Pope's advice to couples: Say 'please, thanks and sorry'... - and “Never finish the day without making peace!” -

Pope's advice to couples: Say 'please, thanks and sorry'... - and “Never finish the day without making peace!” -  



Pope Francis offered some Valentine’s Day advice Friday for a lasting marriage, telling 25,000 lovebirds that the recipe for success lies in saying three simple words: “Please, thanks and sorry.”
Francis told fiancés gathered in St. Peter’s Square for a special papal date that expressions of courtesy, gratitude and contrition go a long way toward conserving and enhancing love over time.
“Never finish the day without making peace!” he begged them. “Because if you end the day without making peace, what you have inside becomes hard and cold and it becomes harder to make peace the following day.”
Francis has on several occasions met with young couples to give them advice before they embark on marriage.
The need for such church counseling, both before and after the wedding, is a theme on which he’s expected to elaborate at a ­major Vatican meeting on the family in October.
Francis has often lamented how many marriages end in divorce and has blamed such failed relationships on today’s prevailing “provisional culture” that makes people unwilling to make lifelong commitments.
Originally the audience was due to be held inside a Vatican auditorium. But the response from soon-to-wed couples to Francis’ invitation for a Valentine’s Day date was so large — Vatican officials said 25,000 people from 30 countries showed up — that the event was held in the piazza on a perfect,sunny afternoon after weeks of rain.
Francis joked that we all make mistakes and that no one is perfect: “The perfect family doesn’t exist, nor the perfect husband nor wife. Let’s not even talk about the perfect mother-in-law!”

Read more -

http://nypost.com/2014/02/15/popes-advice-to-couples-say-please-thanks-and-sorry/

LOOK: NBC Can't Even Get The U.S. Flag Right -

NBC can't catch a break at the Sochi Olympics. They've been lambasted for tape-delaying everything, host Bob Costas has a wicked case of pink-eye and U.S. medal favourites are just not winning. There's even an #NBCFail hashtag on Twitter.

But today's U.S.-Russia men's hockey game was supposed to change that right? Two former Cold War rivals facing off in battle. Grrrr.

Of course, it helps to get the little details right, like your country's flag.


This screenshot taken by a couple of Arizona sports journalists has two pretty glaring errors which we won't spell out.

We're used to seeing American broadcasters put foreign countries in the wrong place, or mix-up flags of other lesser nations. But they don't usually get their own flag wrong.

The Drugging Of America Summarized In 19 Mind-Altering Facts -

The Drugging Of America Summarized In 19 Mind-Altering Facts - 



The American people are the most drugged people in the history of the planet.  Illegal drugs get most of the headlines, but the truth is that the number of Americans that are addicted to legal drugs is far greater than the number of Americans that are addicted to illegal drugs.  As you will see below, close to 70 percent of all Americans are currently on at least one prescription drug.  In addition, there are 60 million Americans that “abuse alcohol” and 22 million Americans that use illegal drugs.  What that means is that almost everyone that you meet is going to be on something.  That sounds absolutely crazy but it is true. 

We are literally being drugged out of our minds.  In fact, as you will read about below, there are 70 million Americans that are taking “mind-altering drugs” right now.  If it seems like most people cannot think clearly these days, it is because they can’t.  We love our legal drugs and it is getting worse with each passing year.  And considering the fact that big corporations are making tens of billions of dollars peddling their drugs to the rest of us, don’t expect things to change any time soon.  The following are 19 statistics about the drugging of America that are almost too crazy to believe…

#1 An astounding 70 million Americans are taking legal mind-altering drugs right now.

#2 According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, doctors wrote more than 250 million prescriptions for antidepressants during 2010.

#3 According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug.  An astounding 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.

#4 Americans spent more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs during 2013.

#5 According to the CDC, approximately 9 out of every 10 Americans that are at least 60 years old say that they have taken at least one prescription drug within the last month.

#6 There are 60 million Americans that “abuse alcohol”.

#7 According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 22 million Americans use illegal drugs.

#8 Incredibly, more than 11 percent of all Americans that are 12 years of age or older admit that they have driven home under the influence of alcohol at least once during the past year.

#9 According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is an unintentional drug overdose death in the United States every 19 minutes.

#10 In the United States today, prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined.

#11 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.

#12 According to Alternet, “11 of the 12 new-to-market drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration were priced above $100,000 per-patient per-year” in 2012.

#13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.

#14 Many of these antidepressants contain warnings that “suicidal thoughts” are one of the side effects that should be expected.  The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 rose by close to 30 percent between 1999 and 2010.  The number of Americans that are killed by suicide now exceeds the number of Americans that die as a result of car accidents every year.

#15 In 2010, the average teen in the United States was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs.  Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and depression.

#16 Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants as children in Europe are.

#17 A shocking Government Accountability Office report discovered that approximately one-third of all foster children in the United States are on at least one psychiatric drug.

#18 A survey conducted for the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that more than 15 percent of all U.S. high school seniors abuse prescription drugs.

#19 It turns out that dealing drugs is extremely profitable.  The 11 largest pharmaceutical companies combined to rake in approximately $85,000,000,000 in profits in 2012.

In America today, doctors are trained that there are just two potential solutions to any problem.  Either you prescribe a pill or you cut someone open.  Surgery and drugs are pretty much the only alternatives they offer us.

And an endless barrage of television commercials have trained all of us to think that there is a “pill for every problem”.

Are you in pain?

Just take a pill.

Are you feeling blue?

Just take a pill.

Do you need a spark in your marriage?

Just take a pill.

And most Americans assume that all of these pills are perfectly safe.

After all, the government would never approve something that wasn’t safe, right?

Sadly, what most Americans don’t realize is that there is a revolving door between big pharmaceutical corporations and the government agencies that supposedly “regulate” them.  Many of those that are now in charge of our “safety” have spent their entire careers peddling legal drugs to all of us.

We have become a nation of drugged out zombies, and it is all perfectly legal.  The funny thing is that many of these “legal drugs” have just slightly different formulations from their “illegal” counterparts.

If more Americans understood what they were actually taking, would that cause them to stop?

Perhaps some would, but for the most part Americans are totally in love with their drugs and giving them up would not be easy.

Just ask anyone that has tried.

Read more -

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-15/drugging-america-summarized-19-mind-altering-facts

Military's 'Iron Man' Suit May Be Ready to Test This Summer -

Military's 'Iron Man' Suit May Be Ready to Test This Summer - 



The first prototypes of a high-tech suit of armor to give soldiers superhuman abilities could be ready to test this summer, according to top military officials. The suits, which have drawn comparisons to the one worn by Marvel Comics superhero "Iron Man," could be delivered to special operations forces as early as June.

The Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, is being developed by engineers at MIT; the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM); and researchers at other businesses and academic institutions. Prototypes of the suit, which is designed to provide protection from bullets and is equipped with a variety of sensors and cameras, are being assembled and could be ready for the military to test in June, reported Military.com.

The TALOS technology will be rigorously tested, and military personnel hope to have operational systems in the field by August 2018, according to Navy Adm. William McRaven, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command. [See video of the military's futuristic TALOS suit]

"That suit, if done correctly, will yield a revolutionary improvement in survivability and capability for special operators," McRaven said at the 25th annual Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict conference this week in Washington, D.C., according to Military.com.

The suit includes features such as 360-degree cameras with built-in night vision capabilities, sensors that can detect injuries and apply wound-sealing foam, and bulletproof armor.

Eventually, the TALOS systems may include full-body exoskeletons complete with screens that display information about a soldier's surroundings, according to Military.com.

View galleryMilitary's 'Iron Man' Suit May Be Ready …
The U.S. Army is developing a high-tech suit for soldiers à la "Iron Man."
The technology could give American soldiers a "huge comparative advantage over our enemies and give our warriors the protection they need," McRaven said.

Government agencies, corporations, universities and national laboratories are collaborating on the TALOS project, and the military may explore ways to distribute prize money as an incentive for others to get involved in the program, McRaven said.

"We are already seeing astounding results of this collaboration," he added.

The TALOS project began as a way to explore how technology can be used to protect special operations officers better in combat zones. "With all the advances in modern technology, I know we can do better," McRaven said.

Read more -

http://news.yahoo.com/military-39-39-iron-man-39-suit-may-141715486.html

20 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Starting To Catch Fire -

20 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Starting To Catch Fire - 



If you have been waiting for the "global economic crisis" to begin, just open up your eyes and look around.  I know that most Americans tend to ignore what happens in the rest of the world because they consider it to be "irrelevant" to their daily lives, but the truth is that the massive economic problems that are currently sweeping across Europe, Asia and South America are going to be affecting all of us here in the U.S. very soon.  Sadly, most of the big news organizations in this country seem to be more concerned about the fate of Justin Bieber's wax statue in Times Square than about the horrible financial nightmare that is gripping emerging markets all over the planet.  After a brief period of relative calm, we are beginning to see signs of global financial instability that are unlike anything that we have witnessed since the financial crisis of 2008.  As you will see below, the problems are not just isolated to a few countries.  This is truly a global phenomenon.

Over the past few years, the Federal Reserve and other global central banks have inflated an unprecedented financial bubble with their reckless money printing.  Much of this "hot money" poured into emerging markets all over the world.  But now that the Federal Reserve has begun "tapering" quantitative easing, investors are taking this as a sign that the party is ending.  Money is being pulled out of emerging markets all over the globe at a staggering pace and this is creating a tremendous amount of financial instability.  In addition, the economic problems that have been steadily growing over the past few years in established economies throughout Europe and Asia just continue to escalate.  The following are 20 signs that the global economic crisis is starting to catch fire...

#1 The unemployment rate in Greece has hit a brand new record high of 28 percent.

#2 The youth unemployment rate in Greece has hit a brand new record high of 64.1 percent.

#3 The percentage of bad loans in Italy is at an all-time record high.

#4 Italian industrial output declined again in December, and the Italian government is on the verge of collapse.

#5 The number of jobseekers in France has risen for 30 of the last 32 months, and at this point it has climbed to a new all-time record high.

#6 The total number of business failures in France in 2013 was even higher than in any year during the last financial crisis.

#7 It is being projected that housing prices in Spain will fall another 10 to 15 percent as their economic depression deepens.

#8 The economic and political turmoil in Turkey is spinning out of control.  The government has resorted to blasting protesters with pepper spray and water cannons in a desperate attempt to restore order.

#9 It is being estimated that the inflation rate in Argentina is now over 40 percent, and the peso is absolutely collapsing.

#10 Gangs of armed bandits are roaming the streets in Venezuela as the economic chaos in that troubled nation continues to escalate.

#11 China appears to be very serious about deleveraging.  The deflationary effects of this are going to be felt all over the planet. The following is an excerpt from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's recent article entitled "World asleep as China tightens deflationary vice"...

China's Xi Jinping has cast the die. After weighing up the unappetising choice before him for a year, he has picked the lesser of two poisons.
The balance of evidence is that most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong aims to prick China's $24 trillion credit bubble early in his 10-year term, rather than putting off the day of reckoning for yet another cycle.
This may be well-advised for China, but the rest of the world seems remarkably nonchalant over the implications.
#12 There was a significant debt default by a coal company in China last Friday...

A high-yield investment product backed by a loan to a debt-ridden coal company failed to repay investors when it matured last Friday, state media reported on Wednesday, in the latest sign of financial stress in China's shadow bank sector.
#13 Japan's Nikkei stock index has already fallen by 14 percent so far in 2014.  That is a massive decline in just a month and a half.

#14 Ukraine continues to fall apart financially...

The worsening political and economic circumstances in Ukraine has prompted the Fitch Ratings agency to downgrade Ukrainian debt from B to a pre–default level CCC. This is lower than Greece, and Fitch warns of future financial instability.
#15 The unemployment rate in Australia has risen to the highest level in more than 10 years.

#16 The central bank of India is in a panic over the way that Federal Reserve tapering is effecting their financial system.

#17 The effects of Federal Reserve tapering are also being felt in Thailand...

In the wake of the US Federal Reserve tapering, emerging economies with deteriorating macroeconomic figures or visible political instability are being punished by skittish markets. Thailand is drifting towards both these tendencies.
#18 One of Ghana's most prominent economists says that the economy of Ghana will crash by June if something dramatic is not done.

#19 Yet another banker has mysteriously died during the prime years of his life.  That makes five "suspicious banker deaths" in just the past two weeks alone.

#20 The behavior of the U.S. stock market continues to parallel the behavior of the U.S. stock market in 1929.

Yes, things don't look good right now, but it is important to keep in mind that this is just the beginning.

This is just the leading edge of the next great financial storm.

The next two years (2014 and 2015) are going to represent a major "turning point" for the global economy.  By the end of 2015, things are going to look far different than they do today.

None of the problems that caused the last financial crisis have been fixed.  Global debt levels have grown by 30 percent since the last financial crisis, and the too big to fail banks in the United States are 37 percent larger than they were back then and their behavior has become even more reckless than before.

As a result, we are going to get to go through another "2008-style crisis", but I believe that this next wave is going to be even worse than the previous one.

So hold on tight and get ready.  We are going to be in for quite a bumpy ride.

Read more -

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-14/20-signs-global-economic-crisis-starting-catch-fire

Man Finds Long-Lost Sibling…at Walmart -

Man Finds Long-Lost Sibling…at Walmart - 



John Maixner spent years walking into a Walmart in Dickinson, N.D., and waving to the friendly female employee who, he now can see, bore a slight resemblance to him.

It wasn't until Maixner, 57, who was given up for adoption as a baby, began looking for his birth family to obtain medical information that he discovered the Walmart employee, Buddine Bullinger, was his sister.

"My mouth just fell open," Maixner told GoodMorningAmerica.com today.

Since his search began last year, Maixner has discovered he has a brother and three sisters, and he's been reunited with all of them.

The children were all given up for adoption over 50 years ago by their mother through Catholic Services.

One of the children, Deidre Handtmann, who lives in Bismarck, reconnected with their mother later in life and took care of her until her death last year.

Bullinger, 56, knew their mother's name and was connected to Handtmann by the funeral home after their mother died. Catholic Services put Handtmann in touch with Maixner this summer.

When Handtmann told him about their other siblings and showed him Bullinger's picture, Maixner had his jaw-dropping moment when he recognized the Walmart employee.

Soon Maixner and Bullinger were making up for the lost time they spent as anonymous customer and employee.

"We exchanged phone numbers and went to Perkins and had coffee and got to know each other," Maixner said of his younger sister.

All five siblings - brother John Blankendall, in Tennessee, and Sandy Watkins, in California - met face-to-face for the first time in October.

"I walked in and I was just kind of speechless," Maixner said. "The conversation got going after a while, but we all just looked at each other and we all looked alike."

"I found myself looking at my brother and comparing our ears and our noses and our eyes," he said.

In just a matter of weeks, Maixner, who has no kids of his own and lost his adoptive parents last year, gained four siblings and "at least" 10 nieces and nephews, he said.

"I gained a huge family," said Maixner, the eldest sibling.

Now the five brothers and sisters are speaking by phone "every day or two" and celebrated Handtmann's 50 th birthday together earlier this year.

"We just talk about daily things," Maixner said. "What we're doing…work…what we're eating for lunch or supper."

Read more - 

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/man-finds-long-lost-sibling-walmart-185539047--abc-news-topstories.html

1 in 4 Americans unaware Earth circles Sun... -

1 in 4 Americans unaware Earth circles Sun... - 



Americans are enthusiastic about the promise of science but lack basic knowledge of it, with one in four unaware that the Earth revolves around the Sun, said a poll out Friday.

The survey included more than 2,200 people in the United States and was conducted by the National Science Foundation.

Ten questions about physical and biological science were on the quiz, and the average score -- 6.5 correct -- was barely a passing grade.

Just 74 percent of respondents knew that the Earth revolved around the Sun, according to the results released at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.

Fewer than half (48 percent) knew that human beings evolved from earlier species of animals.

The result of the survey, which is conducted every two years, will be included in a National Science Foundation report to President Barack Obama and US lawmakers.

One in three respondents said science should get more funding from the government.

Nearly 90 percent said the benefits of science outweigh any dangers, and about the same number expressed interest in learning about medical discoveries.

Read more - 

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/6e49b254-fc12-4176-8ab6-c6146611c372

800-Pound Runaway Snowball Slams Into College Dorm, Knocks In Wall -

800-Pound Runaway Snowball Slams Into College Dorm, Knocks In Wall - 



Two math majors at Reed College lost control of a massive snowball that rolled into a dorm, knocking in part of a bedroom wall.
No one was injured.
The students began making the snowball last week during a rare snowstorm in Portland, Ore.
Nobody weighed the object, but college spokesman Kevin Myers says it was estimated to weigh 800 pounds or more.
The students responsible for the runaway snowball reported the incident and have not been disciplined. Myers says they didn’t intend to cause damage and feel awful about what happened.
A maintenance manager told Reed Magazine it will cost several thousand dollars to repair the building.

Read more - 

http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2014/02/14/800-pound-runaway-snowball-slams-into-college-dorm-knocks-in-wall/

Europe Considers Wholesale Savings Confiscation, Enforced Redistribution -

Europe Considers Wholesale Savings Confiscation, Enforced Redistribution - 



At first we thought Reuters had been punk'd in its article titled "EU executive sees personal savings used to plug long-term financing gap" which disclosed the latest leaked proposal by the European Commission, but after several hours without a retraction, we realized that the story is sadly true. Sadly, because everything that we warned about in "There May Be Only Painful Ways Out Of The Crisis" back in September of 2011, and everything that the depositors and citizens of Cyprus had to live through, seems on the verge of going continental. In a nutshell, and in Reuters' own words, "the savings of the European Union's 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says." What is left unsaid is that the "usage" will be on a purely involuntary basis, at the discretion of the "union", and can thus best be described as confiscation.

The source of this stunner is a document seen be Reuters, which describes how the EU is looking for ways to "wean" the 28-country bloc from its heavy reliance on bank financing and find other means of funding small companies, infrastructure projects and other investment. So as Europe finally admits that the ECB has failed to unclog its broken monetary pipelines for the past five years - something we highlight every month (most recently in No Waking From Draghi's Monetary Nightmare: Eurozone Credit Creation Tumbles To New All Time Low), the commissions report finally admits that "the economic and financial crisis has impaired the ability of the financial sector to channel funds to the real economy, in particular long-term investment."

The solution? "The Commission will ask the bloc's insurance watchdog in the second half of this year for advice on a possible draft law "to mobilize more personal pension savings for long-term financing", the document said."

Mobilize, once again, is a more palatable word than, say, confiscate.

And yet this is precisely what Europe is contemplating:

Banks have complained they are hindered from lending to the economy by post-crisis rules forcing them to hold much larger safety cushions of capital and liquidity.

The document said the "appropriateness" of the EU capital and liquidity rules for long-term financing will be reviewed over the next two years, a process likely to be scrutinized in the United States and elsewhere to head off any risk of EU banks gaining an unfair advantage.
But wait: there's more!

Inspired by the recently introduced "no risk, guaranteed return" collectivized savings instrument in the US better known as MyRA, Europe will also complete a study by the end of this year on the feasibility of introducing an EU savings account, open to individuals whose funds could be pooled and invested in small companies.

Because when corporations refuse to invest money in Capex, who will invest? Why you, dear Europeans. Whether you like it or not.

But wait, there is still more!

Additionally, Europe is seeking to restore the primary reason why Europe's banks are as insolvent as they are: securitizations, which the persuasive salesmen and sexy saleswomen of Goldman et al sold to idiot European bankers, who in turn invested the money or widows and orphans only to see all of it disappear.

It is also seeking to revive the securitization market, which pools loans like mortgages into bonds that banks can sell to raise funding for themselves or companies. The market was tarnished by the financial crisis when bonds linked to U.S. home loans began defaulting in 2007, sparking the broader global markets meltdown over the ensuing two years.

The document says the Commission will "take into account possible future increases in the liquidity of a number of securitization products" when it comes to finalizing a new rule on what assets banks can place in their new liquidity buffers. This signals a possible loosening of the definition of eligible assets from the bloc's banking watchdog.
Because there is nothing quite like securitizing feta cheese-backed securities and selling it to a whole new batch of widows and orphans.

And topping it all off is a proposal to address a global change in accounting principles that will make sure that an accurate representation of any bank's balance sheet becomes a distant memory:

More controversially, the Commission will consider whether the use of fair value or pricing assets at the going rate in a new globally agreed accounting rule "is appropriate, in particular regarding long-term investing business models".
To summarize: forced savings "mobilization", the introduction of a collective and involuntary CapEx funding "savings" account, the return and expansion of securitization, and finally, tying it all together, is a change to accounting rules that will make the entire inevitable catastrophe smells like roses until it all comes crashing down.

So, aside from all this, Europe is "fixed."

The only remaining question is: why leak this now? Perhaps it's simply because the reallocation of "cash on the savings account sidelines" in the aftermath of the Cyprus deposit confiscation, into risk assets was not foreceful enough? What better way to give it a much needed boost than to leak that everyone's cash savings are suddenly fair game in Europe's next great wealth redistribution strategy.

Read more- 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-12/europe-considers-wholesale-savings-confiscation-enforced-redistribution

GONE IN 60 SECONDS - Vintage Corvettes swallowed by sinkhole under National Corvette Museum -

GONE IN 60 SECONDS - Vintage Corvettes swallowed by sinkhole under National Corvette Museum - 



A massive sinkhole that opened up under a Kentucky museum Wednesday morning swallowed several vintage and rare Corvettes.

The National Corvette Museum said the Bowling Green Fire Department estimates the sinkhole to be around 25-30 feet deep and 40 feet wide.

"This is going to be an interesting situation," Museum Executive Director Wendell Strode told the Bowling Green Daily News, noting that a structural engineer is at the Bowling Green facility to evaluate the damage inside its Sky Dome section.

Six of the cars in the sinkhole are owned by the museum; two others are owned by General Motors.

"It is with heavy hearts that we report that eight Corvettes were affected by this incident," the museum said in a press release.

The museum said the cars are a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder and 2009 ZR1 "Blue Devil" on loan from General Motors; a 1962 Black Corvette; 1984 PPG Pace Car; 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette; 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette; 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette and a 2009 White 1.5 Millionth Corvette.

Strode told the Courier-Journal that emergency personnel allowed museum staff to remove the only surviving 1983 Corvette, which was at risk of joining the other cars in the sinkhole.

“Before we do anything, like remove the other cars, we want that assessment so we know if there’s been any structural damage to the Sky Dome,” Strode told the Courier-Journal.

The museum is closed for the day.

An estimate of the cost of the damage done to vehicles and the museum has not yet been determined.

No injuries have been reported and Bowling Green city spokeswoman Kim Lancaster told The Associated Press that this appears to be the first incident of its kind at the property.

Bowling Green is also the only place where General Motors builds Corvettes. The city sits in the midst of Kentucky’s Western Pennyroyal area, where many of the state’s longest and deepest caves run underground, according to The Associated Press.

Read more - 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/12/sinkhole-opens-up-at-national-corvette-museum-swallows-cars/?intcmp=latestnews