| Puppet Masters |
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Adam Taggart
Peak Prosperity 2015-01-31 17:46:00
Today, the 'revolving door' connecting our political and financial systems is evident to anyone with eyes. But this entwined relationship between Washington DC and Wall Street is nothing new, predating even the formation of the Federal Reserve. To chronicle the evolution to where we find ourselves today, we welcome Nomi Prins, Wall Street veteran turned financial industry reformist, and author of the excellent expose All The Presidents Bankers. In this well-detailed interview, Nomi goes into depth of the rationale and process behind the creation of the Federal Reserve, and more important, how its mandate -- and the behavior of the banking system overall -- metastasized into the every-banker-for-himself regime of sanctioned theft we now live with. | |
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Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer Report 2015-02-02 21:25:00
Ousted regime that vowed violent reprisals, finally follows through. Two powerful bombs exploded in downtown Bangkok Sunday night, just days after ousted prime minster Yingluck Shinawatra was impeached from office amid threats from her political party that violence would follow. Indeed just days ago the Nation would report in an article titled, "Strong reaction to impeachment," that: Former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra's impeachment yesterday was hailed by her opponents as the dawn of a new era, but characterised by her supporters as a new chapter that would ignite political violence and deepen division.The political violence referred too of course, was not to be "spontaneous" in nature, but rather openly carried out by leading members of Shinawatra's political party. The Nation more recently reported in an article titled, "Junta vows crackdown on provocateurs," that (emphasis added): Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday pledged to take legal action against people who threaten to use violence to protest against the government and state officials.The premier referred to politicians who said they would stage rallies and violence against the government to stop reconciliation, and would create violence like that seen in the South.Once again, the ousted regime of Yingluck Shinawatra, along with her deposed brother Thaksin Shinawatra, has promised and now carried through with acts of terrorism and violence aimed at destabilizing, dividing, and destroying the nation. Thaksin Shinawatra, a convicted criminal living abroad to evade a two-year jail sentence for corruption and a long list of pending court cases has for the past decade led brutal campaigns of mass murder, terrorism, and targeted assassinations against his opponents and the people of Thailand, all with enthusiastic Western backing. | |
Comment: It will be interesting to see how the Western media spins this latest terror attack in Thailand.
According to Cartalucci: "The Western media is going to insinuate the Thai army did this to justify martial law (even though they already have welcomed, popular, total control of the country already)." | |
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Pepe Escobar
RT.com 2015-02-01 20:11:00
Europe, which the EU is supposed to represent, is fighting a double war that could ravage it beyond recognition - against Greece within its own borders, and against Russia in Ukraine. An exhibition in Rome could not - inadvertently - be more graphic in defining the zeitgeist: "The Age of Anxiety - from Commodus to Diocletian." Well, Roman emperors could barely imagine it would get much worse under the EU. The tantalizingly tense face-off between Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem and new Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has set up the battlefield; the EU won't accept a "unilateral" Greece, and Greece won't accept a bailout extension or the diktats of the troika (EU, ECB, IMF). Legend has already taken over; after Varoufakis was firm on the "no troika" talk - as in no more economic terrorism - at the end of their press conference in Athens, Dijsselbloem murmured something in his ear that Greek officials have interpreted as a Pulp Fiction-style "I'ma get medieval on your ass." So now it's all-out Athens against the Masters of the Universe (the EU division). Independent observers would be tempted to see it as post-modern Perseus trying to slay the EU Medusa - a monster so frightful that no living thing could behold her without being turned into stone. The Medusa is now the troika. Medusa Queen Merkel and her minions - like Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble ("we won't be blackmailed"), plus the usual faceless officials using sub-Homeric metaphors such as "tied to the mast of confrontation" - are ramping up the pressure with no debt reduction. After the Dijsselbloem-Varoufakis face-off, it would be up to the European Commission (EC) bureaucratic nightmare to come up with a feasible alternative for a Greek debt write-down. | |
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Christopher Harress
International Business Times 2015-01-31 17:57:00
As the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government closes in on its first anniversary, fighting in the east of the country intensified this month as the rebels advanced in the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. About 745 miles away in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, a longtime Russian ally, scared by the war, may be making plans to distance himself from President Vladimir Putin's Russia -- depriving Moscow of its closest friend among Slavic nations. After the annexation of Crimea in March and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine in April, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, a strongman who has been called the last dictator in Europe, minced no words. "No matter who comes to the Belarusian land, I will fight. Even if it is Putin," he told the Russian independent television channel Dozhd. Those comments marked newly strained relations with Moscow. Along a similar line, Belarus refused to join countersanctions by Russia against the West last year. In response, Russia banned all meat product imports from Belarus, as GlobalMeatNews reported. | |
Comment: There's a difference between 'depriving Russia of an ally' and simply acting as a sovereign state. According to Stratfor, Lukashenko also emphasized Belarus's strong integration with Russia in the same speech. So it's not black and white. Belarus has also been a key mediator in the Minsk talks between Ukraine and Russia, and Moscow plans to give Minsk $1 billion this year.
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Annie Robbins
Mondoweiss 2015-01-30 22:50:00
In an action that has already made headlines around the world, Code Pink stole the show yesterday with an attempted citizen's arrest of Henry Kissinger for War Crimes committed during his tenure as Secretary of State from 1973-1977. As the 91 year old Kissinger took to his seat at the witness table alongside former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and George Shultz for a hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee on global threats and national security strategy, chants of "Arrest Henry Kissinger for War Crimes, arrest Henry Kissinger for War Crimes, arrest Henry Kissinger for War Crimes" began pulsating throughout the chambers. Press hovered over the scene, and Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin began speaking for the voiceless, calling for the citizen's arrest of Kissinger for war crimes: In the name of the people of Chile | |
Comment: We can only hope more citizens will stand up and voice their opposition to the war mongers of the world.
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Sputnik
2015-02-01 17:04:00
Zionist Camp party co-chair and former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni has pointed the finger at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who she claimed spends more money on alcohol than some Israelis earn per month, according to Israel's Haaretz newspaper. "This week it was published that Netanyahu spent 100,000 shekels ($25,450) of public funds over two years on alcohol. Do you know how much that is in a month? 4,200 shekels a month," Livni said. "The price of the alcohol Netanyahu drinks in a month is like the monthly salary of nearly one million workers in Israel, but they use it for rent, city tax, water, electricity, education, and food," she added. | |
Comment: Shining the spotlight on our world leader's behavior as the rest of the people suffer. Of course the 'leaders' deny it because it is normal behavior for them. They don't see anything wrong.
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RT
2015-02-01 16:26:00
UN peacekeepers captured the moment shells hit their position in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, the day their Spanish colleague was killed. The footage suggests Israeli artillery, retaliating against Hezbollah rocket attack, might be responsible. A video clip from the battlefield line in Lebanon, distributed in the Spanish media, suggests that an Israeli shell could be responsible for the death of Spanish UN peacekeeper Cpl. Francisco Javier Soria Toledo, who was killed on Wednesday. The cell phone footage shows two United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers talking in their car next to a watchtower, as the whistling of the first artillery shell is heard in the background. Aiming the camera at the wall which separates Lebanon from Israeli territory, one of the soldiers says: "They're falling from Israel, man!" "Hush, hush, let's see...they're falling from...How can that be? It cannot be that, huh?," responds the other peacekeeper. | |
Comment: It appears Israel isn't too concerned about UN Peacekeepers in the area.
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Nafeez Ahmed
Middle East Eye 2015-01-28 15:30:00
Israel's ambitions to conquer the Golan Heights and western hopes to topple Assad raise questions around the discovery of oil in the Golan A US oil company is preparing to drill for oil in the Golan Heights. Granted the license in February 2013 by Israel, Afek Oil and Gas is a subsidiary of Genie Energy Ltd, whose equity-holding board members include former US Vice President Dick Cheney, controversial media mogul Rupert Murdoch and financier Lord Jacob Rothschild. Also on the board is Brigadier General Effie Eitam, a former Israeli minister for infrastructure who currently resides in the Golan Heights himself. Afek, which has exclusive rights to a 153-square-mile radius in the south of the Golan Heights, started "dirt works" in December 2014, to prepare the first site for drilling. Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War, annexing and occupying the territory in 1981 in violation of international law. As the conflict in Syria has escalated, the spillover into the Golan has invited Israel to label its de facto control over the territory as another security issue requiring military "defence." Accordingly, Israel has considered unilaterally creating a new buffer zone that would extend up to 10 miles inside Syrian territory on the pretext of securing the border from Islamist fighters. | |
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Janet Phelan
New Eastern Outlook 2015-01-30 12:29:00
The recent decisions by social media giants Facebook and LinkedIn to adopt user crowd-censoring strategies may be less than benevolent. According to its recent announcement, Facebook will employ an algorithm, based ostensibly on the numbers of user-generated flags, to reduce or mitigate the distribution of stories flagged as "false." In addition, Facebook has announced that stories flagged in this manner will contain notice that the story has been determined to contain false information. As stated in Facebook's announcement this past week, "Today's update to News Feed reduces the distribution of posts that people have reported as hoaxes and adds an annotation to posts that have received many of these types of reports to warn others on Facebook. We are not removing stories people report as false and we are not reviewing content and making a determination on itsaccuracy." According to Tweaktown, "This change will see posts that include links, photos, videos and general status updates affected - seeing it not limited to company news articles only." | |
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RT
2015-02-01 08:51:00
Croatian government have gotten creditors on board a plan to erase the debts of some 60,000 poorest citizens. The "fresh start" scheme targets less than 1 percent of the entire debt, but is hoped to boost the economy in the long-term. The unorthodox measure was voted for by the government on January 15 and comes into force on Monday. To be eligible to participate debtors must have no savings or property, have a debt no greater than about $5,100 and live on welfare or an income of no higher than $138 per month. "We assess that this measure will be applicable to some 60,000 citizens," Deputy Prime Minister Milanka Opacic said as he was introducing the bailout. "Thus they will be given a chance for a new start without a burden of debt." Some $31 million worth of bad debts are expected to be written off by creditors who have signed up to the government's scheme. Those include several banks, telecommunication companies, major utilities, several major cities and municipalities as well as the government's own tax agency. None will be refunded for their losses. The program would return access to bank accounts to about 20 percent of the 317,000 Croatians, whose accounts were frozen in July last year due to debts. The entire population of the small Mediterranean nation is 4.4 million. "This is the first time that any (Croatian) government is trying to solve this difficult problem and we are proud of it," Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic told a cabinet session. | |
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Tony Cartalucci
LocalOrg 2015-01-31 14:52:00
The US is proposing a government-backed DNA database composed of over a million volunteers' genetic material. RT would report in their article, "Got genes: Obama proposes genetic biobank of 1mn Americans' DNA to fight disease," that: A new $215 million US government proposal would seek more than 1 million American volunteers for analysis of their genetic information in an initiative to fight disease, while developing targeted health care based on one's DNA. Officials hope the biobank project, announced Friday by President Barack Obama, can merge existing genetic studies with a diverse range of new volunteers to hit 1 million participants. | |
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RT
2015-01-31 01:46:00
US Treasury has revised sanctions regime in Russia's Crimea, allowing residents of the peninsula to operate US bank accounts. Crimeans will also be able to send and receive non-commercial personal money transfers. Washington is easing the latest restrictions it imposed on Crimeans on December 19, making concessions to those residents of the peninsula that were not earlier specifically blacklisted by the US. The updates to the sanctions, published Friday, allow Crimeans to have bank accounts in the US. | |
Comment: The U.S. was punishing Crimeans either for being 'taken over' by Russia, or for exercising their democratic rights. Either way, the sanctions were a petulant insult to Crimeans, standard operating procedure for the 'politicians' running the U.S. So what gives with this latest concession?
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RT
2015-01-30 01:11:00
Some 8,000 Ukrainian troops are believed to be surrounded near the village of Debaltsevo in Donbass, as militia units cut off the only road linking the pocket to Kiev-held territory. The servicemen have been offered the chance to surrender. The forces of the People's Republic of Donetsk (DPR) have stormed and captured the town of Uglegorsk, a stronghold of the Ukrainian army in the east of the country used for communication and supply. It is about 10 kilometers from Debaltsevo. Ukrainian MP and commander of the Donbass volunteer battalion Semyon Semenchenko, says on his Facebook page that Uglegorsk has been abandoned by Ukrainian forces. Semenchenko claimed that the rebels attacked his unit from the rear.
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Comment: Basurin's press conference is available below:
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Patrick Armstrong
Russia: Other Points of View 2015-01-30 23:47:00
Russia Has Had Enough I agree, as I usually do, with Alexander Mercouris: here and here he argues that Putin and his team have given up trying for a diplomatic solution. Moscow used its influence to stop the rebels' offensive last year when they believed themselves on the edge of routing the Kiev forces, forced the Minsk ceasefire, made several proposals to Kiev and... nothing. I believe that Putin stopped believing anything the West said after Libya, but I think he kept hoping Europe would not be willing to harm itself in subjugation to Washington. Or maybe he just needed time; time to strengthen links with the BRICS and especially Beijing, time to de-dollarise (Russia is buying a lot of gold), time to build up and exercise the military; time to make his case to the "not-the-world" (I love this cartoon).I'm sure he has the next move figured out and I'm equally sure Brussels, Washington and their dependants will be just as stunned by it as they were the last times. Russian Economy Two takes on it that argue that the situation is serious but recoverable: Goldman Sachs repeats points I have mentioned; Chris Weafer says rally but not boom. Yes, inflation is up, yes the Ruble is down, but there is much import substitute going on, industrial and agricultural production continue to rise and unemployment is unchanged. As for rating downgrades, China has a different opinion. Time, as they say, will tell. But I'd bet on China. | |
Comment: As usual, the mainstream media gives a view of what's going on in relation to Russia that is diametrically opposed to objective reality.
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| Society's Child |
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ITAR-TASS
2015-02-01 22:42:00
Russia's Emergencies Ministry has assessed as successful another stage of providing humanitarian aid to war-torn Donbass. "A regular stage of humanitarian aid supplies to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions went on like clock-work as all the cargoes were delivered and the task was accomplished," the ministry's press service told TASS on Saturday. The twelfth convoy of the Russian Emergencies Ministry comprised over 170 trucks that all returned empty to the Russian southern Rostov region. The trucks were inspected by customs and border officers at the checkpoints of Donetsk (in the Rostov region) and Matveyev Kurgan. Ukraine's customs officers and border guards were overseeing the procedures earlier in the day when the convoy was heading for Donbass, a TASS correspondent said in an eyewitness's report adding the reporters who were admitted to the border checkpoints could make sure the trucks had come back empty. | |
Comment: Oh no, Russia "invading" Ukraine again!
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A 3-year-old boy shot and wounded his father and pregnant mother with a 9 mm handgun that he pulled out of the woman's purse while searching for an iPad, police in New Mexico said on Sunday. Both parents needed hospital treatment for non-life threatening injuries after the bullet went through his father's buttocks and into his mother's shoulder, Albuquerque Police Department Officer Simon Drobik said.
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RT
2015-02-01 18:18:00
Islamic State fighters have admitted that Kurdish forces managed to retake Kobani after the intensified US-led air campaign forced the jihadists to abandon position in the strategic city near the Syrian-Turkish border. In a recently released ISIS video, two militant fighters say that continued aerial bombardment by fighter jets from the US and some of its Arab allies forced them to retreat, although ferocious and heroic resistance from Kurdish forces defending the town was another key reason why they were forced into retreat. "The warplanes were bombarding us night and day. They bombarded everything, even motorcycles," said one of the fighters. The warplanes "destroyed everything, so we had to withdraw and the rats advanced," said another. Earlier this week, Kurdish officials said the town was almost cleared of ISIS fighters. | |
Comment: There are a couple possibilities here. 1) ISIS's handlers gave up on the "Kobani objective" (whatever that may be), and the air strikes were the way in which the ISIS cattle were herded elsewhere. 2) ISIS was actually pushed out by the YPG, against ISIS and their masters' wishes, and the claim of the usefulness of airstrikes was simply PR designed to show the public that the airstrikes are useful and the U.S. really does want to defeat the terrorists. So is the game-plan changing slightly?
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Adam Horowitz
Mondoweiss 2015-02-28 00:00:00
Joan Peters, the author of the book From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict over Palestine, died on January 5th, at 78. As David Samel wrote following her death,"The bizarre chapter of Joan Peters's contribution to the Middle East debate does not end with her death. Her arguments, both those she adopted from others and those she formulated herself, still constitute a huge portion of the go-to hasbara repertoire." I interviewed Norman Finkelstein and asked him to reflect on her work and legacy, as he played a central role in debunking much of her work as described in his book Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Adam Horowitz: Could you start by saying a bit about how From Time Immemorial was received? Norman Finkelstein: First of all the important primary factor is the context. Israel in 1982 took its first major public relations hit since the 1967 war. It was a public relations disaster for Israel. One of the reasons being I think, as Robert Fisk pointed out in Pity the Nation he said unlike all other Arab states Lebanon did not control the press and so mainstream reporters were able at that time to roam freely throughout Lebanon. Mainstream reporters, I should say who had credibility, were able to roam freely through Lebanon during the Israeli attack, and what they were reporting was quiet horrifying. It's forgotten now but even against the Israeli attacks in recent years on Lebanon, on Gaza, they all pale in comparison to what Israel did in Lebanon in 1982. The usual figures are between sixteen and twenty thousand Lebanese and Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians, were killed during the Israeli attack. All the Lebanese killed in 2006 plus the three massacres in Gaza that doesn't even come to half of the figure that happened in Lebanon. So now you had credible reportage of what Israel was doing and it was a major public relations setback for Israel. You could say the first layer of Jewish support for Israel, the first layer, peeled away and that was the layer of what you would call the Old Left, mainly those were identified with the Soviet Union and therefore identified with Israel because the Soviets supported the creation of the state of Israel in '48 and also because a lot of the signature institutions of Israel in that era were of a socialist leftist orientation, most famously the kibbutzim. And so before 1982 the pro-Soviet, pro-Communist Old Left even those who were disaffected from the Soviet Union which still fell within the umbrella of the Old Left, they were still pretty much pro-Israel, there were just really a tiny handful of exceptions. The best known being of course Professor Chomsky. There was also Maxime Robinson in France, but in general the support was totally for Israel, overwhelmingly for Israel. | |
Comment: And the dynamic plays on: Israel continues to manufacture justifications to attack Palestinians (and other groups) and defends itself with hasbara manual talking points based on books like From Time Immemorial - that are designed to obscure, twist and mangle the truth for those less suspecting consumers of news.
See also: | |
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Sputnik
2015-01-31 01:03:00
Four out of every ten Italians no longer want the euro, according to a survey released on Friday by the Institute of Political, Economic and Social Studies, Eurispes. The percent of Italians who want Italy to leave the Eurozone has risen from 26% at the start of 2014 to 40.1% now, the polling agency says. More than half of the Euroskeptics think the single currency is the chief cause of Italy's economic woes, as it has deprived the country of the possibility of devaluating its currency at will. | |
Comment: Of course the countries ("Club Med") that hurt the most joining the EU will be looking for an exit but will require careful leadership to accomplish. The next elections for Italy are still a long way out in 2018.
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| Secret History |
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RT
2015-01-31 17:35:00
Documents show the FBI created a "Plan C" during the Cold War, which could have been triggered in the event the US underwent a nuclear attack. It included putting the nation under martial law, rounding up "subversives," and interning enemy diplomats. The documents, acquired by transparency journalism organization MuckRock, detail the FBI plan created in 1956, which was shared with several top officials from every governmental department. The FBI also distributed papers regarding the plan to its field offices. The plan would have gone into effect "after a war has begun in which the US is involved or may become involved and prior to an actual attack on the US itself," according to the documents. | |
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Erico Matias Tavares
Linkedin.com 2015-01-30 00:38:00
The Czechoslovakia crisis of 1938 marked a pivotal shift in the balance of power in Central Europe, putting the major world superpowers in a collision course. The policies of one superpower in particular made inevitable what was to come less than a year later - World War II. This episode provides important historical insights on geopolitics, appeasement strategies, buffer zones, ethnic tensions - and unintended consequences. | |
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English Russia
2015-01-26 23:03:00
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| Science & Technology |
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John H. McWhorter
Wall Street Journal 2015-01-02 11:35:00
In 1880 a Bavarian priest created a language that he hoped the whole world could use. He mixed words from French, German and English and gave his creation the name Volapük, which didn't do it any favors. Worse, Volapük was hard to use, sprinkled with odd sounds and case endings like Latin. It made a splash for a few years but was soon pushed aside by another invented language,Esperanto, which had a lyrical name and was much easier to master. A game learner could pick up its rules of usage in an afternoon. But it didn't matter. By the time Esperanto got out of the gate, another language was already emerging as an international medium: English. Two thousand years ago, English was the unwritten tongue of Iron Age tribes in Denmark. A thousand years after that, it was living in the shadow of French-speaking overlords on a dampish little island. No one then living could have dreamed that English would be spoken today, to some degree, by almost two billion people, on its way to being spoken by every third person on the planet. Science fiction often presents us with whole planets that speak a single language, but that fantasy seems more menacing here in real life on this planet we call home - that is, in a world where some worry that English might eradicate every other language. That humans can express themselves in several thousand languages is a delight in countless ways; few would welcome the loss of this variety. But the existence of so many languages can also create problems: It isn't an accident that the Bible's tale of the Tower of Babel presents multilingualism as a divine curse meant to hinder our understanding. One might even ask: If all humans had always spoken a single language, would anyone wish we were instead separated now by thousands of different ones? | |
Comment: Meaning and nuance of human diversity: Information gained. Increased complexity and discovery demands the evolution of language and the invention of terminology.
In the beginning there was the WORD. The rest is history. | |
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Sumit Passary
Tech Times 2015-01-31 07:07:00
Astronomers have produced a 3D map of the interior of Cassiopeia A, a supernova in our galaxy, using the astronomical equivalent of a CAT scan. The Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, exploded around 340 years ago and its relatively close proximity to the Earth makes it one of the most well-studied supernovas in our galaxy. Many astronomers still observe the supernova with great interest. A new study conducted by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Dartmouth College unravels the bubbly interior of the supernova. The findings may shed more light on the way a supernova dies. "Our three-dimensional map is a rare look at the insides of an exploded star," said Dan Milisavljevic of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Astronomers explain that when a star explodes, it spews out extremely radioactive and hot matter outward from the core of the star. It is complex to model such process even with some of the most powerful computers on Earth. However, by cautiously studying the remnants of fairly young supernovae such as Cas A, astronomers can examine several key processes that drive such stellar explosions. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Priyangi Agarwal
The Times of India 2015-02-01 20:03:00
In what is becoming a serious menace, wild dogs attacked and killed a child on Saturday afternoon in Baheri tehsil, making him the third fatality of such an attack in almost a month.Over 10 children have also been injured in wild dog attacks in the past month. Ironically, while the attacks are continuing, district authorities continue to quibble over jurisdiction issues. According to reports, daily wage labourer Anis Ahmed and his 15-year-old son Mujammil, residents of Lakhanpur village of Baheri, had gone to work at a local brick kiln. After some time, Anis went to his fields. When Mujammil did not join him after a long time, Anis went out to search for him. That was when he saw Mujammil being attacked by a pack of dogs near the brick kiln. He somehow managed to chase away the dogs by attacking them with a spade but was not able to save his son, who was declared brought dead at a hospital. | |
Comment: Other recent notable attacks by packs of feral dogs on people -
Denison, Texas woman attacked and severely injured by dog pack Man likely to have died from a dog pack attack in Madison, North Carolina Pack of feral dogs attack 2 children, killing one, Nanfang, China Feral dog pack found to have killed woman on Wyoming Indian reservation Man found dead near New Mexico reservation may have been attacked by dog pack Pack of stray dogs maul 17-month-old boy outside his house in Bangalore, India Nine people killed by feral dog attacks in Rumbek, Sudan | |
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Alexa Huffman
Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune 2015-02-01 18:49:00
Alberta Fish and Wildlife officers are currently investigating a cougar attack involving a pipeline worker south of Grande Prairie Friday. According to Dan Laville, an Alberta Justice and Solicitor General spokesperson, at around 3 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 30, a cougar attacked a male pipeline worker, approximately 90 kilometres south of Grande Prairie. Laville says a co-worker came to the victim's aid and was able to stop to the attack. The workers called 9-1-1. RCMP officers responded to the call and shot a cougar near the scene of the attack. The Fish and Wildlife officers that are investigating the incident are using DNA analysis to confirm the cougar shot is the same animal involved in the attack. Both workers sustained injuries and Laville says the injuries did not appear to be life threatening. | |
Comment: See also these other reports of cougar attacks on humans in 2014: A third cougar attack within a month leaves six-year-old California boy injured
Some wild animals are losing fear of humans: Biologist recovering after cougar assault in Grand Prairie, Alberta Teenager attacked by cougar in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta From 2013: Man fights off cougar with skateboard; Parks Canada tracking animal Cougar attack in British Columbia leaves woman in critical condition | |
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BBC
2015-01-31 18:17:00
Large parts of the Peruvian Amazon are under water after torrential rains caused rivers to burst their banks. More than 3,000 families have been affected and a state of emergency has been declared. Laura Westbrook reports.
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Demetris Nellas and Llazer Semini
Houston Chronicle 2015-02-01 17:22:00
Flash floods caused by heavy rains have hit northwestern Greece and southern Albania, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of villagers Sunday and destroying a famous 18th-century stone bridge. No casualties were reported in either country. Heavy rains began Saturday in the northwestern Greek province of Epirus, prompting authorities to evacuate four villages and several isolated farmhouses close to the city of Arta. By Sunday, at least four rivers had overflowed their banks, three of them near Arta and another closer to Greece's border with Albania. The Plaka Bridge near Arta also collapsed.
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Leon Siciliano
Daily Telegraph 2015-01-28 16:58:00
A dramatic video has been posted online of a group of elephants charging towards a car in Thailand. In the footage, captured by a Thai tour guide near Nakhon Ratchasima province late last month, a family of three elephants appear from trees at the side of the road and begin charging. Who knew elephants could move so fast? Certainly not the tourists who seemed very calm until the huge animal was bearing down on them. Tourists inside the car can be heard speaking in German and urging the driver to move quickly. According to the filmer, the elephant was trying to defend its calf from the cars that were on their territory.
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Peter de Graaf
The New Zealand Herald 2015-01-31 16:04:00
A 3-year-old child has been injured in a dog attack at a Kaikohe home. The child was attacked by the family pet and rushed by family members to Kaikohe's St John Ambulance station on Tuesday evening. Police and animal control were called to the Tui St address. St John Far North manager Ben Lockie said the child, whose injuries were described as moderate, was taken to Bay of Islands Hospital in Kawakawa and from there to Whangarei Hospital. Far North District Council field compliance manager Barry Webb said the dog, a registered American bulldog, was chained up and police were at the scene when the animal control officer arrived. "It is now in the council pound while we await the family's return. We will then have an opportunity to get statements and discuss with them where we go to next," he said. Source: The Northern Advocate | |
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Yahoo! News
2015-01-30 15:41:00
An official in Slovakia says heavy snow has forced the closure of the international airport in the capital. Veronika Sevcikova, spokeswoman for Bratislava's M. R. Stefanik Airport, says all outgoing flights have been canceled, while the incoming flights have been diverted to airports in neighboring Austria and Hungary. Sevcikova says one incoming flights have been diverted to Linz, Austria, and three others to Budapest, Hungary. She says it is not clear when the airport might be reopened. The snow has caused traffic disruption and road closures all across the country Friday.
Source: Associated Press | ||
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Hoskote Nagabhushanam
Deccan Chronicle 2015-01-31 15:22:00
A 15 feet deep and 31 feet wide sinkhole has formed in the Chitravathi riverbed near Lakshumpalli in Yellanur mandal of Anantapur district, confirming fears that groundwater in the area has been exploited to alarming levels. The groundwater department, after a thorough study, noticed that cavities of limestone deposits beneath the riverbed had become brittle due to pumping of groundwater by drilling borewells even at depths of 800 feet. The sinkhole formed near Lakshumpalli on Thursday with a loud sound and residents of surrounding villagers feared that it was an earthquake. The Yellanur mandal, near Pulivendula of Kadapa district, depends on the Chitravathi river's water. With poor rainfall for the last 12 years in it's upstream, the river hasn't even been flowing at its minimum level in Yellanur mandal. Farmers thus have been dependant on borewells that they have been digging near the riverbed, leading to over exploitation of groundwater. | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Stephanie Nebehay
Reuters 2015-01-27 09:44:00
Plague has killed 57 people out of 213 known cases in Madagascar and more deaths are feared after recent flooding forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and set rats on the run, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. The U.N. agency's first update since late November, when there were 119 cases including 40 deaths, was based on new figures from the Health Ministry. The outbreak began in August on the Indian Ocean island, one of the world's poorest countries, where the disease is endemic.. The bacterial disease is mainly spread from one rodent to another by fleas. Humans bitten by an infected flea usually develop a bubonic form of plague, which swells the lymph node and can be treated with antibiotics, according to the WHO. However, if the bacteria reach the lungs, the patient develops pneumonia (pneumonic plague), which is transmissible from person to person through infected droplets spread by coughing. It is one of the most deadly infectious diseases and can kill people within 24 hours. | |
Comment: There is research out there supporting the idea that plagues coincide with cometary bodies in our atmosphere. From New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection,
Cometary bodies in our atmosphere are increasing, although this has been downplayed by NASArecently.
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Christina England
VacTruth.com 2015-02-01 04:27:00
Health Impact News Editor Comments: Christina England has done an excellent job of digging up some previous studies conducted in New Zealand and Germany comparing vaccinated children with unvaccinated children. In addition to these two studies, there was also a clinical study conducted in Hong Kong in in 2012 comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated children in regards to the flu vaccine. Researchers conducted a double-blind placebo-controlled trial on children with the trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine. Their results were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases in 2012, and they found that the seasonal trivalent flu vaccine resulted in 5.5 times more incidents of respiratory illness than the placebo group. Read more about the study here. If you watch the video below of Congressman Posey questioning the CDC at an autism Congressional hearing back in November of 2012, you will hear the CDC admit that they have never conducted a study in the U.S. comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated children. Studies Prove Without Doubt That Unvaccinated Children Are Far Healthier Than Their Vaccinated Peers A study from the 1990s has come to light, proving that compared to unvaccinated children, vaccinated children were more likely to suffer from asthma, eczema, ear infections, hyperactivity and many other chronic conditions. Furthermore, the study identified that there was a ten-fold increase in the incidence of tonsillitis in the children who were vaccinated, and a total lack tonsillectomy operations among the children who were unvaccinated. In 1992, the Immunization Awareness Society (IAS) conducted a survey to examine the health of New Zealand's children. Unsurprisingly, the results of their study indicated that unvaccinated children were far healthier than vaccinated children. Questionnaires were given out to IAS members, their friends and their associates asking various health questions. A total of 245 families returned their questionnaires, giving the researchers a total of 495 children surveyed. Of these children, 226 were vaccinated and 269 were unvaccinated. | |
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Jefferey Jaxen
Natural Blaze 2015-01-29 10:07:00
Our words, voice, and opinions are our birth right and are protected. Free speech is not a luxury and it is certainly not handed down to us from a government. In Australia and ramping up quickly in the United States, it seems that some speech is freer than others. Long-time expert and vaccine educator Dr. Sherry Tenpenny has publicly announced that she has cancelled speaking appearances scheduled for Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Gold Coast. The reason was due to pro-vaccine extremists repeatedly calling for bomb threats and violence against venue owners and their families in some cities originally scheduled for the healthy living seminars. |
