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Yet another video of Brave American soldiers surrounding, then shooting to death an unarmed old Iraqi man. Notice the fear on the faces of our intrepid heroes and their vile battle cries for blood as they encircle him and then shoot him down in cold blood even though he is clearly unarmed - and poses absolutely no threat to anyone. And the coup de grace? As our heroes surround the corpse one of them shouts, "Arrest him!"
Best of the Web: The Financial Oligarchy Reigns: Democracy's Death Spiral From Greece to the United States
New York Stock Exchange
Democracy throughout the world is under attack. Many people can make the argument that our democracy here in America is only an illusion, but even the illusion of democracy is crashing down. Tragedies are currently playing out across the world on an epic scale. Unprecedented economic and environmental catastrophes have become the norm. Billions of people, the overwhelming majority of humanity, have been sentenced to a slow death due to a concentration of wealth and resources within humanity's economic top 0.5%. Ultimately, short-sighted greed has proven to be humanity's most severe disease.
I: Democracy Vs. Oligarchy: Lessons from History
The experiment known as democracy is devolving into fascism before our eyes; the "iron law of oligarchy" is once again asserting itself. From the Founding Fathers on, we have known that you cannot have a concentration of vast wealth and Democracy at the same time - and we currently have the greatest concentration of wealth in the history of the United States. As former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
© EraPhernalia Vintage/flickr
I had never heard of this panel - appointed during the Bush Administration, no less - and went right to its 2008-2009 annual report (PDF).
The Panel says that the "risk of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated," that "nearly 80,000 chemicals [are] on the market in the United States, many of which are ... understudied and largely unregulated," and that "the public remains unaware ... that children are far more vulnerable to environmental toxins and radiation than adults."
evidence suggests that some environmental agents may initiate or promote cancer by disrupting normal immune and endocrine system functions. The burgeoning number and complexity of known or suspected environmental carcinogens compel us to act to protect public health, even though we may lack irrefutable proof of harm.
A group of British scientists working off Ellef Ringnes Island, near the North Pole, reported being hit with a three-minute rain shower over the weekend. The group reported the rain on Tuesday.
Rain in the High Arctic in April is nothing short of bizarre, said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada.
"My business is weird, wild and wacky weather, and this is up there among fish falling from the sky or Niagara Falls running dry," Phillips told CBC News in an interview that aired Thursday.
"I mean, it really is strange. You just don't expect it to rain in the High Arctic in April; maybe in July and August. And certainly for these scientists from Europe coming over, they must have been also mystified."
Phillips said 50 to 60 years of historical weather data show no signs of rainfall ever occurring in April in the High Arctic.
The earliest account of measurable rainfall at Canadian Forces Station Alert took place on May 21, 1988, he said.
Residents of the southwestern town of Carcassonne slipped and slid over centimetres of snow on Tuesday as an unusually late cold snap hit France.
© El DiarioThe Ice Age cometh: local residents pose for photographs in the snow. In Mexico. In May!
In the state capital, the weather phenomenon took people by surprise, since for 32 years it did not snow in May, said spokesman of the State Civil Protection Unit, Martín de la Rosa.
The municipalities that were covered in white from the early hours of Saturday are: Aldama, Aquiles Serdan, Bocoyna, Buenaventura, Casas Grandes, Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua, Galeana, Gomez Farias, Guachochi, Guerrero, Ignacio Zaragoza, Madera, Matachi, Ocampo, Riva Palacio, San Juanito and Temosachic. It also snowed in San Juanito, Creel, Cusárare and in the region of Divisadero.
In the areas of Rubio and Anahuac, snow fell more intensely, while the inhabitants of Bachíniva, Namiquipa and Riva Palacio, also reported to the Civil Protection Unit of this phenomenon.
© Google Images
Researchers recruited 36 male and female participants; about half were devout Christians from the Pentecostal church, while the other half were non-religious.
The participants who considered themselves religious believed that some people could possess divine powers of healing. The non-religious participants did not believe this.
Each person listened to 18 different prayers performed by three different people - a Christian, a non-Christian and a Christian known for their ''healing'' powers - while undergoing a brain scan. (In reality, all three speakers were ''ordinary'' Christians, with no reported healing powers.) After the scan, participants were asked to rate each speaker's charisma.
The devout Christians in the study rated the speaker presented as a divine healer as the most charismatic, while they voted the non-Christian speaker as the least charismatic.
This is the same compound which is used to bleach flour, and disinfect the municipal water supplies. Promoters of M.M.S. claim that it cures AIDS, herpes, cancer, malaria, T.B., and "many more diseases", which are unnamed. Snake oils never had it so good. The M.M.S. fraud would be amusing if it weren't so potentially dangerous. It is primarily being promoted by two people, named Jim Humble and Adam Abraham.
The F.D.A. has not made any move against these fraudsters, despite making every 'unapproved medical claim' imaginable. Yet, when colloidal silver is honestly promoted, or cherry farmers quote scientific studies in favor of their crops medicinal benefits, the F.D.A. enters high alert. This is a pattern which we have noticed, for the F.D.A. is only interested in silencing effective and legitimate alternative medicines, but it condones obvious frauds like M.M.S., because these frauds hurt alternative medicine (the competition) in the long term. In other words, alternative medicine frauds like this are actually beneficial to the pharmaceutical industry.
Comment: MMS is chlorine dioxide. Chlorine dioxide is formed from the chemical combination of sodium chlorite and the acetic acid (vinegar) or citric acid. Chlorine dioxide is dangerous to handle and use. A search for material safety data sheets sustains the risk of using this substance.
Chlorine dioxide: May decompose explosively on shock, friction or concussion, or on heating rapidly. Strong oxidant - reacts violently with combustible and reducing materials, and with mercury, ammonia, sulphur and many organic compounds.For more information, please visit our forum discussion.
A strong irritant of the skin, eyes, and respiratory tract; A strong oxidizer that promotes combustion; Concentrated solutions may be corrosive to the skin and eyes; Mild hemolytic anemia and increased methemoglobin in males is observed in animal feeding studies.
Acute Health Effects:
Ingestion: Not a normal route of exposure. Harmful if swallowed. Can cause irritation to mouth, esophagus, stomach, and mucous membranes.
Eye Contact: Contact causes redness, irritation, pain, blurred vision, tearing, corneal injury and burns.
Inhalation: Harmful if inhaled. Coughing, headaches, labored breathing, nausea, shortness of breath, pulmonary edema.
Chronic Health Effects: May have effects on lungs, resulting in chronic bronchitis and permanent lung damage (with chronic exposure).
No ash cloud here: Deep blue skies over London April 16. So, if planes weren't grounded for 6 days because of the "ash cloud"...
Skies fell quiet for six days, leaving as many as 500,000 Britons stranded overseas and costing airlines hundreds of millions of pounds.
Estimates put the number of Britons still stuck abroad at 35,000.
However, new evidence shows there was no all-encompassing cloud and, where dust was present, it was often so thin that it posed no risk.
The satellite images demonstrate that the skies were largely clear, which will not surprise the millions who enjoyed the fine, hot weather during the flight ban.
Jim McKenna, the Civil Aviation Authority's head of airworthiness, strategy and policy, admitted: 'It's obvious that at the start of this crisis there was a lack of definitive data.
'It's also true that for some of the time, the density of ash above the UK was close to undetectable.'
Comment: There was another related report about freak snowing in Antarctica nearly two years ago:
Something Strange is Happening at the Coldest, Driest Place on Earth