This City Is the Canary In the Coal Mine for America’s Future

Who Was I?

This City Is the Canary In the Coal Mine for America’s Future
Mar 17, 2013 | Common Sense Show | Dave Hodges

Who am I? In my heyday, I was the fourth largest city in the country? Fifty years ago, I had the highest per capita income in the country. Unemployment used to be rare, now unemployment is rampant. My infrastructure is rotting and not being replaced. Cross a bridge on a public road at your own risk and the chances are one in two that you will not be able to read the sign warning you that the bridge has indeed collapsed due to neglect.

Who am I? Am I speaking about Calcutta, Bangkok, Johannesburg, Mexico City, a remote province in China or some barren stretch of land in Yemen? No, I am talking about Detroit, Michigan.

Fall From Grace 

Detroit is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. It is a glimpse of America’s future if we let Agenda 21 fully take over our cities. It is a portend of things to come if we ever accept Cap and Trade legislation.

At the height of Detroit’s success as a city. the city was a representation of the American middle class dominance. It was greatest manufacturing city ever seen on the planet. Detroit made cars that were the envy of the planet. Today, Detroit is mocked and ridiculed. If you want to know what the future of America is going to be like, just look at the city of Detroit. Once upon a time it was a symbol of everything that America was doing right, but today it has been transformed into a miniature third world country which rivals any hell-hole on the planet.

Almost 30% of Detroit’s 140 square miles are either vacant or deserted. Detroit used to be the fourth-largest city in the US, with a population of nearly 2 million people. Today, Detroit has less than 700,000 residents.  There are more than 33,500 vacant houses and over 90,000 vacant lots in Detroit. The city government is razing entire city blocks of business buildings and residential homes. If you are the only one left on your block, you are forced to move and if you are lucky you will receive $10,000 for your home.

The median price of a home in Detroit is only $9,000! In some areas in Detroit, you can buy a house for just $100. There are approximately 85,000 streetlights in Detroit, but copper thieves have stripped so much wiring out  that many of the lights are not working. The Mayor of Detroit has announced that he will reduce the number of streetlights to almost half the existing total down to 46,000.

Today, sixty percent of Detroit’s children live in poverty, when less than 45 years ago, Detroit boasted the highest per capita income in the United States. Today, Detroit does not have one chain supermarket left in the city.

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NASA denies the report that Voyager left solar system

© NASA/JPL-Caltech
Artist's concept of NASA's Voyager spacecraft

NASA denies the report that Voyager left solar system
Mar 20, 2013 | Kerry Sheridan | phys.org

The US space agency on Wednesday denied a claim made in a scientific study that its Voyager 1 spacecraft had left the solar system, describing the report as "premature."

Scientists are eagerly awaiting signs that the craft, which was launched in 1977 on a mission to study planets, has become the first man-made object to leave the boundaries of our solar system. A scientific paper that purported to describe this departure appeared on the American Geophysical Union's web site.

It said Voyager 1 "appears to have traveled beyond the influence of the Sun and exited the heliosphere," or the magnetic bubble of charged particles that surround the solar system. Researcher Bill Webber, one of the article's authors, acknowledged that the actual location of the spacecraft - whether in interstellar space or just an unknown region beyond the solar system - remained a matter of debate.

"It's outside the normal heliosphere, I would say that," said Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, according to the AGU's web site. "We're in a new region. And everything we're measuring is different and exciting." Shortly after the study appeared, NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown told AFP the report was "premature and incorrect."

The Voyager science team reported in December 2012 the craft was in a new region called the "magnetic highway," but changes in the magnetic field to show a departure from the solar system have not yet been observed, NASA said.

"The Voyager team is aware of reports today that NASA's Voyager 1 has left the solar system," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. "It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space," he said.

"A change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space and that change of direction has not yet been observed." Voyager 1 and its companion Voyager 2 set off in 1977 on a mission to study planets.

They have both kept going, and both are on track to leave the solar system, NASA has said. For months, experts have been closely watching for hints that Voyager 1 has left the solar system and most have estimated that this will happen in the next year or two.

NASA has described Voyager 1 - now 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) away from the Sun - and its companion Voyager 2 as "the two most distant active representatives of humanity and its desire to explore."

The Voyager craft are both carrying gold-plated phonograph records and cartridges on which to play them.

They contain 115 images of Earth life, sounds made by whales, thunder and surf, spoken greetings in various languages and printed messages from former US president Jimmy Carter and former UN chief Kurt Waldheim.

Source:AFP

Kiddo Wasp Named for 'Kill Bill' Assassin

This image show a close up of
Cystomastacoides kiddo,
named after Beatrix Kiddo, a
protagonist from Tarantino's
"Kill Bill." CREDIT: Buntika Butcher
and Donald L. J. Quicke

Kiddo Wasp Named for 'Kill Bill' Assassin
Mar 19, 2013 | Live Science

A new species of parasitic wasp with a lethal lifestyle is taking its name from assassin Beatrix Kiddo, the heroine played by Uma Thurman in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" films.

While the winged creature isn't exactly a master of the "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique" — a technique that involves striking five pressure points, resulting in (you guessed it) an exploding heart — it does shares the yellow-and-black color of Kiddo's jumpsuit. Even more, the wasp has its own deadly repertoire of assassinlike moves.

Found in Thailand, the wasp has been formally named Cystomastacoides kiddo. The newly described species belongs to a family of parasitoid wasps, known as Braconidae, which turn the bodies of other insects into living incubators for their babies.

A Braconidae wasp typically implants its eggs inside of a host insect. As the larvae grow, they eat the host from the inside out, if not killing it, rendering the host immobile or sterile, researchers say. [The 10 Most Diabolical and Disgusting Parasites]

This picture shows,
Cystomastacoides nicolepeelerae,
named after the lead author's favorite
novelist Nicole Peeler. CREDIT:
Buntika Butcher and Donald L. J. Quicke

Parasitic wasps are known for their morbidly clever ways. For instance, recent research found that one species of parasitic wasp, Ampulex compressa, has larvae that secrete antimicrobial substances to keep their host, a cockroach, from spoiling. In another study, detailed in 2011 in the journal Biology Letters, scientists found Dinocampus coccinellae wasps use ladybugs as incubators because the zombie ladybugs keep predators away from the wasps' vulnerable larva.

In the new study, scientists identified two more new species of wasps in the Cystomastacoides genus, but in Papua New Guinea. One, Cystomastacoides asotaphaga, was discovered victimizing a moth caterpillar of the species Asota plana. The other, Cystomastacoides nicolepeelerae, was named for fantasy author Nicole Peeler, a favorite novelist of Donald Quicke, a researcher at Imperial College London who led the study.

The scientists say their findings expand the range of this parasitic wasp genus, which had previously only been known from a single species, Cystomastacoides coxalis, found only in mainland China.

Just last year, scientists identified at least 177 distinct species of parasitic wasps in the Orthocentrinae subfamily from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Amazon rain forests of Ecuador.

The new species from Thailand and Papua New Guinea were described today (March 19) in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research.

The Great Green Con no. 1: The hard proof that finally shows global warming forecasts that are costing you billions were wrong all along

The Great Green Con no. 1: The hard proof that finally shows global warming forecasts that are costing you billions were wrong all along
Mar 18, 2013 | David Rose | Daily Mail

No, the world ISN'T getting warmer (as you may have noticed). Now we reveal the official data that's making scientists suddenly change their minds about climate doom. So will eco-funded MPs stop waging a green crusade with your money? Well... what do YOU think?

The Mail on Sunday today presents irrefutable evidence that official predictions of global climate warming have been catastrophically flawed. The graph on this page blows apart the 'scientific basis' for Britain reshaping its entire economy and spending billions in taxes and subsidies in order to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. These moves have already added £100 a year to household energy bills.

Steadily climbing orange and red bands on the graph show the computer predictions of world temperatures used by the official United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The estimates - given with 75 per cent and 95 per cent certainty - suggest only a five per cent chance of the real temperature falling outside both bands.

But when the latest official global temperature figures from the Met Office are placed over the predictions, they show how wrong the estimates have been, to the point of falling out of the '95 per cent' band completely.

The graph shows in incontrovertible detail how the speed of global warming has been massively overestimated. Yet those forecasts have had a ruinous impact on the bills we pay, from heating to car fuel to huge sums paid by councils to reduce carbon emissions.

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Can You Explain HB87 … to your Children? Can its Supporters?

image

Can You Explain HB87 … to your Children? Can its Supporters?
Mar 10, 2013 | Mark Stopa

I was chatting with a colleague on the phone the other day as I was driving my kids (ages, 9, 8, and 7) to school.  We were chatting about HB87, a proposed piece of legislation in Florida that would accelerate the foreclosure process and eradicate the rights of homeowners.

When I hung up, I found myself trying to explain the situation to my kids.  It wasn’t easy, but I could do it … from a defense perspective, anyway.

When people buy a house, they usually borrow money from a bank.  If they can’t pay the bank back (because they lost their job, for example), the bank will try to foreclose and take their house back.  Daddy helps those people try to keep their house in court.  But some of the bankers are trying to pass a law that would make it easier to take people’s homes away.  Daddy is trying to stop that.

As our conversation ended, I wondered how the bankers, legislators and others who support HB87 would try to explain it to their kids.  Can they?  How, exactly, would that conversation go?

When people buy a house, they usually borrow money from a bank.  If they can’t pay the bank back (because they lost their job, for example), the bank will try and foreclose and take the house back.  Daddy helps those banks try to foreclose faster and take the homes sooner.  And daddy is trying to help pass a law, called HB87, to make it easier to take people’s homes away.

Look, I get that I’m biased here. But I really wonder how anyone on the banks’ side of this would try to explain this to their children.  My point?

If you can’t explain what you’re doing to a child, what you’re doing probably isn’t right.

Saturn's Electric Moon Enceladus, Part One | Space News

Saturn's Electric Moon Enceladus, Part One | Space News
Mar 14, 2013 | ThunderboltsProject


The Saturnian moon Enceladus may be one of the most enigmatic bodies in the solar system. For nearly a decade, NASA scientists have faced a series of puzzles that continue to challenge conventional theory. The electrical nature of these puzzling phenomena has grown increasingly evident.

See Wal Thornhill articles on Enceladus at: http://www.holoscience.com/wp/?s=ence...

And Thunderbolts Pictures of the Day by Stephen Smith: http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/?s=En...

Ancient Sacred Sites Aligned to the Summer Solstice

The summer solstice sun setting between
the two Great Pyramids of Egypt, crowning
the Sphinx in the foreground.

Ancient Sacred Sites Aligned to the Summer Solstice
Mar 15, 2013 | Waking Times | Belsebuub & Angel Pritchard

Some of the most famous ancient megalithic sites in the world align to the summer solstice – in numerous different cultures: Egyptian, Pagan, Mayan, Essene, Buddhist, Native American, and Easter Islander. Below are some examples. There are others, but there may be many more that have not yet been discovered.

Sites such as the Great Pyramids and Easter Island, are speculated to be some of the most ancient in the known world, and to have links to the civilizations of Atlantis and possibly Lemuria. Others trace their lineage back to the original spiritual knowledge of the Mayans and ancient peoples of Britain.

These sites indicate the existence of an ancient cosmic spirituality, sometimes referred to as ancient solar religions – some highly advanced in their technology and understanding of the cosmos.

The Great Pyramids ~ Egypt 

At the Great Pyramids of Egypt, when standing at the Sphinx, the sun on the summer solstice sets precisely between the two largest of the Great Pyramids. The sun’s descent between the two pyramids seems to enact the moment of creation where the sun emerged from between two mounds, but in reverse, perhaps signifying the return of the sun to the source of creation.

The Osirieon ~ Egypt 

There is an incredibly mysterious temple at the ancient site of Abydos in Egypt. For thousands of years Abydos was believed to be the final resting place of the Egyptian god Osiris. Then in 1902 AD the Osireion temple was unearthed, which many believe, could have been the tomb of Osiris.

The Osireion shares incredible similarities with the Valley Temple that lies next to the Sphinx. Both the Valley Temple and Osireion are made out of huge unadorned granite blocks, which also look very similar to Stonehenge, and share the same construction methods and a number of mathematical characteristics (for example, both feature the number 17). The Valley Temple was built at the same time as the Sphinx, and its similarities with the Osireion seem to indicate that the Osireion may too have been built by the builders of the Sphinx.

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Genetically Modified Foods in America | Health Documentary

Genetically Modified Foods in America | Health Documentary
Feb 4, 2013 | DocumentaryLovers

Related:

You may also purchase this documentary from the publisher to share with others:

Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives

Voices From the Gulf: “Do Not Eat Our Food”

Voices From the Gulf: “Do Not Eat Our Food”
Mar 13, 2013 | CommonSenseShow | David Hodges

Nobody, and I mean nobody can validate the safety of the seafood in the Gulf. As a result, not only are the 40 million people in the Gulf at risk, the safety of our seafood is at risk as well. And when one adds the Fukashima disaster on top of the Gulf oil spill, I cannot think of one reason why any reasonable person would eat seafood in today’s toxic global environment.

The Government Will Not Protect You

 The measures that the government is taking to ensure Gulf food safety would be laughable and provide the fodder for a Saturday Night Live skit, if it were not for the growing number of victims resulting from the BP event coupled with the impotent governmental response. The current method for detecting oil  and Corexit contamination in Gulf seafood is a simple sniff test, in which FDA inspectors hold a bag of fish up to their nose and if the inspector does not detect any “strange odors, the fish passes the food safety inspection test and is eligible to be processed and subsequently sold to the public. The FDA says smell tests are the only way to detect chemical dispersants, as scientists have yet to develop an effective tissue test. The sniff test doesn’t satisfy food industry workers and the obvious lack of scientific rigor is a de facto admission that the government cannot protect you.

“Don’t Eat Our Seafood” 

If any group would have a motive to lie and misrepresent the safety of the food supply in the Gulf, it would be the very people who make their living from fishing the waters. Yet, even these people are stating in no uncertain terms that there are very serious dangers associated with ingesting the Gulf’s food supply.

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Neanderthals’ large eyes might have led to their extinction

Neanderthals’ large eyes might have led to their extinction
Mar 14, 2013 | Phenomenica

Neanderthals became extinct because they had larger eyes than modern humans, a new study of skulls of the now extinct species has suggested.

As Neanderthals had larger eye, researchers believe more of their brain was devoted to seeing in the long, dark nights in Europe, at the expense of high-level processing, according to the BBC.

Neanderthals are a closely related species of human that lived in Europe from around 250,000 years ago. They coexisted and interacted briefly with our species until they went extinct about 28,000 years ago, in part due to an ice age, explained researchers of the study, which is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B Journal.

The research team wanted to explore the idea that the ancestor of Neanderthals left Africa and had to adapt to the longer, darker nights and murkier days of Europe. The result was that Neanderthals evolved larger eyes and a much larger visual processing area at the back of their brains.

The humans that stayed in Africa, on the other hand, continued to enjoy bright and beautiful days and so had no need for such an adaption. Instead, these people, our ancestors, evolved their frontal lobes, associated with higher level thinking, before they spread across the globe.

Eiluned Pearce of Oxford University decided to check this theory.

She compared the skulls of 32 Homo sapiens and 13 Neanderthal skulls and found that Neanderthals had significantly larger eye sockets – on average 6mm longer from top to bottom.

Although this seems like a small amount, she said that it was enough for Neanderthals to use significantly more of their brain to process visual information.

Since Neanderthals evolved at higher latitudes, more of the Neanderthal brain would have been dedicated to vision and body control, leaving less brain to deal with other functions like social networking, she explained to BBC News.

 Prof Chris Stringer, an expert in human origins at the Natural History Museum in London but also involved in the research, also agreed.

“We infer that Neanderthals had a smaller cognitive part of the brain and this would have limited them, including their ability to form larger groups. If you live in a larger group, you need a larger brain in order to process all those extra relationships,” he said.

The researchers also assumed that the Neanderthals more visually focused brain structure might also have affected their ability to innovate and to adapt to the ice age that was thought to have contributed to their demise.

The results contradict emerging research that Neanderthals were not the stupid brutish creatures portrayed in Hollywood films, but may well have been as intelligent as our species.

Oxford University’s Prof Robin Dunbar, who supervised the study, said that the team wanted to avoid restoring the stereotypical image of Neanderthals.

“They were very, very smart, but not quite in the same league as Homo sapiens,” he told BBC News.
He suggested that the difference might have been enough to tip the balance when things were beginning to get tough at the end of the last ice age.

ANI

Image credit: Wikimedia