2010-02-09T12:23:16Z Signs of the Times tag:sott.net,2010-02-09:/:signsofthetimes tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202708 2010-02-09T12:23:09Z

Posted: February 8, 2010 Location of Sighting: Grimsby,Ontario Date of Sighting: Feb 08,2010 Time: approx 7am Witness Statement: My husband called me this morning from his work in Grimsby. He told me him and his co-worker were outside having a cigerette before work this am and witnessed a black aircraft over the lake. The object then split into two crafts and both sped off into two different directions!

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202707 2010-02-09T12:23:06Z

Posted: February 8, 2010 Location of Sighting: Bracknel Date of Sighting: 4 jan 2010 Time: 7.30 to 8.00 pm Witness Statement: I was looking out the window out towards the A329 when I noticed two bright orange lights as low and as big as helicopters. There was no sound and no flashing lights.They were flying in formation coming from Wokingham direction and come over Jennetts Park. A week later I was driving through Wokingham town coming from A329 with my son and he see one of the objects. I stopped, looked up and it was the same ufo I had seen a week before. It flew overhead with no sound and was quiet large. It was flying in the same direction as the ones I had seen before.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202706 2010-02-09T11:54:57Z

Posted: February 8, 2010 Location of Sighting: llandysul, ceredigion Date of Sighting: 7th feb 2010 Time: approx 11pm Witness Statement: Whilst standing outside in the back yard we both looked up to try and make some sense of what appeared to be 2 fire balls traveling through the night sky in complete silence, it was spooky. I ran in to check the local news but couldn't find any details mentioning the sighting. In the meantime my partner had witnessed a third ball of flames go past. They appeared very equal in distance between each other and to be traveling an identical silent course. These were NOT lanterns...meteors?

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202705 2010-02-09T11:54:53Z

Posted: February 8, 2010 Location of Sighting: Llanelli, Carmarthenshire Date of Sighting: 30-01-2010 Time: 6:50 PM Witness Statement: Saw about 19 shining lights flying fast and silent, in formation like this : * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Yellowy orange ( more yellowy ) Maybe 1 or 2 miles high Not quite directly overhead, from my right to left, no flickering, almost due East from West Brightness - at least twice as bright as the brightest star Size - about 3 to 4 times bigger than a star

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202704 2010-02-09T11:54:51Z

Posted: February 8, 2010 Location of Sighting: Northampton Town Centre Date of Sighting: 6th February 2010 Time: 7:20pm Witness Statement: We were in the car driving through the town centre and I spotted what looked like a ball of orange fire in the sky, traveling at great speed in one direction. I then said wow look at that - what is it and both me and my daughter tracked where the UFO was heading, I tried to work out if it was an aeroplane with it's lights at a strange angle, but I can only describe it as what looked like a ball of fire perhaps a meteor. It then changed direction very suddenly and then changed direction a second time. We were able to track it for about 5 minutes and then it went behind the clouds

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202703 2010-02-09T11:06:57Z

July 1, 2009 - 10:30 PM (report unedited): While in the desert near the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant, the main witness and some friends saw a very large triangle shaped UFO. They were driving down a dirt road and saw a bright flashing light. They had seen objects in the area before and their intentions were to look for UFO's. According to the witnesses, people that live in this area have been chased in their cars and seen objects on a regular basis. They went off the road behind some mountains, and no sooner had they come around the mountain they saw the large flashing light. All of them were scared but, at the same time, curious. The main witness friend's girlfriend was crying and telling them to turn around; they got within 2 to 300 yards from the light. It was the size of three football fields, triangular in shape, and had windows around it. It was about 3 stories tall, and about 30 feet off the ground, they flashed their lights and it flashed back, in the same sequence of flashes. The main witness and his friend, James, got out of the car and walked closer. The closer they got, the better they could make out what was standing in the windows. They could see small big headed aliens, and then 7 to 9 foot tall aliens, they based this on the size of the windows. Some of the windows they could see through, the other windows were dark, but then the dark windows, cleared up one by one, and as they went clear more and more aliens appeared on the windows. James was supposedly videotaping the whole time. The main witness was terrified but excited at the same time.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202702 2010-02-09T11:06:52Z

Posted: February 8, 2010 Date: February 7, 2010 Time: Approx: 7:30 p.m. Location of Sighting: Hemel Hempstead. Number of witnesses: 2 Number of Objects: 2 Shape of Objects: Round/boomerang? Full Description of Event/Sighting: I was coming back from the shop in Hemel Hempstead when my partner noticed a light in the sky. I said it was a plane, but after looking myself I could see no flashing lights, just what looked like something on fire high in the sky. It was orange and just looked like a small fire floating up high, it was not going particularly fast and just went at a steady pace in a straight line, it definitely was not a shooting star either.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202701 2010-02-09T11:06:48Z

Posted: February 8, 2010 Date: February 6, 2010 Time: Approx: 10:45 p.m. On Saturday evening about 10.45 pm my husband and son we were just coming out of an Indian restaurant which is on the back streets behind Plymouth Aquarium. We had a taxi waiting to take us home. We were taken back by 5 red balls (very bright) and low going very slowly across the sky. It was a very clear night with stars around. One of the balls was lagging behind a little bit but they were soon all together in a straight line. It was uncanny because there was no noise and they were going quite slowly. We did not have any camera's on us, but thought someone else may have seen them. We did not see them vanish across the sky as unfortunately we could not let the taxi wait any longer.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202700 2010-02-09T09:41:32Z

Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for immediate and "crippling" sanctions against Iran on Tuesday, as it began making higher-grade nuclear fuel in defiance of international censure. "Iran is racing forward to produce nuclear weapons ... I believe that what is required right now is tough action by the international community," Netanyahu told European diplomats. "This means not moderate sanctions, or watered-down sanctions. This means crippling sanctions and these sanctions must be applied right now," he said in a short message to underscore Israel's concern over the latest developments. Netanyahu's language implied Israel would not be content with so-called "targeted sanctions" which Western diplomats have predicted could be pursued against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and other assets of the Tehran leadership.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202699 2010-02-09T09:24:29Z

Probably the most controversial claim in my work with John Mearsheimer on the Israel lobby is our argument that it played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Even some readers who were generally sympathetic to our overall position found that claim hard to accept, and some left-wing critics accused us of letting Bush and Cheney off the hook or of ignoring the importance of other interests, especially oil. Of course, Israel's defenders in the lobby took issue even more strenuously, usually by mischaracterizing our arguments and ignoring most (if not all) of the evidence we presented. So I hope readers will forgive me if I indulge today in abit of self-promotion, or more precisely, self-defense. This week, yet another piece of evidence surfaced that suggests we were right all along (HT to Mehdi Hasan atthe New Statesman and J. Glatzer at Mondoweiss). In his testimony to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., former Prime Minister Tony Blair offered the following account of his discussions with Bush in Crawford, Texas in April 2002. Blair reveals that concerns about Israel were part of the equation and that Israel officials were involved in those discussions. Take it away, Tony:

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202698 2010-02-09T05:47:41Z

Seema Azad, editor of the left-wing journal DASTAK published from Allahabad, was taken into custody by the police Saturday, 6th February, soon after she alighted from the train on her return from the Book Fair at Delhi. She, along with her husband and left-wing activist Vishwa Vijaya Azad, has been detained at the Khuldabad Police Station. Seema Azad just published a collection of articles criticizing the Indian government for its "Operation Greenhunt" -- the ongoing massive military attack by the government against the tribal inhabitants of central India. The booklet contains articles by noted authors and media-persons such as Arundhati Roy, Himanshu Kumar, Anil Chamaria, Punya Prasoon Vajpeyi, Sunita Narayan, and others. Although they were produced before a court in Allahabad, the details of the charges leveled against Seema Azad and Vishva Vijaya were not specified. Seema is the state secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) for Uttar Pradesh. The PUCL has released the following letter addressed to the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission in New Delhi.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202697 2010-02-09T05:32:24Z

Ashley Smith reports that the U.S. is reviving what Haitians call "the plan of death." ONE MONTH after the devastating earthquake, Haiti continues to suffer under apocalyptic conditions. The quake killed more than 200,000 people, injured 250,000 and has left over 3 million dependent on assistance for food, water and housing. Contrary to the puff pieces in the media, the relief operation has been a miserable failure. The United Nations admitted at the end of January that had only been able to feed 1 million people, leaving many more without access to food. Whole sections of Port-au-Prince and surrounding towns never even saw relief convoys. Amid this catastrophe, imperial powers and corporate vultures are circling, eyeing the profits to be made from reconstruction.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202696 2010-02-09T00:33:16Z

Assaf Gefen wonders whether Israel does hide something in respect to Gaza War

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-09:/articles/show/202695 2010-02-09T00:24:22Z

One of Canada's top archeologists argues in a new book that the prehistoric ancestors of this country's 55,000 Inuit probably migrated rapidly from Alaska clear across the Canadian North in just a few years - not gradually over centuries as traditionally assumed - after they learned about a rich supply of iron from a massive meteorite strike on Greenland's west coast. The startling theory, tentatively floated two decades ago by Canadian Museum of Civilization curator emeritus Robert McGhee, has been bolstered by recent research indicating a later and faster migration of the ancient Thule Inuit across North America's polar frontier than previously believed. Now, in a just-published volume of essays by some of the world's leading Arctic archeologists, McGhee advances his theory - a 4,000-kilometre beeline quest for iron from Greenland's famous Cape York meteorite deposit - as the likeliest explanation for the sudden spread of the Thule culture across Canada around 1250 AD.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202694 2010-02-08T23:49:57Z

A searing interview with Avichai Sharon and Noam Chayut, both veterans of the Israeli Defense Forces and members of Breaking the Silence. Sharon and Chayut served during the second intifada, an on-going bloodbath that has claimed the lives of over three thousand Palestinians and nine-hundred-fifty Israelis. After thorough introspection, these young men have chosen to speak out about their experiences as self-described "brutal occupiers of a disputed land." Producer: Sat Gwin

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202693 2010-02-08T21:23:18Z

French children are to be given a "citizen's handbook" to teach them to be better republicans, as part of national identity measures announced by the government today. Schools will be ordered to fly the French flag and to have a copy of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in every classroom. The measures, announced by the French prime minister, François Fillon, are the first to emerge from the country's controversial debate on national identity. Under new rules, immigrants who come to live in France, who since 2007 have had to sign a contract of welcome and integration, will have to take part in a more solemn ceremony to become French citizens. They will also be expected to demonstrate a better command of the French language and a greater knowledge of the "values of the republic". All candidates will be required to sign a "charter" outlining their rights and responsibilities.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202692 2010-02-08T21:08:19Z

U.S. stocks slid and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed below 10,000 for the first time since November amid concern that deteriorating European government finances will derail the economic recovery. Bank of America Corp. and American Express Co. lost at least 2.8 percent for the biggest declines in the Dow. Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. fell 4 percent to lead the Standard & Poor's 500 Index lower after its forecast for operating expenses topped some analysts' estimates. Home Depot Inc. rose 2.2 percent and Google Inc. climbed 0.4 percent on analyst upgrades. The S&P 500 decreased 0.9 percent to 1,056.74 at 4:07 p.m. in New York, its biggest Monday drop since October. The Dow slipped 103.84 points, or 1 percent, to 9,908.39. Almost four stocks retreated for each that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. All 10 major groups in the S&P 500 fell today.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202691 2010-02-08T21:06:46Z

SSDs try to give users the best of everything: the access speed of a hard drive (some run 50 percent faster than normal hard drives), without the hard drive's noise, power consumption, tendency to succumb when dropped or vibrated, and the eventual certainty of a mechanical failure. The trade-off, of course, is cost. Byte for byte, a SSD is about five times more expensive than a normal hard drive.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202690 2010-02-08T20:56:03Z

New evidence that liquid water lies beneath the surface on the Saturn moon of Enceladus has been discovered by Nasa scientists, suggesting that life may exist. Nasa's Cassini spacecraft flew through icy plumes created by ice volcanoes on and detected negatively charged water molecules, in a clear sign an underground sea exists. On Earth this short-lived type of ion is produced where water is moving, such as in waterfalls or crashing ocean waves.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202689 2010-02-08T20:19:24Z

What happens when Israeli Border Police decide to stage a massive raid - looking for "tax delinquents" as well as "illegal West Bank worker" - in Shuafat Refugee Camp (the only Palestinian refugee camp inside the boundaries of what Israel unilaterally defined as the "Greater Jerusalem Municipality" in 1967? The legal residents of the camp have Jerusalem IDs. But, in recent years, Israel has unilaterally decided to exclude it and close it off from Jerusalem by the construction of The Wall around three sides of Shuafat refugee camps - it is now only freely open to the West Bank. And, an awful Israeli military checkpoint has been put at the main entrance into Shuafat Refugee Camp. Now, children needing to get to school in the morning, and adults needing to get to their jobs, all have to pass out of the camp through this prison-like checkpoint. The traffic jam, and the stress, are terrible - every day, day in and day out - imposing great stress on people who are technically residents of Jerusalem but who have become de facto West Bankers...

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202688 2010-02-08T19:51:41Z

Corporate interests are eyeing our water. From wastewater to drinking water, big business is looking to cash in on public water systems and they've got a new tactic: They're using desperate economic times to convince city officials that they should place a corporation between families and their ability to eat, drink, and clean. Take Akron, Ohio, for example. In September 2008 I wrote an article for Alternet about a ballot measure in Akron where voters were asked whether to lease the city's wastewater system to a corporation in return for an immediate, one-time payment. The plan was roundly defeated. But more importantly, as the article suggested, the lease signaled a new direction for water privatization in the U.S. This involved a collaboration between water companies and Wall Street to snatch up control of water infrastructure for the better part of a century.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202687 2010-02-08T19:20:08Z

Survey finds that school children are being exposed to harmful pesticides, but schools claim safer alternatives would be 'uneconomic' A survey of 206 local authorities in the UK has found that school children may be exposed to four potentially cancer-causing pesticides. The research, carried out by the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) and Pesticides Action Network (PAN), identified the use of carcinogens and pesticides to control rabbits, rats and weeds on school premises. One substance, glyphosate, is the active ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide RoundUp and is commonly used to kill weeds on hard playgrounds and paths. It has also been linked to lymphoma.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202686 2010-02-08T18:59:51Z

I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear and whose policies I work against. But here is a way for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the US and its allies. If Obama's personality, identity and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test. This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama's attempts to "reset" his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players. He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge and where he can trump expectations. Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can order the US military to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capacity.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202685 2010-02-08T18:40:01Z

The federal government decision to prematurely withdraw its deposit and wholesale guarantee scheme for banks will ignite competition in financial services and intensify the need for banks to diversify their revenue base. The guarantee has been vital to the stability of Australia's financial system as others were collapsing, but a nasty side effect was diminishing competition in Australian banking as the big four grabbed bigger slices of home loans, small-business loans, credit cards and deposits. Recent figures show that the big four banks now hold more than three-quarters of outstanding mortgages; two years ago the figure was 56.8 per cent. With deposits the story is similar, particularly as the banks slug it out for them.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202684 2010-02-08T18:33:34Z

Key members of the European Parliament are drawing up plans to whittle away Britain's power to veto decisions by the EU's new apparatus of financial super regulators, a move that may leave the City of London without defence against threatening proposals. The Euro-MPs in charge of drafting the rules for oversight bodies covering banking and markets aim to make it much harder for Britain or other states to use an "emergency brake" to block decisions on regulation, and perhaps to strip them of their veto altogether.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202683 2010-02-08T18:27:56Z

Rumor has it that Timothy Geithner is on his way out as Treasury Secretary, due to his involvement in the AIG scandal that is now unraveling in hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Bob Chapman writes in The International Forecaster: Each day brings more revelations of efforts of the NY Fed and Goldman Sachs to hide the details of the criminal conspiracy of the AIG bailout ... This is a real crisis on the scale of Watergate. Corruption at its finest. But unlike the perpetrators of the Watergate scandal, who wound up facing jail time, Geithner evidently has a golden parachute waiting at Goldman Sachs, not coincidentally the largest recipient of the AIG bailout. At least that is the rumor sparked by an article by Caroline Baum on Bloomberg News, titled "Goldman Parachute Awaits Geithner to Ease Fall." Hank Paulson, Geithner's predecessor, was CEO of Goldman Sachs before coming to the Treasury. Geithner, who has come up through the ranks of government, could be walking through the revolving door in the other direction.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202682 2010-02-08T18:16:18Z

A state prosecutor admitted before the Supreme Court today that the Immigration Police illegally detained the two international activists arrested yesterday in a pre-dawn raid on the International Solidarity Movement's Ramallah offices. The two will be released on bail. Earlier today, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the release on bail of the two activists who were arrested on Sunday during a pre-dawn raid on the Ramallah media office of the International Solidarity Movement. During the hearing, the State Prosecutor admitted that it was illegal for the Immigration Police to receive custody of the two in the Occupied Territories, where it has no legal authority.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202681 2010-02-08T18:04:33Z

A renowned physicist demolishes a paper by Laurence Tribe, that President Obama played some roll in crafting, on the "revolutionary" aspects and legal implications of 20th century physics. According to the Washington Post, David Axelrod, Barack Obama's senior advisor, said that the president worked with "[Harvard professor] Laurence Tribe on a paper on the legal implications of Einstein's theory of relativity." I've read that paper, "The Curvature of Constitutional Space." It's complete nonsense. It shows no understanding of Einstein's theory of relativity, or of the relationship between relativity theory and Newton's theory. I - to use Obama's favorite word - do understand relativity theory. I was trained in relativity theory by the best. I was the post-doc of the late Princeton professor John A. Wheeler, who was himself the post-doc of Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr. Wheeler's most famous student was Nobel Prize Winner Richard Feynman. I was also the post-doc of the late Oxford professor Dennis Sciama, who was a student of Nobel Prize winner Paul Dirac. Sciama's most famous student was Stephen Hawking.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202680 2010-02-08T18:03:29Z

Palestinians have been forced to innovate ways to rebuild houses destroyed during last year's war on Gaza. That is because an Israeli blockade is preventing construction materials from getting into the Gaza Strip. Many therefore are collecting rubble from destroyed homes, smuggling in cement from Egypt, and using the two to make concrete blocks.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202679 2010-02-08T17:41:44Z

"In America you can say anything you want - as long as it doesn't have any effect." - Paul Goodman Progressive activists and writers continually bemoan the fact that the news they generate and the opinions they express are consistently ignored by the mainstream media, and thus kept from the masses of the American people. This disregard of progressive thought is tantamount to a definition of the mainstream media. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy; it's a matter of who owns the mainstream media and the type of journalists they hire - men and women who would like to keep their jobs; so it's more insidious than a conspiracy, it's what's built into the system, it's how the system works. The disregard of the progressive world is of course not total; at times some of that world makes too good copy to ignore, and, on rare occasions, progressive ideas, when they threaten to become very popular, have to be countered. So it was with Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Here's Barry Gewen an editor at the New York Times Book Review, June 5, 2005 writing of Zinn's book and others like it:

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202678 2010-02-08T17:40:35Z

In quake crisis, there were sure to be some ungodly fumbles The horrific destruction and human suffering in Haiti exert an almost irresistible pull on U.S. Christian missionaries eager to help. But as the jailing last week of 10 missionaries from a small Baptist church in Idaho illustrates, best intentions don't always translate into good deeds in the chaotic aftermath of the monster earthquake. Many mission groups provide essential services for Haitians - indeed some have evolved into key service providers, working alongside nonprofit groups and the U.N. to fill gaps that the Haitian government can't fill. But other missions, even when well-meaning, risk running afoul of Haiti's culture and laws.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202677 2010-02-08T17:19:45Z

The establishment derides conspiracies and, for awhile, it was fashionable to deny the existence of 'conspiracies'. In fact, conspiracies are how things get done. Very little is accomplished by one person working alone. If what is to be accomplished is illegal, the 'conspiracy' is called a 'crime syndicate' or 'orgnized crime'. If the 'conspiracy' in question is legal, however questionable, it is called a corporation or a business enterprise. Theorists on the high court have said corporations are people! But, should you call five idiots who have thus conspired to subvert the U.S. Constitution by the term 'conspirators', you are likely to be called a nut job! But SCOTUS believes mere words on paper is a real, living breathing person if it happens to have a seal on it supplied to you by the Delaware Secreatary of State! So --I ask you --who is nuts?

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202676 2010-02-08T17:05:05Z

Wall Street CEOs have formed a group to take advantage of new fundraising possibilities opened up by the Supreme Court decision to end the ban on corporate election spending. Just three weeks ago, the United States Supreme Court ended a ban on corporate spending in political elections, drawing intense criticism for the ruling's potential to erode the democratic process. This week, a group that includes some of the wealthiest Republican CEOs on Wall Street have formed a group to take advantage of new fundraising possibilities for the GOP. The Supreme Court ruling could potentially allow the group, called the American Action Network, to take unlimited contributions from corporations for use in political campaigns. "This administration as well as Citizens United [the Supreme Court ruling] - when you combine the two the prospects for funding these types of efforts are greatly enhanced," said Norm Coleman, one of the group's organizers.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202675 2010-02-08T16:57:10Z

More than three years after the last war between Israel and Hezbollah, south Lebanon residents are bracing for new conflict amid Israeli warnings against both Hezbollah and its backer Syria. "If you come back, we'll be waiting for you," the Shiite militant group warns Israel on a billboard near the southern village of Aita Shaab. It was across the border from Aita Shaab that Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid in July 2006, provoking a devastating month-long Israeli offensive against Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburub. The war killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers. "We are afraid, of course," said Hayat, a resident of the southern village of Qana, which came under deadly bombardment in the 2006 war. "Every day we hear news of a possible new war," she tells AFP from her terrace which overlooks the village cemetery.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202674 2010-02-08T16:29:49Z

Paralyzing the "frown" muscles also inhibits the ability to understand anger and sadness. And here I thought my Botoxed friends were happy, mellow, and sweet-tempered because a couple of injections of a neurotoxin had eliminated their frown lines, knocked years off their apparent age, and made them no longer look "tired and unapproachable," as the company's Web site cheerfully puts it. (If someone starts selling makeup named "Unapproachable," send me a case. But I digress.) But no! According to an amusing little study, by paralyzing the frown muscles that ordinarily are engaged when we feel angry, Botox short-circuits the emotion itself.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202673 2010-02-08T16:15:11Z

It's easy to dismiss 'detox' as a fad, as some product claims are exaggerated. But detoxing, as a practice, has been around for centuries For some, a detox means giving up booze for a few weeks in January. For others, it means colonic irrigation, supplements, super healthy food and/or juices and saying 'no' to meat, dairy, wheat, sugar and caffeine and other substances considered 'toxins'. The problem with 'detox' is that the word is used to cover a wide array of both products and diets - from 'detox' shampoos and teabags to weekend juice fasts and two-week detox plans. Although sceptics dismiss detox as a 'fad', various forms of detox have been practiced for centuries by many cultures around the world. The Ayurvedic medicine system, for instance, advocates a detox once or twice a year. Far from being a quick fix it lasts between 7-21 days and as well as a special diet it involves colonics, massage, meditation and yoga. Those who promote detox diets and products claim that cleansing your body of toxins and helping your 'organs of elimination' to function properly will bring increased energy, vitality and improved overall health. So is it worth it? And if so, what type of detox should you go for?

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202672 2010-02-08T14:50:27Z

Posted: February 7, 2010 Date of Sighting: February 6, 2010 Time of Sighting: 10:55 PM EST Location of Sighting: Suitland, Maryland (Near Washington, D.C.) Description: On the night of February 6, 2010 at 10:55 PM I looked out my window in Suitland, Maryland and saw a large white ball with a long tail on it flying across the sky. Note: Probable meteor.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202671 2010-02-08T14:23:04Z

Posted: February 7, 2010 Date of Sighting: February 6, 2010 Time of Sighting: 7:37 PM PST Location of Sighting: San Jose, California (N. CA About 30 Miles SE of San Francisco) Description: I saw an object of the following description: Motion: Steady and straight, quick. Sound: Silent. Direction: Southeast (more east). Color: Large white/yellow light in front and possibly two lights in back. Shape: Somewhat triangular.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202670 2010-02-08T14:23:01Z

Posted: February 8, 2010 Location of Sighting: Ystrad Mynach, South Wales Date of Sighting: 7th February 2010 Time: About 5.45 pm Witness Statement: I noticed a bright orange light through my window.At first I thought it was a reflection of a street lamp on the window itself but when I looked I could see that it was in the sky in roughly the direction of Tesco (I live in the centre of town). I watched it for as far as I could and did video it with my mobile phone( I won't put it on Youtube and provide a link cos',quite frankly the quality is really poor and it is just an orange dot on the screen1 lol). The weird thing is that about ten seconds before it went out of view (obscured by buildings) the light went out and I could clearly see with the naked eye that it was a dark object.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202669 2010-02-08T14:22:57Z

Contributing editor Ana Luisa Cid writes: "On January 21, 2010 Mr. Alfredo Mosco recorded a shape-shifting flying object over San Miguel Iztapalapa, to the east of the Mexican capital.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202668 2010-02-08T14:17:58Z

Poor or declining handgrip strength in the oldest old is associated with poor survival and may be used as a tool to assess mortality, found an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The fastest growing segment of the elderly population is the group older than 85 years, classified as the oldest old. Low handgrip strength has been consistently linked to premature mortality, disability and other health complications in middle-aged and older people. Handgrip strength, a simple bedside tool, can be an alternative way of measuring overall muscular strength. This study included 555 individuals from the Leiden 85-plus survey of all 85 year olds in Leiden, The Netherlands. Their handgrip strength was measured at 85 years and then again at 89. The CMAJ study, led by researchers from The Netherlands, found that low handgrip strength, both at 85 and 89 years, and a greater decline in strength over time are associated with increased all-cause mortality. The researchers also found that handgrip strength has a greater impact on mortality as people age.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202667 2010-02-08T14:17:53Z

Deafness is the most common disorder of the senses. Tragically, it commonly strikes in early childhood, severely damaging an affected child's ability to learn speech and language. In many cases, children gradually lose their hearing to become profoundly deaf over a long period of months to years, but scientists know very little about how this progressive loss happens, making prospects for prevention and cure very slim. Over half the cases of childhood deafness are estimated to be due to defects in just one gene passed from either the mother or father, and many of these deafness genes have been identified. However, as the way we hear is so complicated, it has been really difficult to work out exactly how these genes cause such wholesale effects. Dr John Oghalai, of Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, has been wrestling with this problem for his whole career. His work as a clinician, directing a busy team performing cochlear implants and corrective surgery on the ear and cranium, has armed him with crucial clinical insights which inform his laboratory's research into the causes and treatment of deafness. Together with a team spearheaded by postdoctoral fellow Anping Xia, he has now created mice which carry a mutation in one of the genes, called alpha tectorin, known to cause progressive childhood deafness.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202666 2010-02-08T13:24:45Z

Makers of natural-health products say they are bracing for widespread layoffs and millions of dollars in losses after Canada's pharmacy regulators issued a surprise directive recently urging druggists to stop selling unlicensed natural remedies. The order affects thousands of herbal treatments, multi-vitamins and other products, most of them waiting for approval from Health Canada under a backlogged, five-year-old program to regulate natural-health goods. The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) says pharmacists cannot be assured the products are safe until they are granted a government licence, and should not sell them in those circumstances. "Pharmacists are obliged to hold the health and safety of the public or patient as their first and foremost consideration," said the association's recently issued position statement.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202665 2010-02-08T13:09:12Z

On February 3, a Department of Justice press release headlined "Aafia Siddiqui Found Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court of Attempting to Murder US Nationals in Afghanistan and Six Additional Charges." At her scheduled May 6 sentencing, she "faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the attempted murder and armed assault charges; life in prison on the firearms charge; and eight years in prison on each of the remaining assault charges. Siddiqui faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison on the firearms charge."

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202664 2010-02-08T10:28:09Z

A bizarre blowup between a professor and a student in a Portland State University classroom recently has sent ripples of concern and curiosity through the campus. It also has prompted the student, openly accused by the professor of being an FBI informant and a killer, to hire a prominent local civil rights attorney, and led the university to launch an investigation into the educator. The school has taken the unusual step of stripping the tenured professor of his teaching responsibilities while it conducts its inquiry. Meanwhile, others at PSU are divided along two lines: Those who think the professor did the right thing, if in an unorthodox way; and those who think his actions were strange and out of line.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202663 2010-02-08T09:57:33Z

Archaeologists in Mahasthangarh archaeological site have recently discovered an ancient city gate, used as the city's entrance at least 1,500 years ago. A joint archaeological excavation team of France and Bangladesh found the ancient city gate on February 1 on the south-western side of the site. After the discovery, the team claimed that the age of the gate considering the earth and area is at least 1,500 years as they made a similar archaeological discovery at the location last year. French archaeologist Ernelle Berliet said that several types of stone including sandstones were used along with brick to construct the floor of the gate. The width of the gate was at least 2.95 metres, according to archaeologists.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202662 2010-02-08T09:56:03Z

Washington --The State Department didn't revoke the visa of foiled terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab because federal counterterrorism officials had begged off revocation, a top State Department official revealed Wednesday. Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would've foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States. "Revocation action would've disclosed what they were doing," Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, "rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort."

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202661 2010-02-08T09:52:34Z

France has agreed to sell Russia an advanced warship and is considering a request from Moscow for three others, French defence officials say. It would be the first arms deal of its kind between Russia and a Nato member. It remains unclear when or where the 23,000-tonne Mistral-class warship will be built. The deal, which would increase Russia's capacity to launch amphibious offensives, will alarm ex-Soviet states such as Georgia, analysts say. Russia and Georgia fought a short war in August 2008. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had approved the sale of one Mistral, but Moscow naval officials had then asked for a further three ships, said Jacques de Lajugie of the French arms agency DGA.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202660 2010-02-08T09:47:38Z

Egypt will build its first nuclear power plant in the Mediterranean coastal town of El-Dabaa, reviving the country's civilian nuclear power program after more than two decades, the El-Ahram newspaper said on Monday. Egyptian authorities announced in 2007 plans to build nuclear power facilities in the country to meet the increasing demand for electricity. The north African state's nuclear program was originally suspended after the Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union in 1986. The paper quoted Egyptian energy minister Hassan Younes as saying the construction of the country's first nuclear power plant would take about 9 years. He said the decision to build the plant in El-Dabaa was based on a report by a team of international experts.

tag:www.sott.net,2010-02-08:/articles/show/202659 2010-02-08T09:42:09Z

It really is possible to be bored to death, scientists have found, after research showed those who live tedious lives are twice as likely to die young. People who complain of "high levels" of boredom in their lives are at double the risk of dying from from heart disease or a stroke than those who find life entertaining, researchers at University College London found. Of more than 7,000 civil servants who were monitored over 25 years, those who said they were bored were nearly 40 per cent more likely to have died by the end of the study than those who did not. People who are bored are more likely to turn to unhealthy habits like drinking and smoking, which can cut their life-expectancy, the scientists said.