Made in China: Capsules Containing Powdered Babies
May 8th, 2012Update: China to Open Inquiry After South Korea Seizes Powdered Human Flesh in Capsules
Via: AP:
An investigation will be launched into allegations that drug capsules filled with powdered flesh from dead babies were being manufactured in China.
The official Xinhua News Agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying an investigation in August found no such capsules in China.
A new inquiry was opened after new reports of the pills being smuggled into South Korea yesterday.
—End Update—
Via: AP:
South Korea has seized thousands of smuggled drug capsules filled with powdered flesh from dead babies, which some people believe can cure disease, officials said Monday.
The capsules were made in northeastern China from babies whose bodies were chopped into small pieces and dried on stoves before being turned into powder, the Korea Customs Service said.
Customs officials refused to say where the dead babies came from or who made the capsules, citing possible diplomatic friction with Beijing. Chinese officials ordered an investigation into the production of drugs made from dead fetuses or newborns last year.
The customs office has discovered 35 smuggling attempts since August of about 17,450 capsules disguised as stamina boosters, and some people believe them to be a panacea for disease, the customs service said in a statement. The capsules of human flesh, however, contained bacteria and other harmful ingredients.
The smugglers told customs officials they believed the capsules were ordinary stamina boosters and did not know the ingredients or manufacturing process.
Ethnic Koreans from northeastern China who now live in South Korea were intending to use the capsules themselves or share them with other Korean-Chinese, a customs official said. They were carried in luggage or sent by international mail.
Americans: Too Broke to Go Bankrupt
May 7th, 2012Via: CNN:
This year, hundreds of thousands of Americans are expected to be too broke to file for bankruptcy.
The average cost to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, the most common form of consumer bankruptcy, is more than $1,500, according to recent research submitted to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
As a result, anywhere between 200,000 and one million consumers are estimated to be unable to afford that steep cost this year.
MIT Professor Has Been Running LENR Device Outputting Excess Heat That’s 14X Input Power Since January
May 7th, 2012Update: Cryptogon Requesting Responses from Qualified Individuals to NANOR Device and Data
University faculty in Physics or Electrical Engineering departments are invited to submit comments on the Jet Energy Inc. NANOR device and data presented by Dr. Peter Hagelstein of MIT at the “Atom Unexplored” conference in Torino Italy. The slides are here: Demonstration of Excess Heat from the JET Energy NANOR® at MIT by Mitchell R. Swartz and Peter L. Hagelstein (.pdf).
Please send your comment from your university email account so that I can verify your identity.
—End Update—
Via: E-Cat World:
At the recent “Atom Unexplored” conference in Torino Italy, Dr. Peter Hagelstein of MIT gave a presentation about some of his work in the field of low energy nuclear reaction research, concentrating on the work of his colleague Dr. Mitchell Swartz. Swartz has invented a palladium-based device he names a NANOR. When an electric current is passed through the palladium, excess energy in the form of heat is produced which, according to Hagelstein, is over 14 times the input energy.
In this talk, Hagelstein says that this NANOR has been running at MIT since January, and it has continued to produce excess heat far beyond anything that could be accounted for by a chemical reaction. Hagelstein says that the public is invited to take a look at the device in action.
As we have come to expect these days, there has been very little reporting of this development outside a few blogs on the Internet. It would be interesting if some of Hagelstein’s peers at MIT would take a look at the NANOR and make some comments — or even if some outside experts could pay a visit.
Research Credit: cm
‘Iceland Holds the World Record in Household Debt Relief’
May 7th, 2012This story has been circulating for weeks in the form of this Spanish language video clip. I was not able to find any confirmation of the story when it first appeared.
I just tried to confirm it again and found this Bloomberg piece.
Via: Bloomberg:
Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.
Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.
“You could safely say that Iceland holds the world record in household debt relief,” said Lars Christensen, chief emerging markets economist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “Iceland followed the textbook example of what is required in a crisis. Any economist would agree with that.”
The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. It costs about the same to insure against an Icelandic default as it does to guard against a credit event in Belgium. Most polls now show Icelanders don’t want to join the European Union, where the debt crisis is in its third year.
The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values. On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses.
…
Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges.
Larus Welding, the former CEO of Glitnir Bank hf, once Iceland’s second biggest, was indicted in December for granting illegal loans and is now waiting to stand trial. The former CEO of Landsbanki Islands hf, Sigurjon Arnason, has endured stints of solitary confinement as his criminal investigation continues.
That compares with the U.S., where no top bank executives have faced criminal prosecution for their roles in the subprime mortgage meltdown. The Securities and Exchange Commission said last year it had sanctioned 39 senior officers for conduct related to the housing market meltdown.
Footage of Judge Rotenberg Center Torturing a Person with a Disability Aired in Court
May 6th, 2012Via: Fox News Video Reposted on YouTube:
Research Credit: ottilie
Amish Farm Kids Remarkably Immune to Allergies
May 6th, 2012Via: Reuters:
Amish children raised on rural farms in northern Indiana suffer from asthma and allergies less often even than Swiss farm kids, a group known to be relatively free from allergies, according to a new study.
“The rates are very, very low,” said Dr. Mark Holbreich, the study’s lead author. “So there’s something that we feel is even more protective in the Amish” than in European farming communities.
What it is about growing up on farms — and Amish farms in particular — that seems to prevent allergies remains unclear.
Researchers have long observed the so-called “farm effect” — the low allergy and asthma rates found among kids raised on farms — in central Europe, but less is known about the influence of growing up on North American farms.
Holbreich, an allergist in Indianapolis, has been treating Amish communities in Indiana for two decades, but he noticed that very few Amish actually had any allergies.
…
The study did not determine why the kids who grew up on farms were less likely to develop asthma and allergies, but other research has pointed to exposure to microbes and contact with cows, in particular, to partially explain the farm effect (see Reuters Health story of May 2, 2012).
Drinking raw cow’s milk also seems to be involved, Holbreich said.
The going theory is this early exposure to the diverse potential allergens and pathogens on a farm trains the immune system to recognize them, but not overreact to the harmless ones.
As for why the Amish kids have even lower allergy and asthma rates than the other farming kids, “that piece of the puzzle we really haven’t explained,” Holbreich told Reuters Health.
Stellarium
May 6th, 2012We’ve been having some extremely clear nights recently and I wondered what some of the stars were called that I was looking at. I went looking for some sort of planetarium tool and found Stellarium, which is great!
Just set your coordinates and the software will display the sky as it looks in your location. You can move forward and backward in time as well. It shows nebulae, satellites, depictions of constellations and more.
If you’re like me, you’ll want to throw money at the screen. The donate link is at the bottom.
Via: Stellarium:
Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.
Fascism Rises from the Depths of Greece’s Despair
May 6th, 2012Via: Independent:
Entering its fourth year in recession, Greece now outstrips even Spain for youth unemployment with the new statistics published yesterday showing joblessness among the under-25s at 51.2 per cent. The headline unemployment rate is 21.7 per cent while the real rate is believed to be closer to 25 per cent.
It’s in this environment that a fringe group of neo-Nazis that would previously have struggled to attract a hundred supporters to one of its rallies seems set to enter parliament according to polls.
Research Credit: Timbooch
U.S. Department of Energy Claims ‘Unprecedented’ Success in Test for New Fuel Source
May 6th, 2012Via: MSNBC:
Could the future of cleaner fossil fuel really be frozen crystals now trapped in ocean sediments and under permafrost?
Backed by an oil industry giant, the Obama administration recently tested a drilling technique in Alaska’s Arctic that it says might eventually unlock “a vast, entirely untapped resource that holds enormous potential for U.S. economic and energy security.” Some experts believe the reserves could provide domestic fuel for hundreds of years to come.
Those crystals, known as methane hydrates, contain natural gas but so far releasing that fuel has been an expensive proposition.
The drilling has its environmental critics, but there’s also a climate bonus: The technique requires injecting carbon dioxide into the ground, thereby creating a new way to remove the warming gas from the atmosphere.
“You’re storing the CO2, and also liberating the natural gas,” Christopher Smith, the Energy Department’s oil and natural gas deputy assistant secretary, told msnbc.com. “It’s kind of a two-for-one.”
The Energy Department, in a statement last week, trumpeted it as “a successful, unprecedented test” and vowed to pump at least $6 million more into future testing.
“While this is just the beginning, this research could potentially yield significant new supplies of natural gas,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced.
ConocoPhillips, the oil company that worked on the test at its oil facility in Alaska’s North Slope, was hopeful the technique could become economically feasible for producing natural gas, a fuel that’s much cleaner than petroleum.
“Many experts believe that methane hydrates hold significant potential to supply the world with clean fossil fuel,” spokesman Davy Kong told msnbc.com. “The completion of this successful test of technology is an important step in developing production technology to access this potential resource while sequestering carbon dioxide.”
More: DOE: U.S. and Japan Complete Successful Field Trial of Methane Hydrate Production Technologies
Research Credit: MS
Minneapolis: Cops Offer Illegal Drugs to People for “Impairment” Study
May 6th, 2012There are a couple of good lessons here. First, of course, is that the cops are filth and flagrantly carry out felonies with impunity. Second, there seems to be no shortage of zombies who are content to get wasted on whatever substances the cops are handing out. Who knows what the “study” participants were actually dosed with???
Ah well, Viva La Revolución. The 1% are definitely quivering in their boots now.
Via: HongPong YouTube Channel:
Video documentation by local activists and independent media shows that police officers and county deputies from across Minnesota have been picking up young people near Peavey Plaza for a training program to recognize drug-impaired drivers. Multiple participants say officers gave them illicit drugs and provided other incentives to take the drugs. The Occupy movement, present at Peavey Plaza since April 7th, appears to be targeted as impaired people are dropped off at the Plaza, and others say they’ve been rewarded for offering to snitch on the movement.
Local independent media activists and members of Communities United Against Police Brutality began investigating police conduct around the Plaza after witnessing police dropping off impaired people at the plaza and hearing rumors that they were offering people drugs. We videotaped police conduct and interviewed participants, learning some very disturbing information about the DRE program.
Officers stated on record the DRE program, run by the Minnesota State Patrol, has no Institutional Review Board or independent oversight. They agreed no ambulances or EMTs were on site at the Richfield MnDOT facility near the airport where most subjects were taken. Multiple times, participants left Peavey Plaza sober, returned intoxicated, and said they’d been given free drugs by law enforcement. We documented on more than one occasion, someone being told they were sober by one officer, and then picked up by a different officer, and returning intoxicated.
Given the dangers of impaired driving, there is value in training law enforcement officers to distinguish between the effects of various drugs and several common medical conditions. However, we have captured video footage of instances in which DRE trainees recruited subjects who are not already impaired, and those participants say they were given drugs by the officers.
More: Minnesota Police Giving Peavey Plaza Occupy-ers Drugs as Part of Impairment Study
Research Credit: RP, almaverdad2
