BOB DYLAN FACES JAIL FOR COMPARING CROATIANS TO NAZIS

 

Bob Dylan is being investigated in France after a Croatian community organisation alleged that comments he made to Rolling Stone magazine last year amounted to incitement to racial hatred, Paris prosecutors said today.

 

In the interview, which was published in the magazine's September 27, 2012 edition, the singer said racism was holding America back.  "People at each others' throats just because they are of a different colour.  Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery - that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that ..... If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood.'

The formal investigation followed a legal complaint from the organisation, CRICCF, which is based in France, alleging that the comments as carried in the French version of the magazine violated French racial hatred laws.

CRICCF secretary general Vlatko Maric confirmed that Parisian courts have agreed to hear the case and have requested Dylan’s presence during the hearing, the International Business Times reports. In a statement, Maric said: 'It is an incitement to hatred. You cannot compare Croatian criminals to all Croats. But we have nothing against Rolling Stone magazine or Bob Dylan as a singer. '

 In France, racism complaints automatically trigger formal investigations, irrespective of the merits of the case.

Dylan was awarded France's prestigious Legion d'Honneur award last month in Paris.

Read more - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517299/Bob-Dylan-faces-jail-charged-race-hate-crime-comparing-Croats-Nazis-KKK.html


RELATED


Croatia's Dark History - Brief outline by historian Laurence Rees

The dark and dreadful history of Croatia during WW2 is not something that is high on anyone’s agenda – it certainly isn’t a history that helps promote tourism.

From the spring of 1941 Croatia was an Independent puppet state within the Nazi Empire and the Croatian authorities – the Ustashi – under their leader Ante Pavelic – pursued a policy of racial and ethnic persecution every bit as bloody as the Nazis. The Ustashi established their own concentration camps, the biggest of which was the complex at Jasenovac along the bank of the Sava river.

At Jasenovac the Croats murdered between 70,000 and a 100,000 people (as the war came to an end the Ustashi did all they could to destroy evidence of the exact numbers they killed).

The Jewish population of Croatia was all but eliminated, with the vast majority of the 40,000 or so Croat Jews killed by the Ustashi or the Nazis. Croat gypsies suffered as well, with around 30,000 murdered. And the Serbian population of Croatia was also targeted.

Between 300,000 and 400,000 Serbs (some reports say many more) were murdered by the Croat Ustashi . Incredible statistics that are brought into even starker relief by the horrendous manner of many of the deaths.

The Ustashi became infamous for the way they tortured and killed their victims – often in a manner too horrible to relate here.
Read more - http://ww2history.com/blog/ww2-relevance/croatias-dark-history/

 

THE MOST HEINOUS KILLERS OF THE HOLOCAUST: THE MUSLIM-CATHOLIC CROATIAN "USTASHA"

By Edwin Black
 

A Muslim-Catholic alliance of Nazi killers so gruesome and beastly that even Berlin shrank in horror at the slaughter. This berserk army of ghastly murderers, the Ustasha, and three related crack divisions of Arab-Nazi Waffen SS comprised of tens of thousands of Muslim volunteers, terrorized people of all faiths in Yugoslavia.

 

In large measure, these murder machines emerged through the efforts of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. The Grand Mufti was on a mission to accelerate the extermination of all Jews everywhere. His partner was Adolf Hitler — personally. The epic story of this alliance of horror and hate is one that begins in Jerusalem, travels to Baghdad, culminates in the killing fields of the Balkans, and ultimately spread across all Europe.

Read more - http://www.think-israel.org/black.ustasha.html


Additional articles

Catholic Church and Nazi alliance in Croatia
http://www.tenc.net/croatia/stepinac1.htm


The Ustashe - The Croatian Nazis 
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/backin.htm


November 2013 - Croats celebrate soccer win with Nazi chants
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/croatia-nazi-chant-joe-simunic_n_4308138.html


Nazi memorial in Croatia a disgrace for Europe
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Nazi-memorial-in-Croatia-a-disgrace-to-Europe

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STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL PICTURES OF ANIMALS - PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE TEENS AND CHILDREN

A diving kingfisher and a fox in the snow: These stunning wildlife images were taken by teenagers and children as young as NINE

Photographs were taken by the finalists of the RSPCA Young Photographer Awards

Judge and wildlife expert Chris Packham picked shortlist of 37 from thousands of entries

Presenter said he would be proud to have taken any of the stunning shots

Winners of prestigious award will be announced later this month

See pictures here -  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517519/A-diving-kingfisher-fox-snow-These-stunning-wildlife-images-taken-teenagers-children-young-NINE.html

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MORE PICTURES OF DOGS RIDING IN CARS

Adorable, no matter what.  Here is another set of pictures of pooches riding in cars.  These ones by Lara Jo Regan became a Dogs In Cars calendar sensation.

 

 

 

 

Source
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517461/Photographer-shoots-calendar-delirious-dogs-hanging-heads-car-windows.html

Lara Jo Regan - Dogs Riding Cars website
http://officialdogsincars.com/

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WHAT'S THAT EERIE SOUND THAT KEEPS COMING FROM WORLD TRADE CENTER?

 

'Unmistakable and very chilling' recording captures a sound that has baffled New Yorkers since last year, a high-pitched 'choral sound'.

 

A spooky, high-pitched whining sound coming from One World Trade Center has been giving New York residents the creeps.  The strange choral sound, which appears to be caused by the wind, was first reported last year at around the time of Hurricane Sandy and has been heard several times since.

 

It has now been recorded by New Yorker Kenny Cummings who described it as 'unmistakable and very chilling'.

 

Readers have posted theories as to what is causing the noise with one suggesting it the wind whipping through numbers One and Seven World Trade Center.  One wrote: 'I heard it last Wednesday as well – could barely sleep as the screaming kept waking me up. It was so eerie. I didn’t make the connection you did though, and sadly makes sense.'

 

One World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower, is the tallest building in America with it's spire reaching the height of 1,776 feet.It is due to open next year and will form the centrepiece of the new complex built on the rubble of the Twin Towers.

 

Read more, see pictures and listen to recording - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517472/What-eerie-noise-coming-World-Trade-Center.html

 

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WHITE HOUSE EXPLORING WAYS OF HELPING IRAN ENRICH URANIUM

 

By Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon

 

The White House is currently examining ways to enable Iran to have its own “domestic” uranium enrichment program, according to a senior Obama administration official.

 

Iran has made clear that it will not halt activity at its nuclear sites in Fordow and Arak despite promises to do so

 

As the details of a six month interim nuclear deal between Iran and Western nations are hashed out, the White House is exploring the practicality of permitting Iran to continue certain enrichment activities, an issue that Iranian officials have described as a “redline.”

 

“Over the next six months, we will explore, in practical terms, whether and how Iran might end up with a limited, tightly constrained, and intensively monitored civilian nuclear program, including domestic enrichment,” White House National Security Council (NSC) spokesman Caitlin Hayden told the Washington Free Beacon.

 

“Any such program,” she said, “would be subject to strict and verifiable curbs on its capacity and stockpiles of enriched uranium for a significant number of years and tied to practical energy needs that will remain minimal for years to come.”

 

The White House clarified its openness to a limited Iranian enrichment program just days after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promised to “forge ahead” with the country’s controversial nuclear program.

 

Rouhani stated over the weekend that Iran’s contested enrichment program would “never stop” despite the regime’s promise to eventually halt most nuclear activities for a period of six months under an interim agreement inked two weeks ago in Geneva.

 

The deal reached in Geneva would provide Iran up to $7 billion dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for a temporary halt to some of its nuclear activities, including the enrichment of nuclear fuel to high-grade levels.

 

Iran’s right to enrich uranium, the key component in a nuclear bomb, had been a key sticking point in Geneva. Many in Congress say that Iran should be forced to dismantle its entire nuclear program and be prohibited from all enrichment activities.

 

Asked about Rouhani’s promise to continue enriching uranium—a promise echoed by other senior Iranian officials—the White House’s Hayden told the Free Beacon that “the United States does not recognize that Iran has a ‘right to enrich.’”

 

However, “the Iranian people should have access to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” Hayden said, echoing recent comments made by Obama.

 

The precise requirements of the interim deal with Iran have yet to be finalized, the White House told the Free Beacon last week. This means that Iran is not yet beholden to the six-month nuclear freeze negotiated as part of the deal.

 

The White House could not tell the Free Beacon late Monday exactly when these final discussion will take place.

 

Congressional critics have lambasted the White House in recent days for approving a deal that they say would allow the Iranians to continue their most controversial nuclear activities.

 

“Providing Iran with sanctions relief without dismantling their nuclear weapons program was a colossal mistake,” Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) told the Free Beacon on Tuesday.

 

(............)

Meanwhile, the White House has reportedly been aggressively lobbying lawmakers to shelve legislation aimed at imposing new sanctions on Iran.

Read full news report - http://freebeacon.com/white-house-exploring-ways-to-let-iran-enrich-uranium/



RELATED


STATE DEPARTMENT DOES NOT DISPUTE THAT MOST OF IRAN'S URANIUM ENRICHMENT OCCURRED UNDER THIS U.S. ADMINISTRATION
http://freebeacon.com/state-department-does-not-dispute-majority-of-iranian-enrichment-has-occurred-under-obama/

BOTH THE STATE DEPARTMENT AND THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT OBJECTED TO U.S. COURT-ORDERED COMPENSATION FOR IRAN GOVERNMENT VICTIMS
http://freebeacon.com/court-awards-9-million-to-victims-of-iranian-backed-terrorism/


WHITE HOUSE SECRETLY NEGOTIATING WITH HEZBOLLAH TERRORISTS
 http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/11/27/Kuwaiti-Newspaper-U-S-Negotiating-with-Hezbollah-Terrorists


WHITE HOUSE ARMING AL QAEDA IN SYRIA
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/20/kuhner-how-obama-arms-al-qaeda/

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GIANT ARCH BEING BUILT TO BURY CHERNOBYL

Burying the horrors of Chernobyl: Extraordinary images of giant steel arch which will shut off radioactive site as countryside remains desolate 27 years on.

-  Structure set to be completed by 2015 and will protect against another radiation leak.

-  Workers at the site have an annual radiation allowance and must stop if they exceed it.

-  The huge arch could encase the Statue Of Liberty and fit a football pitch inside.

-  It is being built a few hundred metres from reactor, and will be wheeled into place when completed.

Read more and see pictures - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516149/Burying-horrors-Chernobyl.html


RELATED

PICTURES OF WINTER IN PRIPYAT, THE GHOST TOWN NEXT TO CHERNOBYL
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2514337/Another-winter-arrives-ghostly-Chernobyl-town.html

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EAGLE STEALS CAMERA, TAKES SELFIES, AND RECORDS A BIRD'S EYE VIEW DOCUMENTARY

An eagle's eye: Cheeky bird records 90 minute selfies-video when it steals camera set up to record crocodiles

Lens recorded Australian north west desert as eagle went on 70-mile flight

Was installed to record fresh-water crocodiles but was taken within weeks

Shows flapping of bird's wings and moment eagle starts pecking at camera

The  eagle eventually got bored and dropped the camera.  So much for his budding film-maker career.

Read more, see pictures and short video with highlights of the film made by the eagle.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517043/Birds-eye-view-Spectacular-footage-Australian-outback-captured-film-sea-eagle-steals-video-camera-set-record-crocodiles.html

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JAPAN'S NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS WERE USED TO ACCUMULATE PLUTONIUM FOR BOMBS - THE U.S. CIRCUMVENTED LAWS TO HELP THEM

In the wake of the disastrous U.S. agreement with Iran that allows that country to enrich uranium for the construction of nuclear bombs, here is how the U.S. helped Japan obtain plutonium from nuclear power plants for the construction of a nuclear weapons arsenal - a project that eventually resulted in the Fukushima catastrophe.

 

United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium

By Joseph Trento, on April 9th, 2012

 

The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.

 

The diversion of U.S. classified technology began during the Reagan administration after it allowed a $10 billion reactor sale to China. Japan protested that sensitive technology was being sold to a potential nuclear adversary. The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers.

 

Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclear weapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.

 

While Japan has refrained from deploying nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrella of U.S. nuclear protection, NSNS has learned that the country has used its electrical utility companies as a cover to allow the country to amass enough nuclear weapons materials to build a nuclear arsenal larger than China, India and Pakistan combined.

This deliberate proliferation by the United States fuels arguments by countries like Iran that the original nuclear powers engage in proliferation despite treaty and internal legal obligations. Russia, France, Great Britain as well as the United States created civilian nuclear power industries around the world from their weapons complexes that amount to government-owned or subsidized industries. Israel, like Japan, has been a major beneficiary and, like Japan, has had nuclear weapons capabilities since the 1960s.

A year ago (2011) a natural disaster combined with a man-made tragedy decimated Northern Japan and came close to making Tokyo, a city of 30 million people, uninhabitable. Nuclear tragedies plague Japan’s modern history. It is the only nation in the world attacked with nuclear weapons. In March 2011, after a tsunami swept on shore, hydrogen explosions and the subsequent meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant spewed radiation across the region. Like the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan will face the aftermath for generations. A twelve-mile area around the site is considered uninhabitable. It is a national sacrifice zone.

 

How Japan ended up in this nuclear nightmare is a subject the National Security News Service has been investigating since 1991. We learned that Japan had a dual use nuclear program. The public program was to develop and provide unlimited energy for the country. But there was also a secret component, an undeclared nuclear weapons program that would allow Japan to amass enough nuclear material and technology to become a major nuclear power on short notice.

That secret effort was hidden in a nuclear power program that by March 11, 2011– the day the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 metric tons of plutonium. Like its use of civilian nuclear power to hide a secret bomb program, Japan used peaceful space exploration as a cover for developing sophisticated nuclear weapons delivery systems.

Political leaders in Japan understood that the only way the Japanese people could be convinced to allow nuclear power into their lives was if a long line of governments and industry hid any military application. For that reason, a succession of Japanese governments colluded on a bomb program disguised as innocent energy and civil space programs. The irony, of course, is that Japan had gone to war in 1941 to secure its energy future only to become the sole nation attacked with nuclear weapons.

 

(....................)

 

In September 2010, France’s Areva loaded the first plutonium-based mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel into Reactor Number 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.  As the years passed more and more Japanese leaders have become bolder in their pro-military and pro-nuclear pronouncements.

 

In the weeks leading up to the March 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster, the issue of a nuclear-armed Japan became very public after a Chinese captain was arrested after he rammed Japanese coast guard vessels with his ship. In an interview with the British newspaper, The Independent, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara asserted that Japan could develop nuclear weapons within a year and send a strong message to the world.  

 

“All our enemies: China, North Korea and Russia – all close neighbors – have nuclear weapons. Is there another country in the world in a similar situation? People talk about the cost and other things but the fact is that diplomatic bargaining power means nuclear weapons. All the [permanent] members of the [United Nations] Security Council have them.”

 

Ishihara told The Independent the clash, which ended when police released the captain of the Chinese ship accused of ramming the Japanese coast guard vessel, had exposed his country’s weakness in Asia. “China wouldn’t have dared lay a hand on the Senkakus [if Japan had nuclear weapons].”

The week before the governor made his comments, Beijing announced that its 2011 defense budget would be increased by 13 percent. Further adding to the tension with Japan is that China officially surpassed Japan as the world’s second largest economy in January 2011.

The governor said that a nuclear-armed Japan would also win more respect from Russia, which seized four Japanese-owned islands during the Second World War. And he advised his nation to rid itself of all restrictions in its constitution on the manufacture and sale of weapons. “We should develop sophisticated weapons and sell them abroad. Japan made the best fighters in the world before America crushed the industry. We could get that back.” Japanese nationalists have urged Japan’s postwar constitution, written by the United States during the American occupation, be abandoned. It makes Japan initiating war illegal.

A month after the governor made these comments, three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant melted down including Reactor Number 3 with the plutonium-based MOX fuel. For the first time the larger Japanese public began to ask serious questions about the relationship between their government and the powerful Japanese utility companies and their plutonium stockpile.

 

Read the complete in-depth report here - http://www.dcbureau.org/201204097128/national-security-news-service/united-states-circumvented-laws-to-help-japan-accumulate-tons-of-plutonium.html

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IRAN, THE NEXT COUNTRY TO BECOME A NUCLEAR POWER THANKS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT  

The agreement between the United States and Iran allows Iran to keep its stockpile of uranium and to enrich even more uranium for the construction of nuclear weapons

http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/11/seven-huge-loopholes-in-iran-agreement.html

WAS STONEHENGE A CENTER FOR "ROCK MUSIC"?

In the 1972 comedy "WHAT'S UP DOC" Ryan O'Neal plays a scientist with a peculiar theory about how particular rocks with musical properties may have influenced prehistoric man.  The movie was hilarious and the rocks only an excuse for a very funny plot.

 

Now history imitates art, so to speak.

 

DAILY MAIL - Stonehenge may have been built by Stone Age man as a prehistoric centre for rock music, a new study has claimed.  According to experts from London's Royal College of Art, some of the stones sound like bells, drums, and gongs when they are 'played' - or hit with hammers.

 

Archaeologists, who have pondered why stone age man transported Bluestones 200 miles from Mynydd Y Preseli in Pembrokshire, South West Wales to Stonehenge, believe this discovery could hold the key. 

The 'sonic rocks' could have been specifically picked because of their 'acoustic energy' which means they can make a variety of noises ranging from metallic to wooden sounding, in a number of notes.

 

Research published today in the Journal of Time & Mind reveals the surprising new role for the Preseli Bluestones which make up the famous monument, and which were sourced from the Pembrokeshire landscape on and around the Carn Menyn ridge, on Mynydd Preseli, South-West Wales. 

 

Bluestones were used in the village of Maenclochog - meaning bell or ringing stones - until the 18th century.

 

A significant percentage of the rocks on Carn Menyn produce metallic sounds - like bells, gongs or tin drums - when struck with small hammerstones. Such sonic or musical rocks are referred to as 'ringing rocks' or 'lithophones'. 

 

The Landscape & Perception project drew upon the comments of the early 'rock gong' pioneer, Bernard Fagg, a one-time curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, in  Oxford.  He suspected there were ringing rocks on or around Preseli and suggested that this was the reason why so many Neolithic monuments exist in the region – with the sounds making the landscape sacred to Stone Age people.

 

English Heritage allowed archaeologists from Bournemouth and Bristol universities to acoustically  test the bluestones at Stonehenge, effectively playing them like a huge xylophone.  To the researchers’ surprise, several were found to make distinctive if muted sounds, with several of the rocks showing evidence of having already been struck.

 

The tones make different pitched noises in different places and different stones make different noises - ranging from a metallic to a wooden sound.

The investigators believe that this could have been the prime reason behind the otherwise inexplicable transport of these stones nearly 200 miles from Preseli to Salisbury Plain. There were plentiful local rocks from which Stonehenge could have been built, yet the bluestones were considered special.

 

The researchers have looked into geological reasons as to why some rocks make noise and others do not and one theory is that the amount of silica in the rocks could explain why in the future.

 

The theory is that stone age people living in Wales might have used the rocks to communicate with each other over long distances as there are marks on the stones where they have been struck an incredibly long time ago.

 

Read more and listen to the rocks - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515159/Why-Stonehenge-prehistoric-centre-rock-music-Stones-sound-like-bells-drums-gongs-played.html

 

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What's Up Doc?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What's_Up,_Doc%3F_(1972_film)

 

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FUNNY PICTURES OF SOAKED PETS

 

Soggy doggies! Adorable pictures of soaked-to-the-bone pets fresh out of the bathtub and about to shake themselves dry

'Wet Dog' was created by New York-based photographer Sophie Gamand

The portraits show how expressive man's best friend can be in the tub

See pictures here - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513201/Adorable-pictures-soaked-bone-dogs-fresh-bathtub-shake-dry.html

 

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MORE PICTURES OF GOOFY DOGS ALREADY POSTED ON THIS SITE

From the book "Shake", see wet dogs shaking themselves and making funny faces.   

http://www.boredpanda.com/shake-shaking-dogs-carli-davidson/

 

 

Pictures from the book "Underwater Dogs".   The photographer captures them as they dive to retrieve a ball underwater.  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205225/Underwater-Dogs-Calendar-2012-Photographer-captures-pets-diving-pools-fetch-ball.html

MORE DOGS CANDID PHOTOS

 

Dogs riding in cars, shooting the breeze (very funny)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2274453/We-just-shooting-breeze-Dogs-look-simply-barking-ride-head-window.html


PHOTO GALLERY OF DOGS RIDING IN CARS
http://now.msn.com/dogs-in-wind-funny-photos-of-dogs-riding-in-cars


CLOSE UPS OF CURIOUS DOGS - NOSE FOR TROUBLE
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487654/Nose-trouble-Undercover-cameras-catch-cute-pictures-dogs-sniffing.html

CONTINUOUS EXPOSURE TO NEGATIVE NEWS MAKES YOU IMMUNE TO BAD MOODS, SAYS STUDY

 

Media coverage of catastrophes and crime can put anyone in a bad mood. But repeated exposure to this news can also make you immune to a foul state of mind.

 

This is according to research at Tel Aviv University which suggests frequent coverage of a negative event makes you numb to sadness.  ‘A bad mood is known to slow cognition,’ said Dr Moshe Shay Ben-Haim, who led the study. 

 

‘We show that, counter intuitively, you can avoid getting into a bad mood in the first place by dwelling on a negative event.'   He added that if you look at a negative headline before work, it's better to read the article all the way through.

 

By repeatedly exposing yourself to the negative information, 'you will be freer to go on with your day in a better mood and without any negative effects,' he said.

 

Read more - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2516987/Can-make-IMMUNE-bad-moods-Regular-exposure-bad-news-makes-numb-sadness-claims-study.html

 

Maybe there is something to it.  This study took place in Israel, and as we know, Israelis are exposed to a daily barrage of bad news, from world hate to terror to threats of annihilation.  They should be at least in a bad mood, we would think.

 

On the contrary, according to polls, Israelis are among the happiest people in the world.  As you can see on the following article.

WHY ARE ISRAELIS SO DAMN HAPPY?

A new study shows them to be among the most contented in the Western world. What gives?

 

By Tiffanie Wen, The Daily Beast

 

By now everyone in Israel has read the results of the study published earlier this month that showed Israelis ranked among the happiest people among the Western nations, despite an extensive laundry list of problems in their country.

 

Israel ranked low in terms of income, housing, education and security for example—all things we would typical associate with contentment. As an Asian-American who hails from San Francisco, I could add a few of my own complaints to the list: lack of ethnic food, the outrageous cost of imported goods, the raging summer heat, the marginalization of minorities and refugees, and the famous Israeli frankness that has me constantly fielding questions about why I pay so much for my apartment and my (ever so subtle) fluctuation in weight (Up or down? Eating cakes or working out?), chief among them.



 

So then why—if they probably can't find a job or afford the apartment that they live in—are Israelis so damn happy?

 

War has quite a bit to do with it.
The fact is that Israel has been in a perpetual state of war—or under the threat of war—since David Ben-Gurion declared independence in May 1948, the only Western country in the world in which this is the case.



 

Even during periods of "peace," there still seems to exist, at a minimum, a potential intifada brewing in the West Bank, or chemical weapons making their way into the hands of Hezbollah, or rockets being lobbed into the country from Gaza.

 

And this has created a fascinating psychological paradox, one that has been studied extensively by Professor Zahava Solomon of Tel Aviv University. On one hand, as she told me in a recent phone interview, the culture of conflict has made Israelis constantly aware of their potential demise; on the other it has made them virtually fearless.


 

Think about it. 
How would you act if you woke up every morning thinking that this day could be your last? Or at least took a moment to imagine how you would be eulogized at your funeral? (An exercise that Stephen Covey recommended in his wildly popular “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” although admittedly “live in a war zone” did not make the list.)


 

The point is this: you'd enjoy the day you had.
 And if you continued to survive until the next morning, this daily exercise might develop into a mantra for how you lived your life.

 

And you might bother to take that beach day, or spend more time with your family. You might grow a pair and launch that startup you've been thinking about (Boom: Silicon Wadi) or stop a beautiful woman on the street and insist that she have lunch with you, or park on the sidewalk if there was no other parking within a five-block radius.

 

You might climb a mountain, or go scuba diving or backpack in South America for a year. All things that Israelis do in droves, and that, in my opinion, probably lead to a more fulfilling existence.

 

This brings us to the second part of the paradox: Israelis have a lot to fear. And so they've learned to fear nothing.
 A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that Israelis recover from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) more quickly than people of other Western nations.

 

The study compared people who experienced 18 months of terror during the Second Intifada to New Yorkers after 9/11 and found that the amount of PTSD in Israel was similar to New York immediately following the collapse of the Twin Towers.

 

However, one and two months after the attack, PTSD was significantly higher in the U.S. than it was during the Second Intifada.

 

Several studies have repeatedly illustrated the rapid habituation to new conflicts by the Israeli public. And still other studies have consistently shown that while the level of anxiety in Israel is typically higher than other Western nations, the level of clinical anxiety remains very low, even during periods of immense violence.

 


So even though Israelis are painfully aware of the never-ending threats, they're also braver because of them. By experiencing more anxiety on a daily basis, they've become inoculated against bad things when they do occur, and habituate to them rapidly. They are able to function in spite of them. 

 



And if they have learned how to get on with life despite a credible threat of chemical warfare or irate threats coming out of Iran, it follows that they can probably deal well with housing and economic woes. Everything here is simply small potatoes in comparison.



 

Daily life in Tel Aviv is rife with examples of this: A dog bites another dog at the park. Maybe a little yelling ensues in the good Israeli way, but no one throws any punches or threatens to sue. Someone cuts in front of you in line at a chaotic grocery store on Friday afternoon. You grumble but let it pass. Apartment hunting on foot in 110 degrees all day? Should've worn layers. You can't get an office job out of the army so you wait tables for a few years? Nothing to be ashamed of.

 



These experiences, I'm embarrassed to admit, have the ability to frustrate me to the point that my day (or week, or month) is ruined. And part of the struggle living here is that they often do. But to an Israeli, my thinking about these things one minute after they happen seems like overhyped drama.



 

And this tough Israeli psyche doesn't just manifest itself within the die-hards who’ve lived here for decades, like my 86-year-old ex-paratrooper neighbor Fishkay, who was born in Israel and says, "Nothing scares me" with such a stone-cold expression on his weathered face that you truly believe him.


 

Even young people who had never experienced conflict before this last scuffle in November handled it better than I did.  I crumpled into a ball in the rocket-proof hallway of my Tel Aviv apartment building and sobbed into my dog’s fur. (Unfortunately Fishkay was on hand to witness the whole humiliating display.) 

“Why aren’t they scared?” my American friends and I uttered to each other in disbelief for the entire duration of Operation Pillar of Defense.



 

Being raised in Israel lends to a unique mental capacity for overcoming hardship that is unlike any other Western country in the world, a mindset which, if you’re living in a place where it's tough to find a job or pay your rent and people regularly threaten to wipe you off the map, could come in pretty darn handy.


 

So where does that leave me? A non-Jew who doesn't identify with the historic narrative of persecution; a non-Israeli who is unaccustomed to living under the threat of war; and an American that has come to “expect more and pay less” like the Target slogan so succinctly proclaims?



 

Like everyone else in this country I’ll either have to adapt and be happy or get out. And in true Israeli fashion, I'm sure the locals will be cool with it either way.

Source - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/14/why-are-the-israelis-so-damn-happy.html

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THE PSYCHEDELIC WORLD OR BEACH PEBBLES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Nothing dull about beach pebbles when you get to see their inner beauty.  The images could pass as modern art pictures.  

An Italian geologist was inspired to create magnified images of the composition of pebbles when on holiday

Professor Bernardo Cesare, of the University of Padova, Italy, carefully selected pebbles from a beach in Carboneras, which is known for the variety of geologically different rock available

He cut them into thin sections and used an optical microscope to make micrographs of the pebbles

The images can show the order typical of the crystalline nature of minerals as straight lines corresponding to crystal faces.

And they also show the irregularity and chaos that can characterise natural processes, and the swirling lines that are sometimes seen give the feeling of movement, as a result of deformation during smashing of continents.

 

 

Read more and see pictures here - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2516984/A-beach-rainbow-rocks-Geologist-puts-pebbles-microscope-reveal-psychedelic-kaleidoscope-colour.html

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PALESTINIANS OPPOSE WOMEN'S RIGHTS - COVERUP OF PALESTINIAN RAPE OF PEACE ACTIVISTS

 

The Arab-populated towns within Israeli Judea and Samaria (West Bank) are governed by the Palestinian Authority, as per the Oslo Accords.   Those towns and villages, along with the entire West Bank and Jerusalem, is what the PA claims as a start for the Islamic State of Palestine.

 

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Pan-Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir is continuing an extensive campaign to combat Western values regarding women's rights by holding conferences about women in Sharia [Islamic] law, who are raised to be strictly obedient to their fathers and later to their husbands. The conferences are being held in Judea and Samaria as well as in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

 

According to Islamic law, women must ask permission to leave the house at any time. After marriage, they are instructed that they must be available at all times to satisfy their husband's whims - with or without her explicit consent. 

 

One of the events held in Jerusalem featured a 13 year-old girl named Zeinab, who appeared in conservative Muslim garb and read a speech calling Islam "the kindest religion in mankind", urging women to keep the strictures given to them by Sharia law. Zeinab emphasized her devoutness in prayer, reading the Quran, and religious dress. 

 

Zeinab immediately attacked women's rights organizations thereafter, claiming that the freedom given to women to leave their fathers' homes after age 18 leads to "licentiousness", including the ability to talk to men over the internet, at university, and eventually behind closed doors. 

 

Zeinab also attacked women's rights groups for encouraging women to complain if they suffered domestic abuse, leading to arrests of male family members. Western rights and freedoms don't apply to Muslim women, the girl claimed, and are simply tools by the West to encourage women to give up their bodies freely. 

 

Ironically, Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in many Muslim countries due to its many alleged links to terrorism but remains legal in Israel and most western states under the very laws of freedom of expression it seeks to subvert.

The full speech (in Arabic) is available on video here
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/174723#.UpzElKEWKM8

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RELATED

FEMINIST WHISTLEBLOWER EXPOSES HOW PEACE GROUPS COVER UP THE HARASSMENT AND RAPE OF ACTIVISTS BY PALESTINIANS

 

 

2010 - Two activists have exposed a disturbing phenomenon that they say is an open secret within the “peace camp”: female “peace” activists are routinely harassed and raped by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria with whom they have come to identify. They say the phenomenon has gotten worse lately and that many foreign women end up as wives of local Arabs against their will, but cannot escape their new homes.

 

Roni Aloni Sedovnik, a feminist activist, penned an article in News1 – an independent website run by respected investigative reporter Yoav Yitzchak – under the heading “The Left's Betrayal of Female Peace Activists Who were Sexually Assaulted.”

 

“A nauseous atrocity has been going on for a long time behind the scenes at the leftists' demonstration at Bil'in, Naalin and Sheikh Jarrah [Shimon HaTzaddik],” she writes. “A dark secret that threatens to smash the basic ideological values upon which the demand to end the occupation of the Territories rests.”

 

It turns out, she explains, that when female peace activists from Israel and abroad come out to Judea and Samaria and demonstrate against the Israeli “occupation,” they are assaulted sexually by the Arab men whom they have come to help. These are not isolated incidents, Aloni-Sedovnik stresses. Rather, this is an “ongoing and widespread” phenomenon that includes verbal and physical abuse.

 

She accuses the 'peace' camp of purposely covering up the trend so as not to offend “the Palestinians and their heritage, which sees women as sexual objects.”

 

Media cover-up

Aloni-Sedovnik cites two specific cases which she has knowledge of – one is a case of rape and another is “severe sexual harassment.” The attackers in both cases, she stresses, were familiar with the victims and knew that they were “peace activists.”

 

The rape occurred several months ago in the village of Umm Salmona, near Bethlehem. The victim, an American activist, wanted to press charges but leftist activists put pressure on her not to do so, so as not to damage the struggle against the 'occupation.'

 

The second case involved an Israeli activist who took part in the demonstrations at Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, where the High Court ruled that Jewish families may move into homes that they have owned for generations. This woman filed a complaint with the police but retracted it after “severe and unfair pressure” from the demonstrations' organizers, according to Aloni-Sedovnik.

 

Furthermore, the organizers appealed to demonstrators to dress modestly when they come to the Arab neighborhoods and suggested that they wear head scarves.  Aloni-Sedovnik accuses the Israeli media of complicity in the cover-up.

“How is it that we do not hear the voice of the radical feminists who repeat, day and night, that occupation is occupation, and it does not matter if it is a nation that is doing the subjugation, or a man who is subjugating a woman?  "It appears that there is a gap between the radical-leftist feminist theory about the active resistance to the occupation of the Territories, and the stuttering self-annulment in the face of the violent conquest of women.”

The Umm Salmona case was reported in Haaretz as an attempted rape but does not seem to have made it beyond the blog pages.

Foreign women raped and subjugated

 Earlier this year, a blogger and literature buff named Yehudah Bello, who writes in various venues about history and the theory of evolution, wrote a blog post with the striking title: “The Female Leftist Activists are Raped Day after Day, Night after Night.” Bello is no ultra-nationalist, and he supports the creation of a PA state – a fact which makes his claims all the more believable.

 

Most female leftist European activists, writes Bello, are brainwashed in their youth into hating Israel, and then sent directly into Judea and Samaria, without spending a single night in Tel Aviv, lest they see civilian Israeli society for themselves and find that they like it.

 

They are whisked off to Shechem, Jenin and other PA towns and housed in Arab educational or cultural facilities, or private homes. Local Arab girls are sent to befriend them and they have no choice but to trust them.

 

It is easy, explains Bello, “to carry out a sexual crime against a foreign girl, in her first days away from her family, in a place where no police have ever visited. And this is what happens, and has happened.”

 

"I was told of such rape cases by women who are not Jewish: a female European leftist activist, a female Red Cross volunteer and a young Arab woman from Yafo,” he says. He says that he met these women when he carried out IDF reserve duty, and met them afterward as well. “They told me what goes on there, in the Palestinian villages, far from any prying eye.”

 

"These are not just cases of rape carried out to satisfy lust,” he writes. “Usually, they are carried out systematically in order to make the girl pregnant and then take her as a wife – after she converts to Islam, of course. We know about this system from the stories of women who underwent a similar process within Israel and escaped to Europe. But it is hard to escape from the Palestinian territories. Sometimes these women – some of whom are no longer young – are never allowed to leave their homes unaccompanied, in order to forestall their escape.”

 

If someone were to compare the list of foreign female activists who enter Judea and Samaria to the list of those who leave, Bello claims, the magnitude of the phenomenon would be proven. “Everyone knows about it, but no one dares talk about it. The Palestinians have been turned into martyrs. In the Middle Eastern television channels, IDF soldiers are represented as the brutal rapists, who rape Palestinian women.”

Read more - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139738#.UpzGtaEWKM8

 

 

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LEFTIST ACADEMIC PAPER WINS PRIZE FOR ACCUSING ISRAELI SOLDIERS OF NOT RAPING ARAB WOMEN BECAUSE OF RACISM

 

A research paper that won a Hebrew University teachers' committee prize finds that the lack of IDF rapes of Palestinian women is designed to serve a political purpose.

 

The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that the paper shows that "the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals." 

 

The next sentence delineates the particular goals that are realized in this manner: "In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences - just as organized military rape would have done."

 

The paper further theorizes that Arab women in Judea and Samaria are not raped by IDF soldiers because the women are de-humanized in the soldiers' eyes.

 

The paper was published by the Hebrew University's Shaine Center, based on the recommendation of a Hebrew University professors' committee headed by Dr. Zali Gurevitch.

"I do not have the entire text in front of me," Gurevitch said, when contacted by Arutz-7, "and I don't think we can jump to conclusions based on partial sentences, but I can say the following:

 

This was a very serious paper that asked two important questions: Is the relative lack of IDF rapes a noteworthy phenomenon, and if so, why is it that there are so few IDF rapes when in similar situations around the world, rape is much more common?"

 

Observers and Academia

Arutz-7: "Can't it just be that Israeli soldiers come from a culture that very much condemns rape?  And why not mention the much-touted 'purity of arms,' i.e., the high moral conduct, of the Israeli Army?"

 

Gurevitch said that observers do not have the right to demand a particular explanation to a given phenomenon.  He said that the researcher had done a serious job, based on interviews with 25 soldiers and other accounts, and that the right-wing should not jump to the conclusion that this was simply another "secular, left-wing" generality.

 

Makor Rishon editor Amnon Lord, who first publicized the story, wrote that not only did researcher Nitzan not consider Jewish tradition as an explanation, but neither did she "raise the possibility that her initial assumption - namely, that the situation in Judea and Samaria is just like any other situation of conquest - may be wrong."

Read more - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124674#.UpzMI6EWKM8

 

NOTE:

 

-  Israeli universities are notorious for having faculty with extreme leftist views. 

-  There is no record whatsoever of the rape of Arab women by Israeli soldiers. 

HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Palestinian_territories

Amnesty International - https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/palestinian-authority/report-2012

 

 

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TWO-LEGGED PUPPY CARTS HIS CANINE BEST FRIEND IN HIS WHEELCHAIR

 

A two-legged puppy has become an internet sensation after he was filmed carting his canine best friend around in a bespoke wheelchair that has been dubbed Chariots of Inspire.

 

The 16-week-old Boxer called Duncan Lou Who melted hearts around the world after being born with severely deformed hind legs.

 

The dog had to have two of his limbs amputated, but has overcome his disability with the help of the custom made wheelchair designed to straighten his spine. 

 

Now the energetic puppy has become chauffeur to his best friend Ducky who sits comfortably on his hind wheels.

 

Duncan Lou Who was forced to have an operation last month to separate his back legs which were fused together when he was born.

 

Panda Paws Rescue in Vancouver, Canada, took the dog in and helped him recover before he was given the wheelchair by vets.

 

Owner Amanda Giese revealed despite being nervous about his 'bright green spaceship' at first, the puppy quickly adjusted to it. 

She said: 'Ducky and Duncan Lou Who are best friends. Words cannot describe how amazing Ducky has been for Duncan through this whole process.

Read more, see pictures and video -  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516480/Chariots-Inspire-Two-legged-puppy-internet-sensation-carting-canine-companion-bespoke-wheelchair.html

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