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Joe Quinn
Sott.net 2013-06-02 22:40:00
The idea that many 'terrorist' attacks are in fact carried out by government intelligence agencies is not a new concept (we here at Sott.net have spent the last ten years attempting to highlight the evidence for government complicity in 'Islamic terrorism' for one example). What is new is the idea that these government-inspired or perpetrated terrorist attacks are somehow doubly "fake" in the sense that some or all of the details of the attack didn't actually happen in any real sense. The idea is that, not only was the attack fake in the sense that government, not 'Muslim terrorists' or 'homegrown terrorists', were responsible, but that the apparent victims were fake also, their roles, where necessary, being portrayed by 'actors', presumably working for the government. The claim that 'crisis actors' were used in place of real victims has been made about the December 2012 Sandy Hook shootings, the more recent Boston marathon bombings and even the May 22nd knife attack on a British soldier in London. To clarify, the idea of 'actors' as it is being used in this context is not the same as 'media plants'. Media plants are people placed at the scene of a government false-flag terror attack who pose as 'eyewitnesses' to establish an official narrative for the media and public. 'Actors', on the other hand, are people who are supposedly part of the false-flag attack itself and who pose as victims of the attack but who are not really injured at all. The Sandy Hook massacre last December seems to have been the the first major event where the 'actors' idea gained traction. Within a month of the massacre, there were literally hundreds of Youtube videos and articles supposedly providing proof that the parents and neighbors of the victims were actually crisis actors and, therefore, the entire event was probably staged and no one was killed. The 'hoax' was, it is claimed, a crass and obvious attempt by the government to impose 'gun control' on America. Many of the Sandy Hook hoax videos have received tens, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of views. I wrote about the implausibility of that particular 'actors' theory here and tried to compile the best evidence for Sandy Hook being a US intel 'black' operation here and here. Despite my efforts, (not that I ever expect them to make much difference) the 'terror attack actors' idea continued to gain pace and made a serious reappearance at the Boston Marathon bombings. |
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Russia Today
Thousands of protesters pack Istanbul's Taksim Square, over 900 arrested across Turkey2013-05-15 15:07:00
Police in Istanbul have withdrawn from Taksim Square, allowing the mass protest to continue unabated, Turkish media report. Istanbul and Ankara are entering the third day of violent protests, with tear gas and water cannon deployed and over 900 arrested. Minor scuffles broke out after protesters lobbed fireworks at officers as they were drawing back, the state-run Anadolu Agency reports. Police removed barricades around the square, located in the heart of the city, which had previously been erected to prevent the anti-government protests, Private Dogan news agency said. Despite the authorities decision to allow tens of thousands to flood onto the square, the main subway gateway to Taksim, the central station in the city's metro network, has reportedly been shut down in an effort to keep more people from reaching the ongoing protests.
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Tarihinde Yayımlandı
İnsanlik Hali 2013-06-01 16:34:00
To my friends who live outside of Turkey: I am writing to let you know what is going on in Istanbul for the last five days. I personally have to write this because most of the media sources are shut down by the government and word of mouth and the internet are the only ways left for us to explain ourselves and call for help and support. Four days ago a group of people who did not belong to any specific organization or ideology got together in Istanbul's Gezi Park. Among them there were many of my friends and students. Their reason was simple: To prevent and protest the upcoming demolishing of the park for the sake of building yet another shopping mall at very center of the city. There are numerous shopping malls in Istanbul, at least one in every neighborhood! The tearing down of the trees was supposed to begin early Thursday morning. People went to the park with their blankets, books and children. They put their tents down and spent the night under the trees. Early in the morning when the bulldozers started to pull the hundred-year-old trees out of the ground, they stood up against them to stop the operation. They did nothing other than standing in front of the machines.
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'Cursed spring' of relentless rain: Italy just went through its wettest spring in at least 150 years
Lizzy Davies
Italy shivers through 'cursed spring' of relentless rainThe Guardian 2013-05-31 06:27:00 June normally heralds the arrival of summer heat, but 2013's capricious weather is fuelling new meteorological obsession
As the breeze swept in under the cafe's parasols and the sky darkened over Rome, waiter Apu Haq exchanged commiserations with a customer nursing an espresso and a scowl. "They said summer was going to arrive this week," remarked Haq, "and instead came winter." Within minutes, torrential rain was lashing the cobblestones as thunder rumbled in the distance. "It's all the wrong way round," said a bewildered Haq, from Bangladesh. "It's incredible. I've been here for 10 years now and I've never seen anything like it. It's too strange." Italian springs are often strange, but this one will perhaps be remembered as particularly capricious. As with much of northern Europe, the country has shivered its way through a good deal of the year. In the north-west, according to the Italian meteorological society, residents have had the coldest May since 1991. In much of the north-east, the spring has been the wettest for at least 150 years. A mountain stage of the Giro d'Italia bike race was called off due to snow and ice. Beach resorts in Tuscany have been flooded. Many farmers have suffered huge damage to their crops. Now, as June arrives, it should technically be summer. But it certainly doesn't feel like it. "Last year, by this point, we were going to the sea. At the beginning of June we went down to the Fori Imperiali and sunbathed," said Mario Ramelli, a street-corner florist in central Rome. This spring's brutto tempo has been a topic of conversation with many of his customers - that is, those who stop to buy a pot of pansies or, optimistically, some sunflowers. "When it's horrid and wet, people hurry by," said Ramelli. "It's not good for work." | |
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Comment: How's the weather where you are?
Notice anything about the climate in the past couple of years? |
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Guy Walters
The Daily Mail, UK 2013-06-01 11:19:00
The handsome American soldier was Elisabeth's tenth client that evening. Working her trade on the top floor of a dingy apartment block in Paris, she felt that she had seen them all. For the past four years, the men had been Germans, and now, since the city had been liberated in August, 1944, they were Americans. It made little difference. Elisabeth held out three fingers of her hand to indicate the price of her body - three hundred francs. 'Too much,' said the soldier. Elisabeth sighed. She had seen that before as well. Wearily, she kept the three fingers held up, almost as an insult. There was no negotiation - three hundred was little enough as it was. 'Two hundred,' the soldier insisted. 'Non,' said Elisabeth. 'Three hundred or nothing'. The soldier approached her, hate in his eyes. Elisabeth glowered back, starting to feel scared. 'In that case,' said the soldier, 'it will be nothing.' |
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David Derbyshire
Daily Mail, UK 2008-08-14 06:04:00
Smoking can help boost memory and concentration, say scientists. The discovery offers hope of a nicotine pill that mimics these effects to treat Alzheimer's disease. Experts are developing drugs that copy the active ingredients in tobacco that stimulate the brain without causing heart disease, cancer, stroke or addiction. The move follows the discovery that nicotine can boost the intelligence and recall ability of animals in laboratory experiments. The researchers, who present their latest findings at a brain conference today, hope that the new drugs, which will be available in five years, could have fewer side effects than existing medicines for dementia. But they stress the new treatment would not be a cure for Alzheimer's disease. At best it will only give patients a few extra months of independent life. Tobacco has long been known to have a stimulating effect on the brain. Victorian doctors recommended smoking as a means of sharpening the wits and boosting concentration. | |
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Comment: Medical research in the hands of Big Pharma is
generally a disaster, but the silver lining here is that they went from
trying to prove that smoking kills to showing that it's so healthy,
they want to make a pile of money from it.
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| Puppet Masters |
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Russia Today
2012-10-23 09:31:00
As the situation in Syria intensifies, its neighbor Turkey, which is at the frontline of the offensive against President Assad's government, is being dubbed as the world's leading jailer of journalists by a New York - based media watchdog. The latest investigation says that 76 journalists were detained in Turkey as of August 1, 80 per cent of which were imprisoned as a direct result of their work. The remaining 20 per cent of the cases are still being investigated by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) workers. The report also claims that three-quarters of jailed journalists have not yet been convicted of any crime but are held while they await "resolution of their cases." The findings claim that "the Turkish government is engaging in a broad offensive to silence critical journalists through imprisonment, legal prosecution and official intimidation," as 70 per cent of those in jail were Kurdish and the rest being accused of participating in plots against the government, or membership of outlawed organizations. |
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BBC
2013-06-03 08:03:00
A number of people have been killed in an exchange of fire between Syrian rebels and fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, say reports. Lebanese security sources said the clashes took place on Lebanon's side of the border, near the town of Baalbek. Hezbollah is fighting alongside the army in Syria, but the clashes have rarely crossed onto Lebanese soil. Meanwhile the Red Cross has said it is alarmed by the worsening situation in the besieged Syrian town of Qusair. It has appealed for access to the town, which lies just 10km (6 miles) over the Lebanese border. Thousands of civilians are believed to be trapped as pro-government forces - including Hezbollah fighters - battle rebels. | |
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Comment: That last line should read "...since the civil war in Syria was started and sustained by the CIA and friends in 2011."
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Ian Cobain
The Guardian 2013-05-31 09:37:00
UN Committee Against Torture report recommends 40 separate measures to be taken before UK is given clean bill of health The British government's human rights record since the attacks of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq is facing ferocious criticism from a United Nations panel, which warns that prompt action is needed to ensure the country meets its obligations under international law. In a report published on Friday, the UN Committee against Torture recommends more than 40 separate measures which it says will need to be taken if the UK is to be given a clean bill of health. While the committee has focused on the failure to hold to account those responsible for human rights abuses in the so-called war on terror, and for the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq, it also raises a series of other serious concerns over matters that include the controversial Justice and Security Act, the forced removal of failed asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, and the failure to hold a public inquiry into the state's involvement in the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane. The report - which will doubtless make uncomfortable reading across Whitehall - contains the harshest criticism that the committee has yet made of a British government. It is the first substantial criticism since 1992, when the UK was told that were it not for the mistreatment of terrorism suspects in Northern Ireland, it would have been found to have "met in virtually every respect" its obligations under the UN convention against torture. |
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Daily Mail
2013-06-02 17:08:00
Gunmen have shot dead the prosecutor investigating the murder of Pakistan's ex-leader Benazir Bhutto. The men on a motorcycle killed Chaudhry Zulfikar as he left his home and headed to a hearing in the case. Chaudhry Zulfikar was at the helm of a number of highly controversial cases, including the 2007 Bhutto assassination in which Musharraf is accused of involvement. Zulfikar was on his way to a court in Islamabad when gunmen fired at him from a taxi, hitting him in the head, shoulder and chest, said police officer Mohammed Ishaq. Zulfikar then lost control of his car, which hit a woman passer-by and killed her, said another police officer, Mohammed Rafiq. Zulfikar's guard, Farman Ali, returned fire and is believed to have wounded at least one of the attackers, Rafiq said. Ali also was injured in the attack. Police official Yasin Farooq said the attackers fled after killing Zulfikar, and that a massive search has been launched to find them. A motive for the killing was unclear, but Zulfikar's involvement in the two particularly high-profile cases will likely be scrutinized closely. Government prosecutors have accused Musharraf of being involved in the Bhutto assassination and not providing enough security to Pakistan's first female prime minister. Musharraf, who was in power when was killed, has denied the allegations. At the time of the attack, he blamed the assassination on the Pakistani Taliban. The Bhutto case has lingered for years in the Pakistani court system. A number of alleged assailants are on trial but no one has been convicted. The case burst into the headlines when Musharraf returned in March after four years in exile. Zulfikar was also the government's lead prosecutor in a case related to the 2008 terrorist attack on the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people. | |
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Comment: A motive was "unclear"? Hardly. See this Sott Focus for the very clear motive
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Rowena Mason
The Telegraph 2013-05-30 00:00:00
Taxpayers are likely to have to pay millions towards the cost of policing the secretive Bilderberg meeting of the global elite due to gather in Hertfordshire next week. The clandestine meeting of royalty, prime ministers and business chiefs is taking place in Britain for the first time since 1998, sparking fears of "violence and disturbance" by protesters. The Bilderberg organisers, who include Tory Cabinet minister Ken Clarke, do not release a guest list but a roll-call of luminaries are expected to descend on a luxury Watford hotel from June 6, forcing police to step up security. Hertfordshire police have refused to release the cost of security for the event, which has previously drawn anti-capitalist demonstrators in other locations around the world. However, they are in talks with the Home Office about a grant for "unexpected or exceptional costs" that is only given out if it threatens the stability of the force's policing budget. The final bill would have to total more than one per cent of the police force's overall spend - or about £1.8 million - for the grant to be successful. The invitation-only Bilderberg meetings are attended by around 140 members of the international elite. |
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Dana Bash
Washington (CNN) - The Internal Revenue Service has told House GOP
investigators they have identified 88 IRS employees who may have
documents relevant to the congressional investigation into targeting of
conservative groups, according to a congressional source familiar with
the investigation.cnn.com 2013-06-02 12:07:00 The IRS asked these employees to preserve all the "responsive documents" on their computers, and it has been in the process of collecting it all to comply with congressional requests for information. The IRS missed its May 21st deadline to turn over documents to the House Ways and Means Committee. The same source said the IRS argues it missed its deadline because of the scope of documents it is collecting. The request for documents was a bipartisan one, but Republicans are privately preparing to seize on the fact that if nearly 90 IRS employees may have been somehow involved in this targeting, it is evidence that the controversy extends well beyond the mistakes by a few low level employees. However, with no documents in hand, there is no way to know how many of the employees being asked to preserve documents were truly involved in the activity in question. The IRS, in a statement to CNN, said the large number reflects its effort to ensure they are as responsive as possible to the Congressional requests. "The IRS and Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel are moving aggressively and taking the data requests very seriously. As a precautionary measure, the IRS is casting a wide net to capture any potentially related materials. Our goal is to be exceedingly thorough during this process to ensure we identify any and all pertinent records," the IRS statement said. "The IRS has received numerous congressional requests involving an extensive set of questions and calls for data. Responding to these requests is a top priority for us. We have been in contact with committee staff, and we continue to provide them updates as we diligently work through these requests." |
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Joe Weisenthal
Business Insider 2013-05-31 11:47:00
With the Dow falling, a lot of people have been talking about a rare sighting in markets: THE HINDENBURG OMEN. The Hindenburg Omen is a technical analysis thing that some people think portends a stock market crash. From Wikipedia: |
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Bernie Becker
The House Oversight Committee is holding another hearing on the IRS -
but not one dealing with the agency's targeting of conservative groups.thehill.com 2013-05-31 10:41:00 The panel, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), will hear on Thursday from Treasury's inspector general for tax administration about "excessive spending" at IRS conferences. "The IRS is an agency in crisis," Issa said in a statement. "The American people expect that their tax-dollars will be used responsibly and not for financing lavish hotel suites and entertainment for government employees. The Oversight Committee will examine these egregious abuses of the public trust and an IRS culture that shuns accountability." "Cutting down on excessive and inappropriate travel has been a personal priority for me," said Werfel, a former senior official at the Office of Management and Budget. Danny Werfel, the acting IRS chief, said that the inspector general report would discuss an IRS conference from 2010 - "an unfortunate vestige from a prior era," as Werfel put it. "While there were legitimate reasons for holding the meeting, many of the expenses associated with it were inappropriate and should not have occurred," Werfel said. Werfel said the sort of conference that will be described in the report, which he expects to be released on Tuesday, could not happen today, and that travel and training expenses at the IRS have already dropped more than 80 percent since 2010. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has asked Werfel to conduct a thorough examination of the agency in his first month on the job, and the new acting commissioner made clear that the IRS's bottom line would be a hot topic for him. |
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Irishtimes.com
2013-06-02 08:26:00
More than 1,000 people were killed in violence in Iraq in May, making it the deadliest month since the sectarian slaughter of 2006-07, the United Nations reported today, raising fears of a return to civil war. "That is a sad record," Martin Kobler, the UN envoy in Baghdad, said in a statement. "Iraqi political leaders must act immediately to stop this intolerable bloodshed." | |
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Comment: This article, like so many other mainstream
media articles on Iraq, totally fails to point the finger at the real
culprits for the so-called "civil war" in Iraq. From the very beginning
of the illegal invasion of Iraq by US forces, the US government and
military conspired to fracture and divide any Iraqi opposition to the
invasion and occupation through the use of US-sponsored death squads who
went about their task of indiscriminately murdering Iraqi civilians
from both Shia and Sunni communities. See this Sott Focus editorial for further details and the evidence.
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Fars News Agency
2013-06-01 07:43:00
A senior Iranian diplomat blasted Washington for raising baseless allegations against Tehran, and said the US which supports terrorist groups with financial, political and arms aids cannot accuse others of advocating terrorism. "The US is not in a position to accuse other countries of supporting terrorism," Spokesman of Iran's mission at the UN in New York said, reacting to the US state department's 2012 annual report on terrorism. He further reiterated that the US support for terrorist groups in the region, Israel's state-sponsored terrorism and the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCRI) shows Washington's double standards in confronting the phenomenon of terrorism. Mir-Yousefi underlined that the Islamic Republic of Iran which is a victim of state-sponsored terrorism has fought terrorist groups through different possible means for decades. |
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End of the American Dream
2013-05-28 11:42:00
Most Americans assume that the U.S. military is so vastly superior to everyone else that no other nation would ever dream of fighting a full-scale war against us. Unfortunately, that assumption is dead wrong. In recent years, the once mammoth technological gap between the U.S. military and the Chinese military has been closing at a frightening pace. China has been accomplishing this by brazenly stealing our technology and hacking into our computer systems. The Pentagon and the Obama administration know all about this, but they don't do anything about it. Perhaps the fact that China owns about a trillion dollars of our national debt has something to do with that. In any event, today China has the largest military in the world and the second largest military budget in the world. They have stolen plans for our most advanced jets, helicopters, ships and missile systems. It is estimated that stealing our technology has saved China about 25 years of research and development. In addition, China is rapidly developing a new generation of strategic weapons that could potentially enable it to actually win a future war against the United States. At one time such a notion would have been unthinkable, but as you will see below, the next war with China could go very badly for the United States. The Washington Post is reporting on a confidential report that was prepared for the Pentagon, and what this report says about the extent of Chinese cyber espionage is absolutely startling. Will China know ALL of our secrets at some point? The following is a brief excerpt from the Washington Post article about the theft of our military technology by China. It turns out that Chinese hackers have gotten their hands on plans for almost all of the new cutting edge weapons systems that we have been developing... |
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Rick Ungar
Forbes 2013-05-24 10:10:00
Every now and again, a political pundit is required to stand up and admit to the world that he or she got it wrong. For me, this would be one of those moments. For quite some time, I have been predicting that Obamacare would likely mean higher insurance rates in the individual market for the "young immortals" and others under the age of 40. At the same time, my expectation was that those who fall into the older age ranges would benefit greatly as their premium charges would be lowered thanks to the Affordable Care Act. It is increasingly clear that I had it wrong. Yesterday, Covered California - the name given to the healthcare exchange created pursuant to the Affordable Care Act that will serve the largest population of insured citizens in the nation - released the premium rates submitted by participating health insurance companies for the four health insurance program categories (bronze, silver, gold and platinum) established by the Affordable Care Act, along with the catastrophic policy created for and available to those under the age of 30. |
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Jason Ditz
antiwar.com 2013-05-28 10:03:00
Israel's long-standing habit of making bellicose threats in the face of neighbors potentially acquiring defensive weapons has reached a new level today, with Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon threatening to attack Russian ships in the Mediterranean if they attempt to deliver anti-aircraft weapons to Syria. Russia has had a long-standing contract with Syria to provide anti-aircraft defensive systems, and the Assad government is keen to get those shipments completed in the wake of repeated Israeli air strikes against them. The Russian S-300 system, the best the Russian government sells, is seen as being able to foil Israeli attacks. |
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| Society's Child |
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Anthony Gucciardi
Natural Society 2013-06-03 13:25:00
Photos taken across the globe by Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti put life in the modern world into perspective, showing children across the globe with their most beloved toys and other items - the variation of which is truly shocking. When I saw these photos from Galimberti's 'Toy Stories' project, I felt it was important to share with readers of NaturalSociety for a few very important reasons. It's important to remember that, even with our major struggles against corporate corruption and a food system under attack, the level of comfort that we enjoy in the United States and other first world nations is something that many children (most, in fact) around the world dream of. Children like the ones you will see in the photos below, such as Tangawizi from Kenya, literally live in a clay and wood shelter with a few blankets and a stuffed animal. What's also interesting is the fact that photographer Galimberti says that there was an extreme difference when it came to sharing and openness. In fact, Galimberti says that poor children were quite open to sharing their toys and allowing him to play with them before the shoot. Richer children, however, were possessive of their toys and were unwilling to share them for quite some time before Galimberti was able to convince them to do so. |
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fin24.com
2013-06-03 12:06:00
Cape Town - A comparison between a basket of goods by sister publication City Press on how food prices have increased over five years shows that seven basic items alone have increased by an accumulative 49% from January 2008 to April 2013. The cost of bread, meat, milk, cheese, vegetables, sugar and cooking oil among others in January 2008 were compared with prices for the same products in April 2013. Where consumers had to pay R189.94 in January 2008 for these products, they now had to fork out R283.09 for the same items, a 49% increase from five years ago. Other items in the basket that were compared, included luxury, "sin" goods chocolates, coffee, beer, wine and cigarettes, which also showed an accumulative 49% increase in the review period. The price of bread alone skyrocketed 69% in the 5-year period, while meat went up 40%. |
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Constanze Letsch
The Guardian 2013-06-03 09:57:00
'Social media is the worst menace to society,' says Recep Erdogan after thousands take control of Istanbul's main square Thousands of protesters have controlled Istanbul's main square once more after two days of violent clashes with rampaging riot police, as Turkey's prime minister vowed to press on with the controversial redevelopment that provoked the clashes. Calling the protesters an "extremist fringe", Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the opposition Republican People's party for provoking the protests. "We think that the main opposition party, which is making resistance calls on every street, is provoking these protests," Erdogan said on Turkish television, as an estimated 10,000 demonstrators streamed into the area waving flags and calling on the government to resign. | |
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Comment: Nice try Erdogan, but unlike the Color
Revolutions, the protests that never were in Libya, and the gangs armed
by the CIA and friends in Syria, this is no foreign plot to bring down
your government. No doubt players in the shadows will try to vector the
movement this way then that way, but for now at least it appears that
Turkey's uprising is a genuine revolt, much like Egypt's was in 2011.
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Washington Post
Outrage over plans to replace a park in Istanbul's Taksim Square with a
shopping mall became a flashpoint sparking anger in cities across Turkey
over the policies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government.2013-06-02 09:02:00
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BBC News
2013-06-03 08:26:00
A fire at a poultry processing plant in China has killed at least 119 people, officials say. The fire broke out at a slaughterhouse in Dehui in Jilin province early on Monday. Accounts speak of explosions prior to the fire, which caused panic and a crush of workers trying to escape. Some exits were said to be locked. The fire is now said to have been mostly put out and bodies are being recovered. Sources including the provincial fire department suggest there may have been an ammonia leak which either caused the fire or made fighting the blaze more hazardous. Other reports speak of an electrical fault. An injured woman lies on a bed at a hospital in Changchun, after fire broke out at a poultry slaughterhouse in Dehui, Jilin province, on Monday Dozens of injured have been sent to hospital It is China's deadliest fire since 2000, when 309 people died in a blaze in a dance hall in Luoyang, in Henan province. A labour activist told the BBC it was the worst factory fire in living memory. About 100 workers had managed to escape from the Baoyuan plant, Xinhua said, adding that the "complicated interior structure" of the building and narrow exits had made rescue work more difficult. It said the plant's front gate was locked when the blaze began. |
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The Weather Channel
2013-06-02 15:08:00
Samoa Air, a small island airline, has become the world's first airline to implement a "pay as you weigh" pricing model that calculates passengers' flight tickets based on their body weight, according to reports. "This is the fairest way of traveling," Samoa Air chief executive Chris Langton told Australia's ABC Radio. "There are no extra fees in terms of excess baggage or anything - it is just a kilo is a kilo is a kilo." The airline, which flies domestically and to American Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tonga, will charge rates ranging from $1 a kilogram on the airline's shortest domestic route to about $4.16 per kilogram for travel from Samoa to American Samoa, according to ABC Radio. Under the new pricing system, passengers of Samoa Air, which operate N2A Islander and Cessna 172 aircraft, will need to enter their estimated weight during online booking and airfare will be calculated using their weight. "You travel happy, knowing full well that you are only paying for exactly what you weigh... nothing more," states the Samoa Air website. |
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Investment Watch
"An explosion of unknown origin in a dwelling quarter has left at least
seven people injured in Brussels, Belgian TV reports. The blast caused
fire in an accommodation unit; firefighters are currently extinguishing
the flames. The cause of the explosion is being investigated."
2013-06-01 00:00:00 |
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The Daily Caller
2013-05-31 18:23:00
In the latest incident of anti-gun hysteria to erupt in a school setting, a kindergarten boy has been suspended from school for 10 days because he showed a friend his cowboy-style cap gun on the way to school. The incident happened on Wednesday morning at about 8:30 a.m. on a school bus in Calvert County, Maryland, reports The Washington Post. The kindergartener had brought the toy gun because his friend had brought a water gun the previous day. He later told his mother than he "really, really" wanted his friend to see it. The suspended boy had acquired the menacing, plastic, orange-tipped weapon at Frontier Town, a western-themed campground with a water park, mini golf and the like. School officials at Dowell Elementary School in the town of Lusby proceeded to question the five-year-old for over two hours before finally calling his mother, whom The Post also does not name. The principal eventually called the boy's mother at 10:50 a.m. By that time, the five-year-old had wet his pants (which the mother called highly unusual). The principal told the boy's mother that the boy had simulated shooting someone on the bus with the offending novelty. However, both the boy and his older sister, a first-grader, say the principal is not telling the truth. |
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Aljazeera
Dozens injured as police use water cannon and tear gas at escalating anti-government rallies in Istanbul and Ankara.2013-06-02 00:00:00
Turkish riot police have used tear gas and water cannon during clashes with thousands of protesters in Istanbul, as more people joined the second day of the fiercest anti-government demonstrations for years. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called for an immediate end to the protests, that were triggered by government redevelopment plans of a park in Istanbul's Taksim Square. The protests have since widened into a broader show of defiance against Erdogan and his government and spread to Ankara and other cities. |
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Martin Evans
The Telegraph 2013-05-30 00:00:00
As Mark Bridger was jailed for life for the abduction and murder of five-year-old April Jones, the NSPCC said there was a "worrying link" between his looking at indecent images online and the crime he went on to commit. It called for "effective measures" to curb the ease with which extreme pornography and indecent images of children can be accessed. Bridger's laptop computer contained a cache of images of children being raped and abused. Police found a horror film in his video recorder paused at a violent rape. Earlier this month, Stuart Hazell was jailed for the murder of Tia Sharpe, his partner's 12-year-old-granddaughter. During his trial the Old Bailey heard that he had used his computer to search for terms including "violent forced rape" and "incest". Bridger, like Hazell, had no previous convictions for sexual offences. Both went from viewing indecent images straight to the worst class of offending. With no gradual escalation in behaviour, there was nothing to suggested they were a threat to children and to alert police. |
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Cecilia Chan, Jim Walsh
usatoday.com 2013-05-31 11:48:00
Four adults died Friday morning after two single-engine planes collided above a remote desert area in north Phoenix, authorities said. The identities were not released pending notification of family members. "This is a tragic event," Phoenix police spokesman Steve Martos said at the scene. "It could have been much worse and be in a congested area where people reside." Martos said planes frequently fly in the area because of the open airspace. A pilot reported seeing the two small aircraft collide in midair about 15 miles northwest of Deer Valley Airport, spokesman Ian Gregor of the Federal Aviation Administration said. Numerous 911 calls about the midair crash came in around 10 a.m., authorities said. Fire crews went to the area and found the two planes. One plane, believed to be a Cessna, caught fire upon impact and was "unrecognizable," according to Capt. Dave Wilson of the Daisy Mountain Fire Department. He said the plane contained two people, whose gender could not be determined at the scene, because the bodies were burnt. Identification of these two victims will be made by the Medical Examiners Office, Martos said. Martos said the identities of the two men in the other aircraft are known but the family has yet to be notified. Wilson said the other aircraft, a Piper Archer III, appeared to have made a rough landing and was mostly intact. It was about 100 yards from the other plane with the two victims inside, he said. "I thought possibly we might have survivors," said battalion Chief Gary Bernard of the Peoria Fire Department. |
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Constantine von Hoffman
cbsnews.com 2013-05-31 11:36:00
Increasing housing prices and the stock market''s posting all-time highs haven't helped the plight most Americans. The average U.S. household has recovered only 45 percent of the wealth they lost during the recession, according to a report released yesterday from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. This finding is a very different picture than one painted in a report earlier this year by the Fed that calculated Americans as a whole had regained 91 percent of their losses. The writers of the report released yesterday point out that the earlier number is based on aggregate household-net-worth data. However, this isn't adjusted for inflation, population growth or the nature of the wealth. Further, they say much of recovery in net worth is because of the stock market, which means most of the improvement has been a boon only to wealthy families. "Clearly, the 91 percent recovery of wealth losses portrayed by the aggregate nominal measure paints a different picture than the 45 percent recovery of wealth losses indicated by the average inflation-adjusted household measure," the report said. "Considering the uneven recovery of wealth across households, a conclusion that the financial damage of the crisis and recession largely has been repaired is not justified," the researchers said. Household wealth plunged $16 trillion from the top of the real estate bubble in the third quarter of 2007 to the bottom of the bust in the first quarter of 2009. By the last three months of 2012, American households as a group had regained $14.7 trillion. The report says almost two-thirds of the increase in aggregate household wealth is due to rising stock prices. This has disproportionately benefited the richest households: About 80 percent of stocks are held by the wealthiest 10 percent of the population. |
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Jonathan P. Hicks
bet.com 2013-05-31 11:20:00
The level of gun violence in Chicago, which has caused shock waves nationally, is continuing with eight people having been shot in the nation's third largest city in a 24-hour period that ended Friday morning, including one that ended with the death of a 15-year-old boy. Chicago police said that the teenager, Patrick Sykes, was shot several times early Thursday afternoon. They said that witnesses offered conflicting versions of what occurred, with the shooters having been either on bicycles or on foot. Two people were taken into custody for questioning, but they were released without any charges being filed, police said. The 24-hour period of gun violence also included the shooting of an 18-year-old man, three women and several others. The high level of violence in the month of May came shortly after the Chicago Police Department announced that crime in the city fell 8 percent in the first quarter of 2013, compared with the same period last year, and 15 percent from the same period of 2011. Still, there are great concerns about violent crime in Chicago, where Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old honor student, who performed at President Obama's inauguration, was killed by a bullet while standing in a South Side playground. |
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Heather Saul
Willie Smith Ward had five previous felonies and four convictions for misdemeanoursThe Independent, UK 2013-05-31 13:04:00
A habitual offender may have committed his final felony, after a jury sentenced him to 50 years for stealing a rack of ribs from a shop. Willie Smith Ward, 43, attempted to steal the $35 large rack of ribs at the H-E-B store in Waco, Texas, by smuggling it underneath his shirt. Ward was then apprehended in the car park by a shopping assistant, who noticed the bulge and tried to stop him leaving. According to the Waco Tribune-Herald, his act of theft was heightened to robbery when he threatened the employee by telling him he was in possession of a knife. According to the employee's testimony, he added: "If you don't leave me alone, I'll show you what I got," before running off. He was later arrested. A jury in Waco's 19th State District Court took just two minutes to convict Ward for robbery and an hour to recommend a sentence. Ward already had five previous felonies and four convictions for misdemeanours. His previous convictions have been for crimes including burglary, attempted robbery, aggravated assault, leaving the scene of an accident and possession of cocaine. Assistant District Attorney J.R. Vicha, prosecuting, told Ward: "This verdict shows that the citizens of this county will not tolerate a continued disrespect and disregard for other people and their property. People who choose to do so will be dealt with seriously and appropriately." He will have to serve at least a quarter of his sentence before being eligible for parole. He allegedly rejected a 20-year prison sentence in a plea bargain before the trial. |
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Grimsby Telegraph, UK
2013-05-31 00:37:00
A huge public reaction has erupted over the "vile" and "disgusting" slaughter of ducklings in People's Park - and it may not be an isolated incident. The RSPCA has launched an investigation after eyewitnesses saw youths smash duck eggs, throw birds to one another and even drop-kick a duckling. They are also investigating claims that some ducklings were stomped on and that a live bird was posted through the letterbox of a resident living near the park. The story, published on yesterday's front page, has sparked public outrage, with many claiming both the children and their parents should be severely punished. And one man contacted the Telegraph to say that he had a duckling posted through his door three weeks before these incidents - proving it has happened before and could happen again. The Patrick Street resident - who did not want to be named for fear of repercussions - said that afterwards, the children even had the nerve to knock on his door again and ask for it back so they could continue their cruel game. |
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| Secret History |
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Louis Sahagun
Researchers believe that bullets, musket balls, cavalry uniform
buttons and Native American artifacts found in Owens Lake point to the
massacre of 35 Paiute Indians by settlers and soldiers in 1863.Los Angeles Times 2013-06-02 13:28:00
Lone Pine, California - Oral histories of Native Americans and U.S. Cavalry records offer insights into a horrific massacre here in 1863: Thirty-five Paiute Indians were chased into Owens Lake by settlers and soldiers to drown or be gunned down. But the records are silent on one important point. Exactly where did the massacre occur on the moonlit night of March 19, 1863? An archaeological find in what is today a vast alkali playa has revealed a cache of bullets, musket balls, cavalry uniform buttons and Native American artifacts that Paiute tribal members and researchers believe are evidence of the grim chapter in Owens Valley history. The site has been lost to history for more than 100 years, a time in which Los Angeles drained most of Owens Lake to slake the growing city's thirst. Strong winds and torrential rain in 2009 may have uncovered the artifacts, which were found by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power archaeologists surveying the area in preparation for dust mitigation projects. Dust wasn't a problem in the mid-19th century at Owens Lake, 200 miles north of Los Angeles. Native Paiutes hunted along the lake and diverted the flow of local streams to irrigate fields of wild hyacinth and yellow nutgrass. But disputes arose as settlers poured into the valley and began ranching on the tribe's pasturelands. U.S. troops were sent to protect the settlers and the land and water they had effectively stolen from the Paiutes. |
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Bart D. Ehrman
huffingtonpost.com 2013-06-02 06:45:00
Apart from the most rabid fundamentalists among us, nearly everyone admits that the Bible might contain errors -- a faulty creation story here, a historical mistake there, a contradiction or two in some other place. But is it possible that the problem is worse than that -- that the Bible actually contains lies? Most people wouldn't put it that way, since the Bible is, after all, sacred Scripture for millions on our planet. But good Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and Catholic scholars of America, will tell you that the Bible is full of lies, even if they refuse to use the term. And here is the truth: Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle -- Peter, Paul or James -- knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery. Most modern scholars of the Bible shy away from these terms, and for understandable reasons, some having to do with their clientele. Teaching in Christian seminaries, or to largely Christian undergraduate populations, who wants to denigrate the cherished texts of Scripture by calling them forgeries built on lies? And so scholars use a different term for this phenomenon and call such books "pseudepigrapha." You will find this antiseptic term throughout the writings of modern scholars of the Bible. It's the term used in university classes on the New Testament, and in seminary courses, and in Ph.D. seminars. What the people who use the term do not tell you is that it literally means "writing that is inscribed with a lie." |
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David Keys
Thousands of pages of documentation describe atrocities carried out in both Eastern and Western EuropeThe Independent, UK 2013-06-02 06:14:00
Nazi war criminals escaped prosecution because crucial evidence in Britain's National Archives and in government archives in the United States was ignored for decades. The thousands of pages of documentation describe atrocities carried out in both Eastern and Western Europe - but have only been examined by German government war crimes investigators over the past four years, after most of the suspects and witnesses had died. At no stage had British or US intelligence told the Germans of the existence of the material. Much of the original material was gathered when British and US intelligence services bugged a small number of prisoner of war camps near London and Washington DC during World War Two. For years the documents were kept under wraps by the intelligence services because the prisoner-of-war camp bugging program would have been regarded as illegal under international law - and, more importantly, because, during most of the Cold War, the US and Britain did not want to alert the Soviets to the fact that they had developed this intelligence gathering technique. "All the relevant material was of course known to the British and American intelligence services during and after the war - and was in the public domain after its declassification in the US in the 1970s and the UK in 1996. However, prior to 2009, no use was ever made of the material to track down war criminals. If the direct evidence and the indirect leads contained in the material, had been used earlier by official war crime investigators, there is no doubt that a number of war criminals would have been arrested and brought to trial," said London School of Economics historian, Professor Sönke Neitzel, co-author of Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying - a recently published book on the World War Two allied prisoner-of-war camp bugging operation. "It is regrettable that the intelligence services in the UK and the US did not make use of the documentation and did not pass it on to the German war crime investigation authorities in the latter part of the 20th century, before many of the suspects had died," he said. |
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Paul Milligan
Six mass graves features the remains of dozens of Palestinians killed
during the Israeli-Arab war of 1948, when the Jewish state was founded
have been uncovered in the Jaffa district of Tel Aviv.The Daily Mail, UK 2013-05-31 10:37:00 An official at the Muslim cemetery there told AFP that the grisly find happened on Wednesday when ground subsided as builders carried out renovation work. In 1948 Jaffa was a Palestinian town but there was an exodus of most of its Arab population when it fell to the fledgling Israeli army and right-wing Jewish militias.
Researcher and historian Mahmoud Obeid, a Jaffa resident, told As-Safri newspaper: 'We discovered six mass graves, two of which we dug up. Our estimate is that they contain around 200 bodies, with an unknown additional number in the other graves. 'The remains belong to people of different ages, including women, children and the elderly, some of which bear signs of violence.' |
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| Science & Technology |
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Carl Zimmer
New York Times 2013-06-03 15:37:00
One day in 1788, students at the Hunterian School of Medicine in London were opening a cadaver when they discovered something startling. The dead man's anatomy was a mirror image of normal. His liver was on his left side instead of the right. His heart had beaten on his right side, not his left. The students had never seen anything like it, and they rushed to find their teacher, the Scottish physician Matthew Baillie, who was just as stunned as they were. "It is so extraordinary as scarcely to have been seen by any of the most celebrated anatomists," he later wrote. His report was the first detailed description of the condition, which came to be known as situs inversus and is thought to occur in about 1 in 20,000 people. Baillie argued that if doctors could figure out how this strange condition came to be, they might come to understand how our bodies normally tell the right side from the left. Over two centuries later, the mystery of left and right still captivates scientists. |
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Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes
Following the posting on the Central Bureau's Transient Object
Confirmation Page about a possible Nova in Sco (TOCP Designation: PNV J17335943-3606216) we performed some follow-up of this object remotely through the 0.50-m f/6.8 astrograph + CCD + f/4.5 focal reducer of iTelescope network (MPC Code Q62 - Siding Spring, AU).Remanzacco Observatory 2013-06-03 13:42:00 On our images taken on June 03.7, 2013 we can confirm the presence of an optical counterpart with unfiltered CCD magnitude 11.5 at coordinates: R.A. = 17 33 59.44, Decl.= -36 06 20.7 (equinox 2000.0; UCAC-3 catalogue reference stars). Our annotated confirmation image (click on it for a bigger version). North is up, East is to the left:
An animation showing a comparison between our confirmation image and the archive POSS2/UKSTU plate (R Filter - 1996). |
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Madison Ruppert
Endthelie.com 2013-06-02 00:00:00
Regina Dugan, former director of the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) and current head of Google-owned Motorola's research division, introduced a prototype "vitamin authentication" tablet which turns your entire body into a walking authentication token. "We got to do a lot of epic shit when I was at DARPA," Dugan said. Indeed, DARPA has been involved in everything from weaponized hallucinations to tiny spy computers to military human enhancements to automated drone-borne targeting and tracking systems to linking rat brains over the internet and much more. Forget traditional usernames and passwords, this technology unveiled at D11 uses a tiny stomach acid-powered tablet to produce an 18-bit signal which can be detected by outside devices and used for authentication. Dugan also showed off wearable electronic tattoos produced by a company called MC10, in partnership with Motorola, which serve a similar function. The rationale behind these technologies, according to Dugan, is the annoyances caused by traditional authentication. "Authentication is irritating," Dugan said. "After 40 years of advances in computation, we're still authenticating basically the same way we did years ago." |
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Lawrence LeBlond
redOrbit.com 2012-06-28 00:00:00
An international team of researchers have discovered enormous tornadoes in space, more than a thousand miles wide, that could quite possibly be heating the surface of the Sun to more than a million degrees centigrade, a finding that has possible implications for clean Earth energy. These super tornadoes - which are thousands of times larger and immensely more powerful than anything seen on Earth - twist at speeds beyond 6,000 miles per hour within the Sun's atmosphere. The discovery may explain why the atmosphere around the Sun is much hotter than its surface, which has puzzled scientists previously. They believe the solar tornadoes carry energy from the energy reservoir below the Sun's surface (the convection zone) to the outer atmosphere in the form of magnetic waves. The scientists, who estimate that there are as many as 11,000 of these supermassive twisters swirling above the Sun's atmosphere, are hoping that these magnetic tornadoes could form a basis for clean reactors here on Earth. This could be a major step forward in the field of plasma-astrophysics, according to the scientists. | |
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Comment: Update June 3, 2013: The original video
published with this article was a brief excerpt from a Weather Channel
TV program on solar tornadoes speculating about what it might be like if
one of these were to take place on Earth. Since there is no evidence
that such a thing has ever happened, we decided instead to replace it
with the above explanatory content on the real and documented solar
tornadoes.
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Spaceweather.com
A G2-class (Kp=6) geomagnetic storm is in progress following the arrival of an interplanetary shock wave on May 31st. The source of the shock is not known; it
might have been a minor CME that left the sun without drawing attention
to itself. The impact sparked auroras across many northern-tier US
states. This photo, for instance, comes from Christopher Griffith in
Baxter, Minnesota:2013-06-01 06:11:00
"I wasn't expecting to see any lights, but right before the midnight it broke loose and the sky lit up," says Griffith. "Sadly the clouds quickly filled in my little window, and the auroras were gone. Just thankful for what I got so see!" Elsewhere in the USA, auroras were sighted as far south as Colorado, Maryland, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. |
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Sheila Pratt
Edmonton Journal 2013-05-28 05:30:00
In Arctic summers, Catherine La Farge camps out at the toe of the Teardrop glacier on Ellesmere Island in Canada's North. The University of Alberta biologist has watched the ice retreat, up to four metres a year now, giving her an unprecedented view of what was entombed under the ice for 400 years - old rocks, mud, and her specialty, ancient moss. One day, walking along the edge of the ice, La Farge noticed some of the moss had a greenish tinge. That gave her a hunch - could there be life in that old moss after all? In an amazing experiment, La Farge found the frozen moss was able to revive itself though it had been buried since the Little Ice Age (1550-1850). Her study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, is shaking up some basic assumptions about land plants. In the past, when scientists occasionally came across plant material previously frozen under an Arctic glacier, they assumed the plant material was dead. Discoloured and lifeless, it certainly looked like it was. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Daily Mail
2013-05-28 16:16:00
Professional storm chasers in a specially rigged 'tornado intercept vehicle' dubbed TIV2 captured video from inside a strong wedge tornado around 7:15pm on Monday in Smith County, Kansas. Brandon Ivey and Sean Casey, who appear in the Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers, captured the footage in eastern Smith County before the tornado ripped instruments from the top of the vehicle. The two said one of TIV2's doors and the top hatch were blown open by the storm but the vehicle stayed on the ground.
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Matthew Backhouse
The New Zealand Herald 2013-06-03 13:14:00
Three dead whales have washed up on West Coast beaches in as many days. A local marine scientist said it was unusual for whales of different species to wash up so close to one another, but the deaths were not believed to be connected. Curious locals were drawn to the beach at Greymouth after the 6m carcass of a Cuvier's beaked whale washed up on Saturday morning. The next day, a 15m sperm whale washed up halfway between Greymouth and Hokitika. And today, a small 2-3m whale or dolphin of unknown species washed up near Westport. Hokitika-based Department of Conservation marine scientist Don Neale said it was uncommon for three whales to wash up so close to one another in such a short space of time. "It's not unusual to have whales washed up on the beaches on the West Coast - we do get anything between a couple and half a dozen a year of various species," he said. "But when they come up one after the other, it's a little bit less usual." |
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Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today 2013-06-03 13:02:00
"Holy crap, this is the rarest scene I've ever captured and likely ever will," said photographer Mike Hollingshead. "I was standing there just watching when bam, big red sprites 'squirting' up into the air in the aurora." Mike said was hoping to see the aurora the night of May 31, 2013, and felt lucky when he saw a faint yellow glow begin to rise in the skies. At the same time, a thunderstorm could be seen off on the horizon and almost before he could even ponder the possibility of seeing something unusual, sprites started appearing. This is an extremely rare event to be captured on film; in fact an image appearing just a few days ago on Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on May 22 showed red sprite lighting with an aurora, and the APOD team said the image was a "candidate for the first color image ever recorded of a sprite and aurora together." |
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youtube.com
2013-06-02 11:20:00
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The Extinction Protocol
The earthquakes experienced today in Carmen town, North Cotabato and the
rest of Mindanao will possibly last for weeks or months. This was
according to Jenila de Ocampo, Officer-in-charge of the Davao Seismic
Station of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology
(Phivolcs), in a phone interview. She added the intensity might either
be "felt" or "unfelt" by humans. On Monday morning, two strong quakes
struck Carmen. A 5.7 magnitude was felt at 4:08 AM with epicenter at
seven Kilometers (Km) Northeast of the town. It has a depth of 10 Km.
The town was placed under Intensity VI. "An Intensity VI in the PEIS
(Phivolcs Earthquake Intensity Scale) means there will be a minimal
damage to poorly built structures, or those with light materials and
even concrete structures which do not meet building standards like the
proper placement of steel bars," De Ocampo explained.2013-06-03 09:02:00
At 7:31 AM, another quake jolted Carmen town. A 4.0 magnitude was recorded with epicenter at 7 Km Northeast of the town. It has a depth of 3 Km. Intensity II was felt in Matalam town, North Cotabato. On Saturday evening, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake rocked the town which hurt 5 people, damaged 60 houses in Kimadsil village alone, and destroyed a bridge as well as agricultural facilities, school buildings and health centers. The said quake, according to De Ocampo, "is shallow and tectonic in origin." Its depth was at 5 Km. "Strong earthquakes which are tectonic will cause aftershocks until the energy dissipates. In the case of Carmen which was hit by shallow quakes, the energy of the quake has little chance to dissipate when it reaches the surface," she said. |
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The Extinction Protocol
Authorities in parts of Europe issued disaster warnings and scrambled to
reinforce flood defenses as rivers swelled by days of heavy rain
threatened to burst their banks. Several people have died or are missing
in the floods in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Switzerland
since the rains began on Thursday. The floods have killed at least one
person and left several missing across the Czech Republic. Czech
officials warned that the waters of the Vltava river could reach
critical levels in Prague late on Sunday as soldiers erected metal
barriers and piled up sandbags to protect Prague's historic center from
flooding after days of heavy rains swelled rivers and forced evacuations
from some low-laying areas. Prague authorities also limited public
transport and closed underground stations as water from the Vltava River
overflowed into parts of the Old Town.2013-06-03 08:55:00
The area is a UNESCO heritage site boasting hundreds of well-preserved buildings, churches and monuments dating back mostly to the 14th Century, including the Charles Bridge that straddles the Vltava. "Due to the current situation, I have declared a state of danger for the area of the capital city," acting mayor Tomas Hudecek told a news conference. Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas said 200 soldiers have been deployed so far to help local authorities. In Germany, where at least four people have died or are missing, Chancellor Angela Merkel promised federal support for affected areas and said the army would be deployed if necessary. Several cities, including Chemnitz in the east, and Passau and Rosenheim in the south, issued disaster warnings. Passau, which is located at the confluence of three rivers, could see waters rise above record levels of 2002, said Mayor Juergen Dupper. |
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The Extinction Protocol
MetService has issued severe weather watches for parts of the country.
Westland, Buller, Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Wellington,
Wairarapa, Bay of Plenty and Rotorua are among the regions set to face
heavy rain and wild weather over the next 24 hours. Pictures sent to ONE
News show heavy snow has been causing disruptions for motorists on the
last day of the long weekend. Vehicles with chains waited for hours this
afternoon for roads to open in Burkes Pass, just north of Tekapo. Eight
firefighters in the area were called to push at least half a dozen cars
out of the snow and assist police with road control, Volunteer Fire
Chief Officer Craig Willis said.2013-06-03 08:53:00
MetService says there is a high possibility of heavy snow in North Canterbury and Marlborough tomorrow as the cold southerly rain turns into snow above 400 meters. Heavy rain and gales are expected for central New Zealand tomorrow as a front is expected to move slowly across the upper South Island and lower North Island. Snow of about 500 meters is predicted for Hanmer Springs and Seddon areas. As of early evening, there had been no deaths on the road this long weekend, putting the country on track to achieving the first zero road toll over the Queen's Birthday Holiday since records began. But with snow and flooding in many southern areas, police are warning motorists to take extra care. -TVNZ |
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From the Trenches
Major flooding following tornado causes a giant sinkhole in Oklahoma City. Sarah Charlton reports2013-06-03 08:19:00
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CBS Cleveland
2013-06-03 08:08:00
Indianapolis - The 15-month-old girl who was found alive in an Indiana field 10 miles from her home after violent storms ripped through the Midwest has died from traumatic brain injuries. Angel Babcock of New Pekin, Ind., was found after her family's mobile home was destroyed in the storms that ravaged the Midwest and South. She had been in critical condition at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Ky. Chief nursing officer Cis Gruebbel made the announcement about her death. Her grandfather, Jack Brough, had told the Courier-Journal of Louisville earlier that she had suffered head injuries and that the weekend was a critical time for her. The girl's death brings the overall toll from the storms to 39 across five states. She had been in critical condition at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Ky. Chief nursing officer Cis Gruebbel made the announcement about her death. Her grandfather, Jack Brough, had told the Courier-Journal of Louisville earlier that she had suffered head injuries and that the weekend was a critical time for her. The girl's death brings the overall toll from the storms to 39 across five states. |
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RT.com
2013-06-02 16:09:00
Some 2,000 homes have been evacuated in Southern California as firefighters struggle to contain tens of thousands of acres of wildfire amid extremely hot, dry and windy weather. Two major blazes in New Mexico have also spiraled out of control. The Powerhouse Fire, which broke out near a Santa Clarita hydroelectric plant in the Los Angeles County on Thursday, has more than tripled in size overnight. A total of 2,100 personnel are now fighting the fire, with air tankers and helicopters deployed to the scene. |
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The Weather Channel
Tornadoes conjure up images of massive funnel clouds tearing over the
expansive Great Plains of the United States during springtime, but
tornadoes range in size and strength and can happen anywhere, at any
time of the year.2013-06-02 21:01:00 Although freak accidents happen ― and the most violent tornadoes can level a house ― most tornadoes are much weaker than the monster EF5s (the highest tornado rating) most people imagine, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) says in their tornado FAQ, and knowing proper tornado safety tips can help you get through the storm,. But there are a lot of tornado safety folklore and myths out there, so it can be hard to know what advice to follow. Here are five of the most pervasive tornado safety myths, as well as a few tips to follow. |
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RT.com
2013-06-02 19:44:00
A layer of snow on the second day of summer has put the citizens of the Russian city of Kemerovo completely out of humor. Meteorologists say the anomaly occurred because a cyclone brought cold Arctic air from Kara Sea region into Siberia dropping, temperature to lows typical for summer north of the Arctic Circle. Bloggers were at a loss when commenting the issue. "Snow in Kemerovo TODAY? That's hardcore. The weather must've forgot it's June." "With a sense of terror has just learnt it's been snowing in Kemerovo. What's next?" "Tornado in the US. Floods in Czech Republic. SNOW in Kemerovo!" The city in South Siberia is situated on 55°22'17.58" north latitude but even for that region -2 Celsius on June 2 morning is over the top. The region has seasonal inland climate, which means really cold winters and very hot summers. |
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RT.com
2013-06-02 16:26:00
At least two people have been killed in devastating floods gripping the western Czech Republic. The disaster caused by torrential rains has prompted the evacuation of metro stations, several hospitals and the zoo in the capital. Heavy rain over the weekend has resulted in flood warnings in west, north, central and south Bohemia. At least one woman is dead, after her home collapsed in Trebenice u Prahy, southwest of Prague and two people are missing after their raft overturned on the River Berounka in Hlasna Treban in central Bohemia. In Prague, rescue workers, aided by the army, have set up flood barriers for the first time since the devastating floods of 2002. Hospitals, retirement homes and cultural institutions as well as the zoo are being evacuated across the city. A state of emergency has been declared in the Czech Republic due to the threat of flooding, Prime Minister Petr Nečas announced in a televised address. |
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Gerald Warner
The Scotsman 2013-06-02 12:02:00
The climate is changing - but not in the style prognosticated by the global warmist fanatics. As the bottom falls out of the man-made climate change industry, those who were among its most bullish investors at the height of the scam are now covering their positions in a bear market. Great damage was done to this much-hyped imposture by Climategate ("Hide the decline!"), by the discredited "hockey stick", by the farce over "melting" Himalayan glaciers and the "decrease" in the polar bear population from 5,000 in 1970 to 25,000 today. Yet what has chiefly discredited the climate change superstition is the basic, inescapable fact that there has been no global warming since 1997. The official face-saving response is that this is a "pause" in an otherwise menacing trend - a pause of a decade and a half. The warmist fanatics will freeze to death in their solar bunkers before they will admit defeat; but the more worldly wise, especially scientists anxious to preserve a vestige of academic credibility, are now striving to effect a withdrawal in good order. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change began to ratchet down its more extravagant predictions as early as 2007. In 2010 the Royal Society reviewed its stance on the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory and assumed a more neutral position. Since then, it has been like the retreat from Moscow: last month Oxford scientists, albeit in Delphic language, moderated forecasts of climate disaster. |
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weather.com
2013-06-01 10:24:00
The Weather Channel Tornado Hunt Team is safe, but shaken up after their chase vehicles took a direct hit by a violent tornado west of Oklahoma City. Meteorologist Mike Bettes was chasing the monster rain-wrapped tornado near El Reno, Okla. when he says the storm picked up the heavy chase SUV and threw it an estimated 200 yards. "We were ahead of the storm. We stopped to broadcast and I saw a large violent wedge tornado," Bettes said in a live phone interview after he established phone connection after the incident. "What we were trying to do was just get away from it and get to the south side of it," Bettes said. "But what ended up happening was all three of our vehicles that we chase with were all hit by it." He remembers being thrown into the air. "It was like we were floating. We were tumbling. We were airborne at least one point and we were floating. Then we weren't tumbling anymore and we came down hard." Bettes was nursing minor injuries Saturday, including stitches in his hand. All the occupants were wearing safety belts and walked away from the banged-up vehicle. "My life flashed before my eyes." It's the first time one of the network's personalities has been injured while covering violent weather, spokeswoman Shirley Powell said. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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AvellSky
2013-05-31 20:00:00
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Melissa Stewart
Florence - If you saw what is described as a "fireball" around 11:05 p.m. last night, you were not alone.Cincinnati.com 2013-05-31 00:25:00 The Recorder received a report about a meteor flying over Florence last night. According to the American Meteor Society, more than 50 witnesses reported a large fireball meteor over Ohio May 30. The fireball was seen primarily from Ohio and Indiana, but witnesses from Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina also made reports. The society has developed technology that can plot the path of any fireball reported to their system. According to amsmeteors.org, the accuracy of these paths is dependent on the number of witnesses who report the event and their distribution around the fireball. This particular event provided a large volume and good geographic distribution of witnesses. The society urges witnesses of the fireball to fill out an official report with them. Visit their website to do so. |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Tamara Straus
The pharmaceutical industry has compromised the Western medical
establishment and hooked America on drugs. One psychiatrist is fighting
back.Alternet 2013-05-30 08:08:00
For the last 33 years, David Healy, an Irish psychiatrist and professor at Cardiff University School of Medicine in Wales, has written heavily researched university press books and academic journal articles on various aspects of psychopharmaceuticals. His output includes 20 books, 150 peer-reviewed papers and 200 other published works. He is not only well-pedigreed, with degrees and fellowships from Dublin, Galway and Cambridge medical schools, he is a widely recognized expert in both the history and the science of neurochemistry and psychopharmacology. Yet Healy says his output and reputation have had little to no effect - both on the pharmaceutical industry he argues buries relevant information about prescription drug harms, and on the psychiatric and medical professions he claims are being "eclipsed" by drug companies. "It's been clear to me that writing books or articles banging on the risks and hazards of drugs is just going to increase the sale of drugs," said Healy, who speaks calmly, dresses mostly in black and looks a bit like Rod Serling. Rather than write another university publication, Healy has taken his frustration to the street. In November, he launched a nonprofit website called Rxisk.org with a group of like-minded and highly credentialed international colleagues. The site aggregates FDA data about prescription drug side effects and urges patients to submit a detailed report on their own pharmaceutical drug reactions. Healy is not the first psychiatrist to express boiling frustration with the pharmaceutical industry or to pen dire warnings about drug-based healthcare. He is joined by people like American psychiatrist Peter Breggin, who has written several books critical of "biological psychiatry," and Irving Kirsch, who directs the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical School and is best known for The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth. Healy is the author of such dire sounding titles as Pharmageddon and Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression. |
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Jo Robinson
New York Times 2013-05-25 15:34:00
We like the idea that food can be the answer to our ills, that if we eat nutritious foods we won't need medicine or supplements. We have valued this notion for a long, long time. The Greek physician Hippocrates proclaimed nearly 2,500 years ago: "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." Today, medical experts concur. If we heap our plates with fresh fruits and vegetables, they tell us, we will come closer to optimum health. This health directive needs to be revised. If we want to get maximum health benefits from fruits and vegetables, we must choose the right varieties. Studies published within the past 15 years show that much of our produce is relatively low in phytonutrients, which are the compounds with the potential to reduce the risk of four of our modern scourges: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia. The loss of these beneficial nutrients did not begin 50 or 100 years ago, as many assume. Unwittingly, we have been stripping phytonutrients from our diet since we stopped foraging for wild plants some 10,000 years ago and became farmers. These insights have been made possible by new technology that has allowed researchers to compare the phytonutrient content of wild plants with the produce in our supermarkets. The results are startling. Wild dandelions, once a springtime treat for Native Americans, have seven times more phytonutrients than spinach, which we consider a "superfood." A purple potato native to Peru has 28 times more cancer-fighting anthocyanins than common russet potatoes. One species of apple has a staggering 100 times more phytonutrients than the Golden Delicious displayed in our supermarkets. |
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Sayer Ji
Greenmedinfo.com 2013-05-15 15:14:00
Emerging research indicates that the Western diet could rightly be considered a 'Disease Vector' on par with influenza and other infectious diseases. The CDC likes to track disease vectors like influenza and hepatitis, but the concept that immune status determines susceptibility, or the vital role that diet or environmental factors such as sunlight-mediated vitamin D levels play in whether you contract an illness or not, is mostly ignored by them. It could be argued that the CDC would be far more effective in their mission of "Collaborating to create the expertise, information, and tools that people and communities need to protect their health" if they paid equal attention tracking dietary vectors of disease creation, such as per capita high-fructose corn syrup or happy meal consumption, or environmental chemical exposures, instead of myopically fixating on an outdated, though hugely profitable germ-centered model of disease causation. Take the Western diet, for instance, which is increasingly the subject of preclinical and clinical investigation as a disease vector disturbingly effective at generating disease within the human body. |
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Cate Shanahan, M.D.
Primal Docs 2013-06-01 11:01:00
A study by John Guthman, PhD, director of counseling services at Hofstra University, uncovered more severe depression among college students. In 2009, 41% of students counseled at his college were diagnosed with moderate or severe depression, compared to 34% in 1997. Fewer were suicidal, however, perhaps due to improved services or perhaps because being surrounded by other depressed people makes you feel less alone. Future shocked? Dr Guthman opines that the reason more students have more severe depressive symptoms is that more of them are being diagnosed with depression before coming to college. Doesn't that just put off the real question: Why are more kids depressed? Maybe it's future shock. In the early 1970s, in his book Future Shock, futurist Alvin Toffler predicted we would soon enter a state of change so rapid that we would flip out and all go crazy. The accelerated rate of technological and social change will overwhelm people, leaving them disconnected and suffering from 'shattering stress and disorientation' - future shocked. |
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Tiffany Hervey
honoluluweekly.com 2013-05-29 17:08:00
Along with unlabeled GMOs, we're ingesting toxic pesticides. Genetically engineered (GE) crops are Hawaii's new plantation agriculture, and Hawaii is the world's leading producer of GE seed corn. According to a 2013 study commissioned by the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, with funding from the biotech-supported Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, the Hawaii GE seed crop is not only the state's fastest-growing agricultural commodity, but the largest. Overall, GE agriculture is the largest contributor to increased pesticide use in the U.S. The adoption of herbicide-resistant GE crop technology has been the primary contributor to a 527-million-pound increase in herbicide use from 1996 to 2011, according to USDA data analyzed by Charles Benbrook, research professor in the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University. In the last 20 years, the global agricultural input industry, which produces agrochemicals and GE seeds, has become one of the most consolidated and profitable in the world. Monsanto, Dow, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta and DuPont - the "Big 6" - now control a majority of the world market. GE ag falls under the umbrella of industrial monoculture, which relies on heavy inputs of synthetic fertilizer and pesticides to produce one commodity crop. Since the days of sugar cane and pineapple, Hawaii has seen these monocrop practices exploit the land and the people on it. Understanding GE ag can prove challenging because the science and the rules are always changing. The last few months have been especially abuzz with new development, from a Monsanto "Protection Act" in Congress to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Monsanto's favor, to new pesticide research that has sparked debate about the safety of our food supply. Comment: Learn more about the Monsanto Protection Act: 'Monsanto Protection Act' sneaks through Senate The real story behind the 'Monsanto Protection Act' Obama sells out U.S. citizens by signing Monsanto Protection Act into law Obama signature on Monsanto Protection Act ignites massive activism Top 10 excuses for Obama signing the Monsanto Protection Act What's next for the 'Monsanto Protection Act'?Monsanto Protection Act: A post-mortem for our legal system |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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| High Strangeness |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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