Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Justice, Dies at 79
February 13th, 2016Via: CNN:
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a leading conservative voice on the high court, has died at the age of 79, a government source and a family friend told CNN on Saturday.
Scalia died in his sleep during a visit to Texas.
A government official said Scalia went to bed Friday night and told friends he wasn’t feeling well. Saturday morning, he didn’t get up for breakfast. And the group he was with for a hunting trip left without him.
Someone at the ranch went in to check on him and found him unresponsive.
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Scalia’s death in an election year sets up a titanic confirmation tussle over his successor on the bench. The already challenging task of getting a Democratic president’s nominee through a Republican-controlled Senate will made even more difficult as the fight over Scalia’s replacement will emerge as a dominant theme of an already wild presidential election.
Soon after news of Scalia’s death surfaced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for the vacancy to be filled after Obama’s presidency ends.
“The American people? should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” McConnell said in a statement.
But McConnell’s Democratic counterpart, Harry Reid, called for the seat to be filled “right away.”
Scientist Runs Piracy Hub for Science Journal Articles—Almost All Science Journal Articles
February 13th, 2016Via: BigThink:
On the evening of November 9th, 1989, the Cold War came to a dramatic end with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Four years ago another wall began to crumble, a wall that arguably has as much impact on the world as the wall that divided East and West Germany. The wall in question is the network of paywalls that cuts off tens of thousands of students and researchers around the world, at institutions that can’t afford expensive journal subscriptions, from accessing scientific research.
On September 5th, 2011, Alexandra Elbakyan, a researcher from Kazakhstan, created Sci-Hub, a website that bypasses journal paywalls, illegally providing access to nearly every scientific paper ever published immediately to anyone who wants it. The website works in two stages, firstly by attempting to download a copy from the LibGen database of pirated content, which opened its doors to academic papers in 2012 and now contains over 48 million scientific papers. The ingenious part of the system is that if LibGen does not already have a copy of the paper, Sci-hub bypasses the journal paywall in real time by using access keys donated by academics lucky enough to study at institutions with an adequate range of subscriptions. This allows Sci-Hub to route the user straight to the paper through publishers such as JSTOR, Springer, Sage, and Elsevier. After delivering the paper to the user within seconds, Sci-Hub donates a copy of the paper to LibGen for good measure, where it will be stored forever, accessible by everyone and anyone.
Russia Warns Saudis: Deploying Ground Troops in Syria Would Unleash ‘A New World War’
February 13th, 2016Via: National Post:
Gaziantep, Turkey — Russia on Thursday night warned of “a new world war” in Syria after Persian Gulf states threatened to send in ground forces to the conflict.
Foreign and defence ministers of the leading nations backing different factions in Syria met in Munich and Brussels Thursday following the collapse of the latest round of peace talks.
Both Russia and the United States demanded ceasefires in the civil war so the fight could be concentrated against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, but each nation on its own, conflicting, terms.
The Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, staged their own intervention, saying they were committed to sending in ground troops. Their favoured rebel groups have been badly hit by Russian air raids and driven back by Iranian-supplied pro-regime troops. They said their declared target was Isil.
But the presence of troops from Gulf states which have funded the Syrian rebels would be taken as a hostile act by the Assad regime and its backers, and a sign that they were staking their claim to a say in the final settlement.
Russia issued a stark warning of the potential consequences.
“The Americans and our Arab partners must think well: Do they want a permanent war?” Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, told Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper. “It would be impossible to win such a war quickly, especially in the Arab world, where everybody is fighting against everybody.
“All sides must be compelled to sit at the negotiating table instead of unleashing a new world war.”
Doctors Think Microcephaly Caused by Pesticide Pyriproxyfen, Not Zika Virus
February 13th, 2016Via: Ecologist:
With the proposed connection between the Zika virus and Brazil’s outbreak of microcephaly in new born babies looking increasingly tenuous, Latin American doctors are proposing another possible cause: Pyriproxyfen, a pesticide used in Brazil since 2014 to arrest the development of mosquito larvae in drinking water tanks. Might the ‘cure’ in fact be the poison?
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Argentine doctors: it’s the insecticide
Now a new report has been published by the Argentine doctors’ organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST), [1] which not only challenges the theory that the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil is the cause of the increase in microcephaly among newborns, but proposes an alternative explanation.
According to PCST, the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, a chemical larvicide that produces malformations in mosquitoes was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014.
This pesticide, Pyriproxyfen, is used in a state-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitos. The Physicians added that the Pyriproxyfen is manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a Japanese ‘strategic partner’ of Monsanto. – a company they have learned to distrust due to the vast volume of the company’s pesticides sprayed onto Argentina’s cropland.
Pyriproxyfen is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the development process from larva to pupa to adult, thus generating malformations in developing mosquitoes and killing or disabling them. It acts as an insect juvenile hormone or juvenoid, and has the effect of inhibiting the development of adult insect characteristics (for example, wings and mature external genitalia) and reproductive development.
The chemical has a relatively low risk profile as shown by its WHO listing, with low acute toxicity. Tests carried out in a variety of animals by Sumitomo found that it was not a teratogen (did not cause birth defects) in the mammals it was tested on. However this cannot be taken as a completely reliable indicator of its effects in humans – especially in the face of opposing evidence.
The PCST commented: “Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added Pyriproxyfen to drinking water are not a coincidence, even though the Ministry of Health places a direct blame on the Zika virus for this damage.”
Austrians Need Constitutional Right to Pay in Cash, Says Deputy Economy Minister
February 12th, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
Austrians should have the constitutional right to use cash to protect their privacy, Deputy Economy Minister Harald Mahrer said, as the European Union considers curbing the use of banknotes and coins.
“We don’t want someone to be able to track digitally what we buy, eat and drink, what books we read and what movies we watch,” Mahrer said on Austrian public radio station Oe1. “We will fight everywhere against rules” including caps on cash purchases, he said.
Gravitational Waves Detected
February 11th, 2016Via: Guardian:
Physicists have announced the discovery of gravitational waves, ripples in spacetime first anticipated by Albert Einstein a century ago.
“We have detected gravitational waves. We did it,” said David Reitze, executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo), at a press conference in Washington.
The announcement is the climax of a century of speculation, 50 years of trial and error, and 25 years perfecting a set of instruments so sensitive they could identify a distortion in spacetime a thousandth the diameter of one atomic nucleus across a 4km strip of laser beam and mirror.
The phenomenon was detected by the collision of two black holes. Using the world’s most sophisticated detector, the scientists listened for 20 thousandths of a second as the two giant black holes, one 35 times the mass of the sun, the other slightly smaller, circled around each other.
GOLD UP NEARLY 5%
February 11th, 2016Gold Apr 16 (GCJ16.CMX) -COMEX
1,253.90 Up 59.30(4.96%) 11:31AM EST
Ye ha!
Via: Bloomberg:
Gold climbed to the highest in a year as investors sought a haven from tumbling stock markets after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen suggested the central bank may delay raising interest rates.
Australian Couple Living on a Sailboat & Traveling the World
February 11th, 2016I’ve heard from a few Cryptogonners who have checked out of the rat race and are living on boats full time. A few more live very close to their boats and are ready to sail off into the sunset should the need arise. You might have heard of people who have bug out bags. Well, these guys have bug out boats.
Here are some books I typically see people buying from Amazon:
The Essentials of Living Aboard a Boat by Mark Nicholas
Voyaging On A Small Income by Annie Hill
Leap of Faith: Quit Your Job and Live on a Boat by Ed Robinson
Decades ago, I spent a lot of time sailing and going on trips with a friend who’s dad had a 50 foot motorsailer. My brother was a competitive sailor and I went along to crew for him a few times. So with a bit of experience around sailing, living on a boat never seemed like a good idea to me—even assuming I’d had enough money to do it, which I didn’t. While it’s easy to imagine lolling around on deck in a calm, quiet harbor, I see a bottomless money pit, paranoia related to the anchor slipping at night (flipside might be expensive moorings), bilge issues, toilet issues, electrical issues, etc. etc. etc.
Pirates? Not a factor anywhere I’ve been, but piracy is no joke.
High-risk Areas of Yacht Piracy
Oh yeah, Captain Obvious here: Long voyages on the open ocean can be dangerous. (My brother almost went to Davy Jones’ Locker during a Transpac race.)
Yep, there are a lot of negatives, if your glass is half empty on the cruising life.
If, however, you can deal with the negatives, and you have the money to support such a lifestyle, the list of advantages is pretty impressive!
* Don’t like people? Hint: Most of them don’t have yachts. However, the few people who do spend a lot of time on the water generally have a strong sense of mutual aid for other sailors.
* Sail power works independently of whatever political and/or economic disaster is happening on shore. (But, see the links about piracy and the doldrums, depending on geography.)
* There can be good opportunities to catch fish and other sea food to eat.
* Modest solar and wind turbine builds can greatly reduce reliance on a generator.
With regard to the couple below, if you’re like me, you’ll wonder pretty quickly: Who’s paying for this?
It turns out that Riley worked in the oil industry for several years to save up for the yacht, and Elayna had the good idea to start making the videos and turning their story into an income stream.
Anyway, enough of my yammering, check out their adventure.
Via: Exploring Alternatives:
More:
Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy Arrested by FBI in Portland
February 11th, 2016Via: Oregonian:
Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who touched off one armed showdown with federal authorities and applauded another started in Oregon by his sons, was arrested late Wednesday at Portland International Airport and faces federal charges related to the 2014 standoff at his ranch.
Bundy, 74, was booked into the downtown Multnomah County jail at 10:54 p.m.
FBI Moves In On Four Malheur Holdouts
February 10th, 2016Over: Last Four Occupiers Surrender at Malheur Refuge
Via: Oregonian:
The occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, undertaken 41 days ago with guns and threats, ended Thursday with the peaceful surrender of four holdouts after an hourlong negotiation with the last protester.
Those taken into custody by the FBI were David Fry, 27, of the Cincinnati area, Jeff Banta, 46, of Elko, Nevada, Sean Anderson, 47, and his wife, Sandy, 48, of Riggins, Idaho. They each face a federal conspiracy charge for their role in the occupation, joining at least 12 others already arraigned on that charge.
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It’s going down now.
Livestream: LIVE call from Refuge — FBI Seige Happening
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Via: Oregonian:
FBI agents in armored vehicles on Wednesday evening moved in on the last four occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, hemming them into their rough camp and insisting they put down their guns and surrender.
