The Raw Story

Sunday, 25 January 2015

Hundreds of dead seabirds found in north Iceland

Hundreds of dead guillemots were recently found by farmer Gunnar Óli Hákonarsson at Sandur in Aðaldalur, North Iceland. The birds, which were found on a beach east of the mouth of Skjálfandafljót river, are believed to have died from starvation due to bad weather in December. Foxes and ravens have been scavenging on the bird carcasses.

Böðvar Þórisson at the Natural Institute of the West Fjords told mbl.is this week that a large number of seabirds were found dead in Ísafjörður earlier this month. An increase in seagulls, which are more aggressive in their feeding habits, may be to blame, he said.

According to Róbert Á. Stefánsson at the Natural Institute of West Iceland, even seagulls have been hungry this winter.

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Don't scream: The researchers found that those employees who returned hostility tended to do it in a passive-aggressive way, rather than yelling and screaming back

It might sound like a risky strategy but standing up to a hostile boss can actually boost your work life, according to a study.

Employees felt less like victims when they retaliated against their bad bosses and as a result experienced less psychological distress, more job satisfaction and more commitment to their employer, the researchers from Ohio State University found.

And most surprisingly of all, giving their boss a taste of their own medicine didn't appear to damage the person's career prospects.

Lead author of the study, Professor Bennett Tepper, said: 'Before we did this study, I thought there would be no upside to employees who retaliated against their bosses but that's not what we found.

'The best situation is certainly when there is no hostility. But if your boss is hostile, there appears to be benefits to reciprocating.

'Employees felt better about themselves because they didn't just sit back and take the abuse.'

Prof Tepper said: 'In a second study we wanted to see if employees who retaliated against their bosses also reported that their career was damaged by their actions.

'But in our survey anyway, employees didn't believe their actions hurt their career.'

For the study, which was published in the journal hostile bosses were defined as ones who yelled at, ridiculed, and tried to intimidate their workers.

The researchers found that those employees who returned hostility tended to do it in a passive-aggressive way, rather than yelling and screaming back.

Actions included ignoring their boss, acting like they didn't know what their bosses were talking about, and giving just a half-hearted effort - all behaviours 'that bosses don't like and that fit the definition of hostility', said Prof Tepper.

In the first study, 169 people completed two surveys, seven months apart. The first comprised a 15-item measure of supervisor hostility, and also asked participants how often they retaliated, and how.

Seven months later, when the same respondents were surveyed about their jobs and how they felt, those who didn't retaliate had higher levels of psychological distress, less satisfaction with their jobs and less commitment to their employer.

'However, those employees who returned the hostility didn't see those negative consequences,' Prof Tepper said.

A second survey was carried out to find out whether the retaliation damaged their careers. The researchers found there was no negative impact.

Prof Tepper said he believes one of the reasons employees who fight their corner feel more positive could be because they win the admiration and respect of their colleagues.

'There is a norm of reciprocity in our society,' he said. 'We have respect for someone who fights back, who doesn't just sit back and take abuse.

'Having the respect of co-workers may help employees feel more committed to their organisation and happy about their job.'

In the wake of antiwar criticism from the left and pro-war praise from right about his film , director Clint Eastwood told those gathered at Saturday's Producers Guild Award Nominees Breakfast that his film makes "the biggest antiwar statement any film can."

Eastwood insisted that the film was an "antiwar statement" because it depicted "what [war] does to the family and the people who have to go back to into civilian life like Chris Kyle did."

"One of my favorite war movies that I've been involved with is ," he continued. "And that was about family, about being taken away from life, being sent someplace. In World War II, everybody just sort of went home and got over it. Now there is some effort to help people through it. In Chris Kyle's case, no good deed went unpunished."

Eastwood described how he and the film's star, Bradley Cooper, visited with Kyle's family to see "what they were like."

"I went down there and met the mother and father and their grand-kids," he said. "It was of great value to [Bradley] because he could get into the history of the family and their feelings about the whole situation. It was a very pleasant experience from beginning to end."

He did not mention how the film's depiction of the Iraqi people, who are there - as British comedian and social activist Russell Brand discussed last week - merely as a backdrop to "American military might, American military power."

host Bill Maher said of the film's box office success that " [only] made $17 million, because it was a little ambiguous. And thoughtful - and this one is just 'American hero, he's a psychopath patriot and we love him.'"

Conservatives, meanwhile, have been extolling the film's virtue and the heroism of its subject, Chris Kyle. "The movie gives America something it's lacked since the start of the war - a war hero on a truly national, cultural scale," David French wrote at the .

Thousands of CND campaigners wrapped the UK Ministry of Defence in a two-mile long 'peace scarf' to protest the imminent overhaul of the sea-based Trident nuclear defense system.

Protesters carried placards reading "Books Not Bombs" and "Climate Not Trident", as they loudly chanted: "Wrap up Trident, ban the bomb now!"

The demonstrators are attempting to put pressure on a political class that has steadfastly supported Trident, despite public indifference.

"They should know that scrapping Trident is a vote winner, not a vote loser," said Kate Hudson, the general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

The demonstration comes after a parliamentary vote about the £100 billion ($150 billion) upgrade, during which only 37 MPs voted to scrap the program, with 364 endorsing it, and 250 abstaining, including opposition leader Ed Miliband.

"Too many MPs have refused to move on from the Cold War and are even prepared to sacrifice the NHS to maintain a nuclear arsenal," said Hudson

"The British people will not stand for masses of our taxpayers' money being spent on nuclear weapons."

Rebecca Johnson, vice-president of the CND says it's unthinkable that a government could spend such vast sums on an outdated weapons system, which she believes is pointless and if used would lead to the deaths of hundreds of millions around the globe.

"Nuclear weapons are the most outdated stupid weapons of the 20th Century that have no realistic place in the security or the defense or deterrents policies of sensible nations in the 21st Century, so scrapping Trident is really a no brainer for the British people," Johnson said, speaking to RT.

The vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament wants Britain to take the first step that could lead to eventual nuclear disarmament globally, by not renewing the Trident system.

© Reuters/David Moir

Crew from HMS Vengeance, a British Royal Navy Vanguard class Trident Ballistic Missile Submarine, stand on their vessel as they return along the Clyde river to the Faslane naval base near Glasgow, Scotland.

Designed in the 1980s with the aim of staving off Soviet threats, and in service since the mid-1990s, the submarine-based Trident is currently the UK's only nuclear launch system. No specific designs for a replacement have been drawn up so far, and the possibility of a cheaper alternative still remains under consideration.

Dr Richard Lindzen told a Massachusetts-based radio station that people who believe in global warming are becoming more hysterical in their arguments.

Climate change alarmists have been likened to a fanatical 'cult' by an MIT professor of meteorology.

Dr Richard Lindzen told a Massachusetts-based radio station that people who believe in global warming are becoming more hysterical in their arguments.

'As with any cult, once the mythology of the cult begins falling apart, instead of saying, oh, we were wrong, they get more and more fanatical,' he said.

'You've led an unpleasant life, you haven't led a very virtuous life, but now you're told, you get absolution if you watch your carbon footprint. It's salvation.'

According to Howie Carr at Breitbart, the 74-year-old highlighted reports by Nasa that 2014 was the hottest year in recorded history.

He points out that the Nasa climate scientists who made the claim was only 38 per cent sure this was true.

'Seventy per cent of the Earth is oceans, we can't measure those temperatures very well,' he said. 'They can be off a half a degree, a quarter of a degree.

'Even two-10ths of a degree of change would be tiny but two-100ths is ludicrous. Anyone who starts crowing about those numbers shows that they're putting spin on nothing.'

Dr Lindzen was a lead author of Chapter 7, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,' of the IPCC on climate change.

But he has previously blasted the IPCC for blaming humans for a global warming trend that appears to have cooled in recent decades - and then glossing over the warming slowdown.

'I think that the latest IPCC report has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence,' Dr Lindzen told Climate Depot - a site known for questioning the theory of global warming.

A number of studies have suggested that powerful winds in the Pacific Ocean, which have driven surface heat deep underwater, could be the reason behind the current 'pause' in global warming.

The IPCC has said that rising temperatures will exacerbate poverty and damage land and marine species.

It also claims that the world is in 'an era of man-made climate change' and has already seen impacts of global warming on every continent and across the oceans.

On Tuesday, President Obama said that 'no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change'.

He has pledged that he would veto legislation turning back White House efforts on the environment.

The map, created by artist Mark Adams, reveals the imaginary beasts that are feared the most in each state.

From the Jersey Devil to the Mothman, the US is filled with fictional creatures that have come to life in the nation's imagination.

Now one artist has decided to draw these cryptids by hand, revealing the beasts that are feared the most in each state.

'The map is a bit of a declaration of optimism and wonderment as to what might be possible on planet Earth,' artist Mark Adams told Dailymail.com.

Big Bird, for instance, has become notorious in Texas where witnesses have reported seeing an ape faced, winged beast with blood-red eyes.

Reports of the creature hit their peak in the early months of 1976 after a local radio station offered a reward for the beast's capture.

Louisiana, is famous for the Honey Island Swap Monster

Neighbouring state, Louisiana, is famous for the Honey Island Swap Monster. The creature is 7ft (2 metres) tall, with grey hair, yellow eyes and a foul stench.

Native Americans call this creature 'Letiche', and legendary tale suggests the beast came about following a train wreck in the area in the early 20th century.

A travelling circus was on the train, and from it a group of chimpanzees escaped and interbred with the local alligator population, according to the tale.

'I personally found myself drawn more to the carnivores and predatory cats, beasts like Shunka Warakin and the Ozark Howler,' said the Philadelphia-based artist.

'Creatures that likely exist in other less-hostile parts of the world, but for some reason are considered to be too far out to survive in North America.'

Perhaps the most famous of all the legendary beasts in the US is Bigfoot - a large hairy ape man that is alleged by some to live in the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

While Bigfoot is more famous in Washington, last year a large footprint unlike one from a human was in the woods in Mississippi - raising suggestions that the creature it belongs to is Bigfoot.

The large print was found by Peyton Lassiter in Vicksburg on August 12 - nine months after another local man, David Childers, saw a large grey figure running through a wooded area nearby.

The Jersey Devil is most feared in New Jersey

Other monsters in the map include the Mothman in West Virginia, the Jersey devil in New Jersey, the Beast of Busco in Indiana and the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swap in South Carolina.

'I love to think that there could be a cougar roaming the mountains of rural Arkansas, or a dire wolf wreaking havoc on the plains of Montana,' said Mr Adams.

'This world is an incredibly diverse place full of mystery and magic, and I for one like to think opposable thumbs and the ability to 'reason' doesn't immediately entitle us to a sense of certainty that we've got it all figured.'

THE LEGEND OF MOTHMAN

Mothman is a moth-like creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia from 15 November 1966 to 15 December 1967.

Some ufologists, paranormal authors, and cryptozoologists believe that Mothman was an alien, a supernatural manifestation, or an unknown cryptid.

The Native Americans had stories of giant terrible birds called thunderbirds. These thunderbirds could easily swoop down and carry away a man.

In their depictions, they look similar to the descriptions of Mothman.

On November 12, 1966, five men claimed to see a man-like figure fly low from the trees over their heads while digging in a grave. This is often identified as the first known sighting of what became known as the Mothman.

Sibel Edmonds on Gladio B and the Paris shootings

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Scientists living under an oppressive regime decide to clinically study the founders and supporters of evil regimes to determine what common factor is at play in the rise and propagation of man's inhumanity to man.

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The Raw Story

Focused on providing independent journalism.

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Sunday, 25 January 2015

Hundreds of dead seabirds found in north Iceland

Retaliation against a horrible boss prevents employees feeling stressed, study claims

Sick bag alert: Clint Eastwood claims 'American Sniper' is 'the biggest antiwar statement'

'Wellfare not Warfare': Protest in London against £100bn nuke replacement plan

Hitting the nail on the head: Global warming believers are like a hysterical 'cult': MIT scientist compares 'climate alarmists' to religious fanatics

United monsters of America: Infographic shows the location of strange beasts

Sibel Edmonds on Gladio B and the Paris shootings

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