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A universe of beauty, mystery and wonder
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Saturday, November 30, 2013

GRAND CANYON FILLED WITH FOG - A ONCE IN A DECADE PHENOMENON

 
Breathtaking images capture river of fog filling the Grand Canyon in weather phenomenon that happens just once every DECADE.

  • Friday morning, the gorges of the Grand Canyon were filled with fog in a rare temperature inversion
  • A temperature inversion happens when hot air high up acts as a seal to keep cold air pollution and fog trapped below

  • While inversions happen once or twice a year at the Grand Canyon, a full inversion is more unusual, happening closer to every 10 years

  • Read more and see pictures here - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516098/Photos-breathtaking-river-fog-Grand-Canyon-ONCE-IN-A-DECADE-weather-phenomenon.html

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    MAGICAL MOMENT BUTTERFLY EMERGES FROM COCOON


  • A Spanish artist recorded the two-tailed pasha butterfly emerging from its pupa after waiting patiently for five hours

  • Jimmy Hoffman took care of the insect at his home in Calonge, Spain after spotting eggs on a strawberry tree

  • The process of breaking free from its clear cocoon to spreading its wings took the butterfly around 30 minutes


  • Read more and see pictures and video - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515490/The-stunning-photographs-capture-magical-moment-delicate-butterfly-emerges-cocoon.html

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    SYRIAN REBELS EATING ZOO ANIMALS INSTEAD OF PEOPLE NOW

    Nobody is safe from the Syrian rebels' menu.
     
    A picture circulating on social media appearing to show Syrian rebels butchering a zoo lion is the latest evidence that residents of the war torn country are starving, according to activists. 
     
    The photograph, which has not been independently verified, shows three men standing around the body of a lion.  One of them is holding the lion's head while another appears to be cutting meat from the animal's hind legs.

    Read more and see picture - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2515514/Starving-Syrians-butcher-zoos-LION-eat-worst-sign-desperate-civilians-food.html


    RELATED

    SYRIAN REBELS ENGAGE IN RITUAL CANNIBALISM

    http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/11/syrian-cannibalism-produces-rare-disease.html

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    MEDICAL MALPRACTICE AND NEGLECT AT VETERAN AFFAIRS FACILITIES

    VETERANS AFFAIRS IS BROKEN
     
    In just the past year, we've learned about at least 21 preventable deaths of military veterans at VA facilities across the nation as well as the spread of infectious diseases at these hospitals and clinics.
     
    In addition, there is evidence of bonuses awarded to executives at troubled VA hospitals and a lengthy ongoing disability claims backlog.
     
    Meanwhile, frustrated lawmakers hold hearings on VA shortcomings, adopt new rules in hopes of turning the VA around, and even create websites highlighting VA's many problems -- to no avail.  

     
    VETERANS AFFAIRS MEET CONGRESSIONAL REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION WITH INDIFFERENCE AND DEFIANCE
     
    “It’s become apparent to me and many others that there is a culture of complacency among the agency’s middle management,” Rep. Jeffrey Miller (R-Fla.), chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC), told International Business Times.

    Relations between the agency and Congress have deteriorated in recent months, with many lawmakers voicing displeasure over VA's unwillingness to release reports and statistics about the agency's performance.

     
    Congress has more than 111 pending requests to VA for answers on such things as questionable spending practices, performance standards for mental health care and the breach of VA’s computer network, some more than a year old, says one high-ranking Congressional staffer who asked for anonymity because he works closely with VA. But these queries have been met largely with indifference and even defiance. 
     

    SUB-STANDARD CONDITIONS AT VA FACILITIES MAKE PATIENTS SICKER

    Beyond the many deadly medical errors at VA facilities, unhealthy sanitary conditions are another scourge. For example, in St. Louis, more than 1,800 patients at the VA hospital may have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis in 2010 as a result of contaminated dental equipment, according to a posting on HVAC’s accountability website. A separate report on the Website claims that for nearly 18 years unsanitary practices at the Dayton VA Medical Center potentially exposed hundreds of patients to hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
     

    DISABILITY CLAIMS UNACCEPTABLE BACKLOG
     
    VA’s disability claims backlog is perhaps even more troubling because it affects hundreds of thousands of veterans. According to VA's Monday Morning Workload Report, the backlog of new and reopened disability claims stands at 711,775. Which is actually good news, because it is down from a peak of nearly 1 million this Spring.

     
    APPEAL CLAIMS ARE WAY UP AND TAKING LONGER TO BE HEARD 
     
    But what has gone unnoticed is that the number of claims that are being appealed because the veteran disagrees with VA’s decision or argues that the VA gave the wrong disability rating is up: According to VA, 266,179 appealed claims are pending, compared to 182,000 in 2010. President Obama and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki have promised to eliminate the disability claims gridlock by 2015.
     
    “Veterans are waiting five years or more,” for appeals claims to be heard, said Joe Moore, a partner at Bergmann & Moore, a law firm managed by former VA litigators that specializes in disability appeals. “No veteran should ever face stacks of medical bills, eviction, or other problems because VA let the veteran’s disability claim appeal gather dust for five years.”
     
     
    MORE LAWS WILL SIMPLY BE IGNORED BY VETERANS AFFAIRS - A "ROGUE AGENCY"
     
    Thomas Bandzul, a legislative attorney for the nonprofit Veterans and Military Families for Progress, views VA as a rogue agency with few constraints and no one inside or outside of VA to compel the department to improve. 
     
    “If a law is passed that calls for changes, it has to be enforced, and there is no enforcement within the VA system,” Bandzul said. “Necessary laws are either not implemented or ignored until the courts force the VA to comply with the law. But even the courts have extremely limited jurisdiction. Simply put, there¹s no policeman on the block to make VA behave.”

    Read more - http://www.ibtimes.com/va-broken-death-medical-mistreatment-claims-backlogs-neglect-veterans-affairs-hospitals-clinics

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    MEDIA INVESTIGATES CASES OF VA MALPRACTICE -
    TAXPAYERS PAY COSTLY SETTLEMENTS

    According to Government databases, last year alone, VA malpractice claims were up almost 30 percent from 72 million in 2011.  Since 2003 the VA has settled or lost more than 4,400 malpractice cases.  The payout and cost to taxpayers is over $844 million.

    Read more - http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/2-investigates-va-malpractice-suits-shorting-calif/nbpyd/

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    TERROR-SPONSOR IRAN AND THE U.S. WILL OPEN JOINT CHAMBER OF COMMERCE



    Iran and the United States are to establish a joint chamber of commerce within a month, with direct flights also planned, an Iranian official said Wednesday in a newspaper report.
     
    “Iran-US chamber of commerce will be launched in less than one month,” Abolfazl Hejazi, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, told the English-language Iran Daily.
     
    In the wake of a historic accord on Sunday between Tehran and major powers on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, Hejazi also said his country was ready to start direct flights to the United States.

    Read more - http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/27/u-s-and-iran-will-open-joint-chamber-of-commerce/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter



    THIRTY YEARS OF TERROR SPONSORED BY IRAN

    US government appeasement of Iran continues as Iran-sponsored Hizbollah continues to sow terror all over the world, threatening the US in particular.

    Thirty years ago today, on Oct. 23, 1983, a delivery van filled with 18,000 pounds of explosives slammed into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. Seconds later, another car bomb hit a French military building four miles away. A total of 241 American and 58 French soldiers lost their lives, all members of the Multi-National Forces in Lebanon.
     
    The attack on the Marine barracks was not only the single-largest nonnuclear explosion since World War II, it was also the deadliest terrorist attack against Americans up to that time.  And the legacy of that moment haunts us to this day.
     
    The attacks, perpetrated by Hezbollah under orders from Iran, announced the arrival of the Lebanese Shiite group as a potent, anti-Western terrorist force supported and directed by Tehran. Today, despite warming relations between the United States and Iran, Hezbollah remains a weapon in Iran’s arsenal, a means to pursue the agenda of the Islamic Revolution in Syria and in terrorist operations around the world.
     
    Despite the current charm offensive of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani — and suggestions by some that the Islamic Republic is moderating its stance — it is highly unlikely that Iran will ever give a thought to reining in Hezbollah.
     
    Founded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Hezbollah has always had an intimate relationship with Iran based on a shared ideological foundation.
     
    Today, Hezbollah is no longer just a proxy of Iran; it is in a “strategic partnership” with Iran, as National Counterterrorism Center director Matthew Olsen put it. Or, in the words of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Hezbollah and Iran are in “a partnership arrangement . . . with the Iranians as the senior partner.”
     
    For the past 30 years, this has proven to be a mutually beneficial relationship. From Iran, Hezbollah gets tens of thousands of rockets, hundreds of millions of dollars a year, training and operational logistical support from Iran. From Hezbollah, Iran gets an extended reach — to the Mediterranean and beyond — and a means of targeting its enemies from afar with reasonable deniability.
     
    Meanwhile, as Hezbollah is conducting operations around the world at Iran’s behest, Iran’s own operatives are engaged in their own covert operations as well. Just last month, an alleged Iranian Qods Force operative was arrested in Tel Aviv with pictures of the U.S. embassy in his possession.

    Read more - http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/30-years-terror-sponsored-iran-article-1.1493410



    IRANIAN-BORN VALERIE JARRETT - SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE US PRESIDENT AND HIS MOST INFLUENTIAL STAFFER - HER RADICAL TIES -
    Read more:

    http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/new-york-times-profile-scrubs-valerie-jarretts-radical-ties/

    http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/22/who-is-valerie-jarrett/

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/362203/obamas-valerie-jarrett-often-whispered-about-never-challenged-john-fund


    RELATED

    The Secret History of Terror Group Hizbollah
    http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/11/the-secret-history-of-terror-group.html


    The US government is holding secret meetings with Hizbollah
    http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/11/us-government-secretly-negotiating-with.html


    The US - Iran Deal Fiasco -
    Iran gets billions of dollars along with the ability to enrich uranium to manufacture nukes - The US and Europe get nothing except the false PR of peacemaking - The many loopholes in the agreement.  Iran accuses the US of lying about the deal's benefits to the West.
    http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/11/the-iran-deal-fiasco-after-getting.html


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    Friday, November 29, 2013

    AGGRESSIVE DOG DUE TO BE PUT DOWN, MELLOWS WHEN HE FALLS IN LOVE WITH A GOOSE


  • Rex the German Shepherd was a rescue dog with a bad temper
  • He refused to be fed by humans and would attack strangers
  • But he's a changed dog after falling in love with Geraldine the goose


  • At first the owners at the Puriton Horse and Animal Rescue centre feared Rex would attack the bird if it strayed into his territory.

    But the first time they got near one another, their reaction was one of affection more than aggression.

    The pair are now allowed to run free together and even sleep Rex's bed every night.

    Staff have been surprised by how close they have become and believe the once angry bird and growling dog bring out the softer side in each.


    'It's so comical to see them because they love each other to bits', said Sheila Brislin, who runs the centre near Bridgwater, Somerset.

    'They were going to give him a lethal injection to put him down because he had bitten everybody at his previous shelter and there was nothing they could do with him.   'They were so scared of him one worker had to distract him at the front of the run while the other threw his food in at the back.' But since Rex met Geraldine he's a changed animal.  'They snuggle down together and Rex puts his leg over her to protect her. In the morning they have breakfast together. It's really sweet to see them.'

     


    Read more of this moving story and see picture of these best friends here:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2515440/Dog-set-saved-fell-love-GOOSE.html

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    CUTE AND FRIENDLY YOUNG SEAL JUMPS ON A BOAT

    WAS THERE A SHARK NEARBY?

  • Georgia Stephenson was touring Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand

  • The trainee publisher said the seal sniffed her hair and touched her face

  • Viewers of a video the couple posted online claim to have spotted a shark

  • Read more, see pictures and video - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2514289/Close-encounter-friendly-seal-Creature-clambers-British-tourists-kayak-New-Zealand.html

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    32 PRIVACY-DESTROYING TECHNOLOGIES TRANSFORMING YOUR LIFE

    By Michael Snyder, Activist Post

    The list of surveillance technology is growing longer every year.

    Sample:

    -  Spying on us through our television.

    -  Face and voice recognition

    -  Pre-crime surveillance cameras

    -  Device that captures your fingerprints 20 feet away.

    -  Molecular scanners that can see your naked body from 164 feet away

    -  RFID microchips,  and iris and palm-scanning in schools

    -   Smart phone eye scanners

    -  Cell towers stingrays - to track you and identify you.

    -  Police extraction devices to remotely obtain cellphone data

    -  Police mobile backscatter vans that X-ray anything they choose (similar to devices used at airports, but on the road).

    And much more

    Read further - http://www.activistpost.com/2013/11/32-privacy-destroying-technologies-that.html


    What is even more shocking is how easily we have all acquiesced to the use of these invasive technologies. 
     
    The public's quiet submission foreshadows an even tighter government control of the population in the future.   

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    Thursday, November 28, 2013

    POST- APOCALYPTIC PICTURES OF DETROIT - WHAT DOOMED THIS CITY? - THE RACIAL POLITICS FACTOR


    By  , The Free Beacon
     
    Racial politics is not the only reason America’s once most prosperous city is now a hollowed out shell sought by Hollywood producers in search of post-apocalyptic scenery.  It is the linkage with public-sector unions.
     
    “In the space of a single generation, Detroit managed to ruin itself,” is how Kevin D. Williamson opens What Doomed Detroit, his incisive look at the forces that led to the Motor City’s downfall.
     
    The book, a volume of Encounter Broadside, is only 34 pages. Yet Williamson does more to explain what happened to Detroit than Charlie LeDuff did in 300 pages. LeDuff’s recent Detroit: An American Autopsy, does little to dissect the reasons behind the city’s fall (short of blaming bad leadership from city hall to Wall Street). LeDuff bewails Detroit like a mourner who cannot see through his tears. It is Williamson who takes up the scalpel and performs the required autopsy.
     
    Detroit is bankrupt and at least $20 billion in debt. Half its streetlights don’t work because thieves have made off with their copper wiring.
     
    More than 120,000 homes stand vacant. Bus drivers are afraid to drive its streets, and its murder rate is 11 times New York City’s.
     
    While the city has an official unemployment rate of 16 percent, its real unemployment rate is closer to 50 percent.
     
    One of the main culprits, Williamson writes, is racial politics: “Detroit is a city in which black identity politics has trumped, and continues to trump, every other consideration, from basic finances to public safety.”
     
    To be sure, Williamson notes that race politics in Detroit started with white racism. Led by Democratic politicians, whites resisted desegregation when the black population exploded, rising from 6,000 in 1910 to 120,000 in 1929.
     
    Williamson ends on a pessimistic note, warning that what doomed Detroit could doom other cities. Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Boston face similar liabilities.
     
    “It is an irony of our history that the political home of black racism in American politics is also the historical political home of white racism: the Democratic Party,” Williamson writes.
     
    By 1970 whites had largely fled, 344,092 of them in the previous decade. A combination of taxes, crime, declining institutions, and civil disorder—specifically, the 1967 race riot during which “2,000 buildings were burned to the ground; 7,200 people were arrested; 1,189 injured; and 43 left dead”—sparked the exodus.
     
    Detroit elected its first black mayor, Coleman Young, in 1974. His stock in trade, writes Williamson, was “blaming whites for the problems of an increasingly whites-free city, charging that, in his words, ‘the money was carried out in the pockets of the businesses and the white people.’”
     
    Since Williamson wrote his Encounter Broadside there has been one surprising development: Detroit has just elected its first white mayor in 40 years. Mike Duggan took 53 percent of the vote in an 83 percent black city. He did so even though his opponent played the hitherto unbeatable race card, and was endorsed by the NAACP.
     
    Remarkably, Duggan won the support of Malik Zulu Shabazz, the leader of Detroit’s New Black Panther Party. “I’m not supporting the best black candidate. I’m supporting the best candidate,” Shabazz said. “Our city is collapsing. Our city is dying. We need legal experience. We need government experience. We need crime fighting experience. And we need business experience.”

    Read more - http://freebeacon.com/death-of-a-city/


    RELATED

    Detroit becomes the largest US city to file for bankruptcy
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2369551/Detroit-largest-city-U-S-history-file-bankruptcy.html

    The summer of 1967, when they burned their own neighborhoods
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2177891/Detroit-Riots-1967-Powerful-TIME-images-aftermath-race-riots.html

    From Motown to ghost town
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2012971/From-Motown-Ghost-town-How-mighty-Detroit-heading-long-slow-road-ruin.html



    PICTURES OF POST-APOCALYPTIC DETROIT
     

    Abandoned and destroyed architectural jewels 
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424919/Philip-Jarmain-How-architectural-jewels-motor-citys-crown-fallen-disrepair-demolished.html

    Haunting pictures of crumbling neighborhoods
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370199/Detroit-Haunting-photos-crumbling-remains-highlight-decline-Motor-City.html

    Derelict Detroit - 25 years of decline
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211498/Detroits-amazing-transformation-captured-camera-loses-ONE-MILLION-residents-60-years.html

    Ghostly pictures of urban decay
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2470148/Ohio-photographer-Brandon-P-Daviss-ghostly-pictures-urban-decay.html

    One hundred crumbling houses
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2193717/Detroit-Housing-Photographs-crumbling-houses-litter-Detroits-dilapidated-neighbourhoods.html

    More crumbling neighborhoods
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269966/Blighted-home-says-Detroit-going-bankrupt-Families-flee-leaving-streets-broken-governor-cuts.html

    Motor City's Breakdown - Detroit people and city  - pictures in black and white
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346291/Motor-City-s-breakdown-Haunting-images-capture-far-Detroit-fallen-boom-years-prosperous-cities-1920s-America-unrecognizable-hub-crime-poverty.html

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    PICTURES OF CHERNOBYL'S NUCLEAR WASTELAND IN WINTER


  • Ryan Field, 26, from East Sussex, took the photos in Pripyat, the city famous for the Chernobyl disaster
  • Accident occurred during systems test on April 26, 1986, releasing large quantities of radioactive particles into air

  • See pictures here - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2514337/Another-winter-arrives-ghostly-Chernobyl-town.html


    RELATED

    Construction of giant arch to bury Chernobyl
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516149/Burying-horrors-Chernobyl.html

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    LIBERAL CNN AND MSNBC LOSE HALF OF VIEWERS IN ONE YEAR


    Data released Tuesday show CNN shedding 48 percent of total viewers since last November and MSNBC dropping 45 percent.
     
    The numbers were even worse in the all important demographic of people aged 25 to 54 as CNN's ratings dropped 59 percent and MSNBC's 52 percent.
     
    In an off-election year, and with last November's numbers skewed higher as a result of the presidential election, it should be expected for ratings to decline.
     
    However, Fox News didn't see close to these losses. In total day, FNC is only down 18 percent since last November and 30 percent in the demo.

    Read more - http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/11/27/cnn-and-msnbc-lose-almost-half-their-viewers-one-year 


    RELATED
     
    MORE LIBERAL MEDIA IN RETREAT
     
     
    2013 - New York Magazine cuts back (latest)
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/business/media/long-on-cutting-edge-of-print-new-york-magazine-cuts-back.html?_r=0

    2013 -Tribune to cut 700 hundreds jobs
    The second-largest US newspaper publisher, the Tribune company, is planning to cut 700 jobs, accounting for about 6% of its total workforce.
    http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/nov/22/us-press-publishing-mediabusiness


    2012 - Washington Post makes drastic cuts to staff
    http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/washington-post-will-further-reduce-staff/?_r=0

    2013 - New York Times facing falling revenues
    http://www.ibtimes.com/new-york-times-falling-revenues-job-cuts-new-digital-age-930971


    2013 - Newspapers still threatened - in depth article, with charts
    http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/newspapers-stabilizing-but-still-threatened/


    Website dedicated to this subject - http://newspaperdeathwatch.com/

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    CONNECTION BETWEEN ALZHEIMER'S AND DIABETES


    Are Alzheimer's and diabetes the same disease?
     
    By Jessica Griggs - New Scientist's Special Report
      
    HAVING type 2 diabetes may mean you are already on the path to Alzheimer's.   This startling claim comes from a study linking the two diseases more intimately than ever before.
     
    There is some good news: the same research also offers a way to reverse memory problems associated with diabetes – albeit in rats – which may hint at a new treatment for Alzheimer's.In 2005, a study by Susanne de la Monte's group at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, identified a reason why people with type 2 diabetes had a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's.
     
    In this kind of dementia, the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory, seemed to be insensitive to insulin. Not only could your liver, muscle and fat cells be "diabetic" but so it seemed, could your brain.
     
    Feeding animals a diet designed to give them type 2 diabetes leaves their brains riddled with insoluble plaques of a protein called beta-amyloid – one of the calling cards of Alzheimer's. We also know that insulin plays a key role in memory.
     
    Taken together, the findings suggest that Alzheimer's might be caused by a type of brain diabetes.
     
    If that is the case, the memory problems that often accompany type 2 diabetes may in fact be early-stage Alzheimer's rather than mere cognitive decline.
     
    Although there is no definitive consensus on the exact causes of Alzheimer's, we do know that brains get clogged with beta-amyloid plaques.
     
    One idea gaining ground is that it is not the plaques themselves that cause the symptoms, but their precursors – small, soluble clumps of beta-amyloid called oligomers. The insoluble plaques could actually be the brain's way of trying to isolate the toxic oligomers.

    Read more - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029453.400-are-alzheimers-and-diabetes-the-same-disease.html?full=true#.Upc7-qEWKM8

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2516438/Could-Alzheimers-Type-2-diabetes-Scientists-claim-extra-insulin-produced-disease-disrupts-brain-chemistry.html

     
    RELATED

     
    NEW HOPE FOR ALZHEIMER'S, DEMENTIA AND BRAIN DAMAGE PATIENTS WITH ISRAELI TREATMENT
    http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/11/new-hope-for-alzheimers-dementia-and.html

     
    USING LASERS TO CURE ALZHEIMER'S
    http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/11/using-lasers-to-cure-alzheimers.html


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    THE SECRET HISTORY OF TERROR GROUP HIZBOLLAH

    Contrary to the myth that Hizbollah was born in 1982 after Israel's invasion of Lebanon, Hizbollah's true origins are much earlier - even earlier than the 1979 Iranian Revolution that deposed the Shah.

    By TONY BADRAN - The Weekly Standard 

    Thirty years ago last month, Hezbollah blew up the barracks of the U.S Marines and French paratroopers stationed at the Beirut airport, killing 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 Frenchmen. It wasn’t Hezbollah’s first terrorist operation, but this attack, the most memorable in Lebanon’s vicious and chaotic 15-year-long civil war, marked the Party of God’s entry onto the world stage. 
     
    One of the men responsible for the attack was an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander named Hossein Dehghan​—​the man Iranian president Hassan Rouhani recently tapped to be his defense minister.
     
    In other words, Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran have been joined at the hip from the very beginning, even before the 1979 Iranian revolution.
     
    The media's false narrative
     
    Of course, that’s not the standard account of Hezbollah, the historical narrative jointly constructed and largely agreed upon by Middle East experts, journalists, some Western and Arab intelligence officials, and even Hezbollah figures themselves.
     
    This account holds that Hezbollah was founded in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in 1982 to fight, or “resist,” the Israeli invasion of that year. On this reading, the belief​—​held by the organization’s many critics, targets, and enemies​—​that Hezbollah is little more than an IRGC battalion on the eastern Mediterranean is simply part of a U.S.-Israeli disinformation campaign meant to smear a national resistance movement fighting for the liberation of Lebanese lands.
     
    Sure, the media says, Hezbollah was founded with some help from Iranian officials, and still receives financial assistance from Tehran, but the organization is strictly a Lebanese affair. It was engendered by Israel’s 1982 invasion and subsequent occupation of Lebanon. The occupation, as one author sympathetic to the group put it, is Hezbollah’s “raison d’être.” 
     
    The Israeli general responsible for the withdrawal from Lebanon tries to justify his actions by supporting that narrative.
     
    Even former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak contends that it was the Israeli occupation that gave birth to Hezbollah. “It was our stay [in Lebanon] that established [Hezbollah],” Israel’s most decorated soldier said in 2010. “Hezbollah got stronger not as a result of our exit from Lebanon but as a result of our stay in Lebanon.” Perhaps Barak was simply keen to defend his decision to withdraw Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000, for his account is simply not true. 
     
    The big bang theory of Hezbollah that puts the Israeli occupation at the alpha point is based not in fact but in legend​—​it’s an Israel-centric myth that makes the Jewish state Hezbollah’s motivation and prime mover. In reality, the story of Hezbollah’s origins is a story about Iran, featuring the anti-shah revolutionaries active in Lebanon in the 1970s, years before Israel’s intervention. Thus, to uncover Hezbollah’s roots, it is necessary to mine the accounts of Iranian cadres operating in Lebanon a decade before Israel invaded. 
     
    Facts contradict the myth
     
    There we find that, contrary to the common wisdom, Hezbollah didn’t arise as a resistance movement to the Israeli occupation. Rather, it was born from the struggle between Iranian revolutionary factions opposed to the shah.
     
    Lebanon was a critical front for this rivalry between Hezbollah’s Iranian progenitors and their domestic adversaries. Accordingly, an accurate understanding of this history gives us not only the true story of Hezbollah’s beginnings, but also an insight into the origins of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
     
    Those early internal conflicts and impulses, played out in Lebanon as well as Iran, also provide a roadmap for reading the nature of the current regime in Tehran, its motivations and concerns, its strategies and gambits as it moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapon and challenging the American order in the Middle East. 
     
    For Iranian revolutionary activists, Lebanon in the early to mid 1970s was valuable ground, not because it bordered Israel, but because it was a free zone in which to pursue their anti-shah activity. Though the Lebanese government maintained relations with Iran, the weakness of the state presented opportunities unavailable elsewhere in the Middle East.
     
    The autonomy of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the most significant military outfit in Lebanon after it was pushed out of Jordan in 1970, and the military training camps it ran in Lebanon afforded the anti-shah opposition​—​often traveling with fake Palestinian identity papers​—​many benefits.
     
    There they could operate and organize freely, acquire military training and weapons, make contacts with other revolutionary organizations, form alliances, and establish networks of support for their fight against the Pahlavi regime. 
     
    Read full article (3 pages ) debunking Hizbollah's myth here
    http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/secret-history-hezbollah_767144.html

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    RELATED

    The Nazi origins of Hizbullah
    Hezbollah's Nazi salute evokes memories of Hitler's support for Arab agitators such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the leaders of a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq. The Nazi legacy also manifests itself in Holocaust denial or revisionism, a Middle Eastern obsession that unites the most extreme Islamists, including Iran's president, with "moderate" secularists such as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
    http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=e3157f0d-21ad-41e9-b26e-a3c06a460e73


    Videos - Inside Nazi Hizbullah
    http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsMKnscQ_IXU64s8yFFu9qL62vWoWXViv


    Photo of Hizbullah making the Nazi salute, commonplace among Middle East nationalist groups
    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=28976


    15 minute video summarizing the historical relationship between top Nazis and Palestinian nationalism - (RECOMMENDED)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7Y7jt_HHcs


    The Nazi origin of the Palestinian movement - (RECOMMENDED)
    Hajj Amin Al Husseini -  the Mufti of Jerusalem - collaborated with Adolf Hitler in the methods and implementation of the Final Solution.   After the war Al Husseini created the PLO/Fatah and trained current Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
    http://www.hirhome.com/israel/nazis_palestinians.htm
     

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    US GOVERNMENT SECRETLY NEGOTIATING WITH HEZBOLLAH TERRORISTS

     
    The Obama administration has entered secret talks with the Hezbollah terrorist group, mediated by Great Britain, according to a report in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai, as relayed by the Jerusalem Post Wednesday.
     
    The State Department lists Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Thirty years ago, Hezbollah bombed a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241. Hezbollah is currently helping to prop up the Assad regime in Syria, in a war that has claimed over 100,000 civilian lives. The organization is also dedicated to Israel's destruction.
     
    According to the report, President Barack Obama opened the "secret indirect talks" to discuss "the fight against al-Qaida, regional stability, and other Lebanese political issues." Hezbollah is supported by Iran and has been involved in terrorism throughout the world. It has also been active in other conflicts, laundering money through the trade in illicit diamonds the fueled the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, for example.

    Source - http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/11/27/Kuwaiti-Newspaper-U-S-Negotiating-with-Hezbollah-Terrorists


    RELATED


    HOW THE WHITE HOUSE IS ARMING AL QAEDA

    Washington Times - President Obama has crossed a moral red line. Recently, he did the unthinkable: He announced that the U.S. government would directly arm terrorist groups in Syria.Mr. Obama said that he would waive a federal law designed to prevent weapons from being sent to designated-terrorist organizations.
     
    In particular, the president cited a provision in the Arms Export Control Act that enables him to provide assistance to outlawed groups, provided it is “essential to the national security interests of the United States.”
     
    Mr. Obama’s actions may be legal, but they are reckless, dangerous and will haunt America for years to come.
     
    The administration’s goal is to provide military assistance to the Syrian opposition rebels, who are determined to overthrow strongman Bashar Assad. 
     
    Syria’s bloody civil war has cost more than 100,000 lives and plunged the Arab nation into a sectarian bloodbath.

    Contrary to media spin, however, the anti-Assad rebels are not “moderates.” They are not seeking to forge an Arab Switzerland — a tolerant, multiethnic democracy.
     
    Rather, the ranks of the insurgents are filled with jihadists, many of whom have ties to al Qaeda. The main faction, the al-Nusra Front, has publicly pledged its loyalty to al Qaeda.
     
    Thousands of foreign fighters from numerous countries — Libya, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — have poured into Syria. Their aim is to create a radical Sunni Islamist state.
     
    Jihadist rebels have committed countless atrocities. Churches and Christian shrines have been destroyed. Priests have been slain. Entire Alawite (minority Shiites) and Christian villages have been burned to the ground. In short, the al Qaeda-linked rebels are engaged in wholesale religious cleansing.

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    THE SECRET HISTORY OF HIZBULLAH
     
    The Weekly Standard - Thirty years ago last month, Hezbollah blew up the barracks of the U.S Marines and French paratroopers stationed at the Beirut airport, killing 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 Frenchmen. It wasn’t Hezbollah’s first terrorist operation, but this attack, the most memorable in Lebanon’s vicious and chaotic 15-year-long civil war, marked the Party of God’s entry onto the world stage. 
     
    The big bang theory of Hezbollah that puts the Israeli occupation at the alpha point is based not in fact but in legend​.  
     
    In reality, the story of Hezbollah’s origins is a story about Iran, featuring the anti-shah revolutionaries active in Lebanon in the 1970s, years before Israel’s intervention.
     
    Thus, to uncover Hezbollah’s roots, it is necessary to mine the accounts of Iranian cadres operating in Lebanon a decade before Israel invaded. 

    Read more - http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/secret-history-hezbollah_767144.html




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    Wednesday, November 27, 2013

    AUSTRALIA - COURTS CAN SUSPEND OR CANCEL DRIVER'S LICENSE FOR NON-TRAFFIC OFFENSES

     
    Courts can suspend or cancel a person's driving license if convicted or found guilty of any offence - regardless of whether that offence has anything to do with driving.
     
    The legislation does not govern or put a limiting factor on which cases it applies to. It's any offence, and it's completely open to the magistrates as to whether or not they impose it, and for as long as they see fit.
     
    Critics point out that such measure can also deprive a person of their livelihood. 
     
    Read more - http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/cops-to-use-licence-to-disqualify-anyone-guilty-of-anything/story-fni0fee2-1226768223410?sv=73e1673ae8a99fd2501d49a104301446#.UpNU0OLLlSc.facebook

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    ST BERNARD DOG LETS STRAY CATS SNUGGLE UP TO HIM EVERY NIGHT

     
    They were originally bred to rescue mountaineers trapped in snow storms.  So it is perhaps no surprise this giant St Bernard also wants to help the needy, albeit of a rather different kind.

    For nine-year-old Yankee has been letting dozens of stray cats cuddle up to him when he goes to sleep every night to shelter them from the cold.
     
    Owner Keegan Vansoelen, 24, said the cats started coming over to the home from a barn about a year ago and have never looked back.
     
    Mr Vansoelen said: 'We discovered the cats sleeping on him one morning about a year ago.  It looks like a big ball of fur.  Many of the cats are the same colour as Yankee's coat, so sometimes they are hard to see on him.'
     
    The friendly pooch has taken to cuddling up to the cats every night to keep them warm in a touching protective gesture.  Mr Vansoelen said: 'It happens quite a bit during the winter, as it can get pretty cold here.  'Even during the summer they lay with him. I think they do it just to be close to another creature.'
     
     
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    HOW FIRE ANTS SURVIVE FLOODS - THEY BUILD RAFTS WITH THEIR LEGS

     
    Mystery of how fire ants survive floods solved: Insects hook their legs together to form LIFE RAFTS that help them float
     
  • U.S. engineers used mathematical modelling and time-lapse photography to unravel how the fire ants self-assemble into their life-preserving raft
  • Tech researchers said the ants grip each other with mandibles, claw and adhesive pads at a force 400 times their body weight to make their raft
  • The result was a viscous and elastic material that is almost like a fluid composed of ant ‘molecules,’ and is self-healing
  • Incredibly, an ant raft can be assembled in less than 100 seconds

  • Read more and see pictures - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2514349/Mystery-ants-survive-floods-solved-Insects-hook-legs-form-LIFE-RAFTS-help-float.html

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    EUTHANASIA FOR DISABLED CHILDREN AND ADULTS WITH DEMENTIA APPROVED BY BELGIUM SENATE COMMITTEE

     
    The Belgian Senate committee voted 13-4 to allow minors to seek euthanasia under certain conditions and the measure also would extend the right to request euthanasia to adults with dementia. The bill still has legislative votes to clear before it becomes law and it now heads to the Senate , where it will be debated in a plenary meeting by all senators.
     
    “Currently the Belgian euthanasia law limits euthanasia to people who are at least 18 years old. This unprecedented bill would extend euthanasia to children with disabilities,” says Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.
     
    “The Belgian Socialist government is adamant that the euthanasia law needs to extend to minors and people with dementia even though there is significant examples of how the current law is being abused and the bracket creep of acceptable reasons for euthanasia continues to grow. The current practice of euthanasia in Belgium appears to have become an easy way to cover-up medical errors.”

    Read more - http://www.lifenews.com/2013/11/27/belgium-senate-panel-approves-measure-allowing-doctors-to-euthanize-children/

    RELATED

    The mass killing of the disabled in Nazi Germany

    http://ww2history.com/key_moments/Holocaust/Hitler_authorizes_killing_of_disabled

    http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/nazi-extermination-of-thousands-of-disabled-children-featured-in-new-berlin

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    Euthanasia in today's Britain 

    The elderly, the terminally ill, including children, are removed from hospitals and taken to the Liverpool Pathway, where they are deprived of food and water until they pass away, quite often with the victim fully conscious.  Relatives are quite often not notified about either the transfer or the process.
     
    Google Britain NHS Liverpool Pathway Daily Mail for many articles describing this practice which still goes on, in spite of having been exposed by the media.  Government has given it one more year before being replaced. 

    Examples of British Liverpool Pathway care

    November 25, 2013 - Man calls for police enquiry after his mother was deprived of food and water for 30 hours until she passed away while under the "care" of doctors and nurses at the Liverpool Pathway.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513136/It-murder-says-son-woman-starved-death-Liverpool-Care-Pathway-calls-police-inquiry.html

    Nurses shouted at relatives for giving patients some water to drink at Liverpool Pathway
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2364029/How-Liverpool-Care-Pathway-used-excuse-appalling-care.html

    Babies and children starved by doctors in Britain.
    http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/doctor-admits-starving-or-dehyrdrating-10-babies-in-uk-neonatal-unit-cancer

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    Tuesday, November 26, 2013

    BABY DOLPHIN JUMPS FOR JOY AFTER BEING FREED FROM PLASTIC BAG

     
    A baby dolphin whose life was in danger after getting trapped up in a plastic bag appeared to thank his rescuers by doing a little dance.
     
    The tiny mammal was filmed by a group of fishermen thrashing about in the waters off the coast of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
     
    As they get closer, they notice the stricken animal is inside a green shopping bag.
     
    They use a net to scoop him up and haul him into the boat then one of the men removes the bag as the agitated calf whips its tail around.
     
    The dolphin is then returned to the ocean near Fort Itapiu.
     
    But to the joy of all those on aboard, the dolphin suddenly flips out of the water and waggles back and forth in the upright position - a gesture interpreted by some as a way of saying thank you.
     
    See pictures and video - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513707/Adorable-baby-dolphin-leaps-joy-boaters-free-plastic-bag.html
     
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    MUSHROOMS MAKE THEIR OWN WEATHER

    Fungi alter nearby air humidity to create 'winds' that spread their spores far and wide.
    • Researchers found that oyster and Shitake mushrooms release water vapour that cools the air around them, creating convection currents
    • This in turn generates miniature winds that lift their spores into the air
    • The scientists believe the same process may be used by all mushroom fungi, including those that cause diseases in plants, animals and humans 
    Plants use a variety of methods to spread seeds, including gravity, forceful ejection, wind, water and animals.
     
    Mushrooms have long been thought of as passive seed spreaders, releasing their spores and then relying on air currents to carry them. 
     
    But new research has shown that mushrooms are able to disperse their spores over a wide area even when there is not a breath of wind - by creating their own 'weather'. 
     
    U.S. scientists used high-speed filming techniques and mathematical modelling to show how oyster and Shitake mushrooms release water vapour to cool the air surrounding them, creating convection currents.  The scientists believe the same process may be used by all mushroom fungi, including those that cause diseases in plants, animals and humans.  This in turn generates winds that lift their spores into the air.

    A mushroom- or toadstool - is technically the fleshy, spore-bearing, fruiting body of a fungus.  Millions of spores, microscopic single-celled 'seeds', may be produced by a single mushroom, and at least a few of these are likely to land somewhere suitable for fungal growth.  More than 80 different types of wild edible mushroom grow in the UK, as well as many poisonous species.  One of the world's deadliest mushrooms, the death cap, is a common sight in British woodland. Although pleasant tasting, just one ounce of the fungus is enough to kill.
     
     
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    RELATED
     
    THE LARGEST ORGANISM ON EARTH IS A FUNGUS

    Next time you purchase white button mushrooms at the grocery store, just remember, they may be cute and bite-size but they have a relative out west that occupies some 2,384 acres (965 hectares) of soil in Oregon's Blue Mountains. Put another way, this humongous fungus would encompass 1,665 football fields, or nearly four square miles (10 square kilometers) of turf.
     
    The discovery of this giant Armillaria ostoyae in 1998 heralded a new record holder for the title of the world's largest known organism, believed by most to be the 110-foot- (33.5-meter-) long, 200-ton blue whale.
     
    Based on its current growth rate, the fungus is estimated to be 2,400 years old but could be as ancient as 8,650 years, which would earn it a place among the oldest living organisms as well.

    Read more - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus

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    WHAT ARE FUNGI?  Neither plant nor animals, nor bacteria, nor protists.  They are a separate kingdom altogether.
     
    A fungus (/ˈfʌŋɡəs/; plural: fungi[3] or funguses[4]) is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds (British English: moulds), as well as the more familiar mushrooms.
     
    These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, protists and bacteria. One major difference is that fungal cells have cell walls that contain chitin, unlike the cell walls of plants and some protists, which contain cellulose, and unlike the cell walls of bacteria.
     
    Mycology has often been regarded as a branch of botany, even though it is a separate kingdom in biological taxonomy. Genetic studies have shown that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants.

    Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungus

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