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Pierre Lescaudron
Sott.net 2014-12-28 13:01:00 Credit Defaut Swap (CDS), mortgage backed security (MDS), bottom-up investment, high frequency trading, naked short sale... these are the kind of complicated terminology you encounter when you start exploring the financial jungle. But don't be mislead. This overuse of jargon is designed to confuse and destroy any motivation to explore further. Clearly 'they' don't want you to understand because they are hiding some rather dirty secrets wrapped up in apparently complicated jargon. Scratch beyond this seemingly complex veneer however, and the reality of finance is surprisingly simple... and disgusting. The objective of this article is to explain, in layman terms, finance principles and the slavery most individuals and states are subjected to. I will also show why things might soon change dramatically and offer some sound advice for such times of financial turmoil. |
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Ignatius Reilly
Sott.net 2015-01-02 21:00:00
I want to like French economist and best-selling author, Thomas Piketty. Anyone who backhands Hollande et al by refusing the legion d'honneur on the grounds that governments wouldn't know honor if it bit them on the ass, has to be awesome. Alas, Piketty is not so awesome. While the statement that a state has no right to decide what is, or is not, honorable is philosophically interesting and implies a mind capable of extra-ordinary thought, the idea of progressive taxation, which is what Piketty espouses, implies utter stupidity. | |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Mark Hosenball and Jim Finkle
Reuters 2014-12-30 13:46:00
U.S. investigators believe that North Korea likely hired hackers from outside the country to help with last month's massive cyberattack against Sony Pictures, an official close to the investigation said on Monday. As North Korea lacks the capability to conduct some elements of the sophisticated campaign by itself, the official said, U.S. investigators are looking at the possibility that Pyongyang "contracted out" some of the cyber work. The official was not authorized to speak on the record about the investigation. The attack on Sony Pictures is regarded to be the most destructive against a company on U.S. soil because the hackers not only stole huge quantities of data, but also wiped hard drives and brought down much of the studio's network for more than a week. | |
Comment: With no evidence to support their claims, the U.S. fabricated a story out of thin air to again vilify both North Korea and Russia, call for more strict cybersecurity legislation, and divert attention from a massive protest movement across the country against police brutality.
Joseph Goebbels must be turning in his grave from envy! | |
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Joshua Tartakovsky
Fort Russ 2015-01-02 19:26:00
What is one to make of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's recent statement that violence and force have failed in suppressing the Donbass and that negotiations must be carried out?Poroshenko said that there is no military solution to the war in Donetsk and Lugansk while qualifying his statement by saying that if Russia will launch an intervention, Ukraine will introduce martial law. Poroshenko's statement that "we haven't got the resources for an offensive today" can be interpreted to mean that either he is planning to get the resources in the future or attempting to appear pragmatic so as to deflect accusations from ultra-nationalists that he betrayed their cause. Poroshenko also said that he would meet the leaders of Russia, Germany and France in Kazakhstan on January 15 (incidentally the same day in which anti-Russian government protests are expected to be held in Moscow and around the world) to discuss a settlement. | |
Comment: In sum, prepare for more of the same. And to get an idea of what that 'same' really is, just watch this:
Don't miss this the previous documentary by the same filmmaker, either: | |
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RT
2015-12-31 00:00:00
The Falkland Islands - a UK overseas territory Argentina lays claim to - have been allegedly reviewing their defenses after news Russia may offer Argentina fighter jets. Moscow could swap them for beef and wheat, UK's Daily Express says in its report. The deal reportedly involves a lease/lend of twelve Sukhoi Su-24 all-weather attack aircraft, which NATO calls "Fencer A". The jets will be able to do air patrols over the Falklands' capital, Port Stanley. According to the tabloid, Ministry of Defense officials fear Buenos Aires will take delivery of the planes well before the 2020 deployment of the Navy's 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and its F-35B fighters, leaving a "real window of vulnerability." Up to 1,500 troops, backed by a naval warship that visits throughout the year, are permanently based on the Falklands, along with four RAF Typhoon jets, plus anti-aircraft and artillery batteries. | |
Comment: Another Judo kick from Master Putin!
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RT
2014-12-31 16:11:00
Palestine is planning its next steps after the UN Security Council failed to adopt the Arab coalition's bid for the creation of a Palestinian state and an end to Israeli "occupation," officials said. The Palestinian Authority could also schedule a date for applying to join the International Criminal Court and other international agencies, negotiator Saeb Erekat said, adding that officials would hold a "very serious meeting" on Wednesday. "There will be no more waiting, no more hesitation, no more slowdown," Erekat said. "We are going to meet and make decisions." Fatah's Central Committee and the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) will decide whether to sign the Rome Statute by the ICC, a senior Palestinian source told the Times of Israel. | |
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Greg Miller
The Washington Post 2014-12-30 00:00:00
In a crescendo of anger over American espionage, Germany expelled the CIA's top operative,launched an investigation of the vast U.S. surveillance programs exposed by Edward Snowden and extracted an apology from President Obama for the years that U.S. spies had reportedly spent monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone. In an address to Parliament last year, Merkel warned that U.S.-German cooperation would be curtailed and declared that "trust needs to be rebuilt." But the cooperation never really stopped. The public backlash over Snowden often obscured a more complicated reality for Germany and other aggrieved U.S. allies. They may be dismayed by the omnivorous nature of the intelligence apparatus the United States has built since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but they are also deeply dependent on it. Over the past year, Germany has secretly provided detailed information to U.S. spy services on hundreds of German citizens and legal residents suspected of having joined insurgent groups in Syria and Iraq, U.S. and German officials said. | |
Comment: It is interesting to observe how Germany justifies its policies to be a subordinate to the US over useless, manufactured US intelligence.
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RT
2015-01-02 18:34:00
Prince Andrew, son of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, has been accused of having sexual relations with an underage girl in a case submitted to a US court on Friday. The woman involved in the case, who has not been named, told a court in Florida she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew multiple times by disgraced US multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein. The statement is part of a wider case against Epstein, who is accused of "loaning out" the then-teenager to his friends and associates. | |
Comment: A representative for Prince Andrews once stated it was "unwise" for him to associate with Epstein, a convicted pedophile. But both were part of a much larger network of pedophiles and sex offenders, otherwise known as high-ranking politicians, who are categorically "unwise":
Also see: | |
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RT
2014-12-30 00:00:00
Al-Qaeda has issued the latest edition of its online magazine, encouraging Islamic jihadists to carry out lone wolf attacks on major Western airlines, as well as providing a step-by-step bomb making guide and advice on how to evade airport security. The English-language Inspire magazine was established in 2010, and is believed to be an Al-Qaeda publication in the Arabian Peninsula. Set up to influence Western jihadists with little or no command of Arabic, the magazine is alleged to be the brainchild US jihadist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a drone strike in 2011. Sheikh Nasr Al-Ainsi, writing in the latest edition on Christmas Day, tells readers that 'lone mujahedeen' are the "West's worst nightmare". The article, "Destination airport, and Guess What's on the Menu?" gives tips to potential jihadists on how to make a bomb, evade airport security and then publicize their actions. The writers also outline potential targets. | |
Comment: It will be interesting to see what the CIA will deliver to its citizens from its 'menu'.
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Chandrahas Choudhury
Bloomberg View 2014-12-25 00:00:00
This month, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, India's powerful, male-only Hindu nationalist outfit, finally played a card it has long held in its hand. It announced an intensive conversion program to recover its "lost property" in India, feeding the dream of its cadre and allied organizations of an India that is nothing less than "100 per cent Hindu." The RSS has visibly grown in power and ambition in the seven months since the arrival of a new government -- unsurprisingly, as it counts among its past members the current prime minister, Narendra Modi, as well as many old and new chief ministers in the states. With this carefully calculated provocation under a regime sympathetic to its ideology, the nongovernmental organization is seeking victories in many arenas. In the realm of law, the RSS wants the passage of a stringent nationwide bill that would ban religious conversions. In the public sphere, it has arrogated the right to pronounce not just on the future of minorities in India but that of India's Hindu majority as well. In the war of the religions, it seeks to spread the news that there is now a Hindu fundamentalism eager to goad and trump well-established Christian and Islamic fundamentals in India and around the world. And among its own vast cadre, it has generated the sense that it, much more than the government of the day or the diverse institutions of civil society and business, holds the keys to India's future. | |
Comment: RSS is fundamentalist organization that was created to represent the non-secular Hindus to counter the overwhelmingly secular independence-movement leadership during British colonial days. India's secular foundations go back 2300 years, from the Mauryan empire to the British empire, which ruled for 89 years and found it easy to keep it that way, though they converted few with economic and administrative incentives.
Modi, who meticulously eliminated the influential patriarchs of his political party from power is in a "pickle". If he openly opposes the Hindutva, he will give more power to rebellious Hindu fundamentalists and other disgruntled BJP leaders. If he supports it openly, the country will face communal flames. This will be Modi's toughest challenge with no easy solutions. For most Indians, it is politics as usual with religious connotations. Can Modi soften the RSS stance? Only time will tell. Sensational headings like "A new vision of India, 100 percent Hindu" from Western media will give more credit to RSS than it deserves and it serves their agenda well. | |
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NASA has a lot of satellites in orbit staring at the Earth. I knew that, but I hadn't quite realized just how many were currently active! Which satellites do you recognize? Any favorites? Landsat has been around forever providing absolutely gorgeously surreal views of home, while RapidScat is a brand-new arrival glommed onto the International Space Station. I admit I have a soft spot for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO2) after watching it eventually launch last summer. The Global Precipitation Monitor doesn't take photographs so much as continuously track rain and snow in detail that is boggling to behold. I only have a passing familiarity with Soumi NPP - that's the satellite that contributed the base-image for Earth Selfie Day, which is more than I can say about CloudSat, an experimental radar project I've never encountered. | |
Comment: NASA is spying on everything, except what matters the most - asteroids, meteors. It may be monitoring them secretly, but they publicly claim that they have no funds for it.
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Margaret Kimberley
Global Research 2014-12-31 12:00:00
On December 17, 2014, the Obama administration announced changes in relations with Cuba which broke with over fifty years of foreign policy decisions. The United States will open an embassy in Havana for the first time since 1961. All of the Cuban Five [5] political prisoners are now free. While Congress must approve a complete end of the trade embargo, some trade restrictions have already been loosened. Of course, Yankee imperialism gave with one hand, and took with the other. The day after the Cuba announcement, president Obama signed legislation imposing sanctions against theVenezuelan [6] government. Instead of asking why the United States would help Cuba but punish its biggest benefactor, Americans are celebrating what they hope is a return to Cuba's status as a de facto American colony. Anyone who depended on the inane exultations from the corporate media and so-called leftists would think that Cuba ceased to exist from January 1, 1959 until now. They speak as if it has remained in a state of suspended animation, not waking up until the United States woke it with a kiss, as if in a fairy tale. While Americans think that Cubans exist as relics like cars from the 1950s, that nation has succeeded in achieving a number of accomplishments which Americans refuse to acknowledge. Of course that is easy to do if revolutionary Cuba isn't thought of as a real nation, which is as much as the average American mind can fathom. | |
Comment: So, did the Cuban government betray Putin, who earlier this year announced to forgive $32 billion, 90% of their debt to Russia by moving towards U.S hegemony? Or are they trying to outmaneuver the Empire of Chaos? It's hard to say at this point because it's unlikely that Cuba would decline this offer, because canceling the embargo has been one of their main goals for over 50 years. It's clear that United States won't give up its efforts for counterrevolution and through this deal they may now have more influence inside Cuba. We'll have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, check also these articles:
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Press TV
2015-01-02 11:46:00
A top commander of Iraq's volunteer forces has said aircraft serving the so-called anti-ISIL coalition formed by the US drop weapons for the Takfiri terrorist group. Secretary General of Badr Organization Hadi al-Ameri said there was compelling evidence that the coalition's aircraft threw arms and aid to the extremist group in the Salahuddin province in north-central Iraq. He also said the coalition had failed to clear any area from the ISIL militants, adding that volunteer forces only relied on local support in their clean-up and liberation operations against the terrorists. Ameri added the volunteer forces would soon secure areas in Salahuddin and Kirkuk, which remain in the hands of the ISIL. The ISIL terrorists control some parts of Iraq and Syria. They are engaged in crimes against humanity in the areas under their control. They have terrorized and killed people of all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians. Since August, the US and some of its allies have been conducting airstrikes against what they say are ISIL positions in Iraq. Some members of the US-led coalition also started bombarding 'ISIL targets' inside Syria in September. However, the raids have so far failed to dislodge the Takfiri group. | |
Comment: See also: Saudis provide weapons to terrorist groups in boxes labeled 'food aid'
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Joanne Maria McNally
Global Research 2015-01-01 00:00:00
With the recent failed bid by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Arab League at the UN security council, to try and end Israelis' occupation of Palestinian land and to create a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders, it seems an appropriate moment to review the situation for Palestinians since 1915. What is the background to the demonization and brutalization of Palestinians? Most of all, why is the international community was assisting properly and why has it not assisted the Palestinians in protecting or restoring their inalienable rights over decades? Why is their situation so brutally upside-down almost a century after they were supposed to be independent and determining their own state affairs? | |
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Yaël Ossowski
Watchdog.org 2015-01-01 12:21:00
In a ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court, the nation's top court found that a police officer who mistakenly interprets a law and pulls someone over hasn't violated their Fourth Amendment rights. The case pertained to a traffic stop initiated on Nicholas Heien in North Carolina, on account of a broken tail light. The stop and search of the vehicle, conducted by the officer after the initial citation, yielded a good amount of cocaine. Heien was charged with drug trafficking. The problem? According to North Carolina traffic law, only one tail light needs to be functional. That means the initial stop, justified on these grounds, would have been illegal - and so would the seizure of the cocaine found in Heien's car. | |
Comment: Know your rights so you'll know what to do when the police don't know (or claim to not know) the law:
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Charlotte Krol
The Telegraph, UK 2015-01-02 23:02:00
American Airlines plane carrying approximately 200 people bursts a tyre upon landing at Rio de Janeiro airport but drives forward to gate An American Airlines plane suffered at least one blown tyre when it landed at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil airport this week. The Boeing 767-300 had just touched down at Rio de Janeiro/Galeao-Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport when the incident happened. The aircraft continued to taxi towards the gate despite smoke billowing from beneath the plane.
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Chris Kitching
Daily Mail, UK 2015-01-02 22:26:00
An Air France flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Montreal after one of its business class seats overheated and set off an alarm. The Boeing 777-300 was flying from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to Washington Dulles International Airport when 'strong heat' was detected within the components of an empty seat, said Air France spokesman Cedric Landais. He said the flight crew decided to divert to Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport as a precaution. | |
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RT
2015-01-02 14:26:00
The bodies of 30 victims of the AirAsia Flight QZ8501 plane crash have been recovered as internationally-backed search operations attempt to locate the remainder of the wreckage amid rough weather conditions. Five of the victims' bodies which were recovered were still belted into their seats when they were found, Indonesian Navy official Col. Yayan Sofiyan told local channel Metro TV. Twenty-one bodies were found Friday, the majority by a US naval vessel. Four bodies have been identified so far. Hayati Lutfiah Hamid was identified Sunday by her fingerprints, and three more bodies were found to be those of passengers Kevin Alexander Soetjipto and Grayson Herbert Linaksita, and crewmember Khairunnisa Haidar Fauzi. Rear Marshal Henry Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, has said that bad weather is a concern as his staff attempt to safely conduct the search. The search is also complicated by the fact that in 1942 one of the largest naval battles of World War II, the Battle of the Java Sea, took place in the area. | |
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Vauro Senesi
Fort Russ 2015-01-01 20:06:00
Tr.: I get so fed up with talking heads who know nothing but what our State Department feeds them. Read this. Share it. An Italian journalist reports on his tour of Lugansk. I translated it through tears. The Daily has published reports of Vauro Senesi from the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk, a place where the local population is being, on a daily basis, killed by battalions of the extreme right in the service of the puppet state of Kiev. All this in the most absolute silence of the Italian media. A silence to cover up a foreign policy - that of Renzi and Mogherini - unjustifiable and compromised - to follow the United State in this mad rush to the abyss against Russia ... This article of Vauro Senesi in Fatto Quotidiano is an important exception. | |
Comment: Senesi is one of the few journalists willing to say the simple truth. And after months of senseless killing, President Poroshenko appears to be planning more. The genocide will continue. The world will watch. Few will speak up, and their voices will not be counted. It seems only Russia sees and cares. The rest of the world has closed their eyes.
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Robert S. Colter, University of Wyoming
The Conversation 2015-01-02 20:24:00
Marcus Aurelius (121-180CE) was emperor of Rome at the height of its influence and power. One can only imagine the pressures that a person in his position might have experienced. The military might of the empire was massive, and much could happen in the fog of war. Conspiracies ran rampant through the imperial court. What might be lurking right around the corner seemed unforeseeable. Economies flourished and fell into ruin. Barbarians at the Gates! And if Marcus was stressed out, how much more might the ordinary Roman suffer from this uncertainty? But, as we start 2015, is Marcus's world really all that different from ours? Today, global financial markets seem to move of their own accord as life savings vanish. Conflict around the world and violence at home seems hopelessly incomprehensible for most of us. US elections have seen some of their lowest voter turnout in recent memory, and the country seems more polarized than ever. The constant flow of information from the media and internet can make one feel small and ineffectual. If all these stresses push one into a state of despair, or at least a sense of futility, maybe we can follow Marcus' advice and turn to philosophy. In particular, the philosophy of Stoicism. | |
Comment: As a follow up on Marcus's quote, read what George I. Gurdjieff wrote about The Last Hour of Life:
Imagine, that you have only a few minutes, maybe an hour left to live; somehow you have discovered exactly when you will die. What would you do with this precious hour of your stay on Earth? Would you be able to complete all your things in this last hour, do you have a conscious idea about how to do it? And letting go your last breath would you feel satisfaction from knowing that you have done everything possible in this life to fulfill that you are constantly present, always vibrating, always waiting, like the son is waiting for the father-sailor? In the manifested world everything has its beginning and its end. In the Real World everything is always present and one beautiful day you will be allowed to forget everything and leave the world "forever". Freedom is worth a million times more than [political] liberation. The free man, even in slavery, remains a master of himself. For example, if I give you something, let's say, a car, in which there is no fuel, the car cannot move. Your car needs a special fuel, but it is only you who is able to define what kind of fuel is needed and where to get it. You have to define yourself how to digest my ideas to make them yours, so that they belong only to you. Your car cannot work on the same fuel my car is working on. I suggest to you only the primary material. You have to get from it what you can use. So, more bravely, sit down at the steering wheel. The organic life is very fragile. The planetary body can die at any moment. It is always one step from death. And if you could manage to live one more day, it is only a chance accidentally given to you by nature. If you will be able to live even one more hour, you can consider yourself to be a lucky person. From the moment of conception we are living on borrowed time. Living in this world you have to feel death each second, so settle all your life affairs, even in your last hour. But how can anyone know exactly his last hour? For the sense of security make up your things with nature and yourself in every hour given to you, then you will never be met unprepared. The man has to be taught this starting from the [esoteric] school: how to breath, to eat, to move and to die right. This has to become a part of an educational programme. In this programme it is necessary to include the teaching about how to realize the presence of "I" and also how to establish consciousness. Question: How to act if you do not feel that there is something unfinished? Gurdjieff answered after a pause. He took a deep breath and replied: Ask yourself who will be in difficulty if you die like a dog. At the moment of death you have to be wholly aware of yourself and feel that you have done everything possible to use all, within your abilities, in this life which was given to you. Now you do not know much about yourself. But with each day you dig deeper and deeper into this bag of bones and start knowing more and more details. Day by day you will be finding out what you should have done and what you have to re-do among the things you have done. A real man is one who could take from life everything that was valuable in it, and say: "And now I can die". We have to try to live your lives so that we could say any day: "Today I can die and not be sorry about anything". Never spend fruitlessly the last hour of your life because it can become the most important hour for you. If you use it wrongly, you may be sorry about it later. This sincere excitement that you feel now can become for you a powerful source of the force that can prepare you for perfect death. Knowing that the next hour can become the last one for you, absorb the impressions which it will bring to you as a real gourmet. When lady death will call you, be prepared, always. The master knows how to take from each tasty piece the last bit of the most valuable. Learn to be the master of your life. When I was young I learned to prepare fragrances. I learned to extract from life its essence, its most subtle qualities. Search in everything the most valuable, learn to separate the fine from the coarse. One who has learned how to extract the essence, the most important from each moment of life, has reached a sense on quality. He is able to do with the world something that can not be done by an aboriginal. It could be that in the last moments of your life you will not have the choice where and with whom to be, but you will have a choice to decide how fully you will live them. The ability to take the valuable from life - is the same as to take from the food, air and the impressions the substances needed to build up your higher bodies. If you want to take from your life the most valuable for yourself, it has to be for the good of the higher; for yourself it is enough to leave just a little. To work on yourself for the good of others is a smart way to receive the best from life for yourself. If you will not be satisfied with the last hour of your life, you will not be happy about the whole of your life. To die means to come through something which is impossible to repeat again. To spend your precious time in nothing means to deprive yourself the opportunity to extract from life the most valuable. In this world, to live life through, from the beginning to the end - means another aspect of the Absolute. All greatest philosophers were carefully preparing for the last hour of their life. And now I will give you the exercise to prepare for the last hour on the Earth. Try not to misinterpret any word from the given exercise. The Exercise Look back at the hour that has passed, as if it was the last hour for you on the earth and that you have just acknowledged that you have died. Ask yourself, were you satisfied at that hour? And now reanimate yourself again and set up the aim for yourself. In the next hour (if you are lucky to live one more) try to extract from life a little more than you did in the last hour. Define, where and when you should have been more aware, and where you should have put more inner fire. And now open your eyes wider, and by this I mean - open more possibilities for yourself, be a little more brave, than you were in the previous hour. Since you know that this is your last hour and you have nothing to loose, try to gain some bravery - at least now. Of course, you don't have to be silly about it. Get to know yourself better, look at your machine as if from the outside. Now, when you are dying, there is no sense to keep your reputation and your prestige. And now onward, until the real last hour, aspire with persistence to receive the most you can from life that is of value, develop your intuition. Take just a few moments each hour to watch at the hour that passed, without judgment, and then tune yourself to extracting more from the following hour. If we look at each hour like at a separate life unit, you can try to do as much as you can to use every unit totally. Force yourself and find the way to make the next hour much more than the one before, but also be aware that you have taken care of the debts you collected till now. Increase the self-sensing and self-knowledge of yourself, and also increase the ability to master yourself, this will change the work of your machine, which is always out of your control. And these abilities can become the indication of the real changes. And it is absolutely unimportant what the machine is thinking about this. ...To live the rest of your life rehearsing your death hour by hour - is not at all pathological. None can receive more from life than the cancer patient, who knows approximately when he will die. And since he already recognized how he wishes to spend the rest of his life, he will not have to make the total change in it, but he will be able to go somewhere, where he always wished to go, but would not do it in other circumstances. The man who knows that he will die soon, will try to use to the maximum every hour of the rest of his life. This is exactly what Christ meant when he said that the last days will come soon - the days before the Last Judgment. We are all standing in front of the Judge, but it is not the others who are judging us, but we ourselves do the last estimation of our life. We do not have to fail the most important examination, where the most serious judge is ourselves. Each moment, taken alone, represents the particle of the eternal Creation. Therefore each moment we can extract the most subtle substances, that we can call "the essence of life". Imagine yourself the substance "air" or the substance "impressions". Finally, draw in your mind the substance "moment". Yes, even the moments of time are the substances. If we will be able to extract the finest substances from the coarser, sooner or later we will have to pay for it. This law is called The Law of Balance. That is why we will learn how to pay immediately for those that we receive from life. Only then we will not have any debts. To pay immediately - this is what is called "real doing". "To do" - is to think, to feel, to act, but "real doing" - is to pay immediately. To do - may mean only one thing: to extract the essence from each moment of life and at the same moment to pay all the debts to the nature and yourself; but only when you have "I", can you pay immediately. Real life is not a change of activity, but a change of the quality of the activity. Destiny - is destiny. Each one of us has to find himself in the whole order of things. It is not too late yet to start doing it now, although you have spent the greater part of your life in sleep. Starting from today you can begin to prepare yourself for death and, at the same time, to increase the quality of your living. But do not delay with the start - maybe you really only have just one more hour of life. Question: Can we share this with others? I think it is very important what we have heard about this evening. - You can retell it word by word, but until you will [can?] do this [exercise] yourself, it would mean nothing for others. Existence is the means, or the instrument, for action. Think about this and you will find out why it is so. Question: Therefore, we cannot pay the debts, if we do not exist, or if our "I" is absent? - Why do you have such a need to pay? Pay for what? If life is only a coincidence, then there is no sense to go on. This does not mean that you have to end your life with a suicide. Opposite, you have to put all your effort into "to live". Ordinary man always lives, just going with the flow. He is not just sleeping, he is absolutely dead. To really live, it is necessary to support the efforts of nature, to take actively from life, and not to act passively - wherever it flows. Extracting from life the most precious, you have to be able to operate your emotions. See how fairly you can estimate yourself. Look attentively at yourself and you will see many remarkable ways to be fair. Each time notice for yourself different moments when the desires appear. Act as before, but always be aware of their presence. Transport to the world the part of your blood, but one of the higher level. At the end of each hour after you have estimated its usefulness, imagine that you just woke up in the absolutely unknown in comparison to the previous one gone by. It is important to note that the apparent continuation of the last hour is in reality changing with every hour, although things and people seem the same as before. With the time you will learn to see yourself as a spirit of a special substance, who is coming from one world to another, as an uninvited guest of nature. Looking from this point of view evaluate everything you do in your life. Looking at the results of all your efforts of the past and think what sense they all have now, in the last hour of your life. Those who are engaged in the Work, are dead to this world and at the same time they are more alive in this world than anyone else. Work...something strange, imperceptible, but for many it is impossible to live without it. The ordinary way of understanding life is vanity of vanities. However big the result is according to earthly measures, sooner or later it will fail. Even the sand is being rubbed into dust by time. Even the most significant people of history are being forgotten. To understand the real possibilities of this world, it is necessary to find what we can reach in this world that will be very useful in the Real World. Attentively look at the lives of all the greatest people, those who were commanding armies, who had power over others. What is the benefit for them from all their great actions now, when they are dead? Even when they were alive, all these great actions were no more than empty dreams. We are not here to praise ourselves and to prove ourselves, the most disgusting in the ordinary man is the ability to quickly satisfy his flesh. The majority of people find many excuses not to work on themselves. They are in a complete prison of their weaknesses. But right now we do not speak about them, but about you. Understand me right, I do not need followers, I am rather interested in finding the good organizers, the real warriors of the new world. I understand the weakness of the organization, because right now we do not speak about the usual organisation which would consist of initiates. I remind you once again, learn to live each of your hours with a bigger benefit. Create a detailed plan of the last hour of your life. To understand how one should die, you should grow deep roots into life, only then you will be able to die like a human being, not like a dog. Although, it is not given to everyone - to die. You can become manure for our planet, but it does not really mean do die. To die to this world forever - is an honour. For this honour you have to pay with Conscious Labour and Intentional Suffering. You have to earn this right. Try to imagine yourself relatively clearly the last hour of your life on earth. Write a kind of a script of this last hour, as if you were writing the script for a film. Ask yourself: "Is this how I want to dispose my life". If you are not satisfied with the answer, rewrite the script until you like it. Look at life like as business. Time is your money for life. When you came into this world, a definite amount of money was given to you and this you cannot exceed. Time is the only currency with which you pay for your life. Now you see, how you used the biggest part of it in a stupid way. You have not even reached the main goal of life - to have rest. You failed as a businessman, and as a user of life - you deceived yourself. All your life you thought that everything is given to you for free, and now suddenly you discovered that - it is not free. You pay for using the time, that is why each moment of your stay here costs something. So how would it be possible for you to reimburse [recover] at least somehow these losses? Check, if the deficit on your bank account is only temporary or is it perhaps constant? Did you loose the time or could you invest it successfully? If you have spent all your money on vacations, then there is nothing to do but to be sorry about the past. For many years you have been spending you life as if your parents gave you a bank account with nlimited credit. But now the amount is used and you see that you are all alone and that there is none to rely on. There is no more time on your bank account. Now you are forced to earn each hour of your life. All your life you behaved like a child and spent time just like a newly married couple on their honeymoon. Our main enemy, which is hindering us from applying the necessary efforts - is hopelessness. I know, you will have many excuses not to prepare yourself for the last hour of your life. The habit is a big force, but starting once, you can learn to do each time more and more. Do not fiddle all day, force yourself at least one hour a day to make an effort, otherwise you will loose everything. Think about the rehearsal of your last hour as if it was ballet exercises - you have to do it all your life. I dedicate four hours a day for this exercise, but when I was young, I spent on it two times longer. Translation from Russian by Alexandra Kharitonova, with free English rendering by Reijo Oksanen. unearthed by Ilya Kotz & Avi Solomon of the Jerusalem Nyland Group. | |
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The Express Tribune
2014-12-29 19:10:00
Muntasser survived an Israeli strike on Gaza this summer which killed his young brother and three cousins. Five months and a suicide attempt later the Palestinian boy remains haunted by the memory. Just a week into the deadly 50-day July-August war, two Israeli missiles slammed into a beach in Gaza City where Muntasser Bakr, 11, was playing football with relatives. Four of them, all aged between nine and 11, were killed. Muntasser, like countless other children in the embattled Gaza Strip, now faces a personal battle to overcome the trauma and psychological damage caused by the violence. The fighting, which lasted for six weeks after the beach strike, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians and wounded more than 10,000. In the densely-populated coastal enclave, where more than half of the 1.8 million population is aged 14 and under, children paid a terrible price. More than 500 children were killed - around a third of them 12 and under - and they made up more than a quarter of the wounded. The UN children's fund, UNICEF, says hundreds of thousands remain in desperate need of psychological help to overcome the long-term mental health damage the war caused. | |
Comment: Is Israel stupid? How can the terror created by Israel have any other effect? Or, more likely they do understand, hence the open policy of genocide for the Palestinians.
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Ian Simpson
Raw Story 2015-01-02 18:17:00
A Texas father and son on a multi-state crime spree killed a husband and wife in North Carolina, set their home on fire, stole their truck and then shot two police officers in West Virginia, authorities said on Friday. Police arrested the men in West Virginia on Thursday after a shootout in which the officers were slightly wounded. West Virginia State Police identified the suspects as Edward Campbell, 54, and Eric Campbell, 21, of Indian Acres, Texas. "We believe that if West Virginia police would not have stopped this, this crime spree would have carried on," Granville County, North Carolina, Sheriff Brindell Wilkins told Raleigh's WRAL television. "It's something you see in the movies. It's unreal." Wilkins said the Campbells were driving a stolen SUV and allegedly broke into the home of Jerome Faulkner, 73, and his wife, Dora, 62, near Oak Hill, North Carolina, about 7 a.m. on Thursday. The pair set the house on fire and killed the couple. The Campbells then loaded the bodies into the Faulkner's red pickup and drove off in both vehicles to West Virginia, Wilkins said. | |
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Press TV
2015-01-01 11:36:00
There is no mention of Israel in a new atlas released by one of the world's largest publishing companies. HarperCollins Publishers, based in the United States, has sold atlases to English-speaking schools in some Persian Gulf countries that have no place named Israel in its maps. However, the Gaza strip is clearly marked in the maps while Jordan and Syria stretch their way to the Mediterranean Sea. Under huge pressure from the Israeli lobby in the United States, the company has regretted publishing the maps. The move has also triggered anger in the occupied Palestinian lands. The company, which is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, had initially defended the publishing of the atlases and described it as a predetermined policy. Officials in the giant publication group had said that including the name of Israel in the maps would have been "unacceptable" to customers in the Persian Gulf region. Arab Muslims in the Persian Gulf and Middle East see the Israeli entity as completely illegitimate as it was established in 1948 in the territories that were occupied illegally. Since then the entity has pursued a policy of expansion mainly through forced evacuation of people, expansion of settlements and waging war on defenseless civilians. | |
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Niall O'Dowd
Irish Central 2015-01-01 01:00:00
British TV station Channel 4 has commissioned a sitcom about the Irish Famine in which one million Irish died of starvation and one million emigrated. What a great subject for cheap laughs! No this is not an April Fools story, this is a January 1st story, incredible as it may seem. The writer will be Dublin-based Hugh Travers, a 31-year-old, who has already had a major hit with a show called Lambo. He is a former film student at UCLA. The sitcom will be called Hungry and Channel 4 has given the Dublin writer full freedom to write his own scripts which he says is seriously daunting. Asked by the Irish Times why The Famine, Travers stated, "Well, they say 'comedy equals tragedy plus time'," he says, laughing. "I don't want to do anything that denies the suffering that people went through, but Ireland has always been good at black humor. We're kind of thinking of it as Shameless in famine Ireland." The Showtime US version of Shameless series depicts the dysfunctional family of Irish American Frank Gallagher, a single father of six children. While he spends his days drunk, his kids learn to take care of themselves. So we are basing a sitcom on The Famine on a drunken Irish American series. | |
Comment: Psychopaths are not capable of feeling human emotions. They only learn the appropriate behaviors in various situations through observation and mimicry of normal human interactions. It is obvious that in this case, the psychopathic management at British TV haven't learned the appropriate behavior yet.
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Carmel DeAmicis
Gigaom 2014-12-23 16:47:00
In what might be the slowest tech news week of the year, there's a weird tidbit out of New Jersey. A U.S. District Judge has ruled that cops are allowed to create fake identities on Instagram to follow suspects. As we've seen in the past, criminals occasionally post evidence of their crimes on social media applications, and image-heavy Instagram is no different. The ruling came about after police officers befriended a serial burglar - Daniel Gatson - on Instagram. The person had posted shots of certain wares, described in the opinion as "large amounts of cash and jewelry, which were quite possibly the proceeds from the specified federal offenses." He protected his Instagram account, so you had to request to follow him to see the content, and the officers created a fake account to get that access. | |
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| Secret History |
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Latin America Herald Tribune
2015-01-01 01:58:00
Mexico City - Scientists have found substantial genomic differences among Mexico's indigenous populations that persist despite the widely popular concept of a homogeneous mestizo la raza, experts say. "There is a high degree of differentiation among indigenous populations, and more so between those who are more isolated," Victor Acuna Alonzo, an anthropologist at the National School of Anthropology and History, told Efe. An international team of researchers analyzed genome samples taken from more than 1,000 individuals representing 20 indigenous and 11 mestizo, or mixed, population groups, the journalScience reported recently. The greatest differences were found between the Seri ethnic group living in northwest Mexico and the Lacandones in the southeast, with genomic differences wider than those existing between European and Chinese people. The Mexican Constitution states that the country's population is multicultural and rooted in its indigenous populations, but the diversity has tended to be hidden or shunned in mainstream discourse that favors the concept of a monolithic culture. The National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination says one of the main reasons for this is the "mestizo myth" based on the emergence of a national identity that integrates all the distinct components of Mexico's population. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Kiran Moodley
The Independent, UK 2015-01-01 18:44:00
The comet Lovejoy is set to light up the skies and excite many a stargazer over the first week of the New Year as it reaches its closest point to Earth. The comet, formerly known as C/2014 Q2, is named after amateur Australian astronomer Terry Lovejoy and was discovered in August. The comet has been growing more visible in recent weeks to those living in the Southern Hempishere and Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the comet will reach its nearest position to Earth on January 7, a distance of about 70.2 million kilometres away. Thus, the green-glowing comet will be visible to those in the Northern Hemisphere. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Steph Cockroft
Daily Mail, UK 2015-01-02 23:11:00
Four passengers were injured today after a plane was blown off the runway amid 80mph winds, as Britain braces itself for days of grey skies and heavy downpours. The twin-propeller Saab 340 was attempting to take off from Stornoway Airport on the Isle of Lewis just before 8.30am when strong gusts caused it to veer off the tarmac and nose-dive into the grass, sparking a major investigation. It came as a deep Atlantic depression whipped Machrihanish, Argyll, with 77mph winds, while gales of 71mph were detected in Edinburgh. | |
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Michael Janitch
Dutchsinse.com 2015-01-01 21:47:00
A noteworthy 5.1 magnitude earthquake has struck off the shores of Northwest California. 2 days ago, on December 30 2014, I made a post on a earthquake which occurred just South of Los Angeles California - happening near a few offshore drilling platforms. In the website post from December 30th, I made note of the event, an said we need to watch the area for larger movement (based upon the activity showing near LA / oil platforms). Quote my forecast from 2 days prior: Now that a 5.1M earthquake has struck near the coast of NW California, this confirms the pressure rebuilding on the West coast causes activity at known volcanic sites. This 5.1M event happening very close to the fresh lavic fields formed off the coast of Oregon. Lava fields off Oregon story in the MSM here and here. | |
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Coastal Digest
2014-12-30 19:53:00
Two women died in separate incidents after they were attacked by elephants in interior Thithimathi and Palibetta villages here on Monday. The victims have been identified as Puttichanda Poovamma (70), a resident of Kavadi village near Ammatthi, and Lakshmi (35), a resident of Thithimati village. According to the police, Poovamma was walking outside her daughter's house in Palibetta at around 7.30 am, when an elephant strayed into the front yard and trampled her to death. She was severely injured and died on the spot, they said. Her body was sent to Gonikoppal for an autopsy, the police added. In another incident, Lakshmi, a resident of Vinayaka Nagar in Thithimathi, was headed towards the forest at around 9.30 am, when a wild elephant attacked her. She died on the spot, the police said. Assistant Conservator of Forest Sripathi, Matthigod Wildlife Division Range Forest Officer Kiran and Thithimati Division RFO Gopal visited the Hunsur wildlife division. | |
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unb.com.bd
2015-12-29 19:40:00
A man was killed in an elephant attack at Kamarkhali village in Durgapur upazila of the district on Sunday morning. The deceased was identified as Chand Miah, 55, a resident of the area. Police said a herd of 6 elephants came down the hills of Meghalaya State, India and stormed the village. The elephants attacked Chand around 5:30am while he was going to mosque for saying Fajr prayers, leaving him dead on the spot. On Information, police rushed to spot and frightened elephants away to the border hills with the help of local people. | |
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Tracy Loew
Statesman Journal 2015-01-02 17:14:00
Many visitors to Oregon's coast over the holidays were greeted with the disturbing sight of dead seabirds. On Dec. 21, on the beach at Seaside, more than 50 dead birds washed ashore, most of them Cassin's auklets. On Dec. 26, Robert Ollikainen, of Tillamook, found 132 dead birds on the beach there, including 126 Cassin's auklets. "It was pretty dramatic," Ollikainen said. On Dec. 27, Dave Miller counted 15 dead Cassin's auklets on the beach near William Tugman State park. The next day, he found more at Beverly Beach. "I estimate there were probably 30 to 50 per mile," said Miller, who grew up in Newport and now lives in Camas, Wash. "I've never seen that many before." | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
No new articles.
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| Health & Wellness |
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Elizabeth Grossman
Civil Eats 2015-01-02 22:31:00
If you haven't heard of nanosilver, you're definitely not alone. But that doesn't mean these tiny silver particles intended to kill bacteria aren't ending up in your food. There are now over 400 consumer products [PDF] on the market made with nanosilver. These include many intended for use with food, among them cutting boards, cutlery, pans, storage containers, espresso machines, water filters, baby bottles, and refrigerators. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers nanosilver a pesticide and requires products that contain - or are treated with this germ-killer - to be registered with and approved for use by the agency. But most of the nanosilver products now on the market have not been reviewed, let alone approved by the EPA. | |
Comment: The EPA and FDA need to acknowledge 'significant gaps' in their 'understanding' of nanotechnology and address the toxicity of nanomaterials! For more information read the following articles:
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I'm an addict. My addiction? The same stuff used by diabetics, the overweight, those with sweet-tooths and the chronically sleep-deprived: diet soda. Thus it is with mixed feelings that I report that this year has been a game-changer for understanding what soda's artificial sweeteners do to our bodies. The science of sweets finally moved from correlation to causation. And it isn't pretty. The short version: Artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose can contribute to some of the health maladies that we're using them to avoid. | |
Comment: The 'bad news' about artificial sweeteners has been covered extensively on SOTT. As the author states: 'Artificial sweeteners can wreak havoc on this bacterial ecosystem, throwing it out of balance'. Additional evidence to support this claim:
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Mass Report
It's not earth-shattering news: genetically modified foods carry huge risks for humans. The newest information, however, shows that there are larger risks than ever before seen. These risks affect us on a much deeper level than previously thought.2015-01-02 20:08:00
Researchers at the Nanjing University in China have shown that small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) of rice can be seen in the organs and blood of the humans that eat the rice. The RNA is actually microRNA (miRNA). It is incredibly small, but plays a role in such diseases as Alzheimer's, cancer and diabetes. MiRNA usually works to turn off or down the effects of certain genes. The Chinese researchers found the rice miRNA binding to receptors in the liver. The miRNA then affect how the body takes cholesterol from the blood. A tiny change may not seem all that important, but it can greatly change things for the owner of that RNA. Before you think it's too small to make an impact, remember the African warning, "If you think it is too small to make a difference, spend the night with a mosquito." Genetically altered miRNA may be that buzzing mosquito. Imagine yourself watching a high school football game. Suddenly a professional football player is substituted onto the field. The professional player is the miRNA. He's only a small part of the game. He might only be on the defensive line, but that game will be forever changed by his presence. Certainly the outcome will be different than if he wasn't there. | |
Comment: This is very concerning to say the least. For more info on micro RNA, see:
More food for thought: On viral 'junk' DNA, a DNA-enhancing Ketogenic diet, and cometary kicks | |
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Sayer Ji
The nightmarish toxicological profile of Roundup herbicide (glyphosate) continues to emerge within the peer-reviewed research, this time revealing its role in supporting the growth of a pathogenic bacteria of great medical significance. Greenmedinfo.com 2015-01-02 19:23:00
A concerning new study published in the Brazilian Journal of Microbiology titled, "Influence of glyphosate in planktonic and biofilm growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa," indicates that the world's most widely used herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) may be contributing to the enhanced growth of the pathogenic bacteria P. aeruginosa in our environment. The Brazilian team responsible for the study expressed concern over the "virtual nonexistence" of research evaluating glyphosate herbicide-pathogenic microbiota interactions, and conducted a series of microbial experiments to fill this data gap. They noted: "Glyphosate is probably the herbicide most discharged into the environment. Due to its extensive use in the protection of crops, it is inevitable that it will reach surface and deep waters (Pournaras et al., 2007), especially after rainfalls."P. aeruginosa is commonly found in watercourses and reservoirs in both oxygen (aerobic) and non-oxygen preferring forms (anaerobic), and can be a source of waterborne infection. | |
Comment: The damage is catastrophic and ubiquitous. Only something VERY drastic can help ease the burden for the environment and future generations. For more information, see:
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CBS News
2015-01-02 14:18:00
The flu is getting a fast start on 2015. It is now widespread in 36 states, an earlier and wider spread than usual. At least 15 children have died so far. This week in Minnesota, a record number of lab specimens were sent in for testing. Some hospitals in North Carolina and Michigan are now restricting visitors and volunteers under 18 from entering. Delaware is reporting nine times as many cases as this time last year. Another hard hit state is Georgia. The state is fighting an epidemic of the H3N2 strain of influenza A. Scientists discovered the most common strain of the influenza had mutated soon after this year's flu vaccine was produced.The vaccine effictive only a third of the time against this year's influenza. Henry Dunbar got a flu shot, and still got the virus. His fever was 101 again today. His mother Colleen was worried. "I've read where if the fever persists more than a couple days, you should check to see whether you have the flu," she said, looking at her son's test. "That really dark line by the 'A' means it's Influenza A." | |
Comment: People who have gotten their shots are getting sick... No surprise here. The flu vaccine is NOT effective:
New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection | |
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| Science of the Spirit |
No new articles.
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| High Strangeness |
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RT
2015-01-02 12:56:00
The Central Intelligence Agency has admitted that it was responsible for at least half of reported UFO sightings in the middle of the last century due to its secret, high-altitude reconnaissance flights. The 1950s and '60s was an intense period when a number of Americans reported UFO sightings and alien visitations. These sensational events lent cinematic credence to a number of Hollywood space blockbusters, including Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET, and George Lucas's Star Wars. Now it appears the unidentified flying objects were more fact than fantasy, while the mind behind them was not quite alien. This week, the CIA took to social media to claim responsibility for at least half of UFO sightings in the 1950s and 60s. "Reports of unusual activity in the skies in the '50s? It was us," the agency tweeted, while acknowledging the section on UFOs attracted the most attention to its website in 2014. | |
Comment: Great. Now, after CIA "admitted its involvement", we know that it probably wasn't them. At least not in most of the cases. Once denial was easy, see the following chart as an example:
But now, in the age of iphones and dashcams, a more sophisticated excuse must be fabricated, including taking care of history. One can also wonder, with all the increased meteorite and UFO activity, if CIA isn't preparing the ground for future damage control. To learn more about the topic of UFO phenomena, read the following books: High Strangeness: Hyperdimensions & The Process Of Alien Abduction by Laura Knight-Jadczyk UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Coverup, 1941-1973 by Richard M. Dolan The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991 (UFOs and the National Security State Book 2) by Richard M. Dolan | |
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Jonathan O'Callaghan
Suddenly the piercing buzzing noise that has continued incessantly for months stops. A cold voice takes over.The Daily Mail 2014-12-31 21:52:00 'U-V-B-7-6,' is read out in a thick Russian accent, before listing a series of code words and numbers. Then, just as suddenly, it ends. The buzzing returns, for another few months. That is what has greeted listeners of a mysterious radio station nicknamed 'The Buzzer' - and code named UVB-76, or more recently MDZhB - since the 1970s. But what the Buzzer is doing, or who is broadcasting it, remains a mystery - with theories ranging from the Russian military to atmospheric research.
The Buzzer is a shortwave radio station of unknown origin. Although its noise has changed slightly over the preceding 40 years, it has always involved some form of regular buzzing, interrupted by a voice on rare occasions seemingly reading out a message. Today, 25 times every minute, it spends less than a second buzzing, pauses, then buzzes again - endlessly. |
