How to stay SANE in an INSANE world (and why YOU are important for the rebuilding of human society)

For those of us who are awake, aware and conscious, the world looks increasingly insane… perhaps even hopeless. The emotional whiplash of political elections, outbreaks of war, government lies and cultural insanity can take a real toll on a person’s sense of hope for our world, and far too many goodhearted, sensitive people are right now being driven to a sense of despair.

I’ve recorded a deeply philosophical podcast that confirms the world is going insane around us all, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you see the insanity, the breakdown of civil society and the coming collapse.

In fact, the truly insane people are those who remain oblivious to what’s happening in our world. Much of the world population today has retreated to living inside delusional mental constructs rooted in popular social conformity rather than physical or economic reality. Those people, by the way, won’t stand much of a chance of surviving once things really start to unravel. Natural selection sooner or later prunes delusional organisms from the Tree of Life.

YOU are important to the rebuilding of the next society

Because you are awake and aware, it is vital that you retain your presence of mind and remain able to contribute to the rebuilding of the next society after the inevitable collapse of this one. Every rational person already knows that whatever is unsustainable must come to an end, and human civilization is presently structured on so many unsustainable phenomena that it’s almost hard to keep track of them all: The global debt bubble, the collapse of irrigation water for crops, the collapse of farming soils for food, the collapse of ocean ecosystems, the mass poisoning of the food supply with deadly herbicides, the collapse of rational education across western civilization, the collapse of law and order, the collapse of trust in government, the collapse of human fertility, the collapse of media credibility and even the collapse of the credibility of institutional science.

Notably, it only takes one large-scale trigger event to bring society to its knees for the simple reason that it is built upon a house of cards. That trigger event, by the way, could be something as simple as a single solar flare or North Korea EMP weapon that brings down the power grid. Current estimates reveal that such an event could result in a 90% reduction in the population of the United States, with most deaths occurring from starvation and disease. (Related: Read Survival.news for daily articles on how to survive the coming collapse.)

Yet even as the current structure of society will soon fail, humanity itself will not become extinct. Even if global death rates reach 90% as is predicted by some analysts, that still leaves roughly 700 million human beings on this planet to build a better society rooted in human liberty rather than global enslavement at the hands of tyrannical government. Notably, the largest percentage of deaths will likely occur in the most densely populated cities, invoking Darwin’s natural selection that eliminates those from the human gene pool who are least qualified to survive (and who tend to be the most delusional about reality).

It is my deepest hope that you and I survive this next great collapse and are able to constructively contribute to the rebuilding of a more just, more compassionate and more sane society that values life, liberty and happiness… all of which are currently under total assault from governments, tech giants (like Google and Facebook) and the entire “status quo” regime that currently runs this planet through deception, propaganda and pure EVIL.

To stay informed from SANE news sources (rather than the totally fabricated mainstream media), visit Censored.news every morning and evening, and bookmark the website. It’s updated hourly.

Listen to my podcast on all this at the Health Ranger Report website, or listen below:

Ancient Race Of White Giants Described By Native American Legends

Several Native American tribes, all separated by some distance, have a similar legend: that a race of white giants once walked the Earth but were eventually wiped out. These are the legends.

Comanches.

Chief Rolling Thunder of the Comanches, a Great Plains tribe, once gave the following account of a race of white giants in 1857:

“Innumerable moons ago, a race of white men, 10 feet high, and far more rich and powerful than any white people now living, here inhabited a large range of country, extending from the rising to the setting sun. Their fortifications crowned the summits of the mountains, protecting their populous cities situated in the intervening valleys.

“They excelled every other nation which was flourished, either before or since, in all manner of cunning handicraft—were brave and warlike—ruling over the land they had wrested from its ancient possessors with a high and haughty hand. Compared with them the palefaces of the present day were pygmies, in both art and arms.”

Rolling Thunder stated that the Great Spirit wiped out the white giants when they forgot justice and mercy and became too proud.

Navajo.

The Navajo also spoke of a race of white giants, called the Starnake people. Their legend describes them as a “regal race of white giants endowed with mining technology who dominated the West, enslaved lesser tribes, and had strongholds all through the Americas. They were either extinguished or ‘went back to the heavens.'”

Choctaw.

The Choctaw tribe told of a race of giants that once inhabited what is now Tennessee. Their ancestors fought against them when they arrived in Mississippi during their westward migration. Their tradition talks of the Nahullo, their name for the giant race, and their wonderful stature.

Manta.

According to the Manta people of Peru, there were once giants that lived among them. According to their legend: “There arrived on the coast, in boats made of reeds, as big as large ships, a party of men of such size that, from the knee downwards, their height was as great as the entire height of an ordinary man, though he might be of good stature. Their limbs were all in proportion to the deformed size of their bodies, and it was a monstrous thing to see their heads, with hair reaching to the shoulders. Their eyes were as large as small plates.” The natives believe that heaven wiped them out due to their sexual habits, which the natives found revolting.

Paiutes.

The Paiutes have an oral legend of red-haired, white cannibals that stood about 10 feet tall and lived near Lovelock Cave, Nevada. It’s hard to know for sure if this oral tradition is true or if the truth has been distorted over time and these were just normal sized cannibals that lived near Lovelock Cave. Some similar Piutes legends feature the same story just without the giants. Archaeologists have found remains of people with red hair in the area, but black hair can turn red with time.

Source:

higherperspectives.com

Captured ISIS Fighter Says ‘Trained in Turkey, ISIS Thinks It’s Safer Here Than Syria’

Turkey is training Islamic State terrorists in a camp disguised as a training ground for the Free Syrian Army, a 20-year-old jihadist captured by the Kurdish YPG told Sputnik. The prisoner said Ankara’s help to the “moderate” Syrian opposition is not as innocent as portrayed.

Captured by the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) fighters in Northern Syria in November, Abdurrahman Abdulhadi, a Syrian national-turned Daesh (Islamic State) fighter, says he was trained in Turkey before receiving his first assignment with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

The YPG maintains external security in the three Democratic Union Party (PYD) run areas, and is fighting Islamist groups, primarily Jabhat al-Nusra and IS. The PYD, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey, has effectively been ruling parts of Syria after government troops were forced to withdraw from the areas in 2012. With special permission from the local Kurdish authorities, Russian journalists received first-hand testimony that Turkey is “a friend” of Islamic State.

“They only appear to be enemies, however, they are friends,” the 20-year-old Abdulhadi, whose brother, Til Berak, is still fighting for IS told Sputnik Turkey. While Turkish nationals constitute only about“10 percent” of jihadists he had come across, the prisoner said Turkey is actively training Islamic State fighters.

“In August 2014, I was training in the Turkish town of Adana with one of ISIL’s Emirs,”Abdulhadi said, adding his month-long training was completed with 60 other fighters in a camp “not far from the airport.”

The captured IS soldier said military training was conducted by two officers and one of them only “spoke Turkish, so another one had to translate for him.”

“Once a week we had shooting classes where we were taught to use Kalashnikovs, machine guns and other arms,” the 20 year-old said. “We were trained in Turkey because ISIL’s command thought it was safer here than in Syria because of the bombardments there.”

While the camp was officially declared to be one of the training grounds for the Free Syrian Army, the YPG prisoner says, “all sixty of those who were there were ISIL members.”

“These were Syrian citizens, many of whom arrived in Turkey in search for a job initially, but later joined Daesh,” he explained.

After completing his training, Abdulhadi was tasked with escorting Syrians who wanted to join the jihadists.

“After I finished the training, I went to one of the districts in the Turkish town of Adana. My task was to meet the newly arrived recruits from Syria. After the training we sent them to the Turkish town of Urfa. From there the recruits were transferred via Turkey-Syria border crossing back to Syrian Raqqa. And from there further across Syria,” Abdulhadi explained, saying this was the only assignment he received from his “emir” during the deployment in Syria.

Besides helping to train recruits, the IS prisoner says he was deployed in Syria for brief periods. He was eventually captured in the village of Tal Afer on November 1.

The prisoner also revealed that IS is now receiving ammunition in trucks disguised as non-military cargo. He said that such low-level fighters as him have no idea where the arms come from.

“Weapons were brought to us in civilian cars, not in military ones because fighter jets might have bombed them. ISIL is now mostly using civilian vehicles. I’ve heard they put vegetables on top of boxes with ammunition, so that war planes do not spot them.”

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What The Hell Is This Weird Object In A Frozen Lake

There’s a peculiar phenomenon occurring in the frozen lakes of the world: Strange circles are cropping up in the ice, and some believed it was the winter version of an alien-made crop circle. However, scientists have recently explained that the shapes are merely ice circles, which crop up after methane emissions create a rising mass of warm water under the surface.

A strange video is kicking up a storm online, appearing to show a bizarre dark circle in the middle of a frozen lake. The phenomenon, which occurred somewhere in Utah, appears to have large ice crystals embedded throughout.

As you might expect, numerous theories and guesses have been thrown around, including a rare fungus, fish blood, a viral marketing campaign or students making a prank video. However, one of the more credible sounding explanations suggests it could be the effect of an organism’s natural antifreeze protein. These could interfere with the crystallization of the ice, causing the formation of the odd-looking structures.

The guys in this video discovered a strange something in the middle of a frozen Utah lake. Naturally, they start poking at the object with their bare hands because no one heeds the lessons of sci-fi or horror movies.

A nearby takeaway coffee cup, which you can see in the video, is also a prime suspect.

So, what’s your theory?

Source:iflscience.com

Officials Secretly Added Cancer Causing Chemicals to City’s Water Supply

In 2013 and 2014, the City of Sacramento performed a water treatment experiment at the expense of residents of the city “to save money,” according to a local news investigation.

Area residents were never informed about the toxic chemical contamination of their water that resulted from the experiment. “Cancer, miscarriages, and birth defects” are the consequences of consuming those chemicals, but the extent to which Sacramento residents are likely to experience these symptoms is not yet known.

City officials allowed the experiment to continue for an entire year —despite knowing early on that very process was creating carcinogens. For how long that contamination will be suspended in the water supply is up in the air.

Officials experimented on the water with a new added chemical to aid in removing sediment, silt, and other impurities in the water supply: aluminum chlorohydrate (ACH). It was due to replace the chemical known as ALUM that was regularly used to take the larger particles out of river water to treat it. Both chemicals weigh down the sediment to make it easily removable.

However, the addition of ACH to the city’s water supply wound up being ineffective as a treatment — so an excessive quantity of chlorine was added to the water, as well.

An astonishing failure, the combination of excess chlorine and aluminum chlorohydrate ended up yielding carcinogenic toxins known as “DBPs” — disinfection byproducts. Specifically, these are in the class of chemicals known as THMs, or Trihalomethanes.

According to Water Research, THMs are in the same chemical class as chloroform; and, although this water experiment ended about a year ago,the THMs remain in Sacramento’s water supply in levels that exceed EPA regulations. Several readings of THM levels provided to ABC10 exceeded 80 parts per billion, the EPA limit.

The ABC10 investigation says “data showing dozens of readings in excess of the EPA standard of 80 parts-per-billion during the year-long trial. In the Westlake neighborhood, near Sleep Train Arena, during a two-month period between August and October 2013, 11 of 13 readings were above EPA limits. Then in March of 2014, readings were way up across the city. Some people were drinking water with DBP levels above 130 parts-per-billion.”

Sacramento’s Utility Director, Bill Busath, told ABC10 the entire issue had to do with saving money: “There was an expectation that we would be able to save quite a bit of money.”

Bob Bowcock grew up working in the water treatment industry. His description, as reported by ABC10, is telling:

“This community was basically looked at as a laboratory guinea pig, in that they were exposed to violation level trihalomethanes for up to one year without any proper notification whatsoever […] Every corner you turn, on this particular project, it’s red flag, red flag, red flag. It’s like peeling back an onion. There is just another layer. The closer you get to the center, the stronger the smell.”

According to an ABC10 news report:

“Pregnant women and unborn babies, Bowcock said, are especially vulnerable to DBPs. In first trimester pregnancies, there’s a significant rise in miscarriages, and in third trimester there’s evidence of low birth weight,” he said, describing how the DBP-tainted water is even more dangerous when its mists are breathed in while showering or washing dishes.”

This isn’t the only water contamination that affects greater Sacramento — Northside residents need to be aware that McClellan Air Force Base is rumored to be the source of contaminated water, as a “chromium plume” of groundwater contamination radiates from out from the base.

Our water, in other words, is polluted with cancer-causing chromium-6.

According to a June article from the Sacramento Bee:

“Water from six of 11 wells in the Rio Linda-Elverta district tested above the state’s maximum contaminant levels for chromium-6 […] Wells closest to the former McClellan Air Force Base have the highest levels of hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, a known carcinogen […] Exposure to chromium-6 can lead to skin irritation, occupational asthma, and kidney and liver damage, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.”

A woman from North Sacramento lamented: “I know [the water] gave me cancer.”

Rio Linda resident, Anna Marie Tomlinson, hasn’t touched her tap water in years — because she was the fourth person on her block to get cancer. “I drank it every day,” she said.

How do we allow officials to blindly add chemicals to our water supply? Unfortunately, most of us probably weren’t even aware the first chemical, ALUM, had been added to our drinking water — much less the insane chemical soup that resulted as a byproduct of this reckless experiment.

source

US Government Says It’s OK To Hack Your Car, Tablet or SmartTV

The Library of Congress just granted a set of copyright exemptions, giving the owners of smart TV sets and cars the ability to tinker with their devices without violating copyright law. This will allow the installation of third-party software.

Every 36 months, the US Copyright Office – a division of the Library of Congress – meets to hear petitions and review the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) provision 1201. The provision is the anti-circumvention part of the law that had, in the past, made it illegal to ‘unlock’ your smartphone from its carrier and helped corporations protect copyrighted material.

The Software Freedom Conservancy, an organization that supports open-source software, took advantage of this period of review by petitioning for an exemption to the DMCA that would allow people to ‘hack’ their smart TVs. The exemptions were granted on Tuesday, but they are only set to last three years – until the next review cycle.

The new rules are meant to allow for “lawful modification” and “good faith security research.”

The surprisingly far-reaching exemptions were approved even as concerns that ‘jailbreaking’ would allow the installation of movie piracy software like Popcorn Time. The US Copyright Office ruled that allowing hacking devices for the purpose of interoperability and installing software is legitimate.

While you can continue to legally jailbreak your phone, you can now do the same with your tablet and smart TV. E-readers, laptops and desktop computers are still off-limits. The hacking of video game consoles is also prohibited, as the Copyright Office found that removing their limitations is correlated with the piracy of video games.

Also included is an exemption for teachers, allowing them to circumvent access controls on DVDs so they can, for example, put together clips from several copyrighted works for educational purposes.

The decision includes language that addresses concerns opponents of the move, who contend that it would be used to facilitate the piracy of copyrighted media. Instead, the Register of Copyrights argues, users tinkering with their smart TVs could gain legitimate uses and increased functionality.

“The Register also found that the prohibition on circumvention is adversely affecting legitimate non-infringing uses of smart TV firmware, and that the proposed alternatives to circumvention, such as connecting a laptop computer to the TV, are inadequate, because they would not allow installation of software on the smart TV to improve its functioning as a TV, such as facilitating more prominent subtitles,” the decision reads. “The Register also concluded that no evidence was submitted to illustrate opponents’ claim that ‘jailbreaking’ of smart TVs will make it easier to gain unauthorized access to copyrighted content, or that it would otherwise undermine smart TVs as a platform for the consumption of expressive works.”

Perhaps the most futuristic-seeming outcome of this exemption is that car owners are now allowed to ‘hack’ their vehicles. The Library of Congress said that users are entitled to modify their own cars, which nowadays often involves altering software. The decision comes thanks to a concerted effort from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed for two exemptions that coincided with the Volkswagen emissions scandal.

This move was opposed by automakers such as General Motors and tractor maker John Deere, who said the owners of vehicles ought to visit authorized repair shops to modify their cars rather than doing it themselves.

“Sensitive vehicle data could be easily manipulated, altered, or distributed – undetected – if these changes are implemented,” GM said in a statement, quoted by the Guardian.

Deere and GM previously drew controversy when they tried to argue to the Copyright Office that the owners of the vehicles that the companies manufacture didn’t fully own them, and therefore didn’t have the right to make“unauthorized” repairs to them.

Deere said that because their tractors are so fundamentally reliant on the software that is the company’s intellectual property, those who purchase the vehicles only have “an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.”GM had similarly argued that many people mistakenly “conflate ownership of a vehicle with ownership of the underlying computer software.”

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Ancient Egyptian Handbook of Spells Deciphered

An Egyptian Handbook of Ritual Power (as researchers call it) has been deciphered revealing a series of invocations and spells. It includes love spells, exorcisms and a cure for black jaundice (a potentially fatal infection). Written in Coptic (an Egyptian language) the 20 page illustrated codex dates back around 1,300 years. This image shows part of the text.

Credit: Photo by Ms. Effy Alexakis, copyright Macquarie University Ancient Cultures Research Centre

Researchers have deciphered an ancient Egyptian handbook, revealing a series of invocations and spells.

Among other things, the “Handbook of Ritual Power,” as researchers call the book, tells readers how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and treat “black jaundice,” abacterial infection that is still around today and can be fatal.

The book is about 1,300 years old, and is written in Coptic, an Egyptian language. It is made of bound pages of parchment — a type of book that researchers call a codex.

“It is a complete 20-page parchment codex, containing the handbook of a ritual practitioner,” write Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner, who are professors in Australia at Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, respectively, in their book, “A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power” (Brepols, 2014).

The ancient book “starts with a lengthy series of invocations that culminate with drawings and words of power,” they write. “These are followed by a number of prescriptions or spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business.”

For instance, to subjugate someone, the codex says you have to say a magical formula over two nails, and then “drive them into his doorpost, one on the right side (and) one on the left.”

The Sethians

Researchers believe that the codex may date to the 7th or 8th century. During this time, many Egyptians were Christian and the codex contains a number of invocations referencing Jesus.

However, some of the invocations seem more associated with a group that is sometimes called “Sethians.” This group flourished in Egypt during the early centuries of Christianity and held Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, in high regard. One invocation in the newly deciphered codex calls “Seth, Seth, the living Christ.”

The opening of the codex refers to a divine figure named “Baktiotha” whose identity is a mystery, researchers say. The lines read, “I give thanks to you and I call upon you, the Baktiotha: The great one, who is very trustworthy; the one who is lord over the forty and the nine kinds of serpents,” according to the translation.

“The Baktiotha is an ambivalent figure. He is a great power and a ruler of forces in the material realm,” Choat and Gardner said at a conference, before their book on the codex was published.

Historical records indicate that church leaders regarded the Sethians as heretics and by the 7th century, the Sethians were either extinct or dying out.

This codex, with its mix of Sethian and Orthodox Christian invocations, may in fact be a transitional document, written before all Sethian invocations were purged from magical texts, the researchers said. They noted that there are other texts that are similar to the newly deciphered codex, but which contain more Orthodox Christian and fewer Sethian features.

The researchers believe that the invocations were originally separate from 27 of the spells in the codex, but later, the invocations and these spells were combined, to form a “single instrument of ritual power,” Choat told Live Science in an email.

Who would have used it?

The identity of the person who used this codex is a mystery. The user of the codex would not necessarily have been a priest or monk.

“It is my sense that there were ritual practitioners outside the ranks of the clergy and monks, but exactly who they were is shielded from us by the fact that people didn’t really want to be labeled as a “magician,'”Choat said.

Some of the language used in the codex suggests that it was written with a male user in mind, however, that “wouldn’t have stopped a female ritual practitioner from using the text, of course,” he said.

Origin

The origin of the codex is also a mystery. Macquarie University acquired it in late 1981 from Michael Fackelmann, an antiquities dealer based in Vienna. In “the 70s and early 80s, Macquarie University (like many collections around the world) purchased papyri from Michael Fackelmann,” Choat said in the email.

But where Fackelmann got the codex from is unknown. The style of writing suggests that the codex originally came from Upper Egypt.

“The dialect suggests an origin in Upper Egypt, perhaps in the vicinity of Ashmunein/Hermopolis,” which was an ancient city, Choat and Gardner write in their book.

The codex is now housed in the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Source:

livescience.com

Historical Speeches Nobody Ever Heard

For every speech, there are a bunch of versions that ended up on the writers’ room floor. Here are 12 speeches that were written but, for a variety of reasons, never delivered.

1. “IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER”

As the world nervously waited for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to land on the moon, Nixon speechwriter William Safire penned a speech in case the astronauts were stranded in space. The memo was addressed to H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s Chief of Staff, and includes chilling directions for the president, NASA, and clergy in case something went awry.

Here’s the text:

IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

2. EISENHOWER’S “IN CASE OF FAILURE” MESSAGE

General Dwight D. Eisenhower sounded confident before the Normandy Invasion. “This operation is planned as a victory, and that’s the way it’s going to be. We’re going down there, and we’re throwing everything we have into it, and we’re going to make it a success,” he said.

Operation Overlord was a massive campaign—an invasion of 4000 ships, 11,000 planes, and nearly three million men. Despite a year of strategizing and a boatload of confidence, Eisenhower had a quiet plan in case his mission failed. If the armada couldn’t cross the English Channel, he’d order a full retreat. One day before the invasion, he prepared a brief speech just in case:

“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

Although the allies suffered about 12,000 casualties—with an estimated 4900 U.S. troops killed—155,000 successfully made it ashore, with thousands more on the way. Within a year, Germany would surrender.

3. WAMSUTTA JAMES’S 1970 PLYMOUTH ANNIVERSARY SPEECH

The people of Plymouth, Massachusetts wanted to celebrate. It was the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims, and a day of festivities was planned. For the celebration dinner, organizers invited Wamsutta James—a descendent of the Wampanoag—to speak. They hoped James would give a cheery address recounting the friendly Pilgrim-Indian relationship. But James was not interested in that airbrushed version of history:

“It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you—celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.”

From there, James debunked a slew of cultural myths. The relationship between Pilgrims and Native Americans was always uneasy, he said. Wampanoag ancestors had lived in New England for nearly 10,000 years before the Europeans had arrived. But, in just a few years, the newcomers had brought disease and gobbled up land. The relationship eventually burst in 1675, when King Philip’s War erupted, decimating the Native American population and Wampanoag culture.

“History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history that was written by an organized, disciplined people, to expose us as an unorganized and undisciplined entity. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white man. The Indian feels pain, gets hurt, and becomes defensive, has dreams, bears tragedy and failure, suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. He, too, is often misunderstood.”

When James submitted his address for approval, the organizers rejected it. They asked him to read a speech prepared by a public relations writer instead. James walked away.

4. “I DON’T FEEL LIKE RESIGNING”

With swaths of damning evidence around him and no support behind him, Richard Nixon stared into a television camera August 8, 1974, and announced his resignation. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. That was Plan B.

A few days earlier, Nixon’s speechwriter, Raymond Price, prepared two drafts for that address. In one—titled “Option B”—Nixon announced his resignation. In the other speech, he vowed to fight for his job. Here’s an excerpt:

“Whatever the mistakes that have been made—and there are many—and whatever the measure of my own responsibility for those mistakes, I firmly believe that I have not committed any act of commission or omission that justifies removing a duly elected official from office. If I did believe that I had committed such an act, I would have resigned long ago. . .”

“If I were to resign, it would spare the country additional months consumed with the ordeal of a Presidential impeachment and trial. But it would leave unresolved the questions that have already cost the country so much in anguish, division and uncertainty. More important, it would leave a permanent crack in our Constitutional structure: it would establish the principle that under pressure, a President could be removed from office by means short of those provided by the Constitution.”

Shortly after the speech was written, the “smoking gun” was released—a tape-recording of Nixon’s plan to halt the FBI’s Watergate investigation. His political support evaporated overnight. Impeachment became a certainty: “Option B” was the only option left.

5. JFK’S DALLAS TRADE MART SPEECH

It was late November 1963, and President Kennedy had begun a two-day, five-city tour of Texas. After a speedy 13-minute flight from Fort Worth, a motorcade picked up JFK at the Dallas airport and took him on a ten-mile tour through downtown. The president was bound for the Trade Mart, where he was scheduled to speak at a luncheon. He never made it.

Here’s a short excerpt of Kennedy’s undelivered Trade Mart speech.

“There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding faults but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.

But today other voices are heard in the land—voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the sixties, doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness. . .

We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will ‘talk sense to the American people.’ But we can hope that few people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is not but just plain nonsense.

That day, Americans sorely needed to hear Kennedy’s unread closing:

“[Our] strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions—it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations—it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes.”

A second undelivered Dallas speech, for the Texas Democratic Committee in Austin, can be foundhere.

6. ANNA QUINDLEN’S 2000 VILLANOVA COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Anna Quindlen had already written Villanova’s keynote speech when protests at the Catholic university began to roil. A handful of students disagreed with Quindlen’s views on abortion, and the issue boiled over so badly that Quindlen bowed out from the event. Although never delivered, her speech “A Short Guide to a Happy Life” has been widely circulated on the internet:

“Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. . . Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

“And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. . . It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of azaleas, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our kid’s eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live.”

7. CONDOLEEZZA RICE’S 9/11 ADDRESS

On September 11, 2001, Condoleezza Rice was slated to deliver a speech at Johns Hopkins University, addressing “the threats and problems of today and the day after.” Terrorists made their own statement that morning, forcing Rice to scrap her speech.

In 2004, excerpts from Rice’s address leaked to The Washington Post. The speech did not mention Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden. Rather, it promoted missile defense as an upgraded security strategy. Of the few lines released publicly, one read:

“We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb, and the vial of sarin released in the subway [but] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of Mace then decide to leave your windows open?”

8. NINOY AQUINO JR’S LAST REMARKS

Philippine Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was not a fan of President Ferdinand Marcos. When Aquino stirred up the political pot, Marcos’s regime—ruled by martial law—tossed Aquino in jail. Years later, Aquino made his way out of prison and exiled himself in the United States. In 1983, upon hearing that life in the Philippines was getting worse, Aquino returned home to help. He came armed with a stirring speech:

“I have returned on my free will to join the ranks of those struggling to restore our rights and freedoms through nonviolence. I seek no confrontation. I only pray and will strive for a genuine national reconciliation founded on justice. . . A death sentence awaits me. Two more subversion charges, both calling for death penalties, have been filled since I left three years ago and are now pending with the courts. . . I return voluntarily armed only with a clear conscience and fortified faith that in the end justice will emerge triumphant. According to Gandhi, the willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful answer to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God and man.”

Aquino never read the address. Over 1000 armed soldiers awaited his landing. He was immediately arrested and, while waiting for his prison escort, was shot in the head. The assassination spurred a revolt against Marcos’s regime, which crumbled three years later.

9. JFK’S OTHER CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS SPEECH

America soiled its collective pants October 22, 1962. The country’s eyes were glued to the television as President Kennedy said what everyone feared: Cuba had missiles, and they were “capable of hitting any city in the western hemisphere.” The United States was a giant bullseye.

Kennedy announced a Cuban “quarantine,” a military blockade that restricted weapons and other materials to the island. Other options, however, were on the table—a second, more aggressive, address announced plans for an airstrike. Kennedy’s speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, didn’t write the second speech, but he did read it, and he was disturbed by its opening:

“I have ordered—and the United States Air Force has now carried out—military operations with conventional weapons to remove a major nuclear weapons build-up from the soil of Cuba.”

The alternate speech said that America would use nuclear weapons if necessary—a bold statement that never appeared in Kennedy’s televised address. It’s unknown who wrote the speech and if Kennedy ever saw it. “There is still a minor mystery as to who, if anyone, was asked to draft an alternative speech announcing and justifying an air strike on the missiles,” Sorensen later wrote.

10. ROMNEY’S 47 PERCENT FIXER-UPPER

When Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments leaked in September, his campaign scrambled for a fix. A flurry of press conferences followed as the Romney camp tried to patch the damage. Later in September, an undelivered speech was leaked to the Wall Street Journal. Here’s a taste of what it said:

“One tragedy of the Obama Presidency is how many more Americans have become dependent on the government. I know it’s not their fault. Most want to be self-sufficient, to provide for their families, they can’t because there aren’t enough jobs. . . This is a national scandal. Not because those fellow Americans are free-loaders, but because they aren’t able to get a good job that pays enough to be self-sufficient and lets them fulfill their human potential. . . I don’t want to take food stamps away from Americans in need. I want fewer Americans to need food stamps.”

11. SARAH PALIN’S VICTORY AND CONCESSION SPEECHES

Sarah Palin’s relationship with John McCain was never very warm and fuzzy. The Palin and McCain camps constantly clashed along the campaign trail. As one McCain official explained in aNew York Times interview, “It was a difficult relationship… McCain talked to her occasionally.”

The duo’s biggest duel occurred on election night. Palin’s speechwriter, Matthew Scully, had drawn up two speeches: a victory and concession address. Hours before the candidates took the stage, McCain’s senior staffers told Palin that she couldn’t read either. According to The Daily Beast, McCain aides “literally turned the lights out on Palin when she retook the stage later that night to take pictures with her family, fearing that she would give the concession speech after all.”

Here’s the best of Palin’s undelivered addresses:

Victory Speech:

“As for my own family, well, it’s been quite a journey these past 69 days. We were ready, in defeat, to return to a place and a life we love. And I said to my husband Todd that it’s not a step down when he’s no longer Alaska’s ‘First Dude.’ He will now be the first guy ever to become the ‘Second Dude.’

Concession Speech:

“I told my husband Todd to look at the upside: Now, at least, he can clear his schedule, and get ready for championship title number five in the Iron Dog snow machine race!. . . But far from returning to the great State of Alaska with any sense of sorrow, we will carry with us the best of memories. . . and joyful experiences that do not depend on victory.”

“America has made her choice. . . Now it is time for us go our way, neither bitter nor vanquished, but instead confident in the knowledge that there will be another day… and we may gather once more. . . and find new strength. . . and rise to fight again.”

12. FDR’S FINAL WORDS

April 12, 1945, was a beautiful day in Warm Springs, Georgia. Franklin D. Roosevelt relaxed inside his woodland cottage, the “Little White House,” and was having his portrait painted. But during lunch, a bolt of pain shot through the back of his head, causing him to collapse. By 3:35 pm, doctors had pronounced the president dead of a cerebral hemorrhage. A speech sat in FDR’s study, unread.

Roosevelt had edited the speech the night before. It was an address for Jefferson Day, a celebration of Thomas Jefferson, and was supposed to be delivered April 13 via a national radio broadcast. Here’s an excerpt of FDR’s last words to the American people:

“Let me assure you that my hand is the steadier for the work that is to be done, that I move more firmly into the task, knowing that you—millions and millions of you—are joined with me in the resolve to make this work endure.

The work, my friends, is peace, more than an end of this war—an end to the beginning of all wars, yes, an end, forever, to this impractical, unrealistic settlement of the differences between governments by the mass killing of peoples.

Today as we move against the terrible scourge of war—as we go forward toward the greatest contribution that any generation of human beings can make in this world—the contribution of lasting peace—I ask you to keep up your faith. . .

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.”

Source:

mentalfloss.com

NASA Detects Enormous ‘Coronal Hole’ on Sun’s South Pole

A giant dark hole has appeared on the sun’s flaming surface, a recently-taken NASA picture has revealed. So far, scientists are stumped by why this spectacular phenomenon, known as a “coronal hole,” occurs.

“The Sun starts 2015 with an enormous coronal hole near the South Pole,” scientists of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory wrote in their blog, having posted a picture of the flaming sun with agaping dark space in its lower part.

What modern science knows is that “coronal holes” are places where particles leave the sun’s surface at huge speeds – of up to 500 miles per hour (800 kilometers per hour). What’s still unclear is why this is happening.

The sun’s glowing comes from the “trapped” particles. The coronal holes “contain little solar material, have lower temperatures, and therefore, appear much darker.”

The first pictures of the phenomenon were taken by NASA astronauts in the early 1970s.

The coronal holes on the sun’s poles may be seen for five or more years. Their shape can vary greatly, though.

It’s assumed that high-speed winds of solar particles coming out of the sun’s dark holes can cause geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which detected the latest coronal hole, participated late last year in the creation of one of the most impressive images of the sun ever. SDO’s picture was then combined with a photo of the sun’s X-ray emissions taken by NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array.

In October 2014, just before Halloween, NASA took a photo of the sun resembling a jack-o’-lantern.

The storms and flares on the surface of the sun actually gave a carved pumpkin appearance to the sun, as seen from the Earth.