 |
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
No new articles. |
|
Dr. Kevin Barrett
Press TV 2013-07-24 05:53:00
On Monday, the European Union formally labeled Hezbollah a "terrorist" group. Why? Because Hezbollah has gone to war with al-Qaeda. But wait a minute - wasn't al-Qaeda supposed to be the worst terrorist group in the world? Isn't the West leading a "global war on terror" whose main target is al-Qaeda? Shouldn't the West be thanking Hezbollah, and showering it with rewards, for turning against global terrorist enemy number one? Apparently not. Al-Qaeda is now the West's darling in Syria. So anybody who resists al-Qaeda - as Hezbollah recently decided to do - is a "terrorist." The irony doesn't get any thicker than that. | |
|
Comment: With hundreds and probably thousands more al Qaeda (Database) members being loosened from neighbouring Iraq,
and the CIA ramping up its arms shipments to 'The Database' in Syria,
it looks like the U.S. and allies have decided to simply throw more
bodies, money and machinery into their dirty war against Bashar
al-Assad.
The Syrian leader is stronger than ever following recent successes against the West's death squads. Now that he is supported by the only army that has ever actually beaten Israel in open battle (in Lebanon in 2006), the only way for the empire to 'win' this 'civil war' while maintaining the illusion of 'not intervening directly' is by maximising civilian carnage. |
|
|
| Puppet Masters |
|
Sayer Ji
Greenmedinfo.com 2013-07-23 16:56:00
New research is revealing something remarkable about why the body sweats. Beyond its obvious role in regulating body temperature, sweating has been found to facilitate the elimination of accumulated heavy metals and petrochemicals, indicating that if we want to be healthy we should put regular effort into doing more sweating. Sweating has long been known as a source of bodily, if not also spiritual "cleansing." But until recently, very little 'scientific' confirmation existed proving that using heat and/or exercise to facilitate perspiration-induced detoxification actually works the way that many natural health advocates claim. With the Rise of Biomedicine and its so-called 'evidence-based' model of determining what is true and thereby legal to practice, this conspicuous lack of clinical proof has resulted in a veritable inquisition against those who claim that bodily detoxification through sweating is anything more than a form of 'quackery.' |
|
|
|
|
Jason Burke
Jason Burke reveals how the murder of climbers in Pakistan exposes a fresh front in the battle against extremistsThe Guardian 2013-07-23 13:30:00
The sun had long gone down. Sher Khan, a Pakistani climber on his first major expedition, had been dozing in his sleeping bag for an hour. Above the camp, the snowy flanks of Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth highest mountain, were pale in the deepening night. Suddenly, Khan heard shouts of "Surrender! We are Al-Qaida! Taliban!" then, in Urdu "Where are the Americans?" Awake now and very frightened, Khan looked out of his tent. Men in camouflage fatigues and carrying AK47s were moving though the camp, pitched at around 3,500m below the famous Diamer Face of what is known among mountaineers as "the Killer Mountain". Good weather meant most of the 40 mountaineers who had been camping on the lush meadow amid pine trees were high up on the 8,125m peak. But the sick and the tired were not. Nor were the support staff. They were dragged out, tied, lined up and shot. Khan, from a village a few hours drive away, was spared. A Shia cook died. A Chinese climber managed to flee. "It was so bad, so bad. I was so lucky to get out alive. I still cannot sleep," Khan told the Guardian. The attack, a month ago, was the first to directly target foreigners in the area. The dead included three Ukrainians, two Slovaks, a Nepali, a Lithuanian, two Chinese and a Chinese-US dual national. It shocked many locally, and made headlines around the world. A candlelit vigil was held in Gilgit, the local administrative centre 150kms from the site of the attack. "We wanted to send a message that we are against this killing of innocent tourists. We have such beautiful mountains, beautiful valleys. We want to share them with the world," said Mohammed Zaeem Zia, the local doctor who organised the demonstration. | |
|
Comment: To find out more about the operators that are really behind these kind of attacks see -
CIA agent Raymond Davis had close links with Taliban |
|
|
|
|
Real Clear Politics
2013-07-21 13:09:00
|
|
|
|
|
Ellen Brown
Rather than expanding the money supply, quantitative easing (QE) has
actually caused it to shrink by sucking up the collateral needed by the
shadow banking system to create credit. The "failure" of QE has
prompted the Bank for International Settlements to urge the Fed to shirk
its mandate to pursue full employment, but the sort of QE that could
fulfill that mandate has not yet been tried.webofdebt.wordpress.com 2013-07-22 12:49:00 Ben Bernanke's May 29th speech signaling the beginning of the end of QE3 provoked a "taper tantrum" that wiped about $3 trillion from global equity markets - this from the mere suggestion that the Fed would moderate its pace of asset purchases, and that if the economy continues to improve, it might stop QE3 altogether by mid-2014. The Fed is currently buying $85 billion in US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities per month. The Fed Chairman then went into damage control mode, assuring investors that the central bank would "continue to implement highly accommodative monetary policy" (meaning interest rates would not change) and that tapering was contingent on conditions that look unlikely this year. The only thing now likely to be tapered in 2013 is the Fed's growth forecast. It is a neoliberal maxim that "the market is always right," but as former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz demonstrated, the maxim only holds when the market has perfect information. The market may be misinformed about QE, what it achieves, and what harm it can do. Getting more purchasing power into the economy could work; but QE as currently practiced may be having the opposite effect. |
|
|
|
Michael Doyle
McClatchy 2013-07-19 12:30:00
Courts cannot second-guess drone strikes that kill U.S. citizens overseas, an Obama administration lawyer argued Friday. A Republican-appointed judge sounded dubious about the expansive claim, saying she was "really troubled" by assertions that courts are completely shut out of the drone strike debate. But for other legal reasons, the judge also sounded hesitant about a lawsuit targeted at top military and intelligence officials for violating the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens blown up in foreign lands. "There are instances where wrongs are done, but for one reason or another they cannot be remedied in a civil suit," U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer said. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, representing a family member, have sued former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other former officials over the two separate drone strikes that killed three U.S. citizens in Yemen. The Obama administration wants the lawsuit dismissed. The lawsuit is the latest challenge to the administration's secretive war-fighting practices that have mobilized skeptics on both the right and the left. |
|
|
|
|
Paul Lewis
CIA could begin shipping arms in the coming weeks after clearance from House and Senate intelligence committeesThe Guardian 2013-07-23 12:14:00
The CIA could begin shipping arms to Syria in the coming weeks, after two US congressional panels cleared the way for the controversial transfer of weapons. The White House announced in June that it would provide limited military support for vetted rebel groups, which have recently been struggling in their campaign against President Bashar al-Assad. Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees have expressed concerns that arms could end up in the hands of Islamist militants fighting in the region - or not do enough to tip the balance in the civil war. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House committee, said on Tuesday that the panel had agreed to support the plan to arm the opposition fighters. However, the committee made clear it has only agreed reluctantly and retained serious anxieties about whether Barack Obama's new policy would work. "The House intelligence committee has very strong concerns about the strength of the administration's plans in Syria and its chances for success," he said in a statement, after Reuters reported the decision. "After much discussion and review, we got a consensus that we could move forward with what the administration's plans and intentions are in Syria consistent with committee reservations." |
|
|
|
|
Brendan Sasso
The Hill 2013-07-21 12:03:00
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is pushing to fast-track legislation that would require police to obtain a warrant before accessing emails and other private online messages. Sen. Patrick Leahy's (D-Vt.) goal is for the Senate to unanimously approve his bill before the August recess, according to one of his committee aides. Any opposition could delay a vote until after Congress returns in the fall. He has secured unanimous support from his fellow Democrats and is in negotiations with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Judiciary Committee's ranking member, and other Republicans to address their concerns. Leahy's aide claimed that even if a floor vote is delayed until after the recess, they are already "way past" the 60 votes they would need to overcome a filibuster and approve the bill, which is co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Mike Lee (Utah). Gregory Nojeim, a senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology and a supporter of stronger privacy protections, said that the news of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs has given Leahy's bill a new boost of momentum. | |
|
Comment: Note that even if the proposed bill is passed,
it will not affect at all NSA's global surveillance program and human
rights violations.
|
|
|
|
|
youtube.com
2013-06-30 11:59:00
|
|
|
|
|
RIA Novosti
2013-07-24 03:27:00
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wants two US states, Florida and Massachusetts, to open their own investigations into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shooting death of a Chechen immigrant acquainted with one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. "A person was shot and killed at the hands of law enforcement in Florida. That alone should require Florida officials to investigate, and explain to the public what happened," said Howard Simon, Florida Executive Director for the nonprofit civil liberties organization, in an ACLU press release. The FBI and the Department of Justice are conducting an internal inquiry into the death of 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev, who was shot and killed by a Boston-based FBI agent during an interrogation with several different law enforcement agencies at his Orlando, Florida apartment on May 22. |
|
|
|
|
Erik Curren
Transition Voice 2013-07-23 22:52:00
Gasland 2, the sequel to Josh Fox's documentary about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, introduces a frightening image. It's not another money shot of tap water on fire, though the water well hose lit up by the owner of a multimillion dollar home in Parker County, Texas is a wonder. Nor is the most frightening image an internal gas industry memo labeling residents of small towns in Pennsylvania or New York State an "insurgency" that must be put down with PSYOPS techniques honed by the military in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The most frightening image in Gasland 2 is a map of the United States covered with potential fracking sites. The United States of Fracking Look at the map. It's hard to find a state whose water supply doesn't originate in or cross through a place that the industry would like to frack. So what? The U.S. government says that fracking can be done without harm to groundwater. And the industry claims that no study has ever proven that fracking has contaminated one single water supply. |
|
|
|
|
Abby Zimet
Common Dreams Org 2013-07-23 18:34:00
Despite its earlier vow to act in "a spirit of openness," the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has intervened in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) court case brought by Wired reporter Kevin Paulsen aimed at releasing Aaron Swartz's Secret Service file. Paulsen has blasted MIT's move to block the release, which they justified by citing the need to protect MIT personnel even though records are routinely redacted, as unprecedented, noting neither he nor his lawyer has ever seen a non-governmental party argue for the right to interfere in a FOIA release of government documents. |
|
|
|
|
Bill Moyers
Muckrakers and activists have been working to expose the brutality of
industrialized meat production since Upton Sinclair's writing of The Jungle in 1906. But an ALEC model bill known as "The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act"
would make it a crime to film at animal facilities - such as factory
farms or slaughterhouses - with the intent to "defame the facility or
its owner." So-called "ag-gag" laws that appear inspired by the ALEC
model have been passed in several states. This report, produced by Okapi Productions, LLC and the Schumann Media Center, Inc. looks at the effect of these laws on both our food supply and our freedom of speech.Moyers & Company 2013-07-10 00:00:00 Comment: Warning: this video features disturbing images. Further information from Moyers & Company on ALEC can be viewed here in the film "United States of ALEC", September 28, 2012.
|
|
|
|
| Society's Child |
|
Kazunori Takada
Raw Story 2013-07-24 16:54:00
Shanghai - Bribery is the lubricant that helps keep China's public hospitals running, and the health system would struggle to function without illegal payments to poorly paid doctors and administrators, say medical practitioners and industry experts. They say government policies are partly to blame for a system in which doctors and other staff expect to be paid extra fees to perform operations and take kickbacks from pharmaceutical firms and medical-equipment suppliers. The profession's ugly underbelly was exposed last week when police accused British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline of bribing officials and doctors for six years to boost sales and the price of its medicines. GSK has called the developments "shameful" and on Monday said some of its Chinese executives appeared to have broken the law. China is an appealing market for pharmaceutical firms and medical-equipment makers, with spending in the industry expected to nearly triple to $1 trillion by 2020 from $357 billion in 2011, according to consulting firm McKinsey. The corruption stems largely from doctors' low base salaries, which are set in line with a pay scale for government workers. Hospitals can pay bonuses but, given public hospitals are strapped for cash, compensation is usually low, say doctors and industry experts. A doctor fresh out of medical school in Beijing earns about 3,000 yuan ($490) a month including bonuses - roughly the same as a taxi driver. A doctor with 10 years experience makes around 10,000 yuan a month, according to Peter Chen, chief executive of privately run Oasis International Hospital in Beijing. "Without the grey income, doctors would not have the incentive to practice," said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. |
|
|
|
|
The Guardian
2013-07-24 05:20:00
Train derails outside northern city of Santiago de Compostela. At least 20 people have been killed after a train derailed outside the northern Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, according to state media and eyewitnesses. Train carriages lay on their sides with smoke billowing from the wreckage, photographs published on the Voz de Galicia newspaper website showed. "It was going so quickly ... It seems that on a curve the train started to twist, and the wagons piled up one on top of the other," passenger Ricardo Montesco told Cadena Ser radio station. "A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realised the train was burning ... I was in the second wagon and there was fire ... I saw corpses," he added. Another witness told the station they had heard an explosion before seeing the derailed train. | |
|
Comment: We at SOTT try to pay attention to the reality
right and left, and what we see is unusually high number of train
accidents and derailments, along with an increase of airplane emergency
landings all around the world. It seems like the Universe is sending a
message, and it isn't a nice one.
Here is the partial list of train accidents for the month of July, 2013: Death toll set to rise as 40 still missing following massive Lac Megantic, Quebec oil train explosion Russian train derails in Krasnodar region: Summer heat might have distorted tracks BREAKING: Passengers "Electrocuted and Crushed" as Train derails in Paris suburb station of Bretigny-sur-Orge Welshpool train crash: Tractor driver's miracle escape after 70mph service smashes into his vehicle Tourists hurt as Thai train derails |
|
|
|
|
CBS News
2013-07-21 13:02:00
Some 20 cars have been torched and four people detained in a second night of violence in suburbs west of Paris, a result of tensions linked to authorities' handling of France's ban on Muslim face veils. France's interior minister said Sunday that the incidents overnight targeted the town of Elancourt. Police union official said on BFM television that about 50 assailants were involved, some firing weapons and a gasoline bomb at police. The night before, about 250 people hurling projectiles clashed with police firing tear gas in the nearby town of Trappes in apparent protest over the enforcement of France's ban on Islamic face veils. Five people were injured and six detained in the violence, authorities said Saturday. The interior minister urged calm and dialogue, insisting on both the need for public order and respect for France's Muslims. The incident in the town of Trappes on Friday night reflected sporadic tensions between police upholding France's strict policies of secularism and those who accuse authorities of discriminating against France's No. 2 religion. |
|
|
|
|
FoxNews.com
2013-07-21 12:52:00
Authorities responding to a report of a foul odor from a home ultimately discovered three bodies and arrested a registered sex offender who sent police and volunteers through a poor Ohio neighborhood in a search for more victims Sunday, officials said. East Cleveland Police Chief Ralph Spotts had cautioned searchers to be prepared to find one or two more victims. But after a daylong search that included 40 abandoned houses and other areas, no more bodies were found. Spotts identified the suspect as 35-year-old Michael Madison. He said Madison is expected to be formally charged Monday, but did not elaborate. Mayor Gary Norton said the suspect has indicated he might have been influenced by Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell, who was convicted in 2011 of murdering 11 women and sentenced to death. It's the latest in a series of high-profile cases involving the disappearance of women from the Cleveland area. |
|
|
|
|
The Guardian
Florida court hands down sentences of up to 25 years against men who peddled worthless shares in 'boiler-room' scheme2013-07-24 12:05:00
Three British conmen who left thousands of victims penniless as they frittered £85m in stolen money on a private jet, yachts and holiday homes in the Caribbean have been jailed by a Florida court. Richard Pope, Paul Gunter and Simon Odoni lived a luxurious life while defrauding at least 2,300 Britons, many of whom lost their entire life savings and one of whom was driven to suicide. They were jailed at a court in Florida, where Gunter, 64, was sentenced to 25 years. Odoni, 56, was given 13 years and four months and Pope, 55, was sentenced to four years and nine months. Detective Inspector Kerrie Gower said: "Pope, Gunter and Odoni are amongst the most ruthless and destructive criminals the City of London police have ever dealt with and deserve every day they will spend behind bars in America. "Unfortunately this sentencing will not repair the huge damage they caused to the lives of thousands of people who were simply looking for a safe place to invest their money, but hopefully it will bring a measure of comfort and a sense of closure to those caught up in what was fraud committed on a truly massive scale." |
|
|
|
|
Drew Brown
DA NANG, Vietnam -- In many ways, Nguyen Thi Ly is just like any other
12-year-old girl. She has a lovely smile and is quick to laugh. She
wants to be a teacher when she grows up. She enjoys skipping rope when
she plays.The Sacramento Bee 2013-07-24 11:46:00
But Ly is also very different from other children. Her head is severely misshapen. Her eyes are unnaturally far apart and permanently askew. She's been hospitalized with numerous ailments since her birth. Her mother, 43-year-old Le Thi Thu, has similar deformities and health disorders. Neither of them has ever set foot on a battlefield, but they're both casualties of war. Le and her daughter are second- and third-generation victims of dioxin exposure, the result of the U.S. military's use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, when the U.S. Air Force sprayed more than 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides over parts of southern Vietnam and along the borders of neighboring Laos and Cambodia. The herbicides were contaminated with dioxin, a deadly compound that remains toxic for decades and causes birth defects, cancer and other illnesses. To this day, dioxin continues to poison the land and the people. The United States has never accepted responsibility for these victims - it denies that Agent Orange is responsible for diseases among Vietnamese that are accepted as Agent Orange-caused among American veterans - and it's unclear when this chain of misery will end. |
|
|
|
|
The Guardian
Riot police free more than 100 MPs and ministers blockaded for more than eight hours as anti-government protests grow2013-07-24 11:38:00
Police in Bulgaria have broken up a blockade of parliament by anti-government protesters to escort out more than 100 MPs and ministers who had been trapped inside the building for more than eight hours. Police in riot gear pushed away the protesters early on Wednesday and formed a corridor to allow those trapped out of the building. Protests in Bulgaria's capital, which have been continuing for 40 days, escalated on Tuesday evening when several hundred demonstrators trapped the officials inside parliament in a bid to oust the left-leaning government. Police had tried to escort the officials out by a bus on Tuesday, but protesters blocked the vehicle and hurled stones. Seven protesters and two police officers were treated in hospital for head wounds. The Socialist-backed government took office after early elections in May, following the resignation of the previous cabinet amid anti-austerity protests. The government commands only 120 seats in the 240-seat Parliament and has to rely on the support from a nationalist party. The appointment of media mogul Delyan Peevski as head of the national security agency sparked the most recent wave of protests. The appointment was immediately revoked but demonstrators insist the government is corrupt and must resign. Recent public-opinion polls show the protests are supported by about two-thirds of Bulgaria's 7.3m people, who have the lowest incomes in the European Union. The Bulgarian president, Rosen Plevneliev, issued a statement calling on the protesters to keep the demonstrations "peaceful and civilised." "For the first time since the start of the protests we have now witnessed tension and attempts for provocation," Plevneliev said, urging the protesters to restrain from any acts which increased the tension and breach public order. He also called on the police to help keep the protest peaceful. |
|
|
|
|
Petchanet Pratruangkrai
Consumers look set to shoulder higher food prices following recent hikes
in the cost of key ingredients, particularly pork, the Commerce
Ministry has reported. The ministry found that retail prices of many
Thai-style fast-food dishes have already increased by around Bt5 per
dish following a hike in the price of raw materials, in particular pork
and other meats, and ahead of a rise in the LPG price scheduled for
September.The Nation, Thailand 2013-07-24 07:58:00 The ministry reported that the price of pork at fresh markets rose to Bt140 per kilogram from an average of Bt130-135 per kilogram last month. A swine-farming source said the rise in the price of pork was due to a drop in the supply of pigs after farmers cut back in response to an over-supply starting in the middle of last year. That oversupply led to huge losses among farmers. "The retail price of pork is expected to increase this week as the farm-gate price of pigs has increased by Bt2-Bt3 a kilo. As a result, prices of some foods and other protein sources could rise along with rising pork prices," the source said. Farm-gate value is the net value of a product when it leaves the farm, after marketing costs have been subtracted. |
|
|
|
Steve Hawkes
The Nigerian Voice 2013-07-24 07:36:00
Food prices tipped to treble over the next 20 years as an explosion in the world's population triggers a global fight for food. A government adviser said everyday products such as cocoa and meat could become relative luxuries by the 2040s. Professor Tim Benton, head of Global Food Security working group, added there could be shortages in the UK in the future as the emerging middle class in south-east Asia sparks a revolution in "food flows" such as the trade in grain and soya around the world. Professor Benton, from the University of Leeds, told the Daily Telegraph: "Food is going to be competed for on a global scale. There's been a lot written about where food prices are going to go but they are certainly going to double, with some trebling. It's not just fruit and vegetables, but everything." The shock forecast came as the chief executive of Tesco, Philip Clarke, warned the era of cheap food was over because of the forecast surge in demand. | |
|
Comment: Long-term population growth isn't the danger
facing us right now: the danger facing us right now, as hinted at in the
last line above, is that crops are failing left, right and center for
the third year running...
3 strikes and you're out: Rising food prices, climate change and global 'unrest' |
|
|
|
|
RIA Novosti
2013-07-24 04:02:00
A Polish prosecutor and four experts are conducting an additional examination of seat fragments in the debris from a jet that crashed in Russia in 2010, killing Poland's then-president, Lech Kaczynski, the Polish Main Military Prosecutor's Office reported. An Office spokesman said the Polish delegation's visit to Russia had been coordinated with the Russian side beforehand. The experts will work in the western Russian city of Smolensk until the end of next week. The Russian-made Tu-154 jet, carrying Kaczynski, his wife and a host of top officials, crashed in heavy fog as it attempted to land at an airfield near Smolensk on April 10, 2010. The delegation was flying to Smolensk to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1940 Katyn massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police. All 96 people aboard the plane died. |
|
|
|
|
RIA Novosti
2013-07-24 03:05:00
A couple from Virginia pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges in connection with the abuse of a young boy they adopted from Russia. Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Sweeney, an officer in the US Navy, pleaded guilty to a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and received a suspended sentence of 60 days behind bars. His wife, Amy Sweeney, pleaded guilty to felony abuse and neglect, and will be sentenced in December. The couple adopted Daniil Kruchin from Russia in 2006 and renamed him Daniel Alexander. He was eight years old when the abuse case first came to light in July of last year. The boy left his home in the middle of the night on July 17 and rang the doorbell of a nearby home in the early morning hours the next day. |
|
|
|
|
RT
An Australia-bound boat carrying asylum seekers has sunk off the coast
of Indonesia, with up to 60 people thought to be dead or missing,
Australian media report.2013-07-24 01:36:00 The boat, carrying 170 people, encountered harsh sea conditions and simply broke, News Ltd reported on Tuesday. Rescue efforts by local fishermen have managed to save more than 100 of the passengers, mostly Iranian and Sri Lankan nationals. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has confirmed an official rescue operation, declining to comment further. The incident comes days after Australia ruled that any refugees arriving by boat would be redirected without exception to neighboring Papua New Guinea for individual assessment before settling there |
|
|
|
Al Jazeera
Gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars raid prisons, as attacks elsewhere kill 13.2013-07-22 18:52:00
|
|
|
|
|
Deborah Orr
The jurors who acquitted George Zimmerman say they acted in strict accordance with US law. That in itself speaks volumesThe Guardian 2013-07-20 18:27:00
"O, wad some Power the giftie gie us /The US is always collectively amazed, on those rare occasions when it has cause to glimpse at how it is perceived by its less friendly critics abroad. The most egregious example, of course, was 9/11, when even the brutal enormity of the attack against America was not quite enough to still the hateful tongues of people crass enough to insist that the US had got what was coming to it. The citizens of the US have an absolute right to go about their business without being slaughtered. Of course they do. Which is why the world is aghast that this right does not extend as far as Trayvon Martin. When the unarmed 17-year-old was shot dead by neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman on 26 February 2012, the killer wasn't even arrested for 44 days, having said that he fired in self-defence. Self-defence? He'd already called the police, telling the operator that Martin was acting suspiciously - "up to no good, on drugs or something". Zimmerman had been told by the operator not to follow the teenager. But nevertheless he found himself and his gun right next to Martin, provoking a struggle. What kind of self-defence is this, when you decide that someone is trouble, and that you're going to stalk him, safe in the knowledge that if things get out of hand ... well, you're armed? Yet a jury decided that going out armed, looking for a particular person to defend yourself against, is still self-defence, and on 13 July Zimmerman was acquitted of murder. Only protest from the public ensured that Zimmerman was tried for killing Martin at all. Only protest from the public has ensured that this killing has been seen through the prism of race. Yet to an outsider, it is obvious that Martin died because he was black, and that Zimmerman walked free after killing him for the same reason. |
|
|
|
| Secret History |
|
Brett Smith
RedOrbit 2013-07-24 17:05:00
According to a new report in the Journal of Archaeological Science, an ancient humanoid species referred to as the "hobbit" closely resembled humans and not apes as some experts previously thought. Archeologists first excavated remains of this three-foot-tall human-like primate from an Indonesian cave in 2003. Known to researchers by its scientific name Homo floresiensis, the species is believed to have been a contemporary of Homo sapiens and to have gone extinct around 12,000 years ago. While some scientists have said that the hobbit species was more ape-like, others contend that it had more human features like Homo erectus. Based on a facial reconstruction, the new study supports the latter theory. "Our facial approximation is primarily based on verified, peer reviewed research regarding the relationship between the skull and its soft tissues," the researchers wrote. The study noted that chimps do not have human cheeks. Therefore, previous reconstructions of the hobbit's face were most likely inaccurate. Other theories are misguidedly based on the assumption that earlier human species had the features of ape-man hybrids, the study asserted. |
|
|
|
| Science & Technology |
|
Todd Woody
Quartz 2013-07-24 16:29:00
As we've written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America's apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought. Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have indentified a witch's brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once. When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite. |
|
|
|
|
Sid Perkins
ScienceNow 2013-07-24 15:30:00
When an asteroid or comet slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago, most of our planet's species were wiped out in a mass extinction - including entire groups such as the nonavian dinosaurs, marine reptiles such as mosasaurs, and their flying kin the pterosaurs. But not all ecosystems suffered equally, and the dramatic difference in survival rates between marine species and freshwater ones has been particularly puzzling. A new study weighs in on the long-standing riddle. According to some estimates, about three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth disappeared during the end-of-the-Cretaceous dino-killing impact. But marine ecosystems lost only about half of their species, and freshwater environments lost a mere 10% to 22%, says William Lewis, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. For instance, only about 10% of the major groups of bony fish died out, but species from all six groups of turtles alive at the time - and from most if not all groups of amphibians - survived the impact. The disparity with marine ecosystems began to make sense, he notes, when researchers began thinking of the mass extinction as a one-two punch: the fiery aftermath of the extraterrestrial impact, followed by a "nuclear winter"-like cold spell triggered by the smoke, soot, and myriad other tiny particles flung high into the atmosphere. In the wake of the impact, creatures in marine and freshwater ecosystems experienced three particularly strong stresses: starvation brought about by the collapse of the food chain (and especially by the lack of photosynthesis), the reduction or loss of dissolved oxygen in the water, and low temperatures. But in many cases, species living in freshwater environments had advantages over sea creatures that bolstered their chances of survival, Lewis and his colleagues explain this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. Not that the animals living in lakes and rivers escaped unscathed, Lewis says: "A lot of them died, too, it's just that many species as a whole were able to persist until conditions returned to something near normal." |
|
|
|
|
David Dickinson
Universe Today 2013-07-24 14:56:00
The Earth will get another close shave Monday, when the 152 metre asteroid 2003 DZ15 makes a pass by our fair planet on the night of July 29th/30th at 3.5 million kilometres distant. This is over 9 times the Earth-Moon distance and poses no threat to our world. This is much smaller than 2.75 kilometre 1998 QE2, which sailed by (bad pun intended) our fair world at 5.8 million kilometres distant on May 31st, 2013. The Virtual Telescope Project will be presenting a free online event to monitor the passage of NEA 2003 DZ15 starting Monday night July 29th at 22:00 UT/6:00 PM EDT. An Apollo asteroid, 2003 DZ15 was confirmed by the Lowell Observatory and NEAT's Mount Palomar telescope upon discovery in February 2003. This is its closest approach to the Earth for this century, although it will make a pass nearly as close to the Earth in 2057 on February 12th. |
|
|
|
|
Jaclyn Trop
The New York Times 2013-07-21 12:20:00
When Timothy P. Murray crashed his government-issued Ford Crown Victoria in 2011, he was fortunate, as car accidents go. Mr. Murray, then the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, was not seriously hurt, and he told the police he was wearing a seat belt and was not speeding. But a different story soon emerged. Mr. Murray was driving over 100 miles an hour and was not wearing a seat belt, according to the computer in his car that tracks certain actions. He was given a $555 ticket; he later said he had fallen asleep. The case put Mr. Murray at the center of a growing debate over a little-known but increasingly important piece of equipment buried deep inside a car: the event data recorder, more commonly known as the black box. About 96 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States have the boxes, and in September 2014, if the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has its way, all will have them. The boxes have long been used by car companies to assess the performance of their vehicles. But data stored in the devices is increasingly being used to identify safety problems in cars and as evidence in traffic accidents and criminal cases. And the trove of data inside the boxes has raised privacy concerns, including questions about who owns the information, and what it can be used for, even as critics have raised questions about its reliability. |
|
|
|
|
Brett Smith
RedOrbit 2013-07-23 22:10:00
Dolphins have previously shown the ability to perform simple math, rescue people and even spot mines for the military. A new study from British researchers shows that the marine mammals are capable of doing something else once thought to be unique to humans - call each other by name. According to the new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, individual dolphins have a signature whistle that they use to identify themselves and each other. Marine biologists had previously suspected that individual dolphins have a unique name, but the new study from scientists at the University of St. Andrew found that dolphins respond to hearing their identifier by repeating it back, as if to say, "I'm here!" "If we look at complex ability in communication in human language, one of the key features that is important to us is that we can copy sounds, we can invent new sounds," study co-author Vincent Janik, a biologist at St Andrews University, told The Guardian. "We can then use those sounds and attach some kind of meaning to them and use them to refer to objects and to refer to external things in the world." |
|
|
|
| Earth Changes |
|
BuenosAiresHerald
2013-07-23 15:25:00
Recent polar temperatures that for the last five days have affected almost all of Argentina have left a tragic outcome: at least six people have died as a consequence of the cold in various parts of the country. In Catamarca province, a 51-year-old man died of a heart attack caused by hypothermia, in his Altos de Choya home. In the Parque Norte Oeste district of Catamarca, meanwhile, a 19-year-old disabled youth also lost his life. In the early hours of Monday morning Jose Romera, a homeless man aged 47, was discovered in the streets of Andresito, Misiones, and was pronounced dead also due to hypothermia. In Salta, meanwhile, a three-year-old boy was killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, a consequence of fumes from a heater which had been turned on to combat the intense cold. Early morning temperatures in Buenos Aires dropped as low as 1.6°C, before rising to 10° in the afternoon. Similar numbers are forecast for Wednesday, before the rest of the week sees a slight increase in temperature. In parts of Jujuy and Mendoza provinces, meanwhile, locals suffered with temperatures of up to -10°C. |
|
|
|
|
Tia Ghose
LiveScience 2013-07-24 11:58:00
Tens of thousands of dead eels have washed ashore in China over the past few weeks. The eel is just the latest animal to die en masse in China's waters. In March, thousands of dead pigs were dumped by farmers into the Hangpu River in Shanghai, and hundreds of dead ducks and fish have also turned up in Chinese waterways. Although no one knows the cause yet, some suspect the China National Offshore Oil Company may be responsible, the website Quartz reported. That company is doubling its crude oil production. But the company and local administrators say the eels died of natural causes. The company says ocean currents brought a confluence of low temperatures, low oxygen and high salt content that killed off the eels, the South China Morning Post reported. |
|
|
|
|
wdsu.com
44 people evacuated on 2 life boats; all OK2013-07-24 13:19:00
What officials described as a 'major cloud of gas' surrounded a shallow-water natural gas platform that experienced a blowout on Tuesday morning. The blowout happened about 9:50 a.m. on Hercules Platform No. 265, which is located about 40 miles south and 10 to 15 miles west of Grand Isle, according to the Coast Guard. Officials told WDSU that 44 people were evacuated on two life boats, and all are said to be OK. A Coast Guard cutter and two aircraft were sent to assess the situation. Hercules Offshore owns the platform, but Jefferson Parish Emergency Management officials said Walter Oil and Gas was the company conducting drilling at the time of the incident. Initial reports indicate natural gas began working its way to the surface as crews were in the process of pumping mud. JPEM participated in an early afternoon call that included members of the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management as well as the Coast Guard. Responding agencies have established a unified command in Houma to manage the situation. The Federal Aviation Administration has posted flight restrictions for the immediate area. |
|
|
|
|
Rob Cooper
Around 50 homes hit by flash flooding in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, following heavy downpoursThe Daily Mail, UK 2013-07-24 10:14:00 Entire months rainfall hits Pershore, Worcestershire, in the space of three hours as the area is hit by 56mm of rain Two flood warnings and 13 flood alerts put in place by the Environment Agency Up to 40mm of rain could hit the east of England in the space of a few hours today More than 50 homes have been hit by flash flooding as parts of Britain were hit by a month's worth of rainfall in the space of a few hours after the heatwave came to an end. Nottinghamshire Police said houses in Southwell were particularly badly hit by the extreme weather, while numerous properties, businesses and roads across the county were affected. Today the Environment Agency had two flood warnings in place in Somerset and 13 active flood alerts as Britain was braced for further downpours. Scroll down for video
|
|
|
|
|
The Daily Mail, UK
Bulbous formation turned sky over Iron Mountain orange2013-07-24 09:38:00 Weather phenomenon, known as Mammatus, can be sign of storm Ominous clouds gathered over a Michigan city on Monday night, leading residents to question what was causing the bulbous formations and if they were a sign of rough weather ahead. As the orange-tinged clouds were spotted at about 8.30pm above Iron Mountain, residents posted pictures of them on social media to see if anyone could identify what they were. Meteorologist Jeff Last was finally able to resolve the mystery through Twitter, when he identified the phenomenon as Mammatus.
Scroll down for video His tweet was in response to a picture Joe Nottage had put online, as he asked: 'Can anyone explain this?' Skye reported. Another resident, Jason Asselin, filmed the clouds as they gathered over the city. 'All of a sudden it got very yellow outside, it felt strange and mysterious,' he wrote on YouTube. 'It was the craziest thing I have ever witnessed over my head. I almost expected to see a tornado or something.'
|
||
|
|
|
Richard Salit
Providence Journal 2013-07-23 22:30:00
Starfish, whose fanciful five-armed figure is symbolic of the seashore, have become veritable shooting stars of late - here one moment, gone the next. Following a boom in their population only a few years ago, starfish have since become so scarce that researchers in Rhode Island are even having difficulty collecting enough of them to study an unidentified disease that may be linked to their die-off. "It's one of those mystery detective stories," said Marta Gomez-Chiarri, a biology professor at the University of Rhode Island in the department of fisheries, animal and veterinary science. The case of the disappearing starfish, also known as sea stars, began more than a year ago when Caitlin DelSesto, then an undergraduate student at URI, began collecting starfish for a project on how they respond to ocean acidification, a symptom of climate change. She quickly ran into a serious problem. Many were slimy, mushy, and plagued with white lesions. Some, for no apparent reason, released their iconic appendages, which famously regenerate when healthy. Within a week of being placed in tanks, most seemingly melted and died. DelSesto soon learned that their numbers were dwindling considerably. Only a few years earlier, there were so many starfish around that farmers raising oysters and researchers trying to restore wild scallop populations feared the abundance of the shellfish-eating predators. Gomez-Chiarri recalls seeing time-lapse video at that time of a "wave of sea stars going through a site and eating all of the mussels and leaving a wasteland afterwards." |
|
|
|
|
RT
2013-07-22 06:33:00
The operator of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, TEPCO, has admitted for the first time since March 2011 that crippled reactors continue to leak highly contaminated radioactive waters into the Pacific Ocean. TEPCO had previously denied suspicions that contaminated water had reached the sea, despite the fact that levels of potentially cancer-causing radioactive substances present in ground and seawater samples at the plant had soared. "But now we believe that contaminated water has flown out to the sea," TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono said at a Monday news conference. Comment: Interesting he says "now we believe" when it was always evident - Sheesh. | |
|
Comment: This apology seems a hallow token, they knew
the risks beforehand and did nothing. It is not just the "grave
worries", families now and generations to come will suffer and die from
these causes.
|
|
|
|
|
Rob Williams
The Independent 2013-07-21 18:38:00
Study part-funded by the CIA to investigate national security implications of geoengineering The power, reach and influence of the Central Intelligence Agency is a staple of conspiracy theories. The news that the CIA is reportedly part-funding a scientific geoengineering study into how to control the weather is unlikely to dampen speculation over their activities. According to US website 'Mother Jones' the CIA is helping fund a study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that will investigate whether humans could use geoengineering - which is defined as deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climatic system - to stop climate change. The NAS website describes the study as an investigation into "a limited number of proposed geoengineering techniques, including examples of both solar radiation management (SRM) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques." The purpose of this is to comment "generally on the potential impacts of deploying these technologies, including possible environmental, economic, and national security concerns", the website claims. Solar radiation management (SRM) is a theoretical branch of geoengineering which moots the idea of reflecting sunlight in an attempt to block infrared radiation and halt rising temperatures. The cost of the project is reported to be $630,000, which NAS is splitting with the CIA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA reports say. | |
|
Comment: The extreme weather that we experience on
Earth are part of a bigger cosmic movement that is taking place at our
part of the universe, which no government or agency will ever be able to
"mitigate" in any way. They want us however to believe that they have
everything under control, when in fact they don't, so that we never
forget "why we need them". For more in-depth analysis and the
implications of these extreme weather phenomena, read:
Chemtrails? Contrails? Strange Skies Chemtrails, Disinformation and the Sixth Extinction |
|
|
|
| Fire in the Sky |
|
No new articles. |
| Health & Wellness |
|
No new articles. |
| Science of the Spirit |
|
No new articles. |
| High Strangeness |
|
No new articles. |
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
| No new articles. |
