Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday 4 August 2015

The European Union Times


Posted: 03 Aug 2015 03:59 PM PDT

“Spider”, “Alien”, “John Carter”, “awesome Martian space crab” – these are a few suggestions by social media users who apparently thoroughly studied a recent NASA image of Mars which captured a strange object on the surface of the red planet.
The raw image taken by NASA Curiosity somewhere in July was hugely discussed in the Facebook group ‘Journey to the Surface of the Mars’.
“Now this one is AWESOME!!!” wrote the group whose slogan is “They will not tell the truth about MARS.” They even enlarged the NASA image and so that the world could have a better look of ‘the creature’.
“It looks a human kind of face in a type spider body!”, “It’s a door”, “John Carter”: users’ imaginations ran unrestrained (John Carter of Mars is a fictional character by Edgar Rice Burroughs).
Some fans of Ridley Scott movies also drew parallels with the organism from Alien franchise.
This is not the first ‘suspected’ image of Mars surface that disturbed social media and even scientists. Earlier in July Curiosity Mars rover found a rock unlike anything it found before, which could contain organic material.
NASA said that it was “bedrock with surprisingly high levels of silica [a rock-forming compound containing silicon and oxygen, commonly found on Earth as quartz].”
“High levels of silica in the rock could indicate ideal conditions for preserving ancient organic material, if present, so the science team wants to take a closer look,” NASA wrote.
Conspiracy theories also appeared around one of raw images taken by Curiosity which showed an alleged pyramid on the Red Planet.
“Due to the size of the object about the scale of a small car I would theorize that the artefact is either the capstone of a much larger pyramid possibly buried deep beneath the surface or perhaps a marker stone,” wrote Paranormal Crucible YouTube account which analyses extraterrestrial activity and speculated on the origins of the ‘pyramid’.
The ufologists also found a “levitating alien sphere” on Mars which was recorded by the rover’s Mast Camera on April 10, 2015.
“This is ancient technology, and it’s still floating above the surface today. No one knows how old it is, but we do know that it came from a very technologically-advanced species. It has, the ultimate battery,” a statement from the UFO Sightings Daily, a website devoted to possible UFO detections on or above our planet.
These ‘artefacts’, however, in most cases are just a vision defect called pareidolia, a psychological phenomenon of noticing a significant pattern in unexpected places. The ‘man in the moon’ or ‘moon rabbit’ are common examples of such an illusion.
Source
       
Posted: 03 Aug 2015 03:54 PM PDT

Former US President Jimmy Carter said he did not consider the present-day United States of America a democratic state.
The 39th President of the United States made the statement in an interview with Tom Hartmann, a well-known radio host and progressive political commentator.
Carter criticized the practice of “unlimited political bribery” that has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.”
According to Carter, America has turned into a real oligarchy, where all power is concentrated in the hands of financial elite. This was made possible owing to the decision of the US Supreme Court, which entitled corporations to make unlimited financial investments into the political sphere of the country.
As the former political leader of the United States said, America has thus been deprived of all achievements of its political system. Currently, the States is a commonplace oligarchy, in which power is generated by means of bribes behind all presidential candidates and governors.
The political life in the United States has turned into a market, in which policy-makers receive big money for making certain decisions, said the former president. They are quite happy with the situation, he added.
According to Jimmy Carter, the unfortunate decision of the Supreme Court of the United States made during “Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission” actually made the political system of the USA the worse in the world.
Earlier, former vice-president Al Gore described the political system of the United States as catastrophic. He also pointed out deep corruption of the American political sphere, in which politicians work for the interests of large corporations, rather than people.
Source
        
Posted: 03 Aug 2015 03:40 PM PDT

The US-based tech giant, Microsoft, has begun rolling out the latest version of its Windows operating system as a free upgrade for computer users in 190 countries.
According to company sources, Windows 10, whose release started on Wednesday, is an operating system for both traditional computers and mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.
Microsoft is apparently hoping that the new system would help it gain a bigger share in the mobile market, which is currently dominated by Google Android and Apple iOS, AFP reported.
“Our vision was one platform, one store, and one experience that extends across the broadest range of devices from the smallest screens to the largest screens to no screens at all,” said Microsoft executive vice president for Windows, Terry Myerson, in a blog post.
“Windows 10 begins to deliver on our vision for more personal computing. In this world experiences are mobile, moving with you seamlessly and easily across your devices. Interacting with technology is as natural as interacting with people — using voice, pen, gestures and even gaze for the right interaction, in the right way, at the right time. And in our connected and transparent world, we respect your privacy and help protect your information,” he added.
Windows 10, a successor to Microsoft’s lackluster Windows 8, is being offered as a free upgrade for most devices, making it possible to quickly be available on billions of devices.
The new operating system allows for voice, pen and gesture input, and in some cases biometric identification for improved security.
The Cortana virtual assistant, which combines the best features of Apple’s Siri and Google Now, will be also integrated into the new system.
Windows 10 also includes the Microsoft Edge browser, a substitute for Internet Explorer, which has been designed to help the company regain market share lost to rivals such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
Source
       
Posted: 03 Aug 2015 03:32 PM PDT

The Obama administration has released its final Clean Power Plan which regulates carbon emissions from US power plants. The plan calls for a 32 percent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2030. However, some worry higher energy bills are in the works.
On Monday afternoon, President Barack Obama has formally announced the updated plan that was first issued in June 2014. The proposal is the headline policy of Obama’s Climate Action Plan, which aims to cut overall emissions 26 percent to 28 percent by 2030, based on 2005 levels.
“Shaped by years of unprecedented outreach and public engagement, the final Clean Power Plan is fair, flexible and designed to strengthen the fast-growing trend toward cleaner and lower-polluting American energy,” the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in announcing the plan.
The original plan called for a 30-percent carbon-emission reduction from 2005 amounts by 2030. With the new call for a 32-percent reduction, the Obama administration said Sunday that goal will help reduce climate-warming carbon emissions beyond 2030.
“That will help drive deeper decarbonization not just in 2030, but in subsequent years as well,” said Brian Deese, a policy advisor to the president, according to Grist.org. “This rule gives us a strong foundation to keep pushing forward against our international commitments and is stronger when you look out at 2030 and beyond.”
The new plan will require the EPA to issue individual emissions goals for each state. Those outlines have not been released.
The tweaks to the 2014 proposal will extend across the amount of time – from 2017 to 2018 – allotted to states to finally issue their individual plans outlining how they intend to meet reduction standards. States will also have until 2022, rather than 2020, to achieve those their targets.
Some revamped aspects of the plan go further than the original in restricting carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants from the likes of coal-fired power plants. For instance, the new plan puts less emphasis on shifting to natural gas and more on renewable sources of energy.
The updated plan will aim for the US to get 28 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030. The original plan called for 22 percent. States will be offered credits from renewable energy production through an energy incentive program. Credits could be traded between states.
The emphasis on renewables is being blamed, in part, for the belief that energy bills in the US will rise as a ramification of the new proposal.
“This regulation will be exceptionally difficult for manufacturers to meet and will increase energy prices and threaten electric reliability,” said the National Association of Manufacturers in a statement. “Manufacturers are committed to being responsible stewards of our environment, leading the way in that effort, and we are disappointed the Obama Administration has chosen to pursue this path.”
The White House claimed that the new rules will help prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths; 1,700 non-fatal hearth attacks; 90,000 asthma attacks among children; and 300,000 missed work- and schooldays. The plan will help create tens of thousands of jobs while saving the average family about $85 a year on energy bills in 2030, the White House added.
The plan’s opposition, which had already threatened legal challenges prior to the new proposal, reiterated their misgivings, calling the EPA’s rules “illegal.”
“Even in the face of damning analyses and scathing opposition from across the country, EPA’s final carbon rule reveals what we’ve said for months – this agency is pursuing an illegal plan that will drive up electricity costs and put people out of work,” said Mike Duncan, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.
“This rule fails across the board, but most troubling is that it fails the millions of families and businesses who rely on affordable electricity to help them keep food on the table and the lights on.”
The share of coal power in the US will drop to 27 percent in the new plan, as opposed to 31 percent in the original. Coal defenders said the rules will be a struggle to meet, yet supporters of stricter rules said many states were already moving away from coal plants and towards natural gas and zero-carbon renewables.
Others say the plan doesn’t go far enough. They point out power plant emissions have already dropped 15.4 percent from 2005 levels, which represent almost half of the new plan’s requrements.
“In other words, even under the strengthened plan, the rate of decarbonization is expected to slow over the next 15 years,” wrote Michael Grunwald in Politico. “What, did you think the strongest action ever taken to combat climate change would actually accelerate the nation’s efforts to combat climate change?”
Grunwald added that rather than representing the boldest action undertaken by the Obama administration to combat climate change, it is actually the fourth most stringent policy aiming to reduce global warming.
The new plan ranks behind the 2009 economic stimulus package, which offered $90 billion for clean energy; new fuel-efficiency rules for cars and trucks; and efforts to crackdown on mercury and other air pollutants, he wrote.
As for coal, “the EPA expects the decline of coal to abate somewhat under the Clean Power Plan, even though the average coal plant is over 40 years old, nobody is planning new coal plants, and the coal industry is already scrambling to comply with a barrage of new clean-air and clean-water regulations that have nothing to do with carbon,” Grunwald wrote.
In addition, Vox’s Brad Plumer pointed out that US power plants were responsible for only 31 percent of national greenhouse-gas emissions in 2013. Thus, the new goals aren’t as spectacular as advertised.
“So if all goes as planned, the Clean Power Plan amounts to a 6 percent cut in current US greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030,” he wrote.
The plan comes ahead of the United Nations climate talks scheduled for December in Paris.
Source
       
Posted: 03 Aug 2015 01:04 PM PDT

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) is confirming in a new report today that President Putin has utilized his delegated authority under Section 1, Chapter 4, Article 87 of The Constitution of the Russian Federation granting him the “powers and authorities” of Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to conduct the most massive realignment of Federation military forces in modern times.
According to this report, two days ago, on 1 August, President Putin signed an order as Supreme Commander creating a new branch of the armed forces by merging the nation’s Air Force, Air Defense, Anti-Missile and Space Forces into a completely new entity now called Aerospace Forces and put them on immediate combat alert.
As to why President Putin signed this unprecedented order, this report continues, was directly related to an “existential threat” posed to the Federation after the appearance last week of an“alien space fleet” over the environs of Osaka, Japan, and to which MoD expert’s state is but “a prelude of what is to come later”.
To these new Aerospace “Sky Guard” Forces combat duties ordered by President Putin, this report explains, are for them to immediately deploy across the Federation with hundreds of A-135 Samolet mobile ballistic missile defense systems to protect vital infrastructure and civilian population centers.
Augmenting these Sky Guard forces in the defense of the Federation against this “alien threat”, this MoD report further notes, will be tens-of-thousands of new reserve forces created byPresident Putin’s order of 17 July.
To a fuller background relating to these “alien” events the MoD had previously reported on…and which can be read in our reports: 9 July, Jade Helm-15 War Exercise Linked To Nordic Alien UFO’s Invading Texas and 26 July, Jade Helm-15 War Exercise Assassinates First Alien Target.
In the conclusion, however, of this new MoD report is, perhaps, its most frightening assessment that the September-October “grand event” being planned by the West may be the most terrifying this world has ever seen…and which we will most certainly write more about as it draws nearer.
Source
        
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 09:32