Kim Jong-un in fresh war threats after US NUCLEAR BOMBERS ‘fly over Korean peninsula’

NORTH Korea has once again blamed Washington for trying to trigger World War Three after it claimed US bombers flew over the Korean peninsula in an exercise on dropping nuclear bombs.

Pyongyang accused the US of deliberate provocation after it allegedly sent two B-1B bombers – capable of carrying a nuclear payload – over the hermit state on Tuesday morning.

The unconfirmed flight – which comes as the US stands on the brink of war with tyrant Kim Jong-un – occurred just two days after Washington wrapped up training drills with the South Korean army.

KCNA, Pyongyang’s official news agency, said: “The B-1Bs from Guam sneakily flew over sky above the East Sea and joined cooperative operations with strategic striking means, including the aircraft carrier and nuclear-powered submarine.”


Credit to express.co.uk

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/798977/ww3-kim-jong-un-war-threats-us-bombers-fly-over-north-korea

Pyongyang’s Missile ‘Failure’ on Saturday Was Deliberate

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) most recent missile test, which ended in mid-flight explosion, was intentional and not part of a failed launch, South Korean officials said.

"We don't believe the mid-air explosion was an accident," a government official told South Korean TV outlets. Instead, they believe that the ploy was intended as a test "to develop a nuclear weapon different from existing ones," the official said, according to the Korea Times.

The "unidentified missile" was launched from South Pyeongan Province early Saturday morning. The missile never left North Korean territory, but it did reach a height of 71 kilometers before the projectile blew up, according to US and South Korean military officials.

"It is likely only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the US mainland," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday at a UN Security Council meeting.

The most recent test saw the missile explode about two or three minutes after launch. According to South Korean military experts, the missile reached an altitude three times higher than "stabilizing height, which means the chances that any internal mechanical failure caused the explosion were very low," the Korea Times reported.

Credit to Sputnik

Compelling Evidence of the Incursions of Giants, Their Extraordinary Technology, and IMMINENT RETURN Part # 4

Drawing from the Codex Vaticanus (one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible) showing 16 natives dragging a dead giant toward a fire.

By Thomas R. Horn

Picking up where we left off in PART 3 of this series, John Wesley Powell’s arguments against public documentation of the giant bones unearthed throughout the United States in the 1800s-1900s continue to show either ignorance or clandestine agenda. Just to touch on a few examples regarding his report’s conclusions, in the order he addressed them:

Picture-writings: Powell openly acknowledges that some of the pictographs drawn on surfaces in and around these sites are “less conventional.” Drawings of a small human next to a giant with six fingers and six toes or a mouth with two rows of teeth would certainly fit into this category. However, Powell’s take on these drawings are, put simply, that they are not proof of anything more than imaginative etchings by a people who were only just learning to document their lives through the process of primitive creative writing. He attests that, the conventional and the less-conventional writings appear side by side at times, that “perfect records were never made.”[i] In other words, there is no knowing what is imaginative, early, fictional “creative writing” versus what is historical documentation of the lives they lived and the races they interacted with. “Hence,” Powell says, “it will be seen that it is illegitimate to use any pictographic matter of a date anterior to the discovery of the continent by Columbus for historic purposes.”[ii]

At the onset, this is a valid argument. We can’t know whether the drawings in every case were meant to alert the world of a giant race that the Indians witnessed or mingled with. On the other hand, the question is easily flipped back on Powell. If we don’t know which were purely imagination and which were documentation of reality, then Powell hasn’t even a scrap of evidence that the drawings of giants were always only imagination, especially with the discoveries of the giant bones in the nearby Indian mounds. Powell was correct in saying that a perfect record was not made, but he was ill-informed if he assumed that anything outside his own limited worldview was the subject of fairy-tale fancy. Much to the contrary, every ancient culture we have ever studied at length havs left behind its stories in wall and rock drawings, and it is from this artistic documentation form that we have developed much modern understanding of the old world, its inhabitants, and the people groups they mingled with.

That Powell would say these images are “illegitimate…for historic purposes” challenges the historical and archaeological practices set in place by experts of his own field for hundreds of years.

Origin of man: For a moment, and only a moment, we see Powell’s attempt to broaden his perspective and release his mind from the bonds of circular logic when he says: “Thus it is that while the doctrines [of evolution] lead the way to new fields of discovery, the new discoveries lead again to new doctrines.”[iii] So, yay, right? He’s acknowledging that new discoveries could potentially wipe out everything we know of the evolutionary doctrine, or at least result in a revolutionary revision of it—which would be a justice to both religion and science if mankind genuinely wishes to be informed of truth.

Unfortunately, though, this moment of clarity results in a mere tease as we observe him using the very doctrines of evolution as a means to escape further study of it. Rather than to unearth and analyze the evidence that challenges evolution so our scientific database can expand, Powell states: “The truth or error of such hypothetic genealogy [referring to giant myths] in no way affects the validity of the doctrines of evolution in the minds of scientific men, but on the other hand the value of the tentative theory is brought to final judgment under the laws of evolution.”[iv] In other words, the theories presented by believers of the ancient giant races ultimately have to come under the final judgment of “the laws of evolution.”

Evolution is science, and therefore it trumps theory. Sure. But if those theories are not theories, but fact—which we cannot know as long as personalities like Powell continue to lock the evidence away under throngs of bureaucratic red tape—then in due course those theories would become the new law and trump, or revise, evolution as we know it.

I continue to grow more and more amazed at how much support Powell’s report garnered from what is supposedly the most prominent of scientific communities in the world. Unless, however, those scientists are also aware that there is something in those mounds they don’t want the rest of us to know about. But I digress…

He goes on describe how philosophy works, and how philosophy was developed from its faulty early stages to our current enlightenment. It is within these bits of text that a reader is inclined to ask why Powell has deviated from a discussion of the origin of man and into a diatribe regarding the history and development of the much-appreciated gift of philosophy. But then it is made clear when he reveals his motive with the following: “The method of reasoning in scientific philosophy is purely objective; the method of reasoning in mythology and metaphysics is subjective.”[v] Fancy that…Powell—one of the most closed-minded explorers of all times who consistently ignores objective evidence of a giant race found in the very land he’s exploring—is now celebrating scientific objectivity. Oh, but that he would really be as impartial as he claims in this moment! Nevertheless, it is clear that he is stating that anyone who entertains any plausible history story that scientific minds have deemed “myth” are subjective to foolish speculation. But if the proof the “myth-believers” seek is hidden in the mounds that Powell and others protect, then it becomes the “they” (Powell, scientists, Smithsonian, etc.) that continue to corral the public into the pit of ignorant subjectivity and foolish speculation—for there cannot be legitimate, scientific objectivity until the science is revealed in the first place.

Do you see how this just goes around and around and around? Powell’s chosen words continue to imply—though carefully and politely—that anyone who would be audacious enough to demand answers from the scientific community about why there are mammoth people buried in Indian mounds across the United States belong to the unenlightened minority. The un-philosophical. The time-wasters. The resource sponges. The disrespecters of sacred Indian grounds. The meddlers. Or, in current popular parlance, “the Fake News” reporters. In the end, no matter how he veils his arguments with diplomacy, the distinguished Grand Canyon explorer is giving a nod of approval to anyone who is willing to become a member of his mature and rational club, while casting the proverbial dunce hat on anyone who isn’t “intelligent” enough to dismiss the giant people as an irrelevant past quirk of regular-human biology. It’s condescension at its finest, and the public has to make the choice to challenge the eminent Major Powell while the scientific community represents them as whack jobs, or be brainwashed into his reasoning. Is this not effectively the opposite of the beloved objectivity Powell treasures?

The skill Powell is using in his report is older than dirt. Take a conflict on any subject and place an articulate spokesperson at the head of one side who confidently weaves intimidating and lofty words around his or her claims to make listeners feel stupid for not blindly agreeing, and it almost doesn’t matter what the claims are, so long as the public is barraged with fancy speech that leaves them confused about why they questioned anything to begin with. And remember that this report was written almost 150 years ago, when a far greater number of Americans were illiterate and even the most educated people could find this wordy piece above their level of comprehension.

The issue is not an argument about philosophy in any way. It’s really quite rudimentary. The public sees large human bones that represent a question science cannot and will not answer, so they speculate to ponder their own answer. Powell’s tactic to elevate the “objective” philosophers over the “subjective” philosophers is to redirect the case into a confusing textual sermon on his own secular and evolutionary worldview. Wouldn’t it JUST. BE. EASIER. at this point to bring out the bones and talk frankly about what evolution actually does say on the matter? If evolution is such a pet of Powell’s, why won’t he let evolution address it?

Mythology: The trail of circular logic is becoming exhausting at this point, so I will not spend a great deal of time on Powell’s assessment of mythology. However, because so much of his doctrine is built around grouping the giant theories into pure “myth,” the following statement by Powell begs to be shared briefly:

Mythology is primitive philosophy. A mythology—that is, the body of myths current among any people and believed by them—comprises a system of explanations of all the phenomena of the universe discerned by them; but such explanations are always mixed with much extraneous matter, chiefly incidents in the history of the personages who were the heroes of mythologic deeds.…

It is vain to search for truth in mythologic philosophy, but it is important to search for veritable philosphies…. No labor can be more fruitless than the search in mythology for true philosophy; and the efforts to build up from the terminology and narratives of mythologies an occult symbolism and system of allegory is but to create a new and fictitious body of mythology.[vi]

So ancient mythology, when entertained, begets a modernized version of the same primitive mythology. Agreed. To suggest this never-ending and complicated trail of discussion is vain and fruitless would be true if it weren’t for the fact that we’re still left with giant bones that nobody will answer for. Again, “giants upon the earth” is no longer purely “mythology” if we have giant bones—and we do. Conspiracy is not a “theory” when there’s proof. Some of the legend or lore surrounding giants might be mythological, but we won’t know what is or isn’t until the bones are addressed, and they can’t be as long as the Powells of the world stand in the way as keeper of the keys to the mounds, canceling out the resources to dive into true science on the grounds that it would only be to prove or disprove irrational conspiracy theorist’s mythological fables.

It’s not about mythology, and it’s not about philosophy. It’s about bones in the ground.

Powell refuses to appreciate this simplicity as long as his complicated lectures about largely unrelated subjects continue to herd people away from further investigation.

Policy of Exclusion

Through his posh and indirectly belittling double-speak report, Powell gained the support of Charles Doolittle Walcott, the chief executive officer of the Smithsonian, shortly after Powell’s death. Walcott hailed the report with such irrefutable and mesmeric magnitude that the Smithsonian executives deemed the document the “Powell Doctrine.” Powell’s smarter-than-you linguistic skills naturally fed the pride of many of his followers, which by extension lent itself to further brainwashing from the top rung of the Smithsonian and down. From 1907 to this day, the now-outdated Powell Doctrine has been the final word on the issue of giant bones, as well as ancient Indian culture. Powell was, himself, viewed as a great authority, but he was only one man. When Walcott rallied the rest of the Smithsonian superiors to embrace the Powell report, the rest of the world embraced it as well, because “they” said it was valid. As a result, then, the museum established the Powell Doctrine as a literal, official policy to exclude any and all alternative evaluations of the mounds, bones, pictographs, and human-origin hypotheses, regardless of evidence. Any perspective, no matter how scientifically sound, would be snuffed out under the suppressive abort button of the doctrine. After 1907, it would not matter what was found in the ground. The policy was solid. No opinion other than Powell’s would ever matter to the Smithsonian again.

And you can guess what naturally happens next: Under this administration, years of the institution’s time and money are placed into book collections, exhibits, staff training, and uncountable materials that support this doctrine as truth. The fortress built cannot easily be torn down, and its influence spreads.

Tragically, because of the weight the Smithsonian’s opinion holds to educational institutions across the United States, the Powell Doctrine policy of exclusion was also incorporated into the dogma of most major American universities, adding a behemoth layer of clout to Powell’s appraisal. Students of reputable colleges all across the country haven’t the slightest idea why they are being taught what they are, or that it all came from one man 150 years ago.

Much documentation has been collected that follows an unscrupulous trajectory from various archaeological digs to the Smithsonian as research teams are submitting their finds to the museum for study and/or display, and the trail goes dark at that point. The bones the Smithsonian is receiving are not making their way to the museum floor or laboratories, and nary is a word uttered that they were ever submitted after they were unearthed. Those who contribute the bones to the museum do so in naïve trust that the Smithsonian will appeal to the government for grants and additional research funds, but because of the policy, the buck stops there, and that in turn affects the budget allowance for universities to follow up with any kind of field study for tomorrow’s generation of scientists.

Despite this, well before Powell’s document, the world was aware of bizarre discoveries. Not limited to bones, this also included the strange astronomical and astrological building patterns surrounding ancient structures and monolithic edifices such as those in Baalbek, as well as enormous tools, strange drawings, and prevailing legend of primitive cultures all around the globe. The Smithsonian was not always involved in every discovery reported, which is why the public does not have to search far and wide into the archives of obscurity or conspiracy to be showered with visual evidence that something walked the earth in the old days we can’t explain away. And not every personality within the institution-of-the-final-word appreciated the deliberate blind eye.

In 1882, the same year as Powell’s published report, Powell appointed Cyrus Thomas to supervise the Division of Mound Exploration. Thomas was originally more than open-minded about the legends regarding an ancient and lost race of giants, as he had paid close attention to the reports concerning the discovery of gigantic human skeletons unearthed in and around enormous structures involving complex mathematics and astronomical alignment. But because he did not go around advertising his theories, there is much evidence that Powell would not have known Thomas was progressive in this “mythological” area when he chose him to oversee the mysterious mounds. Thomas would—at least initially—lead teams to document the discovery of impressive skeletons (though he steered clear of speaking of them himself). We’ll examine some of these documents in the next entry.

Credit to Tom Horn

You Won't Believe ANYTHING on Cable News After Seeing THIS!

First working “mini brains”

Scientists confirm that they have grown the first working 'mini-brains' in a dish which could provide future treatments for autism and epilepsy.The lab-grown organs have their own brain cells, formed into circuits similar to those of a two-month-old baby in the womb. Repots indicate that is the first time a human forebrain has been seen in action outside the body.

Despite ones position on these matters, the creation is scientifically thrilling nonetheless. The Daily Mail reports that scientists hope to use the mini-brains to watch in real time the triggers for epilepsy, when brain cells become hyperactive, and autism, where they are thought to form bad connections. Scientists have grown the first working 'mini-brains' in a dish which could provide future treatments for autism and epilepsy.

The brains in a dish are the latest advance for stem cell science. Human skin cells are transformed into pluripotent stem cells, capable of becoming any part of the body, using four genes in a petri dish. The 'culture', or nutrient-rich broth they are grown in, is then altered to determine which type of cell they will become – in this case brain cells, or neurons.

The result is a 60-day old forebrain like a baby's in the womb, although more scrambled in its connections. It includes the cerebral cortex, the most highly evolved 'thinking' and decision-making part of the brain.

It could pave the way for drugs to treat these conditions, as well as schizophrenia. It is also the next step towards a real-life Frankenstein, suggesting scientists may one day be able to grow an entire human body in the laboratory. Researchers at Stanford University grew two forebrain circuits, measuring only a sixteenth of an inch across, using only human skin cells.Then scientists at Harvard University went a step further, growing a mini-organ for more than nine months to create a human retina – the light-sensitive lining at the back of the eye.

Dr Selina Wray, Alzheimer's Research UK senior research fellow at UCL Institute of Neurology, said: 'This technology will provide researchers with insights into brain development and disease which have not previously been possible.'

Dr Sergiu Pasca, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, said:


'We've never been able to recapitulate these human-brain developmental events in a dish before.

Dr Francois Guillemot, group leader and head of division of molecular neurobiology at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said the 'self-organising' ability of stem cells to become brain cells was 'remarkable'.


He said: 'I would not call these studies game-changers because previous organoid papers had already hinted at this. However they represent large steps forward. This is after all the first time that human neural circuits can be observed in action.'

Back in 2013 a similar scientific breakthrough made headlines. That research however, seems to have been a long way from the working "mini brains" scientists at Harvard University have just revealed.

Credit to:

The Daily Mail / TRUNEWS summary.

See more at: http://www.trunews.com/article/first-working-mini-brains-in-a-dish#sthash.wb9jMBNu.dpuf

NATO pushing for new Balkan war

Panic Bank Run Leaves Canada's Largest Alternative Mortgage Lender On Edge Of Collapse

After two years of recurring warnings (both on this website and elsewhere) that Canada's largest alternative (i.e., non-bank) mortgage lender is fundamentally insolvent, kept alive only courtesy of the Canadian housing bubble which until last week had managed to lift all boats, Home Capital Group suffered a spectacular spectacular implosion last week when its stock price crashed by the most on record after HCG revealed that it had taken out an emergency $2 billion line of credit from an unnamed counterparty with an effective rate as high as 22.5%, indicative of a business model on the verge of collapse .

Or, as we put it, Canada just experienced its very own "New Century" moment. 

One day later, it emerged that the lender behind HCG's (pre-petition) rescue loan was none other than the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP). As Bloomberg reported, the Toronto-based pension plan - which represented more than 321,000 healthcare workers in Ontario - gave the struggling Canadian mortgage lender the loan to shore up liquidity as it faces a run on deposits amid a probe by the provincial securities regulator. Home Capital had also retained RBC Capital Markets and BMO Capital Markets to advise on “strategic options” after it secured the loan. 

Why did HOOPP put itself, or rather its constituents in the precarious position of funding what is a very rapidly melting ice cube? The answer to that emerged when we learned that HOOPP President and CEO Jim Keohane also sits on Home Capital’s board and is also a shareholder. But how did regulators allow such a glaring conflict of interest? According to the Canadian press, Keohane had been a director of Home Capital until Thursday, but said he stepped away from the boardroom on Tuesday to remove the conflict of interest when it became clear HOOPP might step in as a lender.

Keohane further clarified on Friday that he doesn’t view the Home Capital investment as risky because the pension plan will be provided with $2 worth of mortgages as collateral for every $1 it lends to Home Capital.

“We take comfort from the underlying asset portfolio, so we are not looking at Home Capital as a credit,” said Mr. Keohane in an interview with Business News Network television. He added that a correction in the housing market is not of great concern, since the values of homes would need to plummet by more than 65 per cent for the fund to make no return beyond the value of its principal commitment.

Furthermore, it appears that Canada's pensioners are priming all other company lenders: Keohane also said that the funding syndicate would rank above Home Capital’s other lenders.

“We have security interest in the collateral we’ve received, so we have the right to sell that collateral if we don’t get paid. And then the balance that’s left over would go to recovery for other creditors.”

The implication is that as long as HCG's mortgages dont suffer greater than 50% losses, HOOPP's pensioners should be money good. Of course, if this is indeed Canada's "subprime moment", any outcome is possible. As for other lenders, or the prepetition (because there will be a petition here, the only question is when and in what form) equity, that's some $4 billion in assets that was just stripped from existing collateral.

"The Best Price May Come From Breaking Up The Company"

In any case, the company's frenzied, emergency measures to stabilize the near-insolvent mortgage lender were not nearly enough, and despite HCG stock posting a modest rebound on Friday between hopes of a rumored sale and a short squeeze, those hopes may be dashed soon because as the Globe and Mail reports, the depositor bank run that gripped Home Capital Group in the past week, only got worse after the company revealed just how precarious its funding situation had become. 

First, any hope the company, or rather its investors may have held of a sale, appear dashed. Investment banking sources cited by the G&M said "the best possible price may come from breaking up the company and selling portions of its mortgage portfolio to regional financial institutions." Which also implies that aside from a few select assets, there is no equity value left, or in other words, any potential buyer is now motivated to wait until HCG liquidates, and then picks off the various assets in bankruptcy court.

There are structural limitations as well: Home Capital currently holds $18-billion in home loans outstanding, "a portfolio that would be difficult to swallow for rivals in the alternative mortgage sector, such as credit unions, small mortgage lenders, Montreal-based Laurentian Bank and Edmonton-based Canadian Western Bank." These institutions, along with private equity firms, could still bid for pieces of Home Capital, the G&M admits. The only question is why they would do so before a bankruptcy filing.

While one prominent name features on the list of potential buyers, that of PE giant J.C. Flowers whose CEO J. Christopher Flowers earlier this year said he expected to expand the company’s Canadian real estate lending business, Canada’s six big banks are notable for their absence on a list of bidders. The reason is that Home Capital lends money to home buyers who have been turned down by the major banks and none of these institutions is expected to enter the alternative mortgage sector by acquiring the company. 

National Bank of Canada proactively called the equity analysts who follow the company this week to say it would not bid on Home Capital after being asked if it was a potential buyer. Needless to say, the big banks would be quite delighted if one of their "bottom picking" competitors would suddenly go bankrupt.

"When you have a bank run people get spooked"

Which brings us to the most imminent risk facing Home Capital Group, and its subsidiary, Home Trust.

Recall, that on Thursday we observed that as concerns about HCG's viability mounted, depositors were quietly pulling their funding from from savings accounts at subsidiary Home Trust. By Wednesday, when Home Capital revealed it was seeking a $2-billion loan to backstop its sinking savings deposits, shareholders ran for the exits, driving down the company’s share price by 65 per cent on Wednesday alone, and heightening the sense of panic.

On Friday, the company revealed that high-interest savings account balances fell another 36% to $521-million by Friday morning, down by a whopping $293 million from $814-million Thursday and more than $2-billion a month ago.

In other words, had it not been for the emergency HOOPP loan, the company would likely be insolvent as of this moment following what may be the biggest bank run in recent Canadian history; which also explains why the interest rate on the loan is above 20%.

“When you have a run on the bank, people get spooked and they sell and ask questions later,” said a Bay Street investment banker. “It’s investor psychology that takes over.”

As is usually the case, regulator appeared on the scene.... just one day too late.

Canada’s banking industry regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), has gathered data from other financial institutions this week, both to monitor for signs of a broader depositor panic and to track where funds are moving as they leave Home Trust. 

OSFI sent an urgent request Wednesday to several smaller and mid-sized financial institutions and credit unions to provide the regulator with up-to-date information about their savings accounts, according to a source. Specifically, OSFI wanted to know the institutions’ most recent account totals for high-interest savings accounts, as well as data on recent redemptions and current levels of high-quality liquid assets.

The request, which the OFSI said had to be fulfilled "as soon as institutions are able", is seen as an attempt to take the pulse of the market by tracking where deposits flowing out of Home Capital may be going, and to gauge whether there is any contagion among other institutions. In recent days, some smaller and mid-sized institutions have also struck up early-stage discussions about whether multiple institutions could join together to explore a deal to buy some of Home Capital’s assets.

As for Canada's big banks, they have already decided that HCG won't survive. Several months ago, Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. told its financial advisers they could no longer steer investors to high-interest savings accounts at Home Capital or rival alternative mortgage lender Equitable Bank. Client money already placed with either bank had to be moved within 60 days.

Then, after Home Capital revealed in March it was under investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission over its disclosure practices, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce introduced a cap of $100,000 per client for purchases of Home Capital guaranteed investment certificates (GICs), which is the maximum level covered by Canada’s deposit insurer.

A spokesperson from Royal Bank of Canada said that, “several weeks ago” the bank introduced a $100,000 cap on Home Capital GICs bought through a full-service broker, although there were no limits for purchases through the firm’s discount brokerage. On Thursday, RBC also released the following entertaining price target scenario: it still has a price target of $8 but fear not, even if RBC is wrong, it promises at least $4/share in residual value. We are not quite as optimistic.

Additionally, late last week, Bank of Nova Scotia said it would stop selling all GICs sold by Home Trust, but said Monday that policy was amended to a limit of $100,000. Bank of Montreal’s brokerage unit also confirmed it has a $100,000 limit on Home Trust GICs but would not say when it went into force.

As G&M adds, the OSC news shook investors, but the panic was heightened as news of the banks' moves to cap investor deposits slowly seeped through Bay Street in subsequent days, raising concerns that major financial institutions were pulling away from Home Capital.

Credit to Zero Hedge