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'I'm Not Saying She Deserved To Be Raped, But...' Daisy Coleman and America's Culture of Psychopathy
Joe Quinn
Sott.net 2013-10-19 05:36:00
One of the most compelling non-fiction books I have ever read is 'In Broad Daylight' by Harry N. MacLean, a true account of the life and death of Ken Rex McElroy, a thief, conman and all round deplorable excuse for a human being from Skidmore, Nodaway County, Missouri, USA. In vivid and shocking detail, MacLean exposes the truly psychopathic nature of McElroy as he intimidated, terrorised and abused his wives and children and the local population over a period of several years. Justice was a long time coming as McEIroy repeatedly thwarted attempts by the local police to catch him in the act, and used the legal system to get away with his egregious behavior. Eventually, after McEIroy shot a local store owner, the townspeople were galvanized to take the law into their own hands, and McEIroy was shot dead 'in broad daylight' on a street in Skidmore as he sat in his truck. No one was ever charged with his murder. Few, if any, mourned his passing. I was reminded of Ken McEIroy's story recently because the residents of a town in the same Nodaway County Missouri (and not far from Skidmore) have been in the news. In January 2012, 14-year-old Daisy Coleman and a 13-year-old girl friend snuck out of Daisy's house in Maryville, Nodaway County, at around 1am and met up with a couple of 'jocks' from their local high school. One of the 'jocks', Matthew Barnett, and a friend drove Daisy and her friend to Barnett's house. Daisy was given a tall glass of clear alcohol that the boys called the "bitch cup"; after that, she remembers nothing until a few hours later when, in a state of near hypothermia her mother, Melinda, found her scratching at the door of her house. It was while Melinda was helping Daisy to bathe that she saw the redness around her daughter's genitalia and buttocks. It hurt, Daisy said, when her mother asked about it. Then Daisy began crying. | |
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David Sheen and Max Blumenthal
2013-10-21 16:59:00 Comment: This video offers a shocking evidence that the modern 'state of Israel' is based on hatred and xenophobia. Any group of people that falsely defines themselves as 'chosen' by a false god, establishes a 'nation' on the stolen land of others and proceeds to commit slow genocide against the indigenous population will ultimately end up hating all 'others', just like modern day Israelis.
Max Blumenthal explained how The New York Times commissioned the 11-minute video, but after the paper's editors saw it, refused to publish it: I was asked to submit something by The New York Times op docs, a new section on the website that published short video documentaries. I am known for short video documentaries about the right wing in the US, and extremism in Israel. They solicited a video from me, and when I didn't produce it in time, they called me for it, saying they wanted it. So I sent them a video I produced with my colleague, David Sheen, an Israeli journalist who is covering the situation of non-Jewish Africans in Israel more extensively than any journalist in the world. We put together some shocking footage of pogroms against African communities in Tel Aviv, and interviews with human rights activists. I thought it was a well-done documentary about a situation very few Americans were familiar with. We included analysis. We tailored it to their style, and of course it was rejected without an explanation after being solicited. I sent it to some other major websites and they have not even responded to me, when they had often solicited articles from me in the past. Blumenthal, author of the bestselling and widely promoted 2009 book Republican Gomorrah, also spoke about the difficulty he has had getting any mainstream media attention for his new book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. Just like this video, Blumenthal's new book offers an unflinching look at the racist reality of Israel that America's establishment media simply does not have the guts to confront. | |
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Justin Raimundo
AntiWar.com 2013-10-21 09:25:00
I don't believe in God. However, I do believe in divine retribution. Without going into the specifics of this somewhat counterintuitive theology, suffice to say here that its central axiom is the idea that actions have consequences. One cannot go on committing evil without reaping a whirlwind or two. Eventually Nemesis overtakes Hubris, and the results aren't pretty. This is our future. Or, at least, one hopes it is - otherwise, there is no justice in this world, or perhaps even in the next. This struck me as I was reading a column by Steve Chapman, a mildly conservative journalist with vaguely libertarian leanings: according to him, people on the right (of which I count myself one) are "addicted to apocalypse." He takes us through decades of conservative apocalyptic rhetoric, from Ronald Reagan predicting the end of freedom in America due to the depredations of Medicare to Ted Cruz - the liberal media's villain of the moment - who recently said: "The challenges facing this country are unlike any we have ever seen. ... (T)his is an administration that seems bound and determined to violate every single one of our Bill of Rights. We're nearing the edge of a cliff. ... We have a couple of years to turn this country around, or we go off the cliff to oblivion." Citing Reagan, Cruz declared: "One day we will find ourselves answering questions from our children and our children's children, 'What was it like when America was free?'" | |
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Leap - GEAB 78
2013-10-16 09:48:00
It's one of those times when history accelerates. Whatever the outcome of the negotiations on the shutdown and debt ceiling, October 2013 is one of them. It's the deadlock too far which has opened the eyes of those who still support the United States. A leader is followed when he is believed, not when he is ridiculous. "Building a de-Americanised world": this statement would have raised a smile a few years ago. At most it would have passed for provocation by Hugo Chavez. But when we are seeing the United States' bankruptcy in real-time and it's an official Chinese press agency that says so (1), the impact isn't the same. In reality, it's describing out loud a process which is already well underway: simply, it's now allowed to speak about it in public. At least US government deadlock has the merit of loosening tongues (2). Let there be no mistake, this analysis hasn't appeared in the Chinese media by chance, and it reflects Beijing's hardening tone. In fact, if the whole world is holding its breath before this pathetic game of the US elite; it's not out of compassion, it's to avoid being swept away in the fall of the world's first power. Everyone is trying to free itself from American influence and let go of a United States permanently discredited by recent events over Syria, tapering, shutdown and now the debt ceiling. The legendary US power is now no more than a nuisance and the world has understood that it's time to de-Americanise. | |
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Carl Herman
Washington Blog 2013-10-18 23:24:00
Preface:Americans cannot imagine real justice because they are dominated by 1% "leaders" in government, banking/finance, and media who:
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PressTV
2013-10-20 17:27:00
At least eighteen people have been killed and several others injured in a series of US assassination drone attacks in Afghanistan over the past three days. According to the latest reports, six Taliban militants were killed in the northeastern Kunar Province on Sunday. It was the fourth US drone attack over the past three days. On Saturday, at least ten people were killed as two airstrikes ripped through the eastern Kunar Province near the border with Pakistan. Two people lost their lives in a similar attack in the Nuristan Province on Friday. | |
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Mohammad Anwar
Reuters 2013-10-20 17:20:00
An Afghan army special forces commander has defected to an insurgent group allied with the Taliban in a Humvee truck packed with his team's guns and high-tech equipment, officials in the eastern Kunar province said on Sunday. Monsif Khan, who raided the supplies of his 20-man team in Kunar's capital Asadabad over the Eid al-Adha religious holiday, is the first special forces commander to switch sides, joining the Hezb-e-Islami organisation. "He sent some of his comrades on leave and paid others to go out sightseeing, and then escaped with up to 30 guns, night-vision goggles, binoculars and a Humvee," said Shuja ul-Mulkh Jalala, the governor of Kunar. Zubair Sediqi, a spokesman for Hezb-e-Islami, confirmed that Khan had joined the group, saying he had brought 15 guns and high-tech equipment. | |
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RT
2013-10-20 17:15:00
US electronic surveillance in Mexico reportedly targeted top officials, including both current and previous presidents. Intelligence produced by the NSA helped Americans get an upper hand in diplomatic talks and find good investment opportunities. The US National Security Agency was apparently very happy with its successes in America's southern neighbor, according to classified documents leaked by Edwards Snowden and analyzed by the German magazine, Der Spiegel. It reports on new details of the spying on the Mexican government, which dates back at least several years. The fact that Mexican President Peña Nieto is of interest to the NSA was revealed earlier by Brazilian TV Globo, which also had access to the documents provided by Snowden. Spiegel says his predecessor Felipe Calderon was a target too, and the Americans hacked into his public email back in May 2010. The access to Calderon electronic exchanges gave the US spies "diplomatic, economic and leadership communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico's political system and internal stability," the magazine cites an NSA top secret internal report as saying. The operation to hack into presidential email account was dubbed "Flatliquid" by the American e-spooks. | |
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Wall Street Journal
2013-10-18 16:27:00
The HHS Secretary refuses to testify about ObamaCare's rollout. The Affordable Care Act's botched rollout has stunned its media cheering section, and it even seems to have surprised the law's architects. The problems run much deeper than even critics expected, and whatever federal officials, White House aides and outside contractors are doing to fix them isn't working. But who knows? Omerta is the word of the day as the Obama Administration withholds information from the public. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is even refusing to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a hearing this coming Thursday. HHS claims she has scheduling conflicts, but we hope she isn't in the White House catacomb under interrogation by Valerie Jarrett about her department's incompetence. The department is also refusing to make available lower-level officials who might detail the source or sources of this debacle. Ducking an investigation with spin is one thing. Responding with a wall of silence to the invitation of a duly elected congressional body probing the use of more than half a billion taxpayer dollars is another. This Obama crowd is something else. What bunker is Henry Chao hiding in, for instance? He's the HHS official in charge of technology for the Affordable Care Act, and in March he said at an insurance lobby conference that his team had given up trying to create "a world-class user experience." With the clock running, Mr. Chao added that his main goal was merely to "just make sure it's not a third-world experience." | |
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Hugh Carnegy
CNBC 2013-10-19 16:02:00
When François Hollande came to power last year, his most famous election promise was to impose a 75 per cent tax rate on those earning more than 1 million euros ($1.3 million) a year. Now France's socialist president has acknowledged that the country is hitting the tax buffers. In a television interview this week, he noted that both his and the previous center-right government had raised taxes in total by 60 billion euros since 2011, equivalent to about 3 per cent of national income. "That's a lot - that's to say, too much," he said. Mr Hollande has promised a "tax pause", backing up his finance minister, Pierre Moscovici, who last month triggered a political tremor when he said he was "very conscious that the French are fed up with taxes". French business leaders have been clamoring for relief from a relentless increase in the tax burden, which government projections show will rise to 46.5 per cent of gross domestic product next year, one of the highest levels among developed economies. Recent polls have indicated the French public increasingly feels much the same. | |
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TBogg
The Raw Story 2013-10-20 14:31:00
It is a well established fact that America only tolerates Texas because it has oil and Austin and probably something else of value that I can't think of off the top of my head. Let's see .... nope ... I got nothin'. But there are times when Texas gets on our last nerve (to be fair, that is usually reserved for Florida) and we just shake our heads and start to wonder if maybe Mexico would be willing to take Texas back if we can find the receipt in a drawer somewhere , and even if we have to pay a 15% restocking fee. I know I'd chip in. | |
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Eric Schmitt
New York Times 2013-10-18 15:48:00
Here on the Kansas plains, thousands of soldiers once bound for Iraq or Afghanistan are now gearing up for missions in Africa as part of a new Pentagon strategy to train and advise indigenous forces to tackle emerging terrorist threats and other security risks so that American forces do not have to. The first-of-its-kind program is drawing on troops from a 3,500-member brigade in the Army's storied First Infantry Division, known as the Big Red One, to conduct more than 100 missions in Africa over the next year. The missions range from a two-man sniper team in Burundi to 350 soldiers conducting airborne and humanitarian exercises in South Africa. The brigade has also sent a 150-member rapid-response force to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa to protect embassies in emergencies, a direct reply to the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year, which killed four Americans. "Our goal is to help Africans solve African problems, without having a big American presence," said Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee Magee, a West Point graduate and third-generation Army officer whose battalion has sent troops to Burundi, Niger and South Africa in the past several months, and whose unit will deploy to Djibouti in December. | |
Comment:
Africom: The New American Empire in Africa
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Zoe Williams and Nick Hopkins
Guardian 2013-10-18 15:47:00
Keir Starmer says his guidelines are drafted to let journalists pursue difficult stories without fear of prosecution Britain's most senior prosecutor has launched a robust defence of journalists who break the law pursuing investigations that have a genuine public interest. Legal guidelines had been drafted, he said, to protect reporters. Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), insisted it "would be very unhealthy if you had a situation where a journalist felt that they needed to go to their lawyer before they pursued any lead or asked any question". In an interview with the Guardian, Starmer said: "We've got to recognise that in the course of journalism, journalists will rub up against the criminal law and that is why, in our guidelines, we took the approach that we would assess where there was evidence of a criminal offence, whether the public interest in what the journalist was trying to achieve outweighed the overall criminality." Starmer spoke at the end of another week in which the furore over the leaks from the whistleblower Edward Snowden has reverberated around Westminster. One backbench Tory MP has called for the Metropolitan police to investigate the Guardian for publishing stories about GCHQ's mass surveillance programmes. | |
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Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky
Wall Street Journal 2013-10-17 15:42:00
New Errors Indicate Technological Problems Extend Issues Already Identified Insurers say the federal health-care marketplace is generating flawed data that is straining their ability to handle even the trickle of enrollees who have gotten through so far, in a sign that technological problems extend further than the website traffic and software issues already identified. Emerging errors include duplicate enrollments, spouses reported as children, missing data fields and suspect eligibility determinations, say executives at more than a dozen health plans. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebraska said it had to hire temporary workers to contact new customers directly to resolve inaccuracies in submissions. Medical Mutual of Ohio said one customer had successfully signed up for three of its plans. The flaws could do lasting damage to the law if customers are deterred from signing up or mistakenly believe they have obtained coverage. "The longer this takes to resolve...the harder it will be to get people to [come back and] sign up," said Aetna Inc. Chief Executive Mark Bertolini. "It's not off to a great start," he said, though he believes the marketplaces are "here to stay." | |
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Th The Irish Times
Pair deny abduction charges and claim girl given by mother who could not look after her.2013-10-21 12:24:00
A Roma couple accused of abducting a mystery four-year-old girl dubbed the "blonde angel" by Greek media told a court today that her biological mother willingly gave her to them as a baby because she could not look after her. The couple were ordered held in custody pending trial on charges of abduction and procuring false documents. The discovery of the girl, known as "Maria", has riveted Greece and prompted thousands of calls with leads from across the world as authorities try to track down her real parents, as DNA tests have shown she was not born to the Romas. The case has raised questions about whether children are being stolen to order and whether the couple were part of a wider child trafficking ring - in addition to deepening mistrust between the Roma community and the Greeks. | |
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KU Leuven-iMinds
2013-10-10 08:54:00
A new study by KU Leuven-iMinds researchers has uncovered that 145 of the Internet's 10,000 top websites track users without their knowledge or consent. The websites use hidden scripts to extract a device fingerprint from users' browsers. Device fingerprinting circumvents legal restrictions imposed on the use of cookies and ignores the Do Not Track HTTP header. The findings suggest that secret tracking is more widespread than previously thought. Device fingerprinting, also known as browser fingerprinting, is the practice of collecting properties of PCs, smartphones and tablets to identify and track users. These properties include the screen size, the versions of installed software and plugins, and the list of installed fonts. A 2010 study by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) showed that, for the vast majority of browsers, the combination of these properties is unique, and thus functions as a 'fingerprint' that can be used to track users without relying on cookies. Device fingerprinting targets either Flash, the ubiquitous browser plugin for playing animations, videos and sound files, or JavaScript, a common programming language for web applications. This is the first comprehensive effort to measure the prevalence of device fingerprinting on the Internet. The team of KU Leuven-iMinds researchers analysed the Internet's top 10,000 websites and discovered that 145 of them (almost 1.5%) use Flash-based fingerprinting. Some Flash objects included questionable techniques such as revealing a user's original IP address when visiting a website through a third party (a so-called proxy). | |
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James Risen
The New York Times 2013-10-21 08:26:00
Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, said in an extensive interview this month that he did not take any secret N.S.A. documents with him to Russia when he fled there in June, assuring that Russian intelligence officials could not get access to them. Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, and did not keep any copies for himself. He did not take the files to Russia "because it wouldn't serve the public interest," he said. "What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of the materials onward?" he added. He also asserted that he was able to protect the documents from China's spies because he was familiar with that nation's intelligence abilities, saying that as an N.S.A. contractor he had targeted Chinese operations and had taught a course on Chinese cybercounterintelligence. | |
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BBC
2013-10-21 06:46:00
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has summoned the US ambassador over newspaper claims that the US spied on millions of phone calls in France. France has labelled such activity between allies as "unacceptable". Le Monde says the data, based on leaks from ex-intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, suggest the US NSA agency monitored businesses and officials as well as terrorism suspects. The intercepts were apparently triggered by certain key words. The paper says the National Security Agency (NSA) spied on 70.3 million phone calls in France in just 30 days between December 10 last year and January 8, 2013. | |
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Ian Traynor
The Guardian 2013-10-20 23:12:00
Regulations will make it harder to move European data to third countries, with fines running into billions for failure to comply New European rules aimed at curbing questionable transfers of data from EU countries to the US are being finalised in Brussels in the first concrete reaction to the Edward Snowden disclosures on US and British mass surveillance of digital communications. Regulations on European data protection standards are expected to pass the European parliament committee stage on Monday after the various political groupings agreed on a new compromise draft following two years of gridlock on the issue. The draft would make it harder for the big US internet servers and social media providers to transfer European data to third countries, subject them to EU law rather than secret American court orders, and authorise swingeing fines possibly running into the billions for the first time for not complying with the new rules. | |
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Lawrence Davidson
Part I - Going BackwardTo the Point Analyses 2013-10-20 22:53:00 In the eighteenth century the West shifted from mercantilism to capitalism. Mercantilism was an economic system that gave governments wide-ranging regulatory powers over commerce, mostly to ensure a positive balance of trade. It also allowed for strong guild structures and protection for domestic industries. However, the Industrial Revolution ended mercantilism and brought to power a business class that wanted to be free to operate without government oversight. As the capitalist worldview evolved, it made a fetish out of the "free market" and viewed government as, at best, a necessary evil. Any sort of regulation was seen as the equivalent of slavery, and the proper role of officialdom was reduced to maintaining internal order (police), defending the realm (military) and enforcing contracts (the courts). Any government involvement in social welfare was disapproved of because it allegedly promoted laziness among the poor, but this was just a convenient myth. The real reason for keeping government activity to an absolute minimum was the rising business class's fear and loathing of taxes. In Europe the rationalizations for capitalism remained primarily secular, looking to the maximization of efficiency for the sake of profit. In the United States, however, where little good happens that is not ascribed to an overseeing God, secular rationalizations were soon complemented with the notion of divine will. God wanted unregulated economic freedom and minimalist government to prevail.
This religious view continues to exist. Today's struggle to return us all to minimalist government and maximum economic "freedom" is led by a collection of fundamentalist Christian right-wingers and Tea Party mad hatters. Chris Hedges lays out a worst-case scenario of the drive for power by the Christian right in his recent article "The Radical Christian Right and the War on the Government." He tells us that "the public face" of this political force is "on display in the House of Representatives" and its main ideological aim is to "shut down the government." Hedges also points to Texas SenatorTed Cruz as the archetypal fundamentalist politician leading the charge against big government. Hedges thinks this is just the first step toward the real goal of men like Cruz, which is to make the U.S. a Christian fundamentalist nation. | |
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Shelley DuBois
USA Today 2013-10-20 17:05:00
One thing about the Affordable Care Act is clear: Hospitals will exist in a world where they are rewarded more for the quality of care than for the volume of patients they treat. A grisly headshot of Walter White, the anti-hero of "Breaking Bad," glares from two computer monitors on the desk of Mike Schatzlein, the CEO of Saint Thomas Health, one of Nashville's major health care systems. The TV character's meth-cooking ways don't exactly line up with Saint Thomas' mission of faith-based care, Schatzlein joked, but he still loves a good show. Schatzlein took the helm at Saint Thomas three years ago, just in time to pilot the system through some drama of its own - namely, the Affordable Care Act and federal health reform. Today, hospitals across the country must transform to survive. | |
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Matt Clinch
CNBC 2013-10-19 16:23:00
The violin famously played by the Titanic's bandmaster as the ship sank on its maiden voyage in 1912 sold for £900,000 ($1,454,400) at auction on Saturday. This breaks the previous world record price for a single Titanic-related item set at $340,000. According to the auction house staff, the winning bid went to a British buyer based in the UK. It had been set to be auctioned for an estimated £300,000 ($485,796). U.K. auction house Henry Aldridge and Son has spent over six years and many thousands of pounds researching and investigating the instrument's authenticity. Police forensic evidence, audio archive material, Oxford University research and a CT scan have all been used to prove it is the real deal. | |
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Alice Tidey
CNBC 2013-10-15 16:14:00
The French government is lobbying its citizens to opt for domestic products over imports, but a new report said that doing so could leave French consumers 300 euros ($398) a month poorer. According to a report by French thinktank CEPII, which specializes in international economic research, choosing "Made in France" products over imported equivalents could lose French households between 1,270 euros ($1,685) and 3,770 euros ($5,010) each year. The report came after Arnaud Montebourg, the government minister for Industrial Renewal, launched a "Made in France" campaign last year,dressed in a quintessentially French Breton top and clutching a French-branded blender. | |
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The Japan Times
2013-04-17 16:04:00
Japan's population fell by a record 0.22 percent to 127.515 million as of last Oct. 1, while people aged 65 or older surpassed the 30 million mark for the first time, the government said Tuesday. The figures are from a survey by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry. The decline of 284,000 in the total population, which also included foreign nationals, was the largest of its kind since officials began compiling comparable data in 1950. It was also the second year in a row that the population has fallen. | |
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Eric Adler
The Kansas City Star 2013-10-19 13:46:00
Tiona McKinney knew that something had changed in her sleepy college town when she woke last week to the sound of screaming. "That was right outside my window," said McKinney, 20, a Northwest Missouri State University senior from St. Louis. A fiery diatribe was coming from her adult neighbor. The woman was ranting in a loud and angry voice, midmorning, across the lawn to no one in sight about the disturbing details of the alleged sexual assault of Daisy Coleman and the investigation that followed. In this close-knit town of 12,000 some 90 minutes north of Kansas City, there were few who weren't already painfully aware of the murky particulars of a case that had divided the city. | |
Comment: In America's psychopathic culture, where what is morally and humanely understood as reality is turned around by the psycho rulers into an inhumane caricature posed as the "law", we will find ourselves confused, fearful and divided within and without. But if we do away with the rules of this psycho-justice system, and just stare the facts in the face, our inner division will lift and we might be able to see finally the only division that actually exists in this world: between humans and conscienceless human looking predators.
So look at the facts. Look at the fact that it was a miracle that Daisy Coleman is alive today, left outside in subzero temperatures, after being poisoned and raped that night. Her rapist and his associates left her in conditions that have easily caused her death. And they don't seem to care a bit about this, or those who support them with "fancy psycho law" talk. And they are out there free, knowing they can do whatever they want because they can get away with it. | |
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The Guardian
Washoe county police say first reports of the violence at Sparks middle school came in just after 7am, and the suspect is 'down'2013-10-21 13:01:00
Two people died and two boys were critically injured in a shooting at a middle school in Nevada on Monday. Police did not immediately offer details of who died in the incident, in Sparks, east of Reno. They said Sparks middle school was "all clear" and the suspect was "down," but gave no further information. Washoe county police said they received the first report of the incident, at 7.16am local time on Monday. Angela Rambo, a spokeswoman for Renown regional medical center, said it was treating two boys, who were in a critical condition. Washoe county school district spokesman Charles Rahn said the middle school and the adjacent Agnes Risley elementary school were evacuated to Sparks high school. Rahn said the middle and elementary schools would be closed for the rest of the day. Source: Associated Press | |
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Dugan Arnett
The Kansas City Star 2013-10-21 11:29:00
Eight things you need to know to get up to speed in the Maryville sexual assault case, based on interviews, law enforcement records and other documents gathered by The Star in the last seven months: 1. About 1 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2012, two teenage girls sneak out of a slumber party and are picked up and driven to the home of a 17-year-old Maryville High School senior named Matt Barnett. Daisy Coleman, 14 at the time, alleges she blacked out after being given multiple drinks and was sexually assaulted by Barnett. Her 13-year-old friend says she was forced to have sex with a 15-year-old boy. Another 17-year-old, Jordan Zech, allegedly takes phone video of the encounter between Barnett and Daisy. Afterward, Daisy is carried out of the house, crying, driven back to her home and left outside in freezing temperatures, where she is discovered by her mother the next morning. 2. Barnett soon is charged with sexual assault, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. Zech is charged with sexual exploitation of a minor, a felony. Barnett, grandson of a former state representative, tells the sheriff's office that he'd been aware that Daisy had been drinking before having sex with her but says she was only "buzzed," not yet drunk, when the encounter took place. Zech admits to shooting a portion of the encounter between Barnett and Daisy. The 15-year-old admits to having sex with the 13-year-old girl even though she had said "no" multiple times. His case is handled in juvenile court. Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White, whose office investigated the case, later says he "absolutely" believed prosecutions would follow, adding, "I would defy the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department to do what we did and get it wrapped up as nicely as we did in that amount of time." | |
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The Daily Mail, UK
2013-10-20 11:18:00
A Buenos Aires commuter train slammed into the bumper at the end of the line Saturday at the same station in Argentina's capital where 52 people were killed in a similar crash last year. This time there was no immediate report of deaths, but at least 80 people were injured. A mob quickly formed, unleashing its fury at the train operators. Passengers chanted 'murderer, murderer!' at the injured driver through the shattered cabin window. Officers intervened and the driver was soon hospitalized under police custody.
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Herald Australia
2013-10-20 00:44:00
British graffiti artist Banksy has been told to stop painting murals in New York. While delighting lovers of street art by painting a new work in a surprise location in the city every day this month, the elusive artist has incurred the wrath of Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor. The tough-on-crime Mr Bloomberg said that graffiti ''does ruin people's property'' and was ''a sign of decay and lost control''. ''Nobody's a bigger supporter of the arts than I am,'' said the mayor, who donates millions of dollars from his personal fortune each year to the city's artistic institutions. I just think there are some places for art and some places where - no art. You running up to somebody's property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art. Or it may be art, but it should not be permitted. And I think that's exactly what the law says.'' His remarks echoed a decade-long debate in Britain and Australia over what should be done about murals on the streets of London by the artist, whose works now sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds. | |
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JOEL GEHRKE
Washington Examiner 2013-10-20 23:25:00
Young people in 45 states will see their health insurance premiums increase under Obamacare because the law relies on the money they pay into the system to offset the cost of caring for older enrollees, according to a new study. Virginia leads the pack, as individuals aged 27 and under will see their health insurance premiums jump by 252.5 percent -- $416.55 -- according to the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis. Virginians under the age of 50 will see their premiums jump by an even greater percentage, rising from $228 to $991.03. Such increases are not a surprise to the law's architects. "I have always said when looking at this bill, that if I were a young person, I can see elements of this bill that I wouldn't like in the short run," Henry Aaron, vice chairman of the D.C. health exchange, told the Washington Examiner last November. Heritage expects monthly premiums for young people to drop in Colorado, Ohio, New York, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, "because those states had already over-regulated insurance markets that led to sharply higher premiums through adverse selection," according to study author Drew Gonshorowski. The Heritage Foundation's Chairman Jim Demint cited the premium increases as one of the chief reasons his organization pushed for lawmakers to defund Obamacare most recent continuing resolution to fund government in the absence of a proper budget. Demint argued that the defund push preserved one policy victory on spending. "If the Republicans had not fought on Obamacare, the compromise would have been over the budget sequester," he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Thursday. Joel Gehrke is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. | |
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Euronews
Greek police have launched an international search to establish the identity of a little girl found living with a Roma couple who are not her parents.2013-10-20 13:22:00
They hope Interpol can help solve the mystery of the girl, aged around four, who was discovered in central Greece. Suspicions were aroused as she bore no resemblance to the two adults. "During questioning about the girl, they gave conflicting answers," a news conference was told by Vassilis Halatsis, the Police Director of Thessalia province. "The constantly changing claims of the supposed parents consolidated our beliefs that these were not the biological parents of the child." | |
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The Extinction Protocol
2013-10-12 00:01:00
Seawater just outside one of Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors registered radiation levels on Wednesday 13 times the previous day's reading, the operator of the crippled nuclear plant said on Thursday. Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), said combined Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 readings just outside the damaged No. 2 reactor jumped to 1,200 becquerels per liter on Wednesday, the highest levels recorded since late 2011. Regulatory limits for Cesium, which emits powerful gamma radiation and is potentially fatal to humans, is 90 bq/liter for Cesium-137 and 60 bq/liter for Cesium-134. | |
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Bradley Klapper
breitbart 2013-10-20 12:02:00
The U.S. has quietly decided to release more than $1.6 billion in military and economic aid to Pakistan that was suspended when relations between the two countries disintegrated over the covert raid that killed Osama bin Laden and deadly U.S. airstrikes against Pakistani soldiers. Officials and congressional aides said ties have improved enough to allow the money to flow again. American and NATO supply routes to Afghanistan are open. Controversial U.S. drone strikes are down. The U.S. and Pakistan recently announced the restart of their "strategic dialogue" after a long pause. Pakistan's new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, is traveling to Washington for talks this coming week with President Barack Obama. But in a summer dominated by foreign policy debates over the coup in Egypt and chemical weapons attacks in Syria, the U.S. hasn't promoted its revamped aid relationship with Pakistan. Neither has Pakistan. The silence reflects the lingering mutual suspicions between the two. The Pakistanis do not like being seen as dependent on their heavy-handed partners. The Americans are uncomfortable highlighting the billions provided to a government that is plagued by corruption and perceived as often duplicitous in fighting terrorism. Congress has cleared most of the money, and it should start moving early next year, officials and congressional aides said. Over three weeks in July and August, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development informed Congress that it planned to restart a wide range of assistance, mostly dedicated to helping Pakistan fight terrorism. The U.S. sees that effort sees as essential as it withdraws troops from neighboring Afghanistan next year and tries to leave a stable government behind. Other funds focus on a range of items, including help for Pakistani law enforcement and a multibillion-dollar dam in disputed territory. | |
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Byron York
Washington Examiner 2013-10-18 00:00:00
I appeared on NPR on Wednesday and was surprised to hear a caller say that Sen. Ted Cruz should be charged with sedition. "I'm really baffled by the fact that the discussion has not ever reached the point where charges of sedition should be brought up against him for conspiring and bullying others to work with him to undermine the American economy ... full faith and credit," the caller said. "He's done so much damage to the standing of the United States in the world. And if you read the Sedition Act, it seems like it really applies." A colleague on the panel, the Wall Street Journal's Sudeep Reddy, assured the caller, "There is no possibility of that." And the conversation moved on. But it turns out that in a few corners of the left, there are activists who would like to see Cruz, along with other Republicans and conservatives who have expressed strong opposition to Obamacare, charged with inciting rebellion against the United States government. After Cruz and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appeared together last weekend on the National Mall, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported the event in front of a screen with pictures of Cruz and Palin and the title LATEST SEDITION. Maddow did not utter the word itself, but viewers certainly got the message. | |
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Terence P. Jeffrey
The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on Friday released the initial results of an international survey of adult skills in literacy and mathematics, revealing that Americans rank 21st in "numeracy" and are tied for 15th in literacy among adults in 23 advanced economies.cnsnews.coom 2013-10-18 00:00:00
American adults also scored below the average in both numeracy and literacy for all respondents in all 23 advanced economies. Japan and Finland ranked first and second in both categories and Italy and Spain took the bottom two spots in both. The international survey--the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)--was developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The data from Russia was not included in the initial results, the NCES said, "because they were released too late for publication." "Numeracy" was defined by the survey as "the ability to access, use, interpret, and communicate mathematical information and ideas, to engage in and manage mathematical demands of a range of situations in adult life." "Literacy" was defined as "understanding, evaluating, using and engaging with written text to participate in society to achieve one's goals and to develop one's knowledge and potential." The survey tested a sample of approximately 5,000 Americans ages 16 to 65, using a test that was scored on a scale of 0-500. In numeracy, American adults achieved an average score of 253 out of 500, nosing out Italian adults who averaged 247 and Spanish adults who averaged 246. | |
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| Secret History |
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Tia Ghose
Live Science 2013-10-19 15:13:00
Last month, archaeologists announced a stunning find: a completely sealed tomb cut into the rock in Tuscany, Italy. The untouched tomb held what looked like the body of an Etruscan prince holding a spear, along with the ashes of his wife. Several news outlets reported on the discovery of the 2,600-year-old warrior prince. But the grave held one more surprise. A bone analysis has revealed the warrior prince was actually a princess, as Judith Weingarten, an alumna of the British School at Athens noted on her blog, Zenobia: Empress of the East. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Russia Today
2013-10-21 14:52:00
The largest-discovered fragment of a Russian meteorite, weighing around 570 kilograms, has been lifted from the bed of Lake Chebarkul in the Urals. The huge meteorite chunk split into three pieces when scientists tried to weigh it. The precise weight could not be established because the heavy object broke the scales. "The preliminary examination... shows that this is really a fraction of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. It's got thick burn-off, the rust is clearly seen and it's got a big number of indents. This chunk is most probably one of the top ten biggest meteorite fragments ever found," said Sergey Zamozdra, associate professor of Chelyabinsk State University, as cited by Interfax news agency. He explained that it was important to establish the weight of the fragment in order to learn more about the qualities of the whole of the meteorite. The lifted chunk was taken to the regional natural history museum. The plan is to have a small sample of it X-rayed to determine what minerals it consists of. | |
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Emily Fox
A state of the art satellite is being sent into space to monitor the blind zone between the Earth and the sun to warn of incoming asteroids.The Express, UK 2013-10-20 13:44:00
Astronomers have previously not been able to spot asteroids in the 'blind zone' due to radiation from the sun blocking information. But now The European Space Agency intends to launch the Gaia Space Telescope with its key task being to monitor the area between the Earth and the sun and warn of any impending collisions. One recent asteroid which could have been spotted as it travelled through the 'blind zone' months before it collided with the Earth, was that of the Russian asteroid of February this year which caused a spectacular fireball before smashing into Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Russia. Gerry Gilmore, professor of experimental philosophy at Cambridge University's Institute of Astronomy told the Sunday Times: "Gaia will measure all the asteroids including those between us and the sun which are the really nasty ones because we can't see them." | |
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Ernesto Guido, Nick Howes and Martino Nicolini
Cbet No. 3674, issued on 2013 October 21, reports an outburst in brightness of comet C/2012 X1 (LINEAR). The magnitude of the comet was measured by H. Sato on on Oct. 20.5 to be total mag 8.5 (as measured within a circular aperture of diameter 85".2) with a brighter center about 10" across. The predicted H_10 magnitude for C/2012 X1 (LINEAR) would be around 14 now.Remanzacco Observatory 2013-10-21 13:11:00 We performed follow-up measurements of this object on 2013 October 21.51. Below you can see our image of this comet, stacking of 3x20-seconds unfiltered exposures, obtained remotely from MPC code H06 (iTelescope Observatory, New Mexico) through a 0.50-m f/6.8 astrograph + CCD + f/4.5 focal reducer. At the moment of the imaging session, the comet was just +16 degree above the horizon and the Sun was -11 degree. Click on it for a bigger version.
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Seiichi Yoshida
Discovery Date: October 5, 2013Aerith Net 2013-10-19 15:42:00 Magnitude: 21.8 mag Discoverer: Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala)
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2013-T110. | |
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Seiichi Yoshida
Discovery Date: October 3, 2013Aerith Net 2013-10-19 15:38:00 Magnitude: 19.6 mag Discoverer: T. H. Bressi (Spacewatch)
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2013-T115. | |
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Richard Conniff
TakePart.com 2013-10-18 15:15:00
For more than 200 years, skeptics have been announcing the end of the great age of species discovery - and the end, in particular, for finding anything really big. But giant species somehow just keep showing up. Now scientists are reporting the discovery of a river monster, Arapaima leptosoma, in Brazil's Amazonas State. It's a new species, described from a single specimen measuring 33 inches from head to tail, in a genus that can grow to almost 10 feet and weigh up to 440 pounds. Arapaima, also commonly known as pirarucu, is a genus of air-breathing fish that inhabit creeks and backwaters in and around the Amazon basin. They live by crushing other fish between their large bony tongue and the roof of the mouth. People prize them both for their tasty flesh and for their handsome scales, which tourists (including this writer) used to carry home incorporated in handsome necklaces and other folk art. But these huge fish are now badly overharvested, in part because it's so easy to harpoon them when they come to surface to breathe. Arapaima gigas, for example, is listed as endangered under the Conventional on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES. | |
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John Keller
LewRockwell.com 2013-08-02 11:17:00
Silent Circle has a password test - you don't need to sign up to test a password in the upper right. Note that longer passphrases, even if they are only lower case characters, are tougher to crack than shorter passwords with all sorts of numbers and non-characters. Examples: 8 Character Randomized Password: T0u%p@s5 Time to crack: 14 minutes 17 Character Passphrase: rockwell is right Time to crack: 4 Days 26 Character Passphrase: The Country Is Not The Government! Time to crack: centuries Even with a passphrase take the extra security step and modify it with an algorithm you derive for every site. That way if a site is storing or transmitting passwords in cleartext (both big no-no's but it happens), your password will not be known for all sites. | |
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Nicholas West
Activist Post 2013-10-18 10:52:00
Even as the debate intensifies over the scope of drone warfare and surveillance, significant upgrades continue and the drone industry booms. Recently we have seen the Navy successfully test autonomous drone takeoffs and landings at sea, while Boeing has begun to retrofit its decommissioned F-16s into pilotless fighter jets. This trend toward a future of autonomous fleets of large-scale war fighters is developing in tandem with the trend toward miniaturization and the mimicking of nature itself to hide drone tech in plain sight. The latest developments focus on ways to not only get new drone models aloft via remote control, or through their own autonomous decisions, but how to keep them there for as long as possible - perhaps even permanently. | |
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Clive Thompson
Wired.com 2013-10-19 10:38:00
Vile though their crimes may be, pedophiles and hit men have figured out something vital when it comes to communicating. Lots of them - the ones with any security sense - use a Darknet. These are networks of secretive websites that can't be viewed on the "regular" Internet. Darknet sites are hosted on regular servers, but to access them you need special software, usually something that encrypts all users' traffic and allows them relative anonymity. Get set up with the right technology and presto: You can see a second, parallel Internet. Right now it's full of nasty (or, at the very least, illegal) activity like illicit drug or arms sales, or pedophile rings. The Darknet is populated by precisely who you'd expect to be skulking in the darkest corners of the online world. They have something to hide. But the Darknet, by itself, isn't evil. And now that all of us have, in a sense, something to hide - the details of our humdrum, legal, everyday lives - it's time to put the Darknet to good use. | |
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Adam Clark Estes
Gizmodo 2013-10-12 09:32:00
Scientists recently discovered a new type of botulinum toxin (a.k.a. botox) that they believe is the deadliest substance known to man. Because they've yet to discover an antitoxin, researchers won't publish the details of gene sequence due to security concerns - a first for the scientific community. Thank God. When scientists say this stuff is deadly, they mean it. It takes an injection of just 2 billionths of a gram or inhaling 13 billionths of a gram to kill an adult. A spoonful of the stuff in a city's water supply could be catastrophic. The toxin, which comes from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, blocks the chemical that makes nerves work, causing botulism and death by paralysis. In a comment accompanying a newly published journal article on the new botox, Stanford Medical School professor David Relman said the substance posed "an immediate and unusually serious risk to society." | |
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RT.com
2013-10-18 19:18:00
Thousands of people worldwide are expected to join the Global Frackdown protest on October 19. 'Fracktivists' from over 20 countries will gather to demand an end to fracking and "dangerous" shale gas drillings. Numerous events are scheduled to take place mainly across the US and Europe. The global movement will be also joined by activists from Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and Indonesia. So far, a total 26 countries are listed to be taking part in the protest. "Climate scientists warn that continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels will lead to catastrophic climate change," the Global Frackdown protest organizers said in press release. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the extraction of oil and gas by injecting water to break rock formations deep underground. Fracking a single well can require between two and nine million gallons of water combined with sand and chemicals. Much of the used water returns to the earth's surface, but contains radium and bromides - cancer-causing, radioactive substances. The toxic chemicals can then float into lakes and rivers or contaminate the ground. | |
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RT.com
2013-10-17 21:38:00
US oil giant Chevron says the company has suspended the search for shale gas in Romania after anti-fracking protests took place across the country. "Chevron can today confirm it has suspended activities in Silistea, Pungesti commune, Vaslui County," the company said in a Thursday statement. The company's priority was to "conduct these activities in a safe and environmentally responsible manner." Over the past few days, hundreds of locals have protested at the location where the company planned to search for shale gas. Villagers blocked access to the site. Around 200 people stayed overnight, equipped with food, warm clothes, and tents. They were accompanied by NGO representatives from across Romania. Approximately 2,000 people also took to the streets in the country's capital of Bucharest. The demonstrators clashed with police, making it the most violent protest to take place in the capital since the beginning of September, when the series of street rallies began. Environmentalists say that pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into deep rock formations to free oil and gas could contaminate groundwater, AP reported. | |
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Tony Gosling
RT.com 2013-10-18 13:41:00
Technocracy is slowly replacing Democracy in the West. In debt crippled countries, such as Italy, Greece and Spain, no politician dares press the default reset button, so the Anaconda debt is delivering slow inexorable death. Because our political representatives lack the spine to bite that bullet, elections have become a charade. Financial markets, the shadowy Gnomes of Zurich, have begun choosing our political leaders. But these Goldman Sachs friendly, loan shark, technocrats are only one arm of an octopus that is emerging as the real power in the Western world. Lesser known are the companies that own valuable patents and, like conjurers, roll out dazzling new scientific gadgets. This is the technology which, in public hands, should now be liberating us all from drudgery and freeing up our leisure time, but in private hands it is doing precisely the opposite. When our MPs, journalists and lawyers store their phone contact book data using a 'Synch' service, or back up documents in 'The Cloud' they have no idea where their precious work will end up. They share that data unthinkingly with businesses that can quietly copy it, sell it on, or even corrupt it before they let them have it back. These technocrats of the 'digital revolution' are planning decades ahead. They steal a march on elected governments using 'commercial confidentiality' to keep press, politicians and the public in the dark. In the age of mass surveillance and communication trawling, they can buy intelligence on what elected politicians are about to do, or even thinking of doing, and pour vast resources into counter-moves. | |
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RT
2013-10-17 00:00:00
A potentially catastrophic asteroid has been discovered by astronomers, who say there's a slim chance that the 410-meter-wide minor planet will crash into Earth in 2032, creating a blast 50 times greater than the biggest nuclear bomb. The asteroid, described as 2013 TV135, was found in the Camelopardalis (Giraffe) constellation by the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in southern Ukraine, the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomers Union said. "On the night of October 12, I was watching the Giraffe constellation, it was an in-depth monitoring as part of the comet search program," Gennady Borisov from the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory told Itar-Tass news agency. "This is when the asteroid... was discovered. The first observations show that it moves quickly and is relatively close." The discovery has been confirmed by astronomers in Italy, Spain, the UK and Russia. In Russia, it was seen with telescopes at the Master Observatory in the Siberian republic of Buryatia, the IAU Minor Planet Center said. The asteroid has been added to the List of the Potentially Hazardous Asteroids, which includes celestial bodies with orbits closer than 7.5 million kilometers from the Earth's orbit. However, the threat posed by 2013 TV135 is minor, as it only has a one in 63,000 chance of colliding with our planet, according to available estimates. Astronomers say the asteroid's orbit will be about 1.7 million kilometers away from the Earth's orbit on August 26, 2032. If the asteroid hits Earth, it would create an explosion equivalent to 2,500 megatons of TNT, which is 50 times greater than the biggest nuclear bomb ever detonated. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Oliver Milman
Ivan MacFadyen says he was shocked by absence of sea life during his 37,000km voyage between Australia and JapanThe Guardian 2013-10-21 12:32:00
An Australian sailor has described parts of the Pacific Ocean as "dead" because of severe overfishing, with his vessel having to repeatedly swerve debris for thousands of kilometres on a journey from Australia to Japan. Ivan MacFadyen told of his horror at the severe lack of marine life and copious amounts of rubbish witnessed on a yacht race between Melbourne and Osaka. He recently returned from the trip, which he previously completed 10 years ago. "In 2003, I caught a fish every day," he told Guardian Australia. "Ten years later to the day, sailing almost exactly the same course, I caught nothing. It started to strike me the closer we got to Japan that the ocean was dead. "Normally when you are sailing a yacht, there are one or two pods of dolphins playing by the boat, or sharks, or turtles or whales. There are usually birds feeding by the boat. But there was none of that. I've been sailing for 35 years and it's only when these things aren't there that you notice them. MacFadyen said that the lack of ocean life started at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef, describing Queensland waters as "barren" and "unquestionably overfished". | |
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Agence France-Presse
Hurricane Raymond picked up strength Monday as it churned off a region of Mexico's Pacific coast still recovering from a devastating storm last month. In just a few hours, Raymond went from a tropical storm to a Category Three hurricane on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC), which tracks hurricanes in the hemisphere, reported at 0900 GMT.2013-10-21 09:13:00
Raymond packed maximum sustained winds of 195 kph, with higher gusts. Hurricane force winds extend up to 30 kilometers out from the storm's center, while tropical force winds extend up to 110 kilometers. "Some additional strengthening is possible during the next day or so," the NHC warned. Raymond however stalled some 265 kilometers west-southwest of the resort town of Acapulco after steadily moving for hours towards the mainland, the NHC said. | |
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The Telegraph, UK
Amateur footage shows the moment a dust devil sucked up straw on farmland near the Hampshire village of Dummer, sending it flying hundreds of feet into the air.2013-08-30 07:04:00 A Hampshire man had the rare privilege in the UK of witnessing a dust devil touch down in farmland near his home. Kevin Farndell, 63, filmed the phenomenon on his mobile phone and uploaded it to his YouTube page.
The dust devil sucked up loose straw waiting to be bailed after a recent harvest sending it swirling over the field for around 45 seconds. Mr Farndell said it was "quite a sight." Dust devils form when warm air close the surface of the land rises rapidly through an area of cooler air above. They rarely cause injuries, but have been witnessed reaching heights up to 1,100 yards (1,000m). | |
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BBC
2013-10-21 06:15:00
About 100 homes have been damaged by a "tornado" on Hayling Island in Hampshire, police have said. Havant Council said properties in Blackthorn Road and Ilex Walk were damaged by high winds at about 08:00 BST. The council said there were no reported injuries and its officers were assessing the damage to properties. Kayla Killshaw-Laing, who was staying on the island overnight, described the experience as "horrendous". Hampshire Constabulary has received calls regarding damaged vehicles, power lines, and beach huts. Highway teams are currently clearing up debris around the area. He said: "We drove down to survey the damage and were quite shocked by what we saw... the neighbouring hut was lifted too." | |
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Jason Samenow
Washington Post 2013-10-21 06:08:00
Here's an astonishing statistic: Typhoon Wipha dumped 33 inches (850 mm) of rain in 24 hours on Oshima Island, 75 miles south of Tokyo. It is the greatest rainstorm to occur on Oshima, populated by 8,200 people, since records began in 1991 reports the AP. It also twice the entire average rainfall for the month of October, notes the Wall Street Journal. "People on this island are somewhat used to heavy rainstorms, but this typhoon was beyond our imagination," Yutaka Sagara, an island resident, told the AP. Incredibly, 17 inches (426 mm) fell in 4 hours and nearly 5 inches in one hour. Those are unfathomable rainfall rates and, thus, it is no surprise they led to destructive mudslides and fatalities. At least 17 people are dead from the typhoon and 45 to 50 missing according to wire reports. 16 of the 17 casualties occurred on Oshima. | |
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NHK World
2013-10-21 05:21:00
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says water has overflowed 12 barriers around tanks holding radioactive water. Tokyo Electric Power Company says some of the water may have reached the ocean. The utility says workers found water overflowing from five barriers Sunday afternoon. They found additional overflows in seven barriers Sunday evening. TEPCO says the barriers are 30-centimeter-high. Some of them have already contained at least 20-centimeters of rain water. But workers can pump out only a couple of centimeters a day. More than 100 millimeters of rain was recorded at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant over four hours on Sunday afternoon. The operator of the crippled plant also says workers released some of the water accumulated inside barriers into the ground. The utility says the water met safety standards for radioactivity approved by the Nuclear Regulation Authority. | |
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Greg Ray
The Herald, Australia 2013-10-18 20:00:00
It was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it. Not the absence of sound, exactly. The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fibreglass hull. And there were plenty of other noises: muffled thuds and bumps and scrapes as the boat knocked against pieces of debris. What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat. The birds were missing because the fish were missing. Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he'd had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line. "There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn't catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice," Macfadyen recalled. But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two. No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all. | |
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UPI
A 3.6-magnitude earthquake shook Israel's Tiberias area Sunday morning, officials said. There were no reports of injuries or damage.2013-10-20 13:36:00 The quake's center was about three miles northeast of Ginosar, near Lake Kinnere, Ynetnews.com reported. Residents of the area wrote Ynetnews.com about how objects shook in their homes. "I felt like someone was pushing me off the chair," said Noa Boganim from Tiberias. Michael from Tiberias wrote: "I felt as if I was dizzy, the computer screen fell down." This was the third quake to strike Israel in four days, The Jerusalem Post reported. |
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Peta Thornycroft, and Aislinn Laing
Cyanide has been used to kill 300 elephants in Zimbabwe's biggest nature reserve - three times the original estimate - as new photos show the scale of the slaughter The Telegraph, UK 2013-10-20 12:38:00
Poachers in Zimbabwe have killed more than 300 elephants and countless other safari animals by cyanide poisoning, The Telegraph has learned. The full extent of the devastation wreaked in Hwange, the country's largest national park, has been revealed by legitimate hunters who discovered what conservationists say is the worst single massacre in southern Africa for 25 years. Pictures taken by the hunters, which have been obtained exclusively by The Telegraph, reveal horrific scenes. Parts of the national park, whose more accessible areas are visited by thousands of tourists each year, can be seen from the air to be littered with the deflated corpses of elephants, often with their young calves dead beside them, as well as those of other animals. There is now deep concern that the use of cyanide - first revealed in July, but on a scale that has only now emerged - represents a new and particularly damaging technique in the already soaring poaching trade. Zimbabwean authorities said that 90 animals were killed this way. But the hunters who captured these photographs say they have conducted a wider aerial survey and counted the corpses of more than 300. | |
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Daniella Silva
NBC News 2013-10-20 12:32:00
For the second time in a week, the rare, serpentine oarfish has surfaced on a Southern California beach. Beach goers at Oceanside Harbor crossed paths Friday afternoon with the deep-sea monster when its carcass washed ashore, Oceanside Police Officer Mark Bussey said. The fish measured 13 ½ feet long. The discovery came just days after an 18-foot dead oarfish was found in the waters off Catalina Island. "The call came out as a possible dead whale stranded on the beach, so we responded and saw the fish on the sand right as it washed up," Bussey said. Oceanside police then contacted SeaWorld San Diego, the Scripps Research Institute and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Suzanne Kohin of NOAA Fisheries Serivice responded, measured and took possession of the oarfish for research, Bussey said. Bussey added that people on the beach were "flabbergasted" to see the fish. | |
Comment: See also.
18-foot oarfish caught by Catalina marine science instructor in California Something amiss deep down? Bizarre-looking oarfish washes ashore on Cabo San Lucas beach Appearance of "Earthquake fish" spook Japanese Rare "King of Herrings" Found off Swedish Coast England: Monster of deep washes up on beach | |
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Heather Saul
180,000 tonnes of sugar have been destroyed - driving prices up to the highest in a year. Independent 2013-10-19 00:00:00
A fire that blazed through Brazil's Santos port has ravaged six warehouses, destroying 180,000 tonnes of raw sugar in the Copersucar terminal. The fire hit all of the sugar giant's warehouses at the port, driving prices up to the highest in a year. Operations at the world's biggest sugar trader, which sees nearly a fifth of world sugar exports pass through its trading desks, have now been paralysed. Santos port authority Codesp said the fire started in the conveyor system responsible for transporting sugar through Copersucar's warehouses at around 6am (9am GMT). Fire fighters battled for six hours to extinguish the flames and warn it could keep smoldering for two days. In a statement, Codesp said: "Facilities involved in the accident are totally destroyed." Television footage showed a mountain of sugar three stories high engulfed by flames inside a warehouse, surrounded by overhanging conveyor belts and waiting ships that appeared to have been toppled over. International sugar markets reacted quickly. ICE March raw sugar prices rose more than six per cent to a one-year high on news of the fire before paring gains. The March contract settled up 2.5 per cent at 19.48 cents per lb. | |
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foxnews.com
2013-10-18 09:58:00
The Los Angeles Times is giving the cold shoulder to global warming skeptics. Paul Thornton, editor of the paper's letters section, recently wrote a letter of his own, stating flatly that he won't publish some letters from those skeptical of man's role in our planet's warming climate. In Thornton's eyes, those people are often wrong -- and he doesn't print obviously wrong statements. "Simply put, I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published," Thornton wrote. "Saying 'there's no sign humans have caused climate change' is not stating an opinion, it's asserting a factual inaccuracy." What amounts to a ban on discourse about climate change stirred outrage among scientists who have written exactly that sort of letter. "In a word, the LA Times should be ashamed of itself," William Happer, a physics professor at Princeton, told FoxNews.com. "There was an effective embargo on alternative opinions, so making it official really does not change things," said Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism at The Rockefeller University in New York. | |
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RT News
2013-10-18 06:03:00
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The Hindu
The foot-and-mouth disease appears only to be spreading geographically and in intensity across the State, even as the Animal Husbandry Department reiterates that the cattle disease is "under control". 2013-10-19 14:36:00 By Wednesday, the disease had claimed 3,060 head of cattle (since September 1), according to official figures with the department, a significant jump from last week's casualty figure of 2,060. Another 23,500 animals have been infected with the virus, as against 16,573 last week.
The disease, which so far had South Karnataka under its grip, now appears to have spread to several other districts, including those in the north of the State such as Bidar, Bellary and Belgaum. Deputy Director of the Animal Husbandry Department Sriram Reddy, however, said the disease was "under control" and that the department was continuing its "ring vaccination" of cattle within a specified radius of affected villages. | |
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USGS
2013-10-19 13:46:00
Event Time 2013-10-19 17:54:56 UTC 2013-10-19 10:54:56 UTC-07:00 Location 26.268°N 110.178°W depth=8.0km (5.0mi) Nearby Cities 75km (47mi) SW of Etchoropo, Mexico 82km (51mi) SW of Huatabampo, Mexico 100km (62mi) SSW of Villa Juarez, Mexico 106km (66mi) WNW of Ahome, Mexico 816km (507mi) SSE of Phoenix, Arizona Technical Data | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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South China Morning Post
2013-10-18 16:05:00
The World Health Organisation has classified outdoor air pollution as a leading cause of cancer. "The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances. We consider this to be the most important environmental carcinogen, more so than passive smoking," said Kurt Straif, head of the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer. The agency evaluates cancer-causing substances. Previously, air pollution had been found to boost the chances of heart and respiratory diseases and the agency had deemed some of the components in air pollution, such as diesel fumes, to be carcinogens. But this is the first time it has classified air pollution in its entirety as causing cancer. | |
Comment: In theacclaimed 2005 article: Aliens Don't Like to Eat People That Smoke!, Laura Knight-Jadzcyk wrote:
See also: 5 Health Benefits of Smoking | |
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The Siberian Times
Scientists warn over 'rapid rate' of spread now accounting for 50% of new infections in Novosibirsk.2013-10-17 12:18:00
The strain called 02_AG/A was discovered at the world famous biotechnology research centre Vektor but there is a need for a boost in research funding, it is claimed. '02_AG/A might be the most virulent form of HIV in Russia,' warned Natalya Gashnikova, head of the Retroviruses Department at Vektor, in the scientific city of Koltsovo. 'The number of HIV-positive people living in the Novosibirsk Region has leaped from about 2,000 in 2007 up to 15,000 in 2012,' said a RIA Novosti report. And 02_AG/A accounts for more than 50 percent of new HIV infections. 'The new strain isn't limited to Siberia but has been detected in the Caucasus as well as in the central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan', said Vektor in a statement. HIV-1 is the most common strain, and divides into subtypes based on various forms that are grouped in geographic regions around the world. | |
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Brian Shilhavy
Health Impact News 2013-10-18 10:19:00
Sweden has become the first Western nation to develop national dietary guidelines that reject the popular low-fat diet dogma in favor of low-carb high-fat nutrition advice. The switch in dietary advice followed the publication of a two-year study by the independent Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment. The committee reviewed 16,000 studies published through May 31, 2013. Swedish doctor, Andreas Eenfeldt, who runs the most popular health blog in Scandinavia (DietDoctor.com) published some of the highlights of this study in English: | |
Comment: For more information on the health benefits of a ketogenic diet, see:
The Ketogenic Diet - An Overview Solve Your Health Issues with a Ketogenic Diet High-Fat Ketogenic Diet Effectively Treats Persistent Childhood Seizures Beyond weight loss: a review of the therapeutic uses of very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diets Ketogenic Diet (high-fat, low-carb) Has Neuroprotective and Disease-modifying Effects | |
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RT.com
Insurers stop covering for cell phone use, called the next 'casualty catastrophe' after tobacco and asbestos; phone manufacturers hit with a class action and personal lawsuits; and the warning deep inside your mobile.2013-10-20 07:04:00 Seek truth from facts with Ellie Marks, whose husband Alan is suing the industry for his brain tumor, 'cell phone survivor' Bret Bocook, leading radiation biologist Prof. Dariusz Leszczynski, Microwave News editor Dr. Louis Slesin, Storyleak editor Anthony Gucciardi, and former senior White House adviser Dr. Devra Davis.
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Comment: No need to use natural tobacco and smoking as an analogy when in fact nicotine is known to be anti-inflammatory and a cognitive-enhancer natural substance. The same cannot be said about the industry's pollution, western diet and other toxic elements. For more information see:
Nicotine Found To Protect Against Parkinson's-like Brain Damage Nicotine - The Zombie Antidote Let's All Light Up! Scientists Identify Brain Regions Where Nicotine Improves Attention, Other Cognitive Skills Warning: Nicotine Seriously Improves Health Nicotine can boost blood vessel growth The air we breathe definitively and scientifically linked to cancer Ancient dietary wisdom for tomorrow's children | |
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Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com 2013-10-16 15:12:00
Even though the video above is a few years old now and bigger fines of $3 billion have been assessed to GlaxoSmithKline two years ago, it is a good summary of how the drug cartels operate. Did you know that nearly 20 percent of corporate crime is being committed by companies that make products for your health? Sad but true, no less than 19 pharmaceutical companies made AllBusiness.com's Top 100 Corporate Criminals List for the 1990s, and the trend has continued if not increased into the 21st Century. Crimes committed by some of the most well-known drug companies include:
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Martha Rosenberg
Alternet 2013-10-16 14:55:00
Many people eat only chicken to avoid the health and environmental questions surrounding red meat. Yet the track record of US chicken may be worse. Could there be anything worse for the chicken industry than this month's outbreak of an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella that hospitalized 42 percent of everyone who got it - almost 300 in 18 states? Yes. The government also announced that China has been cleared to process chickens for the US dinner plate and that all but one of arsenic compounds no one even knew they were eating have been removed from US poultry production. Thanks for that. Also this month, some food researchers have revealed the true recipe for chicken "nuggets"...just in time for Halloween. Many people have decided to eat only chicken to avoid the health, environmental, worker and humane questions surrounding red meat. Yet the track record of US chicken in these areas is no better than red meat - and may be worse. Here are some things you should really know about your chicken. | |
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Matt Hall
Underground Health 2013-08-17 08:47:00
More than ever, doctors are prescribing medicine after medicine to treat any kind of ailment. The problem is, prescribing a drug often creates side effects that must be treated with even more medicine. This creates a cycle of medication where the costs of daily medication can sometimes go as high as several hundred dollars per day. Not all medical professionals contribute to this trend, though. Some, like certified geriatric pharmacist Armon Neel, are standing up to the overprescribe method of treating patients and trying to reel back health care practices. A profile of Neel by the AARP describes his role well: The way Neel sees it, pharmacists are often a patient's last line of defense in a nation of doctors who, more often than not, don't know much about the drugs they are prescribing and the geriatric population they are treating. It's his job to say "no" to drugs and cut down on the amount of prescription medications his patients take. Over-Prescribed to Death Americans take millions and millions of prescription medications per day. This is cost-efficient medication to grow into a billion-dollar industry. In 2010 alone, Americans spent over $300 BILLION on medication! This averages out to every American paying over $2 million per day just in meds! (Note that insurance companies and the government paid much of this bill - it's just a staggering number.) It's no wonder people like Neel say our society has become over-prescribed. If the medications worked as intended, this approach may work. But the prescribe and go method of treating age-related problems simply doesn't work. According to Neel, | |
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Datis Kharrazian
Brain Health Book 2013-10-20 08:30:00
The health of the gut profoundly influences the health of the brain. Studies link gut problems with depression, mood disorders, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, memory loss, and brain lesions. This may come as no surprise if you have found certain foods alter your mood, personality, focus, or concentration. Gut flora, the several pounds of bacterial organisms we carry in our intestines, affect brain chemistry and imbalances can cause depression and psychiatric disorders. Poor diets, stress, excess sugars and carbs, repeated antibiotic use, and other factors tip the balance of gut flora so that harmful bacteria outweigh the beneficial. Intestinal permeability, or leaky gut, is a condition in which the walls of the intestine become inflamed and porous, allowing undigested food, bacteria, toxins, and other antigens into the bloodstream. This provokes the immune system and causes inflammation throughout the body. Leaky gut can also cause brain inflammation and has been linked with depression and autoimmunity. | |
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Jeff Stensland
University of South Carolina 2013-10-09 08:05:00
Four decades of nutrition research funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be invalid because the method used to collect the data was seriously flawed, according to a new study by the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. The study, led by Arnold School exercise scientist and epidemiologist Edward Archer, has demonstrated significant limitations in the measurement protocols used in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The findings, published in PLOS ONE (The Public Library of Science), reveal that a majority of the nutrition data collected by the NHANES are not "physiologically credible," Archer said. These results suggest that without valid population-level data, speculations regarding the role of energy intake in the rise in the prevalence of obesity are without empirical support, he said. The NHANES is the most comprehensive compilation of data on the health of children and adults in the United States. The survey combines interviews of self-reported food and beverage consumption over 24 hours and physical examinations to assess the health and nutritional status of the US population. Conducted by the CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the NHANES is the primary source of data used by researchers studying the impact of nutrition and diet on health. | |
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Ethan A. Huff
Natural News 2013-10-18 20:00:00
It is now an undeniable fact that the pharmaceutical industry weaseled its way onto key U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panels, which were instrumental in shaping the way drugs are safety tested and approved. According to The Washington Post (WP), a recent public records request has revealed that drug companies purchased special access onto these panels, where they were given the keys to the kingdom in swaying decision-makers about official drug policy. Based on critical information gathered from hundreds of leaked emails, pharmaceutical companies have doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to attend private meetings with the FDA, many of which were geared towards the regulation and approval of painkiller drugs. Drug companies would reportedly shell out upwards of $25,000 or more per meeting to have their voices heard, a small price to pay for direct access to the $9 billion American painkiller market. | |
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Karen Pendergrass
Paleomovement.com 2013-10-18 19:00:00
Polyface Farmer Joel Salatin may be one of the most well-known farmers on this planet. The self-described "Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer" is famed for his counter-conventional animal husbandry wisdom, and is a prolific author who doles out scathing criticisms of Industrial factory farming methods and government involvement in food. In this interview with the Paleo Movement Magazine, Salatin addresses every facet of his "Christian Libertarian Environmentalist Capitalist Lunatic Farmer" description - answering 22 political, personal, general, and hypothetical questions from Karen Pendergrass. | |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Anna Mikulak
Older adults are often encouraged to stay active and engaged to keep their minds sharp, that they have to "use it or lose it." But new research indicates that only certain activities - learning a mentally demanding skill like photography, for instance - are likely to improve cognitive functioning.Association for Psychological Science 2013-10-21 12:41:00 These findings, forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that less demanding activities, such as listening to classical music or completing word puzzles, probably won't bring noticeable benefits to an aging mind. "It seems it is not enough just to get out and do something - it is important to get out and do something that is unfamiliar and mentally challenging, and that provides broad stimulation mentally and socially," says psychological scientist and lead researcher Denise Park of the University of Texas at Dallas. "When you are inside your comfort zone you may be outside of the enhancement zone." The new findings provide much-needed insight into the components of everyday activities that contribute to cognitive vitality as we age. "We need, as a society, to learn how to maintain a healthy mind, just like we know how to maintain vascular health with diet and exercise," says Park. "We know so little right now." For their study, Park and colleagues randomly assigned 221 adults, ages 60 to 90, to engage in a particular type of activity for 15 hours a week over the course of three months. Some participants were assigned to learn a new skill - digital photography, quilting, or both - which required active engagement and tapped working memory, long-term memory and other high-level cognitive processes. |
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Steven Shapin
The New Yorker 2013-10-15 14:35:00
In the movie Groundhog Day, the TV weatherman Phil Connors finds himself living the same day again and again. This has its advantages, as he has hundreds of chances to get things right. He can learn to speak French, to sculpt ice, to play jazz piano, and to become the kind of person with whom his beautiful colleague Rita might fall in love. But it's a torment, too. An awful solitude flows from the fact that he's the only one in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, who knows that something has gone terribly wrong with time. Nobody else seems to have any memory of all the previous iterations of the day. What is a new day for Rita is another of the same for Phil. Their realities are different - what passes between them in Phil's world leaves no trace in hers - as are their senses of selfhood: Phil knows Rita as she cannot know him, because he knows her day after day after day, while she knows him only today. Time, reality, and identity are each curated by memory, but Phil's and Rita's memories work differently. From Phil's point of view, she, and everyone else in Punxsutawney, is suffering from amnesia. Amnesia comes in distinct varieties. In "retrograde amnesia," a movie staple, victims are unable to retrieve some or all of their past knowledge - Who am I? Why does this woman say that she's my wife? - but they can accumulate memories for everything that they experience after the onset of the condition. In the less cinematically attractive "anterograde amnesia," memory of the past is more or less intact, but those who suffer from it can't lay down new memories; every person encountered every day is met for the first time. In extremely unfortunate cases, retrograde and anterograde amnesia can occur in the same individual, who is then said to suffer from "transient global amnesia," a condition that is, thankfully, temporary. Amnesias vary in their duration, scope, and originating events: brain injury, stroke, tumors, epilepsy, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychological trauma are common causes, while drug and alcohol use, malnutrition, and chemotherapy may play a part. | |
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| High Strangeness |
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Huffington Post UK
2013-10-20 09:43:00
A mysterious bright light has been filmed slowly descending from the sky in Akureyi, Iceland. The UFO appears to land in the middle of a residential area but there has been no explanation as to what it might be. Some commenters on YouTube are sceptical of the clips authenticity. One named BuzzTeddyHead wrote: "It looks fake. At 0.03 look how quick the object grows in size, then suddenly stops and falls without an increase in its size as according to perspective." What do you think? Fireball or fake?
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Leigh Black Irvin
The Daily Times 2013-10-20 22:08:00
Farmington - For decades, strange lights in the night sky and mysterious cattle mutilations have sparked rumors of a secret underground alien base near the small northern New Mexico town of Dulce, which is tribal headquarters of the Jicarilla Apache Nation. A new book, Dulce Base: the Truth and Evidence from the Case Files of Gabe Valdez, purports to solve the mystery. It claims that humans, not aliens, are behind the strange happenings. The book's author is Greg Valdez, son of former New Mexico State Police Officer Gabe Valdez. In 1976, ranchers found many mutilated cows, and Gabe Valdez became one of the lead investigators into the case, his son said. Greg Valdez says his father began a decades-long investigation into the large number of mutilations in northern New Mexico. Prior to his death in 2011, the former police officer determined that the mutilations and strange aircraft were, in fact, human-caused. After pouring over recently declassified documents, Gabe Valdez concluded that the federal government was using the Jicarilla Apache Nation to test environmental contamination caused by nuclear testing in the late 1960s. Greg Valdez says this contamination was caused by an experiment known as "Project Gasbuggy" that took place 21 miles southwest of Dulce on Dec. 10, 1967. The project's goal was to identify peaceful uses for nuclear explosions, and it involved the detonation of a 29-kiloton device located 4,227 feet underground. The intent was to release pockets of natural gas that could be used commercially. Gasbuggy was carried out by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory and the El Paso Natural Gas Company, according to the book. While the device was successfully detonated and gas wells were drilled at the site, the gas was too radioactive for commercial use. Greg Valdez said his father found out that the federal government conducted the cattle mutilations to determine the effects of radiation from Gasbuggy. | |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Courtney Pomeroy
CBS DC 2013-10-19 19:44:00
The creators of a new website think you might want to take out your frustrations with the government shutdown by "drunk dialing" a member of Congress to vent about it. On its homepage, DrunkDialCongress.org encourages you, "whether you are a furloughed worker, being forced to work for free, or just fed up at Capitol Hill" to "call and yell at a random member of Congress." While the site can be used by anyone, of course, its name implies that you should imbibe to get your juices flowing, first. | |
