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Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Bibi bets big: Netanyahu fires key centrist ministers 'plotting coup'


© Reuters / Jim Hollander

Israel's Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (L) and Finance Minister Yair Lapid (R) attend the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem November 23, 2014.



Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that he would be calling early elections, firing two of his key ministers prior to the dissolution of the Knesset and suggesting they were plotting a putsch against him.

Netanyahu fired Finance and Justice Ministers Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni respectively, saying that they had "harshly attacked both himself and the coalition government.


In a televised statement on Tuesday evening, Netanyahu said that "from within the current government, it is impossible to lead a state."


Netanyahu accused Livni and Lapid of playing "old politics" and claimed that they had conspired against him.


"Something Lapid and Livni have in common in their leadership is grandiloquent statements about new politics. But in effect they are part of the same old politics," he said. "In recent weeks they attempted to entice the ultra-Orthodox parties into deposing the prime minister while sitting in government."


In comments shortly after a meeting on Tuesday he also criticized the current coalition government.


"I will no longer tolerate an opposition within the government. I will not tolerate ministers who, from within the government, attack government policies and the person who leads the government," he added.




"If the unprecedented behavior of some government ministers continues, there will be no choice but to go to elections again," Netanyahu said in a statement after an hour long meeting, reported .

© Reuters / Gali Tibbon

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference at his office in Jerusalem December 2, 2014.



Shortly after this statement was released, a further statement announced the plan to call elections. "The prime minister plans to call for parliament's dissolution as soon as possible and to go to the people and get a clear mandate to lead Israel," a statement from Netanyahu's office said.

The centrist Yesh Atid party headed by Lapid, responded with a statement that "Prime Minister Netanyahu has failed in his management of the country and in dealing with the needs of the Israeli public."


Livni also met Netanyahu Tuesday and said after that "already yesterday at midnight it was clear that we're going to elections," reports.


Relations became strained during a series of disagreements over economic and political issues, among them, Lapid's opposition to Netanyahu's version of the Jewish nation-state bill.


The more political falling out about a nationality bill had by this week developed into further conflict over housing and budgetary issues.


Prior to the announcements, Netanyahu demanded Lapid to drop his opposition to Jewish nation-state bill, and freeze "the zero-VAT bill" - a project set into motion by Lapid which would cancel value-added tax on the purchase of first homes.


However, there have been suggestions Netanyahu is eliminating more centrist politicians from his government as the move has further strengthened Netanyahu's right-wing bloc, given his comments about the coalition being forced on him.


Humans are capable of precognition on a subconscious level

science head

Over the past few decades a significant and noteworthy amount of scientific research has emerged contributing to the notion that human precognition could very well be real, and that we all might possess this potential -amongst various other extended human capacities. Thanks to the research by various scientists presented in this article, extended human capacities are beginning to exit the realm of superstitious thinking, delusion and irrationality and find their way into the world of confirmed phenomena. Claims of precognition or "future telling" have occurred "throughout human history in virtually every culture and period." (source- PDF)

It's not hard to see why we are so fascinated with these concepts, they are embedded in popular culture today throughout various outlets such as movies -which can sometimes be counter productive given the fact that they are merged with fictional stories and events. Similar to the extraterrestrial phenomenon, the validity of these concepts seems to shrink due to the fact that they are "just movies." Although the stories that accompany these types of phenomena in movies is probably largely factious, the concepts do hold some validity. Let's examine the truth behind precognition and claims of "future telling."


The Science



"There seems to be a deep concern that the whole field will be tarnished by studying a phenomenon that is tainted by its association with superstition, spiritualism and magic. Protecting against this possibility sometimes seems more important than encouraging scientific exploration or protecting academic freedom. But this may be changing." - Cassandra Vieten, PhD and President/CEO at the Institute of Noetic Sciences



So what exactly is precognition? It's basically the ability to have a premonition of a future event that could not otherwise be anticipated through any known process. It's the influence of a future event that has yet to take place on an individuals responses. These responses can come in the form of their biology, they can be conscious responses the individual is aware of, or they can be non-conscious responses that the individual is not aware of (which is mostly the case when it comes to the scientific examination of precognition) and more.

"Precognition refers to the noninferential prediction of future events." (source-PDF)



A recently published study (meta analysis) in the journal titled "Predicting the unpredictable: critical analysis and practical implications of predictive anticipatory activity" examined a number of experiments regarding this phenomenon that were conducted by several different laboratories.

These experiments indicate that the human body can actually detect randomly delivered stimuli that occur 1-10 seconds in advance. In other words, the human body seems to know of an event, and reacts to an event that has yet to occur. What occurs in the human body before these events are physiological changes that are measured regarding the cardiopulmonary, the skin, and the nervous system. (1)


It's important to note that these types of responses to future events that are measured in the body are unconscious responses, meaning that the subject (human) is not aware that they are actually taking place. So it is a form of precognition, but not full blown conscious premonitions.


The fact that changes in our physiological activity in the autonomic nervous system changes and prepares for future events is remarkable, and the fact that this is "unconscious precognition" should not take away from the fact that it helps us better understand the phenomenon of conscious precognition in a scientific sense. We are still waiting for science to catch up and provide an explanation for conscious precognition, regardless of whether the phenomenon has been observed or not.


More than 40 experiments investigating this phenomenon in humans have been published over the past 36 years. This is what promoted the meta-analysis.


The analysis concluded that:



"The predictive physiological anticipation of a truly randomly selected and thus unpredictable future event, has been under investigation for more than three decades, and a recent conservative meta-analysis suggests that the phenomenon is real." (1)



Another recently published paper via the by Cornell university professor Dr. Daryl J. Bem suggests that precognition may be real. Dr Bem is a leading social psychologist and has been well-respected throughout his long and esteemed career. So his work suggesting that precognition may be real is quite a large leap for this type of phenomenon.(2)

Dr. Bem's study outlines nine experiments that involved more than 1000 participants that "test for retroactive influence by time reversing well-established psychological effects so that the individual's responses are obtained before the putatively causal stimulus events occur." (2)


After going through and examining these experiments, Dr. Bem concluded that all but one of them yielded statistically significant results. The paper and experiments are provided within the sources listed.


Again, precognition has been well documented and observed in laboratories all over the world. Just because there is a lack of ability for psi research to provide an explanation for the observed phenomena does not discredit the phenomenon itself.



"Historically, the discovery and scientific exploration of most phenomena have preceded explanatory theories, often by decades or even centuries."- Dr. Bern (source-PDF pg 3)



Another study from Dr. Dean Radin, one of the several authors noted in the first study used in this article conducted four double blind experiments that also show that some intuitive hunches, measured by fluctuations in the autonomic nervous system involve unconscious perception of future events that have yet to occur, and the experiments supported this idea.(3)

Another significant study (meta-analysis) that was published in the by Charles Honorton and Diane C. Ferrari in 1989, examine a number of studies that were published between 1935 and 1987. The studies involved attempts of individuals to predict "the identity of target stimuli selected randomly over intervals ranging from several hundred million seconds to one year following the individuals responses." These authors investigated over 300 studies conducted by over 60 authors, using approximately 2 million individual trials by more than 50,000 people. (4)



It concluded that their analysis of precognition experiments "confirms the existence of a small but highly significant precognition effect. The effect appears to be repeatable; significant outcomes are reported by 40 investigators using a variety of methodological paradigms and subject populations. The precognition effect is not merely an unexplained departure from a theoretical chance baseline, but rather is an effect that covaries with factors known to influence more familiar aspects of human performance." (4)



Why is this type of precognition unconscious? And does it have the potential to become conscious?

Again, as mentioned earlier in the article, the science behind precognition refers to unconscious precognition. This means that the response to future events prior to when they happen is measured through physiological changes, and that seems to be quite clear.


But why should this be the case? If our body (parts of our nervous system) can obtain information about events seconds in the future, why would we not have the inability to not make this information conscious? Maybe we do have that potential.


Researchers in the first study used in this article suggest that this might be the case because the information is not useful, similar to the majority of information that is usually processed unconsciously. They also suggest that the conscious mind may not be able to make such quick decisions. They state "it might be evolutionarily advantageous for unconscious processing to assess upcoming events, filter them, mobilize resources, and only then inform conscious awareness."(1)


Parapsychological Phenomenon, Consciousness & How They Relate To The Nature Of Our Reality


Precognition is one small aspect of a much larger body of what is termed as parapsychological phenomenon. For more information from CE on some areas of this larger body of information you can check out this article:


Scientific Studies That Prove Consciousness and Our Physical Material World Are Somehow Intertwined.


If you want to further your research even more, a great place to start would be the The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS)


:


(1) http://ift.tt/1Fzb60J


(2) http://ift.tt/17UhnYw


(3) http://ift.tt/1Fzb6hj


(4) http://ift.tt/1vrbdud


FLASHBACK: Eye witness releases video recorded right after shooting of Michael Brown

darren wilson



Officer Darren Wilson was caught on cellphone footage looking at Michael Brown's lifeless body after he fired six shots at the unarmed teen on a Ferguson, Missouri street on August 9



A woman who claims she saw a police officer shoot dead Michael Brown has released video of his lifeless body in the street as the cop who killed him paces back and forth.

Piaget Crenshaw lives in an apartment with a balcony overlooking the street in Ferguson, Missouri where the 18-year-old was killed on August 9.


She said today that she waited until now to release the video as she feared for her safety and the officer's name had not been released.


On the cellphone footage, Ms Crenshaw can be heard saying: 'God bless his soul, police shot this boy outside my apartment.'


She told CNN today that she had recorded the incident because she believed that something was wrong.


'From it all initially happening, I knew this was not right,' Miss Crenshaw said.


'I knew the police shouldn't have been chasing this boy and firing at the same time. And the fact he got shot in his face, something clicked in me and I thought someone else should see this so I recorded.'


Piaget Crenshaw



Piaget Crenshaw (pictured today) said that she recorded the shooting of Michael Brown because she felt something wasn't right



Ms Crenshaw said that police had her footage after confiscating her phone following the shooting.

She questioned why they did not release this at the same time as the video of Michael Brown allegedly stealing cigars from a convenience store on Friday.


Ms Crenshaw said Officer Wilson paced back and forth along the street next to Michael Brown's body as if he was 'in disbelief' by what had just happened.


The woman was unclear what exactly happened between Brown and Wilson at the police cruiser but said that it appeared as if the officer was trying to pull the teenager into the car.


She said Brown got away and she heard shots fired, none of which appeared to hit Brown although she believed one grazed him.


It was then Brown 'turned around and was shot multiple times'.


She added: 'He was running away and when he [Brown] turned around he was shot.'


Officer Wilson is now on paid administrative leave following the shooting death of Michael Brown, pending the outcome of the investigation into the shooting.


The 28-year-old officer won a commendation for 'extraordinary effort in the line of duty' on February of this year.


'He never intended for any of this to happen,' Ferguson police Chief Thomas Jackson said last week. 'It's devastating, absolutely devastating.'


A friend of Officer Wilson reportedly came to his defense on Wednesday saying that the cop shot and killed Michael Brown because the teen tried to grab his gun, punched him in the face and then charged at him.


A woman calling herself 'Josie' called a local St Louis radio station on Friday claiming to be a friend of the 28-year-old Ferguson police officer.


The woman, who said she was a friend of the cop's girlfriend, said friends and family were too afraid to speak out but she wanted the public to know that Brown, 18, had 'bum-rushed' Officer Wilson prior to the shooting.


'He pulled up ahead of them. And then he got a call-in that there was a strong-arm robbery. And, they gave a description,' the friend told .


'Tries to get out of his car. They slam his door shut violently. I think he said Michael did. And, then he opened the car again. He tried to get out. He stands up,' she continued.


'And then Michael just bum-rushes him and shoves him back into his car. Punches him in the face and them Darren grabs for his gun. Michael grabbed for the gun. At one point he got the gun entirely turned against his hip.


'And he shoves it away. And the gun goes off.


'Well, then Michael takes off and gets to be about 35 feet away. And, Darren's first protocol is to pursue.


'So, he stands up and yells, ''Freeze!'' Michael and his friend turn around.


'And Michael taunts him... And then all the sudden he just started bum-rushing him. He just started coming at him full speed.


So [Wilson] really thinks [Brown] was on something, because he just kept coming. It was unbelievable.


'And so he finally ended up, the final shot was in the forehead, and then he fell about two to three feet in front of the officer.'




Michael brown darren wilson



Michael Brown (pictured right) was shot multiple times by police officer Darren Wilson as he turned around with his hands up, an eye-witness said today



The friend's report, which has not been verified, added to the growing number of different versions of events from the day of the fatal shooting.

An independent autopsy revealed on Monday that Michael Brown died from a 'kill shot' to the top of the head - but could have survived his five other bullet wounds.


Dr Michael Baden, who was asked by the family to perform post-mortem examination, told a press conference that he had reassured the teen's mother, Lesley McSpadden, that her son had not suffered.


The family's autopsy, which was released on Sunday, revealed the unarmed 18-year-old had been shot at least six times by police officer Darren Wilson including twice in the head and four times in the right arm.


brown autopsy



Attorney Benjamin Crump holds a drawing of a preliminary autopsy report of Michael Brown showing six bullets struck his body



Eye-witnesses have also claimed that Brown had his hands up to signal that he was surrendering.

However assistant pathologist Shawn Parcells told CNN on Monday afternoon that it cannot be proved from the initial autopsy whether Brown was rushing the officer or simply standing at a distance.


Family lawyer Benjamin Crump described the teen's death as an 'execution in broad daylight'. He said it was important for the family to have their own autopsy results as they did not trust the work of the local police.


Later on Monday the St Louis County medical examiner also confirmed that Brown had been shot between six and eight times.


Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson released the name of Officer Wilson last Friday after mounting public pressure. He had waited after saying that the officer received death threats on social media.


The shooting of the unarmed black teenager has sparked eight days of protests in the once quiet Missouri suburb.


Protests over the teen's shooting on August 9 had seen looting and violence in the area. Following a brief calm, trouble returned at the end of last week, prompting Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to put a curfew in place from midnight to 5 a.m.


Nixon lifted the curfew on Monday while ordering the National Guard to help restore order.


He deployed the Guard on Monday following an overnight clash between armored police and what he called 'a violent criminal element intent upon terrorizing the community'.


Nixon said the Guard will be under the direction of the state Highway Patrol.


Calling for understanding in the face of racially charged anger, President Barack Obama said on Monday that the vast majority of protesters in a St. Louis suburb were peaceful, but warned that a small minority was undermining justice.


During a brief pause in his summer vacation, Obama expressed sympathy for the 'passions and anger' sparked by the death of Brown but said giving in to that anger through looting and attacks on police only stirs tensions and leads to further chaos.


He said overcoming the mistrust endemic between many communities and their local police would require Americans to 'listen and not just shout.'


'That's how we're going to move forward together, by trying to unite each other and understand each other and not simply divide ourselves from one another,' Obama told reporters at the White House.


Obama also said that Eric Holder would travel to Ferguson this week to meet with FBI and other officials carrying out an independent federal investigation into Brown's death.


After Obama spoke, the Attorney General announced that over 40 FBI agents are currently conducting an independent 'civil rights investigation' into Brown's death.


'The full resources of the Department of Justice are being committed to our federal civil rights investigation into the death of Michael Brown,' he said.


"During the day today, more than 40 FBI agents continued their canvassing of the neighborhood where Michael Brown was shot. As a result of this investigative work, several new interviews have already been conducted.'


President Obama had earlier told Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon he wanted to ensure the use the National Guard in help calm tensions in Ferguson would be limited in scope. He said he would be monitoring that operation in the coming days to see whether the guard's involvement was helping or hurting.


Obama also weighed in for the first time publicly on the militarization of some local police departments, saying it probably would be useful to examine how federal grant dollars had been used to allow local police to purchase military-style equipment, an issue that's come to the forefront amid the violent protests in Ferguson.


Obama said the distinction between the military and domestic law enforcement was one of the great things about America.


Just hours after Obama's speech, which included calls for the rights of a free press, a photographer working for the Getty photography agency was arrested in Ferguson. Scott Olson was arrested because he wasn't in the required media area, said police.


Watch the video and Piaget Crenshaw's interview below.


[embedded content]




And more eye-witnesses accounts:

[embedded content]


SOTT EXCLUSIVE: Updates from Ukraine and Novorussia: Poroshenko shipped arms to rebels, Givi promises a surprise





Donetsk International Airport: before.



After months of operations at the Donetsk airport, Lieutenant Colonel "Givi" (call-sign) of the Novorussian Armed Forces and his battalion "Somali" are apparently on a break, resting from the constant fighting taking place there. The airport itself is an interesting topic. Once a modern international hub (rebuilt in 2012 for around USD $875 million), it is now a steaming pile of rubble.

Donetsk airport



After.



Why the stubborn focus on the airport from Kiev, where Ukrainian forces forces have been holed up for months, surrounded on all sides by the NAF? That's a whole other topic from the updates I want to give today, so I'll just mention a couple of points. Rumor has it that, holed up with the Ukrainians (including Right Sector thugs), there were or are also foreign mercenaries, including Poles. As Poland is a NATO member, this would be bad press if it came to light, to say the least, which may explain why they have consistently refused offers to surrender and have safe passage back to Ukraine.

Givi became something of an Internet sensation over the last few months, for example, with his 'cooler than Siberia' response to shelling from the Ukrainian Army during an interview. (Check that footage out here.) He's been featured regularly in video reports from journalist Graham Phillips (who was recently wounded in a shelling attack from Kiev) and also makes an appearance in Miquel Santiago's documentary on Donetsk for RT. Just watch some of the videos and you'll see why he's so popular, and why the people of Donetsk and Lugansk are doing all right in the information war with Kiev and the West, despite lacking the fancy tools and busloads of money.


Along with commanders like "Vasya" (also featured in Santiago's documentary), "Motorola" (who leads the Sparta battalion currently stationed at the airport along with Khodakovsky's Vostok battalion) and others, watching them give a lot of insight into the mentality of the 'pro-Russian separatists' who have joined the fight for their rights, land, culture, and their very lives, and why they'll never submit to the genocidal monsters in Kiev. First of all, they have a sense of humor! (Don't miss this one, either.) But more important, it's their morale. They are truly fighting for their existence, they know what the stakes are, they have either lost everything or given up everything to defend their most basic human rights, and they are fully committed. They have lost family, friends, and fellow countrymen to Kiev's butchery, and unlike the Nazi battalions in the service of Kiev, they have kept their humanity. It's what drives them. And that is a force to be reckoned with.


That said, here's the latest from Givi, who has been relatively quiet since 'taking a rest' from the fighting at the airport.


[embedded content]




The comment about Poroshenko comes from this recent video, in which another NAF commander, Igor Bezler, reminds Poroshenko that before becoming president, he sold arms to the rebels. As Givi says above, anything to make a buck, right?

But there's also this, from the Ukrainian side. The man interviewed below is Oleksandr Taran, a Ukrainian major and military expert.


[embedded content]




The things he says are not exactly news: Ukrainian forces do not want to fight. Neither do the Novorussians. The only solution Taran sees is to put a stop to the military operations. Also, despite seeing some Russian volunteer fighters, Taran is clear that he didn't see any Russian military units. In other words, no, the Russians have not invaded Ukraine. It's really only the psychopaths at the top of the food chain that want war, and the Nazi 'volunteer' and mercenary battalions. In fact, there have been reports of actual fighting between Right Sector and regular Ukrainian forces. The NAF just sits back and watches them kill each other. Then, there's this: Kolomoisky declares war on Poroshenk:

The confrontation escalates. Property expropriations carried out by Kolomoisky using territorial battalions result in attempts to subdue these battalions (which are armed groups with carte blanche to exercise unlawful acts) by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.


But these attempts, in turn, are instantly responded to with ultimatums to the President by commanders of these battalions.


The commanders now have diplomatic immunity (which of course, no one will cancel at this point for the most ridiculous reasons).



The majority of Ukrainians may not support the Nazi and mercenary elements in Ukrainian politics/business/military, but that doesn't mean they don't wield a large amount of power and influence. And that doesn't mean they can't get even more. Poroshenko better watch out.


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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.



Is nearsightedness an epidemic?


© Unknown



For Christine Wildsoet, a professor of vision science and optometry at the University of California--Berkeley, the coffee shop hosts some of the worst offenders. There are the new moms chatting while their babies are parked in front of iPads, and the dads reading while their toddlers play games on cellphones.

"I just don't know what the implications of new technology [are] going to be" on kids' eyesight, says Wildsoet, who studies myopia, or nearsightedness, a condition experts say is beginning earlier in life, worsening later in life and rising to epidemic levels worldwide.


"There's a major lifestyle shift that's been brewing over the last 30 years," including kids and adults doing more close-up work and spending more time indoors, says Mark Jacquot, clinical director of vision care at LensCrafters. "This is contributing to a reduced ability to focus on things farther away, which is essentially myopia."


In the early 1970s, about 25 percent of 12- to 54-year-old Americans were myopic. By the 2000s, more than 41 percent had the condition, research finds. Wildsoet and her team have trouble finding non-myopic controls for their studies, and clinicians like Maria Liu, head of Berkeley's Myopia Control Clinic, see children as young as 4 with severe myopia.


Other countries, particularly those in East Asia where schooling starts earlier and lasts longer each day, have beat us to the chase. In Singapore, for one, the military realized it could no longer rule out recruits due to nearsightedness; there would be too few prospects left. It's since offered laser eye surgery to members and dedicated impressive resources to myopia research at all levels, including exploring potential school-based interventions, Wildsoet says.


In Taiwan, the myopia prevalence among 7-year-olds increased from 5.8 percent in 1983 to 21 percent in 2000. And in South Korea, a large, representative study of 19-year-olds showed that more than 96 percent were myopic in 2010. "So you can pretty much say everybody's myopic" there, Wildsoet says.


That's a problem because myopia -- characterized by eyeballs that are more egg-shaped than spherical -- is linked with a higher risk for various eye diseases such as retinal detachment, glaucoma and cataracts.


What's more, Wildsoet says, the epidemic poses a public health problem. "Not only the cost of correction, but the cost of actually managing these diseases associated with myopia has huge consequences as the myopia prevalence goes up," she says.


Fortunately, myopia is not entirely genetic, and therefore, not fate, says Liu, an assistant professor of clinical optometry and vision science at Berkeley. "I have so many parents [with bad eyesight] coming to the clinic saying, 'No matter what we do, my kids are doomed,'" she says. "This is a very wrong message."


The right message is that "numerous genetic studies" have shown that the 20-plus genes associated with nearsightedness explain only about 15 percent of the condition's prevalence, Liu says. That means "it matters how they use their eyes -- it's not preprogrammed," she says.


Here's how to use your eyes right:


Get Outside


Australia is one country that's traditionally lagged behind in myopia progression trends. That's likely due in part to the down-under lifestyle and landscape that promotes time outdoors, says Wildsoet, who's Australian.


On the opposite end of the spectrum are some Asian countries, where after school work -- not play -- is the norm, says Liu, who was born and trained as an optometrist in China. "Not only do they start doing near work at a much earlier age, the total duration of the near work at a very early age is very, very astonishing," she says.


Those of us stateside can take a cue: Research has linked more time outdoors with decreased risk of myopia progression, even when controlling for the amount of time indoors and reading, Liu says. "If we can encourage kids to stay outdoors as much as they can, that itself serves as a very good protective mechanism for faster progression."


Take Breaks


Jacquot calls it the "20-20-20" rule: Every 20 minutes of close-up activity -- be it reading a book, working on a laptop or texting on a cellphone -- look at something about 20 feet away for about 20 seconds. "It can give your eyes a little bit of a break; it of course gives your mind a bit of a break, too," he says.


That strategy is well- founded. Animal studies, for instance, show that "the total impact to the overall myopic development is very, very different" for long stretches of near focus compared with that same amount of time broken into smaller stints, Liu says.


Taking breaks can also help prevent against computer-aggravated discomforts, including eye strain and fatigue, blurry vision, dry eye and watery eye -- "all part of something we've come to call 'computer vision syndrome,'" Jacquot says.


Practice Good "Visual Hygiene"


In the past, vision experts expected vision to stop getting worse by the time patients reached adulthood. "That doesn't happen anymore," Jacquot says. "We all have these close-up demands that mean nearsightedness is progressing in our 20s, 30s and even 40s -- which used to be the time the eyes started to come back the other direction."


That's one of the reasons it's important to continue to get an annual eye exam -- even if you have 20/20 vision now, Jacquot says. That's different from a vision screening, which only flags major vision problems and can miss eye health conditions, he says.


It's also important to practice other "visual hygiene" techniques such as making sure your computer monitor is just below eye-level and eating a diet full of leafy greens, fatty fish like salmon, yellow and orange vegetables, and even some dark chocolate and wine, Jacquot says.


"Just being aware of some of these things -- eating good foods that are rich in nutrients, making sure we're taking care to take breaks throughout the day and getting that eye exam every year -- those are all things that people can do to take good care of their eyes," he says.


4-year old boy savaged by family's rottweiler in New Port Richey, Florida




The dog is currently under a 10-day rabies quarantine.



Kathryn Monroe is still trying to come to grips with what happened to her great grandson on Sunday. "I know we're all heartbroken. We're in tears." Said Monroe. "He's fighting for his life. That's all I can say. His one ear was severed, it's horrible."

Pasco County Sheriff's Deputies say 4-year old Jasper Debow Bridgeman was bitten by the family's Rottweiler at his grandmother's home at 9136 Suffolk Lane in New Port Richey shortly after 4pm on Sunday. Paramedics airlifted the boy to St. Joseph's hospital where he is recovering from his injuries. Pasco Animal Control took the dog to the shelter in Land O' Lakes.


The dog is currently under a 10-day rabies quarantine. Once the quarantine is completed, the dog's owners will then have an opportunity to determine if they want to keep the dog.


[embedded content]




Mike Shumate is the manager at Pasco Animal Services and says it's not clear what, if anything, prompted the attack. "The dog was tethered outside, the child was playing outside by the dog, the child got up to go into the house and at that point the dog attacked the child." Said Shumate, who said animal bite cases are quite common. "Believe it or not, we (Pasco County) average about 100-140 bite cases a month. "A lot of those are reported from hospitals, clinics, things like that."

Monroe and other family members say all they can do is pray for Jasper's speedy recovery. "All I know is the dog got behind him and attacked him. That's all I know." Said Monroe. "It was horrible. All I know is the little guy isn't be the same as when he left here."


SOTT FOCUS: Mike Brown Shooting - Darren Wilson Lied


The unarmed Mike Brown was shot dead by officer Darren Wilson after an altercation over Brown and a friend, Dorian Johnson, walking in the middle of Canfield Drive, Ferguson, Missouri.

Canfield Drive is not exactly a major thoroughfare, with locals reporting that walking in the street was commonplace among youths of the area. In addition, it was Saturday morning and there was little if any traffic on the road.


According to Ferguson police chief, Wilson did not know that Brown had recently stolen some cigars from a local store.


Without stopping his vehicle, Wilson approached the two young men in his Police SUV and said something to them about walking in the middle of the road.


According to Wilson's testimony he said: "" To which one of the two responded: "." So Wilson claims he tried again: ""


If the conversation had continued in this way, we might expect to hear that Wilson then said something like: "Aw shucks guys, I'd really really appreciate it if you would do me the honor of walking on the sidewalk, after all, I'm just trying to look out for you because I really love you both so much".


Instead, Wilson claims that Brown responded with: "."


Johnson claims that Wilson's first words to the two weren't quite so civil: ""


Johnson's account agrees with that of Wilson, that the two responded that they would soon be at their destination and continued walking, but that "almost a split second [later], we heard the tires screech, and the officer, he pulled back in the truck very fast at an angle [where] if we didn't hear his tires screech, the back of his cruiser would have struck one of us."


In response to Brown's alleged "f", Wilson claims that he backed up his car and began to open the door with the words: "" to which Brown responded: "" and slammed the car door closed on Wilson. Wilson claims he tried to open the door again, telling Brown to get back, at which point Brown leaned into the vehicle and began punching him.


Johnson, on the other hand, stated that Wilson said to Brown: "" and then "."


Both Wilson and Johnson agree that Brown and Wilson tussled with each other through the open window of the police SUV, but Johnson claims that Wilson first grabbed a hold of Brown's shirt collar, while Wilson claims Brown spontaneously started to punch Wilson through the open window.


Wilson also claimed that, as punches rained down on him, Brown stopped for a moment to hand his stolen cigars to his friend before resuming the onslaught that resembled, according to Wilson, Hulk Hogan beating a 5 year old child.



"I was doing the, just scrambling, trying to get his arms out of my face and him from grabbing me and everything else. He turned to his...if he's at my vehicle, he turned to his left and handed the first subject. He said, "here, take these." He was holding a pack of - several packs of cigarillos which was just, what was stolen from the Market Store was several packs of cigarillos. He said, "here, hold these" and when he did that I grabbed his right arm trying just to control something at that point. Um, as I was holding it, and he came around, he came around with his arm extended, fist made, and went like that straight at my face with his...a full swing from his left hand."



I think we can presume that, if the almost 300lb Brown had hit Wilson with a full swing of his left hand, Wilson's injury would have been slightly worse than this:




Johnson does, however, corroborate Wilson's claim that Brown handed cigars to Johnson, but only to better break free from Wilson's hold on him:

""



The mid-pummeling cigar hand-off, like most of Wilson's account sounds implausible. It's true that Brown had just stolen cigars from a store, but that fact argues against Wilson's narrative of Brown deliberately provoking a violent confrontation with a police officer who merely politely asked him to move to sidewalk rather than arrest him for the theft.

Wilson then claims that, as he attempted to pull out his gun, Brown saw him, and, in true black dude with a death wish fashion, tells Wilson "." Again, Wilson's narrative sounds like the work of a Hollywood script writer.


Wilson fired two shots in the car, one of them hitting Brown in the hand. Brown's blood was found on Wilson's gun.


At this point, Brown runs off down the street. At a certain undetermined distance, Brown stopped and, according to eyewitnesses was checking his injury.


Wilson had already exited his vehicle and moved towards Brown with his gun drawn. According to eyewitness statements, Wilson ordered Brown to stop, despite the fact that Brown had already stopped and was checking his injury, with both of his hands clearly visible above the level of his waist and away form his body.



Immediately after shouting 'stop', Wilson fired at least three shots at Brown, hitting him in the stomach and arm at least. Brown staggered back from the impacts, and began to bend over from the bullet wound to his stomach. In doing so he shuffled forward a few feet, and was obviously seriously wounded. As he began to crumple to the ground, Wilson, still moving forward on the severely injured Brown, fired four more shots, hitting Brown in the chest the forehead and the top of his head, as he fell face forward onto the road.













Those are the facts as reported by the majority of eyewitnesses.

Wilson, on the other hand, portrays Brown as something out of a Marvel superhero movie:



"When [Brown] stopped, he turned, looked at me, made like a grunting noise and had the most intense, aggressive face I've ever seen on a person.


"It looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I'm shooting at him," Wilson said. "And the face that he had was looking straight through me, like I wasn't even there, I wasn't even anything in his way."


When he looked at me, he then did like the hop...you know, like people do to start running. And, he started running at me. During his first stride, he took his right hand put it under his shirt into his waistband. And I ordered him to stop and get on the ground again. He didn't. I fired multiple shots. After I fired the multiple shots, I paused a second, yelled at him to get on the ground again, he was still in the same state. Still charging, hand still in his waistband, hadn't slowed down."



Note Wilson's claim that Brown put his 'hand into his waistband'. This is most likely a deliberately false allegation designed to create the impression that Wilson believed Brown had a gun. Brown had no gun. And in his crazed state, with a bullet in the stomach and another in the arm, careening headlong towards Wilson (allegedly), it seems unlikely he would have thought to try to fool Wilson with such a gesture.

Wilson appears to be lying on at least two points. He did not know that Brown was involved in the theft of the cigars when he approached the two men on Canfield Drive. And, according to most eyewitnesses, Brown did not continue to "charge" at him after having been shot several times by Wilson.





Mike Brown, as portrayed by Officer Darren Wilson





The most likely scenario is that Wilson shot Brown dead after he had ceased to post a threat to Wilson because Brown had in some way disrespected his authority after Wilson approached the two men on the street and then fought with Wilson through the window of his police SUV. Wilson was enraged, but Wilson was the one with the gun. Brown was unarmed. It is illegal for police officers in the USA to shoot a suspect merely because they are fleeing. If a police officer has no probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, he also cannot legally shoot the suspect.

By all accounts, the assistant prosecutor in the grand jury acted more like Wilson's defense attorney than a public prosecutor acting in the interests of the victim's family and the 'state'. She appears to have deliberately led the jurors to believe that Wilson could legally shoot Brown for fleeing and that Missouri law overwrites Federal state law. That fact alone suggests that the state and federal authorities were aware that Wilson illegally shot Mike Brown because Brown had fled the scene of his altercation with Wilson, NOT that he was 'charging' towards Wilson when Wilson fired the fatal shots. More to the point, these same authorities understood that those facts would have been revealed had the case gone to trial. As in so many other cases, the justice

system was subverted to protect the elite and their 'system', with the victims are left to suck it up.


Speaking to ABC News, Darren Wilson claimed that his execution style shooting of Mike Brown was just "something that happened" and he has nothing on his conscience. Maybe that's because he doesn't have one.