Hysterical society: Colorado 6-year old suspended for pointing his fingers in the shape of a gun

© KRDO

A Colorado Springs first-grader was suspended from school after pointing his fingers at a classmate in the shape of a gun.

Six-year-old Elijah goes to Stratton Meadows Elementary School. On Monday, he pointed at a classmate in the shape of a gun and said, "You're dead."

According to his report, an administrator spoke with him about what being dead means and about not confusing "make-believe" or things in games with reality. And he received a one-day suspension for threats against peers.

"I know they have zero tolerance, but more of a maybe no recess," his dad, Austin Thurston said. "Going as far as a one-day suspension is a little extreme for a six-year-old in a first-grade class."

A spokesperson for Harrison School District 2, which Stratton Meadows is a part of, couldn't give specifics about the case, because it's part of the student's personal record. But she said school administrators feel they issued the appropriate disciplinary action.

She also said school staff speaks with students and parents before a suspension, and they consider current as well as previous behaviors.

Elijah has been at the school since January. His dad said while he had minor behavioral incidents in his previous school, this was the first time he got in trouble at Stratton Meadows.

"Of course I think he was playing," Thurston said. "What six-year-old doesn't play cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians?"

Thurston said he and his wife have spoken with the boy about guns.

"We just told him there's a time and a place for everything, and we told him school is never a place for that. We let him know that the guns in the wrong hands will be very dangerous," he said. "He knows the difference between really doing that, and just putting your finger up and saying, 'boom you're dead.' We made sure he understands the severity of what he said."

Although the school didn't require it, Elijah is writing an apology letter to the school stating he understands his actions.

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Winters are going to get colder...much colder - NASA consultant

The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period roughly spanning 1645 to 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time.

Like the Dalton Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Maunder Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.

During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000-50,000 spots. (Source)

Climatologist John Casey, a former space shuttle engineer and NASA consultant, thinks that last year's winter, described by USA Today as "one of the snowiest, coldest, most miserable on record" is going to be a regular occurrence over the coming decades.

Casey asserts that there is mounting evidence that the Earth is getting cooler due to a decline in solar activity. He warns in his latest book, that a major alteration of global climate has already started and that at a minimum it is likely to last 30 years.

Casey predicts food shortages and civil unrest caused by those shortages due largely to governments not preparing for the issues that colder weather will bring. he also predicts that wickedly bitter winter temperatures will see demand for electricity and heating outstrip the supply.

Casey isn't alone in his thinking. Russian climate expert and astrophysicist Habibullo Abdussamatov goes one step further and states that we are at the very beginning of a new ice age.

Dr. Abdussamatov points out that Earth has experienced such occurrences five times over the last 1,000 years, and that:

"A global freeze will come about regardless of whether or not industrialized countries put a cap on their greenhouse gas emissions. The common view of Man's industrial activity is a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect." (source)

Don Easterbrook, a climate scientist based at Western Washington University predicted exactly what Casey is saying as far back as 2008. in his paper he states:

Despite no global warming in 10 years and recording setting cold in 2007-2008, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) and computer modelers who believe that CO2 is the cause of global warming still predict the Earth is in store for catastrophic warming in this century. IPCC computer models have predicted global warming of 1° F per decade, and 5-6° C (10-11° F) by 2100 which would cause global catastrophe with ramifications for human life, natural habitat, energy, water resources, and food production. All of this is predicated on the assumption that global warming is caused by increasing atmospheric CO2 and that CO2 will continue to rise rapidly.

The list of climate scientists that are moving into the global cooling camp is growing, many of them base their views on past climate records and history suggests a link between diminished solar activity and bitterly cold winters, as well as cooler summers, in the northern hemisphere.

"My opinion is that we are heading into a Maunder Minimum," said Mark Giampapa, a solar physicist at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona. "I'm seeing a continuation in the decline of the sunspots' mean magnetic field strengths and a weakening of the polar magnetic fields and subsurface flows."

David Hathaway of NASA's Marshall Solar Physics Center explains:

"We're at the sunspot maximum of Cycle 24. It's the smallest sunspot cycle in 100 years and the third in a trend of diminishing sunspot cycles. So, Cycle 25 could likely be smaller than Cycle 24."

A NASA report of January 2013 details the science behind the sunspot-climate connection and it well worth reading. It should be remembered that since the report was written Solar cycle 24 has been proven to be not the smallest cycle in 50 years, but the smallest for more than 100 years. The last one with sunspot numbers this low was 1906, solar cycle 14.

"Indeed, the sun could be on the threshold of a mini-Maunder event right now. Ongoing Solar Cycle 24 [the current short term 11 year cycle] is the weakest in more than 50 years. Moreover, there is (controversial) evidence of a long-term weakening trend in the magnetic field strength of sunspots. Matt Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory predict that by the time Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Independent lines of research involving helioseismology and surface polar fields tend to support their conclusion."

Livingston and Penn are solar astronomers With the NSO (National Solar Observatory) in Tuscon, Arizona. They use a measurement known as Zeeman splitting to gather data on sunspots. They discovered in 1990, that the number of sunspots is dropping and that once the magnetic field drops below 1500 Gauss , that no sunspots will form. (A Gauss is a magnetic field measurement. The Gauss of the Earth is less than one). If the decline continues at its present rate they estimate that the Sun will be spot free by 2016.

If these scientists are correct, we are heading into a period of bitterly cold winters and much cooler summers. Imagine year after year of 'polar vortex ' winters that start early, finish late and deliver unprecedented cold across the country. Cool wet summers will affect food production, as will floods from the melting snow when spring finally arrives.

The American Meteorological Society Journal gives the following information regarding cold related deaths in comparison to heat related deaths in the United States from 1979-1999. The article is entitled Heat Mortality Versus Cold Mortality.

During the study period from 1979 to 1999 a total of 3,829 people died from excessive heat across the United states. An average of 182 deaths per year. For the same time period 15,707 people died of cold, an average of 748 deaths a year.

Based on these figures cold kills four times more people than heat. If these scientists are right you can expect that figure to rise dramatically as energy demand outstrips supply. Power supplies are also impacted by ice storms and heavy snow which will lead to more outages and the disruption that brings. Generally the infrastructure will fail to cope with month after month of excessive cold. Transportation is severely impacted by weather events and that has the knock on effect of hitting the economy as people struggle to get to work. For the unprepared regular food deliveries not making it to stores will leave many hungry and increasingly desperate.

The consequences of global cooling are huge and those who fail to consider it as a possibility are risking their lives and the lives of their families.

Sources:

NASA: Science News Journal

American Meteorological Society

Marshall Solar Physics

Physics.org

Global Research

Forbes

Newsmax

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US commander in Europe Ben Hodges looses it: says Vladimir Putin wants to destroy NATO

© AFP 2015/ ATTILA KISBENEDEK

The commander of the US army in Europe has spoken out in support of the military relationship with Britain, amid concerns it could be damaged by defence cuts.

"The US-UK relationship is as important as ever," Lt-Gen. Frederick "Ben" Hodges said. "The UK is our oldest ally and still a leader in NATO. I think the UK will live up to its leadership position."

He accused Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, of seeking to destroy NATO, and warned that Russia could seek to use the sort of "hybrid warfare" seen in eastern Ukraine against a NATO member to test the alliance.

"I am sure Putin wants to destroy our alliance, not by attacking it but by splintering it," he said in a speech to military and political leaders in Berlin.

© REUTERS

Notice the angry looking Putin picture The Telegraph chose to use.

He warned that Mr. Putin could try to destabilise a NATO member by using a rebel militia as in eastern Ukraine, or other forms of "ambiguous" warfare.

In the absence of an overt Russian attack, some NATO members could be reluctant to invoke Article 5 of the Washington treaty, under which an attack on one member is an attack on all.

"Once Article 5 is gone, our alliance is over," Gen. Hodges said.

He called for American tanks to be positioned in countries along NATO's eastern flank, as a deterrent to Mr Putin.

Just months after moving its last tanks out of Europe, the US has decided to send some 220 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles back in response to the Ukraine crisis.

Gen. Hodges said he had proposed positioning some of the tanks in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria.

And the US has already agreed to send troops to Poland and the three Baltic states.

Gen. Hodges called for NATO countries to maintain defence spending in the face of the Ukraine crisis.

The chief of staff of the US army, Gen. Raymond Odierno, said he was "very concerned" earlier this week after David Cameron refused to commit to maintaining defence spending at NATO's agreed target of 2 per cent of GDP.

But Gen. Hodges said he was "sure" the UK would continue to meet the 2 per cent target.

"The UK is one of only four NATO members that currently meets its 2 per cent target," he said. "There are 24 that are already below, and many of them are well below." He described German military equipment shortages as "unacceptable".

"For the most powerful nation in Europe, which takes a leadership role in the EU, it is unacceptable to have helicopters that don't fly, or aircraft you can't use," he said Only 42 of Germany's 109 Typhoon fighters are available because of maintenance issues, alongside 38 of its 89 Tornado bombers.

German special forces had to pull out of a joint exercise because there was no working helicopter available for them, and it emerged recently that German troops used broomsticks instead of guns during a Nato training exercise last year.

In Ukraine, the US strategy is to "raise the cost for President Putin" by supporting Ukrainian government forces, Gen. Hodges said.

Europe and the US have been divided over American proposals to arm Ukrainian troops.

"We could give Ukraine 1,000 tanks and they would never invade Russia. No one expects Ukraine to defeat Russia, that's not the point," Gen. Hodges said.

"We have to raise the cost for Putin. Right now he has 85 per cent domestic support. But when mothers start seeing their sons come home dead, when the price goes up, domestic support goes down." A planned American mission to train Ukrainian troops has been put on hold to give the current peace process a chance to succeed.

Gen. Hodges accused Russia of having 12,000 troops inside eastern Ukraine.

"If you don't believe Russia is directly involved in Ukraine now, you'll never believe it. You don't want to believe it," he said.

He accused Russia of seeking to establish control of the mouth of the river Danube, which would give it a stranglehold over the economies of south-eastern Europe.

On Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Gen. Hodges said he believed the extremists were being funded from within the Arab Gulf states.

"ISIL are getting money, for sure, from some of our friends in the Gulf states. We need to find out who is supporting them, who is allowing the money through," he said.

On a strategy for dealing with ISIL, he was blunt.

"There are some people that need to be killed," he said.

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Funding from U.S. trains Christians for private war on Iraq jihadists

VanDyke, who rose to fame as a foreign fighter backing Libyan rebels against Gathafi, is training Christian volunteers to take on jihadists in Iraq.

© www.20min.ch

American Matthew VanDyke

After fighting with rebels in Libya and Syria, Matthew VanDyke has rolled up in northern Iraq, but the celebrity American revolutionary-cum-filmmaker has traded his fatigues for a three-piece suit.

VanDyke, who rose to fame as a foreign fighter backing Libyan rebels against Moamer Gathafi, has just finished leading his new military contracting firm through its first assignment -- training Christian volunteers to take on jihadists.

Funded by Christian groups from abroad, mainly from the United States, the Nineveh Plains Protection Unit (NPU) aims to bring a local Christian militia to bear against the Islamic State group that has seized swathes of Iraq and Syria.

VanDyke is one of the best-known -- and least camera-shy -- figures in an expanding and complex constellation of foreign fighters, organisations and donors getting involved in a private war against the jihadists.

"This is an extension of my work as a revolutionary," he says as he takes a sip from his cappuccino in a cafe in the Kurdish capital of Arbil. "What gives somebody else the right to sit home and do nothing?"

The 35-year-old came to prominence in 2011 when he joined Libyan rebels in the fight to overthrow Gathafi. He was held by regime forces in solitary confinement for more than five months.

The film directed by Marshall Curry, which won the best documentary award at the Tribeca Festival last year, recounts the 35,000-mile motorcycle odyssey that led VanDyke to Libya and which he describes as "a crash course in manhood." Not one to shy away from self-aggrandizement, VanDyke's official website claims that his own documentary on the Syrian conflict, in which he volunteered in 2012, won no fewer than 82 prizes.

© www.cruxnow.com

VanDyke (r) from Libya and Syria to Iraq

A few months ago, VanDyke changed tack and decided to form his military contracting firm, the Sons of Liberty International (SOLI), with the training of a few hundred NPU volunteers as a first assignment.

'Indigenous population'

The Nineveh in the NPU's name refers to a northern region which Iraq's Assyrian Christians and other religious minorities consider their ancestral home.

IS last year declared a "caliphate" over parts of Iraq and Syria it had seized, forcing hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee their homes, including many Iraqi Christians. The mostly Sunni Arab group has been accused of persecuting other communities and this week was reported to have taken several hundred Assyrian Christians hostage in northeastern Syria.

A US-led international coalition launched an air war on the jihadists in August and dispatched forces to train Kurdish and Iraqi federal troops who hope to eventually retake lost ground. In the meantime other -- less official -- parties have been drawn into the conflict from abroad.

The NPU, for example, is being funded by the American Mesopotamian Organization (AMO), a California-based group founded by Assyrian-Americans. It claims to have raised more than $250,000 for the NPU -- which has not yet seen combat -- since December through an initiative dubbed "Restore Nineveh Now."

More than 80 percent of the donations come from the United States, the group's chairman, David Lazar, told AFP by telephone from the United States. He says telethons on the Assyrian National Broadcasting satellite channel generated donations "as high as $50,000 from one person."

As well as financing food, clothing and protection gear, the AMO has hired a "top five" private contracting firm to provide risk assessments and possibly advanced training to NPU recruits, he says.

Many of the donations are coming from members of the Assyrian-American community, like Joseph Baba, a car salesman from Tehran who has lived in the US since 2000 who donated a little less than $10,000 to the group. "I'm a firm believer that the Middle East has to have this indigenous population," he says of Iraq's Christians, speaking to AFP by telephone from his home in California.

'In a grey area'

Baba said he had concerns over the legality of funding a militia -- though the NPU and its supporters balk at the term -- but was reassured by the AMO that it posed no problem.

Still, the issue of training a private force on foreign soil is highly sensitive and the NPU has sent out conflicting messages.

Lazar initially said that Walid Phares, a Fox News terrorism analyst and formerly a prominent leader of the Lebanese Forces Christian militia during the 1975-1990 civil war, was a key supporter. "He's an adviser to us to this whole project, not only the NPU, but he's an adviser to the Restore Nineveh Now initiative and the American Mesopotamian Organization," Lazar said.

But he later denied making the remark and Restore Nineveh Now's spokesman Jeff Gardner said Phares had no involvement.

In an email to AFP, Phares denied any role with the NPU, though he said he advises "a large coalition of US-based Middle East minorities NGOs, known as MECHRIC," of which AMO is a member.

VanDyke's role also seems to have stirred controversy.

Restore Nineveh Now issued a statement on Wednesday acknowledging VanDyke's involvement in the training programme but also stating his contract had been terminated and accusing him of attempting to use the NPU to promote his business.

VanDyke also admits his firm is operating "perhaps in a grey area" in northern Iraq. "We're legally registered as a company. We're not registered as anything else right now." A US State Department spokesman said that a license is needed when defence services, including military training, are provided.

VanDyke throws legal concerns to the wind. "Generally the attitude of the United States seems to be as long as you shoot in the right direction they don't care," he says. "You know, I go and risk my life in other countries, why would I be all that concerned about that?"

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#Gitmo2Chicago: Thousands expected to attend Chicago protest against Homan Square torture site

© AP Photo/ Jeff Roberson

The Chicago police department reportedly operates a secret interrogation compound, similar to the CIA's black sites, at the Homan Square warehouse. Practices at the site allegedly include beatings, prolonged shackling and denying detainees legal counsel.

"I have spoken with several people who have been detained and several attorneys who have represented the detained, so people are coming forward, but the more people who do, the harder it will be for CPD to claim this isn't happening at Homan Square," one of the organizers, Billy Joe Mills, wrote on the protest's Facebook event page.

Some 1,500 people are listed as attending, while another 300 have responded that they may be going.

The goals of the demonstration are a public inspection of the alleged interrogation site, a roundtable discussion on the matter, making information available to the public, and for all Chicago detainees to be given access to their attorneys, according to the Facebook page.

Organizers, which include Chicago Anonymous, urge anyone who has been detained at the Homan Square to come forward, as well as police officers who have knowledge of the situation.

Last week, Anthony Hill, an attorney specializing in criminal defense matters, told Sputnik that detainees at Homan Square are held incommunicado and forced to give false confessions.

The Chicago police rejected the claims stating that they abide by all laws.

Also rally will take place Wednesday in Asheville, North Carolina.

"A rally will be held in Asheville to raise awareness concerning the disclosure of Homan Square, a secret interrogation facility ran by the Chicago Police Department," a Facebook event page for the rally reads.

The purpose of the rally is to "shed light on these revelations so that these practices may come to an end," according to the organizers.

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US Ambassador to South Korea injured in razor attack

© TWITTER/usembassyseoul

Mark Lippert

US envoy to Seoul Mark Lippert was taken to hospital after the attack that followed a lecture Thursday morning, reported the news agency.

Lippert is the United States ambassador to the Republic of Korea. He previously held senior positions in the Department of Defense from May 2012 until September 2014.

Televised pictures showed Lippert bleeding heavily. A suspect was arrested, though officials have not made a statement on his identity or motives.

According to South Korean media, witnesses at the scene said the attacker shouted his name, Kim, several times during the attack. The 55-year-old man named "Kim" reportedly has a criminal record and was last in prison in 2010 for throwing a concrete sculpture at the Japanese ambassador.

Reports say "Kim" used a razor blade to attack the ambassador and shouted "No drills for war," an apparent reference to ongoing South Korea-US military exercises.

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Lippert's injuries are not life threatening.

The White House released an official statement wishing the ambassador a speedy recovery.

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Congressman: U.S. should aim for peace in Ukraine, not to humiliate Russia

© AP Photo/ Lauren Victoria Burke

US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher

The United States should aim to establish peace in Ukraine and not repeatedly to humiliate Russia, US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said on Wednesday.

"Our goal should be to try to have peace in that part of the world [Ukraine], not to try to humiliate Russia again and again and again," Rohrabacher said during US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's hearing in the US Congress on the United States' Ukraine policy.

The Chairman of the US House's Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats Subcommittee noted that if the United States' real goal is to defeat and humiliate Russia, the people of Ukraine will continue to "suffer and suffer and suffer."

During the hearing, the US lawmakers also raised the question of the United States providing Ukraine with defensive weapons.

Nuland announced on Wednesday that the United States sanctions team is currently in Europe to discuss with European allies imposing additional sanctions on Russia over the Ukrainian crisis.

The United States has been assisting Ukraine with economic and non-lethal military support since the Kiev government began a military operation against independence fighters in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk last April.

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