Signs of the Times News for Fri, 27 Aug 2010
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Best of the Web: Russia Today Dishes The Dirt On Bogus Wikileaks
RT.com
Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:14 CDTRead between the lines on this one folks. There are too many suspicious details about Wikileaks, and it has nothing to do with Pentagon ‘smear tactics’.
Best of the Web: A Weird Way of Thinking Has Prevailed Worldwide
Anand Giridharadas
New York Times
Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:06 CDT
© Unknown
Cortes, Canada – Imagine a country whose inhabitants eat human flesh, wear only pink hats to sleep and banish children into the forest to raise themselves until adulthood.
Now imagine that this country dominates the study of psychology worldwide. Its universities have the best facilities, which draw the best scholars, who write the best papers. Their research subjects are the flesh-eating, pink-hat-wearing, forest-reared locals.
When these psychologists write about their own country, all is well. But things deteriorate when they generalize about human nature.
They view behaviors that are globally commonplace – say, vegetarianism – as deviant. Human nature, as they define it, reflects little of the actual diversity of humankind.
This scenario may sound preposterous. But if a provocative new study is to be believed, the world already lives in such a situation – except that it is American undergraduates, not flesh-eating forest dwellers, who monopolize our knowledge of human nature.Best of the Web: Hitler had Jewish and African roots, DNA tests show
Heidi Blake
Irish Independent
Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:10 CDT
© Time Magazine
Adolf Hitler is likely to have had Jewish and African roots, DNA tests have shown.
Saliva samples taken from 39 relatives of the Nazi leader show he may have had biological links to the "subhuman" races that he tried to exterminate during the Holocaust.
Jean-Paul Mulders, a Belgian journalist, and Marc Vermeeren, a historian, tracked down the Fuhrer’s relatives, including an Austrian farmer who was his cousin, earlier this year.
A chromosome called Haplogroup E1b1b1 which showed up in their samples is rare in Western Europe and is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.
"One can from this postulate that Hitler was related to people whom he despised," Mr Mulders wrote in the Belgian magazine, Knack.
Haplogroup E1b1b1, which accounts for approximately 18 to 20 per cent of Ashkenazi and 8.6 per cent to 30 per cent of Sephardic Y-chromosomes, appears to be one of the major founding lineages of the Jewish population.Best of the Web: After Katrina, New Orleans Cops Were Told They Could Shoot Looters
Propublica.com
Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:08 CDT
© Alex Brandon/The Times Picayune
New Orleans Police Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann aims his gun on the Claiborne Overpass in New Orleans on Sept. 1, 2005.This story was reported by Sabrina Shankman and Tom Jennings of Frontline, Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi of The New Orleans Times-Picayune and A.C. Thompson of ProPublica
In the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, an order circulated among New Orleans police authorizing officers to shoot looters, according to present and former members of the department.
It’s not clear how broadly the order was communicated. Some officers who heard it say they refused to carry it out. Others say they understood it as a fundamental change in the standards on deadly force, which allow police to fire only to protect themselves or others from what appears to be an imminent physical threat.
The accounts of orders to "shoot looters," "take back the city," or "do what you have to do" are fragmentary. It remains unclear who originated them or whether they were heard by any of the officers involved in shooting 11 civilians in the days after Katrina. Thus far, no officers implicated in shootings have used the order as an explanation for their actions. Only one of the people shot by police – Henry Glover – was allegedly stealing goods at the time he was shot.
Still, current and former officers said the police orders – taken together with tough talk from top public officials broadcast over the airwaves — contributed to an atmosphere of confusion about how much force could be used to combat looting.Best of the Web: Evil or Just Plain Stupid? Alwaleed bin Talal is Fox News’ largest shareholder
The Daily Show
Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:00 CDTFox News is either evil or stupid for not mentioning that Alwaleed bin Talal is News Corp.’s largest shareholder.
Read More SOTT Focus / Read More Best of the Web
Latest World News
- What We Know About Michael Enright, The Alleged Slasher Of The Muslim Cabbie
- Star Wars Creator, George Lucas Sues ‘Jedi Mind’ for $5 million
- Task force: Military suicide prevention efforts inadequate
- Cutbacks force police to curtail calls for some crimes
- Jewish student caught painting swastikas on her own door then claiming anti-semitic attack
- NYPD Charges Man With Hate Crime After He Allegedly Stabbed Muslim Cab Driver
- After Katrina, New Orleans Cops Were Told They Could Shoot Looters
- Breastfeeding Moms Stage McDonald’s ‘Nurse-In’ In Support Of Nursing Mom Who Was Asked To Leave
- Obama’s Health Care Bill Is Enough to Make You Sick
- Pac-Man Hacked Onto a Touch-Screen Voting Machine Without Breaking ‘Tamper-Evident’ Seals – Same systems to be used by millions of voters this November
— More Recent News —
- Russia Today Dishes The Dirt On Bogus Wikileaks
- Concerns Rise Over Colonel Spicer’s "Private Army"
- Back to Vichy
- Hitler had Jewish and African roots, DNA tests show
- Police find body in bag at MI6 man’s London flat
- UK: George Osborne’s emergency budget hits the poorest hardest
- Plane Crashes in Northeastern China, Killing 42
- China invests in confident Christians
- Pont-Saint-Esprit poisoning: Did the CIA spread LSD?
- China traffic jam stretching 100km enters ninth day
— More Recent News —
- The Top 5 Most Ignored Humanitarian Crises
- Mexico: Bodies Found After Shootout with Police
- Turkish Gaza ship set for Pakistan aid mission this time
- Death Comes to Pakistani Camp for Flood Victims
- Pakistan flood: One million people face starvation in Balochistan, says minister
- Afghan recruit kills Nato trainers
- U.S. Troops Fire On Thousands Of Protesters Outside Bagram Base
- Burst water main, the third in three days, causes traffic chaos in Sydney
- Survivor tells of escape from Mexican massacre in which 72 were left dead
- Carrefour Will Quit Malaysia: Minister
— More Recent News —
- Can It Be True About HAARP?
- People Power! Only Burning Man Festival Stands Between Diaspora, the Open Source Facebook, and Its Public Launch
- Facing Prison for Filming U.S. Police
- Ninth Circuit Court Rules in Favor of Warrantless GPS Tracking
- Carvers Bay, South Carolina ROTC enlists ninth grade
- TSA admits to punishing travelers
- TSA’s Frisky New Pat-Downs
- The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves
- Skeletal scanner would ID terrorists from 50 meters
- Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans
— More Recent News —
- German army abandons investigation of officer who ordered Kunduz massacre
- Wikileaks – Short on Intelligence
- CIA wants to cover up US war crimes in Yemen
- Have BP and the US Psychopathic Government Perpetrated Yet Another Fraud Against We the People?
- Underwater oil belies all-clear call for gulf
- People Power! Israeli Army’s Female Recruits Denounce Treatment of Palestinians
- BP Frozen Out of Arctic Oil Drilling Race
- Gulf Oil Spill: BP Not Learning from Disasters, Investigator Charges
- The Taste of Hope and Change: Progressive Sensitivity in U.S. Concentration Camp
- BP Thugs Threatening Independent Scientists That Have Found Corexit And Oil In BP Gulf Oil Spill Waters
— More Recent News —
- Apartheid Israel: Education ministry approves new ‘whites-only’ settlement school
- Power shortages in Iraq tell story of a ruined country, a failed superpower
- The Israeli right’s secret strategy to promote ‘Greater Israel’
- Carnage as dozens killed in wave of coordinated car bombings across Iraq
- Bedouin Women Hold Non-Violent Demo in Jerusalem Against Razing Of Villages
- 23 nails in body of tortured maid
- 5 ‘al-Qaeda’ members killed in Yemen
- Israel orders destruction of 2 new mosques in West Bank
- A People That Shall Dwell Alone – Israel’s Attack On The Gaza Flotilla
- You Can’t Be A Jewish Muslim
— More Recent News —
- The fairytale of Germany’s "miracle growth"
- Co-chair of Obama debt panel under fire for remarks
- Tony Blair Sets Up Mayfair "Bank" to Act as a Deal Maker in Investments for the Super-Rich
- People Power!: Environmentalists Get Huge Win, Controversial Coal Plant in Borneo Is Sidelined
- People Power!: Tribal Groups, Activists Claim "Stunning Victory" as Vedanta Mine Plan Halted by Indian Government
- The New Yorker: Billionaire Brothers Charles & David Koch Have Quietly Given More Than $100 Million to Right-Wing Causes
- Record drop in US home sales
- Commercial Property Owners Choose to Default
- Credit Card Companies Jack Up Rates Despite Flagging Economy, Super Low Funding Costs
- Gold Rebounds on Investor Demand for Safe Haven as Global Equities Tumble
— More Recent News —
- Blacklisted Scientist Challenges Global Warming Orthodoxy
- Shrinking Atmospheric Layer Linked to Low Levels of Solar Radiation
- Pakistan Braces for More Flooding
- Update: Galeras Volcano in Colombia Erupts, Government Raises Alert
- Indonesia: "Super-Extreme" Weather is the Worst on Record
- Thousands of Dead Fish Reported at Mouth of Mississippi
- Authorities Fear Eruption of Galeras Volcano
- Mexico: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 – Off The Coast of Jalisco
- Heavy rain brings floods and road chaos to southern England
- US Official: Satellite Failure Means Decade of Global Warming Data Doubtful
— More Recent News —
- Teens & Text Addiction
- The Alarming Reason Why More Girls are Starting Puberty Early
- Broccoli "Boosts" Healthy Gut
- Video: Living Proof? – Vitamin C vs. Swine Flu
- Is This Common Kitchen Appliance Harming Your Health?
- Cold Weather Could Increase Risk of Heart Attacks
- Wide Range of Diseases Linked to Pesticides
- Leptin resistance and impaired fat metabolism precede type 2 diabetes
- Agrarian Diet and Diseases of Affluence – Do Evolutionary Novel Dietary Lectins Cause Leptin Resistance?
- Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime
— More Recent News —
- Oetzi the Iceman May Have Been Ceremonially Buried
- Earthquake Dating Confused by Sea Shells
- Electric Car Designed by Students Reaches Record 307 Miles Per Hour
- King Tut’s Family Secrets
- NASA/NOAA Study Finds El Niños are Growing Stronger
- Edmonton crews find dinosaur bones deep under the city
- NASA prepares for asteroid rendezvous
- Software Predicts Criminal Behavior
- The ABCs of E-Reading
- Woolly Mammoth Tusks Found in Sea on Show in Dorchester
— More Recent News —
- US: Tennessee family gets a close-up glimpse of UFO underbody
- US: Two cylinder UFOs emerge from light as couple watches along Idaho’s I-84
- US: Triangle object moves directly overhead of Kansas couple giving chase
- US: Maryland children startled by triangle UFO in backyard
- US: Witness describes UFO ‘dogfight’ over New Jersey
- US: Red light with ‘shimmering’ edges stops Charleston, West Virginia motorists
- US: Bell-shaped UFO moves toward witness just 80 feet off ground
- US: California scientist reports delta-shaped UFO blocked out stars
- US: Round UFO takes California witness by surprise in rural Sierraville
- Unknown orange colored ball/UFO seen from Esquimalt, British Columbia, Canada
— More Recent News —
- Evil or Just Plain Stupid? Alwaleed bin Talal is Fox News’ largest shareholder
- Saggy Pants Are Butt-Ugly But Legal: Judge
- Colbert: BP Oil Spill Health Risks
- Obama Wins No-Balls Prize
- Dirty Harry the Crocodile Predicts Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to be Re-Elected
- Thieves in Mexico End Up With, Literally, Peanuts
- Sheep Take Over The Shire on New Zealand Film Set
- Mosque-Erade
- Satire: Obama Declares Victory, Sort Of, Depending on How You Look At It, in Iraq
- Colbert: Don’t Shoot the Schlessinger over ‘N’ word
— More Recent News —
Signs of the Times News for Fri, 27 Aug 2010
