September 2014 ~ The Raw Story

Wednesday, 3 September 2014

Patriarchal Catholic Church and the Great Nunquisition

Today's generation of nuns are progressive women, two things the Church isn't used to. Nuns are an endangered species. They are dying and not being replaced. If you think the news is bad now, a world without nuns would be a far worse place. The nuns that I know are much too humble to tout their achievements and all of the good they contribute to society, but make no mistake, they are an integral part of the fabric that holds our civilization together. In 2014 there were just 49,883 religious Catholic sisters in the United States, down 13% percent...

ISIS is America's newest terror brand in endless propaganda that fuels "War on Terror"

In the wake of World War I, erstwhile propagandist and political scientist Harold Lasswell famously defined propaganda as "the management of collective attitudes" and the "control over opinion" through "the manipulation of significant symbols."[1] The extent to which this tradition is enthusiastically upheld in the West and the United States in particular is remarkable. The American public is consistently propagandized by its government and corporate news media on the most vital of contemporary issues and events. Deception on such a scale would...

The patient is now past the point of no return thanks to the Fed

Many commentators consider what the Fed has done to be akin to providing stimulus, morphine, juice to an ailing economy. We believe Fed's actions would be more appropriately described as permitted cancerous beliefs to spread throughout the financial system, thereby killing Democratic Capitalism which is the basis of the capital markets. Today we're going to explain what the "final outcome" for this process will be. The short version is what happens to a cancer patient who allows the disease to spread unchecked (death). In the case of the Fed's...

Manipulating the emotions of the masses: War criminal Ollie North says war criminal Obama doesn't pay attention

The Obama Administration is furtively guarding their chosen strategy to deal with ISIL. This is reminiscent of a certain White House Correspondents' dinner where the President calmly played the part of a relaxed president enjoying a moment of levity. Meanwhile, the wheels were set in motion on a daring mission to get Osama Bin Laden once and for all. President Obama is, as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive, entitled to execute the strategy of his choosing. Divulging too much information is ill-advised. The Bin Laden raid showed us just that....

Ukraine's Yatsenyuk calls for NATO's help

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk declared his country's intention to join NATO a few days ago, officially flip-flopping from his stance expressed nearly half a year ago. He said that the government was submitting a bill to the Rada to officially change Ukraine's non-aligned status and also de-facto prohibit it from ever joining the Eurasian Union. It is unclear how he plans to pass the bill, considering that the Rada had been unilaterally dissolved earlier this month. Nonetheless, with Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk being the only politicians...

Killer whales of Puget Sound are acting strange with population declining fast

The killer whale population in the Puget Sound, a sound in Washington state whose area includes Seattle, is rapidly declining. No whales have been born since 2012, two years ago. Two whales died this year. The Center for Whale Research said that the whale population has grown as low as 78, the lowest it's been in the past 20 years, since 1985. The whales are also acting erratically, and seem to be splitting up from their social groups, called pods. There are three pods that make up the population in the Sound, pods J, K, and L. Ken Balcomb, a researcher...

Systemic child abuse: British boarding schools reporting an epidemic of sex abuse claims

At lights out one Sunday evening within weeks of starting at his senior school, Joel Shaw was "stripped, sexually assaulted and publicly humiliated by my housemaster jeered on by loads of my peers", he recalls bitterly. It resulted, he claims, in him being remorselessly taunted as being this master's 'BumBoy', a nickname seared into his memory and one that dogged him throughout his school career. "I want an apology," says Joel (not his real name). He has recently made a claim for damages against the boarding school where he was allegedly abused...

6 dead after widespread flooding in Thailand

Thailand's Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) reported on Monday 01 September 2014 that at least 17 provinces have been affected by recent flooding. Six people have been killed and at least 1 person remains missing. Thai Meteorological Department had warned of the flood threat last week. From 26 August, a low pressure weather system left many areas of the country experiencing heavy rainfall. DPMD said that the affected provinces are: Mae Hong Son, Lam Pang, Kamphaeng Phet, Kalasin, Buri Ram, Samut Prakan, Nakhon Si Thammarat,...

Mexico baffled as 50 tons of fish turn up dead

Nearly 50 tonnes of popoche chub fish are latest incident of dead fish removed from lagoon in disastrous year for species. Mexicans are baffled at the sudden death of thousands of fish in a lake in the centre of the country, a dramatic intensification of a problem that no one has yet been able to explain. Nearly 50 tonnes of dead popoche chub fish were removed at the weekend from Lake Cajititln, a lagoon in the central state of Jalisco. Fishermen, firefighters, town hall workers and staff from the state agricultural ministry pulled hundreds of...

Mystery UFO sighting that baffled police captured on camera in Pennsylvania

Unknown flashing lights from the unidentified flying object even left the local police without an explanation There is no question in Stephanie Wilkerson's mind about what she saw in the night sky this week. When a giant circle of flashing lights appeared over her Pennsylvania home, she ran to grab her neighbour who brought his binoculars to take a closer look. After the lights started to change colour, the pair called 911 and began filming the strange sight on a mobile phone. In an interview with ABC New, Stephanie said: "I thought it was a plane...

Google drone program: The "inside" view

A zipping comes across the sky. A man named Neil Parfitt is standing in a field on a cattle ranch outside Warwick, Australia. A white vehicle appears above the trees, a tiny plane a bit bigger than a seagull. It glides towards Parfitt, pitches upwards to a vertical position, and hovers near him, a couple hundred feet in the air. From its belly, a package comes tumbling downward, connected by a thin line to the vehicle itself. Right before the delivery hits the ground, it slows, hitting the earth with a tap. The delivery slows, almost imperceptibly,...

Mountain lion 'stalks' woman near Telluride, Colorado

A lone hiker had a frightening encounter with a mountain lion Monday in San Miguel County. A sheriff's office spokesperson says the feline predator "stalked" the woman in Placerville which is about 16 miles northwest of Telluride in southwestern Colorado. The woman, 40-year-old Kyra Kopenstonsky of Placerville was on a trail when she spotted the mountain lion in close proximity to her. She told deputies the big cat kept following her and she called a friend for help. That friend called 911 at 4:45 p.m. Two deputies met the hiker at the trailhead...

Just one Facebook post can get you labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government

Innocent people's lives are being ruined. Why isn't anyone watching the watchlist? The US government's web of surveillance is vast and interconnected. Now we know just how opaque, inefficient and discriminatory it can be. As we were reminded again just this week, you can be pulled into the National Security Agency's database quietly and quickly, and the consequences can be long and enduring. Through ICREACH, a Google-style search engine created for the intelligence community, the NSA provides data on private communications to 23 government agencies....

Israel makes massive land grab in the West Bank - steals over 400 more hectares

The United States sees Israel's announcement on Sunday of a land appropriation for possible settlement construction in the occupied West Bank as "counterproductive" to peace efforts and urges the Israeli government to reverse the decision, Reuters reported a State Department official as saying. Israel laid claim to nearly a thousand acres (400 hectares) in the Etzion settlement bloc near Bethlehem, a move which an anti-settlement group termed the biggest appropriation in 30 years and a Palestinian official said would cause only more friction after...

This Google Glass app that measures human emotions is so, so creepy

It's not like we need any more reminders about how creepy Google Glass can be, but developers never stop surprising us. An new app from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute that uses facial tracking, proprietary tools and Glass, can measure human emotions. In real time. The technology, dubbed SHORE (Sophisticated High-speed Object Recognition), gauges emotions such as anger, happiness, sadness and surprise and projects this information directly onto the screen of your Glass, right across the face of the person you're looking at. It doesn't just stop...

Obama using Putin to hide the mess US caused in Ukraine

US President Barack Obama is trying to divert attention on his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to cover his poor leadership and his actions across the world, a political commentator says. You can hear the 3:30 minute Skype interview at Press TV here. "Nobody accepts any responsibility for terrible mistakes that they make. It's always someone else's fault," Veterans Today editor Jim Dean told Press TV on Saturday. He made the remarks when asked about the recent announcement by the White House that Obama's next week trip to Europe is a warning...

Some wild animals are losing fear of humans: Biologist recovering after cougar assault in Grand Prairie, Alberta

A biologist with the provincial Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) is recovering in the hospital following a harrowing encounter with a mountain lion. The biologist was performing this labors in the surrounding area of Nose Mountain when she was pummeled by the cougar. Another employee with the ESRD by the name of Jamie Hanlon confirmed that their follow co-worker sustained injuries during the attack. Her co-workers administered first aid to her and until she was transported to the local hospital in Grand Prairie. At the time...

Alzheimer Disease: How soon would you want to know?

Have you been forgetful lately? Any difficulty concentrating? Trouble recalling names? Answer "yes" to even one question like that, and there are some who want you to head to a clinic for memory screening. And it's not because there is a good new treatment for dementia. If only there were. Therapy for dementia remains a bleak landscape. And while we have a sense of some risk factors that could be modified (like smoking), there's nothing solid enough to be an early prevention strategy, either. Nevertheless, people are taking lessons from the cancer...

Protesters speak with one voice: NATO poses the threat to world stability and peaceful relations

Some 400 people have joined a protest camp in Newport to protest against NATO. The march comes ahead of next week's military summit that will see 60 world leaders descend on the area and is already causing considerable disruption to locals. "Nuclear NATO - no, thanks!" or "Iraq, Ukraine - no more wars" read the numerous placards as about 400 protesters took in a march on Saturday against the upcoming NATO summit. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament said that they expect Saturday's march to be a "major demonstration" and local officials have said...

'I want to cut your throat': British MP Galloway recalls being brutally beaten by pro-Israeli fanatic for standing up for Gaza

In his first TV interview after release from hospital, British MP George Galloway told RT he is surprised by the lack of condemnation from other UK politicians of the brutal attack on him. The assault by a pro-Israeli man left Galloway in much pain. Galloway, 60, was brutally beaten in Notting Hill, London last Friday allegedly for his views on the conflict in Gaza. "It's very painful to walk, to move, even to speak because I sustained a dislocated jaw, quite bad head injuries, and very badly cracked ribs," he said. He said the attack occurred...

Ancient Rome currency reform

In the Western world, modern civilizations are often thought of in comparison to those of the ancient world. The Roman Empire is typically the first considered, and arguably the most natural reference point owing to its many achievements, complexity and durability. It stands in history, widely considered the high water mark of the ancient world; one against which contemporary political, economic and social questions can be posed. Much of the world is still living with the consequences of Roman policy choices in a very real sense, in matters ranging...

Controversy reignites over distance of Pleiades star cluster

New measurement points to possible error in ESA survey that could also affect the agency's new Gaia mission. The most precise measurement yet of the distance to the Pleiades star cluster is reviving a dispute that has split the astronomy community largely down a trans-Atlantic divide for the past 17 years. The latest result, from a US team using a worldwide network of radio telescopes, is in good agreement with more than a dozen previous measurements to the Pleiades, made using multiple techniques. But it stands in sharp contrast to a figure from...

UK version of Justina Pelletier case? Family arrested for fleeing to Spain to seek alternative treatment for sons' brain tumor

The parents say they want to give their 5 year-old-boy with a brain tumor the best chance to live with a revolutionary new treatment they learned about on the Internet. Their British hospital says the boy has a 70 percent to 80 percent chance of survival with the treatment it offers, and it's the parents who are putting the child at risk. Britain has become riveted by the case of little Ashya King, whose parents plucked him from a hospital in southern England and fled to Spain amid a dispute over treatment - with British justice close on the family's...

Back to school in B.C.

It's back-to-school season, and you know what that means: Despite receiving a king's ransom in new clothes, electronics and school supplies, children across the country are already complaining about the burden of regularly attending an affordable system of formal education. If the "back in my day" speech hasn't set them straight, why not let them know of how much worse back-to-school season could have been for them had they been born a couple thousand years ago? Before we get rolling, it's important to mention that in just about all of the following...

How embarrassing: Several NATO officers trapped in Ukraine's Mariupol by militia

"Their exact location is unknown for top secrecy reasons," a spokesman for the Donetsk militia said on Monday A group of five or six NATO officers has been blocked in the town of Mariupol in the Donetsk region, a spokesman for the Donetsk militia said on Monday. "Their exact location is unknown for top secrecy reasons. But they obviously cannot leave Mariupol as all junta commanders and special units have already left the city," the spokesman said. ITAR-TASS has not confirmed this report from other sources yet. Losses of Ukrainian army near Mariupol...

© RIA Novosti / Alexey NokolskySeptember 1, 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin, second right, visits the P. Lazarev Mammoth Museum at the M. K. Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk Upon meeting a 28,000-year-old mammoth mummy in a museum in the Russian Far East, Russian President Vladimir Putin wondered if the preserved soft tissues of the ancient animal could help clone it.The mammoth museum in Russia's Yakutia is a unique place,...

It seems you can't step outside your front door these days without spotting a coyote running down the street. Lack of food and extreme drought conditions in the Angeles National Forest are forcing wildlife further down the mountain and into town, alarming residents who are unsure of how to protect themselves and their pets."The problem is everywhere," says Don Nelson, Warden with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), of the recent...

© Bryce Bolin/University of Hawaii, used with permissionPanSTARRS on patrol. It's an engaging thought experiment.What if Earth had multiple moons? Our world hasone large natural satellite, just over a quarter the diameter, 1/50th the volume, and less than 1/80th the mass of our fair world. In fact, the Earth-Moon system has sometimes been referred to as a "binary planet," and our Moon stands as the largest natural satellite of any planet - that...

Coyote. Another young girl was attacked by a coyote in Rye Tuesday evening while playing in her fenced backyard,just days after a 6-year-old girl was attacked by a pair of the wild animals about a mile away.The news came Tuesday night as Rye Police Commissioner Williams Connors was giving a speech at the Jay Heritage Center about police efforts to ensure public safety after Friday's coyote attack on 6-year-old Emily Hodulik on LaSalle Avenue.Interrupting...

A large footprint unlike one from a human or bear has been found in the woods in Mississippi - raising suggestions that the creature it belongs to is Bigfoot.The large print was found by Peyton Lassiter in Vicksburg on August 12 - nine months after another local man, David Childers, saw a large grey figure running through a wooded area nearby.Lassiter had been working on an air conditioner 400 yards from an abandoned playground that borders the woods...

Ukrainian troops have been taking a severe beating by Novorussian separatists. MOSCOW - The situation in Ukraine's southeast border town of Novoazovsk is calm and there are no signs of Russian military forces, according to CNN.For a town at the epicenter of what Kiev calls a direct military invasion on the part of Russia, "Novoazovsk could not feel more peaceful," the CNN reported Saturday.There are no signs of "marauding" Russian Army in the town,...

More than 200 teenage girls have reportedly fallen ill with an as-of-yet unidentifiable illness in the small town of El Carmen de Bolivar, in northern Colombia.The girls, who range between the ages of 9 and 16, have suffered symptoms of fainting, numbness in the hands and headaches.Some are suggesting that that mystery sickness could be a bizarre case of mass hysteria (that's athingthat can make you ill?) but recent reports suggest parents' concerns...

After provoking what is increasingly a devastating and expanding conflict in Ukraine,NATO appears to be out of options as its proxy regime loses its grip on both its military campaign against its own population in eastern Ukraine, as well as political control in the capital of Kiev itself. However, despite the turn of events, with NATO apparently rudderless, those seeking to undo and reserve the damage the West has created in Eastern Europe must...

Remove Vaccine Safety Oversight from DHHS - 'too much power for one federal agency'

On Aug. 27, 2014 a senior scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)1publicly admitted2that he and other CDC officials, including the current CDC's Director of Immunization Safety3, 4published a study about MMR vaccine safety in 20045that "omitted statistically significant information" and "did not follow the final study protocol. "He said the study "omitted relevant findings in a particular study for a particular sub group for a particular vaccine" and added that "there have always been recognized risks for vaccination"...

© nationalinterest.org But whether people see what's happening in Ukraine, and Russia's aggression towards its neighbors in the manner in which it's financing and arming separatists; to what's happened in Syria - the devastation that [President Bashar al-]Assad has wrought on his own people; to the failure in Iraq for Sunni and Shia and Kurd to compromise - although we're trying to see if we can put together a government that actually can function;...

Editor's Note: This is the first in a six-part series highlighting missing persons cases in Centre County.Jennifer Cahill-Shadle is the most recent one -but she isn't the only one.Authorities are investigating the unexplained disappearance of Cahill-Shadle, 48, who was last seen May 15 at Walmart on North Atherton Street in Ferguson Township. She joins a group of missing persons connected to Centre County, including Joey Lynn Offutt, Ray Gricar,...

A non-profit news blog, focused on providing independent journalism.

Wednesday, 3 September 2014

Tuesday, 2 September 2014

Search

Recent Posts

Popular