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Monday 2 March 2015

Soul smashing cruelty! 1st grader forced to eat lunch behind divider for being one minute late

1st grader_divider

© Laura Hoover



A six-year-old boy who attends Lincoln Elementary in Redwood, Oregon has been publicly humiliated by school officials on multiple occasions because he showed up a few minutes late to school. 1st grader Hunter Hoover has been made to sit by himself during lunch, behind a cardboard divider for something that was totally out of his control.

On one recent morning when his mother's car had trouble starting, Hunter arrived to school exactly one minute late and was reprimanded by administrators. Someone from Hunter's family stuck around, and were absolutely horrified by how he was isolated at lunch.


Hours later, Laura Hoover, the boys grandmother, made a post to facebook showing a picture of her gandson's punishment. Her post said:




This is my grandson, Hunter. He's a little first grader. His momma's car sometimes doesn't like to start right up. Sometimes he's a couple minutes late to school. Yesterday, he was 1 minute late and this is what his momma discovered they do to punish him! They have done this to him 6 times for something that is out of this baby's control! They make a mockery of him in front of the other students! The principal is responsible for this. His mom found him there, crying, and took him home for the day. Anyone want to help me flood this lady principal with calls telling her how inappropriate this is?




The post sparked national outrage and eventually the school was forced to respond and change their policy. The school then issued the following notice:


For the past twenty-four hours, there has been considerable general and social media attention regarding the Lincoln Elementary School Attendance/Tardy Catch-up Protocol. This afternoon, Principal Fitzsimmons was able to meet with both parents to discuss their concerns. We are pleased to report the meeting was productive. The parents' concerns were politely discussed and, ultimately, the issues were resolved to the satisfaction of both the parents and the school. All parties involved believe that an appropriate resolution has been reached and are anxious to move forward with their normal daily routines.




This is just another example of why state-run schools and government do always know what is best for our children. Do you truly believe this school had Hunter's best interest in mind when they secluded him because his mother dropped him off one minute late?

.


Oil storage tank leak near Yakima River in Washington State poses threat to animals and crops

yakima river oil tank leak

© Washington Department of Ecology

Investigators are still trying to figure out what caused a storage tank to leak in Yakima River on Sunday.



As much as 1,500 gallons of used motor oil leaked from an above-ground storage tank in Washington state into a creek that flows into the Yakima River, vital to the apple-growing state's agricultural hub, officials said on Monday.

The cause of the spill on Sunday from the tank at a former feed lot near Sunnyside, about 170 miles southeast of Seattle, was under investigation.


Department of Ecology spokeswoman Joye Redfield-Wilder said the oil posed a threat to otters, waterfowl and fish as well as orchards and other crops in the area.


"In a couple of weeks, the canals will all be full and (farmers) will be watering their crops and their orchards, so we want to get this cleaned up," Redfield-Wilder said.


The Washington state Department of Ecology said its workers installed absorbent pads and protective booms at several sites, including about 900 feet upstream of the mouth of Sulphur Creek and at a fish hatchery on the Yakima River after Sunday's spill.


The slick could be seen in the water as far as 15 miles southeast of Sunnyside, the state said on Monday.


NRC Environmental Services, which the state hired to handle the cleanup, was using vacuum trucks to remove oil.


The Yakima River is an important water source for farm irrigation in south central Washington state. It is also a renowned trout fishing river.


Cleaning house: Venezuela orders US embassy to reduce staff from 100 to 17

Nicolas maduro

© Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro gestures during a meeting with supporters at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, February 19, 2015.



Venezuela on Monday ordered the U.S. embassy in Caracas to reduce staff from 100 to 17 amid the worst diplomatic flare-up between the two ideological foes since socialist President Nicolas Maduro was elected in 2013.

Maduro, who like his predecessor Hugo Chavez frequently locks horns with Washington, has stepped up accusations in recent weeks that the United States is seeking to topple him.


The measures announced in response to alleged coup plotting are the most significant against Washington of Maduro's nearly two-year rule, though foes say they represent a timeworn tactic to distract Venezuelans from their economic troubles.


"They have 15 days to reduce the size of their embassy to 17 staffers," Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said after a meeting with the U.S. Chargé d'Affaires Lee McClenny, Washington's most senior diplomat in Venezuela.


Maduro has said 100 staffers work at the embassy, an imposing ochre building perched on a hill overlooking Caracas. Venezuela has 17 staffers in Washington, according to Maduro, who says the embassies should be on par.


Maduro over the weekend he announced that his government had detained U.S. citizens, including a pilot, on suspicion of espionage. The pilot's identity remains unclear.


Four American missionaries held for questioning for several days have been released.


'BASELESS ACCUSATIONS'


U.S. officials said they had no information about the pilot or information on additional citizens being detained.


Washington has repeatedly denied meddling in Venezuelan affairs. "There has been a lot of anti-American rhetoric coming out of the Venezuelan government with a lot of baseless allegations," said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf.


"The meeting gave the chargé an opportunity to express our concern about some of the announcements that had been made."


The Venezuelan leader announced the embassy reduction in a thundering speech on Saturday, when he also read out a "terrorism list" of U.S. politicians, including former U.S. President George W. Bush and New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, banned from entering Venezuela.


Venezuela is also introducing visa requirements for U.S. citizens, a development Harf said was of particular concern.


Although the United States did endorse a short-lived coup against Chavez in 2002, opposition leaders say the new accusations are a theatrical smokescreen designed to hide a recession, shortages of goods ranging from toilet paper to medicines, and the region's steepest inflation.


Despite the fiery rhetoric, and Venezuela's efforts to diversify to more ideologically aligned nations like China, there has been no talk by Caracas of halting its significant oil exports to the United States.


Sleepy Hollow redux: Ninth wave of mysterious sleeping sickness strikes Kazakhstan

sleeping boy

© RT

People suffering from the sleeping sickness are diagnosed with various diseases.



New cases of the inexplicable disorder, dubbed "Sleepy Hollow," have appeared in Kalachi, the village in Kazakhstan where every tenth villager, including children, has mysteriously fallen asleep in broad daylight, some unable to wake up for days on end.

manbek Kalzhanov, head of the administration of Esil district, told Interfax. "


According to Kalzhanov, the overall situation in Kalachi, a village in northern Kazakhstan, is under control. The local hospital is fully operational, along with a school, attended by about 40 students.


Meanwhile, most of the inhabitants of the village, which used to be home to over 600 residents, have agreed to move to other areas, local official Sergey Kulagin said.


he said.


sleeping woman

© RT

People in Kalachi have been suffering from the "sleep epidemic" for the past couple of years.



The first cases of the " were reported in March 2013. Everyone in the village has a family member or a friend who has fallen asleep for no apparent reason, according to locals.

Igor Samusenko, father of a child who is suffering from the illness, earlier told RTD.


a woman told RTD. Other patients may behave


Despite numerous attempts to find the cause of the inexplicable disorder, the Sleepy Hollow riddle still remains unknown.


Groups of scientists and medics, including virologists, radiologists and toxicologists, have visited the village in an attempt to find the cause of the mystery illness, all in vain.


Last month Professor Leonid Rikhvanov, from the Department of Geo-ecology and Geo-chemistry in the city of Tomsk, said that Soviet-era uranium mines could be to blame, with radon gas from the nearby mines seeping to the surface, poisoning local residents.


Radon is a colorless, odorless gas that is created through the decay of uranium. Breathing it is believed to cause lung cancer.


Rikhvanov said. People have described further symptoms, including hallucinations, memory loss, dizziness and nausea.


Rikhvanov said experts previously failed to detect radon because conventional methods of measuring radiation fail to detect it in the air.


While radiation levels in the town and at the mine closest to it are at a normal 16 micro-roentgen per hour, the RTD team's Geiger counter showed an alarming 268 micro-roentgen per hour at an abandoned, filled-in mineshaft further from the village. However, an independent analysis of Kalachi's water, soil, and vegetation samples did not detect any abnormalities.


People suffering from the sleeping sickness have been diagnosed with a range of diseases. While children are being treated for toxic encephalopathy (a brain malfunction), adults are said to have suffered strokes. But after several days in intensive care, they are usually back to normal - until they feel abnormally sleepy again. Some doctors assert that mass psychosis is to blame.


Oil storage tank leak near Yakima river in Washington state poses threat to animals and crops

yakima river oil tank leak

© Washington Department of Ecology

Investigators are still trying to figure out what caused a storage tank to leak in Yakima River on Sunday.



As much as 1,500 gallons of used motor oil leaked from an above-ground storage tank in Washington state into a creek that flows into the Yakima River, vital to the apple-growing state's agricultural hub, officials said on Monday.

The cause of the spill on Sunday from the tank at a former feed lot near Sunnyside, about 170 miles southeast of Seattle, was under investigation.


Department of Ecology spokeswoman Joye Redfield-Wilder said the oil posed a threat to otters, waterfowl and fish as well as orchards and other crops in the area.


"In a couple of weeks, the canals will all be full and (farmers) will be watering their crops and their orchards, so we want to get this cleaned up," Redfield-Wilder said.


The Washington state Department of Ecology said its workers installed absorbent pads and protective booms at several sites, including about 900 feet upstream of the mouth of Sulphur Creek and at a fish hatchery on the Yakima River after Sunday's spill.


The slick could be seen in the water as far as 15 miles southeast of Sunnyside, the state said on Monday.


NRC Environmental Services, which the state hired to handle the cleanup, was using vacuum trucks to remove oil.


The Yakima River is an important water source for farm irrigation in south central Washington state. It is also a renowned trout fishing river.


Pakistan arrests parents for refusing polio vaccine

Pakistan_forced vaccination

© BBC

Pakistani police will only release parents once they have sworn that they will vaccinate their children



Pakistani authorities have conducted their first-ever mass arrest of parents for refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated against polio.

Authorities in Peshawar, in the north-west of the country, detained 471 people and charged them with "endangering public security".


The local government says they will only be freed once they have pledged in writing to vaccinate their children.


The Taliban prohibit vaccinations and have attacked health workers.


The Pakistani government has declared "war" on the disease. "We have decided to deal with the refusal cases with iron hands. Anyone who refuses will be sent to jail," said Riaz Khan Mehsud, deputy commissioner of Peshawar.


Pakistan accounts for the vast majority of polio cases globally and is one of only three countries where it remains endemic.


In 2014, polio cases in the country reached a 14 year high of 306. Nine new cases have been detected so far this year.




In June 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that all international travellers from Pakistan be administered polio drops at airports to prevent its spread.

The Taliban have claimed that the polio vaccination drive is a front for espionage or a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.


In November four polio vaccination workers were shot dead in the south-west city of Quetta.


The dark side of the Internet of Things

wired man

© Welleman



Can you imagine a world where your home, your vehicles, your appliances and every single electronic device that you own is constantly connected to the Internet? This is not some grand vision that is being planned for some day in the future. This is something that is being systematically implemented right now. In 2015, we already have "smart homes", vehicles that talk to one another, refrigerators that are connected to the Internet, and televisions that spy on us. Our world is becoming increasingly interconnected, and that opens up some wonderful possibilities. But there is also a downside. What if we rapidly reach a point where one must be connected to the Internet in order to function in society? Will there come a day when we can't even do basic things such as buy, sell, get a job or open a bank account without it? And what about the potential for government abuse? Could an "Internet of Things" create a dystopian nightmare where everyone and everything will be constantly monitored and tracked by the government? That is something to think about.

Today, the Internet has become such an integral part of our lives that it is hard to remember how we ever survived without it. And with each passing year, the number of devices connected to the Internet continues to grow at an exponential rate. If you have never heard of the "Internet of Things" before, here is a little bit about it from Wikipedia...



Things, in the IoT, can refer to a wide variety of devices such as heart monitoring implants, biochip transponders on farm animals, electric clams in coastal waters, automobiles with built-in sensors, or field operation devices that assist fire-fighters in search and rescue. These devices collect useful data with the help of various existing technologies and then autonomously flow the data between other devices. Current market examples include smart thermostat systems and washer/dryers that utilize wifi for remote monitoring.



But there is also a dark side to the Internet of Things. Security is a huge issue, and when that security is compromised the consequences can be absolutely horrifying. Just consider the following example...

It is a strange series of events that link two Armenian software engineers; a Shenzen, China-based webcam company; two sets of new parents in the U.S.; and an unknown creep who likes to hack baby monitors to yell obscenities at children. "Wake up, you little ****," the hacker screamed at the top of his digital lungs last summer when a two-year-old in Houston wouldn't stir; she happened to be deaf. A year later, a baby monitor hacker struck again yelling obscenities at a 10-month-old in Ohio.


Both families were using an Internet-connected baby monitor made by China-based Foscam. The hacker took advantage of a weakness in the camera's software design that U.S.-based Armenian computer engineers revealed at a security conference in Amsterdam last April.



The Internet allows us to reach into the outside world from inside our homes, but it also allows the reverse to take place as well.

Do we really want to make ourselves that vulnerable?


Sadly, we live at a time when people don't really stop to consider the downside to our exploding technological capabilities.


In fact, there are many people that are extremely eager to connect themselves to the Internet of Things.


In Sweden, there are dozens of people that have willingly had microchips implanted under the skin. They call themselves "bio-hackers", and they embrace what they see as the coming merger between humanity and technology. The following is what one of the founders of a Sweden based bio-hacking community had to say during one recent interview...



"The technology is already happening," says Hannes Sjoblad, one of the founders of BioNyfiken. "We are seeing a fast-growing community of people experimenting with chip implants, which allow users to quickly and easily perform a variety of everyday tasks, such as allowing access to buildings, unlocking personal devices without PIN codes and enabling read access to various types of stored data.


"I consider the take-off of this technology as another important interface-moment in the history of human-computer interaction, similar to the launches of the first windows desktop or the first touch screen. Identification by touch is innate for humans. PIN codes and passwords are not natural. And every additional device that we have to carry around to identify ourselves, be it a key fob or a swipe card, is just another item that clutters our lives."



And of course this is happening in the United States as well...

In America, a dedicated amateur community — the "biohackers" or "grinders" — has been experimenting with implantable technology for several years. Amal Graafstra, a 38-year-old programmer and self-styled "adventure technologist", has been inserting various types of radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips into the soft flesh between his thumbs and index fingers since 2005. The chips can be read by scanners that Graafstra has installed on the doors of his house, and also on his laptop, which gives him access with a swipe of his hand without the need for keys or passwords.



But you don't have to have a microchip implant in order to be a part of the Internet of Things.

In fact, there are a whole host of "wearable technologies" that are currently being developed for our society.


For instance, have you heard about "OnStar for the Body" yet? It will enable medical personnel to constantly monitor your health wherever you are...



Smart, cheaper and point-of-care sensors, such as those being developed for the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE, will further enable the 'Digital Checkup' from anywhere. The world of 'Quantified Self' and 'Quantified Health' will lead to a new generation of wearable technologies partnered with Artificial Intelligence that will help decipher and make this information actionable.


And this 'actionability' is key. We hear the term Big Data used in various contexts; when applied to health information it will likely be the smart integration of massive data sets from the 'Internet of things' with the small data about your activity, mood, and other information. When properly filtered, this data set can give insights on a macro level - population health - and micro - 'OnStar for the Body' with a personalized 'check engine light' to help identify individual problems before they further develop into expensive, difficult-to-treat or fatal conditions.



If that sounded creepy to you, this next item will probably blow you away.

According to one survey , approximately one-fourth of all professionals in the 18 to 50-year-old age bracket would like to directly connect their brains to the Internet...



According to a survey by tech giant Cisco Systems, about a fourth of professionals ages 18 to 50 would leap at the chance to get a surgical brain implant that allowed them to instantly link their thoughts to the Internet.


The study was conducted on 3,700 adults working in white-collar jobs in 15 countries.


"Assuming a company invented a brain implant that made the World Wide Web instantly accessible to their thoughts, roughly one-quarter would move forward with the operation," the study found.



In the end, they are not going to have to force most of us to get connected to the Internet of Things.

Most of us will do it eagerly.


But most people will never even stop to consider the potential for abuse.


An Internet of Things could potentially give governments all over the world the ability to continually monitor and track the activities of everyone under their power all of the time.


If you do not think that this could ever happen, perhaps you should consider the words of former CIA director David Petraeus...



"Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation Internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing"



Are you starting to get the picture?

They plan to use the Internet of Things to spy on all of us.


But we just can't help ourselves. Our society has a love affair with new technology. And some of the things that are being developed right now are beyond what most of us ever dreamed was possible.


For example, Microsoft has just released a new promotional video featuring 3D holograms, smart surfaces, next-generation wearable technologies, and "fluid mobility"...



The elaborate, highly produced video shows jaw-dropping technologies like a SCUBA mask that annotates the sea with 3D holograms, a multipart bracelet that joins together to become a communications device, and interactive, flexible displays that automatically "rehydrate" with information specific to the people using them.



This video from Microsoft was posted on YouTube, and I have shared it below...

[embedded content]




So what do you think about all of this?

Please feel free to add to the discussion by posting a comment below...


Herders spread Indo-European languages

Ancient Herders

© Dmitry_Chulov/iStockphoto

Highly mobile pastoralists likely contributed to the spread of the language group that evolved into English, say researchers.



Nomadic pastoralists from the Great Steppe helped spread the large group of languages that includes English, an analysis of ancient DNA confirms.

The findings, reported today in , gives weight to one of two competing hypotheses about where this language group came from.


"These results provide support for a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe," write the researchers in their paper.


Although English, Spanish, Russian, Urdu and Persian may sound very different, linguistic analysis suggests they all came from a common source, says lead author archaeo-geneticist Dr Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide.


One idea is that this language group, now spoken throughout Europe, South Asia and the Middle East, spread with Neolithic farmers who migrated west from places like Turkey into Europe around 8000 years ago.


Another idea is that these languages must have emerged later because they include words for transport, such as wheel, a phenomenon that didn't emerge until later. Likely sources were the highly mobile cultures in the Great Steppe north of the Black Sea. These nomadic people were cattle herders who could have easily have brought language with them.


"They domesticated the horse in the Steppes around 5000 years ago and were probably using oxen-drawn carts to get around," says Haak.


But, he says, the subject has been controversial.


"The debate has been stuck for a while and has almost becomes a religious thing where you have believers of one side or the other," says Haak.


Archaeological evidence supports the 'Great Steppe' hypothesis, but until now, there has been a lack of evidence that herders migrated in large enough numbers to influence language, he says.


Ancient European DNA


Haak and colleagues analysed nuclear DNA from 69 ancient Europeans ranging from 3000 to 8000 years old, and combined this with existing data from another 25 ancient samples.


They found that there were three distinct genetic signals. The first was from 7000 to 10,000-year-old Stone-Age hunter-gatherers.


The second was from farmers that migrated from the Near East about 7500 years ago.


The third provided evidence of a migration of nomadic pastoralists west from the Great Steppe 4500 years ago.


Haak and colleagues found that the ancient central Europeans in their analysis shared 75 per cent of their DNA with these nomadic herders, suggesting these people had a large contribution to the development of language.


"It was not just a handful of people coming west. It was much much bigger than we anticipated," says Haak.


"If you have a genetic contribution that is that strong it's very very likely that language followed the same way and that what we currently speak in Europe is the aftermath of the most recent migration."


While modern speakers of Indo-European languages carry DNA markers from all three of these sources, the eastern pastoralist signal is most prominent in those from countries like Norway, Lithuania and Estonia. In countries like Greece, Spain and France, the signal is diluted out.


Haak says in future research he would like to test whether Steppe ancestry is evident in ancient Iranian or Indian populations.


He says one challenge will be finding well-preserved ancient DNA in subtropical environments.


Deadly bacteria escapes from Louisiana lab and no one knows how far it has spread

bacteria leak lab

© Reuters / Mike Blake



Weeks of investigation by federal and state agencies have failed to uncover how a potential bioterror agent escaped from a Louisiana laboratory four months ago, or how far it has spread.

Since November, four rhesus macaque monkeys and a USDA investigator have been infected. Cultures of Burkholderia pseudomallei somehow got out of the secure facility at Tulane National Primate Research Center in Covington, about 50 miles north of New Orleans, reported USA Today. Officials insist there is no danger to the public.


The bacteria cause meliodosis, a disease with a 50%-fatality rate even with treatment. Because it's resistant to multiple antibiotics, meliodosis has been researched as a potential biological weapon, though the Tulane lab is said to have been working on a vaccine.




"We're taking this extraordinarily seriously. It's very disturbing to us," Andrew Lackner, director of the Tulane primate center, told USA Today. He also reiterated: "There has never been a public health threat."

Centers for Disease Control and the US Department of Agriculture, which jointly manage biological research under the Federal Select Agent Program, have suspended all further research at Tulane pending the end of the investigation. The facility has never been suspended before.


Federal investigators determined the four rhesus macaques and the USDA investigator were infected at the facility's veterinary hospital on the South Campus. The investigator has since recovered, but two of the monkeys have been euthanized.


However, there is still no explanation of how the deadly bacteria got to the hospital from the supposedly secure laboratory on the North Campus. describes the laboratory as a "biosafety level 3" facility with a "wide range of high-tech safeguards, physical barriers and procedures" that are supposed to ensure dangerous pathogens remain contained.


Government officials haven't divulged any details of the investigation, but experts interviewed by USA Today say human error is the most likely cause. CDC sources told the paper that Tulane's laboratories were last inspected in December 2013, and no "significant problems" were reported at the time.


Burkholderia pseudomallei is found in Southeast Asia and Australia. The strain being researched at Tulane ("Strain 1026b") was recovered from a Thai rice farmer infected in 1993, according to a CDC source quoted by the paper. Melioidosis attacks the lungs and has a wide range of symptoms - fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, loss of appetite - so it's often mistaken for pneumonia or tuberculosis.


BEST OF THE WEB: All theater? Obama-Netanyahu 'fallout' planned in 2009

idf

In a 2009 US policy paper published by the corporate-financier funded Brookings Institution, it was made clear that the US was determined to provoke Iran into a conflict and effect regime change at any cost - up to and including an outright military invasion and occupation of Iran with US troops.

However, before it came to that, the Brookings Institution's policymakers explored other options including fomenting US-backed political unrest coupled with covert, violent force, the use of US State Department listed foreign terrorist organizations to carry out assassinations and attacks within Iran, and limited airstrikes carried out by either the US or Israel, or both.


In retropspect, 6 years on, all of these tricks have not only been attempted to one degree or another in Iran, but have been demonstrably employed in neighboring Syria to diminish its strength - which according to Brookings - is a necessary prerequisite before waging war on Iran.


And of particular interest - considering what appears to be a growing diplomatic row between the United States and Israel - is just how precisely the US planned to covertly back what would be made to appear as a "unilateral" Israeli first strike on Iran - an attack that appears to be in the process of being justified through a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign now unfolding.


From the Mouths of US Policymakers Themselves


The Brookings Institution's 2009 policy paper titled, "Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran," makes clear that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program is merely theater, and that it will be used to give the world the impression that the United States explored all possible "peaceful" options before resorting to violent regime change. The report states specifically that:



...any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context— both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians "brought it on themselves" by refusing a very good deal.





Of course, Iran - as admitted to by Brookings themselves - is not governed by irrational leadership, and would not turn down a genuinely "superb offer." The Brookings Institution admits openly that the US pursues a dual track foreign policy - one for public consumption (making "superb offers") and another aimed at ensuring Iran looks as unreasonable as possible.

At one point in the policy paper, Brookings would state:



The truth is that these all would be challenging cases to make. For that reason, it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)



Here, Brookings policymakers openly conspire to undermine global peace by "goading" another nation into a war it neither wants nor will benefit from. Provoking a nation that poses no threat to the national security of the United States is a clear violation of international law - with the Brookings paper serving as a literal signed confession.

Yet despite this open admission, conspiring against world peace, what is of more interest is the United States' plans to disavow any responsibility for an attack it would use its regional proxy, Israel, to carry out in its place. It states specifically under a chapter titled, "Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike," that:



...the most salient advantage this option has over that of an American air campaign is the possibility that Israel alone would be blamed for the attack. If this proves true, then the United States might not have to deal with Iranian retaliation or the diplomatic backlash that would accompany an American military operation against Iran. It could allow Washington to have its cake (delay Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon) and eat it, too (avoid undermining many other U.S. regional diplomatic initiatives).



To no one's surprise the British now reports in an article titled, "President Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli jets if they attacked Iranian nuclear facilities last year, claim sources," that:

President Obama is alleged to have stopped an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets, according to reports to emerge from the Middle East at the weekend




The threat from the U.S. forced Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to abort a planned attack on Iraq, reported Kuwaiti newspaper .




Netanyahu will be in Washington for an address to Congress on Tuesday aimed squarely at derailing Obama's cherished bid for a diplomatic deal with Tehran.



Here, the repeats a growing narrative that dovetails neatly into long-standing US foreign policy described by the Brookings Institution's report in 2009 - down to the letter. In fact, the prospect of "shooting down" Israeli planes was discussed as one of many props used in this geopolitical theater.

The US, as prescribed by Brookings, is portrayed as desperately trying to hammer out an almost unreasonable accommodation with Iran, while "mad dog" Israel seeks to unilaterally attack Iran - thus giving the US the plausible deniability it openly claimed it would disingenuously attempt to create ahead of any Israeli attack on Iran. It should be noted that the summation of Israel's military might is a result of long, extensive, and continuous US military support meaning that Israeli military operation is even possible without it.


Also of interest is Israel's habitual, belligerent, serial acts of inhumanity against both its own people and the Palestinians whose land Tel Aviv has seized and continues to occupy. The nature of these acts is not one of self-preservation, but of intentional provocation - creating predictable political divides across the West easily manipulated particularly at times like these where a "regrettable" attack made upon Iran, a nation the West has thus far failed to topple with terrorism, US-backed sedition, sanctions, and covert provocations, is now in the cards.


It is also clear that the 2009 "Which Path to Persia?" policy paper still represents a vivid window into a much deeper and well-entrenched doctrine still to this day being used to reorder the Middle East into alignment with Western special interests. It is a signed confession of a now evident conspiracy against global peace and stability. It should be read, in full, before the United Nations Security Council before those who wrote it and the corporate-financier interests who sponsored it are brought to international justice.


Anything less proves that the United States and its regional proxies, not Iran, are the rogue states, working against global peace and stability, with many standing examples already of their atrocities on display, and more - apparently - still to come.


Lavrov notes serious progress in talks on Iran nuclear program

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

© EPA/SALVATORE DI NOLFI



Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday noted serious progress in talks on Iran's nuclear program.

"At a meeting with [US Secretary of State John] Kerry and [Iranian Foreign Minister Javad] Zarif, we discussed a number of issues on the Iranian nuclear program," Lavrov said. "We noted serious progress reached at the talks of the P5+1 with Tehran."


"We discussed tasks we have to solve in order to achieve a result within the agreed time frames," he said.


The P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France plus Germany) and Tehran have agreed to extend the deadline for an agreement in the talks on Iran's nuclear program to June 30.


Iran says it needs nuclear power to generate electricity, but Western powers led by the United States claim Iran's eventual aim is to create nuclear weapons.


Twitter reactions to murder of Putin's opponent Nemtsov

The range of reactions to the death of Boris Nemtsov at Twitter is wide: disbelief, sadness, glee. But conspiracy theories are already circulating.

nemtsov

© ITAR -TASS



The murder of Boris Nemtsov is a hot topic in social media in Russia. The polarizing Putin critic excited beyond death's minds, the reactions ranging from disbelief and sadness to gloat.

'Boris Nemtsov... I'm speechless' _Newyorker_ wrote. Another Twitter user wrote:' Of all the so-called opposition Nemtsov was the least hated by the people. Who did he bother?'


Some users also addressed Nemtsov career in the Yeltsin era.' Nemtsov could replace Yeltsin because Yeltsin saw himself in him', YuryBudkin wrote. Others praised Nemtsov use against the war in Ukraine:' Nemtsov was against those who murdered thousands of people in the Donbass', writes MildredSalyer.


Opinion polls suggest the politician Nemtsov familiar only eight percent of the population - hardly surprising that some had no pity on him. azelgao wrote:' I personally - the less we have of such as Nemtsov, the better. He is a thief, and he was killed because there was a command.' Marinashah Was even more explicit:' He was a dog, and he died like a dog.'


Many users were speculations about a' false flag' - operation to hurt Putin, on fertile ground - as previously described the accusations against Ukraine, to be responsible for the launch of the MH17. In a tweet from granovesovs it is translated, " Nemtsov, this is the second Boeing. Behind it but put the Ukrainians.'


Some Russians practiced in the face of murder in gallows humor.' That damn Putin for two years already makes the ratings of' House of Cards' broken. Who cares Underwood, if we have time Crimea, Nemtsov times', wrote progjester. Others tried to mediate and called for decency, as RichmondRussia:' My fellow citizens, whatever Nemtsov was for a man speak ill of a dead man who was not even buried - this is unchristian.'


And some younger heard Nemtsov name claims to be the first time:' Who is Boris Nemtsov' asked @ pluxa551. brabushka wrote:' spanks me not when I ask - who is Nemtsov?'


So just how much of the U.S. does China own?

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



Bibi's latest cartoon: Strange map that shows the reach of 'Iranian-backed terrorists'


Bibi cartoon

© Unknown



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual conference on Monday. He defended his coming and highly controversial speech to Congress, arguing that the US and Israel were strategically and sentimentally close enough to weather even major disagreements.

Netanyahu often uses visuals during high-profile speeches — he famously wielded a cartoon bomb to convey Israel's red lines for Iranian uranium enrichment during a 2012 address to the United Nations. Monday was no different, and the Israeli prime minister used the above map to show how Iran and its militant proxies were present "on five continents."


The map includes some high-profile cases of Iranian perfidy. Bulgaria is marked for the 2012 Hezbollah bombing of a bus of Israeli tourists in the resort city of Burgas, while Nigeria was highlighted for a Hezbollah cell and business network that was uncovered in 2013 and sanctioned by the US Treasury last week.


Other points on the map are a bit more obscure. The Egypt marker seems to refer to the arrest of 49 alleged Hezbollah operatives in Cairo in 2009. And the map omits a couple of big points: Argentina, which was the site of Hezbollah's deadliest external operation, the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that killed 85 people; and Syria, where the militant group is leading an offensive along the Israeli-Syrian disengagement line in the Golan Heights.


But the map still conveys one of Netanyahu's main points during his visit to the US: Israel is facing a sophisticated enemy in Tehran with an international reach and aggressive ambitions against his country. And it shows how Hezbollah really is one of the most far-reaching terrorist groups — an organization with operatives and revenue streams across the world.





Comment: This is the 'evidence' Netanyahu musters to accuse Iran? It is similar to the 'evidence' released to blame Putin for the downing of MH17, Crimean accession, Invasion of Ukraine and numerous false flag operations.

Fireballs seen streaking over South Indian state of Kerala

People all over the state were in the grip of panic as balls of fire streaked across the skies on Friday night. The fireballs were seen after 10 pm and in many places, mild tremors and thunder sounds accompanying the fire balls escalated apprehensions among the people.

While the phenomenon was first noticed in Ernakulam district, people from various parts of the state also reported seeing the phenomenon. Minister Adoor Prakash said that there was nothing to be concerned. Earthquake monitoring devices in six districts have not recorded anything unusual, said Ernakulam Collector M G Rajamanikyam. Other agencies such as ISRO and monitoring units of the Navy have also reported nothing unusual.


[embedded content]




Most of the unofficial pictures that are doing the rounds are copies from websites and social media saw imaginations running riot with users even commenting that the sky was falling down in pieces. Many of these pictures were padded with background shots of Kochi to make them look authentic.

People in Kolenchery and Paravur have reported that they have seen some objects falling out of the sky while people across Kottayam and Kozhikode also reported the night sight. According to descriptions, it is believed that the fireballs could have been disintegrating meteors, said Dr K.Mohan Kumar, Professor at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, CUSAT.


Dr Rajagopal Kammath, a scientist, suggested that there could be three explanations for the fire balls:


1.China's Norad 4063 is believed to have re-entered into earth's atmosphere and since February 23, the disintegrating pieces of the satellite has been lighting up the night sky in many parts of the world. This is the most possible reason. A satellite had fallen in Siberia recently and remnants of that satellite could have caused the streaks.


2.The fireball could be a phenomenon called ball lightening.


3.There is a possibility that the streaks could have been part of a meteor storm, Gamma Normids. Scientists had predicted the event from February 23 to 27.


The sound that people heard was due to sonic boom.


Travelers to Europe soon to be subjected to a biometric dragnet as part of the 'smart borders' pilot test

biometric data

© unknown



Travel becomes truly ominous...

In a trend that isn't wholly surprising, EU Observer reports:



US citizens and other non-EU nationals who enter Europe will be asked to have their faces image-captured and fingerprints scanned upon arrival at a half-dozen major airports. [emphasis added]



This "biometric dragnet" is the pilot test for the EU's new "smart borders" packages. The test portion will run March - September 2015, for starters. The commission originally proposed this package in 2013 but pulled it and began revising. While there is some opposition, the experiment is shortly underway.

The captures include fingerprint scans, iris scans and facial recognition scans for all forms of European travel - road, train, sea and air.


Of course, what's usual for such programs - travelers can refuse... for now. But officials are letting travelers know through the media that it will become mandatory in time .


Arlanda (Sweden), Charles de Gaulle (France), Frankfurt (Germany), Lisbon (Portugal), Madrid (Spain), and Schiphol (Netherlands) are the test airports. The multi-million euro project is still in the draft stages but nevertheless, is set to go...now. The document notes:


Should traveller participation be lower than expected, there would be a high risk that the results of the tests would be biased or would not reflect reality.


A special token is expected for frequent travelers to complete journeys without the inconvenience of the future traveler to Europe...


Arlanda, Charles de Gaulle, and Madrid airports will capture facial recognition images from passengers stepping off flights. Lisbon is "tickled" - yes, tickled - to capture iris pattern scans, live at the same time as facial captures. Moving trains from Paris (Gare du Nord) and Lasi (Romania) will house border guards who will take fingerprint scans. Travelers at Lasi will be compelled for their facial images.


Again, this practice will include other modes of travel where in some areas, iris scans will be taken. For instance, iris scans will be taken from drivers (willing at first) on roads leading into border towns Udvar in Hungary and Sculeni in Romania. The article notes that "drivers should also expect live face scans in Sculeni."


Roads leading into Kipoi Evrou in Greece and Vaalimaa in Finland will compel drivers for fingerprints. "The traveller[sic] will walk up to the border guard or be one of the first persons to be called by the border guard," the document notes. Certain cars and buses will be "pulled aside" in a waiting area for the duration of the experiment.


Lastly, Helsinki (Finland), Port of Piraeus (Greece), Gerbourg (France), and Genova (Italy) are the seaports and ship areas participating in the data collection.


There is, of course, the assurance that all data will be depersonalised, kept local and destroyed afterward with only a limited retention period. The only data "risk" in their consideration being that certain member states won't comply with data protection guidelines. Notably, eu-LISA is the EU agency that will manage this large-scale undertaking with systems that in current use by EU border guards and law enforcement. Reports come out July 15th and November.


The "full monty" biometric trend is likely to burgeon at U.S. airports soon, if not already - as this is a major global goal. The events of September 11 were used to justify major spending for biometric measures worldwide. Or rather, the extra push for projects that were already underway.


From EU Observer:



The package includes the Entry/Exit System (EES) and the Registered Travellers Programme (RTP).




Both rely on the collection, storage, and processing of biometric data to enhance border control checks on any non-EU national entering the EU.




EES is meant to identify and prevent people from overstaying their visas.



A witness reported to us of a promotional flight video depicting biometric scanners at Atlanta, GA International Airport. Sure enough, all the equipment was set up at the airport in the summer of 2012, but was not yet in use. Feel free to comment if you know where the airport stands currently on biometric use.

Hat tip: Alan Watt reporting at Cutting Through the Matrix, March 1, 2015 'Blurb'


Bill O'Reilly take four: Fox News admits his tall tales about Irish terrorists

Bill O'Reilly

© Reuters / Lisa Miller



Fox News issued a mea culpa for one of anchor Bill O'Reilly's too-good-to-be-true stories ‒ but not for all his anecdotes that critics complain are fake. The controversial talk show host has been under fire for recollections of his reporting career.

In his 2013 book, , O'Reilly wrote, "I've seen soldiers gun down unarmed civilians in Latin America, Irish terrorists kill and maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs."


Asked about O'Reilly's statements Friday, a spokesman told the that O'Reilly was not an eyewitness to any bombings or injuries in Northern Ireland. Instead, he was shown photos of bombings by Protestant police officers.




O'Reilly traveled to Northern Ireland in 1984 to research a book about the Troubles, according to Fox News. But he never completed the tome, and the Post said it's unclear whether he reported on his visit for any news organization.

At the time, he was working for Boston station WCVB, but his then-boss, Philip S. Balboni, told the Post that O'Reilly covered only local news and did commentary for the station.


In a recent radio interview, the Fox News favorite told syndicated host Hugh Hewitt only:


When Hewitt asked him if he was in physical danger, O'Reilly said no.




The Fox News host has come under fire of late for other stories that he is accused of making up or embellishing. Another anecdote O'Reilly recounted during the Hewitt interview ‒ about covering the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles ‒ was disputed by his former CBS News colleagues.

He has been caught repeatedly lying about being present at the suicide of a key JFK assassination investigation witness. The account of was first mentioned in 'Killing Kennedy,' his bestselling investigative book published in 2012. He has also recounted the incident on his Fox News program.


Multiple witnesses and former colleagues say his vivid description is completely untrue.


The accusations against the journalist began in late February, when Mother Jones journalists David Corn and Daniel Schulman called into question O'Reilly's account about his heroic actions while covering the Falklands War in Argentina in 1982 ‒ the two reporters wrote.



© Screenshot from youtube.com



O'Reilly then dedicated an entire 10-minute segment of the next day's episode of the O'Reilly Factor to tearing Corn apart for the article, and calling their publication

aggressively denied the accusations against its star host at the beginning. In a statement to the , a spokeswoman for the network said that claims casting doubt on his recollections are "nothing more than an orchestrated campaign by far left advocates


"Bill O'Reilly has already addressed several claims leveled against him," the spokeswoman said."Responding to the unproven accusation du jour has become an exercise in futility. maintains its staunch support of O'Reilly, who is no stranger to calculated onslaughts."


began backing away from its total support of O'Reilly when Politico's Media Matters blog published a report that the host ‒ who worked for a Dallas TV station in 1977 when George de Mohrenschildt committed suicide in Florida ‒ was actually in Dallas, not Palm Beach at the time the JFK assassination investigation witness died.




The network did not respond to the blog's request for comments, and referred others to O'Reilly's publishing company for the 2012 book.

' admission that its host was only shown photos of bombings by Protestant police officers, and was not, in fact, an eyewitness to any bombings or injuries in Northern Ireland, is the first time the network has vindicated O'Reilly's critics in any way.


Authoritarians in action: How the US media frames the vaccine debate

vaccines

© Joe Raedle/Getty Images



Major US news media have presented a grossly distorted and misleading interpretation of vaccines and their relationship to public health since early January. These journalistic organs have suggested the recent measles outbreak in the Western US has been a crisis of monumental proportions.

This flagrant and cynical sensationalism has become a foundation for intense advocacy on behalf of the pharmaceutical corporate and regulatory cartel targeting —a founding principal of modern medical practice and personal freedom. Keeping in mind the close to 300 vaccine products now in the pharmaceutical industry's pipeline,[1] closer analysis of "measles outbreak" press coverage suggests a conscious effort by corporate news media to virtually banish such notions and practices from the public mind. A news media dependent on over $1 billion in advertising dollars from big pharma must almost by necessity indulge their clients' broader agenda.


An impartial journalistic approach to the question of vaccination and personal choice would provide equal and unprejudiced airing of "both sides," in addition to the varied grey areas in the debate, from the corporate and statist entities flying the banner of mandatory vaccination to cautious segments of the citizenry voicing reservations toward such technology alongside the foremost prerogative of personal choice.


A LexisNexis search of US newspaper and wire service articles from December 28, 2015—the official start date of the California measles outbreak—to February 8, 2015 [2] using the search terms "measles" and "vaccination" yields 799 press releases or wire stories and 746 newspaper articles and opinion pieces. Much of this coverage predictably emphasizes the array of vaccine-friendly assumptions and pronouncements from entities abetting the pharmaceutical industry's long-term profit-specific objectives.


For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is, alongside the Food and Drug Administration, the most powerful bureaucratic arm utilized by the global pharmaceutical cartel to elicit compliance with the federal vaccine schedule for children from the medical profession and broader population. Of the article sample referenced above, close to one-third (517) reference the "Centers for Disease Control" or "CDC" in their text, suggesting citation of the agency and its policies to persuasively instruct readers on vaccine efficacy and safety.


In contrast, the same body of over 1,500 press releases, news stories and editorials reference "informed consent" only three times—and when the term is used it is done so either in passing or to disparage the practice itself. For example, Arthur Caplan, a professor of medicine at New York University, warns against doctors the practice of informed consent in regard to vaccines. "The science is unimpeachable," Caplan proclaims. " Vaccines do not cause autism; measles is dangerous and contagious; inoculating against the disease is neither pointless nor riskier than abstention." The physician then amazingly suggests that genuine informed consent - explaining how a vaccine such as Measles, Mumps, Rubella, which can severely injure, incapacitate, or kill the child patient - must be categorically replaced by the dissemination of pharmaceutical industry propaganda and half-truths. "Those doctors who counsel otherwise - who distort what patients need to know to preserve their health or that of their children - have crossed a bright red line. They have violated a patient's right to informed consent, which depends on accurate information."[3]


The foremost US organization advocating the fundamental doctrine of informed consent, the National Vaccine Information Center, is referenced a paltry 22 times in the sizable article sample. And while the NVIC routinely emphasizes that it is not "anti-vaccine" and merely advocates that patients or their parents fully understand the risks associated with the industrialized, "one size fits all" immunization process, it is nevertheless framed as the official voice of "anti-vaccination." A recent article from the data set is exemplary of this practice. "Members of the anti-vaccine movement said the public backlash had terrified many parents. 'People are now afraid they're going to be jailed,' said Barbara Loe Fisher, the president of the National Vaccine Information Center, a clearinghouse for resisters."[4]


Of the 746 articles published in newspapers, 143 are editorial and opinion pieces. Almost without exception each vigorously supports wide-scale vaccination, even proposing punitive measures for those clinging to informed consent and personal choice. Such uniform opinion among newsroom management provides a clear indication of exactly how warped the overall news coverage of the "measles outbreak" has been.


"If we're not willing to permanently exile anti-vaxxers from the public square," one opinion in the remarks, "we should at least make emergency provisions to do so. Anti-vaxxers should be made to understand that when there is a public-health emergency - such as a measles outbreak - they'll be quarantined for the duration."[5] "Those who refuse to vaccinate are wrong," the argues. "They endanger themselves and those around them."[6] "The growing anti-vaccination movement is one of the most frustrating developments of this decade," the similarly contends. "Some of the parents who mistrust vaccine are uneducated and have no access to pediatric counsel, but there's no excuse for the irresponsible parents who have access to the latest science yet irrationally fear that vaccines are not safe for their children."[7]


In an effort to console parents concerned about the very real possibility of vaccines causing autism, US government press releases and US news outlets alike reference a 1998 study authored by British physician and medical scientist Andrew Wakefield linking vaccination to Crohn's disease and autism. "Public health officials blame a decline in parents having their kids vaccinated that began after a now-thoroughly discredited 1998 British report alleged that common early childhood vaccinations triggered autism," the grouses. "Unfortunately, that discredited report continues to be cited by know-nothing celebrities and vapid New Age authors who broadly reject modern medicine. They do so even as life expectancy hits all-time highs and medical researchers make steady progress on many fronts."[8]


The US government's own public relations service—US Official News—likewise chimes in on Wakefield's alleged deceit. "A 1998 article in the medical journal The Lancet caused a firestorm of controversy when it was published and helped create the anti-vaccine movement that continues today," one US government press release reads. "There's only one problem - the article was later retracted by the publisher for being 'utterly false,' and the author, Andrew Wakefield, was found to have been paid big bucks by plaintiffs' lawyers."[9]


The fact that Wakefield's 1998 findings have been upheld in 19 peer-reviewed papers he has contributed to the literature between 1998 and 2010, in addition to 28 studies from other scientists around the world [10] has been consciously overlooked by US newspaper editors and other drug industry propagandists. That this key piece of disinformation - soundly rebutted in the published research - continues to be repeated by journalists and government publicists alike suggests the hardcore disinformation tactics deployed to perpetuate the misunderstanding and unwarranted faith the majority of US families continue to place in big pharma's immensely profitable vaccine agenda.


As direct result of this well-coordinated publicity campaign and resulting hysteria the legal right by which families may exercise informed consent is now under intense legal assault across the US. "Hearings to remove philosophical/conscientious exemptions to vaccine mandates have already taken place in Washington and Oregon," NVIC reports.



California, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Vermont all have bills already filed or press announcements of bills about to be filed to remove philosophical/conscientious exemptions. Maine, Minnesota and Texas have bills to substantially restrict philosophical/conscientious exemptions. Religious exemptions are also under attack. Maryland, New Jersey, Texas and Vermont have bills filed or announced to eliminate religious exemptions, and Illinois, New Mexico and Texas have bills filed or announced to unconstitutionally restrict religious exemptions.



In addition, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia all have legislation underway to expand vaccine mandates.[11]

In light of the above one should be unsurprised at the mob-like antipathy toward "anti-vaxxers," and how the notions of personal liberty and informed consent have been made to appear increasingly bizarre by being effectively stricken from public discourse. The population has been expertly propagandized on the issue by medical practitioners, their professional associations, and regulatory agencies tethered to the pharmaceutical industry's agenda vis-a-vis a news media reliant on drug advertising revenue. With these observations in mind one must seriously ask themselves: In what meaningful way would a wholly scientific authoritarianism differ from what is witnessed in America today?


:


[1] Medicines in Development: A Report on the Prevention and Treatment of Disease Through Vaccines, Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, 2013.


[2] Jennifer Zipprich, Kathleen Winter, et al, "Measles Outbreak - California, December 2014-February 2015," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, February 20, 2015.


[3] Arthur Caplan, "Quacks Against Vaccines? Revoke Their Licenses,", February 8, 2015.


[4] Jack Healy and Michael Paulson, "Vaccine Critics Turn Defensive Over Measles," , January 31, 2015.


[5] Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuck, "The Vaccination Debate Continues,", February 9, 2015.


[6] "Washington Post: Measles in America," , February 3, 2015.


[7] "Disneyland's Measles is a Hard Lesson in How Vaccines Work," , January 29, 2015.


[8] "Anti-Vaccination Charlatans Take Toll on Public Health," , January 19, 2015.


[9] "Flashback: The Anti-Vaccine Movement and a Trial Lawyer-Funded Climate of Fear," Plus Media Solutions/US Official News, February 17, 2015.


[10] Joseph Mercola, "Why Medical Authorities Went to Such Extremes to Silence Dr. Andrew Wakefield," April 10, 2010, ,http://bit.ly/1DLTdgu


[11] "You Need to Act Now: Vaccine Exemptions and Mandates Threatened in Even More States," February 23, 2015, National Vaccine Information Center.


SOTT Exclusive: UFOs recorded in Mississippi, Leicestershire, and Philly


PA ufo

© MUFON

Witness image #1.



On February 26, UFOs were recorded on video and camera in Philadelphia, PA, and Lewisburg, MS. Angela Ashton, of Lewisburg, reported being in bed just after midnight when a "bright blinding light" shone through her window. She rushed outside to film it, describing it as triangle in shape and "at least the size of a football field". It reportedly hovered silently for about twenty minutes over a field before shooting straight up into the sky.

[embedded content]




Here's the video Ashton shot:

[embedded content]




That evening, a witness reports to MUFON that he was driving northeast of Philadelphia just after 7:30 p.m., when he "Noticed lights swirling around and had to look twice because there were wires on both sides of the street and directly above for electric buses ... I thought it was reflections of some sort at first." Upon pulling over to take a closer look, he took the pictures at the head of this article, and below, as well as video (bad quality, he says).

PA ufo

© MUFON

Witness image #2.



Early last month, on February third, in Earl Shilton, Leicestershire, a woman awoke at about 4:50 am to odd sounds. Not finding anything wrong in the house, she noticed two lights outside her window, which appeared to be hovering. The lights, which she captured on video, apparently were moving from side to side, merging together and coming apart, before shooting off at a very high speed.

[embedded content]




Avatar

Harrison Koehli (Profile)


Harrison Koehli hails from Edmonton, Alberta. A graduate of studies in music performance, Harrison is also an editor for Red Pill Press and has been interviewed on several North American radio shows in recognition of his contributions to advancing the study of ponerology. In addition to music and books, Harrison enjoys tobacco and bacon (often at the same time) and dislikes cell phones, vegetables, and fascists.



Highlighting Failed Policy in Syria, 'Moderate' Syrian Militia Armed With American Anti-Tank Missiles Announces Collapse



President Obama pictured during his first visit to the Pentagon since becoming President January 28, 2009. (Photo: DOD/public domain)


A U.S.-backed militia in Syria, touted by the Obama administration as a trusted "moderate" group and armed with American anti-tank missiles, is reportedly dissolving following a series of defeats by al-Qaeda aligned Jabhat al-Nusra—leaving the U.S.-led war on ISIS in further disarray.


The combatant group, Harakat al-Hazm, had been engaged in fierce clashes with Jabhat al-Nusra for months. The U.S.-allied militia was initially pushed from its northern Syrian headquarters in Idlib and suffered another defeat on Sunday at its new center of operations in Aleppo.


"Given what is happening on the Syrian front, offenses by the criminal regime with its cronies against Syria as a whole, and Aleppo specifically, and in an effort to stem the bloodshed of the fighters, the Hazm movement announces its dissolution," declared a statement from the group, cited by Daily Beast writer Jamie Dettmer.


The militia announced that its members would join a new coalition—the Shamiah Front—which is engaged in fighting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and, according to Dettmer, is "distrusted by Washington." According to the Guardian's Middle East Editor Ian Black, the front includes "hardline Salafist factions as well as more moderate brigades like the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Mujahideen Army and another U.S.-backed outfit."


Harakat al-Hazm is one of many Syrian militias that have received U.S. training and support, including shipments of anti-tank Tow missiles. Unverified reports are emerging on Twitter that their Tow missiles have been seized by al-Nusra fighters:



The announcement of Harakat al-Hazm's collapse coincides with the launch of a new U.S.-led program to train and arm Syrian combatants in Turkey. U.S. support for "moderate" fighters has been a centerpiece of war on ISIS, nearing its seventh month.


However, this support dates back further than the war on ISIS. As Adam Johnson reported in FAIR last week, "That the US is arming and training Syrian rebels has been well-documented for over two years, yet Western media have historically suffered from a strange collective amnesia when reporting this fact."




Jimmy Kimmel makes fun of 'antivaxxer' parents, reviving hate speech and bigotry on live TV


© Mike Adams/Natural News



Throughout U.S. history, certain selected groups of citizens have been subjected to extreme verbal, judicial and even physical abuse at the hands of bigoted oppressors. The historical abuse of African-Americans -- subjected to generations of abusive language and racism that still lingers today -- was villainously summed up with a bigoted hate speech label I dare not utter here.

Gay Americans were similarly subjected to the label of "f-@@-t," a hate-based derogatory slur invoked to demean a human being because of their sexual orientation. It was this campaign of verbal abuse and derogatory hate speech that helped give rise to violence against gays in America.


Importantly, every effort to demean and denigrate a selectively targeted class of citizens -- whether for their skin color, their sexual orientation or their beliefs -- has been preceded by a campaign of verbal abuse intended to dehumanize that targeted group. The invocation and use of bigoted, derogatory labels lays the social and cultural groundwork for not only discrimination but even actual violence committed against the groups being targeted.


Racism and hate speech are wrong. It is morally, politically and socially incorrect to use hate speech labels in a derogatory manner in a civilized society. These terms are hate-based forms of speech meant to emotionally hurt and demean targeted groups of innocent people. Yet, astonishingly, it has now emerged in America that it is socially acceptable to use precisely the same bigoted hate-speech language against another group: children who are damaged by vaccines (and children who are unvaccinated). This group is now being widely and aggressively disparaged with the hate-based term "anti-vaxxers."


Jimmy Kimmel has now popularized hate-based bigotry toward-vaccine damaged children and their families


In a stunning demonstration of demeaning hate speech targeting children who have suffered brain damage from vaccines, comedian Jimmy Kimmel unleashed a satire comedy hit piece that, fifty years ago, would have almost certainly seen Kimmel making fun of black people. Twenty years ago, he would have been making fun of gay people. But today, in 2015, Jimmy Kimmel directs his ignorance, bigotry and demeaning hate speech toward vaccine-damaged children who are now labeled "anti-vaxxers."



© Mike Adams/Natural News



In this astonishing display of bigoted hate speech, Jimmy Kimmel legitimizes the public's verbal abuse and aggressive bullying of children like Angelica Black, a child whose family was recently awarded a $2 million compensation by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program after it was factually proven that vaccines caused severe, permanent brain damage that crippled Angelica Black for life.

Most people who watch Jimmy Kimmel have no knowledge that a vaccine court was created by the U.S. Congress to compensate families of children who are provably damaged by vaccines. The court would not exist at all if vaccines were completely "safe and effective" as factually ignorant newscasters and ill-informed comedians insist. In fact, the vaccine court has so far paid out almost $3 billion in damages to families whose children were severely damaged by vaccines.


In fact, this government document called the "Vaccine Injury Table" lists all the conditions (including seizures and death) which are "presumed to be caused by vaccines." It openly states that vaccine side effects can include "polio viral infections," injury, disability and death. This table is only a small selection of the side effects which are openly admitted on vaccine insert sheets like this one.


That same flu shot insert sheet, by the way, openly states, "...there have been no controlled trials adequately demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination."


Those who claim vaccines are all about SCIENCE, it turns out, are kidding themselves. For many vaccines, real science is utterly lacking.


African-Americans are especially susceptible to vaccine damage


Not only is Jimmy Kimmel using bigoted hate speech language to demean crippled children who were damaged by vaccines; he's also doing so in a manner that is utterly ignorant of the special risks posed to African-Americans by vaccines.


It was Dr. William Thompson, a top CDC scientist, who blew the whistle on the CDC's vaccine research fraud last year, going public with his confession that the CDC knowingly covered up data linking vaccines to an increased risk of autism in young African-American boys.


As detailed in this story, the CDC scientist openly admitted:


My name is William Thompson. I am a Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I have worked since 1998. I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.


This story, which was universally censored by the entire national media, shows that Jimmy Kimmel's attacks on vaccine-damaged children are, in fact, heightened attacks against black American babies.


Because of the increased risk of autism among African-Americans, there is a growing community of vaccine-damaged autistic black men in America. Jimmy Kimmel, a rich white guy, thinks that's downright hilarious. It's so damn funny, in fact, that Kimmel reaches for increased audience ratings by positioning vaccine-damaged babies -- who are disproportionately black -- as the butt of his jokes.


Here's a photo of just one of the young vaccine-damaged African-American boys that Jimmy Kimmel is laughing at:





Brutal eczema is one of many side affects that can be caused by vaccination.






Let's make fun of parents who are concerned about this possibly happening to their children. They're crazy!



To me, that doesn't look funny at all. It looks like an outrageous human tragedy that is being utterly ignored by the entire pharma-controlled media.

Jimmy Kimmel legitimizes the verbal abuse of children like Angelica Black, who was neurologically crippled by vaccines


Most newspapers dare not report the fact that children are routinely and systematically damaged by vaccines, out of fear of being strong-armed into retracting their true stories by Big Pharma operatives.


"The Charlotte Observer has done something that is quite rare: they have reported the truth about a child who received the recommended childhood vaccines, and then became brain damaged," reports Health Impact News. "Will this story remain on the Internet, or will it face the same fate as a recent Toronto Star investigative report about girls damaged by the Gardasil vaccine? The Star editors bowed to pro-Pharma censorship pressure, and removed the story from their website. It is currently still available (for now) on the Internet Archive website here."


As The Charlotte Observer newspaper reports, "As they started their family, Mooresville residents Theresa and Lucas Black dutifully got their children immunized, never doubting their doctor's word that vaccines are safe and necessary. ...But their faith in those promises was shaken in 2001, when their 3-month-old daughter, Angelica, developed life-threatening seizures and brain damage just three days after getting several vaccinations. The child's Charlotte neurologist diagnosed her with vaccine-related encephalopathy, or brain injury."


Despite the fact that the Black family is, by definition, a "pro-vaccine" family that dutifully got their children vaccinated, they have been subjected to verbal abuse and bullying for the simple reason that they were awarded compensation by the vaccine court.


"...Theresa Black said she has felt bullied in recent weeks by reaction to the California measles outbreak that has spread to 16 other states," reports the Observer.


In other words, merely being the parent of a child who has been permanently damaged by vaccines -- a fact proven in the courts -- now gets you subjected to bigoted hate speech attacks in America.


And who encourages this sort of verbal abuse against innocent children and families who have been put through absolute medical hell by unsafe products that destroyed the life of a little girl? People like Jimmy Kimmel.


Jimmy Kimmel thinks this brain-damaged little girl is a laughing matter. And because Angelica Black's brain is damaged, she is unable to respond to Jimmy Kimmel and call him the bigoted handicapped child basher he has now become.


That is why I have decided to speak up for children like Angelica, using the voice and platform I have been blessed with in my own mission to protect life, end human suffering and preserve the fundamental freedoms and human dignity that Gandhi spoke of when he warned about vaccines being a "fatal delusion" that must be resisted at all costs.



So let me publicly say what Angelica Black cannot: To Jimmy Kimmel and all who have engaged in bigoted hate speech targeting vaccine-damaged children, you now give credence to hate-filled derogatory labels through your verbal abuse of "anti-vaxxer" children and families.

You, Jimmy Kimmel, have legitimized the popular verbal abuse of brain-damaged children, the new subclass of vaccine victims who, unlike Martin Luther King, cannot speak for themselves to answer your bigotry and ignorance.


Jimmy Kimmel, this vaccine-damaged young girl is not a laughing matter; it is a MEDICAL TRAGEDY:





Zeda Pingel had neurological damage shortly after receiving a Gardisil vaccine. She is one of many girls forever altered after having the shot.



Jimmy Kimmel targets crippled children, reverses decades of progress and takes America back to the era of bigoted hate speech against innocent victims

With all the progress that has been made in America over the last fifty years, fighting back against ignorance and bigotry over skin color, religious affiliation and sexual orientation, Jimmy Kimmel has now set us back decades.


He has displayed on national television not only the fact the he and his entire staff are ignorant, bigoted child-haters, but that they also encourage bigoted hate speech against yet another targeted group of innocent victims.


Has America not yet learned that hate-based terms are unacceptable to use in a civilized society? Must people like Jimmy Kimmel now invent and publicize new terms of hatred and ignorance to unleash upon more groups of unfortunate victims who must now endure the public humiliation, bullying and death threats of the masses who have been given permission to engage in bigotry by watching shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live?


Jimmy Kimmel now encouraging violence against crippled "anti-vaxxer" children in the same way violence was committed against blacks and gays


Jimmy Kimmel, by scapegoating parents who question the safety and efficacy of vaccines, may inadvertently be encouraging violence against crippled "anti-vaxxer" children in the same way violence followed the denigrating language used against black and gays," radio host Robert Scott Bell told Natural News. Bell is the author of this article calling out Jimmy Kimmel for his verbal abuse of children who have been damaged by vaccines.


Vaccines, it turns out, are a form of medical violence against children for the simple reason that they provably cause extreme, permanent damage in many children year after year. But medical violence isn't the only violence that Jimmy Kimmel now seems to be promoting... he's also provoking individual acts of violence against so-called "anti-vaxxers" through his emotionally-charged, hate-filled rhetoric disguised as comedy.


Historically, it was the public tolerance of hate speech against African-Americans and gays that encouraged some people to engage in violent acts against them. After all, a group of people who are verbally belittled with derogatory and bigoted hate speech by public figures is an easy target for those with violent tendencies.


Over the years, countless violent attacks were committed against African-Americans and gays. The black community, in particular, suffered not merely from violence committed at the personal level, but even violence committed against them by the federal government.


The FBI, in particular, ran a seemingly endless campaign of threats, intimidation and violence against black America, even issuing a letter to Martin Luther King that called for the civil rights leader to commit suicide.


"There is but one way out for you," the FBI wrote MLK in a widely-publicized letter. "You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation."


This language seemingly echoes the abusive comedy skit from Jimmy Kimmel Live, which positions informed, intelligent parents of healthy children as being "idiots" whose children are described as a threat to society. That the term "anti-vaxxer" refers to innocent children -- many who are permanently brain damaged by vaccines -- makes it even more of an outrageous example of hate speech. And now, thanks to efforts of bigoted haters of crippled children like Jimmy Kimmel, we may very well see outbreaks of violence committed against families of vaccine-damaged children.


It begs the question: Will Jimmy Kimmel and his staff at ABC then make fun of the homes of "anti-vaxxers" being set on fire? How about parents of vaccine-damaged children being beaten on the streets? Haven't these victims of unsafe vaccines already suffered enough through their own children being permanently brain-damaged? Must they also suffer the humiliation and verbal abuse of a society that denies their child was damaged by vaccines in the first place?


Jimmy Kimmel says it's okay to make fun of the families of children like this one, who was severely damaged by vaccines:





Severe eczema in yet another vaccine-damaged child.



It's time to take a stand and call for the resignation of Jimmy KimmelBigots like Jimmy Kimmel have no place in a society that has fought so hard against bigotry and racism over the last several generations.

Any TV show host that openly encourages ignorance, bigotry and hatred against crippled children who were damaged by unsafe vaccines is a show host who has no place on American television, period!


Think back to the Johnny Carson era. Johnny was a true classic, and he was a man who never would have made brain-damaged children the brunt of a bigoted satire skit. Carson honored people and celebrated their diversity. He had true compassion for children and radiated a sense of dignity and respect.


Jimmy Kimmel, on the other hand, is a bigot who uses innocent crippled children to boost his ratings by making them the butt of his cruel jokes. His ignorant bigotry and hate speech openly encourages verbal abuse and physical violence against innocent families and their children. Jimmy Kimmel quite literally thinks it's funny that vaccines damage thousands of children in America and cause seizures, brain damage and autism. Jimmy Kimmel thinks it is socially acceptable to call the parents of these children "idiots" and dignify the new hate speech label "anti-vaxxer" with nationwide publicity.


Jimmy Kimmel is no Johnny Carson. He is an embarrassment to America and a man who lacks basic human compassion for crippled children who have been provably harmed for life by unsafe vaccines.


ACTION ITEM: Demand ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel


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