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David Seaton
David Seaton's News Links 2014-12-31 05:22:00
Last December in my New Year's predictions for 2014 I wrote: My clearest reading of 2014's tea leaves is "instability": worldwide instability and in my opinion this instability has its origins at the heart of the most developed economies of the western world. The causes? We are undergoing a technological revolution and process of globalized outsourcing, combined with a reduction of the welfare state that is severely degrading the middle class in developed countries and converting them slowly, but surely into working-poor. Anyone who has read a bit of history could tell you how dangerous that is.I will stand on that this year too and I think things are going to get worse, perhaps much, much worse. The Reuters year end wrap gives a rather useful shopping lists of potential disasters. "Normally after a year like this you might expect things to calm down," said John Bassett, former senior official with British signals intelligence agency GCHQ now an associate at Oxford University. "But none of these problems have been resolved and the drivers of them are not going away." The causes are varied - a global shift of economic power from the West, new technologies, regional rivalries and anger over rising wealth gaps. ReutersI would add to that the possibility of an airborne pandemic, a sort of sneezing "Ebola", which is going to happen sooner or later in today's interconnected world... or (much more likely if the US-EU pressure doesn't let up) some very, very nasty surprise from Russia, because as Dimitri Orlov says,"The Russians don't threaten, they act". | |
Comment: David Seaton is an American journalist who has lived in Spain for many years. Sometimes it takes some distance to avoid the boiling frog syndrome and see one's country for what it has become.
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| Puppet Masters |
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Vladimir Platov
New Eastern Outlook 2015-01-03 22:16:00
According to various publications in the American and foreign media, the United States has createda global system of cyber espionage that allows the interception and processing of personal data around the globe in violation of fundamental human rights. Tapped phones, intercepted short messages, supervised discussions in social networks and stolen emails - this is the ugly reality we are living in. The NSA and other units of the United States Intelligence Community are more than capable of breaching any mobile operating system, be it iOS, Android or BlackBerry OS. In 2011 US intelligence agencies successfully finished the development of geo-location tracking software that allows the NSA to collect and save more than five billion location records of mobile users around the world on a daily basis, and then through a special program labeled CO-TRAVELER analyze and monitor the movement of certain individuals that could be of interest for Washington. In addition, since 2010 information on social contacts of US citizens, their personal data,including telephone calls, Internet logs, bank codes, insurance data is being processed by intelligence agencies on a regular basis. | |
Comment: The fact that it has come to this -- and that it will continue, and only get worse -- does not speak highly of the human race: 1) that the people doing the 'collecting' of this data can live with themselves, 2) that we have allowed it to happen.
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Sputnik
2015-01-03 21:41:00
Israel allegedly decided to freeze a monthly transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian authorities after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed a request to join the International Criminal Court, Reuters reports, citing an Israeli official. The monthly tax revenues amount to approximately $125 million. Palestinians use the funds to run their government and pay salaries to those employed in the public sector. Israel collects customs duties and taxes on behalf of the Palestinian authorities under the 1993 agreements, known as the Oslo Accords, according to the Jerusalem Post. Israel repeatedly halted transfer of monthly revenues as sanctions against Palestine at times of heightened security and diplomatic tensions, according to Reuters. | |
Comment: Some people are just consistently jerks (i.e., psychopaths). Consistent jerks consistently ascend to high positions in ruling bodies. Such jerks have been ruling Israel for generations now. The chutzpah involved here is just staggering. Abbas wants Palestine to join the International Criminal Court. This is an institution for international law. International law is supposed to be a good thing. But Netanyahoo calls this a 'hypocritical request'? It's obvious what's going on here. Israel is collectively punishing Palestine for seeking a legitimate, legal way of bringing Israel to justice. Netanyahoo and his ilk would simply prefer not be be in prison, where they belong.
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Greg Hunter
USAWatchdog 2015-01-04 00:00:00
Gold and derivatives expert Rob Kirby thinks crashing oil prices are going to lead to a 2008 style financial meltdown. This is not a maybe - a market explosion is going to happen in 2015. Kirby contends, | |
Comment: Kirby is in a good position to observe the machinations of global central control. For more as well as recommended personal responses see:
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Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook 2015-01-03 21:39:00
Washington's meddling across Asia has grabbed headlines recently in Hong Kong where US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded opposition leaders attempted to trigger a "color revolution" targeting the government of Beijing and Hong Kong's local administrators. Its spectacular failure was owed to the almost immediate exposure of the protesters as foreign-backed proxies serving foreign interests. Additionally, political chaos has plagued Thailand amid a half-year struggle to oust Wall Street-Washington-backed dictator Thaksin Shinawatra and his subversive, well-funded proxy political front and various faux-rights advocates all extensively funded by Washington. Malaysia has likewise fought carbon-copies of US-backed opposition fronts in Hong Kong and Thailand, with its own battle against "Berish" led by Wall Street and Washington's Anwar Ibrahim. Popular support, despite reports by the Western media, in each respective country, has been exposed as extremely small. In Thailand, for instance, even at the height of Shinawatra's bid to seize back power in 2010, his "red shirt" movement represented a paltry 7% of Thailand's 70 million citizens - a minority that has only shrunk since then. | |
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Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge 2015-01-04 13:33:00
US foreign policy just jumped the shark: a few days after both the FBI and the US State department were humiliated when it was revealed that it wasn't North Korea but a disgruntled, laid off Sony employee that was responsible for the "hack", and when the best possible course of action would have been to simply let this latest embarrassing incident fade from memory, moments ago Obama - currently not working out next to a rainbow or flashing his support of "Shaka" - just signed his first executive order of 2015, imposing even more sanctions against North Korea. | |
Comment: Believing so many lies must be brain-damaging in some way. As Zero Hedge points out:
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Ukrainian Nazis plan to pay U.S. private military company Academi (formerly Blackwater) for training
Eric Zuesse
Global Research 2015-01-03 12:42:00
The Russian Government's Tass 'news' agency is alleging that "The US private military company Academi (formerly known as Blackwater) ... has confirmed to the Kiev authorities its readiness to start training an experimental battalion of 550 men as of January at the request of Ukraine's General Staff," according to an unnamed source, which source is probably one of the few remaining anti-nazi bureaucrats still remaining in the Ukrainian Government. The reported price of this Blackwater (a.k.a. "Xe," a.k.a. "Academi") training contract is $3.5 million. Furthermore, "'Ukraine has said it is ready to pay the money on the condition of assistance from the Ukrainian association Patriot, providing technical and financial support for the project,' the source said." That organization is Patriot of Ukraine. If this report in Tass is true, then the Ukrainian Government, which now is being funded almost entirely by U.S. taxpayers (inasmuch as it no longer meets the financial requirements of the IMF and EU, both of which receive funding from both U.S. and European taxpayers), and for which the U.S. Congress just passed and the U.S. President just signed into law in December authorization of a $450 million donation, is now co-funding this military training, along with - as wikipedia describes "Patriot of Ukraine" (but with wikipedia's footnotes removed) - a Ukrainian nationalist organization with racist and neo-Nazi political beliefs. It constitutes a paramilitary wing of the Social-National Assembly of Ukraine (S.N.A.), an assemblage of neo-Nazi organizations and groups founded in 2008 that share the social-national ideology and agree upon building a social-national state in Ukraine. Both the "Patriot of Ukraine" and the S.N.A. engage in political violence against minorities and their political opponents. The leader of the "Patriot of Ukraine" and of the Social-National Assembly is Andriy Biletsky. The S.N.A. derived from "the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine," whose name was derived from the National Socialist Party of Germany - the original Nazis. America's CIA hides its longstanding support of nazis after World War II (see this and this), but the Bushes and Obama have continued it even decades after the Soviet Union and its communism ended. Consequently, in 2004, the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine was advised by the CIA to, and it did, change its name to the "Freedom Party," or "Svoboda," because that sounds better to Americans. Biletsky has been kept out of high official authority in its post-coup Ukrainian Government, by the Obama Administration, but wikipedia's article on Ukraine's racist and overtly pro-Hitler "Azov Battalion" notes that Biletsky was placed in charge of the Azov Battalion, and also that Biletsky "was awarded by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko with a military decoration, 'Order For Courage'," so that the post-coup Ukrainian Government publicly honored this high nazi ('nazi' meaning racist-fascist, irrespective of any political party) operative, which Biletsky certainly has been, and is. Even the pro-U.S.-invasion Foreign Policy magazine has described the Azov Battalion as "fascist." That propaganda-organ of the American aristocracy says "The conflict in eastern Ukraine has come, in some ways, to resemble a battle between Ukrainian and Russian nationalists," condemning both sides equally, without even mentioning that this is an invasion by nazis into the Donbass region - as if whom the invaders are, and whom the defenders are, makes no difference (which is a very convenient underlying assumption for today's United States Government to promote, especially since ours is now a fascist if not outright nazi government, despite the liberal rhetoric from Obama and some others, to fool suckers - and the American public are no longer represented in it). | |
Comment: For more on Academi involvement in Ukraine, click here and here. According to a former CEO of Academi, the company works as a virtual extension of the CIA.
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Sputnik
Russia's 11th humanitarian aid convoy to eastern Ukraine has left a rescue center near Moscow early Sunday morning and is heading towards the border between Russia and Ukraine.2015-01-04 11:30:00
Russia's 11th humanitarian aid convoy to Ukraine's southeastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk left a rescue center near Moscow on Sunday morning and is heading to the Russian border region of Rostov, the country's Emergencies Ministry said. The convoy of more than 60 trucks with humanitarian aid left the Noginsky Rescue Center at 6:00 a.m. local time (03:00 GMT). The rescuers of the center in Nogino have repeatedly delivered humanitarian cargo to Ukraine's southeast. "The 11th convoy carrying humanitarian aid for Donbas [Ukraine's southeast] will be formed of these trucks as well as of the trucks going to Rostov Region from other areas [of Russia]," the ministry said. Earlier on Saturday, the head of the Russian National Crisis Management Center Viktor Yatsutsenko said that the convoy will include 120 vehicles and is set to deliver more than 1,400 tonnes of aid. Since August, Russian convoys have delivered some 13,400 tonnes of humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine, including food, medicines, power generators and warm winter clothing. The Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Donbas are facing a major humanitarian crisis after Kiev-led forces began a military operation against local independence supporters in April. | |
Comment: The last, 10th convoy, brought New Year presents to the children of East Ukraine. Russia continues what it has been doing from the start, helping the people that are being targeted by the Western-backed junta in Kiev.
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| Society's Child |
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Richard Shears
Daily Mail, UK 2015-01-04 19:53:00
Almost an entire plane-load of passengers refused to re-board an AirAsia jet after one of the engines struck a problem as it started to taxi at Surabaya airport, it was reported today. It was the same airline that lost an Airbus last weekend as it flew from Surabaya to Singapore with the presumed loss of all 162 passengers and crew. As search teams reporting seeing a fifth large object at the bottom of the Java Sea which might be parts of the missing plane, the new drama involving an engine was the kind of news the airline did not want. | |
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RT.com
2015-01-04 17:31:00
Frank Van Den Bleeken, a serial murderer and rapist, who has spent 30 years in prison, is set to be euthanized in Belgium on January 11. He has asked to die due to his "unbearable" psychological suffering, local media reports. Fifty-year-old Frank Van Den Bleeken has been convicted of repeated rape and murder, and the "euthanasia will indeed be implemented" in the northwestern town of Bruges, a justice ministry spokeswoman told local De Morgen newspaper. "Now the time has come," she said. | |
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Chris Gee
Daily Mirror, UK 2015-01-03 16:07:00
A freak incident led to distressing scenes as a family home was invaded by a high speed pyrotechnic This was the terrifying moment a stray rocket shot directly into a family's apartment. The occupants were fortunate to escape serious injury or worse as the footage shows a firework heading straight towards them at their home in Brazil. With the accuracy of a heat seeking missile, the powerful pyrotechnic loops scarily away from its intended trajectory and towards the apartment block.
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RT.com
2015-01-04 13:31:00
Five men have been arrested for kidnapping a young Japanese woman, who managed to escape after some three weeks of repeated gang-rape at gunpoint near a Buddhist holy site in Bodh Gaya, a popular Indian tourist spot. A gang of men, some of whom presented themselves as tour guides, reportedly raped a Buddhist student, who came from Japan, after kidnapping and taking her to Paro village in the East Indian state of Bihar. | |
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Benjamin Mueller
The New York Times 2015-01-03 00:00:00
A 23-day-old boy died on Friday after the police found him wounded and unconscious in his family's apartment in East Harlem, the authorities said. The infant, Deion McNeil, was unresponsive and bleeding from a gash on his forehead when he was found on the living room floor, the police said. Detectives on Saturday were questioning Deion's mother, Ebony McNeil, who was the only adult at home with the boy when she called the police around 7:30 p.m. on Friday, the authorities said. Two other children - Ms. McNeil's 6-year-old son and 17-month-old daughter - were also at home at the time. Emergency medical workers took Deion to Metropolitan Hospital Center, which is across the street from the family's apartment in the Washington Houses on Second Avenue at 97th Street. He was born in that hospital, according to a post on the Facebook account of Larry McPhail, his grandfather. But doctors could not save Deion on Friday. | |
Comment: Seems like there are so many more tragic infant deaths lately.
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Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog 2014-12-29 16:14:00
The American people are feeling really good right about now. For example, Gallup's economic confidence index has hit the highest level that we have seen since the last recession. In addition,nearly half of all Americans believe that 2015 will be a better year than 2014 was, and only about 10 percent believe that it will be a worse year. And a lot of people are generally feeling quite good about the people that have been leading our nation. According to Gallup, once again this year Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in America and Barack Obama is the most admired man in America. I don't know what that says about our nation, but it can't be good. Unfortunately, when things seem to be going well common sense tends to go out the window. A couple days ago, theGuardian ran an article entitled "Goodbye to one of the best years in history", and a whole lot of people out there are feeling really optimistic these days. But should they be? Sadly, what we are experiencing right now is so similar to what we witnessed in 2007 and early 2008. The stock market had been on a great run, people were flipping houses like crazy and most people were convinced that the party would never end. But then it did end - very painfully. The signs of trouble were there, but most people chose to ignore them. Sadly, the exact same thing is happening again. | |
Comment: There is no such thing as "the free market". Indeed there may have never been. The price of oil is simply another weapon US imperialists wield against their enemies, in this case, Russia and Iran, though if pesky Venezuala goes down too, so much the better. What the short-sighted morons running this show didn't seem to calculate was the damage being done to domestic oil production which can't survive at prices less than $80-$90 per barrel. It may go even deeper. Saudi Arabia has cheap oil and lots of it. It's also seems willing to run a budget deficit for the first time in its history due to dropping revenue. Perhaps they are playing to knock their 'friend' the US off as a competitor, too?
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Adrian Karatnycky
Washington Post 2014-12-30 23:18:00
Kiev is abuzz with creative reforms in governance, major anti-corruption initiatives and budgetary clawbacks against rent-seeking oligarchs. Civic activism is on the upsurge, and a new government team - populated with many foreign-born and Western-educated ministers - is largely free from the control of the country's super-rich, who dictated policy in the past. In recent months, Ukraine's defenses have strengthened since the Russian takeover of Crimea and the eastern industrial Donbas region. Ukraine's security service, formerly riddled with corruption and Russian infiltration, has rebuilt its leadership. Combat readiness has improved and weapons production is on the rise, as are the refurbishment and modernization of tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers. With winter in full swing, the danger of a major Russian offensive has faded. Comment: It was never there to begin with! | |
Comment: This isn't the first time the Washington Post has posted something closely resembling the truth. See also: SOTT EXCLUSIVE: Shock! US media outlet Washington Post questions U.S. intervention in Ukraine. But despite presenting a whitewashed version of these battalions' early activities, and totally misrepresenting Russia's involvement in the conflict, at the very least they got across a good point: these groups are composed of lawless, nazi psychopaths. They are nothing more then mercenary death squads. And THOSE are the people the U.S. and NATO, and by extension all those people they represent, are supporting, directly and indirectly.
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Stephon Johnson
Amsterdam News 2015-01-02 17:02:00
In 2011, while caught up in a corruption scandal, former NYPD Detective Stephen Anderson testified in court that fabricating drug charges on innocent victims to meet quotas was common practice. Three years later, cops in Brooklyn are again accused of planting evidence and allegedly lying about "informants" to make gun-related arrests. Two weeks ago, a judge in Brooklyn ordered prosecutors to produce a confidential informant that cops were accused of inventing as part of a scheme to boost the numbers of gun arrests via planting weapons on innocent men. The scenario described in court usually went as follows: a tip came in from a "confidential informant" that someone had a gun. Officers would then find a man who matches the description at a reported location, then a gun is discovered and an arrest is made. | |
Comment: See also: Planting Evidence to Sow Fear: Chicago Cops are the Terrorists
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| Secret History |
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Jon Stone
The Independent, UK 2015-12-31 01:51:00
A 5,000 year-old underground city thought to be the largest in the world has been discovered in central Turkey. The subterranean settlement was discovered in the Nevşehir province of Turkey's Central Anatolia region, in the historical area of Cappadocia. Cappadocia is famous in archaeological circles for its large number of underground settlement. But the site, located around the Nevşehir hill fort near the city of Kayseri, appears to dwarf all other finds to date. Hasan Ünver, the mayor of the city on those outskirts the discovery was found, said other underground cities were nothing more than a "kitchen" compared to the newly uncovered settlement. Mehmet Ergün Turan, the head of Turkey's housing development administration, said the discovery was made during the groundwork for a housing project meant to develop the area. Derinkuyu underground city, to the south of Nevşehir city "It is not a known underground city. Tunnel passages of seven kilometers are being discussed. We stopped the construction we were planning to do on these areas when an underground city was discovered," Mr Turan told Turkish publicationHurriyet Daily News. The agency has already spent 90 million Turkish liras (£25m) on the development project, but the organisation's head said he did not see the money spent as a loss due to the magnitude of the historical discovery. The upper reaches of the city were first spotted last year but it was not until now that the size of the discovery became apparent. The organisation has so far taken 44 historical objects under preservation from the site. Cappadocia's characteristic volcanic rock landscape lends itself to underground cities. The area has been officially registered with Turkey's Cultural and Natural Heritage Preservation Board and no further building work will be done. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Dianne Depra
Tech Times 2015-01-03 18:19:00
Asteroids are headed in Earth's direction and with most of them about as wide as a double-decker bus, a collision would most likely result in significant damage. However, while experts warn against the potential dangers of these asteroids, they also say that it is unlikely that these will veer off course and hit the planet. According to NASA's Near Earth Object Program, there will be 43 asteroids flying close to Earth in January and 25 in February. In March, the number further drops to 15. The biggest threat for January is the asteroid 2007 EJ slated to closely approach the planet on Jan. 12. With a maximum diameter of nearly 1 mile, the asteroid is traveling at around 34,500 miles per hour. The next-biggest asteroid threat for the first month of the year is the 1991 VE. It features a diameter of 0.87 miles and is expected to skim past the planet on Jan. 17. On Jan. 15 and 23, 0.68-mile wide asteroids will be flying by, the 2014 UF206 and the 2062 Aten, respectively. | |
Comment: Definitely a heads-up situation. If any of these break up as they approach Earth, it could cause multiple Chelyabinsk type damage.
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| Earth Changes |
Bird enthusiasts from all over the Midwest descended upon Quincy Saturday to get a glimpse of the extremely rare Ivory Gull. "It's a fairly small gull but very elegant, pure white with very dark eyes and legs, with this cute little bill that's dark with a yellow tip on it," biology professor Jim Mountjoy said. It was rainy, cold, and damp. But that didn't stop Knox College Biology Professor and bird expert Jim Mountjoy from getting a glimpse of the Ivory Gull. He says the bird is a native of the high Arctic Islands and is rarely seen in the lower 48. "This is an exceedingly rare bird to spot this far south," Mountjoy said. "Anywhere in the continental United States it's pretty hard to see, even if you go to Alaska it's sometimes quite difficult." Mountjoy says he's been bird watching for over 40 years, and has only spotted the Ivory Gull one other time. He calls Saturday a very rare sighting in the state of Illinois.
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newsinenglish.no
2014-12-29 21:06:00
Norway's Coast Guard faced a grim and smelly task over the weekend: Discarding a dead whale whose cadaver was in danger of exploding. The dead whale had washed up in a bay at Sandøy outside Bergen on Norway's West Coast. It was found by a local resident on Friday and immediately raised concerns because it was showing clear signs that gas had formed inside the whale's stomach. That meant it could explode, so the coast guard ended up towing the dead whale out to sea and shooting it to puncture the inflated intestines, so the cadaver would sink. | |
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The Tribune (India)
2015-01-03 20:21:00
The ITBP, which guards the high-altitude Himalayan border posts with China, has sounded a high alert as moderate to heavy snowfall has been reported in the region in the last 24 hours. The snowfall continued in the higher reaches of this part of the Himalayas today, ITBP sources said here. "The snowfall has broken records of recent years. After 2005, dense snowfall used to occur in this part of the Himalayas after January 15, but this year it has started early," said Kedar Singh Rawat, an ITBP officer. According to ITBP sources, while 120 cm snowfall was recorded at Joligkong Ridge, near the China border in the Vyans valley of Dharchula subdivision, the last border post at China border at Nabhidhang received 90 cm snowfall in the last 24 hours. "The snowfall, which started ahead of the Garbiyang post of the ITBP, witnessed 40 cm to 80 cm snowfall in the last 24 hours," said Rawat. In Munsiyari, the peaks of Panchachuli, Rajrambha, Chiplakedar and Hansling received heavy snowfall in the last 24 hours. Weather Department sources said snowfall in higher reaches and rainfall in lower valleys would continue for the next 24 hours. | |
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P Gosselin
NoTricksZone 2015-01-04 18:59:00
I'm Catholic and this Sunday I'm announcing that I'm disassociating myself from the Vatican and its pope. I urge other skeptic Catholics to consider doing the same. This is not a step I've taken lightly. I'll be opting out of Germany's Kirchensteuer (Church Tax) and will not attend any services in the future. With their latest planned encyclical they are indicating that they have shifted back to the Dark Ages of bad-weather witches, superstitions and Medieval indulgences. Worse, they are openly subscribing to nutty end-of-times theories. This comes on the heels of a recent announcement that Pope Francis intends to issue an encyclicalon climate change. I am not renouncing Catholicism, rather I am solely renouncing my recognition that the Vatican and Pope are the faith's administrator and moral compass. It's the last straw in anunending string of corruption, child sexual abuse and scandals that have raged within the Catholic Church in recent times. | |
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Alissa Skelton
Omaha World-Herald 2015-01-03 15:38:00
A large portion of Pierce Street near 20th Street caved in on New Year's Day, exposing a hole 15 feet deep. The sinkhole spans both lanes of traffic, an estimated 25 feet in diameter, said Craig Christians, manager of Omaha's sewer maintenance division. "This cave in is on a much bigger scale than we usually see," Christians said. "A big one like this we don't see very often." The city shut down Pierce Street east of 20th Street on Christmas Day after someone noticed the street sagging, he said. Pierce is 12 blocks south of Dodge Street. Maintenance workers who opened a manhole cover discovered that a brick manhole, more than 100 years old, had collapsed, allowing water to wash out the soil underneath the street. Christians said a hole at the bottom of the manhole likely started everything. City workers monitoring the street on New Year's Day saw the giant hole for the first time. "The pavement, under its own weight and (with) no support under it, collapsed," Christians said. Because the hole is so deep, Christians said, it could take months to repair the street. The last major sinkhole Christians could remember was at the intersection of 20th and Farnam Streets. A leaking pipe caused that sinkhole, which spanned about a quarter of the intersection. | |
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One woman was killed and another injured when a temple elephant went out of control during a temple procession in Maharashtra on Saturday. The incident took place in Pali village of Satara District, during a procession to celebrate the regionally popular Khandoba festival. Three lakh people were part of the procession and many had a lucky escape. "There was a huge crowd. Two women were injured and amongst them one woman died. People were running helter-skelter to save their lives and that is when the accident took place," Police Sub-Inspector Mohan Tawde told reporters "We were sitting in one place. Suddenly the elephant went out of control and trampled people," said an eyewitness. Another eyewitness said, "The elephant suddenly charged towards us. People ran and in the chaos my son got hurt in the leg." The incident once again brings to light the dangers of keeping elephants in captivity and using them in religious and marriage processions. While this a common practice in India it often leads to stress for pachyderms and lead to accidents. | |
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RT
2015-01-04 07:30:00
Two earthquakes, of 4.2 and 3.0 in magnitude, have occurred 80 kilometers to the north of Los Angeles, generating over a dozen aftershocks. The first tremor shook the area at about 7:00 pm local time on Saturday (3:00 am GMT on Sunday). It occurred 13 kilometers from the town of Castaic, and was reported to be a foreshock to the second tremor. It happened at 7:18 pm local time on Saturday (3:18 am GMT on Sunday), about 10 kilometers from the town of Castaic and 80 kilometers from Los Angeles, the US Geological Survey reported. Initially, the magnitude of the second tremor was reported at 4.5.
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Comment: See also: Two earthquakes strike San Francisco Bay area in a span of-5 minutes shaking felt in South Bay
Recent earthquake in Los Angeles a warning that California overdue for a big earthquake Four San Francisco fault lines have built up enough seismic strain to unleash destructive earthquakes | |
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iol.co.za
2014-12-30 14:04:00
A Zimbabwean man survived an attack by a charging buffalo by hanging on to its horns, The Chronicle reported on Tuesday. His intestines protruding from a first goring by the buffalo, Given Ndlovu, 38, claims he managed to grab hold of the animal's horns and then its nose, hanging on until it gave up the attack. "The lone buffalo came charging towards me as I was herding cattle on Saturday. It attacked me with its horns in the stomach and I fell down. "I then held its horns as it attempted to attack me again. I then left the other horn and grabbed its nose and held it for some time," Ndlovu reportedly said from his hospital bed. Afterwards, in his weakened state, Ndlovu stripped off his T-shirt and bandage his stomach before calling relatives. He had surgery and was recovering in a hospital in Bulawayo. The attack happened in the Mvuthu district, near Victoria Falls and other game-rich forestry and safari areas in western Zimbabwe. Officials reportedly suspect Ndlovu may have been trying to poach an animal in the area. Source: Sapa | |
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Alex Sosnowski
Accuweather 2015-01-03 17:17:00
In a pattern fitting for January, waves of cold air will flow into the Midwest and East with brutal blasts of arctic air poised to sweep southeastward next week. Following a large storm that bring snow and ice to a large part of the Upper Midwest and interior Northeast this weekend, multiple blasts of cold air will follow. The first blast will have many people shivering as they head back to work and school in the Midwest early next week. Another batch of arctic air set to move during the middle to second half of next week is likely to bring the lowest temperatures of the season so far to parts of the Midwest and much of New England and the mid-Atlantic. With the frigid air moving in, temperatures may hold in the single digits around Chicago and the teens around Chicago or lower on multiple days next week.
It is possible temperatures fail to climb above zero F on one or more days in northern New England. Highs may be in the single digits across upstate New York and central New England with night time lows well below zero. Highs will be in the 20s on multiple days from Boston to New York City and Philadelphia. Atlanta is likely to have highs in the 40s most days next week, despite sunshine. Gusty winds accompanying the arctic outbreaks will produce much lower AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures. Because of this the air will be beyond painful, reaching dangerous and life-threatening levels in much of the Midwest and Northeast for those who spend a significant amount of time outdoors without proper protection. | ||
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| Fire in the Sky |
No new articles.
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| Health & Wellness |
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Bahar Gholipour
Live Science 2015-01-02 19:48:00
Fat cells just under a person's skin may be the first responders to invading bacteria, buying time until the white blood cells arrive at a wound site, according to a new study. The new findings suggest that the task of fighting infections is not solely the responsibility of the immune system, the researchers said. Moreover, fat cells may fight infections by producing antimicrobial compounds, lab experiments in mice and human fat cells showed. "That was totally unexpected," study co-author Dr. Richard Gallo, chief of dermatology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, said in a statement. "It was not known that [fat cells] could produce antimicrobials, let alone that they make almost as much" as immune system cells, he said. | |
Comment: Fat really is a wonderful thing! A high-fat, low-carb diet can reverse obesity and insulin resistance. And cold therapy not only activates brown fat cells, which enhances metabolism, but alsoboosts the immune system.
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Paul Fassa
Realfarmacy 2015-12-17 13:06:00
A recent ABC news item featured an unfortunate tragedy of a women hospitalized in an intensive care burn unit with Stevens-Johnson syndrome after taking a pharmaceutical antibiotic. This "rare" syndrome is gruesome. She was placed into intensive care of a burn unit in the University of California Irvine's burn unit, as 70 percent of her body is burning "from the inside out". Dr. Joshua Zeichner, a dermatology professor at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan commented to ABC on this issue. "You're not truly burned, but what happens is you have compromised the skin barrier function." In other words, the epidermis separates from the dermis and 2nd and 3rd degree burns and blisters manifest painfully. | |
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Neuroscience News
2014-12-30 12:00:00
Dogs, cats and other animals may improve social skills of children with autism. Dogs and other pets play an important role in individuals' social lives, and they can act as catalysts for social interaction, previous research has shown. Although much media attention has focused on how dogs can improve the social skills of children with autism, a University of Missouri researcher recently found that children with autism have stronger social skills when any kind of pet lived in the home. said Gretchen Carlisle, research fellow at the Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction (ReCHAI) in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine. Pets often serve as "social lubricants," Carlisle said. When pets are present in social settings or a classroom, children talk and engage more with one another. This effect also seems to apply to children with autism and could account for their increased assertiveness when the children are living in a home with pets, Carlisle said. | |
Comment: It's puzzling why the rates of autism have increased so dramatically during the last decades. It seems more and more likely that there are multiple external factors contributing to autism instead of it just being an accidental genetic neurological condition. Our medical authorities tell us that the high increase of autism is only due to improved and more efficient diagnosis of autism. In the mid '90s, 1 out of 500 children were diagnosed with autism. Now it's about 1 out of 70 children. In the United States, the prevalence of autism has increased 30% in just two years, between 2012 and 2014, according to CDC. Are we supposed to believe that this kind of epidemic growth is happening only because we're able to detect it better? Read these articles to learn more:
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Rachael Rettner
LiveScience 2014-12-24 11:05:00
The plethora of microbes living in the human gut not only affect people's physical health, they may also influence mental health, according to a growing body of research. Recent studies in animals show that changes in the gut bacteria community appear to make mice less anxious, and also affect levels of the stress hormone cortisol. In humans, there is some very early evidence of a link between gut bacteria and mental health. A new study from England found that supplements that boost "good" bacteria in the gut (called "prebiotics") may alter the way people process emotional information, suggesting that changes in gut bacteria may have anti-anxiety effects. Scientists are now interested in studying whether probiotics (strains of good bacteria) or prebiotics (carbohydrates that serve as food for those bacteria) could be used to treat anxiety or depression, or if the substances improve patients' response to psychiatric drugs, said study author Philip Burnet, a researcher in the University of Oxford's department of psychiatry. [5 Ways Gut Bacteria Affect Your Health] | |
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Jon Rappoport
NoMoreFakeNews 2014-12-30 11:23:00
The supposed answer to that question is the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, Article 6, paragraph 2:
By inference, the individual states declare their own supremacy when local communities try to nullify or avoid state statutes. Keep in mind that the US Constitution enumerates powers granted to the federal government, and reserves all other powers for the states or the people. But this restraint has been trampled on so many times it's barely visible under the tonnage of federal law and regulation. | |
Comment: Some communities are attempting to make a difference and stand up for the health of its citizens.
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| Science of the Spirit |
No new articles.
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| High Strangeness |
No new articles.
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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thelocal.se
2015-01-03 13:52:00
Four Swedish jumping rabbits capable of clearing up to three metres in a single hop are gearing up to compete in the Rabbit Grand National in England at the end of this month. It is is the first time Sweden's floppy-eared athletes will compete at Yorkshire's Small Animal Show dubbed the 'Crufts of the small animal world' - since Cherie, a two-year-old bunny from Gävle, bounded to victory in the 2012 hurdle race. The sport of bunny athletics originated in Sweden in the 1970s, speading to England in 2011, when Swedish bunnies first competed at the Great Yorkshire Showground in Harrogate. Scandinavia still leads the world, with the Danish hopper Tosen holding the record for the highest jump (close to a metre), and another Dane, Yabo, holding the three metre long-jump record. Karin Molin from Sweden, who is bringing the Scandinavian competitors to the show, hopes her prize rabbit can beat his personal record.
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