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Chris Hedges
Truthdig 2013-01-07 08:42:00
Shannon McLeish of Florida is a 45-year-old married mother of two young children. She is a homeowner, a taxpayer and a safe driver. She votes in every election. She attends a Unitarian Universalist church on Sundays. She is also, like nearly all who have a relationship with the Occupy movement in the United States, being monitored by the federal government. She knows this because when she read FBI documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) through the Freedom of Information Act, she was startled to see a redaction that could only be referring to her. McLeish's story is the story of hundreds of thousands of people - perhaps more - whose lives are being invaded by the state. It is the story of a security and surveillance apparatus - overseen by the executive branch under Barack Obama - that has empowered the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to silence the voices and obstruct the activity of citizens who question corporate power. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, said in a written statement about the released files: "This production [of information], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protesters organizing with the Occupy movement. These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity. These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America." |
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Doug Blackie
4RealLeaders 2013-01-08 21:21:00
It seems that empathic leadership is increasingly being devalued in organizations. While the great minds of leadership extol the virtues of engaged, supportive "show me that you care" approaches, it appears that many organizations want to embrace a much different set of values. Psychopathic leadership seems to be the new shiny thing that is taking some public and private sector organizations by storm. In tough economic times, it would appear that the answer lies with having leaders that exude a bullying narcissism instead of empathy and trust. The question is why? It's been shown for decades that truly great organizations are led by individuals who care deeply about the people working for them as well as the bottom line. CEO Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines is often held up as an example of this approach to empathic leadership. Stephen Covey, in his seminal 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, taught that great leaders are those who have integrity, character, empathy and lead by principles such as honesty and transparency. I am perplexed how the psychopaths even get a job interview, let alone the job. Part of the answer is surely the increasing push to short-termism. The need for an immediate financial or productivity turnaround to satisfy shareholders or government overseers often leads organizations to find someone with a clear, "take charge" personality. |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Noel Brinkerhoff, Danny Biederman
AllGov 2013-01-09 17:43:00
Visitors to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, will be revealing virtually everything they do at the park to company officials, if they participate in its new magic bracelet program. This spring, Disney plans to offer MyMagic+, a special rubber bracelet encoded with customers' credit card information. By using the bracelets, visitors will be able to enter the park and purchase food or souvenirs without pulling out their wallets. But this also means that visitors' actions, behavior and whereabouts will be carefully tracked within the park. Disney will collect this information, from what rides people go on and all purchases they make, to which costumed characters they choose to interact with. It will all be stored in a Disney data base, conceivably for marketing purposes. Indeed, Disney's decision to move forward with the wrist band technology was contingent on determining that it would increase its corporate profits, according to its Parks and Resorts chairman, Thomas O. Staggs. "If we can enhance the experience, more people will spend more of their leisure time with us," he told The New York Times. |
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Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story 2013-01-09 17:19:00
On his show Tuesday night, The Daily Show host Jon Stewart expressed his bafflement over conservatives who refused to even consider any new restrictions on gun ownership in the wake of multiple mass shootings. He noted that conservatives had blamed gun violence on movies, video games, mental health, and even sin. "Is this about me masturbating?" Stewart joked. "Look, I didn't know that that was considered a national issue." The late-night comedian mocked politicians and others who claimed that numerous gun laws already existed, saying that McDonald's hot coffee was more regulated than firearms. Part One:
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Jillian Rayfield
Salon 2013-01-09 16:49:00
The Vice President met with gun control advocates and victims groups today. Joe Biden said today that the President is prepared to take unilateral action in order to implement stricter gun control measures. "The president is going go act," he said. "There are executive orders, executive action that can be taken. We haven't decided what that is yet, but we're compiling it all." "The president and I are determined to take action. This is not an exercise in photo opportunities," Biden added. Biden's comments came shortly before a meeting with victims groups and gun control advocates at the White House today, as part of the gun violence task force set up by Obama in the wake of the Newtown school shootings. |
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Graeme Wearden
Guardian 2013-01-09 15:16:00
German politicians including Angela Merkel take hard line on Cyprus, which needs estimated €17bn to recapitalise its banks. Cyprus's hopes of agreeing a eurozone bailout were thrown into fresh confusion on Wednesday as German politicians from across the spectrum warned that the aid package could be vetoed by the Bundestag. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is taking a hard line on Cyprus, saying the country must agree to wideranging economic reforms and privatisations before she would support a bailout. Negotiations between the Cyprus government and international lenders have stalled, with the Communist president, Dimitris Christofias, refusing to accept asset sales. Speaking in Berlin, Merkel also refused to concede ground over the issue. "We agree it is important that the troika should talk with Cyprus and that there can be no special conditions for Cyprus because we have common rules in Europe," Merkel said. "We are far from the end of the talks." |
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RT.com
2013-01-09 15:01:00
The development and acquisition of drones has become crucial to the ever-expanding arms race between China and Japan, as tensions over disputed islands in the East China Sea could soon reach boiling point. Weaknesses in Japan's surveillance capability and the ongoing territorial dispute over the Senkaku islands, known as the Diaoyu in China, have spurred Tokyo to purchase an advanced drone model from the US. Japan's vulnerability was highlighted late last year when Japanese radar failed to detect a low-flying Chinese aircraft passing over the group of disputed islands. The drones will seemingly be deployed "to counter China's growing assertiveness at sea, especially when it comes to the Senkaku islands," the Kyodo news agency quoted an unnamed defense ministry official as saying. Japanese concerns that the islands will be used by China as a prelude to testing regional power balances, prompted Japan's Defense Ministry to request $2.4 billion dollars from hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose conservative government swept to power on December 26. |
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Ian Black and Saeed Kamali Dehghan
Guardian 2013-01-09 14:46:00
Assad regime frees more than 2,000 people believed to have opposition links in exchange for 48 detained Iranians. Syria has released 2,130 opposition prisoners in exchange for 48 Iranians who were abducted while apparently on a pilgrimage in Damascus five months ago. The first big prisoner swap of the 21-month war, brokered by a Turkish humanitarian group and the Qatari government, was a reminder of the sheer scale of the Syrian crisis, and of its complex geopolitical ramifications. Syrian state media made no mention of the mass exchange but it was confirmed by the Iranian government and officials of the Turkish humanitarian aid group IHH. "This is the result of months of civil diplomacy carried out by our organisation," said an IHH spokesman, Serkan Nergis. Iran's deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said the freed prisoners would return home shortly. Syrian government forces have struck deals with rebel groups to swap prisoners but the mass release is the first time any non-Syrians have been freed. The detainees included a number of Turks. |
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Julian Borger and Ian Traynor
Guardian 2013-01-09 14:42:00
Intervention from senior US official comes as UK position on EU membership is criticised in Brussels and Dublin. The US has issued a blunt warning to the UK not to leave the European Union, saying Britain would undermine its influence in Washington by trying to renegotiate membership. The forthright American intervention in the European debate, from a senior US official, came on a day David Cameron's campaign to reset the terms of Britain's EU membership also came under concerted assault from Brussels and Dublin, with senior figures warning the prime minister against renegotiating the European treaties to secure a new deal and signalling bluntly that this was not on the agenda. "We have a growing relationship with the EU as an institution, which has an increasing voice in the world, and we want to see a strong British voice in that EU," Philip Gordon, the US assistant secretary of state for Europe, said on a visit to London "That is in America's interests. We welcome an outward-looking EU with Britain in it." Gordon stressed that it was up to the UK define its own interests, but in what appeared a clear reference to the government's proposal to renegotiate membership and repatriate some powers from Brussels, he stressed that an inward-looking EU, preoccupied with its own internal procedures would be seen as a lesser ally by Washington. |
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Eric Peters
EricPetersAuto 2013-01-09 12:53:00
Well, why not? If the occasional random roadside stop n' frisk is a good idea - and not a violation of anyone's rights - why not make such gantlets ubiquitous - and permanent? That's the nut of San Antonio Deputy Police Chief Anthony Trevino's argument in favor of establishing permanent DWI checkpoints. He'd like them in the vicinity of what he calls "hot spots" - that is, establishments where alcohol is served, such as restaurants and bars. (See here for the news story.) But why not everywhere? After all, "drunk driving" is a possibility anywhere. If Trevino's wish is granted, the price of going out to dinner will include not merely the possibility of having to submit to an unwarranted (and unwanted) interrogation and inspection by the likes of Trevino and his pals. It will be a certain thing. The new normal - part of the routine. Just like being forced to assume the I surrender pose at the airport, spread your legs and let a blue-shirted goon have his (or her) way with you as the price of getting on an airplane. It has already been established in law - sanctified by the black-clad priests of legalese - that it is not "unreasonable" (and so, not a violation of the Fourth Amendment) to stop vehicles at random - that is, without any specific probable cause - and require drivers to roll down their window, provide ID, answer questions and - at the arbitrary discretion of the costumed enforcer - remove themselves from their vehicle and submit to a sobriety test of one kind or another. To prove to his satisfaction, in other words, that you aren't "drunk." As opposed to the old-fashioned idea that it's up to the law to prove you are. |
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Lizzy Davies
Guardian 2013-01-09 12:32:00
Milan judges reject former prime minister's 'persecution' claim over €36m alimony settlement to ex-wife Veronica Lario. Senior judges in Milan issued a stern rebuke to Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday after the former Italian prime minister tried to blame his huge alimony payments on the biased views of "feminist, communist" magistrates. In the latest skirmish between the billionaire media magnate and the judiciary, the heads of the Milan tribunal and court of appeal issued a curt statement saying they "firmly rejected any insinuation of partiality" on the part of the magistrates who drew up the three-time premier's divorce settlement, which he claims amounts to €200,000 (£163,000) a day. Livia Pomodoro and Giovanni Canzio added that their colleagues were "diligent professionals", and called on politicians to avoid making "any expression of derision" that could cause the public to think otherwise. |
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Al Kamen
Washington Post 2013-01-09 08:54:00
The House members' dining room is a lovely space. Cloth napkins, good service, and while the food's not exactly haute cuisine, the room is nice for lunches with colleagues, constituents or, problematically, campaign donors. Members of Congress frequently eat meals there that they list in federal filings as "campaign" or "political" expenses, apparently counter to House rules barring them from conducting their campaign business on House property, according to an upcoming report. That rule - the same one that sends lawmakers scurrying from their offices to nearby rental spaces to make fundraising calls - is designed to keep taxpayer-funded official business separate from the dirtier matter of pursuing reelection. But according to a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, it appears that lawmakers may frequently mix the two over repasts in the members' dining room. A dozen current and former House members described meals there in filings with the Federal Election Commission covering the last two election cycles as "campaign"or "political," CREW found. |
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Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research 2013-01-07 09:08:00
Since the kindling of the conflict inside Syria in 2011, it was recognized, by friend and foe alike, that the events in that country were tied to a game plan that ultimately targets Iran, Syria's number one ally. [1] De-linking Syria from Iran and unhinging the Resistance Bloc that Damascus and Tehran have formed has been one of the objectives of the foreign-supported anti-government militias inside Syria. Such a schism between Damascus and Tehran would change the Middle East's strategic balance in favour of the US and Israel. If this cannot be accomplished, however, then crippling Syria to effectively prevent it from providing Iran any form of diplomatic, political, economic, and military support in the face of common threats has been a primary objective. Preventing any continued cooperation between the two republics has been a strategic goal. This includes preventing the Iran-Iraq-Syria energy terminal from being built and ending the military pact between the two partners. |
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David Dishneau
Seattle pi 2013-01-08 00:00:00
Fort Meade - The defense says military prosecutors are drawing comparisons between an Army private's alleged leak of classified documents to Civil War-era cases involving coded messages in newspapers. The argument emerged Tuesday during a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade for Pfc. Bradley Manning. The hearing continues Wednesday. The issue is whether Manning's motive is relevant to a charge he aided the enemy by sending reams of classified documents to the secret-sharing website WikiLeaks. The government contends Manning knew, or should have known, that the information would be seen by al-Qaida. Defense attorney David Coombs said Tuesday that prosecutors are citing Civil War-era cases concerning soldiers who placed coded messages in newspaper ads. Coombs says Manning's alleged offenses are more akin to providing government documents to a newspaper. |
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RTT News
2013-01-09 11:26:00
A complete pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan after the 2014 deadline is one of the options that the Obama administration is considering, the White House said in a briefing on Tuesday ahead of a meeting between leaders of the two countries later this week. The centerpiece of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to Washington will be meetings on Friday at the White House, where he and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama can discuss the changes in Afghanistan and how the United States can work with the country in the future. Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said during a phone-in news conference that the U.S. would continue drawing down the number of its troops in Afghanistan through this year and next. Around 68,000 American soldiers are in Afghanistan today. The United States "will not plateau" at that number through 2014, he said, but would continue the gradual drawdown. Depending on the situation on the ground, Rhodes said, there could conceivably be no American forces in the country in 2015. All aspects are under discussion, he added. The U.S. is helping train Afghan soldiers and police, and the country's forces already have assumed much of the security burden, he noted. "We want to have an Afghan partner that is capable of standing on its own with our support and denying safe haven [to terrorists] and having the ability to take the lead for its own security," Rhodes said. |
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Pete Yost
SFGate 2013-01-08 18:53:00
A defense contractor whose subsidiary was accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to torture detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has paid $5.28 million to 71 former inmates held there and at other U.S.-run detention sites between 2003 and 2007. The settlement in the case involving Engility Holdings Inc. of Chantilly, Va., marks the first successful effort by lawyers for former prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers to collect money from a U.S. defense contractor in lawsuits alleging torture. Another contractor, CACI, is expected to go to trial over similar allegations this summer. The payments were disclosed in a document that Engility filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission two months ago but which has gone essentially unnoticed. The defendant in the lawsuit, L-3 Services Inc., now an Engility subsidiary, provided translators to the U.S. military in Iraq. In 2006, L-3 Services had more than 6,000 translators in Iraq under a $450 million-a-year contract, an L-3 executive told an investors conference at the time. |
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RT.com
2013-01-08 18:32:00
Nearly 80 percent of Americans say they believe Washington is causing "serious harm to the country," shedding further light on the low approval ratings of the most recent US Congress and the widespread pessimism regarding the country's future. The overwhelming majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents all believe that Washington politicians are damaging the United States, according to a Dec. 14-17 USA Today/Gallup poll, which was conducted while the 112th Congress was attempting to avert the looming fiscal cliff. While 77 percent of Americans admitted having no faith in their elected representatives to do good, only 19 percent believed Washington is doing no harm. Republicans had the most negative opinion, with 87 percent of GOP respondents indicating that Washington is harming the country, while only 68 Democrats and 79 Independents believed the same. The poll reinforced the consistently low approval ratings of the 112th Congress, which were frequently below 20 percent. A separate poll conducted during the same time period found that Congress' approval rating remained at 18 percent during the fiscal cliff debate, which is also where it stood a month prior, in mid-November. |
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| Society's Child |
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Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story 2013-01-09 17:34:00
About 1,000 protesters gathered in Albany, New York on Wednesday ahead of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's (D) annual state of the state address, in hopes of pressuring the governor to end the practice of hydraulic fracturing by natural gas drillers. Despite the rowdy, vocal display, an aide to the governor confirmed on local talk radio Wednesday morning that Cuomo would not address fracking during his speech. Activists arrived mid-morning in seven chartered buses, according to The Times Union. They lined up across the Empire State Plaza concourse, protesting along the sole path lawmakers and audience members would have to walk to attend Cuomo's speech. The demonstration was organized by an array of progressive groups like Greenpeace, 350.org, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Democracy for America and Environment America, among others. They also sent an open letter to Cuomo on Monday, noting the dangers of fracking-related methane emissions. |
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Denise Lavoie
ABC News 2013-01-09 17:05:00
Four sisters who claimed in a lawsuit their breast cancer was caused by synthetic estrogen their mother took during pregnancy in the 1950s have reached a settlement with the drug company Eli Lilly and Co., a lawyer for the sisters said Wednesday. Attorney Julie Oliver-Zhang said the settlement, for an undisclosed amount, was reached on the second day of a trial in U.S. District Court in Boston. They had not specified damages sought in the lawsuit. Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The sisters' case was the first to go to trial out of scores of similar claims filed in Boston and around the country. A total of 51 women have lawsuits pending in U.S. District Court in Boston against more than a dozen companies that made or marketed the drug. |
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Michael Sangiacomo
cleveland.com 2013-01-09 17:02:00
Municipal Court Judge Michael Cicconetti wanted to make sure Jonathan Tarase learned a lesson about drunken driving he would never forget. Cicconetti, who is known for his unusual sentencings, gave Tarase, 27, of Kirtland, a choice Tuesday. Serve five days in jail or perform two tasks: view the bodies of two victims of fatal accidents and take a three-day alcohol treatment course. Tarase chose to avoid jail. He pleaded no contest to a charge of drunken driving that was filed after an Oct. 13 accident on Orchard Drive in Concord Township. A husband and wife were injured when Tarase's car went through a stop sign and struck their vehicle. It was the victims' testimony that prompted the unique sentence. |
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Paul Walsh
Star-Tribune 2013-01-09 16:55:00
In a murder his accusers say was fueled by infidelity and deceit, a northern Minnesota artist admitted in court Wednesday that he fatally crushed his wife with a 17-foot-tall totem pole they were carving. Carl Muggli, 51, pleaded guilty in Koochiching County District Court to killing 61-year-old Linda Muggli in November 2010 at the couple's home south of International Falls. The husband had tried to convince authorities that the 700-pound pole accidentally fell out of a cradle and onto his wife of 24 years. The couple's business website, which is still active, has read since Linda Muggli's death, "She passed while doing what she loved." Muggli is pleading guilty to second-degree unintentional murder. He had been charged with first-degree premeditated murder and second-degree intentional murder. His trial was to begin Monday and be held in Bemidji because of pretrial publicity in and around International Falls. |
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Sydney Morning Herald
2013-01-10 16:46:00
The lawyer representing three of the men charged with the gang rape and murder of a medical student aboard a moving bus in New Delhi has blamed the victims for the assault, saying he has never heard of a "respected lady" being raped in India. Manohar Lal Sharma said his clients will plead not guilty to all charges tomorrow when they make their next court appearance. His comments come as Indians have reacted with outrage to the opinions of politicians and a religious preacher who have accused westernized women of inviting sexual assaults. Sharma said the male companion of the murdered 23-year-old was "wholly responsible" for the incident as the unmarried couple should not have been on the streets at night. "Until today I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady," Sharma said in an interview at a cafe outside the Supreme Court in India's capital. "Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect." |
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Marc Santora and William K. Rashbaum
NY Times 2013-01-09 16:40:00
A 300-foot crane crashed onto a building under construction in Long Island City, Queens, around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, while lifting a load, the authorities said. There were seven people injured, three of them seriously, according to fire officials. None of the injuries was life-threatening, they said. There was no immediate explanation for why the crane collapsed. The mangled red crane could be seen stretching hundreds of feet, having smashed into plywood and concrete on the site. The building under construction where the crane fell is 46-10 Vernon Boulevard, just behind the famous Pepsi-Cola sign on the East River. |
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Robin Reese
ABC News 2013-01-09 15:49:00
A mother of two has been hailed a hero by her husband after she shot an intruder in their Loganville, Ga., home last Friday afternoon. "She protected the kids. She did what she was supposed to do as a responsible, prepared gun owner," said her husband, Donnie Herman, in an interview with ABC's Atlanta affiliate WSB-TV. According to Herman and the Walton County Sheriff's Office incident report, Melinda Herman was working at home when a man began to ring the doorbell. She called her husband at work, who told her to gather their 9-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, and go hide. All three of them went to an upstairs crawl space, and Melinda brought along a .38 caliber handgun to the hiding place. Her husband, meanwhile, called the police. In the 911 recording, Herman can be heard saying, "She shot him. She's shooting him, she's shooting him. Shoot him again." |
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Raw Story
2013-01-09 15:44:00
A 15-year-old Saudi girl who was forced to marry an octogenarian has been granted a divorce after a local human rights group intervened, the watchdog said on Wednesday. The Saudi Human Rights Commission (SHRC) raised the case "after learning of the marriage of a minor girl to an 86-year-old man in Jizan" in southeast Saudi Arabia, the group's head Bandar al-Ayban said in a statement. Al-Hayat daily had reported that the teenager locked herself inside the bedroom on her wedding night before fleeing the man's home and returning to her parents. She had been married off to the man in exchange for a dowry worth around $17,300, the daily reported. |
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Vince Emanuele
A Q&A with Chris Hedges on his latest book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt. Alter Net 2013-12-29 15:02:00
Emanuele: In Chapter One of your new book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, you describe the horrendous conditions endured by the Native American population living in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. This population earns, on average, anywhere from $2,600-$3,500 a year, with 49% of the total population living in official poverty status. However in a broad sense, and to inject a historical context, you describe the systematic destruction of Native culture and society; namely, through the practices of physical termination and cultural genocide. Can you talk about why you began this journey in South Dakota and the importance of recognizing previous national injustices? Hedges: Well, it's important because that's where the project of limitless expansion and exploitation, especially the plundering of natural resources, began. There you had the timber merchants and the railroad magnates, mine speculators, and land speculators seizing territory on the western plains and exterminated the native populations who resisted. Many of which did not even resist. Then, herding the remnants into what were originally prisoner of war camps, which then finally became tribal residencies and eventually reservations - breaking the natives capacity for self-sufficiency, while creating a culture of dependency. Remember, all of this is for profit. This became the template for which the American Empire expanded: the Philippines, Cuba and all throughout Latin America. And today, places like Iraq and Afghanistan. So that's why we wanted to examine where this ideology first took root; where it was first formed; and what happened to these peoples, because in an age of corporate capitalism, where there are no impediments left, what happened to them, is going to happen to us. In the end, we're all going to be herded on some form of a reservation. This book is about these "sacrifice zones." Whether its in Pine Ridge, or southern West Virginia in the coal mines, or whether that be urban decay such as Camden, New Jersey, which is per capita the poorest city in the country, and on target this year to be the most dangerous, per capita in the country. As we've reconfigured American society, there's no longer any mechanisms to restrain these forces. And I think the other reason Pine Ridge is important, is because the native communities were structured very differently. People who hoarded and kept everything for themselves were disposed; everything was communal; there was an understanding that all forms of life, including the natural world, were sacred. This is unacceptable in a capitalist society where human and natural life are commodities that you exploit for money until exhaustion or collapse. We see the devastation visited on the western plains now being visited in places like the Arctic, where 40% of the summer sea-ice now melts, and the response is that it's a business opportunity, where people go and slam down half a billion dollar drill bits. It's insanity of course, because in the end, these forces will not only kill us off, but they'll kill themselves off as well. That is the awful logic behind it. I think Pine Ridge provides a window into how this ideology took root, and how it works. |
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RT.com
2013-01-09 15:40:00
A spike in gun and ammunition sales has caused a nationwide shortage that has delayed police training exercises and is putting a substantial amount of weaponry in civilian hands. Police in Atlanta, Georgia have been forced to delay training exercises due to a shortage of ammunition. The police department has put orders for more bullets on back-order, while officers are being deprived of the training that makes them capable of handling weapons. "When you can't get ammunition, it is very concerning," Sandy Springs Police Chief Terry Sult tells WSBTV. "It affects our ability to be prepared. It affects the potential safety of the officers, because they're not as proficient as they should be." The Sandy Springs Police Department is facing a shortage of tens of thousands of bullets and is scrambling to restock. The neighboring counties are facing an equally dire situation, with both practice ammunition and duty ammunition in short supply. Douglas County Chief Deputy Stan Copeland predicts it could be 6-8 months before the back-orders come in. "We're going to get very concerned at the six-month level if that's all we have in stock, because then we have to start planning and rationing," Sult says. |
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RT.com
2013-01-09 15:37:00
Saudi Arabia has beheaded a young Sri Lankan housemaid despite years of appeals for clemency from her home country and widespread international condemnation. The woman was sentenced to death for the 2005 killing of an infant entrusted to her care. Rizana Nafeek, 24, was executed on Wednesday morning in the town of Dawadmy, some 250 miles from the capital Riyadh, the Saudi Internior Ministry said in a statement. Nafeek was sentenced to death in 2007 after her wealthy Saudi employer accused her of killing his 4-month-old daughter after the baby chocked while being bottle fed. The Saudi Interior Ministry issued a statement claiming the infant was strangled after a dispute between Nafeek and the baby's mother. Sri Lanka appealed against the death penalty, but it was upheld by the Saudi Supreme Court in 2010. |
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Kevin Freking
Salon 2013-01-09 15:32:00
It's not the frequency of the attacks that stands out -- it's the lethality. The United States suffers far more violent deaths than any other wealthy nation, due in part to the widespread possession of firearms and the practice of storing them at home in a place that is often unlocked, according to a report released Wednesday by two of the nation's leading health research institutions. Gun violence is just one of many factors contributing to lower U.S. life expectancy, but the finding took on urgency because the report comes less than a month after the shooting deaths of 26 people at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. The United States has about six violent deaths per 100,000 residents. None of the 16 other countries included in the review came anywhere close to that ratio. Finland was closest to the U.S. ranking with slightly more than two violent deaths per 100,000 residents. For many years, Americans have been dying at younger ages that people in almost all other wealthy countries. In addition to the impact of gun violence, Americans consume the most calories among peer countries and get involved in more accidents that involve alcohol. The U.S. also suffers higher rates of drug-related deaths, infant mortality and AIDS. |
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Kate Connolly
Guardian 2013-01-09 15:19:00
Criminal inquiry launched into transplant centres as senior doctors are accused of 'jumping' waiting lists. German medical authorities are calling for an extensive overhaul of the country's organ transplant programme after transplant centres across Germany were placed under criminal investigation over allegations that they had systematically manipulated donor waiting lists. Scores of patients are believed to have been given priority access to donor organs after doctors falsified the severity of their illnesses to ensure they received treatment ahead of other patients in Europe. The revelations have led to accusations of widespread corruption and dishonesty in the system, and shattered public trust. Since the scandal emerged last year as a handful of cases that were initially believed to be isolated incidents, the number of Germans willing to donate organs has plummeted. Post-death donations have dropped by between 20% and 40%, according to the German foundation for organ transplantation (DSO), which said the public's faith had been "massively shaken". |
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Raw Story
2013-01-09 15:14:00
Germany's Roman Catholic Church said on Wednesday it had severed ties with criminologists commissioned to research sexual abuse by clergy in a row over the right to publish their findings. The Church announced in July 2011 it would open its archives, which date back to the end of World War II, to shed light on abuse claims, tasking the northern Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony to analyse evidence. But "mutual trust" between the Bishops' Conference and the head of the research centre has been "shattered", the bishops complained, adding they would now search for a new partner in the project. Bishop Stephan Ackermann, appointed to handle issues surrounding claims of sexual abuse of minors, said they had been forced to terminate their contract with the institute "for an important reason with immediate effect". "Trust is indispensable however for such an extensive and sensitive project," he said in the Bishops' Conference written statement. |
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David Ferguson
Raw Story 2013-01-09 15:11:00
A 65-year-old woman in Greenwood, SC was attacked and killed by a family dog while she was babysitting. According to Abbeville/Greenwood's WYFF Channel 4, sheriff's deputies responded to a 911 call about an animal bite. When they arrived, they were met at the door by an "aggressive pitbull" with blood on its chest, paws and muzzle. Shortly after deputies arrived on the scene, the homeowners returned. They pacified the dog and closed it into a room of the house so police could enter. The babysitter, Betty Todd, was found dead in a pool of blood that had splattered up the wall, according to a police report. The report said that Todd appeared to have died of puncture wounds to the head, face and neck. |
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| Secret History |
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Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News 2013-01-09 15:00:00
A long lost image from the Hiroshima atomic bombing has been discovered at a Japanese elementary school. The black-and-white photograph shows the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima split into two distinctly separated parts, one on top of the other. The rare image was found at the Honkawa Elementary School in Hiroshima city, in a collection of about 1,000 articles on the WWII atomic bombing. The material was donated by a late survivor, Yosaburo Yamasaki, in or after 1953. According to the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, a memo on the back of the photo says it was shot near the town of Kaitaichi, some six miles east of ground zero, two minutes after the bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. |
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Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience 2013-01-09 10:13:00
For the first time, the hairstyle of the Roman Vestal Virgins has been recreated on a modern head. The Vestals were priestesses who guarded the fire of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, among other sacred tasks. Chosen before puberty and sworn to celibacy, they were free from many of the social rules that limited women in the Roman era. Their braided hairstyle, the sini crenes, symbolized chastity and was known in ancient texts as the oldest hairstyle in Rome. "These were the six most important women in Rome with the possible exception of the emperor's wife," said Janet Stephens, the Baltimore hairdresser and amateur archaeologist who unraveled the secrets of the Vestals' trademark braids. [See Video of the Braiding Process] |
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Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience 2013-01-09 09:44:00
A metric ton of cattle bones found in an abandoned theater in the ancient city of Corinth may mark years of lavish feasting, a new study finds. The huge amount of bones - more than 1,000 kilograms (2,205 pounds) - likely represent only a tenth of those tossed out at the site in Peloponnese, Greece, said study researcher Michael MacKinnon, an archaeologist at the University of Winnipeg. "What I think that they're related to are episodes of big feasting in which the theater was reused to process carcasses of hundreds of cattle," MacKinnon told LiveScience. He presented his research Friday (Jan. 4) at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Seattle. |
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Hazem Zohny
Nature 2013-01-06 19:00:00
Becoming bound by eternal, unquestioning servitude as someone's property is not likely most people's career of choice. 2200 years ago, however, it seems some Egyptians voluntarily signed up to become temple slaves. Not only that, they even paid a monthly fee for the "privilege." The revelation comes from the work of Egyptologist Kim Ryholt of the University of Copenhagen, who has been studying papyrus slave contracts found in a rubbish dump in the ancient Egyptian temple city of Tebtunis. "I am your servant from this day onwards, and I shall pay 2½ copper-pieces every month as my slave-fee before Soknebtunis, the great god." This is part of the translation of 100 of these papyrus slave contracts that Ryholt has spent years trying to collect and analyse. The documents were scattered in fragments across Egypt, Europe and the US after they were illicitly excavated. In one example, a contract was divided between Copenhagen and the British Museum. Ryholt is the first to analyze these papyri collectively, publishing his findings in a recent article titled: A Self-Dedication Addressed to Anubis - Divine Protection against Malevolent Forces or Forced Labour? |
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| Science & Technology |
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Alan Farnham
ABC News 2013-01-09 17:09:00
Crooks, when committing crime, leave trails - some verbal, some numerical. Now a new generation of super-snooper software adapted from the military gives employers the power to detect documents, transactions or emails that smell fishy. David Remnitz, head of Ernst & Young's forensic technology business and fraud investigation services in North and South America, says the technology is so new to the private sector that it has has come into use only in the past 18 months. Until now, fraud-hunters have had to rely on their own perspicacity - or on the kindness of whistleblowers. Now, however, wrongdoers can be fingered electronically and automatically, with computer programs scanning vast quantities of data in seconds. Predicts industry information source Compliance Week, "Catching fraudsters may soon become more a matter of learning how to properly interrogate a computer program rather than putting gumshoes on the case." It goes on to say that while fraud-detection software is not new, it previously has lacked the ability to sift through non-numerical, unstructured data - such as text documents, social media and email. |
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Christopher Curtis
Montreal Gazette 2013-01-09 15:24:00
Ice breaker needed to free captive animals; winter sighting 'strange' and unheard of, mayor says. About 12 killer whales remain trapped in a small breach in the ice near a northern Quebec fishing village. Miles of ice separate the whales from open water, which means it will take an ice breaker to free the captive animals. They have been stranded near Inukjuaq since Monday, according to Sarollie Weetalutuk, the village's mayor. "People here have mixed feelings about the situation," he told The Gazette. "We want to see them free but we also want them to go away. Killer whales eat seals and belugas. The seal hunt is a huge part of our economy."
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The Rutherford Institute
2013-01-08 13:14:00
Declaring that a Texas student's refusal to wear a chipless RFID tracking badge is "not grounded in her religious beliefs" and is a "secular choice rather than a religious concern," U.S. District Judge Orlando L. Garcia for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio has denied The Rutherford Institute's request for a preliminary injunction preventing school officials from expelling Andrea Hernandez until the case is decided. According to the judge's order, Hernandez, a sophomore in a science and engineering magnet school housed in John Jay High School, has until the end of the current semester to provide written notice to Northside Independent School District officials as to whether she will accept the school's accommodation of wearing the Smart ID badge without a chip, which Andrea, a Christian, objects to on the grounds that it represents the "mark of the Beast." The badges, part of the school's "Student Locator Project," include tiny Radio Frequency Identification ("RFID") chips that produce a radio signal, enabling school officials to track students' location on school property. In coming to Andrea's defense, Rutherford attorneys have alleged that the school's attempts to penalize, discriminate and retaliate against Andrea violate her rights under Texas' Religious Freedom Act and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Institute attorneys intend to appeal the judge's ruling. |
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Nick Howes & Ernesto Guido
Cbet nr. 3376, issued on 2013, January 08, announces the discovery of a new comet (discovery magnitude 19.5) by J. Scotti
with the 691 Steward Observatory, Kitt Peak, on images obtained with
the 0.9-m f/3 reflector + CCD on January 06.2. The new comet has been
designated P/2013 A2 (SCOTTI).Remanzacco Observatory 2013-01-09 13:14:00 We performed some follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the neocp. Stacking of 6 R-filtered exposures, 60-sec each, obtained remotely, from the Haleakala-Faulkes Telescope North on 2013, Jan. 08.6, through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD, shows that this object appears "soft" compared to the nearby field stars of similar brightness and elongated toward PA 290. Our observations combined with those of Peter Phelps of Hazelmere School in the UK, using Faulkes South later in the day helped confirm the nature of the object. Our confirmation image:
M.P.E.C. 2013-A45 assigns the following preliminary elliptical orbital elements to comet P/2013 A2: T 2013 May 16.14; e= 0.57; Peri. = 182.74; q = 1.98 AU; Incl.= 3.89. |
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Dana Newkirk
WhoForted? 2013-01-09 12:40:00
In a rehabilitation center in Providence Island, Rode Island there is a cat named Oscar. While almost everyone loves our furry feline friends (as one glance at the internet can tell us), reactions to Oscar are a bit different. Unfortunately for him, many of the patients at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation center turn the other way and run as fast as their bad hips can take them when Oscar crosses their path. You see, between the years of 2005 - 2010, Oscar the cat had accurately predicted so many deaths of the residents at the Steere House, that little Oscar has been deemed the angel of death. So far he's got a reported 50 patient deaths under his collar. Oscar's past isn't quite as interesting as his present. He was brought to Steere House as a kitten, adopted from the local animal shelter, and given a place to live on the third floor of the hospital, the area housing the end stage dementia patients. He was one of six cats adopted at that particular time, as Steere House strives to be a pet friendly environment, bringing comfort to the facility's many patients through cuddly animals. But after many months of daily interaction with Oscar, the doctors and nurses began to notice a rather strange coincidence. Oscar, much like the staff, would do his daily rounds visiting the patients, sniffing, sleeping and cuddling with many of them, not unlike any other fickle feline. Where things get a little weird, however, are in the patients he chose to visit. Many of those patients would just so happen to die within a two hour time span after visiting with him. Oscar, it would seem, was predicting their deaths, and staying to bring comfort to those patients in their final few hours. |
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Mark Prigg
Daily Mail 2013-01-09 12:24:00
One of the most powerful laser weapons ever fired has successfully shot drones out of the sky from two miles away. The groundbreaking weapon uses a high powered 50kW laser, and is powerful enough to cut through a steel girder from 1km away, yet accurate enough to hit a target the size of a mortar round. Rheinmetall Defence, the firm who developed it, say it could eventually become commonplace on the battlefield, and are developing a smaller version that could be taken to the front line to protect troops. The latest test was conducted at Rheinmetall's Ochsenboden Proving Groud (EZO) in Switzerland, in snowy conditions and blinding sunlight, and engineers are already drawing up plans to double the power of the laser before its next test. 'The demonstration delivered compelling evidence for the 50kW weapon technology,' a spokesman said. 'A massive, 15mm-thick steel girder was cut through at a distance of 1,000 metres, and the successful shooting down of several nose-diving target drones at a range of two kilometres formed the second major highlight.' |
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Marc Lallanilla
LiveScience 2013-01-09 09:50:00
Workers at a Canadian clinic have discovered that almost 7 percent of their patients with gonorrhea had a strain of the bacteria against which all oral antibiotics are useless. This alarming report suggests gonorrhea may become an untreatable disease, warn public health experts. Antibiotic-resistant strains of gonorrhea have been reported in outbreaks throughout Europe and Japan, according to US News, but the Canadian study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, marks the first time the strain has been seen in a large North American population. "We've been very concerned about the threat of potentially untreatable gonorrhea," Dr. Gail Bolan of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told Fox News. "We feel it's only a matter of time until resistance will occur in the United States. Dr. Vanessa Allen of Public Health Ontario and colleagues identified 291 patients at the clinic who tested positive for gonorrhea between May 2010 and April 2011. The Canadian patients whose gonorrhea was resistant to cephalosporin - the most commonly used antibiotic for gonorrhea - were eventually cured by a powerful injectable antibiotic, ceftriaxone. But experts fear even that drug has its limits, since doctors are seeing a rise in resistance to ceftriaxone, too. |
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Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade
Guardian 2013-01-09 11:04:00
Fleet of drones could accelerate humanitarian responses and prove cheaper than roads - but research on safety needed. A fleet of small flying drones could speed up the delivery of medicines and other supplies to remote areas, and even provide a cheaper alternative to a road network, according to Matternet, a start-up company in the US. Just as the internet has revolutionised the transport of online data, the company says a network of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - the "matternet" - could do the same for supplies. The company envisages a network of base stations 10km apart, with flying drones carrying packages of up to 2kg between bases. A drone would take only 15 minutes for each trip without needing to recharge or replace its batteries. The projected cost for setting up a case study in Lesotho with 50 base stations and 150 drones is $900,000 (£560,000). After that, each trip by a drone would cost only 24 cents. This compares with about $1m for building a 2km, one-lane road, according to the company. Andreas Raptopoulos, one of Matternet's founders, said there are three key technologies - electric flying vehicles, landing stations and routing software - that make such a network technically feasible. The company tested prototypes in Haiti and the Dominican Republic in August and September last year. |
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The Extinction Protocol
2013-01-09 07:52:00
One hundred thousand years ago, a massive chunk of the Mauna Loa volcano cracked away from Hawaii and slid into the sea, launching a wave that rose as high as the Eiffel tower up the slopes of a nearby island. That mega-tsunami was not an isolated incident: the past 40,000 years have seen at least ten gigantic landslides of more than 100 cubic kilometers in the North Atlantic ocean alone, each capable of producing waves tens to hundreds of meters high. Another is bound to happen sometime - although whether it will strike tomorrow or 10,000 years from now is anyone's guess. Earth is now in the middle of a flare-up of supervolcanic activity. Over the past 13.5 million years, no fewer than 19 giant eruptions have each spewed more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of rock - enough to coat an entire continent in a few centimeters of ash and push the planet into 'nuclear winter'. One of the most recent such eruptions, of Toba in Indonesia 74,000 years ago, was such a catastrophic event that some scientists have blamed it for starting the last ice age and slashing the human population to about 10,000 people. One estimate1 suggests that there is a 1% chance of a super-eruption in the next 460 - 7,200 years. |
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The Extinction Protocol
Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) 2012 DA14 has its annual flyby of the earth on
February 15, 2013. Its projected orbit, according to NASA, will bring
it well within the orbits of geosynchronous satellites currently
orbiting our planet. NASA has indicated that there is no danger of this
asteroid impacting our planet, however they have not ruled out our gravity changing the asteroids orbital pattern.
NEA 2012 DA 14 was discovered on February 23, 2012 by the Observatorio
Astronómico de Mallorca (OAM), near the Spanish city of La Sagra.
According to NASA's Near Earth Object Program, NEO, the asteroid will
pass the earth at a distance of 21,000 miles, putting the asteroid's
trajectory in between the earth and the satellites orbiting our planet.
Geosynchronous satellites orbiting our planet orbit at a distance of
roughly 26,200 miles above the earth.2013-01-09 07:45:00
Geostationary orbiting objects orbit at a distance of roughly 22,236 miles above the Earth's equator. These objects are considered to be in High Earth Orbit (HEO). Any object in space considered to be in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is approximately 1250 miles above the equator. The term Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) refers to an orbiting object approximately 12,500 miles above the Earth's equator, in between objects in an LEO and a HEO, geosynchronous orbit. |
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Nick Collins
With his upright posture and shiny gold helmet, this space robot looks more suited to the set of Star Wars than the International Space Station.The Telegraph, UK 2013-01-08 00:00:00
But the C3PO lookalike, the first humanoid robot in space, has spent almost two years orbiting the Earth while learning to perform tasks which are more suited to machines than human crew members. Robonaut 2 - nicknamed R2 in a nod to the Star Wars trilogy - was launched in February 2011 on the last flight of NASA's Discovery space shuttle. It began work last March, practicing some of the duller or more dangerous jobs which astronauts hope it will carry out on their behalf, and was pictured on Wednesday during another round of testing. An Earth-based team of programmers remotely controlled the robot as it operated valves on a task board in the space station's Destiny laboratory. One of the roles R2 was designed to fulfil was monitoring air flow in front of vents on board the ISS - a crucial check to make sure that none of the ventilation apparatus becomes blocked or clogged up. The task requires a very steady hand and samples can be spoiled by other sources of air flow, such as human breath, making a robot the perfect candidate for the job. |
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| Earth Changes |
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The Voice of Russia
2013-01-07 17:28:00
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The Times of Israel
2013-01-09 17:20:00
A winter storm is magnifying the misery for tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing the country's civil war, turning a refugee camp into a muddy swamp where howling winds tore down tents and exposed the displaced residents to freezing temperatures. Some frustrated refugees at a camp in Zaatari, where about 50,000 are sheltered, attacked aid workers with sticks and stones after the tents collapsed in 35 mph (60 kph) winds, said Ghazi Sarhan, spokesman for the Jordanian charity that helps run the camp. Police said seven Jordanian workers were injured. After three days of rain, muddy water engulfed tents housing refugees including pregnant women and infants. Those who didn't move out used buckets to bail out the water; others built walls of mud to try to stay dry. |
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Haaretz
2013-01-09 17:08:00
Snow envelops northern Israel, roads close due to ice; police close Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway; hundreds of people rescued from their homes after massive floods. As Israel battled its stormiest winter in a decade, cities across the country found themselves nearly paralyzed. Major highways closed, power outages were reported, the entrance to Tel Aviv was all but blocked, and residents of some neighborhoods awaited possible word of evacuation. The Ayalon River near Tel Aviv, usually a dry bed, flooded beyond capacity as storms overtook central Israel overnight Tuesday. The nearby Ayalon Highway was closed between Glilot Junction and Hashalom Street in both directions over the course of the morning, opening up from Hahalakha Junction northbound in the afternoon. Highway 1 was closed between Shapirim and Kibbutz Galuyot junctions in the early afternoon, and traffic was halted or congested across Tel Aviv through the morning and afternoon hours. The Israel Police has asked drivers to stay out of central Tel Aviv, and to avoid driving if possible. Due to the weather, Israel's Airport Authority offers free bus service to Tel Aviv. |
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Joe Weisenthal
Business Insider 2013-01-08 07:27:00
A cold snap in China hasn't gotten much attention here, but it might start to get more, as it's causing massive food inflation. The Daily Dim Sum translates a Xinhua article: Weather.com reports on the exact weather numbers: |
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Kevin Wadlow
Miami Herald 2013-01-09 10:49:00
Deep-diving spearfishermen surfaced with a mystery last month south of Pacific Reef Light off North Key Largo. "I was shocked when I saw it," Wayne Grammes said. "It's an ugly-looking fish with a face on it that looks like a tripletail and a tail like a jewfish." The 15-pound, 27-inch fish speared by Greg Caterino of Tavernier turned out to be a humpback grouper - a species native not to Pacific Reef but to the tropical Pacific Ocean off Asia. "This is the equivalent of a hunter in North America finding a zebra," said Grammes, who was fishing Dec. 23 with Caterino. "We've seen the successful marine invasion of lionfish," Reef Environmental Education Foundation Project Director Lad Akins said this week. "We certainly do not want to see it happen again with another Pacific species." Akins, a renowned expert in fish identification, confirmed the speared fish was a humpback grouper. With an array of black spots, it's also known as a panther grouper. "This is not the first time these have been sighted in Florida," Akins said. "There have been five or six reported as far back as the 1980s, but all from different parts of the state." "The juveniles are really popular in the aquarium trade," Akins said. "It's quite likely that this is released fish." Young humpback grouper sport a brilliant white color with an attractive spray of black spots. But they outgrow most privately owned saltwater tanks - and cast a hungry eye on other tank fish. "Just like lionfish, they are carnivores," Akins said. |
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BeforeItsNews.com
The following graphs/charts show that the 7.5 Earthquake that struck
Alaska earlier today also dealt a jarring blow to both the Yellowstone
Supervolcano as well as to the Louisiana Sinkhole. According to the USGS,
the Alaskan quake struck on 2013-01-05 at 08:58:19 UTC. The charts
below show proof that the EQ was felt at both the Yellowstone
Supervolcano as well as at the Louisiana Sinkhole. The first chart below
shows the Alaska EQ in blue and Yellowstone's reaction to it in red.
Purple shows the overlap. Source2013-01-05 08:03:00
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The Extinction Protocol
Because the Carlsberg Ridge is one of the slowest-spreading, and so
supposedly less active oceanic ridges, many had thought it unlikely to
be the location of a major volcanic eruption.. At ridges such as this,
heat is thought to be released more slowly from the underlying magma.
However, we may have to rethink that previous assessment. The Carlsberg
Ridge region is currently being shaken by a major seismic swarm, which
could very well be volcanic in nature. The strongest tremor in the
current swarm is a magnitude 5.0. Nature journal said in
previous eruption, "A huge plume of hydrothermal chemicals, drifted up
to 1.4 kilometers above the vent site and 70 kilometers along the
underwater ridge was seen some years ago. It's by far the biggest vent
plume ever seen, and confirms that such plumes form following volcanic
eruptions at the sea floor, even at slow-spreading oceanic ridges." 12013-01-09 07:49:00
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MasterBlaster
RocketNews24 2013-01-08 20:29:00
Since the Great Tohoku Earthquake of March 2011, scientists have been anxiously watching the massive volcano known as Mt. Fuji for signs of activity. In September of last year, a report was released stating that Mt. Fuji's magma chamber pressure had risen to a worrisome 1.6 megapascals, which is estimated to be higher than when it last erupted. According to retired professor Masaki Kimura of Ryukyu University, this and other recent phenomena indicate an eruption of Mt. Fuji should have taken place in 2011 with a four-year margin of error ending in 2015. First, a little background on Mt. Fuji. Japan sits on the edge of a "subduction zone" which is where one layer of the Earth's crust is pushed under another. In the below image, courtesy of Google Maps, you can see the trench along which subduction is occurring around Japan. |
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Becky Oskin
OurAmazingPlanet 2013-01-08 17:22:00
An unusually cold winter across China has some regions hitting their lowest average temperatures in more than 40 years, according to state media reports. The Chinese national meteorological agency said polar fronts caused by global warming are to blame for the frigid air. The freeze is the coldest winter in 28 years, the English-language newspaper China Daily reported. The national average temperature across China's vast territory was a chilly 25.2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3.8 degrees Celsius) since late November. In northeast China, which typically has snowy, cold winters, the average temperature was an icy 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15.3 degrees Celsius), the lowest in 42 years. Temperatures have dropped down to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 degrees Celsius) in eastern Inner Mongolia, northern Xinjiang and the Arctic reaches of northeast China. (Mohe, in northeast China, holds China's record low temperature of minus 62.1 F, or minus 52.3 C, set on Feb. 13, 1962.) |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Greg Newkirk
WhoForted? 2013-01-09 17:35:00
They showed up this week in Oklahoma, were then recorded in Massachusetts, and one reader even reported them in Indiana, but it seems that the "Mystery Booms" are still going strong with new reports coming out of the West Coast. The first new set of strange explosions were heard in Weber County, Utah last night around 9:00 PM, prompting hundreds of concerned citizens to phone the local authorities. Interestingly enough, when Fox 13 News rang up the University of Utah to check in with the Seismograph department, they claimed that while there were no earthquakes to speak of, they did pick up some unidentified "sonic activity" around the time the booms were reported. One resident believed that the noises were related to aircraft:
The local Hill Airforce base, on the other hand, claims that they had no aircraft in the air after 6:00PM. Likewise, the National Guard stated that had no weapons training that day, while the ATF told reporters that there were not rocket tests that day either. Hrmm.. |
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Raw Story
2013-01-09 12:19:00
An asteroid believed to pose a remote risk of colliding with Earth this century is 20 percent bigger than previously thought, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Wednesday. In a press release, ESA said its Herschel deep-space telescope had scanned a space rock called 99942 Apophis last weekend as it headed towards its closest flyby with our planet in years on Wednesday. Previous estimates bracketed the asteroid's average diameter at 270 metres (877 feet) give or take 60m (195 feet), representing a mass that would equal the energy release of a 506-megatonne bomb, according to NASA figures. In a two-hour observation, Herschel returned a diameter of 325m (1,056 feet), with a range of 15m (48.75 feet) either way, ESA said. "The 20-percent increase in diameter, from 270 to 325m (877 to 1,056 feet), translates into a 75-percent increase in our estimates of the asteroid's volume or mass," said Thomas Mueller of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, who led the data analysis. |
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Lisa Goudy
The Moose Jaw Times Herald 2013-01-08 08:28:00
Moose Jaw resident Greg Wheler saw a meteor in the northern Moose Jaw skies close to 10 p.m. Monday night. "It turned bright white with a blue centre and burned up as it flew east to west," said Wheler in an email to the Times-Herald. "It caught my eye through my living room window." Chris Beckett, volunteer and national observatory chairman of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Regina centre, said the meteor sighting was most likely part of the tail end of the Quadrantid meteor shower that peaked last week. "There's a couple of meteor showers that peak right now and these tend to be brighter, slower-moving meteors," said Beckett. "I've seen lots of them in years past and they'll get your attention even from the city." | |
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Comment: Nothing to see here folks, it's just another fireball...
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| Health & Wellness |
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Scott Malone
Medical Daily 2013-01-09 15:37:00
Faced with a surge in flu cases, the mayor of Boston declared a public health emergency on Wednesday as authorities around the United States scrambled to cope with a rising number of patients. So far, in the early stage of the normal flu season, Boston has already recorded 10 times as many cases as in all of the 2011-2012 flu season. From Maine to North Carolina, officials said they were expecting a sharp increase in infections, while hospitals tightened rules on visitors and opened new facilities to accommodate more patients. "This is the worst flu season we've seen since 2009 and people should take the threat of flu seriously," Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said on Wednesday. The city plans to offer a free flu vaccination for residents who have not already received one. Encouraging vaccinations is one of the most effective steps in combating what looks to be a serious strain of the flu, said Dr. William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. "This is a bad year, there's no question about it. It's going to be, at minimum, moderately severe," Hanage said, adding that the outbreak looks less severe than in 2009 when the dominant strain was the H1N1 swine flu. |
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Linda Thrasybule
MyHealthNewsDaily 2013-01-09 15:52:00
The U.S. may be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but it certainly isn't the healthiest, according to a new report from the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. The report, released today, compared the U.S. with 16 other high-income democracies, including Australia, Canada, Japan, and many western European countries. It found, on average, that Americans die sooner and experience higher rates of disease and injury than people in other countries. The report is the first look at multiple diseases, injuries and behaviors across the entire human life span. "Americans are dying and suffering at rates that we know are unnecessary because people in other high-income countries are living longer lives and enjoying better health," said Steven H. Woolf, professor of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and chair of the panel that wrote the report. "What concerns our panel is why, for decades, we have been slipping behind." The panel also found that health problems exist among Americans regardless of age and that even Americans with certain advantages, such as higher incomes, a college education and health insurance, are sicker than people in other rich nations. Some of the key areas of health in which the U.S. fared poorly included infant mortality and low birth weight, injuries and homicides, teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, obesity, diabetes and heart disease. |
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Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com 2012-12-01 15:27:00
Perfluoroalkyls, which are chemicals used to keep grease from leaking through fast food wrappers, are being ingested by people through their food and showing up as contaminants in blood. Perfluoroalkyls are stable, synthetic chemicals that repel oil, grease, and water. They are used in surface protection treatments and coatings for packages. The specific chemicals studied were polyfluoroalkyl phosphate esters (PAPs), which are the breakdown products of the perfluorinated carboxylic acids used in coating the food wrappers. Common Dreams reports: "The researchers used the PAP concentrations previously observed in human blood together with the PAP and PFCA concentrations observed in the rats to calculate human exposure to the chemical perflurooctanoic acid, PFOA." |
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Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo 2013-01-09 05:00:00
There is a growing awareness that the unintended, adverse health effects of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs far outweigh their purported benefits. But now new research indicates that these drugs may even interfere with the heart-protective effects of omega-3 fatty acids in those who are taking them. A new study published in the journal BMC Medicine is shedding much needed light on why the widely publicized fish oil study released late last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which diverged from earlier randomized controlled trials (RCTs) demonstrating the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, showed no evidence of cardiovascular disease risk reduction associated with omega-3 intake. In the new study, researchers at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France proposed that more recent RCTs on fish oil and heart health that have reported negative findings, like the JAMA study, can be explained by two hidden confounding variables:
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Rebecca Eckler
Macleans.Ca 2013-01-08 09:41:00
Holly Fennell sees about 50 tongues a week. The first thing the naturopath looks at is the colour. A "nice pinky-red" is normal, but many of her patients have a dark purple hue, which is her first clue that there is something off with their energy, or ch'i. A yellowish coating may indicate the flu or a cold. If the outside edge is bumpy, it could be a sign of anxiety. And Fennell, who has been practising Chinese medicine in Toronto's tony Summerhill neighbourhood for 10 years, has a very deep line down the middle of hers, which she says points to her asthma. Patients think she is psychic, the way she reads their tongues. Jen Miller, who lives in Toronto, has seen two traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctors. The first time, she was feeling sluggish, headachey and queasy, "not really a surprise because I'd recently had a bad breakup." The TCM doctor examined her mouth with a depressor and a little light, then asked her to move her tongue up and down. "She said, 'Oh, not sleeping enough . . . you're so sad . . . more water will make those headaches stop.' " Miller saw a second TCM doctor a year later for stubborn acne. "He started all our visits by looking in my mouth. The first time he looked in and said, 'Uh! So much candy! All that sugar!' " The night before, admits Miller, she had eaten a box of chocolates. "Again, it was fascinating but creepy." |
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James Nye
Daily Mail 2013-01-08 09:45:00
The long feared nightmare of U.S. public health officials has come to pass with the news anti-biotic resistant Gonorrhea has been detected in North American patients.A study released today by the Journal of the American Medical Association announced it had found nine patients with a strain of the sexually transmitted disease immune to the last remaining effective oral antibiotic. This confirms the fears of both the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organisation who warned last year that untreatable gonorrhea, the world's second most common STD would soon become a reality.'These are the clinical cases we've been waiting for,' said study leader Vanessa Allen of pUblic Health Ontario. 'This is the translation of the lab information into what the clinical consequence is.' Researchers observed that 6.7 percent of patients with gonorrhea at one Toronto clinic still had the disease after a round of cephalosporins, which is the last antibiotic which doctors are able to use to cure the disease. Out of 133 patients who returned for a 'test of cure' visit, nine remained positive with the disease, which is roughly one in 15 people. This study revealed the first time that cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea had been found in humans in North America. |
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Dr. Mark Sircus
drsircus.com 2013-01-09 08:38:00
I am so glad (not!) that we have people like Bill Gates to make sure vaccines are funded for African children. I am not alone in that perspective but there are brave people like Christina England, a U.K. journalist and author who alone is reporting about the unspeakable harm that international vaccination programs bring to the children of the world. Christina reports that: |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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No new articles. |
| High Strangeness |
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Greg Newkirk
Who Forted? 2013-01-09 12:31:00
Thanks to the film Signs, most people, even those without interests into the fringe, fortean, and Ufological have at least a cursory knowledge of crop circles and their designs. While it might still be far too cold for their to be any crops in Connecticut, they still got the circles.. in the snow. Residents of New Haven first noticed the patterns appear downtown early this morning, but not very many of the locals were too impressed. "I think it's somebody who has a lot of time on their hands, so they decided to have some fun in the snow," Gloria Caprio told WFSB Channel 3. Even internationally recognized crop circle detective and author of Circular Evidence Colin Andrews took the time to check out the strange symbols. "The lack of symmetry, which I have seen around the world with regard to crop circles isn't here. The spiral symmetry from an elevated position lacks preciseness," he said with a very authoritative British accent. |
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The Extinction Protocol
2013-01-09 09:31:00
California Mystery: The loud explosion that jolted North Hollywood on Tuesday night remained a mystery the next morning, authorities said. An officer at the Los Angeles Police Department's North Hollywood station said police searched the area for a half an hour Tuesday night but had no luck in determining what caused the sound. The officer said police received numerous calls about the noise. At about 9:30 p.m., numerous people began tweeting about a loud explosion. Some thought it had come from a North Hollywood Metro station; others reported hearing an explosion in Studio City. "Mysterious explosion a few minutes ago. What's going on? #LA" tweeted @ThatVitalSpark. "Seriously, any leads what the hell this boom was in North Hollywood? Im shook up a bit" tweeted @RajRawal37. A Reddit user posed the question: "What just blew up in North Hollywood?" By 10:30 p.m., there were more than 120 comments, but no crowd-sourced answer. However, possibilities ranging from alien invasions to meteors were proposed. - LA Times Massachusetts mystery: Salem and Marblehead police officers searched the area of Ocean Avenue early Saturday morning for evidence of what could have caused the large boom that prompted residents across the area to call 911. According to Sunday morning's Salem police log, At 1:34 a.m., police received multiple calls regarding a "loud bang" on Ocean Avenue. They were unable to locate the source. Many of our readers in Marblehead also reported hearing the sound, which has some town residents wondering whether or not it is coming from the harbor. This isn't the first time we've written about mysterious explosion noises being reported in the area late at night. Theories offered so far have included youngsters with powerful fireworks, cannons from boats in the harbor, malfunctioning electrical transformers, UFOs and the shifting of tectonic plates under the city. - Marblehead Patch |
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Greg Newkirk
Who Forted? 2013-01-08 15:23:00
Colorado's beautiful San Luis Valley is full of interesting stories. It's home to the oldest town in the entire state so it should come as no surprise that a "ghostly train" still runs the lines. The area has a thriving community of "Crypto-Jews" and even the Amish. But perhaps the most perculiar story that the Valley can lay claim to is one of particular importance to UFOlogy and general fringe weirdness: the story of "Snippy" the horse - the first cattle mutilation associated with strange lights in the sky. On September 9th, 1967, Harry King left his humble ranch in search of Lady, his three year old mare. He and his mother had noted that she hadn't mosied back to the ranch for water in three days, something that was particularly odd considering how dry and hot the weather had been. Their fears were realized when they found Lady, or most of her anyway, laying on her side with her neck stripped bare to the bone. The cuts were incredibly clean, surgical even, a fact that led Harry to believe that Lady wasn't simply the victim of a coyote or some other local predator. He noted that there was no blood on the scene, only a series of strange burns on the ground a strong "medicinal" smell hanging in the air. When reported, the local sheriff blew Harry off and wrote the ordeal up as a lightning strike, never bothering to visit the ranch himself. Several days later, park police at the nearby Great Sand Dunes national park busted someone for trespassing on the property after dark. This miscreant turned out to be Dr. John Altshuler, an award-winning pathologist with an extensive history of contributions to medicine. As the police lectured him about breaking the law, he begged for them to keep his name a secret, afraid that not only an arrest, but that his reasoning for being in the park in the first place would ruin his career. You see, he was searching for UFOs. |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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David Ferguson
Tuesday night on TBS's "Conan," host Conan O'Brien showed a
snippet of the now-notorious Piers Morgan interview with gun-lover and
conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of InfoWars.com. Somehow, the fact that
Jones was brandishing and firing a loaded pistol for emphasis didn't
make it into most newscasts.Raw Story 2013-01-09 17:15:00 Morgan, for his part, stayed remarkably cool "under fire." |
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Patrick Wilson
The Virginian-Pilot 2013-01-09 14:54:00
Although it was actually a uniquely groomed dog roaming loose, three callers to 911 on Tuesday reported a baby lion, the city of Norfolk said today. Two calls came after 10 a.m. on Granby Street near the zoo and on Llewellyn Avenue. About 1:20 p.m., another 911 caller reported seeing a baby lion on Colley Avenue at 50th Street. "I'd like to report a lion sighting," one caller said. "Say that again?" a dispatcher replied. In the call near the zoo, a woman said, "There was a lion that ran across the street - a baby lion. It was about the size of a Labrador retriever." Another caller said, "I don't know if it got away from the zoo or what." The dog, a Labrador-poodle mix named Charles the Monarch, is owned by Daniel Painter, who owns a garden shop on Colley Avenue where the dog is regularly seen. Painter said he has the dog groomed to look like the Old Dominion University mascot. Watch the video on YouTube. |
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David McCormack
A pastor at a catholic church in Springfield, Illinois is currently on a
leave of absence after he was forced to call 911 to request help
getting out of handcuffs. The bizarre incident happened to Father Tom
Donovan of St. Aloysius church last November. On a copy of the 911 call
released by the Sangamon County Emergency Telephone System Department,
the priest's muffled voice can be heard asking for help. When police
arrived they discovered some sort of gag covering the priest's mouth.Daily Mail 2013-01-07 09:12:00 'I'm going to need help getting out before this becomes a medical emergency,' Father Tom Donovan can be heard telling an incredulous sounding dispatcher during the Nov. 28 call. 'You're stuck in a pair of handcuffs?' the dispatcher asks. '(I was) playing with them and I need help getting out,' Donovan responds.
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