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| Puppet Masters |
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Brad Heath
USA Today 2013-08-04 12:42:00
WASHINGTON - The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single year, according to newly disclosed documents that show just how often the nation's top law enforcement agency enlists criminals to help it battle crime. The U.S. Justice Department ordered the FBI to begin tracking crimes by its informants more than a decade ago, after the agency admitted that its agents had allowed Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger to operate a brutal crime ring in exchange for information about the Mafia. The FBI submits that tally to top Justice Department officials each year, but has never before made it public. Agents authorized 15 crimes a day, on average, including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies. FBI officials have said in the past that permitting their informants - who are often criminals themselves - to break the law is an indispensable, if sometimes distasteful, part of investigating criminal organizations. "It sounds like a lot, but you have to keep it in context," said Shawn Henry, who supervised criminal investigations for the FBI until he retired last year. "This is not done in a vacuum. It's not done randomly. It's not taken lightly." |
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Heidi Stevenson
Greenmedinfo.com 2013-08-03 11:32:00
If you can push the most dangerous vaccines in use today on teen and pre-teen girls, and later on boys of the same age, without any proof that they work, then why not give them to newborn infants - plus another 'booster' later on? That appears to be planned for Gardasil and Cervarix, along with a slick new marketing program, thanks to the vaccine-industrial complex. The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database shows clearly that the vaccines with the most reported adverse effects are Gardasil and Cervarix, the two human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines. It would obviously be madness to lower the age at which they've given - but that appears to be exactly what's being planned. As Gaia Health has documented, these vaccines have not yet been shown to be effective in preventing cancer, and may even cause the disease. In fact, the document released by the FDA to justify Gardasil stated that women who are infected with HPV at the time of vaccination are 44.6% more likely to develop cervical dysplasias.[1] This is not a minor issue, yet it is routinely ignored in the rush to vaccinate. So why should we be surprised to find that the search for excuses to lower the age of vaccination is in full force? |
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Joanne Hart
Diplomats in London have been thrown into chaos after Britain's biggest
bank, HSBC, sacked them as customers and gave them 60 days to move their
accounts.The Daily Mail, UK 2013-08-03 06:36:00 Their situation has been made far worse because other banks have been closing ranks and refusing to take their business. More than 40 embassies, consulates and High Commissions have been affected. Even the Vatican has been given its marching orders.
The Pope's representative office in Britain, the Apostolic Nunciature, has banked with HSBC for many years but was told to find another bank. One diplomatic source said he believed HSBC feared being exposed to embassies after it was fined $2billion (£1.32billion) by US authorities last year. |
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Ali Watkins, David Lightman and Adam Baron
mcclatchydc.com 2013-08-04 06:25:00
The closing of U.S. embassies in 21 predominantly Muslim countries and a broad caution about travel during August that the State Department issued on Friday touched off debate Sunday over the National Security Agency's sweeping data collection programs. Congressional supporters of the program, appearing on Sunday morning talk shows, said the latest rounds of warnings of unspecified threats showed that the programs were necessary, while detractors said there was no evidence linking the programs, particularly the massive collection of cell phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans, to the vague warnings of a possible terrorist attack. Meanwhile, there were no reports of violence or unusual activity in any of the countries where the United States had kept its embassies and consulates closed when they would have ordinarily been open on Sunday. Nevertheless, the State Department announced that embassies and consulates in 16 countries would remain closed throughout the week, including four African nations that had not been on the original list. Diplomatic posts in five other countries would reopen Monday, the State Department said, including those in Afghanistan and Iraq, where terrorist attacks have been frequent. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the extended closures were "not an indication of a new threat stream." "Given that a number of our embassies and consulates were going to be closed in accordance with local custom and practice for the bulk of the week for the Eid celebration at the end of Ramadan, and out of an abundance of caution, we've decided to extend the closure of several embassies and consulates," she said. An official who'd been briefed on the matter in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, told McClatchy that the embassy closings and travel advisory were the result of an intercepted communication between Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and al Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri in which Zawahiri gave "clear orders" to al-Wuhaysi, who was recently named al Qaida's general manager, to carry out an attack. |
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foxnews.com
The State Department has announced that it will keep several embassies
in the Middle East and Africa closed throughout the week "out of an
abundance of caution" in the wake of terror threats that shut them down.2013-08-05 05:11:00 Posts in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Cairo, Riyadh, Dhahran, Jeddah, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Sanaa, Tripoli, Antanarivo, Bujumbura, Djibouti, Khartoum, Kigali and Port Louis have been instructed to close for normal operations from Monday through Saturday, department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. The State Department also said some of those embassies were already going to be closed in accordance with local customs marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Those authorized to reopen Monday are in Dhaka, Algiers, Nouakchott, Kabul, Herat, Mazar el Sharif, Baghdad, Basrah and Erbil. Capitol Hill lawmakers, including top-ranking members of intelligence committees, on Sunday described the terror threat that closed 22 U.S. embassies and consulates across the Muslim region as the most serious one since before the 9/11 attacks and related to specific act or plot. |
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David Sherfinski
Key Democratic and Republican members of Congress said Sunday that the
terrorism threat reportedly triggered by an intercepted message between
senior al Qaeda operatives is the most serious threat in years, with
some warning that the threat is an indication the terrorist group
responsible for the 9/11 attacks still poses a significant danger to the
U.S.The Washington Times 2013-08-04 04:58:00 The threat forced the closings of more than 20 U.S. embassies and consulates this weekend. A travel alert was issued for Americans planning to travel overseas, particularly in the Middle East, and will remain in effect for the rest of August. The closures of the embassies and consulates and the travel alert were triggered by an intercepted message between senior al Qaeda operatives, CNN reported Sunday. The State Department announced Sunday afternoon that 19 diplomatic posts will remain shuttered through Saturday, underscoring the level of concern by U.S. security officials about the potential danger. Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the extension was ordered in part because of the looming celebrations marking the end of the Ramadan period of fasting for Muslims and in part out of "an abundance of caution." |
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abcnews.go.com
2013-08-05 04:32:00
Federal authorities are boosting security in the United States after intelligence agencies detected a credible threat to Western interests overseas and the government began closing diplomatic posts in some Muslim countries, according to homeland security officials. The Department of Homeland Security is increasing security measures at airports, train stations and other transportation hubs, and expanding scrutiny of visitors coming into the United States, two officials told ABC News. The FBI, meanwhile, is "working sources" and taking other "logical steps" to monitor any potential threat, an FBI official said. |
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Martha Raddatz and Jonathan Karl
On the day that almost two dozen U.S. embassies and consulates across
North Africa and the Middle East are closed following the identification
of a significant threat from an al-Qaeda affiliate, a senior U.S.
official is providing new details about the communications intercepted
from the terrorists, telling ABC News that al-Qaeda operatives could be
heard talking about an upcoming attack. The official described the
terrorists as saying the planned attack is "going to be big" and
"strategically significant."abcnews.go.com 2013-08-04 04:10:00 "The part that is alarming is the confidence they showed while communicating and the air of certainty," the official said, adding that the group - Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - appeared to have a media plan for after the attack. Authorities do not know the exact target of the planned attack, according to the official. "We do not know whether they mean an embassy, an airbase, an aircraft, trains," the official said.
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Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
Yahoo News 2013-08-04 00:00:00
Ottawa - Taking a train in Canada could soon become more like boarding an airplane as Via Rail considers greater scrutiny of checked baggage, more inspections by sniffer dogs and security checks on passengers. The measures - outlined in documents released under the Access to Information Act - are being considered in direct response to the alleged terrorist plot to derail a train that led to arrests in April, said Jacques Gagnon, a Via Rail spokesman. Comment: People might remember these two so called alleged Al Qaeda dudes from Montreal & Toronto arrested by the RCMP with of course the assistants of the "F.B.I. and other American law enforcement and intelligence agencies were involved in the investigation." "We were already doing a lot, we are doing more now, and we could do even more," Gagnon said in an interview. Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, and Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, face terrorism-related charges for allegedly plotting to derail a Via passenger train. A third man, Ahmed Abassi, was arrested in the United States in connection with the purported scheme. Jaser's lawyer has denied the allegations against his client. Essighaier has refused to recognize the Criminal Code and has said he wants a lawyer who will use the Qur'an to judge him instead. He has not been successful, but has qualified for legal aid. The case is scheduled to return to court later this month. The alleged plot is said to have targeted a train that travels from New York City to Ontario, operated by U.S. rail service Amtrak south of the border and Via Rail staff in Canada. Via Rail security officials were advised of the RCMP's investigation in August 2012 and provided information to the Mounties. In response to the alleged threat, the train service added security guards at strategic locations across Canada, hired extra security officers and briefed its employees. It also set up a working group to study possible further changes. At a House of Commons committee in May, a senior Via Rail official said the train service was considering whether to ask all of its travellers for identification before they board, which does not take place routinely. Gagnon says the idea - including regular checks of passenger names against security databases - is still being studied, but could be a "fairly expensive proposition" given that Via serves 450 communities spanning 12,500 kilometres of track. "We're not yet there." |
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RIA Novosti
2013-08-04 14:39:00
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev criticized on Sunday the West's interference in the Middle East, describing it as a "bull in a china shop." In an interview with Russia Today international news TV channel, Medvedev said he agreed with the interviewer that the West often purposefully pushed whole nations to the point of no return, beyond which it was very difficult to convince the warring sides to attempt negotiations. "Our Western partners sometimes behave like a bull in a china shop - they squeeze in, crush everything and then don't know what to do next. I often find myself astonished at their analysts and how inconsistent their projects are that they push through by their superiors and at the outcomes they get," Medvedev told Russia Today. "If we're being completely honest, what good did the Arab Spring bring to the Arab world? Did it bring freedom? A little, at best. In most countries it led to endless bloodshed, regime change, and continuous unrest. I have no illusions about that either. As for the pushing you mentioned, yes, unfortunately, that's true," Medvedev said. |
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The Independent, UK
2013-08-04 06:24:00
Syrian troops drove insurgents from central Homs on Monday, tightening their siege on remaining rebel bastions in the strategically important city, which links Damascus to the Mediterranean heartland of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect. The fighting has devastated the city, leaving buildings in ruins. |
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Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Danny Yadron
Law-Enforcement officials expand use of tools such as spyware as people under investigation 'go dark,' evading wiretapsThe Wall Street Journal 2013-08-01 07:30:00
Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. are expanding the use of tools routinely used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects, bringing the criminal wiretap into the cyber age. Federal agencies have largely kept quiet about these capabilities, but court documents and interviews with people involved in the programs provide new details about the hacking tools, including spyware delivered to computers and phones through email or Web links - techniques more commonly associated with attacks by criminals. People familiar with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's programs say that the use of hacking tools under court orders has grown as agents seek to keep up with suspects who use new communications technology, including some types of online chat and encryption tools. The use of such communications, which can't be wiretapped like a phone, is called "going dark" among law enforcement. |
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The Guardian
2013-08-02 09:19:00
Foreign Office say any Britons who stay in Yemen are unlikely to be able to be evacuated if unrest gets worse British nationals have been warned to leave the Middle Eastern state of Yemen immediately, amid fears of escalating violence in the country. The Foreign Office issued new advice warning against all travel to the country, and said that any Britons who stay in Yemen are unlikely to be able to be evacuated if unrest gets worse. The British embassy in the capital Sana'a will be closed on Sunday and Monday as a "precautionary measure". The advice came as the US state department issued a global travel alert because of a threat of possible al-Qaida terrorist attacks during August, particularly in the Middle East. Twenty one American embassies in the region - including Yemen - will close on Sunday. There was no immediate indication of any link between the British and US actions. Comment: Puh-leeze don't insult us with that horse hockey! The actions are blatantly the result of joint policy. |
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Peter Symonds
World Socialist Web Site 2013-08-02 22:06:00
American officials routinely deny that Obama's "pivot to Asia" is aimed at preparing for war against China. However, in comments this week reported on the Foreign Policy web site, General Herbert Carlisle, chief of US Air Force operations in the Pacific, outlined a far-reaching build-up of American war planes and personnel throughout Asia. The four-star general told reporters in Washington on July 29 that the US Air Force would dispatch "fighters, tankers, and at some point in the future, maybe bombers on a rotational basis" to bases in northern Australia. He indicated that the "rotations" would begin next year to Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base Darwin before moving to RAAF Base Tindal, several hundred kilometres south. The US Air Force has already flown training missions into RAAF Base Darwin, with a B-52 arriving from Guam last August. Longer stays are now being prepared, in line with the US Marine "rotational presence" in Darwin that will reach 1,150 next year. By 2016, a fully-equipped 2,500-strong Marine Air Ground Task Force will operate from Darwin on six-month rotations. |
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Nick Barrickman
World Socialist Web Site 2013-08-02 21:57:00
Attempts made by the American Civil Liberties Union to obtain an independent probe into the killing of Ibragim Todashev have been rebuffed by representatives of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). Todashev, the 27-year-old Chechen and associate of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents during an interrogation on May 22. A letter sent Tuesday by FDLE Commissioner Gerald M. Bailey to the ACLU stated, "This is an active federal investigation; it would be inappropriate for [the state] to intervene" in the probe currently being carried out by the FBI into the circumstances surrounding the killing. Referring any subsequent questions to the FBI, the FDLE commissioner refused to make any additional comments. The stonewalling prompted the ACLU of Florida's Executive Director Howard Simon to comment, "Secrecy fosters suspicion and the people of Florida deserve better than to be left without an explanation from their government about what led to a person being shot to death." |
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| Society's Child |
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Ryan Gorman
The editor's IP address was tracked back to the US SenateThe Daily Mail,UK 2013-08-04 14:46:00 The edit was made one day after Edward Snowden was granted political asylum in Russia A member of the US Senate was caught this week trying to make a rather conspicuous edit to Edward Snowden's Wikipedia page . In a move sure to grind the gears of conspiracy theorists everywhere, a member of the US Senate recently edited Snowden's Wikipedia page from describing him as a 'dissident' to a traitor, according to the entry's changelog. The user's IP address was quickly traced back to the US Senate. It is not clear if the person is an active Senator, a staffer or an intern, but the change certainly came from the Senate.
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Mitra Malek
The Palm Beach Post 2013-08-03 13:11:00
West Palm Beach - A beeping alarm clock in a piece of luggage put airport workers on edge Saturday, prompting them to call the county's explosive experts. The suspicious bag caused two floors of Palm Beach International Airport to be evacuated and close for several hours, delaying flights. David and Joshua Pierre-Louis were getting their great aunt's IBC Air boarding pass for a noon flight to Haiti when police ordered them outside, along with everyone around them. That was at about 11:30 a.m., the brothers said. They didn't get back inside until almost 2 p.m. "We were literally about to hit enter to print the ticket," said David Pierre-Louis, who made the trip from Fort Lauderdale expecting check-in to move more quickly than in his crowded home airport. |
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Kirit Radia
Pop stars Lady Gaga and Madonna are facing punishment in Russia after
authorities determined they violated their visas when they held concerts
there last year.abcnews.go.com 2013-08-04 12:52:00 Technically, the artists were not allowed to work in Russia on their tourist visas, but experts say it appears the visa warning is a veiled attempt punish the pop stars for their vocal support of gay rights in Russia. The investigation into their visas came at the urging of a lawmaker who has spearheaded Russia's anti-gay campaign.
"The Russian government is sending a shot across the bow to Lady Gaga, Madonna, and other performers who are taking up gay rights in Russia," said Paul Saunders, the executive director of the Center for the National Interest. During concerts in St. Petersburg last year, both Lady Gaga and Madonna denounced the city's harsh anti-gay law from the stage. "Tonight, this is my house Russia. You can be gay in my house," Lady Gaga said during her performance in December. |
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Henry Samuel
Nicolas Sarkozy comeback ambitions received a major boost as he was
declared the most popular influential political figure in France by a
key poll. The Telegraph, UK 2013-08-05 12:23:00
The Right-wing former president came 20th in Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche's bi-annual Top 50 poll, some 24 places ahead of François Hollande, the Socialist who roundly beat him last year but now faces record low popularity ratings. The two men were the only politicians present in the list, dominated by music, film, TV and sports celebrities. The poll came a day after Mr Sarkozy reportedly received a rock star's welcome when he turned up to a pop concert in St-Tropez with his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, during which half the audience gave him a standing ovation. The 58-year-old's ranking is the highest he has ever achieved, including in a poll taken in the "honeymoon period" shortly after his election for a five-year term in 2007. It will further fire up his supporters, who are increasingly vocal in calling for his return to spare France five more years of Socialist rule in 2017. |
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Michael Gartland
Twenty-five years after accusing an innocent man of rape, Tawana Brawley is finally paying for her lies.New York Post 2013-08-04 12:06:00 Last week, 10 checks totaling $3,764.61 were delivered to ex-prosecutor Steven Pagones - the first payments Brawley has made since a court determined in 1998 that she defamed him with her vicious hoax. A Virginia court this year ordered the money garnisheed from six months of Brawley's wages as a nurse there. She still owes Pagones $431,000 in damages. And she remains defiantly unapologetic. "It's a long time coming," said Pagones, 52, who to this day is more interested in extracting a confession from Brawley than cash. |
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Bruce Schneier
bloomberg.com 2013-07-31 11:48:00
Imagine the government passed a law requiring all citizens to carry a tracking device. Such a law would immediately be found unconstitutional. Yet we all carry mobile phones. If the National Security Agency required us to notify it whenever we made a new friend, the nation would rebel. Yet we notify Facebook Inc. (FB) If the Federal Bureau of Investigation demanded copies of all our conversations and correspondence, it would be laughed at. Yet we provide copies of our e-mail to Google Inc. (GOOG), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) or whoever our mail host is; we provide copies of our text messages to Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), AT&T Inc. (T) and Sprint Corp. (S); and we provide copies of other conversations to Twitter Inc., Facebook, LinkedIn (LNKD) Corp. or whatever other site is hosting them. The primary business model of the Internet is built on mass surveillance, and our government's intelligence-gathering agencies have become addicted to that data. Understanding how we got here is critical to understanding how we undo the damage. |
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Shira Ovide
As micro-blogging site expands globally, it gets flak from many sidesThe Wall Street Journal 2013-08-04 07:10:00 Twitter Inc.'s growing ambitions are making it harder to carry the Internet's free-speech banner. Chief Executive Dick Costolo promotes Twitter as a protector of more than 200 million people who broadcast their lives, be it love for a new pop song or Tahrir Square protests. But increasingly, freewheeling tweets are clashing with divergent global laws and standards in markets where Twitter is spreading its wings.
"You have to abide by the rule of law in the countries in which you operate," the 49-year-old Mr. Costolo said in an interview at Twitter's San Francisco headquarters. Defending free expression "gets more challenging for us as a company as we become an ever-growing global company, and have a presence and offices and people on the ground around the world." In recent weeks, Twitter has found itself labeled a censor, an enabler of hate speech and a tool of Big Brother. It drew flak in July for turning over to French prosecutors information about users who tweeted anti-Semitic messages. U.K. lawmakers in the last week have blasted Twitter for failing to deal effectively with abusive tweets, after an activist was threatened repeatedly by other Twitter users. Twitter's hands-off approach to users' expression is being stressed as it opens offices in countries including France, Germany and Brazil ahead of its expected initial public stock offering - making workers and company assets subject to arrest or seizure if it breaks local laws. |
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Jeff Poor
Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol remarked on Sunday that
President Barack Obama's re-election campaign rhetoric on foreign policy
stood in stark contrast to the turmoil in the Middle East stirred by
threats from al-Qaida, pointing out that the U.S. closed 22 embassies
throughout the Muslim world.dailycaller.com 2013-08-04 05:23:00 "Four years ago President Obama gave a much heralded speech as outreach to the Muslim world," Kristol said. "And now, four years later we are closing embassies throughout the Muslim world. A year ago, the president said al-Qaida is on the run. And now we seem to be on the run." "I'm not criticizing the decision to close the embassies. That's probably the right thing to do for the sake of trying to save American lives and others, but it's a terrible thing," he added. "That you know, just a year ago boasting al-Qaida is on the run and Osama bin Laden is dead." Kristol made his remarks on Sunday's "Fox News Sunday" during its panel segment. He also warned closing the embassies affected tourism and further indicated the severity of situation. "And now an unprecedented closure of 22 embassies and the travel alert, which lasts for a month, which incidentally - I'm not sure people understand that State Department hates to do that," Kristol said. "You know, this is the highest level of the travel advisory they do routinely, and the travel alert, every host government dislikes that. It cuts tourism. They are objecting to the ambassadors there. The ambassadors are cabling back to the State Department saying, 'Travel alert, are you sure we have to do that?' For the U.S. government and the State Department to issue a travel alert for the next month means the threat is serious." |
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youtube.com
2012-04-28 16:44:00
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youtube.com
2013-04-08 16:38:00
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youtube.com
2009-08-09 16:30:00
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youtube.com
2013-05-14 16:22:00
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youtube.com
2013-01-17 16:15:00
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Tom Leonard
When the acclaimed television drama series Homeland climaxed
with a devious plot by terrorists to kill America's vice-president by
hacking into his electronic pacemaker, critics scoffed at the
ludicrousness of the idea.The Daily Mail 2013-08-02 13:35:00 But the outrageous storyline was thought credible by many in the world of computer security. Among those was the New Zealand-born computer hacker Barnaby Jack. The 35-year-old - who, unlike many in the business, used his skills 'ethically' - had spent his career demonstrating the dangers posed by unscrupulous hackers combined with computer manufacturers' failure to install proper safety devices on equipment.
Jack thought it highly plausible that a terrorist could hack into someone's pacemaker and speed up their heartbeat until it killed them. He also believed it was possible to infect the pacemaker companies' servers with a bug that would spread through their systems like a virus. |
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Snejanna Farberov
On August 4, 1967, 15-year-old James Wolcott shot dead his parents and 17-year-old sister with 22-caliber rifle.The Daily Mail. UK 2013-08-03 09:11:00 Wolcott admitted to the crimes, saying that he hated his mother because she chewed food loudly and his sister because she had a bad accent. Doctors diagnosed Wolcott with paranoid schizophrenia made worse by his addiction to airplane glue. Six years later, Wolcott was released from mental hospital after being declared sane. Changed his name to James St James in 1976 and went on to earn Master's degree and PhD. A beloved 61-year-old psychology professor has been outed as a killer who murdered his family as a teenager and was committed to a mental hospital for only six years after being found insane. The bespectacled, mustachioed chairman of Millikin University's department of behavior sciences in Illinois has been identified by a reporter from the Texas newspaper The Georgetown Advocate as James Wolcott, who murdered his parents and older sister in cold blood when he was 15 years old. |
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| Secret History |
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FOCUS News Agency
2013-08-05 02:46:00
Hisarya - Archaeological team of Dr Ivan Hristov discovered a big votive relief of the ancient Father of Gods and men Zeus close to the archaeological excavations of Bulgaria's National Museum of History at the Kozi Gramadi peak in Severna Gora, close to the village of Starosel. Director of the National Museum of History, Dr Bozhidar Dimitrov, announced the news for FOCUS News Agency. "It is bigger than the votive slabs found so far and probably it is the central icon of the ancient temple," Dimitrov said. A strange event took archaeologists by surprise while the votive relief was taken out. A big imperial eagle started flying over them. In antiquity Zeus was often portrayed as an imperial eagle and the younger women archaeologists started commenting that Zeus had come to see what they were doing in his temple. The Kozi Gramadi stronghold, built in VI-V century before Christ, was a capital of a Thracian tribe, which used to live in this part of Bulgaria during the antiquity. The popular tombs close to Starosel are in fact the necropolis of the Thracian aristocrats living in the city. |
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RTE
2010-07-13 05:52:00
This unique 3-part series is a history of 20th Century Ireland presented and co-written by historian Diarmaid Ferriter. The Limits of Liberty is the story of Irish Independence. How governments of the early decades of independence were preoccupied with one overriding issue, power. Power held by small elites in what would become one of the most centralised countries in Europe. This is the first television history of Ireland since the early 1980s and sets out to re-examine the received opinion of the foundation of the State. Part 1 examines The War of Independence; The Civil War; The bombardment and destruction of the public record office; The breaking of the 1922 Postal Strike; lack of childcare in the early Free State and the subsequent consolidation of the relationship between Church and State; The Eucharistic Congress; The founding of the Pioneers and the enduring power of the works of Sean O'Casey.
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| Science & Technology |
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Craig Andrews
Findings of NYU Langone researchers may have relevance in autism-spectrum disorder.New York University School of Medicine 2013-08-04 15:51:00 In a loud, crowded restaurant, having the ability to focus on the people and conversation at your own table is critical. Nerve cells in the brain face similar challenges in separating wanted messages from background chatter. A key element in this process appears to be oxytocin, typically known as the "love hormone" for its role in promoting social and parental bonding. In a study appearing online August 4 in Nature, NYU Langone Medical Center researchers decipher how oxytocin, acting as a neurohormone in the brain, not only reduces background noise, but more importantly, increases the strength of desired signals. These findings may be relevant to autism, which affects one in 88 children in the United States. "Oxytocin has a remarkable effect on the passage of information through the brain," says Richard W. Tsien, DPhil, the Druckenmiller Professor of Neuroscience and director of the Neuroscience Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center. "It not only quiets background activity, but also increases the accuracy of stimulated impulse firing. Our experiments show how the activity of brain circuits can be sharpened, and hint at how this re-tuning of brain circuits might go awry in conditions like autism." Children and adults with autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle with recognizing the emotions of others and are easily distracted by extraneous features of their environment. Previous studies have shown that children with autism have lower levels of oxytocin, and mutations in the oxytocin receptor gene predispose people to autism. Recent brain recordings from people with ASD show impairments in the transmission of even simple sensory signals. |
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Robert Perkins
Findings could help root out the origins of dyslexia and inform therapies to combat it.University of Southern California 2013-08-05 15:40:00 A combination of brain scans and reading tests has revealed that several regions in the brain are responsible for allowing humans to read. The findings open up the possibility that individuals who have difficulty reading may only need additional training for specific parts of the brain - targeted therapies that could more directly address their individual weaknesses. "Reading is a complex task. No single part of the brain can do all the work," said Qinghua He, postdoctoral research associate at the USC Brain and Creativity Institute and the first author of a study on this research that was published in the Journal of Neuroscience on July 31. The study looked at the correlation between reading ability and brain structure revealed by high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of more than 200 participants. To control for external factors, all of the participants were about the same age and education level (college students); right-handed (lefties use the opposite hemisphere of their brain for reading); and all had about the same language skills (Chinese-speaking, with English as a second language for more than nine years). Their IQ, response speed, and memory were also tested. The study first collected data for seven different reading tests of a sample over 400 participants. These tests were aimed to explore three aspects of their reading ability:
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Tamzin Byrne
Researchers from the Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program at Sydney's
Centenary Institute have confirmed that, far from being "junk", the 97
per cent of human DNA that does not encode instructions for making
proteins can play a significant role in controlling cell development.Science in Public 2013-08-01 12:13:00 And in doing so, the researchers have unravelled a previously unknown mechanism for regulating the activity of genes, increasing our understanding of the way cells develop and opening the way to new possibilities for therapy. Using the latest gene sequencing techniques and sophisticated computer analysis, a research group led by Professor John Rasko AO and including Centenary's Head of Bioinformatics, Dr William Ritchie, has shown how particular white blood cells use non-coding DNA to regulate the activity of a group of genes that determines their shape and function. The work is published today in the scientific journal Cell. |
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Dr. Tony Phillips
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected a new kind of stellar blast
called a kilonova, which happens when a pair of compact objects such as
neutron stars crash together. Hubble observed the fading fireball from a
kilonova last month, following a short gamma ray burst (GRB) in a
galaxy almost 4 billion light-years from Earth.Science@NASA 2013-08-03 17:28:00 "This observation finally solves the mystery of short gamma ray bursts," says Nial Tanvir of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who led a team of researchers conducting this research.
Gamma ray bursts are flashes of intense high-energy radiation that appear from random directions in space. They come in two flavors--long and short. "Many astronomers, including our group, have already provided a great deal of evidence that long-duration gamma ray bursts (those lasting more than two seconds) are produced by the collapse of extremely massive stars," explains Tanvir. The short bursts, however, were more mysterious. |
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Ellie Zolfagharifard
The Daily Mail 2013-08-02 16:33:00
A cosmic impact 12,900 years ago could have led to the demise of the 'Clovis' people of North America, researchers claim. A layer of platinum from an ice core taken in Greenland has been dated back to the time of a known abrupt climate transition, known as the 'Big Freeze'. The freeze has been previously been linked to the demise of the Clovis people, the prehistoric hunter gatherers who were the first to occupy North America. According to researchers at Harvard University, this provides evidence that a comet tipped the world into its colder phase, making dozens of species extinct. Researcher Michail Petaev and Harvard colleagues, writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found a 100-fold increase in platinum concentration in ice that is around 12,890 years old. This is the same period for which oxygen isotope measurements show rapid cooling of the climate- a period known as the 'Younger Dryas'. |
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Amina Khan
Colombian scientists have discovered what may be a graveyard of comets
in a very strange spot -- and now, some of the interred are coming back
to life.Los Angeles Times 2013-08-02 07:56:00 These so-called "Lazarus" comets, described in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, may represent a long-lost population of the icy space travelers and may alter scientists' understanding of their origins. These chunks of ice and rock, typically a few kilometers across, have long held human imaginations as "falling stars." As a comet travels around the sun, the heat and light vaporize some of the water ice trapped inside, causing the signature tail of glowing gas and dust to form behind it. They're thought to have started out near the fringes of the planetary system, with stretched, elliptical orbits that are so extreme that some of comets circle the sun only once in several thousand years. Others have quicker round-trips of a couple centuries or so; these so-called short-period comets are the source of such famous sightings as Halley's Comet. |
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Maggie McKee
Nature 2013-08-02 23:24:00
The house-sized rock that exploded spectacularly in the skies near Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February may have been a member of a gang of asteroids that still poses a threat to Earth, a new study says. The evidence is circumstantial, but future observations could help to settle the question. On 15 February, an 11,000-tonne space rock slammed into the atmosphere above Russia, producing the most powerful impact since the Tunguska explosion in 1908 - which may also have been caused by an asteroid - and generating a shock wave that damaged buildings and injured more than 1,000 people. The 18-metre-wide object could not be seen as it approached the planet because it was obscured by the Sun's glare, but observations made while it was in the atmosphere have enabled several groups of researchers to estimate its orbit2. However, the estimates varied so much that there was no clear orbit that researchers could use to hunt for sibling asteroids on a similar path, say Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, orbital dynamicist brothers at the Complutense University of Madrid. They decided to tackle the problem with brute computational force, running simulations of billions of possible orbits to find the ones most likely to have led to a collision. They then used the average of the ten best orbits to search a NASA asteroid catalogue for known objects on similar paths. They found about 20, ranging in size from 5 to 200 metres across, they report in an article to be published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters1. |
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Erica Fink and Laurie Segall
CNN Money 2013-08-01 10:32:00
Today's high-end televisions are almost all equipped with "smart" PC-like features, including Internet connectivity, apps, microphones and cameras. But a recently discovered security hole in some Samsung Smart TVs shows that many of those bells and whistles aren't ready for prime time. The flaws in Samsung Smart TVs, which have now been patched, enabled hackers to remotely turn on the TVs' built-in cameras without leaving any trace of it on the screen. While you're watching TV, a hacker anywhere around the world could have been watching you. Hackers also could have easily rerouted an unsuspecting user to a malicious website to steal bank account information. Samsung quickly fixed the problem after security researchers at iSEC Partners informed the company about the bugs. Samsung sent a software update to all affected TVs. But the glitches speak to a larger problem of gadgets that connect to the Internet but have virtually no security to speak of. Security cameras, lights, heating control systems and even door locks and windows are now increasingly coming with features that allow users to control them remotely. Without proper security controls, there's little to stop hackers from invading users' privacy, stealing personal information or spying on people. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Kate Banks
Messenger, UK 2013-08-02 14:34:00
A rare and critically endangered bird was found in the car park of Stretford Mall by astonished shoppers. It was initially believed that the northern bald ibis had escaped from a zoo in Stoke some years ago, but experts at Chester Zoo are baffled as to where the bird came from. Can Sonmez, 39, and his two children saw the ibis as they were walking to the mall on Saturday, July 20. "It was basically flying up and down and the literally fell down the side of the building. When I actually picked it up it looked quite lethargic as if it hadn't fed for a while. "I knew it was an ibis as we'd seen them before at Chester Zoo, but I didn't realise it was a critically endangered species of ibis." Can, of St Andrews Road, Stretford, then took the bird home and called Chester Zoo, the curator of which collected the mystery bird a couple of days later. Curator of birds, Andrew Owen, said: "We're pleased to report that after some TLC from our bird keepers and vets the northern bald ibis is now getting on really, really well. |
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Robert Felix
"Normally the high Arctic has about 90 days above freezing. This year
there was less than half that," says Steven Goddard website.iceagenow.info 2013-08-02 06:18:00
Graph courtesy of COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut Thanks to F. Guimaraes for this link |
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BBC News
2013-08-04 17:12:00
Eastern Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan have been hit by torrential rain, causing floods which have killed at least 80 people. (Click here to watch the video) Officials said 34 died in the Sarobi district alone, around 65 km (40 miles) east of the Afghan capital Kabul. Pakistan's biggest city Karachi was also badly affected, with at least 16 killed after days of flooding. The region has suffered devastating floods during the monsoon period for the past three years. Afghan officials said that emergency teams and supplies were being dispatched to affected areas. Hundreds have been displaced in eastern areas of Afghanistan and hundreds of hectares of farmland destroyed, Ghulam Farooq, the head of emergency operations for Afghanistan's National Disaster Management Authority, told AFP news agency. The floods have caused extensive damage to property in both countries. |
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Orange.co.uk
2013-08-04 14:38:00
A driver had a lucky escape in southern China when a giant sinkhole opened up just inches in front of his car. The 20ft wide hole - more than 20ft deep - appeared in Nanning city just days after local TV and phone companies had laid new cables under the highway. "One second the road was there, the next it was just a hole," said one witness. "The driver managed to stop just in time just as one of his wheels was touching the edge," they added. And a giant truck ahead of the motor was almost pulled into the hole when its rear wheels were caught in the other side. A police spokesman said: "We are investigating the cause of the collapse." |
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The Nation
2013-08-04 13:07:00
Heavy rains and flashfloods played havoc across the country rendering widespread damages affecting normal life in Karachi, Balochistan, DG Khan and several parts of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa with more areas coming under water and water reaching at dangerous level in rivers and nullahs. According to reports atleast 25 more people were killed in roof collapse, electrocution and drowning incidents bringing the total to more than 100 in the last three days of heavy rains. Heavy rains resulting in flooding nullahs washed away dozens of residential houses while partially damaging hundreds other in different areas of KP, Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh. The gushing water also destroyed crops cultivated on thousands of acres of cultivated land. Maize and rice crops were adversely destroyed in Pasrur, Rajanpur, Sanghar, and other areas. Life in Karachi, the teeming metropolis of over 16 million, came to a grinding halt as it received heavy downpour of the current monsoon on Sunday. One of the city's main avenues, Shahrah-e Faisal, submerged in rainwater while floodwater entered the airport from Bhataiabad. At least 20 people died in rain-related incidents as provincial authorities called in army troops to help drain out rainwater from different neighbourhoods. Most of the fatalities were caused by electrocution and drowning. Another person was electrocuted and three died due to a roof collapse. |
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DNA
2013-08-04 12:21:00
City gets flooded again; more in store, warns Met. In a matter of just two hours, Ahmedabad found itself inundated after recording 5 inches of rainfall on Friday. The clouds began gathering early in the afternoon but it was around 2 pm when it started raining. Earlier, the city had recorded heavy rains in the early morning too. And with the Met department predicting intermittent but heavy rainfall for Ahmedabad in the next 24 hours, this will be the second consecutive rainy weekend for the city. It was the central zone that received highest rainfall at 30 mm followed by the east and west zone that recorded 27 and 23 mm respectively. Interestingly, the west and central zone received one inch of rainfall in a period of just 30 minutes leaving several roads water-logged. Due to heavy rains, the Akhbarnagar and Mithakali underpass were closed down. The latter was opened after an hour but the Akhbarnagar underpass continued to be out of bounds for traffic. Amdavadis who have got used to the intermittent rains meanwhile welcomed it despite the traffic chaos and water-logging. Ashutosh Mishra, a chartered accountant, had to cancel his client meeting due to the showers. |
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Tony Gussin
Investigations are under way after around 100 dead seagulls were found
in the water at Wistlandpound Reservoir near Combe Martin.North.Devon Gazette 2013-07-30 06:49:00
The reservoir at Blackmoor Gate supplies drinking water to several North Devon communities. South West Water has said the birds had been found in the untreated section of the lake. It said it had received reports of dead gulls from several of its sites including Wimbleball on Exmoor and Crowdy in Cornwall. A spokesperson said two seagulls had been sent to the Environment Agency to test for disease: "We have also carried out water quality tests at the reservoirs and algae levels are low. |
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Tanya Lewis
news.discovery.com 2013-08-03 12:54:00
Dolphin deafness can be caused by aging, underwater noise or other factors. In waters from Florida to the Caribbean, dolphins are showing up stranded or entangled in fishing gear with an unusual problem: They can't hear. More than half of stranded bottlenose dolphins are deaf, one study suggests. The causes of hearing loss in dolphins aren't always clear, but aging, shipping noise and side effects from antibiotics could play roles. "We're at a stage right now where we're determining the extent of hearing loss [in dolphins], and figuring out all the potential causes," said Judy St. Leger, director of pathology and research at SeaWorld in San Diego. "The better we understand that, the better we have a sense of what we should be doing [about it]." Whether the hearing loss is causing the dolphin strandings -- for instance, by steering the marine mammals in the wrong direction or preventing them from finding food -- is also still an open question. |
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Laura Zuckerman
The world's largest geyser has exploded to life at Yellowstone National Park for the first time in eight years, sending a high-pressure burst of steamy water 300 feet into the air, a park official said on Thursday.newsdaily.com 2013-08-01 11:38:00 The stream of 160 degree water released on Wednesday night by the so-called Steamboat Geyser lasted for roughly 10 minutes, delighting a small number of "geyser gazers" who have waited years for such a show, Yellowstone spokesman Dan Hottle said. "There are a lot of people who wait hour after hour, day after day, for things to erupt," he said. Yellowstone visitors could potentially wait a lifetime for Steamboat Geyser, which has gone as long as 50 years between major eruptions. Steamboat Geyser last sent a superheated torrent of water hundreds of feet into the air in May 2005. |
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Henry Samuel
A mystery illness is wiping out up to 80 per cent of adult oysters
along French coastlines in the latest plague to hit the embattled
molluscs, which are struggling to cope with global warming. The Telegraph, UK 2013-08-01 11:31:00
For the past month, oyster farmers have watched powerless as their shellfish have died in droves with experts at a loss to explain the causes. "In some areas, 50 to 80 per cent of saleable oysters aged between two to three years have died out," said Olivier Laban, president of the shellfish producers' federation of Arcachon-Aquitaine, western France. "We have no idea what the origin of this blight is," he told Le Figaro. Tests are under way at Ifremer, France's marine research institute, with samples taken from oysters along the West coast and the Mediterranean "All the samples show mortality rates that are higher than normal," said Tristan Renault, mollusc specialist at Ifremer. |
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The Connexion
2013-07-29 00:00:00
Storms have caused heavy damage and black outs in different regions of France. The latest area to be hit was the Riviera where this morning 14,000 homes were left without power after violent squalls brought down trees and power cables. Mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi has said he will ask the government to treat the event as a natural disaster. Businesses along the seafront were damaged along with cars, windows and roofs. Some residents thought they had been hit by a tornado. The storms has led to the cancellation of several TGV services and disruption to flights at Nice Airport. |
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Jethro Mullen
CNN 2013-08-01 03:17:00
Record-breaking temperatures have been searing large swaths of China, resulting in dozens of heat-related deaths and prompting authorities to issue a national alert. People are packing into swimming pools or taking refuge in caves in their attempts to escape the fierce temperatures. Local governments are resorting to cloud-seeding technology to try to bring rain to millions of acres of parched farmland. The worst of the smoldering heat wave has been concentrated in the south and east of the country, with the commercial metropolis of Shanghai experiencing its hottest July in at least 140 years, according to state media. Temperatures in the sprawling city of 23 million inhabitants reached 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher on 25 days in July, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday. More than 10 people died from heatstroke in Shanghai during the month, it said. But the brutal temperatures aren't confined to the Shanghai region. "About 19 provinces and regions are experiencing scorching heat, covering more than 3 million square kilometers, almost a third of the country," He Lifu, chief weather forecaster at the National Meteorological Center, told the English-language newspaper China Daily. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Jack Phillips
There were reports of a bright fireball late on Sunday night and Monday
in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. A number of unconfirmed reports
were posted on the American Meteor Society website.Epoch Times 2013-08-05 00:38:00 "This was so very exciting for me. The colors were beautiful," wrote one user, Liz W., from Nashville, Tenn. Another person from Oakland, Tenn., wrote that the fireball was "low moving, passed behind cloud bank and glow could be seen through clouds." "The fire trail was a slender taper going from origin to point within the spacing of nine of the original diameter ... the [colors] were sharp:white core, moss green outside it, traces of blue.," wrote another. "It almost looked like this fireball was going to make impact," another wrote. The fireball sighting coincide with the Perseid meteor shower, which starts in mid-July to late August each year. It is unclear if the "fireballs" that people saw in the southeastern U.S. had to do with the Perseids. "It was larger than any meteor I have ever seen," wrote one person. On Twitter, at least one person said they heard a "loud boom." "Widespread reports tonight of bright fireball in the sky over TN, AL some hearing loud boom," wrote NewsBreaker. |
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TheTimes-Tribune
La Plume - A fireball seen streaking over Northeastern Pennsylvania
early Friday was a meteor, according John Sabia, an assistant at
Keystone College's Thomas G. Cupillari Observatory.2013-08-03 17:40:00 The meteor, which was seen Friday about 12:52 a.m., was photographed by an observatory sky camera traveling across the night sky for 17 seconds. He described the meteor as slow moving and one of the brightest the camera has photographed. |
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Tracey Fairhurst
Port Macquarie News 2013-08-02 00:00:00
Stargazers were treated to a rare sighting of a meteor fireball in the skies over the Hastings on Tuesday night. Port Macquarie resident Jeff Clare phoned the Port News to report what he described as a 'ball of flames' in the night sky sometime between 7pm and 8pm which moved slowly north before arching in shape and disappearing. Jeff's story prompted some lively discussion on Facebook, with several residents also reporting having seen the bright, firey light. However, according to Mid North Coast Astronomy Group founder and space expert David Reneke, anyone who managed to catch a glimpse of the fireball was extremely lucky. "We have just gone through an intense period of meteor shower activity," Mr Reneke explained. "We have about eight to 10 of these meteor showers every year, but the one that has just passed, and another coming up this month, are two of the best." The Delta Aquarids meteor shower passed over the southern hemisphere on July 28 and 29 and Mr Reneke believes the fireball over Port Macquarie is a remnant of that activity. The next meteor shower, the Perseids, has the space community excited with an estimated 50 to 80 meteor sightings expected every hour during the early hours of the morning between August 10 and 12. |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Natural News
Her name is Rachel Parent, and she's suddenly an internet sensation for
her cool-headed debate about GMOs on a popular Canadian TV show. (She's
also the founder of the Kids Right to Know GMO Walk.) As you'll see in
the video below, Rachel calmly argues for the basic human right to know
what's in our food, even as the condescending bully of a host named
Kevin O'Leary verbally assaults the girl and practically accuses her of
murdering children.2013-08-04 00:00:00
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Johannes Gutenberg University
Neurolinguists measure brain reaction to statements made by prominent speakers.2013-07-25 15:33:00 The actual standing of speakers within a society's power structure determines how their statements are perceived. This is the conclusion reached in a joint study undertaken by neurolinguist Professor Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky of the University of Marburg and linguist Professor Matthias Schlesewsky of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) with the support of Sylvia Krauspsenhaar, who participated in the study as a member of the Neurotypology research group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig. The results were recently published in an article entitled "Yes, you can? A speaker's potency to act upon his words orchestrates early neural responses to message-level meaning" in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. For the purposes of the study, the team of researchers exposed their trial group to video recordings of a politically influential decision-maker, an eminent news anchor, and a person completely unknown to the test subjects expressing both plausible and implausible statements. The first speaker was Peer Steinbrück, the then Federal Minister of Finance, and the second was Ulrich Wickert, a former TV newscaster. They spoke from a script produced especially for the study; all the statements made were classifiable either in the categories "general knowledge" or "politics". While obviously false statements relating to the real world (such as "Fidel Castro is a pop singer.") triggered similar reactions in the test subjects' brains in the case of all three speakers, the reactions to implausible political statements (such as "The federal government has announced that it will be leaving NATO.") differed depending on the speaker. The EEG recordings made while subjects were listening to politician Steinbrück diverged from those made when the other, non-political speakers made the same statements. |
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Victoria Woollaston
The Daily Mail 2013-08-01 13:25:00
Children who are bullied are more likely to end up in jail, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Carolina have found that being bullied throughout childhood and teenage years may lead to more arrests, convictions and prison time. They also discovered that people who were repeatedly bullied throughout childhood and adolescence were significantly more likely to go to prison than those who did not suffer repeated bullying. Almost 14 per cent of those who reported being constantly bullied from childhood through their teens ended up in prison as adults. This is compared to six per cent of people who weren't bullied, nine per cent of people who were only bullied as children, and seven per cent of teen-only victims. When comparing rates of convictions, more than 20 per cent of those who endured 'chronic bullying' were convicted of crimes. Almost double those who weren't bullied. The study also found that while childhood victims faced 'significantly greater odds of going to prison' than non-white victims. Doctor Michael Turner, of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of North Carolina in the United States, said: 'Previous research has examined bullying during specific time periods, whereas this study is the first to look at individuals' reports of bullying that lasted throughout their childhood and teen years, and the legal consequences they faced in late adolescence and as adults.' |
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| High Strangeness |
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Kate Baklitskaya
When Vadim Kolpakov went on an expedition to the north of Irkutsk
region, he had no inkling of the sensational discovery he was about to
make.The Siberian Times 2012-10-04 14:43:00
Having an official task to draw up a geological map of the region, a young geologist ended up running into something so unique, outstanding and mysterious that it would still puzzle scientists more than six decades later - the Patomskiy crater. A host of theories have been put forward in the intervening years: that the crater was created by an ancient civilisation, or by prisoners at a top secret Stalin labour camp, or by volcanic activity, or by a meteorite, or by an underground hydrogen explosion, or by a UFO. And even more tantalising: by two UFOs. Stories have been handed down by native people - who knew about the 'cursed crater' long before Kolpakov revealed it to the outside world. Among these accounts, were warnings that this 'Devil's Place' was dangerous to humans. Questions remain unanswered about a phenomenon that has been called 'The Most Mysterious Place in Russia'. For example, why don't trees grow on the side of the cone-like structure? Radiation levels are low now, but there is evidence they were once very high: why? Despite a number of expeditions by eminent scientists, no-one has yet come up with an undisputed answer to what - or who - created this strange structure. A new mission to the remote crater is due in the coming months seeking to finally answer this question. |
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David Edwards
The Raw Story 2013-02-19 10:30:00
The sheriff of Sequoyah County in Oklahoma believes that a 65-year-old man recently died by spontaneously bursting into flames. "If you read about spontaneous human combustion that's what we have here," Sheriff Ron Lockhart told KFSM. After a neighbor contacted police on Monday, authorities discovered the burned body of Danny Vanzandt in the kitchen of his home. |
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BBC News
2013-08-02 12:03:00
Staff at a zoo in the Netherlands say they are baffled by their baboons, who have spent days sitting still, huddled together in fear and hardly eating. The behaviour started on Monday evening, and only now are the 112 baboons becoming their normal, active selves again, said a biologist at Emmen Zoo. The zoo still has no idea what spooked the hamadryas baboons, but it is a good sign that some are now eating apples, biologist Wijbren Landman said. The zoo last saw such hysteria in 2007. "What frightened them? We don't know, it's a mystery. There have been many suggestions - an earthquake, escaped snakes, aliens, thunder," Mr Landman told BBC News. |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Yann and Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon - Writings 2013-08-02 22:51:00
My BBC HardTalk appearance has been drawing a lot of attention. I have been receiving a lot of support, but I also encounter a substantial surge of hate mail. I would love to share this one with you, because it is poetic as much as it is angry and demands some analysis. 'i hate U' is a poem written presumably by a Zionist hardliner who decided to deliver his beauty by means of email. |
