Saskatoons or Juneberries? US researcher suggests name change of Canadian native berry

Canadian Press

Canadians know these beloved berries as Saskatoons.  A US researcher is suggesting that Canadians call the berries Juneberries when marketing the Prairie berry to US customers.

Saskatoons known as Juneberries in US

A food fight of sorts could be growing between Canada and the United States over a tiny berry.
A U.S. researcher with the Cornell University Co-operative Extension is suggesting Canadians use a different name when selling Saskatoons south of the border.
Jim Ochterski says there is a surge in demand for the berry in the U.S., where it has been known for years as the Juneberry.
“We’re at a point now where there’s actual dollars at stake,” Ochterski said in a phone interview Tuesday from Canandaigua, N.Y.

“We’re taking our heritage name for the berry, called Juneberry, and Canadian growers have their heritage name for the berry, called Saskatoon, and now there seems to be some marketing tension between the two.”...Continue reading...

Carole King & James Tyalor - So Far Away

So_Far_Away -_Wallpaperhttp://www.caroleking.com/

Islamic State recruiting in Canada, local imam warns

By AFP

And still they come: British jihadists fighting for Isil 

A Canadian imam known for his pacifist sermons has warned that Islamist militant group IS was actively recruiting in Canada and said one member issued him a death threat.

Syed Soharwardy, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC), called on Canadian and Western authorities to intensify the fight against jihadist movements.

"Absolutely I am convinced that this recruitment is going on right here in this country, under our noses, in our universities, in our colleges, in the places of worship, in our community," he told CBC public television.

Soharwardy added that a Muslim man from Ottawa who was fighting with IS in Mosul in northern Iraq had sent him a death threat on Facebook.

"He was condemning me for condemning ISIS, and he was saying that 'You are a deviant imam and your version of Islam is not the right version,'" Soharwardy said, using another acronym by which IS is known...Continue reading... 

Related:

http://ninetymilesfromtyranny.blogspot.ca/

Humans Have Created A New Top Predator That Is Taking Over The Northeast - the coywolf

Jennifer Welsh

• Humans are not newcomers when it comes to messing around with nature. While we haven't created Frankenstein's monster yet, what we do messes with the natural world. One recent example is the creation of the coywolf — a hybrid of the coyote and the wolf that is also known as the Eastern coyote.
  These animals have a completely new genetic make up: Their genes are about 1/4 wolf DNA and 2/3 coyote DNA, the rest is from domesticated dogs. They were created when previously separate wolf and coyote populations merged in the land north of the Great Lakes...Continue reading, photos...
  
  

A coywolf, this one was spotted in West Virginia.

This Is What Asia’s Longest River Looks Like

By Jordan G. Teicher

Chongqing IV (Sunday Picnic), Chongqing Municipality. Nadav Kander 

At nearly 4,000 miles from mouth to source, China’s Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world. Its banks are home to about 400 million people, or around one-third of the country’s population—more than the entire population of the United States. For thousands of years, the Yangtze has played an essential role in China’s culture, economy, and politics, and since 1950, the river and its basin “have been the focus of much of China’s economic modernization.”

In 2006, London-based Nadav Kander came to China with a desire to witness a country “that feels both at the beginning of a new era and at odds with itself,” one that’s growing at “a relentless pace.” He chose to follow the Yangtze not because of an interest in the river, per se, but rather “an interest in confining myself to a pathway through China that had meaning.” Over the next 2½ years, Kander made five trips along the river, traveling for as much as 10 days at a time. He traveled once by boat, but mostly got around by car along with an assistant, a translator, and a driver. His route took him from the river’s mouth by the East China Sea to the Three Gorges Dam (the largest dam in the world) past Chongqing (one of the world’s largest cities), and finally to the river’s source on the Plateau of Tibet. Photos here.

The Monty Python crew has the cure for getting your cat out of "a rut".

http://www.cinemacats.com/?p=2617

200 Celebrities Show Support for Israel in Statement & Call Out Hollywood Actors Who Back Hamas

By Jennifer Van Laar:
There are few political subjects that can bring the likes of Roseanne Barr, Sarah Silverman, Kelsey Grammer, and Arnold Schwarzenegger together, but through a group called Creative Community for Peace, these artists and nearly 200 other Hollywood stars and executives joined together to condemn Hamas.
The group recognizes that the only free society in the Middle East, the one that supports intellectual and artistic freedom, is Israel. Deadline reports:

“When you talk to artists like Javier Bardem and Pedro Almodovar, you have to think, ‘Where do you think your movies are being watched in the Middle East? They can’t be watched anywhere else but in Israel. When you are on the ground, you realize that you are in a very free and progressive society, and it’s a region where people can’t pay to see the product that we’re making other than in Israel.”

The Hollywood actors who supported the statement can be read below, via the Creative Community for Peace website. The celebrities endorsing it include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Roseanne Barr, Bill Maher, and Sylvester Stallone, among many others...Continue reading...

Worst earthquake in 25 years rocks California

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc72282711#summary

The Franklin Expedition is still our coldest case - Maclean's

Chris Sorensen:

Universal History Archive/Getty Images

In a few weeks, Marc-André Bernier and six other Parks Canada underwater archaeologists will ply the ice-choked Victoria Strait in Canada’s High Arctic in search of what may be the North’s most infamous—and, if Ottawa has its way, significant—maritime disaster: the lost Franklin Expedition.
The annual hunt, the fifth since 2008, will be the biggest and most high-profile ever, consisting of nearly a dozen government departments and private sponsors. If they get lucky, Bernier and his team could shed new light on a 170-year-old mystery that’s long captivated the public imagination. The abridged version: Sir John Franklin, an accomplished naval officer and Arctic explorer, set sail from England in 1845 in the hope of charting a route through the Northwest Passage, but neither he nor his 128 men returned. Subsequent expeditions to find Franklin’s two iron-clad war ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, turned up bits and pieces of a horrific tale. Both ships became trapped in ice and, despite three years’ worth of provisions, crew members may have ultimately resorted to eating their dead comrades. “This would be a really interesting find,” Bernier says. “It’s pivotal in the European exploration of the Arctic. The loss of that expedition triggered many other expeditions, resulting in a lot of other finds.”...Continue reading...

Related: Harper joins search for lost ships of Franklin expedition

The Moody Blues, "Nights In White Satin"

[image]last.fm/music/The+Moody+Blues

Astronauts Just Found Life In Outer Space — And Scientists Aren’t Sure How It Got There (Video)

(Before It's News)
Astronauts Just Found Life In Outer Space — And Scientists Aren’t Sure How It Got There Image Credit: AP
The news: Russian cosmonauts have discovered something remarkable clinging to the outside of the International Space Station: living organisms.

The microscopic creatures appeared during a space walk intended to clean the vessel’s surface, and were allegedly identified — incredibly — as a type of sea plankton. This is big: According to Sploid, Russian scientists are both “shocked by [the] discovery and can’t really explain how [it] is possible.”

“Results of the experiment are absolutely unique,” Russian ISS Orbital Mission Chief Vladimir Solovyev told the ITAR-TASS News Agency. “This should be studied further.”...Continue reading...

Stunning split-second snapshots of birds, bats and even mice and frogs in mid-air - MailOnline

By Alex Finnis for MailOnline

A kiss in flight: Two hummingbirds get close as they hover in the air - their green feathers glimmering against the darkness of the cave. The shots were taken by Nicolas Reusens,...Continue reading, photos...

Perfect Timed Photos - Surprised fish.

https://twitter.com/OMGFunniest_/status/482341810442731521

Humor and healing: Amid medical uncertainty, lighter moments are more than welcome

By Dan Wascoe:
“Oops” is not what a patient expects from a hospital nurse fixing to administer a pain-relieving treatment.
In my case she simply had squeezed an extra gob of ointment from a slippery tube. No harm, no foul. Just a tension-relieving chuckle.

Three decades ago this year, writer and editor Norman Cousins wrote of his belief that his own self-prescriptive medicine plus a positive attitude and belly laughs courtesy of  Marx Brothers films helped him beat doctors’ predictions of an early demise from a rare arthritis-related ailment called ankylosing spondylitis.
During most of my 69 years, I had little reason or opportunity to even think about his thesis. That changed this summer. I spent a couple weeks in two hospitals with a relatively rare condition called Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Rogue antibodies began chewing the lining of nerves that linked my brain with my muscles. The condition can incapacitate its victims for months, even years. I also was told, pointedly, that it can kill...Continue reading...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

How the sun sees you- YouTube

Thomas Leveritt

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         We showed people what they looked like in ultraviolet, & wondered aloud if they wanted to put on some damn sunscreen already.
https://twitter.com/thomasleveritt
Music: 'Summer in the City - Starcadian remix' by Freedom Fry http://freedomfry.bandcamp.com/track/...
They are awesome. So is Starcadian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9BqrSAHbTc#t=38

Hamas fighters show defiance in Gaza tunnel tour

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  By Nidal al-Mughrabi, GAZA
(Reuters) - Hamas fighters, clad in black and armed with assault rifles, navigated the dimly lit tunnel with ease, saying they felt at home in their network of underground passages in the Gaza Strip.
A rare tour that Hamas granted to a Reuters reporter, photographer and cameraman appeared to be an attempt to dispute Israel's claim that it had demolished all of the Islamist group's border infiltration tunnels in the Gaza war...Continue reading, photos...

Review: 'Rosa Yagan', a Native American woman from the end of the world

“This lady was the last full-blooded member of the Yagan indigenous group, and I was lucky enough to photograph her in Villa Ukika, Puerto Williams, in the far south of Chile. She died two years after the picture was taken. As a society, we failed to take care of the last members of one of the races that make up our roots. We’ve lost their language and customs, and today there are only a few families left, of mixed blood. This photograph is one of the greatest achievements of my life as a photographer. I lived 12 years in that region, the most beautiful and happiest of my life.” Narciso López Lantadilla Daniel (born 1939), Santiago [[image]

By Igor I. Solar

+

Puerto Williams - Rosa Yagan, an aboriginal woman belonging to the southernmost ethnic group on the planet, spent her infancy and youth as her nomadic ancestors, with their language and ancient customs. Her story is told in the book "Rosa Yagan, the last link".

One autumn morning 31 years ago, at Villa Ukika in the farthest edge of South America, died Rosa Milicic, known as "Grandma Rosa". Many elderly die every day around the world. But Rosa was not just any aged person. She was the only remaining representative of a pure race that populated the islands of the region at the end of the continent who lived in the manner of her ancestors, with their rites and customs, and one of the last speakers of their language. With the death of Grandma Rosa, the lineage of the Yaghan, and a way of life according to the ancient customs prior to the loss of their cultural identity as an authentic indigenous race, became extinct...Continue reading...

Blitz dog hailed in hall of heroes: Pet that helped save more than 100 lives to be celebrated in new project... Daily Mail

Second World War rescue dog Rip, pictured here with his handler, is being celebrated as part of a project to remember little-known heroic figures throughout history. [photo]

By Daily Mail Reporter

A Second World War rescue dog credited with saving more than 100 lives is among a new 'Hall of Heroes' celebrating little-known heroic figures throughout history.

Rip, who searched for people buried in the rubble after bombing raids during the Blitz, is just one character included in the new collection aimed at celebrating everyone from unsung underdogs to wartime heroes.

Family history website Findmypast wants people to share stories about their own heroic family figures to help create the 'Hall of Heroes'. The site is to donate £10 to the British Red Cross for every real-life story published...Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

‘They are so much in love’: Family, friends, businesses throw wedding for young woman with fatal cancer. The StarPhoenix

By Marty Klinkenberg, Edmonton Journal

 

Josh Melnyk and Megan Wolfe in Saskatoon with their blended family. From left, Jacob Melnyk, 2, Megan, Josh, Hunter Melnyk, 2, Arty Wolfe, 7, Haydn Wolfe, 6, and Tanea Melynk, 11.

Photograph by: Submitted photo-- Kari Shep, Submitted photo-- Kari Shep

   At age 10, Megan Wolfe began cutting photos out of magazines and concocting the perfect man: eyes from this one, hair from that one, and so on.
   Four years ago, as she sat in a doctor’s office in Saskatoon waiting for an appointment for one of her kids, that man, Josh Melnyk, walked through the door.
   “I’ll never forget that moment,” Wolfe says. “Josh was identical to my dream man. I was sitting in this crowded waiting room and people were talking around me, and the only one I could see is him.
“You know you are in love when something like that happens.”
   Melnyk, now 32, was there to pick up an inhaler, so his appointment was over quickly — but he kept making up excuses to return until he plopped down beside the bright young woman with big blue eyes and chatted her up.
   “Until then, I had given up,” Wolfe says. “I really didn’t think there was anyone out there for me.”
   On Wednesday, Megan Wolfe, and Josh Melnyk, who now have twin boys 2 1/2 years old and three other children between them, are getting married in Edmonton, in a ceremony hastily put together by family, friends and generous strangers.
   Diagnosed in February with stomach cancer, Megan, 28, recently learned she likely has a year to live.
“I don’t want the children to remember Megan in a hospital bed,” Melnyk’s cousin Shantell Scragg says, seated in her living room in Edmonton, boxes of donated children’s clothes and toys, at her feet. “I want them to remember her as a princess on her wedding day.
   “She and Josh are so, so much in love.”...Continue reading...

Rascal Flatts - Why - Every 40 Seconds Someone Asks ... Why?

YANAN :: You Are Not Alone Network

Home: Rascal Flatts                      Related: Suicide Pevention

Norah Jones, "Cold Cold Heart"

last.fm/music/Hank Williams. Cold, Cold Heart

last.fm/music. NorahmJones

The Daily 'Aww', Popular on YouTube

Viral animal videos on YouTube.

[image]

http://www.inquisitr.com/1415406/this-is-how-a-polite-mouse-enters-a-home-adorable-viral-video-of-smart-little-mouse-video/

The Satao Table - Africashot

By Africashot :

We are probably among the few lucky individuals to ever have experienced a herd of several hundred elephants in front our lens, why anyone would have an interest in purchasing anything made of their teeth and consequently contributing to their extinction goes beyond my understanding. Therefore we try to do everything we can in order to preserve their existence, in this case with a video to promote an auction that will benefit the Sheldrick trust. http://africashot.com/world-elephant-day/

Cows go mad for music; farmer's video goes viral

By OLIVIA HASELWOOD

Staff writer

Rural Peabody farmer Derek Klingenberg has done it again. A video of him playing “Royals” by Lorde on the trombone to his cows has gone viral, amassing more than 5 million views since it was uploaded to YouTube Friday.

The video, one of the simpler ones Klingenberg has created, features him sitting in an empty pasture with a trombone. After a few minutes of playing, cows begin running toward Klingenberg form a semicircle around him.

“I decided I wanted to focus on playing my trombone again,” he said. “Then I’m like “Hey. I’m gonna go play it in the Flint Hills for the cattle.”’

Klingenberg learned how to play the trombone in fifth grade at Peabody Elementary School and continued through college.

Unlike his other videos, Klingenberg said he was able to shoot this one in one take.

“I’ve been going out and playing when I cube. http://peabodykansas.com/direct/cows_go_mad_for_music_farmer_s_video_goes_viral+4547cows+436f777320676f206d616420666f72206d757369633b206661726d6572277320766964656f20676f657320766972616c

Saskatchewan soldier mistakenly buried with enemy makes final journey home - The StarPhoenix

The Canadian Press:

Law enforcement and members of the Patriot Guard Riders escort the casket of Army Pfc. Lawrence Samuel Gordon through downtown Casper, Wyo. on Aug. 10, 2014. Gordon, who worked on a ranch outside Casper before enlisting to fight in World War II, was killed in action in France and buried as an unknown soldier. His remains were recently identified and returned to his hometown of Eastend, Saskatchewan

Photograph by: Associated Press , Casper Star-Tribune, Alan Rogers

EASTEND - A Saskatchewan-born soldier was laid to rest Wednesday in his home province, 70 years to the day after he was killed in northern France during the Second World War.
Lawrence S. Gordon fought with U.S. forces, but his remains couldn't be accounted for after his death.
His nephew, Lawrence R. Gordon, discovered in 2000 that the remains were not interred where they should have been and later learned they had mistakenly been buried with German war dead.
DNA tests conducted earlier this year helped identify the fallen soldier.
They also allowed for repatriation of the remains to Canada and their burial in the community of Eastend, about 390 kilometres southwest of Regina...Continue reading...

Wolf - Native American ~ Sacred Spirit ~ Yeha-Noha

The Story of Two Wolves

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT1A53O5wIy-ZXPHBj-ySCA?feature=watch_metadata

Native Americans key to border security success

californiaindianeducation.org
By Chuck Brooks, contributor:
...Cooperation between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Native Americans has already played a significant role in our boarder security, especially in remote areas where drug smugglers and citizens try to enter the U.S. illegally. Today, more than 22,000 Native Americans serve in the Armed Forces and have the highest per capita serving in the military of any ethnic group protecting the homeland.
Additionally, the "Shadow Wolves" are Native American trackers who are part of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Since 1972, the Shadow Wolves have been tracking aliens and drug smugglers attempting to cross the border by looking for footprints, tire tracks, items snagged on branches, bent or broken twigs or even a single fiber of cloth. Their patrol area covers 2.8 million acres and officers estimate that recently they have seized an average of 60,000 pounds of illegal drugs a year.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the DHS need to remember the dedication, skill set and strategic geographical intelligence that Native Americans bring to the mix. In order to create a lasting relationship that utilizes their knowledge and aptitude, tribes must have complete access to intelligence and information pertinent to border security. This is something that the government needs to ensure because uninformed tribes will not be useful when protecting the homeland....Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/214494-native-americans-key-to-border-security-success#ixzz3AIQMVdUG

Dog elected mayor in Minnesota

myfoxny.com:
A small Minnesota village has a new mayor. Duke, the dog is Cormorant's newest mayor.
The 12 people who live there elected the 7-year-old dog as its leader.
Duke may not understand politics too well but he's been doing a great job guarding the town.
He even makes sure cars aren't going past the speed limit.
Duke will be sworn in on Sunday.
He won't be getting a salary, but a pet store has agreed to donate a year's supply of food to reward Duke for his service. http://www.myfoxny.com/story/26269397/dog-elected-mayor-in-minnesota

Rescued robin sees man through cancer treatment - The StarPhoenix

By Emma Graney, Leader-Post:

Joe Presler, of Assiniboia, with his eight-year-old Robin E.T. at the Allan Blair Cancer Clinic Monday in Regina. Photograph by: Troy Fleece, Leader-Post , Leader-Post
    If E.T. turns nine, Joe Presler is throwing the bird a party.Presler was hoping that could happen June 4, when the robin he has raised from a chick turned eight, but the Assiniboia man had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
    With its faded orange feathers and hobbled leg from an injury as a chick, the bird is not the most visually stunning of creatures. It is, after all, in its sunset years.
    But it clearly occupies a place in Presler's heart second only to his family and his beloved Roughriders - and he's pretty sure E.T. is one of the oldest robins to live in captivity (their average lifespan is two years in the wild).
    You only have to look at the bird's cage - white, with colourful baubles and two kinds of food - and the stack of photographs Presler is more than happy to flip through.
    "There he is in the yard," Presler says, stabbing his finger at a picture showing the robin hopping in green grass.
    Presler will "sit there and babysit him," he says, to guard E.T. - "my E.T." - from neighbourhood cats and other dangers.
    He has many such stories about E.T. - the time he found him hiding inside a pair of shoes, the bird's younger days when he'd sit on the roof, the fact E.T.
will chirp whenever Presler coughs, "like he's making sure I'm OK."
    A few years ago, Presler became somewhat of a local celebrity around Assiniboia after he started taking in and rehabilitating sick and injured birds.
    As it turned out, he was supposed to have a special licence for that, so all of the birds were removed. Well ... all but E.T. While he undergoes cancer treatment, Presler has left his wife Marianne with strict instructions to look after the bird.
    "Sometimes he will fall, you know, and he's old so he can't turn himself over again," Presler explains.
Earlier this week, Marianne brought the bird to Regina for the day; her husband sat outside the Allan Blair Cancer Centre, showing E.T. off to friends. One quipped that Presler should train the bird how to play chess, "then you'd always have a partner, Joe."
    "They can't believe it when I say he's eight," Presler says with a chuckle.
For her part, Marianne isn't taking any chances.
    With a laugh, she says, "I have to make sure he lives until (Presler) is done his treatment here, or I'll be packing my bags."
egraney@leaderpost.com Twitter/LP_EmmaGraney

© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix http://www.thestarphoenix.com/technology/Rescued+robin+sees+through+cancer+treatment/10113761/story.html

World Elephant Day with wildlife photographer Paul Goldstein - The Telegraph

Exodus guide and wildlife photographer Paul Goldstein:

...I have frequently marvelled at how a family behaves at a waterhole, or wept shamelessly as a mother spends a half hour saving her calf from the potentially fatal embrace of a deep, glutinous mud-bath or seen brave matriarchs go toe to toe with a pride of hungry lions. Picture: Paul Goldstein/Exodus/REX        Paul Goldstein photos here

University of Regina cancels study tours in Israel region

Shame on the University of Regina faculty.

Outraged by events in Gaza, students, faculty, and community members hold a rally to demand that the University of Regina sever relationships with Israeli institutions on Monday. The group organized under the banner of a Coalition for a Free Palestine.

Photograph by: Don Healy, Leader-Post , Leader-Post

 By Jeremy Simes, Leader-Post:
As the smoke clears in devastated Gaza, University of Regina faculty, students and community members reaffirmed their anger with the school's discussions with Israeli universities.
Monday, more than 60 people marched and shouted in the hallways at the U of R. "We refuse to support this, we refuse to normalize Israel's war crimes, and we refuse to ignore calls for justice and freedom in Palestine," said Valerie Zink, organizer of The Coalition for a Free Palestine, an advocacy group formed two weeks ago.
"We reject these partnerships now, and we will reject them every time until Palestine is free."...Continue reading...

 A Myth Called The Palestinian People

7 viral clips and photos starring the sea's most feared predator - Mirror Online

By Aaron Flanagan:

Brave: A teenager who was once scared of sharks poses for a selfie with one                       7 viral clips and photos here

Robin Williams dead at 63: Police believe actor committed suicide at his California home. Yahoo News

FILE - This 1987 file photo released by Touchstone Pictures shows actor Robin Williams in character  …

By HAVEN DALEY and HILLEL ITALIE 1 hour ago

Robin Williams, the Academy Award winner and comic supernova whose explosions of pop culture riffs and impressions dazzled audiences for decades and made him a gleamy-eyed laureate for the Information Age, died Monday in an apparent suicide. He was 63.

Williams was pronounced dead at his home in California on Monday, according to the sheriff's office in Marin County, north of San Francisco. The sheriff's office said a preliminary investigation shows the cause of death to be a suicide due to asphyxia...Continue reading...

James Brown - I feel good (Good Morning Vietnam Soundtrack)

Japanese View of the Palestinians

An interesting questionnaire for Palestinian Advocates By Yashiko Sagamori:

If you are so sure that " Palestine , the country, goes back through most of recorded history," I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine :

When was it founded and by whom?

What were its borders?

What was its capital?

What were its major cities?

What constituted the basis of its economy?

What was its form of government?

Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?

Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?

What was the language of the country of Palestine ?

What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine ?

What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date.

And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?

You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation. Please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?

And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over -- or thrown out of -- the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?

I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history won't work here...Continue reading...

Blind Pilot, "Always"

starkidarmy.tumblr.com/last.fm/music.Blind Pilot

Airstrikes Begin: U.S. Navy Planes Drop Bombs on ISIS Forces - NBC News.

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/george-h-w-bush/

NBC News: The United States dropped laser-guided bombs on ISIS artillery in Iraq on Friday, the Pentagon said — the beginning of airstrikes threatened a day earlier by President Barack Obama.

The bombs, 500 pounds each, were dropped by two Navy F-18 fighter jets near Erbil, the strategically important city that serves as the Kurdish capital, and where the United States has a consulate. ISIS was using the artillery to shell Kurdish forces defending Erbil, the Pentagon said.

The fighter jets took off from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, in the Persian Gulf. The mission marked a return to U.S. military engagement in Iraq, three years after Obama removed U.S. forces.

Obama, in a speech Thursday night from the White House, said that he was authorizing airstrikes to protect American interests in Iraq and drops of food and water for tens of thousands of refugees trapped by ISIS on a mountain in Iraq.

Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday: “As the president made clear, the United States military will continue to take direct action against ISIL when they threaten our personnel and facilities.” ISIS and ISIL are acronyms to describe the same Islamic militant group. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/video-appears-show-iraqi-refugees-gathering-aid-n176131

Snakes and Bees Are Driving Boko Haram Out of the Forest

[image]    By Olivia Becker
Boko Haram militants have fled from deep within the Nigerian forest in the northeast of the country, after incessant snake bites and bee stings became too much for them to bear, according to local media reports.
Two suspected Boko Haram fighters were captured by the Nigerian civilian JTF army after they fled from the Sambisa Forest, in Borno State. The gunmen reportedly said they were being attacked by mystical bees and snakes that had already killed many other insurgents.
“We decided to flee when almost all our comrades are leaving the Sambisa because of constant attacks by snakes and bees, which we were told was as a result of Chibok abducted schoolgirls,” one of the two militants told Nigerian newspaper, the Vanguard.
'We were told that the aggrieved people who had suffered from our deadly mission, including the ghosts of some of those we killed, are the ones turning into the snake and bees.'...Continue reading...

Two Wounded from Rocket Fire; IAF Retaliates

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza

Reuters

By Tova Dvorin:
Two people have been injured from shrapnel falling in the Sdot HaNegev region, it was announced Friday afternoon.
The IDF confirmed that one soldier was lightly injured and a civilian - Sapir College director Dr. Nachmi Paz - was moderately wounded. Dr. Paz is being treated for his injuries in Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva for shrapnel wounds to his leg.
Earlier, a senior government officials stated to Arutz Sheva that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon had authorized the IDF to retaliate with force to a barrage of over 18 rockets on Israeli civilians Friday morning.
The report surfaces less than one hour after Palestinian media sources reported possible airstrikes in northern Gaza...Continue reading...

Another Storm - Humphrey and the Dumptrucks

Kate @ http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/ posted tune yesterday. There is a storm coming according to the weather man. I'm happy it's not snow. A snow storm in the Middle East may be good news. Snow shovels instead of guns.
[image]
last.fm/music/Humphrey+and+the+Dumptrucks

9 Superfoods That Help Ease Arthritis - Reader's Digest Canada

9-superfoods-help-ease-arthritis

Israeli military: Rockets fired from Gaza violate cease-fire

[photo.cnn.com] By Michael Pearson, John Vause and Jethro Mullen, CNN
Gaza City (CNN) -- Rockets from Gaza hit Israel early Friday morning, breaching a cease-fire that had held for more than two days, the Israeli military said.

"Moments ago, 2 rockets fired from Gaza hit southern Israel. Terrorists have violated the cease-fire," the Israel Defense Forces wrote on Twitter.

It wasn't immediately clear how Israel would respond. The IDF pulled its ground forces out of Gaza on Tuesday but said they were maintaining "defensive positions" around the territory.

"I suspect the Israelis are going to wait to see if it was just these two rockets," said CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "These could be isolated rockets."

But if more rockets are fired from Gaza, "the Israelis will strike back," Blitzer said...Continue reading...

15 Unusual Animal Friendships That Will Melt Your Heart - Earth Porm

Earth Porm: Bubbles The Elephant & Bella The Dog                         15 unusual animal friendships

Birds facing 'death by 1,000 cuts'

Mr. Steven Price, crows and magpies are taking over Saskatoon. Have you considered how many songbirds these scavengers torture. 'Death by 1,000 cuts', someone needs to sober up.

[photo]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       By Margaret Munro, Postmedia News:

Canada's birds got a new champion Monday when Steven Price was named president of Bird Studies Canada. The non-profit group dedicated to conserving the country's birds has its work cut out. Recent studies say cats kill at least 100 million birds a year in Canada and another 25 million birds a year die after colliding with windows. Perhaps more alarming is the unexplained decline in birds that devour insects - Canadian populations of swifts and swallows are down more than 75 per cent since the 1970s.
Postmedia spoke with Price, formerly of World Wildlife Fund, in Toronto. Q. Do you have a cat? A I do, in fact I have three cats. And I am pleased to say I keep them indoors. The conservation challenge is with both domestic cats and feral cats. They are taking only one or two birds out of everybody's backyard, but when you add that up all across the nation that's an awful lot of birds being directly killed by cats. Keep your cats inside. They'll be happier, the birds will be safer. It works all around. Q. What do you consider the biggest threat to birds?
A The fact habitat is being lost, degraded, divided up is probably the current greatest threat. It doesn't mean direct sources of mortality - like cats - aren't really important things we can control, but habitat loss is the biggest concern. And what's building is climate change. We are still uncertain how that is affecting birds...Continue reading...