California ( The real " locness monster " See photo's and story )

Diver’s sea creature find is ‘discovery of a lifetime’

Jasmine Santana finds 18-foot oarfish carcass at Catalina Island; bizarre-looking denizens are rarely seen and once spawned tales of sea serpents

October 15, 2013 by Pete Thomas

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Oarfish photos are courtesy of CIMI

The carcass of a bizarre-looking creature that once spawned tales of sea monsters has been found by a snorkeler in a bay at Santa Catalina Island off Southern California.
The 18-foot-long oarfish was discovered Sunday afternoon by Jasmine Santana, a marine science instructor at the Catalina Island Marine Institute. The oarfish was dead but its slender, snake-like body was intact.
The find was described by CIMI as a “discovery of a lifetime.”
ABC 7 stated Monday on its Facebook page that the carcass required 15 people to carry it up the beach.
The discovery was made in Toyon Bay, not far from Avalon, where CIMI runs a camp for kids. Instructors were unloading gear after a tall ship voyage to nearby Santa Barbara Island when they spotted Santana hauling the oarfish ashore, according to KTLA.

“The craziest thing we saw during our two-day journey at sea happened when we got home; these islands never cease to amaze,” Connor Gallagher said in a news release.
Oarfish, which can reach lengths of 50-plus feet, inhabit depths of 1,500 to 3,000 feet. They feed largely on krill and other tiny organisms and possess large, saucer-shaped eyes.
They’re believed responsible, in the times of ancient mariners, for spawning tales of sea serpents and dragons that would rise like demons to steal crewmen and sink tall ships.
They’re rarely encountered but sometimes when they die or are near-death, they surface and wash ashore.
Only a handful of live specimens have been found. Interestingly, Catalina was the site of at least one such discovery.
In 2006, a 15-foot oarfish was spotted in the island’s Big Fisherman’s Cove. Harbormaster Doug Oudin snorkeled alongside the docile creature before it eventually perished. It was collected for study.
Last year at the Baja California resort city of Cabo San Lucas, a 15-foot barely-live oarfish washed ashore on a popular beach. It also died soon after its discovery.
The modern discovery of oarfish may date to 1808, when a 56-foot serpent-like creature washed ashore in Scotland.
In 1901, a 22-foot oarfish drifted onto the sand in Newport Beach, California, becoming, according to one reference book, “the basis for many sea-serpent stories told by local bar patrons for more than a decade after its discovery.”

The Book of Eli ( Thorns and Thistles -see video )

Thorns and Thistles
The Book of Eli at MOVIECLIPS.com

Colombia ( Governor arrested on murder charges - La Guajira )

BOGOTA – The governor of the northern province of La Guajira was arrested by Colombian Attorney General’s Office agents on murder and criminal conspiracy charges, officials said.

Jose Francisco Gomez Cerchar was arrested Saturday on a warrant issued by prosecutor Martha Lucia Zamora.

Gomez, known as “Kiko,” is being investigated for allegedly having links to paramilitary groups.

The governor has been linked to the 1997 murder of Barrancas city councilman Luis Lopez Peralta and the killings in 2000 of Luis Alejandro Rodriguez Frias and Rosa Mercedes Cabrera Alfaro, Deputy Attorney General Jorge Perdomo said.

Investigators have also linked Gomez to militia chief Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, known as “Jorge 40,” and other paramilitary groups.

Tovar Pupo was one of the top leaders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC.

Gomez was arrested in his hometown of Barrancas, where he was attending a festival.

The governor took refuge in his house, which was surrounded by his supporters as AG’s office agents arrived to arrest him.

Gomez, who served as mayor of Barrancas from 1995 to 1997 and again from 2001 to 2003, was elected governor of La Guajira in 2011.

The AUC, accused of committing numerous human rights violations, demobilized more than 31,000 of its fighters between the end of 2003 and mid-2006 as part of the peace process with former President Alvaro Uribe’s administration.

The group was made up of numerous rural defense cooperatives formed more than 25 years ago to battle leftist rebels.

Many of the militias, however, degenerated into death squads and carried out massacres of peasants suspected of having rebel sympathies, along with slayings of journalists and union members accused of favoring the leftist insurgents.

On May 13, 2008, the Colombian government extradited 14 former AUC chiefs, including Tovar Pupo, to the United States.

The former AUC commanders were wanted in the United States on drug, money laundering and other charges

Washington D.C ( Federal Judge tell's Congress to " Go to Hell " on his Blog ) Richard Kopf

October 14, 2013|10:36 am

With the government shutdown now coming close to affecting the judiciary, which has already lost staff and part of its budget due to the sequester, a senior federal judge has expressed his frustration telling Congress to "go to hell" on his blog.
"It is time to tell Congress to go to hell. It's the right thing to do," writes senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf on his blog.


An appointee of President George H.W. Bush in 1992, Kopf let his disappointment out at a time when all district and circuit chief judges will soon have to decide which employees are essential and which will be furloughed as non-essential.
"Given the loss of employees already suffered by the judiciary on account of the sequester and otherwise, why shouldn't every remaining employee of every federal district court (including FPD employees) be declared "essential?" the judge asks.
If the chief judge and all the district judges were to issue such an order, most staff would be protected from prosecution under the Anti-Deficiency Act, Kopf adds. "Such an order would set up an inter-branch dispute worth having… Congress would have two choices. It could do nothing in which event Congress loses its ability to destroy the judiciary by failing to pass a budget. Or, Congress could go batsh*t, and the judiciary and Congress could have it out."
The courts have not been affected much thus far thanks to fee income and prior-year appropriations. But this is expected to change within a week. Even otherwise, the courts have had to cut hundreds of support staff positions over the last two years. The judiciary also saw a 5 percent reduction in its budget in the last fiscal year.

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The partial government shutdown was in its 13th day Sunday, but little progress was visible in Congress in striking a budget deal. Even more worrisome is the fact that the negotiations are also tied to avoiding a default if the government's borrowing limit is not raised by Thursday.
Judges are highly frustrated, says the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. "Court budgets have essentially been slashed to the bone, with us losing nationwide thousands of judicial employees performing very important tasks…We're being told to furlough where we're already cut to the bone," Judge Richard Roberts, a Clinton appointee, tells Politico.
"We don't exert the kind of control to keep up resources to match the need," adds Roberts. "We don't have ultimately any authority to set appropriations Congress decides on. We do not necessarily get to decide what the White House sends to [the Office of Management and Budget] and to Congress. We can't go out and stir up constituents to do talking for us. Structurally, there's a bit of an imbalance."

Syria ( Jihadists reportedly forced one man to convert to Islam at gunpoint and slit the throat of another Christian Woman )

(Photo: Reuters)

Women cry over the body of one of the five civilians killed during a Syrian Army bombardment on Al Qusayr Feb. 21, 2012.

Ghastly attacks on Christians mocked as "Crusaders" in Syria continued unabated as Jihadists reportedly forced one man to convert to Islam at gunpoint and slit the throat of another Christian woman's fiancé and then told her, "Jesus didn't come to save him."
Residents who fled from the ancient town of Maalula in Syria told AFP that jihadists ambushed the town last week and forced a man to convert to Islam at gunpoint.
"They arrived in our town at dawn... and shouted 'We are from the Al-Nusra Front and have come to make lives miserable for the Crusaders," said one woman identified as Marie in Damascus, where many people from Maalula fled after rebels first attacked that town on Sept. 4.
One of the most renowned Christian towns in Syria, many of Maalula's approximately 5,000 residents speak Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. Rebels want to tighten their control of the town for its strategic value as a launching point to level attacks on the highway between the capital and Homs, a key regime supply route.
On Tuesday, Marie and hundreds of others in exile in Damascus, attended the burial of three Christian pro-regime militiamen who were killed in fighting.
Adnan Nasrallah, 62, told AFP that an explosion destroyed an archway just across from his house that leads into Maalula during the fighting last week.

Iran ( A Christian is sentenced to four years in prison - For having a Home church )

A Christian is sentenced to four years of imprisonment

Posted on: 14th October, 2013 

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HRANA News Agency – Maryam Naqqash Zargaran -Nasim-, of converted Christians has been issued four years of imprisonment verdict by the appealed court.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), Maryam Naqqash Zargaran has been sentenced to four years of imprisonment on charge of propagating against the Islamic regime, colluding and acting against the national security through establishing the home-churches. 

The revolutionary court claimed that her activities were in direction of Britain and Israel goals to harm Iran’s national security through establishing the home-churches and disorder the Islamic society norms, then according to the article 610 of Islamic punishment law and with considering the article 46 of the same Islamic punishment law, the accused person sentenced to four years of imprisonment with counting the days of being under arrest.

It is worth noting she was appeared on July 15, 2013 in Evin prison after she has been informed of verdict and has been transferred to the women ward.

This converted Christian was under arrest once more for 19 days and was freed temporarily on bail till the trial date.

Egypt ( American man in Jail for " Curfew violation " found hanged in Jail Cell )

An American man was found hanged in a jail cell on Sunday in a police station near the banks of the Suez Canal.
The man, identified by the U.S. state department as 66-year-old James Lunn, had apparently committed suicide. He had been arrested on August 29 for breaking the curfew put in place amid the violent unrest that followed the military's ousting of President Mohammed Morsi in early July.
The American embassy in Cairo confirmed the death to ABC News, saying he died of "apparent suicide." The State Department also issued confirmation of the death today, and said that his family has been contacted.

Egypt officials had identified Lunn as a retired U.S. Army officer, but the U.S. State Department said Sunday that he was not a veteran. Lunn was found after breakfast was served in the Ismailia police station, hung from the bathroom door of his prison cell, Egypt's public prosecutor said. A black belt wrapped around his neck was attached with string to both his shoes, which were tangled up on the other side of the door, according to the prosecutor. The statement said that blood was seen coming from his nose and that he had already died when they found him.
His body was then sent to the morgue at the main hospital in the city for an autopsy. Egypt's public prosecutor has now ordered an official investigation into the death.
Lunn had been living alone in a town called Sheikh Zuwayed in the northeast of the Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian state news agency MENA reported at the time of his arrest. He was reportedly on his way to the Palestinian Gaza Strip when he was arrested for breaking the 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. curfew.

Lunn had been arrested for breaking curfew in the Sheikh Zuweyid area, where a terrorist operation was carried out targeting a police station with a car bomb, according to a statement from the prosecutor's office. Authorities found him in possession of an Egyptian map and an electronic device that's currently being examined. A consular team from the embassy had visited him at the jail last week but the embassy declined to say what Lunn was doing in the Sinai, the most violent part of the country.

Since Morsi was deposed, the already lawless Sinai has grown increasingly bloody. The ouster was followed by a military and police crackdown and there have been almost daily attacks against security targets by Islamic militants. On Friday, three soldiers and one policeman were killed when a suicide bomber drove a car bomb into a checkpoint.