Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Monday 16 March 2015

SOTT Focus
Gary Boyle
Sott.net
2015-03-16 17:12:00

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In The Secret History of the World, my Irish ancestors, the Celts, are described as:
...proud, imaginative, artistic, lovers of freedom and adventure, eloquence, poetry and the arts... and were VERY suspicious of any kind of centralized 'authority'.
Most knowledgeable among them were the Druids, who placed great value in living harmoniously with nature, in developing memory-based records, and who adhered to the principles of the 'Third Force' - simply put, there is good, bad and the specific situation that determines which is which'.

When I was younger I never really saw the relevance of history. It had no meaning in my life - no place in my 'history'. It was interesting to some extent, but I failed to appreciate its importance. What does the oft-quoted saying, 'those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it', actually mean? If we reflect on our own personal histories, we see that we learn our most important life lessons from making mistakes that invariably produce suffering, for ourselves and others. Yet how many times do we, or did we, keep making the same mistakes?

Sometimes we suppress painful episodes, but they can 'come back to haunt us' and negatively affect our present health. Gabor Mate explores this mind-body connection in When the Body Says No, which provides transformative insights into how disease can be the body′s way of saying 'No!' to what the conscious mind cannot or will not acknowledge. Regardless of what country we hail from, access to our true national history may enable us to learn, and therefore heal, collective wounds on this larger scale.


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Historical Revisionism

In a wider context, knowledge of our national, planetary and perhaps even cosmic history is important for us to gain understanding of "ourselves and our wider environment," as Lobaczewski put it. I recently listened to this SOTT Radio show: 'Behind the headlines: Historical Revisionism in the 20th and 21st centuries', which reminded me of an episode of modern Irish history that I was never taught when attending school in Ireland, namely the 1845-1850 Irish Holocaust, or the 'Great Famine' (Irish potato famine), as it is still euphemistically termed.
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Puppet Masters
Washington's Blog
2015-03-15 00:00:00
Robert David Steele - a 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer
Most terrorists are false flag terrorists or are created by our own security services.

In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI.

In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism.

We've become a lunatic asylum.

Background Nations All Over the World CONFESS to Carrying Out False Flag Terrorism (info on 54 false flags in history)

Government Infiltrates Terror Cells Time and Again ... But Fails to Stop Attacks
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Media and other reports on various false flag operation monitoring and response.)
[Note Video: advance to 16.00]


View on Sott.net

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the business model of the war on terror in which the droning of wedding parties is nothing personal just business. Same goes for de-dollarization as China builds an alternative to SWIFT - nothing personal, just business. In the second half, Max interviews former CIA agent and open source advocate, Robert David Steele, about false flags and moral hazard. [begin at 16:00]
Comment: False flag attacks have always fooled the public into immediate reactionary behavior (according to plan), counting on emotions of horror, outrage, justice and retaliation to prod a lax or complacent society into involvement and action. False flags are despicable manipulations of events, countries and individuals to further a cloaked agenda. Those who suspect an operation to be false flag have been demonized as conspiracy theorists, a tag that has become an automatic dismissal mechanism and smacks of "traitor" innuendo. Many FFs may have come to light sooner had this stigma not been implemented by the PTB as one of its main lines of post-operational deflection. Why? Because no one really wants to believe this happens, especially by their own government.

National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski testified to the Senate that the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative." -February 1, 2007 Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony
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Eric Zuesse
Global Research
2015-03-16 20:47:00

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The American Government's biggest lie in 2002-2003 was about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. We've already seen what that lie produced. It cost the U.S. more than $3 trillion, produced ISIS, and caused death and destruction in Iraq that make Saddam Hussein's dictatorship look benign by comparison. Are Americans still fooling themselves about that? (Some are; but most are not.)

The American Government's biggest lie in 2014-2015 is instead about Vladimir Putin and Ukraine— and it's even worse, and far more dangerous, because this one can very possibly lead to a nuclear war, one with Russia that's totally unnecessary for America's national-security, and that actually places all of our nation's security at risk, for the shameful reasons of aristocrats ("oligarchs") in both the U.S. and Ukraine — not for any real reasons of the American people, at all.

But, that's where we are heading, nonetheless, because America's aristocrats overwhelmingly want it (as will be shown here).
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AVN
2015-03-12 19:45:00

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The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement Thursday in which it voices its solidarity with the Venezuelan people against "Washington's aggressive build-up of political and sanctions pressure on Caracas" and "its democratically elected government."

"We are aware with great concern of the increase in negative tendencies and the destabilization attempts against Venezuela, a country that is united with Russia by very close friendship ties and through a strategic association," the Russian foreign ministry said in press release.

It stresses that the declaration of national emergency announced by the US government against Venezuela is "a threat to democratic stability in that country and can have serious consequences for the situation in Latin America as a whole."
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Pepe Escobar
Sputnik
2015-03-16 18:40:00

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The Empire of Chaos dream of regime change in Russia has always hinged on controlling large swathes of Eurasia.

With "friends" like European Council President Donald Tusk and top NATO commander Gen. Philip Breedlove, the EU certainly doesn't need enemies.

Gen. Breedhate has been spewing out his best Dr. Strangelove impersonation, warning that evil Russia is invading Ukraine on an everyday basis. The German political establishment is not amused.

Tusk, while meeting with US President Barack Obama, got Divide and Rule backwards; he insisted, "foreign adversaries" were trying to divide the US and the EU - when it's actually the US that is trying to divide the EU from Russia. And right on cue, he blamed Russia — side by side with the fake Caliphate of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
Comment: Psychopathic wishful thinking will end in disaster.
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Russia Insider
2015-03-16 00:00:00

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Washington's policy toward Crimea is a denial of reality on the ground, and it will remain as such in the near future, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Daniel McAdams told Sputnik.

"The United States foreign policy establishment is in a state of denial about Crimea," McAdams stated on Sunday. "What will that policy be in the foreseeable future? Denial of the political reality that a part of Ukraine did not accept an illegal, Washington-directed coup d'etat and instead chose to secede."

March 16 marks one year since the Crimean peninsula seceded from Ukraine and became a part of Russia after more than 96 percent of local voters supported the move in a referendum. The West refused to recognize Crimea's reunification with Russia claiming it violated Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and introduced several waves of sanctions targeting the country's economy and certain individuals.

"Though recent, credible polls demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of Crimean residents are pleased to re-join Russia, the US continues to pretend some sort of invasion took place and the residents are hostages," McAdams pointed out.
Comment: Washington is living in its own version of 'reality', thinking that it can continue to bait Russia without suffering any repercussions. However, it is becoming apparent that Putin is getting fed up with Western machinations and is now letting it be known that Russia will not be submitting to its aggression.
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Adam Withnall
Independent, UK
2015-03-15 17:09:00

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Vladimir Putin has said Russia was so fearful of attack at the height of the Ukraine crisis that it was preparing to arm its nuclear weapons, in extraordinary claims aired on state TV on Sunday night.

Amid ongoing Russian media speculation that the President was watching the Crimea documentary from his sickbed, Mr Putin's full interview with Rossiya One provided new insight into his country's involvement in the annexation of the Black Sea peninsula.

In the documentary, which marks a year since the referendum that saw Russia take control of Crimea,Mr Putin described the Ukrainian revolution to oust Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 as an armed coup "masterminded by our American friends".


Comment: He's right.


He said Washington tried to "trick" the world into thinking the regime change was "supported mostly by the Europeans", according to a translation of the interview on Russia Today.
Comment: Things are heating up. Despite being the anniversary of Crimea's return to Russia, these revelations come at an interesting time: as the timeline for implementation of parts of the Minsk agreements comes to an end. The fact that Putin has made these revelations (Russians are usually very tight-lipped about their operations) seems like it could be part of a larger project: showing the U.S. that Russia will NOT submit to its demands, threats, and transparent aggression.
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The Millennium Report
2015-03-12 15:36:00

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TMR Editor's Note:
The screenshot above was taken from a Sunday, March 15th, Reuters article. Please read the last and third paragraph. Whenever the Mainstream Media does decide to post a more accurate account, Reuters is often used to initiate the truth-telling, which is then disseminated more broadly as they did using the Yahoo internet news platform shown here. Where Lake Valdai is mentioned as the current whereabouts of President Putin, it is much more likely that he is at his spiritual retreat site a couple hundred miles north on Lake Ladoga. The following article explains further.

No, Putin is not dead. He's not ill; he is the victim of yet another CIA-fabricated hoax.

Is Valdimir Putin's public absence related to the Russian Orthodox Lenten schedule? The West takes advantage of Putin's religious downtime by circulating a false story regarding his death, when they know he's in his annual Lenten period of monastic silence. 

Russian President Faces Biggest Challenges Ever In 2015: Decisions About 9/11 Truth And The Ukraine Require Profound Spiritual Contemplation
Comment: Meanwhile, Putin makes his triumphant 'return'.
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RT
2015-03-16 12:45:00

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On Monday, the US reached its legal debt limit of $18 trillion - more than the country's entire GDP. Lawmakers will either have to again lift it, or attempt to cap spending.

As of March 12, the US Treasury reported federal debt at $18,114,324,000,000.00 in its daily treasury statement. This figure is above the statutory debt limit, which was extended by Congress through March 15 this year.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told Congress that the limit would be reached on March 16, and he also requested lawmakers raise the debt ceiling "as soon as possible," in a letter written in early March.
Comment:
John Law's more enduring Ponzi scheme was the one that escaped detection, the "Philosopher's Stone" by which:

* a national money supply could be created from government debt that had been "monetized," *

or turned into paper money by private bankers.

The reason this sleight of hand never got detected was that the central bank never demanded the return of its principal. If the bankers had demanded the money back, the government would have had to levy taxes, rousing the people and revealing what was up the wizard's sleeve.

But the wily bankers just continued to roll over the debt and collect the interest, on a very lucrative investment that paid (and continues to pay) like a slot machine year after year.

This scheme became the basis of the banking system known as "central banking," which remains in use today:

1. A private central bank is chartered as the nation's primary bank and lends to the national government.
2. It lends the central bank's own notes (printed paper money), which the government swaps for bonds (its promises to pay) and circulates as a national currency.
3. The government's debt is never paid off,but is just rolled over from year to year, becoming the basis of the national money supply.

Excerpt from the book, written by Ellen Hodgson Brown:
Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth about Our Money System and How We Can Break Free
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RT
2015-03-14 13:17:00

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Ukraine has concluded deals with eleven countries of the EU on delivery of weapons, including lethal, President Petro Poroshenko told the country's TV. He, however, didn't mention which countries will provide 'defensive aid' to Kiev.

"The Head of State has informed that Ukraine had contracts with a series of the EU countries on the supply of armament, inter alia, lethal one. He has reminded that official embargo of the EU on the supply of weapons to Ukraine had been abolished," said a statement on Poroshenko's official website, citing his interview to the TV channel "1+1".

According to Poroshenko's statement, he is confident that EU and USA will support Ukraine with weapons if needed. "If there is a new round of aggression against Ukraine, I can surely say that we will immediately receive both lethal weaponry and new wave of sanctions against the aggressor. We will act firmly and in a coordinated manner."
Comment: While Poroshenko is toying dangerously with the Minsk cease-fire agreements by making the EU deals, he has also ordered an arsenal, via back-door UAE, from US weapons manufacturers to be paid for by IMF bailout funds. Since Russia is the senior debt-holder (for Ukraine), and has a vote in the IMF bailout funding (for Ukraine), and surely doesn't want NATO missiles next door (in Ukraine)...it would not be nice to Poroscrew Mother Russia and forfeit the loan, not to mention the IMF's own prohibitions against pouring loans into a nation that's at war.
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South Front
2015-03-13 02:04:00

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With Putin 'missing', and rumors floating around of a major announcement from the Russian government in the next couple days, could these have something to do with Kiev's blatant violation of the Minsk agreements? Specifically:

1) Violating the Ceasefire


View on Sott.net
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Colonel Cassad
Slavyangrad
2015-03-15 01:56:00

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The wave of "suicides" among former "Regionals" in Ukraine is continuing.

Former chairman of Zaporozhye Regional State Administration Alexander Peklushenko committed suicide

The Chief Inspector of the Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Zaporozhye region, Aleksandr Soloshenko, informed the correspondent of RBC-Ukraine. "Yes. Aleksandr Peklushenko committed suicide at his home in the village of Solnechnoe. At the moment, an investigative team is working at the scene," said Aleksandr Soloshenko.

Aleksandr Peklushenko was a suspect in the case of the dispersal of Zaporozhye Maidan on January 26, 2014. On the night of February 28, a former deputy chairman of the Party of Regions, Mikhail Chechetov, committed suicide. On the evening of March 9, Party of Regions People's Deputy of the Fifth and Sixth Radas, Stanislav Melnik, committed suicide.

PS: Judging by the pace, new "suicides" are not far off. Belonging to the Party of Regions during Yanukovych's reign is apparently now a factor in raising the risk of a sudden "suicide".Nonetheless, the "Regionals" are in fact paying the price for last year's cowardice with their positions, money and sometimes even lives, because unlike them, the coup ringleaders who replaced them are not so delicate and, in contrast to Yanukovych, they are not so embarrassed by blood.
Comment: Care to bet whether there's more to these stories than meets the eye?
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Adrian Croft
Yahoo! News
2015-03-13 00:00:00

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European Union leaders are unlikely to reach agreement at their summit next week to prolong economic sanctions on Russia that expire in July, a senior EU official said on Friday.

New sanctions on Russia are also off the table for now because EU governments want to give a chance to a fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.

But some of the EU's 28 member states had pushed for an early decision on extending sanctions on Russia's financial, energy and defense sectors adopted in July last year over Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

While leaders will discuss sanctions at next week's summit, the senior EU official said a majority would probably want to hold over discussion of renewing the economic sanctions on Russia until July.
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RT
2015-03-14 18:55:00

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The ancient statues that Islamic State militants smashed in Mosul on camera last month have been proved to be exact replicas of precious artifacts of Iraqi heritage. The real masterpieces of antiquity are said to be in Baghdad.

"They were copies. The originals are all here," Baghdad's museum director told Germany's Deutsche Welle. The head of the antiquity department in Iraq's cultural heritage authority, Fawzye al-Mahdi, also told the German broadcaster that "none" of the artifacts "were originals."

This, experts say, explains why in a video that shows the destruction statues crumble so easily.


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"The reason they crumble so easily is that they're made of plaster. You can see iron bars inside,"Mark Altaweel of the Institute of Archaeology at University College, London said to Channel 4. However, Mosul's exiled governor Atheel Nuafi, said that, while many of destroyed items were not originals, but there were real ones demolished afterward.

"There were two items that were real and which the militants destroyed," he told Iraq television."One is a winged bull and the other was the God of Rozhan." He also said that before destroying the museum, ISIS militants could have stolen several items.
Comment: Perhaps that the artifacts were relocated to Baghdad, a fortunate circumstance considering, is Iraq's way of saying it doesn't trust the US, nor its spawn IS, with its cultural heritage treasures. There was once an Iraqi palace that didn't fare too well...you might remember...

"At a time when ISIL is destroying the ancient monuments and artifacts of Iraq's rich history, the United States continues to work towards preserving its historical legacy for the Iraqi people and for the world.

What a load of "winged bull." If the US was so magnanimous and culturally cognizant, it would have left Iraq alone over a decade ago. We can all be "Shocked and Awed" at this piece of propaganda...this bull just won't fly.
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ITAR-TASS
2015-03-15 00:28:00

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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has submitted a draft resolution on granting special status to separate districts, cities, settlements and villages in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions where a special order of self-government will be introduced, the Ukrainian parliament reports on its website.

Under point 4 of the package of measures to implement the Minsk agreements, Ukraine's Verkhovnaya Rada (parliament) was supposed to adopt a resolution indicating separate districts in the Donbas region that will have a special political and economic status by March 14. After the resolution had not been passed on time, the heads of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR), Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky, asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, who are the guarantors of the Minsk agreements, to exert pressure on the Ukrainian leadership and make it implement the Minsk agreements.

For the moment, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council is the only state body in Ukraine that has supported a decision to delimitate the borders of separate districts where a special form of local self-government is to be introduced along the line of contact defined by the Minsk agreements.

The Ukrainian parliament's next plenary meeting is scheduled for March 17, the website says.
Comment: Unsurprising Ukraine is slow to implement this point of the Minsk agreements. Sounds like a delaying tactic for some other nefarious plan.
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RT
2015-03-15 00:02:00

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The Ukrainian armed coup was organized from Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in an interview for a new documentary aired Sunday. The Americans tried to hide behind the Europeans, but Moscow saw through the trick, he added.

"The trick of the situation was that outwardly the [Ukrainian] opposition was supported mostly by the Europeans. But we knew for sure that the real masterminds were our American friends," Putin said in a documentary, Crimea - The Way Home, aired by Rossiya 1 news channel.

"They helped training the nationalists, their armed groups, in Western Ukraine, in Poland and to some extent in Lithuania," he added. "They facilitated the armed coup."
Comment: Putin's story of events in Ukraine hasn't changed since the beginning. US/EU/NATO however keep changing their plans to suit their agenda against Russia with no regard for what the population actually wants.
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Society's Child
Emma Glanfield
Mail Online
2015-03-16 21:19:00

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A suicidal man was told by a jeering crowd to 'get on with it and jump' as he perched at the top of a multi-storey car park before plunging to his death, witnesses claim.

The man, aged in his 40s, was reportedly encouraged to leap from the top of the car park outside Southwater Shopping Centre in Telford, Shropshire, on Saturday afternoon.

He spent more than two hours at the top of the building, during which time a crowd gathered in the car park below.

Witnesses have now revealed how some members of the public shouted taunts such as 'Get on with it', 'Go on, jump,' and 'How far can you bounce?'. Others took selfies at the scene on their mobile phones and recorded video footage of the incident.
Comment: There are many different categories of people without consciences also known as sociopaths and psychopaths. They all have one thing in common - complete lack of empathy (the ability to feel the pain of another human being). We often hear about the psychopaths who are dangerous, but for all we know there are millions more of them out there who just sit quietly (or in this case not so quietly) and observe the world.
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Franco Ordonez
The News Tribune
2015-03-16 18:52:00

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Many of those so-called "go bags," medicine kits and boxes of canned food and water that Americans stockpiled after the 9/11 attacks have been lost, expired or gone bad.

Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., says it's time to pack a new emergency bag and draft updated evacuation plans in preparation for another terrorist attack. He's put together a "how to" handbook to help constituents and other members of the public plan what to do.

"I was a Boy Scout, and the motto of the Boy Scouts was to be prepared," Pittenger said.

The chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare said his handbook was inspired by growing concerns about terrorism and the Islamic State group. U.S. intelligence officials say that more than 100 people from the United States have traveled to Syria to fight there. Authorities fear those people might return radicalized and trained to carry out their own attacks.

Americans can alleviate anxieties by learning as much as they can about how to survive an attack, Pittenger said. But some who study terrorism threats see the manual, and its graphic pictures of mushroom clouds, as backhanded fear-mongering.

"The basic idea being to prepare for an emergency, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and people are not very good at that," said John Mueller, an Ohio State University political science professor who studies terrorism threats. "But to heighten all this terrorism seems pretty irresponsible to me."

Pittenger's handbook has chapters on terrorist hazards, explosions and nuclear blasts. His home state of North Carolina experiences tornadoes, weather-related power outages and the annual threat of hurricanes. While he says the book is also intended to assist citizens with natural disasters, there are no chapters dedicated to them.
Comment: There is a "false sense of security". Instead of worrying about the US created 'Islamic State', the real threats are from increasing extreme weather and precarious economic position.
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Mubasher Bukhari
Yahoo! News
2015-03-15 13:35:00

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Bombs outside two churches in the Pakistani city of Lahore killed 14 people and wounded nearly 80 during Sunday services, and witnesses said quick action by a security guard prevented many more deaths.

A Pakistani Taliban splinter group claimed responsibility.

Islamist militants in Pakistan have attacked Christians and other religious minorities often over the last decade or more. Many Christians accuse the government of doing little to protect them, saying politicians are quick to offer condolences after an attack but slow to take any concrete steps to improve security.

Sunday's blasts occurred minutes apart in a majority Christian suburb of the eastern city. Police said it seemed they targeted two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant, that are very close to each other.

After the explosions, enraged residents protested and lynched two suspects, police said.
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Secret History
Charles Q. Choi
Live Science
2015-03-16 15:45:00

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Using airborne laser scanners, researchers have discovered ancient fortifications in Italy that make up the oldest known Roman military camp, where soldiers may have fought pirates more than 2,000 years ago.

This camp may help reveal clues about how the Romans developed their army, and the structures might have served as the foundations of the modern Italian city of Trieste, the researchers said in the new study.

The Roman army was among the most successful militaries on Earth, and helped to create an empire that spread across three continents. A key factor behind the strength of the Roman army was the art of building orderly military camps.

The origin of the Roman military camp remains unclear, the researchers said. Until now, the oldest confirmed Roman military camps had been located in Numantia and Pedrosillo in Spain, which date to about 154 B.C. and 155 B.C., respectively.

But the recently discovered Roman camp described in the new study was probably built in 178 B.C., thus predating the oldest Spanish camps by decades, the researchers said.

They suggested that these newfound fortifications may have provided the foundation for the colony of Tergeste, the ancestor of the modern city of Trieste. [In Photos: Ancient Roman Fort Discovered]

"They are probably the most ancient examples of Roman camps in the entire Roman world," lead study author Federico Bernardini, an archaeologist at the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste and the Fermi Center in Rome,told Live Science.
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Science & Technology
Science Daily
2015-03-16 00:00:00

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Artificial night time light from sources such as street lamps affects the growth and flowering of plants and even the number of insects that depend on those plants for food, a study published today confirms.

The research shows that light pollution can impact the natural environment in complex ways that may be hard to predict. Due to the global extent of artificial light at night, there are concerns that these ecological impacts may be widespread.

Researchers from the University of Exeter simulated the effects of street lighting on artificial grassland plots containing a community of invertebrates at night, exposing them to two different types of light treatment -- a 'white' light similar to newer commercial LED street lighting systems and an 'amber' light simulating the type of sodium street lamp still found in much of the UK.

The experiments investigated both top-down (driven by predators) and bottom-up (food or resource limited) effects of the lights on the population density of a species of pea aphid, and in the presence and absence of predators including ladybirds.
Comment: Now that we have the ability to keep lights burning around the clock, not only are humans becoming sleep deprived, but it appears this is having dire effects on our ecosystem in ways that science is only beginning to understand.
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Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes
Remanzacco Observatory
2015-03-16 18:40:00
Following the posting on the Central Bureau's Transient Object Confirmation Page about a possible bright Nova in Sgr (TOCP Designation: PNV J18365700-2855420) we performed some follow-up of this object remotely through a 0.61-m f/6.5 astrograph + CCD) of iTelescope network (MPC Code U69 - Auberry, California - USA).

On our images taken on March 16.5, 2015 we can confirm the presence of an optical counterpart with R-CCD magnitude 5.9 at coordinates:

R.A. = 18 36 56.85, Decl.= -28 55 40.0 (equinox 2000.0; UCAC-4 catalogue reference stars).

Our annotated confirmation image. Click on it for a bigger version.

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An animation showing a comparison between our confirmation image and the archive POSS2/UKSTU plate (R Filter - 1996). Our image was obtained when the object was only about +15 degree on the horizon.

According to the Atel #7230 "an optical spectrum of PNV J18365700-2855420 (see CBAT TOCP) was obtained using the FRODOspec spectrograph on the Liverpool Telescope at 2015 March 16.27 UT. The spectrum shows strong Balmer series emission exhibiting P Cygni profiles with velocities of ~2800 km/s. Numerous Fe II emission lines (also with P Cygni profiles) are also seen, along with O I, Si II and Mg II features. This confirms that PNV J18365700-2855420 is a bright classical nova of the Fe II spectral type"
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RT
2015-03-16 16:06:00

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Slovak company AeroMobil has been developing a futuristic vision of real flying cars. Now, for the first time, its CEO put a proper timeline on the idea: the expensive toys are to hit the super-rich market by 2017, but quickly improve on specs and price.

The company itself has been around for five years, and past prototypes have existed, all getting ever closer to the technological requirements. This time around, at the Austin, Texas, annual South by Southwest (SXSW) conference on music, film and all things interactive, CEO Juraj Vaculik said he hopes to have a working model for "wealthy supercar buyers" in just two years, according to CBCNews.

And that's not all. Next up, the flying cars will be auto-piloting you through city traffic - which is probably a lesser stretch of the imagination than the first news, given how self-driving technology has taken off recently.
Comment: Hopefully we will all be around to see this technology take off.
Here are some othe flying cars:
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Earth Changes
Cheryl Santa Maria
theweathernetwork.com
2015-03-16 22:44:00

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Monday, March 16, 2015, 4:57 PM - A study published last month in the Journal of Great Lakes Research suggests the livers of Michigan's bald eagles are severely contaminated with phased-out flame retardant chemicals, more so than any other bird on the planet.

While the area's bald eagle population is stable, the chemicals have been known to impair reproduction and disrupt hormones.

Manufacturers began using polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, in furniture, electronics and clothing in an effort to make household products safer. The chemicals were phased-out in the early 2000s, but traces can still be found in the air, dirt and in people.

Nil Basu, associate professor at McGill University and lead author of the study, told Environmental Health News that PDBEs "are everywhere".
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ndtv.com
2015-03-16 21:47:00

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A 4-year-old girl was killed in a landslide triggered by snowfall and rains in the last 24 hours in Kashmir, which also forced closure of the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway even as air traffic remained suspended.

Huda Jan was killed when she was buried under a landslide at Sunergund in Awantipora area of south Kashmir, Pulwama district last evening, a police spokesman said.

While incessant rains lashed most parts of the Valley yesterday, moderate to heavy snowfall was reported since wee hours this morning.

A traffic department official said the 300-km Srinagar-Jammu Highway has been closed for vehicular movement following landslides at several places due to the heavy downpour in the Valley and along the Pir Panjal mountain range.
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Sean Doogan
Alaska Dispatch News
2015-03-16 18:51:00

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A winter storm is expected to drop as much as a foot of snow across parts of Southcentral Alaska Sunday night into Monday, but forecasters say the blizzard is unlikely to reach Anchorage, where warm temperatures are expected to return after a brief cold spell.

The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for the Portage Valley, about 50 miles southeast of Anchorage, and eastern Turnagain Arm Sunday. Areas that could be affected stretch from Whittier to Seward and include parts of western Prince William Sound. The warning goes into effect at 7 p.m. Sunday and lasts until noon Monday, and predicts winds gusting up to 50 mph and heavy snow, reducing visibility on the Seward Highway to less than a quarter-mile at times.

Snow-starved Anchorage residents, meanwhile, are not expected to get a late winter dumping of snow. The Anchorage NWS office said current cold temps -- which were hovering in the single digits on Sunday -- would warm to almost 40 degrees by Monday.
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Erin Parke
abc.net.au
2015-03-16 18:16:00

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Seven dogs believed to have attacked and killed a Kimberley teenager have been destroyed.

The 18-year-old woman was found dead in the backyard of a house in Fitzroy Crossing on Saturday afternoon.

Senior Sergeant Andrew Stephens said that while she had been mauled by dogs, it was not clear whether that had caused her death.

"Unfortunately this young girl was found deceased, and she'd received injuries which were consistent with dog bite wounds, " he said.

"But at this stage the cause of her death has not been determined.

"She's been sent down to Perth now for a post-mortem and we're waiting for the results of that, but unfortunately it will take some time to determine how this girl died and what the circumstances were."
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Brian Johnson
kmbc.com
2015-03-15 17:56:00

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Mandatory evacuation orders are in place for part of St. Joseph because of a 5-mile long wildfire that broke out Sunday afternoon.

People have been ordered out of homes along Elwood Street in St. Joseph, and firefighters want people to stay away from an area between Wyeth Hill south to River Front Park downtown.

The St. Joseph Frontier Casino has also been closed.

Those forced to evacuate can go to the American Red Cross for shelter at 401 N. 12th St.
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Robert Birsel
Reuters
2015-03-16 05:30:00

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A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck off the Papua New Guinea island of New Britain on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The quake struck 6 miles (9 km), northwest of the town of Rabaul, on the northeast tip of New Britain island, it said. There were no immediate reports of any damage or casualties.
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cbc.ca
2015-03-16 16:41:00

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Snow delays airline, bus and ferry travel, St. John's cancels garbage collection, MUN closed for day

A March blizzard hammered most of Newfoundland Monday morning, on a day when most schools and many offices were already closed for the St. Patrick's Day holiday.

RCMP and the Department of Transportation and Works were advising drivers to stay off most of the province's roads and highways, with conditions deteriorating due to the heavy snow and strong winds.

In western Newfoundland, two vehicles were reported to be stranded on Route 480, also known as the Burgeo Road. RCMP said they tried to reach the drivers but had to turn back, given zero visibility and heavy blowing and drifting snow. Further attempts will be made when the weather improves.
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Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
2015-03-15 14:33:00

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Once upon a time, much of the state of California was a barren desert. And now, thanks to the worst drought in modern American history, much of the state is turning back into one. Scientists tell us that the 20th century was the wettest century that the state of California had seen in 1000 years. But now weather patterns are reverting back to historical norms, and California is rapidly running out of water.It is being reported that the state only has approximately a one year supply of water left in the reservoirs, and when the water is all gone there are no contingency plans. Back in early 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency for the entire state, but since that time water usage has only dropped by 9 percent. That is not nearly enough. The state of California has been losing more than 12 million acre-feet of total water a year since 2011, and we are quickly heading toward an extremely painful water crisis unlike anything that any of us have ever seen before.

But don't take my word for it. According to the Los Angeles Times, Jay Famiglietti "is the senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech and a professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine". What he has to say about the horrific drought in California is extremely sobering...
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Jack Crone
Daily Mail
2015-03-15 19:18:00

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Swirling through the air in mesmerising saucer-like shapes, these exceptionally rare lenticular clouds are the most common explanation for UFO sightings. The remarkable-looking disc shapes were spotted by amateur photographer Glenn Spencer, 42, in the sky above Chester in Cheshire.

The formations, also known as wave clouds, were scattered over miles, producing a stunning spectacle. Rarely seen in the UK, lenticular clouds are formed when a tall geographic feature, such as the the top of a mountain, obstructs a strong wind.

The interruption in airflow creates a wind wave pattern in the atmosphere on one side of the mountain and at the top of these waves, moisture in the air condenses and forms a cloud. As air moves down into the trough of these waves the water evaporates again, leaving behind clouds in a characteristic lenticular shape.

Mr Spencer noticed them while driving to the shops and was so amazed that he stopped the car to retrieve his camera from the boot. He said: 'I tried to follow them to higher ground to get a good view. They were just so mesmerising and I thought they looked amazing. It is easy to see why people mistake them for UFOs. They are brilliant. I've never seen anything like it.'
Comment: There have been a number of rare cloud formations observed in the skies lately. Some, such as this one in Australia have a recognizable cause, this one being a Fallstreak Hole. Other factors which may contribute to these 'strange skies' are possible comet dust loading and changes in the layers of the atmosphere.

An indicator of this dust loading is the observed intensification of noctilucent clouds. As explained in Pierre Lescaudron's book, Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection:
The increase in noctilucent clouds is one of the effects - among others - of increased dust concentration in the atmosphere in general, and in the upper atmosphere in particular. We suspect that most of this atmospheric dust is ofcometary origin, while some of it may be due to the recent increase in volcanicactivity.
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Fire in the Sky
David Raven
Daily Mirror, UK
2015-03-16 16:21:00

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When tourist guide John Alasdair Macdonald snapped a landscape shot across the lake he accidentally captured a giant shooting star

This spectacular picture shows the 'fluke' moment a fireball meteor was pictured soaring over the Loch Ness last night.

Gobsmacked John Macdonald, 42, went for a walk at 9pm when he snapped the rare sight lighting up the sky.

The meteor was so bright it would have terrified Nessie and even caused panicked locals to phone the coastguard after mistaking it for a distress flare.
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The Telegraph
2015-03-16 10:43:00

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Footage of an unidentified object, thought to be a meteor or meteorite, moving across the night skies above central Europe has emerged online.

The video, which was filmed using a car's dashboard camera, shows the fireball streaking across the sky above a road in the Tyrol region of Austria.

There were also reported sightings in eastern France, Germany and Switzerland.

The exact nature of the object is not yet known, but it can be seen glowing brightly as it makes its way through the sky before disappearing.


View on Sott.net
Comment: Another fireball reported on the same night - Numerous reports of meteors over Ireland and Scotland
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Latest Worldwide Meteor /Meteorite News
2015-03-15 00:00:00

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15MAR2015
Maga Moate, co.westmeath, Ireland 21:00:00 5-6 seconds N-S. Very bright orange with a green tail, very close like firework, slow moving Brighter than Venus. No fragments. No pictures.

15MAR2015
Jamie MacEwan aka Jamie Groobel. Screwtop Fulton, Amisfield, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Approx 20.59 GMt 2-ish seconds South East towards North west. Orange ball followed by a bunson burner effect tail: yellow surrounded by pale blue/ white. Almost like a car headlight at full beam at 400 metres No. I have seen fragmentation once before. I thought that experience would never be topped (2012 - unreported). I feel as if I am in a state of shock. I watched an object travelling east to west in the small hours of the morning on a clear, crisp morning in the spring of 2012 whilst driving an HGV across the A66 from Scotch Corner to Kendal. On that occasion the Orange ball split into around 4 pieces in way that I can only describe as like a rocket breaking apart. Tonight it was not like that -'around 2 or so seconds then it appeared to 'burn out'. Incredible!!
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Health & Wellness
News Medical Health
2015-03-06 03:24:00

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Exposure to hormone-altering chemicals called phthalates - which are found in many plastics, foods and personal care products - early in pregnancy is associated with a disruption in an essential pregnancy hormone and adversely affects the masculinization of male genitals in the baby, according to research led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

The findings, presented today at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego and funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, focus on the role of the placenta in responding to these chemicals and altering levels of a key pregnancy hormone. These results suggest that there may be reason to push routine clinical testing earlier in pregnancy to check for the effects of chemicals and help guide potential interventions to protect the health of the baby.
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Sarah Blunden
The Conversation
2015-03-15 21:26:00

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Sleep is the foundation of good health for all of us, especially during times of physical and mental development. But since adolescents are sleeping less these days, it may be time to delay school starting times to ensure young people can be productive and well at this important point in their lives.

Both physical and mental health both suffer when we don't get enough sleep. And this particularly so for adolescents, who are going through puberty and all its attendant physical and mental development. But in a trend that has held for the last ten years young people in this age group have been losing up to one hour of sleep every school night.

The best remedy may be to let adolescents catch up on their sleep by allowing them to start school later.
Comment: The decline in the number of hours slept per night is affecting public health, including a greater risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression and stroke in adults and concentration problems in children. As the article states, these problems are affecting children much more due to their developing brains. Turning lights low and avoiding computers and cell phones late at night would also help them to get better quality sleep.
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Science of the Spirit
No new articles.
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High Strangeness
Ted Thornhill
Mail Online
2015-03-04 16:16:00
A couple that made headlines around the world when their baby son allegedly spontaneously burst into flames four times are back in the news after their second newborn baby son also caught fire.

In the first incident in 2013 the couple's first baby, Rahul, ended up in the intensive care ward at a hospital in south-eastern India's Viluppuram District, in the Tamil Nadu State, after neighbours had heard him screaming, and rushed into the house from outside to discover the child on fire in his cot.

His mother, who was working in the fields, took him to hospital and since then he has caught fire another three times, she claimed.


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Does spontaneous human combustion really exist?

One of the first serious accounts of it appeared in the august journal Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society in 1745, which recorded how a 62-year-old Italian countess had gone to bed one night feeling 'dull and heavy'. The next morning, all that was found in her bedroom was a pile of ash and her legs.

Many other cases followed, and by 1806, one scientist thought he had the answer. In An Essay On The Combustion Of Humans, Pierre Lair suggested that the problem was the demon drink, and he subtitled his article, Products Of The Abuse Of Spirituous Liquors.

The explanation that alcohol was to blame quickly caught on, especially among moralists who were against the hard stuff. In 1832, a popular Victorian magazine claimed all those who suddenly burst into flames were 'habitually drunken'.

The notion was so widespread that when Charles Dickens included an episode of spontaneous human combustion in his 1852 novel Bleak House, the victim — the villainous Mr Krook — was said to be 'continual in liquor'.

British research biologist Brian J. Ford argued in two articles, one of which appeared in the New Scientist, that spontaneous human combustion may be caused by a chemical called acetone that is produced naturally in the body, the chemical often used as a solvent in nail-varnish removers.

In healthy humans, acetone is normally disposed of through urine, but when people suffer from certain illnesses, acetone levels can build up in the body, and can even be smelled on the breath.

On the website Mumsnet, one poster wrote that her young daughter had 'acetone breath', and that 'apparently children have higher than normal acetone levels'.

Professor Ford has noted that many of the people who have combusted spontaneously were unwell at the time, and as a result, may have developed a condition called ketosis, in which acetone in the body increases.

Ketosis can have a range of causes, including alcoholism, diabetes, a high-fat diet, and even, in babies, teething.

Furthermore, acetone infuses itself well into human fat. And it is also extremely flammable.

Unable to find a human volunteer to test his theory that a build-up of acetone causes spontaneous human combustion, Professor Ford made a model from pieces of pork - the animal flesh that most closely approximates ours.

The 'pork puppet' was marinated in acetone, dressed in clothes, and placed in a chair. Professor Ford then held up a gas lighter, and the result was dramatic. The 'body' burst into a fireball, and in under an hour, it had been completely consumed by flames.

In fact, the acetone was so volatile, that even just a static spark from synthetic fabrics could have caused the conflagration.

All that was left - as is so often the case with spontaneous human combustion - were the legs, which Professor Ford suggests remain unburned because there is not enough fat in that part of the body to store the flammable acetone.