The Flying Jellyfish by Keld Bach (click image to enlarge)
Forgot to tighten the grip on my tripod when I tried to capture some of the fireworks last night. Anyway, I thought the result looked quite interestingly, like a flying Jellyfish or something. Hope you like it too, and wishing everyone a Happy New Year 🙂
A lecture by Dr. Chris Essex, Professor of Applied Mathematics at Univ. Western Ontario, and former director of its theoretical physics program. From “Doctors for Disaster Preparedness” 29th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, July 2011.
“In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
Source: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Third Assessment Report (2001), Section 14.2.2.2, page 774. Read online version here.
An explosion on a trolleybus near Kachinsky Market in Volgograd. (Photo: RIA Novosti)
Excerpts from Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar Bin Sultan’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, August 2013:
Bandar told Putin, “There are many common values ​​and goals that bring us together, most notably the fight against terrorism and extremism all over the world. Russia, the US, the EU and the Saudis agree on promoting and consolidating international peace and security. The terrorist threat is growing in light of the phenomena spawned by the Arab Spring. We have lost some regimes. And what we got in return were terrorist experiences, as evidenced by the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the extremist groups in Libya. … As an example, I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us, and they will not move in the Syrian territory’s direction without coordinating with us. These groups do not scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role or influence in Syria’s political future.”
Putin thanked King Abdullah for his greetings and Bandar for his exposition, but then he said to Bandar, “We know that you have supported the Chechen terrorist groups for a decade. And that support, which you have frankly talked about just now, is completely incompatible with the common objectives of fighting global terrorism that you mentioned. We are interested in developing friendly relations according to clear and strong principles.”
Bandar discussed the Syrian issue at length. He explained how the kingdom’s position had evolved on the Syrian crisis since the Daraa incident all the way to what is happening today. He said, “The Syrian regime is finished as far as we and the majority of the Syrian people are concerned. [The Syrian people] will not allow President Bashar al-Assad to remain at the helm. The key to the relations between our two countries starts by understanding our approach to the Syrian issue. So you have to stop giving [the Syrian regime] political support, especially at the UN Security Council, as well as military and economic support. And we guarantee you that Russia’s interests in Syria and on the Mediterranean coast will not be affected one bit. In the future, Syria will be ruled by a moderate and democratic regime that will be directly sponsored by us and that will have an interest in understanding Russia’s interests and role in the region.”
Regarding the Syrian issue, the Russian president responded to Bandar, saying, “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters. During the Geneva I Conference, we agreed with the Americans on a package of understandings, and they agreed that the Syrian regime will be part of any settlement.”
Source: Al-Monitor
Many are speculating that the terror attacks in Volgograd were specifically planned to target Russia ahead of the upcoming Winter Games in Sochi. It’s not the first terror attack that’s been linked to Olympic events. Back in July 2005, a series of suicide attacks hit London, a day after it won the chance to host the Olympics. For more on this I can talk to James Corbett, editor of the independent news website The Corbett Report.
A local rabbi, who is also a mohel, is being sued after accidentally having severed a newborn boy’s penis during a traditional Jewish genital mutilation ceremony.
The baby was rushed to Children’s Hospital, where doctors performed emergency microsurgery which took eight hours. The baby needed six blood transfusions and was hospitalized for nearly two months.
The reattachment procedure of the boy’s penis was reported as successful, but there’s no way to know if he’ll make a complete recovery.
Pediatric urologists spend about 20 percent of their time repairing children who have been genitally mutilated during those rituals as there is no regulated standard for training or certification of the Jewish mohels.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, one in every 500 newborn boys experience significant acute complications as a result of circumcision.
Source: CBS Pittsburgh
Related: Israel Pediatric Association calls to end blood-sucking ritual during circumcision
On 23rd of December 2013, Bethlehem Unwrapped festival opened with the unveiling of a 8m high life size replica of the separation wall that has been built by Israel in the West Bank. It has been constructed over 8 days in the church yard of St James’ near Piccadilly Circus in central London in a bid to bring some reality of what it is like to live in Bethlehem in 2013.
St. James’ Church in central London unveiled an eight-meter-high replica of the Israeli-built concrete wall that entirely surrounds the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
It is an effort to bring to London some of the reality of what it is like to live in Bethlehem in 2013.
The wall deliberately obscures the facade of the historic St. James’ Church “because that is what has happened to Bethlehem’s holy sites and historic places.”
“This Christmas we’ve built a huge wall across the front of our church. We’d really like you to come and see it because it’s what the people of Bethlehem are experiencing today,” explains Reverend Lucy Winkett, rector of the church, in the brief video above.
The wall is part of the “Bethlehem Unwrapped” festival, which features a week of events, starting on 29 December, including music by Reem Kelani and Nigel Kennedy, comedy with Jeremy Hardy and Mark Steel, as well as films and panels.
Source: Intifada Palestine
Israeli soldiers take position beside the Israeli separation wall at the Qalandiya Checkpoint, the West Bank. (Photo: UPI / Debbie Hill)
The Israelis claim that the monstrous Wall, also known as the apartheid Wall, is to protect its citizens from terrorist attack. But in reality it is carefully routed to bite deep into Palestinian territory in order to steal choice agricultural land and water resources, as well as to seize strategic landscape and communication features and disconnect Palestinian communities from their livelihoods and from each other.
Source: Intifada Palestine
FOUR HORSEMEN is an award winning independent feature documentary which lifts the lid on how the world really works.
As we will never return to ‘business as usual’ 23 international thinkers, government advisors and Wall Street money-men break their silence and explain how to establish a moral and just society.
FOUR HORSEMEN is free from mainstream media propaganda — the film doesn’t bash bankers, criticise politicians or get involved in conspiracy theories. It ignites the debate about how to usher a new economic paradigm into the world which would dramatically improve the quality of life for billions.
A series of attacks in Iraq over Christmas left at least 42 people dead and dozens more wounded. As Iraq faces its worst violence in years, the United States has rushed a new shipment of Hellfire missiles to help the Iraqi government fight militants. The CIA is also helping Iraqi forces target militant camps with aerial strikes. According to the United Nations, more than 8,000 Iraqis have been killed this year in the worst violence since 2008. We discuss the continued crisis in Iraq, and how the Syrian conflict is affecting the entire region, with two guests: Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American blogger and political analyst; and William Dunlop, a Baghdad-based correspondent for Agence France-Presse.
Source: Democracy Now!
Children too frightened to sleep or woken by the sounds of rampaging settlers. Molotov cocktails through living room windows. Settlers firing guns, protected by soldiers. Hateful slogans daubed on walls. Settler children throwing rocks.
These are some of the daily experiences Palestinian children and parents describe in this new short documentary Living in Fear: In the shadow of Israeli settlements, from Defence for Children International – Palestine Section (DCI-PS).
The video focuses on attacks by settlers from Yitzhar, a colony established in 1983 on lands stolen from surrounding villages in the northern occupied West Bank.
The attacks are frequent and ongoing as the settlers seize more land.
In 2011 alone, UN OCHA recorded 70 attacks by Yizhar settlers, “the largest figure recorded from a single settlement” that year.
Why is this happening? “They want us to leave our homes. That’s what they want,” says one mother.
Source: The Electronic Intifada
Related: Zionist Israel Conducts Nazi-Style Ethnic Cleansing: Analyst | Roger Waters Compares Israeli Policy to Nazi Germany | The Iron Wall | Going Against the Grain
You might not know who Arjan Roskam is, but you’ve probably smoked his weed. Arjan’s been breeding some of the most famous marijuana strains in the world — like White Widow, Super Silver Haze, and many others — for over 20 years.
In 1992 he opened his first coffee shop in Amsterdam and has since crafted his marijuana-breeding skills into a market-savvy empire known as Green House Seed Company, which rakes in millions of dollars a year.
He’s won 38 Cannabis Cups and has dubbed himself the King of Cannabis.
VICE joins Arjan and his crew of strain hunters in Colombia to look for three of the country’s rarest types of weed, strains that have remained genetically pure for decades. In grower’s terms, these are called landraces. We trudge up mountains and crisscross military checkpoints in the country’s still-violent south, and then head north to the breathtaking Caribbean coast. As the dominoes of criminalization fall throughout the world, Arjan is positioned to be at the forefront of the legitimate international seed trade.
Pope Francis I: As a part of a greater effort to use social media to connect with Catholics worldwide, the Pope will start relieving punishment for your sins via Twitter.
I stumbled upon this speech by Pope Francis and was astonished (and slightly indignant) by the way he used the word ‘pagan.’
According to the Free Online Dictionary, a ‘pagan‘ is defined as “a person who does not belong to any of the major world religions.”
Does that mean that the Pope thinks everyone else cannot be a good person? I certainly don’t hope so, because I’ve met many nice and good-hearted pagans, atheists, animists, socialists, Gnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, etc in my time, so perhaps the Pope needs to broaden his intellectual horizon a bit.
I’m not sure either that to ‘serve’ and to ‘lower’ yourself always is the best way to lead your life. It certainly depends on whom you’re serving and whom you’re lowering yourself to. Too many people submit themselves to blind obedience of authorities that don’t want them the best or any good at all.
By the way, if you’re a Catholic and need to confess your sins to someone, the Pope is now offering virtual Plenary Indulgences via his Twitter account.
Against the Grain 