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After four decades, U.S. returns looted 'Bluebeard' head of Hades to Italy


RT
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 13:28 UTC
head of Hades - Bluebeard
© Farnesina/FlickrThe head arrives in Italy.
The head of Hades, Greek God of the Underworld (and the original hipster judging by his beard), finally returned home to Sicily Friday after four decades in the hands of thieves and collectors.

Known as "Bluebeard" due to the pigment of its curly whiskers, the terracotta artifact was stolen from the Italian island in the 1970s before finding its way illegally to Los Angeles' controversial J Paul Getty Museum (aka "the Getty"), named after the oil baron who built it.

The home of the stolen head, which is more than 2,000 years old, was identified when archaeologists discovered fragments of its blue 'facial hair' at an excavation site in Sicily.

A deal was made to return the head from the US in 2013, where it remained in storage until Italian officials could arrange for its homecoming.


This ends one chapter in the Getty's storied history - replete with intrigue, tax fraud, and global art smuggling.

Two men who literally wrote the book about it, titled Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museums, explained how the museum went from a private tax shelter housed in Getty's Malibu home to the "800-pound gorilla of the art world" and the scene of "one of the largest museum tax frauds in American history".

A Getty plan in 1977 to avoid California taxes by displaying six items in Colorado, including a $5 million Greek statue, backfired when authorities found out and levied a $330,000 tax against the owners, according to a UPI story at the time.

Comment: See also: NY Mummy Smugglers Reveal Vast Antiquities Black Market

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Bullseye

Eye-witness refutes 'official' story of Oregon FBI killing, 'his hands were up...they fired 120 shots'

Jay Syrmopoulos
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 27 Jan 2016 02:46 UTC
Lavoy Finicum
© koin.com
The nearly month-long armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge building in Oregon took a deadly turn Tuesday night as federal and state law enforcement ambushed vehicles en route to a meeting with area residents.

A group of the protesters, including Ammon Bundy, were on U.S. Highway 395 bound for John Day, scheduled to speak at an evening community meeting about the future of the area, when the ambush occurred.

Several hundred people gathered at the John Day Senior Center, waiting in vain for "guest speakers" that would never arrive. The occupiers were invited to the meeting as a set-up by law enforcement, meant to isolate the men in a cell phone dead zone on a road that had been blocked off for 60 miles by law enforcement.

Law enforcement sources have attempted to frame the official narrative as a traffic stop in which Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum and Ryan Bundy attempted to resist arrest, which resulted in Finicum's death. Eyewitness accounts provide a very different accounting of the events that unfolded on the isolated highway.

According to a report in the Oregonian:
Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said Ammon Bundy called his wife, Lisa Bundy, from the back of a police car on Tuesday night and said Finicum was cooperating with police when he was shot.
According to eyewitness Victoria Sharps, a woman who was in Finicum's truck when it was stopped by law enforcement, there is no question about whether the rancher had his hands in the air or if he was shot unprovoked.


"He was just walking, with his hands in the air, and they shot him dead," Sharps said, adding, "His hands were still up after he was dead."

Finicum was shot at least six times, three times after he fell, she said, in an account posted on Youtube and shared by the Bundy Ranch Facebook page.

Sharps claims that Finicum exited the vehicle after his truck hit a snow bank and became stuck as he attempted to evade law enforcement. Finicum, yelled at law enforcement once out of the vehicle, telling them "just shoot me," which they quickly did, according to Sharp.

Sharp claims that the vehicle was riddled with bullets and estimated Finicum's vehicle was hit with over 120 rounds. She makes the point clearly and concisely that he was unarmed and had his hands in the air when he was killed in the ambush-style attack.
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Heart - Black

State Officials in Flint Got Bottled Water 10 Months Before the Public


Sputnik
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 01:37 UTC
Bottled water
© Daniel Orth
Adding insult to injury, newly released emails show that while the public was kept in the dark about the poisoning of Flint, Michigan, drinking water, government officials were provided with bottled water for ten months prior to when the scandal broke.

Government e-mails released on Thursday by the group Progress Michigan show that, as far back as January 2015, Flint's State administration building was stocked with purified water specifically because the tap water was known to be toxic.
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Lemon

Did the Onion just sell out? Top Killary supporter and Zionist now controls satire outlet

Jon Schwarz
The Intercept
Tue, 26 Jan 2016 01:14 UTC
saban
Haim and Killary. Bringing the world into the toilet, together.
Onion staffers may think twice before they produce more stories like Hillary Clinton Tries To Woo Voters By Rescinding Candidacy, Hillary Clinton To Nation: 'Do Not Fuck This Up For Me,' Hillary Clinton: The Merciless, Unrelenting March To The Presidency, or the signed Hillary Clinton editorial titled I'm Weighing Whether Or Not I Want To Go Through The Hell Of Appealing To You Idiotic, Uninformed Oafs.

Many news outlets covered Univision Communications' purchase last week of a stake in The Onion, the world's leading news publication. According to NPR, Univision bought a 40 percent controlling interest in the company, and also acquired the option to buy the remainder of The Onion in the future.

But what's gotten no attention at all is that Haim Saban, Hillary Clinton's biggest fan and financial supporter, is Univision's co-owner, chairman, and CEO. Saban and his wife, Cheryl, are Hillary Clinton's top financial backers, having given $2,046,600 to support her political campaigns and at least $10 million more to the Clinton Foundation, on whose board Cheryl Saban sits. The Sabans are also generous supporters of the overall Democratic Party infrastructure, donating, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a total of $16.1 million since 1989 to Democratic and liberal candidates, party committees, leadership PACs, and federally focused 527s.

Saban badly wants Hillary Clinton to be elected president this year, vowing to provide "as much as needed" to see it happen, since "she would be great for the country and great for the world," and "on issues I care about, [Clinton] is pristine plus."

Comment: "Great for the country and the world"? Absolutely! Why? Because the issues hardcore Killary fans "care" so deeply about are things every decent American can get behind. You know, things like illegal occupation (of Palestine), extrajudicial murder (of Palestinians), Apartheid, genocide, invading and destroying other countries, supporting terrorists, and generally being a force of devious, mendacious, backstabbing, Machiavellian, morally degenerate psychopathy. If these are the kinds of things that make you smile, by all means, vote Hillary!

But seriously, it's a sad day for independent news, and the freedom of the press in general. Whenever anyone anywhere lends their support to a heartless liar and murderer like Killary Clinton, Baby Jesus suffers a depressive episode, an angel has their wings cut off, and more innocent children get murdered in some Middle Eastern country. When it comes to goals like that, Clinton is pristine plus!

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Fire

Crane catches fire in NYC, NY


RT
Thu, 28 Jan 2016 19:19 UTC
Manhattan crane catches fire
© michaelausiello / Instagram
A crane appears to have caught fire near Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. Smoke is billowing into the bright, blue sky. The New York Fire Department is on the scene.

The fire is on 40th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues.
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Stormtrooper

The art of disinformation and distraction: How trolls control an internet forum

Milicent Cranor
WhoWhatWhy
Tue, 26 Jan 2016 20:36 UTC
Trolls
© Tristan Schmurr / Flickr
You may well wonder about the material we have chosen to present below. For one thing, it has been around for a while, though mostly on obscure websites. For another, its authors are unknown. More important, we cannot say how accurate, overall, is the analysis offered in it.

Nonetheless, it is tantalizing — and raises some important issues, no matter its provenance.

The document claims to reveal the techniques — dirty tricks, really — that are practiced by trolls, saboteurs, provocateurs, disinformants, spies and other government operatives, as well as their fellow practitioners of the dark arts.

One thing is certain: we've all experienced the frustration of dealing with this phenomenon. We just don't always recognize it for what it is.

Without even knowing it, you may have witnessed these techniques in action. Perhaps in a political forum that feels somehow manipulated to suppress certain facts and points of view. Or in the deceptive comments that often follow a controversial article. Or in the disruptive behavior at a town hall meeting that seems oddly choreographed. Or at a meeting of activists where the "wrong" people seem to be taking over.

Like toxic mushrooms, the words and actions of these operatives can often look just like the benign stuff. That is why they can so easily poison the well of information.

Comment: It's very likely that the US government has itself engaged in many or all of the above activities in order control the population and direct discussions away from subjects they would prefer remain in the dark. They likely employ many questionable individuals in this pursuit:

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Megaphone

Haiti on brink of bloody revolution: 'The people are just fed up'


Sputnik
Thu, 28 Jan 2016 20:36 UTC
Protesters in Haiti
© REUTERS/ Jeanty Junior Augustin
Haiti's current government, in an effort to suppress an uprising over alleged voter fraud, may "deploy terror in an effort to break the spirit of the people," international journalist Kim Ives told Radio Sputnik.

Haiti is in the midst of a political crisis, with protesters demanding new elections amid allegations of fraud in the first two rounds of elections held on August 9 and October 25. A third round was scheduled for January 24, but was canceled after tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the capital city of Port au Prince.

Comment: Haiti is in a big mess, no thanks to the US:

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Snakes in Suits

Psychopaths have perverted capitalism

Jon Rappoport
John Rappoport's Blog
Tue, 05 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
capitalism
"An era of corruption is built for those who lead corrupt lives. They revel in the era. They belong. They are home. They don't care what you call the prevailing system, they'll find their way, because they know the unspoken rules and how things actually work. Naïve idealists and academic hair-splitters? The corrupt eat them for breakfast." (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)
The recent acceleration of attacks on capitalism leaves no ground un-scorched. Whatever capitalism is, it's all bad. It needs to be banned. A wiser and saner alternative must be found—and naturally that alternative will be handed down from Above, where wondrous altruists in government can point us toward the Promised Land.

For the sake of humanity, they will assume the reins of power. They'll organize businesses and companies and corporations under the umbrella of government, and all will be well.

Forget the fact that they cooperate and collude and conspire and commit crimes with their erstwhile corporate and banking partners. That's a minor footnote.
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Snakes in Suits

Woman sues San Francisco police and city after her rape kit goes untested for years

Kaitlyn Schallhorn
The Blaze
Sat, 23 Jan 2016 19:42 UTC
Heather Marlowe
Heather Marlowe
When Heather Marlowe was drugged and raped in 2010, she went to the hospital and reported the crime to the police.

After the San Francisco woman did not receive any word regarding her case, she took matters into her own hands and began to investigate the investigation. Marlowe discovered that her rape kit, like hundreds of others, remained untested.

Marlowe is now suing the City of San Francisco as well as the San Francisco Police Department for the mishandling of her case. The lawsuit alleges that not only did the police department not test the rape kit, which can contain DNA evidence, a law enforcement official told her that he would not prosecute her case unless she met with her alleged rapist.

According to the lawsuit, Marlowe was taken by a police officer to the house where she said she believed the incident to have occurred during the annual Bay to Breakers event in San Francisco.

"[Officer Joe] Cordes instructed Marlowe to make contact with suspect, and flirt with him in order to elicit a confession that suspect had indeed raped Marlowe," the federal lawsuit filed earlier in January alleged. "Cordes also instructed Marlowe to set up a date with suspect to prove that Marlowe could identify suspect in a crowd. Cordes told Marlowe that if she refused to engage in these actions, SFPD would cease its investigation of her rape."
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Passport

Flashback Greek island of Lesvos runs out of cemetery space for dead refugees washing ashore


ekathimerini
Sat, 10 Oct 2015 19:30 UTC
refugess greece
Flowers are placed on the grave of an unidentified migrant, who drowned at sea during an attempt to cross a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast, at the Saint Panteleimon cemetery of Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesvos, October 7.
He stood on the mud, crows cawing overhead, pointing at unmarked graves. "Here's a mother with her baby. And here's another young woman. Over there, that's a 60-year-old man."

Buried beneath low mounds of earth, facing Mecca, lay Afghan, Iraqi and Syrian refugees who drowned this summer in the Aegean Sea trying to reach Europe in flimsy inflatable boats.

Scanning the area, Christos Mavrakidis, a somber, hardened man who looks after one of the main cemeteries on Greece's Lesvos island, listed the years of other deaths: "2013, 2014, 2015."

Now there is no room left in the narrow plot of land in the pauper's section of St. Panteleimon cemetery, close to where the colonnaded tombs of wealthy Greeks are built in the classical Greek style, and flowers adorn lavish marble graves.

"Something must be done," he said. "They are a lot. They are too many."

Comment: For all the children who drowned and keep drowning in the Aegean Sea

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