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| Puppet Masters |
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Andrew Korybko
ISIL leader Al-Baghdadi is apparently alive and well - but knowing that his 'Caliphate' is under attack, he wants to deflect attention away from Iraq and Syria by destabilizing other key areas in the region. Here's where it gets interesting: there appears to be an awful lot of overlap between his interests and those of his coalition enemies.Sputnik News 2014-11-14 19:13:00
After surviving what was reported to have been an assassination attempt on his convoy last weekend, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi released an audio recording where he singled out targets for his new regional offensive, focusing on the Mideast and parts of Northern Africa. A deeper look at his plans shows that they might coincidentally aid certain interests of the international coalition fighting against his 'Caliphate'. Which side is he really on? First up on al-Baghdadi's hit list is Saudi Arabia, which ironically is home to many wealthy individuals that have long been suspected of funding ISIL's rise to power. The country formally denies any association to the terrorist group, although its official state ideology of Wahhabism is very similar to the extreme Islam that ISIL promotes. Still, it appears it wasn't extreme enough for al-Baghdadi and he now wants the Saudi monarchy must be overthrown...or so he says. | |
Comment: Sputnik - Russia's new international news agency and radio, created to battle vicious anti-Putin and anti-Russia propaganda makes first steps in the right direction. It speaks the truth and even isn't shy about mentioning Israel's role in the ISIL deception.
SOTT also had a word or two to say about this and other blatant lies: | |
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Mark Franchetti
The Sunday Times UK 2014-11-14 20:01:00
The Kremlin has launched a campaign to rein in Russia's wealthy elite in a move that is creating a backlash of discontent against Vladimir Putin. Comment: From whom? Certainly not the majority. The government has proposed new tax laws that will seriously limit the ability of the country's moneyed classes to hide their wealth abroad. The legislation will seek to clamp down on companies and individuals using offshore tax havensand make Russian citizens liable for tax at home regardless of which country they earn their income in. Comment: Contrast this with the U.S.'s FATCA, which goes after ordinary citizens living abroad, and doesn't even touch the corporations and oligarchs who make use of illegal tax havens -- all in the interest of making themselves even more disgustingly rich. | |
Comment: All that spin trying to make us feel sorry for those poor Russian billionaires kind of falls flat, doesn't it?
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RT
2014-11-18 19:45:00
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he is going to dissolve the lower chamber of parliament on November 21 and call early elections in an effort to save his grand economic strategy dubbed "Abenomics." Abe has also put off another sales tax rise to give the economy more time to recover. Increasing the sales tax from 8 percent to 10 percent has been postponed for 18 months until April 2017. Monday's GDP figures show the country has slipped back into recession. Japan's economy shrank 1.6 percent in the third quarter of 2014, which marked the second consecutive 3-month period of contraction. The news was a shock to financial markets and another blow to Abe's three-stage economic plan aimed at putting an end to two decades of stagnation and deflation. The plan involved using heavy monetary stimulus from the Bank of Japan and a sharp, two-stage increase in tax on consumption to curb Japan's public deficit, and deregulation of a range of business activities. Japan's public debt exceeds $10 trillion which is twice the size of the country's economy. | |
Comment: With Japan's recently announced reduction in GDP, could this be a portent to Japan's last stand?
As Sean Corrigan sarcastily notes: Real Japanese wages are anything but rising.
And as Michael Pento points out: | |
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Sputnik
2014-11-18 19:32:00
Squandering and outright theft of state funds will not go unnoticed, some individuals are already facing consequences, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. "Squandering, improper use of state funds, as well as outright corruption and theft will not go unnoticed," Putin said at a conference of the All-Russia People's Front civil society group. "Concerning certain individuals... conclusions have already been made." | |
Comment: Corruption was rampant in Russia in the '90s. As an inheritor of the existing system, Putin naturally gets the blame from armchair analysts and critics with an axe to grind (and a CIA-sponsored line to follow). What they don't tell you is that Putin has been doing a lot to actually fight the very corruption for which he is blamed. None of these people actually take the time to put themselves in his position. How do you deal with an inherently corrupt system? Simply fire everyone and start fresh (this is the short-sighted plan of the morons in Kiev, with their "lustration" bill)? Or use the existing structures, exploit their positive and practical aspects, and refine them by instituting new measures and practices to effect a better system?
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RT
2014-11-18 14:33:00
Four people have been killed and at least 8 wounded when two assailants attacked worshipers with knives, axes and a pistol in a synagogue in North Jerusalem in the morning. Israeli police say both attackers were shot dead on the spot by officers. Spokeswoman Luba Samri described the incident as a "terrorist attack," according to AP. Israel's Public Security Minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, has said that gun controls for self-defense will be eased in wake of the attack. "In the coming hours, I will ease controls on carrying weapons," he said in comments broadcast on public radio. He added that the new rules will apply to anyone who owns a gun license, such as private security guards and off duty army officers. | |
Comment: Nothing like a well timed "terrorist attack" to remind the world why Israel needs to keep doing what it does, especially when public opinion starts objecting to Israel's policies against the Palestinians.
Well timed also because today: Not surprisingly, Israel is the one who gains from this "attack". | |
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RT
2014-11-17 02:20:00
Anti-IS airstrikes play into the hands of extremists as radicalized Muslims across the globe are view the West as a big foe they want to fight against, Dan Glazebrook, political writer and journalist, told RT. RT: A senior Kurdish leader is saying the CIA is underestimating the number of ISIS fighters, and they in fact number in their hundreds of thousands. If so, what will it take to defeat them? Dan Glazebrook: I think to defeat them would really require a serious alliance. There is already an existing alliance, which is putting up an amazing job of defending Syria in particular against the forces of ISIS [now the Islamic State or IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL] and the other forces that have been backed by the West in its regime change attempt over the last three and a half years. And that alliance consists of the Syrian government, the Iranian government, Russia providing diplomatic support, and Hezbollah on the ground as well. This alliance has blown everybody's minds in terms how it has managed to stave off an attack, [which has] had the backing and support of the US, Britain, Australia, [and most of the world's leading] military powers. Yet, it has managed to stave off defeat. This is the alliance that has been doing the work of holding back the forces of ISIS. One thing would help is if the West stopped effectively supporting ISIS. Although, they are officially at war against ISIS at the moment, their policy of destabilization of Syria, which has led to the growth of ISIS over the past two years, continues. Their policy is still to remove Assad. There was talk a week or two ago from the US that removing Assad will be a necessary preliminary step to defeating ISIS, which is nonsensical comment. But it does show the position they are coming from. The US Congress passed a motion to support with $500 million the training for more soldiers to go and destabilize Syria to fight against the Syrian government to add to the growing list of soldiers, police and civilians that are killed by this insurrection daily. And to train them in Saudi Arabia which is the birth place of the ISIS-type violent sectarian ideology. What will be very helpful if the West was serious about defeating ISIS would be to stop providing it with effective support that is through the policy of destabilization of Syria. Of course that is not going to happen because the West still has this policy and it is not interested in defeating ISIS. ISIS is a key plank in their policy of destabilization. But this would be from the point of view what the West should be doing. If they were serious they would stop supporting ISIS and stopped destabilizing Syria. | |
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Michael Snyder
Activist Post 2014-11-17 13:24:00
Did you know that some Americans are being hit with health insurance rate increases of more than 500 percent? Taking advantage of "the stupidity of the American voter", the Democrats succeeded in ramming through one of the worst pieces of legislation that has ever come before Congress. The full implementation of Obamacare has been repeatedly delayed, but now we are finally starting to see the true horror of this terrible law. Thanks to Obamacare, millions of American families are losing health plans that they were very happy with, health insurance rates are skyrocketing, millions of workers are having their full-time hours cut back to part-time hours, rural hospitals all over the country are dying, and thousands of doctors are being driven out of the industry thus intensifying the greatest doctor shortage in U.S. history. | |
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Ivan Yegorov
Mid East Shuffle 2014-10-15 01:33:00
In an interview for Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, explained how Russian analysts were predicting the development of the situation in Ukraine a year ago. And he also gave an assessment of the role of the United States and NATO in the events in eastern Ukraine, explained why these events are a continuation of Zbigniew Brzezinski's plan for the disintegration of the USSR and Russia, and assessed prospects for the development of the multipolar world and the possibility of a future struggle for hydrocarbon resources. [Yegorov] Nikolay Platonovich, the realities of recent months are a coup d'etat in Ukraine, military operations by the Ukrainian authorities against the inhabitants of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and a frenzied anti-Russian course by Kiev. Would it have been possible to predict this turn of events only a year ago? [Patrushev] Our specialists were warning of the high probability of an escalation of the situation in Ukraine in the context of political and economic instability, particularly under external influence. At the same time it should be acknowledged that the probability of an imminent instant seizure of power in Kiev with the support of militant groups of open Nazis was not considered at that time. Let me remind you that prior to the coup you mentioned, Moscow was implementing in full all its partnership commitments to Kiev. We were constantly providing material and financial aid, without which Ukraine was in no condition to cope with economic difficulties that had become chronic in nature. To support our neighbours, material and financial resources amounting to tens of billions of dollars were mobilized. Unfortunately for many people in Ukraine this aid became, in time, so customary that its importance for the country's survival was simply forgotten. As for longer-term predictions, the Ukraine crisis was an entirely expected outcome of systematic activity by the United States and its closest allies. For the past quarter of a century this activity has been directed towards completely separating Ukraine and the other republics of the former USSR from Russia and totally reformatting the post-Soviet space to suit American interests. The conditions and pretexts were created for colour revolutions, supported by generous state funding. Thus, Victoria Nuland, US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, has repeatedly stated that during the period 1991 through 2013 Washington spent 5bn dollars on "supporting the desire of the people of Ukraine for stronger, more democratic government". According to figures from open sources alone, for instance US Congress documents, the total amount of state funding for various American programmes of "aid" to Ukraine in the period 2001 through 2012 came to at least 2.4bn dollars. That is comparable with the annual budget of some small countries. The US Agency for International Development spent about 1.5bn dollars, the State Department nearly half a billion, and the Pentagon more than 370m dollars. According to congressional records, organizations such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Peace Corps, and the Open World Centre took part in Ukrainian aid programmes, in addition to the well-known USAID and other departments. It is not hard to guess for whom and why American volunteers and staffers of diplomatic missions have been "opening the world" throughout the 23 years since the breakup of the Soviet Union. | |
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John V. Walsh
AntiWar.com 2014-11-17 00:00:00
"Can America Contain China?" it is often asked in the West. But given America's endless wars and assaults on the developing nations of the world, the question ought to be, "Can China Contain America"? Or at least, can China restrain the U.S. from doing more damage in East Asia and perhaps elsewhere in the developing world? Last week Obama went to Beijing for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit as the representative of the West and its centuries old grand project in East Asia. And what has that project been? History tells us that the West with its missionaries and soldiers, Obama's predecessors, bathed the region in suffering and bloodshed. A short and incomplete list includes: the Opium Wars on China, the war on the Philippines, the nuclear bombing of Japan, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the bombings that laid waste Laos and Cambodia, the bloody CIA coup in Indonesia, and the military assault on the Korean movement to overthrow the Park dictatorship. And that thumbnail history merely recounts the Anglo-American contribution to the European rape of East Asia. For centuries, every two bit Western European power with a little bit of advanced military technology was in on the plunder in the Western Pacific. Obama went to East Asia to say in essence: "We are not finished yet. The Indispensable Nation must dominate everywhere. We departed when the Vietnamese humiliated us and drove us from the neighborhood. But we are back. We are pivoting." | |
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| Society's Child |
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RT
2014-11-18 20:14:00
Masai people living in northern Tanzania are facing eviction from their historical homeland, as the government has reportedly reneged on a promise and is proceeding with plans to remake the land into a hunting reserve for Dubai's royal family. There are about 40,000 Masai people living on the 1,500 square kilometer "wildlife corridor" bordering Serengeti National Park. They are known for their semi-nomadic ways and have their own distinctive culture. The original proposal by a company based in the United Arab Emirates to turn the land into a commercial hunting park was turned down last year. But the deal seems back on track now and the Masai people were notified to leave their ancestral lands by the end of the year, the Guardian reported. Tanzania's prime minister, Mizengo Pinda, is scheduled to meet with the Masai's representatives, who will speak out against the decision. In their view, the sale of the territory will in some way or another impact the lives of at least 80,000 people and will leave those residing on the land without their heritage or livelihood, as Masai are reliant on the livestock living on the land. | |
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Mark Karlin
Truthout 2014-11-16 00:00:00
Unintimidated by the efforts of two administrations to force him to reveal a confidential source who disclosed the betrayal of the public by the government, Pulitzer Prize- winning New York Times reporter James Risen exposes more about the reality of greed, power and endless war in his new book, Pay Any Price. You can get the book now with a contribution to Truthout by clicking here. In a revealing interview with Truthout about his new book Pay Any Price, journalist James Risen provides evidence of how the United States has become enmeshed in an endless war. He also discusses how the post-9/11, military-surveillance state has enriched - with little oversight or accountability - many opportunists. Risen tells Truthout: "Four trillion dollars is the best estimate for the total price tag of the war on terror, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and much of it has gone to shadowy contractors. It is one of the largest transfers of wealth in American history, and yet it has gone largely unnoticed." Mark Karlin: In your third chapter, you state that the "corporate leaders at its vanguard can rightly be considered the true winners of the war on terror." You refer to these people as post-9/11, corporate entrepreneurs and opportunists. Can you provide a couple of brief examples? James Risen: In chapter three, I focus on corporate leaders who have largely tried to avoid the limelight, but have nonetheless been among those who have profited the most from the war on terror. People like the Blue brothers, whose company, General Atomics, has produced the Predator and Reaper drones, the signature weapons of the global war on terror. I also write about J. Philip London, executive chairman of CACI, the huge defense and intelligence contractor that was caught up in the Abu Ghraib scandal but then managed to continue to thrive in the war on terror, and Robert McKeon, a clever Wall Street maven who acquired Dyncorp as it profited from rival Blackwater's problems. McKeon eventually committed suicide, and the sale of assets by his estate after his death provided a glimpse at the massive wealth accumulated by the corporate leaders who benefit from being on the top rung of the war on terror. | |
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Michael Allen
Opposing Views 2014-11-17 16:35:00
Bill Swan, 80, was allegedly beaten by police last Thursday in Lone Star, Mo., after he objected to a utility crew digging on his land. "Police got there and told him to get off his tractor, he was on his own property, and said, 'I don't have to get off my tractor,'" Swan's grandson Tim told told Fox 4 KC. "They maced him, then drug him off the tractor." The grandfather and army veteran ended up with a bloodied face, bruised hip and two broken ribs(video below). "He's 80, he's a veteran, and he has had cancer," added Swan's wife Libby. "It's obvious they used excessive force. He had abrasions on his face that were bleeding, he complained of pain on his right side." However, police claim that Swan tried to drive over them with his tractor, physically assaulted the officers and tried to reach for one cop's gun. Tim claims his grandfather is almost deaf and requires assistance just getting up stairs. Swan was arrested for assault on an officer, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, but his wife feels they are the victims. "I'm afraid for us to even drive out of our driveway or to get on the street. I don't know what they will do," Swan's wife Libby told KCTV. "It's very unnerving that something happened to him," | |
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Robert Reich
Robert Reich Blog 2014-11-18 15:25:00
The richest Americans hold more of the nation's wealth than they have in almost a century. What do they spend it on? As you might expect, personal jets, giant yachts, works of art, and luxury penthouses. And also on politics. In fact, their political spending has been growing faster than their spending on anything else. It's been growing even faster than their wealth. According to new research by Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley and Gabriel Zucman of the London School of Economics, the richest one-hundredth of one percent of Americans now hold over 11 percent of the nation's total wealth. That's a higher share than the top .01 percent held in 1929, before the Great Crash. We're talking about 16,000 people, each worth at least $110 million. One way to get your mind around this is to compare their wealth to that of the average family. In 1978, the typical wealth holder in the top .01 percent was 220 times richer than the average American. By 2012, he or she was 1,120 times richer. It's hard to spend this kind of money. The uber rich are lining up for the new Aerion AS2 private jet, priced at $100 million, that seats eleven and includes a deluxe dining room and shower facilities, and will be able to cross the Atlantic in just four hours. And for duplexes high in the air. The one atop Manhattan's newest "needle" tower, the 90-story One57, just went for $90 million. Why should we care? | |
Comment: It's no surpirse that the 1 percenters find it easy to tune out everything that doesn't serve their own interests in one way or another. Worse yet, it's an influence that multiplies over generations. Greed is a pathology that seems incurable, burning itself out only when everything that it can consum is gone. That day is not far off.
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RT
2014-11-18 16:28:00
Unlicensed drones controlled by members of the public are being used to harass people, police chiefs have warned. They further warn the technology is being used in protected airspace. Addressing the House of Lords, Chief Inspector Nick Aldworth said unmanned drones were "undoubtedly" being used in a "reckless" or "malicious" way. The Lords Internal Market, Infrastructure and Employment Committee is holding an inquiry into the civil use of unmanned aircraft. Committee Chair Baroness O'Cathain expressed concerns about breaches of privacy caused by flying drones close to private property. Aldworth, however, who is part of a group tackling the social implications of civil drone use, said police are unable to deal with or prosecute individuals because there is currently no law in place covering the misuse of drones. Current rules by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) state there is no need to gain permission to use drones if there is no intention to fly close to people or properties, and you will not get "valuable consideration" (payment) from the flight. The CAA also say permission is not required for 'practice' or demonstration flights. Aldworth said legislation could be used to tackle suspected voyeurism where drones are found "hovering outside bedrooms for whatever nefarious reasons." | |
Comment: And what of the use of drones to commit war crimes and murder people?! Apparently, the UK surveillance state is okay with that.
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RT
2014-11-18 01:23:00
A mother of three in St. Louis, Missouri has been sentenced to 78 years behind bars for waterboarding her children, as well as physically abusing them in other ways. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 34-year-old Lakechia Schonta Stanley admitted to carrying out the abusive acts - which included beatings, whippings, and, in at least two noted cases, hitting her children with a baseball bat. "What the defendant did to three of her own children far exceeds the definition of child abuse and amounts to systematic torture," assistant circuit attorney Tanja Engelhardt wrote in a sentencing memorandum for the judge, as quoted by the newspaper. "She was supposed to be their mother, the one person they could trust. Instead she became a symbol of betrayal and fear, using every tool at her disposal to beat and torture her own innocent children." | |
Comment: In a society run by psychopaths, normal human beings mimic the behavior of its psychopathic leaders. But if this mother gets a life sentence, where are the life sentences for the Bush junta?
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Melanie Dostis
Orlando Sentintel 2014-11-18 15:21:00
Angela Stoldt told officials she took a hacksaw to her neighbor's body last year and tried to cook away evidence of James Sheaffer. One leg went in the oven. Other parts went into pots. Stoldt's house in Deltona smelled of burning flesh, but she assured her daughter it was just a rat broiling in the oven, according to details made public last week after a grand jury charged her with first-degree murder. "Thursday is when I was cooking him," Stoldt told investigators. "Friday is when I was dumping him." The 42-year-old Deltona woman is accused of killing Sheaffer, 36, a limousine driver, in April 2013. Court documents filed last week detail for the first time her alleged confession and attempts to make his body vanish. According to the documents, cooking didn't work. She allegedly ended up putting the remains into trash bags and dropping them into dumpsters in New Smyrna Beach. Last week, a grand jury listened to those alleged details and upgraded the charges against Stoldt to first-degree murder. She previously was charged with second-degree murder. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty, said Spencer Hathaway, a spokesman for the State Attorney's Office. | |
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RT
2014-11-17 23:38:00
Parents at an elite, magnet elementary school in Chicago were "horrified" when they saw the "obscene" sexual education materials their fifth graders would be learning. The curriculum included condom demonstrations and discussions of anal sex. Andrew Jackson Language Academy (AJLA) hosted several parent workshops during report card pickup on Wednesday, including a meeting on Chicago Public Schools' (CPS) sex ed curriculum.Parents were given a binder that included the materials and topics that would be discussed, including the benefits of female condoms for extending sex and increasing pleasure, the use of lubrication and how to insert condoms into the anus for anal sex. Parents were notified of Wednesday's presentation in a letter from school principal Mathew Ditto. The letter said a CPS representative would be at the meeting where "we will share the lessons and information that will be taught to your child." CPS has said some of the lessons are even intended for children in kindergarten, DNAinfo reported. The letter said the topics included personal safety, human reproduction and childbirth, puberty, abstinence and healthy relationships. Fourth-graders and above would also learn information about HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. Students in fifth grade and above would also learn about contraception and pregnancy prevention, and lessons would include a condom demonstration, the letter stated.
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Comment: Sadly, this kind of age-inappropriate material is being presented to children at an much younger age in the present day:
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| Secret History |
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Cambridge News
2014-11-17 10:00:00
Twenty one skeletons of Anglo Saxon people have been found - just one foot under the ground - during an archaeological dig in Exning. The skeletons were found on land at Burwell Road in Exning, alongside a spear, a glass bowl, gold plated brooches, a cloak pin, and a dagger, some of which is thought to have come from as early as 7AD. The dig was carried out by Archaeological Solutions on behalf of Persimmon Homes, who have outline permission to build 120 homes on the site. Andrew Peachey, post excavation manager for Archaeological Solutions, said: "The focus of the dig was of 20 Saxon graves. In those, we found 21 remains with one being a double burial. "It was quite a surprise. We had done a series of trial trench excavations and had no idea they were there. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Laura Geggel
LiveScience 2014-11-17 23:24:00
A major pathway of the human brain involved in visual perception, attention and movement - and overlooked by many researchers for more than a century - is finally getting its moment in the sun. In 2012, researchers made note of a pathway in a region of the brain associated with reading, but "we couldn't find it in any atlas," said Jason Yeatman, a research scientist at the University of Washington's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. "We'd thought we had discovered a new pathway that no one else had noticed before." A quick investigation showed that the pathway, known as the vertical occipital fasciculus (VOF), was not actually unknown. Famed neuroscientist Carl Wernicke discovered the pathway in 1881, during the dissection of a monkey brain that was most likely a macaque. But besides Wernicke's discovery, and a few other mentions throughout the years, the VOF is largely absent from studies of the human brain. This made Yeatman and his colleagues wonder, "How did a whole piece of brain anatomy get forgotten?" he said. | |
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Phys.org
2014-11-17 17:00:00
Ample evidence of ancient rivers, streams, and lakes make it clear that Mars was at some point warm enough for liquid water to flow on its surface. While that may conjure up images of a tropical Martian paradise, new research published today in Nature Geoscience throws a bit of cold water on that notion. The study, by scientists from Brown University and Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, suggests that warmth and water flow on ancient Mars were probably episodic, related to brief periods of volcanic activity that spewed tons of greenhouse-inducing sulfur dioxide gas into the atmosphere. The work, which combines the effect of volcanism with the latest climate models of early Mars, suggests that periods of temperatures warm enough for water to flow likely lasted for only tens or hundreds of years at a time. With all that's been learned about Mars in recent years, the mystery of the planet's ancient water has deepened in some respects. The latest generation of climate models for early Mars suggests an atmosphere too thin to heat the planet enough for water to flow. The sun was also much dimmer billions of years ago than it is today, further complicating the picture of a warmer early Mars. "These new climate models that predict a cold and ice-covered world have been difficult to reconcile with the abundant evidence that water flowed across the surface to form streams and lakes," said James W. Head, professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown University and co-author of the new paper with Weizmann's Itay Halevy. "This new analysis provides a mechanism for episodic periods of heating and melting of snow and ice that could have each lasted decades to centuries." | |
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Chuck Bednar
RedOrbit.com 2014-11-16 04:36:00
By analyzing a meteorite that crash-landed in India eight decades ago, researchers have discovered the first experimental evidence suggesting that our solar system's protoplanetary disk was shaped by an intense magnetic field which propelled massive amounts of gas into the sun over the course of just a few million years. In the study, MIT graduate student Roger Fu and colleagues from Cambridge University, Arizona State University and elsewhere studied a space rock known as a Semarkona, which fell to Earth in northern India back in 1940 and is said to be one of the most pristine relics of the early solar system. They extracted individual pellets known as chondrules from a small sample of the meteorite and measured the magnetic orientations of each grain. As the study authors reported Friday in the journal Science, they found that the meteorite had not been altered since its formation. With that established, they then measured the magnetic strength of each chondrule and calculated the original magnetic field in which those grains were created. Their calculations revealed the early solar system's magnetic field was between five and 54 microteslas, or up to 100,000 times stronger than what currently exists in interstellar space. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Chris Carrington
The Daily Sheeple 2014-11-18 19:46:00
The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period roughly spanning 1645 to 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time. Like the Dalton Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Maunder Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000-50,000 spots. Climatologist John Casey, a former space shuttle engineer and NASA consultant, thinks that last years winter, described by USA Today as "one of the snowiest, coldest, most miserable on record" is going to be a regular occurrence over the coming decades. Casey asserts that there is mounting evidence that the Earth is getting cooler due to a decline in solar activity. He warns in his latest book, Dark Winter that a major alteration of global climate has already started and that at a minimum it is likely to last 30 years. Casey predicts food shortages and civil unrest caused by those shortages due largely to governments not preparing for the issues that colder weather will bring. he also predicts that wickedly bitter winter temperatures will see demand for electricity and heating outstrip the supply. | |
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Clayton B. Reid
Newsmax 2014-11-16 03:05:00
With nasty cold fronts thrusting an icy and early winter across the continental U.S. - along with last winter described by USA Today as "one of the snowiest, coldest, most miserable on record" - climatologist John L. Casey thinks the weather pattern is here to stay for decades to come. In fact, Casey, a former space shuttle engineer and NASA consultant, is out with the provocative book Dark Winter: How the Sun Is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell, which warns that a radical shift in global climate is underway, and that Al Gore and other environmentalists have it completely wrong. The earth, he says, is cooling, and cooling fast. And unless the scientific community and political leaders act soon, cold, dark days are ahead. Casey says the evidence is clear that the earth is rapidly growing colder because of diminished solar activity. He says trends indicate we could be headed for colder temperatures similar to those seen in the late 1700s and early 1800s when the sun went into a "solar minimum" - a phenomenon with significantly reduced solar activity, including solar flares and sunspots. If he's right, that would be very bad news. Dark Winter posits that a 30-year period of cold has already begun. Frigid temperatures and the food shortages that inevitably result could lead to riots and chaos. | |
Comment: SOTT has been reporting this for years - though now it's becoming mainstream. Here are just a few of the more recent reports:
The Ice Age is coming, and corrupted scientists continue to lie through their teeth: Stronger winds explain puzzling growth of sea ice in Antarctica Ice Age cometh: Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year; top scientists warn of global cooling NASA stumped: Summer Arctic ice extent among highest this decade, Antarctica "headed toward record extent" and read Fire and Ice: The Day After Tomorrow to learn about the reality of the situation. | |
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Kyle Stucker
Hampton Union 2014-11-18 19:56:00
The McGraths are used to friendly critters stopping by their Little River Road backyard, but a frenetic visit Tuesday morning from their resident groundhog was anything but a welcomed encounter. Gary McGrath was unloading his truck when the roughly two-foot-long groundhog came barreling toward him. What started out as a comical sight quickly turned into a somewhat scary incident for the 65-year-old woodworker as he watched the plump animal running at a brisk jog in his direction. "Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move, then it came running," said McGrath. "I kicked it away, but then it got back up and came back at me again. I kicked it away again, and it came right back." That's when McGrath ran into his garage and shut the door, only to have the groundhog circle around to the other side of the garage and get in through a different open door. | |
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Jason Schreiber
Portsmouth Herald 2014-11-18 19:25:00
A woman and her dog are recovering after they were attacked by a coyote while walking on their property Monday morning, police said. Husband fires gun in bid to scare animal away. A woman and her dog are recovering after they were attacked by a vicious coyote while walking in a field on their property Monday morning. The woman was returning to her house on Post Road around 9:15 a.m. after taking her dog out for a morning walk when the two were attacked. "It came charging across the field and was hell-bent on attacking them," said the woman's husband, who was armed with a gun when he rushed to their aid. The attack happened in an open field on the property about 100 yards from the house. | |
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nbcconnecticut.com
2014-11-18 18:41:00
A 91-year-old woman mauled by her own dog is fighting for her life three days after the attack. Police said the woman suffered serious arm injuries when the dog attacked around 4 p.m. Friday at the victim's home on Judith Terrace in Stratford. The dog mauled her in the kitchen, and although the victim was gravely hurt, she was conscious and managed to call 911 on her own. First responders rushed her to Bridgeport Hospital, where she remains in critical condition, hospital officials said. According to her daughter, the victim has owned the black-and-white Keeshond mix for eight years and has never had a problem with the animal. Now she's dealing with skin grafts and kidney failure, and family members fear she is dying.
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inquisitr.com
2014-11-17 17:51:00
On Monday, authorities in Wyoming said a dog pack was behind the death of a Native American woman. The animal attack comes on the heels of a warning last week to the public to be on the lookout for a dangerous predator. With the FBI involved, among other things, members of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe were left a bit skeptical of the pack of dogs revelation, citing a report from the NWI Times. Deanne Lynn Coando, 40, of Fort Washakie, was found dead on the Wind River Reservation. The terrain is rugged and bordered by mountains and steep hills. The Fremont County Chief Deputy Coroner, Mark Stratmoen, said the woman's cause of death was from a combination of hypothermia and bite wounds from a dog pack in the Wyoming mountains. | |
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Dominic Gover, Hannah Osborne
International Business Times 2014-11-18 16:40:00
Soaring temperatures sent more than 5,000 dead bats falling to the ground in New South Wales, Australia. Flying fox bat carcasses littered streets in the town of Casino after the temperature hit 44 degrees Celsius. Some residents mounted a last-ditch effort to save the remaining bats by hosing them down with water. A clear-up operation has been launched to remove the decomposing remains by the local council before the stench becomes over-powering. Photographer Dee Hartin captured the mass deaths. She told Huffington Post UK: "What I saw when I got there was beyond belief. There were hundreds of them all over the ground everywhere I looked. | |
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ansamed.info
2014-11-18 15:37:00
The Geodynamic Institute of the Athens Observatory reported that four consecutive earthquakes occurred in the Gulf of Evia shortly after 1am on Tuesday morning, which were felt throughout Attica as reported by To Vima online. The first two earthquakes, which measured 5.2 on the Richter scale were the strongest and occurred about four minutes apart. The third and fourth earthquake measured 3.8 and 3.4 respectively. According to the President of Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization Efthimios Lekkas, the tremors were also felt in Lamia, Thessaly, western part of central Greece and Peloponnesus. He also added that the four consecutive tremors indicated a de-escalation of the phenomenon, meaning that the main, powerful earthquake has taken place. The Fire Brigade and emergency services have been on stand-by, no damages have been reported. | |
Comment: In the map below you can see how many Greek earthquakes were recorded by SOTT.net just this past year:
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Carolyn Thompson
Associated Press 2014-11-18 15:31:00
Parts of New York are measuring the season's first big snowfall in feet, rather than inches, as nearly3 feet blanketed the Buffalo area Tuesday, forcing the closure of a 105-mile stretch of the state Thruway. The Thruway Authority says white-out conditions have closed Interstate 90 in both directions Tuesday morning from the Rochester area to Dunkirk, on Lake Erie, 35 southwest of Buffalo. The National Weather Service says a foot to almost 3 feet of snow has fallen on areas south and east of the city. Other major highways in the area are closed, numerous schools have canceled classes and Buffalo officials have issued a driving ban for parts of the city. Before the storm hit Monday evening, the National Weather Service warned that snow off the Great Lakes could pile more than two feet high around Buffalo and across the Tug Hill region north of Syracuse through Wednesday afternoon. Winds gusting more than 30 mph were making travel impossible along the Thruway. Similar conditions were expected later Tuesday and into Wednesday along Interstate 81 between Syracuse and the Canadian border. The highest snowfall total early Tuesday was just under 3 feet in Elma, just east of Buffalo, according to weather service meteorologist Tony Ansuini. The storm was dumping 3 to 4 inches of snow per hour, he said. | |
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Matt Walker
BBC Earth 2014-11-18 14:44:00
Things are heating up in the cold climes of the sub-Antarctic. On a remote, and mostly desolate island, seals have been caught engaging in an extreme form of sexual behaviour. Specifically, they have been trying to have sex with penguins. More than one fur seal has been caught in the act, on more than one occasion. And it's all been captured on film, with details being published in the journal Polar Biology. | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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The Siberian Times
2014-11-18 22:23:00
Emergency services refuse to comment cause of extraordinary blast in the dark sky. A huge flash lit up the early evening darkness, as shown by images taken from a dashcam on a road close to Yekaterinburg. The sky suddenly turns orange-red at 17.39 local time (though the dashcam records it as 18.39). For the next 11 seconds an orange light with yellow and white in the middle engulfs the entire sky. 'For a few moments night turned into dazzling day, then everything went dark again,' said one witness. The explosion came on 14 November but images only appeared of it today; strangely no sound was picked up. Theories for the explosion included a missile or an object from space. Yet it did not have the same shape or pattern as the Chelyabinsk meteorite which exploded over the Urals in February 2013.
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| Health & Wellness |
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Amanda Onion
Discovery News 2014-11-17 21:00:00
Triclosan, an ingredient common in antibacterial soaps, cosmetics, deodorants, toothpastes and more, has been under the microscope for the past few years amid growing concerns that it can disrupt key hormones that regulate growth and reproduction as well as contribute to the spread of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Now, a new study has added another possible black mark against the chemical, showing it causes liver cancer in mice. The study adds to a growing body of evidence that the chemical's possible harmful effects may outweigh its benefits - key information as the Food and Drug Administration weighs a possible ban on the chemical. | |
Comment: As research has found, triclosan is no better than ordinary soap at killing germs, but worse, it exacts a heavy price on health. Learn to avoid such toxic chemicals by reading labels on all cosmetic products.
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| Science of the Spirit |
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ScienceDaily
2014-11-18 18:39:00
A new study has shown for the first time that people can be trained to "see" letters of the alphabet as colors in a way that simulates how those with synesthesia experience their world. The University of Sussex research, published today (18 November 2014) in Scientific Reports, also found that the training might potentially boost IQ. Synesthesia is a fascinating though little-understood neurological condition in which some people (estimated at around 1 in 23) experience an overlap in their senses. They "see" letters as specific colors, or can "taste" words, or associate sounds with different colors. A critical debate concerns whether the condition is embedded in our genes, or whether it emerges because of particular environmental influences, such as colored-letter toys in infancy. While the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, psychologists at the University's Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science devised a nine-week training program to see if adults without synesthesia can develop the key hallmarks of the condition. | |
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ScienceDaily
2014-11-17 15:00:00
An infant's mother tongue creates neural patterns that the unconscious brain retains years later even if the child totally stops using the language, as can happen in cases of international adoption, according to a new joint study. The study offers the first neural evidence that traces of the "lost" language remain in the brain. "The infant brain forms representations of language sounds, but we wanted to see whether the brain maintains these representations later in life even if the person is no longer exposed to the language," says Lara Pierce, a doctoral candidate at McGill University and first author on the paper. Her work is jointly supervised by Dr. Denise Klein at The Neuro and Dr. Fred Genesee in the Department of Psychology. The article, "Mapping the unconscious maintenance of a lost first language," is in the November 17 edition of scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The Neuro conducted and analyzed functional MRI scans of 48 girls between nine and 17 years old who were recruited from the Montreal area through the Department of Psychology. One group was born and raised unilingual in a French-speaking family. The second group had Chinese-speaking children adopted as infants who later became unilingual French speaking with no conscious recollection of Chinese. The third group were fluently bilingual in Chinese and French. | |
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| High Strangeness |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Jason Torchinsky
Jalopnik 2014-11-17 15:29:00
Sleeping in your car used to be something that automakers used to be proud of. Seats that reclined into beds were a major selling point for cars like the Rambler, for example. Now, thanks to anti-homeless laws and a sick desire not to spend a miserable night in a car, hardly anyone still does this. But I thought it would be worth a go. The car-sleeping concept really was a big deal back in the day; aside from car-snoozing enthusiasts like Nash/Rambler, there were options and kits for all kinds of cars, even genuinely small cars like the Beetle and Type III. Now, I can't think of any car company that actively talks about the ability to spend the night in their cars. Hell, the last time I think any company publicly acknowledged that they designed a car you could sleep in was about a decade ago, with the Honda Element. | |
Comment: This may come in handy during a societal collapse.
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