| Puppet Masters |
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Robert Parry
Consortium News 2015-07-17 20:15:00
In 1964, the Tonkin Gulf incident was used to justify the Vietnam War although U.S. intelligence quickly knew the facts were not what the U.S. government claimed. Now, the MH-17 case is being exploited to justify a new Cold War as U.S. intelligence again is silent about what it knows, writes Robert Parry. One year ago, the world experienced what could become the Tonkin Gulf incident of World War III, the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. As with the dubious naval clash off the coast of North Vietnam in 1964, which helped launch the Vietnam War, U.S. officials quickly seized on the MH-17 crash for its emotional and propaganda appeal - and used it to ratchet up tensions against Russia. Shocked at the thought of 298 innocent people plunging to their deaths from 33,000 feet last July 17, the world recoiled in horror, a fury that was then focused on Russian President Vladimir Putin. With Putin's face emblazoned on magazine covers, the European Union got in line behind the U.S.-backed coup regime in Ukraine and endorsed economic sanctions to punish Russia. In the year that has followed, the U.S. government has continued to escalate tensions with Russia, supporting the Ukrainian regime in its brutal "anti-terrorism operation" that has slaughtered thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. The authorities in Kiev have even dispatched neo-Nazi and ultranationalist militias, supported by jihadists called "brothers" of the Islamic State, to act as the tip of the spear. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Ukraine Merges Nazis and Islamists."] | |
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Mike Whitney
Counterpunch 2015-07-17 19:13:00
The Iran nuclear agreement has less to do with proliferation than it does with geopolitics. The reason Obama wants to ease sanctions on Iran is because he wants to push down oil prices while creating an alternate source of natural gas for Europe. In other words, the real objective here is to hurt Russia which is currently at the top of Washington's Enemies List. Keith Jones at the World Socialist Web Site explains what's going on in an article titled "Obama promotes historic nuclear deal with Iran". Here's an excerpt: "If Obama made haste to promote the deal with Tehran, it is because it represents a major tactical shift on the part of US imperialism—one that is being opposed by significant sections of the US political and military-intelligence establishments, as well as by longstanding US client states in the Middle East, first and foremost Israel and Saudi Arabia. | |
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Finian Cunningham
Sputnik 2015-07-16 18:59:00
Seventy-five years ago, when Europe succumbed to Nazi Germany it was the sound of trundling panzer tanks rolling into capitals that heralded defeat. Now it is German "panzer banks" that appear conquering all in front of them. The financial terms dictated to Athens over the latest so-called bailout is nothing less than the subjugation of a sovereign country to the dictate of German banks. The troubling question for several European states is: who's next? Even the Western media could not disguise the shocking humiliation meted out to Greece by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and her intransigent Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaüble. The Washington Post described Greece's acquiescence to "punishing ultimatum", while Reuters said Athens had "surrendered". The Western media haven't quite yet specified who the new financial dictators of Europe are. Reports refer blandly to "EU hardliners" and "tough EU leaders", but reading between the lines it is clear that the paymaster calling the tune now for the rest of Europe is Berlin. And the tune is not melodious. | |
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Jeffrey St. Clair - Alexander Cockburn
Counterpunch 2015-07-20 00:00:00
The race-baiting panjandrum of Manhattan, Donald Trump, is currently taking flak from the media and politicians for deprecating John McCain's status as a "war hero". Trump's rhetoric is typically bombastic, but this time he may have struck a nerve. Here is a piece that Cockburn and I wrote in 1999 about a psychiatric evaluation of McCain underwent while a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. The psychological portrait drawn by Spanish psychiatrist Fernando Barral is that of a deeply narcissistic personality, cold, hardened and largely devoid of human empathy, a man who seemed to view the bombing of civilian populations as a kind of sport. These aggressive personality traits have also characterized his nasty political career. - JSC The top war-monger in Congress has been Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona, seeker of the Republican presidential nomination. In one rhetorical bombing run after another, McCain has bellowed for "lights out in Belgrade" and for NATO to "cream" the Serbs. At the start of May he began declaiming in the US senate for the NATO forces to use "any means necessary" to destroy Serbia. McCain is often called a "war hero", a title adorning an unlovely resume starting with a father who was an admiral and graduation fifth from the bottom at the US Naval Academy, where he earned the nickname "McNasty". McCain flew 23 bombing missions over North Vietnam, each averaging about half an hour, total time ten hours and thirty minutes. For these brief excursions the admiral's son was awared two Silver Stars, two Legions of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Bronze Stars, the Vietnamese Legion of Honor and three Purple Hearts. US Veteran Dispatch calculates our hero earned a medal an hour, which is pretty good going. McCain was shot down over Hanoi on October 26, 1967 and parachuted into Truc Boch Lake, whence he was hauled by Vietnamese, and put in prison. | |
Comment: With the top echelons of Western mainstream media fawning over psychopathic individuals like John McCain and Hillary Clinton for so long, is it any wonder that the U.S. is in the catastrophic mess that it is in?
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Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation 2015-07-20 17:06:00
The British royal family is up in arms - excuse the pun - over old video footage that shows the young Queen Elizabeth giving a Heil Hitler salute. A photograph published on its front page by British tabloid newspaper The Sun has caused a storm of controversy, with the British monarchy denouncing it as an invasion of privacy. But the real significance is that the image shows how Western so-called democracies were - and still are - so close to embracing fascism. The video in question is believed to be dated around 1933, when the present British head of state was then a six-year-old princess. She is seen apparently playing with her family in the monarchy's Balmoral estate, Scotland. With her right arm outstretched, the young Elizabeth is pictured giving the infamous Heil Hitler salute. At that time, Adolf Hitler had just ascended to power to become Chancellor of Germany and was already implementing his repressive regime. The Nazi Reich would in a few short years annex neighbouring European countries and ignite the Second World War. In 1933, the Nazi Reich was also embarking on its genocidal programme of mass extermination of peoples designated as «untermenschen» (sub-human). Defenders of the British monarch have dismissed the grainy images of the young queen giving a Nazi salute as «horseplay». They point out that the princess and her mother and sister are smiling while performing the salute, and therefore the image could be understood as a parody of Herr Hitler. | |
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Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook 2015-07-20 16:55:00
It was reported just days ago that US policymakers have signed and dated plans drawn up for the US invasion and occupation of Syria. The plan as described by the Fortune 500-funded Brookings Institution - a corporate think-tank that has previously drawn up plans for the invasion, occupation, and "surge" in Iraq - is to occupy border regions of Syria with US special forces to then justify a nationwide "no-fly-zone" if and when Syrian forces attempt to retake these "safe zones." The "safe zones" are to be used by various terrorists fronts Brookings admits are tied to Al Qaeda, to take refuge from Syrian air power and from which to stage and launch attacks deeper into Syrian territory. The end game is the Balkanization of Syria into ineffectual vassal states the US can later stitch together into a larger client regime. It was also reported that this signed and dated conspiracy to invade, occupy, and destroy Syria would be followed by widespread propaganda aimed at selling the policy paper under the guise of "defeating" the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL). In reality, hundreds of trucks a day, originating deep within NATO-member Turkey's territory, cross the Turkish-Syrian border unopposed, destined for ISIS territory, keeping the terrorist front well supplied and armed, along with its ranks full of fresh fighters. It is clear that US, British, and other regional allies conducting airstrikes on ISIS in Syria are doing so with full knowledge that whatever damage they are doing is quickly absorbed by the logistical torrent they themselves allow, even underwrite, to freely flow into ISIS territory. No attempts have been made by the US or any of the NATO nations involved in the Syrian conflict, to first stem ISIS' supply lines - an elementary and obvious strategic goal necessary if the West was truly interested in stopping ISIS. | |
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Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse 2015-07-19 00:00:00
The President of France has come up with a very creative way of solving the European debt crisis. On Sunday, a piece authored by French President Francois Hollande suggested that the ultimate solution to the problems currently plaguing Europe would be for every member of the eurozone to transfer all of their sovereignty to a newly created federal government. In other words, it would essentially be a "United States of Europe". This federal government would have a prime minister, a parliament, a federal budget and a federal treasury. Presumably, the current national governments in Europe would continue to function much like state governments in the U.S. do. In the end, there may be some benefits to such a union - particularly for the weaker members of the eurozone. But at what cost would those benefits come? When I first learned that French President Francois Hollande had proposed that the members of the eurozone should create their own version of a federal government, I was quite stunned. But I shouldn't have been surprised. For the global elite, the answer to just about any problem is more centralization. The following comes from a Bloomberg article that was posted on Sunday... Comment: Looks like a Eurozone version of 'good cop/bad cop'. Not too hard to figure out that Hollande's France is now playing the role of good cop to Germany's bad one. | |
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Jane Mayer
The New Yorker 2014-12-18 16:36:00
For the past eight months, there has been a furious battle raging behind closed doors at the White House, the C.I.A., and in Congress. The question has been whether the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence would be allowed to use pseudonyms as a means of identifying characters in thedevastating report it released last week on the C.I.A.'s abusive interrogation and detention program. Ultimately, the committee was not allowed to, and now we know one reason why. The NBC News investigative reporter Matthew Cole has pieced together a remarkable storyrevealing that a single senior officer, who is still in a position of high authority over counterterrorism at the C.I.A.—a woman whom he does not name—appears to have been a source of years' worth of terrible judgment, with tragic consequences for the United States. Her story runs through the entire report. She dropped the ball when the C.I.A. was given information that might very well have prevented the 9/11 attacks; she gleefully participated in torture sessions afterward; she misinterpreted intelligence in such a way that it sent the C.I.A. on an absurd chase for Al Qaeda sleeper cells in Montana. And then she falsely told congressional overseers that the torture worked. | |
Comment: Over CIA objections, investigative website The Intercept identified the anonymous woman as Alfreda Frances Bikowsky.
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South Front
2015-07-21 15:45:00
The Taliban is taking the Faryab province, it has also started an offensive in the Baghlan-e-Jadid district of the Baghlan province, and has nearly seized the Helmand province. The actions are part of the Taliban's Azm offensive, which began earlier this year. Most of the Taliban's gains are a result of the Afghan central government's unwieldiness, and inability provide assistance to local pro-government forces in the besieged provinces. | |
Comment: See Afghanistan Map of War, July 13-16, 2015 for additional information about the developments in Afghanistan.
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Asa Winstanley
Middle East Monitor 2015-07-11 15:28:00
Books by former intelligence, military and political leaders are frequently tedious and self-serving. Obsessed with securing their own legacy, and proving how right they were about some long-standing grudge or another, such volumes rarely make for much of an enlightening read. One such book I probably will subject myself to, however, is titled Periphery by the former Israeli spy Yossi Alpher. For all the tediousness one has to wade through in such propagandising dross, there are sometimes a few nuggets of insight - usually given away unintentionally. Alpher is a former military intelligence officer.Periphery, released earlier this year, is his account of years of desperate Israeli efforts for allies in a region it is inherently alienated from, due to its long record of military aggression against neighbouring countries, the 67-year-long military occupation and dispossession of the Palestinian people. The Periphery strategy sought out allies in states and minority groups considered outside of the Arab or Muslim mainstream of the region. Israeli spies sought to forge alliances with the Kurds of northern Iraq; Turkey, during the height of the military's political power there; and Iran, under the dictatorship of the Shah. | |
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Sputnik News
2015-07-21 14:19:00
The future of the Ukrainian revolution will be discussed during a popular meeting which will be held by the Right Sector on Tuesday in Kiev, Dmitry Yarosh, leader of the movement, announced. He also said the Ukrainian government is incapable of carrying out real reforms. A popular meeting which will be held in Kiev by the Ukrainian nationalist Right Sector movement on Tuesday should bring Ukrainians the prospect of further changes in their country, Dmitry Yarosh, leader of the organization, said. Earlier, the Right Sector announced it would organize a meeting at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in central Kiev on July 21. | |
Comment: Anyone who takes Yarosh's desire for "social reforms" seriously is exhibiting one of the first criterion for ponerogenesis:
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Sputnik News
2015-07-21 13:44:00
Despite the optimism that followed the reopening of Greece's banks yesterday, it seems that locals are already feeling the pinch of the country's new bailout terms after just one day, with a new austerity tax making most everyday items - from coffee to taxis and even condoms - far more expensive. As part of 'confidence building' measures, introduced by the Greek government on the back on negotiations with Eurozone creditors, an existing sales tax was expanded and increased from 13 percent to 23 percent. The wide-ranging tax applies to the sale of various products and services such as coffee, restaurants sales, various meat products, language schools and even ferries to the Greek islands. | |
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Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitkreig 2015-07-20 12:55:00
Noting that the recent tyrannical, entirely anti-American comments made by General Wesley Clark during a MSNBC interview are statist and disturbing would be the understatement of the century. | |
Comment: Putting Americans in internment camps has happened before during WWII. Is Clark giving us a warning?
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PressTV
2015-07-12 19:48:00
Press TV has conducted an interview with Scott Bennett, former US army psychological warfare officer and counter-terrorism analyst in San Francisco, to discuss a report saying that American intelligence agencies have been spying on Russian President Vladimir Putin for over the past twenty years.
Following is a rough transcription of the interview. | ||
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| Society's Child |
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RT
2015-07-21 03:55:00
Children growing up in poor households are likely to lag in their brain development and thereby perform poorly in schools, even if they move in better neighborhoods, a new longitudinal study on child development has revealed. Examining hundreds of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from a group of children growing in poor households, researchers from the University of Wisconsin - Madison discovered that the regional gray matter volume in case study brains was up to 4 percent below the developmental norm for their ages. The threshold for "poor" was defined in the study published in JAMA Pediatrics as living in households 1.5 times below the federal poverty level. An even larger gap of eight to 10 percentage points was observed for children living below the federal poverty level. The analysis of grey matter which serves to process information in the brain, was then correlated with their subject's school testing results. Analyzing their data, scientists discovered that "poor kids" scored four to eight points, or up to one-half of a standard deviation lower on general intelligence tests. | |
Comment: People in positions of power and the financial 'elite' exhibit behavior consistent with symptoms of narcissism and psychopathy. Psychopaths love power and control; most of all they enjoy the physical and emotional suffering of others. Poverty is a sign of a much larger problem that effects all of humanity. See:
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RT.com
2015-07-21 20:15:00
A prankster has carried out a social experiment in New York to find out who would be granted more charity - a homeless single father or a drug user - and received a truly surprising result. In a hidden cam video, prankster Coby Persin dressed up as a homeless guy and pretended to be begging. He first displayed a sign, reading: "Homeless need money for drugs, weed and alcohol,"and managed to raise a decent sum of money across just an hour. The homeless addict was mainly assisted by young men, who encouraged him by saying "stay high, man, stay high" or "make sure you get a big bottle." However, things changed when the prankster put up a different sign, reading: "Homeless single father need money for charity" and was joined by a small girl, sitting on the pavement next to him. He was left without any donations for almost the whole hour as people walked by, completely ignoring the "troubled pair". | |
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Investigations into the rape of 17-year-old Jalna resident reveal that the victim was allegedly raped at a location between two police teams deployed at least three kilometres apart from each other on a highway on July 9 between 8.30 and 9.30 pm. The 17-year-old girl was allegedly raped twice by two men, the second time after police set her up as "bait" and asked her to meet the accused, in Jalna, about 400 kilometres from Mumbai. Police has identified the accused as Nitin Savle (19) and Sanjay Havare (21) who have been remanded to police custody until July 18. According to investigating officers, after the victim received a call from Havare at 8 pm on July 9, she was asked to come to Ambad Chowk where she would get her mobile back from the accused, which was stolen from her on July 6, when she was first allegedly raped by the duo. "Assistant Police Inspector Vinod Ejjapawar of the local crime branch immediately deployed two teams of police officers in civil clothes at Ambad Chowk and at Mantha Chowk near the house of the victim. We already had a list of eight suspects based on the description given by the victim, where we were looking for accused with a clean shave and short hair," said an investigating officer. Police said that the victim left her residence around 8.15 pm on her scooter and was en route to Ambad Chowk. Officers have attributed the second alleged rape of the 17-year-old victim to "miscommunication". | |
Comment: Violence against women is epidemic and escalating. Rape is everywhere. From Bill Cosby, to the U.S. military, to French soldiers and UN 'peacekeepers' raping children. It's absolutely shocking that rape has become the new normal the world over.
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RT
2015-07-19 17:40:00
With debris of Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 still covering the crash site in eastern Ukraine, the investigation of the July 17, 2014 tragedy is surrounded by secrecy. RT talked to international experts and the victims' families, still waiting for answers. "He was a good man, a good brother. He promised to take me one day on board of his plane... He wanted to take me to Europe, but instead I brought his body home from Amsterdam on a plane," the younger sister of flight MH17 captain, Wan Lailatul Mustarah Bt. Wan Hussin told RT Documentary (RTD). RTD's team visited Captain's Wan Amran's family in Malaysia. They couldn't talk to the pilot's wife, as she was sick, suffering from mental problems resulting from the trauma she experienced after her husband was killed in the crash. "At first the youngest son couldn't accept this all, he was always saying that his father would come back," the captain's older sister, Wan Aini Bt. Wan Hussin, told RTD.
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Comment: See also:
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RT
2015-07-21 16:18:00
A Palestinian boy scuffles with Israeli soldiers during a protest in the West Bank @ Mussa Qawasma / Reuters
Israeli security forces have performed "abusive arrests" of Palestinian children, chocking, beating and threatening kids as young as 11, a global watchdog said in a report."Israeli security forces have used unnecessary force to arrest or detain Palestinian children as young as 11," a report published by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday. According to the group Israeli security forces "have choked children, thrown stun grenades at them, beaten them in custody, threatened and interrogated them without the presence of parents or lawyers, and failed to let their parents know their whereabouts." HRW said it interviewed several Palestinian boys and a girl aged from 11 to 15 who were arrested by Israeli security forces in the period from March to December 2014.
The children told HRW that "Israeli authorities did not inform parents of their child's arrest and interrogated the children without permitting them to speak to a parent or lawyer prior to the interrogation." An 11-yer-old Rashid said he was attacked by a stun grenade and was put "in a chokehold" when Israeli arrested him for throwing stones in November. The boy added that officers "put a black bag over his head, threatened him with beatings, and kicked him in the shin while taking him for interrogation." "When he got home [after being arrested] he had nightmares," Rashid's father said. "He woke up screaming for four or five nights in a row." Rashid told Human Rights Watch that he dreamed of being arrested, "over and over again," and was scared of going to school. | ||
Comment: This is hardly a new problem. Stories and reports of Israel's reprehensible treatment of children have been filed for decades. Israel ignores them with impunity.
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RT
2015-07-21 16:52:00
A shopping mall has caught fire in the Tomsk Region of West Siberia. Witnesses say they heard a loud bang before the incident. The fire broke out in the town of Seversk, which is located 15 km from the city of Tomsk and has a population of over 100,000 people. "The fire has been localized and firefighters are working to contain the blaze," an official from the emergency services told Lifenews TV, adding that at least 10 fire brigades are working at the scene. | |
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Travis Gettys
Raw Story 2015-07-20 15:50:00
The Texas state trooper who stopped Sandra Bland was apparently planning to let her off with a written warning until he became angry when she refused to put out the cigarette she was smoking in her car. The 28-year-old Bland, a civil rights activist who was on her way to begin a job at the historically black Prairie View A&M, died July 13 in a Waller County jail cell after she was arrested during a traffic stop for an improper lane change. An attorney for her family viewed dashboard camera footage of the traffic stop, and he said the state trooper returned to Bland's car with what appeared to be a written warning, reported NBC News. Bland, who seemed irritated that she had been pulled over, questioned why she should put out the cigarette, and the trooper became angry and ordered her out of the car, the attorney said. The trooper attempted to open Bland's car door, and she grabbed a cell phone to record the encounter. | |
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Erin Elizabeth
Health Nuts News 2015-07-21 14:48:00
Yet another doctor was just found murdered inside his home; here on the East Coast, of Florida. This makes six doctors to be found dead in the last month; just from this region of the country, alone. Four out of the six were found dead here in Florida. We lost the wonderful, holistic Dr. Teresa Sievers, MD, who was found murdered in her Florida home just weeks ago. We've also lost the beloved Dr. Jeff Bradstreet, MD, who was found in a river with a gunshot to his chest. He'd recently moved to Georgia from Florida. We've also lost Dr. Riley, who was found in Georgia at her home; just a few hours from the Florida border. She was found with a gunshot wound to her head. Dr. Schwartz was found dead on, Sunday, July 19th, 2015 - four weeks to the day, after the death of the first physician: (Dr. Bradstreet MD) who I broke the story on a month ago. His family is still seeking answers as to what happened to him, and they're some of the kindest people I know. The latest MD, Dr. Schwartz, in the picture above, lived just north of the fit, healthy, holistic Dr. Hedendal; who was the second doctor to be found dead this past Father's Day, in Boca Raton. This was the same day that Dr. Holt died at the age of 33. Both were fathers; and again, both men died here in Florida, on June 21st, 2015. | |
Comment: For more information, see:
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RT
2015-07-20 20:24:00
Drivers of vehicles abandoned during a brush fire near San Bernardino, California that engulfed a section of Interstate 15 on Friday are now protesting exorbitant towing fees as high as $2,600. Authorities are investigating the claims. Motorists were required to leave behind amid the North Fire that encapsulated the I-15 freeway in Cajon Pass. Now, owners are complaining that towing companies have charged $1,000 or more to move cars, according to The San Bernardino County Sun. "They are charging $220 an hour to all those people that abandoned their cars at ... Cajon Pass yesterday," Michelle Sepulveda wrote on her Facebook page, accordion got The Sun. "The family my brother saved yesterday is having to pay well over $2,600 to get her car out and every hour she waits, the more it goes up." The California Highway Patrol is investigating the allegations. "We called in several tow companies we had on rotation," said Steve Carpia, spokesman of the Inland California Highway Patrol. "When we learned of the complaints we began to investigate, eventually resolving this issue."
"I have a ,600 bill for the towing and that, the #CHP tells me is pretty much extortion." - Car Owner discussing #NorthFire #TowingScandal
Desert Towing is charging people $700 because they towed the cars in the#NorthFire. Our govt leaders need to step in and make this right!— Mykel Pickens (@qykpick) July 18, 2015
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Amari Roos
Sott.net 2015-07-21 00:24:00
Mayor Vladimir Berezhnoy of the small village Grabovo in the Donetsk People's Republic hopes that MH17 relatives will find their way to the site of the crash of flight MH17. "Regardless of all the problems, we invite all family members of the victims to come here", he said Wednesday on the spot where a monument will be built in memory of the victims. "We want to do everything we can to help them. The people here are deeply saddened by the disaster. [...] I have feelings too, just like every other man here. I've seen many dead people. I don't sleep anymore. It was awful" Berezhnoy said. On Wednesday, the Mayor personally helped with the erection of the monument. Having arranged for the materials to be delivered to the site, he noted that the foundation for the yet to be placed granite stone was not yet leveled, so he took a shovel and helped out. Regardless of their poor financial situation, the mayor and citizens of Grabovo managed to spend just enough money to erect this small but meaningful monument. A loving act. Local Dutch broadcaster NOS however was not that impressed with the genuine display of sympathy. Apparently, the people of Grabovo should have done better. Coming from a propagandist broadcaster that has been spewing lies and distorting facts about the situation in Ukraine since day one of the MH17 incident, we shouldn't be surprised at such heartless cynicism. | |
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| Secret History |
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Charles Q. Choi
Live Science 2015-07-21 13:31:00
A number of natives of the Amazon rainforest may partly descend from peoples in the Pacific, researchers say. It remains a mystery as to when and how this genetic signature from an Australasia group in the Pacific they call "Population Y" made its way to the Amazon, scientists added. Most genetic studies have suggested that all Native Americans analyzed to date can trace much or all of their ancestry to a single common origin — a population from Eurasia that probably migrated to the Americas more than 15,000 years ago, back when lower sea levels exposed the Bering land bridge known as Beringia that connected the continents. Some Native Americans from North America and the Arctic may also trace other parts of their ancestry to more recent waves of migration. However, a number of prior studies of skull shapes hinted that two distinct groups entered the Americas. While one Asian type is similar to the vast majority of modern Native Americans, an earlier type seen in skeletons in Brazil and elsewhere resembled modern people from Australasia — a region that includes Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and neighboring Pacific Islands — and even some African groups. To shed light on this mystery, scientists analyzed the DNA of 30 Native American groups from Central and South America and from 197 non-American populations sampled worldwide. | |
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RT
2015-07-21 18:33:00
The mummy of a six- to seven-year-old boy dating back to the 13th century has been unearthed in Russia's Far North, scientists say. The child, wrapped in a cocoon of furs and birch bark, was found with a small bronze ax. The body was found near Zeleny Yar archeological memorial in Russia's Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, according to a statement from the local museum, where researchers gathered for the delicate mission of freeing the mummy from the fur it was wrapped in. Before the procedure the scientists performed computer scan on the cocoon which showed that it contains mummified remains of the child, most probably a boy of six or seven years old. The scientists believe the mummy to be male as they found a small bronze ax which was lying along the right side of the body. Apart from the ax, the archeologists uncovered a pendant in the shape of a bear and silver iron rings. The boy had suffered from malnutrition or a severe disease, according to Sergey Slepchenko, a junior researcher from the Institute of Northern Development in Siberian city of Tyumen. He came to that conclusion after analyzing the defects on the mummy's bones which showed the child's temporary growth retardation. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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RT
2015-07-17 17:31:00
Chinese surgeons have successfully replaced a 3-year-old girl's skull with a 3D-printed titanium alloy substitute in a 17-hour-long operation. The girl had suffered from hydrocephalus, which had swelled her head up to 4 times the normal size. The surgery was performed at the Second People's Hospital in Hunan province. The doctors used 3D data and a computed tomography scanner to print three pieces of titanium mesh to replace the entire top portion of the child's skull. The first stage of the surgery was to detach the girl's scalp from her head. Then the surgeons inserted drainage tubes and pumped out the brain fluid before putting in the transplants. The girl, named Han Han, suffered from hydrocephalus, also known as "water on the brain." People with this illness have cerebrospinal fluid accumulating in their brain cavities.
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MedicalXpress
2015-07-21 13:49:00
A new approach to exploring the spread of contagious diseases or the latest celebrity gossip has been tested using London's street and underground networks. Results from the new approach could help to predict when a contagion will spread through space as a simple wave (as in the Black Death) and when long-range connections, such as air travel, enable it to seemingly jump over long distances and emerge in locations far from an initial outbreak. A team of mathematicians from Oxford University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Rutgers University used a set of mathematical rules to encode how a contagion spreads, and then studied the outcomes of these rules. | |
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| Earth Changes |
It came from the deep with big eyes and sharp teeth, but the marine creature that washed up on Rabbit Island, near Nelson, was more novel than scary. Natasha van der Kallen was enjoying a barbecue with her family on Sunday when her daughter Holly Ward noticed something moving in the shallow water. "We saw the splashing and Holly screamed out, what is that? So we went to have a look." When they got closer to the shoreline, van der Kallen said they were surprised to see a long, narrow, silver fish flipping about in the water. "It was around a metre long with big eyes and big teeth," said van der Kallen. The fish had a silvery coloured flesh which rubbed off when it was touched, she said. Curious to know more, the family searched the internet while at the beach and identified it as a frostfish, a creature that usually lives in much deeper water. | |
Comment: See also this from 2013: 'Monster' fish washes up on Rabbit Island
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abc.net.au
2015-07-21 18:53:00
A sinkhole in Papua New Guinea's east has destroyed 16 houses and injured two people, local media says. The Post-Courier reported the sinkhole appeared in the swampy Ambunti area of East Sepik Province and caused panic among locals. Photos on social media showed huge cracks in the soil, as well as collapsed houses. The newspaper quoted a witness who said the sinkhole formed about midday on Saturday, near the Sepik River. The ABC has been unable to reach emergency officials.
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Residents in the capital were treated to an awe-inspiring sight in the sky on Sunday when a phenomenon known as a 22-degree halo was visible at noon and well into the afternoon. The halo appeared as a rainbow-like ring with limited colours, forming a circle around the Sun, with the inside of the ring noticeably darker than the horizon. Toqueer Ahmed noticed the halo while outside at noon. "I walked to a different location thinking it was a reflection, but it still appeared as it is," said Mr Ahmed. "I live in Khalidiyah, I've been here eight years, I've seen lot of sunny days but nothing like this. It was very surprising, we were shocked when we saw it." The halo is formed around the Sun or the Moon when light is refracted through tiny hexagonal ice crystals trapped within cirrus clouds. The clouds are faintly visible to the eye, located between five and 10 kilometres high in the Earth's atmosphere. The phenomenon was not visible in Dubai. Halos around the Sun and the Moon were believed to be part of a primitive form of weather forecasting, and are sometimes observed before rainfall. | |
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Life in Québec
2015-07-21 18:36:00
The Gulf of St. Lawrence has seen three Right Whale carcasses floating in its waters in the last three weeks and according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada it is an alarming number considering the small population of this particular species of whale. The last reported sighting of a dead whale in the Gulf was back in 2001. On June 24, the first dead whale was seen off the coast of Percé. The carcass was recuperated and will be studied to find the cause of death. On July 7th, another was spotted off the coast of the Magdalen Islands, and just last week on July 13 a third floating whale was seen off the coast of the town of Gaspé. The last one sighted has been given a number and has been identified as a six-year old female. Fisheries and Oceans Canada together with the Quebec Network for marine mammals rescue want to bring the carcasses ashore to study the cause or causes of death. The North Atlantic Right Whale is on the endangered species list and there are only about 350 of that particular breed still left in the oceans along the east coast of North America. Because the species is on the point of extinction, the researchers want to know why these particular whales perished in this particular area. The most common causes of death to whales is either being caught-up in old fishing nets or being hit and wounded by the propellers of large ships. | |
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Emilía S. Ólafsdóttir Kaaber
Iceland Review 2015-07-21 16:51:00
The past weekend was exceptionally cold throughout all of Iceland. Sharp winds ravaged the Western coast, while snowfall and hail hit the East and South. On Sunday, the ground was white with snow all around the highlands in Central Iceland. "Everything was white. When we got up at 9AM the snowfall was mostly over, but by the time we left, around noon, it had started up again," Þorgerður Eva Þórhallsdóttir, a member of the Search and Rescue team in Skagafjörður, North Iceland, told Morgunblaðið. "I think this is rather abnormal weather for the middle of the summer. It wasn't like this last year." | |
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A waterspout formed Monday morning near the Franklin County coastline after an intense stationary storm sat over the open waters. Because of this, a marine warning was issued for the Forgotten Coast until 11:30 am.
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Evan Bush
Seattle Times 2015-07-21 13:10:00
A brush fire near George, Grant County, closed Interstate 90 in both directions Monday afternoon and the freeway remained closed Tuesday morning, according to Trooper Darren Wright of the Washington State Patrol. It's unknown when the freeway, which is closed from mileposts 138 to 155, will re-open. The fire at one point threatened about 50 homes, but Wright said Monday night officials lifted an evacuation order despite the continuing blaze. "I don't think we have actual control, but (firefighters are) making better progress," Wright said around 6:30 p.m. | |
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In Colorado this weekend, lightning struck and killed a 31-year-old woman while she was hiking in the mountains. Three others were injured, one critically. This brings the number of lightning deaths in the U.S. to 21 so far this year — well above the five-year average of 13.4 by this point in the year. Three have been killed here in Florida. Remember, there is NO safe place outside if thunderstorms develop. Know the weather patterns of the area you plan to visit. For example, in mountainous areas, thunderstorms typically develop in the early afternoon, so plan to hike early in the day and be down the mountain by noon. Listen to the weather forecast for the outdoor area you plan to visit. The forecast may be very different from the one near your home. If there is a high chance of thunderstorms, stay inside. When thunder roars, stay indoors.
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bdnews24.com
2015-07-15 13:54:00
Four people died while two others were injured when their boat was struck by lightning at Habiganj's Ajmiriganj Upazila. Local police OC Taimur Bakht Chowdhury said that this happened on Wednesday at Birat Union of the Upazila. The boat was heading to Ajmiriganj town, when the lightning struck leaving the four dead on the spot. Those killed have been identified as Musa Mia, 50, Khitish Sutradhar, 20, Ranjit Sutradhar, 45 and Prosen Sutradhar, 22. The injured have been taken to the Ajmiriganj Upazila Health Complex. | |
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Odisha Sun Times
2015-07-14 13:48:00
At least eight persons were killed and 16 injured when lightning struck them in different parts of Odisha this evening. LightningReports from Jagatsinghpur district said three persons were killed and three others were seriously injured when lightning struck them at Nimakala village under Tirtol police station limits. While one person was killed in Dikshitpada village under Nischintakoili block in Cuttack district, a girl student of Sathibakuda village under Chandbali block in Bhadrak district was killed while lightning struck her while she was on the way to her house. Besides, a daily wage labourer of Bideipurpal village under Basudevpur block in the district also succumbed to lightning. Another person of Patilo village under Anandpur block in Keonjhar district was killed while an old woman was killed and a boy was seriously injured when lightning struck them at Chakadagagua village under Mahakalapada block in Kendrapara district. | |
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IceAgeNow - seismologist Chris Goldfinger has warned that a gigantic Earthquake, just of the coast of the Pacific Northwest, with the potential to kill over 10,000 American people, is many decades overdue. According to The New Yorker;
Read the rest of the article | |
Comment: Its not often that we get accurate information from Fox News:
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The Extinction Protocol
2015-07-20 02:27:00
A second day of showers and thunderstorms in southern and central California was expected to bring heavy rain and set more rainfall records in what is usually a dry month. Rain began to fall Sunday afternoon in parts of Los Angeles County's mountains, the valley north and inland urban areas to the east. Later in the day, the city got a repeat of scattered showers and occasional downpours from Saturday as remnants of Tropical Storm Dolores off Baja California bring warm, muggy conditions northward. "We have a chance of some more heavy rain in L.A. County this evening, thunderstorms, lightning, possibly some localized street flooding," said National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Sirard. Rainfall Saturday broke records in at least 11 locations, including five places that had the most rain ever recorded on any day in July, Sirard said. July is typically the driest month of the year in Southern California. Because of that, the 0.36 inches of rain in downtown Los Angeles Saturday exceeded the 0.24 inch recorded July 14, 1886, which had been the wettest July day in nearly 130 years, Sirard said. "It looks like we're probably going to get more rain downtown this evening," Sirard said. "It looks like there's a good chance the monthly record is going to go up. Really, this is super historic." The record is especially significant, he said, because downtown Los Angeles has the longest recording climate station, dating to July 1, 1877. The storm brought flash floods and power outages and turned Los Angeles County's typically packed coast into empty stretches of sand when the threat of lightning forced authorities to close 70 miles of beaches. The popular Santa Monica Pier and its nearby beaches were shuttered. Last summer, a lightning strike killed a man at Venice Beach and injured about a dozen people. Los Angeles County's beaches remained open Sunday, despite reports of thunderstorms in the mountains and western San Diego coast during the afternoon. AJ Lester of the Los Angeles County Fire Department's Lifeguard Division said he has been in touch with weather officials and was tracking rain reports. Signs warned beachgoers to avoid storm drain flows into the ocean because of Saturday's sometimes heavy rain. | |
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Hindustantimes.com
2015-07-20 17:07:00
Astounding footage shows the moment a rare underwater volcano erupts off the coast of Taiwan. As the drone flies above the underwater Kueishantao volcano, off the coast of Taiwan's Gueishan Island, the amazing recording captures the moment the mighty volcano erupts deep in the ocean. The footage was captured by marine scientist Mario Lebrato with Spanish film-maker Daniel Meana, 31, as they were working offshore on a research project with Taiwan Ocean University. Mario commented on the footage: "In the video you can see more than 30 vents, which expel sulphur and carbon dioxide. The seawater comes out of the vents at around 100C, but then gets cooled down by the surrounding water."
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Brendan M. Lynch
The University of Kansas 2015-07-10 19:50:00
Studies find airplane crews at high altitude are exposed to potentially harmful levels of radiation from cosmic rays. "Neutrons which don't reach the ground do reach airline altitude," said Adrian Melott, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas. "Flight crews get a lot more radiation dose from neutrons. In fact, during solar particle events, airplanes are diverted away from the North Pole, where a lot more cosmic rays come down." But could these cosmic rays pose hazards even at sea level? In recent years, research has suggested congenital birth defects down on Earth's surface could be caused by these "solar particle events" — spikes in cosmic rays from the sun that touch off the northern lights and sometimes hamper communications or the electric power grid. | |
Comment: Despite the tone of the press release, the paper does not reject the correlation between solar events and birth defect rates (more here). The radiation effects from neutrons and muon are simulated separately and they do not seem to explain this observed correlation. The authors propose some hypotheses and further research into the issue.
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Zócalo Saltillo
Translated from Spanish by sott.net2015-07-20 18:02:00
A bright object took social networks by storm last Sunday when Twitter and Facebook shared their experiences of witnessing a bright light streak across the sky at dawn. According to Tweeters, the sky became inexplicably bright at approximately 2.00 a.m. on Sunday. Some added images to their posts, without specifying whether or not they had been taken during the sighting in question. Comment: Actually, the Tweets seem quite specific about it. See below. | |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Science Daily
2015-07-20 00:00:00
Examining post-mortem tissue from the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease, Stanford University School of Medicine investigators identified what appear to be iron-containing microglia -- specialized scavenger cells that sometimes become inflammatory -- in a particular part of the hippocampus, a key brain structure whose integrity is critical to memory formation. In post-mortem brain tissue from people not diagnosed with Alzheimer's, neither the iron deposits nor the scavenger cells engulfing them were present in that brain region. The findings, recounted in a study now available online in Neurobiology of Aging, suggest that high-field magnetic resonance imaging, in particular an advanced version called 7T MRI that uses a powerful 7-Tesla magnet, could someday be used to diagnose and monitor Alzheimer's patients earlier than is currently possible. The findings also add a new suspect to the Alzheimer's disease lineup. A long-held hypothesis holds that the most notorious feature of Alzheimer's disease, amyloid plaques, is the main cause of the disorder. These plaques are extracellular aggregations of a small protein called beta-amyloid that are prominent in diseased patients' brains, as well as in mouse models of the disease. The other most cited key player is tau, another Alzheimer's-associated protein that abnormally aggregates into threadlike tangles inside nerve cells. Surprisingly, in the brain region of interest there was no consistent overlap between the iron-laden microglia and the amyloid plaques or tau. | |
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Science Daily
2015-07-20 20:50:00
An alarming 22 percent of U.S. children live in poverty, which can have long-lasting negative consequences on brain development, emotional health and academic achievement. A new study, published July 20 in JAMA Pediatrics, provides even more compelling evidence that growing up in poverty has detrimental effects on the brain. In an accompanying editorial, child psychiatrist Joan L. Luby, MD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, writes that "early childhood interventions to support a nurturing environment for these children must now become our top public health priority for the good of all." In her own research in young children living in poverty, Luby and her colleagues have identifiedchanges in the brain's architecture that can lead to lifelong problems with depression, learning difficulties and limitations in the ability to cope with stress. | |
Comment: Knowing how the developing brain is negatively impacted by growing up in a low-income household helps to understand the on-going cycle of poverty within families. It explains some of the difficulties people face in attempting to improve their lives and counters the heartlesselitist meme that poor people lack the will or desire to change their circumstances, when in truth the system has likely been designed to keep the majority as an under-class to serve those in power.
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Science Daily
2015-07-20 00:00:00
New research reveals that the more people think they know about a topic in general, the more likely they are to allege knowledge of completely made-up information and false facts, a phenomenon known as "overclaiming." The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Our work suggests that the seemingly straightforward task of judging one's knowledge may not be so simple, particularly for individuals who believe they have a relatively high level of knowledge to begin with," says psychological scientist Stav Atir of Cornell University, first author on the study. To find out why people make these spurious claims, Atir and colleagues David Dunning of Cornell University and Emily Rosenzweig of Tulane University designed a series of experiments testing people's self-perceived knowledge, comparing it to their actual expertise. In one set of experiments, the researchers tested whether individuals who perceived themselves to be experts in personal finance would be more likely to claim knowledge of fake financial terms. | |
