Thursday, September 11, 2014

It's working.


...The map above shows the concentration of stratospheric ozone over the Arctic—63 to 90 degrees North—on April 1, 2014. Ozone is typically measured in Dobson Units, the number of molecules required to create a layer of pure ozone 0.01 millimeters thick at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius and an air pressure of 1 atmosphere (the pressure at the surface of the Earth). Reaching 470 Dobson Units, April 1 marked the highest average concentration of ozone over the region so far this year. The average amount of ozone in Earth’s atmosphere is 300 Dobson Units, equivalent to a layer 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) thick—the height of 2 pennies stacked together....


The CIA updates show the number of fighters in Syria have doubled and perhaps tripled.

September 10, 2014
By Charles M. Blow

...But I implore the president and the nation to proceed with caution. (click here)

We can kill anti-American fighters and even their leaders, but we can’t kill anti-American sentiment. To some degree, every time we commit our forces in the Middle East we run the risk of further inflaming that sentiment.

For every action, there is a reaction. And there are also consequences, some of them unintended....

There is only one reason for such a large SURGE of fighters in Syria and that is the USA 'is back.'

It all makes sense, the USA is a permanent nuclear nation with incredible war resources. Most other countries cannot return fire once the USA has decided they are the target. So, what will it take to destroy the Americans and their war machine? What will it take indeed?

The fighters in Syria are not stupid people, they know their disadvantage and they will continue to grow a force to retaliate and destroy. This entire military venture is wayward and it is wayward from every angle. 

The war mongers on the Senate and House floors are only fueling the fire for a greater war and they know otherwise; they should not do it. "W" was famous for his ranting about war with descriptors that would increase the hostilities. The same is happening today by "W"'s surrogates.

Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy, has been locked in a campaign to stem child marriages following local and international furor about such practices in the Gulf Kingdom. Officials last year spoke of a plan to enact laws to curb child marriages.

The West would challenge leaders of these countries to bring their people to a more modern idea of marriage. The point is the USA is not the Middle East and the Middle East is not the USA. Americans have a lot to learn about these people and what they accept as their rights and how they govern the land.

This is the story told to me by a 14-year-old Yazidi girl (click here) I’ll call “Narin", currently staying in northern Iraqi Kurdistan. I am a Kurdish journalist with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia who covers northern Iraq as a freelancer for several international news outlets. I heard about Narin’s tale through a Yazidi friend who knew her. Aside from translating from Kurdish and excerpting her story in collaboration with Washington Post editors, the only things I changed are all the names, at Narin’s request, to protect her and other victims from reprisal; many of her relatives are still in captivity.

Girl and Women cultures in the Middle East are not dictated by Western values. And all the drones and bombs are not going to change that. Genocide is a separate issue, but, when it comes to females there is a lot The West simply doesn't understand.

All to frequently when the USA brings their war machines to wag some kind of noble battle, it is the money and not the morality that find cooperation. 

The bodies of newly trained Iraqi soldiers on a remote road outside the town of Mandali Sunday. The gunmen who killed them, in the deadliest ambush of the insurgency, were reportedly disguised as policemen.

October 25, 2004
By Edward Wong
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 24 - In the deadliest ambush of the insurgency, (click here) guerrillas dressed as policemen killed about 50 freshly trained Iraqi soldiers in remote eastern Iraq as the unarmed soldiers were heading home on leave Saturday evening, Iraqi officials said Sunday.

The soldiers were taken from three minibuses at a fake checkpoint about 95 miles northeast of Baghdad, near the Iranian border in restive Diyala Province, police officials said. They were told or forced to lie down on the ground in rows, then killed mostly with bullets to their heads.


The ambush, extraordinarily ambitious in scope and violence, showed a high level of organization, and the insurgents probably had inside information on the travel plans of the soldiers, who were members of the nascent Iraqi National Guard, officials said....

This ambush was an obvious insider attack. The guerrillas knew exactly where they were when they decided to teach The West a lesson. That is what this is. There were no guerrillas dead. This was to teach the USA and the UK there war was leading nowhere and for the next five years that was more and more the truth. The dramatic awareness of this truth happened when Iraq's borders were lost and it's sovereign government was worthless. 

Ten years after this ambush the resolve to defeat has a higher resolve than ever before. These efforts the USA is about to embark on is a purposeless as the training of these Iraqis by Jordan.

The USA is throwing good money after bad. It is hideous to believe this is now different that there is a Democratic President and Secretary of State. 

There is no direct threat to the USA Homeland except for it's war mongering media.

Humanitarian aid is vital to the region. The people need food and water.

DAMASCUS, 9 September 2010 (IRIN) - A top UN official (click here) warns that Syria's drought is affecting food security and has pushed 2-3 million people into “extreme poverty”. 

During a mission to Syria which ended on 7 September, Olivier de Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said 1.3 million people had been affected by the four-year drought, 800,000 of whom had had their livelihoods devastated. 

“The situation is really bad,” said Selly Muzammil, spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Syria. 

In June the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Syria said the drought had ended but that inconsistent rainfall was causing crop failures. Other UN agencies say the drought is ongoing....


Outlying tribes and religious groups are at danger for not only famine, but, loss of any water source.

...The drought is also threatening food security. Whilst the government says it is self-sufficient in wheat - the primary strategic crop in Syria - production has not matched demand. 

This year’s yield was 3.3 million tons, compared to demand for 3.8 million tons, according to government figures. Wheat has been imported. 

“Syria has enough to stocks for the shortage at the moment. The problem is that poor families have had several years of bad crops so their resilience capacity is low. Many families now don't have access to credit, for example,” said Mario Zappacosta, an economist from FAO's trade and markets division. 

The biggest challenge Syria is facing is altered weather conditions such as inconsistent rainfall, according to officials at the Ministry of Agriculture. Adversely affecting farmers, it is not clear whether the changes are natural fluctuations in the climate or permanent changes due to global warming....


When The West first became aware of a new religious group taking over land ruthlessly the activities were focused along the Tigris River/Euphrates River, hence the control of the dam near Mosul. They were no more interested in destroying that dam than to realize their own demise.

2 July 2014
By John Vidal

The outcome of the Iraq and Syrian conflicts (click here) may rest on who controls the region’s dwindling water supplies, say security analysts in London and Baghdad.
Rivers, canals, dams, sewage and desalination plants are now all military targets in the semi-arid region that regularly experiences extreme water shortages, says Michael Stephen, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute thinktank in Qatar, speaking from Baghdad.
“Control of water supplies gives strategic control over both cities and countryside. We are seeing a battle for control of water. Water is now the major strategic objective of all groups in Iraq. It’s life or death. If you control water in Iraq you have a grip on Baghdad, and you can cause major problems. Water is essential in this conflict,” he said.
Isis Islamic rebels now control most of the key upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, the two great rivers that flow from Turkey in the north to the Gulf in the south and on which all Iraq and much of Syria depends for food, water and industry....
This is exactly the circumstances the USA Military has been warning about for years now. While the American people are still waiting to realize that warning as reality, it has been starring them right in the face.

Nusra Front releases hostages in border concern.

September 12, 2014

..."We're all very happy to be safe and alive," he told the Israeli channel. (click here)

The same day the Fijians were taken captive, two groups of Filipino peacekeepers were trapped at separate UN encampments, surrounded by rebel fighters who demanded they surrender. They refused, and both groups of Philippine troops eventually escaped -- one busting out with the help of Irish colleagues, and the other by slipping away under the cover of darkness.

At UN headquarters, the Fijians' release was greeted with relief and renewed indignation.

Fiji's UN Mission tweeted a photo of diplomats celebrating with their thumbs up, reading: "Free at last! Thumbs up from the Fiji Permanent Mission in New York to our 45 brave Fijian UNDOF peacekeepers."

Jordan's UN Ambassador Dina Kawar said the idea of peacekeepers being taken hostage "is just impossible to accept because it will happen more and more, and that will make countries hesitant about sending their armies, so we were very happy."

The UN mission in the Golan Heights was established in 1974, a year after the Arab-Israeli war. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, and Syria has demanded the return of the land in past peace talks....

This had been Nusra's long standing complaint, in that they are not terrorists. This dramatic event is the way they find attention on a global stage.

..."We've been informed that we will be released soon, and we are all very happy to be going home," he says, adding that all the soldiers are alive and well.

"I would like to assure you that we have not been harmed in any way," he says, adding that they have been treated well by the Nusra Front.

In the video, the two men speaking in Arabic describe their version of events leading up to the Fijians' capture. They say they had given assurances the soldiers would not be harmed, and were honoring that promise.

The men say they wanted a prisoner exchange and humanitarian aid delivered to besieged parts of Syria, but denied reports they had asked for the Nusra Front to be removed from the UN terrorist list.

The Fijians said the group had also demanded to be taken off the UN terrorist list and wanted compensation for three of its fighters it says were killed in a shootout with UN officers....

It is not just anthropogenic emissions now; Earth is in a negative feedback loop.

September 9, 2014
Carbon dioxide accumulation (click here) in the atmosphere reached a record high last year and grew at the fastest rate in 30 years, the United Nations' climate agency reported Tuesday.
The World Meteorological Organization's latest Greenhouse Gas Bulletin "injected even greater urgency into the need for concerted international action against accelerating and potentially devastating climate change," the U.N. agency said....

There are fires returning large quantities to CO2 to the troposphere. The droughts also remove green vegetation that would normally absorb CO2 in large measure and there are warmer oceans which are degrading coral reefs. 

September 9, 2014
All is not well with the nation's birds. (click here) The most comprehensive study ever of birds in America is out today, and it says many populations are in steep decline, even as others are doing well....

Habitat and food sources are disappearing. Many of these birds are common to our communities, including the nation's bird, The Bald Eagle. They is a growing threat to their loss and quite possibly extinction.

I hope this decision can be appealed.

LIVE: OSCAR PISTORIUS TRIAL VERDICT (CLICK HERE)


September 11, 2014
Lisa Davies

Watch Judge Thokozile Masipa deliver her verdict in the murder trial of South African athlete Oscar Pistorius over the killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

Ukraine's ceasefire looks promising.

September 11, 2014

Kiev: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (click here) has pledged greater autonomy for the separatist east but says that would not compromise Kiev's control.

He has also said that 70 per cent of Russian forces had left the east, greatly improving security in the region and enhancing chances of a fragile truce.

The pro-Western leader's comments on Wednesday were soon followed by a European Union decision to extend by another day a heated debate on unleashing new sanctions aimed at punishing Russia over what the West says is Moscow's military aggression in Ukraine.

Mr Poroshenko said Friday's ceasefire - the first backed by both Kiev and Moscow since the conflict erupted five months ago - had dramatically improved security in the country's war-ravaged industrial rustbelt.

"According to the latest information I received from our intelligence headquarters, 70 per cent of Russia's forces have been removed," the presidency website quoted Mr Poroshenko as telling a cabinet meeting.

"This gives us hope that there are good prospects for the peace initiative."...


The Harris nuclear facility in New Hill North Carolina is in Wake County. Wake County has the highest cancer rate in the state.

Firefighters (click here) were called to the Duke Energy's Harris Nuclear Power Plant early Wednesday morning after a fire in a chemical room.

Around 5 a.m., emergency crews arrived at the plant after an employee said an industrial dryer was on fire.

Officials told ABC11 that the machine is in one of their commercial property buildings that is outside of the "power block." However, the dryer was near cleaning supplies and chemicals. 

The blaze was quickly extinguished, but to make sure, firefighters had to pull insulation from the machine. Fans were also brought in to ventilate the building....


North Carolina is guilty of hoarding. If not nuclear rods, then coal ash. When one looks at the state from a health and responsible government perspective North Carolina is nothing but a disaster waiting to happen.

August 8, 2008

One of the most lethal patches of ground in North America (click here) is located in the backwoods of North Carolina, where Shearon Harris nuclear plant is housed and owned by Progress Energy. The plant contains the largest radioactive waste storage pools in the country. It is not just a nuclear-power-generating station, but also a repository for highly radioactive spent fuel rods from two other nuclear plants. The spent fuel rods are transported by rail and stored in four densely packed pools filled with circulating cold water to keep the waste from heating. The Department of Homeland Security has marked Shearon Harris as one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation....

There is a commercial laundry on the property near the nuclear facility? Why? Employees at the facility have to wear badges to record their exposure. I guarantee you employees outside the nuclear facility don't.

March 18, 2011
...The ABC11 I-Team (click here) consulted Paul Turinsky, a nuclear physics professor at NC State, to learn more about the cooling facility and the spent fuel rods inside them.
"They're a pool," Turinsky said. "They look like a very deep swimming pool. Those pools have 20-30 feet of water above those assemblies, and that water has to be cooled."
But keeping them cooled has caused great concern among critics. Last year the investigative journalism group, Project Sensored, ranked safety issues at Shearon Harris the fourth most under reported story of the year because of the potential for fires in the spent fuel pools.
The local nuclear watchdog group NC Warn is just as concerned about terrorism.
"There's just no way to know if someone were trying to drain the water out of those pools either from the ground or an attack by air," said Jim Warren, NC Warn.
Progress Energy spokesperson Julia Milstead said, "It would be highly unlikely that any water would drain out of them."
The pools are kept in a secure building....

Wake County and Mecklenberg County (click here) are nearly tied in the state projections of cancer demographics in North Carolina. East carry 8 percent of the total cases of cancer in North Carolina which means 16% of the states cancer occurrences. No other county even comes close to the high incidence in these two counties.

Mecklenberg County is where Charlotte is located and the place where Governor McCrory was Mayor. It might explain why the Governor is so insensitive to any health related concerns in the state.

McGuire Nuclear Station on Lake Norman is just over 15 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina.

The only other nuclear energy facility in North Carolina is in Brunswick County. Brunswick County has a projected cancer rate of 1010 cases. But, Brunswick County has a population of approximately 108,000 people while Mecklenberg and Wake counties have approximately 1 million citizens.

I'd be curious as to the demographic of the patients which is not online. How many cancer cases in all these areas occurred from life long residents/years of exposure to environmental impacts. It would be an interesting study that every hospital can examine from their demographic records.

I guarantee there are going to be higher incidence of cancer near a nuclear power facility than any other type. The reason, more than likely, the higher percentage of the local population is effected by cancer in Brunswick County is due to the greater exposure to water than the other two. More than likely if a complete study of the country were conducted North Carolina would be among the highest in proximal distance to nuclear power plants and cancer rates. The state is just negligent about it's citizens. If the people within the states are policing their own wellness there would be even higher rates in North Carolina. 

Above Map (click here)

The police investigations across the USA are turning up no results. That is a problem.

September 10, 1014

Newly discovered (click here) witnesses to the Aug. 9 fatal shooting of Missouri teen Michael Brown are corroborating other witnesses' comments that Brown was taking a conciliatory stance when a police officer fired at him, according to new reports.

Two contractors standing about 50 feet from the shooting scene in Ferguson, Mo., and captured on cell phone video told CNN that they heard one gunshot and another then saw Brown, 18, staggering and saying, "OK, OK, OK." Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson kept shooting and Brown's hands were up, the witnesses said....

There is no results in Albuquerque. When do police finally get charged with murder?

September 10, 2014
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Less than three weeks (click here) before Michael Brown's fatal shooting in Ferguson, Mo., opened a national debate on the use of deadly force by police, city and federal authorities here set forth a plan to transform a local law enforcement agency with a stunningly violent reputation.

In some ways, the experience could serve as a lesson for Ferguson.

Since 2009, according to city records, Albuquerque Police Department officers have been involved in 47 shootings, 32 of which resulted in deaths — a body count that Police Chief Gorden Eden said has called attention to a "systemic failure in our ability to track employee misconduct.''

Civil lawsuits have cost the city millions of dollars. More than that, a Justice Department review of at least 20 of those civilian killings concluded earlier this year that a "majority ... were unconstitutional.''

Though municipal officials have acknowledged deep-rooted, institutional problems, Eden bluntly warned that a fix will not be easy....

The accounting of 'justifiable homicide by police isn't even complete. This study represents a small percentage of those citizens killed by police and of those dead there are disproportion of African Americans.

August 15, 2014
The report, (click here) compiled by the FBI, recorded 'justifiable' police killings between 2005 and 2012. While the database is incomplete — only 750 out of 117,000 local police organizations contributed to it — the undercounted figures show that two black people are killed by a white officer every week.

Of the so called justifiable homicides how many were armed?

...Of the documented cases, nearly a fifth — 18% — of blacks killed were younger than 21 years old. Only 8.7% of whites included in the report were under 21....