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Gary Boyle
Sott.net 2014-12-22 09:54:00
In an article published on RT last month, the father of an eight-year-old boy who died in the UK in the 1980s alleged that his son may have been abducted and murdered by members of aWestminster pedophile ring, and further claims that Scotland Yard were complicit in "covering up" the crime. After watching the wedding procession of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in July 1981, Vishal Mehrotra was abducted as he walked home in the Putney area of London. Newspaper reports at the time claim Mehrotra's home was less than a mile from the Elm Guest House, where witnesses said a"kings and queens" party was being hosted. Part of Vishal's skeleton was found in 1982 in woodlands in West Sussex. According to coroners' reports, there was no trace of his legs, spine or clothing. Elm House was raided in June 1982 and dozens of men with high public profiles were questioned. Although none were implicated, it is believed the raids were connected to the disappearance of Vishal, as well as another boy, 15-year-old Martin Allen. Mehrotra told theTelegraph: Martin Allen's disappearance has also been linked to the notorious Elm Guest House in Barnes, south-west London, and the alleged VIP pedophile brothel. But when the Sunday People reported that when the boy's older brother pushed for more to be done on the case, saying he believed a top level cover-up was hiding the circumstance of the teenager's disappearance, he was told to "stop talking like that, you might get hurt." Mr Allen, 51, now believes the files relating to Martin have been destroyed or lost to avoid solving the mystery that has haunted his family for 35 years. As reported in the Daily Mail last month, he said:
Mr Allen said he always believed there was 'Establishment involvement' in his brother's disappearance. Jackie Malton, now retired from Scotland Yard, was a detective sergeant when she worked on the case and said the investigation could have been compromised by the "power of politicians" at the time. Regarding the tape recording Mr Mehrotra played for the police, she said, "the culture of policing at the time meant it was possible the recording was ignored and the murder covered up due to the alleged involvement of senior figures at Westminster." Talking to the Telegraph, Mrs Malton added: Really!? If there truly is more 'accountability' nowadays - then where is the justice? Why are these sick, psychopathic perverts in positions of power never held accountable for their depraved, vile crimes? Before we look at their Modus Operandi, we first need to understand the environment (social, political, cultural, religious and business) in which these highly placed and influential individuals generally dwell - namely, the 'Establishment'. | ||
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| Puppet Masters |
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Sputnik
2014-12-23 20:01:00
The terrorist threat level in Germany is currently very high, with Germany's involvement in the anti-Islamic State (IS) war a justification for a terrorist attack, the Bild reported Tuesday citing unattributed security services documents. "It must be assumed that terrorist attacks of different scale and intensity are possible in the Federal Republic," the document said as quoted by the tabloid. The organizers can be individual terrorists and "individual groups acting autonomously." Germany's participation in the anti-IS struggle serves potential terrorists as a "justification for [their] terrorism," according to the document. Germany is part of a US-led anti-IS coalition formed by US President Barack Obama to reverse IS advances in Iraq and Syria. | |
Comment: More EU nations are raising their alert levels for possible blowback. This fight against IS and the repercussions are a perfect excuse for governments to increase their security measures ultimately against the general population to prepare for the coming unrest.
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Just a few days ago, president Obama made the farcical claim Putin Hasn't 'Rolled Me,' Economic Sanctions on Russia Have Worked. Worked How? Is collapse of the ruble, more associated with the collapse of oil than sanctions, proof of anything? If so, what about the collapse of Ukraine? What about the collapse in European trade with Russia? Does one measure pain in a one-sided manner? If Russia loses a leg and Europe an arm, is that winning or is it just plain stupid? Let's explore that question with a viewpoint from three sources:
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Comment: It seems clear that the US sanctions against Russia are not having the desired stated effects. Makes one wonder if there is a deliberate undeclared reason for the sanctions such as bringing the EU down and fomenting a war between Eurasia and Europe or are psychopaths too shortsighted to see the real results of the sanctions? Even the too-big-to-fail banks seem concerned of the possible blowback of the sanctions. Who benefits?
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RT
2014-12-23 18:21:00
Reuters/Ilya Naymushin
The Russian ruble hit a two-week high Tuesday of 53 against the USD, showing strong signs of recovery after hitting rock bottom one week ago on 'Black Tuesday'. The Central Bank and government have taken swift action to shore up the ailing ruble.The Russian ruble improved to 53 in early day trading, a more than 33 percent increase since just 1 week ago when it hit 80 against the US dollar. The Russian ruble suffered a 'perfect storm' last week, and is improving for the third consecutive trading session on the Moscow Exchange Tuesday. By 4:00pm in Moscow, it had weakened to 54.72 against the greenback. | |
Comment: News of the ruble's death have been highly exaggerated. At the moment it is going through some rough times due to foreign exchange and oil price manipulations by Washington and its lackeys. But the fundamentals of the Russian economy are sound, far more sound than the West, which teeters on a fiat house of cards. And with new trading partners like China and India, it's sure Russia is resting relatively easy, at least about the financial future.
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Mark Leftly
the Independent 2014-12-21 18:24:00
Nuclear power stations are highly vulnerable to drone attack, according to a confidential report that British ministers are being urged to consider. Compiled by a British nuclear expert, John Large, the report followed a number of unexplained, but apparently co-ordinated, flights of tiny, unmanned vehicles over French nuclear installations.The grave issues uncovered there, said Mr Large, were equally relevant to the UK's 16 operational reactors, which generate about 18 per cent of the country's electricity. In public evidence to the French parliament, Mr Large said he set the defences of a standard nuclear power plant against different types of attack that could be launched by drones, such as precisely placed explosive devices and the dropping off of equipment that would aid an insider saboteur. Existing nuclear power plants, he said, were not designed to counter the threat of "near-cyborg technology". He warned: "In each of the four... attack scenarios that I examined, the plant fared very badly indeed - if these scenarios had been for real, then there would have been the potential for a major radioactive release." | |
Comment: As well as the French incidents mentioned, yet another 'mysterious' drone was spotted flying over a Belgium nuclear plant a few days ago.
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RT.com
2014-12-23 13:12:00
Russia's Investigative Committee is investigating a Russian newspaper report alleging that aUkrainian military jet shot down Malaysian Airlines passenger plane MH17 over the rebel-held eastern part of the country last summer. "Investigators have talked to the editor-in-chief and journalists of the 'Komsomolskaya Pravda' newspaper and have taken the contact details of the Ukrainian citizen [cited in the report]," spokesman for the committee Vladimir Markin said.
He added that the witness would be interviewed as part of the Russian investigation into the use of banned weapons and methods of warfare in Ukraine. The information he shares will be cross-checked, he added. The witness, who chose to remain anonymous, told Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP) daily that a pilot of a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet was behind the MH17 flight downing on July 17. He claimed that the pilot used air-to-air missiles to shoot down the Malaysian Boeing, which he concludes was probably mistaken for a military plane. | ||
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The Saker
The Vineyard of the Saker 2014-12-23 18:01:00
Interesting news this morning: the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaia Pravda has interviewed a man who claims to have been a witness to the take-off of three aircraft, one of which allegedly shot down MH17. Thanks to the incredible work done by Kazzura the full video with English subtitles is already available today. Check it out:
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Comment: You can read the transcript of the interview here. Voloshin, the SU-25 pilot mentioned in the program, was awarded the Order for Courage (3rd degree) by President Poroshenko on July 19th, 2 days after the shoot-down of H17. (See here for the Google translation.) As for 'competing versions', there is also this Russian documentary produced by Andrei Karaulov for Channel 5 (part 1, part 2), which claims the pilot who shot down MH17 was Lt. Col. Dmitry Yakasuts, and that he was sent to United Arab Emirates the next day.
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Peter Koenig
Vineyard of the Saker 2014-12-22 01:16:00
The lame duck, Obama, extending a conciliatory hand to Cuba by opening an embassy in Havana, by reopening, after 54 years of a criminal and crippling embargo, diplomatic relations? - At the same time Obama is making not a single concession in terms of lifting the blockade. This smells like a trap. Cuba beware! Imagine - a US Embassy in Havana - it would open the floodgates for US NED (National Endowment for Democracy) funded 'NGOs', for Washington's spies and anti-Castro propaganda machine; it would have free hand to destabilize the country. And what would Cuba gain? - Zilch, zero, nothing. Not even a gradual lifting of the embargo had been announced. To the contrary, it would open Cuba's borders to the vultures of Florida Cubans, eventually to theirs and other foreign investments, subjugating the country's huge social gains over the last half a century - universal free education and health services, by far the best social system of the Americas - to the sledgehammer of neoliberal privatization. Why would Cuba now need a US Embassy? After 54 years of struggling and surviving against Washington's nod? - In fact, nobody needs the empire - the empire's consent to financially and economically survive. Suffice it to look at the 'engineered' decay of the Russian ruble which eventually will leave Russia better off than before the downward slide of its currency and the likewise 'engineered' downward spin of the price of petrol. Everybody knows that the Middle Eastern oil producers, Obama's stooges, will not forever shoot themselves in the foot by flooding the petrol market and foregoing their oil revenues. What Cuba needs is free access to international markets - outside and independent of the United States. Cuba needs to integrate into an independent financial and monetary system, detached from the corrupt casino dollar. Solidarity by the rest of the world which has already helped Cuba survive the illegal, inhuman US embargo is now more than ever of the order. The support of a unity of nations must now help stem the temptation to bend to Washington's offer of 'diplomacy'. | |
Comment: There is always a nefarious reason for the US to become "friendly" towards a nation. Certainly not for the benefit of the people but more for resources, corporations and big banks. The moves by Russia towards Cuba has certainly raised Washington's attention.
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Tom Boggioni
Raw Story 2014-12-22 01:20:00
In a blistering editorial published in the Monday edition of the New York Times, the editorial page editors are calling upon the Justice Department to open an investigation into the torture practices committed during the administration of President George W. Bush with an eye towards prosecuting those who "committed torture and other serious crimes," along with former Vice President Dick Cheney and other major administration officials. Under a headline reading, "Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses," the board criticizes the administration of current President Barack Obama for failing "to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects," during the period following the attack on 9/11. The editorial notes that the American Civil Liberties Union will present a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. on Monday calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate what appears to be "a vast criminal conspiracy, under color of law, to commit torture and other serious crimes." | |
Comment: Give us a break, NYT. Yeah, what you're saying is absolutely true -- torture is a crime, and these people should be investigated and prosecuted -- but do you really expect anyone to buy your crocodile tears and pseudo-conscience here? Where were you a decade ago, when we first found out about this? Where was your social conscience then? It's a coward who only speaks out against injustice when it is easy and in fashion, like now. So, no, until you stop prostituting yourselves to the interests of Empire and the State Department, pardon us for not buying your bullshit. How about an investigation and prosecution of NYT collusion with CIA and government to 'catapult' outrageous propaganda, the type that brings the USA into wars on civilian populations? That'll be the day. And good luck getting anyone prosecuted for torture. These people are 'protected': Federal Court gives "Early Christmas present" to war criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others, immunizing them from civil inquiry regarding Iraq war
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RT
2014-12-22 01:13:00
A senior Russian lawmaker has warned Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko against détente with the US, warning him he could end like Libya's Gaddafi. "Milosevic, Gaddafi and Hussein all tried to be friends with the United States. Their fates are well known. Now the US is offering 'new relations' with Lukashenko. This is a dangerous experiment," the head of the State Duma Foreign Relations Committee Aleksey Pushkov wrote in a Twitter post on Monday. The comment came soon after US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland talked about a small improvement of US-Belarus relations, adding that the country was always open to more dialogue with Belarus. Comment: Of course. Anything to turn Russia's allies against her. | |
Comment: See also: Lukashenko says Belarus is ready to help Ukraine. Belarus is also looking to trade with Russia in Dollars and Euros, not Rubles:
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Daisy Luther
The Organic Prepper 2014-12-21 07:45:00
Every year around this time, it just isn't the holiday season if you don't end up stuck in a long line of traffic going through a mandatory DUI checkpoint. The cops are looking for people drinking and driving, and this unconstitutional search has been upheld by the Supreme Court. And every year around this time, when I say it is a violation of my rights, someone chimes in: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about."It's entirely possible that if I hear this argument one more time this year, I'm going to have something to worry about, because there's going to be the body in my trunk. I was involved in a conversation on a thread online about these checkpoints and I was deeply saddened by the dozens of people who think having their rights violated is a wonderful thing. They simply can't wrap their heads around how very wrong this is, what a slippery slope that we are stepping onto, and how this is an entry into the police state in all its glory. | |
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Peter Walker
Guardian (UK) 2014-12-22 00:37:00
North Korea is threatening to retaliate against the US over a Hollywood film portraying the assassination of Kim Jong-un, saying it has "clear evidence" that Washington was heavily involved in devising the plot. The stern but vague warnings come after Sony Pictures decided last week to cancel the release ofThe Interview following cyber-attacks and threats against the company. North Korea also said the US government was wrong to "recklessly" claim Pyongyang was behind the hacking. In a further response North Korea on Monday said it was refusing to take part in a UN meeting where the country's bleak human rights situation was to be discussed. The UN Security Council is being urged to refer Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court, the boldest effort yet to confront an issue it has openly disdained in the past. Accusations the US government was involved in the film's plot were issued by the North Korea's powerful Policy National Defence Commission in a 1,600-word statement run on North Korea's state news agency, KCNA. Amid the colourful phrasing typical of official North Korean statements - the US was referred to as "the cesspool of terrorism" while the storyline of The Interview was called "vicious and dastardly" - were warnings of unspecified retaliation over the comedy action film, which centres on a plan to kill the supreme leader. North Korea had "already launched the toughest counteraction" to the film, the statement said,without specifying what this might involve. "Nothing is [a] more serious miscalculation than guessing that just a single movie production company is the target of this counteraction. Our target[s are] all the citadels of the US imperialists who earned the bitterest grudge of all Koreans," it added. | |
Comment: All the major lamestream media sources are quoting this 'state dispatch'. It appears to be real, not simply anti-NK propaganda (see the full thing here). But that said, the 'threats' leveled in it are over the top and vague at best. In other words, all bluster. But is North Korea really that stupid to openly threaten the U.S. in such an open way, however vague? They could've used the opportunity to go "full truth", but this is as close as they got:
No mention of U.S. creating and directing Islamic terror, or bombing countless countries into oblivion. Instead, they are terrorists because they say they're against terrorism, but fund bad propaganda movies at the same time. North Korea needs some better propagandists!
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WashingtonsBlog
"We2014-12-22 15:44:00
Need To Get Reasonable Assurances That [the Victim] Will Remain In Isolation And Incommunicado For The Remainder Of His Life" The Senate Torture Report notes: The interrogation team closed the [CIA] cable by stating:"regardless of which [disposition] option we follow, however, and especially in light of the planned psychological pressure techniques to be implemented, we need to get reasonable assurances that [Abu Zubaydah] will remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life." | |
Comment: Or even more sinister, consider that these sadistic psychopaths simply love to torture and left to their own devices this is what they will do. For further discussion on the Senate Torture Report listen to SOTT's Behind the Headlines and The Truth Perspective
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| Society's Child |
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Veronica Rocha
Los Angeles Times 2014-12-22 00:00:00
A boy, 13, is being credited with saving his 4-year-old sister from being kidnapped, authorities say. Lancaster sheriff's deputies say the boy took swift action when a man entered their fenced yard in Lancaster on Saturday and grabbed hold of his sister. The man made it about 10 feet before dropping the girl, deputies said, thanks to her brother. "He definitely acted on his own instincts," said Deputy Miguel Ruiz, calling the boy's actions courageous and heroic. The suspect was identified as Earl Williams, 61, of Los Angeles. Williams, who had been seen pacing around the children's home in the 300 block of West Kildare Street, entered their yard about 11:55 a.m., authorities said. He asked the girl's name, then reached down and grabbed her, said Lt. Slade Carrizosa of the Los Angeles County sheriff's station in Lancaster. | |
Comment: It's a good idea to talk to your children so that they understand that there are people who cannot be trusted, even in their own neighborhoods. See: A guide to protecting your children against predators and SOTT Talk Radio: Predators Among Us - Interview With Dr. Anna Salter
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RT
2014-12-23 17:50:00
Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable British pensioners receive home state care that is so cursory and inadequate they are forced to choose between eating and being assisted to the bathroom, a Freedom of Information (FoI) request reveals. An overwhelming 75 percent of local authorities in England offer pensioners visits that last a mere 15 minutes, the FoI request indicates. The number of councils booking care workers for these "flying care" visits has shot up 5 percent in the past year. Britain's health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said the sobering statistics revealed a situation that was simply "unacceptable." Alluding to dangers associated with cost cutting in an era of outsourcing, Hunt said there are "too many examples of councils buying rushed care visits." Councils warn crippling funding cuts are to blame for the situation, and have jeopardized their capacity to maintain basic services. They say they need an extra £400 million if they are to provide adequate services to those who rely on them. Outsourced and unaccountable In a climate of rampant privatization, UK public services are increasingly outsourced. In the case of state care, 90 percent of such services for elderly and disabled Britons are now offered by private companies or charities. Some 110 councils across Britain are currently paying for care workers to conduct these 15-minute visits. Severely criticized, the whistle-stop visits generally occur daily or every two days. Critics warn the rushed timespan is simply too short to allow pensioners and the disabled the time needed for adequate care. Frustrated care workers say they don't have sufficient time to dress, feed and wash their clients and make sure they have taken any medication they depend on. | |
Comment: Our society is become increasingly more neglectful towards those that need support the most. The elites calling the shots, by their actions, have made the the weak and most vulnerable people disposable.
1.6 million UK pensioners living in poverty A Million Elderly Hit by "Epidemic of Poverty and Loneliness" | |
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Benjamin Mueller & Al Baker
New York Times 2014-12-20 02:33:00
Two police officers sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn were shot at point-blank range and killed on Saturday afternoon by a man who, officials said, had traveled to the city from Baltimore vowing to kill officers. The suspect then committed suicide with the same gun, the authorities said. The officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were in the car near Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the shadow of a tall housing project when the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, walked up to the passenger-side window and assumed a firing stance, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said. Mr. Brinsley shot several rounds into the heads and upper bodies of the officers, who never drew their weapons, the authorities said. Mr. Brinsley, 28, then fled down the street and onto the platform of a nearby subway station, where he killed himself as officers closed in. The police recovered a silver semiautomatic handgun, Mr. Bratton said. Mr. Brinsley, who had a long rap sheet of crimes that included robbery and carrying a concealed gun, is believed to have shot his former girlfriend near Baltimore before traveling to Brooklyn, the authorities said. He made statements on social media suggesting that he planned to kill police officers and was angered about the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases. Comment: What are the odds, eh? Sure, people are angry, but ordinary people don't react to injustice in this way. Was this guy Greenbaumed or something? By his callous act, he sure has handed - wittingly or otherwise - a gift to the brutal police state. Authorities in Baltimore sent a warning that Mr. Brinsley had made these threats, but it was received in New York at essentially the same time as the killings, officials said. The shootings, the chase, the suicide of Mr. Brinsley and the desperate but failed bid to save the lives of the officers - their uniforms soaked in blood - turned a busy commercial intersection on the Saturday before Christmas into a scene of pandemonium. | |
Comment: When officers are killed we can expect their service to be lauded and their killers to be deemed the worst sort of criminal. When #CopsKill, their victims are blamed, smeared and forgotten, only to be replaced by the next person killed under questionable circumstances. The message is clear: normal people's lives do not matter.
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Sputnik
2014-12-23 21:22:00
Demonstrators gather outside Ukrainian parliament to protest government measures to arrest the country's financial crisis. A crowd of thousands gathered on Tuesday outside the parliament building in Kiev to show their opposition to cost-cutting measures proposed by the government of Ukraine. "First of all, they want to pass a budget, with which the majority of people gathered here today are dissatisfied, and they want to extend the powers of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine," Vitaly Yahno, the coordinator of the protest told the Ukrainian UNN news website. "And our task - is to ensure that the laws are passed, which we submitted." "The 'Financial Maidan' is demanding the passing of legislation which has already been registered, but they [the authorities] don't want to put them on the agenda," Yahno explained. The protest site on Tuesday stretched from the immediate boundary of the parliament building to the nearby Mariinski Park, and also blocked traffic on the road between the park and parliament building. According to a correspondent from RIA Novosti, on Tuesday afternoon around two and a half thousand protestors were assembled in largely peaceful protest, while the perimeter of the parliament building was guarded by several hundred security officers, including those of the National Guard. | |
Comment: All is going as planned in Kiev as designed by the West; steal from the poor and give to the rich.
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Sputnik
2014-12-23 21:12:00
The FBI division of the US city of Memphis warned on Monday that Islamic State may explode the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge in the United States through an active member operating in Tennessee. The Islamic State (IS) extremist group may explode the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge in the United States through an active member operating in Tennessee, the FBI division of the US city of Memphis warned on Monday, citing an anonymous informant. "According to an anonymous complainant, as of December 2014, ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, IS] instructed an ISIS [IS] member, a presumed USPER [US person] in Memphis, with a direct order to blow up the Memphis-Arkansas bridge on an unknown date, activating ISIS terror cells in the United States," the FBI warning said. | |
Comment: Here we go again with yet another IS threat. Must keep the fear level high to push for more surveillance on the population.
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Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller 2014-12-22 13:47:00
A provocative public service announcement released by a San Francisco-based production company encourages children to put themselves at risk and commit a slew of crimes by stealing their parents' guns from home and turning them in at school. In the anti-gun ad, published Dec. 13 by Sleeper 13 Productions, a boy who appears to be in his early teens is shown walking up the stairs of his home and wandering into his mother's bedroom. The boy is shown opening the drawer to his mother's dresser, where a handgun is hidden. The boy takes the gun from the dresser and leaves the room. The ad then flashes to his school. Sitting in a classroom, the boy ventures up to his teacher's desk after the rest of his classmates have left. The tension building in the scene breaks, and the boy produces the gun from his backpack, slamming it on his startled teacher's desk. | |
Comment: One call to 911, and a SWAT team will arrive, and the child will be shot.
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Dominic Waghorn
Sky News 2014-12-22 02:17:00
From the outside America may seem to be a land of endless optimism and confidence. But could it be in danger of falling apart? An increasing number of Americans seem to think so, and they're preparing for the end. They call themselves preppers. Mainstream suburban Americans hoarding supplies and weapons while leading otherwise perfectly normal lives. Video: Prepping For The End Of The World
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Comment: Though we have no way to discern what may happen in the near future, it is best to be prepared.
See also: And do have a listen to the SOTT Talk Radio show that was devoted to this subject: Surviving the End of the World (as we Know it) | ||
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| Secret History |
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Mark Miller
Ancientorigins.net 2014-12-22 00:44:00
Estimates of people's presence in the Americas have ranged from about 12,000 to 50,000 years. A new study by a team of archaeologists that has been researching the subject, has found a site dating back 13,800 years, now underwater in the Juan Perez Sound off British Columbia in Canada. The underwater area they examined was once dry land, inhabited by the Haida people. The Haida have an old flood tale on Frederick Island that tells of how the peoples became dispersed in the New World. Frederick Island is a different site than the one recently studied. The team, led by archaeologist Quentin Mackie of the University of Victoria, found the site this past September near the Haida Gwaii Archipelago. They found a fishing weir, a stone channel structure that was probably used to catch salmon, the CBC reports. | |
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sciencedaily.com
2014-12-15 16:38:00
A small stone container found by archaeologists a half-century ago has now been recognized as further evidence of a Viking or Medieval Norse presence in Arctic Canada during the centuries around 1000 A.D. Researchers reporting in the journal Geoarchaeology discovered that the interior of the container, which was found at an archaeological site on southern Baffin Island, contains fragments of bronze as well as small spherules of glass that form when rock is heated to high temperatures. The object is a crucible for melting bronze, likely in order to cast it into small tools or ornaments. Indigenous peoples of northern North America did not practice high-temperature metalworking. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Justin H.s. Breaux
Phys.org 2014-12-23 00:00:00
In any given year, workers in artisanal and small-scale gold mining shops in remote locales like Brazil and Peru release an estimated 700 tons of airborne mercury from their rooftops. Collectively, these shops purify nearly 20 percent of the world's gold supply before it is shaped and sold in stores. Through a generations-old process, small-scale miners use hand tools and chemicals to extract gold from the ground. Miners use mercury as an easy way to extract gold pieces during the sifting process, which separates out dirt and other materials. The resulting gold and mercury mixture is then brought to shops that separate this harmful chemical from the gold. Gold is separated out by burning off mercury with high-temperature torches that release vaporized mercury into the air. Eventually, these vapors fall back to the ground and contaminate food and water. To decrease these emissions and the accumulation of mercury in the environment from artisanal and small-scale gold mining shops, the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), designed a prototype mercury capture system (MCS). The MCS channels the vaporized mercury droplets into a converted steel drum that condenses the mercury and captures nearly 80 percent of the aerosol particles. | |
Comment: Mercury is highly toxic and it is responsible for a number of health issues. It can causehypertension, auto-immunity, hearing loss, depression, create peripheral neuropathy, and is also a major undiagnosed cause of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia among other health problems.
Mercury toxicity: The great mimicker Chelation Detox Eliminates Mercury and Heavy Metals and Leads to Better Health | |
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Michael Prescott
Michael Prescott's Blog 2014-12-22 21:09:00
I've been reading God's Undertaker, by John C. Lennox, a book arguing for "intelligent causation" - the idea that the universe and life are too irreducibly complex to have arisen by chance. Lennox, a professor of mathematics at Oxford who has debated Richard Dawkins, makes a powerful case that information lies at the heart of life, and that this information (epitomized by, but not restricted to, the instructions encoded in DNA) cannot be explained by natural processes. If this is true (and I strongly suspect that it is), it naturally raises the question of how this "intelligent causation" could actually be brought about. The notion of God as a chemist, reaching down with his mighty hand to splice the correct amino acids into the desired proteins, is hardly intellectually satisfying. One approach that occurs to me is suggested by the idea of pure information underlying the physical world, a notion that we've played with before. We could imagine this informational matrix assomething akin to a giant information processing system - a vast database, with the numbers constantly being crunched by algorithms. By analogy, think of the whole shebang as a computer run by a program; the numbers are processed in the background, between screen refreshes; changes in the informational content would be reflected in each new refresh, just as changes dictated by a computer program are seen in new combinations of pixels on the screen. | |
Comment: The picture sketched by Prescott is one of natural teleology, promoted by atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel, and more recently by theist philosopher William Dembski in his bookBeing as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information. Curiously, while Prescott primarily discusses psi phenomena extensively on his blog, he doesn't mention it here, even though it provides the best answer to the question he asks of how, exactly, such an 'informing' of matter might occur in nature. In other words, a vast intelligence must have a non-physical way of acting on matter (to create the necessary mutations, for example), and the only known way in which that occurs is psychokinesis. Dembski hints at this line of thought in his book, and David Ray Griffin argues for it explicitly in his philosophical books.
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While hunting, Weddell seals have biological adaptations that allow them to dive deep, as much as of hundreds of meters, but also an uncanny ability to find the breathing holes they need on the surface of the ice. Now, researchers supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) believe they have figured out they do it: by using the Earth's magnetic field as a natural GPS. "This animal, we think, may be highly evolved with an ability to navigate using magnetic sense in order to find ice holes some distance apart and get back to them safely," explained Randall Davis of the Department of Marine Biology at Texas A&M University. If the hypothesis turns out to be true, it would represent the first evidence of such a trait in a marine mammal. Highlights of the research have been captured on video in underwater images and in interviews by myself and Ralph Maestas, of the "Antarctic Sun" newspaper, which is published by the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP). (NSF manages the USAP, which coordinates all U.S. research on the southernmost continent.)
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| Earth Changes |
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Jill Reilly
Daily Mail, UK 2014-12-22 19:40:00
A 15-year-old girl who suffered horrific injuries after being attacked by a bear only survived because she remembered to 'play dead.' Leah Reeder, 15, sustained deep bites and gouges to her legs, back, neck and face, after the attack on Sunday in Eastpoint, Franklin County, on Florida's panhandle. She was out walking her dog at 6pm when the bear suddenly appeared and tackled her. 'I was listening to music and I heard my dog start barking. It was like a black blur,' she told Apalach Times from her hospital bed.
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Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News 2014-12-22 23:27:00
More than 250 tremors have been rattling Florence and the Chianti region since Friday, raising concerns over the safety of Michelangelo's David. According to Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, the two major shocks that hit the wine-growing region measured 3.8. and 4.1 on the Richter scale, while several others reached 3.0 to 3.5, scaring people but leaving no one injured. Minor tremors are continuing at the moment, sparking alarm over the national art treasure, with the focus on Michelangelo's statue of David. Earlier this year, experts found David at risk of crumbling down under its own weight because of tiny fractures in its ankles. | |
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Gurbax Puri, Anirudh Gupta
The Tribune (India) 2014-12-22 17:54:00
Nearly 500 crows have been found dead in the past four days at Baghiari village near Tarn Taran, which is close to a bird sanctuary at Sarai Amanat Khan. With bird flu causing deaths of geese at Sukhna Lake in Chandigarh, senior officials of the Animal Husbandry Department have responded quickly to take preventive measures in the area. The district administration is also on alert. "The reasons for the birds' deaths could be the use of pesticide in fields, contaminated water or the cold wave. However, we have sent the carcasses of birds to Regional Diagnostic Laboratory in Jalandhar to know the exact cause of the deaths," said Dr Raminder Monga, Deputy Director, Animal Husbandry Department. He added that it would take six days to know the reason for such a high bird mortality," said Dr Monga. Deputy Commissioner Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal met officials of various departments and constituted response teams. Amarinder Singh Tiwana, a PCS officer, has been made the point person to coordinate with all teams. Dhaliwal urged people in the area to stay alert and do not panic. | |
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Stuart Winter
Daily Express, UK 2014-12-21 14:51:00
Appearances on greetings cards, wrapping paper and festive tree baubles are one thing but the notion of a cheery redbreast preening in front of hundreds of assembled cameras does sound a little incongruous. Take a peek at this week's photo and while the robin looks very much like your common-orgarden favourite, the way it was pictured in all its flame-toned glory has become the talk of the birdwatching world. However this delightful individual has been holding court in Beijing's Temple of Heaven Park, creating the kind of scenes reminiscent of a rarity arrival on the Isles of Scilly or the north Norfolk coast. How this robin arrived in the Chinese capital thousands of miles from its European home is open to conjecture. There is increasing evidence that small populations of migratory birds often take a "left-hand turn" and fly in the reverse direction in autumn as a survival technique against a possible disaster on their normal wintering ranges. | |
Comment: See also: Rare bird from Mongolia turns up in Wakefield, UK
Wrong time, wrong place: Rare bird found in Barrie, Canada As well as these articles (which could have some relevance as to possible explanations for these odd migrations): Animal Magnetism: How the magnetic field influences animal navigation Earth's magnetic field is weakening 10 times faster now | |
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Too much snow around the ski lifts. 20 Dec 2014 - "During the last two days we've got more snow than we had in the last two years together," says a victorious Vegar Sårheim. "I had never believed we would experience this." Late Saturday night he worked together with the trail crew in Breimsbygda Ski Centre Utvikfjellet feverishly removing the snow around the ski lifts. We face the greatest challenges around the lifts, because for security reasons there must be two feet clearance. So we need shoveling away large amounts of snow, says Sårheim. - We have received about 1.5 meters of snow in a short period of time. And the forecast until Christmas is that there will come much more. So once we have cleared away this snow, we will face a fantastic Christmas. Sårheim sees the humor in that slopes actually need to remove snow. - Yes, this I had never imagined that I would experience that. Thanks to Argiris Diamantis for this link | |
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Lizzie Schiffman Tufano
DNAinfo.com 2014-12-22 12:04:00
If the thought of entering another Chicago winter isn't depressing enough, meteorologists say the city is on track to have one of the gloomiest Decembers in its history. There has been no direct sunshine recorded in Chicago for 15 days this month, according to Frank Wachowski, who mans the official North West Side Midway Airport sunlight observatory. Since Dec. 12, the city has seen only 33 minutes of sunshine, which peeked through the clouds Thursday. That puts December 2014 on track to break the record for darkest December since 1975, when the National Weather Service recorded 19 percent sun exposure. As of Monday, Wachowski had recorded 16 percent sun exposure this month. The record for darkest month ever in Chicago was November 1985, when sunlight hit the city for 16 percent of the month. Percentages are determined by dividing the total number of hours between sunrise and sunset by the minutes of exposed sunshine recorded with monitoring equipment, Wachowski said. Wachowski, 77, is a retired meteorologist, but since 1980 he has recorded sunshine data with official transistor sensors mounted atop his home in southwest suburban Burbank. He set up his home operation after the National Weather Service abandoned sunshine monitoring in the early 1980s, allowing him to keep the equipment and monitor data independently. Wachowski said that in part, the lack of snowfall could be to blame. If a snowstorm blows through Chicago, the tightly packed cloud cover might dissipate. In the meantime, the clouds have been locked between a layer of cold air close to the ground with warmer air above the clouds. | |
Comment: It's probably going to get a lot darker and gloomier with the what is what is coming our way. See:
The virtues of Vitamin D: It's time we saw the light Got Melatonin? Melatonin improves mood in winter depression Teaching the neurons to meditate | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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James J. DiNicolantonio and Sean C. Lucan
The New York Times 2014-12-22 12:00:00
Your co-worker brought in brownies, your daughter made cookies for a holiday party and candy is arriving from far-flung relatives. Sugar is everywhere. It is celebration, it is festivity, it is love. It's also dangerous. In a recent study, we showed that sugar, perhaps more than salt, contributes to the development of cardiovascular disease. Evidence is growing, too, that eating too much sugar can lead to fatty liver disease, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and kidney disease. Yet people can't resist. And the reason for that is pretty simple. Sugar is addictive. And we don't mean addictive in that way that people talk about delicious foods. We mean addictive, literally, in the same way as drugs. And the food industry is doing everything it can to keep us hooked. Up until just a few hundred years ago, concentrated sugars were essentially absent from the human diet - besides, perhaps, the fortuitous find of small quantities of wild honey. Sugar would have been a rare source of energy in the environment, and strong cravings for it would have benefited human survival. Sugar cravings would have prompted searches for sweet foods, the kind that help us layer on fat and store energy for times of scarcity. | |
Comment: A gluten and dairy-free ketogenic diet is an extremely beneficial diet. It means changing your primary fuel source from glucose to fat. You'll eat low amounts of carbs, high amounts of fat, modest amount of protein and follow paleo diet protocol. It will keep your blood-sugar levels in balance so you can overcome your addiction. Ketogenic diet will improve your cognitive capacity, emotional well-being and the function of every single cell in your body. Eventually your cravings will disappear and you can reclaim your health and freedom back from the sugar addiction.
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According to a new study, the ends of human bones became much lighter and less dense around 12,000 years ago -- a loose demarcation that corresponds with modern man's transition from an existence reliant on hunting and gathering to one dedicated to agriculture. In other words, scientists conclude, as humans settled down to farm -- abandoning their mobile ways and assuming a more sedentary disposition -- their bones weakened. The difference in bone structure was first noticed by Habiba Chirchir and her fellow researchers at the at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, who were analyzing bones of both primates and humans. Chirchir and her colleagues noticed that the ends of human bones, the portions near joints made of what's called trabecular bone, were less dense and almost spongelike when compared to primate bones. | |
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ScienceDaily
2014-12-20 00:00:00
New UCLA research indicates that lost memories can be restored. The findings offer some hope for patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. For decades, most neuroscientists have believed that memories are stored at the synapses -- the connections between brain cells, or neurons -- which are destroyed by Alzheimer's disease. The new study provides evidence contradicting the idea that long-term memory is stored at synapses. "Long-term memory is not stored at the synapse," said David Glanzman, a senior author of the study, and a UCLA professor of integrative biology and physiology and of neurobiology. "That's a radical idea, but that's where the evidence leads. The nervous system appears to be able to regenerate lost synaptic connections. If you can restore the synaptic connections, the memory will come back. It won't be easy, but I believe it's possible." | |
Comment: This research adds to the growing evidence that Alzheimer's can be reversed in some cases. Researchers have found that a low-carb and gluten free diet can reverse memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease while no single drug has been found to stop or even slow the progression of Alzheimer's, and drugs have only had modest effects on symptoms.
See: Memory loss in Alzheimer's reversed with a low carb and gluten free diet Multi-systems approach to Alzheimer's disease may reverse symptoms with improvement sustained Sugar and your brain: Is Alzheimer's disease actually type 3 diabetes? Ketogenic Diet Reduces Symptoms of Alzheimer's | |
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Traci Pedersen
PsychCentral 2014-12-23 00:00:00
A few months into recovery, patients who have successfully stopped taking prescription opioids show signs that their brains' natural reward systems are starting to normalize, according to a new study published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine. The researchers assessed changes in the brain's reward system in patients who were in residential treatment for their addiction to opioid pain medications. One group had recently gone through medically assisted opioid withdrawal within the previous one to two weeks. The second group had been drug-free for two to three months. A group of normal controls were also involved for comparison. | |
Comment: Understanding the normalization of the brain's recovery system may give more hope and motivation to those who are struggling to recover from opioid addiction. These drugs are so dangerous that they cause more deaths than cocaine and heroin combined, and addiction is at epidemic proportions.
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Dr. Kelly Brogan, M.D.
GreenMedInfo 2014-11-27 11:37:00
Just this week, the New York Times published an article stating that the problem of surging whooping cough cases has more to do with flaws in the current vaccines than with parents' resistance. Could the truth about vaccines be going mainstream? So, you're trying to grow a plant. You take it inside, in a little pot. You feed it fertilizer, put it under lights, and when it starts to wilt, you prop it up with all sorts of sticks and tape, and when one fails, you add more. Eventually it dies. All it wanted was sun, fresh air, clean water, and the magic of natural soil. I think of this pathetic image when I reflect on the absurdity of our vaccination program. If it were only absurd, and not deadly, my reflections would be just that. Instead, I am here to speak to pregnant women about how to arm themselves with knowledge, to warn them so there are no regrets. As I have declared, I take pregnancy interventions, epigenetic exposures, and maternal health very, very seriously. After my fellowship-level training in psychiatric treatment of these women, I understand, all too well, how flawed and nearly impossible to achieve, safety data is for pharmaceutical products in pregnancy. Passive reporting systems and industry-maintained registries don't cut it. I'd like to take you on a brief tour of one particular product that your OB may recommend, coerce, or bully you into, and then your child's pediatrician will take the torch and do the same for your tiny baby: the diptheria, tetanus, pertussis vaccine, also known as DTaP. | |
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Martha Rosenberg
Alternet 2014-12-10 00:24:00
Direct to-consumer advertising has subverted the doctor-patient relationship. Have you ever noticed how Big Pharma in the United States has things exactly backward? Instead of developing new pills that people need like non-addictive painkillers and antibiotics for resistant infections, it develops new diseases. You know those ads that try to scare you into thinking you have restless leg syndrome, non-24-hour sleep/wake disorder or exocrine pancreatic insufficiency - the poop disease? They're not from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or a government public health agency. They're from Big Pharma trying to churn "demand" for a drug and disease you've never heard of. Whenever a reporter reveals how Pharma sells diseases to sell pills, we get veritable hate mail. "How dare you imply that Can't-Wake-Up-in-the-Morning disease doesn't exist? I have suffered for years!" they scream as they threaten us and our editors and claim we are trying to take their drugs away. "I have adult ADHD and no one can tell me I don't!" | |
Comment: Read additional articles by Martha Rosenberg about How Big Pharma brainwashes Americans into believing they're sick:
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Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com 2014-12-19 23:38:00
Exercise is an essential element of a healthy lifestyle. It's particularly important for controlling your blood sugar and normalizing your insulin levels, which is critical if you want to normalize your weight and maintain optimal health. Based on the principle of following ancestral practices, it is important to understand that our genetics and biochemistry are optimized for consistent regular movement, and failure to provide that will result in disability and disease. | |
Comment: The Hidden Benefits of Exercise:
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| Science of the Spirit |
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April McCarthy
The Mind Unleashed 2014-12-17 00:49:00
Researchers have found new evidence that explains how some aspects of our personality may affect our health and wellbeing, supporting long-observed associations between aspects of human character, physical health and longevity. A team of health psychologists at The University of Nottingham and the University of California in Los Angeles carried out a study to examine the relationship between certain personality traits and the expression of genes that can affect our health by controlling the activity of our immune systems. The study did not find any results to support a common theory that tendencies toward negative emotions such as depression or anxiety can lead to poor health (disease-prone personality). What was related to differences in immune cell gene expression were a person's degree of extraversion and conscientiousness. | |
Comment: For a more in depth look at the 'epidemiological associations between personality, physical health, and human longevity'' read:
Dr. Gabor Maté: "When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection" | |
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| High Strangeness |
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Richard
Multiple UFOs spotted on Dec. 17, 2014 in Santiago Chile:Educating Humanity 2014-12-22 22:16:00
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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