The AV-8B Harrier jets took off from the aircraft carrier USS Bonhomme Richard and each released an inert bomb and an unarmed explosive bomb off the coast of Queensland, the US 7th Fleet said in a statement on Saturday.
The four bombs, weighing a total 1.8 metric tons (4,000 pounds), were dropped in more than 50 meters (164 feet) of water away from coral that was supposed to have minimized possible damage to the reef, the statement said. Each Harrier jet dropped two 227-kilo bombs: one BDU 45 and one High Explosive GBU 12. None of the bombs exploded as the BDU 45s are inert and the GBU 12s were unarmed when released.
The training mission went gone wrong as the jets from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit were originally told to drop the bombs at the Townshend Island bombing range. That plan was aborted after the controllers said the area was not clear of hazards.
The pilots then went ahead with an emergency jettison as they were not allowed to land with bombs on board and both were low on fuel, the navy said.
The US Navy and Australian authorities are now investigating the incident.
The US Navy is planning to recover the bombs that are lying about 100 kilometres offshore and about 16 nautical miles south of Bell Cay in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The US say that the chance of the bombs exploding was extremely remote.
‘‘Due to low fuel and the inability to land with the amount of ordnance they were carrying, the on-scene commander determined it was necessary to designate an emergency jettison area for the ordnance,” US Navy spokesman Commander William Marks said.
He said each bomb was jettisoned in a ”safe, unarmed state and did not explode”.
The Australian Defense Force said the bombs posed ”minimal risk or threat to the public, the marine environment or civilian shipping passing the reef area”, according to AP.
”The incident is being investigated by the US and findings will be provided to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority so that the way ahead can be mutually agreed,” a spokesman said.
Senator for Australian Greens Party Larissa Waters has called the dumping of bombs on the World’s Heritage-listed site “outrageous”.
“We’re letting the US military drop bombs on the World Heritage Great Barrier Reef. I mean, have we gone completely mad? Is this how we look after our World Heritage areas now? Letting a foreign power drop bombs on it?”
The failed training mission happened on the second day of the biennial joint training exercise Talisman Saber that brings together 28,000 US and Australian military personnel over three weeks.
Environmentalists and anti-war activists Graeme Dunstan, who is against the joint exercise, said that the incident proves the US cannot be trusted to protect the environment.
“How can they protect the environment and bomb the reef at the same time? Get real,” Dunstan told AP.
The Great Barrier Reef is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the world’s largest coral reef system, made up of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands, stretching for more than 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) along the Australian northeast coast.
Sunday, July 21, 2013, 4:52 PM – The New Zealand capital Wellington was rattled by a strong magnitude 6.5 earthquake on Sunday that broke water mains, smashed windows and downed power lines.
The New Zealand capital Wellington was rattled by a strong magnitude 6.5 earthquake on Sunday that broke water mains, smashed windows and downed power lines.
Wellington Police Inspector Marty Parker said there had been minor structural damage that had left parts of the city without power. There have been no reports of injury and no tsunami.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck under the Cook Strait 57 km southwest of Wellington. It was 10 km underground.
A sick building inhibits circulation and likely has too many right angles, we become uncovered by positive ions, hence our need to “Recover” and why many buildings can nowadays be seen to have running water fountains.
There’s a lot of hype about how circumcision is better for a man’s health. But is it really?Here is Part 2 of our series on myths about circumcision.
NOTE: Primary author is Lillian Dell’Aquila Cannon (see her blog)
Myth:You have to get the baby circumcised because it is really hard to keep a baby’s penis clean.
Reality check: In babies, the foreskin is completely fused to the head of the penis. You cannot and should not retract it to clean it, as this would cause the child pain, and is akin to trying to clean the inside of a baby girl’s vagina. The infant foreskin is perfectly designed to protect the head of the penis and keep feces out. All you have to do is wipe the outside of the penis like a finger. It is harder to keep circumcised baby’s penis clean because you have to carefully clean around the wound, make sure no feces got into the wound, and apply ointment.
Myth:Little boys won’t clean under their foreskins and will get infections.
Reality check: The foreskin separates and retracts on its own sometime between age 3 and puberty. Before it retracts on its own, you wipe the outside off like a finger. After it retracts on its own, it will get clean during the boy’s shower or bath. Once a boy discovers this cool, new feature of his penis, he will often retract the foreskin himself during his bath or shower, and you can encourage him to rinse it off. But he should not use soap as this upsets the natural balance and is very irritating. There is nothing special that the parents need to do. Most little boys have absolutely no problem playing with their penises in the shower or anywhere else! It was harder to teach my boys to wash their hair than it was to care for their penises. (Camille 2002)
Myth: Uncircumcised penises get smelly smegma.
Reality check: Actually, smegma is produced by the genitals of both women and men during the reproductive years. Smegma is made of sebum and skin cells and lubricates the foreskin and glans in men, and the clitoral hood and inner labia in women. It is rinsed off during normal bathing and does not cause cancer or any other health problems.
Myth: “My uncle wasn’t circumcised and he kept getting infections and had to be circumcised as an adult.”
Reality check: Medical advice may have promoted infection in uncircumcised males. A shocking number of doctors are uneducated about the normal development of the foreskin, and they (incorrectly) tell parents that they have to retract the baby’s foreskin and wash inside it at every diaper change. Doing this tears the foreskin and the tissue (called synechia) that connects it to the head of the penis, leading to scarring and infection.
Misinformation was especially prevalent during the 1950s and 60s, when most babies were circumcised and we didn’t know as much about the care of the intact penis, which is why the story is always about someone’s uncle. Doing this to a baby boy would be like trying to clean the inside of a baby girl’s vagina with Q-tips at every diaper change. Rather than preventing problems, such practices would cause problems by introducing harmful bacteria. Remember that humans evolved from animals, so no body part that required special care would survive evolutionary pressures. The human genitals are wonderfully self-cleaning and require no special care.
Sunday, July 21, 2013, 3:49 PM – A fierce storm hit east of New Brunswick’s capital Saturday night, leaving behind a wake of uprooted trees, broken phone lines and damaged buildings.
The powerful storm has some residents convinced a tornado swept through, but Environment Canada has not confirmed a tornado.
The area most affected by the weather was in the Grand Lake area, about 40 kilometres from Fredericton.
Self introductions
Additions to agenda
Business meeting – Approval of agenda as emailed with modifications
Financial report
Meetings with Councillors
» meetings with 6 Councillors done, 2 more pending
» 8 down, 15 to go: who’s next?
Communications report
Other Actions progress reports
» Bette – Health Canada
Legal actions pending/ongoing
Open discussion
Yesterday, shortly after the questionable HAARP-shut-down reports made their way around the internet and were refuted by Dutchsinse and others, there were over 30 tornado warnings in Ontario. Quebec also suffered extreme weather (1 person died) and so did Saskatchewan. Golf-ball sized hail was seen in Regina.
At one point, more than 2.5 million people across southern Ontario were under a tornado warning — major population centres stretching from Niagara Falls through to Mississauga and Peel Region, along with areas near Orangeville, Barrie and parts of Ottawa.
Those were eventually dropped, with no tornadoes confirmed, but Environment Canada says at least three funnel clouds were reported.
Here’s a video of the rain in Hamilton:
This news anchor at The Weather Network was mentioning that a caller had said something like “I’ve never seen clouds that look like that in my life” and she attempted to reassure us that these are indeed normal “mammatus clouds” (although it seems that this 5minute video was taken down and replaced by a 2minute video where they do not discuss the mammatus clouds).
— The Weather Network (@weathernetwork) July 20, 2013
Are they normal?
I did a search for these clouds and found some that looked even more dramatic (1, 2). Even if these clouds are associated with storms, are we not indeed seeing a dramatic increase in storms and odd weather all over the world?
Right now at 8:18am, the day after the tornado warning in Ottawa I’m seeing a chemtrail right above me and the sky getting whiter and whiter (…in fact, now as I finish and proofread this article, the sky has become completely white).
In this next shot we can see what appears to be chemtrails sprayed above the clouds during the storm in Montreal. If these are not chemtrails then they are definitely really straight long clouds seemingly stretching all the way across the sky.
(UPDATE #1: Or they are a window’s reflection of light fixtures on the roof of a building this photo was taken from if this photo was taken inside and behind a window. Regardless, this type of geo-engineering is known to happen and it is well documented that scientists have tried to mitigate the effects of hurricanes and tornadoes via aerosols before. I also see the spraying here occur obfuscated behind clouds often, almost like they’re trying to hide the operations. I tweeted this tweeter and am awaiting a response about the nature of the photo…)
(UPDATE #2: The author of the tweet replied and confirmed that this photo was indeed shot from inside and those are indeed lights reflecting off his window. I would like to apologize to the readers and I will make a greater effort to inspect photos more closely in the future. It seems this window-reflection thing happens often. That being said, the core message of this article remains intact.)
Whether or not this crazy weather is directly geo-engineered to inflict and distract us with fear, etc., it is not far fetched to assume that geo-engineering at least somehow enters into the equation since 130 different countries around the world are engaged in weather modification with little or no oversight. That is reckless. Even if they will claim they are spraying to mitigate the effects of storms, it is still reckless and a decision like that still deserves to have as much public input as possible. There needs to be more discussion about this in general. Laws banning the use of weather as a weapon have been in place for decades yet most people are not even aware that humans can modify the weather.
To engage in these operations without our permission is disgusting and one of the highest crimes I can think of, regardless of if the intent is well-meaning. It is negligent for a weather reporting station like The Weather Network to overlook this highly significant detail when reporting on extreme weather events, despite how overworked their staff may be.
Many think of the body as a living system and juxtapose the Earth’s body with ours, showing the rivers to be like bloodstreams and the forests to be like lungs. Seen in this light, tampering with weather in even one region is gambling or would interfere with the Earth’s ability to perform homeostasis. When we take a drug we want to know as much about that drug as possible so that we don’t screw ourselves up. The Earth is currently subject to 130 or possibly hundreds of geo-engineering operations and how many of these are coordinated? How many of these operations are done by people who know the ramifications of what they are doing? How long will our habitat sustain such shortsighted behavior?
Maintaining balance is important and it is for this reason that people like Dane Wigington have published an in-depth powerpoint presentation titled “The Most Important Topic Of Our Time” which outlines the many grave ramifications of geoenegineering.
Psychology Today
PN 