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

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Man dies of asthma attack after cop stops him from going to ER

casey kressin

© WEAU 13



Casey Kressin was having a life-threatening asthma attack early Sunday morning when the car he was riding in was stopped by a police officer for running a red light in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

Kressin's girlfriend was rushing him to the hospital to get medical care when the unidentified police officer pulled them over (video below).


After the officer realized Kressin was having an asthma attack, the cop called for an ambulance, which got to the scene too late.


"It was about six minutes later that EMS arrived on scene, and they took him and transported him to the hospital, and he was later pronounced deceased," Chippewa Falls Police Chief Wendy Stelter told WEAU 13.


"What the officer was thinking was that this man was sitting there and I am going to keep him calm until the ambulance arrives," added Chief Stelter. "The officer feels that he did what he should have done, and I support him in that. Yet the family has lost a family member, and that's sad."


However, keeping someone "calm" during an asthma attack is not the type of care they need.


According to WebMD.com, someone suffering from a severe asthma attack "requires immediate medical help," which includes "asthma medicine and asthma treatment."


A Chippewa Falls Police press release confirmed that Kressin "knelt down on the pavement near the rear of the stopped vehicle and indicated that he needed his inhaler."


Kressin's girlfriend wrote on Facebook that the officer wouldn't let her take Kressin to the hospital, which could have saved his life.


Chief Stelter told WQOW News 18 that the officer didn't let Kressin's girlfriend take him to the emergency room because she was distraught and because her young daughter was in the car.




Sources: WQOW News 18, WEAU 13, WebMD.com

A grand jury did indict one person involved in Eric Garner's killing -- The man who filmed it

Orta

© Staten Island Advance/Ryan Lavis

Ramsey Orta, 22, in this photo taken shortly after Eric Garner's death, held a memorial for Garner on Bay Street. Orta was later arrested Saturday, Aug. 2, on weapon possession charges.



On Wednesday, a Staten Island grand jury decided not to return an indictment for the police officer who put Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, in a chokehold shortly before his death. A different Staten Island grand jury was less sympathetic to Ramsey Orta, however, the man who filmed the entire incident.

In August, less than a month after filming the fatal July 17 encounter in which Daniel Pantaleo and other NYPD police officers confronted Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes, a grand jury indicted Orta on weapons charges stemming from an arrest by undercover officers earlier that month.


Police alleged that Orta had slipped a .25 caliber handgun into a teenage accomplice's waistband outside a New York hotel. Orta testified that the charges were falsely mounted by police in retaliation for his role in documenting Garner's death, but the grand jury rejected his contention, charging him with single felony counts of third-degree criminal weapon possession and criminal firearm possession.


In Garner's case, on the other hand, jurors determined there was not probable cause that Pantaleo had committed any crime. A medical examiner ruled Garner's death homicide in part resulting from the chokehold, a restraining move banned by the NYPD in 1993 .


The use of grand juries in high-profile police killings has attracted increasing scrutiny after such juries declined to indict both Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri this summer, and now Pantaleo. While the famous saying goes that a grand jury could "indict a ham sandwich," it's become clear that they also give much more leeway to police officers.


St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch's objectivity was regularly called into question throughout the Brown case. Critics argue that the close cooperation between law enforcement and prosecutors may make them more hesitant to bring charges against police officers.


In addition, in the Brown case, Wilson was allowed to offer hours of testimony in his own defense. For this and other reasons, critics accused prosecutors of abusing the grand jury process to achieve an outcome that would be favorable to law enforcement. It's not yet clear what role, if any, Pantaleo played in the grand jury proceedings.


July 17, 2014 Eric Garner Death


New York City Police suspect Eric Garner of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. In an attempt to place him under arrest, officer Daniel Pantaleo puts Garner in what NYPD Chief Bill Bratton describes as a chokehold, which is against NYPD policy. Garner can be seen in the video saying he can't breathe. He is later pronounced dead at a local hospital.


[embedded content]


Canada family keeps father's corpse for 6 months, praying for resurrection

Christians in Canada

© CBCHamilton



A small community of Christians in Canada left the body of a deceased member for six months trusting God to resurrect him from the dead. The Crown found no criminal intent and the grieving widow was ordered to seek public health counseling.

The unusual case was resolved on Monday as Kaling Wald, 50, pledged guilty to failing to notify the authorities of her husband Peter's death.


The 52-year-old, who suffered from diabetes, got a leg infection sometime in March. But he refused to go to hospital, trusting God to cure him. Eventually the disease took over and he slipped into coma and died sometime around March 20, according to the agreed statement of facts read out in court.


Mrs. Wald covered the body with two blankets, the head with a toque (beanie), padlocked the bedroom door and sealed vents to keep the decomposition stench from the house. She believed her husband would be eventually resurrected from and return to his family.


"We were trusting God. We thought, 'OK, Lord, you know better,' Wald told the after the court hearings.


The corpse had been lying upstairs for six months before the sheriff had arrived to evict Wald, her six children aged between 11 and 22 and seven adult friends from their home in Hamilton, Ontario, due to failure to pay the mortgage.


The sheriff discovered the body, which by that time had been partially eaten by rodents and decomposed badly enough that it could not be identified by a photo.


Due to the mummified state of the body, a toxicology test could not be conducted, but the pathologist stated that the death was "likely due to natural causes."


Wald was initially indicted for neglect of duty regarding a dead body and failure to treat it with dignity. But the charges were later replaced with a single charge under the Coroner's Act.


"It's an extremely sad case. She truly believed her husband was going to be resurrected from the dead, even after six months," said assistant Crown Attorney Janet Booy.


Booy told the newspaper this was probably the first case of this kind in Canada.


The court suspended Wald's sentence and put her on probation for 18 months. It also ordered her to seek counseling about public health concerns that an unattended dead body poses.


"This is not about your religious beliefs. It is about your safety, the safety of your children and the safety of the community at large," Superior Court Justice Marjoh Agro said.


The Walds were recognized in their neighborhood in north-end Hamilton for their blue van covered in messages of love for God and crosses carved into the headlights. They were involved in charity, offering food to homeless people.


The family has since moved to Fort Erie, Ontario, putting the unusual criminal case behind them.


"It was unusual, yes. It was certainly not normal. And we won't do that again... laws exist and we know that now," Wald told the


She says her faith was not shaken and she expects her husband to come back from the dead in due time.


"In fact, it has cast me more at the mercy of God, because he is the ultimate judge," she said.


Florida judge lifts ban on feeding homeless in public

home_less

© Reuters/Fred Prouser



After a wave of protests and massive backlash, a Fort Lauderdale judge has temporarily suspended the city's recent ban on feeding the homeless in public places.

Broward Circuit Judge Thomas Lynch on Tuesday suspended the enforcement of the ordinance that forbids people from feeding the homeless in parks and other public places in the city. Specifically, the local law limits the location of outdoor feeding sites and requires groups providing food to supply portable toilets. The decision is valid for 30 days pending mediation, reports AP.


Judge Lynch's ruling comes in response to 90-year-old homeless advocate Arnold Abbott's lawsuit challenging the ordinance. The World War II vet and retired jewelry salesman has been feeding the homeless at the city's beaches with his group, Love Thy Neighbor, for the last 23 years.


"We're elated the judge has entered the stay," Abbott's attorney, John David, was quoted as saying in the , Ft. Lauderdale's main daily, on Tuesday.


Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler has tentatively come out in support of mediation.


"We've been trying to find some amicable resolution," Seiler told reporters this week. "We hope that Mr. Abbott meets us half way. We've asked him to meet us half way in the past."


[embedded content]




The regulation has faced widespread criticism since it took effect in late October. Sparking protests across the nation and promoting the hacktivist collective Anonymous to shut down several city government websites on Monday, the ordinance was viewed by many as unfairly targeting the city's homeless population.

Last month, Abbott was among those arrested and fined for continuing to feed the homeless in the face of the ban. Reverend Mark Sims of St. Mary Magdalene Episcopal Church was also cited by the city for unlawful food-sharing. Sims has voiced support for Judge Lynch's decision.


"I'm very pleased. I think it's a great first step for the city to sit down with a more varied group of people to work out a plan so we can provide food for everyone who is hungry in the city, not just those who are in large shelters," Sims told the .


Student arrested in rape case that led to mass protest in Oklahoma

OKlahoma students

© Reuters / Heide Brandes

Students at Norman High School walk out of classes in Norman, Oklahoma November 24, 2014 to protest what they said was a failure by school administrators to take care of three girls who have accused a male classmate of sexually assaulting them.



Police arrested on Tuesday a former Norman High School student charged with raping a fellow classmate. The sexual assault, and other rape accusations, spurred a mass walk-out at the Oklahoma school in November in support of the alleged victim.

Tristen Kole Killman-Hardin, 18, has been charged in Cleveland County District Court with two counts of first-degree rape of a 16-year-old victim who was unconscious at the time of the attack, police said, according to Reuters.


Two other girls have accused Killman-Hardin of rape, according to , an activist group that organized the school demonstration.


More charges could be filed against Killman-Hardin, a prosecutor told local media.


Killman-Hardin's attorney was not immediately available for comment to Reuters.


Killman-Hardin admitted to police that he had intercourse with the girl when he knew she was intoxicated, according to an affidavit from the Norman Police Department, which says it has audio and video evidence of the attack.


The victim told police the video of the attack was sent to her cell phone and appeared on social media. She reported the incident to Norman police after it took place in September, spawning an investigation into her claims.


On Nov. 24, around 1,000 students at Norman High School walked out of class to protest what they called a failure by school administrators to adequately protect three girls who have accused Killman-Hardin of rape.


One of the three girls said that the day she came back to school after her alleged rape, she was bullied by a group of students over the incident. She has not returned to the school since then, according to Reuters.


Prior to the November protest, Killman-Hardin, according to Norman High School officials, was suspended for the school year for cyberbullying. The school officials say they have cooperated with police during its investigation of the rape accusations.


Meanwhile, graphic allegations of rape on US college campuses at schools such as Columbia University have spurred a wave of protest and calls for action, including the possibility of reform of the fraternity systems.


Following accounts recently published by of fraternity-led sexual assaults at the University of Virginia, the school suspended fraternity activities until the beginning of the spring semester while groups of students, faculty, alumni, and other concerned parties ... discuss our next steps in preventing sexual assault and sexual violence wrote President Teresa A. Sullivan in a letter to students and alumni.


"The wrongs described in Rolling Stone are appalling and have caused all of us to reexamine our responsibility to this community. Rape is an abhorrent crime that has no place in the world, let alone on the campuses and grounds of our nation's colleges and universities," Sullivan added.


Putin's counterpunch to EU: Exit South Stream, enter Turk Stream

Putin-Erdogan

© RIA Novosti/Sergey Guneev

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the concluding news conference in Ankara.



So the EU "defeated" Putin by forcing him to cancel the South Stream pipeline. Thus ruled Western corporate media. Nonsense. Facts on the ground spell otherwise.

This "Pipelineistan" gambit will continue to send massive geopolitical shockwaves all across Eurasia for quite some time. In a nutshell, a few years ago Russia devised Nord Stream - fully operational - and South Stream - still a project - to bypass unreliable Ukraine as a gas transit nation. Now Russia devised a new deal with Turkey to bypass the "non-constructive" (Putin's words) approach of the European Commission (EC).


Background is essential to understand the current game. Five years ago I was following in detail Pipelineistan's ultimate opera - the war between rival pipelines South Stream and Nabucco. Nabucco eventually became road kill. South Stream may eventually resurrect, but only if the EC comes to its senses (don't bet on it.)


The 3,600 kilometer long South Stream should be in place by 2016, branching out to Austria and the Balkans/Italy. Gazprom owns 50 percent of it - along with Italy's ENI (20 percent), French EDF (15 percent) and German Wintershall, a subsidiary of BASF (15 percent). As it stands these European energy majors are not exactly beaming - to say the least. For months Gazprom and the EC were haggling about a solution. But in the end Brussels predictably succumbed to its own.


Russia still gets to build a pipeline under the Black Sea - but now redirected to Turkey and, crucially, pumping the same amount of gas South Stream would. Not to mention Russia gets to build a new LNG (liquefied natural gas) central hub in the Mediterranean. Thus Gazprom has not spent $5 billion in vain (finance, engineering costs). The redirection makes total business sense. Turkey is Gazprom's second biggest customer after Germany. And much bigger than Bulgaria, Hungary, and Austria combined.


Russia also advances a unified gas distribution network capable of delivering natural gas from anywhere in Russia to any hub alongside Russia's borders.


And as if it was needed, Russia gets yet another graphic proof that its real growth market in the future is Asia, especially China - not a fearful, stagnated, austerity-devastated, politically paralyzed EU. The evolving Russia-China strategic partnership implies Russia as complementary to China, excelling in major infrastructure projects from building dams to laying out pipelines. This is business with a sharp geopolitical reach - not ideology-drenched politics.


South Stream

© AFP Photo



Russian "defeat"?

Turkey also made a killing. It's not only the deal with Gazprom; Moscow will build no less than Turkey's entire nuclear industry, apart from increased soft power interaction (more trade and tourism). Most of all, Turkey is now increasingly on the verge of becoming a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); Moscow is actively lobbying for it. This means Turkey acceding to a privileged position as a major hub simultaneously in the Eurasian Economic Belt and of course the Chinese New Silk Road(s). The EU blocks Turkey? Turkey looks east. That's Eurasian integration on the move.


Washington has tried very hard to create a New Berlin Wall from the Baltics to the Black Sea to "isolate" Russia. Now comes yet another Putin judo/chess/go counterpunch - which the opponent never saw coming. And exactly across the Black Sea.


A key Turkish strategic imperative is to configure itself as the indispensable energy crossroads from East to West - transiting everything from Iraqi oil to Caspian Sea gas. Oil from Azerbaijan already transits Turkey via the Bill Clinton/Zbig Brzezinski-propelled BTC (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan) pipeline. Turkey would also be the crossroads if a Trans-Caspian pipeline is ever built (slim chances as it stands), pumping natural gas from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, then transported to Turkey and finally Europe.


So what Putin's judo/chess/go counterpunch accomplished with a single move is to have stupid EU sanctions once again hurt the EU. The German economy is already hurting badly because of lost Russia business.


The EC brilliant "strategy" revolves around the EU's so-called Third Energy Package, which requires that pipelines and the natural gas flowing inside them must be owned by separate companies. The target of this package has always been Gazprom - which owns pipelines in many Central and Eastern European nations. And the target within the target has always been South Stream.


Putin-Xi Jinping

© RIA Novosti

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping



Now it's up to Bulgaria and Hungary - which, by the way, have always fought the EC "strategy" - to explain the fiasco to their own populations, and to keep pressing Brussels; after all they are bound to lose a fortune, not to mention get no gas, with South Stream out of the picture.

So here's the bottom line; Russia sells even more gas - to Turkey; and the EU, pressured by the US, is reduced to dancing like a bunch of headless chickens in dark Brussels corridors wondering what hit them. The Atlanticists are back to default mode - cooking up yet more sanctions while Russia is set to keep buying more and more gold.


Watch those spears


This is not the endgame - far from it. In the near future, many variables will intersect.


Ankara's game may change - but that's far from a given. President Erdogan - the Sultan of Constantinople - has certainly identified a rival Caliph, Ibrahim of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh fame, trying to steal his mojo. Thus the Sultan may flirt with mollifying his neo-Ottoman dreams and steer Turkey back to its previously ditched "zero problems with our neighbors" foreign policy doctrine.


The House of Saud is like a camel in the Arctic. The House of Saud's lethal game in Syria always boiled down to regime change so a Saudi-sponsored oil pipeline from Syria to Turkey might be built - dethroning the proposed, $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria "Islamic" pipeline. Now the Saudis see Russia about to supply all of Turkey's energy needs - and then some. And "Assad must go" still won't go.


US neo-cons are also sharpening their spears. As soon as early 2015 there may be a Ukrainian Freedom Act approved by the US Congress. Translation: Ukraine as a "major US non-NATO ally" which means, in practice, a NATO annexation. Next step; more turbo-charged neo-con provocation of Russia.


A possible scenario is vassal/puppies such as Romania or Bulgaria - pressed by Washington - deciding to allow full access for NATO vessels into the Black Sea. Who cares this would violate the current Black Sea agreements that affect both Russia and Turkey?


And then there's a Rumsfeldian "known unknown"; how the weak Balkans will feel subordinated to the whims of Ankara. As much as Brussels keeps Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia in a strait jacket, in energy terms they will start depending on Turkey's goodwill.


For the moment, let's appreciate the magnitude of the geopolitical shockwaves. There will be more, when we least expect them.


Turkey Erdogan

© AFP Photo

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan



South Stream project cancelled: What it means and why it's important



Putin

© Presidential Press and Information Office

It's tiring having to deal with morons for a living. But Putin does a good job at it, that's for sure!



The reaction to the cancellation of the Sound Stream project has been a wonder to behold and needs to be explained very carefully.

In order to understand what has happened it is first necessary to go back to the way Russian-European relations were developing in the 1990s.


Briefly, at that period, the assumption was that Russia would become the great supplier of energy and raw materials to Europe. This was the period of Europe's great "rush for gas" as the Europeans looked forward to unlimited and unending Russian supplies. It was the increase in the role of Russian gas in the European energy mix which made it possible for Europe to run down its coal industry and cut its carbon emissions and bully and lecture everyone else to do the same.


However the Europeans did not envisage that Russia would just supply them with energy. Rather they always supposed this energy would be extracted for them in Russia by Western energy companies. This after all is the pattern in most of the developing world. The EU calls this "energy security" - a euphemism for the extraction of energy in other countries by its own companies under its own control.


It never happened that way. Though the Russian oil industry was privatised it mostly remained in Russian hands. After Putin came to power in 2000 the trend towards privatisation in the oil industry was reversed. One of the major reasons for western anger at the arrest of Khodorkovsky and the closure of Yukos and the transfer of its assets to the state oil company Rosneft was precisely because is reversed this trend of privatisation in the oil industry.


In the gas industry the process of privatisation never really got started. Gas export continued to be controlled by Gazprom, maintaining its position as a state owned monopoly gas exporter. Since Putin came to power Gazprom's position as a state owned Russian monopoly has been made fully secure.


Much of the anger that exists in the west towards Putin can be explained by European and western resentment at his refusal and that of the Russian government to the break up of Russia's energy monopolies and to the "opening up" (as it is euphemistically called) of the Russian energy industry to the advantage of western companies. Many of the allegations of corruption that are routinely made against Putin personally are intended to insinuate that he opposes the "opening up" of the Russian energy industry and the break up and privatisation of Gazprom and Rosneft because he has a personal stake in them (in the case of Gazprom, that he is actually its owner). If one examines in detail the specific allegations of corruption made against Putin (as I have done) this quickly becomes obvious.


His agenda of forcing Russia to privatise and break up its energy monopolies has never gone away. This is why Gazprom, despite the vital and reliable service it provides to its European customers, comes in for so much criticism. When Europeans complain about Europe's energy dependence upon Russia, they express their resentment at having to buy gas from a single Russian state owned company (Gazprom) as opposed to their own western companies operating in Russia.


This resentment exists simultaneously with a belief, very entrenched in Europe, that Russia is somehow dependent upon Europe as a customer for its gas and as a supplier of finance and technology.


This combination of resentment and overconfidence is what lies behind the repeated European attempts to legislate in Europe on energy questions in a way that is intended to force Russia to "open up" its the energy industry there.


The first attempt was the so-called Energy Charter, which Russia signed but ultimately refused to ratify. The latest attempt is the EU's so-called Third Energy Package.


This is presented as a development of EU anti-competition and anti-monopoly law. In reality, as everyone knows, it is targeted at Gazprom, which is a monopoly, though obviously not a European one.


This is the background to the conflict over South Stream. The EU authorities have insisted that South Stream must comply with the Third Energy Package even though the Third Energy Package came into existence only after the outline agreements for South Stream had been already reached.


Compliance with the Third Energy Package would have meant that though Gazprom supplied the gas it could not own or control the pipeline through which gas was supplied.


Were Gazprom to agree to this, it would acknowledge the EU's authority over its operations. It would in that case undoubtedly face down the line more demands for more changes to its operating methods. Ultimately this would lead to demands for changes in the structure of the energy industry in Russia itself.


What has just happened is that the Russians have said no. Rather than proceed with the project by submitting to European demands, which is what the Europeans expected, the Russians have to everyone's astonishment instead pulled out of the whole project.


This decision was completely unexpected. As I write this, the air is of full of angry complaints from south-eastern Europe that they were not consulted or informed of this decision in advance. Several politicians in south-eastern Europe (Bulgaria especially) are desperately clinging to the idea that the Russian announcement is a bluff (it isn't) and that the project can still be saved. Since the Europeans cling to the belief that the Russians have no alternative to them as a customer, they were unable to anticipate and cannot now explain this decision.


Here it is important to explain why South Stream is important to the countries of south-eastern Europe and to the European economy as a whole.


All the south eastern European economies are in bad shape. For these countries South Stream was a vital investment and infrastructure project, securing their energy future. Moreover the transit fees that it promised would have been a major foreign currency earner.


For the EU, the essential point is that it depends on Russian gas. There has been a vast amount of talk in Europe about seeking alternative supplies. Progress in that direction had been to put it mildly small. Quite simply alternative supplies do not exist in anything like the quantity needed to replace the gas Europe gets from Russia.


There has been some brave talk of supplies of US liquefied natural gas replacing gas supplied by pipeline from Russia. Not only is such US gas inherently more expensive than Russian pipeline gas, hitting European consumers hard and hurting European competitiveness. It is unlikely to be available in anything like the necessary quantity. Quite apart from the probable dampening effects of the recent oil price fall on the US shale industry, on past record the US as a voracious consumer of energy will consume most or all of the energy from shales it produces. It is unlikely to be in a position to export much to Europe. The facilities to do this anyway do not exist, and are unlikely to exist for some time if ever.


Other possible sources of gas are problematic to say the least. Production of North Sea gas is falling. Imports of gas from north Africa and the Arabian Gulf are unlikely to be available in anything like the necessary quantity. Gas from Iran is not available for political reasons. Whilst that might eventually change, the probability is when it does that the Iranians (like the Russians) will decide to direct their energy flow eastwards, towards India and China, rather than to Europe.


For obvious reasons of geography Russia is the logical and most economic source of Europe's gas. All alternatives come with economic and political costs that make them in the end unattractive.


The EU's difficulties in finding alternative sources of gas were cruelly exposed by the debacle of the so-called another Nabucco pipeline project to bring Europe gas from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Though talked about for years in the end it never got off the ground because it never made economic sense.


Meanwhile, whilst Europe talks about diversifying its supplies, it is Russia which is actually cutting the deals.


Russia has sealed a key deal with Iran to swap Iranian oil for Russian industrial goods. Russia has also agreed to invest heavily in the Iranian nuclear industry. If and when sanctions on Iran are lifted the Europeans will find the Russians already there. Russia has just agreed a massive deal to supply gas to Turkey (about which more below). Overshadowing these deals are the two huge deals Russia has made this year to supply gas to China.


Russia's energy resources are enormous but they are not infinite. The second deal done with China and the deal just done with Turkey redirect to these two countries gas that had previously been earmarked for Europe. The gas volumes involved in the Turkish deal almost exactly match those previously intended for South Stream. The Turkish deal replaces South Stream.


These deals show that Russia had made a strategic decision this year to redirect its energy flow away from Europe. Though it will take time for the full effect to become clear, the consequences of that for Europe are grim. Europe is looking at a serious energy shortfall, which it will only be able to make up by buying energy at a much higher price.


These Russian deals with China and Turkey have been criticised or even ridiculed for providing Russia with a lower price for its gas than that paid by Europe.


The actual difference in price is not as great as some allege. Such criticism anyway overlooks the fact that price is only one part in a business relationship.


By redirecting gas to China, Russia cements economic links with the country that it now considers its key strategic ally and which has (or which soon will have) the world's biggest and fastest growing economy. By redirecting gas to Turkey, Russia consolidates a burgeoning relationship with Turkey of which it is now the biggest trading partner.


Turkey is a key potential ally for Russia, consolidating Russia's position in the Caucasus and the Black Sea. It is also a country of 76 million people with a $1.5 trillion rapidly growing economy, which over the last two decades has become increasingly alienated and distanced from the EU and the West.


By redirecting gas away from Europe, Russia by contrast leaves behind a market for its gas which is economically stagnant and which (as the events of this year have shown) is irremediably hostile. No one should be surprised that Russia has given up on a relationship from which it gets from its erstwhile partner an endless stream of threats and abuse, combined with moralising lectures, political meddling and now sanctions. No relationship, business or otherwise, can work that way and the one between Russia and Europe is no exception.


I have said nothing about the Ukraine since in my opinion this has little bearing on this issue.


South Stream was first conceived because of the Ukraine's continuous abuse of its position as a transit state - something which is likely to continue. It is important to say that this fact was acknowledged in Europe as much as in Russia. It was because the Ukraine perennially abuses its position as a transit state that the South Stream project had the grudging formal endorsement of the EU. Basically, the EU needs to circumvent the Ukraine to secure its energy supplies every bit as much as Russia wanted a route around the Ukraine to avoid it.


The Ukraine's friends in Washington and Brussels have never been happy about this, and have constantly lobbied against South Stream.


The point is it was Russia which pulled the plug on South Stream when it had the option of going ahead with it by accepting the Europeans' conditions. In other words the Russians consider the problems posed by the Ukraine as a transit state to be a lesser evil than the conditions the EU was attaching to South Stream.


South Stream would take years to build and its cancellation therefore has no bearing on the current Ukrainian crisis. The Russians decided they could afford to cancel it is because they have decided Russia's future is in selling its energy to China and Turkey and other states in Asia (more gas deals are pending with Korea and Japan and possibly also with Pakistan and India) than to Europe. Given that this is so, for Russia South Stream has lost its point. That is why in their characteristically direct way, rather than accept the Europeans' conditions, the Russians pulled the plug on it.


In doing so the Russians have called the Europeans' bluff. So far from Russia being dependent on Europe as its energy customer, it is Europe which has antagonised, probably irreparably, its key economic partner and energy supplier.


Before finishing I would however first say something about those who have come out worst of all from this affair. These are the corrupt and incompetent political pygmies who pretend to be the government of Bulgaria. Had these people had a modicum of dignity and self respect they would have told the EU Commission when it brought up the Third Energy Package to take a running jump. If Bulgaria had made clear its intention to press ahead with the South Stream project, there is no doubt it would have been built. There would of course have been an almighty row within the EU as Bulgaria openly flouted the Third Energy Package, but Bulgaria would have been acting in its national interests and would have had within the EU no shortage of friends. In the end it would have won through.


Instead, under pressure from individuals like Senator John McCain, the Bulgarian leadership behaved like the provincial politicians they are, and tried to run at the same time with both the EU hare and the Russian hounds. The result of this imbecile policy is to offend Russia, Bulgaria's historic ally, whilst ensuring that the Russian gas which might have flown to Bulgaria and transformed the country, will instead flow to Turkey, Bulgaria's historic enemy.


The Bulgarians are not the only ones to have acted in this craven fashion. All the EU countries, even those with historic ties to Russia, have supported the EU's various sanctions packages against Russia notwithstanding the doubts they have expressed about the policy. Last year Greece, another country with strong ties to Russia, pulled out of a deal to sell its natural gas company to Gazprom because the EU disapproved of it, even though it was Gazprom that offered the best price.


This points to a larger moral. Whenever the Russians act in the way they have just done, the Europeans respond bafflement and anger, of which there is plenty around at the moment. The EU politicians who make the decisions that provoke these Russian actions seem to have this strange assumption that whilst it is fine for the EU to sanction Russia as much as it wishes, Russia will never do the same to the EU. When Russia does, there is astonishment, accompanied always by a flood of mendacious commentary about how Russia is behaving "aggressively" or "contrary to its interests" or has "suffered a defeat". None of this is true as the rage and recriminations currently sweeping through the EU's corridors (of which I am well informed) bear witness.


In July the EU sought to cripple Russia's oil industry by sanctioning the export of oil drilling technology to Russia. That attempt will certainly fail as Russia and the countries it trades with (including China and South Korea) are certainly capable of producing this technology themselves.


By contrast through the deals it has made this year with China, Turkey and Iran, Russia has dealt a devastating blow to the energy future of the EU. A few years down the line Europeans will start to discover that moralising and bluff comes with a price. Regardless, by cancelling South Stream, Russia has imposed upon Europe the most effective of the sanctions we have seen this year.


This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://ift.tt/jcXqJW.


For the EU Russia was always just a land of resources for the use by the EU and on EU terms, hence the South Stream shock reaction

The reaction to the cancellation of the Sound Stream project has been a wonder to behold and needs to be explained very carefully.

Privatization

© Unknown

The EU always wanted Russian resources to be privatized and controlled by Western corporations. Putin put a stopper to that dream and took the interests of his people seriously.



In order to understand what has happened it is first necessary to go back to the way Russian-European relations were developing in the 1990s.

Briefly, at that period, the assumption was that Russia would become the great supplier of energy and raw materials to Europe. This was the period of Europe's great "rush for gas" as the Europeans looked forward to unlimited and unending Russian supplies. It was the increase in the role of Russian gas in the European energy mix which made it possible for Europe to run down its coal industry and cut its carbon emissions and bully and lecture everyone else to do the same.


However the Europeans did not envisage that Russia would just supply them with energy. Rather they always supposed this energy would be extracted for them in Russia by Western energy companies. This after all is the pattern in most of the developing world. The EU calls this "energy security" - a euphemism for the extraction of energy in other countries by its own companies under its own control.


It never happened that way. Though the Russian oil industry was privatised it mostly remained in Russian hands. After Putin came to power in 2000 the trend towards privatisation in the oil industry was reversed. One of the major reasons for western anger at the arrest of Khodorkovsky and the closure of Yukos and the transfer of its assets to the state oil company Rosneft was precisely because is reversed this trend of privatisation in the oil industry.




In the gas industry the process of privatisation never really got started. Gas export continued to be controlled by Gazprom, maintaining its position as a state owned monopoly gas exporter. Since Putin came to power Gazprom's position as a state owned Russian monopoly has been made fully secure.

Much of the anger that exists in the west towards Putin can be explained by European and western resentment at his refusal and that of the Russian government to the break up of Russia's energy monopolies and to the "opening up" (as it is euphemistically called) of the Russian energy industry to the advantage of western companies. Many of the allegations of corruption that are routinely made against Putin personally are intended to insinuate that he opposes the "opening up" of the Russian energy industry and the break up and privatisation of Gazprom and Rosneft because he has a personal stake in them (in the case of Gazprom, that he is actually its owner). If one examines in detail the specific allegations of corruption made against Putin (as I have done) this quickly becomes obvious.


His agenda of forcing Russia to privatise and break up its energy monopolies has never gone away. This is why Gazprom, despite the vital and reliable service it provides to its European customers, comes in for so much criticism. When Europeans complain about Europe's energy dependence upon Russia, they express their resentment at having to buy gas from a single Russian state owned company (Gazprom) as opposed to their own western companies operating in Russia.


This resentment exists simultaneously with a belief, very entrenched in Europe, that Russia is somehow dependent upon Europe as a customer for its gas and as a supplier of finance and technology.


This combination of resentment and overconfidence is what lies behind the repeated European attempts to legislate in Europe on energy questions in a way that is intended to force Russia to "open up" its the energy industry there.


The first attempt was the so-called Energy Charter, which Russia signed but ultimately refused to ratify. The latest attempt is the EU's so-called Third Energy Package.


This is presented as a development of EU anti-competition and anti-monopoly law. In reality, as everyone knows, it is targeted at Gazprom, which is a monopoly, though obviously not a European one.


This is the background to the conflict over South Stream. The EU authorities have insisted that South Stream must comply with the Third Energy Package even though the Third Energy Package came into existence only after the outline agreements for South Stream had been already reached.


Compliance with the Third Energy Package would have meant that though Gazprom supplied the gas it could not own or control the pipeline through which gas was supplied.


Were Gazprom to agree to this, it would acknowledge the EU's authority over its operations. It would in that case undoubtedly face down the line more demands for more changes to its operating methods. Ultimately this would lead to demands for changes in the structure of the energy industry in Russia itself.


What has just happened is that the Russians have said no. Rather than proceed with the project by submitting to European demands, which is what the Europeans expected, the Russians have to everyone's astonishment instead pulled out of the whole project.


This decision was completely unexpected. As I write this, the air is of full of angry complaints from south-eastern Europe that they were not consulted or informed of this decision in advance. Several politicians in south-eastern Europe (Bulgaria especially) are desperately clinging to the idea that the Russian announcement is a bluff (it isn't) and that the project can still be saved. Since the Europeans cling to the belief that the Russians have no alternative to them as a customer, they were unable to anticipate and cannot now explain this decision.


Here it is important to explain why South Stream is important to the countries of south-eastern Europe and to the European economy as a whole.


All the south eastern European economies are in bad shape. For these countries South Stream was a vital investment and infrastructure project, securing their energy future. Moreover the transit fees that it promised would have been a major foreign currency earner.


For the EU, the essential point is that it depends on Russian gas. There has been a vast amount of talk in Europe about seeking alternative supplies. Progress in that direction had been to put it mildly small. Quite simply alternative supplies do not exist in anything like the quantity needed to replace the gas Europe gets from Russia.


There has been some brave talk of supplies of US liquefied natural gas replacing gas supplied by pipeline from Russia. Not only is such US gas inherently more expensive than Russian pipeline gas, hitting European consumers hard and hurting European competitiveness. It is unlikely to be available in anything like the necessary quantity. Quite apart from the probable dampening effects of the recent oil price fall on the US shale industry, on past record the US as a voracious consumer of energy will consume most or all of the energy from shales it produces. It is unlikely to be in a position to export much to Europe. The facilities to do this anyway do not exist, and are unlikely to exist for some time if ever.


Other possible sources of gas are problematic to say the least. Production of North Sea gas is falling. Imports of gas from north Africa and the Arabian Gulf are unlikely to be available in anything like the necessary quantity. Gas from Iran is not available for political reasons. Whilst that might eventually change, the probability is when it does that the Iranians (like the Russians) will decide to direct their energy flow eastwards, towards India and China, rather than to Europe.


For obvious reasons of geography Russia is the logical and most economic source of Europe's gas. All alternatives come with economic and political costs that make them in the end unattractive.


The EU's difficulties in finding alternative sources of gas were cruelly exposed by the debacle of the so-called another Nabucco pipeline project to bring Europe gas from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Though talked about for years in the end it never got off the ground because it never made economic sense.


Meanwhile, whilst Europe talks about diversifying its supplies, it is Russia which is actually cutting the deals.


Russia has sealed a key deal with Iran to swap Iranian oil for Russian industrial goods. Russia has also agreed to invest heavily in the Iranian nuclear industry. If and when sanctions on Iran are lifted the Europeans will find the Russians already there. Russia has just agreed a massive deal to supply gas to Turkey (about which more below). Overshadowing these deals are the two huge deals Russia has made this year to supply gas to China.


Russia's energy resources are enormous but they are not infinite. The second deal done with China and the deal just done with Turkey redirect to these two countries gas that had previously been earmarked for Europe. The gas volumes involved in the Turkish deal almost exactly match those previously intended for South Stream. The Turkish deal replaces South Stream.


These deals show that Russia had made a strategic decision this year to redirect its energy flow away from Europe. Though it will take time for the full effect to become clear, the consequences of that for Europe are grim. Europe is looking at a serious energy shortfall, which it will only be able to make up by buying energy at a much higher price.


These Russian deals with China and Turkey have been criticised or even ridiculed for providing Russia with a lower price for its gas than that paid by Europe.


The actual difference in price is not as great as some allege. Such criticism anyway overlooks the fact that price is only one part in a business relationship.


By redirecting gas to China, Russia cements economic links with the country that it now considers its key strategic ally and which has (or which soon will have) the world's biggest and fastest growing economy. By redirecting gas to Turkey, Russia consolidates a burgeoning relationship with Turkey of which it is now the biggest trading partner.


Turkey is a key potential ally for Russia, consolidating Russia's position in the Caucasus and the Black Sea. It is also a country of 76 million people with a $1.5 trillion rapidly growing economy, which over the last two decades has become increasingly alienated and distanced from the EU and the West.


By redirecting gas away from Europe, Russia by contrast leaves behind a market for its gas which is economically stagnant and which (as the events of this year have shown) is irremediably hostile.



No one should be surprised that Russia has given up on a relationship from which it gets from its erstwhile partner an endless stream of threats and abuse, combined with moralising lectures, political meddling and now sanctions.



No relationship, business or otherwise, can work that way and the one between Russia and Europe is no exception.

I have said nothing about the Ukraine since in my opinion this has little bearing on this issue.


South Stream was first conceived because of the Ukraine's continuous abuse of its position as a transit state - something which is likely to continue. It is important to say that this fact was acknowledged in Europe as much as in Russia. It was because the Ukraine perennially abuses its position as a transit state that the South Stream project had the grudging formal endorsement of the EU. Basically, the EU needs to circumvent the Ukraine to secure its energy supplies every bit as much as Russia wanted a route around the Ukraine to avoid it.


The Ukraine's friends in Washington and Brussels have never been happy about this, and have constantly lobbied against South Stream.


The point is it was Russia which pulled the plug on South Stream when it had the option of going ahead with it by accepting the Europeans' conditions. In other words the Russians consider the problems posed by the Ukraine as a transit state to be a lesser evil than the conditions the EU was attaching to South Stream .


South Stream would take years to build and its cancellation therefore has no bearing on the current Ukrainian crisis. The Russians decided they could afford to cancel it is because they have decided Russia's future is in selling its energy to China and Turkey and other states in Asia (more gas deals are pending with Korea and Japan and possibly also with Pakistan and India) than to Europe. Given that this is so, for Russia South Stream has lost its point. That is why in their characteristically direct way, rather than accept the Europeans' conditions, the Russians pulled the plug on it.


In doing so the Russians have called the Europeans' bluff. So far from Russia being dependent on Europe as its energy customer, it is Europe which has antagonised, probably irreparably, its key economic partner and energy supplier.


Before finishing I would however first say something about those who have come out worst of all from this affair. These are the corrupt and incompetent political pygmies who pretend to be the government of Bulgaria. Had these people had a modicum of dignity and self respect they would have told the EU Commission when it brought up the Third Energy Package to take a running jump. If Bulgaria had made clear its intention to press ahead with the South Stream project, there is no doubt it would have been built. There would of course have been an almighty row within the EU as Bulgaria openly flouted the Third Energy Package, but Bulgaria would have been acting in its national interests and would have had within the EU no shortage of friends. In the end it would have won through.


Instead, under pressure from individuals like Senator John McCain, the Bulgarian leadership behaved like the provincial politicians they are, and tried to run at the same time with both the EU hare and the Russian hounds. The result of this imbecile policy is to offend Russia, Bulgaria's historic ally, whilst ensuring that the Russian gas which might have flown to Bulgaria and transformed the country, will instead flow to Turkey, Bulgaria's historic enemy.


The Bulgarians are not the only ones to have acted in this craven fashion. All the EU countries, even those with historic ties to Russia, have supported the EU's various sanctions packages against Russia notwithstanding the doubts they have expressed about the policy. Last year Greece, another country with strong ties to Russia, pulled out of a deal to sell its natural gas company to Gazprom because the EU disapproved of it, even though it was Gazprom that offered the best price.


This points to a larger moral. Whenever the Russians act in the way they have just done, the Europeans respond bafflement and anger, of which there is plenty around at the moment. The EU politicians who make the decisions that provoke these Russian actions seem to have this strange assumption that whilst it is fine for the EU to sanction Russia as much as it wishes, Russia will never do the same to the EU. When Russia does, there is astonishment, accompanied always by a flood of mendacious commentary about how Russia is behaving "aggressively" or "contrary to its interests" or has "suffered a defeat". None of this is true as the rage and recriminations currently sweeping through the EU's corridors (of which I am well informed) bear witness.


In July the EU sought to cripple Russia's oil industry by sanctioning the export of oil drilling technology to Russia. That attempt will certainly fail as Russia and the countries it trades with (including China and South Korea) are certainly capable of producing this technology themselves.


By contrast through the deals it has made this year with China, Turkey and Iran, Russia has dealt a devastating blow to the energy future of the EU. A few years down the line Europeans will start to discover that moralising and bluff comes with a price. Regardless, by cancelling South Stream, Russia has imposed upon Europe the most effective of the sanctions we have seen this year. .


US: Lake Erie temperature at end of November coldest since 1976


© NASA

NASA image of Lake Erie was taken the week of the dual lake-effect storms. The lake had the coldest water temperature on Nov. 30 since 1976.



Lake Erie's water temperature at the end of November fell to 40 degrees. That's the coldest Nov. 30 reading in Buffalo since 1976, when the lake temperature was 38 degrees. Anyone old enough to remember November 1976 needs no further reminder of what happened the following January.


The lake froze, and sustained winds during the Blizzard of '77 blew 3 feet of accumulated snow off the ice and dumped it across the Niagara Frontier. Great Lakes scientists say it's too early to tell if the lake's present condition will lead to that kind of snow catastrophe this winter.


Until the lake freezes, there's always a chance for lake-effect snow. But as the water turns colder, there's less chance for a repeat of the heavy lake-effect snowfall that hit the area a couple of weeks ago. "It really depends on what happens now and over the next few weeks or month," said Eric J. Anderson, a forecaster at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.


Anderson said the cooling of the lake was speeded up by to the polar blast that recently dumped more than 7 feet of snow recently in some communities. "The lake is primed," Anderson said. "If the air temperature drops, the lake is ready to freeze." But could that spell trouble, too?


Buffalonians know as well as anyone that a frozen lake can be a blessing - there's no more lake-effect snow. "Once you seal it - once the water is not liquid - that cuts the evaporation" and with it the lake-effect snow, said George A. Leshkevich, a Great Lakes ice scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.


Signs of ice


Last winter, ice covered 92.5 percent of the Great Lakes - the most since 1979. As of the middle of November, ice was already forming in some of the northern bays of Lake Superior. "It's the earliest our office has on record for ice," Anderson said. Anderson called the early onset of ice "symptomatic" of a "cold year" over the Great Lakes.


A brutally cold winter, the late arrival of spring and a cool summer over the region kept lake temperatures - including Lake Erie - lower than usual this year. A warm autumn tempered those readings, at least until the arctic blast last month.



© National Weather Service

Lake Erie water temperature in Buffalo, NY fell 15 degrees in November, from 55 to 40 degrees. The last time the lake was so cold was on November 30, 1976.



"Water temperatures on Lake Erie right now are very similar to what they were a year ago today," Anderson said.

Last year, the Nov. 30 water temperature of Lake Erie in Buffalo was 41 degrees, and ice began forming on the lake during the second week in December. By Dec. 12 - after an arctic blast and round of lake-effect snow - about 10 percent of Lake Erie was already covered in ice.


Forecasters expect the same conditions could occur this month and continue through the winter.


"The ice cover in Lake Erie will be similar to last year," said Jia Wang, an ice and climate forecaster at the Great Lakes laboratory.


As of Tuesday, there was no sign of ice on the lake. When it does appear, it will likely show up first near Toledo and along the Canadian shore near Long Point, Ont.


"The shallow areas are going to get that formation first," Anderson said.


Temperatures vary


The Buffalo office of the National Weather Service takes Lake Erie's daily temperature at a 30-foot depth at the city's water treatment plant, near where the lake spills into the Niagara River.


Tuesday's reading remained at 40 degrees, but there's a 14-degree spread on the thermometer between the western part of the lake and its deepest point between Long Point, Ont., and Erie, Pa.


Scientists said the temperature was at a lake-low 34 degrees in shallow areas near Toledo and 38 degrees near the islands off of Ohio's shore. Surface temperatures on the deeper eastern end of the lake near Buffalo ranged from 42 degrees to 44 degrees with the lake's deepest waters still at 46 degrees to 48 degrees.


So, there's still a ways to go before the lake freezes, ending the lake-effect threat. "The lake freezing is what would end it," said Jeff Wood, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Buffalo. Anderson said, "Even if you start now, you're really not going to start to shut the system down for another three weeks or so." Over the last 30 years, the average date when the lake freezes is Jan. 21, the weather service said.


Lake effects


If warmer water is the key to lake-effect snow, will the colder water knock down the ferocity of any more lake-effect storms? The simple answer is yes. Scientists said the wider the spread between the temperatures of the air and the water, the more evaporation occurs and thus greater lake-effect snow. "As the water temperature falls, then the difference between the two is lessened," Leshkevich said. "The possibility of evaporation is going to be reduced."


On Nov. 18 - well into the first of the two big lake-effect storms last month - Lake Erie's temperature was 48 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The air temperature at the surface of the water then was about 24 degrees. At 5,000 feet above the lake, it was 5 degrees. At 20,000 feet it was minus 44. Mix in the west wind, and it all turned into snowfall rates of up to 5 inches an hour.

"The lake was still quite warm and you had an awfully cold air mass aloft," Wood said.



© Jeff Suhr

Lake effect in Buffalo, November 2014.



"Class Dismissed": New Film Promotes Homeschooling


Class Dismissed, a new full-length documentary film about homeschooling, was screened in the Boston area on December 1, having already been seen by sold out audiences in November on the West Coast (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland). It explores the rapidly growing homeschool movement - its challenges and great successes. I was informed about it by my old friend and "unschooling" pioneer Pat Farenga, who appears briefly in the film. He described it in an e-mail:

follows one family's quest to better their children's lives by pulling them out of one of the highest-rated schools in L.A. Parents Rachel and Todd are frustrated by the rigid state-imposed standards of the modern educational system and hope 21st century technology and new research will provide a means for their two daughters to earn a quality education outside the modern school system. They quickly discover that they must overcome long-standing assumptions about education and face the social ramifications of their bold experiment.



[embedded content]




How does one go about making a film of this type without the backing of a couple of millionaires? According to Jeremy Stuart, director of the project, the film was conceived as a community effort and financed by the donations of several hundred people. Stuart writes:

Our funding strategy involve[d] targeting film institutions and organizations who support projects similar to ours. These funders are much more inclined to support a project if seed funding and audience research are in place. Therefore we are also using crowdfunding to create an economical base for our work. Crowdfunding describes the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money together, usually online, in order to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.



In other words, a talented filmmaker can find ingenious ways of raising the funds needed to create a full-length movie on education that can change the minds of millions of parents disgusted with dysfunctional public schools but ignorant of the benefits of homeschooling.

Just put in "Class Dismissed movie" to see excerpts on YouTube. It is directed toward that large population of secular parents disillusioned with the rigid, prison-like machine called public education. Unlike the early homeschool pioneers, who were more concerned with freedom of religion and escaping government control than with a structured curriculum, these new homeschoolers tend to follow the "unschooling" movement inspired by the late John Holt and John Taylor Gatto.


The public schools see children as academically lazy pupils who have to be forced to learn. Unschoolers see children as natural learners whose innate talents are suppressed by the very structure of the public school schedule and its unnatural, illogical demands. Unschoolers believe that children left to their own devices and with access to the Internet will teach themselves what they have to learn.


Christian homeschoolers tend to prefer a ready-made curriculum based on traditional teaching methods, such as those offered by Pensacola Christian University's Abeka programs, Bob Jones University's home education curriculum, and others, with overt religious content. However, as a large number of blogs attest, Christian homeschoolers vary in their approaches to teaching.


Unschoolers believe that classrooms deaden learning and that nothing in public education is natural. They say public schools trains kids to become cogs in the wheels of the economy, instead of makers of a new economy. Indeed, many public school graduates can barely read or write a coherent report for their future employers. In other words, 12 years of regimented schooling conducted by government doesn't turn out educated, competent adults, but rather, college freshmen who have to be taught the basic academic skills that K-12 didn't bother to teach them. Indeed, according to a story in yesterday's , at most public universities only 19 percent of full-time students earn a bachelor's degree in four years. At community colleges only five percent earned an associate degree within two years.


In other words many students have difficulty overcoming the damage done to them in K-12.


Could unschooling possibly do worse? Au contraire! Kids in this program fare far better, and are also happier. One 16-year-old homeschooler has created a 30-minute YouTube blog in which she tells her fellow teenagers what a great time she's having in control of her own education. She can even do her work in her pajamas. She says, "Why wait until you graduate from public school, go to college and get married to be happy? You can be happy every day right now as a homeschooler."


Words of wisdom from a teenager willing to take control of her own life and future. She will never become a cog in someone else's wheel. She will create her own wheel. Here are two responses she's received from other teenagers in their own words:



Hey this video is awesome but can you give me any tips on how to convince my parents to homeschool me? My dad does work but my mom hasn't worked since she got me (I'm adopted btw) so she is the only one who could probably do it. but both her and my father aren't really interested in homeschooling. the reason I ask is because I haven't been enjoying my high school I get as and bs but I cant deal with the drama my current school has. like fights, drugs and kids who don't care. so I hope you have tips and helping me convince them.



And,

Sweety, let me tell you something.... You are FAR more balanced and intelligent than 95% of kids that go to prison on a daily basis. Whoops! I meant to write SCHOOL, not prison.... Let's examine the efficiency. To go to P School, you wake up at 6, get ready, ride a bus and take 3 serious classes per day for a total of 2 hours learning time. You get back home by 5. So, 11 hours for 2 hours of learning.... In my book, that's an F-.



[embedded content]




Many public schoolers are learning about homeschooling from "unschooling" teens on the net. Unfortunately, many of their parents are indifferent to what goes on in their schools. But if they see , they may have an epiphany that convinces them to let their children be themselves via home education.

UFO fleet over Mexico City Airport

E-mails sent to Sott.net become the property of Quantum Future Group, Inc and may be published without notice.



Human Rights Watch: Kiev failed to probe cluster bomb use against Donbass civilians - should invite ICC investigation


© RIA Novosti/Alexey Kudenko

A local resident outside his house destroyed in the Ukrainian army's artillery attack in Donetsk's Oktyabrsky district.



Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Kiev has failed to investigate its army's use of prohibited cluster bombs against civilians in the country's east. It also recommends Kiev invite the International Criminal Court to investigate.

The human rights watchdog is dissatisfied with the investigation conducted by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office into the use of cluster bombs by the Ukrainian armed forces in the east of the country, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth told a media briefing in Kiev on Wednesday.


"Instead of analyzing physical evidence," Ukraine's Prosecutor General looked into the"presence of weapons in depots," and said they were not taken anywhere, said Roth.


He explained the watchdog had appealed to Ukraine's Military Prosecutor's Office regarding the use of cluster bombs and Grad multiple rocket launchers by Kiev's military in residential areas. In turn, the prosecutor appealed to the Ministry of Defense. Therefore he said "it's no surprise" the ministry did not find any violations by Kiev's military. In addition, the inspection did not check cluster bombs, but mines, he added.



© RIA Novosti/Mikhail Voxresenskiy

Fragments of cluster munitions used by the Ukrainian military to shell the town of Gorlovka, the Donetsk region.



The HRW is not satisfied with this kind of investigation, he stressed.

Human Rights Watch found out during its own investigation that cluster bombs were used by pro-government forces in residential areas in eastern Ukraine, Roth said.


The area affected by the cluster bombs has a distinctive appearance, so the watchdog can say for sure that it was used in the area, Roth added. In addition, during talks with the defense ministry officials they didn't deny the "possibility" of the use of imprecise weaponry, however rejected the evidence provided by HWR, he said.


Roth stressed that fire from areas controlled by local militia does not give the right to use imprecise weaponry on residential areas.


The use of cluster munitions in populated areas violates the laws of war due to the indiscriminate nature of the weapon, and may amount to a war crime, Roth elaborated. Cluster munitions are not accurate, so they may not be used in residential areas, he explained.


Human Rights Watch has demanded Kiev ban the use of Grad launchers and cluster bombs in civilian areas.


Ukraine should ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the violations in the east, Roth said.


Kiev had invited the ICC to investigate the Maidan deaths - but they were allowed to investigate only this episode.


However the ICC cannot fulfill its obligations and conduct its work if it is "manipulated" to look into certain events avoiding the context, Roth said.


He also urged Kiev to join the Rome Statute of the ICC, which establishes four core international crimes - genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.


On Wednesday, Russia's Foreign Ministry published its White Book report on violations of human rights in Ukraine during the period from July to November.


It said that along with heavy weapons and warplanes, the Ukrainian authorities have used incendiary, phosphorous and cluster bombs, Grad and Uragan (Hurricane) multiple rocket launchers, Tochka U ballistic missiles, howitzers and 240mm mortar systems.




This information has been confirmed by the media, witnesses, authoritative human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and sources in Western governments and intelligence, the ministry said.

"Certainly, all such facts can be taken as nothing but war crimes which were committed and are committed against civilians," said the Russian Foreign Ministry's human rights ombudsman Konstantin Dolgov. He added that the evidence in the report will be submitted to HRW.


Ukraine has been engulfed in internal conflict since April, after Kiev's army began a crackdown operation on the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk after they refused to recognize Kiev's coup-imposed government.


According to the White Book report about 2.5 million people still remain in areas of fighting, while nearly 415,000 have been displaced as of October. There are more than 830,000 refugees from Ukraine in Russia, it added.

Comment: In August of this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the number of refugees in Russia was nearing 1 million.

The UN has estimated that more than 4.300 people have died in the Ukrainian conflict, with around 10,000 others wounded.


[embedded content]


Russian bears and Byzantium: Misreading Russian grand strategy

Russian aid convoy

© Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

A Russian convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine is parked at a camp near Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Rostov Region, Aug. 16, 2014.



Common complaints within Intelligence Studies about the examination of foreign intelligence communities, especially those not residing in the west, run the gamut from being too historically driven to being completely ahistorical and thus nothing more than a simple organizational review of facts and details to being too often inevitably compared against a standard framework that uses either the United States or the United Kingdom as the backdrop. While these analyses are all important, they have failed to look at how the competing conceptualizations of culture within the discipline engender entirely different approaches and therefore radically different conclusions about how we view and evaluate said communities. Below is a 'case glance' of the phenomenon utilizing the Russian Federation. Perhaps most interesting and fairly unexpected is how in terms of security affairs American understanding about Russia seems to be hurt more analytically by grand strategic culture and is often never analyzed from a perspective that emphasizes contemporary reality, purpose-based objectives and actual organizational functionality.



Russian Federation


Despite every effort by officials within the Russian Federation since the end of the Cold War to decry a new foreign policy strategy and to instigate new relations based on ideas of multipolarity and balanced global power, most American analyses of Russia cannot seem to get past characterizing every Russian maneuver and interest in a grand strategic cultural way. When this is done Russia is inevitably seen as aspiring to new 'great power' status or attempting to reconstitute Soviet glory or is subconsciously beholden to an autocratic instinct that dates even further back, either to the czars or even back to Byzantium.


This type of cognitive closure is detrimental to American intelligence and diplomacy because it is purposefully limiting the potential frames of engagement between the two sides. In many ways the United States, both in terms of its scholarship and diplomatic efforts, has blindly created self-fulfilling prophecies when it comes to the Russian Federation because of a repeated inability to see past its own reliance on grand strategic culture as the chief defining point for understanding Russians. This is what led outstanding scholars like Samuel Huntington as early as 1993 to make statements like, 'if, as the Russians stop behaving like Marxists, they reject liberal democracy and begin behaving like Russians but not like Westerners, the relations between Russia and the West could again become distant and conflictual.' It is in the same vein that scholars seem to think the modern-day has no real relevance on understanding Russian foreign policy and intelligence/national security prioritization. This incredulous overreliance on ancient culture, where scholars and practitioners alike believe the roots of all Russian decisions in 2014 require an understanding of the Russian soul from 500, even 1000, years before, leads American analysts down a rabbit hole of quasi-mysticism and vague truisms. This is why so many Russian intelligence officials scoff at American analysis, whether it is from the ivory tower or Foggy Bottom.



"Of the organization of the Soviet and subsequent Russian state we can draw no specific indication of Byzantine bureaucratic organization, but in spirit the way the Soviets organized their government for security purposes is still quite Russian...What is being argued here is that the way the Byzantines managed their security and intelligence was a function of the political culture of the state, the same political culture that was inherited later by the Kievan and then Russian state, and which has served the Soviet and subsequent post-Soviet Russian state."



The above is not being singled out for it is truly an exemplar of the kind of analysis that passes for grand strategic culture when examining Russia. Not only are the arguments non-scientific, they are ultimately spurious: these analyses are not trying to ascertain the true motivations of contemporary Russian intelligence decisions. Rather they are trying to make sure Russia stays within the frame that already exists. This is cognitive closure at its worst: where the question 'why do they do what they do?' transforms instead into 'what kind of Russia do we want and how do we make sure it becomes that and that alone?' Grand strategic cultural thinking on Russian intelligence reveals relatively little about modern Russian thinking for American analysts, but it reveals a wealth of information on American thinking for Russian analysts.

An emphasis on grand strategic culture will actually make for better reading, as you will inevitably be taken down a road of the most interesting and intense historical and cultural impacts, possibly going back thousands of years. Organizational cultural conditions will instead leave you diving into budget concerns, internal turf wars over specific issue-areas, and the changing dynamics of micro-subjects that might not even make the paper, let alone a history text. But those conditions are the things that reveal the most about the contemporary prioritizing of intelligence communities, much more so than fascinating turns down history lane. More importantly, there seems to be a disconnect in our discipline where the more important security/intelligence countries are dominated by grand strategic cultural analyses. Perhaps that is a reason we seem to make so little headway in better understanding those impactful intelligence communities like Russia.


"New Eastern Outlook"


The US' most dangerous nuclear reactor in south Florida in partial shutdown due to steam leaks

turkey point reactor shutdown

South Florida's ailing Turkey Point nuclear power station is in the news again, with Unit 4, one of its two reactors, taken offline Sunday due to a steam leak, according to a Dec. 1st update released by Industrial Info Resources online. Conspicuously, as of the writing of this article, there is no indication that this highly concerning event has received mainstream media coverage.


In a recent report, Is Miami on the Brink of a Nuclear Disaster?, we discussed the imminent possibility of a Fukushima-style meltdown at Florida Power & Light's Turkey Point facility, only 41 miles south of Miami near Homestead; a reactor so primitively designed that it uses a 168-mile network of open air canals to cool it's ancient reactors (built in 1972), reminiscent of a Medieval moat system.


Back in 2011, an online article published at titled, "Five reasons Turkey Point could be the next nuclear disaster," identified the Turkey Point facility as the country's next most likely reactor to undergo a full-scale meltdown; one which would make Miami uninhabitable, virtually overnight. It is an article well worth reading to get up to date on the gravity of the situation there.


A battery of recent reports reveals that the Turkey Point plant is in an ongoing struggle to keep its reactors cool enough to prevent a mandatory shut down; they are still in operation only because they lobbied for special permission to violate water temperature safety thresholds from the previous 100 degree limit up to their new one of 103 degrees:


Even if we assume the Turkey Point facility will pass through this year's cooling crises without reaching the 104 degree temperature threshold for immediate shut down, the problem will not stop there. With increased canal temperatures linked to accumulating salinity and an inadequate water supply within its canal system, climate change, a storm surge from a hurricane or tidal wave associated with an off shore seismic event, a power outage generated by a class X solar flare, or simply sea level rise - any of these could theoretically permanently incapacitate the reactors main and diesel back-up cooling systems, leading to a meltdown. What will follow will be irreversible, devastating and beyond remediation.

Even if we assume that the sort of eventuality described above will not take place in our lifetimes, or those of our children and grandchildren ... even then, the Turkey Point facility, like all nuclear facilities around the world, is actively harming countless within the vicinity due to its routine release of highly carcinogenic radioisotopes.


All nuclear reactors in the U.S. are federally-permitted to emit radioisotopes into the local environment, exposing the uninformed populations to highly toxic elements, some of which will stay within the human body for a lifetime.


A highly concerning case study released over a decade ago, identified the Turkey Point nuclear facility as the cause of a, then, 37% rise in the average levels of radioactive Strontium-90 (Sr-90) in southeast Florida baby teeth from the mid-1980's to the mid-1990's. As reported in 2003:




"When compared with baby teeth collected from 18 Florida counties, the highest levels of Sr-90 were found in the six southeast Florida counties closest to the Turkey Point and St. Lucie nuclear reactors: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River.


The current rise of radiation levels in baby teeth in Florida and in the U.S. as a whole reverses a long-term downward trend in Sr-90 levels since the 1960s, after President Kennedy banned aboveground testing of nuclear weapons 1963, due to concerns about increasing childhood cancer and leukemia rates from fallout.


Radioactive Sr-90 is a known carcinogen, which is only produced by fission reactions in nuclear weapons or reactors. It enters the body along with chemically similar calcium, and is stored in bone and teeth, where it can be measured years later using well-established laboratory techniques.


Significantly, the study documented that the average levels of Sr-90 found in the teeth of children diagnosed with cancer were nearly twice as high as those found in the teeth of children without cancer."




Additionally, we recently published an article describing how routine releases of radioactive emissions that occur during plant refueling can generate up to 500 times higher releases within 12-hour periods than the industry and their regulators admit. If this occurs under normal operating conditions, we can only imagine what may happen during emergency situations where a reactor's cooling system is destabilized, overheated and leaking steam.

Clearly the situation at Turkey Point needs closer monitoring and reporting. Please share this article with others, including contacts in media in order to help spread the word.


America's Children: The trials of growing up in a police state



"It's been three weeks since the flashbang exploded next to my sleeping baby, and he's still covered in burns. There's still a hole in his chest that exposes his ribs. After breaking down the door, throwing my husband to the ground, and screaming at my children, the officers - armed with M16s - filed through the house like they were playing war. They searched for drugs and never found any.


I heard my baby wailing and asked one of the officers to let me hold him. He screamed at me to sit down and shut up and blocked my view, so I couldn't see my son. I could see a singed crib. And I could see a pool of blood. The officers yelled at me to calm down and told me my son was fine, that he'd just lost a tooth. It was only hours later when they finally let us drive to the hospital that we found out Bou Bou was in the intensive burn unit and that he'd been placed into a medically induced coma." - Alecia Phonesavanh, the mother of Baby Bou Bou




School Lockdown

© http://ift.tt/1deecJ0



After a year dominated with news of police shootings of unarmed citizens (including children), SWAT team raids gone awry, photo ops of militarized police shouldering assault rifles while perched on top of armored vehicles, and reports on how the police are using asset forfeiture laws to pad their pockets with luxury cars, cash and other expensive toys, I find myself wrestling with the question: how do you prepare a child for life in the American police state, especially when it comes to interactions with police?

Do you parrot the government line, as the schools do, that police officers are community helpers who are to be trusted and obeyed at all times? Do you caution them to steer clear of a police officer, warning them that any interactions could have disastrous consequences? Or is there some happy medium between the two that, while being neither fairy tale nor horror story, can serve as a cautionary tale for young people who will encounter police at virtually every turn?


Children are taught from an early age that there are consequences for their actions. Hurt somebody, lie, steal, cheat, etc., and you will get punished. But how do you explain to a child that a police officer can shoot someone who was doing nothing wrong and get away with it? That a cop can lie, steal, cheat, or kill and still not be punished?


Kids understand accidents: sometimes drinks get spilled, dishes get broken, people slip and fall and hurt themselves, or you bump into someone without meaning to, and they get hurt. As long as it wasn't intentional and done with malice, you forgive them and you move on. Police shootings of unarmed people - of children and old people and disabled people - can't just be shrugged off as accidents, however.


Aiyana Jones was no accident. The 7-year-old was killed after a Detroit SWAT team launched a flash-bang grenade into her family's apartment, broke through the door and opened fire, hitting the little girl who was asleep on the living room couch. The cops weren't even in the right apartment.


Ironically, on the same day that President Obama refused to stop equipping police with the very same kinds of military weapons and gear used to raid Aiyana's home, it was reported that the police officer who shot and killed the little girl would not face involuntary manslaughter charges.


Obama insists that $263 million to purchase body cameras for police will prevent any further erosions of trust, but a body camera would not have prevented Aiyana from being shot in the head. Indeed, the entire sorry affair captured on camera: a TV crew was filming the raid for an episode of , a true-crime reality show in which homicide detectives have 48 hours to crack a case.


While that $263 million will make Taser International, the manufacturer of the body cameras, a whole lot richer, it's doubtful it would have prevented a SWAT team from shooting 14-month-old Sincere in the shoulder and hand and killing his mother.


No body camera could have stopped a Georgia SWAT team from launching a flash-bang grenade into the house in which Baby Bou Bou, his three sisters and his parents were staying. The grenade landed in the 2-year-old's crib, burning a hole in his chest and leaving him with scarring that a lifetime of surgeries will not be able to easily undo.


No body camera could have prevented 10-year-old Dakota Corbitt from being shot by a Georgia police officer who tried to shoot an inquisitive dog, missed, and hit the young boy, instead. Alberto Sepulveda, 11, died from one "accidental" shotgun round to the back, after a SWAT team raided his parents' home.


Cleveland police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was seen playing on a playground with a toy gun. Surveillance footage shows police shooting the boy after getting out of a moving patrol car. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz was shot 7 times in 10 seconds by a California police officer who mistook the boy's toy gun for an assault rifle. Christopher Roupe, 17, was shot and killed after opening the door to a police officer. The officer, mistaking the Wii remote control in Roupe's hand for a gun, shot him in the chest.


These children are more than grim statistics on a police blotter. They are the heartbreaking casualties of the government's endless, deadly wars on terror, on drugs, and on the American people themselves. Not even the children who survive their encounters with police escape unscathed.


Training

© ajmacdonaldjr.wordpress.com

Active shooter drills.



Increasingly, their lives are daily lessons in compliance and terror, meted out with every SWAT team raid, roadside strip search, and school drill.

Who is calculating the damage being done to the young people forced to watch as their homes are trashed and their dogs are shot during SWAT team raids? A Minnesota SWAT team actually burst into one family's house, shot the family's dog, handcuffed the children and forced them to "sit next to the carcass of their dead and bloody pet for more than an hour." They later claimed it was the wrong house.


More than 80% of American communities have their own SWAT teams, with more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening - and all in the pursuit of someone merely of a crime, usually some small amount of drugs.


Then there are the hands-on lessons being taught in the schools about the role of police in our lives, ranging from active shooter drills to incidents in which children are suspended, handcuffed, arrested and even tasered for what used to be considered childlike behavior.


Case in point: in Pennsylvania, a ten-year-old boy was suspended for shooting an imaginary "arrow" at a fellow classmate, using nothing more than his hands and his imagination. In Colorado, a six-year-old boy was suspended and accused of sexual harassment for kissing the hand of a girl in his class whom he had a crush on. In Alabama, a diabetic teenager was slammed into a filing cabinet and arrested after falling asleep during an in-school suspension. Seven North Carolina students were arrested for throwing water balloons as part of a school prank.


What is particularly chilling is how effective these lessons in compliance are in indoctrinating young people to accept their role in the police state, either as criminals or prison guards. For example, police officers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill in an effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actual shooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst into classrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.


If these exercises are intended to instill fear and compliance into young people, they're working.


Sociologist Alice Goffman understands how far-reaching the impact of such "exercises" can be on young people. For six years, Goffman lived in a low-income urban neighborhood, documenting the impact such an environment - a microcosm of the police state - on its residents. Her account of neighborhood children playing cops and robbers speaks volumes about how constant exposure to pat downs, strip searches, surveillance and arrests can result in a populace that meekly allows itself to be prodded, poked and stripped. As journalist Malcolm Gladwell writing for the notes:



Goffman sometimes saw young children playing the age-old game of cops and robbers in the street, only the child acting the part of the robber wouldn't even bother to run away: I saw children give up running and simply stick their hands behind their back, as if in handcuffs; push their body up against a car without being asked; or lie flat on the ground and put their hands over their head. The children yelled, "I'm going to lock you up! I'm going to lock you up, and you ain't never coming home!" I once saw a six-year-old pull another child's pants down to do a "cavity search."



Clearly, our children are getting the message, but it's not the message that was intended by those who fomented a revolution and wrote our founding documents. Their philosophy was that the police work for us, and "we the people" are the masters, and they are to be our servants. Now that has been turned on its head. Our so-called "servants" with badges are no longer held accountable to the same laws that we are. In their military gear and assault vehicles, they are allowed to operate above the law. In fact, their word the law.

It's getting harder by the day to tell young people that we live in a nation that values freedom and which is governed by the rule of law without feeling like a teller of tall tales. Yet as I point out in my book , unless something changes and soon for the young people growing up, there will be nothing left of freedom as we have known it but a fairy tale without a happy ending.