Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human-rights community on other points: They will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.
"The sun has gone very quiet as it transitions to Solar Cycle 24.
"Since the current transition now exceeds 568 spotless days, it is becoming clear that sun has undergone a state change. It is now evident that the Grand Maxima state that has persisted during most of the 20th century has come to an abrupt end.
"(The sun) might (1) revert to the old solar cycles or (2) the sun might go even quieter into a "Dalton Minimum" or a Grand Minima such as the "Maunder Minimum". It is still a little early to predict which way it will swing. Each of these two possibilities holds a great threat to our nation.
"We are now at a crossroad. Two paths lie before us. Both are marked with a signpost that reads "Danger"! Down one path lies monstrous solar storms. Down the other path lies several decades of crushing cold temperatures and global famine."
"Climate change is primarily driven by nature. It has been true in the days of my father and his father and all those that came before us. Because of science, not junk science, we have slowly uncovered some of the fundamental mysteries of nature. Our Milky Way galaxy is awash with cosmic rays. These are high speed charged particles that originate from exploding stars.
"Because they are charged, their travel is strongly influenced by magnetic fields. Our sun produces a magnetic field wrapped in the solar winds that extends to the edges of our solar system. This field deflects many of the cosmic rays away from Earth. But when the sun goes quiet (minimal sunspots), this field collapses inward allowing high energy cosmic rays to penetrate deeper into our solar system.
Poplawski was a neo-Nazi wannabe who railed against blacks, Jews, "Zionists," and gun control. And like many members of the far-right fringe, he allegedly visited Jones' Web sites and posted alarming reports by Jones' writers on the white supremacist message board, Stormfront. (Poplawski's posts are here, authored under the handle, "Braced For Fate.") While Alex Jones generally avoids overt racism, he has found an eager audience on Stormfront by conjuring dark visions of an impending New World Order, claiming FEMA is secretly building a national concentration camp network, and announcing that President Barack Obama has planned mass gun seizures on his way to establishing a leftist dictatorship. "Remember, the first step in establishing a dictatorship is to disarm the citizens," warned a March 13 commentary on Jones' website, Prison Planet.
It is felt instinctively.
For the most part, it can't be taught or conditioned or rehabilitated.
The absence of conscience is a non-correctible disfigurement of character. There is no effective treatment.
In a word: Guiltlessness. More words: Remorseless, deceitful, manipulative, self-centred, callous, unscrupulous, emotionally shallow.
There was a time when the condition was described as "moral imbecility," which still fits. The modern shrinking heads bible, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, refers to the clinical diagnosis of little or no conscience as "anti-social personality disorder."
If one thing more than any other is used to justify proposals that the world must spend tens of trillions of dollars on combating global warming, it is the belief that we face a disastrous rise in sea levels. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt, we are told, warming oceans will expand, and the result will be catastrophe.
Although the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only predicts a sea level rise of 59cm (17 inches) by 2100, Al Gore in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth went much further, talking of 20 feet, and showing computer graphics of cities such as Shanghai and San Francisco half under water. We all know the graphic showing central London in similar plight. As for tiny island nations such as the Maldives and Tuvalu, as Prince Charles likes to tell us and the Archbishop of Canterbury was again parroting last week, they are due to vanish.
Eyewitness Accounts:
Location: Virginia Beach, Virginia
Comments: Mark Ost: "I am an amateur astronomer. I witnessed the fireball last night during an observing session. At approximately 2130 I witnessed the entry and what appeared to be an explosion of the bolide. The fireball was approximately 36 to 40 degrees above the horizon. I know this due to my telescope alignment and familiarity with the location of Polaris. The bolide was traveling in a north east direction. Initially the trace was the bright green of an ionization trail. The bolide then turned brilliant white fringed with an orange rim. I timed the arrival of the sound to two minutes after seeing the object explode and extinguish itself. I am located in southern Virginia Beach, Back Bay. Assuming the speed of sound at 600 mph, I calculated the distance to be 20 to 30 miles (direct line of sight) away. The event was also witnessed by Kent Blackwell, a very experienced amateur astronomer."
Once ensconced in the hills above Los Angeles, Gram Parsons and his band began recording what would prove to be their only album, Safe at Home, which some pop music historians regard as the first country-rock album, but others regard as a straight country album performed by guys who look like they should be playing in a rock band. Whatever the case, by the time the album was released, in 1968, Gram had disbanded the International Submarine Band and unofficially joined the Byrds, replacing the recently departed David Crosby, who had determined that there wasn't quite room in the band for both he and his ego.Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in hell
Could break that Satan's spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
Don McLean, American Pie
Parsons' time with the Byrds was rather brief, just four to five months, after which he was replaced by virtuoso guitarist Clarence White, who had been part of the Cambridge folk scene. Despite his brief tenure, Parsons is credited with having a major influence on the album that the band produced during that period, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which is also regarded by some music aficionados as the first true country-rock album.
Soon after leaving the Byrds, Parsons ran into Richie Furay, who was casting about for a new band after the breakup of Laurel Canyon's own Buffalo Springfield. Gram and Furay considered working together but quickly realized that they wanted to go in different musical directions, so Furay went to work putting Poco together while Parsons assembled the Flying Burrito Brothers. By 1969, Gram's new band had taken shape, with Gram supplying lead vocals and guitar, Chris Hillman also on guitar, Chris Etheridge on bass, and "Sneaky Pete" Kleinow on pedal steel guitar. With various other local musicians sitting in, the band recorded and released The Gilded Palace of Sin, which is probably also regarded by some as the first true country-rock album. Byrd Michael Clarke would later join the band, as would soon-to-be-Eagle Bernie Leadon.
I attended the Conference, chaired a session, listened to several presentations, read a number of posters and talked with dozens of colleagues from around the world. The breadth of research on climate change being presented was impressive, as was the vigour and thoughtfulness of the informal discussions being conducted during coffee breaks, evening receptions and side-meetings.
What intrigued me most, however, was the final conference statement issued yesterday, a statement drafted by the conference's Scientific Writing Team. It contained six key messages and was handed to the Danish Prime Minister Mr Anders Fogh Rasmusson. The messages focused, respectively, on Climatic Trends, Social Disruption, Long-term Strategy, Equity Dimensions, Inaction is Inexcusable, and Meeting the Challenge. A fuller version of this statement will be prepared and circulated to key negotiators and politicians ahead of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in December this year - also in Copenhagen.
Space station astronauts had a close call last week with a small piece of orbiting junk, and NASA said Monday that debris from a satellite that broke apart in 1981 could come within about half a mile of the station early Tuesday.
NASA will decide later Monday whether to fire the space station's engines to nudge the complex out of the path of the debris.
Comment: Last month we were told that two satellites collided over Siberia. A few days later, fireballs were caught on video over Texas. Now in a week time we have heard twice of astronauts having to dodge 'space junk'.
Is there something we are not being told about what is going on in our atmosphere?
"This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts," Bartlett went on to say. "He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence." Bartlett paused, then said, "But you can't run the world on faith."










Comment: It's interesting to observe how Alex Jones is moving into ever higher circles.
From Political Ponerology we read: From the Protocols of the Pathocrats: As everyone knows, this document was falsely attributed to the 'Elders of Zion' as part of a vicious anti-Semitic hoax. Sott.net agrees with this verdict. We do not for a minute think that this represents Judaism or ordinary Jewish people. The false attribution was clearly intended to scapegoat Jews in order to protect the identities of the real authors. The document was written in the early 20th century and reads like an insider's manual for designing and implementing totalitarian control of society. We are especially interested in the uncanny resemblance of its contents to whole swathes of the control system evident today. It is clear that some persons or groups unknown have taken its ideas and proscriptions very seriously.