Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday, 23 February 2016

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
2016-02-23 18:04:00

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Last Wednesday, Apple rejected the FBI's 'request' to build a back door to the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters. The iPhone apparently has an auto-erase function which destroys all of its encrypted data if it detects a hacker. Now, the DOJ has asked a federal judge to compel Apple to comply, adding, "Rather than assist the effort to fully investigate a deadly terrorist attack by obeying this court's [previous order], Apple has responded by publicly repudiating that order." The outrage! So according to the DOJ, Apple is essentially siding with the terrorists. Spoken like true authoritarian fascists. "Either give up all your freedoms, or you're with the terr'ists! who want to take away your freedoms!"

Now, in a new development, Apple is saying that the phone in question had its password changedwithin 24 hours of being in government custody. They say that this prevents them from getting backup information.
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Stephen Kinzer
Boston Globe
2016-02-23 21:00:00

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Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why.

For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: "Don't send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin." Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it.

This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the main power plant. Regular electricity may soon be restored. The militants' hold on the city could be ending.
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Eva Bartlett
In Gaza
2016-02-21 15:50:00

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The terror-ravaged neighbourhood of al-Zahra'a, in Homs, has again mercilessly been hit by Western&Saudi-backed terrorists' bombings. Local journalists put the number of murdered at 57 now, some hours after the double-vehicle bombing earlier today.


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Russia Today reports:
The explosions at a traffic light at al-Siteen Street in the al-Zahra neighborhood happened within minutes of each other, witnesses said. ...Witnesses said at least one of the two blasts was triggered by a suicide bomber driving a car.

A follow-up bombing after an initial blast is a common terrorist tactic, which allows them to hit first responders, who rush to help victims....
Al-Zahra'a has been repeatedly targeted by western-backed terrorists, with almost no condemnation from the same leaders who cried for Paris.
Comment: 130 people died on a single day in Paris, prompting worldwide outrage, sympathy, military action, new laws, arrests, raids, and more. In coordinated terror attacks in Syria, this happened yesterday. But where is the outrage? Where is the support for official Damascus, for the Syrian people? Nowhere to be found - it's just another day in Syria... And who's to blame? The U.S., Western nations in general. Maybe that's why there is so little response. They don't want to look the devil in the eye, because they fear what they'll really see: themselves.
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Catherine Shakdam
American Herald Tribune
2016-02-21 15:53:00

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It's the 1930s all over again ... whether we look right or left, whether we point east or west, hate, ethno-centrism and sectarianism seem to be the order of the day - this new rationale we ought to abide to if not to stand being called an apologist and a hypocrite.

Earlier this week I was asked as a guest on Cross Talk, one of RT TV flagship programs with the very wonderful, Peter Lavelle, to comment on the ongoing refugee crisis Europe has had to grapple with. The show intended to delve into those questions most media have dodged for fear of being politically incorrect.

I'd like to personally hand my hat to RT TV for flying journalism's colours high - few outlets these days have dared open themselves up the way Russia has done, offering both a space, and a platform for ideas to be debated, and pluralism to be respected.

Europe's refugee crisis is set to be the challenge of the decade! I would personally argue that our ability to face up to this new crisis will very much determine our global socio-political future in that it will define communities, nations, and continents' abilities to relate to one another, and more importantly view each other.

Allow me to elaborate.


View on Sott.net
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Puppet Masters
Ollie Richardson (translator)
Fort Russ
2016-02-23 21:32:00

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The United States and Russia agreed on a ceasefire in Syria, where both countries separately from each other are fighting against Islamist groups. This was stated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking in a special address on television. The agreement demonstrates the high level of cooperation between Moscow and Washington, but experts estimate it carefully because of many different factors.

As was stated by the Russian President, the ceasefire in Syria should occur on February 27th at midnight — this means that the ceasefire must stop the Syrian military, aviation of Russia and the coalition forces under the auspices of the United States.

The Russian head of state said that the agreement on a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria was adopted by the U.S. and Russia as co-chairs of the International support group in Syria. The President in his address made it clear that the agreement on a ceasefire should be the beginning of a political settlement in Syria, where civil war has continued since 2011, in which external forces also intervened.

The victims of the conflict total 470,000 people on both sides.
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Sputnik
2016-02-23 21:37:00

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The recent agreement between Russia and the United States to implement a cessation of hostilities in Syria will not lead to further military cooperation between the two countries, US Department of Defense press secretary Peter Cook told reporters on Tuesday.

"We obviously are supporting what [US Secretary of State John Kerry] is doing, the effort to try and bring some ease to the suffering of the Syrian people," Cook said. "But we do not anticipate further military-to-military cooperation with the Russians."

"I'm not aware of any communications were going to have with the Russians in this particular cell," Cook said when asked about the US military relationship with a Russian monitoring facility that began operating on Tuesday at the Hmeimim airbase in Syria.
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RT
2016-02-23 16:23:00

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The era of the US global sea dominance - ensured by its 10 giant aircraft carriers - may come to an end, a study by respected Washington-based think tank warns. Russia, China and Iran can make the mammoth vessels useless by new weapons, tech and tactics.

Aircraft carriers are at the heart of the US Navy's global reach capabilities, and a symbol of American military might. The fearsome dreadnoughts can practically endanger any part of the world by deploying their air groups, comprising fighter and strike jets, as well as surveillance and electronic intelligence aircraft.

Every war the US waged during recent decades, including the 1990-1991 Gulf War, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, involved their use.

The US Navy currently has 10 aircraft carriers in active service, which is equal to what all other countries can field combined.

On Monday, the Washington-based bipartisan Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released a report saying the era of American naval dominance may end soon.
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RT
2016-02-20 20:57:00

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The Ukrainian parliament is to consider a bill, which would make calling Russia 'Russia' a criminal offense. The bill penned by a Radical Party MP says 'Russia' derives from Ukraine's historic name and can't be used by the Russian Federation.

With the word 'Russia' inadmissible, the bill says 'Moscovia' should be used instead.

Violating the ban would be considered a crime and punishable by a fine of about $2,875 and twice that much for repeat offenders and government officials.

The bill was submitted in June 2015 by Oksana Korchinskaya of the Radical Party and is listed for a hearing during parliament's ongoing session, which will last until July 22. The exact date of the hearing hasn't been set yet.

According to the wording of the bill, the word "Rus" and its derivative "Russia" are "unofficial names of the territory of modern Ukraine" and "have historic significance for Ukraine." It says banning the use of these words for modern Russia will "restore historic justice and protect the historic legacy of the Ukrainian people."
Comment: It's takes a special kind of incompetence to twist Russia and Ukraine's common history this way and then use it to propose such a ridiculous bill. It appears the United States' political elite created modern Ukraine in their own image.
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RT
2016-02-23 20:40:00

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Vladimir Putin has much more influence over Syria's President Bashar Assad than the United States has over its allies in the region, and this could hinder the Syrian ceasefire, former CIA officer Ray McGovern told RT.

Russia and the US agreed the terms for a cessation of hostilities in Syria. The ceasefire will start on February 27 at midnight Damascus time. ISIS, Al-Qaeda and many other terrorist organizations are not part of the truce.
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RT
2016-02-19 20:17:00

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Ukraine will only receive American investment if Kiev continues to take "meaningful steps to reform its trade and investment climate," the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, has stated.

Pyatt set out the conditions while speaking at Ukraine Defense and Security Forum. He said that he was glad to see a large number of US defense industry representatives there, but warned Kiev that these companies would be good partners if they "see that the government sticks to the path of reform, that you uphold your IMF commitments, that the government continues to make progress on the critical topic of rule-of-law reform."

"Ukraine has said that it wants to become a major defense exporter. I know that is possible, given the extraordinary capabilities that I have seen the Ukrainian industry demonstrate," Pyatt noted at the 2016 Ukraine Defense and Security Forum in Kiev on Thursday.

"But it can only happen if Ukraine continues to press ahead on critical reforms, tackles corruption, and works to meet NATO standards. This will require a paradigm shift in Ukraine's defense industry, and a move away from a mindset of state-owned enterprises. And, most importantly, the elimination of graft and corruption."
Comment: Of course the IMF wants out, and it's not about some petty corruption either. Things haven't panned out as expected for the US and friends, and now they're bringing themselves down with their own destructive impulses.
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RT
2016-02-23 13:53:00

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Washington has dispatched more than 5,000 tons of ammunition to Germany, the largest amount in 10 years, the US military announced, adding that the shipment will help to "continue to enable the NATO alliance" and to defend its allies.

"In the largest single Europe-bound US shipment of ammunition in 10 years, the 21st Theater Sustainment Command ... transported over 5,000 tons of ammunition ...to the Theater Logistics Support Center, Europe's ammunition depot in Miesau [Germany] Feb. 17-18," said a statement on the US army website. "This critical shipment will help us to continue to enable the NATO alliance, and the fact that it's the largest single shipment in 10 years demonstrates our continued commitment to the defense of our allies," 21st TSC chief of staff, Colonel Matthew Redding, said.

Maintaining a stockpile of ammunition means the US and NATO "can quickly draw ammunition in support of short notice NATO operations," says Redding. "All that effort pays off when we're able to quickly deliver ammo and other supplies to those down-trace units that need them," he went on.

The ammunition was taken in 415 shipping containers and stored in Miesau. It will be available for various troops to support operations, including exercise Anakonda 2016, one of US Army Europe's premier multinational training events, which will be held in Poland in June. The Anakonda 2016 drills will involve more than 25,000 participants from 24 nations, including the UK, the US, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.
Comment: US/NATO wouldn't have Russia in their crosshairs, would they? With the US strapped into arms and ammunition sales as a postponer-element to financial collapse, this shipment provides a short-term security measure in a couple arenas. When that no longer works, does it up the ammo and default to war? Is that the drill?
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Anna Simonton
Mondoweiss
2016-02-23 20:20:00

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A rash of state legislation targeting the Boycott Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement continues to spread. A Georgia lawmaker recently introduced a bill that mirrors legislation pending in six other states in an effort to outlaw government contracts with businesses that boycott Israel.

Georgia State Senator Judson Hill introduced SB 327 with little fanfare earlier this month. The proposed law targets boycotts of Israel specifically, preventing the state from contracting with any entity that cannot provide, "a written certification that such individual or company is not currently engaged in, and agrees for the duration of the contract not to engage in, a boycott of Israel."

"These bills exist because the BDS movement is growing in the U.S., and that's making Israel's fiercest advocates nervous," said Rahul Saksena, an attorney at Palestine Legal, which hastracked anti-BDS legislation.
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Sputnik
2016-02-23 19:54:00

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The Obama administration is looking at additional options in Syria in the event the recently negotiated cessation of hostilities as well as political transition process do not succeed, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.

On Monday, Russia and the United States announced an agreement on cessation of hostilitiesbetween the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad and the armed opposition factions had been reached. The agreement will come into force on February 27.

"There is a significant discussion taking place now about a Plan B in the event that we do not succeed at the [negotiating] table," Kerry said of the prospective ceasefire.
Comment: So if Syrians vote for Assad for another term, does this mean "Plan B" will be activated?
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Sputnik
2016-02-23 19:44:00

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On February 16, the energy ministers of Russia, Venezuela, Qatar and Saudi Arabia agreed to level off average monthly oil output at January levels, in response to persistent low prices.

"Freeze is the beginning of a process," Al-Naimi stated. "If we can get all the major producers to agree not to add additional barrels then with high inventory we have now [supply] will probablydecline in the due time."
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RT
2016-02-23 13:48:00

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Further proof of ties between the Turkish military and Islamic State fighters operating on the Syrian-Turkish border has been revealed in the Cumhuriyet newspaper, which published more transcripts of telephone calls between the jihadists and officers.

The documents are said to come from an ongoing court case on Islamic State at the Ankara 3rd High Criminal Court. The investigation was reportedly prompted after six Turkish citizens reported to police that their relatives had joined the terrorists. At least 19 people came under surveillance as a result and prosecutors then charged 27 individuals. The daily published the first batch in December.

The new transcripts published by the daily [on] Monday are said to be conversations between Turkish officers and Mustafa Demir, a member of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) who is a leading figure on the Syrian-Turkish border. "The transcripts and the documents in the investigation revealed that Demir received money... from smugglers at the border and cooperated with the officers as far as [border] crossings are concerned," Cumhuriyet said.
Comment: It seems, for Turkey, there are no allegiances to which it abides. It maneuvers with bravado, oblivious of sovereign borders, furthering its own interests and agenda in self-serving manners. As a rogue nation, it is only a matter of time before Turkey runs out of usefulness to the US/NATO consortium. If so, who makes THAT call?
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Xinhua
2016-02-22 18:26:00

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Israel's defense minister said on Monday that Israel is preparing for the possibility of another round of fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon made the comments on board USS Carney, an American battleship currently located in Haifa amid a joint U.S.-Israeli military drill.

"We've been enjoying unprecedented quiet, Hamas hasn't fired one bullet," Ya'alon told reporters on Monday, referring to the relative quiet since the end of the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas. The defense minister also acknowledged, however, an increase in Hamas's strength.

"Hamas is trying to arm itself with rockets," Ya'alon said, also noting Hamas are conducting tests on rockets that are fired into the sea. He also reckoned Hamas is building underground tunnels to carry out attacks against Israel.

"We've been preparing for the possibility that at some point will be opened in the south, and we'll have to deal with it ... We're not stagnate and we operate both with defensive and offensive measures," he added.

More than 70 Israelis and over 2,000 Palestinians were killed in the 2014 war, since which there had been few, sporadic rocket attacks against southern Israeli communities -- believed by military officials to be mostly the work of Islamist groups within the strip.
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RT
2016-02-23 15:47:00

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Banning foreign-born spouses of Britons from coming to the UK unless their partners earn enough is unlawful and an abuse of the relevant legislation, Britain's highest court has heard.

The 2012 initiative was brought into effect by Home Secretary Theresa May and means that a British citizen must be earning £18,500 a year to bring a foreign spouse into the UK.

If visas are also required for children, then wages are required to be even higher.
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Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook Net
2016-02-23 18:27:00

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Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Tel Aviv is drafting legislation that ought to resolve in observers' minds the question of whether Israel is the democracy it proudly claims to be. The bill empowers a three-quarters majority of the Israeli parliament to oust a sitting MP.

It breathes new life into the phrase "tyranny of the majority". But in this case, the majority will be Jewish MPs oppressing their Palestinian colleagues.

Mr Netanyahu has presented the bill as a necessary response to the recent actions of three MPs from the Balad faction of the Joint List, a coalition of parties representing the often-overlooked fifth of Israel's citizens who are Palestinian.

He claims the MPs "sided with terror" this month when they visited Palestinian families in occupied East Jerusalem who have been waiting many months for Israel to return their relatives' bodies.

The 11 dead are among those alleged to have carried out what are termed "lone-wolf" attacks, part of a recent wave of Palestinian unrest. Fearful of more protests, Israel has demanded that the families bury the bodies in secret, without autopsies, and in plots outside Jerusalem.

There is an urgent moral and political issue about Israel using bodies as bargaining chips to encourage Palestinian obedience towards its illegal occupation. The three Palestinian MPs also believe they are under an obligation to help the families by adding to the pressure on Mr Netanyahu to return the bodies.

Israel's Palestinian minority has a severely degraded form of citizenship, but it enjoys more rights than Palestinians living under occupation.
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Sputnik
2016-02-23 18:06:00

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The ongoing Syrian conflict resembles nothing so much as a prelude to a world war, CIA veteran Paul R. Pillar notes, highlighting the importance of an upcoming ceasefire in Syria has engaged multiple global players, prompting the Western media to dub the recent fight for Aleppo a "mini world war," CIA veteran and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Paul R. Pillar notes.

Indeed, there are a lot of striking and disturbing resemblances between the ongoing conflict in Syriaand the 1914 crisis that resulted in the First World War, Pillar emphasizes in his article for The National Interest.

"The prospect of the Syrian conflict remaining unsettled for years and thus providing many opportunities for it to grow into something bigger is the starting point for spinning out escalatory scenarios. But some more specific attributes of that conflict have greater and more disturbing similarities to the 1914 crisis. One is the multiplicity of players, from outside as well as inside Syria and the region, who perceive themselves as having a stake in the conflict," the CIA veteran elaborates.

To complicate matters further, the perception about stakes is closely related to the tendency to regard the war in Syria as part of a greater conflict between large coalitions. "This view amplifies the perceived stakes ever further and also brings into play a sense of obligation to friends and allies," the expert remarks.
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Society's Child
John Vibes
The Free Thought Project
2016-02-23 19:13:00

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Edgar Camacho-Alvarado, 23, was shot and killed by police this weekend while police were searching for a murder suspect in his neighborhood. The young man was not actually guilty of any crime, nor did he pose a threat to officers, and he never even attempted to interfere with their investigation. He was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, working to fix the engine in his truck in the driveway in front of his home.

The police are refusing to release any further information about the shooting, but Edgar's family wants answers.

"This morning, we got a call about APD and U.S. Marshals being at my aunt's house. We have no idea why they shot him. He passed away instantly. They were looking for someone else and they killed him," Perla Alvarado, Edgar's cousin told KRQE News 13.
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RT
2016-02-23 19:14:00

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Bolivian President Evo Morales remains hopeful for a "Yes" result in the referendum that could extend his presidency another term, even though the "No" side is leading by 8.4 percent with more than 80 percent of the votes counted.

Morales said he is waiting to hear the results of Sunday's vote from rural areas, which is thought to be a stronghold for the country's first indigenous president.

"They don't like us much in the city, but the first results give me hope," he said.

His third term is set to end in 2020, but if the referendum finishes in his favor, he would be able to run for re-election, and potentially take his presidency to 2025.
Comment: Uncle Sam is his name and dirty tricks is his game. The US government has just got to meddle in the affairs of every sovereign country on the planet.
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Daisy Luther
The Organic Prepper
2016-02-22 19:25:00

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Once upon a time, the goal of higher education was to prepare kids for life, but in past decades they've gotten further and further from that path. Now, in an era of crybabies and safe spaces, one university teaches survival skills and is completely bucking the status quo.
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Claire Bernish
Activist Post
2016-02-23 18:49:00

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After the mammoth methane gas leak that spewed uncontrollably from a damaged well in California's Aliso Canyon was finally capped last week, residents of nearby Porter Ranch began trepidatiously returning to their homes. Lingering doubts over whether Southern California Gas Company will continue using the underground storage field have left many wondering if concerns for their safety are being considered at all — particularly considering the company has, so far, only been charged with misdemeanor violations.

All told, the Aliso Canyon leak thrust an estimated 96,000 metric tons of potent methane — not to mention benzene, nitrogen oxides, and other noxious substances — into the atmosphere over a period of months. So vast was the impact of the leak, it has been likened in impactful scope to BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

California, however, isn't the only state dealing with mammoth methane leakage.
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Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
2016-02-22 18:46:00

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Did you know that there are some U.S. states that have already officially fallen into recession? Economic activity all over the planet is in the process of slowing down, and there are some areas of the country that are really starting to feel the pain. In particular, any state that is heavily dependent on the energy industry is hurting right now. During the years immediately following the last recession, the energy industry was the primary engine for the growth of good paying jobs in America, but now that process is completely reversing. All over the U.S. energy companies are going under, and thousands upon thousands of good jobs are being lost.

On Sunday evening, Bloomberg published an article entitled "The U.S. States Where Recession Is Already a Reality". The following is an excerpt from that article...
As economists size up the chances of the first nationwide slump since 2009, pockets of the country are already contracting. Four states — Alaska, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming — are in a recession, and three others are at risk of prolonged declines, according to indexes of state economic performance tracked by Moody's Analytics.
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Travis Gettys
Raw Story
2016-02-23 17:33:00

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Another conservative lawyer is suggesting that Antonin Scalia should be allowed to decide U.S. Supreme Court cases from beyond the grave.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former Bush administration official, argued that Scalia's votes on some pending cases should be counted even after his Feb 13 death, reported Right Wing Watch.

The conservative legal activist said the late justice had already heard oral arguments in some cases before the court, including Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which could hobble public sector unions.
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RT
2016-02-23 15:19:00

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A girl scout in the US city of Portland, Oregon showed some "business savvy" this week by selling her group's iconic cookies outside a legal cannabis dispensary.

The girl was accompanied by her aunt who may have tipped her off to a condition known as"the munchies".

Normally, her actions could have earned her a "pioneer" or "hospitality" badge, but the organization didn't seem to support her.

"The Girl Scouts organization said they don't condone this, but it's not against the rules,"said the girl's aunt to KATU.

Yes, these are Girl Scout cookies being sold in front of a marijuana shop in SE Portland. Story #LiveOnK2 @ 11. pic.twitter.com/UhIflKLT5R
— Corry Young (@photocorry) February 21, 2016

A spokesperson from the Girl Scouts of Oregon and Southwest Washington said in a statement they recommend that a minor does not sell cookies outside a premises they cannot enter without being accompanied by an adult.

Still, we do have to admire her for thinking outside the (cookie) box.
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Linda Pentz Gunter
The Ecologist
2016-02-20 16:09:00

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The Japanese were kept in the dark from the start of the Fukushima disaster about high radiation levels and their dangers to health, writes Linda Pentz Gunter. In order to proclaim the Fukushima area 'safe', the Government increased exposure limits to twenty times the international norm. Soon, many Fukushima refugees will be forced to return home to endure damaging levels of radiation.

Dr. Tetsunari Iida is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) in Japan.

As such, one might have expected a recent presentation he gave in the UK within the hallowed halls of the House of Commons, to have focused on Japan's capacity to replace the electricity once generated by its now mainly shuttered nuclear power plants, with renewable energy.
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Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
2015-08-25 00:00:00

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Nothing says "police state" quite like unmanned aerial vehicles patrolling the sky ready to deploy 80,000 volts to the nearest protester or dose entire crowds with chemical weapons. The idea of weaponized drones has long been a dystopian, yet fictional idea. However, thanks to House Bill 1328, in North Dakota, this police state hell from above is now a horrid reality. Thanks to a police union lobbyist, the idea of police using drones for "less than lethal" weapons is now written into North Dakota law.

According to the Daily Beast, The bill's stated intent was to require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge in order to use a drone to search for criminal evidence. In fact, the original draft of Rep. Rick Becker's bill would have banned all weapons on police drones. Then Bruce Burkett of North Dakota Peace Officer's Association was allowed by the state house committee to amend HB 1328 and limit the prohibition only to lethal weapons. "Less than lethal" weapons like rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers are therefore permitted on police drones.

The term "less than lethal" is thrown around to make tasers, which have been responsible for hundreds of deaths since 2001, seem like they are okay to be deployed on infants. The reality is that "less than lethal" weapons are only slightly less lethal than the real thing. Now that these weapons will be put on drones, entire new safety concerns arise, such as accuracy and the simple issue of a drone falling into a crowd.

After being duped by the police lobby into passing a bill allowing cops to equip drones with weapons, Rep Becker is worried. He spoke up about police deploying these weapons when they aren't near the intended target. "When you're not on the ground, and you're making decisions, you're sort of separate," Becker said. "Depersonalized." One needs only look at the Middle East and the thousands of innocent women and children who've been slaughtered by US drones to imagine the grim reality of such legislation.
Comment: Who is standing up for citizen rights and liberties? Certainly not the politicians, the investors, nor the so-called protectors of the public! There is something so fundamentally wrong, in fact downright predatory, with the making of profits and the ultra-control agencies out-ranking the basic welfare and constitutional rights of the people. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear"...couldn't be farther from the truth.
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Christina Sarich
Natural Society
2016-02-23 15:45:00

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"I grew up worshiping at the altar of science, and in my wildest dreams I never thought scientists would behave this way," said Virginia Tech professor, Marc Edwards, whose research helped expose the high levels of lead in municipal waters in both Flint, Michigan, and Washington, D.C.

Marc Edwards is the Virginia Tech civil engineer and professor who helped expose the Flint water crisis, all while Governor Snyder was colluding to keep that information hidden, as shown by the governor's emails.

When interviewed in February by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Edwards said that both Michigan and Washington authorities knew they were poisoning residents with lead-contaminated water.
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Ivan Siiak
Bird in Flight
2016-02-19 15:31:00

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On February 20, 2014, the day when the protesters were shot on Instytutska street, the first people who died were not Maidan activists, but Berkut special force police officers. Ivan Bubenchyk from Lviv claims they were downed by his gun. Ivan Siyak met him to hear his story.

There is no more important date in the modern history of Ukraine than February 20, 2014. On that day on the streets of Kyiv, 48 Maidan activists and 4 police officers were killed. Shortly after, then-president Viktor Yanukovych fled the country, the annexation of Crimea started, and after that the war in Donbass. If we make a generalization, it was the day that predestined the loss of 7% of Ukranian territory and many thousand of lives for Ukraine.

Nobody could know any of this in the early morning of February 20. After heavy fighting for two days with the police, which resulted in 31 activists and 8 law enforcement officers dead, the protesters were left with much less ground. Police were now holding positions on Maidan itself. There was no doubt that the next attack would put an end to the uprising, and then in future textbooks they would call it nothing more than 'mass riots'.

"His focused tactical actions made the law enforcement flee and prevented the peril of the Revolution of Dignity" — Ukrainian Wikipedia is vague about the role of Ivan Bubenchyk in history. He gave the first detailed account of his actions on that day in the movie Captives by Volodymyr Tykhyy. The documentary has already premiered and will be in Ukrainian theaters on February 25. Just before the premiere, Ivan Siyak met with Ivan Bubenchyk on Maidan to hear his account of the events.

Ivan Bubenchyk is talking in Ukrainian, the translation is by Bird In Flight.
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RT
2016-02-23 15:15:00

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Peru is in the midst of an emergency as two rivers in the Amazon basin are now contaminated with 3,000 barrels of crude oil after the country's main pipeline burst. There are plenty of villagers relying on this water who have effectively been cut off.

The Health Ministry has declared a water emergency in five districts in the vicinity.

According to state-owned regional Petroperu, there were two separate breaks in January and early February, which have halted transportation of 5-6,000 barrels of crude per day. According to Petroperu president German Velasquez, the first rupture appears to have been caused by a landslide. The cause of the other is still being worked out.

The oil is now in the Chiriaco and Morona rivers in northwest Peru, Reuters reported OEFA, the national environmental authority, as saying. There are at least eight native-populated villages now under threat, an indigenous leader told the agency. Petroperu has estimated the amount of the spilled oil at 3,000 barrels.
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Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
2016-02-22 14:28:00

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It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -Jiddu Krishnamurti
In America today, police officers kill more people every in a day than most countries kill in years. In America today, parents face being locked in a cage for trying to treat their sick child with a plant. In America today, presidential candidates on both sides of the two-party system are cheered on as they call for an end to your rights.

Has America gone insane? By any rational measure, the answer to that question is yes.
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Robert Fisk
The Independent
2016-02-23 12:34:00
For 3 and a half years a tiny Shia enclave was besiged by al Qaeda but the West turned a blind eye because the inhabitants stayed loyal to Assad government

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This is the untold story of the three-and-a-half-year siege of two small Shia Muslim villages in northern Syria. Although their recapture by the Syrian army - and by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi Shia militias - caught headlines for a few hours three weeks ago, the world paid no heed to the suffering of these people, their 1,000 "martyrs", at least half of them civilians, and the 100 children who died of shellfire and starvation.

For these were villages that remained loyal to the Syrian regime and paid the price - and were thus unworthy of our attention, which remained largely fixed on those civilians suffering under siege by government forces elsewhere.

Nubl and Zahra should be an 18-minute drive off the motorway north-east of Aleppo but the war's front lines in the sharp-winded north of Syria have cut so deeply into the landscape that to avoid the men of the Jabhat al-Nusra and Isis, you have to drive for two hours along fields and broken country roads and through villages smashed and groined by the Syrian offensive.
Comment: Thanks to the intervention of the Russian coalition these brave and forgiving people escaped the fate of no doubt many similar towns in Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan.

Also see:
There can be little doubt in Syria - despite Western denials - that the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)) jihadists and related Al-Qaeda brigades in Jabhat al-Nusra, Jaish al-Fateh, Ahrar ash-Sham and so on, have been infiltrated, weaponized and deployed for the objective of regime-change by the US and its allies. If that is true for Syria, then it is also true for Yemen. Indeed, the covert connection becomes even more apparent in Yemen.

The Pentagon's guns for hire: Blackwater, Al-Qaeda... what's in the name?
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Janet Phelan
New Eastern Outlook
2016-02-22 00:00:00

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America is proud of capitalism. Proud of the competition which has produced a dazzling array of inventions and consumer products. Any incursion resulting in government control of the "free market" is generally met with outcries of that old bugaboo: "Communist infiltration!"

The activities of the United States abroad have become redolent of resource grabs. Under the banner of "Making the world safe for democracy," her aggression has resulted in an amalgamation of other countries' resources. Oil and minerals top the list.

Far from protecting her own citizens' property and economic interests, however, the domestic activities of the US increasingly reveal finely honed mechanisms resulting in asset seizure and transfer of wealth. In order to accomplish these aims, certain established checks and balances have been nullified or bought off.

Government regulatory agencies are thus high on capitalism's "Enemies List." Many of these regulatory agencies were rendered largely ineffective under former President George W. Bush. The EPA, the FTC and other agencies pledged to protect the public went under administrative chiefs who were unfriendly to regulation and believed that their best governance would be to subvert the regulatory agencies they were appointed to oversee.
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Secret History
Natalia Klimczak
Ancient Origins
2016-02-20 18:42:00

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Celtic princesses are almost mythical in today's modern culture. They are often considered as women with mystical talents and hidden stories. A grave discovered beside the Danube River brings much information about a woman who was perhaps a real Celtic princess.

A large burial which contained the skeleton of a Celtic noblewoman was discovered in 2009 beside the Danube River near Heuneburg, in the south of Germany. It is the oldest known wealthy grave of a Celtic woman. The grave was quite well preserved by the water-sodden soil of the region. The burial chamber of the tomb was wooden, the oak of the floor was intact, and it was possible to put an exact date on it. The oak trees used in the tomb were felled 2,620 years ago. With this discovery, one can determine that the woman buried in the tomb died in 609 BC.
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Olga Gertcyk
The Siberian Times
2016-02-11 14:33:00

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Pictured: the gleaming riches no-one was meant to see belonging to an ancient nomad potentate, and his queen...or was she his concubine?

The royal tomb known as Arzhan 2 in the modern-day Republic of Tuva - to many, the most mysterious region in all Russia - is some 2,600 years old but its valuables match any trove from any era anywhere in the world.

Here inside a mound 80 metres wide was buried a warrior tsar with a sway that plainly reached over a vast territory of mountains and steppes, and whose magnificent possessions indicated close contacts with other civilisations.

Forget the notion of barbaric Siberian nomadic tribes in this epoch: well, don't quite forget. These ancient warriors used the skulls of their vanquished foes as drinking cups, according to no less an authority than Greek historian Herodotus.

And this queen or concubine was almost certainly sacrificed to that she could be buried beside the dead ruler. And yet, as the pictures show, their exceptional artwork predates the influence of the Greeks, and displays a high degree of sophistication.
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Kate Scanlon
The Blaze
2016-02-22 16:14:00

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Two historians have claimed that they have proof that German dictator Adolf Hitler suffered from an embarrassing secret medical condition, according to The Telegraph.

In their new book, "Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute," historians Jonathan Mayo and Emma Craigie claim that they have discovered medical records proving that the fascist dictator had a condition known as hypospadias, which results in abnormally small and deformed genitalia, sometimes referred to as a "micro-penis."

"Hitler himself is believed to have had two forms of genital abnormality: an undescended testicle and a rare condition called penile hypospadias in which the urethra opens on the under side of the penis," Mayo and Craigie wrote.

Recently, a German historian also claimed that he has evidence that Hitler only had one testicle.
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Olga Gertcyk
The Siberian Times
2016-02-11 15:42:00

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The royal tomb known as Arzhan 2 in the modern-day Republic of Tuva - to many, the most mysterious region in all Russia - is some 2,600 years old but its valuables match any trove from any era anywhere in the world.

Here inside a mound 80 metres wide was buried a warrior tsar with a sway that plainly reached over a vast territory of mountains and steppes, and whose magnificent possessions indicated close contacts with other civilisations.

Forget the notion of barbaric Siberian nomadic tribes in this epoch: well, don't quite forget. These ancient warriors used the skulls of their vanquished foes as drinking cups, according to no less an authority than Greek historian Herodotus.

And this queen or concubine was almost certainly sacrificed to that she could be buried beside the dead ruler. And yet, as the pictures show, their exceptional artwork predates the influence of the Greeks, and displays a high degree of sophistication.

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The unknown monarch - a Siberian Tutankhamun - was entombed in this ancient necropolis with 14 horses, a defining symbol of wealth in these Scythian times; each animal was from a different herd.

Alongside him lay the woman in his life, his queen or, as is suspected, his favourite concubine, but in any event a woman held in great esteem who was ethnically distinct from this monarch's retinue also buried alongside him which included 33 others, including five children. She was in all likelihood not alone in being sacrificed to accompany him to the afterlife...

The most breathtaking aspect of this Tuvan find are the contents of the burial chamber of this royal couple - pictured here - located by archeologists some two or three metres beneath the surface.
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Science & Technology
Tia Ghose
LiveScience
2016-02-22 21:24:00

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Are humans living in a simulation? Is consciousness nothing more than the firing of neurons in the brain? Or is consciousness a distinct entity that permeates every speck of matter in the universe?

Several experts grappled with those topics at a salon at the Victorian home of Susan MacTavish Best, a lifestyle guru who runs Living MacTavish, here on Feb. 16. The event was organized by "Closer to Truth," a public television series and online resource that features the world's leading thinkers exploring humanity's deepest questions.

The answer to the question "what is consciousness" could have implications for the future of artificial intelligence (AI) and far-out concepts like mind uploading and virtual immortality, said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, the creator, writer and host of "Closer to Truth."
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Chuck Bednar
Red Orbit
2016-02-23 21:10:00

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A new analysis of tektites, gravel-sized objects made of natural glass and formed from terrestrial debris ejected when meteorites collide with the Earth's surface, has revealed that multiple cosmic impacts took place in various parts of the world approximately 790,000 years ago.

Dr. Mario Trieloff, a geoscientist at Heidelberg Universityin Germany, and his colleagues used a new, more accurate dating technique based on naturally-occurring isotopes to investigate rock glasses retrieved from various locations in Asia, Australia, Canada, and Central America.

As they report in a paper to be appear in the April 2016 edition of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Actathe samples are all virtually identical in age, despite the fact that, in some cases, they have significantly different chemistry. This indicates that a series of separate impact events must have occurred at roughly the same time, the study authors explained in a statement.

Tektites are formed when terrestrial material melts following a meteorite impact, is launched into the air and then hardens into glass, and Dr. Trieloff's team said that they can determine when and where projectiles struck the planet's surface, how often, and how large those objects were.
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Claire Asher
Science
2016-02-22 17:45:00

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A poor night's sleep is enough to put anyone in a bad mood, and although scientists have long suspected a link between mood and sleep, the molecular basis of this connection remained a mystery. Now, new research has found several rare genetic mutations on the same gene that definitively connect the two.

Sleep goes hand-in-hand with mood. People suffering from depression and mania, for example, frequently have altered sleeping patterns, as do those with seasonal affective disorder (SAD). And although no one knows exactly how these changes come about, in SAD sufferers they are influenced by changes in light exposure, the brain's time-keeping cue. But is mood affecting sleep, is sleep affecting mood, or is there a third factor influencing both? Although a number of tantalizing leads have linked the circadian clock to mood, there is "no definitive factor that proves causality or indicates the direction of the relationship," says Michael McCarthy, a neurobiologist at the San Diego Veterans' Affairs Medical Center and the University of California (UC), San Diego.

To see whether they could establish a link between the circadian clock, sleep, and mood, scientists in the new study looked at the genetics of a family that suffers from abnormal sleep patterns and mood disorders, including SAD and something called advanced sleep phase, a condition in which people wake earlier and sleep earlier than normal. The scientists screened the family for mutations in key genes involved in the circadian clock, and identified two rare variants of the PERIOD3(PER3) gene in members suffering from SAD and advanced sleep phase. "We found a genetic change in people who have both seasonal affective disorder and the morning lark trait" says lead researcher Ying-Hui Fu, a neuroscientist at UC San Francisco. When the team tested for these mutations in DNA samples from the general population, they found that they were extremely rare, appearing in less than 1% of samples.
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Earth Changes
News Channel Nebraska
2016-02-22 20:58:00

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Nebraska City residents in the Greggsport Addition are used to hearing trains whistle through the night, but sounds recorded at 11:34 p.m. on Feb. 21 were more akin to the mysterious Sounds of the Apocalypse circulating on the Internet and social media sites.

YouTube posts since 2011 have captured mysterious noises, some seeming to come from the sky. Reports of eerie trumpet sounds have been posted from around the world, including the Philippines, Australia, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Snopes.com reports that the US Geological Survey experts note that unusual sounds can be attributed to deep earthquakes and waves crashing into distant cliffs. While the sounds are expected to have an earthly origin, some scientist say atmospheric noise can also be caused by meteor flashes and acoustic gravity waves.

Click below to hear a sound recorded at Riverview Park in Nebraska City Sunday night. It is 1 minute and 50 seconds long. There is a train whistle at 45 seconds, otherwise it is just the trumpet blast.

http://media3.floodradio.com/columbus/2016/02/NC-sounds-of-apocalypse.mp3
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Jon Austin
Daily Express (UK)
2016-02-23 19:37:00

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Disaster experts are keeping a close eye on a seismic hotspot after three large volcanoes began erupting with fears of a fourth in the offing. 

Volcano experts from the US, UK, Costa Rica and local geologists are observing activity at four active peaks in Nicaragua after the flurry of explosions.

The biggest, and most active, is the enormous 1,297-metre Momotombo stratovolcano, near the city of León.

Momotombo, on the north of Lake Managua 25 miles from Nicaragua's capital Managua, blew for the first time in 110 years in December, and has been active ever since.

In a post about the situation Costa Rican English-speaking news site The Tico Times wrote it had sent "geologists and local townspeople into a tizzy"


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BNO News
2016-02-23 19:22:00

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A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 has struck the Indian Ocean between Antarctica and Australia, seismologists say. No tsunami warnings have been issued.

The earthquake, which struck at about 5:08 a.m. Sydney time on Wednesday, was centered about 454 kilometers (282 miles) northeast of the French scientific station Dumont d'Urville in Antarctica, or about 2,261 kilometers (1,405 miles) south of Hobart on Tasmania.

The earthquake struck at a depth of about 7.7 kilometers (4.8 miles) below the seabed, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported. The earthquake was not strong enough to generate a tsunami, and no alerts were issued by the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre.

No damage or casualties were expected from Wednesday's earthquake.


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RT
2016-02-23 15:24:00

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As winter wanes and spring creeps in for much of the northern hemisphere, we checked out some impressive images of ice, particularly surrounding the world's largest - and coldest - lakes.

Whether it's ice stacking on Lake Superior in the US, car-shaped icicles in Canada, or floating blocks on Lake Baikal in Russia, mother nature has put on quite a show this season.

Lake Superior, USA

As sheets of ice crashed on the shore of the great Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota, they stack up like broken glass, creating a beautiful and somewhat hypnotic scene.


View on Sott.net


Lake Baikal, Siberia

With temperatures dipping to -19 degrees Celsius (-3 Fahrenheit) and strong winds, a block of ice can be seen floating across the frozen lake as though it's just off to meet another block further along.


View on Sott.net

Comment:

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RT
2016-02-23 10:47:00

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Dozens of people have been killed by the powerful cyclone Winston, which has been ravaging Fiji in recent days. Experts warn that the island country can suffer possible outbreaks of the Zika and Dengue viruses.

The footage posted on the Fijiian government website shows a massive scale of destruction on the small island - whole villages have been flooded amid Winston's destructive winds, which reportedly reached about 325 kph.

"The images emerging from early aerial assessments of affected areas are truly heartbreaking, leaving little doubt about the ferocity of this cyclone," said Osnat Lubrani, UN Resident Coordinator in Fiji.

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Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said that the recovery process will take "a long time."

"Almost no part of our nation has been left unscarred. And many of our rural and maritime areas bore the brunt of Winston's fury," he said.

Aid agencies said that Fiji now may face outbreaks of the Zika and Dengue viruses, both of which are caused by infected mosquitoes.

"The threat of dengue and Zika in the coming days in Fiji is real," said Chris Hagarty, senior health program manager at Plan International Australia. "The period immediately following a disaster of this scale can be a particularly dangerous one."


View on Sott.net

According to the UN, more than 8,100 people "are currently sheltering in evacuation centers" and 150 houses have been destroyed in the storm.
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CBS News‎
2016-02-23 09:30:00

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A massive house explosion in a Seattle suburb knocked out windows several hundred yards away and was mistaken by some locals to be an earthquake.

Officials told CBS affiliate KIRO-TV in Seattle the explosion occurred in a residence in Port Orchard shortly after 4 a.m.

It is not known if anyone was home during the blast.

Officials said the home was leveled by the blast, and the fire has been contained. The cause of the explosion is unclear.

An elementary school several hundreds yards away saw many of its windows shattered.

Several nearby residents told KIRO they initially thought it was an earthquake. One resident told KIRO that officers at Naval Base Kitsap in nearby Bremerton across the inlet from Port Orchard sent officers searching the base for the source until they realized what had happened.


View on Sott.net
Comment: Last August a huge gas explosion leveled a large section of a motel in Bremerton in Washington state.

There seems to have been an increase in the number of massive house explosions around the world in recent months, with investigators still attempting to determine the cause in many cases. Could a 'cosmic' source of ignition be responsible for some of these incidents?
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Emily Blackwood
Ormond Beach Observer
2016-02-23 16:02:00

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Twenty-six dead Northern Gannets have been brought in to the center since Valentine's Day. 

While Ormond Beach resident Walker Fischer was taking a stroll on the beach this past Friday, he counted four dead Northern Gannets and a pelican within a mile's walk.

The Volusia County Beach Patrol said the increase was not uncommon for this time of year. Due to migration patterns, there is an increase in the amount birds in the area, and they find a few dead birds every day. They believe the recent death are mostly like of natural causes.
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cihan.com.tr
2016-02-22 15:00:00

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Central Turkish province of Sivas, which had been witnessing spring weather conditions in the middle of the winter for a while, took heavy snowfall, paralyzing daily life across the city.

Snowfall which has begun with blizzard in the late hours continued until the morning hours of Saturday. Following the snowfall the snow has reached 50 centimeters in depth across the province. As walking on the pavement has nearly become impossible since the thick snow layer also many cars have stayed under the snow drift.

Many people, who intended to reach their working place, had difficulty while clearing their car from the snow banks. People shovel up the ways of their working place.


View on Sott.net
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Brian Clark Howard
National Geographic
2016-02-23 11:57:00

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It's a whodunit for the animal kingdom: State and federal wildlife officials are trying to find out what happened to 13 bald eagles that were discovered dead on Maryland's Eastern Shore on Saturday.

The birds of prey were found on a farm in rural Caroline County, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Washington, D.C. and just west of the 3,800-acre Idylwild Natural Area. A man looking for shed deer antlers found some of the birds and phoned state officials, who then found several more.
Comment: Interesting how they immediately assume someone is responsible and thus a reward is offered, but they don't know the cause of death. How about out-gassing due to the Earth opening up? On a related note, this is certainly symbolic given that the national bird of the USA is the bald eagle.
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John Dodge
CBS Local
2016-02-22 12:37:00

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Illinois was hit hard by tornadoes in 2015, well above its average and the fourth-most in the nation, according to the National Weather Service.

Based on preliminary data, Illinois had a total of 69 twisters, well above the state's 25-year average of 53.

By August, the Chicago area had set a record for the number of tornadoes in 2015.

Only Texas (239), Kansas (125) and Oklahoma (110) had more, and all three states were well above their state's average.

Illinois' neighbors to the west, Iowa (58) and Missouri (48), were slightly above their average.

Interestingly, another Plains state, Nebraska, was well below its average, with only 26 reported tornadoes.

In total, the United States reported 1,152 tornadoes in 2015, with the overwhelming majority (1,069) reported as relatively weaker EF-0 or EF-1 storms.

Prelim 2015 tornado count from @NWSSPC. IL had 69 tornadoes, 4th most of any state. IN had 18. #ilwx #inwx pic.twitter.com/1w51McxoZv
— NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) February 21, 2016
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Times of Israel
2016-02-22 11:02:00

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Flash floods hit eastern Israel as temperatures drop throughout country; warmer days expected later in the week


Several Israeli schools and roads were closed Monday due to flooding as rain and wind bashed the country after a week of unseasonably high temperatures.

Flash floods in the area of Ein Gedi in eastern Israel prompted school closures in the area. On Mount Hermon, heavy snow and wind led operators to close the ski resort.

A group of 10 hikers who were stranded due to the inclement weather in the Negev, next to the Ramon Crater in southern Israel, were rescued. A search and rescue unit was called to the area and safely brought the hikers out using jeeps, reports said.

The southern city of Sderot also experienced flooding, as well as many Bedouin areas of the Negev.


View on Sott.net
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Fire in the Sky
No new articles.
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Health & Wellness
Sophia Ruan Gushée
theepochtimes.com
2016-02-23 16:53:00

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Electronic media (i.e., smart phones, televisions, or other electronic devices) has offered us unprecedented access to music, entertainment, information, and to each other. Internet access and electronic devices have offered so much value, however, that those 8 to 18 years old spend approximately 9.5 hours per day with electronic devices, according to a national study published in 2010 by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Too much of a good thing has consequences. For example, researchers studying health effects found that blue light from technology screens can disrupt sleep, and electromagnetic fields from electronics may contribute to various adverse health effects (including DNA damage, reproductive issues, and neurotoxicity). Furthermore, all that exposure to electronic media can contribute to obesity, negatively influence your brain (which is still developing until age 20), and develop unhealthy habits that are hard to break.

To create healthier balance, consider the tips below.
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Cari Romm
The Atlantic
2016-02-18 19:22:00

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The recent discovery of ancient remains with signs of the disease shows how mysterious its origins are. 

In June 1495, the Italian historian Niccolo Squillaci wrote a letter describing a horrific disease that was sweeping through Europe.

"There are itching sensations, and an unpleasant pain in the joints; there is a rapidly increasing fever," he wrote. "The skin is inflamed with revolting scabs and is completely covered with swellings and tubercules, which are initially of a livid red color, and then become blacker." And, tellingly, "It most often begins with the private parts."

"I exhort you to provide some new remedy to remove this plague from the Italian people," he concluded. "Nothing could be more serious than this curse, this barbarian poison."
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RT
2016-02-23 15:33:00

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Air fresheners and scented candles are supposed to improve the smell of a room, but a new report finds that these kind of household products are actually silent killers which could be responsible for nearly 100,000 deaths across Europe every year.

Researchers in the UK found that many domestic products, including anti-insect sprays, deodorants, and cleaning products, contain chemicals known as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) which can cause cancer, particularly in children and elders.

"Every Breath We Take: The Lifelong Impact of Air Pollution" details how VOCs start off in a solid or liquid state, but then evaporate to pollute the air inside of homes.

High levels of a VOC called limonene, which can become the carcinogen formaldehyde when mixed with other airborne elements, have been found in numerous household products.
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Vicky Nguyen, Liza Meak and Felipe Escamilla
NBC
2016-02-22 14:09:00

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The Environmental Protection Agency's mission is to protect human health and the environment, but nearly 100 of its own employees based in the Bay Area believe they're getting sick just by going to work. Employees say the indoor air quality is so bad at the EPA Region 9 Headquarters in San Francisco, they're unable to do their jobs.

The irony is not lost on Taly Jolish, a staff attorney for the EPA and vice president of ASGE Local 1236, one of Region 9's three unions. "It just seems crazy to us that someone would be risking their health by coming into the office to work on cleaning up the environment elsewhere," Jolish said.
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Jeromy Johnson
Collective-Evolution
2016-02-22 03:30:00

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Wireless technology has become an integral part of our culture. It has connected us to people and information and has also brought us incredible convenience and economic benefits.

Just think how this technology has expanded in just the eight years since the iPhone was introduced. We have seen ubiquitous WiFi, tablet computers, wireless smart meters, the smart home, wearable tech, and now the Internet of Things. This latest development will connect everything we own to the internet via pulsed microwave radiation.

This may sound like an amazing technological future that will only provide us with benefits. However, what if there is a downside that is just now becoming apparent?

In short, is this exponential rise in microwave radiation affecting our health? And, most importantly, is it affecting children who will be exposed to unprecedented levels of artificial electromagnetic radiation their entire lives?

This is the question I look at in this TEDx talk. I explore the problem and delve deeply into the long-term health consequences and why a growing number of people world-wide are starting to be injured by wireless technology. There are common symptoms that many people now experience when they are near a WiFi router, wireless smart meter, or cell phone tower. They include:
  • Insomnia
  • Headaches
  • Tinnitus/Ringing in the Ears
  • Fatigue
  • Cognitive Disturbance
  • Irritability/Stress
This TEDx talk is not only about the health effects and the science behind this growing problem. I also provide solutions - simple actions you can take right now to reduce your exposure. The five solutions I provide will cost you almost nothing at all, but will provide tremendous benefits.
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Jan Hoffman
New York Times
2016-02-22 20:22:00

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A vaccine introduced a decade ago to combat the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer has already reduced the virus's prevalence in teenage girls by almost two-thirds, federalresearchers said Monday.

Even for women in their early 20s, a group with lower vaccination rates, the most dangerous strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV, have still been reduced by more than a third.

"We're seeing the impact of the vaccine as it marches down the line for age groups, and that's incredibly exciting," said Dr. Amy B. Middleman, the chief of adolescent medicine at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, who was not involved in the study. "A minority of females in this country have been immunized, but we're seeing a public health impact that is quite expansive."
Comment: Scientists explain why HPV vaccines are unsafe
There is no evidence that Gardasil or Cervarix can prevent cancer better than a decent screening program. There is strong evidence that they can produce severe and life-threatening harm. This report by 4 scientists documents how science has been corrupted & misused to promote these life-devastating vaccines.

Scientists who have done extensive research on the topics of immunization and autoimmune disorders have produced a new paper concluding that:
"[P]hysicians should remain within the rigorous rules of evidence-based medicine, to adequately assess the risks versus the benefits of HPV vaccination.
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Science of the Spirit
No new articles.
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High Strangeness
No new articles.
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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
Ben Hooper
UPI
2016-02-23 19:03:00

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An insistent crow paid a visit to an ice cream stand in India and refused to stop calling out until it was given one of the frozen treats.

Video of the crow's visit to an ice cream stand in Pondicherry shows the bird perched on the edge of the stand and calling out for the attention of the amused vendor.

The smiling vendor makes the crow wait for a moment before getting out a small cup of ice cream and a spoon.

The man uses the spoon to feed the crow ice cream a little bit at a time.

The uploader said the crow, which was caught on camera last fall, makes daily visits to the ice cream stand to get a beak-full of frozen goodness.


View on Sott.net
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Waterford Whispers News
2016-02-23 04:22:00

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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has today confirmed that one of the Oculus Rifts' biggest features will be to allow irate Facebook users battle it out to the death in the social network's many comment sections.

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the billionaire CEO said the virtual reality headset will put 'keyboard warriors' right into the comment sections to 'battle it out', settling heated debates the 'good old fashioned way'.

"Allowing users to virtually fight one another was the number one request when we bought Oculus Rift two years ago," he said. "Now, people will be able to engage eachother in armed combat, instead of debating logically with words and wiki excerpts."

Not only will heated comment sections become more real and violent, users will be allowed to make virtual love to one another through their Facebook accounts.

"We are bringing back the poke," Mr Zuckerberg added. "And I don't mean a finger poke; if you know what I mean. Facebook users who are in a relationship will be able to perform sexual intercourse with one another, no matter where they are in the world."

Facebook's new VR headset is due to be launched later this year with a retail price of €130.