Thursday, 30 June 2011 10:51 'Researchers are now probing what may turn out to be the most curious small body the solar system has yet presented for scrutiny: a globe the size of the moon that appears to be a well ordered crystalline entity. This body is poised little more than 5,000 kilometers away, yet it is completely invisible. Located at the center of the earth, it is known simply as the inner core. Two seismologists have just shown that this strange crystal sphere is turning slowly within the rocky and liquid metal enclosure that keeps it all but hidden from scientific investigation.' Thursday, 30 June 2011 10:47 he leader of one of the four unions involved in a national strike has said that the government will be "proved wrong" in its predictions that few will walkout in protest at an overhaul of public sector pensions. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union said "hundreds and hundreds of thousands" were expected to take part in Thursday's strikes because the government was "failing to compromise" over pension reforms that he claimed were unfair and politically motivated. Picket lines were mounted outside schools, government buildings, jobcentres and courts today by striking public sector workers in the biggest wave of industrial unrest since the coalition was formed.' Read more: 'Hundreds of Thousands' of Public Sector Workers Strike Thursday, 30 June 2011 10:17 'Although Smart Meters are promoted as energy efficiency components, the actual intent of these meters is to track your use of energy in real time across every 24hr. period, which will allow the provider to bill you for that period at the highest energy rate for the day. They have another purpose: thanks to Smart Meters, every appliance in your home will be monitored. As you will be rationed only so much energy for any 24 hr. period, opening and closing your refridgerator too many times during the daily billing cycle can cause your power to be disrupted. Your use of lights, appliances and even your time on the Net will be charged against your daily allowance of power.' Read more: Smart Meters: We Can Monitor Everything You Do in Your Home Thursday, 30 June 2011 10:01 A couple living an "off-grid" lifestyle say they face prison unless they move from their own land in Willand and return to an existence in the benefits trap. Stig and Dinah Mason bought Muxbeare Orchard after a sudden windfall allowed them to quit their impoverished lives on a Hertfordshire council estate two years ago. The couple, who have two boys, aged eight and nine, say because they moved onto the site in order to work the land, Mid Devon District Council is turfing them off as officers do not consider them to be conserving an agricultural area. They faced magistrates on March 31 when they were served with an injunction to leave within 28 days from June 1.' Read more: UK Couple Living Off-Grid Facing Prison Unless They Move Back Thursday, 30 June 2011 09:49 '“We’re being blackmailed again (to vote for new austerity measures)…The government doesn’t know what’s going on, it just doesn’t understand.” As mutters from the socialist benches grew louder, Ms Papariga raised her voice: “Greece is bankrupt.. The government calls it a crisis but that’s the fact. We’re bankrupt. The process hasn’t yet been completed but it’s on the way… it may be disorderly or not, but it doesn’t depend on this vote. It’s going to happen".' Read more: Bankers Laugh As Athens Burns. Wall Street Licks Their Chops As Protestors Are Beaten. Thursday, 30 June 2011 09:33 'A Committee of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) passed a first draft of a law that will require that Palestinians whose homes are destroyed by Israeli forces pay the Israeli government for the demolition costs. The law will now be passed to the full Knesset for a final reading, where it is expected to pass due to the current makeup of the Knesset.' Read more: Israel Passes Draft Law Requiring Palestinians to Pay for Their Own Home Demolitions Thursday, 30 June 2011 09:30 Thursday, 30 June 2011 09:17 'Time has come for John McCain to make some public disclosures. Yes, we all remember his admissions of wrong doing during the Keating 5 incident and the drug theft problems his wife had. These aren’t the questions we are asking. We want to go back to where that reputation for heroism was made and to find out if, not all but any of it is actually true. Many of us don’t feel that the apple fell far from the tree. Dad, Admiral McCain, was responsible for the cover up of the USS Liberty scandal and had a reputation as an arrogant blowhard and totally incompetent military leader. However, it is his son we are dealing with now. Ted Sampley, heroic Vietnam combat vet, who kept watch on McCain is no longer with us. Sampley is the one who tracked down Medal of Honor winner Colonel Bud Day’s “inconsistencies.” Day, who ran interference on stage for McCain for years, wearing the only Medal of Honor given with no witness statements of any kind in support, spurred our curiosity.' Thursday, 30 June 2011 08:33 'Israel has never had a government that so blatantly violates the core values of liberal democracy. Never has a Knesset passed laws that are as manifestly racist as the current one. Israel has had foreign ministers who were unworldly and didn't know English; but it has never had a foreign minister whose only goal is to pander to his right-wing constituency by flaunting his disdain for international law and the idea of human rights with such relish. Moreover, there has never been a government so totally oblivious of its relation to world Jewry. It passes laws that increase the Orthodox establishment's stranglehold on religious affairs and personal life - completely disregarding that 85 percent of world Jewry are not Orthodox - and simply dismissing their Jewish identities and their institutions. As a result, this majority of world Jewry feels Israel couldn't care less about its values and identity.' Thursday, 30 June 2011 08:27 'Nuclear reactors have never before been destroyed or triggered into a mega crisis by floods. Now we have several incidents under way in Japan, with a threat to two more in Nebraska right on their heels. (We'll get to the fire.) Easier to swallow now, isn't it? That's how you do it--set a spectacular precedent, then run with it. BTW, you say the tsunami was an exception? Why was their back up generator put in the basement? Why are there so many questions surrounding faulty construction, strange equipment malfunctions and explosions at the reactors? Yet the world believes it was "all natural"...despite the strangeness, nonsequiturs and news blackout.' Read more: The New Era of 'All Natural' False Flag Disasters Thursday, 30 June 2011 08:19 Thursday, 30 June 2011 08:06 'A man from Chesterfield was ordered to remove a naughty number plate by the DVLA, even though he bought it from their website. Alan Clarke, 49, paid £399 for the plate 'BO11 LUX' and fitted it to his new Range Rover. His friends and family found the cheeky plate hilarious but the laughter was short-lived when, six weeks later, Clarke received a letter from the DVLA ordering him to remove it. The organisation said the plate was "causing offence" and threatened Clarke with a fine of up to £1,000.' Thursday, 30 June 2011 07:56 'The revolution is in the mind.’ Those words were scrawled in wobbly spray-paint on Nelson’s Column on March 26, at the end of a day that saw half a million union members and outraged citizens march against government spending cuts in central London. The plan, cooked up by students and activist groups and advertised benignly on Facebook, was to have a picnic party and ‘Turn Trafalgar Square into Tahrir Square,’ as if some sympathetic magic could summon the regime-toppling energy of the Egyptian uprising to these soggy shores. What it turned into instead was a bloody mess. Thursday, 30 June 2011 07:49 'Eurocrats are about to demand an ‘outrageous’ budget increase of up to 12 per cent – three times the rate of inflation. This means Britain’s contribution to running the EU – already £15.3billion a year – will rise by another £2billion. The budget, being finalised by the European Commission, is a clear rebuff to David Cameron’s calls for belt-tightening in Brussels. It will leave every family here handing over a total of nearly £700 a year to Europe just as they face an income squeeze.' Read more: Brussels Demands an Extra £2 Billion a Year From UK in 'Outrageous' 12% Rise Thursday, 30 June 2011 07:30 'Killings such as these are far from unusual in Honduras, which has been described by leading human rights organizations as a country besieged by state-sponsored violence and repression. Further, many critics have pointed fingers at flawed US policies for exacerbating the deteriorating situation in a Central American nation long plagued by poverty and foreign resource extraction. The three campesinos have backgrounds similar to many other victims, as not only farmers, but also teachers, journalists and activists in the opposition movement have been frequent targets of abuse. Politically motivated state-sponsored assassinations, however, are only one of many types of human rights violations occurring since the Honduran military executed a coup d'état in June 2009. Plaguing Honduras since that time has been a litany of abuses: excessive use of police and military force, individuals' disappearances with governmental culpability, death threats at gunpoint against judges and sexual violence, especially against the LGBT community.' Thursday, 30 June 2011 07:26 'The United States Military is spending $20.2 billion a year for air-conditioning the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read that again please: $20.2 billion every year just to provide air-conditioning for our troops in these two desert countries. How much is $20.2 billion? Well, I live in Pennsylvania, where the eighth-largest school district in the country, here in Philadelphia, is about to lose 1300 of its 11,000 teachers--that’s 12% of the teaching staff in an already overcrowded school system--because the state’s Republican governor and legislature want to cut some $500 million in education funding from the state’s $27-billion budget. That military air-conditioning bill could not only restore those teachers by closing the $400 million budget deficit facing the Philadelphia School District. It could almost fund the entire budget of the state! In fact, it could probably fund the school budget deficit in almost all the school districts in the nation.' Thursday, 30 June 2011 07:12 Thursday, 30 June 2011 07:07 'The US Senate has passed a resolution, calling on President Barack Obama to veto a UN vote on unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Resolution 185 also asked Obama to “lead a diplomatic effort to oppose a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state and to oppose recognition of a Palestinian state by other nations.” Acting Palestinian Authority (PA) Chief Mahmoud Abbas is set to file a formal request with the UN to recognize an independent Palestinian state in September. The resolution also threatened to cut aid to the PA if its leaders "persist in efforts to circumvent direct negotiations by turning to the United Nations or other international bodies,” Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported on Wednesday.' Read more: US Senate: Veto Palestinian UN Bid Thursday, 30 June 2011 07:01 'The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged US lawmakers to swiftly increase the country's debt limit to avoid a severe shock to a still fragile economy. In its annual review of the US economy, the IMF on Wednesday stated that the country's growing national debt is unsustainable, Reuters reported. It further urged the US to increase its existing USD 14.3 trillion borrowing limit by August 2 in order to avoid a default on its loans.' Thursday, 30 June 2011 06:49 The blaze started "inside or in front of" a post office on the ground floor of the ministerial building, the Athens fire brigade told AFP on Wednesday, adding that the violence prevented firefighters from reaching and extinguishing the fire. Thursday, 30 June 2011 06:45 The resolution allows the mission to go on for one year but bans the deployment of US troops on the ground. It also puts the removal of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi on top of US foreign policy objectives. Thursday, 30 June 2011 06:42 Greece's newly-approved austerity plan is worth some EUR 28 billion and includes a privatization program aimed at raising EUR 50 billion and further budget cuts as well as tax increases so that the government may receive further international financial assistance.' Thursday, 30 June 2011 06:36 'British Defense Secretary Liam Fox is saying that military officials should only deliver the “message” that Britain wins in Libya even if they go against the facts on the ground. Senior members of the military have warned that the Libyan air strikes are straining the armed forces resources and the military should rethink its priorities if the campaign goes beyond September. RAF's second in command Air Chief Marshal Sir Simon Bryant warned last week that the force is under “huge” pressure in terms of personnel and equipment and the Libyan operation would “erode” the “future contingent capability” of the military if it goes past summer.' Wednesday, 29 June 2011 10:23 'Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has told his fellow countrymen it is their patriotic duty to accept the austerity plan cooked up by the IMF and the EU. If not accepted, Greece will not get the fifth installment of an international bailout, he warned. “I’m not asking you to listen to outside pressures, I ask that you listen to your soul and your internal patriotic conscience,” Papandreou said. Greek opposition parties have rejected demands by EU leaders for national unity on the prospect of unemployment, a lower standard of living, and a massive giveaway of national resources.' Wednesday, 29 June 2011 10:07 'Iceland is free. And it will remain so, so long as her people wish to remain autonomous of the foreign domination of her would-be masters — in this case, international bankers. On April 9, the fiercely independent people of island-nation defeated a referendum that would have bailed out the UK and the Netherlands who had covered the deposits of British and Dutch investors who had lost funds in Icesave bank in 2008. At the time of the bank’s failure, Iceland refused to cover the losses. But the UK and Netherlands nonetheless have demanded that Iceland repay them for the “loan” as a condition for admission into the European Union. In response, the Icelandic people have told Europe to go pound sand.' Read more: Iceland Declares Independence from International Banks Wednesday, 29 June 2011 09:48 'In private, everyone accepts that a Greek default is coming. So why do European leaders publicly pretend otherwise? What purpose is served by stringing out the problem? After all, with every hour that passes, Greek debts pile up, making the eventual reckoning heavier. The answer can be found in two sets of statistics. A new study by Open Europe breaks down the liabilities between the public and private sectors. Foreign financial institutions currently own 42 per cent of Greek debts, and foreign governments 26 per cent, the rest being owed domestically. By 2014, those figures will be 12 per cent and 64 per cent respectively. European banks, in other words, will have shuffled off their losses onto European taxpayers. Of course, the outstanding debt will have have risen substantially in the mean time: from €330 billion to €390 billion. Then again, as Eurocrats remind us every day, it’s remarkably easy to be generous with someone else’s money.' Wednesday, 29 June 2011 09:39 'An MEP has demanded an inquiry into claims two Merseyside hospitals passed on confidential patient medical records to ambulance chasing lawyers. Paul Nuttall, UKIP MEP for the North West, said he had heard complaints from constituents bombarded with messages from personal injury law firms after hospital treatment. The claims have emerged as insurance company AXA UK announced it would no longer accept referral fees from law firms and called for reform to whiplash damages.' Wednesday, 29 June 2011 09:25 '"What Puerto Rico Trench?" Exactly. The arrows in the map above show the direction the underlying Caribbean tectonic plates are moving, with the resultant build-up of pressure releasing into a myrid of earthquakes in the region over the years. Puerto Rico is the smaller green island in the middle, with the Dominican Republic the larger island to the left. The string of other Caribbean islands is buried under the earthquake markers that flow down the page to the lower right. You can see the Puerto Rico Trench wraps around the entire zone.' Wednesday, 29 June 2011 08:59 'Western science has had remarkable success in explaining the functioning of the material world, but when it comes to the inner world of the mind, it has very little to say. And when it comes to consciousness itself, science falls curiously silent. There is nothing in physics, chemistry, biology, or any other science that can account for our having an interior world. In a strange way, scientists would be much happier if minds did not exist. Yet without minds there would be no science. Read more: Does Our Brain Really Create Consciousness?
And a few people can't control the world? It's a doddle.
As dusk fell, 200 police in full riot armor descended on the picnic without warning, cracking heads, breaking limbs and penning hundreds of young protesters in the biting cold for hours, with no water, no shelter and no way out. This is a form of collective punishment known colloquially as “kettling.” Its use at the London G-20 protests in 2009 was recently ruled illegal in a landmark decision by the high court.'
Fighting has intensified in recent hours as the parliament's approval paved the way for further budget cuts as well as tax increases as the newly-approved austerity plan aims to save Greece some EUR 28 billion.'
"When Muammar Gaddafi is bunkered down in Tripoli, when yesterday the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him on charges of crimes against humanity, at a moment where our armed forces are supporting a NATO mission aimed at preventing more such atrocities, do we want to stop the operation?" AP quoted the committee's chairman, Sen. John Kerry asking his colleagues.'
This ever-present paradox may be pushing Western science into what Thomas Kuhn called a paradigm shift–a fundamental change in worldview.'
Thursday, 30 June 2011
'Greek protesters have set fire to the finance ministry building after the Parliament voted in favor of new austerity measures.
'The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed a resolution that authorizes continued American participation in the NATO-led war in Libya.
'The Greek parliament has voted in favor of new austerity measures, in a move that is expected to infuriate thousands of demonstrators outside the parliament. The austerity measures were approved on Wednesday with 155 votes in favor, 138 against and seven abstentions.
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