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One more reason higher (and all) public education is in trouble

R Doom
Confessions of a College Professor
Sun, 18 May 2014 13:40 UTC
highest salaries in states
© deadspin.com
A picture sure is worth a lot of words.... The above map, from here, really demonstrates how completely insane higher education has become.

That's a map of highest paid public employees, by state.

State by state, every state, the highest paid public employee is in higher education. Not the governor, not a senator, not some life-saver...but someone in higher education.

Yes, most of it is coaches, so I guess the time for me to talk about the immense fraud of college athletics draws nigh...but the fact remains, higher education is a system of plunder, devoid of integrity. All the money poured into higher education has not gone to education, or to educators.

And the picture tells the tale.
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Airplane Paper

Symbolic! Second fighter jet crashes in California within 24 hours


Voice of Russia
Thu, 05 Jun 2014 13:47 UTC
Fighter jet lands on warship
© ru.wikipedia.org
Two US Navy fighter planes crashed in California, CBS reported on Thursday.

The first incident occurred at 16:20 local time on Wednesday. An AV-8B Harrier fighter jet crashed in El Centro, a residential neighborhood near the US-Mexican border, 120 kilometers from San Diego.

At least two houses caught fire, but no one was hurt. The pilot also managed to eject safely. The crashed jet was stationed at MCAS Yuma and attached to the Miramar-based Third Marine Aircraft Wing.

Later on the same night, at 22:00 local time an F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet crash landed into the sea when attempting to land on the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, CBS reported.

The plane sank, but the pilot was able to eject into the sea and was later recovered and brought on board. The planes still in the air were diverted to the Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego.

Comment: Military Harrier jet crashes into residential area in California

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Cow Skull

'Nine meals away from anarchy' - Our food supply: When it's gone...it's gone

Liz Bennett
Underground Medic
Tue, 03 Jun 2014 12:13 UTC
It's often said that we are only nine meals from anarchy. The theory behind the saying is simple. Most people have no more than a three day supply of food in their homes, and that equates to nine meals before they start to go hungry.
empty store shelves food shortages
Some believe that many governments would take advantage of this and use it against their own people in times of civil unrest. History shows us there is justification for holding this view.

The delivery and supply chain employed by major stores across the world is very simple and designed to increase profits by reducing waste.

Each time a barcode is scanned at the checkout it sends a message to the warehouse that a particular item has been sold. Warehouse staff restock the shelves having scanned the barcode on the boxes they are unpacking. That triggers a message to a distribution centre, where a tally is kept and the required number of boxes, each full of an individual item, will then be dispatched on the next truck heading to that store.

This system is why you may be told " We are having some more in tomorrow madam" They really are, they know that if it is not in the store it is in the distribution centre/truck and it will be arriving the next day.

There are of course other systems that come into play. Large stores that sell clothing etc will have sales projected on what they sold during the same season the previous year and that will be the stock starting point.
There is a couple of major flaws in this just in time delivery system, namely that it assumes what is true today will also be true tomorrow, and that it relies on electricity.
With the war that is being waged against coal in the name of protecting the environment this is a rather stupid policy. The UK has already had warnings from energy providers that lack of investment is likely to lead to rolling blackouts within the next couple of years.

Comment: The best preparation you can do is to optimize your health with a diet that maximizes nutrition with minimal food input. Given the rise in world-wide weather anomalies, a good supply of canned meat and high-quality fats is far more reliable than a garden plot.

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Airplane

Mysterious noise picked up in ocean on day MH370 vanished

Jane Mathews
The Express
Wed, 04 Jun 2014 11:42 UTC
A mystery underwater sound recorded at the time missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished is being investigated by Australian researchers
Flight MH370
© Press Association/Associated Press
Flight MH370 disappeared three months ago
The low-frequency noise was picked up by underwater listening devices in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia on March 8, the same day that the stricken plane carrying 239 people disappeared.

Researchers are analysing the signal to determine whether it could be the noise of the jet crashing into the ocean.

Search teams have been working on the theory that the plane, which was meant to be heading to China, instead went south before crashing into a remote part of the Indian Ocean.

Despite extensive underwater searches of an area narrowed down by authorities, no sign of the missing Boeing 777 has been found.

Researcher Alec Duncan, of Curtin University in Western Australia, acknowledged that the sound being analysed by his team fell outside of the projected flight path officials believed the plane took.

He said: "It's one of these situations where you find yourself willing it all to fit together but it really doesn't.

"I'd love to be able to sit here and say, 'Yeah, we've found this thing and it's from the plane' - but the reality is, there's a lot of things that make noise in the ocean."

He said there was about a 20 per cent chance of the noise being linked to the missing plane, adding that it could have been caused by a natural event such as a small earthquake.

The International Air Transport Association has said that plans to improve global tracking will be ready in September, to make sure there is "no repeat" of the mystery surrounding the fate of flight MH370.
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Airplane Paper

Military Harrier jet crashes into residential area in California


RT
Thu, 05 Jun 2014 02:46 UTC
Harrier jet crashes
© twitter.com user ‏@AlexPerez83
A military jet has crashed into a residential area in Imperial Valley, Southern California. At least two houses caught fire, but no one on the ground was hurt. The pilot ejected successfully and was uninjured.

The fire on the ground was quickly extinguished, yet homes impacted by the crash have been severely damaged by debris and fire.

The Third Marine Aircraft Wing AV-8B Harrier crashed at approximately 2:20pm local time (21:20 GMT). The jet was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, in Arizona, said Cpl. Melissa Lee, a spokeswoman for Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. The officials said the pilot ejected successfully and landed about 200 meters from the crash site. He was brought to a hospital only for a medical check.

No details about the reason for the crash have been announced yet.

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Stormtrooper

Ukrainazis National Guard assaults hospital in Slavyansk, executes more than 25 wounded patients


RT
Thu, 05 Jun 2014 02:35 UTC
Image
© RT
Ukrainian armed forces have allegedly killed more than 25 wounded people in a hospital in Krasny Liman, on the outskirts of Slavyansk, as the National Guard seized the town from the local militia following heavy shelling.

"According to preliminary information, more than 25 people have been killed,"Denis Pushilin, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the People's Republic of Donetsk was quoted by Itar-Tass.

While there are no official figures yet, Pushilin fears the body count in Tuesday's assault on the hospital will eventually rise. "We fear that there may be more victims," Pushilin said, adding that the figures announced by Kiev and reported by locals "differ greatly."

The number of injured is still unknown as well. During an assault on the town people inside the hospital tried to flee in panic and hide in the basement. Medical staff scrambled to get the wounded, mostly elderly out, as mortar shelling on the medical facility continued.
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Pistol

Three RCMP officers gunned down in Canada, two more injured


The Guardian
Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:56 UTC
police roadblock moncton
© Marc Grandmaison/Associated Press
A police roadblock in Moncton, New Brunswick, where a gunman killed three Canadian mounted police and wounded two others.
Two other RCMP officers wounded and manhunt under way for Justin Bourque, 24

A gunman has shot dead three Canadian mounted police and injured two more in one of the worst losses of life for the country's police forces in a decade.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in New Brunswick said on their Twitter feed that they were in pursuit of 24-year-old Justin Bourque of Moncton who was considered armed and dangerous. The police force tweeted an image of a suspect wearing military camouflage and carrying two guns.
#Codiac #RCMPNB - 3 officers mortally wounded by shooter. 2 officers sustained non life threatning injuries. Shooter still actively sought.

- RCMP New Brunswick (@RCMPNB) June 5, 2014
RCMP spokesman Paul Greene said the two wounded RCMP officers had non-life-threatening injuries. The Horizon Health Network, a provincial health authority, said on its Twitter feed that two patients were taken to the Moncton hospital with gunshot wounds.

Constable Damien Theriault said police were urging people in a certain area of Moncton, New Brunswick, to stay inside.

He said the search for the suspect was concentrated around two streets.

Sean Gallacher, who lives near the area where police were concentrating their search, said he heard what he now believed were gunshots. "I was downstairs and heard a few bangs," said Gallacher, 35.

Four Canadian RCMP officers, known as "mounties", were killed in March 2005 by a gunman on a farm in the province of Alberta. It was the RCMP's worst single-day loss of life in more than 100 years.
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Snow Globe

Neil DeGrasse Tyson worries that aliens have been to Earth and found no signs of intelligent life

Arturo Garcia
Raw Story
Fri, 30 May 2014 17:00 UTC
Image
Astrophysicist and Cosmos host Neil DeGrasse Tyson told MSNBC host Chris Hayes that while it's audacious enough for human beings to say they're capable of defining intelligence, he would still like to know if there's other intelligent beings in the universe.

"My great fear is that we've in fact been visited by intelligent aliens," DeGrasse Tyson said to Hayes. "But they chose not to make contact, on the conclusion that there's no sign of intelligent life on Earth. How's that for measures of intelligence?"

One reason it's presumptuous for humans to act like they're the arbiters of intelligence, DeGrasse Tyson said, is the possibility that planets much older than ours are already sending us messages in a format that, while basic to them, is incomprehensible by our current standards.

For example, he explained, while radio waves are seen as commonplace in present-day Earth, no one could have understood them 200 years ago.
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Colosseum

The coming collapse: Age of limits 2014

Dmitry Orlov
cluborlov.blogspot.com
Wed, 28 May 2014 14:57 UTC
Image
I got back to the boat late last night, after an intense three days of presentations and discussions. This was my third year presenting at this conference, and I am at this point quite heavily invested in this annual event and have started to take on roles I didn't even know existed when I first showed up there three years ago not knowing what to expect.

For those who haven't heard of this conference before, here is a synopsis. The venue is unusual for a conference: it is a large campground that occupies a bit of high ground surrounded by a fast-flowing creek nestled in the Allegheny mountains, a few miles from the Maryland border, but quite accessible because it is just a few miles from Interstate 68 and a fast two-hour drive from Baltimore. For those flying via BWI airport, there are usually enough locals driving by BWI on the way to the conference that rides can be arranged. If flying with camping gear is problematic, there is a dormitory with bunk beds and some semi-private rooms. The accommodations are basic, but there are flush toilets, hot showers, free tea and coffee available virtually around the clock, bonfires for when it gets chilly, and two satisfying and plentiful meals a day. A visit to the sweat lodge, optionally followed by a dip in the creek, rounds out the non-intellectual part of the experience.

Comment: For more information on the questions and commentary posed by Dmitry Orlov in this blog post listen to the Sott Talk Radio interview: Lessons from collapse of USSR for USA: Interview with Dmitry Orlov
This week on SOTT Talk Radio we're speaking with Dmitry Orlov, a Russian-American engineer and a writer on the subject of societal collapse.

Born in St. Petersburg, Orlov moved to the U.S. at the age of 12. Visiting his homeland between the late 1980s and mid-1990s, he was an eyewitness to the collapse of the U.S.S.R.

Orlov has written extensively on the stages leading up to collapse, and how different groups of people adapt to 'the new normal'. Orlov argues that the U.S. is heading the same way, and that the U.S.S.R. had it easy compared to what's in store for the Atlantic Empire.

Orlov is the author of two books Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects, and The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivors' Toolkit, and regularly publishes essays at his Club Orlov blog.


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Health

Another rogue veterinary "treatment", or something else? Kentucky family's dog goes missing, returns hours later after unexplained surgical procedure

Travis Gettys
The Raw Story
Fri, 23 May 2014 09:32 UTC
Image
A Kentucky family said they returned home from watching their horse run in the Preakness Stakes to find their dog missing, but the animal turned up later that day with wounds from an apparent surgical procedure.

Lori Dougherty, of Louisville, said one of her four golden retrievers was missing when she returned from the Baltimore race, where her horse, Ride on Curlin, had finished second.

She told WAVE-TV the 13-year-old dog, Roscoe, has followed the same morning routine for years, leaving home about 8 a.m. to examine neighboring yards and returning about an hour later.

Comment: On 2nd of May, 2014, it was reported about a Texas veterinarian, who was arrested for animal cruelty and who has admitted to keeping alive five dogs meant to be put down, among them his own pet, which was discovered lying motionless with one of her legs missing.

There is a saying, that you can judge a man's true character by the way he treats animals. What does it say about a person and society at large, when veterinarians make clearly unethical decisions? Especially considering the fact, that one of the main traits of psychopathy is cruelty toward animals?

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