Man Chokes To Death At Sausage-Eating Competition In Romania

A Romanian man was reportedly caught on video choking to death at a sausage-eating competition earlier this month.

The 60-year-old man, whose name was not released, was participating in "Fomilă Plescoi," an eating contest at the 6th Plescoi Sausage Festival on Oct. 5, Opinia reported.

At the four-minute mark in the video, screams can be heard as a crowd and surrounds the choking victim. Eventually, he appears to pass out. Medics say he could have been saved if someone had performed the Heimlich maneuver when he began choking, according to the Opinia. EMTs try to revive him in the video, but aren't successful.

The contest is named after Fomila, a fairytale character known for always being hungry.

Last year, a Florida man choked to death after devouring dozens of live cockroachesat a roach-eating event in Miami. Edward Archbold, 32, was pronounced the winner of the October competition before collapsing. Doctors said that roach body parts obstructed his airway.

The International Federation of Competitive Eating, which was not involved with either contest, has strict rules to prevent these kinds of incidents. According to IFOCE safety standards, all eating competitions must have an emergency medical technician present.

Watch here: http://www.youtube.com/embed/RJdnKR4eflI

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Eating Bacon is Ruining your Sperm

Quick, what’s manlier: eating bacon or fathering children?

See, even though the internet is big on pork products, what is the point of manliness if not to convey virility? And contrary to our notions of bacon being a manly food, a study from Harvard researchers found that men who consume processed meat daily are at risk of significantly lowering their sperm quality.

The study, which will be presented this week at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Boston, compared the eating habits of 156 men undergoing IVF treatment with their partners.

The researchers found that men who ate half a portion of processed meat a day had 5.5 percent ‘normal’ shaped sperm cells, compared to 7.2 percent who ate less.

Rather than housing a lumberjack breakfast down at Denny’s, virile men are eating white fish. Men who ate halibut or cod every other day or half-portions daily had much higher quality sperm.

“We found the effect of processed meat intake lowered quality and fish raised quality,” lead researcher Dr. Myriam Afeiche told The Globe and Mail, which, as a Canadian paper, is following this story pretty closely. 

The chairman of the British Fertility Society, Dr. Allen Pacey, warned that 156 men isn’t a very big sample. “This may be a real effect,” Pacey said, “but the study is small and we know that accurately measuring sperm size and shape in the laboratory is fraught with error.” So there's hope yet, bacon fans.

That said, processed meats aren’t doing you any favors in terms of general health, so even if you're not interested in having children or you're, say, a woman, moderation is probably advisable.The Globe and Mail reported on a 12-year-long European study released in March that found that “people who ate more than 160 grams of processed meat each day—versus less than 20 grams—were 44 per cent more likely to die early, in particular from cardiovascular disease but also from cancer.”

Finding out that bacon ruins sperm could be a real blow to the wonder meat, but probably not one that can clog the wide arteries of bacon mania that greasily grips the nation.

Maybe real manliness is being viral enough that you’re not worrying about having “normal-shaped” sperm. Or maybe manliness could be revised to include self-restraint.

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Chinese Farmer, Amputates Own Right Leg With Fruit Knife And Hacksaw

A Chinese farmer suffering from blood clot complications reportedly took the problem into his own hands by amputating his right leg.

Zheng Yanliang, 47, who lives near the city of Boading in China's Hefei Province, first began to experience pain in his leg in January 2011. He had no money to pay for a doctor-recommended amputation.

Doctors gave Yanliang painkillers, but the pills didn't have any effect on the arterial embolism in his leg. His health deteriorated, and doctors gave him three months to live, according to Sky News.

What came next is both amazing and unbelievable to other outlets that tried to confirm Yanliang's story. One night in April 2012, he reportedly used a hacksaw and fruit knife to cut off his leg a little less than six inches below the hip. He saved his own life.

"...I used the knife to slice the skin and pull it back so I could see the bone. Then I used the saw to slice through the bone after putting a belt around the leg to stop the blood flow," he said according to HuffPost UK. "I did not want to distress my wife, but I had to wake her when the hacksaw blade broke."

Zheng has reportedly recovered from the DIY amputation. Now he needs to have his other leg amputated. This time, he won't have to do it himself, according to the Daily Star.

Shanghai-based doctor Zhang Qiang said he'd offer his services for free, the paper reported.

But some skeptics think that Zheng's story, like Zheng himself, doesn't have a leg to stand on.

The Shijiazhuang Daily, a Chinese-language paper that originally broke the story, relied only on Zheng's account of the story, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The Telegraph tried to contact the reporter of the original piece, but he has not answered his phone since Thursday.

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TED aligns with Monsanto, halting any talks about GMOs, 'food as medicine' or natural healing

Allow me to be the first to announce that TED is dead. Why? Because the group that organizes so-called "TED talks" has been thoroughly hijacked by corporate junk science and now openly rejects any talks about GMOs, food as medicine, or even the subject of how food can help prevent behavioral disorders in children. All these areas of discussion are now red-flagged from being presented on any TED stage.

This is openly admitted by TEDx itself in a little-known letter publicly published on December 7, 2012. Click here to view the letter.

In that letter, TED says that people who talk about GMOs are engaged in "pseudoscience." Those who discuss the healing potential of foods are spreading "health hoaxes."

The letter also advises TEDx organizers to, "reject bad science, pseudoscience and health hoaxes," meaning anyone who talks about GMOs, "food as medicine" or similar topics.

The TED organization, incredibly, believes that food cannot be medicine and does not contain medicine. Perhaps someone should educate TED about resveratrol, curcumin, phycocyanins, polyphenols and ten thousand other chemicals created by plants that have medicinal functions in the human body. To deny this is to nearly admit you believe the Earth is flat and that the sun and stars revolve around our planet. It is a sure sign of a feeble mind that cannot grasp the very simple and readily evident idea that the human body evolved in an environment full of plants with beneficial physiological effects, including many medicinal effects.

Maybe someone should remind TED that nearly 25% of all prescription medicines are in some way derived from plants, including statin drugs. Drug companies expend enormous resources searching the world's botanical treasures for amazing molecules that they can pirate from nature and alter in some way to make them patentable as a drug. Even the World Resources Institutereadily admits this, while also reminding us that 80 percent of the world population still relies largely on plant-based medicine.

TED apparently thinks 80 percent of the world population is purely delusional, because obviously, as TED insists, real medicine can only come from pharmacological factories spewing out deadly chemicals, right?

TED falls in line with Monsanto: no talks that question GMOs will be allowed

It's a sure sign that you've jumped into a circle of dogma when the very act of asking intelligent questions is no longer allowed. Any speakers who might ask questions about genetically engineered foods are strictly forbidden by TED. This makes TED a source of pseudoscience because it censors and silences any dissenting views that don't align with Monsanto and the Frankenfoods biotech industry.

The TEDx letter mentioned above actually claims that anyone who questions the wisdom of genetically engineering food crops grown in open fields is a quack or a hoaxer.

Read the letter yourself. It reads as if it were written by someone with the intellectual capacity of an 8th grader -- someone who is so naive that they still haven't caught on to the fact that corporations routinely lie to the world by hijacking science to push their agenda of profit and domination. And it makes you wonder just how stupid TED thinks the public really is on the subject of GMOs. Even though 90% of the public believes GMOs should be labeled on foods, TED thinks anyone who dares talk about GMOs is spewing "pseudoscience."

Does TED also think that spraying the world with glyphosate is a boon to mankind? Does TED even know what glyphosate is and how glyphosate causes cancer at concentrations of parts per billion?

TED's letter filled with false information

The TEDx letter attacking "pseudoscience" is, itself, filled with factually false information. The letter says, "Andrew Wakefield's attempt to link autism and vaccines was exposed as a hoax last year."

That statement is blatantly false. For starters, Dr. Wakefield never conducted any studies whatsoever that linked autism and vaccines. That is a complete fabrication / delusion invented by the intellectually dishonest critics of Dr. Wakefield. TEDx obviously believes that if a lie is repeated often enough among critics of real science, that lie become a "truth."

Secondly, the actual hoax is on the medical journals and critics of Dr. Wakefield who were caught deliberately lying about his research and inventing wildly false claims in order to try to discredit him. They are currently being sued over their false allegations, by the way, and as the facts of this lawsuit come out, Dr. Wakefield will be completely vindicated.

For the real evidence that TED doesn't want you to see on Dr. Wakefield, check out these articles:

BMJ admits that fraud claim against Dr. Andrew Wakefield has no basis in fact

Documents emerge proving Dr Andrew Wakefield innocent; BMJ and Brian Deer caught misrepresenting the facts

Dr Wakefield demands retraction from BMJ after documents prove innocence from allegations of vaccine autism data fraud

Other areas of investigation banned by TED

It turns out that TED isn't only a proponent of GMOs, vaccines and whatever corporate-sponsored status quo science is currently being spouted -- it's also wholly aligned against a wide range of topics it considers "pseudoscience."

These so-called "pseudoscience" topics include:

• Consciousness, free will and the non-material "mind"

• "The fusion of science and spirituality" -- as if higher spiritual awareness is somehow not a valid pathway for the discovery of truth.

• Nearly all neuroscience.

• The placebo effect, something that has been experimentally proven to exist through tens of thousands of clinical trials.

• Any and all "healing," including Reiki or hands-on healing, healing touch, etc.

Yep, according to TED, these are all pure hokum and bunk. There is no placebo effect, they insist, even though it has been experimentally proven to be the strongest across-the-board form of medicine available today. The reason they cannot acknowledge the existence of the placebo effect is because it is contingent upon the interaction between the body and the mind. Because TEDx and its cabal of closed-minded junk scientists cannot admit to the existence of a non-material mind, they also cannot admit to the existence of the placebo effect even though their own experiments prove its existence beyond any rational doubt.

In fact, the placebo effect is so widely documented that in order to discard it, you would have to throw out all randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies altogether. Is TED saying that all such studies are bunk because, taken as a whole, they show the placebo effect to be statistically significant in its effectiveness?

See, this is how TED destroys its own argument (and credibility). If the placebo effect doesn't exist, then virtually all modern clinical trials must be deemed invalid, and that means TED doesn't believe in any real science at all.

TED is a cult of "scientism"

Like the Church that once suppressed scientific understanding long before the Age of Reason, TED is now part of the new Cult of Scientism, a dogmatic circle jerk of intellectual bullies who insist the only "science" that's true is their own selected brand of corporate-sponsored science. All legitimate science is excluded and attacked if it dares question the core beliefs of the Cult of Scientism. Those beliefs include some real whoppers, such as, "Corporate science is the only science that counts," and, "GMOs are automatically safe, even without long-term testing, because we say they are."

In this cult, there is no room for the simple, scientific act of questioning today's scientific beliefs. "Bad science," says TED, is anything that "has failed to convince many mainstream scientists of its truth."

This, of course, is nothing more than "mob science" which isn't really science at all. If new science were only recognized once all the existing scientists were convinced of its truth, then science would never have advanced.

According to TED, then, in 1616, then, the idea that the Earth was spherical would have been considered "bad science." TED would have agreed with the "Congregation of the Index" which cited holy scripture and decreed the Earth stood still and the Sun and stars revolved around it. Anyone who questioned this belief would have been attacked as a pusher of "pseudoscience" by TED.

The idea that invisible, microscopic bacteria spread disease would have been considered "bad science," too, because before the invention of the microscope, most "scientists" thought the idea of a microbiological world of invisible living organisms was sheer lunacy. When a now-famous doctor named Semmelweiss suggested that doctors should wash their hands between delivering babies, he was condemned by the "scientific" community and fired from his job. Meanwhile, an alarming number of women giving birth soon died from infections. This would have been completely acceptable to TED, as it was the "science" of the day, and "science" cannot be questioned.

(For historical references, see my article entitled, Why Doctors are Idiots: 150 Years of Disastrous Advice on Children's Health.)

Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity would have been considered "bad science," too. It was such a whacky theory that almost nobody believe it was true (at first).

In fact, throughout the history of scientific discovery -- microbiology, quantum physics, genetics and epigenetics, cosmology and chemistry -- any self-proclaimed scientist who declared "we now know everything and no new questions can be asked" is now seen in retrospect to be a complete fool.

Real science explained to TED

Science is not a static collection of knowledge, it is a process of exploring the nature of reality to discover and embrace new truths that very often displace old truths. Anyone who believes that science is "fixed" and that modern-day scientists have somehow stumbled upon the final answers to everything is nothing short of a complete fool. The great strength of the scientific method is that it is based on the asking of questions, even in the face of self-important, delusional "scientists" who have convinced themselves they are the final word on the subject at hand.

Through the process of asking questions and being willing to explore unexpected answers, science has made tremendous advances in understanding the material universe (although science has utterly failed to understand the non-material universe).

And yet, like any method of exploring the nature of reality, science is fallible. Science has made tremendous, horrifying mistakes such as giving pregnant women thalidomide as a morning sickness drug, or using African Americans for medical experiments in the Tuskegee affair. Science has created weapons of mass destruction and actually dropped them on civilian populations in Japan. Science invented DDT, Agent Orange and countless other toxic chemicals which now threaten the very survival of the human species.

See some of these failures of science in my related mini-documentary called "The Dark Side of Science"

Just this week, the CDC openly admitted that the era of antibiotics -- brought to you by pharmacological science -- is now coming to an end, and all of humanity is now threatened by superbugs for which chemical treatments are just about to run out. That's another little gift from the world of scientific pharmacology: deadly superbugs that could become the world's next deadly plague.

You won't hear TED talks about these subjects, because TED is dead. And by that, I mean TED's "mind" is utterly and completely closed to the really important ideas that we must discuss, explore and debate as a civilization if we hope to survive this "age of toxicity" that science has unleashed upon us. Instead of being open to "ideas worth spreading," TED simply declares all ideas it does not agree with as being pseudoscience. That approach requires no thought, no investigation and no real science. That's why it is also the same approach used by the status quo "scientific" community to push GMOs, mercury-laced vaccines and other deadly toxins on our world.

Why the "Berlin Wall" of closed-minded science will doom humanity to its own destruction

In a time when humanity desperately needs revolutionary, progressive ideas to survive its own destruction, TED is stuck in a 1950's mindset of "better living through chemistry." TED is like the 16th-century scientist who warns that if we sail our ships too far into the unknown, we will fall off the edge of the ocean and die.

Right now, humanity is suffering alarming rates of mysterious diseases such as autism, autoimmune disorders, infertility and cancer. Corporate-driven science has zero answers to these issues. The status quo "scientific" community exists in a total state of denial over the causes of these diseases, even absurdly insisting that injecting children with trace levels of mercury in vaccines is somehow "good" for children, as if mercury were a nutrient.

The biodiversity of our natural world is in a state of unprecedented collapse. The Earth biosphere is dying from toxicity, and that toxicity has been unleashed in the name of "science" via genetic pollution (GMOs), agricultural pollution (insecticides such as neonicotinoids), industrial pollution (which harms waterways and oceans), medical pollution (ionizing radiation and chemical medications) and food pollution (toxic heavy metals are now routinely being found in foods). This has all been done in the name of "science."

TED doesn't want you to hear about any of this. You are a "hoaxer" and a pusher of "pseudoscience" if you believe in any of this, apparently. And by God, don't you dare suggest that food is your medicine -- as Hippocrates wisely said -- or you will be called a "quack."

So thank you, TED, for showing you total insanity, your complete detachment from reality, your abandonment of humanity and your offensive, incestuous relationship with the Monsantos of the world. It is organizations like you, TED, that are destroying humanity by attacking the very people who possess the desperately-needed answers to saving humanity from its own destruction at the hands of closed-minded "science."

TED also aggressively attacks the very idea of consciousness, pretending that humans are nothing more than biological robots with no minds, no spirit, no soul, no consciousness and no free will. This is the position parroted by utterly misinformed "scientists" like Stephen Hawking, whose view of humanity is as dark and pessimistic as any we have ever witnessed.

For a full exploration of this issue covering Stephen Hawking's monumental mistake in failing to recognize the existence of consciousness, see my science documentary called "The God Within."

Learn the truth about science you're not supposed to know

Unlike today's corporate-driven scientists, I don't claim to have all the answers, but where I'm a quantum leap ahead of most modern-day status quo scientists is that I still believe in the scientific method of asking questions. Apparently, this act of asking questions is now utterly disallowed in today's dogmatic "science" cult.

I also have a strong scientific background, which terrifies GMO pushers and pro-vaccine child killers. I have a bachelor of science degree with a minor in mathematics and I'm fluent in the fundamental concepts of microbiology, chemistry, physics, anthropology, genetics, cosmology, nutrition science, environmental science, physiology and many other areas.

And what I've discovered from observing and writing about science for over a decade is that modern-day scientists suffer from a dangerous epidemic of arrogance that's actually standing in the way of real scientific advancement.

Sir Isaac Newton famously explored all sorts of bizarre ideas -- including delving heavily into the occult -- in his search for answers of how the universe works. If TED had been around in Newton's days, it would have banned Newton from speaking because his ideas "hadn't convinced the majority of other scientists" of their merits. Newton's laws of motion would have been called "quackery" because everybody knows that steel balls fall much faster than feathers, right? It's obvious, isn't it? How could they both possibly be accelerated at the same rate by gravity? TED would have banned such a talk.

So now, TED has become a re-hash of old, outdated ideas that brought us to these global problems in the first place. TED's answers to problems are apparently the same as Big Pharma's answers: more drugs, more vaccines, more chemicals, more corporate patents and more profiteering from human suffering.

Most of the world strongly disagrees with TED

For the record, most of the population of our world agrees with the fundamentals of what I'm saying here. Most of the world disagrees with TED's minority opinion on science and pseudoscience.

Specifically:

• Most of the world believes in the existence of mind and spirit
• Most of the world uses medicinal plants, not prescription drugs, as their primary source of medicine
• Most of the world agrees food contains medicinal properties and can be used medicinally to prevent disease
• Most of the world agrees the mind influences body physiology
• Most of the world agrees that GMOs should be questioned, relying on the precautionary principle rather than risking the entire genetic future of global agriculture with an unwise roll of the dice (open-air GMO experiments)

TED's disagreement with the majority of the world population on these issues puts TED in a desperate minority of monopoly-minded intellectual bullies who cannot win any intelligent discussion on the issues so they resort to censorship, bullying, intimidation and sheer arrogance to try to limit the public discussion of ideas they don't like.

That's not science. That's dogma.

Beyond TED - a new forum for leading thinkers

Despite its intellectual failings, we must thank TED for exposing itself as a backwards, intellectually-dead circle jerk of corporate-backed poison pushers who offer nothing but suffering and destruction to humanity. Because that creates an opportunity for the rest of us to get together and create our own public forum of truly progressive, groundbreaking ideas that can move humanity forward.

What I'm envisioning is a "New Science" forum where we invite Dr. Bruce Lipton, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, Graham Hancock, Dr. Andrew Wakefield and all the other brilliant people who are no longer welcome at TED conference because their ideas are simply too revolutionary to be stomached by the old school apologists for corporate-backed anti-science.

I don't personally have time to start such an event this year because, ironically, I'm working in the Natural News Forensic Food Lab and conducting real science in the realm of food investigations, but if someone else doesn't start a new science speaking event within the next few years, I may take up the task myself.

In this event, we would openly welcome talks on consciousness, hands-on healing, neuroscience, environmental science, spirituality, meditation and all the other areas that are too advanced to be tolerated or even understood by the ignorant TED organizers.

TED could have been something great by doing precisely this, but instead it chose to silence the truly brilliant minds of our time and force-feed people a total line of corporate-backed bunk that pushes GMOs, brain-dead materialism and synthetic chemicals as the answer to everything.

TED is dead. But real science moves forward, with or without the TED bullies who desperately try to stop it.

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McDonald's closing all restaurants in Bolivia as nation rejects fast food

McDonald's happy image and its golden arches aren't the gateway to bliss in Bolivia. This South American country isn't falling for the barrage of advertising and fast food cooking methods that so easily engulf countries like the United States. Bolivians simply don't trust food prepared in such little time. The quick and easy, mass production method of fast food actually turns Bolivians off altogether. Sixty percent of Bolivians are an indigenous population who generally don't find it worth their health or money to step foot in a McDonald's. Despite its economically friendly fast food prices, McDonald's couldn't coax enough of the indigenous population of Bolivia to eat their BigMacs, McNuggets or McRibs.

One indigenous woman, Esther Choque, waiting for a bus to arrive outside a McDonald's restaurant, said, "The closest I ever came was one day when a rain shower fell and I climbed the steps to keep dry by the door. Then they came out and shooed me away. They said I was dirtying the place. Why would I care if McDonald's leaves [Bolivia]?"

Fast food chain remained for a decade, despite losses every year

The eight remaining McDonald's fast food shops that stuck it out in the Bolivian city's of La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, had reportedly operated on losses every year for a decade. The McDonald's franchise had been persistent over that time, flexing its franchise's deep pockets to continue business in Bolivia.

Any small business operating in the red for that long would have folded and left the area in less than half that time. Even as persistent as McDonald's was in gaining influence there, it couldn't continue operating in the red. After 14 years of presence in the country, their extensive network couldn't hold up the Bolivian chain. Store after store shut down as Bolivia rejected the McDonald's fast food agenda. Soon enough, they kissed the last McDonald's goodbye.

Deep cultural rejection

The McDonald's impact and its departure from Bolivia was so lasting and important, that marketing managers immediately filmed a documentary called, "Why McDonalds's went broke in Bolivia."

Featuring, cooks, nutritionist, historians, and educators, this documentary breaks down the disgusting reality of how McDonald's food is prepared and why Bolivians reject the whole fast food philosophy of eating.

The rejection isn't necessarily based on the taste or the type of food McDonald's prepared. The rejection of the fast food system stemmed from Bolivian's mindset of how meals are to be properly prepared. Bolivians more so respect their bodies, valuing the quality of what goes into their stomach. The time it takes for fast food to be prepared throws up a warning flag in their minds. Where other cultures see no risk, eating McDonald's every week; Bolivians feel that it just isn't worth the health risk. Bolivians seek well prepared, local meals, and want to know that their food was prepared the right way.

This self respect helps Bolivians avoid processed "restructured meat technology," often used by fast food joints like McDonald's.

The McRib: 70 ingredients all restructured into one

Did you know that the McRib is processed with 70 different ingredients which include azodicarbonamide, a flour-bleaching agent often used in producing foamed plastics? McRib's are basically "restructured meat technology" containing a mixture of tripe, heart, and scalded stomach. Proteins are extracted from this muscle mixture and they bind the pork trimmings together so they can be molded in a factory. The McRib is really just a molded blob of restructured meat, advertised and sold like fresh ribs. There's nothing real about it, the preparation or the substance. In fact, McRibs really came about because of a chicken shortage. The restructured meat technology approach kept the McRib on the menu, despite the shortage, and the profits continued rolling in.

This is the very disgusting idea that the Bolivians have rejected in their country.

The Bolivian rejection of McDonald's has set a proper example for the rest of the world to follow.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com

http://www.globalresearch.ca

http://www.theblaze.com

http://www.trueactivist.com/mcdonalds-goes-belly-up-in-bolivia/

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Russians Enforce Martial Law Oct. 17th?

Will Russian soldiers be used to enforce martial law in America on October 17th if the US defaults upon its debt as this compilation video from RealDamiani suggests? Our videographer has combined video clips from both the MSM and alternative media that paints a picture of massive preparation from coast to coast by an entire variety of different US government agencies. What are they all preparing for?

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/YczoIEdljFo?feature=player_detailpage&wmode=transparent

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7 High Ranking Military Officers Fired By Obama, 1st Time In US History; Are These the Ones That Wont Cooperate With The Impending Martial Law In The US? (Video)

Are these the men standing between us and martial law?  They have been fired over various things ranging from sexual harassment to lack of trust.  One thing they all have in common is their combat roles.  They were all commanders of combat units.  Its a conspiracy theory for sure but I dont remember the last time I’ve ever heard of thismany top ranking military men being fired fromtheir posts. -Mort

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/YIqbFBmOZ2c?feature=player_embedded&wmode=transparent

Major General Michael Carey

Commander, 20th Air Force, he was in charge of 9,600 people and 450 ICBMs at three operational wings and served in operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. It lists 13 major awards he has received.

 

Vice Admiral Tim Giardina

Deputy commander of United States Strategic Command. His most recent command assignment was as commander, Submarine Group Trident, Submarine Group Nine, and Submarine Group 10 where he was responsible for all 18 U.S. Trident Submarines. Giardina has been awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit (six awards), Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (two awards), Joint Service Commendation Medal (two awards), Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (four awards), Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (three awards), and various campaign and unit awards.

 

Major General C.M.M. Gurganus

Commanded Regional Command Southwest and I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) in Afghanistan.  Awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit W/ Valor (2), Meritorious Service Medal (3), Joint Service Commendation Medal, Navy Commendation Medal, Navy Achievement Medal, Combat Action Ribbon.

 

Major General Gregg A. Sturdevant

Director of strategic planning and policy for U.S. Pacific Command and commander of the Aviation Wing At Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. Awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal (2), Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal (2), Air Medal with gold star, “V”, and Strike/Flight numeral 2, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (2), Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Good Conduct Medal

Brigadier General Bryan Roberts

Roberts took command at Ft. Jackson in 2011 and was on the fast track towards his second star. He has served in Iraq as commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, and was deputy commanding general of the U.S.Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky.

Major General Ralph Baker

Commander of Joint Task Force – Horn at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, Africa

Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette

Commander of Carrier Strike Group Three, April 5, 2012. He most recently served as Deputy Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, U.S. Central Command.   In 2003, he was awarded the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Award for inspirational leadership in recognition of the hard work by the crew of Oldendorf. He is the recipient of various personal decorations and unit awards.

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Planet X: Big Asteroids Discovered Near Earth, Moving Very Fast And Lots Of Them

From Youtube description:

“Is Planet X real? Nobody knows, but the evidence grows!
What will you do, if Planet X is real?
There are reports of asteroids, as big as a football field
Are you one of those who hides under his desk?
Too chicken to die, begging God to answer your request?
Well, God doesn’t save those who are about to drown
People burn up in buildings and God isn’t anywhere around
So, if you were hoping that God would save your life
Maybe it’s time to get real and discuss this with your wife
ThorNews has listed many new asteroids near the earth
He’s listed many facts about each, for whatever it’s worth
Everyone is debating and the world is divided
Watch this video. Make up your own mind!”

Links:
ThorNews Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXN_W…

Animation Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJZu1-…

Animation of object in gravitational field
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2qzsh…

Interesting but not at all surprising.  We live in the universe! and there are gazillionsof threats tothe earth in the universe.  -Mort

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Nibiru, Antarctica, Gov’t Shutdown – Coincidence or Cataclysmic Event Prep?

By Susan Duclos

It was recently reported that due to the US government shutdown, three Antarctic scientific stations would be put into deep freeze.

Convenient timing considering there has been some odd reports coming out about the Antarctic, Nibiru and secret preparations going on by the US government and other governments.

It is conspiracy theory yes, but sometimes when dots are so close together it is almost impossible not to connect them and come up with something far different than what the masses are being told.

So, come, jump down the rabbit hole with me.

Yesterday, via  GodLikeProductions: 

Anyone here have any Navy connections? I’ve got some family in the Navy and had 2 of them call me to pass along a rumor that something huge just went off under the ice. Lotsa of seismic activity and what appears to be artificial energy signatures in a 30 mile area near the pole. Also really bizarre Ariel phenomena have been spotted all over the continent. 

In late September Alex Jones spoke with Bob Fletcher, who was a key person in the Iran contra hearings, who talks about his unique insights to explain the recent events happening in America and across the world. (Video here)

When we consider the massive ammunition purchases, the FEMA Region 3 preparations indicating some catastrophic event being planned for, the assertion by former Homeland Security Secretary that a major natural disaster was going to happen, along with news justtoday that Chinese troops are on American soil, the thousand underground facilities the US is building and the 5,000 the us is helping othercountries build, an ugly picture starts to come into focus.

Fletcher believes a “catastrophic celestial impact, ” is coming and it all has to do with Nibiru returning to our Solar System.

Are all these events unrelated and coincidental or do governments around the world know that something is coming and simply aren’t willing to tell their population?

Is Nibiru on it’s way? Is the Antarctica, the one place consistently associated with Nibiru sightings, being emptied of all but necessary personnel in order to limit the amount of news coming from there? Are the conspiracy theorists who have been predicting this for years about to be proven correct?

Will they, or we, still be alive afterward to say “Hey, I told you so?”

What do you believe?

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Boston Marathon Conspiracy Theory Website Is Not What You Think; It's Actually Pretty Awesome

Conspiracies swirled after the massacre at Sandy Hook as fringe groups on the Internet picked apart police video and media reports, in some cases causing pain and suffering to real victims they accused of being "actors." But one person is attempting to prevent something similar from happening in the aftermath of Monday's bombings at the Boston Marathon.

Theorists attempting to use the domain, BostonMarathonConspiracy.com, will find themselves too late. The URL has already been secured by a person concerned it could be used to host conspiracy theories.

This is the text that appears on the Boston Marathon conspiracy theory website:

I BOUGHT THIS DOMAIN TO KEEP SOME CONSPIRACY THEORY KOOK FROM OWNING IT.

PLEASE KEEP THE VICTIMS OF THIS EVENT AND THEIR FAMILIES IN YOUR THOUGHTS.

THANK YOU.

Of course, this selfless act will not be enough to stop conspiracy theorists. Already, less than 24 hours after the tragedy, theories have circulated about a man photographed on a nearby roof and a memorial website allegedly set up before the bombings took place.

Right wing activist Alex Jones and his infamous conspiracy site, Info Wars, have also suggested that the attack was orchestrated by the American government as a "false flag" to infringe on civil liberties.

But just as with Sandy Hook, most of these theories probably can be chalked up to coincidences, rampant speculation or Internet imperfections.

Slate points out that Boston "truthers" may be stymied in their efforts to reinterpret this particular event due to the sheer number of witnesses, quality and comprehensiveness of footage and the fact that there is no real political motive for officials to lie.

UPDATE: Two similar domains, bostonmarathonconspiracies.com and bostonconspiracies.com, have now also been bought up by people attempting to keep them out of the hands of real conspiracy theorists.

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Was Donald Trump's Announcement A Gigantic, Pointless Waste Of Time Promulgated By A Venal Con Artist?

Yes. If you'd prefer to not click the link there and watch his YouTube, here's the summary: Mitt Romney campaign surrogate Donald Trump will give $5 million to a charity of President Barack Obama's choosing if he provides Trump his college transcripts and passport records by Halloween. Since this is not going to happen, that means that inner-city kids with cancer and AIDS will suffer, or something. Basically, Donald Trump, having gotten nowhere in proving any of the innately stupid conspiracy theories he's promulgated about Obama, now wants Obama to help him.

There is literally nothing else to say about this. Enjoy your day.

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Orly Taitz Blames Sandy Hook Massacre On Obama

Birther queen Orly Taitz blames President Barack Obama for the Sandy Hook school massacre, saying the president is "trying to show that some person can appear out of the blue and slaughter people" so he can ban guns and "gain an absolute power."

Taitz, an attorney and dentist from California, has been using her website in recent days to raise conspiracy theories about the school shooting, which left 28 people, including 20 children, the shooter and his mother. Taitz questioned whether Adam Lanza, 20, who police have identified as the killer, could have been under mind control or drugged to fulfill a political mission.

Taitz wrote on her website:

Where was Adam Lanza in the days leading to the massacre? Was he handled by someone? Was he drugged? Was he subjected to hypnosis?

The word assassin comes from the Arabic word “Hashish”, name for a drug, I believe correct translation is opium. For thousands of years, since ancient times assassins were drugged.

Was Adam Lanza drugged and hypnotised by his handlers to make him into a killing machine as an excuse as the regime is itching to take all means of self defense from the populace before the economic collapse?

In a separate post, Taitz questioned whether Obama was trying to ban all guns.

"Obama and his regime are trying to disarm all of us, in order to gain an absolute power," Taitz wrote. "They are trying to show that some person can appear out of the blue and slaughter people."

Taitz claimed that Lanza had a dispute with school officials the day before the shooting and that Lanza's mother had been a teacher at the school. Local police said they had no reports of a dispute between Lanza and school officials prior to the shooting. Taitz is demanding that Lanza's school records be released, along with his emails and phone records.

Some of Taitz' conspiracy theories are circulating on other websites. Talking Points Memo reported one conspiracy theory that involved Lanza's father, Peter, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee regarding the Libor scandal and needed to cancel the hearing. TPM said no hearing is scheduled.

Tea Party Nation accuses sex in the media, teachers' unions and the education bureaucracy for playing a role in the shooting. Tea Party Nation member Timothy Birdnow wrote that people are "overstimulated" by sex in the media and do have an outlet for it, which he said may have caused the shooting.

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THE CONTINUED STUPIDITY OF THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Last night, a week after the start of the aggressively futile, pointless government shutdown. Barack Obama addressed the American people. He explained—he loves explaining things—that he and the Congressional Democrats were perfectly willing to sit down and talk about everything they disagree over, but first Republicans were going to have to agree to end the shutdown and also to raise the debt ceiling, which is arguably more important for the economy. This is how Obama phrased his offer to negotiate:

“I am happy to talk with [Speaker of the House John Boehner] and other Republicans about anything… [but] having such a conversation, talks, negotiations shouldn't require hanging the threats of a government shutdown or economic chaos over the heads of the American people.”

That might sound reasonable if you’re on Team Democrat, but conservative media outlets like theDaily Caller heard something different:

“President Barack Obama tried Tuesday to sway the public’s jaundiced view of the budget crisis with a mishmash of economic threats, campaign-style attacks on Republicans’ repeated offers of budget talks and numerous promises to reject any compromise […] Obama slammed the GOP as deadbeats and extremists, as kidnappers, as unserious and insincere […] The stream of invective and contempt reassures his supporters and motivates them to turn out in the 2014 election, but boosts the GOP’s long-standing distrust of the president’s willingness or political ability to negotiate.”

That underscores the absurd stupidity of the situation Republicans and Democrats are in—it’s hard to have a reasonable discussion when you occupy entirely separate universes. The two sides don't even agree on who is losing the most from the shutdown. In the world of hard-right commenters like Erick Erikson, “Republicans are winning the shutdown fight, and Democrats know it,” while the Democrats can look at the polls and conclude that voters actually blame the GOP more than anyone else for the shutdown.

But those are national polls. In the much smaller world of the districts that elected the Tea Party Republicans who are behind the get-rid-of-Obamacare-or-we-shut-the-whole-fucker-down strategy, everyone is super pumped about the current stalled state of affairs. Representative Ted Yoho of Florida is getting enthusiastic pro-shutdown messages of support from his constituents, and only a few Tea Party members of the House are facing anything that could be called a backlash—the rest can look around and think, Hey, we're really kicking some ass here.

In that universe, the debt ceiling isn’t as big a deal as Obama makes it out to be. The simplest way to explain what is going on is to quote Josh Barro of Business Insider: “Raising the debt ceiling allows the federal government to incur more debt to pay bills it already agreed to pay… When you raise the debt ceiling, that allows the federal government to keep borrowing money to pay for things like Social Security checks and employee salaries going forward.” That sure sounds like something we should do! But Rand Paul and other “default deniers” claim that the US Treasury could just make sure that payments are made on the interest accrued by America’s debt, salaries for the military, and entitlement programs like Social Security. They claim the US won’t default on any of its debts while waiting for its two political parties to sort everything out.

The Treasury Department itself says it can’t do that for all kinds of reasons. In any case, a default on US debt would be a disaster for the world’s economy—obviously, the world’s richest, most powerful country should probably not be going, “Hey, we’re not sure if we’re going to pay our bills or not!” The credit rating agency Moody’s and the bank HSBC have said the US will avoid defaulting even if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, but no one seems to know for sure. It seems staggeringly stupid to risk that kind of catastrophe, even if you really, really don't like Obama or the federal government.

Even some conservative writers like John Podheretz (in the freakin’ New York Post!) say the shutdown isn’t working out for the GOP. And there’s no way to argue it's not hurting people across the country. Problem is, a lot of Tea Partiers seem to be caught in a feedback loop—a few right-wing media outlets and Congressmen tell voters shutdown and the threat of default are no big deals and those things are the Democrats’ fault anyway, the voters demand their Congressmen “stand up” to Obama, and a whole wing of the Republican Party is paralyzed by its own misinformation. Needless to say, this is pretty fucking stupid.

As a result, instead of negotiations, what we have here is a game of chicken. Game theorists saythe best way to win chicken is to tell your opponent, as loudly as you can, “I really can’t stop this thing! You’re going to have to be the one to swerve to avoid disaster, because it’s impossible for me!” Either because that’s his master plan or because it’s the only option left to him, Boehner has pretty much adopted this strategy. He’s already admitted he believes that not raising the debt ceiling would be a disaster, but he can point to the Tea Partiers in his caucus and go, “Hey, I don’t want to risk these faults, but these guys, Mr. President, they’re nuts, they don’t give a shit, you’ve got to give them some concessions or they’re going to fuck everything up, I’m totally powerless here…”

Obama would have to be pretty stupid to buy this. An informal count by the Washington Postshows that right now, enough House Republicans are willing to vote with the Democrats to pass a bill that would end the shutdown. But Boehner would have to bring such a bill to the floor first, and he won’t do that, maybe because that would likely mean he’d get booted out of the Speaker’s office by an enraged Tea Party, maybe because he figures Obama is going to break and agree to some concessions in order to get the government running again and avoid default. (Democrats could vote to repeal a tax on medical devices, for instance.)

If another week goes by without the shutdown being resolved and the debt ceiling being raised, the country is going to be risking some serious consequences for essentially no reason. To avoid that, Obama will have to give in at least a little to a group of politicians who will damage the world economy because they think the president of the United States is a Marxist. Or Boehner will have to commit political suicide and give the Democrats exactly what they want. Or the Tea Partiers in Congress will have to suddenly decide that their constituents are wrong and they should agree to let the government function. All of those possibilities seem unlikely, but the alternative—a world damaged because a few Americans refuse to get along—would be unthinkably stupid.

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WAIT A SECOND BEFORE CHEERING A POLICE SHOOTING

When police officers in Washington, DC, shot 34-year-old Miriam Carey after she took them on a short, frantic car chase from the White House to the Capitol, the initial consensus was that cops performed heroically, that they saved lives from a gunman who might even have been a terrorist. But the first reports, as is often the case, were wrong. Though the spontaneous hustle for news of Twitter first used the hashtag #capitolshooting, the only shots fired were by the police, and Carey was unarmed—in fact, she never left her car. But even after all of that was public knowledge, the widespread assumption was that the cops and secret service officers were justified in shooting at a woman who was recklessly and aggressively driving toward potential targets for terrorism and who refused to surrender to them.

On Thursday afternoon Carey, a resident of Stamford, Connecticut, drove up to a security barrier around the White House. When the Secret Service approached she turned around quickly, hitting the barrier and then speeding towards the Capitol building. In the course of this chase, two police officers were injured and a cop car crashed into a barrier. When the dust settled, Carey was dead and her now-motherless one-year-old child, in the back seat of the car, was put into protective custody by DC family services.

Now Carey’s two sisters—one of whom is a former New York City cop—are criticizing the cops, claiming they didn’t have to use lethal force on a woman who was probably terrified. There are certainly indications that, in hindsight, Carey was more of a danger to herself than anyone else. She may have suffered from postpartum depression with psychosis—there are reports that medications for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which she may have stopped taking, were found in her apartment. Carey apparently expressed various paranoid theories to police in December, including her belief that Barack Obama was spying on her. (Carey’s sisters dispute her ex-boyfriend’s claim that she suffered from delusions about communicating with Obama.)

Police say they are investigating the use of force, and the FBI is investigating Carey. Odds are the shooting will be ruled entirely justified even if it turns out the cops killed a woman who was merely confused and frightened. Carey’s driving would have been dangerous outside of DC, a town that just went through the Navy Yards shooting and is a ripe target for terrorists of all stripes.

It’s still alarming how quickly the situation escalated. What if Carey hadn’t meant to drive up to that first barrier outside the White House? What if she was freaked out by the Secret Service and sped away in hopes of avoiding a confrontation, and what if when she stopped long enough to have multiple guns pulled on her—seen in this video—she panicked?

None of that is clear, but what isn’t disputed is that the cops were firing at her moving vehicle, a dangerous tactic that is discouraged by many police departments, including DC's, as noted byThe New Republic’s Alec MacGills.

MacGillis’s piece highlights perhaps the most disquieting part about the story, which is the ease the story fell into the “disturbed, dangerous woman shot by cops, thank God they keep her safe, if she didn’t want to be killed she shouldn’t have been doing etc.” narrative category. The day of the shooting, the House thanked the cops with a standing ovation. Senate staffers passed out buttons reading “THANK YOU, CAPITOL POLICE.” Meanwhile, when The Guardian attempted to get a comment from the different agencies involved in the shooting, it found that official spokespeople “declined to provide any explanation of their officers' actions, beyond praising them in glowing terms.”

Is it so much to ask to to just hold off the accolades for a little while after an unarmed woman is shot in front of her infant daughter? At best, this was the justified—or, at least understandable—shooting of a mentally ill woman. But it’s not the time to cheer and then move on.

Now for the rest of this week’s bad cops:

- No matter what Carey’s mental state was at the time of her death, it’s clear that cops need to learn better tactics for engaging with the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped. In Salon, Emily Shire recently highlighted the case of Robert Saylor, a 26-year-old with Down syndrome who was asphyxiated during a struggle with Maryland police in January. The officers were trying to remove him from a movie theater after he tried to stay and watch a second film without paying. Saylor’s aide said her requests to have officer stand aside and let her try to calm him were ignored. Shire notes that Saylor’s impairment should have been immediately apparent, but when it comes to those with autism or other less visible conditions, the cops don’t have any idea what they’re dealing with, and treat those people as threats when they don’t respond to their commands. Training programs for cops are sorely needed. A quote by John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor and autism activist James Mulvaney sums up the whole frustrating problem: “When there’s a new drug, we train officers. Every cop in the country knows about molly, but we’re not training them about disabilities.”

- Details on this are scarce, but in what already sounds like an awful story an as-yet-unnamed homeless man was killed by Los Angeles County deputies over the weekend. The man was armed with what is being described a “wooden stick.”

- A wrongful death lawsuit filed on September 19 alleges that Hoover, Alabama, police took an hour and a half to to enter the home of Virginia P. Jamison even though she told them her 39-year-old daughter, Kelly Jamison Ozburn, was being menaced by an armed assailant. Their home was broken into on March 19 by a man named Jimmy Lee Frizzell, who was wielding a gun and a knife; it’s unclear whether or how well Frizzell knew the two women, but he immediately tried to shoot Ozburn. His gun jammed, so he took her hostage at knifepoint while Jamison managed to flee and call 911. Only minutes after the home invasion, police arrived on the scene—but for the next 90 minutes, they simply called Ozburn’s cell phone, tried to open the locked front door, and allegedly ignored Jamison’s pleas to go in through a side entrance. By the time police entered the home, Frizzell and Ozburn were both dead. Sadly for Jamison’s case, police are generally shielded by “qualified immunity”—meaning they have a lot of leeway in how to do their jobs as long as they aren’t knowingly breaking the law. The courts make it very difficult to sue the police for for failing to protect you, which is illustrated by—among other cases—1981’s Warren v. District of Columbia, a lawsuit brought by several women who were imprisoned and raped for 14 hours in a boarding house while waiting for the police to show. The eventual ruling there reaffirmed that cops have an obligation towards society and some special individuals (like informants), but not toward any particular individual, even if she has requested help in an emergency.

- According to a Department of Justice audit, between 2006 and 2011, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) misspent part of the $162 million it made through illegal cigarette sale stings. The troubled bureau also apparently lost 420 million illicit seized cigarettes, though its brand new director, B. Todd Jones, says that they’re doing a better job now.

- On Tuesday, US district court judge Susan Illston refused to dismiss a suit filed against Pittsburg, California, officers officers by the parents of the late Timothy Mitchell Jr., a 29-year-old who died during a 2011 drug raid. The police, who had a warrant relating to charges of marijuana dealing, forced their way into Mitchell’s apartment at 7 AM, where officer Les Galer fatally shot him. Galer claims that Mitchell grabbed at his arm, but by Galer’s own account he didn’t offer Mitchell a routine "get on the ground or I'll shoot!"-type warning before he fired. The judge also believed an expert who said the apartment’s door was undamaged, suggesting that Mitchell opened it for the cops himself. This means the suit against Galer and four other officers who were present for the raid will go ahead, but the commander of the of narcotics team, Norman Wielsch, is already serving 14 years in prison for dealing drugs and stealing evidence. Another officer who was there is serving three years on similar charges.

- On September 28 in Kansas City, Sergeant Steven Griswold was informed while on his way to help a stranded motorist that the guy was actually looking to commit suicide by jumping off a 60-foot overpass. Dashcam footage from that night shows that just seconds after Griswold arrived on the scene, the man on the bridge started to jump. Griswold reacted with impressive speed and grabbed the man by the ankles and pulled him back up to safety. Griswold is our Good Cop of the Week, and the proof is in the footage and the endearingly chill mannerisms of the cop. If just doing your job as a cop meant stuff like this, this column wouldn’t need to exist.

Lucy Steigerwald is a freelance writer and photographer. Read her blog here and follow her on Twitter: @lucystag

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