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Jack Mirkinson
Huffington Post 2014-07-02 00:00:00
The implementation of the European Union's so-called "right to be forgotten" policy is already having a worrying impact on the media, with at least two outlets revealing on Wednesday that links to articles of theirs have been scrubbed from Google. A European court ruled in May that Google must remove links to articles from its search engine if the subjects of the post asked it to. The court specified that links could be scrubbed if they were "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed." When the ruling came down, some worried that it would place too much power in the hands of public figures who wished to have unflattering information - and, especially, press coverage - about themselves hidden. On Wednesday, the Guardian and the BBC both disclosed that just such an occurrence seemed to have taken place with stories of theirs. | |
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Ben Hartman, Jpost.com staff, Lahav Harkov, Yaakov Lappin
Jerusalem Post 2014-07-01 17:07:00
A voice quickly whispers, "They kidnapped me," then someone says, "Heads down," followed by what sounds like gunshots, in the emergency call Gil-Ad Shaer made to police on June 12. The recording was leaked to the public on Tuesday. It was previously under a gag order, but after the recording began criss-crossing the country on WhatsApp and social media on Tuesday, the gag order was partially lifted. In the beginning of the recording, Shaer can be heard saying, "They kidnapped me." Hebrew-language radio can be heard in the background as well as voices speaking in Hebrew telling the three youths to put their heads down followed by what sounds like a burst of gunfire. Since they first learned of the kidnapping late on the night of June 12, the security forces have had a working assessment that the teenagers were murdered soon after being kidnapped, as they sat in the back seat of the vehicle they had entered at the hitchhiking post outside Alon Shvut. Although other possibilities continue to be weighed, according to this view, Shaer's phone call to the police triggered an immediate end to their lives. The police have been heavily criticized for not responding quickly enough to the emergency call. An internal police probe led to the removal from their posts of four senior police officials. The 2 minute, 9 second call, which was received at 10:25 p.m. on June 12, was not given the proper urgency or handed over to security services until around five hours later, when one of the boy's parents reported him missing to police. | |
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Hezki Ezra, Ari Yashar
Israel National News 2014-06-18 16:55:00
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich on Wednesday visited the Makor Chaim Yeshiva high school in Kfar Etzion, the school of two of the three teenagers kidnapped by Hamas terrorists last Thursday. Speaking at the school he admitted that there had been some failures on the part of Israeli police in handling the case. It was revealed Sunday that the kidnapped teens made an emergency call to policeminutes after the kidnapping, only to be dismissed as pranksters. Just one day before, it surfaced that the police acted slowly in alerting the military, resulting in a significant and potentially crucial time lapse between when parents reported the kidnapping to the police, and the notification of security sources and the IDF by police over the issue. Aharonovich acknowledged that the criticism being heard against the police is justified, saying "we need to check things. I heard a recording of the (emergency call phone) conversation, and in the coming days it will be published for the public." The minister's words follow statements by two top-ranking police officers on Monday, both of whom reiterated the commitment to launch an investigation over the issue, but stated that the priority now is focusing on the search for the missing boys. | |
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Haaretz
2014-06-15 16:29:00
Ten days ago, at a security cabinet meeting, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo outlined a scenario spookily similar to the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens missing since Thursday night. The meeting dealt with the report of the Shamgar Committee on prisoner exchanges and on the Habayit Hayehudi bill that prohibits granting pardons to terrorists. Pardo, along with other defense establishment officials present, tried to convince the ministers not to advance the bill. He was against it because it would limit the government's room for maneuver in future abduction cases, would keep its hands tied, and prevent it from considering other solutions for dealing with a potential crisis. Pardo gave as an example the kidnapping of the 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria by the militant group Boko Haram. He addressed Economy Minister Nafatali Bennett, whose party promoted the bill, and used it to draw a comparison of something that could happen in Israel in the future. "What will you do if in a week three 14-year-old girls will be kidnapped from one of the settlements?," he asked. "Will you say there is a law, and we don't release terrorists?" Pardo did not convince the ministers, however. At the cabinet meeting three days later, the appeal of Science and Technology Minister Jacob Perry was rejected and the bill passed to a Knesset vote. By Wednesday, the bill passed its preliminary reading in the Knesset. | |
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Corey Charlton
Mail Online 2014-07-03 16:09:00
The U.S. and Iran are now fighting alongside one another in a bid to counter the growing threat ISIS poses in the Middle East. Military expert Joseph Dempsey believes the latest set of aircraft to be delivered to Iraq is Iranian, despite steps being taken to mask its origin. | |
Comment: See related articles below on making sense of the geopolitical manoeuvrings engulging the whole region:
Fear and loathing at Hotel Babylon US in Iraq: Geopolitical arsonists seek to burn the whole region VIDEO: U.S. fighting alongside ISIS, playing both sides of the conflict Creating fake 'enemies' in order to dominate the planet: U.S. trained ISIS at secret Jordan base | |
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RT.com
2014-07-03 16:02:00
The village of Kondrashovka in eastern Ukraine lies devastated after shelling by Kiev troops which killed seven people. Bodies torn to pieces are strewn across the settlement and those who survived are asking: why did Kiev kill their families? Shells devastate entire streets in eastern Ukrainian town (VIDEO, PHOTOS) At least five shells hit the settlement, destroying an entire street in the peaceful Lugansk region community, 25km from the city of Lugansk. Dramatic RT footage shows the ravaged village, including a local resident's backyard which was literally transformed into a grave. "They killed my mother, and my father is injured. I took him to hospital," Aleksandr Mironenko told RT's Marina Finoshina, one of the few journalists to report from the scene. | |
Comment: This is evidence of the standard operating procedure of psychopaths in power: they conclude that the local population in an area where a resistance movement exists are, effectively, one and the same with the resistance and therefore subject to summary execution.
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RT
2014-07-03 15:59:00
An alleged network of pedophile politicians active in the 1980s must be investigated say MPs as the Home Office is blasted over 'lost' dossier. MPs are calling for an alleged network of pedophile politicians active in the 1980s to be investigated. Those calling for an inquiry believe individuals close to 10 Downing Street helped cover up the sexual abuse of children by politicians and other public figures three decades ago. Simon Danczuk, Labour MP for Rochdale, who recently published a book about a former Rochdale MP and abuser of young boys Cyril Smith, claims a missing dossier of allegations about pedophiles was presented to then-Conservative Home Secretary Leon Brittan, who served in Margaret Thatcher's government in the role from 1983-85. Danczuk wants an inquiry into the historical allegations to help identify perpetrators other than Smith. At a home affair select committee hearing this week, he called politics "the last refuge of child sex abuse deniers". | |
Comment: Good luck! Pedophile rings at this level tend to get away with child rape. Blackmail, fall guys, 'suicides', and corrupt and complicit moles all help, of course.
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On July 4th, the United States will celebrate Independence Day once again. But who in the world are we trying to kid? Our founders intended to create a society where freedom and liberty would be maximized, but that is not what America looks like today. Instead, we live in a country that literally has millions of laws, rules and regulations. We have a government that is obsessed with spying on the entire planet and that tries to watch, monitor, track and record as much information about all of us as it possibly can. A "Big Brother" surveillance grid is being constructed all around us, and our militarized police are becoming more brutal with each passing day. Sadly, most Americans don't seem too alarmed by any of this. In fact, a new Gallup surveyhas found that 79 percent of Americans are "satisfied" with the level of freedom in this nation. That is a very alarming statistic. If most people believe that everything is "just fine", then our leaders are going to feel free to keep doing the same things that they have been doing. That is why it is so frustrating that so many American "sheeple" appear to be so apathetic about the loss of our freedoms and our liberties. But it was not all bad news in the Gallup survey. Let's take a look at the good news first... | |
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Voice of Russia
2014-07-03 15:36:00
Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) Aleksandr Boroday has claimed that the militia has found an unexploded cluster bomb near Donetsk. An international convention forbids using cluster bombs. The militia has repeatedly claimed that Ukrainian forces use cluster bombs. "Ukrainian forces have used the BM-21 launch vehicles, uncontrolled missiles with cluster heads and other types of heavy armament," the Russian Investigative Committee says. "An unexploded cluster bomb was found between the cities of Shakhtyorsk and Tores in the Donetsk People's Republic. We are thinking of how to disarm it," Boroday said. | |
Comment: Kiev will never be a true U.S.-inspired 'democracy' until it violates every international convention and law on the books. Thankfully, it's well on its way!
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RT
2014-07-03 16:19:00
Former NSA agents-turned-whistleblowers are testifying before a German parliamentary committee as the Bundestag investigates America's wiretapping methods with one of them branding the NSA approach "totalitarian." It is hoped that evidence from the two US citizens, William Binney and Thomas Drake, will shed light on the methods of surveillance used by the American National Security Agency (NSA), which eavesdropped on the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leading German and European politicians. Binney and Drake broke their silence long before ex-NSA employee Edward Snowden leaked revelations about American intelligence agencies' practices last year. Entering Hall in Bundestag now. #NSA # PUA Mr. Bill #Binney in the house. Palpable tension in the room. #Snowdenpic.twitter.com/At the hearing in Berlin on Thursday, Binney was first to answer questions and share what he know about the NSA's spying practices. Speaking at length about the NSA's technical refinements, structures and procedures, he denounced the surveillance practices of his former employer. | |
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RT
2014-07-03 15:15:00
EU funding to the Hungarian economy is predicted to slow over 3 years. Budapest is looking eastwards to boost trade with Russia & China. RT's Alexey Yaroshevsky reports on a country at the crossroads.
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Tia Goldenberg
Yahoo! News 2014-07-03 15:00:00
Israel began moving troop reinforcements to its border with the Gaza Strip on Thursday, defense officials said, raising the possibility of an expanded military operation in the Palestinian territory in response to intensifying rocket barrages. The movement of tanks and artillery forces came after another night of heavy rocket fire, including barrages that struck two homes in the southern border town of Sderot. Israel's last major operation in Gaza, a territory controlled by the Hamas militant group, took place in late 2012. The rocket fire comes at a time of heightened tensions following the abduction and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank. Israel has accused Hamas of being behind the deaths, and arrested hundreds of Hamas operatives in the West Bank as part of a broad manhunt in the largest ground operation in the West Bank in nearly a decade. The Palestinians have meanwhile accused Israeli extremists of abducting and killing a teenage boy in east Jerusalem in a revenge attack, and stone-throwing youths clashed with Israeli police throughout the day Wednesday. The weeks since the Israeli teens disappeared have seen militants in Gaza fire scores of rockets at Israel, which has responded with airstrikes against alleged militant targets. Two Palestinian militants were killed in an airstrike last week, and a young Palestinian girl was killed by an errant rocket attack. There have been no serious casualties on the Israeli side. | |
Comment: In a nutshell: Hamas forms a unified government, Israel stages a minor false-flag, blames Hamas, justifies a harsh 'military operation', riles up the racist and vengeful tendencies of its citizens, re-destabilizing Palestinian authorities and killing a bunch of Palestinians in the process. Mission success!
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Ali Abunimah
Desert Peace 2014-07-02 14:46:00
Since the bodies of three missing Israeli youths were discovered in the occupied West Bank on Monday, Israeli politicians have whipped the public up with demands for "revenge." The videos in this post show disturbing footage of significant crowds of young Israelis marching through the streets of Jerusalem on Tuesday evening chanting "Death to the Arabs" - "mavet la'aravim" in Hebrew. In some of the footage those chanting appear to be young children.
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Comment: Herd behavior is unbecoming of you, Israelis. The Paranoia Switch works every time.
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George Washington
Zerohedge.com 2014-07-02 14:02:00
Preface: Two weeks ago, well-known economist Tyler Cowen (a professor at George Mason University) argued in the New York Times that wars - especially "major wars" - are good for the economy. Cowen joins extremely influential economists like Paul Krugman and Martin Feldstein - and various talking heads - in promoting this idea. Also, many congressmen assume that cutting pork-barrel military spending would hurt their constituents' jobs. It is vital for policy-makers, economists and the public to have access to a definitive analysis to determine once and for all whether war is good or bad for the economy. That analysis is below. Top Economists Say War Is Bad for the Economy Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says that war is bad for the economy: Stiglitz wrote in 2003: | |
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Peter Hart
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting 2014-07-01 00:00:00
A showdown from the June 29 episode ABC's This Week went viral, as Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel decided to confront ABC pundit and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol over his stance on the Iraq War: It's clearly a good thing that someone like Kristol is being held accountable for his Iraq advocacy. In the late 1990s, he helped found the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a think tank that played a critical role in planning and selling the Iraq War. His magazine was similarly devoted to the cause (Extra!, 9/09), including making the claim that Iraq and Al-Qaeda were in cahoots (Extra!, 1/04). | |
Comment: If Bill Kristol's continuing to be hired for jobs giving him a platform to promote war isn't an example of just how controlled the major media is, I don't know what is. He has been so consistently and disastrously wrong about so much over the years that one can practically see "the man behind the curtain" pulling the strings to empower him and give him the wholesale means to disinform. And who - with any measure or ability to judge character and competence - would be a major supporter of Sarah Palin for any position of responsibility? WK is surely an agent of chaos in a suit.
See also: Controlled Media: CIA Admits Using News To Manipulate People | |
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Nick Clark
The Independant 2014-07-02 05:01:00
Art experts have called for Tracey Emin's My Bed to be put on public display, after it emerged her art dealer Jay Joplin had bought the "iconic" work on behalf of an unnamed client. Tania Buckrell Pos, head of specialist art consultancy Arts & Management International, said: "It is a pivotal piece, it belongs in a museum. Hopefully whoever he bought it for will pass it to an institution." The best place for it, she continued, would be the Tate, saying: "That's absolutely where it should be." The White Cube would only confirm that "we were involved in the purchase on behalf of a client" adding it was "very early days at this stage". | |
Comment: for more examples of the psychopathic degradation of the beauty that is real art:
Eradicating beauty: The destruction of art and The Plot Against Art | |
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Jen Chung
Gothamist 2014-07-03 17:05:00
During last night's pounding thunderstorm, a facade under the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side collapsed, injuring numerous people. It happened at Washington and Prospect Streets, near the exit ramp to Tillary Street and Cadman Plaza. The Daily News reports: "Jerome Dilligard, 52, said his wife noticed water seeping from between the heavy stones of the facade as they took shelter under the Brooklyn Bridge. The retired correction officer decided to run for their car. As soon as Dilligard left, the wall collapsed - burying his wife, Teresa, and their 8-year-old daughter, Kaylah, as well as his 30-year-old daughter, LaToya Jackson, her son, Khmani, 10, and little Kiarra in debris. The baby was knocked to the street, her grandfather said. "A stranger picked her up," Dilligard said. "They were right under the wall when it came down. "My wife had to dig them all out. It's a miracle they got out with their lives."" | |
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Vivian Yee
The New york Times 2014-07-03 00:00:00
Streets and walkways around the Brooklyn Bridge reopened Thursday morning after part of the stone facade of a bridge underpass crumbled to the ground during a thunderstorm Wednesday evening, injuring eight people who were taking shelter from the heavy rain under the bridge. The collapse, at Prospect Street and Washington Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn, brought nearly a dozen fire trucks and paramedics to the bridge just before 8 p.m. on Wednesday, a Fire Department spokeswoman said. She said five adults and three children were treated for minor injuries at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan. A spokeswoman for the city's Office of Emergency Management, Nancy Greco-Silvestri, said investigators had determined on Wednesday that there were no structural issues at the bridge. The streets in the area, which were clogged Wednesday night with emergency vehicles, have reopened, and a temporary walkway has been built for pedestrians, she said. | |
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James Ball
Publishers must fight back against this indirect challenge to press freedom, which allows articles to be 'disappeared'. Editorial decisions belong with them, not Google.The Guardian 2014-07-02 16:27:00
When you Google someone from within the EU, you no longer see what the search giant thinks is the most important and relevant information about an individual. You see the most important information the target of your search is not trying to hide. Stark evidence of this fact, the result of a European court ruling that individuals had the right to remove material about themselves from search engine results, arrived in theGuardian's inbox this morning, in the form of an automated notification that six Guardianarticles have been scrubbed from search results. The first six articles down the memory hole - there will likely be many more as the rich and powerful look to scrub up their online images, doubtless with the help of a new wave of "reputation management" firms - are a strange bunch. | |
Comment: And so we being to see real live examples of how history can so easily be manipulated - if you have access to and influence over the 'scribes' of the day.
Consider the same problem in the context of much older historical records and we see there is a huge problem with what has been passed on and taken now as historical 'fact' without a second thought. All it takes is influence and power over the scribes and history tells any story you want it to. Who owned what land, what tribe went from where to where, how and why wars were started and fought and so on and so on. One of the lessons of history, is that much of it is founded on lies and manipulation of the facts. | |
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Robert Peston
BBC News 2014-07-02 16:16:00
This morning the BBC received the following notification from Google: What it means is that a blog I wrote in 2007 will no longer be findable when searching on Google in Europe. Which means that to all intents and purposes the article has been removed from the public record, given that Google is the route to information and stories for most people. So why has Google killed this example of my journalism? Well it has responded to someone exercising his or her new "right to be forgotten", following a ruling in May by the European Court of Justice that Google must delete "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" data from its results when a member of the public requests it. | |
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Voice of Russia
2014-07-03 16:13:00
The Russian Culture Ministry has hired lawyers to prepare an appeal to the Netherlands concerning the return of Scythian gold from Crimea to Russia, Interfax reports Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky saying. "A well-known international law company which will defend the interests in the event of litigation, which we hope will never happen", media cites the official saying. "We have lawyers drafting the relevant complaints. I am very hopeful that our counterparts in the Netherlands will approach the matter from the viewpoint not of petty politics but that of the law," Medinsky told reporters in Moscow on Thursday. Netherlands promised to resolve the issue of the Scythian gold collection that came from Crimea by the end of September, however, Russia still sought legal advice in the case that it does come to court, Medinsky said on Thursday. "Crimean museums filed official requests to according to which the collection has to be returned and the Dutch have promised to consider them at the end of the summer or in September," minister said. "At this stage the exposition has been extended due to excessive politicization of this issue," Medinsky added. | |
Comment: The answer should be obvious: these artifacts belong in Crimean museums!
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At least one person was killed and two buses were damaged when an overpass bridge under construction collapsed in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, one of the host cities for the ongoing World Cup, said CNN affiliate TV Record, which cited firefighters. Images that circulated on social media showed a bus trapped underneath the collapsed structure. No further details were immediately available. Belo Horizonte will host Tuesday's semifinal match between the winner of the France-Germany match and the winner of the Brazil-Colombia game. The city has so far hosted five World Cup games since June 14, when Colombia beat Greece 3-0. Tuesday's game will be the last to be hosted by the city in this year's World Cup.
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RT
2014-07-03 17:29:00
Students who are caught lying on their CVs will risk a jail sentence, amid fears that university graduates are embellishing the truth to get ahead in the jobs market. Fraud prevention officers have sent a pamphlet to every university in the UK, warning students that "white lies" on their job applications could be classed as "fraud by false representation" - a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years. The pamphlet, produced by the government's anti-fraud service CIFAS, says: "Your dream job asks for a 2:1, but you've got a 2:2 - so you just make a little change on your CV. You're worried you don't have enough work experience - so you pretend your summer of trekking through Nepal was actually spent working at a local solicitor's firm. "After all, no one really checks, right? It's just a little white lie, right? Wrong. It's fraud." | |
Comment: As usual we see the law in pursuit of 'the little man' and still nowhere does it lean in on perpetrators of the true crimes against mankind. The law aims to please the ones above it who perfected "fraud by false representation".
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Police State USA
2014-07-03 15:23:00
Lafayette - An officer has been allowed to keep his job and face no legal consequences after accosting a paralyzed man and dumping him out of his wheelchair into the street. The incident occurred on October 1, 2013. Some Lafayette police officers had just finished issuing a warning to 25-year-old Nicholas Kincade, who requires a motorized scooter for mobility. Kincade had been dismissed, and began slowly rolling down the sidewalk. His wheel inadvertently grazed Lt. Tom Davidson's foot. Davidson's fury erupted in an instant. With both hands he plowed into the paralyzed man, sending him sprawling helplessly onto the pavement. "You did not drive over me, f*****!!" Davidson barked. "Now you're going to jail. Now you're going to jail." Officers swarmed the man as he lie awkwardly in the street. Mr. Kincade attempted to explain it was all an accident. The incident was captured on dash-cam video, which has finally been released after 9 months. | |
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Megan Gannon
Live Science 2014-07-03 11:27:00
Indigenous people with no prior contact to the outside world have just emerged from the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and made contact with a group of settled Indians, after being spotted migrating to evade illegal loggers, advocates say. The news, which was released yesterday (July 2), comes after sightings of the uncontacted Indians in Brazil near the border with Peru, according to the group Survival International. Officials with the organization had warned last month that the isolated tribes face threats of disease and violence as they moved into new territory and possibly encountered other people. "Something serious must have happened," José Carlos Meirelles, a former official with the Brazilian Indian Affairs Department FUNAI, said in a statement. "It is not normal for such a large group of uncontacted Indians to approach in this way. This is a completely new and worrying situation, and we currently do not know what has caused it." [See Photos of Uncontacted Amazon Tribe] Survival International officials said dozens of uncontacted Indians were recently spotted close to the home of the Ashaninka Indians in Brazil's Acre state along the Envira River, while a government investigation in the region uncovered more ephemeral traces of the tribe on the move: footprints, temporary camps and food leftovers. On Sunday (June 29), reports suggest, the vulnerable group of Indians made contact with the Asháninka. | |
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Travis Gettys
The Blaze 2014-07-03 09:09:00
Police arrested a Missouri "doomsday prepper" who investigators said had been terrorizing his neighborhood for weeks. Neighbors began complaining in May about 36-year-old Roy McCool after he allegedly assaulted a woman in Springfield home, reported the Springfield News-Leader. Investigators said McCool forced his way into the woman's home and punched, slapped, and choked her before firing three rounds from a handgun into her living room wall. McCool broke into the woman's home two days later and stole a bank card and $35 in cash from her children's piggy banks, police said. Neighbors said McCool's behavior grew even more threatening about two weeks later, in late May, when he stood in his front yard with a gun and yelled threats toward other residents. McCool continued getting into confrontations with neighbors, letting his dogs run loose, and displaying firearms, police said, causing other residents to live "in a constant state of fear." | |
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RT
2014-07-03 10:19:00
A video has recorded a violent altercation erupting between a man on a New York City subway and police officers, who apparently arrested him for the crime of nodding off while commuting home for work. The incident occurs at the 57th street station stop in Manhattan in a mostly-empty carriage. The video posted to YouTube on Tuesday does not show what sparked the police confrontation, though from the man's reaction and those who viewed and filmed the scene, he was confronted by police for sleeping on the train.
"For what? I didn't do s***! I'm sleeping," he cries out during the arrest, before repeating that he was going home. The arresting officers, while speaking to him throughout the incident, are mostly inaudible. | ||
Comment: From the beating of Rodney King to the murder of Kelly Thomas, police tactics in the U.S. have become so heavy-handed that people are regularly being murdered by those ostensibly sworn 'to protect and to serve' them.
The militarization of police forces - particularly since 9/11, the steady erosion of civil rights via draconian laws, and an atmosphere of hysteria generated by the 'War on Terror' have all combined to place the police 'above the law'. But tyrannical and dictatorial repression is what 'those other countries' do, right? Why is it, then, that we constantly see headlines of people in the U.S. being beaten, tasered, and even shot to death for such minor infringements as traffic violations? Are cops 'out of control'? Are they 'just obeying orders'? Listen to the SOTT Talk Radio taking a look at police brutality in the 'land of the free'.
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Maria Kavussanu - University of Birmingham
The Raw Story 2014-06-28 20:04:00
FIFA's decision to hand Luis Suarez a four month ban for biting Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini has sealed Suarez's place as the villain of World Cup 2014. The incident has provoked outrage across the globe, with many saying the punishment is too lenient for such a heinous crime. But where does this behaviour that we find to be so unsportsmanlike come from? Suarez is not the only culprit: diving, dirty tackles and other foul behaviour takes place on the pitch that leaves us wondering why players sometimes act this way. Sports psychology research shows that clearly there are some personal characteristics that predispose players to cheat, but the social environment also plays a key role. | |
Comment: Soccer is big business and winning is all that counts, because it translates into earning money. As long as success is measured in winning, nothing will change. In fact, in all these sports, aggression is cultivated, which often translates into aggressive behaviour of players off the field. Players are built up as role models, provided with celebrity status and showered with ludicrous amounts of money, just to push a ball around the soccer pitch - despite their pathological traits and misbehaviour on and off the play field, that get excused again and again.
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Travis Gettys
Raw Story 2014-06-30 07:19:00
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said the ruling on the Hobby Lobby case was based on a misreading of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and would likely open the door to a host of unintended consequences. "Little doubt that RFRA claims will proliferate, for the Court's expansive notion of corporate personhood - combined with its other errors in construing RFRA - invites for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faith," she wrote. The court ruled 5-4 Monday that the government cannot compel closely held corporations with religious owners to provide contraception coverage for its employees. In a scathing, 35-page dissent, Ginsberg concluded that the contraception mandate did not impose a substantial burden on Hobby Lobby or Conestoga Wood Specialties - and therefore did not violate the RFRA. She said the Affordable Care Act required employers to direct money into undifferentiated funds to pay for a wide variety of benefits under comprehensive health plans, and Ginsberg said employees were not obligated to use contraception coverage. "Even if one were to conclude that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga meet the substantial burden requirement, the Government has shown that the contraceptive coverage for which the ACA provides furthers compelling interests in public health and women's well being," Ginsberg wrote. "Those interests are concrete, specific, and demonstrated by a wealth of empirical evidence." While the court has recognized First Amendment protections for churches and other nonprofit religion-based organizations, Ginsberg noted that no previous court decisions had ever recognized a for-profit corporation's qualification for religious exemption from any laws. | |
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RT
2014-07-02 03:19:00
The Government must invest more in building new schools as 80 per cent of current buildings should not still be in operation, architects claim Children across the UK are being failed by four-fifths of schools that are "beyond their life cycle," while 75 percent of existing schools also contain asbestos, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) claims. With 250,000 extra school places needed by September, the current wave of new designs is not big enough to prevent overcrowding, the society for the architectural industry's"Building Better Britain" advisory report argues. "Overcrowding in narrow corridors exacerbates bullying and harassment, fewer social areas outside classrooms limit students' abilities to socialize," the report adds. The standardized "baseline" designs are 15 percent smaller than those built under the previous Labour government's "Building Schools for the Future" program, the group said. The report claimed the next government must increase the cost per square meter of new schools by 20 percent. | |
Comment: While school buildings are crumbling, the ruling elites are busily waging wars overseas and implementing new ways of controlling the domestic population. Such is the state of Western societies.
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| Secret History |
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naukawpolsce.com
2014-06-30 20:21:00
Archaeologists from the University of Wrocław discovered more than 150 graves belonging to a previously unknown culture in Peru. The find, dated to the 4th-7th century AD, indicates that the northern part of the Atacama Desert had been inhabited by a farming community before the expansion of the Tiwanaku civilization. The team from Institute of Archaeology of the University of Wrocław has performed research in southern Peru since 2008. The cemetery was discovered in the Tambo River delta, in the northern part of the Atacama Desert. "These graves had been dug in the sand without any stone structures, and for this reason they were so difficult to locate that they have not fallen prey to robbers" - told PAP Prof. Józef Szykulski, leader of the research project, in which, in addition to Polish archaeologists, researchers from Peru and Colombia are also involved. Desert conditions also preserved the contents of the graves. "These burials are of the virtually unknown people, who inhabited the area before the expansion of the Tiwanaku civilization. Items found in individual graves indicate that the people already had a clear social division" - said Prof. Szykulski. In the tombs, archaeologists have found objects including massive headgear made of camelid wool, which could have the function of helmets. Some of the bodies were wrapped in mats, others in cotton burial shrouds, and others in nets, which means that one of the forms of activity of that culture was fishing. "Inside some of the graves we have found bows and quivers with arrows tipped with obsidian heads. This is a very interesting find, because bows are a rarity in Peru" - said the archaeologist. Another interesting find is the skeleton of a young llama, which proves that the animal had been brought to the Tombo Delta earlier than thought. | |
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Medical Xpress
2014-02-10 12:37:00
Genetic adaptations for life at high elevations found in residents of the Tibetan plateau likely originated around 30,000 years ago in peoples related to contemporary Sherpa. These genes were passed on to more recent migrants from lower elevations via population mixing, and then amplified by natural selection in the modern Tibetan gene pool, according to a new study by scientists from the University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University, published in Nature Communications on February 10. The transfer of beneficial mutations between human populations and selective enrichment of these genes in descendent generations represents a novel mechanism for adaptation to new environments. "The Tibetan genome appears to arise from a mixture of two ancestral gene pools," said Anna Di Rienzo, PhD, professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago and corresponding author of the study. "One migrated early to high altitude and adapted to this environment. The other, which migrated more recently from low altitudes, acquired the advantageous alleles from the resident high-altitude population by interbreeding and forming what we refer to today as Tibetans." High elevations are challenging for humans because of low oxygen levels but Tibetans are well adapted to life above 13,000 feet. Due to physiological traits such as relatively low hemoglobin concentrations at altitude, Tibetans have lower risk of complications, such as thrombosis, compared to short-term visitors from low altitude. Unique to Tibetans are variants of the EGLN1 and EPAS1 genes, key genes in the oxygen homeostasis system at all altitudes. These variants were hypothesized to have evolved around 3,000 years ago, a date which conflicts with much older archaeological evidence of human settlement in Tibet. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Charles Q. Choi
Live Science 2014-07-03 13:01:00
Three different human species may have walked the Earth at the dawn of the human lineage, dividing up their environment in slightly different ways, and the ancestors of modern humans may have survived because oftraits such as large brains that helped them adapt to unstable, shifting landscapes, researchers say. Moreover, the defining features of the human lineage may not have evolved together gradually at once, but piecemeal in stages over millions of years, scientists added. Modern humans, Homo sapiens, are the only living members of the human lineage, the genus Homo, which is thought to have arisen in Africa more than 2 million years ago. Many now-extinct human species were thought to once roam the planet, such as Homo erectus,the first to regularly keep the tools it made. Many traits unique to the human lineage were long thought to have originated between 2.4 million and 1.8 million years ago in Africa. These include a large brain and body, long legs, reduced differences between the sexes, increased meat-eating, prolonged maturation periods, increased social cooperation and tool making. However, recent fossil evidence suggests these traits did not arise together as a single package. Instead, key human features evolved piecemeal at separate times, with some emerging substantially earlier and some later than previously thought. For instance, recent findings suggest long legs, a feature once considered unique to humans, developed in earlier ancestors, the genus Australopithecus, between 3 million and 4 million years ago, and stone tools about 2.6 million years old may predate the origin of Homo. | |
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Ann Finkbeiner
Nature news 2014-07-02 11:02:00
Not so long ago - as recently as the mid-1990s, in fact - there was a theory so beautiful that astronomers thought it simply had to be true. They gave it a rather pedestrian name: the core-accretion theory. But its beauty lay in how it used just a few basic principles of physics and chemistry to account for every major feature of our Solar System. It explained why all the planets orbit the Sun in the same direction; why their orbits are almost perfectly circular and lie in or near the plane of the star's equator; why the four inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) are comparatively small, dense bodies made mostly of rock and iron; and why the four outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) are enormous, gaseous globes made mostly of hydrogen and helium. And because the same principles of physics and astronomy must apply throughout the Universe, it predicted that any system of 'exoplanets' around another star would look pretty much the same. But in the mid-1990s, astronomers actually started finding those exoplanets - and they looked nothing like those in our Solar System. Gas giants the size of Jupiter whipped around their stars in tiny orbits, where core accretion said gas giants were impossible. Other exoplanets traced out wildly elliptical orbits. Some looped around their stars' poles.Planetary systems, it seemed, could take any shape that did not violate the laws of physics. | |
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RT
2014-07-01 17:20:00
Hackers are targeting energy companies in the US and Europe in an apparent case of industrial espionage, according to several security companies, which say the perpetrators seem to be based in Eastern Europe. The group of hackers, known as 'Energetic Bear' or 'Dragonfly', are attacking hundreds of Western oil and gas companies, as well as energy investment firms, and infecting them with malware capable of disrupting power supplies. Additional targets have included energy grid operators, major electricity generation firms, petroleum pipeline operators, and industrial energy equipment providers. The majority of the victims were located in the United States, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, and Poland, according to a Symantec report released on Monday. | |
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RT
2014-07-02 18:18:00
Researchers have discovered a fossilized space rock that stands out against anything seen before. It may advance the understanding of the asteroid clash that triggered off the diversity boom of life on early Earth. Most of the meteorites that have fallen to Earth and were found during a 20-year study originate from a huge asteroid that collided with a smaller one - or even a comet - millions of years ago. But before the latest finding by Swedish scientists nothing was known about the mysterious "bullet" asteroid. A study by a team of international researchers, prepared for print in the August edition ofEarth and Planetary Science Letters journal, tells the story of the exploration of a meteorite found in Thorsberg limestone quarry, west of Stockholm, in southern Sweden. While previous finds have become "quite boring,"according to Birger Schmitz, lead author of the study, who has led the chondrite cataloging, the most recent discovery is "a very, very strange and unusual find." | |
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| Earth Changes |
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US Geological Survey
2014-07-03 14:59:00
Event Time 2014-07-03 19:50:05 UTC 2014-07-03 07:50:05 UTC-12:00 at epicenter Location 30.309°S 175.765°W depth=33.0km (20.5mi) Nearby Cities 236km (147mi) ESE of Raoul Island, New Zealand 1018km (633mi) S of Nuku'alofa, Tonga 1079km (670mi) NE of Whakatane, New Zealand 1087km (675mi) NNE of Gisborne, New Zealand 1103km (685mi) ENE of Whangarei, New Zealand Scientific Data | |
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John O'Ceallaigh
Daily Telegraph 2014-07-03 14:24:00
An Instagram user captured impressive footage of a lighting bolt striking the ground in New York last night Adverse weather is affecting New York City at the moment, with severe thunderstorms washing over the area on Wednesday evening. The full force of the storm was documented on social media, with Instagram user Dinesh Penugonda capturing spectacular footage of a lighting bolt striking land, with the darkened but unmistakable silhouette of Manhattan in the background. You can see the video below.
Americans living along the country's east coast are revising their July 4 holiday plans as the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Tropical Storm Arthur, grows in stature. It is close to reaching hurricane strength and residents in some southern states are currently evacuating threatened areas. | ||
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Steven Strouss
CBS News - Philadelphia 2014-07-02 23:36:00
The high temperature soared to 96 degrees this afternoon in Philadelphia making today the hottest day of 2014. The combination of heat and humidity made it feel insufferable outside and also triggered severe thunderstorms, and flash flood warnings this evening. The CBS3 weather team counted over 10,000 lightning strikes since 6pm as storms were still raging furiously over New Jersey. Numerous house fires were sparked by lightning strikes across the region. The concerns of wild weather are not over yet as the area goes under a Flash Flood Watch Thursday morning. Showers and thunderstorms along a stalled cold front will connect with tropical moisture from Arthur resulting in periods of heavy rain for the region Thursday afternoon. Rainfall amounts of 1-3″ could cause flooding along area streams and poor drainage flooding is also expected. | |
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David Sneed
The Tribune 2014-07-02 12:43:00
State Parks officials say people should avoid going near the decomposing carcass for health and safety reasons A dead 35-foot-long humpback whale has washed up on a beach at Montaña de Oro State Park. The whale washed up on a beach just north of Hazard Reef late Friday morning. Based on its size, the animal was probably a juvenile, said Vince Cicero, senior environmental scientist with State Parks. Scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Marine Mammal Center examined the whale over the weekend and determined that it was too decomposed to do a necropsy. "It had probably been dead a while before it washed ashore," Cicero said.
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Antarctic sea ice has hit its second all-time record maximum this week. The new record is 2.112 million square kilometers above normal. Until the weekend just past, the previous record had been 1.840 million square kilometers above normal, a mark hit on December 20, 2007, as I reported here, and also covered in my book. Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, responded to e-mail questions and also spoke by telephone about the new record sea ice growth in the Southern Hemisphere, indicating that, somewhat counter-intuitively, the sea ice growth was specifically due to global warming. "The primary reason for this is the nature of the circulation of the Southern Ocean - water heated in high southern latitudes is carried equatorward, to be replaced by colder waters upwelling from below, which inhibits ice loss," Serreze wrote in an e-mail. "Upon this natural oceanic thermostat, one will see the effects of natural climate variations, [the rise] appears to be best explained by shifts in atmospheric circulation although a number of other factors are also likely involved." | |
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Jamie Morton
The New Zealand Herald 2014-07-02 17:43:00
It's now official - last month was the warmest June ever recorded in New Zealand. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research this afternoon confirmed an "exceptionally warm start to winter", with dozens of climate stations also placing in the top four for the warmest June ever recorded. Record high mean temperatures for the month were recorded at Kerikeri, Tauranga, Te Puke, Dunedin, Stratford, Wanganui, Westport, Hokitika, Haast, Ranfurly, Secretary Island and Whenuapai at Auckland. The nationwide average temperature in June 2014 was 10.3C, surpassing the previous record for warmest June in 2003. | |
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CBC News
2014-07-02 17:24:00
Widespread overland flooding in Saskatchewan and Manitoba prompted the evacuation of some homes in western Manitoba on Tuesday night. The Rural Municipality of Wallace issued a mandatory evacuation order for an area almost five kilometres south of the Trans-Canada Highway from Kirkella, Man., a community near the Saskatchewan border, east to Road 161W. Residents in the affected area were urged to leave by 9 p.m. CT, as an influx of water was coming quickly. Evacuees were asked to report to a reception centre in nearby Virden, Man. It wasn't immediately clear how many people were affected by the municipality's evacuation order. Earlier in the evening, emergency officials in Virden put out an evacuation order for homes on the south side of Kenderdine Street, south of Highway 257 and east of Scallion Creek.
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Elena Ferrarin
Daily Herald 2014-07-02 06:16:00
Knowing that her son was able to take a few steps from his hospital bed to a chair Wednesday morning was an immense relief, his mother said, but the enormity of his injuries also overwhelmed the Elgin woman. Benjamin Hernandez, 15, was seriously hurt a day earlier when the car driven by his mother plunged into a sinkhole on a rural road south of the village of Burlington. San Juanita Pineda was delivering newspapers in the pre-dawn hours and did not see the sinkhole that was 10 feet in diameter and deep enough that her Ford Taurus was lodged below ground level. A short time later, a pickup truck drove over the car in which the two were pinned. Benjamin is in the pediatric intensive care unit of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood with a spinal fracture, a broken rib and a broken jaw, his mother said. He also lost some teeth.
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CBC News
2014-07-02 19:08:00
Pontiac Mayor Roger Larose says he warned the province a month ago about problems with a highway culvert that likely caused a large sinkhole to appear on Highway 148 on Wednesday. On Wednesday morning a large sinkhole 10 metres deep and 10 metres wide formed on Highway 148's eastbound lanes, closing the highway in both directions between the communities of Quyon and Luskville, both of which are part of the municipality of Pontiac. Pontiac Mayor Roger Larose said Wednesday he and his staff told the provincial government a month ago that the culvert was blocked. He said workers did come to fix the problem, but said the culverts should have been monitored. "They should have been aware of this before us. They aren't organized and I sure am not impressed," said Larose. A spokesperson with Quebec's transportation ministry told CBC News recent heavy rains and the Canada Day storm may have contributed to the sinkhole's formation over the culvert.
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David Raven
Daily Mirror, UK 2014-07-02 05:43:00
Daisy-Mae Jones, 7, fell the equivalent height of a two-storey house and incredibly walked away with just cuts and bruises A seven-year-old girl miraculously survived falling 25ft into a sinkhole. Schoolgirl Daisy-Mae Jones, fell the equivalent height of a two-storey house while she was playing in a field near her home. Her terrified mother Janine struggled to find little Daisy-Mae at first because of the thick grass, and the search party were led by the schoolgirl's cries for help until they found the hole. A nearby builder helped to rescue her - and incredibly, she walked away with just cuts and bruises. Describing the horrifying ordeal, mum Janine, 39, of Shuttlewood, Derbys., said: "Her friends came to tell us what had happened but the grass in that field is tall and thick, so it took a while to find her. "We just had to keep calling her, and listening out. When we found her she was crying and covered head to toe in clay and mud. It was terrible." | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Livescience.com
2014-07-03 00:00:00
As of June 18, an Ebola outbreak has killed at least 337 people in Africa. The outbreak, rst reported in Guinea in December, has spread to neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia, where a combined total of 528 cases have been reported. | |
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Antibiotic resistance is now a bigger crisis than the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, a landmark report recently warned. The spread of deadly superbugs that evade even the most powerful antibiotics is happening across the world, United Nations officials have confirmed. The effects will be devastating - meaning a simple scratch or urinary tract infection could kill. Tuberculosis (TB) is a scourge that is threatening to get ugly because TB is usually cured by taking antibiotics for six to nine months. However, if that treatment is interrupted or the dose is cut down, the stubborn bacteria battle back and mutate into a tougher strain that can no longer be killed by drugs. Such strains are scaring the heck out of the medical community for good reason. Tuberculosis is highly contagious, holding the potential to wipe out wide swaths of humanity in the case of an epidemic of these drug resistant strains. Australia's first victim of a killer strain of drug-resistant tuberculosis died amid warnings of a looming health epidemic on Queensland's doorstep. Medical experts are seriously concerned about the handling of the TB epidemic in Papua New Guinea after Catherina Abraham died of an incurable form of the illness, known as XDR-TB (extensively drug resistant TB) in Cairns Base Hospital. Of course we always get big scares from the mainstream medical press, who are big cheerleaders of big pharmaceutical companies as our governmental medical officials. Now medical experts are warning that drug resistant tuberculosis is such a problem in the Asia Pacific region that it could overwhelm health systems. A drug-resistant TB case did touch off a scare in U.S. - "We don't know too much about a Nepalese man who's in medical isolation in Texas while being treated for extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, the most difficult-to-treat kind." XDR-TB is resistant not only to isoniazid and rifampin but also a class of drugs called fluoroquinolones and one or more potent injectable antibiotics. This is one of the nastiest of all antibiotics, which easily destroys peoples' lives by itself. TB germs become drug-resistant when patients fail to complete a course of treatment. When a partly-resistant strain is treated with the wrong drugs, it can become extensively resistant. There are about 60,000 people with XDR-TB strains like the Nepalese man who's in isolation. That means there are other people with XDR-TB traveling the world at any given time. | |
Comment: Medicine certainly has created a huge problem with indiscriminate use of antibiotics - but this is far from the worst: 6 out of 7 antibiotic doses today are given to healthy cattle to make them grow faster. For more info see:
Fatter Cows, Sicker People FDA may approve cow drug While the jury is still out on such nanoparticles (because they behave totally different in human bodies than anything else known to medicine) the best way to move forward at this point would be to bolster one's immune system to let the body fight all invaders on its own. One of the best ways to do that is to limit all carbohydrates (ketogenic diet), reduce exposure to environmental toxins and de-stress body and mind. See the following threads for more information: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation? When the Body Says "no" - Gabor Mate Eiriu Eolas | |
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Ann Arbor
University of Michigan 2014-07-03 15:38:00
Researchers find that with calorie restriction, a less-studied fat tissue releases adiponectin, which is linked to reduced risk of diseases like diabetes. It has been known for its flavorful addition to soups and as a delicacy for dogs but bone marrow fat may also have untapped health benefits, new research finds. A University of Michigan-led study shows that the fat tissue in bone marrow is a significant source of the hormone adiponectin, which helps maintain insulin sensitivity, break down fat, and has been linked to decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity-associated cancers. The findings appear in today's online-ahead-of-print issue of Cell Metabolism. | |
Comment:
Journal Reference: William P. Cawthorn, Erica L. Scheller, Brian S. Learman, Sebastian D. Parlee, Becky R. Simon, Hiroyuki Mori, Xiaomin Ning, Adam J. Bree, Benjamin Schell, David T. Broome, Sandra S. Soliman, Jenifer L. DelProposto, Carey N. Lumeng, Aditi Mitra, Sandeep V. Pandit, Katherine A. Gallagher, Joshua D. Miller, Venkatesh Krishnan, Susanta K. Hui, Miriam A. Bredella, Pouneh K. Fazeli, Anne Klibanski, Mark C. Horowitz, Clifford J. Rosen, Ormond A. MacDougald. Bone Marrow Adipose Tissue Is an Endocrine Organ that Contributes to Increased Circulating Adiponectin during Caloric Restriction. Cell Metabolism, 2014; DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2014.06.003 | |
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Shereen Lehman
Yahoo! News 2014-07-02 15:15:00
Young adults who exercised vigorously before bed ended up getting better sleep than their peers who reported less strenuous evening activity, a new study found. The results, based on sleep patterns during a single night, go against the usual advice to avoid being too active before bed. "We believe that the present study has the potential to shed light on the issue of whether evening exercising should be discouraged," Serge Brand of the University of Basel in Switzerland and his colleagues write. "The findings may also have practical implications, since, for most employed adults and parents, evening hours often provide the only opportunity for exercise," the researchers add. They studied 52 Swiss high school students who were an average of 19 years old and played sports two or three times per week. The participants followed their normal routine on the day and night of the study, including playing sports for 65 to 90 minutes in the evening and ending about one and a half hours before their usual bedtime. Before going to bed, students rated their mood and hunger levels and filled out a questionnaire that was designed to evaluate how vigorously they had exercised. That night they used a device that measures sleep patterns, called a sleep-EEG. Brand's team found that students who reported more exertion during sports fell asleep faster, woke up fewer times during the night and slept more deeply than those who had exercised less vigorously. | |
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Nana Boakye-Yiadom
Medical Express 2014-07-02 09:40:00
Health ministers from across western Africa met on Wednesday to plan "drastic action" against the world's deadliest-ever Ebola epidemic as dozens of new cases continued to emerge. There have been 759 confirmed or suspected cases of the haemorrhagic fever in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, with 467 people dead. The new death toll represented a rise of 129 - or 38 percent - since the UN agency's last bulletin given just a week ago. "This makes the ongoing Ebola outbreak the largest in terms of the number of cases and deaths as well as geographical spread," the WHO said in a statement announcing the two-day conference, which opened in Ghana's capital Accra, with 11 west African health ministers attending. "Decisions taken at this meeting will be critical in addressing the current and future outbreaks," it said. Since the region's first ever epidemic of the deadly and highly contagious fever broke out in Guinea in January, the WHO has sent in more than 150 experts to help tackle the regional crisis. | |
Comment: For more details on Ebola's similarity to the Black Death and possible cosmic (cometary) connection see:
Black Death found to be Ebola-like virus New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection | |
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UC Davis
2014-07-02 05:15:00
A new pathogen has been discovered by scientists investigating major die-offs of pigeons native to North America, according to studies led by the University of California, Davis, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Scientists were able to implicate this new parasite, along with the ancient parasiteTrichomonas gallinae, in the recent deaths of thousands of Pacific Coast band-tailed pigeons. The die-offs occurred during multiple epidemics in California's Central Coast and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. Scientists named the new pathogen Trichomonas stableri. Avian trichomonosis is an emerging and potentially fatal disease that creates severe lesions that can block the esophagus, ultimately preventing the bird from eating or drinking, or the trachea, leading to suffocation. The disease may date back to when dinosaurs roamed the earth, as lesions indicative of trichomonosis were found recently in T-Rex skeletons. The disease may also have contributed to the decline of the passenger pigeon, whose extinction occurred exactly 100 years ago. | |
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Reuters
2014-07-01 04:17:00
Latvia may declare a state of emergency in the eastern part of the country, near its border with Belarus and Russia to fight, an outbreak of African swine fever in some wild boars and domestic pigs. Swine fever was discovered in Latvia at the end of June and earlier in both Lithuania and Poland. The disease occurs among pigs and wild boars, where its effects are devastating and often deadly, and there is no vaccine. It does not affect humans. So far, a total of eight wild boars and three domestic pigs in Latvia have tested positive. "Infection has gotten into wild boars and we don't know how long it will continue to spread," said Maris Balodis, the head of the country's Food and Veterinary Service. "Therefore, steps which can be done in an emergency situation are preferable at this moment." | |
Comment: Interestingly enough, while Latvia and Russia are battling the African swine fever, in the US another killer pig virus wipes out more than 10 percent of nation's hogs. Read the following forum thread to learn more, and how sudden flair up of various viruses leads to spike in port prices everywhere. Coincidence?
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In a new study from California, children with an autism spectrum disorder were more likely to have mothers who lived close to fields treated with certain pesticides during pregnancy. Proximity to agricultural pesticides in pregnancy was also linked to other types of developmental delay among children. "Ours is the third study to specifically link autism spectrum disorders to pesticide exposure, whereas more papers have demonstrated links with developmental delay," said lead author Janie F. Shelton, from the University of California, Davis. There needs to be more research before scientists can say that pesticides cause autism, she told Reuters Health in an email. But pesticides all affect signaling between cells in the nervous system, she added, so a direct link is plausible. | |
Comment: The data and research that pesticides like organophosphates and pyrthroids, cause developmental delays, ADHD and autism is not new. The information has been around for years! It would seem obvious that if toxic (pesticide) chemicals affect the neurology of bugs (thus killing them), these same pesticides will inadvertently affect the neurological function of children, too. Seems straightforward enough, back in 2010 aHarvard study blamed organophosphate pesticides, found in children's urine, to ADHD. The study was conducted over 4 years ago! While the data is mounting about the serious neurological effects of pesticides, especially in children, the use of pesticides in American agriculture continues to grow! It is safe to say that Big Ag in America doesn't want you to care about pesticides:
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Rachel Feltman
Washington Post 2014-07-03 15:46:00
Psychedelic mushrooms can do more than make you see the world in kaleidoscope. Research suggests they may have permanent, positive effects on the human brain. In fact, a mind-altering compound found in some 200 species of mushroom is already being explored as a potential treatment for depression and anxiety. People who consume these mushrooms, after "trips" that can be a bit scary and unpleasant, report feeling more optimistic, less self-centered, and even happier for months after the fact. But why do these trips change the way people see the world? According to a study published today in Human Brain Mapping, the mushroom compounds could be unlocking brain states usually only experienced when we dream, changes in activity that could help unlock permanent shifts in perspective. The study examined brain activity in those who'd received injections of psilocybin, which gives "shrooms" their psychedelic punch. Despite a long history of mushroom use inspiritual practice, scientists have only recently begun to examine the brain activity of those using the compound, and this is the first study to attempt to relate the behavioral effects to biological changes. After injections, the 15 participants were found to have increased brain function in areas associated with emotion and memory. The effect was strikingly similar to a brain in dream sleep, according to Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, a post-doctoral researcher in neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and co-author of the study. | |
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Drake Baer
Business Insider 2014-07-02 09:39:00
Only a third of Americans describe themselves as "very happy." Perhaps that's why there's such a market for happiness-related wisdom: Amazon has over 64,000 books on happiness ready for your ordering. But you don't need to read every book to get a survey of the happiness literature. Below, we've combined thoughts from a few insight-packed Quora threads with the latest in psychological research. 1. Happy people savor it. "Old cliches like 'stopping to smell the roses' and 'it's the little things in life'?" asks user Durga Ranjan. "They're true. The happiness researchers call it 'Savoring.'" Savoring an experience is "mindfully attending to and appreciating a positive stimulus,"writes Loyola University-Chicago psychologist Fred B. Bryant. His examples of experiences to savor include "a virtuoso musical performance, eating a gourmet meal, soaking in a warm bath, receiving a compliment, spending time with a good friend, or winning an honor or award." 2. Happy people don't compare themselves to others. | |
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ScienceDaily
2014-07-03 14:34:00
A new study is the first to identify specific coping behaviors through which stress exposure leads to the development of insomnia. Results show that coping with a stressful event through behavioral disengagement -- giving up on dealing with the stress -- or by using alcohol or drugs each significantly mediated the relationship between stress exposure and insomnia development. Surprisingly, the coping technique of self-distraction -- such as going to the movies or watching TV -- also was a significant mediator between stress and incident insomnia. Furthermore, the study found that cognitive intrusion -- recurrent thoughts about the stressor -- was a significant and key mediator, accounting for 69 percent of the total effect of stress exposure on insomnia. "Our study is among the first to show that it's not the number of stressors, but your reaction to them that determines the likelihood of experiencing insomnia," said lead author Vivek Pillai, PhD, research fellow at the Sleep Disorders & Research Center at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. "While a stressful event can lead to a bad night of sleep, it's what you do in response to stress that can be the difference between a few bad nights and chronic insomnia." Study results are published in the July 1 issue of the journal Sleep. | |
Comment: There is one proven technique that can assist you with reducing your stress, calming and focusing your mind, creating better links between body and mind and thus improving quality of life, increasing sense of connection with others in your community. It will help you to have improved overall health, a stronger immune system, better impulse control, reduced inflammation, etc. It will also help you to heal emotional wounds; anything that may hinder or prevent you from leading a healthy and fulfilling life.
To learn more about the importance of breathing exercises to relieve stress visit the Éiriú Eolas Stress Control, Healing and Rejuvenation Program here. | |
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Dr. Victor Marchione, MD
Wake Up World 2014-07-01 18:54:00
You don't need a doctor to tell you that a giggle session is good for the soul, but new research shows that it can also be good for your brain. A recent study of people with diabetes (rising numbers in North America) found that laughter could reduce age-related memory loss. I'm all for it! Life is short, after all, and if can't have a bring-you-to-tears laughter session now and again, well, what's it all for? | |
Comment: See also:
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| High Strangeness |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Waterford Whispers News
2014-07-03 15:46:00
In the 24 hours leading up to America's Fourth Of July celebrations, a number of freedom reducing, freedom enhancement measures will be taken in the country's airports. Citing credible terrorist threats, US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson admitted security would be tightened ahead of America's Independence Day celebrations in order to protect US freedoms. "We will continue to adjust security measures to promote aviation security without unnecessary disruptions to the travelling public," Johnson said. American airports are expected to maintain their 'permission to step' policy which sees people entering airports ask permission to take a step in any direction. A panel of security experts and TSA agents are convened to discuss each step request on merit before allowing the requested step take place. This is then repeated for every subsequent step. | |
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RT
2014-07-03 15:41:00
A limited series of 44 golden iPhones featuring the portrait of Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been sold in just one day. The success of the sale proves that the patriotism in Russia is on the rise, says Italian luxury brand manufacturer Caviar Phone. "A limited series of 44 golden IPhones with the portrait of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, which became an object of attention from Russian and foreign media (from BBC to NewsRu.com), was sold in the first day of the sales starting," Caviar Phone said in a statement about the mobile phones, which are being marketed under the brand "Supremo Putin." The internet boutique produces exclusive items from Italian designer Elia Giacometti. Taking into consideration the success of the first series and a growing demand for IPhones with the portrait of the Russian president on them, the company decided to launch another series with Putin's portrait on them. Among those who bought a luxurious phone with the famous leader's image on them are representatives from business, politics and culture. A famous film director, a TV host, two top managers of an oil company and a gold medal winner of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games have bought the iPhones, Caviar Phone said in its statement. The company didn't reveal which countries the buyers came from. The Italian company says the popularity of the "Supremo Putin" brand phones can be explained by the Russian president being an "extraordinary personality" who can find "ingenious political solutions." |
