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Archive for June 2nd, 2015

Is ‘San Andreas’ A Cryptic Warning About What Is Going To Happen In America’s Future?

Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on June 2, 2015

እኔም፡ እነደ ሌሎች ታዛቢዎች፡ ምናልባት መጪው መስከረም ላይ በካሊፎርኒያ እና በጃፓን ኃይለኛ ጥፋት ይመጣል የሚል ተመሳሳይ ግምት አለኝ። ለካሊፎርኒያ አላሚ ወገኖች የማስተላልፈው መልዕክት፡

መስከረም ሲጠባ ወደ አዲስ አበባ!”

Hollywood has a long history of inserting political messages, social commentaries, subliminal effects and even cryptic warnings about the future into big budget films. So is someone attempting to use “San Andreas” to tell us something? For many years, doomsayers have been warning that the “Big One” is going to come along and rip the coastline of California to shreds. Up until this moment, it hasn’t happened, but without a doubt we have moved into a time of increased geological activity all over the globe. As you read this article, 42 volcanoes around the planet are currently erupting. That means that the number of volcanoes erupting right now is greater than the 20th century’s average for an entire year. In addition, we have been witnessing a great deal of very unusual earthquake activity lately. Just in the United States, we have seen unusual earthquakes hit Michigan, Texas, Mississippi, California, Idaho And Washington within the last month or so. Could it be possible that our planet has entered a period of heightened seismic activity? And could it also be possible that someone behind “San Andreas” is aware of this and is trying to warn us about what is coming in our future?

Of course just about everyone in the scientific community acknowledges that the “Big One” is eventually coming to California. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey recently came out and said that the probability of a megaquake along the west coast is greater than they had previously been projecting.

A recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey shows the inevitability of just such a quake, which is predicted to hit within the next couple of decades.

The new likelihoods are due to the inclusion of possible multi-fault ruptures, where earthquakes are no longer confined to separate, individual faults, but can occasionally rupture multiple faults simultaneously,” lead author of the study and USGS scientist, Ned Field says. “This is a significant advancement in terms of representing a broader range of earthquakes throughout California’s complex fault system.”

And it is undeniable that California has been hit by an unusual number of earthquakes recently. Could this be a sign that our portion of the “Ring of Fire” is heating up? Just over the past few days, there have been significant earthquakes at dormant volcanoes all over the state of California and in Nevada. I don’t know about you, but to me all of this shaking is reason for concern.

If the state of California does get hit by a major earthquake in the near future, the damage that would be caused would be immense. Among those trying to raise awareness about this is Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti…

I hope this movie can be a gut check and a visceral reminder to people of the danger from quakes,” Garcetti said before the screening. “But then that people will also do a head check about how they can really be prepared…to react by looking at some good research and using their heads about the dangers we really face.”

Garcetti has recently introduced a series of proposals called “Resilience by Design” to try to make sure the city’s buildings, telecommunications system and water supply are able to withstand a large earthquake. Emphasizing the challenges Los Angeles faces, the mayor noted how mobile phone service largely went down after the 1994 Northridge quake. And he said the water supply could also be challenged in the next big shaker, considering that the San Andreas Fault (depicted as causing the giant temblor in the Warner Bros.’ film) crosses the California Aqueduct in 20 places.

But not everyone appreciates this new film. One of the features of “San Andreas” that has been heavily criticized as being “unrealistic” is the giant tsunami that engulfs San Francisco. According to the Daily Mail, it is not possible for the San Andreas fault to even cause a tsunami…

And, unlike the film, the San Andreas can’t spawn tsunamis.

Most tsunamis are triggered by underwater quakes, but they can also be caused by landslides, volcanoes and even meteor impacts.

So why is a giant tsunami in the film?

Is it just there to make a summer disaster movie a little bit more spectacular, or is there something more to it?

In the United States today, 39 percent of all Americans live in counties that directly border a shoreline, and there have been many that have been warning about the immense devastation that will happen when a giant tsunami hits either the east coast or the west coast.

Could it be possible that the tsunami was in the film because someone believes that a giant tsunami is in our future?

Very few filmmakers make movies purely for entertainment. Most of them want to “say something” through their films.

So what is “San Andreas” saying to us?

Whatever your opinion on that is, what is undeniable is that the Ring of Fire has been extremely active lately. In fact, just this week Costa Rica was hit by a cluster of 23 earthquakes near a volcano not too far from the capital…

Continue reading…

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Dear Media, When ‘Peacekeepers’ Rape African Kids, Don’t Call It a “Sex-For-Food Scandal

Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on June 2, 2015

FrenchSoldiersAfrica

French peacekeepers patrol in Bangui, in the Central African Republic. Members of that peacekeeping force are accused of raping young children who were desperate for food.

I have two modest proposals: 1) peacekeeping troops should not rape children, and 2) if peacekeepers do rape children, the media should go ahead and call that a “child rape scandal,” not a “sex-for-food scandal.”

Seems reasonable enough, right? After all, there are no “peacekeeper” or “food” exceptions to the moral and legal rule that children cannot consent. Adults having sex with children is rape. That is terrible enough under any circumstances, but it is particularly appalling to think of peacekeepers taking advantage of the desperate people they are supposed to be protecting.

And yet, as my friend Kate Cronin-Furman points out in a post on Wronging Rights, that turns out to be a tall order. An internal UN report that recently leaked has accused French soldiers in the Central African Republic of forcing “hungry, homeless young boys to perform sex acts on them in return for small amounts of food, water and sometimes some cash.”

For some reason, much of the international media has apparently decided to report that story as a “sex-for-food” scandal.

The idea seems to be that when peacekeepers rape children who are desperate for food, for some reason it does not actually count as rape, but rather is an exchange of food for sex. Worse, the wording suggests that by dispensing food to their victims, the rapists were merely causing a “scandal,” not committing a crime.

And this isn’t the first time this has happened. Cronin-Furman rounds up other examples of peacekeepers sexually abusing children that were also covered as “sex-for-food” stories in 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2011.

This needs to stop. When child rape occurs, the media should call it what it is. Describing such incidents as “sex for food” minimizes the gravity of the crimes, by implying that the soldiers were compensating locals for transactional sex, rather than acknowledging what they were truly doing to vulnerable children. It’s not “sex.” It’s rape.

Source

-– Sex scandals, food theft and weapons smuggling – what the UN wishes you didn’t know

-– ወደ ሕፃናቶቻችን መጡ

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Posted in Ethiopia, Infos, Life, Media & Journalism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
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