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Karyn Nicholson
Sott.net 2014-12-14 00:00:00
Religious statutes permit Muslims to take the law in their own hands, kill alleged blasphemers and attack minority communities. In Pakistan, a mere accusation of blasphemy is often enough to put an individual and their community in extreme danger. Is this only true to Islam or are there similarities at work in other religious systems as well? Let's look at recent events to illustrate the concern: Blasphemy: Utter-ly a Death's Sentence a horror story... and this one is unthinkable... and then this crazed old guy... | |
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Daily Mail, UK
2014-12-16 13:14:00
Mark Oberholtzer isn't an Islamic fighter in Syria. He's never been to Syria. And the plumber from Texas City, Texas, says he certainly would never willingly aid fundamentalist rebels. So it's hard for him to understand how his Ford F-250 pickup truck - including his logo for Mark-1 Plumbing and his phone number - wound up in a propaganda picture sent out by the extremist Ansar al-Deen Front from the front lines of the war in Syria. Mr Oberholtzer says he's been getting hundreds of phone calls and faxes since the Ansar al-Deen Front tweeted a picture of his old truck with an anti-aircraft gun in the back, according to theGalveston County Daily News. 'A few of the people are really ugly,' he told the newspaper. Some threatened his life. Mr Oberholtzer says he has hired a lawyer and wants to make Twitter remove the posting, CBS News reports. | |
Comment: The answer to this 'riddle' is perfectly simple: the CIA/US government purchased this used car as part of the war materiel for its proxy army of mercenaries ('ISIS', 'Al Nusra', 'Free Syrian Army', 'Ansar al-Deen' whatever, they're all the same) to carry on what it was no longer willing to send US troops in to do: 'pacify the natives', remove unwanted regimes, and secure control of the Middle East oil valve. The British Foreign Office has been doing this in the exact same location since MI6 agent 'Lawrence of Arabia' got the Arabs to do London's dirty work during WW1.
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RT
2014-12-17 20:09:00
United States President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the US is initiating plans to rebuild its relationship with Cuba following decades of disputes between the two nations. Speaking from the White House in Washington, DC, Pres. Obama said Wednesday that the US is seeking to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba and soon plans to open an embassy in Havana, authorize sales and exports between nations and make changes to current travel laws that for decades have restricted traffic between the two countries. "Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba," Obama said as he offered to "extend a hand of friendship" while unveiling what he called "the most significant changes in our policy in more than 50 years." "We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interest," Obama said. Raúl Castro, the president of Cuba, announced in a statement televised concurrently with Obama's that his nation will "reestablish diplomatic relations" with the US. | |
Comment: One can't help but wonder if this sudden decision is a response to keep Cuba from getting closer to Russia.
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Marjorie Cohn
Truthout 2014-12-15 19:02:00
Reading the 499-page torture report just released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a disgusting experience. Even after many years of writing books and articles about the Bush torture policy, I was unprepared for the atrocious pattern of crimes our government committed against other human beings in our name. One of the most hideous techniques the CIA plied on detainees was called "rectal rehydration" or "rectal feeding" without medical necessity - a sanitized description of rape by a foreign object. A concoction of pureed "hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins" was forced into the rectum of one detainee. Another was subjected to "rectal rehydration" to establish the interrogator's "total control over the detainee." This constitutes illegal, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a humiliating outrage upon personal dignity. Several detainees were waterboarded, a technique whereby water is poured into the nose and mouth to cause the victim to think he's drowning. One detainee in CIA custody was tortured on the waterboard 183 times; another was waterboarded 83 times. Waterboarding has long been considered torture, which is a war crime. Indeed, the United States hung Japanese military leaders for the war crime of torture after World War II. Other "enhanced interrogation techniques" (EIT) included being slammed into walls, hung from the ceiling, kept in total darkness, deprived of sleep - sometimes with forced standing - for up to seven and one-half days, forced to stand on broken limbs for hours on end, threatened with mock execution, confined in a coffin-like box for 11 days, bathed in ice water, dressed in diapers. One detainee "literally looked like a dog that had been kenneled." The executive summary of the torture report was made public, but the 6,700-page report remains classified. The summary depicts the CIA at best, as keystone cops, at worst, as pathological, lying, sadistic war criminals. The CIA lied repeatedly about the effectiveness of the torture and cruel treatment. Interrogations of detainees were much more brutal than the CIA represented to government officials and the American public. Bush's CIA directors George Tenet, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden should be charged with crimes, along with their minions who carried out the torture. Comment: It's not just Bush's people who are complicit, but also the Obama Administration who have done everything in their power to protect Bush and his cronies and to keep all the crimes committed by them hidden. They are just as guilty. | |
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RT
2014-12-16 18:03:00
Comment: Lavrov continues Putin's policy of gentlemanly comment on the actions taken against Russia by her adversaries and their lackeys. Russian has answered every aggressive step with calm language that gives opportunities for climbing down from extreme positions. Any reasonable person would welcome the opening. But the psychopathic elite, living in their fantasy world, simply can't go there. The NATO military alliance is not Moscow's enemy, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov told French media that suggested the opposite. Lavrov also expressed disappointment over the fact that Russia had overestimated EU's independence from the US. Speaking to France 24 in Moscow, Lavrov stated that the military doctrine of the country never mentioned that NATO is Russia's enemy, even though the French media suggested that there is such an impression in the Western world. "What [Russia's military doctrine] says is that the security risks for Russia, among other things, are NATO expansion to the East and the movement of military infrastructure of NATO closer to the Russian borders - not NATO itself, but its militarized movement to the East is considered by the Russian military doctrine as a security risk and threat for Russia," he said. Lavrov said that, due to Russia's stance in the Ukrainian crisis, NATO had cut off all ties with Russia, "severed all practical cooperative mechanisms, including on Afghanistan, including on counter-terrorism, some other specific things." | |
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Greg Hunter
USAWatchdog 2014-12-17 00:00:00
Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts thinks the only thing that explains the plunge in the Russian ruble is that it is being attacked by America. Roberts contends, "It is not a currency crash in the sense there are no economic reasons for the ruble's fall. Unlike the United States, which has a massive trade deficit, and if the currency markets were not rigged, the dollar would be collapsing, the Russian economy has a trade surplus. Therefore, there is no pressure on its currency for economic conditions." Dr. Roberts goes on to say, "This is not some independent action of market forces. So, it's either hedge funds, currency speculators like Soros, or it's an Act of War on behalf of the United States government by the Federal Reserve or the Exchange Stabilization Fund. . . or possibly both hedge funds working with the federal government." Manipulating the markets, any market, is supposed to be illegal, but don't count on the bankers going to jail. Dr. Roberts, who has a PhD in economics, thinks, | |
Comment: Central control of World markets/economy has become so opaque that it impossible to discern the details of what is actually going on. The very word "market" has lost its traditional meaning with the explosive growth of paper derivatives which now control all "markets" in real goods and commodities.
For more on the recent omnibus spending bill and Elizabeth Warren's scathing assessment of the Citigroup attachment see: Ron Paul: All I want for Christmas is a real Government shutdown | |
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Andrew Korybko
Sputnik 2014-12-16 16:00:00
The latest anti-Russian bill to come out of Washington does a lot more than simply arm Ukraine, although that's destabilizing enough as it is. Contained within the Act are powerful provisions that expand NATO's influence in Russia's backyard and continue the War on Syria. The Ukrainian Freedom Support Act (UFSA) is essentially the actionable successor to the recently passed House Resolution 758, which itself has been referred to as the declaration of the New Cold War. It's exceptionally noteworthy for fulfilling John McCain's threat to arm Ukraine, but it's the other decrees within it that have gone unnoticed by the mainstream media, although they're just as troubling, if not more so. And unsurprisingly, Congress somehow found a way to group its War on Syria into the UFSA, showing that it truly exploits any opportunity to push through its agenda of regime change there even if it has absolutely nothing to do with the bill at hand. The Three Amigos The UFSA is just as much about Moldova and Georgia as it is about Ukraine, as all three countries are collectively grouped together except for when it comes to assisting with internally displaced persons. For example, when it comes to 'the three amigos', UFSA says that sanctions will be imposed if:
Putting it all together, it is clear that the US has strategically incorporated Moldova and Georgia into its legislation about Ukraine, providing proof that it is Washington and not Moscow which is 'widening the battlefield' of the New Cold War. This isn't the first time either, as all the amigos were first lumped together in May when the so-called Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014 was unveiled, which served as the predecessor of House Resolution 758. | |
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Elena Bondarenko
Fort Russ 2014-12-17 15:31:00
Elena Bondarenko, silenced in the Ukrainian Parliament, published an open letter to the public. It's a voice nowhere to be heard in the Western press. Although it has been written a few months ago, it is still important today and will remain on the pages of history as a testimony to the situation of lawlessness perpetrated by those in the highest ranks of power in Ukraine: My friends, here is my declaration. I ask that you share it to the extent possible. If you can translate it into other languages, please do! I, Elena Bondarenko, People's Deputy from the Party of Regions, finding myself in opposition to the current power in Ukraine, wish to declare that this administration has resorted to direct threats of physical elimination of the opposition in Ukraine; has resorted to suspending the right of freedom of speech, in parliament and out, and is implicated in complicity in crimes not just against politicians, but even against their children. The everyday life of an opposition deputy is this: constant threats, unofficial ban from the airwaves, targeted persecution. Everyone who calls for peace is immediately branded as an enemy of the people, just as in 1930's Germany, or in McCarthyite US. A few days ago, Arseniy Avakov, the Minister of the Interior, an ardent adherent of the so-called Party of War of the Ukraine, said the following: "When Elena Bondarenko comes to the podium to speak, my hand automatically reaches for my gun." This, I emphasize, are the words of a man entrusted with the supreme police power of the country. Further: exactly one week ago, Alexander Turchinov the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, deprived me of the right to speak from the podium as a member of the opposition Party of Regions, only for this: I declared "Any power that commissions its army to bomb its peaceful cities, is criminal." After which, he magnanimously gave the radical parliamentarians the option to call for shooting the opposition. Considering that my car was shot at last year, when the extremists were already arming with weapons, [a fact on record with the police, on my complaint] such threats aimed at me must be taken seriously. Comment: A question to all members of European national parliaments who support the current Kiev regime: How would you feel if the interior minister in your home parliament says to you? Would you vote to support such a guy and his colleagues with weapons and money and keep silent about war crimes, fascists terror groups, while putting sanctions on the countries that speak out against such practices? | |
Comment: The fascist junta in Kiev made sure by intimidation, threats and violence that most opposition members didn't get re-elected in the October election in Ukraine.
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Aleksei Kettunen
The Vineyard of the Saker 2014-12-17 15:26:00
Russian ruble exchange rate changes have all the ingredients of success detective story. On Monday, 15.12. 2014 ruble weakened to a record low since 1998: the dollar cost 64 rubles and 79 rubles to the euro. In recent years, the price of an euro has been hanging around 50 rubles, or 5 000 rubles withdrawn from an ATM for a night of adventures in St. Petersburg would cost around 100 euros. Last night, the Russian Central Bank raised its base rate drastically from 10.5 per cent to 17 per cent to curb currency speculation. The price of an euro during the day momentarily exceeded the limit of 100 rubles or 80 rubles for a dollar. Now at the end of the market day the ruble has slightly appreciated: $ 1= 72.60 rubles and 1 euro = 90 rubles. The official rates of the Russian Central Bank before tomorrow's market day are $ 1 = 61.15 rubles and 1 Euro = 76.15 rubles What is this about? The economic sanctions imposed by the US and the EU prevent granting of loans to Russian companies with a payment period of more than 30 days. As Russian companies have been borrowing money from the West the entire post-Cold War period at a lower rate of interest and the penalties now prevent loan restructuring and follow-up funding, these companies must now get euros and dollars to take care of their loans, thereby creating more demand for foreign currency in the Russian market and thus weakening the ruble. Also, the fall in the price of oil reduces Russia's foreign exchange earnings, which in a situation of high demand for currency weakens the ruble. The Eurasian Economic Union comes into force on January 1, 2015. Most likely at the same time the Russian ruble and foreign exchange markets will change drastically, and the Russian economy will take a distance to the dollar and the euro. Now the West is doing its best to weaken the ruble and thus destabilize the Russian economy and the political system before the end of the year. The maxima of the West is to prevent the emergence of the new economic union and closer cooperation within the BRICS. Taking into account the Christmas holidays, the West has little more than a week to succeed. | |
Comment: See: The biggest threat for Russia and for Putin
And it seems that it's not just the Russian currency that is being hit.
See also: Economic warfare: The U.S. Empire of "Frack" versus Russia
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Reuters
2014-12-14 00:00:00
As former Vice President Dick Cheney argued on Sunday that the CIA's aggressive interrogation of terrorism suspects did not amount to torture, the man who provided the legal rationale for the program said that in some cases it had perhaps gone too far. Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo said the sleep deprivation, rectal feeding and other harsh treatment outlined in a U.S. Senate report last week could violate anti-torture laws. "If these things happened as they're described in the report ... they were not supposed to be done. And the people who did those are at risk legally because they were acting outside their orders," Yoo said on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS". As Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel in 2002, Yoo co-wrote a memo that was used as the legal sanction for what the CIA called its program of enhanced interrogation techniques after the Sept. 11 attacks. | |
Comment: This is simply part of the American political circus. Nothing will change, and soon, another circus will overcome it.
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Yahoo! News
2014-12-14 00:00:00
President Nicolas Maduro charged Saturday that tighter, "stupid" new US sanctions are just further straining to undermine military staff loyalty after Venezuela derailed a bid to oust him. "These sanctions are a threat -- to see if they can break the morale of leaders of our armed forces ... in March, I announced that we put down an attempted coup d'etat, thanks to our brass' loyalty," Maduro said at a speech in Caracas. The tighter US sanctions freeze assets and deny visas to Venezuelan authorities responsible for violence and political detentions triggered by the protests. | |
Comment: Can the psychopathic Western leaders who behave like buffoons, feel shame for being called "stupid" and "idiots"? Not likely. But it's nice to hear the truth told!
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Janet Phelan
New Eastern Outlook 2014-12-14 23:18:00
The Illinois Registration and Disciplinary Commission has just issued a recommendation for a three year suspension of the license to practice law of yet another activist attorney. The prosecution of attorney JoAnne Denison by the IARDC goes to the heart of the amalgamation of the legal system in the US into one streamlined cruise missile. The weaponization of the legal system has been part and parcel of the general attack on the Bill of Rights and Constitutional protections which have resulted in such actions as President Obama placing kill orders on American citizens and the removal of citizenship from independent journalists. Joanne Denison's case is one which deserves enormous media attention (which it has not yet received) as well as howls of indignation (a bit muted, those). For the recommendation to suspend Denison's license did not occur due to any act she committed as an attorney. She was not tried for misrepresenting a client, misappropriating funds or even courtroom misbehavior. Rather, Denison was on trial for running a blog about corruption in probate court. The blog,marygsykes.com, focuses on a particular adult guardianship case in Cook County Court in Illinois and is critical of a number of highly placed individuals in the Cook County legal system. According to the opening statements by IARDC attorney Melissa Smart, attorneys don't have the same First Amendment rights that the rest of us do. Stated attorney Smart: "This case is not about the Constitution or the First Amendment. You will see, precedent is abundantly clear, as an officer of the court, Ms. Denison cannot just say whatever she wants about judges and judicial officers because attorneys are held to a higher standard. We are held to a different standard." Last time I checked, the First Amendment to the US constitution stated that free speech in the United States was a God-given right. I didn't see anything about attorneys, doctors, journalists or any other profession having restrictions on those rights to free speech. | |
Comment: The U.S. public is intentionally being kept in ignorance of corruption at the highest levels of government. A State court is no different.
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John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute 2014-12-17 00:39:00
With Orwellian irony, the U.S. Supreme Court chose December 15, National Bill of Rights Day to deliver its crushing blow to the Fourth Amendment. Although the courts have historically held that ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law, in its 8-1 ruling in Heien v. State of North Carolina, the Supreme Court gave police in America one more ready excuse to routinely violate the laws of the land, this time under the guise of ignorance. The Heien case, which started with an improper traffic stop based on a police officer's ignorance of the law and ended with an unlawful search, seizure and arrest, was supposed to ensure that ignorance of the law did not become a ready excuse for government officials to routinely violate the law. It failed to do so. In failing to enforce the Constitution, the Court gave police the go-ahead to justify a laundry list of misconduct, from police shootings of unarmed citizens to SWAT team raids, roadside strip searches, and the tasering of vulnerable individuals with paltry excuses such as "they looked suspicious" and "she wouldn't obey our orders." When police handcuffed, strip-searched and arrested a disabled man for no reason other than he sounded incoherent, it was chalked up as a mistake. Gordon Goines, a 37-year-old disabled man suffering from a Lou Gehrigs-type disease, was "diagnosed" by police and an unlicensed mental health screener as having "mental health issues," apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait, and subsequently handcuffed, strip searched, and locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will and with no access to family and friends. This was done despite the fact that police had no probable cause to believe that Goines had committed any crime, was a danger to himself or others, nor did they have any other legitimate lawful reason to seize, arrest or detain him. When Goines was finally released, police made no attempt to rectify their "mistake." "I didn't know it was against the law" was the excuse police used to justify their repeated tasering of Malaika Brooks. Eight-months pregnant and on her way to drop her son off at school, Brooks was repeatedly tasered by Seattle police during a routine traffic stop simply because she refused to sign a speeding ticket. The cops who tasered the pregnant woman insisted they weren't aware that repeated electro-shocks qualified as constitutionally excessive and unreasonable force. The Supreme Court gave the cops a "get out of jail" card. | |
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Pepe Escobar
Tom Dispatch 2014-12-16 23:40:00
As Washington "Pivots" to Asia, China Does the Eurasian Pirouette. November 18, 2014: It's a day that should live forever in history. On that day, in the city of Yiwu in China's Zhejiang province, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai, the first train carrying 82 containers of export goods weighing more than 1,000 tons left a massive warehouse complex heading for Madrid. It arrived on December 9th. Welcome to the new trans-Eurasia choo-choo train. At over 13,000 kilometers, it will regularly traverse the longest freight train route in the world, 40% farther than the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway. Its cargo will cross China from East to West, then Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France, and finally Spain. You may not have the faintest idea where Yiwu is, but businessmen plying their trades across Eurasia, especially from the Arab world, are already hooked on the city "where amazing happens!" We're talking about the largest wholesale center for small-sized consumer goods -- from clothes to toys -- possibly anywhere on Earth. | |
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David Ferguson
Raw Story 2014-12-17 21:11:00
In an appearance on talk radio's The Lars Larson Show last week, conservative talking head Ann Coulter claimed that women who report rapes, most of the time, are just "girls trying to get attention." According to Right Wing Watch, the Godless author said that a botched Rolling Stone story about a campus rape at the University of Virginia just shows that "there is no campus rape problem." Comment: That is some ridiculous logic there! So because Rolling Stone backs down on their story, which is probably just the tip of the iceberg regarding college sexual assaults, Coulter decides that campus rape is all just a method young girls use to get attention. Yeah, because being known for being raped and then being an outcast in your social circle is so desirable! Seriously, Coulter doesn't seem to even have two neurons firing here. Either that, or she's projecting her own inner state onto others and that is what she would do to get attention, because psychopaths aren't bothered by the same stuff normal individuals are so feeling cut off from your social circle wouldn't matter to them. Coulter dismissed the notion of date or acquaintance rape out of hand, insisting that unless a victim gets "hit on the head with a brick," it isn't a legitimate rape. "People know what a rape is," Coulter insisted, "and to have girls trying to get attention - from Lena Dunham to this poor psychotic at UVA, Lady Gaga claiming she was raped but she didn't admit it to herself for five years. What major crime do people say, 'I didn't admit it to myself?'" In a second part of the interview, the 53-year-old pundit said that liberals are vastly overplaying instances of campus rape, which, in her experience is generally perpetrated by liberal men like the "Clintons and Kennedys," anyway. Comment: Yes, it's all those evil liberals fault! Those dang Clinton and Kennedys are the only ones who rape, and the young Republican frat members would never engage in that behavior. Ann Coulter is clearly living in another reality. Listen to Coulter's remarks, embedded below via Right Wing Watch: Part One
Part Two
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Jared Keever
Opposing Views 2014-12-17 20:29:00
A Massachusetts woman has been indicted on murder charges after police found the remains of three babies in her home, the Worcester district attorney announced Tuesday. The Boston Globe reports police arrested Erika Murray, 31, in September after searching her Blackstone home following the removal of four neglected children from the home in August. She has been in custody since that time. Authorities had been notified of a problem after one of the children went to a neighbor trying to get help for a crying baby. When they responded, police found four children, ranging in age from 5 months to 13 years old, living in what they said were deplorable conditions. Prosecutors said the 5-month-old and 3-year-old were covered in their own feces and the 3-year-old was unable to walk or talk. Police removed the children from Murray's care. They returned in September with a search warrant for the home. That is when they found theremains of two babies, dressed in diapers and infant outfits. The body of the third child is described by The Boston Globe as that of a fetus. "I have never seen anything like the facts in this case," Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early said at a news conference Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. "Everyone who went into that house, to a person, said they'd never seen anything like it." Comment: Did 'persons' go into the house before or after the horrific conditions and dead babies were discovered? If so, why was that not reported by anyone? The house, which was eventually demolished, was said to be infested with rodents and insects, with feces smeared on the walls. | |
Comment: That our society has degenerated this far is just deplorable. At some point, seven children were in one home. How does this go unnoticed by ANYONE? Where were social services?
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RT
2014-12-17 20:16:00
San Diego State University has banned the Gamma Alpha fraternity after members allegedly threw eggs and waved sex toys at people involved in an anti-rape march on campus in November. San Diego State University (SDSU) said on its website that the national Delta Sigma Phi fraternity had agreed to close the school's Gamma Alpha chapter at least until the fall of 2016, according to Reuters. "There is no place in our campus community for the type of ongoing behaviors displayed by those involved with this fraternity chapter," Eric Rivera, SDSU vice president for student affairs, said in a written statement. "We appreciate the willingness of the national office of Delta Sigma Phi to step in and address these issues and take action with us. We hope that through these actions, when the time is right, they will bring a chapter back to SDSU and be productive members of our community." Gamma Alpha members are accused of taking part in harassing about 35 students taking part in a "Take Back the Night" anti-campus-rape march, as colleges across the nation are addressing a spate of head-turning sexual assault allegations and subsequent demonstrations of defiance by students. | |
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Arturo Garcia
Raw Story 2014-12-16 19:47:00
Young Turks host Cenk Uygur blasted Cleveland Patrolmen's Association head Jeffrey Follmer on Tuesday for his insistence that the shootings of Tamir Rice and John Crawford by local officers were justified. "Just, for Christ's sake, be a human for a second," Uygur said. "And say, 'We're so sorry that [a] 12-year-old kid died, man. Obviously we didn't mean that.' Is that too hard to say? Is that too hard to say - 'We didn't mean to kill your 12-year-old son. We're so sorry about that.'" Comment: Even an apology is too much for police. Just that would mean that they would be admitting they did something wrong, and no matter how egregious their actions are, they refuse to apologize. It's unlikely that the Gestapo ever apologized for anything either. Uygur showed footage of Follmer telling MSNBC host Ari Melber on Monday that Officer Timothy Loehmann was justified in shooting and killing Rice last month, citing footage of the fatal encounter that showed Loehmann killing Rice just two seconds after pulling up near him at a local park. "The male's action spoke for itself," Follmer said. "The video clearly shows, and by the officers' statement, that they were justified in the deadly force." Later he added, "This shooting was tragic, but it was justified." Follmer also said to Melber, "How about this? Listen to police officers commands, listen to what we tell you, and just stop. I think that eliminates a lot of problems. I have kids too, they know how to respect the law. They know what to do when a police officer comes up to them." | |
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Arturo Garcia
Raw Story 2014-12-16 19:33:00
A Cleveland-area man said he was held at gunpoint, ticketed and threatened despite explaining to a police officer that he was speeding home to help his wife, who has a high-risk pregnancy, give birthNortheast Ohio Media Group reported. "Officer Robinson approached me yelling at me to put my hands up and holding me at gunpoint as if I was threatening his life," Samuel Taylor said of the encounter. "His finger was on the trigger." According to WKYC-TV, Taylor's wife, Katie, sent him a text message last Friday morning asking him to come home from work because she was in labor. Taylor said he was traveling at 38 mph in a 25 mph zone when he passed Cleveland Heights Police Officer William Robinson in his patrol vehicle. Robinson started following Taylor, and signaled for him to pull over. But because he was "literally about six or seven houses" away from his home and street parking was blocked by other vehicles, Taylor said, he slowed down and pulled into his driveway, at which point Robinson allegedly approached him with his gun drawn. Comment: There is absolutely no reason for the cop to pull his gun. The man was not a threat to the officer. The fact that cops feel the need to threaten to shoot people if they don't immediately pull over, and that that behavior is clearly allowed, is another clear sign of how the U.S. has become a police state. | |
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Luke Salkeld
Mail Online 2014-12-17 01:50:00
It's something long-suffering Tom and his tormentor Jerry must have known for a long time. Children's cartoons are apparently more violent than films aimed at adults, and filled with 'murder and mayhem' according to research. Animated characters are more than twice as likely to be killed off than actors in movies aimed at a grown up audience, the study claims. In fact, cartoons released between 1937 and 2013 were described as 'rife with death and destruction'. The authors of the research concluded: 'Rather than being innocuous and gentler alternatives to typical horror or drama films, children's animated films are, in fact, hotbeds of murder and mayhem.' | |
Comment: While some could argue that death is a part of life that children will eventually be exposed to, one has to wonder at the overall point in needlessly traumatizing very young children. These grisly scenes of violence and death have been shown to make children more aggressive and research has shown that action and violent programming makes children more vulnerable to the advertising.
It is horribly sick to realize that young minds are being warped for corporate profitability. However this becomes understandable when you consider the effects on society when psychopathic individuals finally gain control. At that point they are able to spread their immoral precepts throughout society to the point where people begin to accept these values as normal. This describes what Andrew Lobaczewski called the process of ponerization in his book Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes : They only begin to lose their grip on society when sufficient numbers of people educate themselves and are then able to inoculate themselves against further deterioration, while taking positive steps to reorganize society and forge new societal links. See also: Ponerology 101: Snakes in Suits Ponerology 101: The Psychopath's Mask of Sanity | |
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Lisa Campbell
The Independent 2014-12-16 17:31:00
The founder of a quietly-growing empire of social cafes has called on a change in the law to prevent the UK's "criminal" levels of food waste - especially by supermarkets - while so many go hungry. Adam Smith, founder of The Real Junk Food Project, in Armley, Leeds, feeds his punters on goods that would otherwise have been thrown away by supermarkets, independent grocers and food banks. The 29-year-old trained chef cooks up stews, casseroles, soups and cakes with the unwanted food, charging a "pay as you feel" policy - allowing punters to pay what they feel they can, and if that is nothing, they can help with the washing up. In just 10 months he has fed 10,000 people on 20 tonnes of unwanted food, raising over £30,000. | |
Comment: Expect to see more of this in a city near you soon as things continue to deteriorate in western "civilization". Get involved!
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Paul Buchheit
America's wealth-takers are all too ready to abandon people when they aren't useful.Alternet 2014-12-14 01:53:00
One of the themes of the writing of Henry Giroux is that more and more Americans are becoming "disposable," recognized as either commodities or criminals by the more fortunate members of society. There seems to be a method to the madness of winner-take-all capitalism. The following steps, whether due to greed, indifference or disdain, are the means by which America's wealth-takers dispose of the people they don't need. 1. Deplete Their Wealth Recent analysis has determined that half of America is in or near poverty. This is confirmed by researchers Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who point out: "The bottom half of the distribution always owns close to zero wealth on net. Hence, the bottom 90% wealth share is the same as the share of wealth owned by top 50-90 families - what can be described as the middle class." The United States has one of the highest poverty rates in the developed world. It's much worse since the recession, especially for blacks and Hispanics. From 2008 to 2013 the stock market, which is largely owned by just 10% of Americans, gained 18% per year. Well-to-do stockholders get capital gains tax breaks, including a carried interest subsidyRobert Reich calls "a pure scam." The bottom half of America, relying on regular bank accounts, earn about one percent on their savings. 2. Strip Away Their Income Earnings due to workers for their years of productivity have been withheld by people in power. Based on inflation, the minimum wage should be nearly three times its current level. An investor report from J.P. Morgan noted a direct correlation between record profits and cutbacks in wages. We hear occasional news about job growth, but low-wage jobs ($7.69 to $13.83 per hour), which made up just one fifth of the jobs lost to the recession, accounted for nearly three-fifths of the jobs regained during the recovery. And it's getting worse. Nine out of 10 of the fastest-growingoccupations are considered low-wage, generally not requiring a college degree, including food service, healthcare, housekeeping, and retail sales. Among rich countries, according to OECD data, the U.S. is near the bottom in both union participation and employee protection laws. | |
Comment: This is so tragic. The psychopathic leaders we elected have made important decisions that have created this reality. Instead of leaders, we have parasites that feed on humanity.
Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes Ponerized Society: Wealth breeds narcissism andpsychopathic behavior | |
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Mark hay
Vice 2014-12-15 00:29:00
Residents of a small village in Kazakhstan are falling asleep at random, sometimes for days at a time, and no one knows why. Since the spring of 2013, the village of Kalachi in the Akmolinsk district (whose name derives from aqmola, a Kazakh term that ominously translates to the white tomb), 150 miles south of the Russian border, has suffered from at least four outbreaks of the disorder. As of the latest wave, from late August to early September, over 60 people, or 10 percent of the town's population of 680 had been affected. Last week, RT released a documentary on the problem titled Sleepy Hallow, Kazakhstan. Locals told the reporters that they fear one day they'll fall asleep and never wake up again. Classified as an encephalopathy of unclear origin - the highfalutin term for a weird brain disorder we can't figure out - villagers who do not simply keel over while moving or working report feeling weakness, dizziness, and memory and motor control loss. At least two children have reported hallucinations as well: Misha Plyukhin saw flying horses and light bulbs, his mother with eight eyes and a trunk, and snakes and worms in his bed, trying to eat his arms; Rudolf Boyarinos cannot remember his visions, but four people had to calm and subdue him as he screamed "monsters!" The sleep is so deep that some locals fear an old man they assumed was dead could have been buried alive. | |
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| Secret History |
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RT.com
2014-12-17 14:15:00
An ancient cemetery in Egypt contains 1 million bodies, according to a team of archeologists who discovered the burial ground. What the site represents remains a mystery, as the scientists are still puzzled about where exactly all the people came from. "We are fairly certain we have over a million burials within this cemetery. It's large, and it's dense," said Project Director Kerry Muhlestein, an associate professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University (BYU). Muhlestein presented his findings at the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities Scholars Colloquium, held in Toronto in November, Live Science reported. Archaeologists from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, have been exploring a mysterious cemetery in Egypt for about 30 years. They excavated about 1,700 mummies within the project in Egypt so far. But there is still much work to do. The cemetery is now called Fag el-Gamous, which means "Way of the Water Buffalo," a title that comes from the name of a nearby road. Archaeologists from Brigham Young University have been excavating Fag el-Gamous, along with a nearby pyramid, for about 30 years. Many of the mummies date to the time when the Roman or Byzantine Empire ruled Egypt, from the 1st century to the 7th century A.D.cemetery] | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Izzy Ferris
Daily Mirror, UK 2014-12-16 14:50:00
When Clawdia was found by fisherman crippled and pregnant, her outlook did not look good - but she has made a remarkable recovery A lop-sided lobster that lost four legs and both claws has stunned experts by growing them all back in just one month. Crippled Clawdia stood little chance of survival in the wild before she was found by fishermen. She was missing all her legs missing on one side, was pregnant, and was also missing both claws. | |
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Scientists tracing the horse's genome have found as humans domesticated the wild horse thousands of years ago, they affected the horse's DNA. Scientists looked at two samples from the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia, one of which dates back some 16,000 years and the other more than 40,000 years - well before humans domesticated horses. In their research, two groups of genes covering social behavior, learning capabilities and muscular development, among other traits, could've been key in the domestication process. They also found that wild subspecies of the domesticated horse, such as the Przewalski's horse, aren't actually ancestors of the domesticated horse, but a sister species that developed concurrently. | |
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| Earth Changes |
All this week we're bringing you stories about the chemical company responsible for the PBB tragedy in Michigan. Michigan Chemical accidentally contaminated the state's food supply in the 1970s, but the legacy of that company is still very much with us today. Michigan Chemical - which later became Velsicol Chemical - made more than just PBB, and it left these toxic chemicals behind in St. Louis, Michigan. One woman insists something is wrong with the birds Teri Kniffen and her family moved to St. Louis in 1994. She had heard about Velsicol Chemical and the PBB tragedy in Michigan, but when they bought their house, they didn't realize they were moving right next to where the old plant site was buried. In 2001, she started noticing dying robins in her yard. "When I'd go out in the backyard, and get near them, they wouldn't move," says Kniffen. "They just would stagger around the yard, and they'd end up dying." Kniffen said she would find around 10 to 12 dead birds a year - mostly American robins. She said she tried to get officials from the MDEQ and the EPA to test the birds, but they mostly ignored her. An MDEQ official told her to collect the dead birds in her freezer, but she says by the time they came to collect them four years later, she was told the birds could not be tested. So two years ago, Kniffen had the birds tested herself at MSU, and the birds tested positive for acute DDT and DDE poisoning. Kniffen videotaped the birds as well. Here's what she and her neighbors would see (this video might be disturbing for some viewers):
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thelocal.dk
2014-12-16 21:05:00
An outbreak of bird flu has likely killed about 3,000 seals off the coast of Sweden and Denmark this year, Swedish authorities announced Tuesday, raising the alarm a month after Germany. "So far this year about 3,000 harbour seals have died in Swedish and Danish waters and were probably infected with the bird flu virus H10N7," the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management said in a statement. The virus was first detected among sick and dead seals found in April off the coast of Gothenburg southwest of Sweden -- and the agency said the death toll was far higher than initially thought. In October the numbers of seals killed by the virus was estimated at about 700 but researchers now say most of the dead animals had sunk, making estimates difficult. | |
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Dhaka Tribune
2014-12-17 20:19:00
The incident took place near Cox's Bazar-Chittagong highway of the area on Wednesday Three people have been killed in an attack by elephants in Nayakhal area of Kheochhiya union under Satkania upazila in Chittagong. The deceased are Mahbubul Alam Talukdar, 35, son of late Abul Hossain Talukdar of the area, Shakil, 15, son of Md Forkan of Kaliaish area of the upazila and Shahadat Hossain, 30, son of Ameer Hossain. Sub-inspector of Satkania police station Kazi Golam Kibria said: "The incident took place near Cox's Bazar-Chittagong highway of the area on Wednesday." Some 14 elephants came down to crop field beside the highway around 5:30pm. As the people tried to stop them from destroying the crops, the elephants got furious and attacked the people, leaving one of them dead on the spot, the SI said. Two injured were taken to a local clinic where the doctors declared them dead, he added. | |
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Adonai
The Watchers 2014-12-16 20:01:00
Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said a rapidly developing low-pressure mass is expected to bring heavy rain, snow and strong winds which will affect almost entire Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday, December 16 and 17, 2014. Heavy storm conditions, high waves, floods, disruption of transport system and avalanches are expected as a result. JMA called for particular readiness in Hokkaido for potential violent snow storm of magnitude seen "once in a few years". Maximum instantaneous winds reaching 108 - 126 km/h (67 - 78 mph) are forecast nationwide except for Okinawa, Amami and some other regions. The Kuril Islands will see wind gusts eclipse typhoon strength and could approach 130 - 160 km/h (80-100 mph) Tuesday night and into Wednesday. According to the JMA, two low-pressure masses, one over the Sea of Japan and the other over Honshu, are expected to grow fast and move northeast on Tuesday, eventually forming an atmospheric pressure distribution typical to winter over Japan. (JT) The two masses will converge Wednesday over Hokkaido and grow further, creating a situation that will cause a strong cold airstream to continue to move toward Japan until Thursday.
Meteorologist Robert Speta of the WestPacWx said heavy rainfall could trigger localized flooding on Japans Pacific coast. This storm acts a lot like the sea effect snow event we seen this past weekend in Tohoku and Hokoriku. "To put it in perspective this storm will have a deeper pressure and stronger gradient than the one on March 4, 2013 that killed nine in Japan," he said. | ||
Comment: Japan storm impact:
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kiiitv.com
2014-12-16 18:19:00
Investigators revealed Tuesday that a Flour Bluff woman who was found dead in her home Monday night appears to have been attacked by dogs she was fostering, and that attack is what resulted in her death. The Nueces County Medical Examiner determined that 64-year old Rita Woodard, known to many as Rita Ross, died from a heart attack after multiple dog bites. One of her dogs was put to sleep after being severely injured by the attacking dogs. Ross, who spent much of her time rescuing stray dogs, was discovered around 6:30 p.m. Monday. Several dogs were found feeding on her remains. The Medical Examiner released a report late Tuesday stating that Ross had died from coronary artery atherosclerosis following multiple dog bites. Corpus Christi Police Department Commander John Houston, who supervises Animal Care Services, said it appeared that five of the 17 dogs found at Ross's home were responsible for the attack. Those five will likely be euthanized. Many of the dogs were in cages at Ross's home, and four have already been turned over to the group For the Love of Strays for adoption. The remaining eight dogs will be turned over to Ross's son, who lives out of state.
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Emily Smith
Opposing Views 2014-12-17 00:00:00
A mysterious creature with sharp claws and pointy teeth was discovered on Tuesday at a beach in Santa Barbara, after the area received some brutal storms and damage. The brownish animal was discovered near a drain washout and has remained unidentified.Residents are baffled by its presence and have been unable to identify the species of animal or where it came from. No other animals with a similar appearance have been found in the area. | |
Comment: Something strange and worrying is definitely occurring on the BBM as this is only one out of many mysterious and rare creatures that were either caught or spotted recently:
Creatures from the deep signal major Earth Changes: Is anyone paying attention? More mysterious and rare sea creatures washing up along US west coast this summer | |
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Major cities in the Bay Area are experiencing record rainfall during the first half of December, the National Weather Service said Tuesday. National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Bell said: San Francisco has seen more than 9.14 inches of rain through early this morning. The previous record of 7.10 inches was set in 1889. Data go back as far as 1849, Bell said. | |
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A dust-up between the people of Walmart and a confused deer inside a North Carolina store was caught on camera by a customer. The deer, apparently a doe, wandered into the store Monday afternoon in Charlotte's University City neighborhood and ended up being tackled and pinned to the ground by a group of Walmart workers and customers. Witness Edmond Ratcliffe captured cellphone video of the incident. "You never know when you have seen it all... I'm in Walmart today and a wildlife shopper decided that he needed to stop by Walmart for a celebrity appearance," Ratcliffe posted on Facebook.
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Comment: See also these other recent reports: Deer crashes through window into furniture store in Cedar Falls, Iowa
Deer crashes through window into home in Strykersville, NY Even more strange animal behavior: Deer crashes into restaurant in Iowa More animal lunacy: White-tailed deer breaks through 2 doors at New Jersey home | ||
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Vox
2014-12-16 22:44:00
If the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park ever had another massive eruption, it could spew ash for thousands of miles across the United States, damaging buildings, smothering crops, and shutting down power plants. It'd be a huge disaster. A super-eruption would be very bad - though also pretty unlikely But that doesn't mean we should all start freaking out. The odds of that happening are thankfully pretty low. The Yellowstone supervolcano - thousands of times more powerful than a regular volcano - has only had three truly enormous eruptions in history. One occurred 2.1 million years ago, one 1.3 million years ago, and one 664,000 years ago. | |
Comment: We do not know whether the Yellowstone supervolcano will erupt or not, but there are a lot of volcano eruptions reported around the world that have not been predicted by our scientists.
Here is the short list of the multiple volcanoes that erupted during the last year, as documented by SOTT:
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| Fire in the Sky |
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KOAA5
2014-12-17 19:45:00
A possible fireball was seen west of Colorado Springs above Mountain Shadows around 5 p.m. Tuesday. The picture was sent to News5 by viewer, Lisa. Meteorologist Stephen Bowers said it's likely a meteor. He said, "There are reports of this being seen around Denver, too. It's actually under review by the American Meteor Society to see if it can be classified as a fireball." Stephen tells us the Geminids meteor shower hit its peak last weekend, but we could still see some meteors linger. The Geminids is one of the more active meteor showers each year, known for slow-moving, bright meteors. | |
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David W Owen
Leicester Mercury 2014-12-13 21:20:00
Sky watcher Sam Green thought he'd struck gold when he captured this incredible image of what looks like meteors speeding towards Earth. The 27-year-old builder, from Countesthorpe, was doing a job for his boss in Kibworth when he spotted mysterious goings on high in the clear, blue sky. He said: "Where we were is on a flight path and you often get planes and helicopters flying over from Leicester Airport, which are interesting to look at and my camera is never far away from me. "There was this brilliant, clear blue sky on Thursday and it was about 2pm when I happened to look up and noticed these two peculiar objects with vapour trails. "They were close together and looked like they were falling straight down. "When I looked away and looked back they were gone. I thought 'that's strange'. "But about half an hour later, I looked again and saw four of them, so I thought 'right, I'm going to take a picture' and grabbed my camera." | |
Comment: The astronomer is clueless about meteors. It's pretty clear to us that a larger object broke up. What's doubly interesting is that meteor(s) passed that way "half an hour earlier". We have noticed something similar happening before, where one meteor appeared to follow pretty much the exact same path not long afterwards.
It's mind-bending when one considers that the planet has surely moved on (both in space and on its own axis) by that point. So how does the 'follow-up meteor' know to track the same course as its predecessor? There is clearly much more to discover about meteor science. In the meantime, we face the disquieting fact that there have been a LOT more of meteors appearing the world over - even during daytime - in recent years. | |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Mike Barrett
Natural Society 2014-12-15 19:27:00
There is no question that antibiotics have lent a helping hand in treating various ailments, but now this modern medicine is fueling an issue that was perhaps never considered before. Since their introduction, antibiotics have slowly been fueling the development of superbugs - bacteria that are completely resistant to our conventional treatments. In fact, a recently released report says thatsuperbugs could claim 10 million lives each year as well as $100 trillion by 2050. Economist and head of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, Jim O'Neill says that the trend of growing infections resistant to drugs, which are already killing hundreds of thousands of people across the globe every year, is set to get worse unless we do something now. | |
Comment: While the headline about antibiotic resistant superbugs may sound a bit dramatic, the reality of this growing issue is quite concerning:
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Andrea Stone
Alternet 2014-11-19 01:50:00
Bring up genetically engineered foods, and most people focus on the obvious but most vexing questions: are they safe to eat? Or how might they make me sick? Such questions and the inability of current science to provide clear answers, have triggered a polarizing debate about labeling of a scale unprecedented in the history of food labeling. The result has been a slew of proposed state laws, international trade disputes, all mostly centering around the potential risks to human health. But lost in the din of this raucous debate are many other, much less controversial reasons for GMO labeling that have long been the basis for labeling many other foods FDA mandated over the years, that came without international consumer campaigns and did not trigger multi-million-dollar anti-labeling lobbying efforts. In fact, many such requirements have more to do with protecting consumers from being misled about the quality and nature of food products than with preventing foodborne illness. | |
Comment: Read more about the The GMO labeling conundrum:
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| Science of the Spirit |
Domestic violence can affect children even before they're born, indicates new research by Michigan State University scientists. The study is the first to link abuse of pregnant women with emotional and behavioral trauma symptoms in their children within the first year of life. Symptoms include nightmares, startling easily, being bothered by loud noises and bright lights, avoiding physical contact and having trouble experiencing enjoyment. | |
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Michael Erard
Speak or write in English, and the world will hear you. Speak or write in Tamil or Portuguese, and you may have a harder time getting your message out. Now, a new method for mapping how information flows around the globe identifies the best languages to spread your ideas far and wide. One hint: If you're considering a second language, try Spanish instead of Chinese.American Association for the Advancement of Science 2014-12-15 18:29:00
See larger image here. The study was spurred by a conversation about an untranslated book, says Shahar Ronen, a Microsoft program manager whose Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) master's thesis formed the basis of the new work. A bilingual Hebrew-English speaker from Israel, he told his MIT adviser, César Hidalgo (himself a Spanish-English speaker), about a book written in Hebrew whose translation into English he wasn't yet aware of. "I was able to bridge a certain culture gap because I was multilingual," Ronen says. He began thinking about how to create worldwide maps of how multilingual people transmit information and ideas. | |
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Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.
PsychCentral 2014-12-15 00:00:00
Many of us dismiss our emotions. We think of them as capricious and inconvenient. We think they stall problem-solving. We think they take too much time to process, and we don't have the luxury of simply sitting and stewing. If we grew up in a home where emotions were vilified or regularly suppressed, where good girls didn't get angry and good boys didn't cry, we might've adopted the same views and habits of repressing ourselves. But "emotions communicate invaluable insights to us," said Katie Kmiecik, LCPC, a psychotherapist at Postpartum Wellness Center in Hoffman Estates, Ill. She thinks of emotions as signs on the highway of life. "People who pay attention to these 'signs' lead happier lives. People who ignore their emotional signs may end up 'lost.'" According to Sheri Van Dijk, MSW, RSW, a psychotherapist in Sharon, Ontario, Canada, "emotions always serve a function." They give us information about a situation, and motivate us to act, she said. | ||
Comment: Dr. Gabor Maté says that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness and in the restoration of health. The emotional centers of the brain, which regulate our behaviors and our responses and our reactions, are physiologically connected with the immune system, the nervous system and the hormonal apparatus.
His work with patients undergoing palliative care showed a number of characteristics of these patients. One was the repression of anger; people did not know how to express negative emotions. Another was people who were pleasers, they always tried not to disappoint other people and never knew how to say no. They took on everything without a murmur, because they saw their role as always being the caregivers and the caretakers. And they had an exceedingly powerful sense of duty, role and responsibility. Learning how to acknowledge and express emotions properly may just save your life!
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| High Strangeness |
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Alejandro Rojas
OpenMinds 2014-12-16 00:19:00
The Aeronautical and Astronautical Association of France (3AF) has signed an agreement with Chile's Committee for the Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA) to cooperate on the study of UFOs. 3AF posted an article on their website late last month explaining their newly founded relationship with CEFAA. 3AF is an important organization in France, and in Europe's aeronautical industry in general.Similar to the United State's American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, it is a society for those participating in, or interested in, the aerospace industry. Surprisingly, 3AF also has a strong interest in the investigation of UFOs. Although, it might not be too surprising to those who know that the French government is one of very few that have an official organization that investigates UFOs. It is called the Study and Information Group on Aerospace Unidentified Phenomena (GEIPAN), and is part of France's National Center for Space Studies (CNES), their version of NASA.
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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news.yahoo.com
2014-12-17 14:11:00
A generous mystery man has made the holiday season a little brighter for employees of two Massachusetts coffee shops. A man wearing a cowboy hat walked into Marylou's in Hyannis on Saturday and handed the worker behind the counter 15 envelopes, each containing a crisp $100 bill. Manager Victoria Grandy tells the Cape Cod Times (http://bit.ly/1zmGccs ) "MERRY CHRISTMAS" was printed in red on the front of each envelope. |
