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Ante Sarlija & Niall Bradley
Sott.net 2015-05-19 16:25:00
The latest chapter in NATO's 'anti-terror' operations seems to be opening up, again in Libya. In case you didn't know, 'ISIS jihadists' are coming to Europe and the UK! Disguised as Muslim refugees they are "hell-bent on committing atrocities," thus the necessity of 'bombing them over there so we don't have to bomb them here'. The story goes that ISIS is 'blending in' with refugees on their boat crossings to Europe, thus ALL refugees coming to Europe could potentially be 'terrorists'. So, bomb them! The US (NATO) which is responsible for causing the humanitarian crisis and, as it happens, ISIS itself, is once again offering a 'solution' to a problem it created. If you don't want hordes of refugees, then don't bomb their homes; that's the simple truth that is lost on NATO warmongers. But the price of killing innocent people - as Madeleine Albright would say - is always "worth it". Especially when you can just call the refugees you create "terrorists", and threaten to kill them too. NATO is not only capitalizing on the ISIS 'threat', it's using the 'concern' about the refugee crisis it created to continue to 'manage' the Middle East in a way that ensures Western control of the oil spigot and keeps Russia and China out of southwest Asia. Another Western intervention will, of course, cause even more displaced persons and spawn more terrorists in a never-ending loop, but don't expect the goons running NATO to care or have the perspicacity to foresee that inevitable consequence. It's a twisted world of psychopaths in power that wouldn't appear in your worst nightmares. | |
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James G. Long
American Thinker 2015-05-18 14:49:00
After a conventional mid-Western childhood and up through university, my first encounter with a serious mental aberration was in the US Army in Germany when I worked for an Army captain, the likes of whom I had never seen. He was a pathological liar, and repeatedly claimed to be a "tough son-of-a-bitch" or a "mean son-of-a-bitch." The gentleman was erratic and abusive toward lower ranks, was indecisive in action until given direction by higher authority, but maintained a correct attitude toward senior officers who publicly commended him based more on his appearance and speaking ability than on any performance. I seriously thought he must be crazy. Our Colonel, whom had previously spoken highly of the Captain, caught the Captain in a serious operational dishonesty, and it was "Good-bye, Captain!" In the next eleven years I worked for three more very similar personalities in the military and in industry. Years later in the 1970s there were a series of psychopathic serial murder cases (Ted Bundy, Dean Corll, John Wayne Gacy) but I did not relate my experiences with military officers and industrial mangers to serial murderers. It was not until the 1990s that there were several cases of widely publicized corporate fraud (Bernie Ebbers at WorldCom, Jeff Skilling at Enron) and the perpetrators were identified as corporate psychopaths. This was the type personality that I had observed decades earlier and I now have professional confirmation that I have worked for four different psychopathic-type personalities. | |
Comment: Chances are you crossed paths with a psychopath today. Check out:
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| Puppet Masters |
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Sputnik News
2015-05-19 14:08:00
Representatives of the international financial industry are calling on state leaders to take precautions regarding the next possible economic crisis. They fear that too much money has flowed in the wrong direction and are appealing to strengthen controls over the granting of loans, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reported. Heads of international financial companies have warned of the possible bursting of asset bubbles and called on state governments to better control the granting of loans to avoid a new financial crisis, DWN reported. The paper released under the moderation of the World Economic Forum (WEF) points out that fundamental problems of the financial markets have not been resolved, despite the fact that central banks pumped millions into money markets. | |
Comment: There has already been plenty of "interaction" between banks and political circles, and that's one of the problems in an oligarchy. For a great overview of this economic quagmire, check out 2015 the BRICS checkmate Western finance:
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RT
2015-05-19 14:51:00
A new Texas law signed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott prohibits cities and towns from imposing local ordinances to prevent fracking and other potentially environmentally harmful oil and natural gas activities. In debating the law, Texas lawmakers emphasized the state's successful development of oil and gas for more than 100 years. The bill received a two-thirds majority vote in the Texas House and Senate. The law preempts municipal authorities from regulating oil and gas operations "within its boundaries or extraterritorial jurisdiction." Local authorities can only pass ordinances and other measures to "regulate only surface activity" in ways that are "commercially reasonable" to oil and gas operations. | |
Comment: This is a big win for the oil and gas companies. The bill was dressed up as a win for property owners' rights and job creation when in actuality it was about big business getting their way regardless of the consequences to people and the environment.
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Sputnik
2015-05-19 13:46:00
All attempts by Western countries to put political and economic pressure on Russia have failed. If anything, they have helped Vladimir Putin to become an even more popular leader, Boulevard Voltaire said. Over the last year, Russia has gone through some tough times — the political isolation from the West over the country's alleged intervention in the Ukrainian crisis, the fall of the ruble and economic sanctions. However, at the end of the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin came out as a victor from all the adversities and should even thank the West for giving him an opportunity to strengthen his country, open up new economic venues and unite his citizens under a new national idea, French magazine Boulevard Voltaire reported. After the Western-backed illegal coup that ousted officially elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 and the start of the Ukrainian civil war, Russia was able to re-unite with Crimea. The people of the Crimean peninsula did not accept the illegal coup in Kiev and voted to get out of Ukraine and join back the Russian Federation. Thus, Russia ended up expanding its territory, Boulevard Voltaire said. | |
Comment: It's clear by now that the West has initiated it's own downfall by overstepping it's bounds. Instead of harming Russia, the Western sanctions have created a more united and stronger Russia under Putin's leadership. Worthy leaders know how to utilize adversity and apply the lessons learned to enrich the people and systems they are responsible for. Putin is doing just that.
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Sputnik
2015-05-19 13:07:00
A huge explosion has reportedly hit a diplomatic area of the Afghan capital. A loud explosion, gunshots were heard in the diplomatic area of Kabul on Tuesday. The diplomatic area is located just beside of the presidential palace and the building of the Justice Ministry. | |
Comment: Is this related to Russia's decision to stop the transit of NATO military cargo to Afghanistan through its territory?
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Tass
2015-05-08 12:50:00
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed a number of top-ranking officers of the Russian Interior Ministry, Emergencies Ministry, the Investigations Committee and the Federal Service for Drug Control, according to a decree posted on the official internet portal of legal information on Friday. Thus, the president dismissed internal services Major General, chief of the directorate for relations with civil society institutions and mass media of the Russian Interior Ministry Andrei Pilipchuk. | |
Comment: Putin has a long history of cleaning house when needed. Ustinov, linked to the "siloviki" hardliners, had previously been removed from his position as Prosecutor-General in 2006. It appears Putin may again be taking a stand against some of the more hawkish influences of the Russian government.
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Eric Zeusse
Washington's Blog 2015-05-18 00:00:00
On Tuesday, May 12th, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was asked at a press conference in Sochi Russia, to respond to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's recent statements promising renewed war against Donbass, which were made first on April 30th, "The war will end when Ukraine regains Donbass and Crimea," and which were repeated on May 11th, by his saying, "I have no doubt, we will free the [Donetsk] Airport, because it is our land." In other words, Poroshenko had repeatedly made clear that he plans a third invasion of Donbass, and, ultimately, also to invade and retake Crimea. (The Western press, however, had not reported any of these threats that were being made by Poroshenko.) Kerry responded: " I have not had a chance - I have not read the speech. I haven't seen any context. I have simply heard about it in the course of today [which would be shocking if true]. But if indeed President Poroshenko is advocating an engagement in a forceful effort at this time, we would strongly urge him to think twice not to engage in that kind of activity, that that would put Minsk in serious jeopardy. And we would be very, very concerned about what the consequences of that kind of action at this time may be." | |
Comment: Unfortunately there is also, probably, a 'Plan C' being played out that the Obama Administration is not even aware of, or privy to, at this time. Plan C, would have been devised by those who truly pull the strings and basically tell the White House what to do. Such a Plan C would mean "playing nice" for now until a new strategy for instilling chaos in Russia and Eurasia could be devised - and may already be in progress but requires more time to develop and implement. Considering, also, how important Ukraine is to an overall strategy of attacking Russia, don't be surprised if the administration does yet another about face towards supporting the Kiev regime's aggression towards its eastern populations. Remember what we're dealing with here.
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James Hall
BATR 2015-05-13 10:19:00
Hedge Fund schemers are the modern version of robber barons. At the top of the list of unscrupulous manipulators is the Nazi collaborator, George Soros. With reports like in Forbes that George Soros May Owe Billions In Taxes, an alarm should go off to all investors. "By the early 2000s, hedge funds were considered de rigeur for sophisticated investors willing to take a risk in exchange for potential wealth. As that potential wealth grew, so did the potential tax bill, and managers began looking at other options. The solution? Investing in offshore hedge funds. Hedge fund managers are generally taxed on income in the country where the fund is located making relocating to the usual offshore suspects such as the Caymans, Bermuda and Ireland attractive. Tax was essentially deferred on fees from these funds until it landed in the hands of those in the U.S." The 2008 financial meltdown had all the Wall Street elites scrambling to protect their investment, while avoiding the day of reckoning with the tax man. One such effort asForbes cites allowed for another deferred work around. The change was inserted into the (Public Law 110-343) - and if that sounds familiar, you're not imagining it. That law was also instrumental in the administration of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP. The new law essentially banned the deferral of fees and compensation by these offshore hedge funds. Moving the domicile for the Soros fund to Ireland was an attempt to circumvent the intent of an ill-written law. | |
Comment: This is one way the 1% rig the game.
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RT
2015-05-18 02:24:00
The Royal Navy has launched an investigation into whistleblower William McNeilly, who exposed horrid security lapses in UK's trident nuclear programwhich make it easier for intruders to access some secured areas than enter "most nightclubs." UK authorities are "concerned for the whereabouts" of the 25-year old whistleblower, who went absent without leave and cooperated with WikiLeaks to post a detailed 18-page reportcalled The Nuclear Secrets. McNeilly, a weapons engineer, who allegedly served from January to April this year on board the HMS Victorious, claims that a number of security lapses and technical faults with the Trident missiles carrier exposes the UK nuclear deterrent to potential terrorist attacks that "would kill our people and destroy our land." Possible attackers have "the perfect opportunity to send nuclear warheads crashing down on the UK," he claims. In his revelations, the whistleblower notes some 30 safety and security flaws on Trident submarines that are based out of Faslane on the Clyde, Scotland. McNeilly took his time outlining the ease at which potential terrorist can infiltrate the secured base. "At a Base security brief we were told that thousands of Royal Navy IDs go missing every year. A terrorist can use them, or create counterfeits with them and easily gain access down the submarine. Considering most of the guards barely look at them from a few metres (couple of feet if they're the rare ones) away the fakes wouldn't have to be too perfect," the whistleblower explains. "I've shown a room card or nothing, at least once at every check point," McNeilly wrote. An intruder could bring inside the secured facility any private electronic device to potentially steal top secret data - or even weapons and explosives, since the whistleblower claims, contractors and their equipment are hardly ever being searched. "You can carry anything through the security check points without it being checked!" he says in the report. Personnel Electronics should be banned yet the policy isn't enforced. You can bring whatever electronic devices you want onboard... They use their own personal electronics right beside the missiles." | |
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RT
2015-05-18 00:07:00
At the prospect of the international community's nuclear deal with Iran, Saudi Arabia has reportedly taken a decision to call in an old favor from Pakistan and get some of its nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia is widely believed to have bankrolled the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. In exchange, Riyadh reportedly expects Islamabad to provide missiles in times of trouble to defend the kingdom. "For the Saudis the moment has come," a former American defense official toldThe Sunday Times newspaper. "There has been a longstanding agreement in place with the Pakistanis, and the House of Saud has now made the strategic decision to move forward." Comment: A good question to ask is why now? What's changed on the international chessboard that makes the Saudi elite think they need nuclear weapons. According to the report, no actual transfer of weapons has taken place yet, but "the Saudis mean what they say and they will do what they say," the source reportedly said.
#Iran insists #Israel 'give up the bomb' as Tehran seeks nuclear-free Middle East http://t.co/toHPgMxWv7 pic.twitter.com/pNbRX1vtMv— RT (@RT_com) April 27, 2015
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Comment: Interesting that there's been no major outcry from the west, no threats of war, barely a peep from the US State Dept. Again, we see that the issue is never what the media pundits proclaim, but that acquiring nuclear weapons (like WMD in Iraq) is simply a rallying banner that governments use to drum up support for their latest desire to invade and conquer.
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RT
2015-05-18 23:22:00
Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev has revoked a decree that allowed delivery of NATO military equipment to Afghanistan through Russian territory. According to the official document, signed by Medvedev and published on Monday, all previous decisions on NATO cargo transit to Afghanistan have now been revoked. This includes an act allowing delivery of military hardware and equipment via rail, motor vehicles, or through Russian airspace. The Russian Foreign Ministry has been ordered to inform all the countries involved. | |
Comment: It only makes sense. What has NATO ever done for the benefit of Russia?
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Michael Snyder
End of the American Dream 2015-05-17 22:54:00
No wonder Washington never changes - 79 members of Congress have been there since Bill Clinton's first term in the White House. This list includes names such as Reid, Feinstein, McConnell, McCain, Pelosi, Boehner, Rangel and Boxer. In this article, I am going to share with you a complete list of the members of Congress that have been "serving" us for at least 20 years. They believe that they are "serving" us well, but without a doubt most Americans very much wish that true "change" would come to Washington. In fact, right now Congress has a 15 percent approval rating with the American people, and that approval rating has been consistently below 20 percent since mid-2011. So of course we took advantage of the 2014 mid-term election to dump as many of those Congress critters out of office as we possibly could, right? Wrong. Sadly, incumbents were re-elected at a 95 percent rate in 2014. This just shows how broken and how corrupt our system has become. The American people absolutely hate the job that Congress is doing, and yet the same clowns just keep getting sent back to Washington again and again. | |
Comment: Yes, there are solutions but Americans need to wake up first and realize there is a problem in order to make the changes that benefit themselves.
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Tyler Durden
Zerohedge 2015-05-15 14:35:00
Despite the government's 'advice' to young debt-laden students, the tragedy of the American farmer continues with worryingly pessimistic views on the future of the industry. With farmland prices falling for the first time in almost 30 years, credit conditions are weakening dramatically and the Kansas City Fed warns that persistently low crop prices and high input costs reduced profit margins and increased concerns about future loan repayment capacity, and JPMorgan concludes, the industry is currently in dire straits with the potential for a liquidity crunch for farmers into 2016. Not so long ago, U.S. farmland - whose prices were until recently rising exponentially - was considered by many to be the next asset bubble. Then, almost overnight, the fairytale ended, and as reported in February, U.S. farmland saw its first price drop since 1986.
Looking ahead, very few bankers expect price appreciation and more than a quarter of survey respondents expect cropland values to decline further in the next three months. | ||
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RT
2015-05-18 22:19:00
One of the biggest critics of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal being touted by the White House raises questions about the Obama administration's promises for the TPP in a new report. The 15-page "Broken Promises" study put out by the Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) on Monday this week contains what the lawmaker's office describes as highlights from "two decades of failed enforcement by the United States of labor and environmental standards" related to past free trade agreements. US President Barack Obama has hailed the 12-nation TPP agreement currently being discussed as a means of enhancing the economy both at home and abroad by establishing new relationships among Pacific Ring nations. Opponents of the trade deal have taken aim at the secrecy with which negotiations have so far been conducted, as well as whether or not the TPP will actually live up to the administration's promises, or spawn results similar to that of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. | |
Comment: She keeps hammering the point but is anyone listening?
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Mike Whitney
CounterPunch 2015-04-20 20:47:00
"The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.....We must, however, be mindful that...Russia will remain the strongest military power in Eurasia and the only power in the world with the capability of destroying the United States." -- The Wolfowitz Doctrine, the original version of the Defense Planning Guidance, authored by Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, leaked to the New York Times on March 7, 1992 "For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia...and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained." -- The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, page 30 The Laussanne negotiations between Iran and the so called P5+1 group (the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany) have nothing to do with nuclear proliferation. They are, in fact, another attempt to weaken and isolate Russia by easing sanctions, thus allowing Iranian gas to replace Russian gas in Europe.Laussanne shows that Washington still thinks that the greatest threat to its dominance is the further economic integration of Russia and Europe, a massive two-continent free trade zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok that would eventually dwarf dwindling US GDP while decisively shifting the balance of global power to Asia. To counter that threat, the Obama administration toppled the elected government of Ukraine in a violent coup, launched a speculative attack on the ruble, forced down global oil prices, and is presently arming and training neo-Nazi extremists in the Ukrainian army. Washington has done everything in its power to undermine relations between the EU and Russia risking even nuclear war in its effort to separate the natural trading partners and to strategically situate itself in a location where it can control the flow of vital resources from East to West. | |
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Will Stewart
Daily Mail, UK 2015-05-19 18:04:00
These shocking scenes show an inferno in an apartment block today in which at least 16 people have been killed and another 64 injured. Hundreds fled for their lives from the deadly fire which spread rapidly amid allegations of an inflammable 'low quality of plastic' on the building. Located in Baku, the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan, three children were among those killed in the 16 storey building, said local reports, among them a three-year-old girl. A number were saved by firefighters, who were themselves held back by strong winds fanning the flames, while helicopters were scrambled to put out the mammoth blaze in the Caspian Sea city. There were fears people were still missing in the carnage. The apartment block houses 408 residents in 107 flats.
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John P. Thomas
Natural Blaze 2015-05-18 00:00:00
The U.S. federal government has mandated drug research with children. The need for children to participate in drug company research is high, and the temptation to overstep parental rights to force children to participate is great. Researchers publicly admit using money and other rewards to obtain participation of children in their drug trials. Organizations that advocate for the rights of parents to make decisions regarding their children's healthcare are finding that foster children in CPS custody are being enrolled in drug experiments without parental approval. State Child Protective Services are enrolling children in drug experiments without parental approval or court orders. However, those who conduct these drug experiments for pharmaceutical companies, and those who are charged with monitoring such research, do not see a problem with their recruitment methods. There is a Shortage of Children for Drug Research Studies | |
Comment: CPS, far from being an advocate of children is a sinister organization thatroutinely kidnaps children, often from perfectly decent and caring parents. These children are then put into the care of those who emotionally and sexually abuse them; some are actually 'lost' within the system where they are put into a human trafficking nightmare. CPS also cooperates with the medical mafia to force children to undergo chemotherapy. For more background on CPS, listen to our SOTT Radio Network interview with Tammi Stefano: The Truth About Child Protective Services.
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Phys.org
2015-05-19 16:30:00
A Japanese court upheld an injunction banning the restart of two nuclear reactors, a report said Tuesday, in a blow to the government's ambitions to return to atomic power generation. Fukui District Court in central Japan dismissed Kansai Electric Power's motion for a stay on an earlier decision to temporarily bar the restart of the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at plant in Takahama, Kyodo News said. The decision made Monday comes as the government and Japan's powerful utility companies work to get reactors back online, more than four years after the disaster at Fukushima. The accident forced Japan's entire fleet of reactors offline over the following months amid deepening public suspicion over the technology. | |
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John Vibes
The Free Thought Project 2015-05-18 05:06:00
Mother and substitute teacher Julie Giles was arrested this week because her son had too many unexcused absences from public school. Writing on her Facebook page before turning herself in, Giles said "If anyone feels the need to go public with this feel free to do so....the facts are Sam originally had what they consider 12 unexcused absences, 6 are allowed per year, so he had 6 more than is acceptable, but the doctor reissued 3 excuses that Sam didn't turn in, so basically I am being arrested for THREE days." She also noted that her child has all A's and B's in school.
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Comment: Two tiers of justice? Check out the charges against these cops:
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Source
2015-05-19 13:24:00
Britain has been labeled the "European capital of inequality" after a report found it is the most unequal country in the EU, and worse than even the United States. The Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) analyzed wages across the EU. It found that the UK has the highest Gini coefficient of any EU member state, and eclipses that of the US. The coefficient is a widely used measure of income distribution within a nation, and is often used to calculate inequality. According to analysts at Eurofound, Britain has a Gini coefficient of 0.404, while the US is at 0.4. Portugal and Latvia followed the UK with Gini coefficients of 0.358 and 0.357, respectively. The average Gini index for the EU as a whole in 2011 was 0.346. Eurofound's study, titled Recent Developments in the Distribution of Wages in Europe, looked at data from 2004 to 2011, the period before and after the onset of the Great Recession. | |
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Alexander Mosesov
Sputnik 2015-05-19 12:49:00
People in the United States are fed up with mainstream media coverage of events in Iraq and Iran, CODEPINK activist organization national coordinator Alli McCracken, told Sputnik on Tuesday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — McCracken's comments come following the release of an ICM Research poll conducted exclusively for Sputnik, revealing that a total of 60 percent of European and US citizens surveyed wanted to receive information on global events from alternative news sources. Western mainstream media coverage of the developments in Iraq gave rise to doubt from the beginning of the US military invasion in 2003. High-profile television channels were faulted for copycat reproduction of primary government talking points, including allegations of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction and the use of state-sponsored foreign agents for local information. US news outlets have come under fire for their coverage of Iran. In 2013, experts at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland released a report suggesting that influential US and UK newspapers created inaccurate impressions of Iran's nuclear activity by using "very vague and inconsistent terminology" and avoiding reputable local information sources. | |
Comment: People are seeing the MSM outlets for the propaganda rags they are, and are interested in seeking out alternatives like SOTT to provide accurate and truthful information in a time of lies and universal deceit.
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Chris Voluntaryist
Cop Block 2015-05-18 02:46:00
Dr. Bhagwan Bang was at his home in Opp, Alabama on Sept. 8th, 2014, when he received a call about a baby that had stopped breathing and turned blue at the Andalusia Regional Hospital. Having been in this exact situation several times before, he knew that he had just minutes to be there in order to save the baby from life-altering brain damage or even death. He has been pulled over by police several times previously for emergency medical calls. The police in Opp even gave him a specific route to take any time he had to rush to the hospital for emergency medical situations and was informed to call 911 on his way there any time he needed to get there in a hurry. He followed those exact instructions but ended up getting pulled over anyway. When he got pulled over, he was on the phone frantically telling the hospital why he couldn't be there sooner. The police detained him even after he explained to them the situation. They held him for fifteen minutes and threatened to put handcuffs on him but eventually, they let him go. When the Dr. Bhagwan Bang got to the hospital, he did what he could but unfortunately, the baby died several days later, likely as a result of the doctor being stopped for so long. Not only did the baby die as a result but the police charged the man with reckless driving along with several other charges even after doctors and nurses gave testimonies in his favor that this was in fact an emergency. The Opp Municipal Court decided that Dr. Bhagwan Bang is guilty of all charges so now he faces losing his driver's license for 6 months. Members of the community have started a petition that they will show to the Opp Police Department and Judge Ronnie Penn, the link to that is here. | |
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Agence France-Presse
2015-05-18 23:28:00
Mexico sought answers Monday after five children aged 11 to 15 stoned, stabbed and buried a six-year-old boy, a shocking case that raised questions about the influence of drug violence on kids. The boy was found in a shallow grave by a stream on Saturday, two days after he was last seen with a group of children on the outskirts of the Chihuahua state capital, the regional prosecutor's office said. Cristopher Raymundo Marquez Mora was found after investigators interrogated the children, who include two 13-year-old girls, one 11-year-old boy and two 15-year-old boys. The five were detained as "probable culprits in an act that reflects a problem of social decay," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. The victim disappeared late Thursday and his mother reported his disappearance the next morning, sparking a search. The boy and the other children are neighbors who knew each other. | |
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Karen Graham
Digital Journal 2015-05-19 16:21:00
Riyadh - Because of the increase in public executions this year, the Saudi Arabian government is in need of an additional eight "religious functionaries" to carry out the beheadings of people condemned to death by public execution. The job description states there are no special qualifications needed, but besides beheading an individual, the applicant will also be required to do the occasional limb amputation for those convicted of lesser crimes. The position is a Civil Service job and a downloadable PDF application is available on the website that carries today's date. The job is classified as a "religious Functionary," and is at the lower end of the Civil Service pay scale. Saudi Arabia is just one of the top five countries in the world in putting people to death. The Islamic country, with 90 deaths, was ranked number three in 2014, after China and Iran, with 289 executions, but ahead of Iraq, with 81 deaths, and the United States with 35 executions. China carries out more executions that any other country in the world, but the actual numbers are a closely guarded state secret. According to the official Saudi Press Agency, a man beheaded on Sunday was the 85th execution this year, compared to 90 for all of 2014. While most of those executed this year were convicted of murder, there were 38 people executed because of drug offenses. Half were from Saudi Arabia and the rest were from Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, India, Indonesia, Burma, Chad, Eritrea the Philippines and Sudan, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Although government officials are not saying, there is speculation about the reason for the increase in executions this year. Diplomatic sources say it may be because more judges have been appointed recently to handle a backlog of appeals cases. Political analysts think the increase in executions is more likely a tougher response to increasing turbulence in the region. | |
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Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project 2015-05-13 23:09:00
What happens to a citizen when hundreds of images of child pornography are found on their computer and phone? Well, if you are a law enforcement officer, the answer is,nothing. An investigation into the New Orleans Police Department has revealed a disturbing lack of discipline for individuals who've been caught and accused of despicable acts. The residents of a Mandeville neighborhood felt safe knowing that a 16-year veteran of the NOPD, Sgt Bradley Wax lived down their street. However, that would quickly change afterWax was arrested and charged with 38 counts of possessing child pornography. The Louisiana Attorney General's office conducted a search on Wax's personal computer and other electronic devices and found them to be full of explicit photos of young children. He was obviously fired immediately and not allowed to be a cop any longer, right? Or at the very least he was suspended until the trial, right? Wrong. WDSU, who carried out the independent investigation, found that Wax was initially suspended but has since returned to work as normal, working in fleet management at the NOPD headquarters. "It's incredibly hard to imagine anyone in that capacity would be back working and being paid for it at taxpayer expense," said Dr. John Penny, criminologist at Southern University at New Orleans. It is indeed hard to imagine how any morally sound establishment would continue to allow a man, who was found in possession of so much child pornography that he faces more than 500 years behind bars if convicted, to continue to draw a salary as a cop. But to the NOPD, it's business as usual. | |
Comment: Sickening. Those of us that follow police crime are well-aware that officers are above the law. The 'thin blue line' protects their own in much the same way the clergy protected pedophiles within their ranks for fear of tarnishing the image of the church. Unfortunately the jig is up, every day more and more people realize that police are nothing more than state-sanction violent gangs full of criminals.
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| Secret History |
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| Science & Technology |
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Jason Kornwitz
Phys.org 2015-05-19 00:00:00
Five Northeastern University student-researchers have worked to address the worldwide water crisis, designing a solar-powered desalination system that produces potable ocean water. They created the device for their senior capstone project, which was supervised by mechanical and industrial engineering professor Mohammad Taslim. Team members comprised Eric Anderson, Jon Moll, Dave Rapp, Murphy Rutledge, and Ryan Wasserman, all E'15. In their project report, the students pointed to the urgent need to solve the global water shortage: Some 750 million people lack access to clean water, according towater.org, and approximately 840,000 people die each year from a water related disease. Indeed, the water crisis represents the greatest risk facing the world today. "We wanted to work on this project precisely because of the world's water problem," said Wasserman, who recently graduated with his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. "Developing nations like Haiti need a cost-effective method for obtaining usable water without power input." | |
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Thomas Fox-Brewster
Forbes 2015-04-27 06:30:00
Going by hacker stereotypes, it'd be pretty easy to physically identify anyone committing an act of digital crime. A combination of pallid skin, hoody and laptop is the biggest giveaway. Such hackneyed images of hackers are, of course, evidently wrong, bordering on offensive. Real hackers penetrating business networks have the common sense to avoid cliched clothing and try to conceal their tools. For those who can bear the pain, biohacking, where computing devices are injected under the skin, provides a novel way to acquire real stealth to sneak through both physical and digital scans. That's why US navy petty officer Seth Wahle, now an engineer at APA Wireless, implanted a chip in his hand, in between the thumb and the finger - the purlicue apparently - of his left hand. It has an NFC (Near Field Communications) antenna that pings Android phones, asking them to open a link. Once the user agrees to open that link and install a malicious file, their phone connects to a remote computer, the owner of which can carry out further exploits on that mobile device. Put simply, that Android device is compromised. In a demo forFORBES, Wahle used the Metasploit penetration testing software on his laptop to force an Android device to take a picture of his cheery visage. | |
Comment: Another can of cyber worms! As they say: If it is possible, it has already been done!
Biohacking or wetware hacking is the practice of engaging biology with the hacker ethic. It encompasses a wide spectrum of practices and movements one of which are the "grinders" who design and install do-it-yourself body-enhancements such as magnetic implants. According to Wahle, he put the chip in when he was still employed by the military and it was never detected despite going through scanners every day. Imagine the currently unlimited options...and what the upcoming crack-down will impose on the public-in-general. A probing question, indeed. | |
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Dani Cooper
ABC Science, Australia 2015-05-19 01:04:00
The degree to which we are a product of our genes or the environment has been calculated by an analysis of 50 years of twin studies. In a study published today, an international team including Australian researchers shows an almost 50-50 split in the influence of genes or the environment on the development of various human traits. The finding, published in Nature Genetics, is based on a review of 2748 studies involving 14 million twin pairs from across 39 countries. The twins involved in the various studies ranged in age from 18 to 64 years. Co-first author Dr Beben Benyamin, at the Queensland Brain Institute, says it has long been established that genetics influence almost all human traits. "But there is still some controversy and differences in terms of how much of the variation [in traits] is due to genetics and how much is due to environment," Benyamin says. He says the team, including Dutch and American researchers, looked at all published twin studies to answer this puzzle. Benyamin says while identical twins are genetically the same, non-identical twins share 50 per cent of their DNA. The researchers were able to determine the contribution of genetics and the environment on the trait by measuring how similar various traits are between identical twins and non-identical twins. "If the trait is genetic then you would expect identical twins will be more similar than the non-identical twin. The more similar an identical twin to a non-identical twin then we can infer the trait is largely due to the genetic factor," says Benyamin. | |
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