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Joachim Hagopian
American Empire Exposed 2015-03-18 23:57:00
A major recent event last week largely went unnoticed by both MSM and independent news sources alike. The British are apparently jumping ship away from the US dollar/petrodollar in an overt effort to align itself more closely with the BRICS alliance as it seeks a new standard international currency. For several years Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa (BRICS) have been preparing the world for its transition from USD standard international currency to its own alternative-in-the-making. America's so called mother country England has seen the writing on the wall and knows the global balance of power is rapidly tilting in favor of where the sun always rises in the emerging East. The European central banking cabal from the City of London, a separate and private political and financial entity apart from the rest of both London and England, sent British royalty Prince William to China to quietly sign a deal to become a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). This surprising new development is a clear indication that the royal Bank of England is placing its financial bet and future on China and the East as its rock solid anchor. Much of the world has been looking to move away from and abandon the longtime global financial stronghold of the US Federal Reserve, its World Bank and US dollar standard. A US official feebly chastised UK in the Financial Times: More consternation arose when Germany, France and Italy have additionally made overtures in the same direction. This worldwide trend spells utter defeat for Obama and his disastrous foreign policy. After Washington's been exerting strong-armed pressure on Australia as its key allied partner supporting its failing Asian pivot designed to check China's growing regional and global dominance in the Pacific Asian market, Australia is now also looking to follow suit accepting and embracing China's lead. | |
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Rostislav Ishchenko
The Saker 2015-03-16 03:42:00
In an interview with the radio station Russia Today, Rostislav Ishchenko, President of the Center for Systematic Analysis and Forecasting, talks about who is trying to draw Russia into a military conflict, and why, Crimea's role in the situation, and the splitting of the Ukraine into separate territories. In one of your articles, you wrote that the Ukraine was in all likelihood considering some sort of attack on Crimea. What exactly did you mean? First, I don't think the Ukraine or even the powers that be in Kiev want to attack Crimea. I believe that even the orders to shoot that [Oleksander] Turchynov allegedly gave the military in February 2014 were a PR move. It's doubtful whether he gave such orders at that time. And, if he had given them, of the 20,000 soldiers who were in Crimea at that time, someone would have fulfilled them. Second, as for an attack on Crimea by the Ukraine, I have already said and I'll repeat it: from my point of view, it's one of the last ways to start a war with Russia. It's perfectly clear that, from February to March of last year, they began trying to draw Russia into direct combat in the Ukraine. And it's clear that the idea came not from Kiev but from Washington. After the failed attempts to get Russia to send troops to southeast Ukraine in March, April, May, and August, as well as in January of this year, the only more or less justified chance, from the point of view of international law, to instigate a Ukrainian-Russian war is to attempt to play the return-of-Crimea card. And it has been important from the very beginning to ensure that the Ukraine is not seen as the aggressor. | |
Comment: Unfortunately for the West, Putin has been two steps ahead of them the whole way and didn't fall into the trap of taking Ukraine.
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RT
2015-03-19 22:25:00
The head of the CSTO military bloc says the organization is ready to send peacekeepers to Donbass once such a move is sanctioned by the United Nations. "The Collective Security Treaty Organization has peacekeeping potential, our forces are constantly undergoing the necessary training. If the United Nations makes this decision we would be ready to provide such units," CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha told reporters on Thursday. "But this will happen only after the use of peacekeepers is recognized as reasonable," he said. At the same time, the official emphasized the military potential of such blocs as CSTO or NATO should never go beyond peacekeeping operations. "We consider this counterproductive. What is happening in Ukraine is an internal conflict. It must be settled by Ukrainian authorities and the Donbass people, they must find common language, consensus and start agreeing on joint activities. I repeat it again - neither the CSTO collective forces nor NATO can be used in these events," Bordyuzha was quoted as saying by Belarusian news agency BelTA. | |
Comment: Unfortunately, the UN, like most of Europe and NATO, is controlled by the U.S. So it could be a while before any peacekeepers are approved to provide help to the beleaguered Donbass.
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RT
2015-03-19 22:21:00
Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for the deadly museum attack on Wednesday in Tunisia that claimed over 20 lives, according to an online audio recording cited by Reuters. The three-hour attack took place at the Bardo Museum in Tunisia's capital on Wednesday. As a result 23 people died, including 18 foreign tourists, five Tunisians and two gunmen, Health Minister Said Aidi said on Thursday. Fifty more were injured.Among the foreigners killed were one British national, three Japanese, four Italians, two Colombians, two Spaniards, an Australian, a Pole and a French citizen, according to the Tunisian PM Habib Essid's statement. The recording distributed online praised the two gunmen calling them "knights of the Islamic State." Security forces arrested nine people connected to the attack, according to a statement issued by the president's office on Thursday. Five of the arrested were directly connected, while four others were from a supporting terrorist cell, it added. | |
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RT
2015-03-19 21:21:00
Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has condemned a news report of witnesses' statements, in which people said they had seen a rocket fired at the time of Malaysian Boeing crash in Ukraine in July 2014. "Looks like a stovepiping," Lavrov said. "Attempts at distorting facts, enforcing versions on what could have happened continue to exist, with some based on openly dirty intentions," Lavrov told journalists on Thursday. Commenting on last week's Reuters report on "new evidence on the downing of the Malaysian plane over Ukraine," the minister said that it looked like the "respected agency" had published "a so-called stovepiping." "[There are] some witnesses, who contradict one another, and express things amusing for any specialist. For instance, some wiggling rocket, separating rocket stages, blue clouds of smoke," the minister said, adding such information has been provided by alleged eyewitnesses, who managed to see the crash despite being 25 kilometers (15 miles) away from it, in cloudy weather. | |
Comment: RTL Nieuws is reporting that they've had aluminum fragments tested, found at the crash site by their correspondent, Jeroen Akkermans. Three international experts (German and British, it looks like) took a look and concluded it was a Buk missile that took down the plane. But watch the clip for yourself. The first expert to mention a Buk only says it is possible - it could be any missile with a guidance system. We do not hear specific evidence suggesting it could ONLY have come from a Buk missile and not, say, an air-to-air missile. That's why a complete investigation is necessary, looking at all angles. For example, consider this: Detailed analysis: MH17 shot down by Ukrainian SU-25 cannon fire and air-to-air missile
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RT
2015-03-19 21:50:00
Moscow expects its European partners from the 'Normandy Four' to give their appraisals of the freshly-approved Ukrainian laws on self-rule in the southeastern regions. "We have not yet heard any judgments on the part of our colleagues and partners. We still hope that such judgments will appear," Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti. He added that if the Minsk peace accords are undermined as a result of Kiev actions the situation would demand urgent involvement of all guarantors of the ceasefire. "We support any dialogue," Peskov stated. However, he said that at the moment the Normandy Four had not yet agreed on a new meeting. He also said that if the presence of US and British military advisers in Ukraine, if true, did not contribute to the security in this country. On March 17, the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed the law on special status for the Donbass regions, granting the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk special self-rule status, but postponing its introduction until the regions hold new elections under Ukrainian laws. | |
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RT
2015-03-19 21:44:00
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia escalated on Thursday leaving several military dead. Different figures were produced by each side, ranging from at least three, up to 20 people in the disputed enclave in the South Caucasus. The defense ministry of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which is an unrecognized state populated mostly by ethnic Armenians and completely surrounded by Azeri territories, reported that three of its servicemen were killed and several others injured in an attack from the Azerbaijan side on Thursday. "On Thursday morning a reinforced group of [Azerbaijan's] special operation forces attacked the Karabakh positions," the ministry said in its statement, adding that the Armenian soldiers serving in that region repelled the attack and "totally defeated" the military group. Three Armenian servicemen died in the fight, and four more were injured, the ministry's press-service said. The Azerbaijani side called these reports intentional "disinformation," and said that its troops killed and wounded up to 20 Armenian military. "As a result of military clashes on March 19 on the front line, Azerbaijan's armed forces conducted a heavy attack up-front on the Armenian side, and eliminated and wounded up to 20 Armenian servicemen," the Azerbaijani defense ministry said in its statement. Both sides have repeatedly accused each other of trying to reignite a conflict that broke out in 1988 when the Nagorno-Karabakh region announced its plans to seek independence from Azerbaijan and become part of Armenia. | |
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Russia Insider
2015-03-19 19:25:00
This article originally appeared at KOPP Online. Translated for RI by Alexander Samarkin Russia is struggling with a number of liabilities these days. The price for oil, Russia's most important export good, has reached historical lows. During the previous weeks the Ruble could only recover slightly from its devastating slump against the Dollar, that has been lasting for a year now. Compared to February last year, the Russian currency now has about 40% less purchase power than the Greenback. Russia and USA are in the middle of a currency war that threatens to become an armed conflict. Not even during the cold war has the ,diplomatic" talk between USA and Russia been that harsh. Even from elitist circles come ominous warnings of an acute geopolitical danger. The continuing sanctions against Russia in the process of the Ukraine-crisis hurt the Russian economy additionally.The Russian government has to take radical measures to enhance the attractiveness of the Ruble for investors. In this context a gold backing seems more probable than ever. | |
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RT
2015-03-19 19:11:00
A recent poll by a Ukrainian research group shows how unhappy the country is with their politicians. Only eight percent say the country is going in the right direction, while almost two-thirds assert they don't approve of the president's actions. The figures should make for worrying viewing for President Petro Poroshenko and his government as Ukraine is currently mired in economic turmoil and political instability. A poll carried out by the Kiev-based Research & Branding Group from March 6-16, shows just how fed-up Ukrainians are with the way their country is being run. Poroshenko may have been in power for just over nine months, but it would appear his 'honeymoon' period has well and truly ended. Just a third of those asked believe he is doing a good job, while almost 60 percent say they aren't happy with the way the billionaire is running the country. If elections were carried out today, just under 20 percent of Ukrainians would back Poroshenko, while 30 percent would either vote against every candidate or not bother going to the polls. However, Poroshenko seems to be getting off lightly. Ukraine's nationalist Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk is even less popular with less than a quarter of those surveyed believing he is doing a good job in helping to run the country. | |
Comment: The question is - does the people's unhappiness with their leaders matter? The Kiev leadership is a U.S.-installed puppet regime. The U.S. can simply replace one puppet with another, and nothing will change. It should be clear that democracy and freedom matter little to the U.S. government, and that their meddling in Ukraine has little to do with caring about the population.
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Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg 2015-03-19 19:11:00
There's no better way to show terrorists you mean business than by preemptively ending freedom before the infidels have a chance to. Ever since the tragic Charlie Hebdo terror attacks, France has responded by turning its back on decency, freedom and civilization itself. While the counterproductive authoritarian government response to terror attacks throughout the Western world has been long noted by myself and countless others, no country has demonstrated a more enthusiastic embrace of fascism and irrationality than France. The writing was on the wall shortly after the attacks. I noted it in the post, French Authorities Demonstrate Defense of Free Speech by Arresting 54 People for Free Speech. | |
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RT
2015-03-19 19:02:00
The presidents of Russia and South Ossetia have signed a key treaty according to which the two nations will partially join their military forces, and Russia will provide full military protection to its ally. The treaty introducing the collective security principle was signed by Vladimir Putin and Leonid Tibilov on Wednesday, after the two presidents held talks in Moscow. Vladimir Putin said the document was another step not only in improving mutual legal systems, but also in economic development between the two nations. Leonid Tibilov added the friendship between the two countries and the stepping up of integration processes, were an answer to threats and challenges existing in the modern world. "We know the Russian Federation is the only guarantor for our people and for our republic,"Tibilov said, adding that South Ossetia supported all Moscow's political moves, such as the reunification with the republic of Crimea one year ago. The document sets out that Russia would provide for the security and defense of South Ossetia, including constant protection of its state border. In return, South Ossetia would allow part of its military to join Russian military forces. The details of the process must be developed jointly by the two countries within six months of signing the treaty. The procedure will be financed by the Russians and 1 billion rubles (about $16 million) will be allocated from the Russian budget for this purpose. The treaty with South Ossetia is very similar to the agreement with the Caucasus republic of Abkhazia signed in 2014 and ratified by the Russian parliament in January this year. Both republics were recognized by Russia after a brief war in 2008, which took place after Georgia tried to reclaim South Ossetia by military force, in violation of ceasefire agreements and despite Russian peacekeepers' presence. In December 2013, Russia introduced a free trade regime with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. | |
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RT
2015-03-19 18:56:00
As NATO increases its activity by putting troops on the Russian borders, it is hardly surprising that Russia responds in a similar way, political analyst Chris Bambery told RT. Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian Northern Fleet put on full combat alert as part of large snap military exercises. The announcement came with increased NATO activity near the Russian border. RT: The media generally reports that these are a response to the NATO exercises. What's your take? Chris Bambery: I think they are a response to NATO exercises which have taken place at first in the Black Sea and now in the Baltic. Why America has sent 750 military vehicles to the Baltic states including Abrams tanks, I don't know. Plus 3,000 troops. Germany is sending 600 troops. This is quite an escalation for Russia and it's on their border we should remember. But I think we also have to say something else. The rhetoric from America and to some extent from London is this idea that Putin is this "new Hitler," "the aggressor." The German military intelligence know full well that Vladimir Putin has got no ambition to occupy Ukraine. He's got no ambition to occupy the Baltic states. He's not an idiot. He is not going to invade the Baltic states and have a war with NATO. If there was evidence that Putin had sent in armored columns into Ukraine, NATO which has been [monitoring] this and the Americans who have been [monitoring] this very carefully would have flooded the world with those images. And in fact Germany and France have secured a ceasefire which is relatively successful. So why they are going along with the Americans who clearly have much more aggressive agenda here, I don't know. This is a question we should ask Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel. But I think the answer to your first question is: sure, if you are going to put troops on the borders of Russia, isn't it logical; is it hardly a surprise that Russia is going to respond in kind?
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RT
2015-03-19 18:37:00
Groups like IS, which could be behind the Bardo Museum shootings, have a long history of collaborating with the West and may have attacked tourists just to maintain their anti-Western façade, says independent political analyst Dan Glazebrook. RT: Do you think that the Western tourists were targeted on purpose? Dan Glazebrook: Yeah, I think so. The thing is with ISIS and these groups - they have a long history of collaborating with the West. It's fundamental to their appeal that they kind of try to present themselves as anti-Western. If you look over the last several years, they've been singing from the same song-sheet - whether it's on Libya, the fight against Gaddafi; Syria, the fight against Assad. We've had revelations about fighters' passage to Syria to go and fight against Assad being facilitated by MI5, by British intelligence. This all came out in the hearings in Mozambique last year. So these guys are on the same page, they are helping to fulfill the West strategic aims of destabilization in the area. ... The thousands and thousands people they've killed, the vast majority of them have been other Muslims and non-white people. From time to time they have to kill some Europeans and some Westerners in order to maintain this façade of somehow being opposed to the West, whilst they continue to carry out and facilitate the West's strategic aims. RT: A large number of Islamic State fighters reportedly come from Tunisia. Why is that? DG: It was estimated at one point that the actual majority of foreign fighters in Syria were of Tunisian origin, over 3,000... They've also fought in Libya; they've fought in terrorist campaigns in Algeria. There are many different reasons; part of it is a kind of extremist backlash against the extremist secularism of the previous President [Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali and his predecessor [Habib Bourguiba]. But I think a lot of it is just simply to do with the economics and finances. There is very high unemployment in Tunisia. It is rumored that you can get up to $27,000 a year for going to fight for ISIS... Billions of dollars were put into these sectarian militias to build up these groups by Saudi Arabia and the USA as a bulwark against the resistance axis of Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah. These billions of dollars are still slushing around. Sergio Altuna, researcher focusing on jihadist movements and political Islam in Tunisia: "I'm not sure at this point if the Bardo Museum was the main target of this terrorist operation... But given the fact that the Bardo Museum is just by the National Assembly another feasible possibility would be that a terrorist attack was aimed to attack the Assembly. It was working [Wednesday]; everybody was there - by the way, debating the new anti-terrorist law. Maybe security was too high... There is no clear information about it." | |
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RT
2015-03-19 18:25:00
Russian online payment system Yandex.Money is to start processing payments for China's online platform TradeEase, which is aimed at increasing cross-border trade between the two countries. The project is expected to have a turnover of $830,000 in the first 3 months after it starts in the summer. The platform will be launched by China's PayEase payment service, Bank of China, China's Heilongjiang province and the border city of Suifenhe, Vedomosti reported on Thursday. About 10 salesmen from the city of Suifenhe and other cities in the southern province of Heilongjiang will join the online platform in the beginning. The number is expected to grow to several hundred within a month after the launch and to exceed 1000 by the end of the year, according to Yandex.Money documents, Vedomosti said. The average spend on Chinese online stores accepting payments through Yandex.Money is currently $58 and is expected to be comparable on the TradeEase platform, says the Deputy Commercial Director for Yandex.Money, Anna Kuzmina. | |
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Bill Van Auken
WSWS.org 2015-03-19 00:00:00
The Obama administration is prepared to veto any cuts to the 2016 Pentagon budget, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told the House Armed Services Committee in testimony Wednesday. Carter said that President Barack Obama would reject any proposal that includes the sequestration caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act, which the Democratic president supported and signed into law following the staged crisis over the debt ceiling that year. The statement came as both major parties sought ways to circumvent the mandated cuts in military spending. Obama, significantly, has made no threat to veto budget proposals imposing spending caps on vital social services. Indeed, while traveling the country touting relatively minor programs that are likely to be trimmed or eliminated in budget negotiations with the Republican congressional leadership, his administration is proposing to implement some $400 billion in cuts to future Medicare and Medicaid spending, even as he seeks to slash corporate tax rates by up to 10 percent. The president's threat to veto sequestration for the military while remaining silent over social spending dovetails with Republican policy, which centers on raising arms spending while offsetting it with even deeper cuts to domestic programs. | |
Comment: So, the US the war machine will continue to rage on while millions are mired in poverty, much needed social services are cut and infrastructure continues to deteriorate.
However, it looks like the cosmos may have something else in mind for those who have lost their mandate of heaven. Lament for Babylon | |
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RT
2015-03-19 16:57:00
One of the UK's most advanced military satellites will be repositioned over the Asia-Pacific region to provide secure communications to Britain's allies in the region, a defense minister has announced. The Skynet 5A satellite is owned and operated by the global arms firm Airbus Defence and Space. The "hardened" satellites orbit earth in a "constellation" composed of eight separate units, providing the Ministry of Defence (MoD) with all its global "Beyond Line Of Sight" (BLOS) communications capacity. In a statement published on the MoD website, Defence Minister Phillip Dunne said: "Today's announcement that Airbus will be moving one of the UK's Skynet 5 satellites to the eastern Asia-Pacific region is clear proof of how much our relationships with our international allies matter. "This is the first time that we have had a secure communications capability in the region, and shows the depth of our commitment to our allies and partners in the region, including Malaysia, in humanitarian and peacekeeping operations." | |
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RT
2015-03-19 16:32:00
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has called on the British Parliament to formally recognize a Palestinian state following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's last-minute election promise not to pursue a two-state solution. Speaking during his weekly radio phone-in, Clegg described Netanyahu's election pledge as "extremely worrying." The Liberal Democrat leader said he hoped the "desperate attempt" to win votes was "breathless rhetoric." However, he warned if Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, carried out his threats, then the British Parliament would have "no choice" but to officially recognize Palestine. | |
Comment: What are the chances British parliament will follow up on Clegg's suggestion?
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Jon Rappaport
Jon Rappaport's Blog 2015-03-17 22:20:00
"A single thought simultaneously held by several people isn't some miracle. The course of history is a process of liberation from that circumstance, and the emerging miracle was one individual thinking his own thoughts. That was the great change. And now people want to reverse it. They want to go back. They want to call it evolution." (The Underground, Jon Rappoport) More and more, education is entraining children to think of themselves as part of a group. This is one basic way to cut off the consciousness of being an individual and what it really means. The government, the State, has now become the beneficent leader of The Group, and if you need confirmation, just ask any politician. He'll give you a sound bite or two. People enmeshed in the current culture don't realize that, as recently as 25 years ago, the promotion of America as One Group played like a faint tune in the far distance. Now, it's being urged by the State with wall-to-wall rhetoric straight out of some cheesy TV church; and the pastor-hustler is taking in contributions with one hand while doling out bribes with the other. Only he's got militarized police all over the land and an awesome surveillance apparatus to back him up. But he loves you. He really cares. | |
Comment: "What happens to you here is for ever. Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves." George Orwell, 1984
See also: 2011: A Brave New Dystopia | |
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Colonel Cassad
2015-03-18 20:40:00
The last year changed many things in my life, so it will be appropriate to summarize certain intermediate results associated with the changes in Sevastopol borne of the Crimean spring. I decided not to group this in blocks, so I simply write what came to my mind during the attempts to recall what has changed over a year. 1. Crimea stopped being a part of Ukraine and became a part of Russia. I wished for this event for many years, so here my dream simply came true. Those people whose dreams come true must understand very well how this feels like. 2. Ukrainian flags and Ukrainian insignia disappeared from the city. Only very rarely one can meet Ukrainian text or old advertisement banners in Ukrainian. The city speaks Russian and after thecancellation of the obligatory use of Ukrainian, which they previously tried to implant by force, the Ukrainian language simply disappeared because it wasn't needed, even though there is no special ban on the use of Ukrainian - if one wants, one can put banners in Ukrainian, the law permits it. If one wants to speak Ukrainian, one is free to do so. All of these rights are present, but nobody uses them because there is no need to do so. 3. One may now go to a movie theater without fearing the obligatory translation of the movies to Ukrainian in a city where 99% speak Russian. For several years I didn't go watch movies for the language reasons; in the last year I was there more often than in the previous 5 years. | |
Comment: Quite a different perspective than the one painted by Washington: Washington's policy toward Crimea a denial of reality
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Alexa Van Brunt
theguardian 2015-03-17 13:15:00
Adult interrogation methods do not belong in the classroom, so why are school administrators throughout the United States being trained to use them on their students in order to extract confessions? John E. Reid & Associates is the largest interrogation trainer in the world and teaches such methods to hundreds of school administrators each year . Last month, members of the Illinois Principals Association, for instance, could register for a "professional development" event on "Investigative Interviewing and Active Persuasion". The School Administrators Association of New York State recently offered a workshop for administrators on this same topic, titled "Are you Sure They Are Telling the Truth"? These administrators are learning the " Reid Technique ", which relies on "maximization" and "minimization" tactics in order to induce suspects to confess. Minimization focuses on reducing a suspect's feelings of guilt, while maximization is designed to heighten suspect anxiety using confrontation. Both techniques are legal and both are incredibly coercive. | |
Comment: The police state continues to intrude on school systems, furthering the deterioration of the educational process. While schools were never really about educating the masses, it has become clear that they are little more than indoctrination centers where students have no rights and now live in fear of being abused by police and teachers.
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Arturo Garcia
While he was upset with both Republicans and Democrats on Tuesday night,Daily Show host Jon Stewart was especially angry at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for the delay in an anti-sex trafficking bill that had bipartisan support.Raw Story 2015-03-18 17:41:00 As the New York Times reported, the bill would create a fund for sex trafficking victims, but also includes a provision banning the money from being used to pay for abortions. Stewart knocked Republicans for sneaking the abortion ban into the measure after both parties supported it in committee votes, and argued that McConnell was making a "disingenuous point" when he accused Democrats of delaying the bill for the sake of "left-wing special interest groups." "The only reason the language is in there is because you're bowing down to right-wing special interests," Stewart raged, climbing over his desk. But while the GOP had engaged in some "f*ckery," Stewart said, Democrats were "dumbasses" for failing to read the revised version of the bill, which Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said "you could blame it on staff." "How about I blame not reading the bill on you?" Stewart responded. "The guy in charge of Senate Democrats, whose last name is literally 'Reid.' How did you not read this bill?"
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Arthur Kogan
Opposing Views 2015-03-18 16:37:00
A University of Michigan fraternity has been permanently disbanded after reportedly causing an estimated $430,000 in damages to a ski resort during a party weekend. The Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity and Sigma Delta Tau sorority organized a 48-hour weekend party at Treetops Resort that, according to the Bloomfield Hills Patch, resulted in smashed ceiling tiles, broken doors and exit signs. Various media reports also claim that the students "urinated on everything in sight, including the carpet." "If you just look at our out-of-pocket expenses - things we've paid to contractors, third parties - it's around $230,000," resort general manager Barry Owens told the Detroit Free Press. "It doesn't take into consideration management time or damage to the resort's reputation," he added. "Our accountants and attorneys are saying that this could be up to an additional $200,000. We're now talking a total of $430,000." Owens also claims that he has never seen damage to this extent in all of his 30 years working in resort management. Leland Manders, national executive director of Sigma Alpha Mu, released a statement announcing that the chapter will be closed: "It is regrettable that these vandals, as well as the officers of the chapter, decided that avoiding personal accountability and/or university sanctions took priority over the welfare of the entire chapter; their lack of cooperation led to the university's withdrawal of recognition of the entire chapter for a four-year period," Manders wrote. "Sigma Alpha Mu worked in cooperation with university officials and regretfully agreed with their request to close the chapter. "When the incident first occurred, the fraternity's board took immediate and decisive action by suspending the chapter from all activities until a full investigation could be conducted," Manders wrote. "As a result of that process, a membership review was conducted and most of the senior members of the chapter refused to participate." Manders also went on to add that some members of the society may receive individual disciplinary action from authorities as a result of the vandalism. No charges have been filed just yet, but authorities and Michigan State Police are still investigating the situation. | |
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ITAR-TASS
2015-03-19 14:43:00
An Il-76 cargo aircraft of the Russian Emergencies Ministry has delivered humanitarian aid to Syria, the ministry's press service said on Thursday. "The Il-76 carrying 20.5 tons of humanitarian cargo has landed at the airport of Latakia," the press service added. The return flight from Latakia will take to Moscow some 50 Russian and CIS nationals who decided to leave the conflict zone. The humanitarian operation will help ease tensions among Syria's population and refugees, the press service added. Russia has delivered some 530 tons of humanitarian cargo to conflict-hit Syria over the past years. More than 1,100 nationals of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other CIS and European countries were evacuated by the Emergencies Ministry from the conflict zone. | |
Comment: This is what Russians do while in contrast the US just creates more havoc in Syria withdrones and supplying IS.
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Robert Garrison
KUSA 2015-03-18 13:46:00
A 34-year-old woman was arrested Wednesday after Longmont Police say she attacked a woman who was seven-months pregnant and cut the victim's unborn baby from her womb. The baby died, but the victim is expected to survive. Longmont Police Commander Jeff Satur said the suspect - later identified as Dynel Catrece Lane - showed up at an area hospital with the deceased baby, claiming she had a miscarriage. Satur said Lane's husband drove her to the emergency room, thinking the child was alive. He said the husband is not considered a suspect. The ambush happened around 2 p.m. Wednesday at Lane's home in the 1600 block of Green Place in Longmont. Satur said Lane and the 26-year-old victim did not know each other prior to this incident. The victim was responding to a Craigslist ad for baby clothes and came alone to the home. "We've made some requests of Craigslist to try to freeze that account," Satur said. "At this point, we don't want to give away too much, because we don't want it removed."
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Lee Fang
The Intercept 2015-03-19 09:57:00
Documents obtained by The Intercept indicate that security staff at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota used a fake Facebook account to monitor local Black Lives Matter organizers, befriend them, and obtain their personal information and photographs without their knowledge. Evidence of the fake Facebook account was found in a cache of files provided by the Mall of America to Bloomington officials after a large Black Lives Matter event at the mall on December 20 protesting police brutality. The files included briefs on individual organizers, with screenshots that suggest that much of the information was captured using a Facebook account for a person named "Nikki Larson." Metadata from some of the documents lists the software that created them as belonging to "Sam Root" at the "Mall of America." A Facebook account for a Sam Root lists his profession as "Intelligence Analyst at Mall of America." The fake Larson account featured a profile photo that a Google reverse image search shows is identical to a photo associated with a woman who is Facebook friends with Root. The account, previously found at this url, was deleted soon after The Intercept contacted the Mall of America for this story. On December 11, as news of the planned Black Lives Matter protest began to spread, the "Nikki Larson" account was updated with a banner image of an (apocryphal) Martin Luther King Jr. quote: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." At some point, the Larson account "liked" the Black Lives Matter Minneapolis Facebook group. | |
Comment: Black Lives Matter or Mall of America - which one is sending the bigger message?
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Thomas Miller
Personal Liberty 2015-03-16 00:00:00
There are many television shows like "Doomsday Preppers" and "Doomsday Castle" that tend to display examples of people preparing for extreme scenarios. Scenarios that are often so extreme that even most preppers think they are extreme. The typical response to these scenarios by the average person is that preppers are crazy and that there is no practical application for preparedness. I can tell you this is not the case, but I guess the news would be boring if the stories of preparedness were logical and reinforced the need to be prepared. Regardless of how you feel, there are many signs that indicate the practicality of being prepared for a variety of scenarios from natural disaster to job loss to government collapse. Some of these signs we are seeing today. It is almost as if the writing on the wall is telling us that we are in store for some tough times. Comment: Not almost. The writing on the wall is stark and clear and points to events that are just around the corner. Last year, there was great controversy around the shooting of a black teen by a white police officer that led to rioting and protests that lasted for weeks. Then, after a few months of hearing almost nothing, two police officers were shot amid a protest in Ferguson, Missouri, last week while another racially charged situation developed as the result of another police shooting in Wisconsin. Who knows if things will get better or worse, but I am almost willing to guarantee that there were many residents who wish they had been better prepared to deal with the dangers of such protests and the inherent risk of leaving home in the middle of this. I can't tell you if these events led anyone to stock up on food and water, but there was a great increase in the purchase of firearms. | |
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RT
2015-03-19 03:05:00
Amid a crackdown on hate speech and "condoning terrorism" online, a French court has handed out a two-month suspended prison sentence to prominent comedian and political activist Dieudonne over a Facebook post in the wake of Charle Hebdo attack. The 49-year-old Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, or simply Dieudonne has been convicted for being "an apologist for terrorism" over a Facebook post he made following attacks in France that killed 17 people. "I feel like Charlie Coulibaly," he wrote in a coined phrase on Facebook on January 11, four days after the Charlie Hebdo attack, allegedly making a mockery of the slogan "Je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) a global rallying cry against extremism. The second part of the phrase mimicked the name of Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four people at a Paris kosher supermarket. | |
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Doug Sovern
CBS SF Bay Area 2015-03-18 02:47:00
KCBS has learned that Saint Mary's Cathedral, the principal church of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, has installed a watering system to keep the homeless from sleeping in the cathedral's doorways. The cathedral, at Geary and Gough, is the home church of the Archbishop. There are four tall side doors, with sheltered alcoves, that attract homeless people at night. "They actually have signs in there that say, 'No Trespassing,'" said a homeless man named Robert. But there are no signs warning the homeless about what happens in these doorways, at various times, all through the night. Water pours from a hole in the ceiling, about 30 feet above, drenching the alcove and anyone in it. The shower ran for about 75 seconds, every 30 to 60 minutes while we were there, starting before sunset, simultaneously in all four doorways. KCBS witnessed it soak homeless people, and their belongings.
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Comment: Aside from the abominable treatment of homeless by the Church, you'd think the California government would be especially upset about the amount of water being wasted every day considering the drought in California at the moment. People are being asked to reduce water usage to a minimum, and meanwhile Saint Mary's Cathedral is wasting untold amounts of water. That is definitely NOT the picture of a compassionate Catholic Church!
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Cassandra Fairbanks
The Free thought Project 2015-03-17 00:33:00
San Diego, CA - Ian Anderson, of San Diego, is heartbroken after his 6-year-old service dog, Burberry, was shot and killed by a police officer outside his home in Pacific Beach on Sunday morning. The beautiful and beloved Pitbull began barking around 5:30 am when the police incorrectly arrived at Anderson's home for "what appeared to be" a domestic disturbance. The police had reportedly went to the wrong address. "For six years Ian Anderson raised his beloved dog, it took just one second for a police man's bullet to kill him," NBC reporter Omari Fleming lamented.The police had knocked on Anderson's door and when Burberry ran outside, the dog stopped barking as one officer reached down and pet him, Anderson says. Unfortunately, the other officer on the scene had an extreme reaction to the beautiful grey dog who reportedly worked with children with down syndrome, and began yelling at the animal, demanding that he go inside. The dog became startled, and the officer drew his weapon and ended Burberry's happy life. "[The officer] jumped back, went this way, drew his weapon," Anderson told NBC. "Boom. Shot right in the head and he was done. He was dead."Anderson laid outside grieving for two hours with the body of his pet, and friend, who had helped him through his anxiety while coping with the loss of his father. "He was the best dog in the entire world, I would do anything to have him back right now, absolutely anything." Anderson tearfully explained. | |
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RT
2015-03-18 23:22:00
National Front leader Marine Le Pen has called on Zlatan Ibrahimovic to leave France if he doesn't like it. The move follows the football star's angry remark about French match referees. He was filmed making the comment on Sunday evening. "In 15 years I've never seen a [good] referee in this shit country ... [they] don't even deserve PSG," Ibrahimovic said referring to French football team Paris Saint-Germain. "We're too good for all of you."
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| Secret History |
No new articles.
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| Science & Technology |
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Nicholas West
Activist Post 2015-03-18 17:47:00
After several years of consumer complaints, Microsoft Windows 10 has been getting a lot of attention as of late for many upgrades slated for their new version of the popular operating system. However, it appears that one feature being added to supposedly consumer-friendly applications is a suite of biometrics called Windows Hello and Windows Passport. It's all a part of the move toward a full-fledged Smart World where YOU become the password in a matrix of online and real-world activity. Naturally, the fear of identity theft and cyber crime of all stripes has been the sales pitch to accept this new pervasive identity tech. Apple's Touch ID was introduced in iPhone 5 which employed a fingerprint scanner for phone locking as well as to make purchases in Apple stores. | |
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Alexandra Witze
Nature 2015-03-18 00:04:00
NASA's MAVEN spacecraft has discovered a dust cloud billowing above Mars, up to 1,000 kilometres above the planet's surface. The dust does not threaten spacecraft orbiting the red planet, but the unexpected finding poses big challenges to atmospheric researchers trying to explain where the cloud came from. "This is the first discovery of dust or debris at orbital altitudes around Mars," says Bruce Jakosky, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the mission's principal investigator. "It's hard to understand how this stuff got here." Jakosky reported the finding on 18 March at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. But the dust cloud was not the only new finding from MAVEN, which has also discovered a diffuse, high-altitude aurora glowing above Mars's northern hemisphere. | |
Comment: So Earth isn't the only planet undergoing a dust veil event.
And geomagnetic storms on Mars?! Until yesterday, that was considered 'impossible'... To find out what's going on, check out: Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Amber Vann
Suwannee Democrat 2015-03-19 19:40:00
A two-year-old girl was viciously attacked by a dog on Wednesday, March 18, marring her face and upper body with severe wounds that may require cosmetic surgery, according to reports. The attack happened near the intersection of 177th Rd. and 120th Rd. in Western Suwannee County. The girl, Marina Aldama, was treated by medics at the scene until she was life flighted to UF Health in Gainesville. She was in stable condition when she was transported, according to Public Safety Director James Sommers. "It was a significant dog attack," said Sommers. "She will probably need cosmetic surgery to reattach everything. Her face, shoulders, upper torso, and back of the head were wounded." According to a report from the Suwannee County Sheriff's Office, Marina was with her mother in a van with the side door open waiting for her father to get lunch around 1 p.m. on Wednesday. Marina was pulled out of the van and attacked by a dog, the report states. The attack was unprovoked, according to the report. | |
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Maddie Oatman
Mother Jones 2015-03-19 06:15:00
They gobble up trees and send politicians into a frenzy. But do the bugs know more about climate change than we do? There is an eerie feel to this grove of lodgepole pines that I can't quite put my finger on as entomologist Diana Six tromps ahead of me, hatchet in hand, scanning the southwestern Montana woods for her target. But as she digs the blade into a towering trunk, it finally hits me: the smell.There's no scent of pine needles, no sharp, minty note wafting through the brisk fall air. Six hacks away hunks of bark until she reveals an inner layer riddled with wormy passageways. "Hey, looky!" she exclaims, poking at a small dark form. "Are you dead? Yeah, you're dead." She extends her hand, holding a tiny black oval, maybe a quarter of an inch long. Scientists often compare this insect to a grain of rice, but Six prefers mouse dropping: "Beetle in one hand, mouse turd in another. You can't tell them apart." She turns to the next few trees in search of more traces. Pill-size holes pock their ashen trunks—a sign, along with the missing pine scent, of a forest reeling from an invasion. These tiny winged beetles have long been culling sickly trees in North American forests. But in recent years, they've been working overtime. Prolonged droughts and shorter winters have spurred bark beetles to kill billions of trees in what's likely the largest forest insect outbreak ever recorded, about 10 times the size of past eruptions. "A doubling would have been remarkable," Six says. "Ten times screams that something is really going wrong." | |
Comment: "Misguided science, out-of-control logging, bad public policy and hundred years of fire suppression created a volatile geography that released the world's oldest forest manager from all natural constraints." - Andrew Nikiforuk
Have we not learned it is a disaster to mess with the natural processes and genomics of Mother Nature? Myopic-thinking scientists and politicians are so short-sighted they can't see the forest for the trees. If nothing else, they should at least comprehend the concept that NOTHING stands alone, all are interconnected and are this way for specific purposes and ecological balances. Unless, of course, you are trying to commit human-induced suicide for the whole planet. To read full article. | |
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A Duluth woman has a warning for pet owners after she says her dog was attacked by a wolf. Maureen Zupancich says her 11-year-old dog Max was attacked Tuesday morning at their home on the Portage Road in Piedmont Heights. She says the pooch suffered puncture wounds and bruises and had to get stiches and staples. Zupancich says her husband saw the dog being carried away by the wolf.
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townhall.com
2015-03-19 17:56:00
A Czech tourist suffered minor injuries when a polar bear attacked the tent he was sleeping in on the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norwegian authorities said Thursday. Police spokesman Vidar Arnesen said the man was among a group of six that was on a combined ski and snow scooter trip on the remote islands more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of the Norwegian mainland. The group was camping north of the main town of Longyearbyen. The man, Jakub Moravec, told local media he hoped to be out of the hospital later Thursday. "Now I am fine. I have some scratches in the face, on one arm and on the back. But I feel fine," he told the Svalbardposten newspaper. | |
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There are more than 3,000 sinkholes on the banks of the Dead Sea -- and they're multiplying exponentially, according to environmentalists, as the body of water dries up. "It's nature's revenge," said Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli Director at EcoPeace Middle East, an organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists to protect their shared environmental heritage. "These sinkholes are a direct result of the inappropriate mismanagement of water resources in the region." More than 1,400 feet below sea level, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on land. The first sinkhole was spotted in the 1980s. By 1990, there were 40, and 15 years later new chasms are breaking open every day. "They could develop overnight. Or over time," Bromberg said. "Making them unpredictable. And very dangerous." | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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13newsnow.com
2015-03-17 14:33:00
For a second day, people are wondering what's causing the ground to shake and where the loud booms are coming from. On Monday, people called 13News Now and posting questions on our Facebook page saying they felt the ground shake in Norfolk and Virginia Beach at two distinctly different times - once at around 4:20 p.m. and again shortly after 6 p.m. On Tuesday, questions started coming in from the Peninsula. Edna H. wrote, "I am in the Denbigh Section of Newport News. We have already had 4 loud blasts in less than an hour. What is going on????" Linda T asked "Where are the sonic booms coming from?" The website for the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that there have been no earthquakes recorded in our area in the past 24 hours. Phone calls placed to area emergency dispatchers found no actual reports of earthquakes, or damage from whatever the shaking was. A 2.5 magnitude earthquake was reported outside Richmond about three weeks ago. The Navy said Tuesday they didn't have aircraft in the area. A news release last week from the Navy indicated that they would be conducting "intensive day and night flight operations" through the first week of April. The release went on to say: "These flight operations, which include Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) conducted at Naval Auxiliary Landing Field (NALF) Fentress in Chesapeake, Virginia, are necessary for two Navy Carrier Air Wings and the Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) to complete required aircraft carrier pre-deployment and sustainment training. Night flight operations are expected to continue past midnight during this period. " | |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Brian Rogers
Prevent Disease 2015-03-19 18:46:00
Certainly if you are on the frontlines of the vaccine debate you've heard the argument from pro vaxxers 'hey well, y'know, a can of tuna has about the same amount of mercury in it that a vaccine does.' Or about aluminum, 'a muffin has as much aluminum as a vaccine containing aluminum'. It is a silly argument but it shows you the mindset of some of these people that don't question and research the very vaccine inserts or information available to them before they are injected. First of all, anyone with a basic knowledge of biology should know the difference between injection and ingestion, one goes to the bloodstream, the other to the GI Tract. Biologically they are much different, and that should end the argument right there with just simple biological logic. Let's go a little deeper but also try and keep it simple. | |
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Saliou Samb and Emma Farge
Reuters 2015-03-17 19:39:00
Guinea has suffered a setback in its fight against Ebola with a rash of new cases, including three doctors infected by the virus, with officials blaming weak surveillance and a failure to follow safety procedures. The outbreak, which began in eastern Guinea more than a year ago and has killed over 10,000 people in the three West African countries worst hit, had appeared to be on the wane, but Guinea has seen cases rise for three consecutive weeks, according to World Health Organization data. A government health report from the weekend showed there were 21 new cases in a single day, a spike from the recent daily average of eight. President Alpha Conde said on Tuesday that everything must be done to end the outbreak by mid-April, ahead of a meeting with donors scheduled around that date. Ending Ebola could reboot Guinea's mining-dependent economy that has been hammered by the outbreak which has scared investors, he said. "With Ebola, it is easier to go from 100 cases to 10 cases than from 10 cases of to zero. To end it, we need ten times more effort than when the outbreak was at its height," he said. | |
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Science Daily
2015-03-19 00:00:00
Across much of the Western world, 25 years of expansion of the medical system has actually led to people feeling less healthy over time, a new study has found. A researcher at The Ohio State University used several large multinational datasets to examine changes in how people rated their health between 1981 and 2007 and compared that to medical expansion in 28 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. During that time, the medical industry expanded dramatically in many of those countries, which you might expect would lead to people who felt healthier. But that's not what Hui Zheng, assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State, found. "Access to more medicine and medical care doesn't really improve our subjective health. For example, in the United States, the percentage of Americans reporting very good health decreased from 39 percent to 28 percent from 1982 to 2006," Zheng said. | |
Comment: What is being implied but not directly stated is that the system of health care is primarily a business model that is set up to benefit certain corporations, i.e. the pharmaceutical industry, insurance carriers and those owners of for-profit health institutions. As profit centers, the discovery of diseases, their treatment and medication benefits those centers while often doing more harm to patients who are over-screened, over-diagnosed and over-medicated. On top of that, those who are not able to pay are sued by hospitals and have their wages seized. No wonder people feel less healthy, thanks to the medical system, they probably ARE less healthy.
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Alan Bavley and Mike Hendricks
The Kansas City Star 2015-03-19 15:43:00
Twenty-seven more people have tested positive for tuberculosis at Olathe Northwest High School, state and county health officials said Wednesday, but so far none has shown any symptoms of active disease. The 27 were among 304 students and staff members the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment tested last week after a student was diagnosed earlier this month with an active case of TB. Only people with active TB can infect others. Health officials on Monday began calling people who had tested positive; letters were mailed to those with no sign of the infection, the health officials said. People who tested positive will receive antibiotic treatment through the health department. With many people away on spring break, not everyone who tested positive has been contacted yet. | |
Comment: For more on tuberculosis:
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Martha Rosenberg
OpEd News 2015-03-11 21:23:00
Long before the Internet and direct to consumer advertising, the medical profession tried to reassure people about their health concerns. Sure fatigue and headaches could be a symptom of a brain tumor; sure a cough could be a symptom of lung cancer--but most doctors tried to assuage not sow fear. Remember "take two aspirins and call me in the morning"? Flash forward to today's online "symptom checkers," quizzes to see if you have a certain disease and exhortations to see your doctor even though you feel fine. Once Pharma discovered that health fears and even hypochondria sell drugs, there seems to be no end to the new diseases, symptoms and risks people need to worry about. Selling symptoms to suggestible people has been a gold mine for Big Pharma since it started advertising directly to the consumer around the late 1990s. Thanks to such marketing which actually "sells" diseases to build demand, millions of people who were once fine now have depression, insomnia, season allergies, GERD and assorted attention, pain and spectrum disorders. Worse, theywant these afflictions because the medications that treat them have been made so glamorous. | |
Comment: Big Pharma seeks profits above all else. Health be damned. Do your own research and don't fall for the lies and manipulations.
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Cort Johnson
Health Rising 2015-03-04 05:14:00
We tend to think of fibromyalgia as a central nervous system disease but that focus has tended to obscure the growing evidence of problems in the body. We don't tend to think of fibromyalgia as an inflammatory disorder. It's true that overt signs of inflammation are rarely found in people with FM but some studies suggest inflammatory factorsmay play a role. Then there are the mitochondria. Mitochondrial dysfunction is thought of as a real possibility in chronic fatigue syndrome, but I've rarely associated it with fibromyalgia or pain. It turns out, however, that multiple studies - most of them small - suggest that mitochondrial dysfunction could indeed play a significant role in fibromyalgia. Could fibromyalgia, whatever else it is - also be a mitochondrial disorder? | |
Comment: This certainly connects a lot of dots. Also, seems that the best way to heal the mitochondrial DNA is a ketogenic diet with intermittent fasting and short, intense resistance training; this activates wild mtDNA which can then begin to replicate and go around cleaning house.
For more information, see: The Ketogenic Diet - An Overview | |
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Jeff Roberts
Collective Evolution 2015-03-18 01:06:00
"There is no such thing as a safe drug." This comes from ex-pharmaceutical sales rep and author of the book, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher, Gwen Olsen. For 15 years, Gwen was living an unintentional lie, working as a pharmaceutical sales rep for some of today's largest pharmaceutical manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Abbott Laboratories. But through a gradual course of tragic events, Gwen's eyes were eventually opened to the unethical and tyrannical truth about pharmaceutical drugs. "It was an awakening process, a spiritual and consciousness process where I started observing what was happening, what some of the drugs were doing, the misinformation, the disinformation. I was being encouraged to minimize side effects when I talked to doctors. I started to realize that these patients were literally being tortured by the drugs."In her tell all book, Gwen writes about her years as a pharmaceutical sales rep, exposing the dirty secrets of the industry that often go untalked about. As she explains, by the time a drug is approved and hits the general population, we don't know even 50% of side effects that are involved with that drug, "We were being trained to misinform people,"she said. | |
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Alliance for Natural Health
2015-03-17 00:38:00
It's the same old story of prescription drugs and fraudulent studies, but the FDA doesn't seem to care. A recent article in Slate magazine shows how the FDA hides important safety information when it uncovers scientific misconduct in clinical trials of pharmaceutical drugs. The names of the drugs and the company responsible for the misconduct are concealed, journal citations are left uncorrected, and claims made on drugs' labels are left unchanged even after it's known that they were based on bad science. According to the author, The author notes that these aren't isolated incidents, but part of routine behavior by the FDA to shield Big Pharma from unwelcome scrutiny. | |
Comment: Read more about how the FDA comes to the rescue of Big Pharma:
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Hilary Jacobs Hendel
New York Times 2015-03-10 17:33:00
How can it be that a seemingly depressed person, one who shows clinical symptoms, doesn't respond to antidepressants or psychotherapy? Perhaps because the root of his anguish is something else. Several years ago a patient named Brian was referred to me. He had suffered for years from an intractable depression for which he had been hospitalized. He had been through cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, supportive therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy. He had tried several medication "cocktails," each with a litany of side effects that made them virtually intolerable. They had been ineffective anyway. The next step was electroshock therapy, which Brian did not want. | |
Comment: Other possible solutions may be journaling and having a supportive network of people that one can feel safe expressing their emotions with.
Writing to Heal Writing by hand benefits the brain: The lowdown on longhand Building resilience helps us to recover from life's difficulties The power of vulnerability Study: Laughter among friends leads to self-disclosure which helps deepen relationships and create trust | |
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Dr Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog 2015-03-19 17:53:00
When people tell each other something intimate, it deepens the relationship. Laughter encourages people to open up and this is the secret to how to make friends, a new study finds. People in the study were more likely to disclose something personal about themselves after laughing together, although they didn't realise it. Self-disclosure is usually critical to how to make friends, as the study's authors explain: "Self-disclosure has long been regarded as critical to relationship development and is typically considered as an exchange, where intimacies are traded as a means of deepening and developing relationships.So the study may explain one way that laughter can help people connect. |
