Let's Be Optimists!

Many experts believed that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria would not survive 2012. They were wrong. But the regime is slowly weakening and now, there seems a good chance that he will no longer be in power by the end of 2013. The end could come in one of three ways: 1) he boards a plane out of the country, perhaps to Russia 2) he flees to an Alawite stronghold within Syria 3) or he refuses to leave Damascus, and is killed.
And what happens next? The fear of many is that a new civil war breaks out as soon as the Assad regime is toppled, and that this is fought along sectarian lines. It's very hard to be optimistic about Syria's immediate future. Sadly, 2013 looks like it will be a year of suffering and bloodshed, amidst a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Russia has been accused by Western diplomats of reneging on a pledgeto stop supplying arms to the Syrian regime. The assurances made over a month ago were presented by British officials as a sign that the Kremlin was distancing itself from President Bashar al-Assad and his ruling coterie.
The flow of arms has,however, continued unhindered with the Russians stressing that there was no United Nations prohibition on supplies and it was simply fulfilling its contractual obligations. As well as air- and naval-defence systems, the Kremlin may now be preparing to send Yak-130 jets which can be fitted with missiles to carry out ground attacks, according to American and European officials.
The Syrian regime has extensively used warplanes to carry out raids on heavily populated areas, leading to dozens of civilian casualties. Russia's state arms agency holds a$550m contract to supply 36 of the Yaks,which are trainers but can also be used on combat missions. Last year, a Russian-operated ship carrying helicopter gunships and air-defence missiles was forced to turn back to Russia, after its British insurers withdrew coverage. The aircraft were subsequently sent through a different shipping company.
While the Assad regime continues to receive weapons, from Iran as well as Russia, a British attempt to provide military aid to the Syrian rebels failed ata European Union meeting in Brussels today.
There was agreement, instead, on an amendment which would allow more "non-lethal" assistance to the opposition. But the outcome of the meeting in Brussels made it very clear that David Cameron'sGovernment had been isolated in its efforts to strengthen militarily the moderate revolutionary factions, who have been increasingly sidelined by jihadist groups receiving arms and money from backers in the Gulf states.
Russia has insisted that it is within its rights to keep arming the regime asthere are no UN resolutions prohibiting this. Anatoly Isaikin, the director of Rosoboronexport, said: "In the absence of [UN] sanctions, we are continuing to fulfil our contract obligations. We are mostly shipping air-defence systems and repair equipment intended for various branches of the military."
However, it is the Syrian regime's air defences, overhauledand upgraded with Russian help, which have been a powerful deterrent against the West declaring a "no-fly zone" of the type which, after it became a bombing campaign, brought down Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
Western officials also claim that Moscow has refused to provide full details ofthe contractual obligations they haveto fulfil and there is also evidence that the regime is getting further Russian arms through third parties.
Critics point to the British proposal on arming the rebels as an example of lack ofclarity in the Westernapproach. The move had been opposed from the outset by Germany and Scandinavian countries as well as by Baroness Ashton, the British head of EUforeign affairs."There is no shortageof arms in Syria," saidJean Asselborn, the Luxembourger Foreign Minister.
The French, who had backed the UK position, have become more lukewarm since the troops they sent to Mali found Western arms supplied to Libyan rebels in the jihadist arsenal. Yesterday, the Hollande governmentseemed satisfied with the agreement on non-lethal aid."Technical assistance and protection of civilians will be easier," said Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
In the US, the outgoing Secretary ofState, Hillary Clinton, had advocated arming the rebels. The new defence secretary, Leon Panetta, also backed the move and stated that the head of US military, General Martin Dempsey, wasalso on board. However, General Dempsey and Barack Obama have publicly urged caution in the past over getting entangled in Syria.
The Russians, on the other hand, insist that their opposition to UN resolutions against the Assad regime, bitterly criticised by the US and Britain, has not stopped the building of growing links withthe Syrian opposition.
Ahmad al-Khatib, the head of the Syrian National Coalition forOpposition Forces – set up at the instigation of the West to replace the Syrian National Council, which had become faction-ridden – has offered to hold direct talks with the regime.
Today, Ali Haidar, Mr Assad's minister for national reconciliation, responded: "We, the government and me personally, will meet,without exceptions, Syrian opposition groups inside and outside Syria."
It remains to be seen whether the talks will actually take place, but UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman held the offers were "the most promising thingwe've heard on Syria recently".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/revealed-russias-double-dealing-on-arms-to-assad-regime-leaves-uk-isolated-over-syria-8500385.html

What do you think?
The United States has offered to give the Syrian opposition $60 million in new aid, including "non-lethal" supplies such as food and medicinefor the first time.
Secretary of State John Kerry made the announcement at a Friends of Syria meeting in Rome, where several Western governments have promised to ramp up assistance to the Syrian opposition.
In what the Associated Press called "a significant policy shift," Kerry said Washington would more than double its aid to Syria's civilian opposition to help it govern rebel-controlled areas.
"Given the stakes," Kerry said, the UnitedStates will also make food and medical supplies available to the military council that represents the Free Syrian Army – the first time Washington has offered direct assistance to rebel fighters.
However, Kerry's offer "fell short of rebel demands" for arms, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, as well as the alternative military assistance – body armor, armoredvehicles, training – some had speculated would be on the table, Reuters reported .
Western and Arab countries may go further, however, when they meet withleading opposition bloc the Syrian National Coalition in Istanbul next week. One European diplomat told Reuters that the SNC's allies would discuss providing"military and humanitarian support."
The US pledge has been met with skepticism inside Syria.
"America is planning and bluffing the world with statements many know they will not adhere to it," said one activist from Ariha who asked not to be named. "When has America committed to its promises?"
The university student, who studiedin Aleppo before the revolution suspendedhas education, said little of the money received through the Syrian National Council, based outside of the country, reaches the fighters on the ground.
"Strange is the revolution in Syria," he said. "Fighters suffer a shortage of weapons and gear while the Syrian National Coalition receives support and funds from Western capitals."
Khalid Soliman, an FSA fighter from Hama said he also held doubts regarding how much support the USA would give the Syrian opposition.
"I want you to realize, no one wantsto help syrian," He said. "Only Syrians help Syria. This we have learned very well."
Britain in particular has been pushing its European partners to relax the arms embargo on Syria to allow military equipment to flow tothe rebels. Foreign Secretary William Hague has said the UK is determined to"ramp up" aid and would soon announce new assistance, the BBC reported .
Time wrote that Britain, France and Italy weren't planning to supply the Free Syrian Army with weapons. However, Britain and France were "keen togive the rebels the means to protect themselves from attacks by Assad's forces, including Scudmissiles fired in recent days against the city of Aleppo."
The Friends of Rome in a statement today pledged "more political and materialsupport" for the SNC and to get "concrete assistance" in Syria, Al Jazeera reported .
"The US and all the countries represented here believe the Syrian opposition coalition can successfully lead the way to a peacefultransition, but they cannot do it alone... they need more support from all of us," Kerry said .

Movie theater...

Ukraine’s billionaire Victor Pinchuk promised to donate at least half of his fortune to charity, joining the Giving Pledge philanthropic initiative, the charity’s press service reported onFeb. 19.
Pinchuk, 52, whoseassets are estimated by Forbes at $3.7 billion, has become the first Ukrainian oligarch to join the initiative started by U.S. tycoon Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates that encourages the wealthiest people to commit most of their wealth to philanthropic causes.
In his Feb. 14 pledge letter, Pinchuk said that he was going to invest “half or more” of his fortune in his lifetime and beyond for “education, health care, access to contemporary art” and the promotionof Ukraine in the world.
“It’s time to give back,” he said in the letter. “In our part of the world, the legacy of communism has made many peoplemore skeptical of the wealthy than in Western countries. I want to convince some of them that successful entrepreneurs and business leaders can be constructive, inventive and active contributors to making everyone’s life better,” Pinchuk added.
Pinchuk’s portfolio includes industrial production of pipes and tubes, railcar wheels, specialty steels andalloys, machinery and also media.
He amassed a fortune in the years when his father-in-law, Leonid Kuchma, served as Ukraine’spresident from 1994-2005. But after the change ofpower in 2005, Pinchuk experienced turbulent times, being forced to return to state property Kryvorizhstal, Ukraine’s largest steel mill, that he had purchased together with another billionaire,Rinat Akhmetov, for about $800 million. At the open televised repeat auction, theplant was sold for$4.8 billion to Indian Mittal Steel.
In 2006, Pinchuk founded investment advisory company EastOne and turned to charity, establishing the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, now considered the largest private philanthropic foundation in Ukraine.
Pinchuk’s charity projects include creation of modernneonatal centers, granting educationscholarships, modern art and human rights projects as well as creation of special discussion workshops promoting Ukraineintegration into the European Union – annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) and Ukrainian lunches at World Economic Forum in Davos.
“I have a particularfocus on my own country, Ukraine, and its integration in the world,” Pinchuk said in his pledge letter.
Pinchuk’s wife and Kuchma’s daughterOlena Pinchuk has her own foundation aimed at fighting with HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine.
But unlike Gates family and many other moguls Pinchuk joined the Giving Pledge initiative without his spouse. “Bill and Melinda Gates have a joint foundation, that was their initiative,” Natalia Vovk, EastOne spokeswoman said. “This was initiative of Victor.”
Gates hailed Pinchuk’s philanthropic decision. “Victor is a thoughtful and innovative philanthropist, andwe welcome his perspective as the Giving Pledge brings people together to exchange ideas about how to be aseffective as possible and smarter in our giving,” Gates said as was quoted by Pinchuk’s press service.
Currently the Giving Pledge initiative launched in 2010 has 105 pledges, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, New York Mayor Michael Bloombergand Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin.

Investigators have opened a murder case into the death of a 9-year-old Russian boy in the care of U.S. parents, the Investigative Committee said in an online statement lateMonday.
Anton Fomin died of smoke inhalation in afire at his house in the state of Nebraskain May 2012.
Local authorities could not determine what caused the fire and did not find evidence of criminal behavior, The Associated Press reported at the time.
But Russian officials have said that Fomin's death was suspicious. "The childwas left alone," and his body was found in the basement, children's ombudsman Pavel Astakhov tweeted onTuesday.
Astakhov earlier said the boy was locked ina cellar, a charge Fomin's guardian denied.
Although the Investigative Committee's statement says that Fomin was adopted in Russia, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow released a statement shortly after the boy's death saying there was no intercountry adoption involved.
Fomin was brought to the United States by his biological parents in 2005 and later placed in the care of an American family who attended the same church as his parents.
U.S. families have adopted an estimated 60,000 Russian children in the past two decades. At least 20 have died, sparking outrage from some Russian officials, led by Astakhov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin .
Russian investigatorshave opened 11 mostly symbolic criminal cases in connection with the deaths, claiming that several have not been adequately adjudicated by U.S. courts.
One of them appeared to be stymied on Tuesday, when a Moscow courtrefused to order the arrest in absentia of an American man accused of murderinghis adoptive Russian son in 2005, citing the man's acquittal by a U.S. court.
News of the death of 3-year-old Max Shatto, a Russian boyadopted by U.S. parents, last month sparked the latest row between the United States and Russia over bilateral adoptions.
Citing the safety of Russian children following a string of abuse scandals goingback several years, the government banned U.S. adoptions as of Jan. 1.
The move was widelyseen as a response toa U.S. law that called for sanctions against Russian officials suspected of human rights abuses, and critics said officials failed to put the U.S. deaths in context.
Up to 300 orphans entrusted to Russian families die every year, according to State Duma Deputy Yelena Mizulina, headof the Duma's Committee on Family,Women and Children
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/latest-case-opened-into-us-adoptee-death/476080.html
Max Shatto is the 20th Russian adoptee to have died in the United States.
U.S. officials point out that more than 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by American families in the past 20 years.

Go Ahead....Smile!
Those that look on the bright side end up healthier and more successful than the rest of us. But guess what? Now researchers have a cheat sheet that can help you become more positive By Jane Meredith Adams
If you're a pessimist, you can vault yourself into aworst-case scenarioin a nanosecond. You get an invitation to dinnerfrom a new neighbor, and you imagine an awkward meal, followed by a lifetime of mutual dislike right on your own block. New clothes are a torment, lying in wait for a ruinous dab of salad dressing. A trip to one of the most beautiful ski resortsin the country? At best, you'll be miserably cold or break an ankle; at worst, you'll wind up snow-blind.
Negativity may appear to be a great defense mechanism: If you keep your expectations low enough, you won't be crushed when things don't work out. But new research has revealed that the tendency to be a wet blanket in just about any situation—a trait the experts call"dispositional pessimism"—doesn't merely ruin a good time and prevent you from making friends. It seems that it's a bad strategy by about every measure. Optimists, it turns out, do better in most avenues of life, whether it's work, school, sports, or relationships. They get depressed less often than pessimists do, make more money, and have happier marriages.
And not only in the short run. There's evidence that optimists live longer, too. A 9-year study of cardiovascular health in more than900 men and women in the Netherlands found that pessimists not only die sooner of heart disease than optimists, but they also die sooner of just about everything. It's enough to drive a pessimist crazy—and sure enough, pessimism has beenlinked to higher odds of developing dementia. (See howoptimism is the happy way to protect your heart .)
Fortunately, a grim outlook doesn't have to be permanent. Leading researcherssay that optimism and pessimism are two ends of a continuum, with about 80% of the US population scattered from mildly to relentlessly optimistic. But research reveals that if you're hunkered down on the other end, you can slide on over—or at least get some of the benefits that usually cluster on the optimistic side of the scale, says Suzanne Segerstrom, PhD, an optimism researcher at the University of Kentucky and author of Breaking Murphy's Law . It takes only a few changes. They're small, gradual—andnot what you'd expect.

If you're looking for trouble
You came to the right place...

Are you friend or foe?

If you are a devotee of Ray Kurzweil, the entrepreneur, you will believe that by 2029, we will have passed the Turing test: a machine can replace a human for any job.
Wait and see.

Don’t get hit by a bus before 2029 arrives. Interviewed via the Sun , is Ray Kurzweil’s optimistic two-decade time frame perhaps influenced by his own advancing age (61)? He says:
I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogramme our bodies’ stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, ageing. Then nano-technology willlet us live for ever.
Already, blood cell-sized submarinescalled nanobots are being tested in animals. These will soon be used to destroy tumours, unblock clots and perform operations without scars. Ultimately, nanobots will replace blood cells and do their work thousands of times more effectively.
These technologies should not seem at all fanciful. Our phones now perform tasks we wouldn’t have dreamed possible 20 years ago. When I was a student in 1965, my university’s only computer cost £7million and was huge. Today your mobile phone is a million times less expensive and a thousand times morepowerful. That’s a billion times more capable for the same price. We will experience another billion-fold increase in technological capability for the same cost in the next25 years.
In 2008 we discovered skin cells can be transformed into the equivalent of embryonic cells. Soorgans will soon be repaired and eventually grown. In a few years most people will have their entire genetic sequences mapped. Before long, we will all know the diseaseswe are susceptible toand gene therapies will mean virtually no genetic problems that can’t be erased.
It’s important to ensure we get to take advantage of the upcoming technologies by living well and not getting hit by a bus. By the middle of this century we will have back-up copies of theinformation in our bodies and brains that make us who we are. Then we really will be immortal.
http://www.disinfo.com/2012/07/ray-kurzweil-on-how-we-will-live-forever-beginning-in-twenty-years/
Ray Kurzweil Plansto Create a Mind atGoogle—and HaveIt Serve You
The technologist speaks about an ambitious plan to build a powerful artificial intelligence.
Hal from 2001: A Space Odyessy .
Famed AI researcher and incorrigible singularity forecaster Ray Kurzweil recentlyshed some more lighton what his new job at Google will entail. It seems that he does, indeed, plan to build a prodigious artificial intelligence, which he hopes will understand the world to a much more sophisticated degree than anything built before–or at least that will act as if it does.
Kurzweil’s AI will be designed to analyze the vast quantities ofinformation Google collects and to then serve as a super-intelligent personal assistant. He suggests it could eavesdrop on your every phone conversation and email exchange and then provide interesting and important information before you ever knew you wanted it. It sounds like a scary-smart version of Google Now (see “ Google’s Answer to Siri Thinks Ahead ”).
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510121/ray-kurzweil-plans-to-create-a-mind-at-google-and-have-it-serve-you/
http://m.techcrunch.com/2013/01/06/googles-director-of-engineering-ray-kurzweil-is-building-your-cybernetic-friend/

5. The USS Hornet
The USS Hornet was aflagship vessel in the U.S. Navy during World War II and wasone of the most highly decorated ships of that time period. She was also a pinnacle part of theVietnam War and hadthe honor of recovering the astronauts returning from the moon in theApollo 11 and 12 space missions. This success also has a dark side as this decorated warship has seen over 300 deaths. Most of which were men struck down in battle, but others died in freak accidents like snapping cables that decapitate sailors or men accidentally being sucked into air intake pipes. The hornet, for all its success, also has the highest suicide rate of all the ships in the Navy.
LINK
The ship was retired in 1970 and was docked in Alameda, California and was opened up to the public in 1998 as a museum. It was then that many of the visiting tourists and crew aboard the ship began having paranormal experiences. Doors opening and shuttingwith no visible force, disappearing tools, objects moving by themselves, and the apparitions of sailors carrying about with their duties as if it was still 1944 are among the paranormal claims. Some people even claim that the ghosts on board the ship canbe hostile in nature with claims that some have been pushed and grabbed by an invisible force while on board the ship.
The USS Hornet is a ship rich and history and possible rich in paranormal activity as well. Perhaps the cause for all this activity is the tragic past and abundance untimely deaths. Regardless of the cause of the haunting, the ship is notorious for its historical value as well as its ghosts. It is often called the most haunted vessel in the American Navy.
4. Chickamauga, Chattanooga Tennessee
The Battle of Chickamauga was one of the most important battles in the Civil War. It was aconfederate victory and is considered by historians to be the most significant Union loss of the war.The battle also saw the second highest casualties of the war,behind Gettysburg. Inthe aftermath of the battle 34, 624 Americans were killed and another 24,430 were wounded. In a twist of ironic foreshadowing the river that the battle is named for was named by the Cherokee Native Americans before thebattle took place andcan be loosely translated to mean “river of death”. But perhaps the Cherokee had their own reasons for calling it river of death.
LINK
The Chickamauga battleground is claimed to be the home of many paranormal entities. Some claim that one of these ghosts datesback to a time beforethe civil war. It is saidduring the battle that many of the soldiers claimed to see a six-foot humanoid on the battlefield. It is said that the figure woulddrag off the dead bodies and wounded,and some claim to have seen it eat the dead. The creatures most striking feature was its piercing green eyes. Sightingsof Old Green Eyes as locals affectionately call him still continue to this day. Other apparitions are said to haunt the ground as well. A mysterious lady in a white dress is often seen wondering the battlefield; perhaps looking for a lost loved one. The most interesting of all these sightings, though, are those of whole cavalries.
David Lester is a Civil War buff that takes part in the yearly reenactments of the battle. He claims that about five years ago, he and several of his friends went to say hello to some fellow confederate soldiers that were camped nearby. Lester found their unwillingness to break character charming and admired their dedication to the reenactment. Lester and his friends returned to their campsite several hours later and turned in for the night. The next morning when they got up, the campsite they had visited the previous night was gone. So were the confederate soldiers they spent hours with. There wasn’t even a sign of a fire or stakes in the ground where the tents would have been.
3. Auschwitz
Auschwitz was a concentration camp built by Nazi-Germany and operated in Poland during the Nazi occupation their. It was the largest German concentration camp with three different sectors, Auschwitz I, which was the main camp, Auschwitz II-Birkenau also called the
Full:
http://www.paranormalhaze.com/5-historic-sites-that-are-supposedly-haunted/

A Russian “ghost ship” has been found off the west coast of Ireland . The ship, called the Lyubov Orlova, has been adrift for two months.
The Lyubov Orlova has no crew or warning lights. It broke loose from a tug boat on January 24 when it was on its way to a scrapyard in the Dominican Republic from Canada .
It was re-secured by asupply vessel, the Atlantic Hawk, which was able to tow the Russian ship for a short time until it broke free again, reports The Huffington Post .
Canada’s transport authority ruled that the ship was no longer the country’s concern, because the vessel was in international waters. Officials have since said that the owner isresponsible for the ship, but Canada admitted it wasn’t sure what happened to the vessel.
A document from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has said that the Lyubov Orlova was spotted 1,300 miles off the Irish coast. Thevessel appears to be slowly making its waytoward Europe.
CBC News notes that Reza Shoeybi, the ship’s owner has beentrying to find someone to safely snag the ship so it canbe taken to the Dominican Republic scrapyard. Shoeybi stated:
“I’m tryingmy best. I’m talkingto a few people in Ireland — salvage companies— perhapsto partner up with them and retrieve her.”
The ship’s owner added that she is floating well because a lot of work has been done on her to balance the ballast tanks. The Lyubov Orloba is an ice-strengthened cruise ship. It was named after Russian film star Lyubov Orlova and was built for the Far East Shipping Company.
The was made to be an expedition cruise ship and often sailed in Antarctica and the Arctic. She ran aground in 2006 and was seized in 2010 because of debts owed to her charterer. Neptune International Shipping then purchased the ship to be scrapped.
Until she is snagged again and towed to a scrapyard, the RussianLyubov Orlova will remain a ghost ship.
http://www.inquisitr.com/538453/russian-ghost-ship-discovered-off-ireland-coast/

SAN FRANCISCO — Volcanic activity in modern-day India, not an asteroid, may have killed the dinosaurs, according to a new study.
Tens of thousands of years of lava flow from the Deccan Traps , a volcanic region near Mumbai in present-day India, may have spewed poisonous levels of sulfur and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and caused the mass extinction through the resulting global warming and ocean acidification, the research suggests.
The findings, presented Wednesday (Dec. 5) here at the annual meeting of the American GeophysicalUnion , are the latest volley in an ongoing debate over whether an asteroid or volcanism killed off the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago in the mass die-off known as the K-T extinction.
"Our new information calls for a reassessment of what really caused the K-T mass extinction," said Gerta Keller, a geologist at Princeton University who conducted the study.
For several years, Keller has argued that volcanic activity killed the dinosaurs.
But proponents of the Alvarez hypothesis argue that a giant meteorite impact at Chicxulub, Mexico, around 65 million years ago released toxic amounts of dustand gas into the atmosphere, blockingout the sun to cause widespread cooling, choking the dinosaurs and poisoning sea life. The meteorite may impact may also haveset off volcanic activity, earthquakes and tsunamis. [ Wipe Out: History's Most Mysterious Extinctions ]
The new research"really demonstrates that we have Deccan Traps just before the mass extinction, and that may contribute partially or totally to the mass extinction," said Eric Font, a geologist at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, who was not involved in the research.
Sea cockroach
The Deccan traps, which are no longer volcanically active.
In 2009, oil companies drilling off the Eastern coast of India uncovered eons-old lava-filled sediments buried nearly 2 miles (3.3 kilometers) below the ocean surface.
Keller and her team got permission to analyze the sediments, finding they contained plentiful fossils from around the boundarybetween the Cretaceous-Tertiary periods, or K-T Boundary, when dinosaurs vanished.
The sediments bore layers of lava that had traveled nearly 1,000 miles (1,603 km) from the Deccan Traps. Today, the volcanic region spansan area as big as France, but was nearly the area of Europe when it was active during the late Cretaceous period , said Adatte Thierry, ageologist from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland who collaborated with Keller on the research.
Within the fossil record, plankton species got fewer, smaller and maintained less elaborate shells immediately after lava layers, which would indicate it happened in years after the eruptions. Most species gradually died off. In their wake, a hardy plankton genus with a small, nondescript exoskeleton, called Guembilitria, exploded within the fossil record. Keller's team found similar trends in their analysis of marine sediments from Egypt, Israel, Spain, Italy and Texas. While Guembilitria species represented between 80 percent and 98 percent of thefossils, other species disappeared.
Fossils in India revealed that plankton species became smaller, withless elaborate shells, suggesting that sulfur and carbon dioxide from volcanism caused ocean acidification and led to a mass die-off in the seas.
"We call it a disaster opportunist," Keller told LiveScience. "It's like a cockroach — whenever things go bad, it will be the one that survives andthrives."
Guembilitria may have come to dominance worldwide when the huge amounts of sulfur (in the form of acid rain ) released bythe Deccan Traps fell into the oceans. There, it would've chemically binded with calcium, makingthat calcium unavailable to sea creatures that needed the element to build their shells and skeletons.
Around the same time in India, fossil evidence of land animals and plants vanished, suggesting the volcanoes caused mass extinctions on both land and in the sea there.
Global impact
In past work, the team has also found evidence at Chicxulubthat casts doubt on the notion of a meteorite causing the extinction .
Sediments containing iridium, the chemical signature of an asteroid , show up after the extinction occurred, contradicting the notion that it could have caused a sudden die-off, Kellersaid.
A meteorite impact also would not have produced enough toxic sulfur and carbon dioxide to match the levels seenin the rocks, so it may have worsened the mass extinction, but couldn't have caused it, she said.
"The meteorite is justtoo small to cause the extinction."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=2258395

BRUSSELS, Belgium —Armed robbers have pulled off a spectacular heist at Brussels airport, stealing millions of dollars worth of uncut diamonds froma plane.
The gang of eight hit a Brinks security truck as its contents were being loaded onto a Swiss aircraft bound for Zurich, Belgian public television reported Tuesday.
The Flemish radio station VRT initially reported the haul as being worth 350 million euros ($465 million), but later revised the figure to 50 million euros ($67 million), according to Agence France-Presse .
"What we are talkingabout is obviously a gigantic sum," Caroline De Wolf of the Antwerp World Diamond Center told VRT.
AFP cited a spokeswoman at the same Antwerp centercalling the robbery"one of the biggest" ever. She said the diamonds were"rough stones" beingtransported from Antwerp to Zurich.
A GlobalPost series: Blood diamonds are forever
"The men were armed and masked," a spokeswoman for the Brussels prosecutor told Reuters. "There were no shots fired and nobody was injured."
GlobalPost's senior correspondent in Brussels, Paul Ames, says the holdup is thelatest in a series over the past 20 years at Brussels International Airport.
It raises serious questions about security at what is a major transit point for gems passing through the world's leading diamond trading center in the nearby city of Antwerp.
"The level of security is sub-standard," a senior police officer told the Belgian news agency Belga on Tuesday. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he complained of problems created by the fact that responsibility for security is shared between two police units and a private security company.
The robbers reportedly broke through a fence Monday evening and escaped back through the same hole, with the operation taking justminutes.
Aviation chat rooms have been abuzz with conversation about how vulnerable the airport's perimeter is as well as the apparently slow response of security forces which gave the robbers time to load the gems into their vehicles and escape.
AP cited the spokeswoman for the Brussels prosecutor as saying that the robbers usedtwo vehicles.
Police later found a burned-out vehicle close to the airport, the BBC reported .
"The police have been complaining foryears about a lack of staff and resources," said opposition lawmaker Ben Weyts.
"The Federal Police and especially specialized operational units likethe airport police have not been getting the attentionthey deserve."
There have been several raids on high-value targets at the Brussels airport in recent years often involving vehicles breaking through theperimeter fence, Ames reports from the Belgian capital.
*. In 2000, gunmen carried out a similarattack on a Frankfurt-bound plane being loaded in Brussels, making of with an estimated $9 million in diamonds. There has been speculation that the gang may have had Al Qaeda links.
*. The following year gunmen open fired on a CIT truck at theairport, but fled without their booty, because the valuables onboard had already been transferred to a plane.
*. In 1999, a Turkish gang stole $2.7 million in cash afterdriving through theairport gates and heading off securitytruck on the tarmac.
*. In 2005, armed robbers took an unspecified amountof diamonds from FedEx offices at the airport and three years earlier a currency exchange office was targeted by gunmen who took at least$65,000.

Petrauske described himselfas a high priest of a white witches coven
Two men have been convicted of carrying out"ritualistic" sex abuse of girls as part of a witches' coven.
Jack Kemp, 69, and Peter Petrauske, 72,both of Falmouth, Cornwall, had denied multiple sexual assaults involving children aged five to 14.
Petrauske was convicted of one count of rape, one count of aiding andabetting an attempt to rape and one count of indecent assault.
Kemp was found guilty of indecent assault and indecency with a child.
He was found not guilty of four other offences.
The jury of nine men and three women at Truro Crown Court is still considering its verdicts on several other charges.
Witches and Pagans
By Jayne Lutwyche
BBC Religion and Ethics
The words 'pagan' and 'witch' have meant different things to different people throughout history.
Pagan is a catch-all term for pre-Christian religions. ModernPaganism is based on a revival of some ofthese.
Paganism is a recognised religion and in the 2011 Census 56,620 people identified themselves as Pagans, 11,766 asWiccans (often called witches), 4,189 as Druids and 1,958 Heathens - making Paganism the largest non-mainstream religion in England and Wales.
Paganism and its association with witches has led to it wrongly being linked to black magic and devil worship, fears of which were most common in the 17th Century at the time of the Witch Trials. By contrast Pagan rites are usually focused on a relationship with the natural world.
Source: BBC Religion
Pagan belief: Nature, Druids and Witches
Judge Graham Cottle said he would accept majority verdicts.
Petrauske, of no fixed abode, and Kemp of Grenville Road in Falmouth, were said to have worn ceremonial robes and had pagan paraphernalia when they abused girls in Cornwall during the 1970s.
Petrauske described himself as the high priest ofa white witches' coven in St Ives, in west Cornwall.
He was backed up by female membersof the coven who said that while children were occasionally present, nudity never played a part in the ceremonies. One female friend also described him as "a gentleman".
Kemp denied any involvement in paganism, saying it"wasn't his cup of tea", and said he was the victim of a bizarre conspiracy. He said the girls were wrong to name him in the case.
The men's victims gave evidence frombehind a screen during the three-week trial.
They said they were abused by their tormentors, before being given money and sweets to keep quiet.

A man with a knife has wounded 22 children - at least two of them seriously - and an adult at a primary school in central China.
The attack happened at the gate of a school in Chenpeng village inHenan province.
Police arrested a 36-year-old local man at the scene.
Security at China's schools has been increased in recent years following a spate of similar knife attacks in which nearly 20 children have been killed.
The BBC's John Sudworth in Shanghai says many of the attackers have been mentally disturbed men, prompting a debate about the effects of China's recent, rapid social change and the inability of an antiquated hospitalsystem to cope with rising levels ofmental illness.
The Associated Press news agency quotes a police officer as saying that this latest attack happened aspupils were arriving for classes.
The agency also quotes a county hospital administrator as saying that the man first attacked an elderly woman, then the children, before being overpowered by security guards.
He added that two of the injured pupils had been transferred to better-equipped hospitals outside the county.

History...

Harry S. Truman admits UFOs are Real.
http://ufosearchonline.com/ufo/2010/08/harry-s-truman-admits-ufos-are-real/
The UFO Partisan: THEREAL MAJESTIC 12: TRUMAN'S 1952 DC
http://ufopartisan.blogspot.ru/2009/10/trumans-white-house-meeting-on-1952-dc.html
President Ronald Reagan’s (1987) Speech About UFO Alien Invasion At United Nations !
http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/president-ronald-reagans-1987-speech-about-ufo-alien-invasion-at-united-nations/