11/16/14 ~ The Raw Story

Sunday, 16 November 2014

Mysterious fire outbreak destroys over 100 houses in Bauchi, Nigeria

The acting district head of Soro in Darazo Local Government Area of Bauchi State, Alhaji Muhammad Kilishi, on Wednesday, informed that a mysterious fire outbreak had hit the town, razing more than 100 houses with property worth millions of Naira destroyed.

Alhaji Kilishi, who disclosed this while speaking with journalists in Bauchi, stated that as of now, no one knew the cause of the fire outbreak, saying that people only discovered that fire would come from nowhere and gut houses.

According to him, the mysterious fire outbreak started in October, saying, however, that, so far, no life had been lost in the incident.

"This fire is quite mysterious because it is not caused as a result of an electrical fault or bush burning. One just notices that fire from nowhere will start burning and before you know it, it has started destroying houses.

"This incident started mysteriously about a month ago, but no life has been lost since the outbreak. I don't know the meaning of this strange fire which cannot be traced to a cause," the acting district head said.

He, however, insinuated that the fire outbreak, which, he said, was abnormal, could be a spiritual attack on the town, calling on residents to continue to offer prayers to God to put an end to the incident.

According to Kilishi, "Maybe it is a spiritual attack or something else, I cannot say for now. It is just that it is quite abnormal for fire to appear from nowhere and start destroying properties within the communities."

He lamented that property of his people, worth millions of Naira, had been lost to the mysterious fire outbreak, though he expressed gratitude to God that no life was lost to it.

He then thanked the Bauchi State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) for its quick intervention by coming to the aid of the victims, providing them with items like roofing sheets and other building materials, as well as food items.

Meanwhile, the state police command has confirmed the mysterious fire outbreak, saying that between October 1 and now no fewer than 164 houses were razed in the town.

According to the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the command, DSP Haruna Muhammed, last Monday alone, 21houses were razed by the mysterious fire outbreak.

"On the 10/11/2014 at about 07:00 hrs, a mysterious fire engulfed Soro town and razed down 21 houses. So far, between 1/10/2014 and now, one hundred and sixty four (164) houses where burnt down in the town mysteriously and cause of fire still unknown.

"However, no lost of life and no injury sustained, value of property destroyed yet unknown," DSP Mohammed said

Researchers digging deeper into the origins of the Sutter's Mill meteorite, which fell in California's Gold Country in 2012, found diamonds and other "treasures" that provide important new insight into the early days of our solar system. They report their results in thirteen papers in the November issue of .

"Sutter's Mill gives us a glimpse of what future NASA spacecraft may find when they bring back samples from a primitive asteroid," said consortium lead Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "From what falls naturally to the ground, much does not survive the violent collision with Earth's atmosphere."

Jenniskens found one of the first and one of the most unusual of the Sutter's Mill meteorites before rain hit the area. In his search, Jenniskens was guided by Marc Fries of NASA's Johnson Space Center, in Houston, who describes in detail how Doppler weather radar enabled the rapid and pristine collection of the meteorites. "The two 10-micron diamond grains we found in this meteorite are too small to sparkle in a ring," said Mike Zolensky, space scientist of Johnson, working with associate professor Yoko Kebukawa late of Hokkaido University, Japan, "But their size is much larger than the nanometer-sized diamonds commonly found in such meteorites."

Nanodiamonds are thought to originate in the atmospheres of stars. The larger diamonds found in Sutter's Mill may have had another origin closer to home. "We suspect that these diamonds are so-called xenoliths," says Kebukawa. "Bits and pieces that originated in the interior of other much larger parent bodies."

University of California (UC), Davis researchers Akane Yamakawa and Qing-Zhu Yin studied the different forms of the element chromium, called isotopes. They found that at least five different stellar sources composed of mixtures of 54-chromium-rich and -poor materials must have contributed matter to the nascent solar system four and half billion years ago. Some of these materials remained in the Sutter's Mill meteorite. "The formation of the solar system did not fully erase and homogenize these signatures and Sutter's Mill provides the clearest record yet," said Yin, also a co-lead of the Sutter's Mill Meteorite Consortium.

Some fragments escaped alteration by liquid water, while others were heavily altered. Based on isotopes of the elements manganese and chromium, NASA Earth and Space Science Fellow Christine Jilly and colleagues now report when that happened. "We determined that minerals such as calcium and magnesium carbonate likely precipitated from liquid water 2.4 to 5.0 million years after the formation of the solar system," says Jilly. "It is possible that radioactive compounds in the meteorite's parent body heated the nascent planet to the point that water ice became liquid."

In primitive meteorites like Sutter's Mill, some grains survive from what existed in the cloud of gas, dust and ices that formed the solar system. In Sutter's Mill, the liquid water appears to have destroyed the silicate type of these, according to Xuchao Zhao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, working with NASA and UC Davis colleagues.

The meteorite also was heated, perhaps as recent as during entry in Earth's atmosphere. Using a technique called thermoluminescense, Derek Sears, senior research scientist at Ames, determined the rock was heated to 572 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100,000 years. Other materials were heated on the parent body, differently at different locations. Zolensky found unusual materials not seen in any other meteorites, including a very unusual calcium sulfide called oldhamite, also suspected to be a xenolith. "I don't know of any similar meteorites that contain both heated and unheated materials," said Zolensky. "Some materials were heated to 932 degrees Fahrenheit, while others clearly were not."

Michel Nuevo and Scott Sandford, both astrophysicists at Ames probed numerous grains with infrared spectroscopy, as did Mehmet Yesiltas and colleagues at the University of Central Florida. They confirmed that some portions of the Sutter's Mill meteorites were heated more than others, removing volatile organic compounds and causing chemical changes in the remainder. "We still found small amounts of amino acids - building blocks of proteins - in the pristinely collected stone by Jenniskens" says Aaron Burton, then at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, now at Johnson. "Indigenous amino acids were much less abundant in the Sutter's Mill samples than in other such meteorites."

These headlines are silly: Even more silly then those headlines was the German prime news which used a picture of Putin seemingly sitting alone at a lunch table to prove his "isolation". But news service pictures show that he is sitting with the Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff waiting for the other lunch guests to sit down next to them. These were simply not visible in the frame selectively used.

And do these headline writers, TV correspondents and politicians know what the 20 in G-20 means? The people who publicly miffed Putin in Brisbane were Obama, Cameron, Harper, Abbott and Abe. I count five out of twenty.

Those leaders who did not "isolate" Putin by grandstanding in front of the media were from Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Republic of Korea and Turkey. Many of the leaders of those countries had one on one talks with Putin. Merkel alone had a three hour talk with Putin. Did that make him feel lonely?

Fact is Putin is about as isolated as the Pope.

Fact is also that those "world leaders" who "isolated" Putin represent a minority of people, military and economic power of the world. As Putin himself correctly pointed out before the G-20 meeting:

Incidentally, the combined GDP of the BRICS countries calculated using purchasing power parity is already bigger than that of the so-called G7 countries. As far as I know, the BRICS countries have more than $37 trillion calculated using purchasing power parity, while the G7 has $34.5 trillion. And this upwards trend is in favour of the BRICS, not vice versa.

Now all this silly isolation talk would be funny if the people in power would recognize it for the bullshit it is. Unfortunately a lot of stupid people in Washington DC, politicians as well as media folks, believe in their own propaganda bullshit and therefore tend to miscalculate in their assessments of global policies. This is dangerous as it often has bloody consequences.

Comment: Yet another crystal clear example of how the main-stream media skews the truth in order to serve its masters. But this is also a really instructive bit of 'reality creation' that is being attempted here. As discussed in Joe Quinn's recent article: Putin at the G20: Sharing a stage with psychopathic a**holes makes you want to leave early, Canadian PM Steven Harper and British PM David Cameron both addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin about Ukraine and Russia's "aggression" there. And later, Obama made one of the most despicable speeches, however short (demonizing Russia), that any leader has probably ever made about another country. This is no exaggeration. A true hit and run.

Here's the important thing to note however: The hardcore lies that undergird the accusations and speech are for perception purposes only. They serve to buttress the Anglo-American Axis's narrative as promulgated by the media doing their bidding. Because, why would anyone, no less a world leader - and someone who is a part of the vaunted G20 say such things to another world leader unless they were true, one would reason to ask. Who has the balls and the stupidity to make such accusations to the face of another about matters of such magnitude when they know, on some level, that such statements as theirs are absolutely false and based on lies? The answer is horrific in its implications. Only members of the intra-species predator found among homo sapiens - commonly known as psychopaths - are capable of such a thing. And many of these types appear to have found good high-profile ego-boosting jobs as Prime Ministers and Presidents.

Event Time

2014-11-16 22:33:22 UTC

2014-11-17 10:33:22 UTC+12:00 at epicenter

2014-11-16 15:33:22 UTC-07:00 system time

Location

37.675°S 179.660°E depth=35.0km (21.7mi)

Nearby Cities

181km (112mi) NE of Gisborne, New Zealand

237km (147mi) E of Whakatane, New Zealand

304km (189mi) E of Rotorua, New Zealand

308km (191mi) E of Tauranga, New Zealand

580km (360mi) NE of Wellington, New Zealand

Technical Data

A cruise ship with 172 passengers and crew members suffering from a gastrointestinal ailment caused by norovirus was met by public health officials when it docked in California on Sunday, authorities and Carnival Corp said.

Passengers said the crews were everywhere trying to prevent the virus from spreading. One passenger said: "There were so many people walking around with buckets of sanitizers and wiping down walls and every time someone got up from a table, they were wiping down the tables and wiping down the chairs."

The outbreak marks the second time in less than a year that the highly contagious virus has spread on the company's ship, which is part of its Princess Cruises fleet. On the latest trip, the ship carried more than 4,100 people on a cruise that departed nearly a month ago from Los Angeles and included stops in Hawaii and Tahiti.

More than 100 people aboard the cruise ship were sickened by the virus during an April trip.

"Over the last few days, the ship began seeing an increased number of gastrointestinal illnesses, caused by norovirus," said company spokeswoman Susan Lomax. "In response, we have enacted our stringent disinfecting protocols developed in conjunction" with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The ship, which docked in San Pedro early in the day, will undergo a deep cleaning before embarking on its next voyage Sunday night, Lomax said.

The ship is next set to cruise the Mexican Riviera, she said.

Those set to board ship for its next cruise will be notified of the virus outbreak, with a CDC official on the vessel to conduct an inspection ahead of its departure, a CDC spokesman said.

Outbreaks of norovirus have been reported by nearly a dozen cruise lines sailing from U.S. ports in recent years. The outbreaks are unpleasant but usually mild and typically stem from many people confined to a small area, lackluster hand-washing and buffet-style dining, experts have said.

Norovirus is the most common cause of contagious gastrointestinal illness, with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea the typical symptoms.

The CDC estimates that there are about 20 million cases of norovirus in the United States each year, resulting in 570 to 800 deaths. The virus usually clears up in one to three days, the CDC says.

Carnival Corp is the parent company of several cruise lines, including Princess Cruises and Carnival Cruise Lines.

An Argentine student has invented shoes with ultrasound sensors which allow people with visual impairments to walk without a cane. The shoes vibrate when the wearer approaches an object.

The new shoes for blind people, dubbed 'Duspavoni,' were developed by Juan Manuel Bustamante, a student at Industrial College #4, and presented at the National Science Fair in Buenos Aires on Friday. He says he worked on the project for six months.

"I wish Duspavoni, my creation, could get to revolutionize the lives of people with sight problems, partial or total visual impairment," he told Ruptly.

The shoes have three ultrasound sensors placed inside the sole - in the frontal, lateral, and back areas. The sensors emit ultrasound waves which are reflected by surrounding objects and come back to the sensor. The shoe vibrates depending on the distance and position of the objects.

"The closer the object is, the more the device vibrates," Bustamante said. "If the object is ahead, the tip of the shoe vibrates. If it is on the side, the sole vibrates, and if it is behind, the heel vibrates."

The device can detect different kinds of materials, people, and animals within a 25-inch (63.5 centimeter) radius of the wearer. It is equipped with rechargeable batteries which can be charged by a USB cable connected to a computer, or even by a mobile phone charger. The time needed for a total charge is about five hours. The owner can then use the shoes for three or four days.

The inventor said the idea for Duspavoni came after a conversation with a friend who was losing her vision. He created the shoes to replace the traditional white cane with something more discreet, which may create less of a social stigma.

"She told me young blind people do not like the cane because they feel it stigmatizes them," Bustamente told EFE. "The shoes have been conceived for young blind people, between 10 and 25 years old, as they are most refusing to use the white cane."

[embedded content]

I want to take just a few minutes of your time because this is really important. Please read this article, watch the videos and check out the documentaries linked below. If you've got any friends in the Army or know anyone considering joining up please share it with them.

Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy. -

War is part of human history, we have fought each other for millennia. In most cases wars have been waged to take territories and resources. All major nations have won their power through blood and iron. Not a lot has changed today. Big players still try to dominate the world by playing out a grand chess game. They conspire to deceive and manipulate the public through propaganda campaigns and false flag operations, they often invent non-existent threats to justify their actions. Soldiers are led to believe that they are fighting for a just cause to protect their countries, but in many cases this is a travesty of the truth.

The Iraq war began in 2003 but it was merely one of a legion of conflicts involving the US in the last 200 years. The pretext for invasion was the supposed threat to international security raised by Iraq allegedly possessing weapons of mass destruction. These were never found in the end. Initially, the American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that military intervention would cost no more than $60 billion and predicted that the war would not last longer than 5 months. In fact, the American-led occupation lasted for 9 years and may well have to return following the rise of the Islamic State. Brown University has estimated that it has cost the US more than $2 trillion, over 40 times the initial projections, and it could go beyond a staggering figure of $6 trillion. Some sources suggest the death toll has exceeded more than one million people.

So what were the real reasons for this war?

Just take a moment and watch this testimony by General Wesley Clark:

[embedded content]

Some of the countries he mentioned experienced American military intervention. Not everything happened according to plan, but let's focus on Iraq in this instance. The US and its allies hoped to benefit from this war in several respects but the main prize was oil. Iraq has one of the largest oil reserves in the world and the US had already planned to take control of its supplies much earlier.

The following statement made by Dick Cheney in 1990 before the Senate Armed Services Committee can be seen to reveal the true purpose of the invasion: "Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well."

The Project For The New American Century

In September 2000 the policy paper entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century" was composed by the neoconservative think tank Project For The New American Century (PNAC) of which Dick Cheney was a member. Established in 1997 its main goal was "to promote American global leadership".

The report explains:

"The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." The PNAC document supports a "blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests."

This "American grand strategy" must be advanced for "as far into the future as possible", the report says. It also calls for the US to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars" as a "core mission".

The PNAC report also: refers to key allies such as the UK as "the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership."

Switching from the dollar to the euro

In late 2000 Saddam Hussein switched oil trade from dollars to euros, which infuriated Washington. They decided to do so since they didn't want to trade "in the currency of the enemy."

The dollar is a fiat currency, it is not backed by anything, it can only maintain its position because it is used for trading worldwide. If more countries choose to switch to another form of payment it could have catastrophic consequences for the American economy.

Other puppets played their part.

In this video from 2003, Stephen Harper, a Canadian politician who later became prime minister, and Australian Prime Minister John Howard delivered largely identical speeches urging their nations to join George W. Bush's Coalition to invade Iraq.

[embedded content]

The official explanation was that it was the speechwriter who was responsible for this imitation and that Stephen Harper was unaware of this "plagiarism."

Whatever the truth of this matter, when a political leader makes such a critical decision like sending their soldiers to war they should have the moral integrity to act in the interests of their own people independently.

Iraq's Missing Billions and the Military Industrial Complex

On January 17th 1961 President Eisenhower, who had been Supreme Allied Commander in WW2,made a famous farewell speech at the end of his term warning the nation about the looming danger of the military-industrial-complex.

[embedded content]

Since the date of this speech the American military industry has expanded on an unimaginable scale.

The US spends more on defense every year than the next 10 highest spending countries in the world combined!

According to a recent study conducted by Morgan Stanley (cited in Barron's, 6/9/14, p. 19) stocks in military-industries have risen 27,699% versus 6,777% for the overall market in the last 50 years. Eisenhower's fears have turned out to be true. War is a business and there are many ways in which special interests and particular individuals can profit from it.

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the Development Fund for Iraq was formed collecting over $20 billion of Iraqi money from oil sales and assets seized from Iraqi bank accounts and wealth funds. The US and the UK were given the authority to use these assets to build new roads, improve health services and rebuild Iraq. Many of the corporations which acquired contracts for the reconstruction were connected to the Bush administration and the largest recipient of Iraq's resources was Halliburton, whose CEO had happened to be Vice-President Dick Cheney. The whole project ended up being a complete failure: the companies were stealing money, overcharging, delivering substandard work or doing no work at all. This documentary tells the story of what really took place.

Iraq war documents leak

On 22nd October 2010, the whistleblower website WikiLeaks released nearly 400,000 secret U.S. Army reports gathered from between 2004 to 2009 during the war in Iraq. This leak revealed a rather different view to official reports. Some of the atrocities include civilians ruthlessly killed by coalition forces, physical and mental abuse of prisoners by American troops and the authorities deliberately ignoring torture by the Iraqi security forces. Fortunately enough there were a few soldiers who decided to tell the truth about what has been happening in the wars in Middle East. Please take a moment and listen to what they have to say:

[embedded content]

What should be considered before joining the Army

I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl, like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street. We were told we were fighting terrorists. The real terrorist was me, and the real terrorism is this occupation. - Mike Prysner, Iraq Veteran

In 2012 the US military suicide rate exceeded the number of deaths on the battlefield. We can not even imagine what horrific traumas these combatants had to suffer and how severely it affected them. Recent reports in the UK, for example, show that more than 10% of the British Army are unfit for duty. These veterans have been injured, are disabled or have serious psychological issues like post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the UK you can become a soldier as early as when you're 16, and once you are 12 you can become a member of the Army Cadet Force. It isn't a surprise that at such a young age people are not fully developed emotionally and often don't realise the implications of joining the Army. They will have been attracted by ads and slogans which offer the prospect of a fantastic adventure. Having been brought up on a diet of violent video games and movies, these kids imagine that it will be great fun - the thrill of a lifetime. The fun ends when you lose your leg or your best friend dies.

War does not solve anything

War creates terrible human suffering, causes appalling environmental devastation and also wastes enormous sums of money. In 2012 the military budget in the US had reached $737 billion when only 30 billion dollars would be enough to feed all the hungry people on the planet for the whole year.

Why would you want to kill anyone?

Soldiers follow orders, they go to war, they kill their opponents who are just soldiers like them, they only fight because they are doing what they're told or because they have to defend themselves from being attacked. Meanwhile those who send people to wars rip off the profits and sit comfortably in their offices while others are dying for their greed.

How can we make a difference?

The example given above showing Iraq war crimes is not an isolated incident, the difference is that it took place in times where it is much harder to control the information and it becomes easier to see the lies thanks to the Internet and independent media. Although I have highlighted the US war in Iraq it doesn't mean that other nations are any better.

We can stop this slaughter but only if we work together. You can play your part by sharing this material with your friends, and especially anyone you might know who is thinking of joining the military.

There will be several thousand people who will read this article. If everyone could share it via social media or with their network of friends this would massively multiply the numbers of people who read it and potentially change many people's minds. We do our job trying to find out and connect the dots so please do yours and share this material with as many people as possible. We all have to work together, people are dying, trillions in taxpayer money is being wasted profiting the few. It has to end.

I strongly recommend to watch those documentaries:

Why would anyone worry about radiation, mercury pollution coming out of every coal fired electrical plant in the world, vaccines, most pharmaceuticals or genetically modified food? Pesticides are not a problem nor is plutonium or the massive nutritional deficiencies gaining ground in the public. Though these Australians in the above picture are demonstrating against their own government's climate position I think it represents quite well, how most of us are dealing with the great problems facing our civilization.

The government says radiation is safe. Experts say it is safe, doctors say it is safe. Therefore, it must be safe so relax. TEBCO is officially telling us that radiation has reached the west coast but do not worry about it. It is safe radiation. It might even be good for you if you believe those who believe in such things. Radiation is up across the country according to EPA monitoring stations but that is not even worth a mention in the press since everything is safe. I wonder why we have not had a nuclear war since that probably would be safe as well. It is also safe to let psychopaths go un-confronted so they can run large corporations, banks and governmental institutions like the FDA and CDC.

The Fukushima Project published:

As news came out about yet another finding of Fukushima radioactive contamination offshore of North America, TEPCO published a rather bizarre press release. The corporate statement insists the contamination "Level raises no concern for human or animal health". This is a bit like taking healthy food advice from McDonalds. They go on to misrepresent statements made by Woods Hole for their own purposes including one twisted to try to claim cesium doesn't contaminate fish. This is obviously untrue.

Statements demanding people adopt an idea about public or personal safety usually don't come from a company. Even less often from the company that did the damage. More rare when it comes from a foreign company trying to bully the US public the way they have done so to the Japanese public. TEPCO's actions have not gone over well in Japan, so they have even less of a chance of success with the US public.

No matter how TEPCO tries to spin it, they have contaminated not just Japan, but the Pacific and their unwanted gift is arriving on North American shores.

In a press release, TEBCO is saying it is all safe, no threat; do not worry about a thing. Do you trust them? Why should we? Are we all children?

Fukushima is like an express train barreling down the tracks right at you but it's nothing, only the worst nuclear disaster in history promising to get worse and worse and stay around destroying robbing future generations of their life expectancy.

Radiation is not Safe

Even "the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans says a 2006 report from the National ReII arch Council arm of the National Academy of Sciences. This report, known as BEIR VII, is the latest in a long series of radiation health reviews done at the behest of the federal government. Under this theory, risk rises as exposure accumulates over time.

No matter what science says there are always those out there who believe that radiation is not a problem since we live in a universe alive with radiation. Without radiation, actually we would be quite dead since we ourselves absorb radiation and re-radiate it out.

The EPA says, "Stochastic effects are associated with long-term, low-level (chronic) exposure to radiation. ("Stochastic" refers to the likelihood that something will happen.) Increased levels of exposure make these health effects more likely to occur, but do not influence the type or severity of the effect. Is any amount of radiation safe? There is no firm basis for setting a "safe" level of exposure above background for stochastic effects."

Some scientists assert that low levels of radiation are beneficial to health (this idea is known as hormesis). Mostly these scientists are like the people in the picture above with their heads stuck in deception. They like to forget that part of the problem, which has nothing to do with hormesis, is the direct absorption of radioactive particles that come through foods and even the air.

A typical argument for hormesis goes something like this: "Hormesis is a concept which can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, who believed that too much of anything can be deadly. Conversely, substances that are harmful in large amounts can be beneficial to life in small amounts. To put it another way, the 16th century natural philosopher Paracelsus said, "The dose makes the poison." Surely, high doses of many substances found on Earth can be life-threatening, but low doses of the same substances often have the opposite effect. Take vitamins, for example. Their position is that typical vitamins include small concentrations of substances such as Iron, Magnesium, and Zinc, which are necessary to good health if not essential to life. In large, naturally-occuring concentrations, these minerals are deadly toxins. It seems Hormesis occurs with radiation, as well. Dr. Luckey discovered that doses below 500 mSv produced no harmful effects at all, and there was a lethal threshold of about 1000 mSv (less than 1%)."

The person who wrote that has a long relationship with the nuclear industry and if you want to believe in people like this I wish you good luck. For years I have written against this dose makes the poison philosophy that pharmaceutical companies so much love. It is ignorant to put magnesium as a deadly toxin and radiation as safe as mom's apple pie.

"... increases in childhood leukemias have been found not just in Europe but all over the world. The 2008 Laurier et al study taken together with Laurier and Bard's 1999 study indicate a stunning total of over 60 studies world-wide which have examined child cancers near nuclear facilities, with most of them finding cancer increases."

Special Note: Ebola Death Toll Surpasses 5,000 Worldwide. In the same period of almost a year, properly prescribed safe pharmaceutical drugs, in the United States alone, has killed approximately 100,000 Americans.

Vaccines are not safe. Not a single scientist, immunologist, infectious disease specialist or medical doctor has ever been able to establish a scientific foundation for the vaccination of infants (less than one year old). That's because the science is clear and there is no basis whatsoever either through empirical or any type of measurable evidence supporting the practice. As one immunologist has admitted, the reasoning vaccines are administered at pediatric wellness visits is to train the parent.

Few are paying attention to Fukushima and the dangers and the crime and shame of it all. Of course, the increases in radiation are safe no matter how high levels go. We can expect a whole range of illness to increase from safe radiation. This year's radiation levels in the United States has also shown substantial increases but because it is so safe, we do not hear about it.

Few are paying attention to Fukushima and the dangers and the crime and shame of it all. Of course, the increases in radiation are safe no matter how high levels go. We can expect a whole range of illness to increase from safe radiation. This year's radiation levels in the United States has also shown substantial increases but because it is so safe, we do not hear about it.

The truth is, I am writing this article about the importance of wisdom teeth while all of mine have been extracted. They have been gone for years. I am pretty sure many of yours have been long gone as well. I didn't know any better. We trust our dentists to do the best job possible while often not even questioning their methods. I should've questioned and should've researched myself. But now I can share my research and finding with you so you can make the decisions for yourself and not just listen to your dentist just because he tells you so. Many of us have been told that wisdom teeth need to be extracted just because they are not really needed. According to the dentists, they are just unnecessary teeth that just inconveniently crowd out mouths.

What are wisdom teeth?

Wisdom teeth, also called the Third Molars, are the furthest back teeth. They usually come in when you are in your late teens or early twenties. According to a report published in the American Journal of Public Health, more than 67 % of preventative wisdom teeth removals are unnecessary. Out of 10 million wisdom teeth extractions in America each year, only 20 proved to be necessary. You have to understand that the old tale about wisdom teeth causing all kind of illnesses, is simply not true. Let's look at it realistically, it's a big money maker (around a billion dollars a year) for the dental industry.

In the 1900s, Dr. Weston A. Price did extensive research on the connection between oral health and diseases. He discovered native tribes, with their traditional diets, that were almost 100 percent free of tooth decay. He came to the conclusion that dental and overall health lie in nutrition. Fortunately, this discovery is practiced by holistic dentists nowadays whom understand that when you supply enough nutrients to the jaw bone during its development, all 32 teeth will have proper space in your mouth without crowding. This means that proper nutrition is the key behind trouble free wisdom teeth.

Dr. Weston Price also discovered that once these tribes started consuming sugar and white flour, their perfect healthy teeth, quickly deteriorated.

I highly recommend reading his fascination and eye-opening book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

Why You Need Your Wisdom Teeth

Our teeth are vital, living organs within and connected to the body as a whole. Wisdom teeth are connected (according to acupuncture meridians) to our small intestine and the front of our pituitary gland. In fact, 46 percent of the motor and sensory nerves in your brain's cerebral cortex are interconnected to your mouth and face. So any time a tooth is removed, it disturbs and breaks an acupuncture meridian that flows through the area of that tooth. The meridian acupuncture system, known in Traditional Chinese Medicine for more than 5000 years, shows the vital relationship between your teeth and your joints, spinal segments, vertebrae, organs and endocrine glands.

Wisdom teeth extractions can be dangerous.

Did you know that between 57,000 and 175,000 people after wisdom teeth extractions have had permanent tingling, prickling or numbness caused by nerve damage? This, again, proves the point that all of our teeth are connected via nervous system pathways to every part of our body. Though it is a common surgery for a lot of Americans, wisdom tooth extraction involves very serious risks which can lead to sudden death. (here) So for all these reasons, I do not recommend removing wisdom teeth unless there is a good reason to do so. According to Jay Friedman, a California-based dental consultant, more than two-thirds of all wisdom tooth extractions are medically unnecessary, and that most patients would be perfectly fine if they just left their wisdom teeth alone. (source)

Stockton, S., "Jawbone Cavitations: Infarction, Infection and Systemic Disease", Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, April 2000.

Friedman, DDS, MPH, Jay. "The Prophylactic Extraction of Third Molars: A Public Health Hazard." American Journal of Public Health 97.September (2007): 1554. Print.

Teachers and students at a Florida middle school got the shock of their lives as an unannounced 'lockdown active shooter drill' sparked panic as police burst into classrooms with weapons drawn, drawing sharp criticism from the community.

Students at Jewett Middle Academy in Winter Haven, Florida, spoke of the terror they experienced as police officers carried out their 'active shooter drill' inside classrooms - without informing teachers ahead of time about the exercise.

Lauren Marionneaux, a seventh-grader, told WTVT-TV that when the police officers crashed into her classroom with weapons drawn, she immediately imagined the worst.

"A lot of people started getting scared because we thought it was a real drill," Lauren said. "We actually thought that someone was going to come in there and kill us."

Later, school officials sent an email to inform parents about the drill, which was compared to fire drills that schools regularly conduct.

Parents, students and staff are typically not notified about lockdown drills. For example, we do not give advanced notice of fire drills in order to evaluate how safety procedures work...We regret any concern that parents and students might have experienced in how the drill was conducted," the letter stated.

But for many parents, however, receiving a letter from school officials after the fact was unacceptable.

Stacy Ray, whose daughter texted her during the police exercise, said she believed the school was experiencing a real live shooting.

"I'm panicking because I'm thinking that it's a legitimate shooter coming, that something bad is happening at the school," Ray told Fox 13. The video below shows police officers in an 'active shooter exercise' in the state of Massachusetts.

[embedded content]

"It's very scary, especially from a parent's perspective," Ray said. "You hear all this horrible stuff on the news and you think it might be happening at your child's school."

Jason Geary, a spokesperson for Polk County Schools, called it "standard procedure" for such drills to occur without informing parents, students or teachers.

Meanwhile, Winter Haven Police Chief Charlie Bird said the unannounced lockdown drill enabled police to "evaluate a school's response."

"These types of drills are vital in order to evaluate not only law enforcement response, but more importantly to educate the students and school officials in case an actual event were to occur," Chief Charlie Bird said in an email to media.

"How you train and how you prepare is how you're going to react when everything goes bad."

"It really is to protect the children and at no point in time would we endanger any of the children," Bird stated.

Following the outpouring of criticism from teachers and parents, Winter Haven police said they had "evaluated procedures" for such drills and decided to change their tactics.

"Further lock-down drills that occur at schools within the city limits of Winter Haven will be performed by uniformed officers without weapons," the department said in a press release.

The police gave no indication, however, if they would inform students, parents and teachers about the 'active shooter drills' in advance.

US: Weeks ahead of schedule, ice visible on Lake Superior

Cold temperatures and snow across the Great Lakes in November is certainly nothing out of the ordinary, but this morning, a layer of ice was visible on parts of Lake Superior in Ashland, Wis.

While this may not seem unusual given the current stretch of unseasonably cold temperatures, it is actually several weeks earlier than normal.

The first sightings of ice on Lake Superior and the Great Lakes overall usually occur during the beginning to middle of December. However, a perfect combination of last season's record ice coverage, cooler summer temperatures, and an early blast of arctic air this fall has allowed for areas of ice to form earlier than normal for the second year in a row.

Last winter featured relentless, record breaking cold leading to the second highest ice coverage on record for the Great Lakes as a whole.

Lake Superior also set a record for the longest length of time that ice was observed on the lake. In 2013, ice was first observed on Nov. 25, and it did not all melt until early June 2014.

The extent and longevity of the ice coverage were both equally impressive. It is also important to note that this year the ice is being observed about 10 days earlier that last year's record-breaking season. However, an early start to ice formation does not mean another record breaking ice coverage season is on the way. The overall winter pattern over the next few months will ultimately determine where this year's ice coverage will go.

After a summer that lacked much intense heat for the region and the early arrival of long lasting arctic air, it is not taking much kick off some ice forming on Lake Superior once again.

The overall weather pattern will continue to favor below normal temperatures across the Great Lakes region for at least the next seven to 10 days -- perfect conditions to help add to the ice in place that's already setting up a wintry scene.

Comment: Break out your mukluks, the ice age cometh! To learn more about how humanity may be causing 'climate change', read .

"While official science portrays the crazy weather, more frequent sinkholes, increased meteor fireball activity, and intensifying earthquakes as phenomena that are unrelated, research put together by Pierre and Laura strongly suggests that all this (and more!) is intimately connected and may stem from a common cause.

In times past, people understood that the human mind and states of collective human experience influence cosmic and earthly phenomena. How might today's 'wars and rumors of wars', global 'austerity measures', and the mass protest movements breaking out everywhere play into the climate 'changing'?"

SOTT Talk Radio show #70: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?

Harsh cold air to freeze Northeast, set records in South

The coldest air since last winter is set to move over the Plains and the East during the first half of the new week.

The core of the cold air will focus over the northern Plains and the Great Lakes through at least Wednesday with overnight lows dipping down into the teens, and even the single digits in some normally colder spots.

Bone-chilling nights will be followed up by frigid days with highs struggling to reach the 20-degree mark over the regions on Monday and Tuesday. Some locations are forecast to stay below 20 F until Wednesday afternoon, including Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Temperatures this low can make it dangerous for outdoors activities if you are not wearing the proper clothing.

While much of the Northeast will escape the cold on Monday, the arctic air is expected to move into the region by Tuesday.

Highs temperatures from Washington, D.C., through New York City are forecast to stay near or below freezing on Tuesday, levels that would be considered below normal even during the heart of winter.

A biting wind from the northwest will make it feel even colder with AccuWeather.com RealFeel® staying in the teens throughout the day along the I-95 corridor.

A significant lake-effect snow event will set up downwind of the Great Lakes as the arctic air blows over the comparatively warm waters of the lakes.

The stage is set for feet of snow to pileup in some communities downwind of the Great Lakes. In some cases, the heaviest snow squalls in these areas can produce thunder and lightning.

Traveling in areas affected by heavy snow squalls can be extremely difficult as the snow cannot only make roads slippery and hard to drive on, but also greatly reduce visibility.

Such hazardous conditions will set up in Buffalo, New York, for a time.

This arctic outbreak will not only be limited to the northern Plains, Midwest and Northeast, but will reach across into the Deep South.

Record lows will be challenged on multiple occasions through midweek from eastern Texas to the Carolinas with lows near freezing along much of the Gulf Coast.

Parts of northern Florida may even have their first freeze of the season as lows dip down into the 20s in cities such as Jacksonville and Tallahassee.

This could have impacts on some of the citrus plants across the Sunshine State as freezing temperatures can damage the fruit.

The intensity of the cold is expected to lessen as temperatures begin to moderate heading into the second part of the week.

However, highs from Atlanta, Georgia, to Albany, New York, and westward through Aberdeen, South Dakota, will remain below normal until at least the weekend.

The second half of the week may also bring the next chance for snow to the Northeast with a storm potentially spreading accumulating snow from Indiana to Maine on Friday.

Years ago, an elderly, frail Japanese martial arts master once boasted a 200-0 record against his opponents. He claimed to have a unique power that allowed him to inflict serious injury on people without actually laying a finger on them.

Was it Chi? Magic? None of the above. It was a total scam. But that didn't matter. You see, the legend of the master's powers turned out to be far more powerful than reality. His core following of students believed in the master so much that they would fling themselves across the dojo whenever he raised his pinky finger.

And anyone who saw the display would become transfixed by the perception of the master's extraordinary abilities. It was an incredible case of mass delusion. Everyone believed it, including the master himself. He was so confident in his skills that he put up a $5,000 challenge that he could beat any fighter in the world.

A mixed martial arts champion accepted the wager, and the result wasn't pretty.

[embedded content]

As you can see in the video, the master is quickly knocked to the ground with a broken nose and a pool of blood. Observers scramble to find a doctor to come to his aid. You can almost hear the sound of reality quickly taking hold from the gasps of his students. No one could bring themselves to believe that the master had been so quickly beaten. To an outsider, it seems so obvious that this guy is a phony (just watch the video). But mass delusion is an incredibly powerful force.

We see the same effects in the West today - mass delusions everywhere. People seem to believe their governments are almighty beings capable of performing magic - water into wine, debt into wealth.

Here are some of the biggest myths we see in the system today:

1. The dollar will continue to be the dominant currency

This is a total farce. Grumblings grow louder around the world to establish a new non-dollar financial system, and China has taken the lead to make this a reality.

2. The US is still the dominant military power in the world

If you measure by the quality of trained personnel, this is true. But what good is all of that military power if you can't afford to do anything with it?

3. The police exist to protect the people

Wrong again. With so much civil asset forfeiture taking place at the point of a gun (federally funded assault rifles), it's clear they're far more concerned about protecting those that maintain the status quo than protecting you.

4. Elections make a difference

Completely false. Most Western governments borrow money to pay interest on the money they've already borrowed. In the US, they spend so much on mandatory entitlements and interest they could eliminate almost the entire government and still not run a balanced budget. At that level of desperation, it matters not who's in power.

5. Your bank is safe

Your bank might HAVE a safe. But if you look at objective data, many banks in the West have incredibly thin levels of capital and liquidity - the exact opposite of what a safe bank is supposed to have. Oh yeah, they're backed by poorly capitalized deposit insurance funds, which are guaranteed by insolvent governments. And bear in mind that even if your bank is reasonably capitalized, you are still guaranteed to lose money on a tax adjusted, inflation adjusted basis if you you're holding your savings there.

6. You have to go to college in order to get ahead

Quite the opposite - going to college in many cases can get you behind; just ask any 36-year old still paying down that $100,000 student loan debt. The world is a big place full of opportunity. Skills and experience matter more than pieces of paper.

Here's a better option, especially for young people: head overseas, and become an apprentice to a successful, knowledgeable individual that you respect. Any young person who thinks that going to college is a good idea should just ask any of their unemployed friends saddled with $100,000 of debt if it was worth it.

7. I saw it on TV so it must be true

Ufff. The mainstream media exist to paint a distorted version of reality so that people are kept placated, docile and largely clueless about what really goes on in the world.

8. Debt doesn't matter because we owe it to ourselves

Whoever first said this must have a lot of whips and chains in his closet because he seems to enjoy pain. If we owe the debt to 'ourselves,' that means that we will need to default on ourselves. This means no more Social Security, Medicare, etc. It means causing the US Federal Reserve to become insolvent and spark a currency crisis. It means causing the collapse of every bank in the country. Sure, no biggie.

9. The United States is the Land of the Free

Draconian surveillance efforts on its citizens. Punitive taxes, fines and regulation. Rising police state. Telling people what they can or can't put in their bodies, how to grow their food, who to adore, who to hate. Preventing them to collect their own rainwater and live off the grid.

The list goes on and on. And so do the myths. Are there any more that you see?

Obama Comments On Grubergate: "I Did Not Mislead Americans" Even As Gruber Pocketed Millions

The last thing Obama needed brought up during the just concluded G-20 conference, where world leaders generously agreed to boost global GDP by $2 trillion (let's all hold our breath while they "just go find a cash machine") while bashing Putin pretty much non-stop for 48 hours to the point where the Russian leader left early (due to "lack of sleep"), was the whole "Gruber thing", i.e., the recent revelations that the architect of the "Affordable" Care Act, Jonathan Gruber, relied on the "stupidity of American voters" to pass Obamacare. Sadly for the American president, not even halfway around the world could he get away from the humiliation that has clouded his one and only domestic policy "success" in his 6 year tenure.

Alas, a question about Grubergate is precisely what Obama got when after preaching about "accountability to the people", a member of the press asked the head of the "most hypocritical transparent administration ever" if Obama "misled Americans" about the taxes and about keeping the plan "in order to get the bill passed?"

Obama's response:"No, i did not." This was Obama's conclusion after he had just gotten "well-briefed before he came out here." Indeed, nothing escapes the American president who continued: "The fact that some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is no reflection on the actual process that was run."

Obama's argument in a nutshell: "we had a lengthy argument" in the US about Obamacare. True, one that was rammed down the throats of Americans as a tax courtesy of the Supreme Court: a decision that as we now know relied on the stupidity of the American voters. Apparently, one that also relied on the partisan nature of the Supreme Court. But it's ok, because the misleading was done not by the architect of Obamacare but, suddenly, just "some advisor who never worked on our staff."

Unfortunately, because Obama apparently wasn't briefed quite as well as he would have hoped, let's just take a look at what Dr. Gruber did do.

From B-320482, Department of Health and Human Services--Use of Appropriated Funds for Technical Assistance and Television Advertisements, October 19, 2010

On March 25, 2009, HHS awarded a contract to Dr. Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to "produce a series of technical memoranda on the estimated changes in health insurance coverage and associated costs and impacts to the government under alternative specifications of health system reform." [3] HHS Contract No. HHSP233200900181P, at 3. The contract required Dr. Gruber to consult with senior HHS officials "to develop detailed specifications of alternative proposals to increase health insurance coverage" and to use the specifications to "develop estimates of the change in the number of individuals with health insurance coverage . . . and the costs to the government and the private sector associated with these estimated changes in coverage." Id. This was a firm, fixed-price contract for $95,000. Id., at 1. On June 19, 2009, HHS awarded another firm, fixed-price contract to Dr. Gruber for similar services for $297,600. HHS Contract No. HHSP23320094301EC.

...

Subsequent to the award of the HHS contracts, Dr. Gruber authored opinion pieces on health care policy that were published in national newspapers. E.g., Jonathan Gruber, Reform requires consumer pressure, Boston Globe, Sept. 3, 2009, at 17; Jonathan Gruber, A Loophole Worth Closing, N.Y. Times, July 12, 2009, at WK-10. Several media outlets quoted Dr. Gruber in articles regarding health care policy. E.g., Alec MacGillis, Would Tax on Benefits Rein In Spending?, Washington Post, July 30, 2009, at A1; Lisa Wangsness, Mass. health overhaul offers lessons for US program; Employees not being dumped on public plan, Boston Globe, July 10, 2009, at 2. In 2009, Dr. Gruber twice testified before a Senate committee on health care policy issues. Increasing Health Costs Facing Small Businesses: Hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Nov. 3, 2009, video available at http://ift.tt/1EO1oY7; Healthcare Reform: Hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, June 11, 2009, available at http://ift.tt/1EO1oY7.

...

At issue here is whether HHS violated the prohibition against using appropriations for publicity or propaganda purposes when it awarded the contract for technical assistance and when it used appropriated funds to produce and air the television advertisements. The applicable prohibition states that "[n]o part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used directly or indirectly, including by private contractor, for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by Congress."[7]

In other words Obama is right that Gruber wasn't part of the administration. He was nothing short than a well-paid propaganda tool designed to take advantage of, in his own words, American stupidity.

Did we say well paid? We meant very well paid. To wit:

... and so on, and on, and on.

Because it suddenly becomes all too clear that Gruber was indeed telling the truth: only a nation full of idiots would pay a lying, self-serving propaganda tool nearly $2 million for nothing but constant lies.

As for the Obama exchange, here it is.

Scientists close to precise dating of the Shigir Idol, twice as ancient as the Egyptian Pyramids.

The Idol is the oldest wooden statue in the world, estimated as having been constructed approximately 9,500 years ago, and preserved as if in a time capsule in a peat bog on the western fringe of Siberian. Expert Svetlana Savchenko, chief keeper of Shigir Idol, believes that the structure's faces carry encoded information from ancient man in the Mesolithic era of the Stone Age concerning their understanding of 'the creation of the world'.

German scientists are now close to a precise dating - within five decades - of the remarkable artifact, which is a stunning example of ancient man's creativity. The results are likely to be known in late February or early March, can reveal.

Now the question is turning among academics to a better understanding of the symbols and pictograms on this majestic larch Idol, one of Russia's great treasures, which is now on display a special glass sarcophagus at its permanent home, Yekaterinburg History Museum, where Savchenko is senior researcher.

German pre-historian Professor Thomas Terberger said: 'There is no such ancient sculpture in the whole of Europe. Studying this Idol is a dream come true. We are expecting the first results of the test at the end of winter, (early) next year.'

© siberiantimes.com

Drawings of the first reconstruction of the Idol as walking and standing upright with marked faces, by archeologist Vladimir Tolmachev.

Professor Mikhail Zhilin, leading researcher of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Archeology, explained: 'We study the Idol with a feeling of awe. This is a masterpiece, carrying gigantic emotional value and force. It is a unique sculpture, there is nothing else in the world like this. It is very alive, and very complicated at the same time.

'The ornament is covered with nothing but encrypted information. People were passing on knowledge with the help of the Idol.'

He is adamant that we can draw conclusions about the sophistication of the people who created this masterpiece, probably scraping the larch with a stone 'spoon', even though the detail of the code remains an utter mystery to modern man.

Asked if they lived in permanent fear of mighty forces of mysterious nature, nervously casting around, petrified by danger, he replied: 'Forget it. The men - or man - who created the Idol lived in total harmony with the world, had advanced intellectual development, and a complicated spiritual world.'

'It is obvious that the elements of geometrical ornament had some meaning,' stated Savchenko and Zhilin in explaining the Idol's ancient markings.

'The difficulty of interpretation is the polysemy symbolism of these symbols' - in other words, the possible multiple related meanings. According to ethnography, a straight line could denote land, or horizon - the boundary between earth and sky, water and sky, or the borderline between the worlds.

'A wavy line or zigzag symbolised the watery element, snake, lizard, or determined a certain border. In addition, the zigzag signaled danger, like a pike. Cross, rhombus, square, circle depicted the fire or the sun, and so on.'

Savchenko and other museum staff have postulated that among its purposes was that of an early map, or navigator.

Straight lines, wave lines and arrows indicated ways of getting to the destination and the number of days for a journey, with waves meaning water path, straight lines meaning ravines, and arrows meaning hills, according to this theory which has yet to be fully researched.

The impression of the main three-dimensional face, with a gaping mouth, is of an Aztec look, but it is only because the part of the nose of the main face was broken. In all there are seven faces, six of which are one dimensional.

'It is clear that the faces together with the ornament form separate figures,' said Savchenko and Zhilin. 'On both the front and back of the Idol there are three figures. Here they are located one above the other, and the upper seventh figure...connects both sides and crowns the composition.'

Some have claimed the Idol includes primitive writing, which, if true, would be amongst the first on Earth, but there is no consensus among experts who have studied the Urals statue.

The Idol was preserved due to a stroke of luck concerning its resting place in the Urals. It happened 'thanks to a combination of antiseptics,' said Professor Zhilin. 'The idol was made from the Phytoncidic larch, then 'canned' in turf which is an acid anaerobic environment that kills microorganism-destroyers and also has a tanning effect.'

The scientists from the Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage are using AMS - accelerated mass spectrometry - enabling them to compare analysis of five microscopic samples of the larch from the idol with climate changes data for the past 10,000 years. This will allow them to figure out when exactly the 159 year old larch - from which the Idol is carved - grew.

The tests follow what Professor Terberger called 'a very successful summer trip' in which 'we worked together with our Russian colleagues from the Yekaterinburg History Museum'.

The Idol was originally recovered in January 1890 near Kirovograd; some 2.8 metres in height, it appears to have seven faces. It was protected down the millennia by a four metre layer of peat bog on the site of an open air gold mine.

Lack of funding has, until now, prevented the proper age testing of this Urals treasure. Professor Uwe Hoysner, from Berlin Archaeological Institute said: 'The Idol is carved from larch, which, as we see by the annual rings, was at least 159 years old. The samples we selected contain important information about the isotopes that correspond to the time when the tree grew.' The samples used for testing were cut in 1997. The Idol was extracted in several parts from the peat bog.

Professor Dmitry. I. Lobanov combined the main fragments to reconstitute the sculpture 2.80m high but in 1914 the Siberian archaeologist Vladimir Tolmachev proposed a variant of this reconstruction by integrating previously unused fragments.

Tragically, some of these fragments were later lost, so only Tolmachev's drawings of them remain. However, these suggest the original height of the statue was 5.3 metres. Some 1.93 metres of the statue did not survive the 20th century's revolutions and wars and it is only visible on his drawings.

But even the size is it now makes it the highest wooden statue in the world.

One intriguing question debated by Russian scientists is how the Idol - as tall as a two-storey house - was kept in a vertical position.

Museum staff believe it was never dug into the ground to help it stand upright, and that it was unlikely it was perched against a tree, because it would have covered more than half of its ornaments.

Does anyone remember Thorazine? It was an antipsychotic given to mentally ill people, often in institutions, that was so sedating, it gave rise to the term "Thorazine shuffle." Ads for Thorazine in medical journals, before drugs were advertised directly to patients, showed Aunt Hattie in a hospital gown, zoned out but causing no trouble to herself or anyone else. No wonder Thorazine and related drugs Haldol, Mellaril and Stelazine were called chemical straitjackets.

But Thorazine and similar drugs became close to obsolete in 1993 when a second generation of antipsychotics which included Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Geodon and Abilify came online. Called "atypical" antipsychotics, the drugs seemed to have fewer side effects than their predecessors like dry mouth, constipation and the stigmatizing and permanent facial tics known as TD or tardive dyskinesia. (In actuality, they were similar.) More importantly, the drugs were obscenely expensive: 100 tablets of Seroquel cost as much as $2,000, Zyprexa, $1,680 and Abilify $1,644.

One drug that is a close cousin of Thorazine, Abilify, is currently the top-selling of all prescription drugs in the U.S. marketed as a supplement to antidepressant drugs, reports the Daily Beast. Not only is it amazing that an antipsychotic is outselling all other drugs, no one even knows how it works to relieve depression, writes Jay Michaelson. The standardized United States Product Insert says Abilify's method of action is "unknown" but it likely "balances" brain's neurotransmitters. But critics say antipsychotics don't treat anything at all, but zone people out and produce oblivion. They also say there is a concerning rise in the prescription of antipsychotics for routine complaints like insomnia.

They are right. With new names and prices and despite their unknown methods of action, Pharma marketers have devised ways to market drugs like Abilify to the whole population, not just people with severe mental illness. Only one percent of the population, after all, has schizophrenia and only 2.5 percent has bipolar disorder. Thanks to these marketing ploys, Risperdal was the seventh best-selling drug in the world until it went off patent and Abilify currently rules.

Here are some of the ways Big Pharma made antipsychotics everyday drugs.

Approval Creep

Everyone has heard of "mission creep." In the pharmaceutical world, approval creep means getting the FDA to approve a drug for one thing and pushing a lot of other drug approvals through on the coattails of the first one. Though the atypical antipsychotics were originally drugs for schizophrenia, soon there was a dazzling array of new uses.

Seroquel was first approved in 1997 for schizophrenia but subsequently approved for bipolar disorder, psychiatric conditions in children and finally as an add-on drug for depression like Abilify. The depression "market" is so huge, Seroquel's last approval allowed the former schizophrenia drug to make $5.3 billion a year before it went off patent. But before the add-on approval, AstraZeneca, which makes Seroquel, ran a sleazy campaign to convince depressed people they were really "bipolar." Ads showed an enraged woman screaming into the phone, her face contorted, her teeth clenched. Is this you, asked the ads? Your depression may really be bipolar disorder, warned the ad.

Sometimes the indication creep is under the radar. After heated FDA hearings in 2009 about extending Zyprexa, Seroquel and Geodon uses for kids - Pfizer and AstraZeneca slides showed that kids died in clinical trials - the uses were added by the FDA but never announced. They were slipped into the record right before Christmas, when no news breaks, and recorded as "label changes." Sneaky.

And there is another "creep" which is also under the radar: "warning creep." As atypical antipsychotics have gone into wide use in the population, more risks have surfaced. Labels now warn against death-associated risks in the elderly, children and people with depression but you have to really read the fine print. (Atypical antipsychotics are so dangerous in the elderly with dementia, at least 15,000 die in nursing homes from them each year, charged FDA drug reviewer David Graham in congressional testimony.) The Seroquel label now warns against cardiovascular risks, which the FDA denied until the drug was almost off patent.

Dosing Children

Perhaps no drugs but ADHD medications have been so widely used and often abused in children as atypical antipsychotics. Atypical antipsychotics are known to "improve" behavior in problem children across a broad range of diagnoses but at a huge price: A National Institute of Mental Health study of 119 children ages 8 to 19 found Risperdal and Zyprexa caused such obesity a safety panel ordered the children off the drugs.

In only eight weeks, kids on Risperdal gained nine pounds and kids on Zyprexa gained 13 pounds. "Kids at school were making fun of me," said one study participant who put on 35 pounds while taking Risperdal.

Just like the elderly in state care, poor children on Medicaid are tempting targets for Big Pharma and sleazy operators because they do not make their own medication decisions. In 2008, the state of Texas charged Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen with defrauding the state of millions with "a sophisticated and fraudulent marketing scheme," to "secure a spot for the drug, Risperdal, on the state's Medicaid preferred drug list and on controversial medical protocols that determine which drugs are given to adults and children in state custody."

Many other states have brought legal action against Big Pharma including compelling drug makers to pay for the extreme side effects that develop with the drugs: massive weight gain, blood sugar changes leading to diabetes and cholesterol problems.

Add-On Conditions

It's called polypharmacy and it is increasingly popular: Prescribing several drugs, often as a cocktail, that are supposed to do more than the drugs do alone. Big Pharma likes polypharmacy for two obvious reasons: drug sales are tripled or quadrupled - and it's not possible to know if the drugs are working. The problems with polypharmacy parallel its "benefits." The person can't know which, if any, of the drugs are working so they take them all. By the time someone is on four or more psychiatric drugs, there is a good chance they are on a government program and we are paying. There is also a good chance the person is on the drugs for life, because withdrawal reactions make them think there really is something wrong with them and it is hard to quit the drugs.

Into this lucrative merchandising model came the idea of "add-on" medications and "treatment-resistant depression." When someone's antidepressant didn't work, Pharma marketers began floating the idea that it wasn't that the drugs didn't work; it wasn't that the person wasn't depressed to begin with but had real life, job and family problems - it was "treatment-resistant depression." The person needed to add a second or third drug to their antidepressant, such as Seroquel or Abilify. Ka-ching.

Lawsuits Don't Stop Unethical Marketing

Just as Big Pharma has camped out in Medicare and Medicaid, living on our tax dollars while fleeing to England so it doesn't have to pay taxes, Pharma has also camped out in the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Arguably, no drugs have been as good for Big Pharma as atypical antipsychotics within the military. In 2009, the Pentagon spent $8.6 million on Seroquel and VA spent $125.4 million - almost $30 million more than is spent on a F/A-18 Hornet.

Risperdal was even bigger in the military. Over a period of nine years, VA spent $717 million on its generic, risperidone, to treat PTSD in troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet not only was risperidone not approved for PTSD, it didn't even work.

A 2011 study in the found the drug worked no better than placebo and the money was totally wasted. In the last few years, the makers of Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa have all settled suits claiming illegal or fraudulent marketing. A year ago, Johnson & Johnson admitted mismarketing Risperdal in a $2.2 billion settlement. But the penalty is nothing compared with the $24.2 billion it made from selling Risperdal between 2003 to 2010 and shareholders didn't blink. The truth is, there is too much money in hawking atypical antipsychotics to the general population for Pharma to quit.

About the author

Born With a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp the Public Health (Random House).

The State Department has taken the unprecedented step of shutting down its entire unclassified email system as technicians repair possible damage from a suspected hacker attack.

A senior department official said Sunday that "activity of concern" was detected in the system around the same time as a previously reported incident that targeted the White House computer network. That incident was made public in late October, but there was no indication then that the State Department had been affected. Since then, a number of agencies, including the U.S. Postal Service and the National Weather Service, have reported attacks.

The official said none of the State Department's classified systems were affected. However, the official said the department shut down its worldwide email late on Friday as part of a scheduled outage of some of its Internet-linked systems to make security improvements to its main unclassified computer network. The official was not authorized to speak about the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the department expects that all of its systems will be operating as normal in the near future, but would not discuss who might be responsible for the breach. Earlier attacks have been blamed on Russian or Chinese attackers, although their origin has never been publicly confirmed.

The State Department is expected to address the shutdown once the security improvements have been completed on Monday or Tuesday.

9 Of The Biggest Myths People Believe About 'The System'

Years ago, an elderly, frail Japanese martial arts master once boasted a 200-0 record against his opponents.

He claimed to have a unique power that allowed him to inflict serious injury on people without actually laying a finger on them.

Was it Chi? Magic? None of the above. It was a total scam. But that didn’t matter.

You see, the legend of the master’s powers turned out to be far more powerful than reality.

His core following of students believed in the master so much that they would fling themselves across the dojo whenever he raised his pinky finger.

And anyone who saw the display would become transfixed by the perception of the mater’s extraordinary abilities. It was an incredible case of mass delusion.

Everyone believed it, including the master himself. He was so confident in his skills that he put up a $5,000 challenge that he could beat any fighter in the world.

A mixed martial arts champion accepted the wager, and the result wasn’t pretty.

As you can see in the video, the master is quickly knocked to the ground with a broken nose and a pool of blood. Observers scramble to find a doctor to come to his aid.

You can almost hear the sound of reality quickly taking hold from the gasps of his students. No one could bring themselves to believe that the master had been so quickly beaten.

To an outsider, it seems so obvious that this guy is a phony (just watch the video). But mass delusion is an incredibly powerful force.

We see the same effects in the West today—mass delusions everywhere.

People seem to believe their governments are almighty beings capable of performing magic—water into wine, debt into wealth.

Here are some of the biggest myths we see in the system today:

1. The dollar will continue to be the dominant currency.

This is a total farce. Grumblings grow louder around the world to establish a new non-dollar financial system, and China has taken the lead to make this a reality.

2. The US is still the dominant military power in the world.

If you measure by the quality of trained personnel, this is true. But what good is all of that military power if you can’t afford to do anything with it?

3. The police exist to protect the people.

Wrong again. With so much civil asset forfeiture taking place at the point of a gun (federally funded assault rifles), it’s clear they’re far more concerned about protecting those that maintain the status quo than protecting you.

4. Elections make a difference

Completely false. Most Western governments borrow money to pay interest on the money they’ve already borrowed.

In the US, they spend so much on mandatory entitlements and interest they could eliminate almost the entire government and still not run a balanced budget.

At that level of desperation, it matters not who’s in power.

5. Your bank is safe

Your bank might HAVE a safe. But if you look at objective data, many banks in the West have incredibly thin levels of capital and liquidity—the exact opposite of what a safe bank is supposed to have.

Oh yeah, they’re backed by poorly capitalized deposit insurance funds, which are guaranteed by insolvent governments.

And bear in mind that even if your bank is reasonably capitalized, you are still guaranteed to lose money on a tax adjusted, inflation adjusted basis if you you’re holding your savings there.

6. You have to go to college in order to get ahead

Quite the opposite—going to college in many cases can get you behind; just ask any 36-year old still paying down that $100,000 student loan debt.

The world is a big place full of opportunity. Skills and experience matter more than pieces of paper.

Here’s a better option, especially for young people: head overseas, and become an apprentice to a successful, knowledgeable individual that you respect.

Any young person who thinks that going to college is a good idea should just ask any of their unemployed friends saddled with $100,000 of debt if it was worth it.

7. I saw it on TV so it must be true.

Ufff. The mainstream media exist to paint a distorted version of reality so that people are kept placated, docile and largely clueless about what really goes on in the world.

8. Debt doesn’t matter because we owe it to ourselves

Whoever first said this must have a lot of whips and chains in his closet because he seems to enjoy pain.

If we owe the debt to ‘ourselves,’ that means that we will need to default on ourselves.

This means no more Social Security, Medicare, etc. It means causing the US Federal Reserve to become insolvent and spark a currency crisis. It means causing the collapse of every bank in the country.

Sure, no biggie.

9. The United States is the Land of the Free

Draconian surveillance efforts on its citizens. Punitive taxes, fines and regulation. Rising police state. Telling people what they can or can’t put in their bodies, how to grow their food, who to adore, who to hate. Preventing them to collect their own rainwater and live off the grid.

This image shows the entrance to the tomb. The entryway is flanked by two gatekeepers. On the left is a man holding a staff, while on the right there is a woman holding a fan. Above the door is a Garuda, a mythical bird, which is depicted as watching over the entrance. Photo courtesy Chinese Cultural Relics

A 1,000-year-old tomb with a ceiling decorated with stars and constellations has been discovered in northern China.

Found not far from a modern day railway station, the circular tomb has no human remains but instead has murals which show vivid scenes of life. "The tomb murals mainly depict the daily domestic life of the tomb occupant," and his travels with horses and camels, a team of researchers wrote in their report on the tomb recently published in the journal .

On the east wall, people who may have served as attendants to the tomb's occupant are shown holding fruit and drinks. There is also a reclining deer, a crane, bamboo trees, a crawling yellow turtle and a poem. The poem reads in part, "Time tells that bamboo can endure cold weather. Live as long as the spirits of the crane and turtle."

© Chinese Cultural Relics

On the north wall of a 1,000-year-old tomb found recently in Datong City, in northern China, a mural shows shows a cat, dog and attendants in a bedroom with an empty bed. Exactly who occupied the tomb is a mystery -- no human remains were found.

The tomb also contains images of what appear to be the occupant's pets. On the north wall, there is "a black and white cat with a red ribbon on its neck and a silk-strip ball in its mouth," the researchers wrote, with the same scene also showing "a black and white dog with a red ribbon on its neck and a curved tail." Male and female attendants are shown beside the cat and dog, with an empty bed lying between the animals.

The tomb's ceiling contains stars painted in a bright red color. The "completed constellations are formed by straight lines connecting the stars in relevant shapes and forms," the researchers wrote.

The ceiling of the tomb, now damaged, contains stars painted in vermilion, a bright red color. The stars are connected together to form constellations. Photo courtesy Chinese Cultural Relics

Archaeologists also found a small statue of the occupant. The statue is 3.1 feet (0.94 meters) tall, and shows a smiling man who is wearing a long black robe while sitting cross-legged on a platform. It could be that the statue was used as a substitute for the body in the burial, the researchers said, noting this practice wasn't unusual among Buddhists at the time.

The tomb was found in Datong City and was excavated in 2011 by a team from the Datong Municipal Institute of Archaeology. The researchers reported their finds, in Chinese, in the journal , and their article was recently translated into English and published in Chinese Cultural Relics. The excavation team was led by Junxi Liu.

Who was he?

The tomb was robbed in the past and the name of the tomb owner has not survived. Judging by his statue, and the decoration of his tomb, researchers said it's likely that the occupant was a Han Chinese man of some rank and wealth.

At the time he lived, about 1,000 years ago, the area where his tomb is located was controlled by the Liao Dynasty (sometimes called the Liao Empire). This dynasty was controlled by people called the Khitan, who held territory in modern- day Mongolia, northern China and parts of Russia.

Historical records indicate that the Khitan ruled a multicultural empire that incorporated Han Chinese into the government.

"The Khitan system of rule worked on a principle of dual administration, with its nomadic, pastoral, and mostly Khitan subjects in the north under the northern government and its agricultural, sedentary, and largely Chinese and Bohai subjects in the south under the southern government," writes Nicola Di Cosmo, a historian at the Institute for Advanced Study, in a chapter of the book "Gilded Splendor: Treasures of China's Liao Empire" (Asia Society, 2007).

Although we may never know the identity of the tomb occupant, or the position he held, this unknown man has left behind a colorful tomb full of life.

Chinese Cultural Relics is a new journal that translates Chinese-language articles, which were originally published in the journal , into English. The mural tomb was included in its inaugural issue.

The Raw Story

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

Kiev orders crackdown on Russian TV channels

What I did after police killed my son

Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air

Sunday, 16 November 2014

Mysterious fire outbreak destroys over 100 houses in Bauchi, Nigeria

NASA Scientists find diamonds, other treasures in 'Sutter's Mill' Gold Rush Meteorite

The "Putin is isolated" story is untrue, stupid, and just plain dangerous

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.7 - 181km NE of Gisborne, New Zealand

172 sickened on Carnival Crown Princess cruise from California

Argentine student invents submarine style shoes to replace cane for the blind

Before joining the military, consider this...

Nothing to see here, folks. Radiation is safe

FLASHBACK: The wisdom tooth extraction scam

Terrorizing practice: Cops burst into school, weapons drawn, in surprise 'active shooter drill'

US: Weeks ahead of schedule, ice visible on Lake Superior

Harsh cold air to freeze Northeast, set records in South

Nine of the biggest myths that people believe about the system

Obama Comments On Grubergate: "I Did Not Mislead Americans" Even As Gruber Pocketed Millions

Ural Mountains: Home of the world's oldest secret code?

Big Pharma alert: America's most popular drug is an antipsychotic and no one really knows how it works

State Department computers hacked, email shut down

9 Of The Biggest Myths People Believe About 'The System'

Ancient Chinese tomb reveals murals depicting daily life, poetry and constellations

Search

Recent Posts

Popular