I read the most ridiculous headline recently, something that at first glance I presumed had to be 'fake news.' The headline was: Cop attacks innocent woman, tasers her for no reason, calls it 'horseplay', then gives her a 'Sorry I Tased You' cake.

Sounds like a joke, right? I did some digging and the headline is technically not accurate. The officer in question never gave the woman a cake, he just texted her this picture:
The problem here is that everything else is true. This cop showed up at this woman's work for no reason, harassed her, stole her drink and then tased her when she tried to get it back.

The lawsuit states that the officer "used his apparent law enforcement authority to intimidate, harass, and threaten [the] plaintiff ... about her personal life. Because Wohlers did not like how [the] Plaintiff failed to respond to his show of authority, Wohlers became increasingly aggressive toward employees at the apartment complex's office, including with Ms. Byron."

Ms. Byron says that the officer then took a Sweet Tea that was sitting on her desk and refused to give it back to her. When she attempted to get her drink back, the officer tased her in the throat and chest and then jumped on top of her when she fell to the ground, placing his knees firmly on her chest and forcefully removing the taser prongs.

Now, if you or I were to walk into someone's office, harass, steal and attack someone with a deadly weapon, we'd be in jail, facing harsh penalties. This cop, however, was never charged and quietly resigned from his department without any legal consequences. His department defended him, calling this a simple case of 'horseplay', as if this was two young children having a friendly tussle in a schoolyard.

Can you imagine the mentality of someone who can conflate horseplay with assault? How about imagining them having the authority to exercise deadly force on civilians? Reducing assault to 'horseplay' demonstrates the way in which accountability is sidelined, not only in this particular case, but across the US. Obviously, there's a serious problem here.

From as far back as 2008, video recordings of strange and eerie sounds have been appearing on the internet. They occasionally garner a mention in the media but are generally ignored or explained away as a 'hoax', the result of "secret government weapons", the "activation of HAARP" or "HAARP-like technologies", the by-product of "top secret construction work on underground bases", or "aliens", etc., etc.

Variously described as groaning, metallic, clashing, clanging and trumpet-like, these (usually loud and pronounced) noises seem to come from the sky but generally reverberate in such a way that listeners are unable to make out from which general direction they come.

These 'strange sky sounds' have been observed all over the globe and first really caught the public's attention in 2011, when a spate of events sparked such widespread interest that significant effort was made to discredit the phenomenon through the dissemination of fake recordings.

Some, certainly, are hoaxes. That's human nature; we mock that which we do not understand. But the sheer proliferation of 'strange sound events' in recent years, the similarities (with minor differences) between them, and the diversity of the locations they've been recorded in (sometimes more than once), speaks to there being a global reality to this phenomenon. In the course of tracking and reporting these events on SOTT, we've noticed that they tend to come in waves; there can be 'silence' for some time, then 4 or 5 'strange sounds' events occur in disparate locations (perhaps within the same region or continent) in the time span of a week or fortnight. And, as best we can tell, this trend seems to be increasing.

Here is our 'best of' strange sounds summary video, comprising some events from around the world in 2016. Please excuse the occasional foul language - muting or otherwise distorting it would have interfered with the strange sounds themselves. Besides, hearing them curse and swear, you get a real sense of the observers' astonishment!

Official history records that the last 100 years of human history were dominated by 2 world wars, fought between the proponents of freedom and democracy and the forces of slavery and fascism; a 'Cold War' waged by the 'West' against Communist China and the Soviet Union; and more recently, a potentially 'unending' war against the forces of 'Islamic fundamentalism', again waged by the 'West'.

That, at least, is the official narrative.

The alleged 'humanitarian' or otherwise benevolent intentions of the 'West' in these campaigns appears to have given rise, at least in the latter part of the 20th century, to an entrenched culture of progressivism in many 'Western' nations that bolstered the cause of 'humanitarian' military interventions in other countries by Western military forces. This 'progressivism' has, however, produced significant social stressors in Western nations, and provoked a backlash from conservative or 'traditionalist' segments of the population that found their voice, finally, in the unexpected election of Donald Trump as US President.

Join your hosts this week as we disassemble the official narrative of modern history and reveal the much more plausible, if unpalatable, truth about the forces behind the scenes that have brought our global society to the sorry state in which it currently finds itself.

Running Time: 01:58:13

Download: OGG, MP3

On this episode of the Health and Wellness show we delve into the murky world of personal care products, a $450-billion industry world-wide. We have been kept in the dark about the ingredients in our personal care products, especially those that present potential health risks. In our cleanliness routines we are exposed to over 84,000 chemicals and only 1% are tested!

Are we seduced by the intoxicating aromas, flashy packaging and enticing promises of everlasting youth these products offer? What are some of the ingredients in personal care products and is there any regulation or monitoring of the long term health effects? How can we navigate an industry that is constantly bombarding us with claims of 'natural' and 'organic ingredients' while simultaneously omitting information about endocrine disruptors, neurotoxins, carcinogens, plasticizers and lead. Join us as we examine the ugly side of beauty products and what we can do to nourish our skin and our bodies using traditional wisdom.

As always Zoya's pet health segment followed by a special recipe for the week!

Running Time: 01:26:34

Download: OGG, MP3

Why do so many people dislike Donald Trump? Do most people dislike Donald Trump?

As of last Friday, Trump is now President of the USA, officially. It hasn't been an easy ride to get there, and things don't look like they'll calm down anytime soon. While every president is hated by some, Trump seems to be hated by many, and with a vehemence that is unprecedented in American politics. Some even go so far as to say it doesn't matter what he does, they will never support him and never change their opinion of him. It's "Never Trump", literally.

What lies behind this strange social phenomenon? And how many people actually dislike Trump? Are we dealing with a majority in this respect, or a well-publicized and vocal minority?

Tune is as we plumb the depths of the New Trumphobia!

Running Time: 01:56:52

Download: OGG, MP3

Anyone who thought that the Western media would cease in its efforts to trash the image of President Trump after inauguration day was sorely mistaken. Trump had not even been sworn in before NY Times' Washington correspondent Binyamin Appelbaum disingenuously tweeted an image of the number of people at the inauguration, before Trump had even arrived, and negatively compared it to an image of Obama's inauguration in 2009.
Note that the 2009 image is a Getty photo, whereas the 2017 image is a screenshot from a live video feed, which you can tell by the graphic across the bottom of the screen. When questioned about the relative timing of the two images, Appelbaum claimed that the 2009 image was taken at 11:30am, thus half an hour before the commencement of inauguration proceedings, and the 2017 image taken at 11:15am.

With the recent inauguration of Donald Trump as 45^th president of the United States, for the first time in history, the great nations of the world have fallen into a common spirit of understanding and outlook which provides the means to extinguish the plague of oligarchism, poverty and war both on the surface of the earth and beyond.

Since the signing of the integration treaty between Russia's Eurasian Economic Union and China's New Silk Road (One Belt One Road) in May 2015, the two greatest forces of Eurasia have created a pro-development dynamic stronger than anything humanity has seen before. So strong in fact, that India and Pakistan have been able to move on board, becoming members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization along with Iran, establishing great megaprojects with China linking their destinies ever more closely to the World Land bridge grand design laid out by the Schiller Institute for over 40 years. A new hope has been felt in Syria and the greater Middle East where, due to Russian intervention and Chinese investment, the neo-con agenda for regime change has largely been thwarted, and even the Philippines and Japan have put their fates increasingly into the Eurasian development dynamic and no longer in the Anglo-American "Pivot to Asia" which called for inevitable war with China.

2017 is here and it promises to be an interesting year in health news. On this episode of the Health and Wellness Show we'll cover just some of the topics that have caught our eyes.

Aerotoxic Syndrome: Ever heard of it? We hadn't either, but apparently this scourge is one of the biggest cover-ups in the airline industry. Speaking of traveling, the CDC is taking stepping up its ability to deal with 'quarantinable communicable diseases'. That illustrious agency is once again proposing a rule to screen, test and quarantine people who maybe be "sick". The CDC introduced this scheme in 2005, but after a wave of critical comments, including from the travel industry, they shelved the rule. Why, all of a sudden, is it back in play?

If having your travel hampered is making you depressed, don't worry. There are new, high-tech health apps to help you cope with life...while tracking your every move and sending your data to concerned professionals.

On a more positive note the vaccine issue maybe getting some more attention in 2017 thanks to Robert F, Kennedy Jr. and his proposed new role as chair on the Vaccine Safety and Scientific Integrity Commission.

Join us for a lively discussion and, as always, stay tuned for Zoya's Pet Health segment where the topic will be ketogenic diets for dogs.

Running Time: 01:05:44

Download: OGG, MP3

As we enter a new and uncertain geopolitical climate with the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, so we also appear to be entering a new and uncertain natural climate.

The relentless global escalation of extreme weather, geological upheaval, and cosmic bombardment continued last month, ending a year the authorities claim was (again) "the warmest ever - and it's humans' fault."

Still no explanation from them as to how 'man-made CO₂' is responsible for - among other new or increased natural phenomena - all the sinkholes opening up and killing people; the meteor fireballs raining out of the sky; redirecting the course of high-altitude jet streams; and increasing the frequency of earthquakes two or three-fold.

But pay no attention to those details - they're probably just signs that we're heading into another ice age.

Highlights in our Earth Changes Summary video for December 2016 include:

• Persistent, heavy fog across the world last month - northern Europe, India, China and the Persian Gulf
• Return of the 'polar vortex' to both North America and Russia, bringing record-breaking snow and cold temperatures
• Snow in the Sahara Desert, Arabian Desert, and Syria
• Thundersnow, snow-nadoes, 'fog walls', 'fog domes', 'spinning ice disks', and other bizarre cold weather-related phenomena!
• Severe flash-flooding (and a tornado) across southern 'sunny' Spain
• Outbreak of forest fires in the Swiss Alps... in winter!?
• At least a half dozen spectacular meteor fireball events in North and South America, Europe, and Central Asia
• A string of powerful earthquakes and volcanic eruptions around the Pacific Ring of Fire
• Widespread flooding in Southeast Asia during its 'dry season'
• Record-breaking rainfall in Australia's desert regions

In this day and age the media itself has become a hot story. Back when reddit and 4chan investigators started digging into the leaked Podesta emails, they found something a little odd. Strange references to pizza, ping pong, and a little place in Northwest DC called Comet Ping Pong. Investigators then started browsing Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis's Instagram profile and found some rather disturbing images along with comments that seemed suggestive of a connection to pedophilia.

Shortly thereafter, the Washington Post broke a huge story with the headline: "Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say" and immediately, anything the establishment didn't want to discuss became fake news. The timing here is worth noting: it was only after PizzaGate was gaining traction on the internet, connecting high-ranking democratic officials to pedophilia with their own words and their own pictures that the media started screaming fake news.

In an ironic twist, mainstream media outlets themselves then became the greatest purveyors of factually inaccurate news (Russia hacked the elections, Russia hacked a Vermont Electric Grid and Russia has blackmail material on Trump for a few examples) and in a stunning reversal, people all over the world began applying the term to outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN - the enshrined media mega-mouths with decades of history bringing news to Americans.

Clearly, they didn't see that coming. The Washington Post then decided it was time to 'retire' the term fake news, because heck, if the weapon you invented is working against you, you should try to get rid of it, and fast! But that hasn't seemed to work either. Once Pandora's box is opened, there's no closing it back up.