their own hook-shaped tools, which they use for forag-
B
ing. iologists have known about the shrewd tool-use of the South Pacific island-dwelling crows for a decade, but they had seen the birds make tools only in laboratory experiments. Sure, the crows built tools in that artificial setting, scientists reasoned, but how skillful were the feathered engineers in the wild? Despite hundreds of hours of observing New Caledonian crows in their natural habitat, scientists had only glimpsed the behavior and still had questions about how the crows did it. So two biologists in the United Kingdom devised a way to catch the resourceful birds in the act. Everything is interrelated: war, terrorism, the police state, the global economy, financial fraud, corrupt governments, poverty and social inequality, media disinformation, war propaganda, WMD, international law, The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 gave birth to a dangerous American ideology called neoconservativism. The Soviet Union had served as a constraint on US unilateral action. With the removal of this constraint on Washington, neoconservatives declared their agenda of US world hegemony. America was now the sole superpower,‚ the unipower,‚ that could act without restraint anywhere in the world. The IMF assumes the burden of doing all the dirty work through its intervention. This includes the usurpation of sovereignty, the demand for privatization and reduction of social expenditures, salaries, wages and pensions, as well as ensuring the priority of debt payments. The IMF acts as the ‘blind’ for the big banks by deflecting political critics and social unrest. The seizure of political and economic power by corporations is unassailable. Who funds and manages our elections? Who writes our legislation and laws? Who determines our defense policies and vast military expenditures? Who is in charge of the Department of the Interior? The Department of Homeland Security? Our intelligence agencies? The Department of Agriculture? The Food and Drug Administration? The Department of Labor? The Federal Reserve? The mass media? Our systems of entertainment? Our prisons and schools? Who determines our trade and environmental policies? Who imposes austerity on the public while enabling the looting of the U.S. Treasury and the tax boycott by Wall Street? Who criminalizes dissent? This truth, emotionally difficult to accept, violates our conception of ourselves as a free, democratic people. It shatters our vision of ourselves as a nation embodying superior virtues and endowed with the responsibility to serve as a beacon of light to the world. It takes from us the “right” to impose our fictitious virtues on others by violence. It forces us into a new political radicalism. This truth reveals, incontrovertibly, that if real change is to be achieved, if our voices are to be heard, corporate systems of power have to be destroyed. This realization engenders an existential and political crisis. The inability to confront this crisis, to accept this truth, leaves us appealing to centers of power that will never respond and ensures we are crippled by self-delusion. The longer fantasy is substituted for reality, the faster we sleepwalk toward oblivion. There is no guarantee we will wake up. Magical thinking has gripped societies in the past. Those civilizations believed that fate, history, superior virtues or a divine force guaranteed their eternal triumph. As they collapsed, they constructed repressive dystopias. They imposed censorship and forced the unreal to be accepted as real. Those who did not conform were disappeared linguistically and then literally. The vast disconnect between the official narrative of reality and reality itself creates an Alice-inWonderland experience. Propaganda is so pervasive, and truth is so rarely heard, that people do not trust their own senses. We are currently being assaulted by political campaigning that resembles the constant crusading by fascists and communists in past totalitarian societies. This campaigning, devoid of substance and subservient to the mirage of a free society, is anti-politics. An armed thief wearing a mask and gloves entered Captain Max restaurant in Miramar, Fla in an attempt to rob the establishment. An employee of the restaurant responded to the situation by retrieving a gun and shooting and killing the criminal. No restaurant customers or employees were harmed during the incident. Desperate to stem the blackening‚ of the white homeland, the European Union last month offered billions in bribes to African governments to keep
their citizens at home. The goal of the ‘cash on the table’ deal was to place the responsibility for denying Africans refugee status in Europe on the shoulders of African countries. One unintended consequence, however, of US foreign policy and its interventionist regime change protocol is what European leaders view as the blackening of Europe. With hundreds of African refugees arriving on European shores this fear went from theory to imminent reality. African masses were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place: the deadly place between African leaders serving at the pleasure of their European compatriots and a hostile Europe. F r o m : Captnlen T i m e : 10:41 AM Have hull 377 think is the P15. No Rudder. anyone have a dimensioned drawing to build a new one The legalized violence was a legislated exception to the rule of law‚ being developed elsewhere in India. The Murderous Outrages Act applied first to the Punjab and then to Baluchistan, which now make up most of Pakistan and which even then were populated largely of Muslim ethnic groups. Under the Act, any fanatic‚ convicted of murdering or attempting to murder a European or an employee of a European could be sentenced to death. The trial‚ and judgment was carried out by three colonial officers (no juries), and the sentences were carried out immediately (no appeals). Court officers were allow to ignore any evidence of witnesses judged to have been offered for the purpose of vexation or delay. After the execution, the bodies of the convicted were often burned. Recordkeeping about such legalized violence was minimal as an aid to minimizing interference/ constraints/reviews by superiors elsewhere. Patty Bernardi and I spent the weekend in Wallowa county and had beautiful weather and good road conditions. We started of in Flora and had at least 200 Turkeys. On the Leap Lane to Golf Course Road approach to Enterprise we hit the bonanza with many flocks of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch (200250), Gray Partridge mostly in flocks of 12 to 20 birds ( 120-150 ) total. American Tree Sparrows were in several places in groups of 40-60 birds (100-140) total. We came across two large flocks of Horned Larks ( 200 ) total. Birding in town was pretty slow with several Accipiters and a Merlin keeping the feeders pretty quiet! We found
no Waxwings, Redpolls or Snow Buntings anywhere in Enterprise or Joseph. RT Hawks, RL Hawks, were abundant, and we had 1 Prairie Falcon and 2 Northern Shrike. This year’s theme honors the statement and prayer said to close rounds in Indigenous ceremonies. It is a phrase and call for the 7 generations, reminding us that we are all one though from different directions, cultures and communities. This theme can speak to women’s spirituality, interconnectedness with nature and all beings as well as that which is being threatened. In addition, it calls us to remember and live our lives in balance with our body, mind and spirit, to care for communities, our families and ourselves. There are many attacks on women’s lives, reproductive rights and stability: from laws made to control our bodies to high incarceration
rates and feminicide. All of this can be seen as an attack on our body, mind and spirit. Still with a belief that everything is connected and that we are all one, we know things can change. It only takes ONE to make a difference. The Cleveland dispatcher who sent police to Cudell Commons on Nov. 22 to respond to “a male threatening with a gun” has no serious discipline during her four years in Cleveland, her personnel file showed. Those officers fatally shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was carrying an airsoft-type gun with the orange tip removed. (Cory Shaffer, Northeast Ohio Media Group) By Cory Shaffer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. A Cuyahoga County grand jury on Monday elected not to bring criminal charges against the two Cleveland police officers involved in last year’s fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. The decision not to indict officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback brings to an end a monthslong criminal investigation into the highprof ile s h o o t i n g. Mond ay ’s decision c o m e s more than 13 months after the shooting, which catapulted Cleveland into the national debate about police use of force. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McG i n t y ’s oversight of the grand jury process drew criticism. Officer Garmback drove the police cruiser into the park toward the gazebo where Tamir had been sitting. The boy approached the car with his hands toward his waist. Loehmann jumped from the passenger side of the cruiser and fired twice. The entire interaction, captured by a city-owned surveillance camera, lasted less than two seconds. Loehmann wrote that he shouted four times for Tamir to show his hands before he opened fire. The city has lost a four-year, $1 million battle to fire a teacher arrested in the Occupy Wall Street protests. David Suker, a US Army veteran who taught at-risk youths in The Bronx for 14 years, was removed from the classroom in December 2011. He was charged with riling up students during an NYPD presentation at a school townhall meeting by complaining he had been roughed up by cops, showing a scar on his head, and exchanging high-fives and fist bumps with teens. Suker was also charged with failing to immediately report one of his
five Occupy Wall Street arrests in Washington Square Park on Nov. 2. He notified the Department of Education three days after getting out of jail. There can be little doubt now: America’s decades-long catastrophic failures to make significant progress in eliminating even a single one of the numerous jihadist groups around the world is due to the American government’s secret under-the-table crucial ongoing assistance to those groups, and this American-government support has intentionally encouraged recent terrorist events especially in Syria, Libya, and other countries that had been allied with Russia - but which might be flipped ‘your’ way, by those jihadists. In such countries (America’s ‘enemies’), the U.S. government calls the jihadist groups ‘moderates’ and pro-democracy. Relatives of the missing students have not lost hope and they continue to demand that the Enrique Pera Nieto government return their loved ones. Hundreds of people joined the parents of the 43 Ayotzinapa students, who organized a peaceful demonstration in Mexico City on Saturday to mark the 1 5 t h mont h since their children were forcibly disappeared in the southern state of Guerrero. Demonstrators accompanied the students’ relatives and marched to the Guadalupe Basilica, where they attended a service in honor of the students who were abducted in the city of Iguala, on the night of Sept. 26, 2014. Details of a secret detention center, where serious human rights abuses took place, deep inside the sprawling Tricomalee Naval base in the east of Sri Lanka are slowly emerging. The site is nothing new to those who were held there. In June this year the South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, Sri Lanka (ITJPSL) launched a 134-page report on on-going human rights violations and past cases in Sri Lanka. The report titled An Unfinished War: Torture and Sexual Violence in Sri Lanka 2009-2014 said. They knew they were being held there, but their family members or others concerned about their state knew nothing of where they were held. The American Petroleum Institute together with the nation’s largest oil companies ran a task force to monitor and share climate research between
1979 and 1983, indicating that the oil industry, not just Exxon alone, was aware of its possible impact on the world’s climate far earlier than previously known. The group’s members included senior scientists and engineers from nearly every major U.S. and multinational oil and gas company, including Exxon, Mobil, Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco, Sohio as well as Standard Oil of California and Gulf Oil, the predecessors to Chevron, according to internal documents. Can we create connected devices which reflect the subtleties and complexities of our human nature? Can we fabricate objects that lead to the creation of new cultural norms? What is the role of ethics in the creation of a new connected world? Join us for this special program in partnership with the Officine Arduino, Fablab Torino, and Casa Jamina communities, taking place at their facilities in Turin, Italy. In our four-week program “Coming Soon”, using a hands-on approach, we will investigate the creative and expressive possibilities of Internet of Things technologies, electronics and sensors, and gain a foundation in digital fabrication and design fiction methodologies. Inhabiting a fictional narrative, students will dream up inventive ideas for new smart objects and with the aid of our instructors and other professionals, learn the proper tools and processes needed to create and communicate their own vision of the future. Coolest weather so far for the season, a minimum of 12C. Took out a light cardigan and a blanket... Lunch: Enjoyed eating Coriander chutney with hot rice. Lemon Rasam and yoghurt rice mixed with slices of apple. Dinner will be Chapatis with dahl - made with Urad dahl... Mexican law-enforcement officials said Ethan Couch, the affluenza‚ teen, and his mother have been taken into custody. The pair have been missing for more than two weeks after Couch, who was convicted of intoxicated manslaughter, failed to report to his probation officer. Officials found them near Puerto Vallarta, a Pacific beach-resort cityroughly 1,000 miles southwest of their Burleson, Texas, hometown. The store some call Whole Paycheck‚ for its high pricing of organic grocery products has been ordered to pay $500,000 to the City of New York. This summer, reports alleged the store overcharged some New York customers for produce and pre-packaged fresh products. As part of the settlement, Whole Foods will also be required to conduct extra training and in-store audits along with the fine. We agreed to $500,000 in order to put this issue behind us so that we can continue to focus our attention on providing our New York City customers with the highest level of quality and service,‚ the company said in a grudging statement. New York City’s Department of Consumer Affairs said, Whether it’s a bodega in the Bronx or a national grocery store in Manhattan, we believe every business needs to treat its customers fairly and, with this agreement, we hope Whole Foods will deliver on its promise to its customers to correct their mistakes. Since 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians were detained by Israeli occupation forces, including over 15,000 women. During the First Intifada at least 3000 women were detained and during Al-Aqsa Intifada more than 900 women were locked up behind Zionist bars. Palestinians are subjected to raids by the Israeli occupation forces, whether day or night raids, to their houses, villages, refugee camps or towns, and subjected to kidnappings at
checkpoints or workplaces. Sometimes those detained are released after a few days, after a few weeks or remain in detention indefinitely. These kidnapping and detention take place in violation of international laws and conventions, whereby the treatment of Palestinian female prisoners during arrest, interrogation and detention is a clear breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, in particular Articles relating to the protection of civilian prisoners at the time of war, particularly Article 32, Article 76, Article 49 and Article 27. In average, the Zionist entity kidnaps and detains 5-8 Palestinian women and girls monthly for various reasons and periods. Often, Palestinian female prisoners are accused of being involved in or supporting Palestinian resistance, or as a means to pressure their wanted relatives to hand themselves in or in order to obtain confessions from their imprisoned relatives. Additionally, the Israeli occupation Prison Service (IPS) uses psychological and physical torture as a means to extract confessions and information from the Palestinian prisoners, including women. For example, interrogators deprive Palestinian female prisoners of sleep for long periods during interrogation, which may last from 20 to 120 days, and they are tied to plastic or wooden seats in interrogation cells as a means to achieve physical pressure. Additionally, Palestinian female prisoners are subjected to various forms of psychological torture; including verbal harassment, insulting religious and national beliefs of the prisoners, uttering obscenities in front of them during the investigation, threats of sexual assault and rape to force Palestinian women to surrender and submit confessions. Additionally, Palestinian female political prisoners, like their male comrades, are held under inhumane conditions in cells that are overcrowded, dirty, humid, cold in winter and hot in summer, and lack ventilation and the basic needs for living. They also suffer from various punishments, ranging from malnutrition, medical negligence, to denial of family visits and isolation. There are currently around 7000 Palestinian political prisoners and detainees held captive in 22 Israeli jails and detention centres, including 53 women, 430 children, 252 of whom from occupied Jerusalem (including 16 below the age of 12). Additionally, there are currently 540 administrative detainees held captive without charge or trial, including 3 women, 9 minors (3 from occupied Jerusalem and 9 from the occupied West Bank), and 2 MPs (Hasan Yousif and Mohammad An-Natsheh). Palestinian women, men, children and elderly are kidnapped either from their homes, at checkpoints, or during day and night raids. Some of those detained were released later, some kept in captivity, others deported from occupied Jerusalem for weeks or months. According to a recent report of the Prisoners Affairs Committee, 6830 Palestinian were detained in 2015, an increase of 12.7% from 2014, 76.3% from 2013, 77.5% from2012 and 106% from 2011. 60% of the detentions were registered in the occupied West Bank and 34.5% in occupied Jerusalem. These were distributed as follows: January: 400 detentions, February: 335, March: 390, April: 420, May: 372, June: 375, July: 345, August: 420, September: 488, October: 1550, November: 920, December: 815. There was also an increase in the detention of women and minors, whereby 2179 minors and 225 women were detained. There is a registered increase in the number of administrative detentions, which are detentions without charge or trial. In 2015, 650 administrative detention orders were issued, including new and renewed orders for 3-6 months, raising the number of administrative detainees to 540, including 3 women. Since October 2015, the Zionist entity started issuing administrative detention orders to Palestinian Jerusalemites, whereby 31 Palestinian Jerusalemites are currently held without charge or trial in administrative detention, including 3 minors. Since the beginning of the current AlQuds Intifada in October 2015, 3285 Palestinians were detained, an average of 35-40 detentions per day, including 1500 children, making 45.7% of those detained, 90 women, and many sick and former prisoners. Many were beaten during arrest, others were shot deliberately before arrest. During the months October - November 2015, 2500 cases of detention were registered, including 1200 children, and 350 administrative detention orders, and at least 30 Palestinians were charged with ‘incite-
ment to violence’ on Facebook. Alone in occupied Jerusalem, 800 detention cases were registered, half of which were children. In average, 100-120 women and girls are detained monthly by Israeli occupation forces, some remain in detention, while others are released after hours or days on bail to under house arrest or are ‘deported’from their homes and towns for certain periods of time. Since the beginning of 2015, at least 27 women and girls were detained, who are first degree relatives of Palestinian political prisoners, 7 of whom are still in detention. Since the beginning of the current Al-Quds Intifada, there has been a signif icant increase in the number of women and girls de t a i ne d by the IOF. Most of these detainees were arrested after Israeli occupation soldiers or Zionist colonists claimed that the women ?carried knives and planned to stab Israelis?. Early December 2015, it was reported that the IPS in Damon prison opened a new section for Palestinian female political prisoners due to overcrowding in HaSharon prison (Tel Mond). 15 Palestinian female political detainees were transferred from HaSharon prison (Tel Mond) to the new section in Damon, none of whom are sentenced yet, and they were not allowed to take their personal belongings with them. On 22.12.2015, 3 female administrative detainees were also transferred to Damon. Currently, there are 53 Palestinian women and girls held captive in inhuman conditions in the Zionist jails and detention centres HaSharon, Ramleh and Damon; distributed as follows: 8 of from Jerusalem, 3 from Palestinian areas occupied in 1948, 38 from the West Bank (Hebron: 16, Ramallah: 6, Bethlehem: 6, Jenin: 4, Nablus: 4, Tulkarim: 1, Tubas: 1, Qalqilya: 1), 2 from Gaza (1 born in occupied Haifa), 1 unknown. 13 minors under the age of 18. 14 mothers. 8 were detained after being shot by Israeli occupation soldiers. 3 in administrative detention. 6 former detainees. Palestinian female political prisoners held captive by the Zionist entity: 1. Lina Ahmad Saleh Jarbouni: /40 years old, from Arabet Al-Boutof in Al-Jaleel, held captive in Israeli jails since 18.04.2002./ Lina was born on 11.01.1974 among 9 sisters and 8 brothers. She received her primary and secondary education in the village school, and received her high school degree in 1992. The economic situation of her family prevented her from pursuing university edu-
cation, so she was forced to work in a sewing workshop. On the early hours of 18.04.2002, more than 30 Israeli army vehicles surrounded her family house, and Israeli occupation soldiers kidnapped her and her brother Sayid. Both were taken handcuffed and blindfolded to Al-Jalameh detention centre. She remained 30 days in interrogation cells, and was subjected to various forms of psychological torture such as insults, isolation and sleep deprivation. During this time, her sister Lames was also arrested, to pressure Lina into confessing, but she remained steadfast. Lina was charged with ‘contacting the enemy’, providing assistance for resistance operations, and membership in Hamas, and sentenced by the District Court in the city of Haifa to 17 years in jail. De-
spite her suffering in Israeli captivity, she is in high spirits and has a strong character, and was mandated by Palestinian female prisoners to represent them and be their spokeswoman. Lina loves reading and was known in her family as a ‘book worm’, and because she speaks fluent Hebrew, she has a central role in teaching female prisoners Hebrew. Lina comes from a family known for its sacrifices and contribution to the Palestinian resistance: her g randfather Haj Ali was one of the resistance fighters during the revolution of 1936, as well as through the Nakba of 1948, her father was imprisoned several times by the Zionist entity on political issues, and her uncle Omar was killed in Lebanon fighting Israeli occupation soldiers when they invaded Lebanon in 1982. She is currently held in HaSharon prison (Tel Mond) and suffers from various diseases, such as permanent headache, swelling in the feet and infections in the gallbladder, w h i c h cause her s e v e r e cramps and pain. She underwent s u r g e r y, and her gallbladder was completely removed by laser. Consequently, she is in need of medical follow-up, but suffers from deliberate medical negligence. It is worth mentioning that the IPS repeatedly refused to release her, as she has spent two-thirds of her sentence. *2.Muna Hussein Qa?dan*: /43 years old, from Arrabeh in Jenin governorate, held captive in Israeli jails since 12.11.2012./ Muna was born on 25.09.1971 and has 4 sisters and 3 brothers. She is a former prisoner and was detained five times and spent a total of 3 years in Israeli captivity: Her first detention was in 1999, where she was subjected to harsh interrogation in Al-Jalameh integration centre, and went on a hunger strike for a month before being released. Another time, she went on hunger strike for 16 days to protest her isolation, after which she was released from isolation. In 2003, Muna was kidnapped again from her home, and was held in Al-Jalameh interrogation centre for 45 days, after which she was sentenced to 17 months captivity in HaSaron prison (Tel Mond). Here, her health problems began, as she started suffering from ulcers and blood pressure problems. She was also detained on 02.08.2007 and released on 20.06.2008, detained again on 31.05.2011 at a military checkpoint,
spent several months in captivity before being released on 18.11.2011 in the prisoner swap deal between Hamas and the Zionist entity. Her last detention was on 12.11.2012, when a huge Israeli occupation force raided her parent?s house at midnight, searched the house and destroyed its property, confiscated her computer and before kidnapping her. She is still held captive in HaSharon prison (Tel Mond), and is accused of running a charity society in Jenin, which provides support and help to orphans. Muna was subjected to over 30 court sessions, and her detention was renewed over 19 times. Israeli military courts deliberately postponed issuing a verdict to increase the psychological and physical pressure caused by the transport of prisoners in the Posta (prisoners’ transportation truck) to courts and back. In average, she is taken once a month to court in a 12-hour journey as a punishment. During such journeys Palestinian prisoners are not allowed to eat or drink, and are hand and leg shackled. Eventually, on 31.03.2015, Muna was sentenced by an Israeli military court, which cancelled her release in the prisoner swap deal. She received 70 months imprisonment, despite an agreement between her lawyer and the Israeli general prosecutor on a sentence of maximum 36 months. She was also sentenced to 24 months suspended sentence for 5 years from the date of her release, and a 30,000 NIS fine. Muna, currently the second longest serving Palestinian female prisoner, suffers from chronic ache in stomach and joints and blood pressure problems, and doesn’t receive proper treatment. She is deprived of family visits since her detention. During her captivity, Muna lost her mother and was not allowed to say farewell to her. She also got engaged to Palestinian political prisoner Ibrahim Ighbariyyeh, who received 3 life sentences and 10 years. Her brother Tariq is an administrative detainee, but she is not allowed any communication with her fiance or brother. On 04.05.2015, and following a petition submitted by her lawyer, Muna was allowed to meet with her fiance. It is worth mentioning that Muna was enrolled at Al-Quds Open University, had a few credits left before graduation, but her studies were interrupted several times due to being detained. 3. Fathiyyeh Abdel Fattah Khanfar:
/65 years old, from Silet Al-Thahir in Jenin governorate, held captive in Israeli jails since 03.02.2013./ Fathiyyeh is mother of 7. She was detained on 03.02.2013 while visiting her son Rami Khanfar in An-Naqab prison, who is sentenced to 15 years in Israeli captivity. Fathiyyeh was detained for 18 days, after which she was placed under house arrest under the supervision of a bailor in occupied Rahat and fined 30,000 NIS. She remained under house arrest for 9 months before being released and returned to her home in October 2013. She was re-arrested on 25.07.2015, and sentenced to 11 months in jail after 21 court sessions on charges of allegedly attempting to smuggle a mobile SIM card to her imprisoned son. She suffers from arthritis, asthma back pain, pain in the legs, infections in the trachea. Fathiyyeh is held captive in Neve Tirza prison (Ramleh), and is isolated in a cell in the section of Israeli criminals. Her situation is especially difficult because she is old and sick. Her cell is small, dirty and infested with insects, with no drinking water or electrical utilities for cooking, where she sleeps on a very thin mattress placed on the concrete floor, and she is isolated from the outside world and denied visits from and contact with family members. The Israeli criminals in the nearby cells shout loudly all the time and insult her. 4. Dunia Wakid: /38 years old, from Tulkarim refugee camp, held captive in Israeli jails since 27.05.2013./ Dunia worked in a jewellery shop, before being kidnapped from her house by Israeli occupation soldiers in a night raid on 27.05.2013. She was denied to see any lawyers until 16.06.2013, and was sentenced to 42 months in jail on 02.02.2014 on charges of trying to smuggle money and mobile phones to Palestinian political prisoners. Her fiance Mohammad Wakid is currently serving a prison sentence of 29 years. She is not allowed any communication with him, and she is subjected to medical negligence as she suffers from diabetes and asthma. Two of Dunia?s brothers were killed by Israeli occupation forces. 5. Wilam Jaber Asidah: /22 years old, from Tel in Nablus governorate, held captive in Israeli jails since 11.11.2013./ She is a student of Business and Administration at An-Najah University. She was arrested on 11.11.2013 at Zaytara military checkpoint, whereby Israeli occupation soldiers beat her to the ground, handcuffed her before taking her to interrogation cells. Wilam was accused of possessing a knife and attempting to stab an occupation soldier, and sentenced on 24.04.2014 to 32 months imprisonment, a fine of 5000 NIS and 16 months suspended sentence. She is currently held in HaSharon prison (Tel Mond). Her brother Asem Asidah was killed by Israeli occupation forces, he uncle was sentenced to 27 years in Israeli captivity. Wilam is deprived of family visits. 6. Falasteen Fareed Najem: /28 years old, from Nablus, held captive in Israeli jails since 20.11.2013./ Falasteen is a former prisoner; was first arrested on 15.02.2006, sentenced to 16 months jail, and was released on 14.06.2007, and arrested again on 20.11.2013, accused of possessing a knife and trying to stab an occupation soldier, which is the ready excuse to kidnap Palestinian women, whereby 80% of female prisoners are accused of this. She was sentenced on 05.01.2015 to 48 months imprisonment, a fine of 3000 NIS and 24 months suspended sentence for five years. In one report, Falasteen talks about her experience with the Posta:
I
t is a journey of slow death; an iron structure with iron chairs and walls, smell of vomit is everywhere, and there is no toilet or ventilation despite the fact that the journey in the Posta lasts hours and the weekly journey for some prisoners. It is very cold, seats are very close to each other to the point of causing pain to the knee, joints and back. The prisoner cannot sit in a comfortable position, because of the restrictions and hand and leg shackles. She also remembers the waiting rooms at the Ofer prison before the court session: My court session ends in the morning hours, but they keep me held in the dirty waiting rooms until the end of all trials, i.e. at around 17:00, to send me back to HaSharon. These rooms are as dirty as a dumpsite; there are insects and cockroaches, the smell of humidity is stark, there is lack of air and sun, you cannot use the toilet, even if you need it urgently, because of its dirtiness and the filth is beyond description. 7. Shireen Issawi: /34 years old from Jerusalem, held captive in Israeli jails since 06.03.2014./ Shireen is a human rights lawyer and an advocate for the rights of Palestinian political prisoner. She was also the spokesperson for her brother Samer Issawi during his 270-day hunger strike. Shireen participated in monitoring and documenting Israeli human rights violations committed against Palestinian prisoners. She is herself a former prisoner; she was arrested for the first time in 2010 and imprisoned for a year, in addition to being barred from legal practice for three years, a ruling that was extended in 2013 for another two years. On 06.03.2014, Shireen was kidnapped with her brothers Medhat and Shadi by Israeli occupation soldiers from her family house and was held captive in HaSharon prison (Tel Mond). Shireen and Medhat were accused of smuggling funds to Palestinian prisoners. On 22.04.2015, Shireen and 5 other prisoners were punished and isolated in their cells for 4 days and denied family visits for a month; they were accused by the IPS of singing and waving a Palestinian flag while the sirens were on for the dead Israeli occupation soldiers. It was also reported that on 03.05.2015, Shireen and another 4 Palestinian detainees were isolated for a week after an Israeli jailor claimed that the Palestinian female detainees pushed her. Following protest from the other Palestinian female political detainees, the other 4 were returned back to the wing of Palestinian political prisoners, but with the same isolation conditions for a week. The next day, Shireen was transferred to isolation in Neve Tirza (Ramleh). Her cell was small, very hot, smelly, without windows, and had a tap that is connected to a douche in the ceiling, when the tap was turned on, the whole floor become wet. She was held in isolation until 13.05.2015, to be isolated again on 25.05.2015 for a week after being accused of sending a letter to Palestinian media. Shireen reported that during her trial on 12.10.15, Nachshon occupation forces threatened her by saying that she deserved a bullet in the head instead of jail, and that ?this land is the land of the Israelis and Palestinians have to leave it?. Early December 2015, it was reported that the IPS transferred 15 Palestinian female political detainees, including Shireen, from HaSharon prison (Tel Mond) to Damon prison because of overcrowding. None of these detainees are sentenced yet, and they were not allowed to take their personal belongings with them. 8. Thuraya Kamal Taha Al-Bazar: /21 years old, from Beit Ilu in Ramallah governorate, held captive in Israeli jails since 26.07.2014./ Thuraya is a student of Media and Technology at Al-Quds Open University. She was arrested on 26.07.2014 in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, and 12.02.2015 was on sentenced to 22 months imprisonment. She is held captive in HaSharon prison (Tel Mond). 9. Ihsan Hasan Abdel Fattah Dababseh: /28 years old, from Nuba in Hebron governorate, held captive in Israeli jails since 13.10.2014./ Ihsan is a former prisoner: she was arrested the first time on 11.12.2007 and sentenced to 2 years imprisonment on charges of membership in Islamic Jihad, and was released on 06.09.2009. On 13.10.2014, she was arrested for the second time, and is still waiting to be sentenced. Israeli occupation soldiers raided her house several times, sent her 4 summons and threatened to blow up her house of she didn?t come to interrogation centre. She went with her mother to detention centre and was detained and her personal computer was confiscated, while her moth-
er told to leave. During her first arrest at Etzion, Israeli occupation soldiers filmed her while handcuffed and her eyes blindfolded. They were dancing and singing around her, while pushing, humiliating and harassing her. She recalls in an interview: They handcuffed and blindfolded me, and threw me into a military jeep. After a while, I was thrown at the yard of the Etzion detention centre in front of criminals. It was very cold and raining, and I was left under rain for a while. After some time, I started hearing loud music and felt that someone was trying to touch me. I tried to keep close to the wall, but it was useless. One occ upat ion soldier brought a bottle of wine and offered me a drink, which I refused, so he continued to harass me. After a few moments, they began attacking me like rabid dogs, and began beating me with their rifle butts and their feet. One of the soldiers beat my head against the iron military jeep until I fainted. I regained conscience to find myself in front of a female doctor wearing military dress, and after a configurable medical examination, I was taken to the interrogation cell, and there began the journey of torment and humiliation. The officer who began interrogating me was called Peran; he began threatening to demolish my family’s house and arrest my brothers. The interrogation continued two hours, and afterwards I was taken blindfolded to another interrogation centre, I think it was the Russian Compound. There were three interrogators, and the minute I entered the room, they started insulting me and saying curses I don’t want to repeat. One of the interrogators was pulling my hair, and all the time I was handcuffed. This lasted till eleven o?clock at night, and afterwards they transferred me to HaSharon prison (Tel Mond), where I was charged with attempting to stab an occupation soldier and the membership in the Islamic Jihad. She concluded: I will never rest until the occupation soldiers are punished judicially in order to be a warning to anyone tempted to insult or humiliate any Palestinian prisoner. Ihsan was subjected to various punishments, including isolation for a week with another 4 fellow Palestinian female detainees and were denied family visits on charges of raising the Palestinian flag in the prison yard on the anniversary of the Nakba. Ihsan was brought to court 10 times, but with-
out any verdict and her next court session is due on 12.01.2016. It was also reported that on 03.05.2015, Ihsan and another 4 Palestinian detainees were isolated for a week after an Israeli jailor claimed that the Palestinian female detainees pushed her. Following protest from the other Palestinian female political detainees, they were returned back to the wing of Palestinian political prisoners, but with the same isolation conditions for a week, with the exception of Shireen Issawi, who was transferred to isolation in Neve Tirza (Ramleh). Early December 2015, the IPS transferred 15 Palestinian female political detainees, including Ihsan, from HaSharon prison (Tel Mond) to Damon prison because of overcrowding. None of these prisoners are sentenced yet, and they were not allowed to take
their personal belongings with them. On 04.12.2015, Ihsan started a hunger strike to protest her transfer to Damon prison, which she ended on 19.12.2015 following promises from the IPS to return her to HaSharon prison (Tel Mond) on 12.01.2016 after her trial. During her hunger strike, she was denied lawyer and family visits. Ihsan suffers from pains in the stomach and joints. Yasmin is a mother of four. She was kidnapped from her home on 03.11.2014, and underwent five days in interrogation at Al-Jalameh Detention Centre, during which she was tortured; she was left to stand on a chair tied with chains for long periods, and was threatened with the arrest of her husband and children. She described the interrogation cells as ?very bad, with rough walls, and dirty mattresses, high humidity and lack of hot water?. She was denied to meet any lawyers, and was transferred to HaSharon prison (Tel Mond) on 09.11.2014. Israeli interrogators alleged that Ya sm i n was planning to carry out a resistance oper at ion together with another 4 young men from Tulkarim governorate. She suffers from thyroid problems and shortness of breath and asthma and is in need of regular medical follow-up. On 22.04. 2015, Yasmin and 5 other prisoners were punished and isolated in their cells for 4 days and denied family visits for a month; they were accused by the IPS of singing and waving a Palestinian flag while the sirens were on for the dead Israeli occupation soldiers. Also, it was also reported that on 03.05.2015, Yasmin and another 4 Palestinian detainees were isolated for a week after an Israeli jailor claimed that the Palestinian female detainees pushed her. Following protest from the other Palestinian female political detainees, they were returned back to the wing of Palestinian political prisoners, but with the same isolation conditions for a week, with the exception of Shireen Issawi, who was transferred to isolation in Neve Tirza (Ramleh). 11. Amal Ahmad Al-Sa?dah: /from Halhoul in Hebron governorate, held captive in Israeli jails since 16.07.2015./ Amal was detained on 18.11.2014 while visiting her brother Mohammad in jail, who is serving a 17 year sentence, after which she was released on conditions of a 12,000 NIS fine and imposing house
arrest on her in Kisifyeh in Bir As-Sabis? with a bailor who is holder of Israeli ID, and depriving her from visiting her brother Mohammad, who is held captive in Israeli jails. After 6 months under house arrest, Amal?s house arrest order was cancelled and she was returned to Halhoul, on condition of appearing before the district court in Bir As-Sabi?. After five court sessions, she was sentenced on 16.07.2015 to 14 months imprisonment on charges of trying to smuggle a mobile SIM card to her imprisoned brother Mohammad. The court also added 18 months imprisonment to her brother Mohammad who is serving a 17 years sentence since 2005. It is worth mentioning that Amal suffers from a number of diseases, including diabetes. She is currently held in HaSharon prison (Tel Mond). 12. Hala Msallam Abu Sall: /17 years old, from Al-Arroub refugee camp in Hebron governorate, held captive in Israeli jails since 28.11.2014./ Hala was arrested on 28.11.2014 by Israeli occupation forces after she refused to be searched at an Israeli military checkpoint near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Old City of Hebron. She was forcibly se a rche d by the Israeli occupation sold i e r s u n d e r threat of guns, and was accused of possessing a knife. Hala was subjected to a harsh interrogation, tortured and coerced into confessing that she intended to stab the occupation soldiers. Her court sessions were postponed 9 times. On 27.11.2015, she ended her first year in Israeli captivity and is still not charged. 13. Amal Ahmad Taqatqa: /20 years old, from Beit Fajjar in Bethlehem governorate, held captive in Israeli jails since 01.12.2014./ On 01.12.2014, Amal was on her way to Hebron to buy clothes for her wedding. She was shot with 5 live bullets by Israeli occupation soldiers near the Gush Etzion colony block after a colonist claimed that she tried to stab him. She was seriously injured in the chest, her left hand, her left waist and her left leg, and her legs were chained to the bed in Hadasa Hospital. Amal was subjected to interrogation while in hospital, and was told by Israeli interrogators that there was no need for her confession, as evidence was available from cameras at the scene; evidence they never provided. On 19.12.2014, and
despite denying the accusation and the lack of evidence, Amal was accused of attempted stabbing. She was transferred to HaSharon prison (Tel Mond) on 30.12.2014. Her family’s house was raided and her father arrested. Despite various cameras being present at the Gush Etzion junction, no evidence was ever provided by the Israeli occupation forces that Amal tried to stab the colonist till this day. While in hospital, she woke up one night to find a colonist pulling her hair and beating her in the face several times. On 01.12.2015, Amal entered her second year is Israeli captivity and is not sentenced yet. She is still in need of medical care, and suffers from medical negligence by the IPS. Early December 2015, the IPS transferred 15 Palestinian female political detainees, including Amal, from HaSharon prison (Tel Mond) to Damon prison because of overcrowding. None of these prisoners are sentenced yet, and they were not allowed to take their personal belongings with them. 14. Haniya Munir Ali Naser: /23 years old, from Deir Qaddis in Ramallah governorate, held captive in Israeli jails since 10.12.2014./ Haniya is a former prisoner, arrested on 12.09.2011 at Nialin military checkpoint. Israeli occupation soldiers claimed that Haniya possessed a knife, and she was sentenced to 38 months and a fine of 2000 NIS. She was released on 18.12.2011 in the prisoner swap deal between Hamas and the Zionist entity. On the dawn of 10.12.2014, Haniya?s house was raided and searched by Israeli occupation forces, and she was kidnapped and held captive in HaSharon prison (Tel Mond). Her release in the prisoner swap deal was cancelled and her original sentence was re-imposed by a special Israeli military court on 30.04.2015, and she was returned to prison to finish her original sentence. On 03.05.2015, Haniya and another 4 Palestinian detainees were isolated for a week after an Israeli jailor claimed that the Palestinian female detainees pushed her. Following protest from the other Palestinian female political detainees, they were returned back to the wing of Palestinian political prisoners, but with the same isolation conditions for a week, with the exception of Shireen Issawi, who was transferred to isolation in Neve Tirza (Ramleh). She is member of the Media Support Team for Palestinian Prisoners, and her brother Naser is also held captive by the Zionist entity. On 10.12.2015, Haniya entered her second year in Israeli captivity. 15. Khalida Jarrar: /52 years old, from Ramallah, held captive in Israeli jail since 02.04.2015./ Khalida is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) for the Abu Ali Mustapha bloc, a prominent political and civil society figure, the head of the Prisoner’s Issues in the PLC, and mother of two. On 20.08.2014, Israeli occupation forces issued a deportation order in an attempt to displace Khalida from her home in Ramallah to Jericho. She rejected the order and received huge popular support. On 02.04.2015, Israeli occupation forces raided her home in Ramallah, destroyed the main door, searched the house and confiscated 2 laptops and a mobile phone, before kidnapping Khalida. She as subjected to a 4-hour interrogation at Ofer military camp, where Khalida refused to talk, take water or food. She was later transferred to HaSharon priosn (Tel Mond). Khalida was initially sentenced to administrative detention for 6 months, which was replaced with detention after one
month and two days, following international pressure. Her detention was extended on 28.05.2015 until the end of legal proceedings, based on 12 charges against her that are related to her advocacy work for the freedom of Palestinian political prisoners. Her trial was delayed several times deliberately due to lack of evidence and witnesses against her. On 06.12.2015, an Israeli military court sentenced Khalida, a democratically elected MP, to 15 months imprisonment, on 2 charges, namely; ?membership in an illegal organization and incitement?. She was also fined 10,000 NIS and given a suspended sentence of 12 months wihin a five year period Khalida suffers from health problems, whereby the journey in the ?Posta? is extremely exhausting for her. In a testimony to her lawyer, Khalida noted that on 05.12.2015 at 02:00 in the morning she was transferred to Neve Tirza (Ramleh) prison on her way to Ofer prison for the court session, and stayed there till 04:00. She was left waiting inside the Posta until 07:00 before reaching Ofer at 08:00. She described the condition in the waiting room: The waiting room is a very cold refrigerator, and the seats are made of concrete, and the toilet was flooding in the room. With her were female detainees Dina Misleh, Abeer AQadi, Suyad Izreqat, and Sabreen Sanad, who suffers from back pains. She added: After the court session ended in Ofer, I was transferred to HaSharon prison at 19:00, stayed for two hours in the Posta, and arrived at the prison after midnight. During the journey, the Palestinian female political detainees were placed with Israeli criminal prisoners, who were insulting the detainees and calling them ?terrorists?. When we reached HaSharon, the temperature was zero. The entire journey to the court and back in the Posta took 10 hours, a tortured journey, great suffering. A number of detainees give up going for court hearings because of the cruel and inhumane conditions during the journey. Khalida added that the IPS has tightened its measures against Palestinian political detainees, where they are hand- and leg-shackled during transfer from room to room, or during lawyer and family visits. It is worth mentioning that Khalida is banned by Israeli occupation military from travelling outside occupied Palestine. Full by the standards of boats built by desert-island castaways, the Providence was a thing of beauty. Thirty-three feet long, and made of timber from the shipwreck that had stranded them, she was simple but seaworthy. She also offered the only viable route back to civilisation for more than 200 refugees. As a first step, that meant a westward journey of 500km or so to Madagascar, where the wrecked ship had come from. If you arrive on a shipa brand-new transport three-masted schooner belonging to the French East India Companyyou cannot all leave on a raft. Whether the castaways were on land controlled by the Company, which projected Frances imperial ambitions in the eastern hemisphere, was anybodys guess. The charts used by the captain of the doomed ship, LUtile, on July 31st 1761 indicated nothing but ocean for hundreds of kilometres. Coming off a fortnight of unfavourable winds, he had little time for officers fretting about a probably mythical le de Sablesandy islandin the area. At half past ten on a moonless night, a coral reef stopped the ship in its tracks. By sunrise, LUtile had been lost. To connect a billion people, India must choose facts over fiction In every society, there are certain basic services that are so important for people’s wellbeing that we expect everyone to be able to access them freely. We have collections of free basic books. They’re called libraries. They don’t contain every book, but they still provide a world of good. We have free basic healthcare. Public hospitals don’t offer every treatment, but they still save lives. We have free basic education. Every child deserves to go to school. And in the 21st century, everyone also deserves access to the tools and information that can help them to achieve all those other public services, and all their fundamental social and economic rights. That’s why everyone also deserves access to free basic internet services. We know that when people have access to the internet they also get access to jobs, education, healthcare, communication. We know that for every 10 people connected to the internet, roughly one is lifted out of To connect a billion people, India must choose facts over fiction In every society, there are certain basic services that are so important for people’s
wellbeing that we expect everyone to be able to access them freely. We have collections of free basic books. They’re called libraries. They don’t contain every book, but they still provide a world of good. We have free basic healthcare. Public hospitals don’t offer every treatment, but they still save lives. We have free basic education. Every child deserves to go to school. And in the 21st century, everyone also deserves access to the tools and information that can help them to achieve all those other public services, and all their fundamental social and economic rights. That’s why everyone also deserves access to free basic internet se r v ic e s . We know that when people have access to the internet they also get access to jobs, educat i o n , healthcare, communication. We know that for every 10 people connected to the internet, roughly one is lifted out of So the data is clear. Free Basics is a bridge to the full internet and digital equality. Data from more than five years of other programs that offer free access to Facebook, WhatsApp and other services shows the same. If we accept that everyone deserves access to the internet, then we must surely support free basic internet services. That’s why more than 30 countries have recognized Free Basics as a program consistent with net neutrality and good for consumers. Modern American democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped. We’re so sorry to inform you that your USAA account has temporarily been suspended due to incomplete/missing Information on your USAA account. We have a firm reason to believe there might have been a security breach related to it. For your security, We’ve posted a new security safeguard for you on usaa.com. To protect you and your financial information. It is now mandatory that you sign in to your account with in 48 hours to update and confirm your personal information so you can enjoy the usage of your USAA account and to avoid your account restricted. Please use the sign in button below to sign in to your account and update your information. Also keep your e-mail address updated so you can continue to receive notification of new messages from USAA. Sign On We value your business and the opportunity to serve all your financial needs. Thank you, USAA Species Summary: Pink-footed
Goose (5 Connecticut) Tufted Duck (3 New York, 1 Washington) Smew (2 Ontario) Brown Booby (5 California, 2 Texas) Little Ringed Plover (1 California) Northern Jacana (9 Texas) Ruff (1 North Carolina) Amazon Kingfisher (1 Texas) Aplomado Falcon (1 Texas) Black-capped Gnatcatcher (1 Arizona) Redwing (5 British Columbia) Rufous-backed Robin (4 Arizona) Tropical Parula (1 Texas) Rufous-capped Warbler (1 Arizona) White-collared Seedeater (1 Texas) Western Spindalis (8 Florida) Streak-backed Oriole (3 Arizona) Brambling (9 Ohio) At least 13 people have died in flash flooding this week in Missouri, as officials try to evacuate towns ravaged by rising waters. Most of the deaths came when people became trapped in vehicles after driving onto flooded
streets. The Mississippi River is reportedly expected to a make a record crest over the next few days; Gov. Jay Nixon has declared a state of emergency. The storm system has dropped more than a half-foot of rain thus far. We have been blessed with some rain and freezing weather, which has brought the water hyacinth under control at least temporarily. We are sorry to hear that Chris Conlin who has been the acting Deputy Director of the Division of Boating and Waterways for the last few years and has done a great job with limited resources battling invasive plants is leaving. It is going to be critical for the new Deputy Director Lynn Sadler to hit the ground running on her first day in office, we will provide all the assistance that we can to help solve this disaster. Delta area businesses have spent somewhere around $3,000,000 out of their own pockets to combat the invasive plants in 2015. This is in addition to fees and taxes boaters and businesses pay into the Harbors & Watercraft fund that is supposed to be used to control invasive aquatic plants. The fish appear to be biting all over the Delta, we are hearing reports of 20 to 30 pound stripers coming in and sturgeon in the 50 inch range being c a u g ht . Hopefully the recent rains are signaling the end of the drought and things will get back to “normal” in the near future. The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face. If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers. It’ll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. We appreciate that you have taken the time to air your views so we can forward your comments to the appropriate party. We welcome and value your suggestions, subscriber feedback helps us identify our areas of strength and weakness. We appreciate your contribution to the success of Casey Research. Widespread flooding across Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil over the last 7 days forced more than 150 000 people to evacuate their homes and claimed 6 lives so far. The floods are the worst to hit the area in the last 50 years, according to the local au-
thorities. Shopping for mom. We went to the Macy’s in San Jose and spent the next 90 minutes or so shopping for pajamas, socks, pants, and shoes. We found all but the pants and on deep discounts! So lovely. Then it was back to Santa Cruz to Costco for groceries and gas, to Lyle’s to pick up some boxes of things he doesn’t want, to drop off some bottles for one of Audries’ friends, to Bay Photo to duplicate a photo for mom, and finally home! Talked with Aunt Mickie on the phone briefly. Had Christmas dinner leftovers. Just made some CDs for mom, and am going to crawl into bed. It’s been a long day. It was sunny but cool. Protecting your privacy is our priority. We’ll never initiate a request via email for your sensitive information like your Personal ID, Password, Social Security Number, Personal Identification Number (PIN) or Account Number. For your safety, never share this information with anyone, at any time. If you receive an email asking for your sensitive information, or would like to report a suspicious email, forward it to fraud_help @usbank.com or call U.S. Bank Customer Service immediately at 800U S BANKS (800-8722657). Get more details about recognizing online fraud issues. We would like to inform you of a Contract position in USA-Oregon-Beaverton for Communications Designer. Please read the job description completely. To apply for this position, click on the Apply button below or copy/paste the link at the bottom of the email into your browser. We wish you the best of luck in applying for this position, and be sure to update your profile frequently to provide the best matches possible! This is a 12-month contract opportunity at our customer site, a leading company in Beaverton, OR 97006. Job description: The Communications Designer will create visually appealing materials that drive awareness and understanding of Nike programs and projects. This is an internally focused role that will support communications targeted toward Nike’s global workforce. Executing and designing materials across various print and multimedia channels. Supporting the development a program and project brand identity and integrating consistent standards across all deliverables. Supporting the creation and design of new program and project com-
munications channels (print, video, web). Amplifying marketing communications skills and practices related to typography, imagery and visual storytelling SKILLS & EXPERIENCE. Bachelor’s degree in graphic design, visual communications, fine arts, or other closely related field. Minimum of three years experience in graphic design, typography, interactive design and/or visual communications. Expert-level experience using Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat); advanced experience using Microsoft PowerPoint and/ or Apple Keynote. Understanding of web design and development principles and platforms (WordPress, CSS, HTML). Ability to juggle multiple projects and deadlines while maintaining keen attention to detail. A strong passion for branding and visual storytelling Recent heavy rains have caused major flooding on dozens rivers in the central and southern United States. Although the storm system that produced this rainfall has left the region, major flooding is expected to continue into early January on some rivers. A freak storm system’the same one that brought tornadoes to the U.S. last week’has caused the North Pole’s temperature to rise by 50 degrees, bringing it up to the freezing point over the course of Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning the North Pole even surpassed 32 degrees, meaning the frozen Arctic was about as warm as Chicago. Comedian and actor Bill Cosby was arraigned Wednesday on accusations that he drugged and fondled Andrea Constand in 2004. Cosby did not enter a plea in response to the felony charge of aggravated indecent assault, and his bail was set at $1 million. He handed over his passport, and posted his own bail. A preliminary hearing has been set for January 14. The year 2015 will be remembered as a year of expanding global warfare and militarism. The imperialist powers are determined to make 2016 an even bloodier and more dangerous year. Germany and Japan are openly remilitarizing, as their governments seek to whitewash and rationalize the crimes of the World War II era. All of the imperialist powers have seized on the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino to place their populations and economies on a war footing. Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States’ oil-rich ally in the Middle East. With 75% of all Mexico’s cocaine seizures having taken place at the Mexico City International Airport in the past six years, the country’s largest airport is the preferred point of entry for smugglers.A passer-by on Christmas Day found a meterlong shell on a riverbank in Argentina which may be from a glyptodont, a prehistoric kind of giant armadillo, experts said Tuesday. A local man thought the black scaly shell was a dinosaur egg when he saw it lying in the mud, his wife Reina Coronel said Her husband Jose Antonio Nievas found the shell beside a stream at their farm in Carlos Spegazzini, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the capital Buenos Aires. “My husband went out to the car and when he came back he said, ‘Hey, I just found an egg that looks like it came from a dinosaur,” she said. “We all laughed because we thought it was a joke.” Nievas told television channel Todo Noticias he found the shell partly covered in mud and started to dig
around it. Good Morning, Sorry for any inconvenience, I’m in a terrible situation. Am stranded here in Davao, Philippines since last night. I was hurt and robbed on my way to the hotel I stayed and my luggage is still in custody of the hotel management pending when I make payment on outstanding bills I owe. Am waiting for my colleagues to send me money to get back home but they have not responded and my return flight will be leaving soon. Please let me know if you can help and I will refund the money back to you as soon as I get back home. Please let me know if you can help. Rev. Elder Teatu Fusi92 Grassmere Road Henderson ValleyAuckland 0612. NEW ZEALAND.MB: (+64) 212 628 679 HM: (+64) 9 836 8728 “Manuia i tena Alofa” Temple Terrace is a city of 25,000 people snugged up to the northeast corner of Tampa. It was once a distinct and separate little village that has been engulfed over the years by Tampa and the development surrounding the University of South Florida to its immediate west. Like many Florida places, however, when you get off the main roads you will find it is still one of the most charming towns in Florida. The town was incorporated in 1925 and still has some of the greatest live oak trees of any place in the state. The city was planned and developed in the 1920s as a Mediterranean Revival golf course community and many of the original homes and buildings from that era are still prominent in the scenery as you drive around town. The city gets its name from the Temple Orange, named after William Chase Temple, who at one time owned the Pittsburgh Pirates and was the first president of the Florida Citrus Exchange. The terrace part of the name comes from the way the land along the Hillsborough River was prepared for the original citrus plantings. The largest orange grove in the world, 5,000 acres, surrounded the original development. My name is Ender, 16 years old, striving to become a non-fiction writer and musician; aiming at becoming a professional activist; CoChair of the Education/Youth Voice Committee for the Multnomah Youth Commission (official youth policy body for Multnomah County and the City of Portland); a political science enthusiast and a person who has great respect for Nature and the animal kingdom and tries to explain their invaluable importance from a logical and scientific perspective. The incentives include the IRA charitable rollover and enhanced deductions for the donation of food inventory and land conservation easements. Passage of the PATH Act is the culmination of a nearly 10-year-long effort to have charitable tax incentives permanently enacted and, in the case of the food donation tax deduction, expanded. After years of renewal and expiration, including the most recent expiration on January 1, 2015, the three charitable giving incentives are now headed to the president’s desk for his signature. In addition to these three incentives, the agreement includes important provisions to make the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit permanent. Species Summary: Pink-footed Goose (2 Connecticut) Whooper Swan (1 Florida) Common Pochard (2 Alaska) Tufted Duck (3 New York, 1 Newfoundland and Labrador) Smew (3 Ontario) Brown Booby (1 Mississippi, 1 Texas) Northern Jacana (3 Texas) Ruff (1 California, 1 North Carolina) Kelp Gull (10 Ohio) Aplomado Falcon (3 Texas) La Sagra’s Flycatcher (1 Florida) Blackcapped Gnatcatcher (1 Arizona) Redwing (4 British Columbia) Rufousbacked Robin (4 Arizona) Tropical Parula (2 Texas) Rufous-capped Warbler (2 Arizona) Golden-crowned Warbler (1 Texas) White-collared Seedeater (1 Texas) Western Spindalis (3 Florida) Crimson-collared Grosbeak (2 Texas) St re a k- ba cke d Oriole (8 Arizona) Brambling (34 Ohio) The principal power in Washington is no longer the government or the people it represents. It is the Money Power. Under the deceptive cloak of campaign contributions, access and influence, votes and amendments are bought and sold. Money established priorities of action, holds down federal revenues, revises federal legislation, shifts income from the middle class to the very rich. Money restrains the enforcement of laws written to protect the country from abuses of wealth--laws that mandate environmental protection, antitrust laws, laws to protect the consumer against fraud, laws that safeguard the securities markets, and many more. Big money and big business, corpora-
tions and commerce, are again the undisputed overlords of politics and government. The White House, the Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary, reflect their interests. We appear to have a government run by remote control from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute. To hell with everyone else. The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors. Time is flying by! Today was moms day to visit with her two shut ins. We assembled four bags of food for people, which included those two ladies ... Lettuce, carrots, grapes, cabbage, popcorn, and other stuff. She dropped me at lyles, and went to do her visits. I ran errands with Lyle, then took myself off for a snack while he talked with a prospective tenant. Then it was off to drop him at the San Jose airport for a Tango festival in San Diego. I made my way slowly back to moms during rush hour traffic, which doubled my trip. Brief visit with Audries, a couple of household chores, watched a bit of online prog ramming with mom. And off to bed I go. Major flooding is occurring or forecast on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers & tributaries in Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky, with record flooding at several locations. Major flooding is also occurring on the Arkansas River & tributaries in Arkansas. Floodwaters will move downstream over the next couple of weeks, with significant river flooding expected for the lower Mississippi into m i d - J a n u a r y. Read More... A new survey suggests hiring managers often know whether they might hire someone soon after the opening handshake and small talk. Executives were asked, “How long does it typically take you to form either a positive or negative opinion of a job candidate during an initial interview?” The mean response was 10 minutes. Those polled said it takes them just 10 minutes to form an opinion of job seekers, despite meeting with staff-level applicants for 55 minutes and management-level candidates for 86 minutes on average. We just got news about a company that provides the technology to track people’s mobile phones around the world in order to target them for kill-
ing. Their name is Sierra Nevada Corporation and they provide a special tool called Gilgamesh to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. We can’t reveal a lot about them yet but we wanted you to be the first to know that we are hot on their trail. They aren’t the only ones who are profiting from the drone war. Aviation Unmanned in Texas supplies pilots and Zel Technologies in Virginia provides imagery analysts. Next year CorpWatch plans to ramp up our work on tracking down these drone contractors who provide material support for the War on Terror that has turned Central Asia and the Middle East into a virtual cauldron. With about 900,000 concealed handgun permit holders in Texas, there is a good chance that someone next you in a Lone Star State grocery store or
restaurant is carrying a concealed handgun. Starting Friday, Texas will join 44 other statesthat already allow people to openly carry handguns throughout the state. From the 1940s through the early 1970s, the US government spied on singer-songwriter Pete Seeger because of his political views and associations. According to documents in Seeger’s extensive FBI file’which runs to nearly 1,800 pages (with 90 pages withheld) and was obtained by Mother Jones under the Freedom of Information Act the bureau’s initial interest in Seeger was triggered in 1943 after Seeger, as an Army private, wrote a letter protesting a proposal to deport all Japanese American citizens and residents when World War II ended. Seeger, a champion of folk music and progressive causes’and the writer, performer, or promoter of now-classic songs, including as “If I Had a Hammer,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” Turn! Turn! Turn!,” “Kisses Sweeter T h a n Wine,” “Goodn i g h t , Irene,” and “This Land Is Your Land”’was a member of the Communist Party for several years in the 1940s, as he subsequently acknowledged. (He later said he should have left earlier.) His FBI file shows that Seeger, who died in early 2014, was for decades hounded by the FBI, which kept trying to tie him to the Communist Party, and the first investigation in the file illustrates the absurd excesses of the paranoid security establishment of that era. In July 1942, Seeger was drafted into the Army. (“I was almost glad when I heard from my draft board,” he later wrote in a diary.) He was assigned to be trained as an aviation mechanic at Keesler Field in Mississippi. While in the Army, he kept up with the news, and in the fall of 1942, Seeger, who was then 23 years old, wrote a letter of protest to the California chapter of the American Legion. It was to the point: Dear Sirs - I felt shocked, outraged, and disgusted to read that the California American Legion voted to 1) deport all Japanese after the war, citizen or not, 2) Bar all Japanese descendants from citizenship!! We, who may have to give our lives in this great struggle’we’re fighting precisely to free the world of such Hitlerism, such narrow jingoism. If you deport Japanese, why not Germans, Italians, Rumanians, Hungarians, and Bulgarians? If you
bar from citizenship descendants of Japanese, why not descendants of English? After all, we once fought with them too. America is great and strong as she is because we have so far been a haven to all oppressed. I felt sick at heart to read of this matter. Yours truly, Pvt. Peter Seeger I am writing also to the Los Angeles Times. With inequality at its highest levels in nearly a century and public debate rising over whether the government should respond to it through higher taxes on the wealthy, the very richest Americans have financed a sophisticated and astonishingly effective apparatus for shielding their fortunes. Operating largely out of public view in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions, and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them. The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans. The slippery materiality of untraceable objects: from the arsenic poisoning the wells of Bangladesh as told by N a b i l Ahmed, to Arie A l t e n a ’s account of the superstition surrounding the Kola Superd e e p Borehole in Russia, or the bizarre biology of the vampire squid from hell in a passage of Vilm Flusser’s ‘Vampyroteuthis Infernalis’ read by AGF. The copyright of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf ” expires Friday, with plans by several publishers for annotated reprints sparking fierce debate over how one of the world’s most controversial books should be treated seven decades after the defeat of the Nazis. The southern German state of Bavaria was handed the copyright of the book in 1945, when the Allies gave it the control of the main Nazi publishing house. For 70 years, it refused to allow the anti-Semitic manifesto to be republished out of respect for victims of the Nazis and to prevent incitement of hatred. But “Mein Kampf ” -- which means “My Struggle” -- falls into the public domain on January 1, meaning that the state of Bavaria can no longer challenge reproductions or translations of the inflammatory work. The polytechnic Museum, Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the state literature Museum present 200 Keystrokes per Minute an exhibi-
tion entirely devoted to the typewriter as an object and the main 20th-century tool for creating a literary text. 200 Keystrokes per Minute is a multimedia project based on a research that looked into the role of the typewriter in russian literature and in the Russian history of the 20th century in general. Anna Narinskaya’s project brings the results of this research together with contemporary art, offering the viewer an opportunity to see the typewriter as it was seen by its contemporaries and such as it appears to contemporary artists. Archival materials are reinserted into our time, allowing the typewriter to interact with the viewer as much as the viewer interacts with the typewriter. The exhibition features typewriters from the collection of polytechnic museum, typewritten manuscripts from the From the top of the world to near the bottom, freakish and unprecedented weather has sent temperatures soaring across the Arctic, whipped the United Kingdom with hurricane-force winds and spawned massive flooding in South America. The same storm that slammed the southern United States with deadly tornadoes and swamped the Midwest, causing even greater loss of life, continued on to the Arctic. Subtropical air pulled there is now sitting over Iceland, and at what should be a deeply sub-zero North Pole, temperatures on Wednesday appeared to reach the melting point more than 50 degrees above normal. That was warmer than Chicago. Only twice before has the Arctic been so warm in winter. Residents of Iceland are bracing for conditions to grow much worse as one of the most powerful storms ever recorded blasts through the North Atlantic. This rare bomb cyclone arrived with sudden winds of 70 miles per hour and waves that lashed the coast. Thousands of miles south, in the center of Latin America, downpours fueled by the Pacific Oceans giant El Ni pattern have drenched regions of Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. In what’s described as the worst flooding in a half-century, more than 160,000 people have fled their homes. The Paraguay River in that nation is within inches of topping its banks, and the Uruguay River in Argentina is 46 feet above normal, according to a BBC News report. The dramatic storms are ending a year of record-setting weather globally, with July measured as the hottest month ever and 2015 set to be the warmest year. Up and down the U.S. East Coast, this month will close as the hottest December ever. In much of the Northeast into Canada, temperatures on Christmas rose into the 70s tricking bushes and trees into bloom in many locations. In the Washington area, forsythia, azaleas and even cherry blossoms were suddenly in full color. Artists must be energetic, proficient in their art, have performance/theatrical experience and ability to learn dialog. Artists will work with existing curriculum and must have some experience working with children. Some paid training required. Artists are hired on a part-time basis as independent contractors. Salary is based upon number of rehearsals/performances/workshops delivered, more detail will be provided. Artists must agree to fingerprinting and TB testing 1) Vocalists/ songwriters who can move, and have the ability to create simple song demos. Artists will be a part of opening theatrical performance, work in classroom with students to create original songs and help facilitate student performance. Ability to
play ukulele or willingness to learn. 2) Dancers/drummers, who can sing. Artists will be a part of opening theatrical performance, work in classroom with students to teach dance and help facilitate student performance. 3) Flutists or Fiddle players, who can move. Artist will be a part of opening theatrical performance, work in classroom to deliver visual arts to kindergarten students with the help of volunteers and help facilitate student performance. 4) Drummers who have knowledge of world percussion and drums, the ability to tell stories and sing. Artists will lead Drum Circles, perform folklore and teach simple songs from around the world. Must have the ability to transport drums and facilitate student performances. 5) Dancers who can sing. Artist will deliver assembly style workshops to groups of 75-100 children teaching world dance and song. Must have the ability to use powerpoint and set up simple sound provided by organization. Hossein Derakhshan was imprisoned by the regime for his blogging. On his release, he found the internet stripped of its power to change the world and instead serving up a stream of pointless social trivia Late in 2014, I was abruptly pardoned and freed from Evin prison in northern Tehran. In November 2008, I had been sentenced to nearly 20 years in jail, mostly over my web activities, and thought I would end up spending most of my life in those cells. So the moment, when it came, was unexpected. I was sharing a cup of tea when the voice of the floor announcer, another prisoner, filled all the rooms and corridors: Dear fellow inmates, the bird of luck has once again sat on one fellow inmate?s shoulders. Mr Hossein Derakhshan, as of this moment, you are free. Outside, everything felt new: the chill autumn breeze, the traffic noise from a nearby bridge, the smell, the colours of the city I had lived in most of my life. Around me, I noticed a very different Tehran from the one I had been used to. An influx of new, shamelessly luxurious condos had replaced the charming little houses I was familiar with. New roads, new highways, hordes of invasive SUVs. Large billboards with advertisements for Swiss-made watches and Korean TVs. Women in colourful scarves and manteaus, men with dyed hair and beards, and hundreds of charming cafes with hip western music and female staff. They were the kind of changes that creep up on people; the kind you only really notice once normal life gets taken away from you. There are many people working in this system for highincome individuals to safeguard their money and save millions in taxes on their income. The system, part of the socalled “income defense industry,” involves highly paid tax lawyers, estate planners, anti-tax activists and lobbyists who work in tandem to devise the best strategies for super-rich individuals to save on taxes. “Operating largely out of public view--in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service -- the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them. The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans,” the report says. In recent years, this apparatus has become one of the most powerful avenues of influence for wealthy Americans of all political stripes, including Mr. Loeb and Mr. Cohen, who give heavily to Republicans, and the liberal billionaire George Soros, who has called for higher levies on the rich while at the same time using tax loopholes to bolster his own fortune. All are among a small group providing much of the early cash for the 2016 presidential campaign. Operating largely out of public view -- in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service -- the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them. The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans. The impact on their own fortunes has been stark. Two decades ago, when Bill Clinton was elected president, the 400 highest-earning taxpayers in America paid nearly 27 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to I.R.S. data. By 2012, when President Obama was re-elected, that figure had fallen to less than 17 percent, which is just slightly more than the typical family making $100,000 annually, when payroll taxes are included for both groups. The ultra-wealthy
“literally pay millions of dollars for these services,” said Jeffrey A. Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies economic elites, “and save in the tens or hundreds of millions in taxes.” Some of the biggest current tax battles are being waged by some of the most generous supporters of 2016 candidates. They include the families of the hedge fund investors Robert Mercer, who gives to Republicans, and James Simons, who gives to Democrats; as well as the options trader Jeffrey Yass, a libertarian-leaning donor to Republicans. Mr. Yass’s firm is litigating what the agency deemed to be tens of millions of dollars in underpaid taxes. Renaiss a n c e Technologies, the h e d g e fund Mr. Simons founded and which Mr. Mercer helps run, is currently under review by the I.R.S. over a loophole that saved their fund an estimated $6.8 billion in taxes over roughly a decade, according to a Senate investigation. Some of these same families have also contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservative groups that have attacked virtually any effort to raises taxes on the wealthy. Officials closed both directions of Interstate 55 near St. Louis on Thursday morning as the death toll from the Midwest’s nearly u nprecedented flooding rose to 20 and evacuations widened. The Missouri Department of Transpor tation rerouted traffic through the area after floodwaters from the Meramec River overtook that roadway as well as Interstate 44. In St. Louis, the Mississippi River hit 13 feet above flood stage’its second-highest on record, after the devastating 1993 floods. Parts of Missouri have been hit with 9 to 11 inches of rain in three days’a magnitude that occurs only once in 100 to 300 years, The Orlando Sentinel reports Sherry Campbell, who works as a 911 dispatcher, told investigators she was awakened by what she thought was a stranger breaking into her home. That noise was actually the sound of her daughter, Ashley Doby, moving about the house. Campbell fired a single shot that fatally struck Doby in the chest. The 911 call was made by Doby’s stepfather, St. Cloud police officer Claude Campbell, Jr, who told the dispatcher Doby had “passed out” due to a long-standing heart problem, but did not indicate that she had been shot. Investigators say Campbell, who had been sleeping when the shot was fired, did not notice the bullet wound in his stepdaughter’s chest. St.
Cloud police sergeant Denise Roberts issued a statement to the Sentinel and other outlets indicating that the “homeowner’s story is consistent with the physical evidence and the witness’ statement. At this time, the incident appears to be an accidental shooting; however, the investigation is ongoing.” According to studies, a gun in the home is “22 times more likely to be used to kill or injure in a domestic homicide, suicide, or unintentional shooting than to be used in self-defense.” Species Summary: Pink-footed Goose (4 Connecticut) Tufted Duck (1 New York, 2 Newfoundland and Labrador, 1 Vermont, 1 Washington) Smew (1 Ontario) Brown Booby (1 California, 1 Florida, 1 Louisiana) Northern Jacana (5 Texas) Ruff (2 California) Kelp Gull (3 Ohio) Aplomado Falcon
(2 Texas) Black-capped Gnatcatcher (3 Arizona) Redwing (6 British Columbia) Rufousbacked Robin (3 Arizona) Tropical Parula (2 Texas) Goldencrowned Warbler (2 Texas) White-collared Seedeater (3 Texas) Western Spindalis (1 Florida) Crimson-collared Grosbeak (3 Texas) Streakbacked Oriole (3 Arizona) Brambling (39 Ohio) With no end in sight to the Russian embargo, we have what may be THE LAST 25 Saiga foldingstock 12 gauge shotguns- ever! The Saiga SGL12-94 version is the same shotgun used by most Russian police forces, and is also EXTREMELY popular with action sport competitors and self-defense users here in the US. The factory folding stock version we offer is becoming quite a collector’s item, and is practically sure to go up significantly in value due to its quality and unavailability. These shotguns come from the legendary Izhmash factory that produces all of the Saiga products, and is of the highest q u a l i t y. Don’t miss this last chance to own one! P l e a s e kindly buy from our ebay shop directly, we could upgrade your shipping way instead of combine shipping fee. Thanks a lot! Let us keep in touch, we could service for you all the time! hugebosser Major flooding is occurring or forecast on the M i s si s sippi and Ohio rivers & tributaries in Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky, with record flooding at several locations. Major flooding is also occurring on the Arkansas River & tributaries in Arkansas. Floodwaters will move downstream over the next couple of weeks, with significant river flooding expected for the lower Mississippi into mid-January. Read More... Joanika Davis relies on the $194 per month she receives in food stamp benefits every month to help her get by as she searches for employment. But on Jan. 1, she is set to lose that financial lifeline. She’s one of approximately 31,000 Louisianans set to suffer as a result of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s decision to reinstate the work requirement for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in his state. The winter storm could unleash a devastating series of floods and mudslides on droughtstricken California. Audries and I spent nearly three hours today in moms bonus room, which she recently turned upside down unsuccessfully looking for a book
to give to her neighbor. We threw away trash, recycled numerous papers and magazines, filling her large recycle bin and four more boxes that won’t fit into it. Got through about 1/3 of the stuff. There are more books in the dining room, coat closet, mamas room and moms room. We also ran errands, delivering moms homemade banana bread and persimmon cookies to her shut ins and grocery shopping. I’m so tired! Cargill Meat Solutions fired about 150 Muslim meatpacking workers in Colorado, many of whom were immigrants from Somalia, after nearly 200 people protested a workplace-prayer dispute at the plant 10 days ago. The Denver Post reported the Minnsota-based agriculture giant fired the employees in the middle of negotiations between the company and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them. No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore our belief in our own guidance. The “War On Terror” and “The War On Drugs” are b o t h fraudulent, and they are both related. In a classic example of “rever se projection”, “the War on Terror” is literally a “War for Terror”, and the “War on Drugs” is literally a “War for Drugs”. Terror, coupled with the illegal trade in narcotics, particularly heroin, is enabling the orchestration, and funding, of illegal warfare which serves the interests of an international oligarch class as it destroys humanity. The barbarity of the military operations conducted by the West is beyond the imagination of most domestic audiences, even when details are publicized. Broadly speaking, we can decode the 9/11 terror wars using a simple formula: Problem Reaction Solution NATO imperialists engineer or exploit problems to create reactions, with a view to creating previously planned solutions. Typically, problems (i.e 9/11 crimes) serve to engineer public consent (reaction) for illegal invasions (solution). The “end-game” also contradicts publically stated goals. Evidence demonstrates that the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, as well as the war in Ukraine, were launched and prosecuted with a view to
destroy each country through invasion, occupation, plunder, and to establish military footholds. The popular notion that the wars are being prosecuted for humanitarian purposes is absolutely ridiculous. In Afghanistan, for example, drug-trafficking warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were used to create extremist “ jihadist” armies (mujahideen) to destroy the Sovietprotected socialist republic. The long-standing CIA-terror group alliance, which pre-dates Afghanistan, continues to be empowered by profits from illegal drug trafficking: According to U.S sources, the production of opium (which is eventually processed into heroin) has increased “40-fold” since the initial invasion of Afghanistan. So, the invasion destroyed a secular, socialist government and filled the vacuum with extremist drug-trafficking terrorist warlords. But imperialists gained a military foothold in the country. US Death Squads manufactured a civil war to divert attention from the real culprits: the occupiers. A 10,000 strong “Shia militia” under US command is used to terrorize the population and to destroy Iraqi grass-roots resistance. Often, the terrorists bomb civilian targets and falsely blame innocent groups -- false flag tactics -- which in turn create engineered friction and retaliation. Black propaganda operations are a CIA specialty. Consequently, Iraq is now an unstable terrorist quagmire, whereas before the invasion it was a modern, well-developed country free of any identifiable terror groups. The NATO invasion of Libya, previously the wealthiest country in Africa, was also a product of repeated Western lies, and now, it too, is a hotbed of terrorism, vice, and drug trafficking. Erin Banco reports in “Drug And Human Trafficking In `Lawless’ Libya Is Funding ISIS” that the West’s “lack of foresight has enabled different groups of fighters to traffic a continuous supply of arms, drugs and people across Libya’s borders, helping to bankroll some of the world’s most violent terrorists.” The invasion of Syria is following predictable patterns as well. A constellation of extremist, mercenary terror groups, including ISIS - all supported by the West - are trying to destroy Syria. Drug trafficking, stolen oil and artifacts are being used to finance the mass murder, and death squads, often under the cover of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are being used to create a “civil war”, and to destroy President Assad’s government. The terror and mass murder are primarily orchestrated externally with a view to making Syria safe for Wahhabism, barbarity, and a NATO military presence. A Wikileaks cable indicates that since 2011, more than 230,000 people have died and a million have been injured. But despite the sofar- successful alliance of Syria, Iran, and Russia in destroying the mercenary terrorists and in saving Syria, the West can take some consolation: the US already has a military foothold in the country. Only time will tell if the West succeeds in creating and sustaining yet another unstable, terrorist-infested vassal state. A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers. A pair of masked men, at least one of whom was armed with what appeared to be a gun, entered a liquor store in San Bernardino, Calif. and attempted to rob the store. The clerks on duty re-
sponded to the threat by retrieving handguns and firing at the robber, striking one of the thieves multiple times. The robbers fled in a vehicle, but were quickly captured by police. The wounded robber was taken to a hospital. San Bernardino police Lt. Richard Lawhead told a local media outlet that the robbers might have been involved in other crimes in the area. In the past three months alone, 350 administrative detention orders for imprisonment without charge or trial have been issued, and there are approximately 660 Palestinians currently held arbitrarily without trial on no charges at all - including children and Palestinians from occupied Jerusalem and Palestine - 48 (who hold Israeli citizenship). Palestinian prisoners uniformly suffer from physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Israeli soldiers, captors and interrogators, an experience even more traumatic to the numerous Palestinian children arrested. Arrests of children rose 72% over last year in 2015, traumatizing children through night raids, severe physical injuries, physical abuse, threats of harm to themselves and their families and abusive interrogations. In 1971, San Quentin guards killed George Jackson - AfricanAmerican revolutionary, Black Panther, writer, poet and prisoner - during a purported escape attempt of which James Baldwin wrote, “No black person will ever believe that George Jackson died the way they tell us he did.” Sentenced to one year to life for allegedly stealing $70 during a 1959 robbery, Jackson had become an eloquent spokesman for the black power movement in his 11 years of incarceration: He amassed an extensive library to educate both himself and fellow inmates about “US colonial fascism,” led the Black Panthers inside prison, became one of the Soledad Brothers said to be unfairly charged with the murder of a white guard, and wrote two seminal books Soledad Brother, dedicated to his brother Jonathan, killed while trying to free George, and the political treatise Blood In My Eye. In it, he described a black struggle for justice and equity from “the monster’s heart” and insisted, “We have a momentous historical role to act out if we will.” Canada welcomes refugees. While Donald Trump threatens to ban Muslims from the US, newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Tr u d e a u showed the rest of the world how a country can open its doors ‘’ and hearts ‘’ to Syrian refugees. Trudeau and other smiling officials welcomed the first batch of Syrian refugees with flowers, toys, clothing, goodwill and the heartfelt declaration, ‘You are home.’ ‘We get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome in people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations because we define a Canadian not by a skin color or a language or a religion or a background, but by a shared set of values, aspirations, hopes and dreams,’ Trudeau proclaimed. Ten years of BDS wins. The non-violent, non-sectarian, Palestinian-led movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel has seen a decade of victories. Key this year was the decision by the European Union that goods produced on land seized in the 1967 war must be labeled ‘Made in Settlements’ (not ‘Made in Israel’), which will deprive Israel the corresponding tax benefits. The former Israeli intelligence chief Shabtai Shavit is convinced that BDS has become a ‘critical’ challenge to Israel, while the former prime minister Ehud Barak admits it is reaching a ‘tipping point.’ In a desperate attempt to counter the momentum of BDS, Israeli Embassy officials in DC sent holiday gifts exclusively made in settlements to the White House this year. SAC’s Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959, originally produced in June 1956, provides the most comprehensive and detailed list of nuclear targets and target systems that has ever been declassified. This 800page study is unprepossessing, a list of geographical locations in the communist bloc and then a corresponding series of alpha numerical descriptors which reflect the targets. A mother and daughter are suing the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, alleging that Minneapolis police officers beat them with nightsticks during ongoing protests in November over the fatal shooting of a black man, according to a lawsuit obtained by the Star Tribune. Jamar Clark’s death sparked tense ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests that fit the shooting into a longstanding pattern of police abuse in the city. At least one of the officers implicated in Clark’s death was previously ‘sued for po-
lice brutality by a black man who alleged that Ringgenberg had choked him. Canada’s aboriginal women make up a small fraction of its population, yet for decades they have suffered disproportionally from abuse, exploitation and murder. Since the 1980s, over 1,000 indigenous women have been murdered in this developed North American nation, yet, according to campaigners and human rights groups, too few of these cases have resulted in arrests or prosecution. Amid mounting claims of official indifference to the problem that some say has its roots in racism and the country’s colonial past, People & Power asks why police and the gover nment are not d o i n g more to tackle crimes against Ca nada’s first nation females. A group of 20 anticapitalist squatters have taken over the former Royal Mint Building in protest over Britain’s homelessness problem. The squatters, wearing V for Vendetta masks and hanging out of windows, have set up camp in the grade II-listed Johnson Smirke building, in the City of London, and are refusing to leave. They claim they will only be removed when the owners of the building arrive with a High Court order. Some of the protesters have taken to the roof of the building while others have hung banners with messages such as ‘anticapitalista’, as well as adorning the walls with ‘End World Debt’ posters. Dear valued customer, Thanks for your business. If you receive our package, please open it and check it carefully. Please give us positive feedback or 5 stars if you satisfy with our product and service. If you still have not received your item, it may be a delay between China customs and your country’s customs. We believe you will receive your item soon. Please contact us if you have any problem. Or you can according tracking number to check logistics information. Best r e g a r d s , show*168 Major flooding is occurring or forecast on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers & tributaries in Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky, with record flooding at several locations. Major flooding is also occurring on the Arkansas River & tributaries in Arkansas. Floodwaters will move downstream over the next couple of weeks, with significant river flooding expected for the lower Mississippi into midJanuary. Speakers: Katalin Balog; Hanoch Ben-Yami; Istvn Bodnr; Tim Crane; Barry Dainton; Katalin Farkas; Philip Goff; Ferenc Huoranszki; Daniel Kodaj; Barry
Loewer; Penelope Mackie; Martine Nida-Rmelin; David Papineau; David Pitt; Peter Rauschenberger; Dean Zimmerman Submissions (individual papers and symposia) are welcome on any theme relevant to the interdisciplinary study of language, culture and mind, including (but not limited to): biological and cultural co-evolution comparative study of communication systems cognitive and cultural schematization and semantics emergence of language in ontogeny and phylogeny language and intersubjectivity * language in multi-modal communication language and thought, emotion and consciousness language, culture and identity East and West coasters (and South Texans and South Floridians), if you want to blend in down south or in the mid-
west, don’t drop the fbomb so much. People on all coasts make much more, errr, liberal of the word “fuck.” (They also tend to say variations like “motherfucker” and the relative newcomer “fuckboy” more.) “Assholes,” or the people who call them that, are mostly highly concentrated in the Northeast. But the real bastards are in Maine and New Hampshire. My farm is located in the foothills of Northern California, 40 miles east of Sacramento on 10 acres my partner, Ryan, and I lease from a land trust. In the heat of summer, my fields cover the bronzed landscape like a green quilt spread over sand. Ten acres of certified organic vegetables trace the contours of a small valley floor. Tomatoes glow crimson. Flowers bloom: zinnias, lavender, daisies. Watermelons grow fat, littering the ground like beach balls. A businessman once advised me never to admit my business was struggling. No one wants to climb aboard a sinking ship, know what I mean he’d said. At the time, I agreed. I believed if a business was failing it was because the e nt r e p r e neur was not skilled enough, not savvy enough, not hardworking enough. If my farm didn’t turn enough profit, it was my own fault. My farm’s become a billboard, and like all billboa rds, this one is deceptive. It depicts abundance and prosperity-- two young smiling farmers working among neat rows of greens under a crisp morning sun. Heaping bins of produce, all of it picked fresh and free of synthetic chemicals. Despite all the talk of small farms disappearing, despite concerns of big ag controlling our food, GMOing everything and dousing it all in RoundUp, driving past my farm one might feel a flutter of relief, think there’s a small farm right there where I can go and pick up a bag of organic baby kale, spot a bluebird resting on a fig branch, notice a patch of weeds growing among the lettuce. Meanwhile, millions of dollars in federal subsidies are doled out to mono-crop farms growing high-input GMO corn and soybeans. Meanwhile, the EPA continues to approve the use of pesticides such as Atrazine, which have been linked to birth defects, infertility and cancer. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court rules in favor of Monsanto, allowing the corporation to sue farmers whose fields are inadvertent-
ly contaminated with GMO seeds. Meanwhile, Ryan and I rifle the Internet in search of a new opportunity, one that can provide us with enough income to purchase health insurance or see the dentist, to take our soon-to-be-born child on a trip to visit its grandparents, to save a little chunk of money each year so that one day we might be able to buy a piece of land ourselves, and perhaps then we could return to farming. Because the truth is, no matter how many young people choose to farm, no matter how many bunches of kale are made into smoothies, or canvas shopping bags are packed full of colorful carrots and lacy heads of lettuce, no matter how many hip new restaurants declare themselves farm-to-fork, none of these things address the policies that dictate how our country’s food system works, policies that have created a society in which the small farmer can’t even earn a living. A quarter mile up the road from my farm the land rises just enough to give me the elevation to look down upon the entirety of my operation -- the fields, the greenhouses, the barn. Somet i m e s when I’m driving past I pull into a turnout here, step outside the car and lean on my hood. I look down at my farm, at the rows of tomatoes and peppers. I notice the thistle has grown high around the fence line, the bindweed curling up the steel tines of an idle tractor implement. I wonder how long it would take for the landscape to erase my farm if I simply walked away, if I quit farming tomorrow. If no one dragged a scuffle hoe through the rows of onions or mowed the thistle, if no one harvested the wheat or the melons or the squash, no one seeded cover crop in fall. The thistle would flower, each bloom dropping a dozen yellow seeds into the soil like needles into a pincushion. Ground squirrels would wait for the melons to ripen, for the pumpkins to flush orange, then carry them away in pieces. The neat edges of each half-acre block would fray, weeds creeping in until the 10 acres appeared once again undivided, just a fallow field. This is a rumination on lies -layer upon layer of lies -- told by US intelligence agencies and other officials about what Lee Harvey Oswald, or someone pretending to be him, was allegedly doing
in Mexico City just weeks before the Kennedy assassination. The original goal, it seems, was to associate Oswald, in advance of the events of Dealey Plaza, with the USSR and Cuba. Now let us compare the CIA’s lying performance in 1964 with its lying performance in 2015. In the wake of the Kennedy assassination, members of many U.S. agencies, including also the FBI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the U.S. Air Force, and the Secret Service, withheld relevant information from those investigating the murder. But to my knowledge there is in 2015 only one U.S. agency that is still actively maintaining the cover-up - and that is the CIA. I am referring to the CIA’s declassification and release of a previously classified CIA study by CIA historian David Robarge, “DCI John McCone and the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.” The essay is worth reading, and it contains interesting information on such matters as McCone’s relationship with Robert Kennedy. It is also significantly selective: it does not mention for example that McCone only learned late on the night of November 22 that “the CIA had known beforehand of [the alleged] Oswald’s trip to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City,” nor that as a result McCone “was enraged, ripping into his aides, furious at the way the agency was run.” Buried within Robarge’s discussion of John McCone and the Commission - a pertinent but hardly central topic - are a more important thesis statement and conclusion about the CIA itself. In the light of what I have just said about Helms, I would charge that both of these statements are false - so false indeed as arguably to constitute, once again, obstruction of justice. Species Summary: Pink-footed Goose (5 Connecticut) Common Pochard (1 Alaska) Tufted Duck (5 New York, 4 Newfoundland and Labrador, 1 Washington) Brown Booby (3 California) Northern Jacana (1 Texas) Ruff (4 California, 1 North Carolina) Kelp Gull (2 New York, 1 Ohio) Ruddy Ground-Dove (1 Arizona) Aplomado Falcon (1 Texas) Sinaloa Wren (1 Arizona) Black-capped Gnatcatcher (2 Arizona) Redwing (3 British Columbia) Rufous-backed Robin (2 Arizona) Tropical Parula (1 Texas) Golden-crowned Warbler (4 Texas) White-collared Seedeater (2 Texas) Western Spindalis (3 Florida) Crimson-collared Grosbeak (6 Texas) Streak-backed Oriole (5 Arizona) Brambling (38 Ohio) Will martial law be declared on American soil? Will economic collapse and urban riots result in the final and total loss of civil liberties right here at home? It could happen, and it is one of the “eventualities” that the military is preparing for, though they are constitutionally barred from being used domestically against the American people. Part of the U.S. Army’s latest ad campaign, broadcast frequently during football games and sporting events, and widely across many television programs, includes a 30-second spot that shows soldiers training with shields used for domestic riot control. A few weeks before seminal climate change talks in Kyoto back in 1997, Mobil Oiltook out a bluntly worded advertisement in the New York Times and Washington Post. ‘Let’s face it: The science of climate change is too uncertain to mandate a plan of action that could plunge economies into turmoil,’ the ad said. ‘Scientists cannot predict with certainty if temperatures will increase, by how much and where changes will occur.’ One year earlier, though, engineers at
Mobil Oil were concerned enough about climate change to design and build a collection of exploration and production facilities along the Nova Scotia coast that made structural allowances for rising temperatures and sea levels. An estimated rise in water level, due to global warming, of 0.5 meters may be assumed’ for the 25-year life of the Sable gas field project, Mobil engineers wrote in their design specifications. The project, owned jointly by Mobil, Shell and Imperial Oil (a Canadian subsidiary of Exxon), went online in 1999; it is expected to close in 2017. The United States has never ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse emissions. A joint investigation by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s Energy and Environmental Reporting Project and the Los Angeles Times earlier detailed how one company, Exxon, made a strategic decision in the late 1980s to publicly emphasize doubt and uncertainty regarding climate change science even as its internal research embraced the growing scientific consensus. An examination of oil industry records and interviews with current and former executives shows that Exxon’s two-pronged strategy was widespread within the industry during the 1990s and early 2000s. Just as the police killings have multiplied, so has the powerful protest movement against them only with too little meaningful change. More than 15 police officers have been charged with manslaughter or murder this year including one in Virginia first brought to widespread attention by the Guardian, one in Chicago that led the firing of the police chief and the institution of body cameras, and one in South Carolina that, like so many other encounters caught on video this year, went viral. But there seems to be no justice in Cleveland, where the mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice must now live with the reality of an officer who killed her son going free. And there is no peace for the families of so many people ‘ predominantly men, disproportionately black whose lives do not register even as a number. Household chores getting ready for Sabbath: cleaning, cooking. Long day. I had a great time doing a big year in Douglas County in 2015, with a total of 256 species, which was 11 species over my goal, and 9 short of the county r e c o r d . Thanks to all the Douglas County birders, and especially Matt Hunter, for helping me reach my goal. Notable Misses were more of a result of my inexperience than lack of birds. In 2016, I hope to improve my owling and seawatch skills especially. There is some notable “missing” information on a couple of possible (and some probable) species in Douglas County that I would like to explore. OakTitmouse, Canyon Wren, Flammulated Owl, and Great Gray Owl have/do occur(ed) in the county, but there is little information on their range. I hope to put a concerted effort into searching for these species especially. 30F, scattered snow, bleak. Caramel popcorn, bacon, raisin bread, grapefruit. Coffee. They have descended from homes built on the mountainside. Women sit together in the cemetery not to mourn but to wait for the duvet distribution to begin. When I approach them, each woman extends a hand in greeting. Some have the needed small stamped pieces of paper to receive two duvets but most dont. One of the women tells me about the pain in her chest, her legs. She talks about the war. I listen to all the manifestations of her suffering. I understand only a handful of words but as she clasps my hand, I know she wants my help in receiving a pair of duvets, too. I tell her I dont make any decisions here. It is the elder representative of the neighborhood who determines who receives the quilted bed covers. Standing with the women, I say I’m sorry I’m sorry. All other words fail me. Someone calls me over to the truck as the distribution will soon begin. In the Afghan gesture of greeting and leavetaking, I place my right hand over my heart and say goodbye. A balloon seller approaches. A boy wheels a cart of apples nearby. Where a crowd gathers, theres a potential sale, but no one buys. So the sellers observe the scene as I do. Colorful duvets, like clouds enveloping the bearers, seem to float by. I take a photo of a pair of girls. They become my shadow, following me and requesting more pictures. The truck piled high with duvets is in a narrow gated car park. Perhaps two times as many people arrive as have the needed pieces of paper. The crowd presses towards the open gate, hoping. I observe one of the volunteers at
work. Abdulhai has just finished 12th grade and is one of the founding members of the Afghan Peace Volunteers with a gift for crowd control. Instead of pushing the crowd back with outward facing palms, he smiles and snaps his fingers so the children laugh. He speaks kindly and softly. Both children and adults stop trying to edge forward, at least while hes there. Their shoulders visibly relax. Some return smiles. Sun, Jan 3 7:309pm Drop In Polo Games Sun, Jan 17 7:30-9pm Drop In Polo Games Sun, Jan 24 7:30-9pm Drop In Polo Games Sun, Jan 31 7:30-9pm Drop In Polo Games Sun, Feb 28 7:30-9pm M i n i League Games Sun, Mar 6 7:309 p m M i n i League Games Sun, Mar 13 7:309 p m M i n i League Games Sun, Mar 20 7:30-9pm Mini-League Games Sun, Apr 3 7:30-9pm Drop In Polo Games Sun, Apr 17 7:309pm Drop In Polo Games Drop In Polo Games - $10 dollar drop in fee OR save money on the Season Pass for $50 (discounted rate of $8.33 per night) Season pass holders are guaranteed a spot to play others should RSVP weekly or take their chances at the door. Alder Creek will provide any gear you might need so let us know what you need the day before. Police officers generally have broad powers to carry out their duties. The Constitution and other laws, however, place limits on how far police can go in trying to enforce the law. As the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King, in Los Angeles and several recent cases in New York have illustrated, police officers sometimes go too far, violating the rights of citizens. When this happens, the victim of the misconduct may have recourse through federal and state laws. A primary purpose of the nation’s civil rights laws is to protect citizens from abuses by government, including police misconduct. Civil rights laws allow attorney fees and compensatory and punitive damages as incentives for injured parties to enforce their rights. Being stopped and questioned by police in connection with a crime is an unsettling experience for most anyone. As long as the officer is performing his job properly, however, there is no violation of a suspect’s rights. In fact, police are immune from suit for the performance of their jobs unless willful, unreasonable conduct is demonstrated. Mere negligence, the failure to exercise due care, is not enough to create liability. Immunity therefore means that in the
typical police-suspect interaction, the suspect cannot sue the police. Civil rights remedies come into play for willful police conduct that violates an individual’s constitutional rights. Communities on the frontlines of climate change have long warned that resultant floods, droughts, and mega-storms are already bringing death, displacement, and food insecurity to people across the globe, particularly those who are poor, Indigenous, or living in the global south. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded earlier this month that climate change is already driving profound shifts in the Arctic ecosystem. For example, loss of sea ice, and climbing temperatures in the Barents Sea, off the coast of Norway and Russia, are causing “a poleward shift in fish com-
munities,” according to the agency. These changes are impacting wildlife, as well as Indigenous communities that rely on them for their survival. But perhaps most alarming are developments that cannot be seen. NOAA revealed in May that, for the first time in recorded history, global levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere averaged over 400 parts per million (ppm) for an entire month--in March 2015. Scientists have warned that, in order to achieve safe levels, CO2 must be brought down to a maximum of 350ppm. The village of Bal Harbour, population 2,513, may have a tiny footprint on the northern tip of Miami Beach, but its police department had grand aspirations of going after international drug traffickers, and making a few million dollars while they were at it. The Bal Harbour PD and the Glades County Sheriffs Office set up a giant money laundering scheme with the purported goal of busting drug cartels and stemming the surge of drug dealing going on in the area. But it all fell apart when federal investigators and the Miami-Herald found strange things going on. The two-year operation, which took in more than $55 million from criminal groups, resulted in zero arrests but netted $2.4 million for the police posing as money launderers. Members of the 12-person task force traveled far and wide to carry out their deals, from Los Angeles to New York to Puerto Rico. Equally absurd and solemn, the paintings reflect on our place in the world by setting up formal relationships between space and object, light and shadow, and in creating a narrative that unfolds as much through what is seen as what is not. Material piles appear to take on anthropomorphic form, occupying a landscape seemingly empty and timeless. But these are not the sort of narratives that offer any resolve. Their empty spaces and exaggerated shadows convey a sense of potential rather than assertion and time here is not linear but cyclic. The result is a narrative that doesn’t offer up answers, but rather a range of experience that spans silent contemplation at one end and a sense of unease at the other. We take this opportunity to express our solidarity with those who are affected by war and economic devastation, to the victims of US-NATO led
wars, to the refugees which are fleeing the war theater, to the millions of people in all major regions of the World who have been impoverished under the brunt of IMF ‘economic medicine’, to the farmers who have lost their land, to millions of young people in the European Union who have been excluded from the job market. At this juncture in our history, freedom of expression as an instrument of social change is threatened. Wall Street and the Anglo-American oil conglomerates will tell you that war is ‘good for business’, that there are ‘investment opportunities’ in Iraq, Syria and Libya, that war creates opportunities for the socalled defense contractors, and there is money to be made in the ‘reconstruction’ of countries which have been destroyed. In turn, genetically modified (GMO) seeds are imposed on farmers by donors and creditors as part of the ‘reconstruction’ process invariably leading to the devastation of agriculture. The mainstream media will tell us that the West is involved in a humanitarian undertaking: US-NATO is waging a ‘global war on terrorism’. ‘The forbidden truth’, however, is that We s t e r n governm e n t s routinely provide support to the same terrorist entities which are the object of their fake ‘counter-terrorism operations’. Ultimately all the topics which have been the object of Global Research 2015 articles are interrelated: War, terrorism, the police state, the global economy, economic austerity, financial fraud, corrupt governments, poverty and social inequality, police violence, Al Qaeda, ISIS, media disinformation, racism, war propaganda weapons of mass destruction, the derogation of international law, the criminalization of politics, the CIA, the FBI, climate change, nuclear war, Fukushima, nuclear radiation, crimes against humanity, The ChinaRussia alliance, Syria Ukraine, NATO, false flags, 9/11 Truth. Species Summary: Pink-footed Goose (18 Connecticut) Barnacle Goose (1 Connecticut) Whooper Swan (2 Florida) Common Pochard (1 Alaska) Tufted Duck (8 New York, 1 Newfoundland and Labrador, 1 Vermont) Common Scoter (1 Quebec) Masked Booby (2 Florida) Brown Booby (10 California, 1 Louisiana) Northern Jacana (4 Texas) Ruff (2 California) Ivory Gull (27 Minnesota) Sinaloa Wren (1 Arizo-
na) Redwing (10 British Columbia) Rufous-backed Robin (3 Arizona) Rufous-capped Warbler (2 Arizona) White-collared Seedeater (1 Texas) Western Spindalis (6 Florida) Crimson-collared Grosbeak (2 Texas) Streakbacked Oriole (5 Arizona) Brambling (53 Ohio) Cold here, too. Poor Vanessa! I’ve begun reading All the Light. Looks like a great book. I’m sure that I have mentioned the Samsung Galaxy phone that Dick gave me, model SGH S370M. It’s quite an old model and I’ve been unable to find a book that describes how to use it. Luckily I found a Dummies book in the library on the newer Galaxy Note model. This helps with generic features. It’s frustrating, though, because I remain unable to use internet without signing up for a data plan... not for me. Still, it’s an amazing little device and is quite a powerful computer. Doug, our neighbour’s son is going to India for two months, leaving Jan 5. The long flight does not appeal to me. I’m not so sure just how safe it will be once he arrives. Some parts of the world are unsafe for travel because of the Islamists ISL. I hope he’ll be OK. Take it easy on the poor old guys at the Seniors’ Center. 1. Giving up refined foods is the best way to give your diet a nutritional boost. Ditch the sugar and replace with honey or maple syrup. Replace pasta with quinoa or brown rice. Trade vegetable oil with olive oil or coconut oil. 2. Choose only grass-fed, pastured meats. Grass-fed beef and red meat is a richer source of conjugated linoleic acid, omega-3 fatty acids, beta carotene and retinol than the meat of conventionally raised animals. 3. Eat more fat: butter, lard, tallow and olive oil. Vitamins A, D, E and K are fatsoluble; that is, your body needs fat to properly absorb, metabolize and utilize these critical nutrients. Without wholesome fats, your body is operating at a nutritional loss. 4. Make mineral-rich stock every week. Homemade stock is rich in micronutrients - calcium, magnesium and other minerals as well as more elusive nutrients such as glucosamine chondroitin and collagen. Preparation takes only minutes. 5. Juice!! Great way to sneak healthy produce into your kids diet as well. Tangelos and Grape Tomatoes this week!! As its title indicates, Morris’s “Box with the Sound of Its Own Making” consists of an unadorned wooden cube, accompanied by a recording of the sounds produced during its construction. Lasting for three-and-ahalf hours, the audio component of the piece denies the air of romantic mystery surrounding the creation of the art object, presenting it as a time-consuming and perhaps even tedious endeavor. In so doing, the piece also combines the resulting artwork with the process of artmaking, transferring the focus from one to the other. Fittingly, the first person in New York Morris invited to see the piece was John Cage-whose silent 1952 composition 4’33” is famously composed of the sounds heard in the background while it is being performed. Cage was reportedly transfixed by Box with the Sound of Its Own Making, as Morris later recalled: “When Cage came, I turned it on... and he wouldn’t listen to me. He sat and listened to it for three hours and that was really impressive to me. He just sat there.” How can there be 400 billionaires so self-absorbed in their fortunes and greed that they cannot see the sea of suffering that surrounds them? They are sitting in the 16 lifeboats of the ill-fated Titanic wearing mink coats, diamonds and white, elbow-
length dinner gloves while the rest of us thrash in icy, black water, drowning in the disaster of our economy. Our children are stiffening, dead in the water. Our students are being dragged down into the depths of poverty by the heavy chains of debt. Our elders are desperately trying to keep their heads above water. Reckless, irresponsible greed has created a crisis in which every 38 seconds, a US citizen dies of poverty and poverty-related social conditions. The US Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling handed US politics over to the wealthy on a silver platter, turning elections into auctions with political offices going to the highest bidder, starting at prices far out of reach for the average American. The opportunities needed to save lives and build economic justice are held in the same hands as those gripping wealth and power. The political purse strings tie inequality up with a bow and condemn the rest of us to a life sentence of poverty. Fifty-eight new mayors assumed office without incident in Oaxaca this week, but not so in Temixco, Morelos, where Gisela Mota was killed this morning, a day within being sworn in. A federal deputy of the Democratic Revolution Party from 2012-2015, Mota was murdered at her home in Pueblo Viejo. We decided to replace two eight-yearold appliances that were disintegrating in our salty Caribbean environment. A phone call to Costco confirmed all purchases would include free delivery to our front door on Isla Mujeres. The concept of any one nation taking the role of global policing is troubling in itself, even more so when that nation has shown such distain for rule of law as the US has. Drone strikes, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, testing nuclear weapons on native treaty lands, all call into question the US role of world police. The US polices the globe the same as it increasingly polices its own streets. The federal government issues attack weapons, even armored cars and tanks, to local police departments in cities large and small and police are trained to view the people they are supposed to be protecting and serving as enemies. With less than 5% of the worlds population, the US has more than 25% of the worlds prisoners and the prison population is disproportionally made up of people of color. Police departments in the US often arrest, maim, and kill American citizens on American streets based on racial profiling, which is only a domestic version of the signature strike. Young men of certain demographics can be killed based on their patterns of behavior in Baltimore as in Waziristan. A large portion of the residual US troops and contractors in Afghanistan are there to train the Afghan police! The irony of this may be lost on Americans, but not on the world community. However, I recently discovered good alternative (which I certainly hope is not a bug itself ). Below the window’s titlebar is another sort-of titlebar, that’s used for docking or undocking the dialog. It has a tiny right-pointing arrow and x button on the right side. When the dialog is docked, the tiny arrow can reduce the docked dialog to what amounts to a minimized position within the docking area. And the tiny x button closes it, but keeps it docked. What I recently discovered is that those tiny buttons, even though the dialog is not docked, have the same effect, as if it was docked. So you can temporarily get undocked (larger) dialogs out of the way, and bring them back (without having them squeezed into the docking area)! This decision cites the over four months of town hall meetings, debates, and educational forums where members consistently engaged the issue in order to make an informed decision on the vote. UAW 2865’s official website also linked directly to the website of the anti-BDS opposition caucus ‘Informed Grads.’ UAW 2865 elected leaders also solicited numerous written opinions from members both for and against the resolution, and made all of them directly accessible on the union website. Further, next to the ballot box there were two official pro and con statements, authored by the ‘pro’ BDS caucus and the ‘anti’ Informed Grads caucus, respectively. Prior to the forthcoming Impressionist & Modern Art and Surrealist Art Evening Sales to be held in London on 3 February 2016, Sotheby’s announces an exhibition of highlights in Hong Kong - including an exceptional painting by Henri Matisse, which has emerged after 85 years in a private collection, and a rare example of Francis Picabia’s machinist com-
positions. This exhibition follows a record year for Sotheby’s sales of Impressionist & Modern Art worldwide in 2015, which achieved a grand total of US$1.72 billion &150; the highest annual figure for the company in this category. Sotheby’s has also been achieving outstanding prices for Surrealist works of art, including many artist records, since its first stand-alone sale 15 years ago &150; the market for which has continued to go from strength to strength. Highlights on view include exquisite works on paper. Iceland has gained the admiration of populists in recent years by doing that which no other nation in the world seems to be willing or capable of doing: prosecuting criminal bankers for engineering financial collapse for prof it. Their effective rev o l t against the banking class, who drove the tiny nation into economic crisis in 2008, is the brightest example yet that the world does not have to be indebted in perpetuity to an austere and criminal wealthy elite. In 2015, 26 Icelandic bankers were sentenced to prison and the government ordered a bank sale to benefit the citizenry. Inspired by Iceland’s progress, activists in Switzerland are now making an important stand against the banking cartels and have successfully petitioned to bring an initiative to public referendum that would attack the private banks where it matters most. Financial markets are political. Stock markets, bond markets and derivatives markets do not merely (or even primarily) raise capital for goods and services. Rather, they all have direct and often harmful effects on people’s everyday lives. Our public universities issue bonds to cover the shortfall from tax cuts and, in turn, use everrising tuition dollars as collateral. Our mortgage, car and credit card payments are all securitized into short-term, lucrative investments for banks and investors, while for us they are shelter, food, and merely getting by. The municipal bond and sovereign debt markets have had plainly disastrous effects from Detroit to Puerto Rico to Greece’but for some they have been spectacularly profitable. The Navajo Nation is going green by building its first utility-scale solar farm on tribal property. The facility, to be located on 300 acres near Monument Valley, is expected to generate enough power for 7,700 homes in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah after it is completed in late 2016. Deenise Biscenti, public affairs director for the Navajo Tribal
Utility Authority, said building the solar plant is part of a longterm strategy to change the way the tribes deliver power. ‘For the past several years, NTUA has explored renewable-energy resource possibilities,’ she said. ‘This solar farm is our move into that field, to establish a green economy for the Navajo Nation. Mr. Zuckerberg and Dr. Chan did not set up a charitable foundation, which has nonprofit status. He created a limited liability company, one that has already reaped enormous benefits as public relations coup for himself. His P.R. return-on-investment dwarfs that of his Facebook stock. Mr. Zuckerberg was depicted in breathless, glowing terms for having, in essence, moved money from one pocket to the other. An L.L.C. can invest in for-profit companies (per-
haps these will be characterized as societally responsible companies, but lots of companies claim the mantle of societal responsibility). An L.L.C. can make political donations. It can lobby for changes in the law. He remains completely free to do as he wishes with his money. That’s what America is all about. But as a society, we don’t generally call these types of activities “charity.” What’s more, a charitable foundation is subject to rules and oversight. It has to allocate a certain percentage of its assets every year. The new Zuckerberg L.L.C. won’t be subject to those rules and won’t have any transparency requirements. In covering the event, many commentators praised the size and percentage of the gift and pointed out that Mr. Zuckerberg is relatively young to be planning to give his wealth away. “Mark Zuckerberg Philanthropy Pledge Sets New Giving Standard,” Bloomberg glowed. The New York Times ran an article on the front page. Few news outlets initially considered the tax implications of Mr. Zuckerberg’s plan. A Wall Street Journal article didn’t mention taxes at all. 36F, overcast. Grapefruit, smoked turkey leg, streamed broccoli, banana. Coffee. Born to intellectual Quaker parents in 1771 and trained as a lawyer, Brown was one of the most important literary innovators of his age. In addition to creating novels rich with psychological and philosophical complexity, he was one of the earliest authors of short stories. He also excelled in the genre of the essay, became the first American literary critic of note, introducing in his magazines extended reviews of new American publications, and developed provocative theories of historiography and fiction that point ahead to the 20th century. Brecht’s drama follows Mother Courage, a women who supports herself and her children by selling goods to warring armies from a cart she drags through the battle zones. Along the way, all three of her children are killed because of the war. Mother Courage is the epitome of every poor, undocumented, battered, trafficked and immigrant women hustling to provide for her family however she must. The US hasn’t seen the stirrings of fascist mobilization since the late 1930s when mounting fascist victories in Europe galvanized its adherents in America, chief
among them Father Charles Coughlin and his Christian Front. This history has something to offer us today. By late 1938, Nazi Germany and fascist Italy had shifted the balance of forces among the world’s major powers, while fascist general Francisco Franco wrestled most of Spain from republican forces. The growing power of fascism was increasingly impacting civilian populations, particularly in Germany. For the most part, however, it was simply copy-and-paste journalism that did nothing to challenge the overarching ‘ISIS plot’ framing. As the War on Terror enters its 15th year, at some point these formulaic FBI terror sting operations which, more than anything help keep panic at a fever pitch, should be reported on with far more nuance and skepticism. Key claims by the DOJ should not be rounded up to scariest possibly framing, mitigating factors like mental illness and FBI pressure should be highlighted rather than buried in paragraph 23, and material evidence of actual terrorist involvement should be confirmed rather than smuggled in vague passive framing about what a mentally unstable man “claims” happened. We ended our New Years Day at the Bald Eagle roost near the intersection of Seward and McLagan, west of the town of Tangent and the Calapooia River. After counting 21 BALD EAGLES (seems like a low number of birds, but we didn’t use a scope) we sat in the pullout on McLagan Drive and watched the changing of the guard in the fields to the southeast of us: At 5:05 pm there were 9 NORTHERN HARRIERS working the field between the river and McLagan Drive. By 5:13 pm all but two Harriers had settled down for the night. At 5:18 pm we saw the first of 16 SHORT-EARED OWLS cross McLagan in front of our car. Over the next five minutes, we watched owls come from the field between the road and the river (the same field where the Harriers had been hunting) and head to the northwest in groups of two and three. By the end there wasn’t much light left, but we were able to see owls silhouetted against the orange sky. We turned around, drove west down Seward Drive and saw (and heard) several owls flying over the field to the north. This is the same field where we have been seeing a number of raptors hanging out during the
day. There must be some yummy rodents there. Earlier in the day we were able to easily relocate the Cheadle Lake YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER. It spent most of the time in a tree near the blue house that Doug Robinson mentioned, but flew across the canal a couple of times for closer looks. Instead of enforcing a culture of cutthroat competition, they build cultures and communities of cooperation. Rather than isolating us from one another, they foster relationships of mutual support and solidarity. In place of centralized structures of control, they move us towards shared responsibility and directly democratic decision-making. Instead of imposing a single global monoculture, they strengthen the diversity of local cultures and environments. Instead of prioritizing profit over all else, they encourage commitment to broader work for social, economic, and environmental justice. And instead of giving our public dollars to private corporations which greedily hoard them, some governments are transitioning to a universal basic income. Finland is the first countryto try this on a national level. Imagine if every person had a guaranteed income to meet their basic needs. How would your life change if you had a guarantee of $1,000 each month? A basic income would eradicate poverty, end the need for poverty programs and people would be freed, if combined with other public policies, to pursue more education, raise their children, try new businesses or practice arts. A basic income is also a major economic stimulus. In a plutocracy, everything is seen as a potential for profit health care, education, energy, infrastructure and more. The trend in a plutocracy is toward privatization so that the wealthy can control access and reap all the profits. The opposite of plutocracy is a system that prioritizes the needs of people, provides greater public access to space and resources and promotes public participation in decision-making. The Nixon Campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others. We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as [humans] is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks [we] take a long time to accomplish, that’s all. If we are to save the mind
we must ignore its gloomy virtues and celebrate its strength and wonder. Our world is poisoned by its misery, and seems to wallow in it. It has utterly surrendered to that evil which Nietzsche called the spirit of heaviness. Let us not add to this. It is futile to weep over the mind, it is enough to labor for it. But where are the conquering virtues of the mind? The same Nietzsche listed them as mortal enemies to heaviness of the spirit. For him, they are strength of character, taste, the ‘world,’ classical happiness, severe pride, the cold frugality of the wise. More than ever, these virtues are necessary today, and each of us can choose the one that suits him best. Before the vastness of the undertaking, let no one forget strength of character. I don’t mean the theatrical kind on political platforms, complete with frowns and threatening gestures. But the kind that through the virtue of its purity and its sap, stands up to all the winds that blow in from the sea. Such is the strength of character that in the winter of the world will prepare the fruit. Long day. Went to, and played for, church. Stayed for potluck afterwards. The. Helped Audries start a church project. After sundown we shopped for supplies for her project, a birthday gift for a friend and a bath mat for mom. Back home, where mom and I worked on the project while Audries delivered my present for me. There are two dominant positions vis--vis the undocumented millions from Mexico and Central America, from ‘kick them all out, arm more border guards and build more jails and bigger walls,’ to ‘treat them humanely, de-criminalize and provide due legal process.’ As work and struggle continues to build on this latter position, we must keep in mind there are at least four significant and desperate phases of this forced migrant/refugee reality. The phase that gets most of the (albeit narrowly focused) attention is the battle over what to do with people now in the U.S. As stated, the just, fair and practical position is to legalize them all, now. Receiving less attention are the dangerous and deadly conditions people face when fleeing north across Mexico. Recently, there has been a small amount of reporting on the conditions of poverty and destitution, general and sexualized violence, drought and heat, and repression that people are victimized by as they cross Mexico into the U.S. Receiving even less attention are the deadly situations refugees face when forcibly deported back to their home countries. There is documentation that many have being killed when deported back into the very situations they had desperately fled. And then there are the two elephants in the room: the societal conditions in Honduras and Guatemala, and to varying degrees in Mexico’s chronic exploitation and poverty, chronic violence and repression, weak democratic institutions, chronic impunity and corruption ‘ that force tens of thousands to flee year after year, decade after decade; and the roles played by the governments of the U.S. and Canada, by the U.S. military and by North American corporations in helping cause and benefit from the unjust, violent conditions that force people to flee. We are stuck in a mean-spirited, deadly cycle, wherein the U.S. (and to a lesser degree Canada) contribute to and benefit from the conditions that force so many to flee. Then, the refugees are criminalized, attacked and demonized if they can cross Mexico into the ‘safe haven’ of the U.S. In the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. received millions of refugees from Central America (Canada also received a significant number), even as the U.S. government was funding, training, and arming military regimes in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras that were carrying out systemic repression (including massacres, disappearance, torture, and, in Guatemala, genocide) against their own people; even as the U.S.Contras paramilitary group was trying to overthrow the elected government of Nicaragua. Central America was burning. Close to 500,000 civilians were killed or disappeared, millions displaced, many of whom fled to the U.S. and Canada some as refugees, some as ‘illegals.’ Over the years, many were able to legally normalize their situations. Even as the U.S. and Canadian governments received a good number of people as legal refugees, there was no acknowledgement of how U.S. Cold War economic and military policies were in partnership with militarybacked oligarchies the underlying cause of the repression, destruction and death, and the forced displacement
of millions. And just when it seemed things could not be worse, the U.S. ‘war on drugs’ that had been devastating Mexico since 2006, resulting in the killing and disappearances of more than 100,000 people spilled into Central America, particularly Guatemala and Honduras (which, not coincidentally, are the strongest business and political partners of the U.S. and Canada). By the late 2000s, Honduras and Guatemala had become major drug shipment places. Narco-trafficking cartels from South America and mainly from Mexico spread into Honduras and Guatemala and corrupted and infiltrated the executive and legislative branches of government, the judiciary, police and m i l it a r y. An armed militia took over a building at a nationa l wildlife refuge in Oregon late Saturday and vows to occupy the outpost for years to protest the federal governments treatment of a pair of ranchers facing prison time. Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex. Unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations. What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise. We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us. We must get away from the idea that America is to be the leader of the world in everything. She can lead in some things. The old “manifest destiny” idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can - and that without cant, without the assumption of self- righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations. God grant, that not only the love of liberty, but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man, may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface, and say, This is my country. sHope everything goes fine with you This e-mail probably disturb you. But I’m concerning about your package status. 15 days have passed since your item was shipped It should reach you very soon (normally, that will arrive in 10-25 business days from China). When you are receiving good conditional and
you really love the items, We hope you could leave us positive feedback in Real 5 stars As the shipping is free and realize it’s international mail post send by economy option. Hope you could really understand this If there is anything you feel unsatisfied with, please do tell us firstly. This will help us know what we should do to help you with best solution as well as how we should improve. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any problems with this purchase. Best regards, Customer Service Department Species Summary: Pink-footed Goose (20 Connecticut) Barnacle Goose (8 Connecticut) Tufted Duck (1 California, 9 New York, 2 Vermont) Brown Booby (54 California, 1 Texas) Northern Jacana (7 Texas) Ruff (1 California) Ivory Gull (39 Minnesota) Kelp Gull
(1 Ohio) Aplomado Falcon (1 Texas) Blackcapped Gnatcatcher (1 Arizona) Redwing (14 British Columbia) Rufous-backed Robin (3 Arizona) Rufouscapped Warbler (1 Arizona) White-collared Seedeater (1 California, 1 Texas) Western Spindalis (1 Florida) Crimson-collared Grosbeak (4 Texas) Streak-backed Oriole (5 Arizona) Brambling (32 Ohio) Halal [values, mercy, kindness, efficiency, good use] farm animals are living beings that responds to love and care, hence exceptional quality taste and flavor for humans] vs agricultural animal cruelty [kicking chickens; debeaking very young turkeys to prevent killing each other in adult life due to over-crowded caging, etc. Proding of cattle in their genitals and udder by sadistic caretakers in high pressure, high traffic commercialized settings in the name of profit. No new coal mines: China announces three year ban, closes 1,000 coal mines ‘ NZ should also stop approvals ECO today welcomed an announcement that no new coal mines will be approved in China for three years and a further 1,000 existing coal mines. Mom and I began the day with continued work on Audries’ project. We left at 11 a.m. for Hollister to get body work done on Mom and me by a woman who does orthobionomy (better than massage, gentler than chiropractic, better results). While Nancy was working on Mom, Audries and I ran to Safeway for groceries. Back in Watsonville, Audries cooked dinner while I taught mom -- again -- how to use her Jacquie Lawson software. After dinner, Audries and I finished her church project. I gave her an update on the things I had done for mom while here and what needed to be completed. After she left, I cleaned the kitchen, did some more things for mom and am now packing. Monday I’ll leave here around 9 a.m. Monday morning, take some boxes of things to Lyle’s, then head over the hill to the San Jose Airport. I am driving Lyle’s car and will leave it in the parking lot there. He returns from San Diego tomorrow afternoon and will pick it up and drive home. I’ll see you late tomorrow afternoon. Regina will pick me up from the airport, drop me at Scott’s to get my car. I’ll probably have to fight some traffic to get home and hope to be there before 5, if I’m lucky. Hopefully the
weather will have turned warmer by then. See you soon! We are writing to remind you of upcoming changes to the Checkout by Amazon Fee Schedule. To reflect the higher processing cost of certain transaction types, the following fees will take effect for your Checkout by Amazon account on February 1, 2016. Pricing for domestic transactions, 2.9% processing fee + $0.30 authorization fee, will not change. Prior to February 1, 2016: Authorization fee: Refundable Cross-border processing fee: 2.9% Disputed chargeback fee: $0 Effective February 1, 2016: Authorization fee: Non-refundable Cross-border processing fee: 3.9% Disputed chargeback fee: $20 As always, you will pay no set-up, monthly, or cancellation fees. For more details about these fee updates, please read our FAQ Checkout by Amazon provides a familiar and trusted payment experience to millions of customers around the globe. We thank you for your business. Please contact us if you have any questions or need more information. Regards, The Amazon Payments Team Wintry precipitation is forecast on Monday for the Pacific Northwest, Sierra Nevada, and Great Basin, with beneficial rains forecast across central and southern California. December 2015 is the first time the volcano showed the signs of eruptive activity since 1905, and only 16 eruptions have been recorded since 1524, most of which have been small explosions of phreatic nature. The only two larger eruptions were observed in 1605 and 1609 when large bombs and blocks were expelled to the distances of approximately 6 km (19 685 feet), in the area of the nowadays abandoned town of Len Viejo. The morning explosion caused no damage, however it was reported to ignite the vegetation on the flanks of Momotomba volcano. The youthful cone of Momotombito forms a 391-m-high (1 282.8 feet) island offshore in Lake Managua. Momotombo has a long record of strombolian eruptions, punctuated by occasional larger explosive activity. The latest eruption, in 1905, produced a lava flow that traveled from the summit to the lower NE base. A small black plume was seen above the crater after an April 10, 1996 earthquake, but later observations noted no significant changes in the crater. A major geothermal field is located on the southern
flank of the volcano. Widespread flooding across Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil over the last 7 days forced more than 150 000 people to evacuate their homes and claimed 6 lives so far. The floods are the worst to hit the area in the last 50 years, according to the local authorities. December 2015 is already a record breaking month for rainfall in parts of the UK. The spell of wet weather spread across portions of north Wales and northwest England on December 26, 2015 brought flooding to the area already saturated with water. Severe weather conditions continued across Texas on December 26, 2015, as several violent tornadoes swept the area killing 11 people. The total death toll caused by extreme weather conditions in the US since December 23 is now 29. he final post on some of the multitude of statues at Nanzoin temple in Sasaguri, Fukuoka. here is a nice tableau of the shichifukujin, the seven Lucky Gods. In every nook and cranny there are tiny Jizo statues. These seem to be a Buddhist Jizo version of the 7 lucky gods, yet more Jizo. Sakimori were various forms of frontier guardians, and this curious statue The surge of Central Americans across the border - both adults with kids in tow (who are the subjects of this latest leak) and the unaccompanied minors who got so much coverage - subsided after the summer of 2014 because the administration bribethreatened Mexico into doing a better job of policing its own southern border. But now there’s a renewed surge, presumably because Mexico’s zeal is waning and because Central Americans see that the U.S. isn’t deporting many of those who came earlier. Heck, even deportations of criminals are dropping. Border Patrol statistics show the magnitude of this new surge. In the first two months of the current fiscal year (October and November), border apprehensions of unaccompanied minors were more than double those in the same period last year, and apprehensions of family units nearly triple. If the rate continues, the flow of minors will approach the 2014 peak, and the flow of families will exceed it. The agency’s own statistics certainly contradict that, showing that the southern border region is as porous and vulnerable as ever. Other entry ports that saw large hikes in Central American illegal immigrants during the first two months of this fiscal year include Del Rio, Texas (269%), El Centro, California (216%) and Rio Grande Valley, Texas (154%). The Border Patrol breaks the stats down by family unit and illegal immigrants under the age of 18, referred to as “Unaccompanied Alien Children or UAC. The Rio Grande Valley port of entry topped the list in both categories with 8,537 family units and 6,465 UACs during the twomonth period. In all, the nation’s nine southern border crossings saw an average of 173% increase in family units and a 106% increase in minors during the short period considered. Some of the illegal immigrants are Mexican nationals, but the overwhelming majority comes from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The government records show that somehow 4,450 family units from El Salvador evaded our topnotch border security and entered the United States in a period of only two months. Guatemala and Honduras had 3,934 and 3,203 respectively. Mexico had 538 family units. Of interesting note is that, during this period, the Border Patrol reports 35,234 apprehensions in the region of foreigners labeled by the govern-