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RIA Novosti
2014-10-30 21:49:00
Israel's Foreign Ministry has recalled the country's ambassador to Sweden following Stockholm'srecognition of the Palestinian state, Haaretz reported Thursday. Ambassador Isaac Bachman "will remain in Jerusalem until further notice," Haaretz said, citing a Foreign Ministry official. According to the newspaper, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is considering permanently removing Bachman from his position in Stockholm. According to the Swedish SVT broadcaster, Sweden's Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom is familiar with the reports, but has not received any official confirmation. "If this is correct, it is totally unexpected. Israel is using its diplomatic policy tools. But it is clear that it is unfortunate," she is cited as saying by SVT. Earlier on Thursday, Wallstrom announced that Sweden would become the 135th country officially recognize the Palestinian state. Most European Union members and the United States have not given their official recognition, though some EU members recognized Palestine before joining the union. Wallstrom stated that Sweden expected criticism from Israel, but hoped the move would be received "in a balanced and constructive way" and that the countries' "excellent cooperation" would continue. Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman issued a statement following the announcement, calling Sweden's decision unfortunate and claiming that it "strengthens radical elements and Palestinian recalcitrance". | |
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Derek Gatopoulos
Phys.org 2014-10-30 18:37:00
The European Union on Thursday carried out its biggest exercise to prevent cyber-attacks on Europe's public utilities and communications networks. The director of the European Network and Information Security Agency, Udo Helmbrecht, told The Associated Press that Thursday's one-day exercise involving 29 countries and 200 agencies dealt with attack scenarios against "critical infrastructure." Helmbrecht said European countries were working to improve their coordination between national security agencies and to further standardize protective software and methods. Examples of serious past incidents, he said, include a wave of cyber-attacks against Estonia in 2007 that severely affected the country's banks and government agencies, and the Stuxnet computer virus that was used to target energy and industrial sites in Iran. | |
Comment: see also: Cybersecurity survey Major hacking attack in US looms
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Dusan Stojanovic
Yahoo! News 2014-10-30 19:00:00
Slobodan Milosevic's exiled widow ridiculed the European Union's decision to lift a 15-year freeze on assets of the former Serbian strongman, saying in an interview published Thursday that the family has no property outside Serbia. The EU earlier this week dropped its sanctions against Milosevic's family and several of his former political associates, saying they no longer represent "a threat to the consolidation of democracy" in Serbia. Comment: Well, we can look at Ukraine to understand how well Western democracy works. Milosevic's widow, Mirjana Markovic, who was granted political asylum in Russia with their son Marko when Milosevic lost power in a popular revolt 2000, told Belgrade's Vecernje Novosti newspaper that she "laughed" when she heard the news. "Neither me, nor my husband nor my children had or have any property in the EU countries," she said. | |
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Dmitry Orlov
ClubOrlov 2014-10-29 12:02:00 Comment: Putin's speech at the Valdai conference in Sochi last week is getting a lot of coverage, both in the alternative news sphere, and the Russophobic den of lies that is the corporate western mainstream presstitute media. And for good reason. You can read the full speech here, along with Paul Craig Roberts' commentary. See also:
Most people in the English-speaking parts of the world missed Putin's speech at the Valdai conference in Sochi a few days ago, and, chances are, those of you who have heard of the speech didn't get a chance to read it, and missed its importance. (For your convenience, I am pasting in the full transcript of his speech below.) Western media did their best to ignore it or to twist its meaning. Regardless of what you think or don't think of Putin (like the sun and the moon, he does not exist for you to cultivate an opinion) this is probably the most important political speech since Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech of March 5, 1946. In this speech, Putin abruptly changed the rules of the game. Previously, the game of international politics was played as follows: politicians made public pronouncements, for the sake of maintaining a pleasant fiction of national sovereignty, but they were strictly for show and had nothing to do with the substance of international politics; in the meantime, they engaged in secret back-room negotiations, in which the actual deals were hammered out. Previously, Putin tried to play this game, expecting only that Russia be treated as an equal. But these hopes have been dashed, and at this conference he declared the game to be over, explicitly violating Western taboo by speaking directly to the people over the heads of elite clans and political leaders. | |
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RT
2014-10-29 16:59:00
As Ebola spreads further from its current epicenter in West Africa, American and British insurance companies have started to adjust their standard policies for hospitals and other vulnerable businesses to exclude the virus. According to insurance industry insiders, companies needing to insure business travel to West Africa or to cover losses following a quarantine may now deal with revamped policies that will likely increase in price based on the latest Ebola outbreak, which has killed nearly 5,000 people in West African countries like Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. "What underwriters are doing at the moment is they're generally providing quotes either excluding or including Ebola - and it's much more expensive if Ebola is included," Gary Flynn, an event cancellation broker at London's Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc, told Reuters. Ebola has had less impact on liability insurance. For instance, in the US, policies that cover the likes of worker's compensation claims are regulated on the state level. Thus, Ebola exclusions are not likely, according to Reuters. Property and casualty insurers, though, have more at stake and are taking into account the possibilities of heightened Ebola infections. ACE Ltd told Reuters that its global casualty unit, used for US companies to insure employees who travel abroad, was excluding Ebola on a "case-by-case basis" while underwriting new policies and renewals for some clients with operations in Africa, since there is a "potentially higher risk exposure." "Business interruption" may be getting the most attention, according to Tony DeFelice, managing director of Aon Risk Solutions' national casualty practice in the US. Such interruptions include possible loss of employees to illness, or quarantine of an airliner or cruise ship due to a case of suspected Ebola or other sickness. | |
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ITAR-TASS
2014-10-28 00:37:00
Russian President Vladimir Putin finds it extremely important to combat any attempts to revive fascist ideology and falsify Russian-Ukrainian common history, said a congratulatory message which the Russian head of state sent to veterans of the Great Patriotic War and Ukrainian people on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of country's liberation from fascist invaders. "In the years of the Great Patriotic War, the power of spirit and unity of our multinational nation, valor and sustaining power of warriors-liberators, guerrillas, resistance movement fighters and workers of the rear was showed in all their grandeur during heavy and bloody battles for Ukraine," the Kremlin press service quoted the president as saying. "Our grandfathers and fathers together, in common ranks, were fighting courageously and selflessly for the freedom and independence of the Motherland, were defeating the enemy and were bringing a long-awaited victory closer." "We should preserve carefully remarkable traditions of fraternal friendship and mutual assistance they left. This is extremely important to raise the growing generation with high patriotic values, actively counteract any attempts at reviving fascist ideology, instigation of inter-ethnic strife and falsification of our common history," Putin noted. The Russian president wished "Ukrainian veterans of the Great Patriotic War good health, well-being and strong spirit and peace and prosperity to all fraternal people of Ukraine." | |
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RT
2014-10-29 19:13:00
After US President Barack Obama entered office in 2009 pledging transparency and open government, it was a refreshing wind of change from the locked-down Bush years. The reality, however, has fallen dramatically short of the promise. 10. White House seizes phone records of Associated Press reporters During a two-month period in 2012, the US Justice Department seized telephone records from some 100 journalists at AP offices in New York, Washington and Connecticut without providing any explanation. The government waited until May 2013 to inform the global news agency of the unprecedented surveillance, which naturally sparked a wave of consternation and not a little apprehension throughout the media world. "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters," AP Chief Executive Gary Pruitt said in a letter addressed to former Attorney General Eric Holder.
9. Emmy-award winning reporter accuses government of bugging her laptop In her book, "Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington," former CBS anchor Sharyl Attkisson says she was informedthat one of the US government's intelligence agencies "discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool." Further inspection of the laptop revealed classified US documents that were "buried deep" in her computer. The reason for the "plant," according to her unidentified source, "was probably to accuse you of having classified documents if they ever needed to do that at some point." Brains & artistry behind my 2013 Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism:Producer Kim Skeen,Editor Nancy Wyatt. pic.twitter.com/LHYrCyLGp18. News correspondent's emails monitored In May 2013, Fox News correspondent James Rosen was accused under the Espionage Act of possibly being a "co-conspirator" in the 2009 release of classified information on North Korea's nuclear plans based on interviews with his Washington source. It was revealed that the US government monitored Rosen's emails, a clandestine activity that would seem to have little in common with the spirit of a free press. The charges came at a very peculiar time. Republican Senator Marco Rubio reminded that Rosen had been aggressively reporting on the 2012 Benghazi tragedy, which saw the US ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens killed during a massive protest. "The sort of reporting by James Rosen detailed in the report is the same sort of reporting that helped Mr. Rosen aggressively pursue questions about the Administration's handling of Benghazi." Was not-so-subtle pressure being exerted on Rosen to back off on Benghazi? | ||
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BDS Movement
2014-10-30 22:35:00
SodaStream to benefit from Israel's displacement of Palestinians in Naqab Retailers and investors dropped SodaStream over BDS pressure Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists today welcomed the news that SodaStream has announced it is to close its factory in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumim following a high profile boycott campaign against the company.
"SodaStream's announcement today shows that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is increasingly capable of holding corporate criminals to account for their participation in Israeli apartheid and colonialism," said Rafeef Ziadah, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broad coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that leads and supports the BDS movement. "BDS campaign pressure has forced retailers across Europe and North America to drop SodaStream, and the company's share price has tumbled in recent months as our movement has caused increasing reputational damage to the SodaStream brand," she added. The news of this major success against a company famed for its role in illegal Israeli settlements broke amidst intensifying demonstrations against Israel's policies of colonisation in Jerusalem. Grassroots boycott activism saw SodaStream dropped by major retailers across North America and Europe including Macy's in the US and John Lewis in the UK. SodaStream was forced to close its flagship store in Brighton in the UK as a result of regular pickets of the store. Soros Fund Management, the family office of the billionaire investor George Soros, sold its stake in SodaStream following BDS pressure. SodaStream's share price fell dramatically in recent months as sales dried up, particularly in North America. | ||
Comment: A "country" like Israel only understands through pain, in this case, economic. Boycotts worked in South Africa, and help here too. Unfortunately, Israel is currently being economically underwritten by the US, so it will take longer. When Israel starts costing the US more than it considers worth, watch Israel be cut loose.
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Joshua Holland
The Raw Story 2014-10-28 18:00:00
Ferguson, Missouri, was a powder-keg waiting for a match long before August 9 and Michael Brown's fateful encounter with Police Officer Darren Wilson. It is one of many predominantly black communities across the United States plagued by highly concentrated poverty, and all of the social problems that accompany it. White America has come up with a number of rationales for these enduring pockets of despair. Anelaborate mythology has developed that blames it on a "culture of poverty" - holding the poor culpable for their poverty and letting our political and economic systems off the hook. A somewhat more enlightened view holds that whites simply fled areas like Ferguson - which had a population that was 99 percent white as recently as 1970 - because of personal racial animus, leaving them as hollowed-out, predominantly black "ghettos." But a study by Richard Rothstein, a research fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, comes to a very different conclusion. In his report, "The Making of Ferguson," Rothstein details how throughout the last century a series of intentionally discriminatory policies at the local, state and federal levels created the ghettos we see today. BillMoyers.com spoke with Rothstein about the report. The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity. Joshua Holland: Most people believe that Ferguson became so racially polarized because of "white flight" - white people fled the area because of personal prejudice against African-Americans. In your report, you argue that this misses a crucial point. What are we overlooking? Rothstein: The segregation that characterizes Ferguson, and that characterizes St. Louis, was the creation of purposeful public policy. We have a segregated nation by design. The St. Louis metropolitan area was no different from most metropolitan areas of the country. The ghetto in the central city of St. Louis was redeveloped for universities, and for a number of other uses, and the African American population in the central city was shifted to inner ring suburbs like Ferguson. It was done primarily with two policies: First, public housing was segregated, purposely, by the federal government, so that what were previously somewhat integrated neighborhoods in urban areas were separated into separate black and white public housing projects. And then, in the 1950s, as suburbs came to be developed, the federal government subsidized white residents of St. Louis to move to the suburbs, but effectively prohibited black residents from doing so. The federal government subsidized the construction of many, many subdivisions by requiring that bank loans for the builders be made on the condition that no homes be sold to blacks. Because black housing was so restrictive, there were so few places where African-Americans could live in St. Louis. So what was left of St. Louis' African-American community became overcrowded. City services were not readily available. The city was zoned so that the industrial or commercial areas were placed in black neighborhoods but not in white neighborhoods. So the industrial areas, where African-Americans lived, became slums. And then white residents in places like Ferguson came to associate slum conditions with African-Americans, not realizing that this was not a characteristic of the people themselves, but rather it was a creation of public policy. This is a somewhat oversimplified description of a complex array of policies. But every policy that I described in this report can be found in every other metropolitan area throughout the country. These policies applied in the New York City area, and they applied in the liberal San Francisco area. It's a story that characterizes the entire country, but you cannot understand what's going on with Ferguson today without knowing this history. Holland: Who was Adel Allen, and why is his story - which took place in nearby Kirkwood, Missouri - important for understanding how Ferguson came to be the city it is today? Rothstein: Adel Allen was an African American engineer for the McDonnell Douglas Corporation. He was recruited from Kansas to work in the St. Louis metro area. When he got there, he couldn't find housing anywhere in the suburban areas near the plant. He was about to move back to Kansas, because the only place he could find housing was in overcrowded conditions in the central St. Louis ghetto. He finally got a white friend to buy a home for him in the town of Kirkwood. He moved into a block that was overwhelmingly white. There were 30 white families. Seven years later, there were 30 black families and two white families on that block. And this was largely because of practices in the real estate industry. Realtors engaged in a practice which came to be known as "blockbusting." When a black family moved onto a block, like Adel Allen did in Kirkwood, the real estate agents would go door to door and try to panic their white neighbors into selling their homes at very reduced prices, with the idea that property values were going to be destroyed because African-Americans were moving into their neighborhood. Those real estate agents then bought those properties at very low prices and resold them to African-Americans, who had to pay very high prices because they had no other housing options. Now, this was something that was not considered unethical until the 1970s. In fact, licenses would be suspended by the state real estate commission if a real estate agent sold a home to a black family in a white neighborhood - until the first one sold, and then it was considered perfectly ethical for real estate agents to turn an entire block into an African-American block. Once they moved into that block, all of a sudden, over the course of a few years, city services began to decline. Other parts of Kirkwood which were overwhelmingly white continued to get good services, but the African-American neighborhoods were denied. The rest of the city got sidewalks and curbs; the black blocks did not. | |
Comment: The current crop of government psychopaths are profiting handsomely on the policies of their predecessors, setting one racial group against another. This is how the system is perpetuated.
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Barak Ravid
Israel's foreign minister says Sweden 'needs to understand that relations in the Middle East are more complicated than a piece of furniture from IKEA that you assemble at home.'Haaretz 2014-10-30 19:51:00
The Swedish government officially recognized Palestine as a state Thursday morning, during its morning session. In doing so, it became the first European state to recognize a Palestinian state. "Today the government takes the decision to recognize the state of Palestine," Sweden's Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said in a statement published in the Dagens Nyheter daily, AFP reported. "It is an important step that confirms the Palestinians' right to self-determination," she added. "Through our recognition we want, first of all, to give our support to moderate forces among the Palestinians," Wallstrom wrote, according to DPA. Sweden considered that criteria in international law for recognizing a Palestinian state "are met," she said. Although the borders are not defined, there is a government that can "show inner and outer control." Wallstrom wrote that "Sweden has earlier recognized states - Croatia in 1992 and Kosovo in 2008 - although they actually lacked control over parts of their territory. Like them, Palestine is a special case." | |
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Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Report 2014-10-29 14:13:00
Black people in this country are brutalized by police on a daily basis. That has always been true but thanks to modern technology there is a steady stream of proof caught on video. Accessing the internet means inevitably being confronted with awful imagery such as Marlene Pinnock being beaten by a highway patrolman in California. We see Eric Garner murdered by the NYPD, pleading that he couldn't breathe. These videos may or may not assist with prosecutions. Footage showed the late Rodney King being beaten by California police in 1991. The officers were indicted, a rarity, but a jury acquitted them anyway, making a mockery of the old saying "seeing is believing." Common sense wisdom doesn't count for much if it threatens to upend white supremacy. No matter how seemingly iron clad the case, police rarely face criminal charges. Such was the case of Milton Hall, a mentally ill black man shot to death by Saginaw, Michigan, police on July 1, 2012. A camera inside one of the patrol cars shows Hall, surrounded by police, armed only with a small pen knife. He is unable to harm anyone, given that he was surrounded by seven cops and a police dog, yet they fired forty-six shots with fourteen of them striking and killing Hall. Local prosecutors did not charge the officers and the Obama/Holder Department of Justice did not see fit to do anything either. After investigating they concluded that prosecution was not warranted. "Even if the officers were mistaken in their assessment of the threat posed by Hall, this would not establish that the officers acted willfully, or with an unlawful intent, when using deadly force against Hall. Accordingly, this tragic event does not present sufficient evidence of willful misconduct to give rise to a federal criminal prosecution of the police officers involved." The ACLU of Michigan not only pushed for local and federal action, but has taken its protest to a new and very important level. On October 27, 2014, Mark Fancher, Racial Justice Project Attorney for the ACLU of Michigan, testified before an international body regarding the federal government's refusal to prosecute Hall's "death by firing squad." The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is an arm of the Organization of American States. It is mandated to "promote the observance and protection of human rights in the hemisphere." | |
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Airforce Technology
2014-10-16 16:29:00
The Russian Defence Ministry will open a new airbase in Belarus in 2016, Russian Air Force commander colonel general Viktor Bondarev has said. Speaking to reporters during his visit to Russia's under construction facilities, Bondarev said: "The Russian Air Force base in Belarus will open in 2016. Su-27 fighters will be stationed there." The Su-27 fighters are expected to be deployed at a military airfield in the Belarusian city of Bobruisk. Russia has drafted a technical plan for the reconstruction of the airfield. Russia deployed four Su-27SM3 fighter jets to the 61st air base in Baranavichi, Belarus, in December 2013, and is expected to increase the number to 24 by the year-end. An upgraded variant of the Su-27 Flanker, Su-27SM3 jets are used to carry out tasks in support of the Union State of Russia and Belarus Air Force, ITAR-TASS News Agency reported. Manufactured by Sukhoi, the Su-27 Flanker is a twin-engine super manoeuvrable fighter aircraft designed to provide general air defence in cooperation with ground and airborne control stations. | |
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Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org 2014-10-29 17:37:00
A growing number of schools are using special tracking chips embedded in student ID cards or biometric scanners to track students, and the new technology is making many lawmakers nervous about its privacy implications. The relatively new tracking technology allows schools to more accurately follow student attendance, lunch purchases and students who ride buses, but lawmakers in many states have banned specific types of student data collection over privacy concerns, Governing.com reports. "This year, Florida became the first state to ban the use of biometric identification in its schools. Kansas said biometric data cannot be collected without student or parental consent. New Hampshire, Colorado and North Carolina said the state education departments cannot collect and store biometric data as part of student records. "New Hampshire and Missouri lawmakers said schools can't require students to use ID cards equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology that can track them. The new laws are similar to one Oregon passed last year and what Rhode Island lawmakers passed in 2009," according to the news site. Of the 110 bills considered in 36 states this year to address student data collection, 39 targeted biometric data specifically, and 14 of those bills passed, according to information from the nonprofit Data Quality Campaign cited by Governing. At the same time, many private companies are quickly recruiting schools and have amassed a large clientele over roughly the last decade. More than 1,000 school districts in 40 states currently use biometric identification - from reading portions of student fingerprints, to iris scanners, to palm scanners - to track student lunch accounts, student bus travel, attendance and other activities, Jay Fry, CEO of biometric firm identiMetrics, told Governing. | |
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Kevin Donovan and Jesse Brown
Toronto Star 2014-10-29 17:22:00
One woman, actor Lucy DeCoutere, alleges she was slapped and choked without her consent. Eight women from across Canada now accuse former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi of abusive behaviour ranging from allegations of beating and choking without consent, to workplace sexual harassment. The allegations the Star is probing range from 2002 to the present. One of the women, popular Canadian television actor Lucy DeCoutere, has agreed to be identified. DeCoutere, who plays Lucy on Trailer Park Boys , recalls an incident in 2003 when she alleges Ghomeshi, without warning or consent, choked her to the point she could not breathe and then slapped her hard three times on the side of her head. "He did not ask if I was into it. It was never a question. It was shocking to me. The men I have spent time with are loving people," said DeCoutere, who, when she is not acting on the television show, is a captain in the Royal Canadian Air Force in New Brunswick.
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RIA Novosti
2014-10-30 15:07:00
An air traffic controller, who was working a shift at Moscow's Vnukovo airport when the private jet of Total CEO Christophe de Margerie went down, has been charged in the plane crash case, the Russian Investigative Committee said Thursday. "Criminal proceedings continue involving other suspects in the case," Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said, adding that the suspects, which include a snowplow driver, a senior airport engineer and a flight supervisor, will be charged in the near future. Markin added that Alexander Kruglov, the air traffic controller, had already been questioned and placed in custody. Earlier an air traffic controller trainee was also charged. | |
Comment: Are these individuals patsies or part of a larger more sinister CIA-M16 scheme to take out Christophe de Margerie? The Total CEO was not toeing the line by isolating Russia and had also expressed his support for a wider use of other currencies in transactions outside the US - for oil purchases in particular. See: CIA-MI6 hit? French oil CEO dies in plane crash at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport
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RT.com
2014-10-30 17:14:00
An airplane crashed into a two-story building at an airport in Wichita, Kansas early Thursday shortly after takeoff, leaving at least two people dead and five injured. The 10-seater, twin-engine plane struck a building at Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport at around 9:50 a.m. local time Thursday. Eyewitnesses at the scene have since posted photographs on the social media site Twitter of huge plumes of black smoke rising into the sky from the site of the crash. Ron Blackwell, the chief of the Wichita Fire Department, said during a press conference shortly after 11 a.m. that authorities can confirm two fatalities, and said a search was ongoing. Five people at that time were unaccounted for, Blackwell said, and four had been transported to a local hospital with serious injuries. A local NBC News affiliate reported shortly after that one person is listed critical condition as a result of the incident, and confirmed that the plane in question is a Beechcraft that lost an engine during takeoff, citing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Around 45 minutes after the crash occurred, the FAA said in a statement that the aircraft crashed while attempting to return to the runway shortly after takeoff. Ryan Weatherby, a witness, told the Kansas City Star that the airport building started on fire once the plane hit. First responders have since descended on the scene and the building has been evacuated, but a NBC affiliate reported that 10 people inside were unaccounted for as of 10:45 a.m. local time. As many as 13 people may have been onboard the plane at the time of the crash. | |
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RIA Novosti
2014-10-30 09:31:00
Sweden is set to officially recognize the state of Palestine on Thursday in a move that will make it the first major European country coming up with this decision, the country's Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said. "Today the government takes the decision to recognise the state of Palestine," Wallstrom as quoted by Agence France-Presse. The minister also added that this decision will serve as an important step "that confirms the Palestinians' right to self-determination". The intention to recognize the state of Palestine was first announced by Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven in his inaugural address to the parliament on October 5. | |
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Jerry White
Global Research 2014-10-30 00:00:00
The Detroit bankruptcy case, which will conclude with a federal judge's November 7 ruling on the city's restructuring plan, has brought to light once again the anti-working class character of the trade unions. In their closing arguments before the federal bankruptcy judge, Steven Rhodes, on Monday, the representatives of the city and the state gloated that they had so quickly wrapped up the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. The "radical" restructuring plan, said Jones Day attorney Bruce Bennett, had not been "watered down." Indeed, the final proposal includes savage attacks on the working class - including pension cuts in violation of the state constitution and the virtual elimination of retiree health benefits. Michigan's special attorney general, Steven Howell, told the court the "Chapter 9 filing had not been popular." Nevertheless, the initial objectors "were now supporters," he said, singling out the unions as examples of the "new spirit of cooperation" in Detroit. Howell was acknowledging that the unions have played a critical role in the conspiracy to rob workers of basic social rights - a conspiracy involving the Democratic mayor and City Council, the Republican governor, the Obama administration, Judge Rhodes and Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr. The "spirit of cooperation" is directed against the widespread anger of workers throughout the Detroit area over the measures that are being implemented on behalf of the banks and large bondholders. Throughout the bankruptcy, the unions have acted not as defenders of the workers, but as creditors with some of the biggest claims on the city's assets. The token opposition that the unions presented early on was aimed at securing a better deal for the wealthy executives who run them. | |
Comment: It has become clear that the Unions have been infiltrated and corrupted from the inside, so that they now serve the interests of the elites. This process has been documented by Andrew Lobaczewski in his book Political Ponerology: A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes. This is what results when conscience-lacking psychopaths take control of organizations and gain the power to command the people to obey their "authority" blindly. Breaking with the Democrats will not change anything, as both political parties in the US have long been corrupted by this ponerological process and now both serve only their elitist masters.
See also: Corporate political conspiracy behind bankruptcy of Detroit revealed and Paul Craig Roberts: Labor's demise is America's demise | |
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Chris Hedges
Truthdig 2014-10-26 00:00:00
There is more truth about American journalism in the film "Kill the Messenger," which chronicles the mainstream media's discrediting of the work of the investigative journalist Gary Webb, than there is in the movie "All the President's Men," which celebrates the exploits of the reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal. The mass media blindly support the ideology of corporate capitalism. They laud and promote the myth of American democracy - even as we are stripped of civil liberties and money replaces the vote. They pay deference to the leaders on Wall Street and in Washington, no matter how perfidious their crimes. They slavishly venerate the military and law enforcement in the name of patriotism. They select the specialists and experts, almost always drawn from the centers of power, to interpret reality and explain policy. They usually rely on press releases, written by corporations, for their news. And they fill most of their news holes with celebrity gossip, lifestyle stories, sports and trivia. The role of the mass media is to entertain or to parrot official propaganda to the masses. The corporations, which own the press, hire journalists willing to be courtiers to the elites, and they promote them as celebrities. These journalistic courtiers, who can earn millions of dollars, are invited into the inner circles of power. They are, as John Ralston Saul writes, hedonists of power. When Webb, writing in a 1996 series in the San Jose Mercury News, exposed the Central Intelligence Agency's complicity in smuggling tons of cocaine for sale into the United States to fund the CIA-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua, the press turned him into a journalistic leper. And over the generations there is a long list of journalistic lepers, from Ida B. Wells to I.F. Stone to Julian Assange. The attacks against Webb have been renewed in publications such as The Washington Post since the release of the film earlier this month. These attacks are an act of self-justification. They are an attempt by the mass media to mask the collaboration between themselves and the power elite. The mass media, like the rest of the liberal establishment, seek to wrap themselves in the moral veneer of the fearless pursuit of truth and justice. But to maintain this myth they have to destroy the credibility of journalists such as Webb and Assange who shine a light on the sinister and murderous inner workings of empire, who care more about truth than news. | |
Comment: The US public has been kept in dreadful ignorance of the Elite's real intentions for a very long time. A famous quote from President Woodrow Wilson from nearly a 100 years ago comes to mind, and can easily be applied to the mass-media:
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David Ferguson
Raw Story 2014-10-30 02:18:00
An angry father has been banned from a Maryland high school's campus after he made vague but ominous threats against the school because his daughter's history homework mentioned the Islamic faith. BayNet.com reported that La Plata High School in Charles County, Maryland has issued a No Trespass order after parent Kevin Wood - a former U.S. Marine - called the school and threatened to disrupt classes if his daughter's world history class continued to study the religion and its impact on human history. Wood reportedly telephoned Vice Principal Shannon Morris last thursday enraged over a homework assignment which dealt with the formation of Middle Eastern empires centuries ago. History teacher Katie O'Malley Simpson said that the history curriculum has never been considered controversial in the past. "The assignment has been given for years," O'Malley-Simpson said. La Plata High School Principal Evelyn Arnold issued a "No Trespass" order against Wood after hearing about the contentious call, in which Wood promised to come to the school and disrupt classes if Islam was mentioned any further. O'Malley-Simpson called the decision to ban Wood from campus "unusual," saying, "We don't file no trespassing charges lightly. We would only do that when we feel someone has threatened the safety of staff and students." | |
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Sarah Lazare
Common Dreams 2014-10-28 02:07:00
Children remain "the most enduring victims" of the recession in the world's wealthiest nations, where 2.6 million children have fallen below the poverty line since 2008, a new report from UNICEF reveals. The annual study, Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries, was released Tuesday in Rome. It finds that in the 41 richest countries at least 76.5 million children live in poverty. "Many affluent countries have suffered a 'great leap backwards' in terms of household income, and the impact on children will have long-lasting repercussions for them and their communities," said Jeffrey O'Malley, UNICEF's Head of Global Policy and Strategy. | |
Comment: One billion about half of the two billion children on the planet live in poverty, 22,000 dying each day due to dire living conditions, meanwhile a small number of rapacious wealthy "elite" amass billions, enough to end the suffering of children four times over.
$240 billion amassed by 100 richest people enough to end extreme poverty four times over: Oxfam | |
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Adam Federman
Court settlement raises new questions about ethics of police infiltration Earth Island Journal 2014-10-28 01:18:00
What are the limits - if any - to undercover policing? At what point is a moral, ethical, or legal threshold crossed when an undercover operative insinuates himself into a targeted group or the lives of its members? Last Thursday British media reported that the UK's Metropolitan Police would pay £425,000 (about $686,000) in a settlement with a woman, known only as Jacqui, who was conned by a man who fathered her first child, said that he loved her, and then one day disappeared. She knew him as Bob Robinson. His real name, as she would learn 25 years later, was Bob Lambert. He was an operative with the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a special unit within the British police that infiltrated a host of environmentalist groups to gather intelligence. In several cases the operatives, almost always men, established long-term intimate relationships with women in order to gain access to the world of underground animal rights or environmental activists. Jacqui's was 22 when she first met Lambert. He was more than ten years older than her, and had already been a member of the Metropolitan police for several years. He went undercover in 1983 not long before he met Jacqui. As Rob Evans and Paul Lewis explain in their book Undercover, Lambert's mission was to work his way into the "intensely furtive, hard-core wing of the animal rights movement: the Animal Liberation Front." Having a girlfriend who was already trusted and well connected within activist circles was one of the easiest ways to become a "deep swimmer," a phrase used by members of the SDS to describe spies who completely immersed themselves in the groups they were monitoring. In addition to Jacqui, Lambert is known to have had romantic relationships with three other women during his career as an undercover operative. Seven other women have also filed charges against the Metropolitan police. | |
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| Secret History |
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Owen Jarus
Live Science 2014-10-30 06:49:00
Huge stone circles in the Middle East have been imaged from above, revealing details of structures that have been shrouded in mystery for decades. Archaeologists in Jordan have taken high-resolution aerial images of 11 ancient "Big Circles," all but one of which are around 400 meters (1,312 feet) in diameter. Why they are so similar is unknown but the similarity seems "too close to be a coincidence" said researcher David Kennedy. The Big Circles (as archaeologists call them) were built with low stone walls that are no more than a few feet high. The circles originally contained no openings, and people would have had to hop over the walls in order to get inside. [See Aerial Images of the Mysterious Big Circles in the Mideast] Their purpose is unknown, and archaeologists are unsure when these structures were built. Analysis of the photographs, as well as artifacts found on the ground, suggest the circles date back at least 2,000 years, but they may be much older. They could even have been constructed in prehistoric times, before writing was invented, scientists say. | |
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Ben Miller
Archaeologists find fertility genius, godheads and oil lamps in Roman CumbriaCulture24 2014-10-29 20:00:00
A fertility genius in "amazing" condition, believed to be a local deity thousands of years ago, and the carved heads of male and female Roman gods have been found by archaeologists digging at a village in Cumbria. The vague outline of an altar can be seen below the hand of the genius, unearthed in a 2,500-square metre area at Papcastle, where the 2009 floods gave excavators the first glimpses of Roman remains. A cap worn by the male statue comes from the Phrygian kingdom in modern-day Turkey, meaning the figure could be Mithras, who was worshipped in the north between the 1st and 4th centuries AD. Archaeologists are also speculating that he could be the Greek god Attis, which would be likely to identify the female head as Cybele - Phrygia's only known goddess. "This happens once in a lifetime," says Frank Giecco, of Wardell Armstrong Archaeology, which has overseen the Heritage Lottery Fund-backed Discovering Derventio project. "You can work in archaeology all your life and never find anything like that. It's incredible." | |
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Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News 2014-10-29 00:30:00
A fragment of Amelia Earhart's lost aircraft has been identified to a high degree of certainty for the first time ever since her plane vanished over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. New research strongly suggests that a piece of aluminum aircraft debris recovered in 1991 from Nikumaroro, an uninhabited atoll in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, does belong to Earhart's twin-engined Lockheed Electra. According to researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the last, fateful flight taken by Earhart 77 years ago, the aluminum sheet is a patch of metal installed on the Electra during the aviator's eight-day stay in Miami, which was the fourth stop on her attempt to circumnavigate the globe. The patch replaced a navigational window: A Miami Herald photo shows the Electra departing for San Juan, Puerto Rico on the morning of Tuesday, June 1, 1937 with a shiny patch of metal where the window had been. | |
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Mick Brown
The Telegraph, UK 2014-10-30 11:20:00
Let's be honest, does anybody nowadays really like clowns? Certainly not in France. There has been a spate of reports this week of people dressed as clowns, some armed with pistols, knives and baseball bats, wreaking havoc in towns across the country. In Montpellier, a clown was arrested after attacking a pedestrian with an iron bar, and, in the nearby town of Agde, police arrested 14 teenagers dressed as clowns and carrying weapons. The phenomenon has even prompted what has been described as "anti-clown vigilantism", and follows on the heels of reports of clowns stalking towns in California armed with knives and baseball bats. Nobody would pretend circus life is easy, but have things really got this bad? Blame has been placed on everything from - inevitably - the internet to the popularity of a television series American Horror Story: Freak Show, featuring a serial killer called Twisty the Clown. As the actor Lon Chaney Jr, who spent a lifetime terrifying cinema audiences in the guise of various wolf men and monsters, once observed: "There is nothing laughable about a clown in the moonlight." And as these latest incidents suggest, if you wish to strike unease and terror into the hearts of people there is no more potent disguise than the garishly painted white face and fright wig of the clown. In a sense, they always were figures of fear. The character of the clown - as jester, or fool - goes back to Roman times, a figure who was given license to poke fun at symbols of power and authority - the fool who is not a fool at all - but who also portended something more anarchic and subversive, if not malevolent. | |
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BetaWired
2014-10-28 00:00:00
The Swedish Lockne crater, 7.5 km wide and Målingen, about 0.7 km, were caused both by the shock of a double asteroid, an object made up of about 600 m and a smaller 150 m . Both came after the explosion of a massive asteroid collision some 200 km in the main asteroid belt 470 million years ago. So suggests a study published this week in the open access journal Scientific Reports, a research team led by Jens Ormo, the Astrobiology Centre (INTA-CSIC). "For the first time has been dated with high precision as a pair of craters of this type, both created 458 million years ago and are the only known example land that can no doubt be attributed to the impact of a binary asteroid" highlights Ormo to Sync. "All other potential candidates have ages with double periods of time not to be excluded that are formed separately." The good condition of Lockne and Målingen, about 16 km away, has enabled very necessary to relate geological evidence. "The double impact occurred in a shallow sea, and the two objects collided on the same rock stratigraphic setting beneath a water column of 500 meter" Ormo explains. The research highlights the value of such data "as a reference for numerical simulations of these events, and therefore, to assess the potential risks of asteroid impacts in the ocean." | |
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Buck Rogers
Waking Times 2014-10-22 07:13:00
If conventional wisdom on the history of the human race is correct, then human civilization is not old enough, nor was it advanced enough, to account for many of the mysterious monolithic and archeological sites around the world. Places like Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, the Bosnian Pyramids, andAdam's Calendar in South Africa, beg the same question: if human civilization is supposedly not old enough to have created all of these sites, then who, or what, had the capacity to create so many elaborate structures around the globe? It is clear that our understanding of our own history is incomplete, and there is plenty of credible evidence pointing to the existence of intelligent and civilized cultures on Earth long before the first human cultures emerged from the Middle East around 4000BC. The Admiral Piri Reis world map of 1513 is part of the emerging more complete story of our history, one that challenges mainstream thinking in big ways. Mapmaking is a complex and civilized task, thought to have emerged around 1000BC with theBabylonian clay tablets. Antarctica was officially first sighted by a Russian expedition in 1820 and is entirely covered in ice caps thought to have formed around 34-45 million years ago. Antarctica, therefore, should not be seen on any map prior to 1820, and all sighted maps of Antarctica should contain the polar ice caps, which are supposedly millions of years old. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Phys Org
2014-10-30 21:19:00
Griffith University academics are challenging the foundations of quantum science with a radical new theory based on the existence of, and interactions between, parallel universes. In a paper published in the prestigious journal Physical Review X, Professor Howard Wiseman and Dr Michael Hall from Griffith's Centre for Quantum Dynamics, and Dr Dirk-Andre Deckert from the University of California, take interacting parallel worlds out of the realm of science fiction and into that of hard science. The team proposes that parallel universes really exist, and that they interact. That is, rather than evolving independently, nearby worlds influence one another by a subtle force of repulsion. They show that such an interaction could explain everything that is bizarre about quantum mechanics Quantum theory is needed to explain how the universe works at the microscopic scale, and is believed to apply to all matter. But it is notoriously difficult to fathom, exhibiting weird phenomena which seem to violate the laws of cause and effect. As the eminent American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman once noted: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." However, the "Many-Interacting Worlds" approach developed at Griffith University provides a new and daring perspective on this baffling field. "The idea of parallel universes in quantum mechanics has been around since 1957," says Professor Wiseman. "In the well-known "Many-Worlds Interpretation", each universe branches into a bunch of new universes every time a quantum measurement is made. All possibilities are therefore realised - in some universes the dinosaur-killing asteroid missed Earth. In others, Australia was colonised by the Portuguese. "But critics question the reality of these other universes, since they do not influence our universe at all. On this score, our "Many Interacting Worlds" approach is completely different, as its name implies." | |
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The Burning Platform
Have you interacted with retail store clerks?2014-10-30 20:45:00 Over the next ten years robots will replace many of them. Good luck doubling the minimum wage while this is happening.
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Ernesto Guido, Martino Nicolini & Nick Howes
Following the posting on the Central Bureau's Transient Object Confirmation Page about a possible Supernova in the barred spiral galaxy Messier 61 (or NGC 4303 - TOCP Designation: PSN J12215757+0428185) we performed some follow-up of this object through a 0.10-m f/5.0 astrograph + CCD from MPC Code H06 (iTelescope, New Mexico).Remanzacco Observatory 2014-10-30 20:26:00 On our images taken on October 30.5, 2014 we can confirm the presence of an optical counterpart with unfiltered CCD magnitude 13.2 and at coordinates: R.A. = 12 21 57.61, Decl.= +04 28 17.8 (equinox 2000.0; UCAC-3 catalogue reference stars). Our confirmation image (click on it for a bigger version)
An animation showing a comparison between our confirmation image and the archive POSS2/UKSTU plate (IR Filter - 1991). | |
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Daniel Taylor
Activist Post 2014-10-30 18:00:00
The United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity recently announced a decision on the part of 194 countries to regulate synthetic biology technology. Jim Thomas of the ETC Group stated that, "Not only do countries now have to set up the means to regulate synthetic biology, but those regulations need to be based on precaution and not harming the environment." As more synthetically engineered products are being developed, many see a potentially dangerous impact on the environment and human health from the expanding technology. Synthetic biology is an advanced form of genetic engineering that, according to a 2005 European Commission paper, is "...the engineering of biology... the synthesis of complex, biologically based (or inspired) systems which display functions that do not exist in nature." | |
Comment: For more background information about this frightening new trend in genetic modification and the reasons it needs to be regulated, read:
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Phys.org
2014-10-29 09:51:00
Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected astreamer of dust and gas flowing from a massive outer disk toward the inner reaches of a binary star system. This never-before-seen feature may be responsible for sustaining a second, smaller disk of planet-forming material that otherwise would have disappeared long ago. A research group led by Anne Dutrey from the Laboratory of Astrophysics of Bordeaux, France, and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) observed the distribution of dust and gas in a binary star system called GG Tau-A. It was recently discovered that one of GG Tau-A's components is itself a double star. This object is only a few million years old and lies approximately 460 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. Like a wheel in a wheel, GG Tau-A contains a large, outer disk encircling the entire system as well as an inner disk around the main central star. This second inner disk has a mass roughly equivalent to that of Jupiter. Its presence has been an intriguing mystery for astronomers since it is losing material to its central star at a rate that should have depleted it long ago. While observing these structures with ALMA, the team made the exciting discovery of gas clumps in the region between the two disks. The new observations suggest that material is being transferred from the outer to the inner disk, creating a sustaining lifeline between the two. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Phil Coleman
Hospital medics in north Cumbria have faced a flood of patients bitten by their pets, with more than 18,000 treated over the last five years.News and Star 2014-10-17 22:23:00
The staggering statistic has been revealed by the NHS trust which runs the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle and Whitehaven's West Cumberland Hospital. While the benefits of pet ownership are well documented, the figures - released in response to a Freedom of Information request - show the potential dangers. | |
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The Citizen (South Africa)
2014-08-27 21:57:00
A one month-old baby whose three fingers and part of a nose were eaten by rats in Alexandra, Johannesburg is awaiting surgery as her family cannot afford it. The rats attacked Erena Yekanyi at her home last Monday, The New Age reported on Wednesday. "I was washing outside while Erena was sleeping inside the house. I heard her cry and when I ran into the house, I found her covered in blood," the baby's mother, Thandaza reportedly said. The baby would continue to await reconstructive surgery at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital until her mother was able to raise funds for the procedure. The attack was not the first in the township, according to the report. | |
Comment: See also: Brooklyn mother says rat bit her young son while he slept
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dutchnews.nl
2014-10-30 21:43:00
A dead puffer fish has been found washed up on the beach of the Wadden Sea island of Texel. The bizarre find was made by staff of the Ecomare marine centre during a walk. The fish, 51 centimetres long, has the latin name Lagocephalus lagocephalus and is only found in tropical and sub-tropical eastern Atlantic waters. 'It was a real tropical surprise,' Ecomare workers Pierre Bonnet and Arthur Oosterbaan said on theorganisation's website. | |
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At least 30 people have been killed by recent flooding and landslides in the Democratic Republic of Congo with many more thought to be still missing. The disaster struck in Kalehe Territory in South Kivu province after 3 days of heavy rain. The village of Bushushu is said to be the worst hit. Local media say that other villages in the area, including Rambira, Nyambasha and Nyamukubi have also been badly affected. With so many still missing, there are fears that the floods and landslides may have killed over 100 people. Bodies are buried under landslide rubble or have been swept away on flood torrents, possibly as far as Lake Kivu, where local fishermen are assisting with the search. Hundreds of homes and other buildings, as well as bridges and roads in and around the village have been damaged or destroyed by flood or landslides. | |
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Andrea Thompson, Brian Kahn
Live Science 2014-10-29 02:22:00
The two years that have passed since Hurricane Sandy crashed into the New Jersey shoreline have not been enough time for scientists and researchers to make much headway on the hows and whys of the Northeast's epic storm. But that's not because they aren't trying. In fact, Sandy has spurred an unprecedented amount of research, attempting to tackle the questions about what role climate change might have played in producing or worsening the storm, how global warming might influence similar storms in the future, and why the storm caused so much damage - $19 billion in the New York City area alone. "It'll be one of the most studied storms," said Gary Lackmann, an atmospheric scientist at North Carolina State University who has looked into the role warming might have played in guiding Sandy's track and intensity. Here, Climate Central takes a look at some of those research avenues exploring the role climate change played in Sandy and how the so-called superstorm impacted our evaluation of current and future coastal risks.
Of Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge The clearest connection between climate change and Sandy's impacts is sea level rise. Warming oceans and melting land ice have contributed in large part to the nearly 12 inches of sea level rise in the New York area over the past 100 years, a rate faster than the global average of about 8 inches. Sea level rise is contributing to coastal erosion in some places such as the Jersey Shore, but Philip Orton, an oceanographer at the Stevens Institute for Technology in Hoboken, N.J., said that how it interacted with storm surge - the wall of water that hurricanes and other storms push ashore - is what helped drive much of Sandy's damage. And the future 1-2 punch of storm surge and sea level rise could further reshape the physical and social landscape around New York and New Jersey. "Sea level rise is very uncertain so that's part of the problem for long-term planning," Orton said. | ||
Comment: Due to a negative phase, in the constantly changing pressure gradient of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a high pressure ridge over Greenland blocked Sandy's NE trajectory. Plus, a dip in the jet stream and a surface cold front turned Sandy westward into the U.S. East Coast. How does that work?
A high pressure over Greenland creates a counterbalanced low pressure zone to the south and causes colder weather patterns in lower latitudes. Global ocean oscillations, contributing their cyclic and alternating patterns of "highs" and "lows, influence east-west wind troughs and cause or contribute to continental droughts, floods, extreme temperature fluctuations and migrations of wildlife habitats. The extreme swings of the NAO are part of the complex atmospheric/ocean dynamics of the North Atlantic, which include sea-surface temperature anomalies, the strength of the Gulf Stream, atmospheric wave structure and the distribution of sea ice and icebergs. A statistical relation between Arctic Sea ice loss and occurrences of the negative (blocked) NAO phase has been observed in recent decades. A northern high pressure zone increases temperatures causing ice melt. These interactions are poorly understood in reference to their magnitude of effect over contributing systems, vast distances and time. Add in the following: Ocean warming due to plate tectonics, increasing methane release, a slowing earth rotation creating friction between the mantle and the crust uping earthquakes and volcanic activity, a rise in electrical phenomenon and interaction in the solar system, tropical climate zones measurably moving towards the poles* pushing more warm moisture into higher atmospheres of frigid temperatures resulting in massive winter storms...a recipe for the rapid onset of vast amounts of ice and snow. (Every drop of water creates 10 times its volume upon freezing.) *According to NOAA, a poleward shift of mid-latitude storms (as in Sandy) is occurring. Are we on track for the next ice age? Is it only a matter of time and confluence? | ||
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A cold front moving northward across Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil has triggered thunderstorms, strong winds and heavy rain over the last few days. Flooding in Buenos Aires province in Argentina has forced over 1,500 people to evacuate their homes. Storms have also caused power outages and damage to property. In Buenos Aires Province, areas worst affected by the flooding so far include La Matanza (part of Greater Buenos Aires city) where over 1,000 have been evacuated, and the city of Pilar, where 200 have evacuated. For a full list of affected areas, see the list here. | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Dr. Michelle Kmiec
Wake Up World 2014-10-30 20:06:00
Modern medicine would have you believe that genetically, we are all predetermined to have poor health or some type of disease sooner or later in life. That it's "out of our hands", with the only available means of treatment being what they deem to be "scientifically sound" ...Pharmaceutical drugs. FDA approved, of course! It is funny to me how there is one major component conveniently missing when "medical healthcare experts" discuss major diseases like cancer and heart disease. The poisons that we are exposed on a daily basis! Lifestyles full of bad diets with plenty chemical-ridden processed foods, chemical-ridden processed meats, unnatural amounts of processed artificial sugars, dangerous diet myths promoting low fat and man-made replacement foods (touted as healthier than what nature has provided), along with little to no real exercise, and topped off with every form of stress imaginable. And don't forget about pollution, pharmaceutical-ridden tap water, mercury and oil saturated oceans, and on and on... !! So, how can we really believe that cancer, diabetes, heart disease and autoimmune disorders could be genetically driven? | |
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Alliance for Natural Health
2014-10-28 19:11:00
A new lawsuit filed by a "consumer watchdog" group says most Americans are not vitamin deficient and don't benefit from supplements. Huh? Earlier this month we told you about international pharmaceutical company Bayer AG's battle with the Federal Trade Commission over whether its marketing statements about its probiotic colon supplement are unsubstantiated disease claims (not allowed) or structure/function claims (allowed). This week, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) filed a class action lawsuit in federal court against Bayer because of its "false claims on ads and labels" for its One A Day Vitamins. The group is asking for an injunction against specific marketing statements, and seeking refunds to consumers. According to CSPI, the multivitamin's claims - "supports heart health," "supports immunity," and "supports physical energy" - amount to "illegal disease prevention claims designed to deceive consumers." Bayer, on the other hand, contends these are structure/function claims. The landmark Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 created special protections for structure/function claims - and they do not require preapproval by the FDA. | |
Comment: It is obvious that the campaign of censorship against Nutritional Supplements continues, The likely cause? Profits! Americans Spend $34 Billion on Alternative Medicine and Big Pharma wants those profits. As the article states, 'the ludicrous claim that "nutrition science experts all agree" that Americans are not vitamin deficient and should get nutrients from food alone' clearly shows howCSPI is seriously uninformed and clearly has no clue about the extreme lack of nutrients in the 'Standard American Diet'...talk about denial! The attack on Supplements has been on going for years, this latest example is just another attempt by Big Pharma to cash in:
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phys.org
2014-10-30 19:00:00
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a way to use sound to create cellular scaffolding for tissue engineering, a unique approach that could help overcome one of regenerative medicine's significant obstacles. The researchers will present their technique at the 168th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), held October 27-31, 2014, at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown Hotel. The development of the new technique started with somewhat of a serendipitous discovery. The University of Washington team had been studying boiling histotripsy - - a technique that uses millisecond-long bursts of high-intensity ultrasound waves to break apart tissue - - as a method to eliminate cancerous tumors by liquefying them with ultrasound waves. After the sound waves destroy the tumors, the body should eliminate them as cellular waste. When the researchers examined these 'decellularized' tissues, however, they were surprised by what the boiling left intact. "In some of our experiments, we discovered that some of the stromal tissue and vasculature was being left behind," said Yak-Nam Wang, a senior engineer at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory. "So we had the idea about using this to decellularize tissues for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine." | |
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Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog 2014-10-29 00:00:00
A drug being newly tested as a fast-acting antidepressant has shown it can help lift heavy depression within 40 minutes. Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health have been testing the effects of a single dose of ketamine on people with bipolar disorder. When depressed, bipolar patients find it difficult to seek out and experience rewards - they feel there is nothing to look forward to. The drug works by changing how people think about rewards. Dr. Carlos Zarate, who led the study, said: "Our findings help to deconstruct what has traditionally been lumped together as depression. | |
Comment: The pharmaceutical industry and the psychiatry profession have strong financial interests in convincing the public that drug treatment is safe and the most effective treatment for mental illnesses, and they also have an interest in expanding the definitions of mental illness. Doctor David Healy, a widely recognized expert in both the history and the science of neurochemistry and psychopharmacology has been fighting back against BigPharma. His research notes that roughly 25 percent of published clinical drug trials are statistically altered, to provide evidence that a drug works well and is safe, while 80 percent of the reports on adverse consequences of drug treatment, dismissed as anecdotes, have turned out to be correct. Still the FDA and PigPharma continually seek to find new drugs to fill their coffers, while ignoring or condemning the many studies showing that there are safer alternatives to alleviate depression and the important role that diet plays in mental health.
Depression: Your brain on sugar Risks of wheat: Depression & psychological symptoms Depression: 10 fascinating insights into a misunderstood condition Meditation is an effective treatment for depression, anxiety and pain Laughter: Better than pharmaceuticals & affects the body like exercise | |
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Natasha Longo
PreventDisease.com 2014-10-29 02:17:00
Milk is the only beverage still aggressively pushed on children as a health promoting food when it is the exact opposite - a disease promoting food. Drinking pasteurized milk is not nearly as good for general health or bones as the dairy industry has made it out to be. In fact, this fairy tale of "milk doing a body good" is being exposed more frequently by many independent scientists and researchers who have had just about enough of the propaganda. According to a large scale study of thousands of Swedish people, cow's milk has a deteriorating effect on health when consumed in the long-term. The research was published in The BMJ. The study, which tracked 61,433 women aged 39 to 74 over 20 years, and 45,339 men of similar age for 11 years, found that the more cow's milk people drank, the more likely they were to die or experience a bone fracture during the study period. The risks were especially pronounced for women, a group advised to drink milk to help avoid bone fractures that result from osteoporosis. Women who said they drank three or more glasses of milk a day had almost double the chance of dying during the study period as those who reported drinking only one. A glass is defined as a 200 milliliter serving. They also had a 16 percent higher chance of getting a bone fracture anywhere in the body. | |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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phys.org
2014-10-29 11:43:00
When a right-wing Italian politician named Umberto Bossi suffered a severe stroke in 2004, his speech became permanently impaired. Strangely, this change impacted Bossi's perception among his party's followers - from appearing authoritarian to benevolent. Now researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles think they know why. Probing the vocal presence of charisma across cultural divides, the scientists found speakers with a wide range offrequency variation in their voices were more likely to be perceived as dominant. They also found that speakers with a low fundamental rate of vocal fold vibration, called fundamental frequency or F0, are perceived as more dominant than speakers with a high fundamental frequency. Charismatic voices are made up of two fundamental components, said Rosario Signorello: one biological and one based on language and culture. Signorello is a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA's Bureau of Glottal Affairs who will be speaking on Thursday about his current research at the 168th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), which will be held October 27-31, 2014, at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown Hotel. The biological component of charismatic voice is innate, Signorello said, and consists of a speaker's manipulation of changes in fundamental frequency to be recognized as a group leader. By using a process of speech synthesis called 'delexicalization,' it is possible to remove the subjective influence of a speech's content, allowing a researcher to study the biological component in a controlled fashion. | |
Comment: For crucial information on psychopathy and the resulting ponerology read Political Ponerology:
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| High Strangeness |
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RT
2014-10-30 20:42:00
Aliens, some as old as 200 years, are real and have visited Earth, a former Lockheed Martin senior scientist has claimed. In his final moments, he provided "photo evidence" while sharing his personal experiences of UFOs and extraterrestrials. The controversial 33-minute video was made shortly before Boyd Bushman died on August 7, 2014. However, the footage has only recently emerged and is starting to garner widespread attention. "I do have a top secret clearance," he affirms at the beginning of the video. He goes on to state that incidents such as Roswell in 1947 - when a military Air Force surveillance balloon crashed - happened at the hands of aliens. Bushman shared details about aliens, UFOs, and anti-gravity technology - which he says is being developed by US, Russian, and Chinese scientists at Area 51 (the US military facility). In the video, Bushman is seen holding up second-hand "photo evidence" of aliens while describing them to viewers. "They were approximately four and a half to five feet tall," the former top aerospace scientist said. "They have three back bones. They're actually cartilage," he added, stating that they had fewer ribs than human beings. He went on to state that their eyes and noses are different from humans, and that they are telepathic mind readers. "They're able to use their own voice by telepathy to talk to you," he said. "You walk in the room with one of them, and all of a sudden you find yourself giving the answer to your question in your own voice." | |
Comment: This video has gone viral on the internet. It has generated a lot of controversy. One thing to note is the personnel working around the claimed UFOs used full body suit protection from possible unknown organisms yet someone was handling the 'alien' bare handed when the photographs were taken.
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Leon Siciliano
Watch as these two large predators engage in an epic six-minute long brawl on a residential street in Rockaway, New Jersey The Telegraph, UK 2014-10-30 12:26:00
Two black bears were recorded wrestling and striking each other with huge blows in the middle of a suburban US town. The shaky video - recorded from the safety of a car - lasts six minutes and follows the two heavy weights as they brawl their way down the street in Rockaway, New Jersey. The video was reportedly captured in August but was uploaded to YouTube this month and has gone viral. | |
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WaterfordWhispersNews
2014-10-30 02:32:00
Following yesterday's announcement that the theories behind both the Big Bang Theory and evolution are real and that God is not a 'magician with a magic wand', Pope Francis has issued a second statement today admitting that there are things in the Bible that even he thinks are pure guff. The popular Argentinian pontiff, who gained admirers with his more lenient views on gay partnership earlier this year, went on to state that there are some parts of the Bible that even he, as God's representative on Earth, has to admit are pretty out there. Speaking at his daily pre-mass sermon, Pope Francis shocked listeners by reading passages from both Old and New Testaments while making googly eyes and circling one finger around his temple. Citing key examples of Catholic dogma such as the immaculate conception and the resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ™ as being "metaphors, at best", the 266th pope began to giggle as he moved through chapter and verse of the Bible, angering some of the more senior Cardinals who were present. |
