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Best of the Web: Syria Drops off the Internet Amid Turmoil

Jaikumar Vijayan
Computerworld
Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:16 UTC

In what appears to be the latest bid by a government to throttle access to news and information amid growing civil unrest, the Syrian government Friday shut down all Internet services.

Internet monitoring firm Renesys reported that starting around 7 a.m. EDT today, close to two-thirds of all Syrian networks were suddenly unreachable from the global Internet.

In just 30 minutes, routes to 40 of 59 Syrian networks were withdrawn from the global routing table, said Renesys' chief technology officer, James Cowie, in a blog post.

The shutdown has affected all of SyriaTel's 3G mobile data networks, as well as several of the country's ISPs, such as Sawa, iNet and RunNet.

Best of the Web: Icy 'Window Fallers' or Frozen Harbingers of Change? The Peculiar Phenomenon of Megacryometeors

Alan Bellows
Damn Interesting
Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:03 UTC

Hail, in and of itself, is not an unusual weather phenomenon. The frozen precipitation occurs inside storm clouds when water droplets are cooled below freezing, yet remain in a liquid state. When the supercooled water encounters something solid, such as a speck of dust or an ice crystal, it sticks to the particle and freezes. Updrafts in the storm keep the hailstone aloft as it aggregates ice, growing until its weight is too heavy for the updraft, at which time it plunges to the Earth.

Some scientists believe that there is a larger, more sinister type of ice-chunk precipitation which can form outside of storms, making even the largest hailstones look puny in comparison. There is a great deal of disagreement in the scientific community regarding the origin of these falling slabs of ice, but it is certain that something is causing massive frozen chunks to occasionally drop from seemingly empty skies. The objects are called megacryometeors.

Best of the Web: Obama Murdering Americans? Deregulates GMO Crops Despite Supreme Court Injunction

Robbie Hanna Anderman
Truthout
Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:07 UTC

Early this spring, while the world was distracted by Egypt's uprising, President Barack Obama pushed the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets in the United States. The USDA came through as he directed, totally deregulating these Monsanto-patented genes in early February.

In so doing, Obama and the USDA have chosen to override and ignore decisions and injunctions made by the U.S. Supreme Court that banned planting of genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets without consideration of the Environmental Impact Assessments, which showed high risks to organic and conventional (chemical) farmers.

So how does this affect you and me? Neither of us remembers seeing alfalfa or sugar beets on our breakfast table or even on our Seder table. Or do we?

Sugar beets provide over 50 percent of the sugar Americans use in their coffee, cereals, and desserts. For the moment, let's not focus on the fact that sugar beets can cross-pollinate with red beets and make our borscht genetically modified.

Alfalfa reaches our tables within milk, cream, butter, and meat, as it is used as a major animal feed in the dairy industry. It is also used to enrich soils in organic farming.

Best of the Web: America's Most Dangerous Pill?

Christopher Byron
Alternet
Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:21 UTC

It's not Adderall or Oxy. It's Klonopin. And doctors are doling it out like candy, causing a surge of hellish withdrawals, overdoses and deaths.

You could argue that the deadliest "drug" in the world is the venom from a jellyfish known as the Sea Wasp, whose sting can kill a human being in four minutes - up to 100 humans at a time. Potassium chloride, which is used to trigger cardiac arrest and death in the 38 states of the U.S. that enforce the death penalty is also pretty deadly. But when it comes to prescription drugs that are not only able to kill you but can drag out the final reckoning for years on end, with worsening misery at every step of the way, it is hard to top the benzodiazepines. And no "benzo" has been more lethal to millions of Americans than a popular prescription drug called Klonopin.

Klonopin is the brand name for the pill known as clonazepam, which was originally brought to market in 1975 as a medication for epileptic seizures. Since then, Klonopin, along with the other drugs in this class, has become a prescription of choice for drug abusers from Hollywood to Wall Street. In the process, these Schedule III and IV substances have also earned the dubious distinction of being second only to opioid painkillers like OxyContin as our nation's most widely abused class of drug.

Best of the Web: Gulf State Gendarmes: West Backs Holy Alliance For Control Of Arab World And Persian Gulf

Rick Rozoff
Stop NATO
Wed, 25 May 2011 16:59 UTC

The standard-bearers of Anglo-American imperialism in the current epoch, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, met in London on May 25 to discuss the world's two ongoing wars of aggression, those in Afghanistan and Libya, both under the command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization dominated by Washington and London.

As well as joining a barbecue for American and British troops in the prime minister's haunts, in the gardens of Number 10 Downing Street, the two potentates called for continuing to bomb Libya back to the Paleolithic Age.

Displaying what passes for sophisticated humor in the contemporary deadened age, Cameron told the press, "It was...probably the first time in history, as we stood behind that barbecue, that I can say a British prime minister has given an American president a bit of a grilling."

Correspondents chuckled as Libyan, Afghan and Pakistani civilians writhe in their death throes from the bombs and Hellfire missiles delivered by Cameron's and Obama's warplanes.

Best of the Web: Amazing waterspout 'tornadoes' caught on camera off Australia

Russia Today
Mon, 30 May 2011 14:56 UTC

Dramatic footage filmed from a helicopter by Australia's Channel 7 shows a series of powerful waterspouts near the coastal suburb of Terrigal, on Australia's New South Wales coast. Several powerful columns of swirling air could be seen blasting along the water's surface near the coastline. Channel 7 claimed the spouts reached heights of up to 600 metres (nearly two thousand feet), but dissipated as they neared land. The natural wonders came as strong winds and heavy rain also lashed other parts of the state, causing flash flooding and traffic chaos in Sydney.

Best of the Web: Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part XVIII

Dave McGowan
Center for an Informed America
Thu, 26 May 2011 00:00 UTC

"Our music was far from political or antiwar...I never felt comfortable with political advocacy."
- John Phillips

"There were no political speeches or overt protest songs performed."
- John Phillips, discussing the Monterey Pop Festival, of which he was a key organizer

Thus far on this journey, we have seen how what are arguably the two most bloody and notorious mass murders in the history of the City of Angels - the Manson Family murders of the occupants of the home on Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, and the so-called Four-On-The-Floor bludgeoning murders of four Laurel Canyon drug dealers on Wonderland Avenue - were directly connected to the Laurel Canyon music scene.

But the city of Los Angeles can boast of one other particularly notorious murder, which stands to this day as both the most gruesome single-victim murder and the most famous unsolved murder in the city's history.

On January 15, 1947, the mutilated body of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short was found posed in a field. The ritualistically butchered body was nude, sliced cleanly in half, and completely drained of blood. Parts of the body had been removed, after which the corpse had been thoroughly sanitized. Bruising clearly indicated that the young girl had been savagely beaten. Forensic evidence suggested that she had been forced to eat feces during her tortuous ordeal. She was quickly dubbed the 'Black Dahlia,' and it is by that name that she is known and written about today.

Best of the Web: Eminent geophysicist rejects global warming theory, says world on verge of 'mini ice age'

Matthew Cullinan
LifeSiteNews
Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:03 UTC

An eminent Mexican geophysicist says that despite predictions of global warming based on computer models, the world may be on the verge of an eighty-year cold period similar to the "little ice age" experienced by Europe from 1300 to 1800 A.D..

Víctor Manuel Velasco, of the University of Mexico's Institute of Geophysics, says that recent winter conditions are similar to those of the "little ice age", and in particular the "Maunder Minimum," a period during which sunspot activity dropped significantly. He also notes that the Earth is in a similar position today in relation to the rest of the solar system, a fact which he regards as significant for climate.

"We are talking about the period between 1645 and 1715, which is known as the Maunder Minimum, a period in which the sunspots practically disappeared from the surface of the sun, and in which our planet occupied a position similar to which it has today, with respect to the center of gravity of our [solar] system." Velasco said in an interview published by the university.

Best of the Web: 7 Secret Ways We Are Being Poisoned

Activist Post
Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:31 UTC

The objectivism of the scientific method seems to have been hijacked by corporations who often pay for scientists to support their products, as well as politicians who move through the revolving door between the private and public sector. Even worse is that sometimes the consumer protection agencies themselves are complicit.

The trust placed by consumers in scientific studies and Federal oversight committees has been violated in service to profit so that products are allowed to enter the marketplace with reduced safety standards. The synthetic chemicals we encounter on a daily basis in our food, water, and environment are increasingly shown to be disastrous to our physical and mental well-being. Volumes can be written - indeed have been written - by experts in both mainstream and alternative medicine who have documented the sleight of hand used to hoodwink consumers and threaten our health. The categories below are worth deeper investigation as prime examples of what we might face as a species if this chemical bombardment continues.

Best of the Web: The Patriot Act: When Truth Becomes Treason

Susan Lindauer
OpEd News
Sat, 28 May 2011 23:01 UTC

Many Americans believe they understand the dangers of the Patriot Act, which Congress has vowed to extend 4 more years in a vote later this week. Trust me when I say, Americans are not nearly frightened enough.

Ever wonder why the facts about 9/11 never got exposed? Why Americans don't fathom the leadership fraud surrounding the War on Terror? Why Americans don't know the 9/11 investigation failed? Why the "Iraqi Peace Option" draws a blank? Somebody has known the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden--- or his grave--for the past 10 years. But nobody's talking.

In significant part, that's because of the Patriot Act--- a law that equates free speech with sedition. It's got a big agenda, with 7,000 pages of Machiavellian code designed to interrupt individual questioning of government policy. In this brave new world, free speech under the Bill of Rights effectively has been declared a threat to government controls for maintaining "stability". And the Patriot Act has become the premiere weapon to attack whistleblowers and dissidents who challenge the comfort of political leaders hiding inconvenient truths from the public. It's all the rage on Capitol Hill, as leaders strive to score TV ratings, while demagoguing their "outstanding leadership performance" on everything from national security to environmental policy.

World War Three in progress. A war like no other. Cyber-attacks, satellite lasers (DEWs), weather mod. It's all happening and the vast majority...

Martin Harris

If you scroll down on this article there is an image in it - I think it is magenta - but others might sense pink. [Link] It is kind of the same...

Buffalo_Ken

"that had already expired under the statute of limitations." Use to be automatic cause to dismiss the case. I guess laws are empty air now.

JTF Truth

Chief storyteller: Biden claims 'cannibis' helped to eat his uncle That's how I read it, when I scanned over the headline.

JTF Truth

They seem more magenta than pink to me. I mean here is pink per one image - the colors of the images presented were not all the same....: [Link]...

Buffalo_Ken

Best of the Web:

Best of the Web: Syria Drops off the Internet Amid Turmoil

Best of the Web: Icy 'Window Fallers' or Frozen Harbingers of Change? The Peculiar Phenomenon of Megacryometeors

Best of the Web: Obama Murdering Americans? Deregulates GMO Crops Despite Supreme Court Injunction

Best of the Web: America's Most Dangerous Pill?

Best of the Web: Gulf State Gendarmes: West Backs Holy Alliance For Control Of Arab World And Persian Gulf

Best of the Web: Amazing waterspout 'tornadoes' caught on camera off Australia

Best of the Web: Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation Part XVIII

Best of the Web: Eminent geophysicist rejects global warming theory, says world on verge of 'mini ice age'

Best of the Web: 7 Secret Ways We Are Being Poisoned

Best of the Web: The Patriot Act: When Truth Becomes Treason

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