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Naomi Wolf
NaomiWolf.org 2013-06-14 14:38:00
I hate to do this but I feel obligated to share, as the story unfolds, my creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be, and that the motivations involved in the story may be more complex than they appear to be. This is in no way to detract from the great courage of Glenn Greenwald in reporting the story, and the gutsiness of the Guardian in showcasing this kind of reporting, which is a service to America that US media is not performing at all. It is just to raise some cautions as the story unfolds, and to raise some questions about how it is unfolding, based on my experience with high-level political messaging. Some of Snowden's emphases seem to serve an intelligence/police state objective, rather than to challenge them. a) He is super-organized, for a whistleblower, in terms of what candidates, the White House, the State Dept. et al call 'message discipline.' He insisted on publishing a power point in the newspapers that ran his initial revelations. I gather that he arranged for a talented filmmaker to shoot the Greenwald interview. These two steps - which are evidence of great media training, really 'PR 101″ - are virtually never done (to my great distress) by other whistleblowers, or by progressive activists involved in breaking news, or by real courageous people who are under stress and getting the word out. They are always done, though, by high-level political surrogates. b) In the Greenwald video interview, I was concerned about the way Snowden conveys his message. He is not struggling for words, or thinking hard, as even bright, articulate whistleblowers under stress will do. Rather he appears to be transmitting whole paragraphs smoothly, without stumbling. To me this reads as someone who has learned his talking points - again the way that political campaigns train surrogates to transmit talking points. c) He keeps saying things like, "If you are a journalist and they think you are the transmission point of this info, they will certainly kill you." Or: "I fully expect to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act." He also keeps stressing what he will lose: his $200,000 salary, his girlfriend, his house in Hawaii. These are the kinds of messages that the police state would LIKE journalists to take away; a real whistleblower also does not put out potential legal penalties as options, and almost always by this point has a lawyer by his/her side who would PROHIBIT him/her from saying, 'come get me under the Espionage Act." Finally in my experience, real whistleblowers are completely focused on their act of public service and trying to manage the jeopardy to themselves and their loved ones; they don't tend ever to call attention to their own self-sacrifice. That is why they are heroes, among other reasons. But a police state would like us all to think about everything we would lose by standing up against it. d) It is actually in the Police State's interest to let everyone know that everything you write or say everywhere is being surveilled, and that awful things happen to people who challenge this. Which is why I am not surprised that now he is on UK no-fly lists - I assume the end of this story is that we will all have a lesson in terrible things that happen to whistleblowers. That could be because he is a real guy who gets in trouble; but it would be as useful to the police state if he is a fake guy who gets in 'trouble.' |
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Louise Boyle
Daily Mail, UK 2013-01-29 10:51:00
A report released on Monday contains an email exchange between two senior officials at British-based contractor Britam Defence where a scheme 'approved by Washington' is outlined explaining that Qatar would fund rebel forces in Syria to use chemical weapons. Barack Obama made it clear to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last month that the U.S. would not tolerate Syria using chemical weapons against its own people. |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Shamus Cooke
Information Clearing House 2013-06-14 17:20:00
The long awaited Syrian peace talks - instigated by power brokers Russia and the United States - had already passed their initial due date, and are now officially stillborn. The peace talks are dead because the U.S.-backed rebels are boycotting the negotiations, ruining any hope for peace, while threatening to turn an already-tragic disaster into a Yugoslavia-style catastrophe...or worse. The U.S. backed rebels are not participating in the talks because they have nothing to gain from them, and everything to lose. In war, the purpose of peace negotiations is to copy the situation on the battlefield and paste it to a treaty: the army winning the war enters negotiations from a dominant position, since its position is enforceable on the ground. The U.S.-backed rebels would be entering peace talks broken and beaten, having been debilitated on the battlefield. The Syrian army has had a string of victories, pushing the rebels back to the border areas where they are protected by U.S. allies Turkey, Jordan, and northern Lebanon. Peace talks would merely expose this reality and end the war on terms dictated by the Syrian government. |
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RT
2013-06-13 16:45:00
After concluding that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the country's insurgency, thus crossing a 'red line,' the Obama administration has decided to start sending arms to anti-Assad rebels for the first time, officials say. Comment: Yes, for the first time, of course we believe that. See: U.S. openly sending heavy weapons from Libya to Syrian terrorists The Obama administration has assessed that chemical weapons, most likely the nerve gas sarin, were used in battle against the Syrian rebels, Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said in a statement. |
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RT
2013-06-13 16:15:00
Turkey's TV watchdog fined four TV channels over their live coverage of the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, citing that the broadcasts were "harming the physical, moral and mental development of children and young people." The Radio and Television Supreme Council fined private channels including Halk TV, Ulusal TV, Cem TV and EM TV. Halk TV has gained local popularity because of their 24-hour live coverage of protests in Turkey, as most of the mainstream media have been slammed for their lack of reporting on the protests in the country. |
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Geoffrey Macnab
The Independent, UK 2013-06-14 13:35:00
We may know him for spoon bending antics and for his lengthy friendship with pop star Michael Jackson but showbiz psychic Uri Geller has seemingly had a lengthy second career as a secret agent for Mossad and the CIA, albeit one that was more Austin Powers than James Bond. Geller was at the Sheffield Doc Fest this week for the premiere of Vikram Jayanti's The Secret Life Of Uri Geller - Psychic Spy?, a new film that offers compelling evidence of his involvement in the shadowy world of espionage. "Uri has a controversial reputation. A lot of people think he is a fraud, a lot of people think he is a trickster and makes things up but at the same time he has a huge following and a history of doing things that nobody can explain," Jayanti says of his Zelig-like subject. Speaking to The Independent, Geller acknowledged alarm when he first saw Jayanti's documentary. "I was worried and I am still concerned," Geller said of the way the documentary outs him as a spy. "I didn't realise that Vikram was going to do such a thorough job of tying all the loose ends...making that the little hints I dropped throughout my career were real." When he signed up for the doc, the psychic didn't realise quite how diligently Jayanti would track down his old spy masters. Nonetheless, he is happy that the doc is showing "a serious side" to him. "Some countries think I am a freak, bizarre, an eccentric," he sighs. |
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RT
2013-06-08 00:00:00
The US-China cyber battle is just a distraction designed by the Obama Administration to pressure China at a time when the Washington is implementing its "Pivot to Asia" foreign policy initiative, geopolitical analyst William Engdahl told RT. The California summit meeting between American President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping comes as the world's two largest economies clash over a range of divisive issues - including accusations that China has launched a cyber war against the United States. The meeting follows reports of Chinese hackers resuming their attacks against targets in the US and the most recent the revelations that the American NSA's PRISM program allegedly spied on millions of emails. RT: The US has been very active in the field of cyber espionage lately, so why get so touchy when somebody uses its own methods against it? William Engdahl: The US is probably the number one cyber warfare force on the planet right now. China is probably playing a defensive game. I think that's a red herring issue right now designed by Washington, by the Obama administration to put pressure on China at a time when the US is doing just that with the so-called Asia pivot. Which really is a China pivot that Obama announced in Australia back in 2011 to re-direct the American military force posture towards Japan with the missile defense which is [aimed] directly against China, towards the supporting of Japan in the Diaoyu Islands dispute which are in the South China sea, which is very critical for China's access to potentially vast mineral resources as well as its military sovereignty. So, I think this cyber-warfare is really a red herring in this whole dialogue. |
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Miriam Elder, Richard Norton-Taylor
Moscow says evidence it has been shown 'does not look convincing', and cautions US against arming Syrian rebelsThe Guardian 2013-06-14 11:28:00
Russia has dismissed US assertions that Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people, and said any US move to arm Syrian rebels would jeopardise efforts to convene a peace conference. Responding to White House moves to broaden its military support for the forces lined up against Assad's regime, the Kremlin said it was not convinced by the pretext for doing so. Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy adviser to Vladimir Putin, said US officials had briefed Russia on the allegations against Assad. "But I will say frankly that what was presented to us by the Americans does not look convincing," he said. "It would be hard even to call them facts." The White House said late on Thursday that it would supply direct military aid to Syria's rebels after concluding that government forces had used chemical weapons, something Barack Obama has called a "red line". David Cameron told the Guardian on Friday that Britain shared the Americans' "candid assessment". In Damascus, Syrian officials denounced the US verdict as a "caravan of lies" and said Washington's decision to arm the rebels was a "flagrant double standard" in its dealings with terrorism. |
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Glenn Greenwald
Guardian 2013-06-14 11:05:00
Addressing many of the issues arising from last week's NSA stories I haven't been able to write this week here because I've been participating in the debate over the fallout from last week's NSA stories, and because we are very busy working on and writing the next series of stories that will begin appearing very shortly. I did, though, want to note a few points, and particularly highlight what Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez said after Congress on Wednesday was given a classified briefing by NSA officials on the agency's previously secret surveillance activities: The Congresswoman is absolutely right: what we have reported thus far is merely "the tip of the iceberg" of what the NSA is doing in spying on Americans and the world. She's also right that when it comes to NSA spying, "there is significantly more than what is out in the media today", and that's exactly what we're working to rectify. But just consider what she's saying: as a member of Congress, she had no idea how invasive and vast the NSA's surveillance activities are. Sen. Jon Tester, who is a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said the same thing, telling MSNBC about the disclosures that "I don't see how that compromises the security of this country whatsoever" and adding: "quite frankly, it helps people like me become aware of a situation that I wasn't aware of before because I don't sit on that Intelligence Committee." |
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Fran Green
UN says 93,000 people killed during Syria's civil war - but the real number could be far higherInternational Business Times 2013-06-13 18:44:00
The UN has warned that the death toll in Syria's two-year civil war is close to 100,000. The UN's top human rights official, Navi Pillay, said that the total stands at 92,901 deaths and that more than 5,000 killings have been documented every month since last July. The figures include just under 27,000 new killings since the start of December, she added. |
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RT.com
2013-06-11 09:14:00
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), already embroiled in a high-profile scandal over its operations, is looking to acquire surveillance equipment that includes cameras concealed in plants, coffee trays and clock radios. The Washington-based agency seems prepared to take the tawdry task of tax collecting to a higher level with state-of-the art spy equipment. A government procurement list published on a US government website states that the IRS "intends to award a Purchase Order to an undisclosed Corporation." The list of specified equipment the tax-collecting agency is looking to procure includes four "Covert Coffee tray(s) with Camera concealment" as well as two "Concealed clock radio(s)." Another procurement item, which would make even James Bond green with envy, includes surveillance equipment to hide in plants: "Plant Concealment Color 700 Lines Color IP Camera Concealment with Single Channel Network Server, supports dual video stream, Poe, software included, case included, router included." Other coveted items include "Remote surveillance system, Built-in DVD Burner and 2 Internal HDDs, cameras." "The Procurement Office acquires the products and services required to support the IRS mission," according to its website. |
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| Society's Child |
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Michael Harper
RedOrbit 2013-06-14 16:05:00
Teenagers from every generation will always find a way to behave in a way that completely confounds adults from generations prior. Flagpole sitting, music festivals, planking and others have been curious yet mostly safe ways for kids to act out. Yet there are other dangerous trends out there that teenagers pick up that are more than confusing - many of which can be frightening and dangerous. A new story this week describes one such trend called "Oculolinctus," or eye-ball licking, which has become all the rage in Japan. Website Naver Matome (translated by Japan Crush) first pointed out this trend earlier this week, as one sixth grade teacher from Japan accidentally discovered why many of his students were showing up to class with eye patches. The teacher, known only as "Mr. Y," said the faculty at the school wasn't too worried when several students began showing up to class with styes, eye infections and eye patches. When the staff asked some of these students individually why they were wearing these patches or how they had gotten the infections, they indicated that it wasn't a big deal. However, once 10 students from the same class showed up wearing eye patches, the staff demanded answers. Mr. Y tells the story of how he accidentally stumbled upon the eye-licking kids: "After class one day, I went into the equipment store in the gymnasium to tidy up. The door had been left open, and when I looked inside, a male pupil and a female pupil had their faces close together and were kind of fumbling around," writes Mr. Y in his account of his experience with oculolinctus. |
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Lee Moran
New York Daily News 2013-06-14 11:50:00
A Chinese lady is counting the cost of not keeping her cash in the bank - after termites ate through $65,000 of her savings. The craving critters devoured 400,000 yuan - gifted from her children six months before - that she'd wrapped in a plastic bag and hidden in a wooden drawer. It was only in April, upon retreiving cash to pay a house decorator, that she saw that the tiny beasts had raided her stash. People's Daily reports she took the money to an Agricultural Bank of China branch in Guangdong Province. Staff spent several painstaking hours scanning and verifying the bank notes, which had been nibbled and then stuck together by the termites' mucus. They managed to verify some 340,000 yuan ($55,454). But some 60,000 yuan ($9,786) was lost. Those notes have now been sent off to a People's Bank of China branch to be inspected. |
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The Telegraph, UK
A plane has crashed into an airport hangar during a mechanical test
in Chino, California. Three workers were onboard but were not injured.2013-06-14 13:36:00
A small passenger jet with three people on board has struck a hangar while taxiing at an airport in California. Authorities in Chino said nobody was hurt in the incident, which is under investigation. A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot apparently lost control during an engine test at the Encore Jet Centre. Local media reported that mechanics were checking the engine and that the plane's tyres were on chocks. For an unknown reason, the jet came off the chocks, and it crashed into a hangar. Firefighters shut off electricity because of a concern of leaking fuel, but no leak was confirmed. Four adjacent hangars and businesses within those hangars were evacuated. |
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Dominic Rushe
At six-month anniversary of Newtown shooting, guns manufacturer reports its sales are up 43% over last yearThe Guardian 2013-06-14 12:57:00
Gun sales at Smith & Wesson have hit an all-time high during a year marked by some of the most horrific acts of gun violence in US history. The arms manufacturer reported this week that sales for the year ending 30 April had hit a record $588m, a 43% year-on-year rise. Smith & Wesson said fourth-quarter sales were up 38% year-on-year to $179m. It told investors it expects its first-quarter financial results to top market expectations and is planning to buy back $100m of its shares. US gun sales are hard to track, but one of the most reliable figures comes from the number of requests for background checks, an FBI-required precursor to obtaining a gun licence. Nine of the 10 days with the most daily requests for background checks ever recorded occurred after December's massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school. The week after set a new record for background checks. CBS Connecticut reported that permit applications in Newtown itself more than doubled in the three months following the killings. Retailers also reported a spike in gun sales after James Holmes shot dead 12 people and injured 58 at a screening of the Dark Knight Rises in a Colorado cinema in July. Sales soared again after Barack Obama's re-election in November as buyers feared a clampdown on sales, especially on assault weapons. |
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Ian Sparks
Sebastien Hardenne and Isabelle Simon kept their children in a locked roomThe Daily Mail, UK 2013-06-14 12:19:00 Three girls and a boy were 'fed' excrement-smeared food through a hole Father urinated in the children's mouths and beat them with an iron bar Two girls locked in suitcase smeared with dog excrement and swung around Hardenne and Simon jailed for ten years for 'inflicting inhuman treatment' A barbaric couple who 'water-boarded' their four children during a decade of captivity and extreme abuse have been jailed for ten years in Belgium. Parents Sebastien Hardenne and Isabelle Simon kept their three girls and a boy in a locked room at night and 'fed' them excrement-smeared food through a hole in the wall. The father urinated in the children's mouths, beat them with an iron bar and whips and tortured them with an electric fly swatter.
Two girls were also locked in a suitcase smeared with dog excrement and swung around a room. Sadistic Hardenne also performed 'water-boarding' torture similar to that allegedly used at America's Guantanamo Bay prison, the court in Marche-en-Famenne was told. Social services in the town of Biron were alerted by the children's school in 2003 that they were dirty and undernourished, but they were only taken into care once in a decade for two months before being returned to their parents. The parents were finally arrested earlier this year after an anonymous tip-off to the authorities. |
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Kieran Nicholson
Monique Gallegos was inside her Westminster home Thursday when a nearby
explosion staggered her. Windows blew out, a ceiling fan was dislodged,
crashing into the dining room, and a framed photo or art piece flew off
the wall and smashed Gallegos in the back.The Denver Post 2013-06-14 10:58:00 "I thought a plane had crashed, or it was a bomb, a terrorist," Gallegos recalled as she waited Thursday afternoon to get the OK to return to her home in the 9200 block of Ingalls Street.
Gallegos quickly got her mother, Arleen Gallegos, 70, out of the house, and along with other neighbors, they watched, stunned, as debris, materials from homes - pieces of rooftop shingles, splintered siding, insulation - continued to land in the street.11:35 a.m. a home on the 9300 block of Ingalls Street exploded, reduced to a pile of rubble and making the cul-de-sac it occupied look like part of a war zone. A second home also sustained heavy damage and several surrounding homes, like Gallegos', were damaged, as well. Westminster firefighter Courtney VanMarter was among the first on the scene. She encountered a house that had been leveled, with lots of debris and blown out windows. She described the scene as reminiscent of a tornado. "Truly there is not a whole let left in this house," VanMarter said. "It's quite shocking." Additional Images |
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RT.com
2013-06-12 10:25:00
The UK has been going through its deepest recession since World War II, a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies claims. Workers experienced unprecedented pay cuts of 6 per cent over the last five years since the Global Financial Crisis began in 2008. Between 2010 and 2011, 70 per cent of employees who stayed in the same job fronted real wage cuts, while a third of those workers faced nominal wage freezes or cuts (12 per cent experienced freezes and 21 per cent experienced cuts). The last time that such a high proportion of workers faced real wage cuts was between 1976 and 1977, when inflation exceeded 15 per cent. The proportions of nominal wage freezes and cuts are said to be the highest since the series of wage cuts began in the mid-1970s, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies latest report. The period since the recession began in 2008 has seen the longest and deepest loss of output in a century. Real wages have fallen by more than in any comparable five-year period; productivity levels have dropped to an unprecedented degree, the British think tank revealed. |
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The Telegraph
2013-06-13 11:19:00
Reports suggested at least three people were killed and more than 70 were wounded in the crash. Lucas Ghi, mayor of the nearby town of Moron, said he was still awaiting details on the number of fatalities and that between 50 and 60 people were hurt in the accident about 19 miles west of the Argentina capital. The crash happened near the Castelar stop when a passenger train rammed another train that was empty and stationary, according to the reports. Rescue workers and volunteers were at the scene to help the wounded trapped by the collision, which television reports said happened at around 7.30am local time. Dozens of ambulances were also at the crash site. Hospitals in the area were on alert to deal with casualties. | |
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| Secret History |
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No new articles. |
| Science & Technology |
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Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge 2013-06-14 16:12:00
The rabbit hole just got deeper. A whole lot deeper. On Sunday we predicated that "there's one reason why the administration, James Clapper and the NSA should just keep their mouths shut as the PRISM-gate fallout escalates: with every incremental attempt to refute some previously unknown facet of the US Big Brother state, a new piece of previously unleaked information from the same intelligence organization now scrambling for damage control, emerges and exposes the brand new narrative as yet another lie, forcing even more lies, more retribution against sources, more journalist persecution and so on." And like a hole that just gets deeper the more you dug and exposes ever more dirt, tonight's installment revealing one more facet of the conversion of a once great republic into a great fascist, "big brother" state, comes from Bloomberg which reports that "thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said." |
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Megan Gannon
LiveScience 2013-06-14 14:34:00
Standard atomic weights, those numbers emblazoned under the elements on the periodic table, were once thought of as unchanging constants of nature. But researchers have tweaked the atomic weights of five elements - magnesium, bromine, germanium, indium and mercury - in a new table published by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). To calculate standard atomic weight, scientists have traditionally averaged the weights of the stable variations of an element known as isotopes. All atoms of an element have the same atomic number, or number of protons in their nuclei, but the number of neutrons in the nuclei can vary, leading some isotopes to be lighter or heavier. Carbon-12, for example, the most abundant carbon isotope, has six protons and six neutrons. Its slightly heavier cousin, carbon-13, has six protons and seven neutrons. Standard atomic weight also depends on how common an element's stable isotopes are. In other words, the more plentiful an isotope, the more it will influence the average. But the abundance of an isotope can also vary from place to place on Earth, leading to differences in an element's atomic weight depending on its context. For that reason, the atomic weights of magnesium and bromine will now be expressed as intervals with upper and lower bounds instead of single values. The atomic weight of bromine, for instance, is commonly thought to be 79.904, but it can actually range between 79.901 and 79.907, depending on where the element is found. |
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Brett Smith
RedOrbit 2013-06-14 13:45:00
Within a span of three minutes, a star in the Usra Major constellation less than 16 light-years from Earth gave off a massive flare, making the object 15 times brighter than normal, according to a new report in the journal Astrophysics. The star, known as WX UMa, is a so-called flare star, a class of stars which can become 100 times or more brighter within a few seconds or minutes. These flares appear to be randomly occurring, and the stars return to their normal state tens of minutes after the event. "We recorded a strong flare of the star WX UMa, which became almost 15 times brighter in a matter of 160 seconds," said report co-author Vakhtang Tamazian, an astrophysicist at the University of Santiago de Compostela. WX UMa is part of a binary system with a companion star that shines almost 100 times brighter, except during WX UMa flare events. The event described in the report was observed from the Byurakan Observatory in Armenia. "During this period of less than three minutes the star underwent an abrupt change ... from a temperature of 2,800 kelvin to six or seven times more than that," Tamazian noted. While scientists currently do not know how to predict these flares, they do know how they develop. |
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Tanya Lewis
LiveScience 2013-06-13 13:00:00
Leprosy is much less common today than it was during the Middle Ages, but the bacterium that causes this debilitating disease has hardly changed since then, a new study finds. Researchers sequenced the surprisingly well-preserved genome of the leprosy bacterium in skeletons exhumed from medieval graves in Europe. It's the first time an ancient genome has been sequenced "from scratch" (without a reference genome), and reveals that medieval leprosy strains were nearly identical to modern leprosy strains. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is due to a chronic infection of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae. The disease causes skin lesions that can permanently damage the skin, nerves, eyes and limbs. While it doesn't cause body parts to fall off, those infected with leprosy can become deformed as a result of secondary infections. The disease often strikes during the peak reproductive years, but it develops very slowly, and can take 25 to 30 years for symptoms to appear. The disease was extremely common in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, especially in southern Scandinavia. "It was a major public health problem," said study co-author Jesper Boldsen, a biological anthropologist at the University of Southern Denmark. But leprosy declined precipitously during the 16th century. To understand why, Boldsen's colleagues sequenced DNA from five medieval skeletons, and from biopsies of living people with leprosy. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Joe Hanson
Wired.com 2013-06-13 15:55:00
Just after summer sunsets in northern latitudes, shimmering, wispy clouds appear in the twilight sky. This year, these noctilucent clouds have appeared earlier and farther south than ever before. Noctilucent clouds exist higher in Earth's atmosphere than any other cloud type. First observed in 1885 following the eruption of Krakatoa, they were a sight reserved for Earth's northernmost residents. In recent years, however, their intensity and frequency have increased, often at latitudes previously thought to be too far south for noctilucent clouds to form. In 2009, scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research pointed to the southern creep of noctilucent clouds as an early warning signal for climate change high in the atmosphere. Now, new data from NASA's cloud-observing AIM satellite supports this possibility. James Russell, principal investigator for AIM, says increasing methane emissions could be amping up the cloud show. "When methane makes its way into the upper atmosphere, it is oxidized by a complex series of reactions to form water vapor," Russell said. "This extra water vapor is then available to grow ice crystals for [noctilucent clouds]." |
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Meg Jones
The exhausted travelers were just about out of gas, so they pulled over to the only rest stop they could find in the fog.Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel 2013-06-12 13:51:00 The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources workers aboard the research vessel Coregonus wondered why so many migrating warblers were suddenly landing on their boat 16 miles off the Lake Michigan shore from Port Washington. The pooped birds didn't care where they landed, as long as it was dry.
To the warblers lost in the fog, the boat probably looked like a giant floating life preserver. "Most of them were just dead-tired," DNR fisheries technician Tim Kroeff said Tuesday. American redstart, magnolia and palm warblers were among the species landing on the boat, as well as at least one vesper sparrow. "Some were so tired I could catch them with my hand and bring them into the cabin. Some of them would land and it was almost like they were in hypothermia, they were shivering," said Kroeff, a DNR fisheries technician for three decades. Warblers migrating from tropical climates to Wisconsin to breed or pass through on their way to Canada visit stopover sites, which ornithologists have dubbed fire escapes, convenience stores and full-service hotels, depending on habitat and availability of food. On this day in late May, the Coregonus was a fire escape - a vital rescue stop the birds happened upon that likely saved their lives. "It happens in the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico; there are amazing stories from people on ships," said Noel Cutright, founder of Western Great Lakes Bird and Bat Observatory in Ozaukee County. "They're always looking for some place to sit down." |
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Michael Cipriano
foxnews.com 2013-06-13 13:15:00
Residents of a small California town wish a certain endangered species would make itself scarce. Flocks of California condors have descended upon Bear Valley Springs. Residents, who are allowed to do little to chase them away, say the huge birds peck off roof shingles, damage air conditioners and leave porches coated in droppings. And although the majestic birds, with a wingspan of nine feet, are widely admired, the gated community of about 5,200 about 80 miles north of Los Angeles has seen enough of them. "A lot of people used to think seeing a condor was amazing," local realtor Beth Hall told FoxNews.com. "After seeing the damage they have done, they have become less popular with people, myself included." Unfortunately for the residents, the birds are protected by both federal and state law, leaving them almost powerless to take action. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 66 of the remaining 417 condors live in Southern California. The condors caused significant damage on the outside of a rental property of Hall's, leaving her with big repair bills. The worst of it took place on her deck after one of the birds opened and spilled a can of white paint. Other condors tracked the paint all around on the deck, Hall said. Hall also reported that the birds have covered the house in feces, nibbled at the wiring of the air conditioner and ripped off the screens of two sliding doors. |
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Caitlin Johnston
Tampa Bay times 2013-06-13 00:00:00
Homes in the sinkhole-plagued community of Seffner could be sitting on a fracture line linking them to about 20 other sinkholes, including the 20-foot-deep pit that opened under a home in February and killed Jeffrey Bush. And as Hillsborough County enters what one geologist labels "sinkhole weather," the potential for sinkholes to form will only increase. Since Bush's death brought national attention to sinkholes here, they seem to be sprouting all over Hillsborough, including several in the past week. "You'll get areas that just seem to get active," said Sandy Nettles, a private geologist in Palm Harbor. "It could be any number of things that actually stimulated it, but usually once they start rolling into an area, you get more action." In Plant City, Tom Manus was told to leave his home on North Country Hills Court after a sinkhole was discovered under his porch Saturday. On Sunday, a Bob Evans restaurant in Seffner was closed after employees found cracks on the ceiling, floor and walls. Geological tests are ongoing, but that type of damage is associated with sinkholes. Later that day, a Tampa family on Jean Street was asked to evacuate after a sinkhole developed in the front yard. The home is east of Hesperides Street and a half mile north of Hillsborough Avenue. |
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James Long
KFVS 2013-06-14 11:33:00
Five years ago, we reported on sinkholes becoming a problem on South Sprigg Street. The problem has gotten much worse over time, and could close part of the street for good. Sinkholes have been in the news a lot over the past few months. There was the man who died in Florida after his home was swallowed by a sinkhole. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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NewsinEnglish, Norway
Terje Fjeldheim, a geologist who acknowledges that he "knows a bit about
rocks," was out fishing in the mountains of Setesdal, southern Norway,
when he stumbled upon what's believed to be a meteorite weighing
four-and-a-half kilos. That would make it the largest meteorite found in
Norway in the last 100 years.2013-06-14 15:08:00 "It was so different that it immediately started ringing some bells," Fjeldheim told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) on Friday. Fjeldheim's discovery has sparked excitement among astrophysicists and Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard, Norway's celebrity astronomer and meteorite expert, was "ecstatic," according to Fjeldheim. Rune Selbekk of the Museum of Natural History in Oslo has only seen Fjeldheim's photos so far, but said his "gut feeling" is good. "I get around 2,000 to 3,000 samples every year," Selbekk told NRK. "When something authentic comes in, it offsets all the disappointments." The last time a bigger meteorite was found in Norway was in the far northern city of Alta in 1902. Before that, Tysnes in 1884, reported NRK. Only a bit more than a dozen meteorites have been found in Norway, with one of the most recent ones crashing through the roof of a holiday cabin in Oslo just last year. Fjeldheim was due to bring the meteorite in to the museum Friday afternoon and have it evaluated. It may be worth as much as NOK 225,000, should he decide to sell it. |
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Toowoomba Chronicle, Australia
2013-06-13 19:46:00
There have been multiple reports of a bright burning light in the sky over Toowoomba and the Darling Downs last night. Witnesses reported seeing a bright white ball falling to earth about 6pm. It is understood the object may have been a meteor or space junk. Several people contacted The Chronicle this morning to report the sighting. On Facebook, witnesses spoke of a "spectacular" light display that at first appeared to be a shooting star.
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| Health & Wellness |
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Sciencedaily.com
2013-06-13 00:00:00
It turns out that helping others can also help you protect yourself from high blood pressure. New research from Carnegie Mellon University shows that older adults who volunteer for at least 200 hours per year decrease their risk of hypertension, or high blood pressure, by 40 percent. The study, published by the American Psychological Association's Psychology and Aging journal, suggests that volunteer work may be an effective non-pharmaceutical option to help prevent the condition. Hypertension affects an estimated 65 million Americans and is a major contributor to cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. "Everyday, we are learning more about how negative lifestyle factors like poor diet and lack of exercise increase hypertension risk," said Rodlescia S. Sneed, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology in CMU's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and lead author of the study. "Here, we wanted to determine if a positive lifestyle factor like volunteer work could actually reduce disease risk. And, the results give older adults an example of something that they can actively do to remain healthy and age successfully." |
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Dean Nelson, New Delhi, Raf Sanchez in Washington, Richard Gray and Alex Spillius
The Telegraph 2013-06-13 15:00:00
Dinesh Thakur, formerly a senior executive at Ranbaxy, repeatedly contacted officials at the UK Medicines and Heath Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) with concerns about at least 16 drugs the company was supplying or seeking to supply to the National Health Service. Manufactured in India, the medicines were "generic" versions of branded drugs, which are made for a fraction of the cost and save the NHS billions of pounds a year. They included common antibiotics and anti-cholesterol drugs prescribed millions of times to Britons annually, as well as treatments for serious conditions such as depression, schizophrenia and epilepsy. In a series of emails from 2004 onwards to the MHRA seen by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Thakur listed the drugs that he said were available or soon to be on sale in Britain on what he alleged was suspect or unreliable clinical data. He suggested that British patients may have been put at risk by Ranbaxy's "spurious, untested medicines". An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has revealed that the MHRA's reaction to Mr Thakur's overtures contrasted sharply with that of the US Food and Drugs Administration. | |
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Comment: For more information on the Ranbaxy scandal read: Dirty medicine
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| Science of the Spirit |
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The Telegraph, UK
People can sense a genuine smile before it even appears on a face, researchers say
2013-06-13 07:37:00
But a forced or polite smile does not transmit the same signals, meaning we only detect it when it is visible, reports journal Psychological Science. Researchers say the study reflects the unique social value of a heartfelt smile, which involves specific movements of muscles around the eyes. A team from Bangor University had noted that pairs of strangers getting to know one another not only exchanged smiles, they almost always matched the particular smile type, whether genuine or polite. But they responded much more quickly to their partners' genuine smiles than their polite smiles, suggesting that they were anticipating the genuine smiles. In the lab, the results were repeated and data from electrical sensors on participants' faces revealed that they engaged smile-related muscles when they expected a genuine smile to appear but showed no such activity when expecting polite smiles. |
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Jeremy Dean
Psyblog 2013-06-05 00:00:00
People search for information that confirms their view of the world and ignore what doesn't fit. In an uncertain world, people love to be right because it helps us make sense of things. Indeed some psychologists think it's akin to a basic drive. One of the ways they strive to be correct is by looking for evidence that confirms they are correct, sometimes with depressing or comic results:
We do it automatically, usually without realising. We do it partly because it's easier to see where new pieces fit into the picture-puzzle we are working on, rather than imagining a new picture. It also helps shore up our vision of ourselves as accurate, right-thinking, consistent people who know what's what. |
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| High Strangeness |
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No new articles. |
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
| No new articles. |
