Geoengineering to reduce climate change could adversely affect rainfall, scientists report

© Natural News

Geoengineering to reduce climate change could adversely affect rainfall, scientists report
Nov 12, 2013 | Natural News | L. J. Devon

Some scientists are globalist thinkers, and they believe that their knowledge puts them in charge of the entire world, including the planet's temperature and the amount of gases that should be in the atmosphere. They think, at any given moment, that they have the right to spray the skies with bouts of sulfate aerosols to reflect sunlight back into outer space.

In an attempt to reduce greenhouse gases, and reflect the sun's light, these globalists utilize geoengineering to control the skies. Geoengineering, or the worldwide manipulation of atmospheric gases, sunlight, rainfall and temperature, has been introduced and implemented as a means to control climate and weather. These "heroic" efforts to save the planet from rising temperatures are far from intelligent. Studies now reveal that many unintended consequences come from geoengineering, including mini-droughts, reduced monsoonal rainfall across several continents and depleted ozone levels.

Important findings from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), show how geoengineering efforts negatively affect rainfall around the world.

Geoengineering drastically reducing rainfall around the world 

The NCAR findings show that global warming is indeed causing a massive increase in greenhouse gases and that these atmospheric conditions are spurring 7 percent average increases in precipitation when compared to preindustrial conditions. The increased precipitation has a lot to do with greater evaporation, as more moisture is pumped into the atmosphere as a result of more heat being trapped near the surface.

But what the researchers found out was that geoengineering doesn't help climate change, but instead worsens climate change in other ways. In trying to resolve the problem through "geoengineering," researchers from the NCAR found that monsoonal rains in North America, East Asia and other regions drop by 5-7 percent when compared to preindustrial conditions. This is leading to an average global precipitation reduction of about 4.5 percent!

Simone Tilmes, lead author of the study, reports, "Geoengineering the planet doesn't cure the problem. Even if one of these techniques could keep global temperatures approximately balanced, precipitation would not return to preindustrial conditions."

Using 12 of the world's leading climate models to simulate global precipitation patterns, Simone's team focused on specific geoengineering efforts currently used in the skies, involving the large scale injection of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to control carbon dioxide levels. Many people now recognize this tactic as "chemtrails in the sky."

Co-author John Fasullo says, "It's very much a pick-your-poison type of problem. If you don't like warming, you can reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface and cool the climate. But if you do that, large reductions in rainfall are unavoidable. There's no win-win option here."

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, civilization has increased its productivity and also increased global emissions. With the average global surface temperature increasing .8 degrees Celsius, scientists have grown concerned over the issue of global warming. Carbon dioxide emissions have increased from 280 ppm to 380 ppm, but this reality does not give globalist thinkers the power to inject the skies with experimental aerosols that can make the environment and people sicker.

How geoengineering makes the atmosphere drier 

Aerosols in the atmosphere reflect sunlight away from Earth. This can be seen naturally during the powerful volcanic eruptions of Mount Pinatubo and El Chicon. For several years after the eruptions, regional surface temperatures were reduced. Scientists look to volcanic models to simulate temperature reductions though means of injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere.

The unintended consequences of this man-made atmospheric manipulation include ozone depletion, acid rain stimulation and drastically reduced rainfall levels that lead to mini-droughts.

Geoengineering makes the atmosphere drier by shading the earth and lessening the amount of water vapor that is pumped into the atmosphere through evaporation. As less solar heat reaches the surface, the power of evaporation is reduced and the rain cycle is obstructed.

The land can also become drier when plants begin reacting to changes by partially closing their stomata. When this happens, more carbon dioxide is allowed in, and less oxygen and water is let out, lowering the amount of water to be evaporated.

Tilmes says, "More research could show both the positive and negative consequences for society of such changes in the environment. What we do know is that our climate system is very complex, that human activity is making Earth warmer, and that any technological fix we might try to shade the planet could have unforeseen consequences."

Sources for this article include:

http://www2.ucar.edu

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com

http://ocw.mit.edu

http://www.globalresearch.ca

http://science.naturalnews.com

http://science.naturalnews.com

Time to Jail the Banksters...

© The Big Picture RT

Time to Jail the Banksters...
Oct 30, 2013 | The Big Picture RT

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine, joins Thom Hartmann. It didn't take Wall Street's allies in the financial media long to start whining about JPMorgan's $13 billion settlement with the federal government.

But is that record fine really as bad as the people on CNBC say it is?

Thousands of Genetically Modified Insects Set For Release

© Natural Society

Thousands of Genetically Modified Insects Set For Release
Sept 6, 2013 | Natural Society | Anthony Gucciardi

Just when you thought genetically modified mosquitoes and mutated dinner entrees were the extent of biotech’s hunger to manipulate the genetic coding of the planet, scientists have now unleashed a plan to launch thousands of ‘frankenfly’ style insects into the wild in order to combat pests.

And just like we saw with the release of genetically modified mosquitoes, the altered insects are actually being pushed as a ‘green alternative’ to the use of chemicals. You see, British scientists claim that mutating the genetic code of the insects is actually a way of substituting for the use of chemical pesticides. Chemical pesticides used to lower the population of olive flies in Britain. The reality here, however, is that you are taking something damaging like chemical pesticides and replacing it with something far worse.

It’s like trading in your aging car for a bicycle, except in this case the bicycle also happens to include side effects like ‘may alter the genetic structure of the entire insect population’.

According to the Daily Mail, which dubs these insects as ‘frankenflies’ (and rightfully so), the frankenflies are meant to kill the offspring of the olive flies when the genetically modified flies mate with wild olive flies:

“The trial would involve releasing genetically modified male olive flies which would mate with the wild females with the result that all the female offspring would die at the larvae or maggot stage.”

In other words, they are actually trying to mutate the genetic code to sterilize and eliminate the population of flies. So what does this mean for animals that eat these flies as a part of their routine diet? Or how about the humans that then eat these animals, or maybe even somehow eat the flies themselves? The Daily Mail goes on to state:

“However critics fear the development could put human health at risk if people eat the flies or their larvae if they reach food products.”

It looks like this legitimate fear doesn’t seem to stop (or even affect) scientists who insist on unleashing the genetically modified frankenflies into the environment at large. Perhaps their suggestion is to not eat any animal that may have consumed the fly, any plant that may have came in contact with the fly, and to stay indoors to avoid any physical contact with anything the fly touched?

Let’s stop the mad scientist ideology of bloated biotech corporations and instead return to an age of reality and reason.

About the Author

Google Plus Profile Anthony is the Editor of NaturalSociety, producer, consultant, and seeker of truth. Anthony's work has been read by millions worldwide and is routinely featured on major alternative and mainstream news website alike, like the powerful Drudge Report, NaturalNews, Infowars, and many others. Anthony has appeared, oftentimes routinely, on programs like Russia Today (RT), The Alex Jones Show, Coast to Coast AM, and others. Anthony is also a founding member of Natural Attitude and the creator of the independent political website Storyleak

Definitive Proof the Media is Scripted

Activist Post: Definitive Proof the Media is Scripted
Aug 31, 2013 | Youtube

Rapidly Growing Wildfire Spawns Fire Tornadoes In Utah

Rapidly Growing Wildfire Spawns Fire Tornadoes In Utah
Aug 15, 2013 | HawkkeyDavis ChannelNews

A rare extreme wildfire in Utah has destroyed homes and spawned fire tornadoes in the area. About 250 families have been evacuated and firefighters can do nothing but wait for the fire whirls to burn out.


Air Date August 14th, 2013
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/wildf...

Check out my series "Signs Of Change The Past Week Or SO" for more on earth changes each week on my main channel.
http://www.youtube.com/user/HawkkeyDa...

Keep up on events just like me on Facebook
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FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law

The Real Gloom and Doom: A Pill for Lazy Americans

The Resident: A pill for lazy Americans
July 23, 2013 | RTAmerica

Editor's note: Lisa has hit the nail on the head. Everyone talks about gloom and doom as a form of labeling anyone who doesn't absorb the idiosyncrasy of living the gloomy life of eating synthetic chemicals, and the actual doom that results. Isn't that what this process describes? As we currently understand no one has ever been healed and these are all unnatural processes which feed the brave new world of corporatism. 


RT- Researchers are fervently at work, creating more and more pills to fix a wide variety of issues. Researchers in Florida are working on a pill that could supposedly replace exercise; there is a pill to take so you won't have to remember passwords in the works; there are pills that can be taken instead of using sun screen and bug spray. We are obsessed with taking pills. The Resident (aka Lori Harfenist) discusses.

Follow The Resident at http://www.twitter.com/TheResident

Electric Disconnection

The Sun’s changing electromagnetic
field. Credit: NASA/SDO.

Electric Disconnection
July 1, 2013 | Thunderbolts.info | Stephen Smith

Problems with various theories could be resolved if mistaken identity were considered.

It has been demonstrated over the centuries that the worst possible witnesses in court are often those who were present at the scene of the crime. There are documented cases of people being held for crimes they did not commit because one or more eyewitnesses swore to their guilt under oath. It becomes known only later when overwhelming evidence, such as DNA, proves that the alleged perpetrator could not have done what was claimed.

Often, the problem with mistaken identity is one of prejudice. Suspects are categorized by their racial profiles, their affiliations with radical groups, previous behavior, or association with those who are known lawbreakers. Lacking a confession from some other individual, law enforcement personnel are sometimes unable to prevent themselves from focussing on guilt by association, or circumstantial evidence. Assistant District Attorneys do not last long without convictions.

Similarly, professors at prestigious universities are compelled to follow “party lines” and to be prolific in their output of published articles. In order for funding to continue, the physics department must conduct experiments and turn out a steady stream of Ph.Ds for the scientific establishment in the military and the commercial sectors. Their experiments are usually expensive and take months to set up, so the funders expect results that will profit them in some way. LIGO and the Large Hadron Collider are two of the most notorious in a long list of experiments that are searching for phantoms.

When research groups are faced with a lack of evidence for their theories (the “confession”), they too resort to circumstantial investigations. One such case is “magnetic reconnection”—one of the worst examples in modern physics of ad hoc theorizing.

The most significant obstacle to nuclear confinement fusion is supposed to be magnetic reconnection events in the reactor, creating instabilities that cause the reaction to stop. Since no one has the slightest idea how or why this hypothetical process works—how magnetic lines of force separate and recombine—no one can suggest a way to prevent it. It is a further hinderance to a fruitless 60 year attempt at manufacturing thermonuclear fusion power systems.

This is not the first time that magnetic reconnection has been used as an excuse when observational data is missing. Today, it is a common “explanation” for Earth’s aurorae. As the consensus view states, the magnetosphere surrounding Earth stretches and deforms like a teardrop because it is being bombarded by a powerful stream of charged particles from the Sun. As the field is pushed on the sunward side, it is stretched out on the other side of our planet, where the field lines are said to “unravel” and “flap like a flag waving in the wind.”

According to the theory, when those magnetic field lines cross and “reconnect” through some unknown mechanism, they are supposed to detonate, releasing large quantities of heat, light and electrical energy. That power flows down the field lines into Earth’s poles, where it causes the air molecules to glow with brilliant auroral colors. The potential energy that ignites the aurorae is said to be “stored” in the magnetic field lines.

Magnetic field lines cannot be the storehouse for magnetic energy because the field lines are no more real than the arrows that are used to describe an electric field, or the curved lines that trace out a sine wave. Those are character symbols, just as magnetic field lines are symbols that describe a magnetic field’s schematic. A magnetic field acts as a continuum—it is not quantized into discrete bands. To say that magnetic field lines can cross, or flap, or break and reconnect is tantamount to saying that weather diagrams can produce rain.

Kristian Birkeland is not only spinning in his grave, he is doing cartwheels.

Strong magnetic disturbances are detected when bright aurorae are seen. It was in 1903 that Kristian Birkeland’s observations led him to propose electrically powered aurorae. Since electric current moves through a closed circuit, and since the currents and the glow seemed to be caused by processes in distant space, he theorized that the circuit’s beginning came down from space at one end of the auroral arc and looped back out to space on the other end.

In 1973, the U.S. Navy satellite Triad flew through this electrically charged layer. The onboard magnetometer found two electric currents in gigantic sheets, each carrying a million amperes or more, one descending on the auroral zone’s morning side and one ascending on the evening side. Since Birkeland’s research had predicted the currents that link Earth with space they were called Birkeland currents.

It is a case of mistaken identity for scientists to create a theoretical entity called “magnetic reconnection”, when the forces and effects can be easily associated with solid evidentiary conclusions. Rather than electromagnetism acting in ways that are beyond the prevailing theories, why not use the evidence gathered by Birkeland more than a century ago as the explanation? It is the unfortunate character of modern research institutions that they cling to what has been pontificated from above and follow the well-worn path. That tendency goes so far as to ignore information, carefully documented by a dedicated scientist, in favor of fantastical speculations about what has never been seen.

Stephen Smith

Raping Mother Nature: The Scary Side of Synbio Glowing Plants

The Scary Side of Synbio Glowing Plants
June 12, 2013 | Mother Jones | Tom Philpott

If you're like me, the concept of synthetic biology—the application of engineering techniques to the building blocks of life—is pretty hard to get your head around. I get synthesizing, say, material to make clothes out of. But synthesizing new life forms? Apparently, while I stand slack-jawed, the novel technology is quickly going mainstream. Here's the New York Times:

Hoping to give new meaning to the term "natural light," a small group of biotechnology hobbyists and entrepreneurs has started a project to develop plants that glow, potentially leading the way for trees that can replace electric street lamps and potted flowers luminous enough to read by.

What could be more innocuous than plants that generate useful light? And moreover, the "glowing plants" project isn't the work of a big, bad multinational like Monsanto or a corporate-funded academic lab, the Times notes, but rather a "small group of hobbyist scientists in one of the growing number of communal laboratories springing up around the nation as biotechnology becomes cheap enough to give rise to a do-it-yourself movement."

And they're not financing the project by tapping Wall Street or big banks, but rather the democratic cash-raising method of our age par excellence, the Kickstarter campaign. The project launched April 23 with a goal to raise $65,000; it has already exceeded $480,000 in pledges, aided by glowing—so to speak—reports in Tech Crunch, Fast Company, and Forbes, as well as the promise that anyone who commits at least $40 will "receive seeds to grow a glowing plant at home."

What could possibly go wrong? Well, I don't know much about the science of creating living lamps. But I do think it's important to think out the broader implications of synbio—as the novel technology is known—and ask questions about how its release from the lab into the world is regulated. Which is evidently pretty lightly—this consortium is casually promising to distribute glowing seeds to hundreds of people.

I can't think of a better source for examining the promise and perils of synbio than this much-cited 2007 essay by the eminent physicist—and climate change skeptic—Freeman Dyson. In it, he laid out a rosy vision for what he called the "domestication of biotechnology." Here's Dyson:

There will be do-it-yourself kits for gardeners who will use genetic engineering to breed new varieties of roses and orchids. Also kits for lovers of pigeons and parrots and lizards and snakes to breed new varieties of pets. Breeders of dogs and cats will have their kits too. Domesticated biotechnology, once it gets into the hands of housewives and children, will give us an explosion of diversity of new living creatures, rather than the monoculture crops that the big corporations prefer.

 And what about the obvious dangers—what if these God-like "housewives and children" (ugh) turned away from conjuring cuddly creatures and start creating ones designed to bare their fangs, monsters instead of pets? You don't even need to presume malicious intent to find reason for concern: What if some novel beast designed for cuteness escapes, goes rogue, and turns out to have unintended malign powers? Then there are the obvious questions: What if these new life forms behave in ways we can't predict—or mutate in ways we can't predict—altering food chains or larger biosystems? Dyson acknowledged the "real and serious dangers" of synbio, and allowed that "rules and regulations will be needed to make sure that our kids do not endanger themselves and others." But he waved off that task—not his problem. "I leave it to our children and grandchildren to supply the answers," he cheerfully declared.

But regulating novel technologies has proven difficult here in the United States. Genetically modified seeds burst onto US farm fields in the mid-'90s with a notoriously lax regulatory process, as I showed in this post. Still, the process is time-consuming, and it has been known to occasionally at least delay particularly problematic crop varieties, like new ones genetically rigged to withstand not one but two herbicides. Next came nanotechnology, which takes advantage of the fact that common substances like silver behave differently when they're really, really small. Nanotech is now ubiquitous, showing up everywhere from underwear to toothpaste. But as the Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Andrew Schneider showed in an eye-opening 2010 series, the small stuff poses significant risks, has received little independent testing, and is barely regulated.

The excellent watchdog org ETC Group, which seeks to place novel technologies under democratic oversight, has launched a rival "Kickstopper" campaign to halt such projects until a proper regulatory regime can be put into place.

In the spirit of Professor Dyson, let me offer a prediction for the future. I imagine that synbio's current reputation as a democratic technology dominated by well-meaning amateurs will last just long enough to convince people that it requires little or no regulation. While this laissez-faire regime congeals into a settled fact, big agrichemical, pharmaceutical, and life-sciences firms will quietly take it over, eventually dominating the research and deployment of Dyson's wondrous toys. Monsanto has already bought its way into the space—in January, it bought an R&D lab from and entered a research collaboration with Synthetic Genomics, a company that uses synthetic microbes to "improve crop productivity."

Unless we have a serious national reckoning on synbio, what we risk leaving our children and grandchildren is the knotty problem of trying to convince an entrenched, little-regulated industry that the power of generating life forms should be used for the broad interests of society, not the narrow ones of shareholders.

About the Author

Tom Philpott is the food and ag correspondent for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here. RSS | Twitter

Ice plows into Northern Minnesota lake homes

Ice plows into Northern Minnesota lake homes
May 12, 2013 | Cassie Hart | KSTP.com


Ice outs are still happening on lakes in northern Minnesota because of our cold and snowy spring.

Now, homes along the shore of Mille Lacs Lake are getting damaged because the ice is moving like a glacier, and pushing up against the homes.

In a video sent to us by KSTP viewer, Darla Johnson, you can see the ice making its charge onto shore. Then in a matter of minutes the wind pushes the ice about 15 feet from the shore to the doors of a home.

Johnson even tried saving patio furniture but she couldn't stop the ice before it pushed in doors and windows, causing damage.

The ice is piled up about three feet high.

Johnson says some crews were working to get the ice away from the homes, but "it's a battle they're not winning right now."

Some access roads near Izatys Resort were closed Friday, according to Johnson. Only local residents were being let through, she said.

“Weather Makers” Create Irratic, Record Setting Temperatures

© Geoengineering Watch

“Weather Makers” Create Irratic, Record Setting Temperatures
May 2, 2013 | Geoengineering Watch | Dane Wigington

The Geoengineers are hard at it yet again. As they sprayed the hell out of the Pacific Northwest and Northern California in recent days, causing record warmth and record low humidity, they were preparing for yet another geoengineered “winter storm” further east. The latest in a parade of geoengineered winter storms has theatrically been named “winter storm Achilles”. The ongoing extremely radical forcing of the Earths climate system is wreaking havoc on the environment as a whole. The example outlined below, with data from NOAA (national oceanic and atmospheric administration) and “AccuWeather” is only the latest in a very long and growing list of completely engineered weather events. The “weather makers” seem to have absolutely no regard for the climate chaos they are creating around the globe.

How far can they push the envelope? If the ongoing insanity of global geoengineering continues, we will likely soon enough find out as the entire climate system unravels around us all.

Amarillo TX shattered its former record high temperature on April 30th 2013, nearly reaching 100 degrees, now, snow is going to fall the very next day, May 1st, 2013.

One has to wonder just how much toxic chemical ice nucleation material it takes to create such an extreme event. Very significant HAARP readings are also evident on monitoring stations in recent days, this is certainly a component of the latest engineered “winter storm”. The now constant use of the globes ionosphere heater installations to manipulate jet stream patterns is also throwing the entire climate/weather system of the tracks.

The ongoing atmospheric spraying programs, and the HAARP ionosphere heater installations, are not just an inconvenience, they are literally threatening the planet’s life support systems from top to bottom. This is not even to mention the completely toxic fallout of heavy metals and chemicals which are raining down on all life. These elements are “bioaccumulative” and are building up in the environment and our bodies.

Its up to all of us to bring these lethal weather modification programs to light. All is at stake in the fight to expose these deadly climate modifications operations. Every day matters in this effort.

• Make copies of a credible flyer on geoengineering and its dangers and pass them out, examples can be found at geoengineeringwatch.org/ads.
• Locate groups, organizations, and individuals on line that would care if they had a clue.
• E-mail them an appeal to investigate the geoengineering issue and send them some credible data with a source for more.

We must act now,

Dane Wigington

Please review the data below,

Amarillo TX from a record high temp of 97 on April 30 2013, to snow forecast today, May 1st 2013

Record Report

Statement as of 2:02 am CDT on May 1, 2013

… Record high temperature broken at Amarillo…
… Record high minimum temperature broken at Amarillo…

The high temperature  Tuesday April 30th… at Amarillo reached 97 degrees at 553 PM CDT. This breaks the old record of 93 which was set in 1981.

Also the low temperature Tuesday was 62 degrees. This breaks the old record high minimum temperature of 58 that was last set in 1961.


  
AccuWeather 5-2-2013

Wildfires sweep through southern California

Wildfires sweep through southern California
May 3, 2013 | AlJazeeraEnglish

More than 900 firefighters are battling wildfires in southern California. A university and 2,000 homes have been evacuated. The biggest blaze started early on Thursday morning just outside Los Angeles - fuelled by strong Santa Anna winds. Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher reports.

Oil from Petroleum Used as Vaccine Adjuvant

Oil Spilling, by Olle Svensson,
cropped with syringe superimposed

Oil from Petroleum Used as Vaccine Adjuvant
April 2, 2013 | Gaia Health Blog | Heidi Stevenson

"We’re living in an era of mass vaccination. The results are showing up in our children. The average child is now sick. The countries with the highest vaccination rates have the highest child mortality rates. Rather than do legitimate studies to identify the reasons for it, we see junk study after pseudo study trying to convince us that vaccines are just fine. Meanwhile, even with strong evidence of vaccination harm, the push is on to produce more and more, faster and faster."

Petroleum forms the basis of one of the most devastating adjuvants in existence. Historically, it was considered too dangerous for use in vaccines, but it’s making a comeback in this new age of recombinant DNA vaccine development. Of course, the public relations mantra is that it’s safe—so why is it kept quiet?

The current hype in a new vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease is all about how the new ones are safer. But are they? The clue is in what isn’t discussed: the adjuvants. PLoS reports that a UK government and Big Pharma funded study has found a new approach, using recombinant DNA technology, to create empty capsids, that is, empty virus protein shells, to use as antigens against foot-and-mouth disease.^[1] The hollow antigens would be grown inside insects.

Continue reading..

Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging - Full Movie (Documentary)

Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging - Full Movie (Documentary)
Jan 30, 2013 | YouTube | derekw6826



This video provides the facts about psychotropic drugs and the huge profits they create for the pharmaceutical industry. These drugs are not safe and have not been on the market long enough to provide sufficient long term studies regarding their effects. These drugs do cause addiction, however most "doctors" would call this dependence because you do not have to take an increasing dose over time. They are completely fine with you being addicted to the same amount of any given drug on a daily basis. Over half of the people that commit suicide in the United States are prescribed to psychotropic drugs. (Ex: Paxil (Paroxetine), Zoloft (Sertraline), Prozac, Wellbutrin (Bupropion), Effexor, Seroquil, Ultram (Tramadol), etc.)

Rhino Poaching at Record High in South Africa

Dehorning of a rhinoceros by a field researcher
CREDIT: © Michel Gunther / WWF-Canon

Rhino Poaching at Record High in South Africa
Jan 10, 2013 | Live Science

Rhinoceros poaching soared to a record high level in South Africa last year. The country's government said 668 rhinos were killed within its borders in 2012, up from 448 in 2011, according to the World Wildlife Fund, an international conservation group.

A whopping 425 of those deaths last year occurred in Kruger National Park, a top safari destination and home to South Africa's largest population of both black and white rhinos. That figure marks a sharp increase from the 252 rhinos killed in the park in 2011.

The poaching boom is largely due to heightened demand for rhino horns in Asia, where the grim prizes are believed to have medicinal properties and are seen as highly desirable status symbols, especially in Vietnam. TRAFFIC, a nongovernmental global network that monitors wildlife trade, recently issued a report describing how affluent Vietnamese users often use the horn as a hangover cure and general health tonic, grinding it up and mixing it with water or alcohol.

"Viet Nam must curtail the nation’s rhino horn habit, which is fuelling a poaching crisis in South Africa," Sabri Zain, TRAFFIC’s director of advocacy, said in a statement. "Rhinos are being illegally killed, their horns hacked off and the animals left to bleed to death, all for the frivolous use of their horns as a hangover cure."
Last year also saw some crackdowns. Arrests of suspected poachers and smugglers increased in 2012, with 267 people now facing rhino-related charges and one Thai man sentenced to a record 40 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle horns to Asia, WWF officials said. Last month, Vietnam and South Africa also signed an agreement aimed at strengthening law enforcement efforts and sharing intelligence to tackle the illegal wildlife trade.

According to WWF, an additional five rhinos have been killed since the beginning of 2013 and two men were arrested in separate incidents in Vietnam and Thailand this month for smuggling rhino horns.

[77] Chris Hedges: Death of Liberal Class, OWS Surveillance Exposed, Clean Energy

[77] Chris Hedges: Death of Liberal Class, OWS Surveillance Exposed, Clean Energy
Jan 8, 2013 | breakingtheset

Abby Martin Breaks the Set on Alternative Energy, Government Surveillance, and Serious Revolt in the US with Chris Hedges.

The Idol Smasher

© Mr. Fish

The Idol Smasher
Dec 31, 2012 | Truthdig | Chris Hedges

Ishmael Reed has spent the last five decades smashing idols—idols of race, idols of capitalism, celebrity idols and the idols of national virtue and greatness. His essays, novels, poems, plays, songs and cartoons routinely shatter the delusions and myths of a nation stubbornly unwilling to confront its past or understand its present. He rips open a history that saw white Europeans exterminate one race and enslave another to create the nation’s prosperity, a past that includes the violent plundering of nations around the globe—Cuba, the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan among them—to show us who we have become. He names the corrosive disease of empire. He excoriates what Alexis de Tocqueville called our “perpetual practice of self-applause.” He battles back against the sophisticated forms of propaganda—especially from Hollywood—that perpetuate patriotic fantasies and pander to the dark streams of paranoia, racism and fear that run like electric currents through white society.

Reed’s righteous fury is a heartening antidote to the squeamishness of liberals and the lunacy of the right wing. He says the editors of The New York Times and most other major media outlets “sound like they get their instructions from Julius Streicher [the Nazi propagandist] when it comes to blacks.” He calls the HBO series “The Wire” “a Neo-Nazi portrait of black people” and dismisses the movie “Precious” as a film that “makes D.W. Griffith look like a progressive.”

“Lazy, no-good black people, who are welfare cheats, sitting around eating chicken, and having sex with their children, right out of the Lee Atwater-Paul Ryan playbook,” he said of the portrayals in “Precious” when I reached him by phone at his home in Oakland, Calif. “The wonderful novelist Diane Johnson was right when she said that ‘largely white’ audiences are thrilled by images of black people as dysfunctional. This has become a billion-dollar market which led critics to assert that Black Bogeyman movies sell better than sex, according to the critic C. Liegh McInnis. You even have a critic at The Root website, a post-racial ‘Talented Tenth’ hangout for ‘exceptional blacks,’ praising Quentin Tarantino’s latest sick exercise into racial porn, called ‘Django Unchained,’ ” which I critique at the Wall Street Journal site Speakeasy. This movie is being praised by the same critics who loved ‘The Color Purple’ and ‘Precious,’ probably because it revives Stanley Elkins’ discredited ‘Sambo Thesis.’ ”

Reed has no time for Black Bloc anarchists, whom he calls “alienated, spoiled middle-class white kids from the suburbs” as well as “vandals and thugs.” He calls the Oscar presentation “a white supremacist pageant.” He detests the Clintons, who he reminds us sold out the poor and the working class. Hillary, he says, makes “Eva Peron seem benign.” He predicts more tragedies like the recent Connecticut massacre, noting that many white Americans stockpile assault rifles because they are terrified of black people and that mass shootings in the United States almost always are carried out by estranged white men.

“ ‘The Turner Diaries,’ the book that inspired Timothy McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma, and assaults by gunmen including one against the North Valley Jewish Community Center [in Granada Hills, Calif.,] in 1999, are very explicit,” he said not long after we were on a panel together at the Miami Book Festival. “The [novel] tells whites they need guns because if they give up their assault weapons blacks will kidnap white women and Jewish men will be their pimps. This fantasy, however absurd, at least addresses the deepest, unspoken fears of whites. The white power structure looks around at what is happening. It sees we are going down. It is terrified of an uprising by a coalition of whites, blacks, Asian-Americans and Hispanics that elected Obama—even though Obama with his pretty, multicultural face and elegant style and his spouse, who is more militant than he and who for that reason has been silenced, serve the empire. The only problem is that white crazies like [Michele] Bachmann and the others are so blinded by white supremacy that they won’t go along with the script. She [Rep. Bachmann] said that Obama was costing the taxpayers $250 million per day on his trip to India, a lie, when Obama’s taking over 100 CEOs along with him brought back billions in contracts.”

 “The other part of the white public, the underclass and working class, has proven that they will go to any lengths to uphold white supremacy,” he said. “Even when they had no fight in the Civil War, owning no slave assets like the planters, they caused the deaths of 640,000 Americans in order to uphold white supremacy. Then, as now, parts of the white working class, who are anti-union and get drunk on the cheap moonshine of racism, are willing to exercise self-extinction in order to uphold white supremacy.”

“One part of the slavery deal was the patriarchal planter’s ownership of black women’s wombs,” he went on. “Now they [the powerful] are mandating this demand of all women. Yet, white women favored Romney by 14 points. They’re intimidated I think by their husbands, brothers, fathers and employers, which is why they scapegoat the [black] brothers for worldwide misogyny.” 

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Secular Britain is ruled by religious bureaucrats

© Mike Wilkinson
Joseph Devine, the Catholic bishop of Motherwell,
who admonished David Cameron
over his support for gay marriage.

Secular Britain is ruled by religious bureaucrats
Dec 16, 2012 | Nick Cohen

Why is the church still such a force in our society when most of us disregard its clerics' teachings?

A few months ago, Suffolk police stopped me for driving over 30mph. My excuse that East Anglia was so flat it was impossible not to break the limit did not wash, and they sent me on a speed awareness course. Very good it was too. After surveying the human cost of bad driving, I resolved never to speed again. Unfortunately, the instructor was over-fond of his own voice and his lecture went on for hours. "I hope he winds up soon," I whispered to the woman next to me. "I am meant to be speaking to the National Secular Society."

She was a little astonished and a little amused. "A National Secular Society? Why does Britain need a National Secular Society? Surely the secularists have won?"

It can feel that way. The number of people who say they have no religion jumped from 15% in the 2001 census to 25% in 2011. If the remaining 75% were believers, this leap in free-thinking would be significant but not sensational. But those who say they are religious are not faithful to their creeds, or not in any sense that the believers of the past would have recognised. Church attendance is in constant decline. Every year that passes sees congregations become smaller and greyer. As striking as the fall in religious observance is the public's near total disregard for the teachings of the clerics and prelates, who could once claim to be society's moral guides.

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Florida scientists prepare to release hundreds of thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes

Aedes aegypti mosquitos, which can spread
the dengue fever.(Reuters / Stringer)

Florida scientists prepare to release hundreds of thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes
Dec 6, 2012 | RT.com

Hundreds of thousands of mutated mosquitoes could soon be unleashed in Florida, but don’t worry: scientists say they have a plan.

It might sound like something out of a low-budget horror film, but the US Food and Drug Administration really is considering whether or not they should allow scientists to send thousands upon thousands of genetically altered insects into the wild.

If all goes as planned, mosquitos modified by some serious Frankenstein treatment will be introduced into the Florida Keys and ideally mate with skeeters that carry the deadly dengue fever, passing along in the process a fatal birth defect that will hopefully eradicate the offspring before birth. From there, scientists say they expect the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the dangerous disease will be decimated in only a few generations without causing any major implications for the native ecosystem.

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"The science of it, I think, looks fine. It's straight from setting up experiments and collecting data," Michael Doyle of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District tells the Associated Press.

No vaccination against dengue fever is currently available in any part of the world, and although the mortality rate associated with it is low, it’s still a serious concern. In the Florida Keys where the economy relies on tourism, an epidemic of any sort could be catastrophic. Some fear that sending mutated mosquitos into the environment could have grave implications as well, though, and are asking for more thorough testing before the FDA makes a decision. Of course, it doesn’t help the scientists’ case that it will take several rounds of releasing genetically modified mosquitos in order for their plan to work.

"The public resistance and the need to reach some agreement between mosquito control and the public, I see that as a very significant issue, outside of the (operating) costs, since this is not just a one-time thing," Phil Lounibos of the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory tells the AP.

The plan to put lab-altered insects into the ecosystem is expected to not harm any humans since the female mosquitos that bite won’t become infected. Real estate agent Mila de Mier tells the AP that she’s still concerned, though, and clearly isn’t the only one: her petition on Change.org, “Say No to Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Release in the Florida Keys,” has garnered over 117,000 signatures.

“Even though the local community in the Florida Keys has spoken – we even passed an ordinance demanding more testing – Oxitec is trying to use a loophole by applying to the FDA for an ‘animal bug’ patent,” reads the petition. “This could mean these mutant mosquitoes could be released at any point against the wishes of locals and the scientific community. We need to make sure the FDA does not approve Oxitec's patent.”

“Nearly all experiments with genetically-modified crops have eventually resulted in unintended consequences: superweeds more resistant to herbicides, mutated and resistant insects also collateral damage to ecosystems. A recent news story reported that the monarch butterfly population is down by half in areas where Roundup Ready GM crops are doused with ultra-high levels of herbicides that wipe out the monarch's favorite milkweed plant.”

“There are more questions than answers and we need more testing to be done,” it continues.
Health officials believed that dengue fever was eradicated entirely years ago, but a handful of cases have been discovered in the Florida Keys in 2009 and 2010. If humans are infected, they can experience extremely high body temperatures, swollen nodes, full-on rashes, vomiting and, in some cases, death.

10 Worst Black Friday Moments

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10 Worst Black Friday Moments
Nov 21, 2012 | Chad Brooks

"Witnesses described the scene as complete pandemonium.

"They were throwing laptops 20 feet in the air, and people were collapsing on each other to grab them," shopper Brian Horwitz told Orlando television station WFTV.  "It was ridiculous.""

As the Black Friday frenzy has escalated in recent years, so too have the number of ugly incidents surrounding the official start to the holiday shopping season.

No one knows the trouble that can happen the day after Thanksgiving more than Wal-Mart, which has seen stores around the country marred by violence on the frenzied shopping day.

This year could be even worse for the giant retailer, as thousands of employees are planning to strike on Black Friday in an effort to end what union-backed workers call retaliation against employees who speak out for better pay, fair schedules and affordable health care.

With thousands of workers expected to participate, Wal-Mart stores around the country could be left shorthanded as they contend with the mobs of shoppers expected on Black Friday.

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Ventura Busts Tesla Ray “Death Ray – Death Squad” Secret

TESLA’S DEATH RAY A REALITY

Ventura Busts Tesla Ray “Death Ray – Death Squad” Secret
Nov 16, 2012 | Gordon Duff

9/11, Shuttle Disasters, Murders Attributed to Directed Energy “Death Ray”

Jesse Ventura’s television show, “Conspiracy Theory” has done it again.  Ventura has stumbled on a government program that many of us have long heard whispers about.  Reagan’s ultra-secret “planetary defense system” used for murder and terrorism.



Ventura presents a list of murdered scientists, shows the weapons used, microwave “heart attack generators” and weapons capable of destroying cities or even massive steel high-rise buildings.

Ventura interviews an fascinating group of scientists who tell of a massive conspiracy, hiding the capabilities to hide murders at will, destroy cities, even continents.

We now have to reassess shuttle disasters, several inexplicable airline crashes, certainly 9/11 and murders, not just of scientists who worked on directed ray projects but evidence from Iraq and Afghanistan that directed energy weapons have been used there.

This may well be one of the biggest secrets of all.

The key to it all is the Serbian inventor, Nicola Tesla, who claimed he invented a “death ray” over a hundred years ago.  This would seem outrageous if he weren’t accepted as Einstein’s equal by most scientists and historians.

The electricity powering most of the world today was based on Tesla, not Edison.

Nearly everything we use is based on breakthroughs or stolen Tesla research.  Tesla’s history is, in itself, one of the most mysterious and challenging aspects of modern history.

Where this goes, Ronald Reagan and his Star Wars program is now clear.

It succeeded, this is why we hear nothing, success beyond imagination, or as Ventura’s team calls it, “Tesla 2.0.”

The theories of Dr. Judy Wood are examined, who has long claimed that 9/11 was the result of the use of directed energy.

Also, Jesse Ventura abandons his belief in the “nano-thermite” theories espoused by some scientists who claim this material was the only possible means of causing the destruction seen at ground zero on 9/11/2001.
What is proven, here and finally, that the events of 9/11 were, without any doubt, a government conspiracy, one made possible by scientific breakthroughs that have turned America into something indescribable.
America spent over one trillion dollars to develop “after next generation” technology, one Reagan himself alludes to as “planetary protection” from a possible alien invasion.

What we got instead was pocket killing machines and the ability to cause natural disasters on command, any type, earthquakes, weather changes and, of course, terror attacks of any imaginable size that can never be investigated.

We now have a provable technology that may well be the cause of a string of disasters that HAARP conspiracy theorists have studied for years.

Then there are the murders, so many murders.