The Raw Story

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

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Mastodons weren't hunted to extinction by Ice Age humans - they simply froze to death, new study finds

© National PostPaleontology student Hillary McLean pieces together a tusk of an ancient mastodon, part of an extensive discovery unearthed from Snowmass, Colo., inside a workroom at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Despite popular belief that North American mastodons were hunted to extinction by Ice Age humans, a new Canadian-led study is claiming that the prehistoric beasts simply froze to death."To think of scattered populations of Ice...

Rosetta's comet findings fuel debate on origins of Earths oceans

© Spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab; Comet: ESA/Rosetta/NavCamFirst measurements of comet's water ratio ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has found the water vapour from its target comet to be significantly different to that found on Earth. The discovery fuels the debate on the origin of our planet's oceans.The measurements were made in the month following the spacecraft's arrival at Comet 67P/Churyumov - Gerasimenko on 6 August. It is one of the most anticipated...

Judge rules for workers - Walmart management 'illegally punished strikers'

© Brave New Films A National Labor Relations Board judge ruled that Walmart managers in California had illegally disciplined employees for going on strike and unlawfully threatened to close a store if many of its employees joined a group demanding higher wages.In a decision made public on Wednesday, Geoffrey Carter, an N.L.R.B. administrative law judge, also found that a Walmart manager had illegally intimidated workers by saying, "If it were up...

The American Police State has created a society of captives

© AP/John MinchilloProtesters conduct a “die-in” Dec. 6 at Grand Central Station in New York City as police watch. The demonstration opposed a grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner. Mayor Bill de Blasio's plans to launch a pilot program in New York City to place body cameras on police officers and conduct training seminars to help them reduce their adrenaline rushes and abusive language, along with the...

Details of torture report reveal broken limbs, hypothermia, and rectal feeding

One prisoner at a CIA black site froze to death. Others were forced to stand on broken feet, threatened sexually with broomsticks, or subjected to "rectal feeding" for no apparent medical reason. The Senate Intelligence Committee released those details and more Tuesday in the 500-page execu​tive summary of its report on the CIA's Bush-era "enhanced interrogation" program.Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein unveiled the long-awaited, long-delayed...

North Carolina church members indicted for kidnapping, choking and beating gay man to cure 'homosexual demons'

© WSPAMatthew Fenner Five members of a controversial North Carolina church were indicted this week on charges that they kidnapped and assaulted a fellow member because he had been possessed by "homosexual demons."On Monday, a Rutherford County grand jury indicted Sarah Covington Anderson, Adam Christopher Bartley, Brooke McFadden Covington, Justin Brock Covington and Robert Louis Walker Jr. on charges of second degree kidnapping and simple assault....

Russia Today and the propaganda wars waged by Western media

'Information' that supports your side; disinformation that invents, distorts or invents the truth or presents spurious allegations and assumptions as facts; outright lies and propaganda; controlling the flow of information through 'embedded' reporters and hand-picked pools in order to eliminate 'inconvenient facts' or simply prevent journalists from ever seeing them - all these techniques and methods have long been essential to modern war, and...

U.S. Congressmen admit they didn't read NDAA before voting for it

© AFP Photo / Brendan Smialowski US House members admitted they had not read the entire $585 billion, 1,648-page National Defense Authorization Act, which predominantly specifies budgeting for the Defense Department, before it was voted on Thursday in Congress."Of course not. Are you kidding?" Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia) said when asked by CNSNews if he had perused the entire bill, which was just posted online late Tuesday night before it was ultimately...

Quantum teleportation of subatomic particles reaches 15.5 miles across optical fiber

© GAP, University of Geneva (UNIGE)These crystals captured and stored quantum information at the end of the teleportation. A new distance record has been set in the strange world of quantum teleportation.In a recent experiment, the quantum state (the direction it was spinning) of a light particle instantly traveled 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) across an optical fiber, becoming the farthest successful quantum teleportation feat yet. Advances in quantum...

California Residents Load up Sandbags Before Storm

© Naval Research LaboratoryA NASA satellite image shows a storm forming over the Pacific Ocean that should arrive over most of California on Dec. 11, 2014. A powerful storm expected to pack hurricane-force winds and heavy rain triggered emergency preparations across Northern California on Wednesday, with residents gathering sand bags, crews clearing storm drains and San Francisco school officials canceling classes for the first time since 9/11.As...

Why is the Treasury Department seeking survival kits for bank employees

© Photo Courtesy Flickr User Rob Young The Department of Treasury is seeking to order survival kits for all of its employees who oversee the federal banking system, according to a new solicitation.The emergency supplies would be for every employee at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which conducts on-site reviews of banks throughout the country. The survival kit includes everything from water purification tablets to solar blankets.The...

This is healthcare? US medical system kills 400K hospital patients every year

© Dees Illustration Time and time again, in these pages, I've illustrated the fact that reality is being created for us - and that reality is false. It's a façade.Waking up to this is vital, if we want to understand the virtual world we live in. We're inside a matrix.Here's a medical study I haven't cited before: "A new, evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care," by JT James (J Patient Saf, Sept. 9, 2013).The key quote:"...the...

SOTT EXCLUSIVE: Propaganda alert! Kremlin manipulating Russell Brand

© Getty Yesterday, the published a piece online by Scottish anti-Muslim homosexual neoconservative Douglas Murray (wrap your mind around that one!) titled 'The Kremlin thinks Russell Brand is good news. Does that not worry him?' With reference to the recent launch of RT UK ("Putin's propaganda station in London", as Murray calls it), he launches into his own brand of propaganda (no pun intended), starting with this zinger:Unlike the Kremlin, I am...

SOTT FOCUS: Black Pete, chimney sweep? Meet "Santa's helper" in The Netherlands

© Unknown As the holiday season approaches, people the world over will be celebrating the year's end in accordance with their local traditions. In the Netherlands in recent years there has been steadily-growing controversy about its peculiar Christmas tradition involving white people wearing blackface theatrical makeup.Jon Stewart is right: the U.S. most definitely is NOT a post-racial society. But before we, as Dutch citizens, start lecturing Americans...
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