working: the Campaign to End Antibiotic Overuse in Animal Agriculture told the BMJ online that he thinks that the use of antibiotics in livestock has a "critical role" in the resistance levels to the drugs in humans. He believes that physicians and policy makers have overlooked this theory, and advises the relevant parties to consider it before developing new, stronger antibiotics. Overall reductions in antibiotic use should come before any new development, he says. In 2009-11, 72 per cent of the US sales of antimicrobials were intended for water or animal feed for livestock. | |
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Gabriela Segura, MD
The Health Matrix 2013-07-06 14:46:00
The Iron Elephant - What you should know about the dangers of excess body iron (Vida Publishing Inc.) - is a book written by journalist Roberta Crawford which was first brought to my attention via sott.net's discussion board. As it happens, one of the members was suffering from extreme fatigue and joint problems related to an autoimmune condition that was not responding to either vitamin C or dietary measures. In fact, she was getting progressively worse. A blood test analysis revealed high ferritin levels which indicated high iron stores. Furthermore, there was a history of hemochromatosis within the family. This prompted much research and learning which was posted on our Forum threadHemochromatosis and Autoimmune Conditions. Slowly but surely, the picture of iron overload toxicity began to emerge and the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Several people who were having trouble recovering their health on a diet that was basically bulletproof were found to have iron overload. The healing diet which is a gluten and dairy free ketogenic diet with moderate intake of protein and plenty of animal fats does not work as it should be as long as there is excess iron in the body. Iron overload may affect any organ in the body and may include symptoms such as fatigue, depression, arthritis, irregular heart beat, high blood sugar and/or diabetes, shortness of breath, swelling of the abdomen and legs, jaundice, loss of sexual drive, premature menopause, loss of body hair, shriveling of the testicles, hypothyroidism, and redness of the palms of the hands. A suntan that does not fade in winter may or may not be present. The excess iron oxidizes in your body and can literally rust your organs leading to diseases such as cancer, thrombosis, cirrhosis, arthritis and so forth. The Iron Elephant describes the bitter journey of many people who suffered needlessly from iron's toxicity effects. It is a warning for the rest of us who might be unaware of silent iron overload. Let's have a closer look to the key concepts and warnings. | |
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Monsanto is the same company that manufactured DDT, Agent Orange, PCB, dioxin and aspartame. Cancer is being linked to PCB exposure. Thousands of U.S. soldiers as well as Vietnamese civilians have cancer because of being exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnamese war. These people are suffering the horrible consequences of this chemical being sprayed in the jungles, leaching toxic and deadly chemicals into the water, soil and the air. Children are being born with birth defects, and thousands are dying of cancer caused by the exposure. There are many cover-ups and lies about these toxic effects. And no one wants to take responsibility for this travesty. My best friend's husband was exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnamese war, and he is now 100 percent disabled with skin cancer on his arms. He routinely goes to the VA hospital to have the cancer removed. He has hundreds of scars and cannot work as a result of all the treatments. The government is responsible for taking care of the medical and disability needs of these veterans for the rest of their lives. | |
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drugenquirer.com
2010-07-18 19:28:00
If you are taking a brand-new prescription med, you are part of the great ongoing clinical trial - whether you know it or not. And so a team of Harvard University medical professors advises physicians NOT to prescribe the new medications to their patients "unless they represent an important medical advance" in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The editorial shows the safety of new drugs is not established - despite FDA approval. Aren't drugs thoroughly tested before going on the market? "Actually, the American public is the primary guinea-pig for new medications. The FDA views the first years after some drugs hit the market as Phase 4 of a clinical trial, because that's when it's really put to the test," states Jay S. Cohen, M.D., associate professor of family and preventative medicine at the University of California at San Diego. Before FDA approval of a new drug, only a few hundred or thousand of carefully screened patients have used it, and then only for a few weeks or months. It's only after FDA approval that drug-makers sell their new drugs to a diverse cross-section of the population for long-term use. | |
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Charles O'Brien
The Fix 2013-06-26 18:52:00
A cup of joe is the world's favorite "upper." But is caffeine really a drug whose use merits inclusion in the psychiatric bible? The man who headed the entire addiction revision says yes. Caffeine is part of many people's daily lives - mainly in the coffee we drink, but also in the tea, soda and energy drinks we consume, the candy and cereal we eat, the pain relievers and weight-loss pills we take. It's found so often in common products that people may not realize caffeine is indeed a drug - the world's most widely used one. We love it because it is a stimulantof the central nervous system; a cup of joe focuses our concentration and energizes us, increasing our heart rate. Most people consume caffeine with no ill effects, although there is substantial evidence that too much caffeine, or abrupt changes in its use, can have negative consequences for some people. These symptoms include headaches, muscle twitching and vomiting. Extremely high amounts of caffeine can even be fatal. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) published by the American Psychiatric Association in May details both "caffeine intoxication" and "caffeine withdrawal" to help clinicians identify patients who are experiencing serious effects of caffeine use - a problem that is not exactly "front of mind" and so is easily overlooked. Although the most severe symptoms are rare, they can hinder a person's ability to work, socialize or manage family responsibilities. | |
Comment: So the big question: Is the article above, written by a 'world renowned specialist in addiction psychiatry', contributing to the mass diagnosing of disorders, such as 'caffeine use disorder' and in essence fueling the breeding of mental illness in the US?
The following articles detail just a few examples of 'the tendency toward over-diagnosis and over-prescription that dominates the mental health care scene in the US and contributes to a system that is better at producing disorders than rectifying them.' Profit Motive? Big Psychiatry Invents and Redefines Mental Illnesses All for profit: Psychiatric "MD's" dispense dangerous drugs with impunity The American Psychiatric Association's DSM5 proposal for ADHD - Making lifelong patients of even more healthy people Will new changes to Autism Diagnosis leave your child in the cold while filling big pharma's pockets? Scientists: Creativity part of 'mental illness' After all, more than 50% of the United States is, by definition of the psychiatrists of the nation, mentally ill. Even questioning the government is considered a mental disorder. It should come as no surprise to know thatupwards of 70% of the psychiatrists who write the conditions are - of course - on the payroll of those who produce the drugs to 'treat' the conditions. It should also therefore come as no surprise to note that the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the foundation of the entire diagnosis system) now contains over 900 pages of bogus disorders. | |
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Richard Wilcox Ph.D.
Activist Post 2013-03-14 00:00:00
All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out. - I. F. Stone In this new age of instant information, navigating the pitfalls of overload (too much); uncertainty (lack of); misinformation (poor quality); disinformation (intentional distortion, lies); is key in determining the scope of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and assessing immediate and long-term impacts on the international and Japanese public health. Fortunately we have one of the first attempts from researchers to set the record straight and calculate the death toll from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The report comes from the courageous men and women of International Physicians for Preventing Nuclear War (IPPNW) who expose the Big Lie being perpetrated by the World Health Organization (WHO) that few ill health effects will occur. Consider that it is standard operating procedure for governments and industry to obfuscate, cover-up and lie about a nuclear disaster as soon as it occurs. The chaos that unfolds during a nuclear disaster such as Fukushima is used in a carefully orchestrated Big Lie process whereby damage control and perception management allow the perpetrators of the Big Crime - Tokyo Electric Power Company, the Japanese government and the international nuclear apologists and nuclear industry - to eventually get off scot free (1). Even though the Japanese government was fully aware that three reactors had melted down and another one severely damaged, and that people should have been evacuated in a much more bold and expedient manner, the phrase that will live in infamy, "there is no immediate danger," was repeated during the worst days of the nuclear crisis by the government. In Orwellian fashion they might as well have announced over loudspeakers across the entire country that "The Moon Is Made Of Green Cheese, The Moon Is Made Of Green Cheese," in order to prove that whatever the government says is true and no one should question it. The extent and quantity of radiation released from the accident has intentionally been suppressed, and unless the public can gain access to the highest echelons of governmental secrets, we will never know the full truth of how much radiation was released, where it was deposited and whose health was or will be affected. | |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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David Weston
People who experience parental divorce during childhood have higher levels of an inflammatory marker in the blood which is known to predict future health, according to new research from UCL.University College London 2013-07-11 06:52:00 The study, published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, found that children who experienced the breakdown in their parent's relationship before the age of 16, regardless of whether their parents were married or not, had 16% higher levels of C-reactive protein at age 44. C-reactive protein is a marker of inflammation measured in blood samples. Long-term raised C-reactive protein is a known risk factor for diseases such as coronary heart disease and type II diabetes. This study is based on data from 7,462 people in the 1958 National Child Development Study, an on-going longitudinal study which has followed a large group of people since their birth in 1958. |
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Joan Robinson
Accepting what cannot be changed is key to happiness in old age after loss of independence.Springer 2013-07-11 06:46:00 When older adults lose control as they move into residential care, they adapt and accept what cannot be changed in order to stay happy. According to a new study, by Jaclyn Broadbent, Shikkiah de Quadros-Wander and Jane McGillivray from Deakin University in Australia, when it comes to satisfaction in later life the ability to accept what cannot be changed is as important as the feeling of being able to exert control. Their work is published online in Springer's Journal of Happiness Studies. Ageing with satisfaction has been linked to maintaining a sense of control into the later years. Perceived control consists of two components. Primary control relates to the capacity to make changes to the environment to suit your desire or needs - this applies to older adults living independently in the community. Secondary control describes making cognitive changes within yourself to adapt to the environment - for example when older adults move into residential care. In effect, secondary control buffers losses in primary control by helping us to accept what cannot be changed. |
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Tanya Lewis
LiveScience 2013-06-28 05:39:00
The idea that consciousness arises from quantum mechanical phenomena in the brain is intriguing, yet lacks evidence, scientists say. Physicist Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff of the University of Arizona propose that the brain acts as a quantum computer- a computational machine that makes use of quantum mechanical phenomena (like the ability of particles to be in two places at once) to perform complex calculations. In the brain, fibers inside neurons could form the basic units of quantum computation, Penrose and Hameroff explained at the Global Future 2045 International Congress, a futuristic conference held here June 15-16. The idea is appealing, because neuroscience, so far, has no satisfactory explanation for consciousness - the state of being self-aware and having sensory experiences and thoughts. But many scientists are skeptical, citing a lack of experimental evidence for the idea. The Orch OR model Penrose and Hameroff developed their ideas independently, but collaborated in the early 1990s to develop what they call the Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR) model. | |
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Lena Christine
National Monitor 2013-07-06 05:33:00
The rate of decline in those who participated in infrequent mental activity was 48 percent faster than those participating in average activity levels. In a study published on July 3 in an American Academy of Neurology online issue of the medical journal Neurology, new research suggests reading, writing and other brain stimulating activities could preserve memory, regardless of age. The study was comprised of 294 people and tested memory and thinking every year for about 6 years before their death. Deaths occurred at an average age of 89 years old. During the study, participants were given a questionnaire that asked whether or not they read books, wrote or participated in other brain stimulating activities as a child, adolescent, middle-aged person and at their current age. Upon death, participants' brains were examined through autopsy for any physical signs of dementia, such as lesions, brain plaques and tangles. | |
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