| Puppet Masters |
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Sputnik
2015-08-21 13:27:00
Its not all talk with the rising star of the Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont says in September he will be introducing full federal legislation to abolish private for-profit prisons. The announcement came at a campaign rally attended by approximately 4,500 supporters in Nevada on Tuesday. "When Congress reconvenes in September," Sanders said, "I will be introducing legislation,which takes corporations out of profiteering from running jails." The senator spoke at length about unfair policies which disproportionately affect people of color and his plan to focus much of his campaign on the War on Drugs. The senator is sure to face extreme backlash for his plans, as the private prison industry is massively profitable. Between the two leading prison corporations, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, they bring in over 3 billion dollars annually- much of which is used for lobbying lawmakers. "We want to deal with minimum sentencing," Sanders stated at the rally,"too many lives have been destroyed for non-violent issues. People that are sent to jail have police records. We have got to change that. Our job is to keep people out of jail, not in jail." | |
Comment: Bernie seems to be saying all the right things, but maybe there's more to it than meets the eye. See also:
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Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook 2015-08-20 15:00:00
An unprecedented terror attack unfolded Monday evening in Bangkok, Thailand leaving 20 dead and over a hundred injured. No single attack of this scale has been carried out in Bangkok before, prompting fears that Thailand's enemies have raised their campaign of sedition and violence to grisly new levels. The Western media has floated several possibilities, attempting first and foremost to focus on the prospect of terrorists, either from Thailand's troubled southern-most provinces, or from China's Xinjiang region. Thailand's southern-most provinces have seen a low-level insurgency rage since in 2001 US-backed dictator Thaksin Shinawatratook office and reignited violence after a nearly 20 year truce. However, violence within this conflict rarely erupts outside of Thailand's south, and has never struck Bangkok. While US-Saudi linked terrorist groups in the region have attempted to turn the localized insurgency into a wider front in the politically and financially lucrative "War on Terror," such efforts have so far failed. The West is also floating the idea that Uyghur terrorists carried out that attack - citing the fact that the attack was carried out in a location where predominately Chinese tourists gather - claiming it was in retaliation to Thailand's decision to recently deport detained Uyghurs back to China. China claims those deported were terrorists caught being trafficked through Thailand's south before being shipped to Turkey where they would then join NATO-backed terrorists fighting in Syria. It should be noted that immediately after the deportations just weeks ago, the US State Department funded and Washington D.C. based "World Uyghur Congress" (WUC) organized a violent protest which attacked and destroyed the Thai consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. | |
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Press TV
2015-08-18 19:35:00
The tiny African state of Djibouti has reportedly ordered the US to vacate its secondary Obock military base in the nation in a bid to turn over the installation to the Chinese military and its contingent of 10,000 troops, raising major concerns in Washington, which holds the largest military base in Djibouti, Camp Lemonnier. "The announcement, made the day after US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Djibouti last May, is deeply worrying for Pax Americana, for it comes on top of a major package of economic investments by China that has Djiboutian President [Ismaïl Omar] Guelleh openly talking about the importance of his new friends from Asia," US-based magazineCounterPunch wrote in an article on Monday. According to the report, the US is about to lose one of its military bases in Djibouti, home to America's largest permanent military installation in Africa that includes 4,000 troops and a fleet of US assassination drones that run bombing missions in regional Muslim countries as part of Washington's official targeted killing program. | |
Comment: Can the US keep up with all of the world's changes? Will France, Germany and Japan continue to help or have they had enough? Stay tuned as the world turns.
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Pepe Escobar
RT.com 2015-08-21 19:28:00
The Associated Press - with great fanfare - ran an "exclusive" story masquerading what was in fact a glaring propaganda piece, according to which, under the P5+1, UN-ratified nuclear deal with Iran, the country would carry out some of the inspections of its own "sensitive sites." There was nothing specific in the piece. The crucial document AP alleges to have "seen"was not even the final signed agreement between Iran and the IAEA. AP did not quote any passage from the document. The bombastic "exclusive" tag relied just on the opening paragraph's sensationalist language: "Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate a site it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms, operating under a secret agreement with the UN agency that normally carries out such work, according to a document seen by The Associated Press." The article states nothing specifically. "Own inspectors" - in this context - means that Iran, according to the agreement, is allowed to exclude "inspectors" from states which have their own confrontational agenda. Everyone knows who the usual suspects are. According to the final agreement, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors must always be present at any inspection. The additional presence of Iranian experts allows them to track the selected UN inspectors; some of them may be outright spies, which was exactly the case with the 1990s UN inspections of Iraq. | |
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Central bankers are watching Marx's dictum all that is solid melts into air play out in global stock markets with a terror informed by the scalding memories of 2008's global financial meltdown. Once the trap-door opens, there is no bottom without prompt action by the world's Plunge Protection Teams--the plausible-deniability action heroes of the hyper-speculative status quo who leap into action when global stock markets threaten to melt down. After half a decade of ceaseless saves, we all know the mechanics of Plunge Protection. | |
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Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation 2015-08-20 19:06:00
Judging by the vitriol being heaped on Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn it is a sure sign that Britain's political establishment is deeply rattled by his runaway popularity. The ruling elite are thus moving into «destroy mode». The veteran Labour Party MP threw his hat late into the ring to contest the leadership race, but polls among rank and file Labour supporters have him as a clear winner. Ballots have gone out to Labour members and the outcome of the party election will be known in four weeks' time. Already the British media campaign to discredit Corbyn is well underway. The slander and vilification being fired at the 66-year-old politician is going to get even more vicious over the next month. And if he wins, as the polls suggest, we can expect a full-on media war to destroy him over the next five years towards Britain's 2020 general election. What this reveals, starkly, is just how undemocratic Britain is. Any politician who steps outside the establishment is liable for destruction by the ruling forces. | |
Comment: It will definitely be a coup for the citizens of the UK if Corbyn is elected and follows through on his word to steer Britain in the opposite direction that it is going. Politicians who openly declare for such changes typically do not survive, literally and figuratively, the many methods of attack that the UK elites are known to use.
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Paul Craig Roberts
2015-08-21 14:50:00
Obama has permitted the corrupt US Department of Justice (sic), over which he wields authority, to overturn the ruling of a US Federal Court of Appeals that prisoners sentenced illegally to longer terms than the law permits must be released once the legal portion of their sentence is served. The DOJ, devoid of all integrity, compassion, and sense of justice, said that "finality" of conviction was more important than justice. Indeed, the US Justice (sic) Department's motto is: "Justice? We don't need no stinkin' justice!" Alec Karakatsanis, a civil rights attorney and co-founder of Equal Justice Under Law, tells the story here:http://www.nytimes.com/ The concept of "finality" was an invention of a harebrained Republican conservative academic lionized by the Republican Federalist Society. In years past conservatives believed—indeed, still do—that the criminal justice system coddles criminals by allowing too many appeals against their unlawful convictions. The appeals were granted by judges who thought that the system was supposed to serve justice, but conservatives demonized justice as something that enabled criminals. A succession of Republican presidents turned the US Supreme Court into an organization that only serves the interests of private corporations. Justice is nowhere in the picture. | |
Comment: Also see: Corporate crime, psychopaths, and the plunder of planet Earth
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Jennifer Valentino-DeVries
Wall Street Journal 2015-08-19 15:15:00
Local law-enforcement agencies are buying cellphone-tracking equipment that is cheaper and smaller than earlier systems, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, but it isn't always clear whether court orders are needed to use the devices. The systems, which go by trade names such as "Jugular" and "Wolfhound," are handheld and sometimes come with antennas so small they can be attached to clothing, according to public documents. The gadgets cost only a few thousand dollars each—far less than more sophisticated systems, and well within the reach of many local agencies. Cellphone tracking technology is getting cheaper, smaller and more accessible for police departments. And that has civil liberties advocates worried. "It's extremely affordable and literally fits in your hand," said Scott Schober, the president of Berkeley Varitronics Systems Inc., which makes the Wolfhound and several other cellphone and Wi-Fi detection systems. | |
Comment: Law enforcement will always be adapting itself and its technology to find ways to covertly monitor the population. Since the release of the Snowden files, the public sentiment has turned negative towards overt surveillance, so police are now going more covert and doing all they can to avoid needing court orders to monitor the population.
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Sputnik International
2015-08-21 00:00:00
The 'Asset Development Plan' for Greece is out and it's all go for the privatization of the country. Hellenic sea ports, air ports, motorways, petroleum companies, water and gas supply, real estate, holiday resorts - it's all for sale. Debt laden Greece has been forced to sell the family silver in an all too familiar tale with ancient history repeating itself. The Hellenic Public Asset Development Fund has been published by German Green MEP Sven Giegold who said the Greek people "hardly know" what will be sold off and that they have "the right" to know. | |
Comment: Greece is now up for sale, and the privatization of public infrastructure is a declaration of war on Greek workers, small businesses, unions and farmers who have already suffered needlessly from the policies of these vultures.
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RT
2015-08-20 13:51:00
Macedonia has declared a state of emergency on its southern and northern borders over a surge in migrants and refugees, the Interior Ministry announced. The country said it would involve the army in confronting the crisis. "We expect the involvement of the army will bring two desired effects - it will increase security among our citizens in the two regions and will allow for a more comprehensive approach toward people expressing their interest in applying for asylum," Interior Ministry spokesman Ivo Kotevski said. He told Reuters that the "official border crossings are not shut," but that authorities may have moved to seal off illegal routes used by the migrants and refugees. | |
Comment: Europe now has an unprecedented migrant crisis, the real roots of which are habitually ignored by Western media - namely, that of NATO's wars and corresponding devastation, under the guise of bringing 'freedom and democracy'.
Macedonia is also facing the increasing threat of a 'color revolution':
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Dr. Gary G. Kohls
Global Research 2015-08-19 00:00:00
"Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person." — Anonymous In 2010 the pro-corporate Roberts' 5/4 Supreme Court decided, in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling that favored right-wing multimillionaire businessmen and amoral multinational corporations by making it easier for them to steal US elections by allowing unlimited, anonymous monetary contributions to political campaigns, political action groups and politicians. This ruling, called by many fair-minded observers to be the worst Supreme Court decision of the past century, has emboldened the already powerful and corruptible corporations (that already have dominion over the economy) to now also be able to thoroughly bribe any number of favored pro-corporate politicians to do their will but also to more effectively brain-wash voters through multi-million dollar ad campaigns (that can't be effectively countered by small contributions from average voters). The US Supreme Court has thus made legal the absurd notion that inanimate paper corporations like PolyMet and Glencore should have the same privileges (but not the same responsibilities) as living humans. Both of those out-or-state companies are potential despoilers of northern Minnesota's irreplaceable wetlands, rivers, aquifers and aboriginal land and water rights. | |
Comment: Until the world of relatively normal people learn to understand the depths of depravity, corporate-run or otherwise, that psychopaths manifest on a daily basis, and until the world of relatively normal people learn to recognize the very structures of power of that enable psychopaths to do what they do - and find constructive ways to offset it - there is little chance for humanity to thrive as a whole.
See: Political Ponerology (A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes) | |
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RT
2015-08-20 21:31:00
The release of records pilfered by hackers from the infidelity website Ashley Madison may present a headache for thousands of US government and military personnel, who used their official emails to register. According to preliminary analysis of the data, which appeared on the 'dark web' on Tuesday, almost 60,000 members have addresses in Washington, DC, and over 15,000 accounts were affiliated with a .gov or a .mil address. After holding the data hostage for a month, the hacker group calling itself Impact Team released almost 10 gigabytes of Ashley Madison records, containing sensitive customer information such as payment transaction and credit card details, emails, names, addresses, phone numbers and member profiles. Owned by Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison boasts over 38 million users drawn to the company's slogan "Life is short. Have an affair." Membership is free for women, while men pay $49 for 100 credits on the site, used to chat, send messages and virtual gifts. | |
Comment: Our government leaders sure are a shining beacon of morality, aren't they?
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RT
2015-08-20 21:12:00
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has hit out at American and European policy in Ukraine, saying it ignores Russia's relationship with its neighbor, and has called for cooperation between the White House and the Kremlin in Ukraine. "Breaking Russia has become an objective [for US officials] the long-range purpose should be to integrate it," the 92-year-old told The National Interest in a lengthy interview for the policy magazine's anniversary that touched on most of the world's most pertinent international issues. "If we treat Russia seriously as a great power, we need at an early stage to determine whether their concerns can be reconciled with our necessities." The diplomat, who is most famous for serving in the Nixon administration, and controversially being awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, for negotiating the Vietnam ceasefire, accused the West of failing to recognize the historical context in which the fallout occurred between Moscow and Kiev. "The relationship between Ukraine and Russia will always have a special character in the Russian mind. It can never be limited to a relationship of two traditional sovereign states, not from the Russian point of view, maybe not even from Ukraine's. So, what happens in Ukraine cannot be put into a simple formula of applying principles that worked in Western Europe." | |
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RT
2015-08-20 21:03:00
Syrian state television has confirmed Israeli strikes on Golan Heights, Reuters reports. Israel previously said that the bombardment was a response to rockets fired at its territory from Syria. Israel fired "several missiles," which targeted a transportation center and a public building in a Syrian area of the Golan Heights, Quneitra, a military source told Syrian state TV. According to the IDF, earlier rockets came to Israel from the central part of the Golan Heights controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces. "The [Israeli] army sees Syria as responsible for the fire, and it will pay the price for it," the IDF statement said. The Israeli army also said that the rockets were fired by the Islamic Jihad movement "with Iranian funding and direction." Earlier in the day the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that there had been casualties on the ground in Syria due to Israeli strikes, but there has been no official confirmation of this. | |
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| Society's Child |
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Nadia Prupis
Common Dreams 2015-08-19 20:44:00
When schools in California's Sausalito Marin City District return to session this August, they will be the first in the nation to serve their students 100 percent organic meals, sustainably sourced and free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). More than 500 students at Bayside MLK Jr. Academy in Marin City and Willow Creek Academy in Sausalito will eat fresh, local food year-round, thanks to a partnership with the Conscious Kitchen, a project of the environmental education nonprofit Turning Green. "Students everywhere are vulnerable to pesticide residues and unsafe environmental toxins," Turning Green founder Judi Shils said on Tuesday. "Not only does this program far exceed USDA nutritional standards, but it ties the health of our children to the health of our planet. It's the first program to say that fundamentally, you cannot have one without the other." | |
Comment: It surely beats the standard fare that is served in schools.
Michelle Obama's disgusting, cheap school lunch rations leave student's fed up | |
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RT
2015-08-21 20:44:00
At least three people have been injured after a man, reportedly armed with a Kalashninov rifle, opened fire on a Thalys high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris on Friday. The attacker was apprehended by soldiers traveling on the same train, according to local media. The shooting occurred near the town of Arras in northern France around 6:00pm local time (4:00pm GMT). The railway station in Arras was locked down by security forces. "The man was armed with automatic weapons and knives. He was stopped by passengers," Christophe Piednoel, a spokesman for French railway SNCF said on iTele television. | |
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Sputnik
2015-08-21 18:38:00
US President Barack Obama's approval rating has fallen significantly, as a majority of US residents participating in a poll criticized his foreign policy, according to a CNN/ORC survey published Friday. The poll revealed that 51 percent of US nationals answering a questionnaire disapproved of the US president, fearing Obama was leading the country in the wrong direction. According to the survey, 62 percent of those polled criticized Obama's policy to counter the Islamic State extremist group in Syria and Iraq, while 60 percent disapproved of his policy regarding the successful Iran nuclear agreement. The findings of the survey revealed a higher approval rating for Obama's approach to climate change, as 47 percent supported his policies, compared with 41 percent in May. The CNN/ORC Poll was carried out among some 1,000 random US nationals by telephone in mid-August. | |
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Sputnik
2015-08-21 18:32:00
A young black man, who was killed by police in St. Louis this week, died from a gunshot to the back, according to the results of an autopsy. An autopsy of 18-year-old Mansur Ball-Bey, who was killed by St. Louis policemen on Wednesday, has revealed that he died from a single wound in the back, media reports quoted police officials as saying. It was earlier reported that St. Louis police officers killed the 18-year-old while conducting a search on his home. Police claimed that two suspects had been attempting to flee, when the young man pointed a gun at officers and refused to drop it, prompting them to shoot and kill him. The other man remains on the run. | |
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RT
2015-08-21 16:47:00
The former mayor of Salt Lake City is suing former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and the National Security Agency for spying on the city during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Attorney and former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday in a US district court, accusing the Bush administration and the NSA of illegal blanket surveillance in the Salt Lake City Area before and during the Olympic games, which were held only months after the 9/11 attacks. "I've reactivated my Bar license, and I decided that if nobody else is going to do it, I have to do it," Anderson told RT. "We can't stand by and watch this kind of law-breaking, this massive criminality and incursions on our rights to privacy." Anderson heard about the spying from a 2013 report in the Wall Street Journal and has since confirmed it with an unnamed, "high-ranking" NSA source. | |
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Arturo Garcia
Raw Story 2015-08-20 15:37:00
A retired four-star Army general and his neighbors accused police in Fayetteville, Georgia of using excessive force to arrest him following an alleged dispute with a food delivery driver. "It's the first time in my life I'm ashamed to be an American," 84-year-old William J. Livsey told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "They took me away without my shoes, glasses or medicine. I fought for this country so hard, and I've tried to do good all my life." Livsey was arrested at his home on Saturday and charged with simple assault, robbery, misdemeanor obstruction, theft and making terroristic threats. Police said he grabbed the driver by the throat and pinned him against a refrigerator when Livsey's debit card was not accepted and the driver said he could not take a check to pay for an order. | |
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David Edwards
Raw Story 2015-08-20 15:29:00
New Orleans police officer is facing life in prison over allegations that he raped a 7-year-old girl and forced her to perform oral sex on him. At a court hearing on Wednesday, child abuse investigator Sgt. Lawrence Jones testified that he found it suspicious that Officer Michael Thomassie, a 13-year veteran with the NOPD, had failed to notify his supervisors after he was accused of raping his girlfriend's daughter. "You don't keep that a secret," Jones told the court, The Times-Picayune reported. "You let a supervisor know about something as serious as that. It's a requirement for the police department to report if you're being accused of a crime." In testimony on Wednesday, the victim, who is now 19, said that she was about 7 years old when Thomassie penetrated her in the living room of their home. She said he then told her to go into the living room, where he forced her to perform oral sex. The mother told the court that she remembered screaming when she woke up from her nap to find her daughter being raped. | |
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Bethania Palma Markus
Raw Story 2015-08-19 15:09:00
Missouri pastor at a church called "Passion for Truth Ministries" will serve prison time for lying to and defrauding elderly investors, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Jim Staley, 40, was sentenced Wednesday to 7 years in prison and ordered to repay elderly investors $3.3 million. He pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud and profited $570,000 in the scam of elderly people who trusted him because of his Christian faith and family values. Some of them were suffering from dementia. Although he apologized, the daughter of a man who lost $155,000 in Staley's scam said it wasn't sincere and was staged for church members. His victims were not members of his parish. | |
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David Ferguson
Raw Story 2015-08-18 15:05:00
An essay published on Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine detailed the shocking practice of doctors abusing patients who are anesthetized into unconsciousness. The anonymous author described a class session in medical humanities in which he was talking to young doctors about the power of forgiveness. One student, named David for the essay — titled "Our Family Secrets" — raised his hand and said that he had seen something unforgivable in the course of his clinical residency. "I was scrubbed into a vaginal hysterectomy," said David. "The patient was under general anesthesia. My attending was prepping the patient's vagina. He picked up a clamp holding sterile cotton balls and dipped them into Betadine. While he was cleansing and scrubbing her labia and inner thighs, he looked at me and said, 'I bet she's enjoying this.' My attending winked at me and laughed." The experience disgusted him, the student said. "Man, I was just standing there trying to learn. The guy was a dirtball. It still pisses me off," he said. | |
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Lydia Willgress
Daily Mail 2015-08-21 11:46:00
A family narrowly avoided disaster after posing for photographs next to an unexploded World War II mine they thought was a buoy. Kelly Gravell was on a beach near Burry Port, Carmarthenshire, with her two children last Wednesday when they discovered the seaweed-covered object. The 32-year-old was left stunned when the beach was closed five days later after Carmarthenshire Council rangers spotted the 70-year-old bomb and called in the bomb squad to blow it up. | |
Comment: The legacy of WWII and other wars linger as bombs and mines still litter the landscape.
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RT
2015-08-20 13:38:00
Ruthless white collar criminals in the City of London are targeting large numbers of vulnerable Brits, luring them into investment scams, stealing their hard earned cash and driving some to commit suicide, it has emerged. Soaring levels of investment fraud across London have caused serious alarm, as UK authorities scramble to disrupt fraudsters and salvage the City's reputation as a safe space to invest. Dozens of suspected criminals have been arrested in recent months as detectives arrived unannounced at offices around London's financial district, the Financial Times revealed on Thursday. The scams are varied, meticulously constructed and devastating to those whose funds they steal. Detective Inspector Teresa Russell of the City of London Police said growing reports of financial crime in the City have forced anti-fraud authorities to take urgent action. "We saw a spike in investment fraudsters operating in the City of London. Reports of fraud were getting to the point where we were almost imploding," she told theFinancial Times. "We thought: 'How can we tackle this in a different way?' We need to get ahead of the curve." | |
Comment: These 'toxic scams', particularly the brand emanating from the nefarious City of London, are widespread and affect far more than the savings of these vulnerable pensioners: Corruption in Science: Francesco Fucilla and the Telesio-Galilei Academy of Science. See also:
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Joshua Krause
Ready Nutrition 2015-08-21 00:27:00
While the United States has done everything in its power to convince the world and its own citizens, that it's just a freedom loving democracy or republic, many of us know better. With hundreds of military bases scattered across the globe, the largest military budget on the planet, and a growing police state at home, it's plainly obvious that the US is really just another empire. The only problem with empires (ethical concerns aside) is that they always collapse, one way or another. And since the standard of living of their people is tied directly to their ability to conquer and dominate, the collapse of an empire often has some rather unsavory results for their citizens, at least temporarily. | |
Comment: For more listen to this episode of Sott Talk Radio: Surviving the End of the World (as we Know it)
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John Vibes
Activist Post 2015-08-20 22:05:00
Comedian George Carlin is known as one of the most controversial and outspoken entertainers of his time and, as far as the government is concerned, he could have possibly been a terrorist. He went into great detail about corruption in government and business. During the 1978 Supreme Court case, FCC v Pacifica Foundation, the government cited Carlin's work as an example of profanity. They used his "Seven Dirty Words" segment to show the type of language that was being used in records and broadcasts. However, the government's interest in his work did not stop there. Just after his 1969 appearance on the Jackie Gleason show, Carlin caught the attention of the FBI because he made jokes about then-FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. According to the government, Carlin had "referred to the Bureau and the Director in a satirical vein." | |
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Star Fox
Eyes Open Report 2015-08-20 21:43:00
We all heard about the EPA's disastrous early August spill where the agency sent some 3 million gallons of highly toxic mine waste water down the Animas River in Colorado. But little does the public know, the EPA caused a serious spill in Georgia only months before contaminating the Animas. From WatchDog.org: Still reeling from a disaster it created at a Colorado gold mine, the EPA has so far avoided criticism for a similar toxic waste spill in Georgia. | |
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RT
2015-08-20 21:06:00
A newly presented report by West Australian corruption watchdog accuses the country's police officers of beating a woman and marching her naked through the halls of a watch house in front of other officers in April 2013. The Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) report, presented to the Parliament on Thursday, says that five police officers were involved in the harsh treatment of a woman called Joanne Martin on April 7, 2013. The report includes a video record of the incident showing the woman identified as Joanne Martin, 33 at the time of the incident, screaming while being escorted through the reception area with only a blanket to cover her. The document claims that, during her detention, the woman was subjected to physical attacks that resulted in particular in a serious finger fracture.
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| Secret History |
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Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News 2015-08-21 11:21:00
Archaeologists have unearthed gruesome evidence of brutal rituals as they excavated what could be the largest ceremonial skull rack built by the Aztecs more than 500 years ago. Found on the western side of what was once the Templo Mayor complex in Tenochtitlan, in modern Mexico City, the partially unearthed skull rack was likely built between 1485 and 1502 and may have been about 112 feet (34 meters) long and 40 feet (12 meters) wide. Mostly belonging to young adult men, but also to women and children, several of the unearthed skulls feature holes on both sides, suggesting they belonged to a tzompantli. This was a rack on which the skulls of sacrificed people were arranged on wooden poles and displayed to inspire fear and awe. | |
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Bryan Hill
Ancient Origens 2015-08-19 00:00:00
In 1872, construction workers digging a hole for a fence post near the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee in New England found a lump of clay, with an egg shaped artifact inside it, six feet below the ground. Called the 'Mystery Stone', it is one of New Hampshire's more curious and lesser known relics. Amateur and professional archaeologists have speculated about the origin of this strange artifact for well over one hundred years with no clear answers emerging. The rock type is not familiar to New Hampshire and there are no other known objects bearing similar markings or design in the United States. It may very have been the work of someone living in a faraway place and time, as nothing like its fine workmanship has been produced by the Native American tribes living locally in the area. | |
Comment: There is still much that we do not understand about ancient civilizations and their technology:
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| Science & Technology |
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Sputnik
2015-08-21 13:39:00
University of Chicago scientists accidentally created an entirely new type of glass - one with unusual peaks that indicate a molecular order in a material previously thought to be entirely amorphous and random. "This is a big surprise," said Juan de Pablo, a molecular engineering professor at the University of Chicago. "Randomness is almost the defining feature of glasses. At least we used to think so." "What we have done is to demonstrate that one can create glasses where there is some well-defined organization. And now that we understand the origin of such effects, we can try to control that organization by manipulating the way we prepare these glasses." | |
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Science Daily
2015-08-20 00:00:00
Bacteria are pretty wily creatures. Take for example, an organism such as Salmonella, which which are killed by antibiotics in lab tests, but can become highly resistant in the body. It is an example of what UC Santa Barbara biologist Michael Mahan refers to as the Trojan horse strategy. Identified through new research conducted by Mahan and his colleagues,the Trojan horse strategy may explain why antibiotics are ineffective in some patients despite lab tests that predict otherwise. The research findings appear in the journal EBioMedicine. "We are not petri plates, and we need to revisit the way antibiotics are developed, tested and prescribed," said Mahan, a professor in UCSB's Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. Current methods for testing resistance to antibioticsdo not reflect the actual and varying environments in the body, where bacteria fight to survive. Mahan noted that this difference can render antibiotic susceptibility testing inaccurate. | |
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