US to deploy in Poland Patriot missiles

Complex air defense Patriot

As part of the Polish-American military exercises near Warsaw, the United States deployed its air defense complexes Patriot, reports Reuters.

The exercise involves about 100 US military personnel and 30 vehicles. Maneuvers are on the ground in the Polish town of Sochaczew, 50 km from Warsaw.

Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Semonyak stressed the close cooperation of his country with the United States, noting that both countries are friends and partners for 16 years.

"If necessary, the United States stand firmly on our side," - he said in the presence of the American ambassador.

Lavrov called the US missile defense a real threat to Russia

Poland does not yet have its own air defense system and intends in the coming weeks to choose a company supplying the corresponding complex.

In addition to the US firm Raytheon, which produces missiles (Patriot), in the competition for the purchase involved a consortium of French companies as well as European group MBDA.

Earlier today it was reported that a group of NATO ships emerged from the waters of the Black Sea after the completion of there exercise .

Shark ate German in Egypt

Photo: Reuters

Sharks in the Red Sea have resumed attacks on humans

For the first time in five years the shark attacked a man in Egypt.

Tourist from Germany was killed in a shark attack in the Egyptian resort of El Quseir on the Red Sea coast, reports RIA Novosti . According to local media, the shark bit off his leg, he died on the way to the hospital.

This was the first shark attack on any human in Egypt over the past five years. In 2010, another Egyptian resort on the Red Sea three tourists suffered shark bites but lived to tell the tale, the three that survived were from Russia and the one killed was from Germany.

Then came a series of attacks as Egyptian authorities had to close beaches in the popular resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

City of Sacramento is in the fourth year of a record drought

The Arrowhead Mountain Water Company bottling plant, owned by Swiss conglomerate Nestle, on the Morongo Indian Reservation near Cabazon, Calif. Photo credit: Damian Dovarganes/AP.

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The city of Sacramento is in the fourth year of a record drought – yet the Nestlé Corporation continues to bottle city water to sell back to the public at a big profit, local activists charge. 

The Nestlé Water Bottling Plant in Sacramento is the target of a major press conference on Tuesday, March 17, by a water coalition that claims the company is draining up to 80 million gallons of water a year from Sacramento aquifers during the drought. 

The coalition, the crunchnestle alliance, says that City Hall has made this use of the water supply possible through a “corporate welfare giveaway,” according to a press advisory. 

A coalition of environmentalists, Native Americans and other concerned people announced the press conference will take place at March 17 at 5 p.m. at new Sacramento City Hall, 915 I Street, Sacramento. 

The coalition will release details of a protest on Friday, March 20, at the South Sacramento Nestlé plant designed to “shut down” the facility. The coalition is calling on Nestlé to pay rates commensurate with their enormous profit, or voluntarily close down. 

“The coalition is protesting Nestlé’s virtually unlimited use of water – up to 80 million gallons a year drawn from local aquifers – while Sacramentans (like other Californians) who use a mere 7 to 10 percent of total water used in the State of California, have had severe restrictions and limitations forced upon them,” according to the coalition. 

“Nestlé pays only 65 cents for each 470 gallons it pumps out of the ground – the same rate as an average residential water user. But the company can turn the area’s water around, and sell it back to Sacramento at mammoth profits,” the coalition said. 

Activists say that Sacramento officials have refused attempts to obtain details of Nestlé’s water used. Coalition members have addressed the Sacramento City Council and requested that Nestle’ either pay a commercial rate under a two tier level, or pay a tax on their profit. 

CRACKS IN THE DRY BED OF THE STEVENS CREEK RESERVOIR IN CUPERTINO, CALIF. PHOTO CREDIT: MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP

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In October, the coalition released a “White Paper” highlighting predatory water profiteering actions taken by Nestle’ Water Bottling Company in various cities, counties, states and countries. Most of those great “deals” yielded mega profits for Nestle’ at the expense of citizens and taxpayers. Additionally, the environmental impact on many of those areas yielded disastrous results. 

Coalition spokesperson Andy Conn said, “This corporate welfare giveaway is an outrage and warrants a major investigation. For more than five months we have requested data on Nestlé water use. City Hall has not complied with our request, or given any indication that it will. Sacramentans deserve to know how their money is being spent and what they’re getting for it. In this case, they’re getting ripped off.” 

For more information about the crunchnestle alliance, contact Andy Conn (530) 906-8077 camphgr55 (at) gmail.com or Bob Saunders (916) 370-8251 

Nestlé is currently the leading supplier of the world’s bottled water, including such brands as Perrier and San Pellegrino, and has been criticized by activists for human rights violations throughout the world. For example, Food and Water Watch and other organizations blasted Nestlé’s “Human Rights Impact Assessment” in December 2013 as a “public relations stunt.”

“The failure to examine Nestlé’s track record on the human right to water is not surprising given recent statements by its chair Peter Brabeck challenging the human right to water,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. She noted that the company famously declared at the 2000 World Water Forum in the Netherlands that water should be defined as a need—not as a human right.

“In November 2013, Colombian trade unionist Oscar Lopez Trivino became the fifteenth Nestlé worker to be assassinated by a paramilitary organization while many of his fellow workers were in the midst of a hunger strike protesting the corporation’s refusal to hear their grievances,” according to the groups. 

The press conference and protest will take place just days after Jay Famiglietti, the senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech and a professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine, revealed in an op-ed in the LA Times on March 12 that California has only one year of water supply left in its reservoirs.

“As difficult as it may be to face, the simple fact is that California is running out of water — and the problem started before our current drought. NASA data reveal that total water storage in California has been in steady decline since at least 2002, when satellite-based monitoring began, although groundwater depletion has been going on since the early 20th century. 

Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain.” 

Meanwhile, Governor Jerry Brown continues to fast-track his Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels to ship Sacramento River water to corporate agribusiness, Southern California water agencies, and oil companies conducting fracking operations. The $67 billion plan won’t create one single drop of new water, but it will take vast tracts of Delta farm land out of production under the guise of “habitat restoration” in order to irrigate drainage-impaired soil owned by corporate mega-growers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. 

The tunnel plan will also hasten the extinction of Sacramento River Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species, as well as imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on the Klamath and Trinity rivers. The peripheral tunnels will be good for agribusiness, water privateers, oil companies and the 1 percent, but will be bad for the fish, wildlife, people and environment of California and the public trust. 

The Delta smelt may already be extinct in the wild!

In fact, the endangered Delta smelt, once the most abundant fish in the entire Bay Delta Estuary, may already be extinct, according to UC Davis fish biologist and author Peter Moyle, as quoted on Capital Public Radio. 

“Prepare for the extinction of the Delta Smelt in the wild,” Moyle told a group of scientists with the Delta Stewardship Council. 

According to Capital Public Radio: 

“He says the latest state trawl survey found very few fish in areas of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta where smelt normally gather. 

‘That trawl survey came up with just six smelt, four females and two males,’ says Moyle. “Normally because they can target smelt, they would have gotten several hundred.’ 

Moyle says the population of Delta smelt has been declining for the last 30 years but the drought may have pushed the species to the point of no return. If the smelt is officially declared extinct, which could take several years, the declaration could change how water is managed in California. 

‘All these biological opinions on Delta smelt that have restricted some of the pumping will have to be changed,’ says Moyle. 

But Moyle says pumping water from the Delta to Central and Southern California could still be restricted at certain times because of all the other threatened fish populations.” 

The Delta smelt, an indicator species that demonstrates the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, reached a new record low population level in 2014, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s fall midwater trawl survey that was released in January. 

Department staff found a total of only eight smelt at a total of 100 sites sampled each month from September through December 

The smelt is considered an indicator species because the 2.0 to 2.8 inch long fish is endemic to the estuary and spends all of its life in the Delta. 

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has conducted the Fall Midwater Trawl Survey (FMWT) to index the fall abundance of pelagic (open water) fish, including Delta smelt, striped bass, longfin smelt, threadfin shad and American shad, nearly annually since 1967. The index of each species is a number that indicates a relative population abundance.

The Bohemian Club

The Bohemian Club

The term “gentlemen’s club” arouses all kinds of lewd thoughts, but the gentlemen’s club founded in San Francisco in 1872, known simply as the Bohemian Club, is not what you think. The club started out with a diverse group of cultured men, including young artists and journalists who appreciated the arts. It was eventually overwhelmed with influential leaders (prime ministers and presidents have been members) and businessmen who didn’t quite fit the definition of “bohemian,” transforming it into a more traditional fraternal organization. Although, there is nothing traditional about the club’s annual encampment ceremony, which resembles a scene from The Wicker Man. The men gather around a 40-foot owl shrine surrounded by Redwood trees for the elaborate “Cremation of Care” ceremony. It’s an symbolic gesture that is meant to banish worldly cares. Weird(er) note: the owl talks. For years member and broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite provided the creature’s recorded voice.

Monsanto settles 7 lawsuits after 2013 GMO-wheat scare

Agrochemical giant Monsanto has settled class action lawsuits with farmers in seven states over genetically modified wheat incident in 2013. Without any admission of liability the company will pay some $350,000 in donations to agricultural schools.

The agricultural biotechnology corporation announced donations of $50,000 to agricultural schools in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The St. Louis based company also promised to reimburse a portion of the costs associated with the case. Monsanto said it can’t disclose how much that will cost.

The settlement agreement with wheat farmers across the US stems from a number of lawsuits related to the May 2013 discovery of genetically-modified wheat on a farm in Eastern Oregon that resulted in temporary limits on certain exports of soft white wheat. Japan and South Korea temporarily suspended some wheat orders, while the EU called for tougher testing from the US.

“This agreement puts that money to work in research and development efforts for the wheat industry,”said Kyle McClain, Monsanto chief litigation counsel. “Resolution in this manner is reasonable and in the best interest of all of the parties.”

The settlement puts to rest seven court cases associated with the company’s GMO practices, but it will“not resolve claims that remain pending by wheat growers in Arkansas who also filed suit,” the company said.

In November, Monsanto has already agreed to settle about $2.4 million worth of damages in other lawsuits related to the Oregon scandal. The history of settlements seems like a drop in the ocean for a company that made $2.74 billion last year that with sales of $15.86 billion.

The USDA has yet to approve any GMO strain of wheat to be grown in the US, but Monsanto field tested a genetically engineered variety from 1998 through 2005 before withdrawing their application from the agency’s regulatory approval process.

Roundup Ready, as the wheat strain is amicably known, was supposed to be either destroyed or stored 10 years ago when it was outlawed. The miracle strain was resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup pesticide, and was one of a number in a whole range of Roundup Ready products.

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SOURCE: RT

Biotech Bans Anti-GMO Group from SXSW Food Supply Panel

It continues to be clear that the awakened public will not so easily be brought down by the GMO industries. However, at South by Southwest (SXSW), it appears that money from GMO corporations talks as true debate is controlled and censored. Katherine Paul, Associate Director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), an organization dedicated to protecting organic standards, has officially been censored from SXSW.

The OCA was asked to sit on the “Southbites: Feed Your Mind” debate held in Austin, Texas but then had their invitation revoked directly from the orders of Cathleen Enright, executive Vice President of food & agriculture, for the Biotech Industry Organization (BIO).

Paul describes a March 3rd phone conversation with Enright, who defended her position by using GMO industry talking points, in which she stated that GMO agriculture is “sustainable” and GMO foods are “safe.” Anyone who says otherwise is making “scary” statements that have no basis in fact because every shred of scientific evidence suggesting health or safety concerns related to GMOs “has been discredited.”

It is a financially proven fact that GMO food is a corporate liability for any company that chooses to manufacture or add these altered ingredients to their products. Scores of GMO corporations and pro-GMO companies continue to experience large hits to their stock prices and trust as the public heads for the exits. Pro-GMO marketing departments are losing, and losing big.

Previously tasked with marketing a product whose success relies on its consumers not knowing where to purchase its product, GMO marketers are being paralyzed into obscurity by the rush of voting with their dollars. The tactics being witnessed currently are those of sore losers that have lost their monopoly on the market, debate, and information.

We have witnessed the people of Vermont win a vote to simply label their food only to be sued and attacked by a conglomerate of GMO corporations. We are now learning about major scientific and research fraud from a new book by Steven Drucker titled ‘Altered Genes Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public.’

It appears on all levels the corporate memo has gone out to push GMO’s by any means necessary in their hopeless push before the final rejection. This is a warning to all individuals, conferences, groups, and companies: The GMO industry no longer has the hearts and minds of the people. Like a vampire in dire need of blood, the industry will latch on to anything it can find to parasite and use up that entities integrity and good name to push their products and agenda.

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BAD NEWS is what the people crave so DON'T KILL the messanger

A negative news story is embedded with advice on how to avoid the tragedies in life -- and that, scientists say, is what consumers want.

The media is regularly criticized for focusing exclusively on negative news -- for nonstop coverage of tragedy and controversy. But a new study suggests readers, viewers and buyers are simply getting what they want. The public, scientists say, craves negative press.

Researchers at Washington State University built an algorithm to analyze the new cycle from the perspective of consumer demand. The results showed news consumers, newspaper readers in particular, favor bad news over good.

Media companies feed consumer habits to maximize profits; they're not delivering anything their customers don't want, and researchers set out to understand that demand.

Specifically, scientists built a model to predict consumer behavior. Their model was based on the economic principle that the more well-off a person is, the less each successive dollar is worth. Every dollar is worth a lot when a person isn't sure where their next meal is coming from. But when necessities are covered, the stakes are lowered.

"When you are very poor and hungry, for example, each dollar is worth a lot as it helps you buy enough food to eat," study author Jill McCluskey, an economist at Washington State, explained in a press release. "But once you have more money and can count on regular meals, it's the losses that will affect you more. In terms of happiness and well-being, a $1,000 loss will affect you more than a $1,000 windfall."

This concept translates to news buying in that readers are more likely to focus on stories that inform them about the equivalent of the $1,000 loss. A positive news story may provide clues as to how to secure that next $1,000 windfall, but a negative story is embedded with advice on how to avoid the tragedies in life -- and those are what matter most.

Collectively, this phenomenon creates a societal demand for more bad news than good.

"Newspapers act on this demand by reporting more bad news to attract readers and sell more papers," McCluskey said.

But there is such a thing as too much of a bad thing. An excess of negative press has negative consequences. News overload can inspire depression in viewers and readers, and a focus on negative occurrences can push public opinion away from scientific consensus -- as has happened in the debate over genetically modified food.

A string of negative stories can also have long lasting economic effects.

"Even after the E. coli scare was over, people still wouldn't buy spinach. There can be a lot of impact on growers and wasted food with these scares," McCluskey added.

Francis Predicts His Papacy Will Be 4 to 5 Years, Misses Pizza

Pope Francis has said he will probably remain pope for only a few years, adding that his predecessor was very brave for retiring.

"I have the feeling that my pontificate will be brief, four or five years — I do not know, even two or three," he said in an Spanish-language interview with Mexican broadcaster Televisa. "I have the feeling that the Lord has placed me here for a short time but it's a feeling."

Francis, 78, who has said he thought he'd be pope for only a few years, added that Pope Benedict XVI showed great bravery when he decided to step down and become emeritus pope in 2013.

"I think what Benedict did with so much courage was open the door to popes emeritus," Francis said in the interview broadcast late on Thursday. "Benedict should not be considered as an exception but as an institution."

Francis, who was marking the second anniversary of his election, also mused about what he missed as pope.

"The only thing I would like is be able to go out one day, without being recognized, and go to a pizzeria to eat a pizza," he said.

Also on Friday, Francis announced a Jubilee Year focused on forgiveness and mercy.

TEXAS BILL WOULD MAKE RECORDING POLICE ILLEGAL

A bill introduced to the Texas House of Representatives would make it illegal for private citizens to record police within 25 feet.

House Bill 2918, introduced by Texas Rep. Jason Villalba (R-Dallas) on Tuesday, would make the offense a misdemeanor. Citizens who are armed would not be permitted to record police activity within 100 feet of an officer, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Only representatives of radio or TV organizations that hold an FCC license, newspapers and magazines would have the right to record police.

The legislator disagreed with people on Twitter who said he’s seeking to make all filming of cops illegal.

“My bill … just asks filmers to stand back a little so as not to interfere with law enforcement,” Villalba tweeted.

FULL ARTICLE HERE 

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Behind The Big News: Propaganda and the CFR

“The executives, the editors in print media, the senior producers, executive producers in the visual media – these are the people who have the ideological bias and what’s probably almost as important – their personal friendships. They go to the same country clubs, they go to the same dinners, they socialize with a lot of the people that they cover.” –Roger Charles, former Correspondent at ABC News

The mainstream news media, while Americans rely on it daily for the latest reports on world and domestic events, a recent study conducted by the Cronkite School of Journalism indicates that nearly 67% of Americans don’t trust major media for accurate reporting. Ask Americans specifically why they distrust the media and the answers are generally vague. After all, reports of news media abuses aren’t normally found on the front page or the nightly news. Nonetheless, they do exist. Today, standards in mainstream news reporting had more to do with career enhancement than reporting the truth.

Today the CFR maintains its’ goal is to “increase America’s understanding of the world.” However, the actual objective of this highly exclusive club is revealed by the rare admonitions of the insiders themselves. In the early 60’s, a Georgetown University Professor collects information for a book favorable to the network of powerful men who founded the CFR. For two years, Professor Carroll Quigley is allowed to examine the confidential papers and secret records of this network. Quigley reveals that these men aim “to create a world system of financial control, in private hands, able to dominate the political system of each country, and the economy of the world as a whole.” In short, they seek total and quiet control of the entire world and the CFR is the most visible conduit for carrying out that agenda

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Human Rights Watch FAIL: Uses Photo of American Bombing Destruction To Condemn Assad

Putting its hypocritical and biased nature on full display once again, the alleged human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, was recently caught in an attempt to fabricate “evidence” of Assad’s use of barrel bombs in civilian areas for the purposes of further demonizing the secular Syrian government.

On February 25, HRW posted a photo of a devastated civilian area in Syria with the tagline “Syria dropped barrel bombs despite ban.” The “ban” HRW is referring to is the ban on bombing civilian areas that applies to both sides in Aleppo after the United Nations stepped in to save the Western-backed terrorists from annihilation. Assad’s forces had surrounded the city and had cut off a major supply route for the death squads from Turkey thus making the ultimate elimination of the jihadist forces a virtual inevitability.

As Somini Sengupta wrote for the New York Times on February 24, 

Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that the Syrian government had dropped so-called barrel bombs on hundreds of sites in rebel-held towns and cities in the past year, flouting a United Nations Security Council measure.

In a report released Tuesday, the group said it relied on satellite images, photos, videos and witness statements to conclude that the Syrian government had bombarded at least 450 sites in and around the southern town of Daraa and at least 1,000 sites in Aleppo in the north.

The report focused on the period since Feb. 22, 2014, when the Security Council specifically condemned the use of barrel bombs, which are large containers filled with explosives and projectiles that can indiscriminately hurt civilians and are prohibited under international law.

There was only one problem with HRW’s tweet – the photograph the organization provided was not Aleppo. 

In fact, the damage that had been wrought upon the civilian area in the photograph was not committed by the Syrian military but by the United States.

The photo was actually a picture of Kobane (Ayn al-Arab), the city which has been the site of heavy US aerial bombardment over the last several months as the US engages in its program of death squad herding and geographical reformation of sovereign Syrian and Iraqi territory.

But, while HRW was content to use the destruction of the city as a reason to condemn the Assad government and continue to promote the cause for US military action in Syria, the “human rights organization” was apparently much less interested in the exact same destruction wrought by US forces. 

In other words, if Assad’s forces bomb a civilian area into the stone age, it is an atrocity, a war crime, and justification for international military involvement. If the United States bombs a civilian area into the stone age, it’s no biggie.

Partially funded by George Soros, Human Rights Watch has repeatedly shilled for NATO and America’s imperialist aims, particularly in Syria.

For instance, when Western media propaganda had reached a crescendo regarding the outright lie that Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people, HRW stood right beside Barack Obama and John Kerry in their effort to prove Assad’s guilt. HRW even went so far as to repeat the lie that the UN report suggested that Assad was the offending party, driving the final nail into the coffin of any credibility HRW may have had. 

When a last-minute chemical weapons deal was secured by Russia in an effort to avoid yet another US/NATO invasion of Syria, HRW did not rejoice for the opportunity of peaceful destruction of chemical weapons and a chance to avoid war, it attacked the deal by claiming that it “failed to ensure justice.” Of course, the deal did fail to ensure justice. There were no provisions demanding punishment of the death squads who actually used the weapons or the US/NATO apparatus that initiated and controlled the jihadist invasion to begin with.

Regardless, when Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross released her report that refuted what the US/NATO was asserting in regards to chemical weapons in Syria, HRW embarked upon a campaign of attack against her and her work. 

Even as far back as 2009, however, HRW was showing its true colors when it apparently signed off on and supported renditions – the process of kidnapping individuals off the street without any due process and “rendering” them to jails and prisons in other countries where they are often tortured – in secret talks with the Obama administration. 

If HRW ever had any credibility in terms of the question of actual human rights, then all of that credibility has assuredly been lost. HRW is nothing more than a pro-US, pro-NATO NGO that acts as a smokescreen for the continuation of the violation of human rights across the world – that is, unless those violations are committed by America’s enemies.

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The CIA Helped Develop Planes that Scrape Cell Phone Data

The US may be using cellphone-sniffing planes to find suspects across the world, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. In November, the Journal revealed the US Marshal’s secret program to locate specific fugitive through airplane equipped to mimic cell towers. Flying over an urban area, the planes can pinpoint the location of a single number amid a million or more phones. The new report shows the technology first originated with the CIA, which guided the initial deployment of the planes by the Marshal Service. Furthermore, Journal sources say continues to be used to locate intelligence targets overseas.

If true, the report unveils a powerful weapon in US intelligence efforts abroad, but also reveals a troubling trend of foreign intelligence tools used for domestic law enforcement purposes. The plane-mounted cellphone detector is a potentially ingenious tool for intelligence gathering, but it seems to have moved from CIA intelligence work to domestic fugitive tracking with little to no oversight, a troubling reminder of how easily tools designed for the War on Terror can be put to domestic ends.

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Obama’s Venezuelan Dictatorship

Ever since the advent of the Cold War, U.S. officials have told us that it was necessary for the United States to adopt the totalitarian structure known as the national-security state in order to combat communist totalitarianism.

We are now witnessing a similar spectacle with respect to President Obama’s exercise of dictatorial powers to deal with the socialist regime of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. Obama’s justification for his embrace of dictatorial powers would undoubtedly be the same as that of the old Cold Warriors — that in order to combat the dictatorial powers of Maduro, it has become necessary for Obama himself to assume and exercise dictatorial powers here in the United States.

Yesterday, President Obama issued an executive order declaring the Venezuelan government “an extraordinary threat to the national security of the United States.” According to the New York Times, as part of his executive order Obama froze the American assets of various Venezuelan law enforcement and military officials.

Imagine that — an “extraordinary threat to U.S. national security.”

What is the exact nature of this “extraordinary threat to national security.” According to the New York Times, the Obama administration said in a statement, “We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents.”

What?

Pray tell: How in the world does the Venezuelan government’s intimidation of political opponents constitute a grave threat to the “national security” of the United States? That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Is Obama saying that Maduro might begin intimidating the U.S. Congress or the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Or is he saying that Maduro’s socialist philosophy might spread to the United States and result in an even bigger expansion of Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and other socialist programs here at home? Or is he saying that Maduro might start mobilizing his army to begin sweeping up Central America and up through Mexico with the aim of invading and conquering the United States and taking over the public schools, the IRS, Social Security, the Interstate Highway System, and other socialist institutions here in the United States?

I suppose that in the long history of the U.S. national-security state since 1947 there have been more ridiculous notions regarding so-called threats to “national security,” but certainly this newest one has got to rank in top 5 of the most ridiculous.

Obama justified his arbitrary seizure of assets belonging to Venezuelan officials by claiming that such officials have “links” to human rights violations in Venezuela.

Really? How does Obama know that the people whose property he has seized are guilty? Did he file a legal action, either civil or criminal, against those officials before he seized their property? Did he produce competent evidence in a court of law establishing that they were guilty of violating the law? Did he secure a court order authorizing the asset seizure? Did he provide argumentation to a U.S. judge as to why the U.S. Empire has jurisdiction to enforce the laws of Venezuela? Did he provide notice and hearing and other aspects of due process of law to the people whose property he seized, enabling them to defend against his actions in a court of law? Indeed, did Obama even go to Congress to seek authorization for his extraordinary action?

The answer is: Obama did none of those things. Instead, in the battle against his personal nemesis, Nicolas Maduro, he has adopted and exercised the same type of dictatorial powers embraced and exercised by Maduro and, for that matter, other Latin American dictators. No legislative authorization. No judicial approval. No due process of law. Just raw dictatorial power manifested by a decree that is no difference from decrees issued by totalitarian dictatorships. (The dictator Pinochet called his decrees “decree laws” while Obama calls his decrees “executive orders.”)

Responding to Obama’s dictatorial action, Diosdado Cabello, the Venezuela National Assembly speaker, said, “We are a threat to the United States? What is being planned are attacks against our land, against our country, military attacks.”

Cabello might have a point. After all, the U.S. national-security state has a long history of targeting socialist regimes in Latin America whose rulers refuse to kowtow to the U.S. Empire with regime change, including ones where the country’s president has been democratically elected. Guatemala, Grenada, Panama, Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Brazil come to mind.

Is this what we want for America? Dictatorship in the name of combatting dictatorship? It’s bad enough that Venezuelans have to experience this type of thing. Why make it worse by having Americans experience the same thing? Obama’s dictatorial actions are just one more perverse outcome of having grafted a national-security state apparatus onto our federal structure and of having adopted a way of life based on the ludicrous and meaningless notion of “national security.”

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Trapping US President Johnson

As Israel grew more sophisticated – and more confident – in its dealings with U.S. presidents, it also sought to secure U.S. military assistance by exaggerating its vulnerability to Arab attacks. One such case occurred after the Egyptians closed off the Gulf of Aqaba to Israel in May 1967, denying the country its only access to the Red Sea. Israel threatened military action against Egypt if it did not re-open the Gulf.

Israel then asked President Johnson for military assistance in the event war broke out against the Egyptians. Johnson directed Richard Helms, the newly appointed head of the CIA to evaluate Israel’s military capability in the event of war against the surrounding Arab states.

On May 26, 1967, Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban met with Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and Helms. Eban presented a Mossad estimate of the capability of the Arab armies, claiming that Israel was seriously outgunned by the Arab armies which had been supplied with advanced Soviet weaponry. Israel believed that, owing to its special relationship with the United States, the Mossad intelligence assessment would be taken at face value.

However, Helms was asked to present the CIA estimate of the Arabs’ military capabilities versus the Israeli army. The CIA’s analysts concluded that Israel could “defend successfully against simultaneous Arab attacks on all fronts, or hold on any three fronts while mounting a successful major offensive on the fourth.

“We do not believe that the Israeli appreciation was a serious estimate of the sort they would submit to their own high officials,” the CIA report said. “It is probably a gambit intended to influence the U.S. to provide military supplies, make more public commitments to Israel, to approve Israeli military initiatives, and put more pressure on Egyptian President Nasser

The CIA report stated further that the Soviet Union would probably not interfere militarily on behalf of the Arab states and that Israel would defeat the combined Arab armies in a matter of days. As a consequence, Johnson refused to airlift special military supplies to Israel, or to promise public support for Israel if Israel went to war.

People Think Astrology Is Science

From http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/02/public-opinion-astrology-dumb

Astrology is the study of how the position of the stars relative to us on Earth have a supposed effect on people here, primarily based on their date of birth. Of course, most (or all) astrological predictions are worded so vaguely that anyone looking to see themselves in the statement would do so, for instance “you have a creative side that you don’t spend enough time nurturing” or “you have a tendency to sometimes be critical of yourself” would apply to pretty much everyone who wants to find the key to their lives in a tabloid prediction.

The effect behind astrology “fitting” so well, for so many, is known as the Forer effect and is defined as “the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.” It leads people to think statements to which almost everyone could agree with are specifically tailored to them, and it makes the reader feel, ironically, special.

The National Science Foundation study actually brings up a more important point than a growing misguided belief in astrology, and that is the growing belief in pseudoscientific principles. We all have that friend, the one who continues to claim studies and science support their beliefs but can never actually say which studies or scientific theories support these beliefs. To most of us, this seems harmless, except that this very type of person is making use of social media and YouTube to gain cult-like followings. Without naming any names: these types of people are actually doing far more damage than we tend to believe.

The increasing belief in pseudoscience like astrology is, in my opinion, directly linked to the increasing dominance of social media as a source of information. The fact is that the type of algorithms that Facebook and others use actually give an advantage to factually wrong but exciting texts. The scary part is that a large number of people who see these essentially false or misleading headlines, or read the pseudoscientific articles, are not exercising sufficient critical thinking to grasp the real picture. These people then perpetuate their false impressions further, causing all the bullsh!t to float to the top and be believed by even more people.

This is not just some abstract threat, some theoretical loss: I meet people perpetuating disinformation, even within my university, relatively often. When I discuss topics like biosphere stability or species loss, I am very frequently greeted by relatively easily disproveable excuses as to why this is no reason to worry. The majority of these people base these beliefs on articles they read on Facebook or beyond, almost always shared by their friends or into groups they belong to, and which in their eyes warranted no further investigation.

Part of the problem is that human evolution did not anticipate the emergence of science, empirical data, and statistics. Most of us primarily rely on our intuition and accept the beliefs of our friends because, in the history of humanity, that was usually the best way to understand the world around us. Unfortunately for all of us alive today, our friends are no longer the best source of information. In fact, themany views held by members of the media are vastly divorced from available statistical data: leading them to continue misinforming even those who have reason to consider themselves well-informed.

The problem is not insurmountable, but solving it does require us to exercise a degree of discipline and critical thinking: not simply believing an unnamed study or completely unsourced claims. Many websites make more money than any of us by simply writing what people already believe, want to hear, or are excited or upset to hear. A lot of readers simply bite this bait hook, line, and sinker: upping its online relevance and oftentimes pushing misinformation into popularity.

The world of online media is both a blessing and a minefield. It enables the skilled seeker to find a wealth of information far beyond the dreams of even the most resourceful librarian of 100 years past. Unfortunately, it also has the capacity of making liars look like heroes and trick well-meaning people into arrogantly defending disinformation.

How to get rid of BODY Odor

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   Wash your body. If you find that you are a bit smelly, hop in the shower if you have the time. Body odor is created by bacteria that cause you to smell, so rinsing your body (and the part that smells worst in particular) can help to give rid of the smell quickly. However, it’s important to use soap or an antibacterial detergent when you wash yourself, rather than just rinsing with water.
   • When you shower, focus on your underarms and your feet, as those are two of the biggest body odor areas.
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   Apply an over-the-counter antiperspirant. Antiperspirants form a block using certain chemicals (like aluminum) against sweating and perspiration, which helps to eliminate body odor. Many of these antiperspirants last all day, but you may need to reapply, especially if you've been doing something like exercising.
   • Unlike a deodorant, antiperspirants actually eliminate the perspiration, while deodorant simply masks the smell.
   • There has been a lot of talk about whether antiperspirants that contain aluminum cause breast cancer, or Alzheimer's, but medical research has never adequately proven a link between the two (or between breast cancer and parabens), so it should be safe to use.^[1]
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   Use a deodorant to cover up body odor quickly. Sweating isn't bad for you (unless it's in excess and indicative of a larger problem) so you don't want to eliminate it entirely. Sweating serves the very utilitarian purpose of cooling your body down, but you can manage your sweating so that it doesn't happen at inappropriate times. Deodorant covers up the smell, or eliminates it entirely, while not getting rid of the moisture itself.^[2]
   • Some deodorants last longer than others. If you are looking for a quick fix to your body odor problems, apply any deodorant that you can find. If you are looking to stay smelling fresh for longer periods of time, consider investing in a quality deodorant.
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   Use a hydrogen peroxide mixture. If you are at home and don’t have any deodorant or antiperspirant on hand, try mixing one teaspoon of 3% hydrogen peroxide with one cup of water.^[3]
   • Stir the mixture together, and then dip a washcloth in the solution. Rub the wet washcloth under your armpits to relieve any body odor you may have.
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   Rub hand sanitizer on your armpits. If you are in a really tight spot and need to eliminate body odor as quickly as possible, you can use hand sanitizer to get rid of the smell. To use hand sanitizer as a relief from body odor:
   • Squirt a small amount of hand sanitizer into your hand. Use your hand to rub the sanitizer on to your armpits. The sanitizer will help to fight the bacteria that are causing you to smell.
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   Use oil blotting paper. If you are sweating heavily and are afraid you might begin to smell, use an oil blotter to wipe up the sweat. These papers are very effective at absorbing moisture, so rub one of the papers under your armpit (or anywhere else you are sweating) in order to prevent yourself from beginning to smell.
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   Rub an alum stone on the area emitting the odor. Alum is a mineral that contains properties that can help to fight the bacteria that create body odor. To use an alum stone, you rub it on your armpit much in the same way that you would apply deodorant.^[4]
   • If you are sweating, consider washing the stone after you have applied it to your skin.
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   Rub mud on the stinkiest areas of your body. If you are out in nature and don’t have any deodorant or antiperspirant on hand, try rubbing some mud on your armpits or feet and letting the mud dry. Once it has dried, wash it off. The purpose of doing this is to dry out and remove any dead skin and old sweat that might be causing your body odor, much in the same way that a mud mask works.
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   Spritz the problem areas with vinegar. If you’d rather not use store-bought products, try using some natural remedies to solve your body odor problem quickly. Vinegar is a natural antiseptic that can help kill bacteria or fungi in your problems areas (like your feet or your underarms). Spritz some white or apple cider on those areas and then wipe your skin dry.^[5]
   • You can also dilute vodka with water and spritz it on your underarms. This was famously described by Joan Rivers as an "old Broadway trick" that she herself uses.^[6]
   • If vinegar isn’t really your thing, you can try other natural sterilizers like tea tree oil or witch hazel, both of which have a similar effect to that of vinegar.
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    Use diluted lemon juice. Lemon juice is thought to be a natural antibacterial and antifungal agent.^[7] Because of this, it can be used as fast relief from body odor. To apply lemon juice to your armpits or feet, you can either pour lemon juice onto a clean washcloth, or rub a sliced lemon onto the problem area.
    • However, you may need to experiment with how much lemon juice you put on your skin. Lemon juice is very acidic, which means that it can cause your skin to become irritated. If you find that this is the case, wash the lemon juice off and wait a couple of hours before applying a smaller amount of lemon juice to the area.
    • You can also try diluting the lemon juice with water.

Method 2 of 3: Practicing Good Hygiene to Eliminate Body Odor

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   Take showers regularly. As mentioned above, taking a shower can help to get rid of body odor quickly. Making sure to shower each day can help to keep you feeling cleaning and fresh while you do your daily activities. When you shower:
   • Make sure to use an exfoliant a couple of times a week. This can help to wash away grime, dead skin, and bacteria, all of which can play a part in creating body odor. You can purchase exfoliants at your local pharmacy, or you canmake your own natural exfoliants.
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   Keep your skin dry. Bacteria like an environment with lots of moisture, food to eat, warmth, and the proper levels of pH and sodium concentration, all of which can be found in folds of moist skin. Because of this, it is important to dry off your skin whenever it becomes moist, whether the moisture is from taking a shower or sweating.^[8]
   • Use a towel or oil blotting papers to wipe off sweat and other moisture.
   • After a shower, consider applying powder to areas like your armpit in order to combat moisture.
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   Shave your underarms regularly. This can apply to both men and women, though women more commonly shave their armpits. Getting rid of the hair in your armpits can help to reduce the amount of body odor you have because hair absorbs odors easily; if you have less hair, there will be less chance that the body odor is absorbed.
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   Wear breathable fabrics. There are certain synthetic materials that don't breathe very well unless they've been specifically designed for that purpose (like polyester blends). If you're really worried about body odor wear fabrics like cotton, wool, or silk as they soak up moisture and have better breathe-ability, which means you will most likely sweat less and create less body odor.
   • You can also wear a cotton or silk undershirt under your clothing to soak up your sweat and body moisture so that your body odor does not soak into your outer layers of clothing.
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   Wash your clothes regularly. As mentioned above, body odor can seep into your clothing. If you sweat heavily in a shirt and allow the shirt to dry without washing it, there is a very good chance that that shirt will smell bad the next day. Try to wash your clothes every time you sweat in them to keep them, and yourself, smelling fresh.

Method 3 of 3: Making Lifestyle Changes to Eliminate Odor

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   Try to eat a healthy diet. What you eat can affect how you swell. If you are having problems with body odor, try to steer clear of certain foods, and up your intake of others. These foods include^[9]:
   • Foods to avoid: large quantities of red meat, garlic and onions, spicy foods, and heavily processed foods that contain high amounts of sugar. All of these foods can make your body odor worse. You should also avoid caffeinated drinks as those can add to body odor.
   • Some foods to eat are: leafy vegetables, whole grains, raw nuts and seeds, healthy oils (olive oil, salmon, avocado, etc.), and phytonutrients that cleanse your insides (like parsley, cilantro, celery, mints, sage, rosemary, thyme, and oregano.^[10]
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   Promote gut health. Some intense cases of body odor can be caused by a problem with your gut. Your gut may not be able to completely digest certain foods, which in turn can lead to an increase in body odor. You can try boosting your gut health at home, but if it continues to be a problem you should seek the help of a doctor. Ways to boost your gut health include:
   • Taking a probiotic supplement to help boost your intestinal flora quality.
   • Taking digestive enzymes with your meals or taking some apple cider vinegar to help aid your digestion.
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   Take a wheat grass or chlorophyll supplement. Chlorophyll supplements are thought to act as natural deodorizers, which can help to keep you from getting smelly throughout the day. Add a chlorophyll supplement to your normal vitamin regimen.^[11]
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   Eliminate stress. Stress stimulates the apocrine glands, which are a type of gland that causes body odor. This means that when you are anxious or angry and under stress you're more likely to produce more body odor.
   • Meditation may help to cut down the amount of stress you feel. Meditate for 15 minutes each day and you may find that your stress is becoming more manageable (and therefore you will smell better).
   • Yoga is another good way to cut down on your stress.
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   Try a detox. Cleansing your body, especially if your body odor problem comes from your gut or the food you've been eating, may help to reduce body odor and set you on the path towards smelling clean and fresh.
   • There are lots of different types of detoxes, so plan to talk to your doctor before you attempt one, especially one of the more rigorous cleanses. This is particularly important to do if you have a medical condition.
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   Stay hydrated. Drinking plenty of liquid throughout the day can help to wash out the toxins in your body. This can help to promote good gut health, which in turn can make you less smelly.
   • The average adult woman generally needs 2.2 liters (0.6 US gal) of water, while the average adult man generally needs 3 liters (0.8 US gal).^[12]
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   Exercise regularly. While this might sound counterintuitive because exercising makes you sweat, getting plenty of physical exercise can actually help to combat body odor in the long run. Exercising can help you to sweat out toxins that have built up in your body that could potentially cause body odor.
   • However, make sure to take a shower after you exercise and dry off thoroughly, as mentioned above.
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   Consult your doctor if body odor is a permanent problem. If you have tried the above steps and nothing seems to be eliminating your body odor, you may have a medical condition that is causing the smell. Go to a doctor or dermatologist to discuss your body odor issue and get a diagnosis. You might be diagnosed with Bromhidrosis, a condition that causes people to have excessive body odor</ref>
   • Doctors can prescribe prescription-level antiperspirants. These can cause skin irritation, so make sure you're only using this if you have an actual medical issue (like Bromhidrosis or Hyperhidrosis).
   • Botox can also block sweat glands and eliminate your sweating. Again, you don't want to do this unless you have an actual medical problem, because it is both expensive and painful. The effects may only last for a few months and aren't always a long-term solution.