2009-07-04T20:07:27Z Signs of the Times tag:sott.net,2009-07-04:/:signsofthetimes tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188355 2009-07-04T23:11:17Z

A new wiretapping law makes prosecutors' jobs much harder - the grateful mafia will certainly express their thanks in votes Piero Ostellino is the former editor and journalist of Il Corriere Della Sera, the most distinguished and conservative of all Italian newspapers. This is how he describes Italy today in the preface to his new book Lo stato canaglia (The scoundrel state): A country paralysed by a huge number of laws and regulations, suffocated by an invasive and slow-witted bureaucratic culture; run by a plethoric, costly, inefficient, and often corrupted, civil service; oppressed by punitive fiscal laws for those who pay their taxes and absent-minded towards those who don't; the prisoner of guild or nepotistic interests; from Rome southwards, in the hands of organised crime. A country in a relentless cultural, economic, political decline. This is Italy today.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188354 2009-07-04T22:23:16Z

A political-economic oligarchy has taken over the United States of America. This oligarchy has institutionalized a body of law that protects businesses at the expense of not only the common people but the nation itself. CNN interviewed a person recently who was seriously burned when his vehicle burst into flames because a plastic brake-fluid reservoir ruptured. Having sued Chrysler, he was now concerned that its bankruptcy filing would enable Chrysler to avoid paying any damages. A CNN legal expert called this highly likely, since the main goal of reorganization in bankruptcy is preserving the company's viability and that those creditors who could contribute most to attaining that goal would be compensated first while those involved in civil suits against the company would be placed lowest on the creditor list since compensating them would lessen the chances of the company's surviving. This rationale clearly implies that the preservation of companies is more important than the preservation of people. Of course, similar cases have been reported before. The claims of workers for unpaid wages have often been dismissed as have their contracts for benefits.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188353 2009-07-04T22:22:49Z

Happy July 4th, Blog Guy. I just saw an Abe Lincoln statue made of cheese. Isn't that disrespectful? No. If you know your history, you know Lincoln was a passionate cheese enthusiast. It was Abe who pushed the bounds of home entertaining by rolling up cheese and pecans together, creating the popular cheese log.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188352 2009-07-04T22:05:21Z

Cynthia Mary Roberson is an unemployed mother who police say led her 12- and 14-year-old sons and their friends to commit at least 20 armed robberies and assaults, including the beating of a teenage boy who had nothing more than an orange lollipop. Her motivation was purely financial - police said she needed money to pay rent and the loan on her gold Chevrolet. In every case, the mother drove the getaway car and once coached a kid during a robbery because he was having trouble stealing a cell phone from a victim, police said. The case has outraged authorities and the public and drawn comparisons to "Ma Barker," the infamous mother who led her four young sons on a robbery spree in the early 1900s.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188351 2009-07-04T20:15:25Z

U.S. officials including Richard Perle met with Mujahedin Khalq Organization [aka People's Mujahideen of Iran] in Washington in contravention of U.S. law. The Mehr News Agency reported U.S. officials including Richard Perle - the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to the Pentagon - met a number of MKO members in Washington on January 24, despite the fact that according to U.S. law it is a punishable offense for U.S. citizens to assist the MKO. In 1997 the U.S. government added the MKO to its terrorist list and banned all political activities of the group in the country. However, in reality, the group is not only protected and supported by the U.S. government but is also allowed to conduct anti-Iranian activities in the United States.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188350 2009-07-04T19:51:00Z

Media reports suggested Tuesday that officials from the United States and the United Arab Emirates are recruiting Iranian dissidents to spy on Iranians. Iran's Entekhab news agency points to accounts in the Arabic-language Nahrainnet news service in the United Arab Emirates that said the CIA has recruited members of the dissident People's Mujahedin of Iran to spy on Iranian nationals in the region. The reports said the CIA has brought PMOI members to Dubai from their Camp Ashraf enclave in Iraq's Diyala province.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188349 2009-07-04T19:46:32Z

The EU decided today to summon all Iranian ambassadors in capitals across Europe in a co-ordinated protest over the detention of UK embassy staff. The move came after a senior cleric said some of the staff accused of inciting protests following last month's disputed presidential election would be put on trial. The head of Iran's guardian council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said the detained staff members had "made confessions" in connection with the unrest. The surprise move by the council, Iran's top legislative body, will cause relations between London and Tehran to deteriorate further after tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions last week. Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said in a statement: "It's not acceptable to file charges against the ones released or to the ones still in custody."

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188348 2009-07-04T19:22:57Z

The United States warned North Korea not to "aggravate tensions" today after South Korea said its neighbour had fired seven ballistic missiles in violation of UN resolutions. The tests, seen as a message of defiance to the US on Independence Day, will further increase pressure in the region as America tries to gather support for tough enforcement of the UN resolution imposed on the communist regime for its May nuclear test. US state department spokesman Karl Duckworth did not confirm the launches but described North Korea's behaviour as "not helpful".

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188347 2009-07-04T19:08:50Z

The Formula One commercial rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone, has stoked up controversy by claiming that Adolf Hitler was a man who "was able to get things done", that democracy has not worked out for Britain and that his colleague Max Mosley would make a good Prime Minister. Ecclestone had previously stirred outrage when he suggested in 2008 that racist comments on a website about the British driver Lewis Hamilton had "started as just a joke". Yesterday a spokesman for the board of Deputies of British Jews said: "Mr Ecclestone's comments regarding Hitler, female, black and Jewish racing drivers are quite bizarre. He says 'Politics are not for me' and we are inclined to agree."

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188346 2009-07-04T18:16:08Z

In Chicago, there's a push to replace public schools with military academies. This model may soon spread to the rest of the country. For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago's Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term "occupation" because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA's opening.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188345 2009-07-04T17:31:35Z

A 400-yard naked "Green Goddess" is to be carved into the Northumberland landscape, under a new plan revealed by a mining company. Dubbed the "Goddess of the North", Northumberlandia will be made from two million tonnes of earth dug out from an open cast mine in Cramlington, and tower 112ft into the northern sky.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188344 2009-07-04T17:23:08Z

Releases of mercury, PCBs, lead and dioxin into the environment increased significantly between 2006 and 2007, according to the annual "Toxics Release Inventory," published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "This information underscores the need for fundamental transparency and provides a powerful tool for protecting public health and the environment," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. "Serving the public's right to know is the crucial first step in reducing toxic chemicals in the places where we live, work and raise children." The "Toxics Release Inventory" classifies all releases together, including legal and illegal dumping, disposal in mine reclamation ponds (which leach into groundwater) and disposal in toxic dump sites.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188343 2009-07-04T17:14:20Z

Two years before the invasion of Iraq, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain "a prisoner of its energy dilemma" as long as Saddam Hussein was in power. That April 2001 report, "Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the US Council on Foreign Relations at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188342 2009-07-04T16:58:29Z

On Thursday July 2 at around 8.30pm thousands of residents of the Chinese city of Chengdu witnessed a UFO moving across the sky above their homes. This is being treated as a massive UFO event by Chinese news outlets. Photo (at right) and a video (below) have already surfaced. Xinhua, China's government news agency, reported that thousands of residents ran from their homes, even in pajamas, to see the bizarre and unexplainable craft. Many were subsequently seen debating the event for hours after the UFO disappeared. The pulsating UFO was described by witnesses as being a luminous blue color that changed to red from time to time.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188341 2009-07-04T16:58:26Z

A strange object was seen in the skies above Whitehill in Hamilton on Tuesday night. A young Hamilton woman captured this picture on her mobile phone of what she described to be a "fireball" at about 11pm. Natalie Smith was dropping her friend back home in James Murdie Gardens when she noticed the unusual-looking orange glow in the sky. The 20-year-old South Lanarkshire Council clerical assistant explained: "We were both sitting inside my car when we noticed something in the sky.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188340 2009-07-04T16:31:17Z

Posted: July 4, 2009 Date of Sighting: July 2, 2009 Time of Sighting: 10 PM MDT Location of Sighting: Longmont, Colorado (About 20 Miles North of Denver) Description: My partner and I were driving East to Longmont on Highway 66 (Ute Highway) from Lyons, Colorado and saw a giant fireball in the sky, hiding behind a large section of storm clouds. At first I thought it was the moon, but suddenly it came out from behind the clouds and rapidly decreased in altitude. Once it began decreasing in altitude, it starting breaking up into smaller pieces-- two, then three and then four. As soon as it began breaking up, they began flying in formation to the West (thus eliminating the option of it being a meteor due to it's trajectory). About 30 seconds later, 4 of the pieces began falling to the ground (each piece also had very long tails, similar to a meteor). As they were falling, two of the pieces jutted off to the left, while the other two jutted to the right. One by one, they fell to the ground in a blaze.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188339 2009-07-04T16:26:38Z

Posted: July 3, 2009 Date of Sighting: July 2, 2009 Time of Sighting: 10:08 PM MDT Location of Sighting: Longmont, Colorado (About 20 Miles North of Denver) Description: At 22:08 I saw a large yellow-orange ball in the southwest sky. It was 50 times larger than a plane light. It was still and after a minute it became 3 then 4 then 5 then 6 in a cluster and each seemed oval. They did not move for about 30 seconds and then started to descend slightly and then disappeared. Total time elapsed during the sighting was over 2 minutes. My husband witnessed it also. It is illegal to shoot aerial fireworks on our area, but before this occurred there were poppers evident. There were none at the time of the sighting.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188338 2009-07-04T16:26:35Z

Posted: July 3, 2009 Date of Sighting: July 2, 2009 Time of Sighting: 9:40 CDT Location of Sighting: Eudora, Kansas (Eastern Kansas About 20 MI West of Kansas City) Description: I am not sure what I saw, but it didn't look like normal night time traffic. I live in Eudora, Kansas and tonight quite a few folks are firing off fireworks. I was in my driveway and facing north. As I watched a couple of aerial bursts I noticed something bright in the background moving. It was moving in a west-to-east direction. It eventually turned north and disappeared.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188337 2009-07-04T16:17:05Z

Posted: July 3, 2009 Date of Sighting: 27th June 2009 Time: 22:50 Witness Statement: Driving home from Basingstoke we saw two bright orange lights appearing to the right of the moon. Both my husband and I asked each other 'what's that'? They were moving at what seemed to be helicopter height and speed. As we live off this main road we lost sight of them for a couple of minutes and then saw one of them again. It had changed direction and came towards us (south). By this time we had got out out of the car, gone indoors and grabbed my camera. Grrrrr the damn battery was flat. I did manage to get one pic though although even on mega zoom it still only looks like an orange ball.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188336 2009-07-04T16:16:57Z

Posted: July 3, 2009 Date of Sighting: 1st July 2009 Time: 10.30pm approx Witness Statement: I was sat watching a bit of tv in the living room after just coming in from the garden when I saw this orange ball about the size of say a helicopter. It looked like it was on fire like a lantern, but it was traveling the speed of aircraft that fly over my house on the approach to the airport. I said to my partner 'now that's a ufo if ever I saw one so she came to have a look and she seem pretty baffled by it also. I would say the object was traveling in a constant North North-Westerly direction maintaining the same height until it went through the clouds.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188335 2009-07-04T16:16:51Z

Posted: July 3, 2009 Date of Sighting: 27/06/2009 Time: 22:37 Witness Statement: My son and I were traveling back from Penhow to Newport on the M4 motorway, just before the Brynglas tunnels, whilst my son was driving I spotted three lights in the sky flying very low, the lights were bright and the objects were shaped like discs, the objects were not moving very fast, in fact I would say they were hovering. My son nearly crashed the car trying to look as he was very surprised to see the lights so close. Has anyone else seen anything similar, please don't hesitate to contact me of my son if you have seen these objects or something similar in the area. Many thanks

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188334 2009-07-04T16:03:22Z

What if I told you that America's food system is broken? What would you say? Would you defend it by pointing out the abundance of choices offered in today's average supermarket, estimated to be over 45,000 items? Would you cite that per capita spending on food has dropped significantly over the last 50 years, freeing up incomes to improve quality of life? Would you talk about how American innovation is not only feeding our citizens, but is also feeding the world? Or would you quietly ask what a food system is?

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188332 2009-07-04T15:47:13Z

Tom Barry, a British filmmaker working for Zig-Zag Productions in London, called me in May, 2009, asking about the possibility of my participation in a new crop circle film he had been assigned to produce for National Geographic TV. Mr. Barry was apparently unaware that National Geographic TV has aired several crop circle pieces in the past and that I - representing the BLT Research Team--had been involved in one that aired in 2005. He seemed uninformed regarding the circle phenomenon generally, and apparently did not know that I had been very surprised by the overtly biased treatment accorded the scientific work (previously published in 3 peer-reviewed scientific papers authored by BLT members) in the 2005 National Geographic TV crop circle show (Link). I told Mr. Barry that I felt that both the phenomenon and our work had been inordinately misrepresented and, therefore, asked him if he could provide me with assurance that his proposed effort would be a fair and unbiased presentation? Specifically, I asked him if he could provide me with a "final cut" of his film prior to its being aired - along with the written assurance that I would have the right to withdraw my interview and any graphic materials provided by me or BLT if I felt the final product was either willfully skewed or disrespectful of the BLT work or, in particular, the scientists involved.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188331 2009-07-04T15:47:10Z

Another "documentary" on the crop circle phenomenon has recently been aired here in the U.S., this one under the auspices of the well-known National Geographic organization. Since it is generally expected that this organization will provide accurate, comprehensive information (when such is available) to the public and present opinions which reflect actual scientific inquiry --and since these standards have eluded this production -- I felt I should write what I know about the making of this show. In the spring of 2004 an independent TV producer called me saying that he had been hired by National Geographic to produce a crop circle show; he said that he knew little about the subject and wanted to learn about the scientific approach to the phenomenon, requesting whatever information I could provide. We had a long talk, in which I outlined the BLT Research Team's work over the years, providing for him all of the names, credentials and contact information for the many professional scientists involved--people I strongly urged him to contact. In addition to providing info about BLT we also discussed many other people and organizations which take, or have taken, a serious approach to the study of the phenomenon in several different countries. And these names and contact info were also supplied, with strong encouragement that the producer contact these people.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188330 2009-07-04T15:46:05Z

If you think diabetes and obesity are the two biggest health care crises Americans face these days, you're missing the forest for the trees - literally. Because the roots of all this diet-induced disease lie in two less publicized but even more pernicious epidemics: nature deficit disorder and kitchen illiteracy. The symptoms include a woeful lack of familiarity with that elusive culinary commodity known as "real food," or "good food," or "slow food," and total estrangement from Mother Earth - who, by the way, keeps hanging around outside pining for a glimpse of you while you remain indoors, mesmerized by your monitor or TV screen and mindlessly munching on ersatz edibles.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188329 2009-07-04T15:35:15Z

More than two million people who have fled fighting in northwestern Pakistan do not have access to aid distributed in official displacement camps, Amnesty International warned today. Ethnic Pashtuns who have fled fighting also face discrimination from host communities, said Amnesty, as it called on the Pakistani government to ensure that ethnic Pashtuns fleeing to other provinces of Pakistan are not discriminated against. Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Director, said: 'As the fighting expands to North and South Waziristan, a displacement crisis that the government had said would last only for weeks looks set to go on for months, with no relief in sight for the millions of displaced people.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188328 2009-07-04T15:27:10Z

Damn those ungrateful Pakistanis. After U.S. drone attacks killed more than 600 of their people since 2006 - most of them civilians - it seems they think they have some right to say they don't want the U.S. flying its "aid" planes to Swat and other "tribal areas." The New York Times reports that "the Pakistani authorities have refused to allow American workers or planes to distribute the aid in the camps for displaced people." The paper reports: Islamist charities and the United States are competing for the allegiance of the two million people displaced by the fight against the Taliban in Swat and other parts of Pakistan - and so far, the Islamists are in the lead.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188327 2009-07-04T15:15:46Z

Forget human ingenuity - the best source of ideas for cutting-edge technology might be in the natural world. Humans like to think we're pretty good at design and technology - but we often forget that Mother Nature had a head start of 3.6 billion years. Now the burgeoning science of biomimicry, which reverse-engineers clever ideas from the natural world, is exploiting the way geckoes climb walls or hummingbirds hover.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188326 2009-07-04T15:12:36Z

The military officers who rushed deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya out of the country Sunday committed a crime but will be exonerated for saving the country from mob violence, the army's top lawyer said. In an interview with The Miami Herald and El Salvador's elfaro.net, army attorney Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza acknowledged that top military brass made the call to forcibly remove Zelaya -- and they circumvented laws when they did it. It was the first time any participant in Sunday's overthrow admitted committing an offense and the first time a Honduran authority revealed who made the decision that has been denounced worldwide.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188325 2009-07-04T15:11:08Z

The UFO Traffic Report for Friday, July 3, 2009, includes 11 selected sightings over eight states, according to witness statements filed in the past 48 hours with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) database. Today's stories include: Two cases over Missouri and Arizona where witnesses claim similarities to the Phoenix Lights case; typical Bright Light cases over Colorado and Missouri; a low flying Orb over Florida; disc or circular objects over California and New York; low flying cigar-shaped objects over California and Pennsylvania; and a retired National Guardsman who describes an unusual Bright Light. Please keep in mind that most UFO reports can be explained as something natural or manmade. If MUFON investigates and reports back on any of these cases, I will update this page. The following reports and their headlines are unedited. You can read my selected cases by type of UFO report at the UFO Traffic Report index page.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188324 2009-07-04T15:11:05Z

There may be multiple witnesses to this June 30 UFO sighting, as reported from an Idaho witness who was driving and saw what he first thought was an airplane about to crash, according to witness testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) database. "It was going so fast towards the ground and then stopped abruptly," the witness wrote. The object then hovered momentarily, and took off into the sky again. Then it moved at a high rate of speed toward the ground again as though it was going to crash, but stopped again. The witness continued driving toward the object until the object was very close. The witness says the object on close inspection had a series of blue and white lights and was hovering 3 to 4 feet over a field, before flying right by the witness. The witness also observed other vehicles had pulled over behind his vehicle and were watching the object as well.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188323 2009-07-04T15:11:00Z

A Michigan City, Indiana, couple driving along Highway 2 saw an unusual craft in the sky, according to witness testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) database. They described the craft as having "a dark mass underneath and a bright orange/yellow bright light spewing out an aura of same." The husband, a recreational pilot, says the object moved along at about 70 mph and at a height of about 500 feet as it passed directly over their vehicle. "The bottom was fluted black/gray with indentations, with a round, bright light of orange/yellow in the middle." The silent object gained altitude and disappeared from view. Please keep in mind that most UFO reports can be explained as something natural or manmade. If Indiana MUFON Director Jerry Sievers investigates and reports back on this case, I will update this page. The following report is e unedited. You can read my selected cases by type of UFO report at the UFO Traffic Report index page.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188322 2009-07-04T14:58:02Z

As Americans celebrate July 4th, they can contemplate that the union of "free and independent states," like the former British colonial power, has evolved into its final manifestation--a complete whore house. While Members of Parliament in London charge their expense accounts with every personal expenditure, including the rental of adult xxx-rated films, an American newspaper put the reporting of public policy out to bids until politico.com blew the whistle. In Washington, everything is for sale, including journalistic integrity. The Washington Post, which abandoned investigative reporting eons ago, decided to boost its sagging revenues by spreading her legs. The Post's business division put out a flyer offering lobbyists access at the Post's CEO's gracious home to "those powerful few" in the Obama administration, Congress, and among the Post's editors and reporters who decide the nation's policies, such as health care. The Washington Post's flyer offered a Wal-Mart low cost of a mere $25,000 for one "salon" to interact with decision makers and $250,000 for eleven interactions.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188321 2009-07-04T14:38:04Z

Since 2008, I have been widely recognized on the Internet as the person who changed China's policy regarding the US dollar by advocating since 2002 that Chinese exports should be denominated in yuan. Chinese readers doing a Google search on my Chinese name will find numerous posts to that effect. The issue is not whether Asian central banks will continue to have confidence in the dollar, but why Asian central banks should see their mandate as supporting the continuous expansion of the dollar economy through dollar hegemony at the expense of their own non-dollar economies. Why should Asian economies send real wealth in the form of goods to the US for foreign paper of declining value instead of selling their goods in their own economy?

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188320 2009-07-04T14:30:03Z

A fiery protest marked the start on Friday of US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Iraq, with supporters of the Shiite anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr burning the Stars and Stripes. Biden met General Ray Odierno, the top US officer in Iraq, and Christopher Hill, Washington's ambassador in Baghdad, who briefed him on the military and political situation, three days after a major US troop pullback. The vice president's trip, aimed at bridging Iraq's sectarian divide ahead of a complete American military pullout by 2011, comes just after President Barack Obama charged Biden with overseeing the US departure. Biden had breakfast with his son Beau, an army captain in Iraq, before meeting Odierno with whom he discussed "the capabilities of Iraqi forces and the mission of US forces going forward,"according to the White House.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188319 2009-07-04T14:20:02Z

From the July 3, 2009 posting, it seems that cattle mutilation activity has returned to Nogoyá in Argentina's province of La Pampa. On June 26, 2002, two cases were reported in this very same area and made known in the city of Paraná's El Diario newspaper. The authorities were no more certain then about what was going on: "Two new cases of bovine mutilation became known at this time in the Department of Nogoyá. One of the animals was found in Laurencena, and another in the Urquiza Sector.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188318 2009-07-04T14:20:00Z

Technology is a remarkable thing. In 1995, while working on the draft of what would be The Chupacabras Diaries, my first monograph on Puerto Rico's paranormal predator, Sergio Couttolenc, a friend and correspondent in the Mexican city of Coatzacoalcos, sent me a file via e-mail that I was unable to open. Something requiring some obscure piece of software called "Acrobat" that my trusty 386sx did not appear to have, and which dial-up at 9600 baud could not download. So the file was saved to a 3.5-inch disk (remember them?) and placed into a drawer where it rests with hundreds of other 3.5-inch disks laden with UFO and paranormal information from the '90s. A decade or so later, while burning all the information contained in the little black squares to their descendants - shiny new DVD discs - I found the Adobe Acrobat file that Sergio had sent me, and whose information should have formed part of my project or even Chupacabras and Other Mysteries (Greenleaf Press, 1997). Since information is never truly "old" in the field of UFO and paranormal research, Inexplicata is pleased to share it with you now. One note: this information predates the start of the Chupacabras wave of 1995 by two years...the pebbles that started the avalanche, perhaps?

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188317 2009-07-04T14:19:54Z

Date: July 1, 2009 The police found four cows whose eyes, uteruses and tongues had been removed. The animals were found dead in the rural area of Nogoyá. The absence of water in a nearby lagoon also drew their attention. Residents of the rural area known as Crucesita Tercera, in the Department of Nogoyá, are shaken by the strange death of four cows in the interior of two fields and the unforeseen draining of a lagoon. Personnel of the Office of Cattle Theft and the Nogoyá Police ascertained that the cows had succumbed to a mysterious mutilation, but also noted that a nearby lagoon, which a day earlier had been full of water, was now empty.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188316 2009-07-04T14:16:09Z

Australia's economy, which has so far skirted the global recession, may stall after reports showed exports dropped to a 14-month low, bank lending fell and home- building approvals declined by the most since 2002. Australia was one of few major economies including China and India to grow in the first quarter as government cash handouts and record interest-rate cuts stoked consumer spending. Gross domestic product expanded 0.4 percent from the previous three months, in contrast to a 3.8 percent decline in Japan and a 1.4 percent contraction in the U.S.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188315 2009-07-04T14:13:47Z

Suresh Tendulkar, an economic adviser to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said he is urging the government to diversify its $264.6 billion foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars. "The major part of Indian reserves is in dollars -- that is something that's a problem for us," Tendulkar, chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, said in an interview yesterday in Aix-en-Provence, France, where he was attending an economic conference.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188314 2009-07-04T14:13:41Z

The Colombian government of President Alvaro Uribe is facing questions about its handling of the war against the country's FARC rebels following a UN report that accuses Colombian soldiers of systematically killing innocent people for a cash reward. The United States is slated to hand over some $750 million in mostly military aid to Colombia this year. The potential contribution of US taxpayers' money to fund the killing of innocent people - though likely inadvertent on the part of the Colombian government - will almost certainly raise eyebrows among human-rights activists and others who have long criticized the Colombian government's actions in its war against cocaine and insurgents. At the heart of the problem is the Colombian government's practice of paying soldiers for dead bodies of FARC members. Predictably, the incentive has led some soldiers to kill innocent civilians, dress their bodies up as FARC rebels, and hand them in for cash.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188313 2009-07-04T14:04:11Z

Mark Hanson of the Field Check Group continues to write great analyses of the housing market. Mark remains extremely bearish, and he attributes the recent pick-up in sales velocity to seller capitulation rather than renewed buyer demand. Mark thinks the next segment of the market to crash will be the mid- to high-end, where many smug homeowners are now telling themselves they'll just rent their houses for a year while they wait for the market to "come back." Needless to say, Mark thinks these folks are dreaming.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188312 2009-07-04T13:55:10Z

The well-placed and well-connected are set to make trillions off new climate bill The sweeping new bill which just passed the House last Friday, the Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, is ostensibly about climate change, but it is in fact a bill of staggering economic ramifications that is going to accelerate the takeover of the economy by the well-placed financiers who have already plundered the Treasury and the Fed of $12+ trillion and counting. It was rushed through the House in the tradition of such nightmarish legislation as the Patriot Act and the banker bailout of last October: hundreds of pages were added to it at the last minute and it was humanly impossible for anyone to have read it before they voted on it. This, of course, is exactly what Obama promised his administration would never allow to happen, and for good reason; bills passed in this manner are always the result of fear and panic and inevitably results in legislation that would never be passed upon sober second thought.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188311 2009-07-04T13:52:57Z

Sarah Palin has announced that she is resigning as Governor of Alaska. At a news conference from her house this morning, the Alaska Governor said that she will give up her post in the next few weeks. Many observers expected Palin to announce that she was not seeking re-election -- a prediction fueled by recent speculation that the Governor was preparing for 2012 Presidential bid. But Palin's shocking announcement seems to belie plans for a Presidential run. As Josh Marshall points out at TPM, "Generally, when you run for election to a high office it's understood that you'll stick around to do the job."

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188310 2009-07-04T13:09:02Z

Transcript This is Cynthia McKinney and I'm speaking from an Israeli prison cellblock in Ramle. [I am one of] the Free Gaza 21, human rights activists currently imprisoned for trying to take medical supplies to Gaza, building supplies - and even crayons for children, I had a suitcase full of crayons for children. While we were on our way to Gaza the Israelis threatened to fire on our boat, but we did not turn around. The Israelis high-jacked and arrested us because we wanted to give crayons to the children in Gaza. We have been detained, and we want the people of the world to see how we have been treated just because we wanted to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188309 2009-07-04T12:57:52Z

Americans who refuse to buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000 under a health care overhaul bill unveiled Thursday by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines will raise around $36 billion over 10 years. Senate aides said the penalties would be modeled on the approach taken by Massachusetts, which now imposes a fine of about $1,000 a year on individuals who refuse to get coverage. Under the federal legislation, families would pay higher penalties than individuals.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188308 2009-07-04T12:55:28Z

The financial system is crashing and action must be taken by the US government to convert debt into equity to produce a more stable environment, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan," told CNBC Thursday. "You may have green shoots, whatever you want to call them, you may have temporary relief, but you are still in a world that's breaking," Taleb said on "Squawk Box." Anything that's fragile like the financial system will eventually crash, he said. "We're in the middle of a crash," Taleb said. "So if I'm going to forecast something, it is that it's going to get worse, not better."

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188307 2009-07-04T12:50:00Z

A top aide to Iran's supreme leader called the country's main opposition figure a U.S. agent and said in an editorial Saturday that he should be tried for committing crimes against the nation. While hard-line figures had previously demanded Mir Hossein Mousavi be prosecuted for describing Iran's June 12 elections fraudulent and leading demonstrations afterward, the editorial was the first public declaration that the opposition leader was a foreign agent.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188306 2009-07-04T12:44:26Z

Kremlin aide says Moscow will allow transit of US weapons across Russia to Afghanistan Russia will allow the U.S. to ship weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, a top Kremlin aide said Friday in a gesture aimed at bolstering U.S. military operations and improving strained ties between Washington and Moscow. The deal is expected to be signed during President Barack Obama's visit to Moscow next week, Kremlin foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko said.

tag:www.sott.net,2009-07-04:/articles/show/188305 2009-07-04T12:41:39Z

New International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano may have been the candidate of choice for Western nations, and in particular Israel, but he sought to assure the world today that he would remain independent and would seek to de-politicize the office. In particular, Amano noted that going through the IAEA's documents he didn't see any evidence that Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons. The IAEA had repeatedly certified that Iran was not diverting any of its civilian program's enriched uranium to any other purpose, but outgoing chief Mohamed ElBaradei claimed to have a "gut feeling" that Iran secretly wanted the technology.