THE AGE OF OBAMA: The End of American and the Emerging Police State - National Rifle Association (NRA) Official Says Obama Will Outlaw Guns in His Second Term?!

A top official with the National Rifle Association said Friday that President Obama will move to "destroy" gun rights and "erase" the Second Amendment if he is re-elected in November.

While delivering one of the liveliest and best-received speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said the president's low-key approach to gun rights during his first term was "a "conspiracy to ensure re-election by lulling gun owners to sleep." "All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term," he said. "We see the president's strategy crystal clear: Get re-elected and, with no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms' freedom, erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the U.S. Constitution."

Mr. LaPierre said the president's two Supreme Court appointees — Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan— are "two of the most rabid anti-gun justices in history." He also accused Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of being a foe of gun rights. And with the possibility of two or more Supreme Court justice positions opening during the next four years, the NRA official warned that gun ownership would be in jeopardy if Mr. Obama stays in office. "If we get one more like those three, the Second Amendment is finished," he said. "It'll be the end of our freedom forever." Mr. LaPierre, who said "there is no greater freedom than to own a firearm," predicted that gun owners will rally en masse to defeat Mr. Obama in November. "All of what we know is good and right about America, all of it could be lost if Barack Obama is re-elected," he said. "It's all or nothing." - Washington Times.

UPDATE: Holder Tells Congress the Obama administration Wants to Ban Guns!

Last Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer questions about his role in the deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal. However, instead of answers, Congress got more defiance, more arrogance, and more wasted time with an attorney general who clearly feels no sense of obligation to the American people or our rule of law.

But for all the stonewalling, there was at least one telling moment at this hearing, and it should concern law-abiding gun owners and all Americans who expect accountability from our government. In a rash attempt to deflect attention away from himself and his own irresponsibility, Holder let Congress know that the Obama administration is still working toward the day when it can reinstate former President Bill Clinton’s so-called “assault weapons” ban. According to Holder:

 This administration has consistently favored the reinstitution of the assault weapons ban. It is something that we think was useful in the past with regard to the reduction that we’ve seen in crime, and certainly would have a positive impact on our relationship and the crime situation in Mexico.

- Daily Caller.

WORLD WAR III: The Countdown to Armageddon - President Ahmadinejad to Make Major Nuclear Achievement Announcement Within Days and Warns West of a "Huge Storm of Global Awakening"?!

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Saturday that the nation will reveal "several major achievements in the nuclear domain" within days, state media reported.

Ahmadinejad did not offer details during his announcement at a rally to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. But he slammed "hegemonic powers," accusing them of pressuring the nation on the nuclear front. In the near future, Iran's nuclear demands will be met by the nation's scientists, Ahmadinejad said at the Tehran event broadcast on Press TV. "Today you see that the Iranian nation has become nuclear and can supply many of its demands," he said. "And God willing, in next few days, the whole world will witness the inauguration of several major achievements in the nuclear domain. - CNN.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned of the emergence of a “huge storm of global awakening” that aims to put an end to the hegemony of the Western powers. Speaking at the Saturday assembly of millions of Iranians marking the 33rd anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in the capital city of Tehran, Ahmadinejad called on the Western powers to take heed of the world nations’ demands against the backdrop of the spreading popular movements across the globe. “The huge awakening is underway. The storm of global awakening is underway. If you do not join the nations, this storm will uproot tyranny and oppression. It is to your interest to be on the side of the nations,” the Iranian President said, addressing the Western powers.

Ahmadinejad described Marxism and Capitalism as the most tyrannical systems in the entire human history, saying, “Marxism is gone and the sounds of the bones of capitalism being crushed have echoed through the world.” The Iranian chief executive insisted that the world is in need of a new order which guarantees justice, righteousness, prosperity, security and dignity for all humans, and argued that such universal governance should transcend all racist stigmas and be based on respect for humanity. He attributed all the world’s problems to the US domination and Israel’s existence as Washington and Tel Aviv have been propping up all the autocratic regimes across the world.

Ahmadinejad made reference to the West’s escalating pressure against Iran over the country’s peaceful nuclear program and argued that the Western powers are in fact against Iran’s progress and they employ the nuclear issue as a pretext to hinder the country’s achievements. He insisted that Iran will never be diverted from its true path “even an iota” and that the nation has managed to change hegemonic power’s discourse. The Iranian president warned the Middle Eastern countries against the enemy plots to sow discord in the region and urged the regional nations to exercise vigilance against major developments unfolding. - Press TV.

WATCH: Ahmedinejad leads Revolution Day rally in Tehran.

PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: "THE ISLAND OF THE WIDOWS" - Mystery Disease Kills Thousands in Central America; 24,000 in El Salvador; 2,000 in Nicaragua; Hundreds in Mexico and Panama; Chronic Kidney Epidemic at Rates Unseen Virtually Anywhere Else; Second Biggest Cause of Death Among Men in El Salvador and Nicaragua!

"It is wasting away our populations,” says Maria Isabel Rodriguez El Salvador Health Minister.

A mysterious epidemic is sweeping Central America - it's the second biggest cause of death among men in El Salvador, and in Nicaragua it's a bigger killer of men than HIV and diabetes combined. It's unexplained but the latest theory is that the victims are literally working themselves to death.

Jesus Ignacio Flores started working when he was 16, laboring long hours on construction sites and in the fields of his country's biggest sugar plantation. Three years ago his kidneys started to fail and flooded his body with toxins. He became too weak to work, wracked by cramps, headaches and vomiting. On Jan. 19 he died on the porch of his house. He was 51. His withered body was dressed by his weeping wife, embraced a final time, then carried in the bed of a pickup truck to a grave on the edge of Chichigalpa, a town in Nicaragua's sugar-growing heartland, where studies have found more than one in four men showing symptoms of chronic kidney disease.

A mysterious epidemic is devastating the Pacific coast of Central America, killing more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and Nicaragua since 2000 and striking thousands of others with chronic kidney disease at rates unseen virtually anywhere else. Scientists say they have received reports of the phenomenon as far north as southern Mexico and as far south as Panama. Last year it reached the point where El Salvador's health minister, Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, appealed for international help, saying the epidemic was undermining health systems. Wilfredo Ordonez, who has harvested corn, sesame and rice for more than 30 years in the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador, was hit by the chronic disease when he was 38. Ten years later, he depends on dialysis treatments he administers to himself four times a day.

"This is a disease that comes with no warning, and when they find it, it's too late," Ordonez said as he lay on a hammock on his porch. Many of the victims were manual laborers or worked in sugar cane fields that cover much of the coastal lowlands. Patients, local doctors and activists say they believe the culprit lurks among the agricultural chemicals workers have used for years with virtually none of the protections required in more developed countries. But a growing body of evidence supports a more complicated and counterintuitive hypothesis. The roots of the epidemic, scientists say, appear to lie in the grueling nature of the work performed by its victims, including construction workers, miners and others who labor hour after hour without enough water in blazing temperatures, pushing their bodies through repeated bouts of extreme dehydration and heat stress for years on end. Many start as young as 10. The punishing routine appears to be a key part of some previously unknown trigger of chronic kidney disease, which is normally caused by diabetes and high-blood pressure, maladies absent in most of the patients in Central America.

"The thing that evidence most strongly points to is this idea of manual labor and not enough hydration," said Daniel Brooks, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University's School of Public Health, who has worked on a series of studies of the kidney disease epidemic. Because hard work and intense heat alone are hardly a phenomenon unique to Central America, some researchers will not rule out manmade factors. But no strong evidence has turned up. "I think that everything points away from pesticides," said Dr. Catharina Wesseling, an occupational and environmental epidemiologist who also is regional director of the Program on Work, Health and Environment in Central America. "It is too multinational; it is too spread out. "I would place my bet on repeated dehydration, acute attacks everyday. That is my bet, my guess, but nothing is proved." Dr. Richard J. Johnson, a kidney specialist at the University of Colorado, Denver, is working with other researchers investigating the cause of the disease. They too suspect chronic dehydration.

In this Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012 photo,
Emma Vanegas bathes her husband
Segundo Zapata Palacios, who suffers
chronic kidney disease, inside their
home in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua.

"This is a new concept, but there's some evidence supporting it," Johnson said. "There are other ways to damage the kidney. Heavy metals, chemicals, toxins have all been considered, but to date there have been no leading candidates to explain what's going on in Nicaragua ... "As these possibilities get exhausted, recurrent dehydration is moving up on the list." In Nicaragua, the number of annual deaths from chronic kidney disease more than doubled in a decade, from 466 in 2000 to 1,047 in 2010, according to the Pan American Health Organization, a regional arm of the World Health Organization. In El Salvador, the agency reported a similar jump, from 1,282 in 2000 to 2,181 in 2010. Farther down the coast, in the cane-growing lowlands of northern Costa Rica, there also have been sharp increases in kidney disease, Wesseling said, and the Pan American body's statistics show deaths are on the rise in Panama, although at less dramatic rates.

While some of the rising numbers may be due to better record-keeping, scientists have no doubt they are facing something deadly and previously unknown to medicine. In nations with more developed health systems, the disease that impairs the kidney's ability to cleanse the blood is diagnosed relatively early and treated with dialysis in medical clinics. In Central America, many of the victims treat themselves at home with a cheaper but less efficient form of dialysis, or go without any dialysis at all. At a hospital in the Nicaraguan town of Chinandega, Segundo Zapata Palacios sat motionless in his room, bent over with his head on the bed. "He no longer wants to talk," said his wife, Enma Vanegas. His levels of creatinine, a chemical marker of kidney failure, were 25 times the normal amount. His family told him he was being hospitalized to receive dialysis. In reality, the hope was to ease his pain before his inevitable death, said Carmen Rios, a leader of Nicaragua's Association of Chronic Kidney Disease Patients, a support and advocacy group.

"There's already nothing to do," she said. "He was hospitalized on Jan. 23 just waiting to die." Zapata Palacios passed away on Jan. 26. He was 49. Working with scientists from Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Wesseling tested groups on the coast and compared them with groups who had similar work habits and exposure to pesticide but lived and worked more than 500 meters (1,500 feet) above sea level. Some 30 percent of coastal dwellers had elevated levels of creatinine, strongly suggesting environment rather than agrochemicals was to blame, Brooks, the epidemiologist, said. The study is expected to be published in a peer-reviewed journal in coming weeks. Brooks and Johnson, the kidney specialist, said they have seen echoes of the Central American phenomenon in reports from hot farming areas in Sri Lanka, Egypt and the Indian east coast. "We don't really know how widespread this is," Brooks said. "This may be an under-recognized epidemic." - The Press.

CELESTIAL CONVERGENCE: Monumental Solar System Changes - Moonrise Over Saturn; NASA Orbiter Captures Geysers of Frost Shrouding South Pole of Icy Moon Enceladus!

I have often highlighted the massive storm on Saturn, the longest-lasting  storm system to ever encircle the ring planet. Now, NASA's orbiter has captured fascinating changes on its icy moon Enceladus.

The 'smoky' effect at the bottom of the crescent moon Enceladus are geyser-like jets that
create a halo of ice, dust and gas around Enceladus that helps feed Saturn's E ring.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured a spectacular view of the crescent moon Enceladus in front off the planet. The orbiter captured the famous jets of water ice spraying from Saturn's moon Enceladus in a recent visible-light image - visible as a very faint smoky halo of ice shrouding the moon's south pole.

The spacecraft has orbited the planet Saturn since 2004, studying the planet, its mysterious moons, and its rings of tiny particles of ice. The geyser-like jets on Enceladus appear as a small white blur below the dark south pole, down and to the right of the illuminated part of the moon's surface in the image. The jets are made of water ice - and hint that Enceladus could have oceans below its surface. The geyser-like jets create a halo of ice, dust and gas around Enceladus that helps feed Saturn's E ring.

Shown here in an amazing image, collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, the massive storm encircles the
planet, and breaks a record set by a 1903 storm which battered the ringed celestial object for five months.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the plane of Saturn's rings. The image was taken in visible light with one of the cameras aboard the Cassini spacecraft on January 4 2012 and released by Nasa this week.  The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 181,000 miles  from Enceladus. - Daily Mail.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Magnitude 4.6 Earthquake Strikes the Barbados Region in the Windward Islands!

A magnitude 4.6 earthquake has struck the Barbados Region, Windward Islands at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles).

The quake hit on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 07:19:04 UTC and was located at 12.388°N, 60.164°W.

The epicentre was 98 km (60 miles) southwest of Bridgetown, Barbados; 141 km (87 miles) southeast of Kingstown, St. Vincent and Grenadines; 147 km (91 miles) northeast of Scarborough, Tobago; and 177 km (109 miles) northeast of Saint George's, Grenada.

No tsunami warning was issued and there are no reports of any damage or injuries at this time.