Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Saturday 24 January 2015

Puppet Masters
Philippe Alain
I Am Spartacus
2015-01-24 22:23:00

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In Saudi Arabia, bloggers are condemned to 1,000 lashes of the whip and 10 years in prison for 'insulting Islam'. In 'Socialist' France, we arrest children and lock them up before putting them under investigation for 'incitement to terrorism'.

Since the attacks of 7 January, a collective air of madness has descended on France. The Ministry of injustice has opened more than 100 cases into "justifications for terrorism", about 10 per day. 30 people have already been convicted, more than were convicted for anything similar in the last 20 years.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and France's Union of Magistrates have denounced this totalitarian drift. They are the only organizations in the Western hemisphere to have done so.
Comment: Things are progressing nicely for those psychopaths who would like nothing more than to bring about a second Holocaust, this time against Muslims. All the signs are there. Will humanity see them in time?
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RT
2015-01-23 21:06:00

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Former US drone sensor operator Brandon Bryant admits he "couldn't stand" himself for his participation in the country's drone program for six years - firing on targets whose identities often went unconfirmed.

Since 2001, and increasingly under the Obama administration, the US has been carrying out drone strikes against targets believed to be affiliated with terrorist organizations in countries like Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. The program, which has been shrouded in secrecy, has been routinely criticized for the high number of resultant civilian casualties.

Pakistan's Peshawar High Court ruled in 2013 that the attacks constitute a war crime and violate the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Meanwhile the Obama administration continues to insist that drone warfare is a precise and effective method of combat.

According to data collected by the human rights group Reprieve and published last November, attempts to kill 41 targeted individuals across Pakistan and Yemen resulted in the deaths of some 1,147 people. Often a kill requires multiple strikes, the group noted.

Bryant, who worked as a sensor operator, manning drones' cameras and other intelligence gathering hardware, worked from an airbase in Nevada. The operator who left his post in 2011 spoke harshly of the program and the leadership responsible for approving it.

"There was no oversight. I just know that the inside of the entire program was diseased and people need to know what happens to those that were on the inside," he told RT's Anissa Naouai. "People need to know the lack of oversight, the lack of accountability that happen."

Bryant decried the "black hole putrid system that is either going to crush you or you're going to conform to it," and apologized to families of victims whose deaths he was responsible for. By his estimation, he helped kill some 1626 people. "I couldn't stand myself for doing it" he added.
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Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research
2015-01-24 17:49:00

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"The threat is serious, the time short. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists does not move the hands of the Doomsday Clock for light or transient reasons. The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty - ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization." (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 2015.)
When Barack Hussein Obama was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize on 10thDecember 2009, just eight months in to his Presidency, the motivation was: " for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples."

The Nobel Committee: " ... attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons ... as President he (had) created a new climate in international politics."


"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."


In his presentation speech, Nobel Committee Chairman, Thorbjørn Jagland said that Obama had, from the first moments of his Presidency strived against confrontation and had already: "lowered the temperature in the world."

In his acceptance speech the President Obama stated that: "Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice."

He was also committed to: "upholding the (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.) It is a centerpiece of my foreign policy. And I'm working with President Medvedev to reduce America and Russia's nuclear stockpiles."

In conclusion, to applause, he appealed: "Let us reach for the world that ought to be - that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls."

Since then the myriad mass graves of America's victims have become silent witness to the hypocrisy and insincerity of his address at Oslo City Hall on the 113th Anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death in acceptance of an Award which Nobel's will had specified should be presented: " ... to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
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RT
2015-01-24 15:57:00

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Iran is stopping mutual settlements in dollars with foreign countries and agreements on bilateral swap in new currencies will be signed in the near future, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has said.

"In trade exchanges with foreign countries, Iran uses other currencies, including Chinese yuan, euro, Turkish lira, Russian ruble and South Korean won," Gholamali Kamyab, CBI deputy head, told the Tasnim state news agency.

He added that Iran is considering the possibility of signing bilateral monetary agreements with several countries on the use of other currencies.

Kamyab believes bilateral currency swap agreements will ease trade and economic transactions between Iran and other states.
Comment: This is a natural progression for countries to stop relying on the US dollar for trade. Challenging the US dollar hegemony can be dangerous. Since this is a possible future event, perhaps this is bargaining room with the US sanctions.
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Koos Jansen
BullionStar.com
2015-01-23 00:00:00

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Anyone who has been paying attention to the global economy the past years can agree with me our central bankers have conducted miserable monetary policy and have taken the insufficient measures to fight crises. All major economies have embarked in printing unprecedented quantities of money, but the only thing they bought was time. Quantitative easing on such a scale is like kicking the can determined to reach the end of the road. The future looks anything but sanguine.

Where is this going? Are our leaders truly gonna allow for the international monetary system to implode? Is there no plan B? And we are supposed to believe gold isn't of any significance in economics?

In our current highly unstable economic environment the price of gold is relatively low,according to gold proponents like me. In addition, we can see immense flows of physical gold going from West to East that are guaranteed not to return in the foreseeable future. If the price of gold isn't suppressed, my previous two observations can only be explained as physical supply outstripping demand since April 2013 - when the price of gold declined substantially to its current relative low levels. But perhaps there is more than meets the eye.
Comment: Indeed, the track of bread crumbs suggests that gold will play the premier role in a world financial system reset - one that may be coming very soon now. The war for hegemony through the US Dollar Reserve may be in its final battle - and US attempts at co-opt of EU/NATO may have very deep roots.
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Andrew Osborn
Reuters
2015-01-22 23:17:00

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The British government began a historic transfer of powers to Scotland on Thursday,keeping a pledge it had given to persuade Scots to reject independence as renewed nationalist support surges.

The draft bill, to be enacted after a general election on May 7, will further dismantle Britain's highly centralized system of government, a move critics fear could trigger the beginning of the end of the United Kingdom.

It has already spurred demands from some politicians for similar moves in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, teeing up political uncertainty and heralding an eventual redistribution of power in the world's sixth largest economy.
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Ante Sarlija
Sott.net
2015-01-23 16:20:00

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Are 'Islamic' terrorists in the Balkan region threatening the freedom of the EU?
The European Union is concerned about efforts by Islamist terrorist groups to seize the western Balkans as a springboard for action in the EU. The EU is planning closer cooperation with the countries from the region and tougher controls at border crossings.
One preliminary question to ask might be; how did any such 'Islamic' terrorists wind up in the Balkans in the first place?

Having trained and armed their terror brigades to fight the 'Soviet invaders' during the Afghan-Soviet war, the U.S. was so pleased by their efforts that they expanded their field of operation.
In the wake of the Cold War, the CIA continued to support the Islamic brigades out of Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Balkans and south East Asia.
As the FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds revealed, the Balkan region, along with Central Asia and the Caucasus, was turned into one of the main fields of operations for 'Gladio B' - that is, using jihadist mercenaries as foot soldiers for the Western empire. So if you hear about terrorists operating out of some location, it's a safe bet that they were put there by our leaders.

While we have no evidence that these alleged terrorists are presently using the Balkans as a springboard for further terror activity in the EU, we do have evidence that the U.S. is doing so. An article that appeared in the Telegraph notes that the U.S., along with Britain and other European states, is shipping weapons to rebels terrorists in Syria - via Zagreb, Croatia.
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Society's Child
The Newspaper
2015-01-24 15:22:00

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Some Supreme Court justices question whether Fourth Amendment intrusions during traffic stops have gone too far.


Should police have the power to order a driver out of his car while a search is conducted with a drug dog -- even when there is no reason to believe the motorist has done anything wrong? That was the question posed to the US Supreme Court during oral arguments on Wednesday in the case of Dennys Rodriguez.

Rodriguez was stopped on March 27, 2012 after a Nebraska police officer saw him briefly swerve. On a hunch, the officer decided to call for a drug dog. After about half an hour, the dog alerted, and Rodriguez was arrested and found guilty of possession. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld his conviction last year (view appellate decision).

Shannon P. O'Connor, public defender for Rodriguez, argued that the sniff should be suppressed because it was conducted after the officer completed writing the traffic ticket.Once the underlying reason for the stop is complete, O'Connor insisted, there is no justification to detain a motorist further. Some justices were not convinced that the act of writing a ticket ends the stop.
Comment: Thanks, Supreme Court justices, for doing your jobs and upholding the law!
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Pater Tenebrarum
Acting-man.com
2015-01-19 20:39:00

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Only the Sheeple Are Sane


This post is about an issue that is by now a bit dated (though the topic as such certainly isn't), but we have only just become aware of it and it seemed to us worth rescuing it from the memory hole. In late 2013, the then newest issue of the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM for short) defined a new mental illness, the so-called "oppositional defiant disorder" or ODD.

As TheMindUnleashed.org informs usthe definition of this new mental illness essentially amounts to declaring any non-conformity and questioning of authority as a form of insanity. According to the manual, ODD is defined as:
[...] an "ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior,"symptoms include questioning authority, negativity, defiance, argumentativeness, and being easily annoyed.
In short, as Natural News put itAccording to US psychiatrists, only the sheeple are sane.

Every time a new issue of the DSM appears, the number of mental disorders grows - and this growth is exponential. A century ago there were essentially 7 disorders, 80 years ago there were 59, 50 years ago there were 130, and by 2010 there were 374 (77 of which were "found" in just seven years). A prominent critic of this over-diagnosing (and the associated over-medication trend) is psychologist Dr. Paula Caplan. Here is an interview with her:


View on Sott.net
Comment: Stefan Molyneux' views are too extreme: There certainly are mental illnesses. The question is how we treat them. Pharmacological treatment is now a $76 billion industry.

But recently the scope and breadth of mental illnesses has been constantly widened, so that former "personality traits" are now considered a mental illness - mainly for control and financial reasons.

For further information see:
For more information about "authoritarian followers" see:
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Louisiana State University
Science Daily
2015-01-23 20:11:00

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Researchers have long studied and documented the influence religion has on social groups; however, few have examined the role it plays in education. LSU Sociology Professor Samuel Stroope recently penned a research article that examines the relationship between religion and educational attainment in the U.S. The article, titled, "Social Context and College Completion in the United States: The Role of Congregational Biblical Liberalism," will be published in the upcoming edition ofSociological Perspectives.

Using data from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, a national sample of religious congregations and members, Stroope and his team, composed of two researchers from Hope College and Baylor University, measured the dependent variable of college completion and the independent variables of individual biblical literalism and congregational biblical literalism.

The team found that in accordance to their expectations, individual biblical literalism is negatively associated with college completion and congregational biblical literalism is negatively related to college attainment. In contrast to their expectations, they found that as congregational literalism increases, the odds of completing college decreases more sharply for non-literalists than for literalists.

Stroope joined LSU's Department of Sociology in 2013. The primary goal of his current research is to better understand how geographic and social contexts shape health and health disparities.
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Yahoo! News
2015-01-19 03:06:00

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Miss Universe contestants are keen to proclaim their desire for world peace, but this year's Miss Lebanon has declared war after claiming Miss Israel muscled in uninvited during a group "selfie."


Comment: This is blaming the victim. It was Miss Israel who muscled her way into the picture, uninvited, and she should be called out for violating Greige's privacy, for unprofessional behavior, and a total lack of manners.


Saly Greige took to her Facebook page to declare that Israel's Doron Matalon had pushed her way into a now widely-circulated photo showing the Middle Eastern beauties with Miss Japan and Miss Slovenia.

"Since the first day of my arrival to participate to Miss Universe, I was very cautious to avoid being in any photo or communication with Miss Israel (that tried several times to have a photo with me)," Greige wrote in English on her page.

"I was having a photo with Miss Japan, Miss Slovenia and myself, suddenly Miss Israel jumped in, took a selfie, and put it on her social media."
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Cahal Milmo
The Independent, UK
2015-01-23 05:15:00

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Muslim pupils across Britain are suffering a backlash of bullying and abuse following the Charlie Hebdo massacre amid a broad rise in Islamophobia in schools which the Government is failing to tackle, campaigners have told The Independent.

The sole UK charity monitoring anti-Muslim hate crime said it had recorded a "significant" increase in incidents in schools in the wake of the killings in Pariswith both parents and teachers reporting verbal and physical attacks against Muslim students.

In one case, a teenage Muslim pupil at a school in Oxfordshire was this week allegedly slapped and called a "terrorist" by classmates after a teacher raised the murders of 12 people at the French magazine in a classroom discussion and suggested Muslims should be "challenged" by the display of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The boy told his parents he did not wish to return to school.
Comment: 'Never again' is happening again. These are the signs. See also:
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Alex Henderson
Alternet
2015-01-21 23:55:00

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The careless use of SWAT teams in no-knock drug raids - when heavily armed police burst into a home without warning - has resulted in a long list of innocent people being killed or seriously injured in the United States. 2014 alone found SWAT teams in Georgiasenselessly killing businessman David Hooks and maiming toddler Bounkham "Baby Boo Boo" Phonesavanh. And when those raids victimize people who aren't even selling drugs, narcotics officers seldom face criminal charges and are given every benefit of the doubt. But if, on the other hand, Americans shoot narcotics officers during militarized drug raids - perhaps believing that they are being robbed and are acting in self-defense - charges of first-degree murder are likely. The case of Marvin Louis Guy in Texas is a glaring example.
Comment: Unfortunately for Mr. Guy, it is unlikely that there will be justice in this case. Meanwhile egregious, no-knock SWAT raids will continue in the government and police's mad quest for absolute power and control
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Regina Garcia Cano
The Huffington Post
2015-01-22 09:59:00
Cleanup is underway after nearly 3 million gallons of brine, a salty, toxic byproduct of oil and natural gas production, leaked from a pipeline in western North Dakota, the largest spill of its kind in the state since the current energy boom began.

The full environmental impact of the spill, which contaminated two creeks, might not be clear for months. Some previous saltwater spills have taken years to clean up. A contractor hired by the pipeline operator will be on site Thursday, assessing the damage.

Operator Summit Midstream Partners LLC detected the pipeline spill on Jan. 6, about 15 miles north of Williston and informed North Dakota officials then. State health officials on Wednesday said they weren't given a full account of the size until Tuesday.
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Elizabeth Harrington
Washington Free Beacon
2015-01-22 18:42:00

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Update: Amendments added to the ordinance slightly changed the final ban to not effect parks or outdoor shopping malls, according to the Times-Picayune. Fines will also begin at $50. A previous version of this story said fines began at $100.

New Orleans passed a far-reaching smoking ban on Thursday that prohibits lighting up in bars, casinos, private clubs - even in the car while waiting in line at a drive-thru.

Claiming there is no "constitutional right" to smoke, the New Orleans City Council unanimously voted to outlaw smoking and electronic cigarettes in indoor and outdoor public places.

The ordinance, which goes into effect in 90 days, applies to bars, casinos, parks, private clubs, any business establishment, recreational areas, sports arenas, theaters, and a host of other places.

"[T]here is no legal or constitutional 'right to smoke,'" the ordinance said. "Business owners have no legal or constitutional right to expose their employees and customers to the toxic chemicals in secondhand smoke. On the contrary, employers have a common law duty to provide their workers with a workplace that is not unreasonably dangerous."

The ordinance was coauthored by Democratic councilmembers LaToya Cantrell, a former "community organizer," and Susan Guidry.

The smoking ban carries $50 fines for a person who smokes a cigarette, natural or synthetic marijuana, or e-cigarettes in "public places."

Public places include aquariums, laundromats, parking structures, trailer parks, condos, restaurants, shopping malls, outdoor stadiums and amphitheaters, libraries, theaters, lobbies, and more.
Comment: This is completely fascist. It's sad to see another city following the Nazi model; Hitler was also a vehement anti-smokerSmoking is not bad for you - keep those neurons firing:

View on Sott.net
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Tana Ganeva
Alternet
2015-01-23 22:19:00
Supporters of a new law criminalizing drug use during pregnancy say it's supposed to get women treatment. Then why is this woman going to jail?


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Last year, Tennessee became the first state to define drug use during pregnancy as a crime. Women whose newborns test positive for narcotic drugs can be charged with assault and punished with up to 15 years of prison.

When critics of the measure -- which included everyone from addiction counselors to doctors to Obama's drug czar -- pointed out that terrorizing pregnant addicts with the threat of prison would not be helpful in the treatment of their condition, supporters shot back that they didn't want to put women in jail; the law would merely allow prosecutors to help push women into rehab.
Comment: It's unfortunate that there are few, if any viable services that truly support those suffering from addiction. The lack of understanding surrounding addiction unfortunately often exacerbates the problem. The article below explains how social connection can play a role in helping many overcome it:

Addiction rooted more in social isolation than chemical dependency
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Chris Matyszczyk
CNet
2015-01-20 23:01:00

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Illinois can't seem to decide whether it's the home of midwestern gentlefolk or of the most draconian humans this side of Moscow.

One of the state's newest laws, for example, may have goodness at its heart. However, it may have something else in various of its extremities.

The law, which went into effect on January 1, is designed to curb cyberbullying, but it also could encourage schools to pry into students' personal lives.

KTVI-TV reported that the law was already making some parents deeply uncomfortable. That's because one of its stipulations is troubling.
Comment: This is America. Basic rights are fading fast.
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Secret History
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Science & Technology
Clemson University
Science Daily
2015-01-23 21:28:00

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Recent developments in science are beginning to suggest that the universe naturally produces complexity.
 The emergence of life in general and perhaps even rational life, with its associated technological culture, may be extremely common, argues Clemson researcher Kelly Smith in a recently published paper in the journal Space Policy.

What's more, he suggests, this universal tendency has distinctly religious overtones and may even establish a truly universal basis for morality.

Smith, a Philosopher and Evolutionary Biologist, applies recent theoretical developments in Biology and Complex Systems Theory to attempt new answers to the kind of enduring questions about human purpose and obligation that have long been considered the sole province of the humanities.

He points out that scientists are increasingly beginning to discuss how the basic structure of the universe seems to favor the creation of complexity. The large scale history of the universe strongly suggests a trend of increasing complexity: disordered energy states produce atoms and molecules, which combine to form suns and associated planets, on which life evolves. Life then seems to exhibit its own pattern of increasing complexity, with simple organisms getting more complex over evolutionary time until they eventually develop rationality and complex culture.
Comment: Another author has coined a similar approach as "Rational Design Theory":

He puts forth his scientifically testable Rational Design Hypothesis at a time when mainstream science relegates any design theory as unscientific. His reverse engineering analysis of biological life confirms convincingly the validation of classical Darwininan evolution (of species), while at the same time questioning the whole neo-Darwinian notion of chemical evolution upon which the chemical soup theory of life's origins hangs its collective hat.

Shiller leaves speculation about the identity of the designer largely to the reader, but predicts that one important key to uncovering the signature will be the study of introns.


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Steven Greenhut
reason
2015-01-23 00:00:00

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At a traffic school my wife once attended after getting a ticket, the instructor warned the class there are so many driving rules and so much discretion in enforcing them that any driver can be cited for something at any time. Drivers, he said, always are at the mercy of the traffic cop.

Even if that's an exaggeration, the general point seems true. We can drive without being obsessively concerned about getting pulled over because there (thankfully) aren't enough California Highway Patrol officers to stop us every time the speedometer hits 75 mph.

But what if the traffic cop were a computer that always is transmitting data about our driving habits to a government agency? That question increasingly is being asked given technological advancements and a new proposal by the state's air-quality control agency to expand the information your car's computer would be required to collect and potentially transmit to officials.

Currently, drivers get red-light citations via mail because of cameras placed at intersections. USA Today reported that some eastern states have suspended drivers from using toll lanes after their transponders showed them to be speeders. Private fleets often closely monitor, control and punish the behavior of their drivers. What's next?

The On Board Diagnostics computer systems on all of our late-model cars now collect a wide range of information mostly related to a car's emissions. When something is amiss, your dashboard flashes with a "check engine" light and you head to a repair shop to fix it. The goal is to assure cars aren't polluting the air.

But now the California Air Resources Board is proposing regulations (for a May board hearing) requiring manufacturers to significantly expand the kind of information on-board computer software collects about our driving habits.
Comment: One more way to tax or fine citizens. One more way to monitor and control population on an individual basis. One more way to make humans in the workforce obsolete. One more link in the fence. Belief in statistics far outweighs belief in humanity. We are morally and functionally stripped.
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Earth Changes
Claudia Cowan
FoxNews
2015-01-23 21:34:00

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Wildlife experts are scrambling to identify the mysterious gray gunk coating -- and killing -- hundreds of seabirds in the San Francisco Bay, and save hundreds more that have been rescued.

The sticky substance began showing up a week ago along the shorelines east of San Francisco, and has killed more than 200 birds. Hundreds of live birds have been cleaned and rehabilitated at the International Bird Rescue Center in Fairfield, north of San Francisco. Officials say lab tests and necropsies began earlier this week.

"We hope to get the test results back soon, maybe as soon as today," said Mary Ficke, of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW).
Comment: Touch times for birds lately, as they lose all sense of direction, die due to decades-old DDT pollution, are being trapped in abandoned fishing nets, or fall dead from the sky.
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English Russia
2015-01-20 00:00:00

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You see this car? It's almost a meter deep frozen into the ice. Why is that? Yet another horrible accident midst winter cold when the pipes got ruptured and nobody seemed to care for time enough for tens of cars were flooded and frozen. The name of this location is Dudinka.

The locals of Dudinka say that the administration was asking them to constrain from publishing comments or photos on Internet. But you know, once posted cannot be unposted.

See more photos of this aftermath inside:
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Bo Petersen
Post and Courier
2015-01-23 14:44:00

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The bird in the pine tree just didn't look like a red-tailed hawk. It didn't look like any native raptor. But it sure made itself at home.

When the vultures swooped in for feeding recently at the Center for Birds of Prey, the crested caracara dropped down, too.

Staff and visitors were wowed. The once-a-week "vulture restaurant" feeding exhibit can draw any number of raptors - hawks, eagles and the like. But the crested caracara is normally found in places like Mexico. It isn't seen in the United States much north of the Everglades.
Comment: This winter has seen many migrating birds completely losing their way across the Northern Hemisphere, here's a run down of such reports: Another completely lost bird: Brown pelican turns up in Nebraska in winter

White-rumped sandpiper from Arctic North America ends up in Australia

Rare goose from northern Asia turns up in Suffolk, UK

Rare Eurasian kestrel appears in Nova Scotia, Canada

Another completely lost avian species: Couch's Kingbird flies from southern Texas to New York

Warbler that should be wintering in western Mexico turns up in Louisiana

Bean goose from Eurasia takes a wrong turn and winds up on the Oregon Coast

Four lost flamingos fly NORTH for the winter and turn up in Siberia

Wrong place, wrong time: European robin turns up thousands of miles away in China

Rare bird from Mongolia turns up in Wakefield, UK

Wrong time, wrong place: Rare bird found in Barrie, Canada
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Zachary Green
The Pampa News
2015-01-23 14:01:00

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Last week the National Weather Service in Amarillo had mentioned the possibility of a winter storm impacting our region on Wednesday and into Thursday of this week.

Many residents didn't buy into the potential snow storm. That might have been because of the 70 degree weather we had just this past weekend or the fact that so far all the snows have been "duds" this year.

As the storm system got closer and closer the forecast model projections went up and up in their total accumulation expected. It got the point that it was not a matter of if we would see snow, but how much. A lot of that depended on where the convective bands of snow set up. One was on top of Pampa early in the system and that is why we got a higher total than projected.

A co-op observer recorded 4.4 inches of snow one mile northwest of Pampa. Another co-op observer recorded eight inches four miles west southwest of Lake McClellan. A public report came into NWS of nine inches for Pampa city limits.


View on Sott.net
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Jonathan Watts
The Guardian
2015-01-23 03:00:00

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The taps have run dry and the lights have gone out across swathes of Brazil this week as the worst drought in history spreads from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro and beyond.

More than four million people have been affected by rationing and rolling power cuts as this tropical nation discovers it can no longer rely on once abundant water supplies in a period of rising temperatures and diminishing rainfall.

The political and economic fallout for the world's seventh biggest economy is increasingly apparent. Protesters in dry neighbourhoods have taken to the streets, coffee crops have been hit, businesses have been forced to close and peddle-boat operators have had to cease operations because lakes have dried up.

In São Paulo - the most populous city in South America and the worst hit by the drought - a year of shortages has cut water use in the city by a quarter since last January, but Jerson Kelman, the head of the main water company Sabesp, urged consumers to do more in helping the utility to "prepare for the worst".

"There is a significant part of the population that is not yet aware of the seriousness of the situation and refuses to change habits," he wrote in an op-ed published on Thursday. "They must be convinced to change their behaviour." If the dry spell continues, he warned full-scale rationing would be introduced - something the city government denied would be necessary during last year's elections.
Comment: Weather bands are moving towards the poles in both hemispheres. The cycle of extreme droughts and heavy deluges is part and parcel to the precursor of mini ice ages. Solar minimums and moving Hadley Cell patterns shift the tropical precipitation to distant latitudes, leaving drought conditions in their wake and forcing moisture into the upper atmosphere where it freezes and rebounds as extreme snowfall. Droughts of this nature are cyclical. For more info on this topic: SOTT Exclusive: A 'Blue Hole,' a cosmic connection and the demise of the Maya
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Fire in the Sky
No new articles.
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Health & Wellness
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Science of the Spirit
Josh Richardson
Prevent Disease
2015-01-22 16:28:00

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Hugs make you feel good for a reason and it's not just the loving embrace that gives us that warm feeling in our hearts. It's much more. It affects the entire body to such an extent that many scientists claim it is equivalent to the effect of many different drugs operating on the body simultaneously. Even seemingly trivial instances of interpersonal touch can help people deal with their emotions with clarity and more effectively.

1. REDUCE WORRY OF MORTALITY
In a study on fears and self-esteem, research published in the journal Psychological Science revealed that hugs and touch significantly reduce worry of mortality. The studies found that hugging -- even if it was just an inanimate object like a teddy bear -- helps soothe individuals' existential fears. "Interpersonal touch is such a powerful mechanism that even objects that simulate touch by another person may help to instill in people a sense of existential significance," lead researcher Sander Koole wrote in the study.