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Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Gigantic Crack Opens Up In Mexico


Before It's News
Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:43 UTC
Mexico Crack
© Before It's News
The crack appeared on 13 July in Santa Maria Huejoculco in Chalco, State Mexico, land has now reached 500 meters long and authorities have not taken preventive measures, warned James Espinoza Hilario, responsible for Social planning on the Sierra Nevada project of the Autonomous Metropolitan University.

In addition, after survey work was detected in Santa Maria Huejoculco yet another gap of about four km which reached La Candelaria Tlapala, in the community of Miraflores, in Chalco, explained Professor Martín Espinosa.

These failures are part of a family of cracks that exist in the region and threaten to spread across the entire east area of the Valley of Mexico.

This event began back 2009 in a small area of this region but since it has grown and is eating up everything around it .

Comment: On top of all the sinkholes opening up, this crack in the ground in Mexico joins a list of fissures opening up all over the world:

June 30: US: St. Clair Crack Remains a Mystery

March 18: Everett, Washington: Land Crack Appears, Neighborhood is Sinking

March 7: Pakistan: Giant Fissure / Crack Opens in the Ground in Seagi Gulistan

February 25: Large Crack Opens in the Earth in Southern Peru

January 7: Large crack in the ground appears in the Michigan Upper Peninsula

October 6 2010: Mysterious crack still begs answers

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Smoking

Best of the Web: Top US academics discover fresh tobacco leaves can fight cancer

Sarah Eddington
thenewstar.com
Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:19 UTC
Tobacco leaves
Tobacco plants
Researchers at the University of Louisiana at Monroe have discovered anticancer compounds in the most unlikely of places - tobacco leaves.

Khalid El Sayed, an associate professor of medicinal chemistry at the ULM College of Pharmacy, and ULM colleagues Paul Sylvester and Girish Shah received a patent for their discovery of anti-cancer compounds in fresh tobacco leaves earlier this week from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

"The leaf and flower of the tobacco plant contain high amounts of the key flavor ingredient called cembranoids, which shows promise as an anti-cancer agent," El Sayed said. "It was very exciting to discover the anti-cancer activities."

But this doesn't mean people will reap the same benefits by using commercial tobacco, he warned, adding that much of the anti-cancer compound is lost in the processing of commercial tobacco.

"This compound is not commonly found in commercial tobacco because commercial tobacco is largely degraded into smaller compounds for about a year to give it flavor during the processing and fermentation," he said.

The cembranoids are found in the waxy substance on fresh tobacco leaves and show potential for controlling metastic breast and prostate cancers. The plant produces them as a chemical defense to protect itself against insects and harmful microbial infections, El Sayed said.

Comment: Apart from cembranoids, tobacco also contains nicotine and solanesol, which have proved as medicinal in many conditions that cause death and suffering. Just have a look at the following studies:

Tobacco used as medicine
Using tobacco plants to fight cancer
Tobacco plant-made therapeutic thwarts West Nile virus
Health Benefits of Smoking Tobacco
Tobacco-derived compound prevents memory loss in Alzheimer's disease mice
Does Smoking Help Protect the Joints?
Nicotine helps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients
Study supports new theory for nicotine's protective effect against neurodegenerative disorders
Longtime Smokers Less Likely to Develop Parkinson's Disease
Study: Quitting smoking increases risk of developing type 2 diabetes
Smoking Helps Protect Against Lung Cancer
Smoking does NOT cause lung cancer, in fact it just might protect you from nuclear fallout

And note that here at SOTT, we agree with the above article's advice. When we say, "Let's All Light Up!", we mean natural, organically grown tobacco, not commercial cigarettes.

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People

Best of the Web: Hysteria of cosmic proportions! Missouri, US: Cape doctor says he's not leading survivalist group and has been harassed by believers in 'Planet X'

M.D. Kittle
Southeast Missourian
Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:00 UTC
Image
© Fred LynchDr. Byron Glenn at Cape Urgent Care
Dr. Byron Glenn of Cape Girardeau says he wants nothing to do with the people he sees as online crackpots trumpeting a "conspiracy wrapped in an enigma."

He's not alone. The folks at NASA have fruitlessly tried to debunk what they say are wild conspiracies involving Comet Elenin -- a "wimpy" projectile expected to remain more than 20 million miles from Earth.

Glenn said he's been harassed and threatened by doomsday believers of "Planet X," an idea spreading in the blogosphere and in online chat rooms about a brown dwarf star, a low-mass object rapidly approaching the solar system and bent on destroying much of the Earth. He said that believers, apparently followers of Terral L. Croft, or "Terral03" as he is known in anxiety-ridden chat rooms, have shown up at his North Mount Auburn Road family practice demanding answers.

Comment: This article is a good example of how a group of unstable people and their hysterical actions can be used to twist and ridicule valid topics. Yes, comet Elenin isn't Planet X, and the end of the world is not imminent, though the science points out that calamities are highly probable, especially the next Ice Age.

Notice how the seasonal and "heading for the mountains" loonie is being called "out there" and "on the edge," due to him being a "Sept. 11 conspiracist". Although, in this case, the "out there" label is quite justifiable, sweeping generalizations like this influence the minds of others and damage efforts of genuine and reasonable people.

"Earthquakes, volcanoes, rogue tides, mass animal deaths and the whole 9 yards" are indeed happening, and may increase in the nearest future. But there is so much confusion and plain hysteria around the issue, that it plays into the hands of those who have a vested interest in keeping the truth from the rest of us.

Read Elenin, Nibiru, Planet-X - Time for a Sanity Check article for some clarity on this mess.

For further background see:

Cosmic Propaganda Alert! Comet Elenin: Just Passing By - With SOTT Commentary

Comet Elenin is Coming!

Pole Shift in March? Not Likely!

Comet Elenin: Harbinger of What?

Comet Elenin Update!

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Bulb

Best of the Web: Going Against the Grain Towards Better Health


Greenmedinfo.com
Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:38 UTC
Image
© greenmedinfo.com
Grains are often called the "staff of life," having a sort of credibility that is biblical in proportion. So prevalent is the perception that grains make for "good food" that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) - which is the United Nation's international agency for defeating hunger - uses a head of wheat as its emblem, with the Latin Fiat Panis or "Let There Be Bread" as its motto.

Despite the rather lofty secular position a loaf of whole grain bread may hold in the international community, the biblical record actually shows that the first foods mentioned in the Bible were the Herbs and Fruit Trees (Genesis 1:29), and that by punishment for sin God gave man bread:
"...cursed is the ground for thy sake;...In the sweat of thy face shalt though eat bread, till though return unto the ground..." (Genesis 3:17,19).
The inherent wisdom of this biblical message has long been forgotten and today, according to the USDA MyPlate, grains should constitute a sizeable sector of our diet in the form of "bread, cereal, rice, and pasta." Many of us, whose hyper-agrarian taste buds and gastrointestinal tracts have never once gone a day without some grain-derived morsel of bread or cracker, find ourselves expressing our dependency on these foods in telling, half confessionary phrases like: "I'm starving for a piece of bread," or "that pizza is to die for," forgetting that among non-agrarian peoples, grains were universally considered a last resort, or, starvation food only.
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Ambulance

Best of the Web: Mass Psychosis in the U.S.

James Ridgeway
aljazeera.net
Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:30 UTC
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© GALLO/GETTYDrug companies like Pfizer are accused of pressuring doctors into over-prescribing medications to patients in order to increase profits.
Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.

Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses - primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Americans with symptoms ranging from chronic depression to anxiety to insomnia are now being prescribed anti-psychotics at rates that seem to indicate a national mass psychosis.

It is anything but a coincidence that the explosion in antipsychotic use coincides with the pharmaceutical industry's development of a new class of medications known as "atypical antipsychotics." Beginning with Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel in the 1990s, followed by Abilify in the early 2000s, these drugs were touted as being more effective than older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. More importantly, they lacked the most noxious side effects of the older drugs - in particular, the tremors and other motor control problems.
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Bell

Best of the Web: Japan Earthquake And Tsunami Makes 2011 The Costliest Natural Disaster Year

Greg Jacobs
Kozmedia News
Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:38 UTC
Image
According to a German insurance company Munich Re, the devastating earthquake and tsunami that occurred in Japan earlier in the year has made 2011 the costliest year on record for natural disasters. Despite there being more than five months left in the year, the costs of rescue and recovery for the disasters that occurred on the southwestern coast of Japan has already eclipsed most natural disaster spending for many years past.

According to Japan's records, the total economic loss for the first six months of this year alone stands at $265 billion. This is 200 million more than what was spent in the entire year of 2005. 2005 had previously been the most expensive year, before the disasters that occurred this year. In 2005, hurricane Katrina had devastated most of the US southern states near and around New Orleans in America, setting the then record for costs in a natural disaster.
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Camera

Best of the Web: The Harbingers of Change Can Now Be Seen All Around the World! Mysterious Noctilucent Clouds Brighten Up Night Skies


International Business Times
Mon, 11 Jul 2011 07:24 UTC
Image
© Martin McKenna/SpaceweatherNLC photographed near Dunluce Castle, Co. Antrim (North Coast), N. Ireland on July 9, 2011.
The season for spotting Noctilucent Clouds or the "night-shining" clouds has begun, NASA said in a statement in early July.

Noctilucent Clouds are composed of tiny ice crystals 40 to 100 nanometers wide, which is just the right size to scatter blue wavelengths of sunlight, a NASA scientist explained.

According to NASA, the best time and location to search for these breathtakingly beautiful phenomenon would be between mid-May and the end of August in the northern hemisphere. However, with no explanation yet found, these glowing, mystical clouds have been seen even as far south as Utah and Oregon and Denver, Colorado in the recent years.

Comment: For the possible explanation, read the comment at the end of the article.

Noctilucent Clouds were first observed in 19th century but their appearance has increased over time and are seasonal, appearing most often in late spring and summer every year.

Comment: Let us suggest a reason for why instances of noctilucent clouds are increasing and intensifying.

What we suspect has been happening, based on our research thus far, is that the upper atmosphere is cooling because it is being loaded with comet dust, which shows up in the form of noctilucent clouds and other upper atmospheric formations.

Magnificent and mesmerizing noctilucent clouds (also called polar mesospheric clouds), were once considered to be rare. But now they are puzzling scientists with their recent dramatic changes. Apparently, the clouds are growing brighter, are seen more frequently, are visible at ever lower latitudes and are now appearing even during the day. If scientists were allowed to conduct honest interdisciplinary research, such changes wouldn't be a mystery.

They would be able to figure out that comet dust is electrically-charged which is causing the earth's rotation to slow marginally. The slowing of the rotation is reducing the magnetic field, opening earth to more dangerous cosmic radiation and stimulating more volcanism. The volcanism under the sea is heating the sea water which is heating the lower atmosphere and loading it with moisture.

The moisture hits the cooler upper atmosphere and contributes to a deadly mix that inevitably leads to an Ice Age, preceded for a short period by a rapid increase of greenhouse gases and "hot pockets" in the lower atmosphere, heavy rains, hail, snow, and floods.

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Meteor

Best of the Web: Interview with Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin - The discoverer of Comet Elenin

Translation by SOTT
NTV.ru
Wed, 11 May 2011 04:06 UTC
Image
© NTVLeonid Elenin
The following video is a full interview in the Russian language on NTV with the discoverer of Comet C/2010 X1 aka 'Elenin', astronomer Leonid Elenin. Below is the translation of the original interview's transcript available on the Russian TV website.


Comment: Indeed, the hysteria and lies surrounding comet Elenin are ridiculous, and could be dismissed as more "loony talk" if only the similar circus generated around comet Hale-Bopp 15 years ago hadn't led to tragic consequences. See Heaven's Gate mass suicide to understand where those pied pipers in the alt. community are leading the vulnerable.

It's an unfortunate fact that many people do have impressionable minds, easily influenced by paranoid fables bordering on the criminal. Some of them are also part of deliberately orchestrated COINTELPRO campaigns, which are intended to further muddy the waters. Read Elenin, Nibiru, Planet-X - Time for a Sanity Check article for some clarity on this mess.

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Megaphone

Best of the Web: Boiling Frog Alert: U.S. Congress Wants Automatic Wage Deductions to Pay Down the Debt

Simon Black
sovereignman.com
Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:55 UTC
Image
© gravitoncreations.com
Folks... you just can't make this stuff up.

On July 6th, just two days ago, at least a dozen busybody Congressmen sponsored the introduction of HR 2411, the "Reduce America's Debt Now Act of 2011." They always come up with fantastic names for these pieces of legislation... and rest assured, the better/more patriotic the name, the more ominous the bill. This one follows the pattern.

HR 2411 states that every worker in America should be able to voluntarily have a portion of his/her wages automatically withheld and sent directly to the Treasury Department for the purposes of paying down the federal debt.
"Every employer making payment of wages shall deduct and withhold upon such wages any amounts so elected, and shall pay such amounts over to the Secretary of the Treasury..."
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Arrow Down

Best of the Web: The Dollar Collapse Will be the Single Largest Event in Human History


Real News Reporter
Sat, 09 Jul 2011 14:38 UTC
Image
Every major civilization in history has collapsed. In almost all recorded cases the collapse has occurred as a result of infinite expansion in a finite environment. We are, no doubt, approaching a similar fate.

The dollar collapse will be the single largest event in human history.

This will be the first event that will touch every single living person in the world. All human activity is controlled by money. Our wealth, our work, our food, our government, even our relationships are affected by money. No money in human history has had as much reach in both breadth and depth as the dollar. It is the de facto world currency. All other currency collapses will pale in comparison to this big one. All other currency crises have been regional and there were other currencies for people to grasp on to. This collapse will be global and it will bring down not only the dollar but all other fiat currencies,as they are fundamentally no different. The collapse of currencies will lead to the collapse of ALL paper assets. The repercussions to this will have incredible results worldwide.

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