Sunday, October 14th, 2012
, - Spanish National Research Council (Spain)
Stephan: Not really a trend, but how could I pass up a report like this? We seen the event in endless movies, and dozens of paintings.
A concrete structure of three meters wide and over two meters high, placed by order of Augustus (adoptive son and successor of Julius Caesar) to condemn the assassination of his father, has given the key to the scientists. This finding confirms that the General was stabbed right at the bottom of the Curia of Pompey while he was presiding, sitting on a chair, over a meeting of the Senate. Currently, the remains of this building are located in the archaeological area of Torre Argentina, right in the historic centre of the Roman capital.
Antonio Monterroso, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) researcher from the Institute of History of the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences (CCHS-CSIC), states: ‘We always knew that Julius Caesar was killed in the Curia of Pompey on March 15th 44 BC because the classical texts pass on so, but so far no material evidence of this fact, so often depicted in historicist painting and cinema, had been recovered’.
Classical sources refer to the closure (years after the murder) of the Curia, a place that would become a chapel-memory. CSIC researcher explains: ‘We know for sure that the place where Julius Caesar presided over that session of the Senate, and […]
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Saturday, October 13th, 2012
JEFF GOODELL, - Rolling Stone
Stephan: This increasingly, to me anyway, bizarre Presidential election, in which virtually none of the really urgent issues are being discussed, is going to be the subject of endless doctoral dissertations in the future -- if people are still getting doctorates -- as a study in willful ignorance and denial.
Here is one reason I think this.
It’s near midnight, and I’m holed up in a rickety hotel in Proserpine, a whistle-stop town on the northeast coast of Australia. Yasi, a Category 5 hurricane with 200-mile-per-hour winds that’s already been dubbed ‘The Mother of All Catastrophes’ by excitable Aussie tabloids, is just a few hundred miles offshore. When the eye of the storm hits, forecasters predict, it will be the worst ever to batter the east coast of Australia.
I have come to Australia to see what a global-warming future holds for this most vulnerable of nations, and Mother Nature has been happy to oblige: Over the course of just a few weeks, the continent has been hit by a record heat wave, a crippling drought, bush fires, floods that swamped an area the size of France and Germany combined, even a plague of locusts. ‘In many ways, it is a disaster of biblical proportions,’ Andrew Fraser, the Queensland state treasurer, told reporters. He was talking about the floods in his region, but the sense that Australia – which maintains one of the highest per-capita carbon footprints on the planet – has summoned up the wrath of the climate gods is everywhere. ‘Australia is the canary in the […]
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Saturday, October 13th, 2012
LAURA GOTTESDIENER, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: I think the evidence is growing that much of this dementia is the result of pollutants in our air, water, and food. Of course from the point of view of big Pharma and the other parts of the Illness Profit Industry it is like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
No one–to repeat, no one–understands how it happens. Every day, the minds of millions of high-functioning people slowly slip into another reality, one in which life events, loved one’s faces, children’s names and all the other memories that constitute a person’s identity have disappeared. Deep inside their brains, the slide begins decades before the symptoms of dementia manifest. By the time the car keys begin to go missing, it’s already far too late.
Currently, there are about 36 million people in the world suffering from dementia. By 2050, the population at risk for the disease is expected to hit two billion, causing what experts say will be an unprecedented health care crisis that could cost $1 trillion a year in the U.S. alone.
‘The scope of the looming medical-care disaster is beyond comparison with anything that has been faced during the entire history of humanity,
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Saturday, October 13th, 2012
STEPHEN C. WEBSTER, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Here the latest in the trend of conservative offensive idiocies. Once again I note: these people are only public figures because the Republican party promotes them, and people vote for them. Note that with these buffoons it is always the women who are at fault. It is the same kind of language one hears from the Taliban and other Muslim extremists.
This trend is literally eating away the health of our democracy from the inside out, and only the voters can stop it. Politicians will also pander to the lowest common denominator.
A Wisconsin State Rep. endorsed by Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan told a reporter that he believes ‘some girls rape so easy.
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Friday, October 12th, 2012
, - Center for Science in the Public Interest
Stephan: Here is some good news about school lunches.
As they return back to school, students will get twice the amount of vegetables and fruits on their meal trays, as well as more whole grains, and less salt and unhealthy fats. The updated school meal standards, unveiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in January, have been highly praised by health and education groups, including the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest. The standards set calorie maximums for the first time and lower calorie minimums to better ensure that school meals address obesity, as well as hunger.
‘The new school meal standards are one of the most important measures to promote children’s health in decades,’ said Center for Science in the Public Interest director of nutrition policy Margo G. Wootan. ‘With one out of every three children in America overweight or obese, 31 million children eating school lunch, and 15 years since the last update, it was time for a change. School food service professionals are working hard to implement the new standards, and they need the support of parents, teachers, administrators, and food manufacturers.’
Parents can help by reinforcing healthy eating at home, and encouraging their children to try the new menu options, says CSPI. Teachers can try […]
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