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Light Saber

Portland, Oregon: Angry residents wave pitchforks, torches in protest of Mayor's crackdown on homelessness

Eleanor Goldberg
The Huffington Post
Sat, 15 Feb 2014 21:59 UTC
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© Huffington Post
A group of fired-up activists in Portland, Ore., who were tired of seeing homeless people being mistreated staged the kind of protest that will be difficult for the mayor to ignore.

An estimated 4,000 people sleep on the streets of Portland, Ore., on any given night and, since last summer, life has become increasingly difficult for them.

So, a group of protesters descended upon Portland City Hall on Tuesday night carrying pitchforks and torches to "shame the mayor into action," organizer Jessie Sponberg told The Oregonian.
peep this shit. stop criminalizing homelessness! #angrymob#portlandpic.twitter.com/pdvWv4SjIj

- jessie sponberg (@ozone2016) February 12, 2014
Portland appears to be gearing up to revive a bill that would allow police to rouse homeless people sitting on sidewalks, The Oregonian reported at the end of last year. In July, Mayor Charlie Hales launched an effort to clear out homeless campsites, according to the Portland Mercury.

Sweeping campsites often exacerbates the situation for people living on the streets because the police discard homeless people's few possessions, which may include their only warm clothing and blankets, advocates noted in a Change.org petition.

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Nuke

New Mexico nuclear waste site has 'radiological event'


RT.com
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 15:25 UTC
Radiation
© Reuters/Alex Domanski
Officials are monitoring the levels of airborne radiation at the deep underground facility in southeastern New Mexico where the US government disposes of its low-grade nuclear waste.

Air samples were taken around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) after a monitoring system detected traces of radiation on the underground levels of the facility around 11:30 pm Friday night, the US Department of Energy said in a news release.

The 139 workers above ground at the time of the incident were ordered Saturday to remain where they were as a precaution. None of the employees tested positive for radioactive contamination, and all non-essential personnel were released, Department of Energy spokesman Roger Nelson said.

Nelson said the cause of the leak remains a mystery, since inspection crews have not yet gone underground. He added that he was not sure when that would happen.

Surface samples show no sign of radiation, thus suggesting the leak was "not significant," he said.
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Magic Hat

Reality show snake-handling preacher dies -- of snakebite

Ashley Fantz
CNN
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 15:11 UTC
Jamie Coots
© CNNJamie Coots had said that he believed a poisonous snakebite would not harm believers as long as they are anointed by God.
A Kentucky pastor who starred in a reality show about snake-handling in church has died -- of a snakebite.

Jamie Coots died Saturday evening after refusing to be treated, Middleborough police said.

On "Snake Salvation," the ardent Pentecostal believer said that he believed that a passage in the Bible suggests poisonous snakebites will not harm believers as long as they are anointed by God. The practice is illegal in most states, but still goes on, primarily in the rural South.

Coots was a third-generation "serpent handler" and aspired to one day pass the practice and his church, Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name, on to his adult son, Little Cody.

The National Geographic show featured Coots and cast handling all kinds of poisonous snakes -- copperheads, rattlers, cottonmouths. The channel's website shows a picture of Coots, goateed, wearing a fedora. "Even after losing half of his finger to a snake bite and seeing others die from bites during services," Coots "still believes he must take up serpents and follow the Holiness faith," the website says.

On Sunday, National Geographic Channels spokeswoman Stephanie Montgomery sent CNN this statement: "In following Pastor Coots for our series Snake Salvation, we were constantly struck by his devout religious convictions despite the health and legal peril he often faced.
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Nuke

Radiation Leak in New Mexico: "We've never seen a level like we are seeing"

Kimberley Paxton
The Daily Sheeple
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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A nuclear waste facility near Carlsbad, New Mexico is the site of an airborne radiation leak. The high levels of particles were detected late Friday night at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

WIPP is housed at an old salt mine, and toxic waste like plutonium is housed half a mile underground.

All of the 139 workers were sequestered on site.
WIPP is the nation's first transuranic nuclear waste repository, used to permanently dispose of low-level nuclear waste from government sites around the nation.

"These are radionuclides that are of a hazard if inhaled, but it is not the kind of radiation that penetrates, and so the primary concern for the release of this nature is (through) the ventilation passageway and that's why our employees are sequestered in place," said Roger Nelson, a Department of Energy spokesman. (source)
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Vinyl

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Protest Songs for the Revolution

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 19:00 UTC
Sott Talk Radio logo
This week we unwound a little to have a musical interlude and discuss some of the great 'protest songs' that became anthems of liberty during the otherwise bleak 'American Century', inspiring many with hope for Truth and Justice.

What makes a 'protest song' anyway? We also talked about some lesser known songs that didn't quite 'make it', but nevertheless struck a powerful chord with some because they record a truer version of history the victors would prefer we forget.

We were joined by Tim Trepanier, singer-songwriter and travelling troubadour from the prairie lands of Canada. Lead singer and guitarist for folk band Relic, we even convinced Tim to play a couple of his tunes for us live on air!

Running Time: 02:19:00

Download: MP3

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Control Panel

World's largest solar farm is scorching and killing birds that fly over it


Daily Mail
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 07:23 UTC
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© Brightsource Energy'Tower-power': Heat emanating from the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the world's largest solar farm of its kind, has allegedly killed and injured dozens of birds and other wildlife in the Mojave desert
Environmentalists have hit out at a giant new solar farm in the Mojave Desert as mounting evidence reveals birds flying through the extremely hot 'thermal flux' surrounding the towers are being scorched.

After years of regulatory tangles around the impact on desert wildlife, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened on Thursday but environmental groups say the nearly 350,000 gigantic mirrors are generating 1000 degree Fahrenheit temperatures which are killing and singing birds.

According to compliance documents released by developer BrightSource Energy last year, dozens of birds were found injured at the site during the building stage.

Comment: A wonderful example of just how far modern human society is from being "civilized".

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Pistol

Unbelievable! Fake Blood and Blanks: Schools Stage Active Shooter Drills

Nona Willis Aronowitz
CBS
Sat, 15 Feb 2014 22:24 UTC
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© Jim Seida / NBC News
In a cramped, carpeted amphitheater in the basement of Troy Buchanan High School, 69 students are waiting to die.

"You'll know when it pops off," says Robert Bowen, the school's campus police officer. "If you get engaged with one of the shooters, you'll know it."

"When you get shot, you need to close your fingers and keep 'em in," adds Tammy Kozinski, the drama teacher. "When the bad guy and the police come through, they'll step all over you, and who will be saying they're sorry?"

"Nobody!" the students cry in unison.
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Cloud Precipitation

UK government sends 5,000 military personnel to flood zones as hurricanes keeping coming

Josh Halliday
The Guardian
Fri, 14 Feb 2014 13:58 UTC
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© Dan Kittwood/Getty ImagesA Gurkha regiment helps place sandbags outside homes along the river Thames in Staines.
Violent storms will batter cliffs and promenades along the south coast this weekend, with tidal surges and gale-force winds set to cause more flooding for days to come. Forecasters warned that there would be no let-up in the severe weather as defence chiefs committed 5,000 military personnel to the flood relief mission.

Two people were killed late on Friday in the stormy weather and the high winds left more than 16,000 homes in north Wales without power.

A cruise ship passenger died and another was airlifted to shore after their 22,000-tonne vessel was hit by a freak wave in the English Channel. Water crashed through a window, injuring a number of the 735 passengers. An 85-year-old male passenger and a woman passenger in her 70s were airlifted off the ship. The male passenger later died.

In Holborn, central London, a woman died and a man was taken to hospital after a building collapsed on to a car. The accident happened at 11.05pm last night opposite Holborn tube station, a Metropolitan police spokesman said. "There were two occupants in the car and a woman was pronounced dead at the scene. A man was pulled from the car and was taken to hospital, where he is in a stable situation at the moment."

A man also died in hospital on Friday night after being hit by a falling tree in his garden in Gwynedd during Wednesday's storm.
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Megaphone

More Bulgarian protests against high energy prices


Focus News Agency
Sun, 09 Feb 2014 10:50 UTC
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© AFP
Two protests will be staged in Bulgaria's second biggest city of Plovdiv on Sunday - the first one is against the increase of the electricity tariff demanded by EVN. The protest already kicked off at 10 a.m. in front of the office of the electricity distribution company. The protest is to be led by Krasimir Karakachanov, leader of the IMRO - Bulgarian National Movement. Supporters of Nikolay Barekov, leader of the Bulgaria without Censorship party, will also participate in it.
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Compass

Video: Protesters clash with police, set govt buildings ablaze in Bosnia

RT
You Tube
Sat, 08 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© Reuters
Thousands of people across Bosnia set fire to local government buildings and clashed with police. Hundreds have been injured in three days of protests in a state that's slipping into serious economic stagnation with around 40 per cent of the population out of work.

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