PATENT BULL

Hudson's Australian patent: orbitally rearranged monoatomic elements

"This invention relates to the monoatomic forms of certain transition and noble metal elements, namely, gold, silver, copper, cobalt, nickel and the six platinum group elements.
More particularly, this invention relates to the separation of the aforesaid elements from naturally occurring materials in their orbitally rearranged monoatomic forms, and to the preparation of the elements in their orbitally rearranged monoatomic forms from their commercial metallic forms.
The materials of this invention are stable, substantially pure, non-metallic-like forms of the elements, and have a hereto unknown electron orbital rearrangement in the 'd', 's', and vacant 'p' orbitals.
The electron rearrangement bestows upon the monoatomic elements unique electronic, chemical, magnetic, and physical properties which have commercial application.
This invention also relates to the recovery of the metallic form of each of the aforesaid transition and noble metal elements from the orbitally rearranged monoatomic forms. "

BIG DICK

Cheney's green parka and boots stand out

Vice President Dick Cheney's utilitarian hooded parka and boots stood out amid the solemn formality of a ceremony commemorating the liberation of Nazi death camps, raising eyebrows among the fashion-conscious.
Cheney replaced the zipped-to-the-neck green parka he sported in Thursday's blowing snow and freezing wind with a more traditional black coat - red tie and gray scarf showing underneath - for his tour of Auschwitz on Friday.

[What shade of green we wonder.]]

ESCHATOLOGICAL EXEGESIS

Apocalypse soon: The signs are all there

The Rapture Index stands at 153 today, up only one point since 2005 began, and it makes you wonder whether the folks at raptureready.com who compile it. Many experts regard the index as the Dow Jones Industrial Average of "end time activity" have got their heads screwed on right. Or maybe they haven't been keeping careful track because they're too busy with other things, such as packing. If the end is coming anytime soon, you don't want to have forgotten your toothbrush when you join the righteous dead in heaven.
According to raptureready.com, a Rapture Index reading over 145 means "Fasten your seat belts," so when it hits the mid-150s it has to be telling us to close our tray-tables and make sure our seat-backs are in the full upright position.

UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN

Mad cow disease found in French goat

European scientists have found mad cow disease in a French goat – the first naturally occurring case known to hit an animal other than cattle.
The finding immediately raised fears that bovine spongiform encephalopathy – which can cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in people – has crossed to other species eaten by humans.
The goat, which was slaughtered in France in 2002, was first believed to have scrapie, a disease of goats and sheep similar to BSE but not infectious for humans.
It took more than two years to determine that the illness was likely BSE because scientists implanted the infected material into mice to see if they would develop the illness. They did.
At least 148 people in Britain alone have died from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease after eating tainted meat during an outbreak of mad cow disease there in the 1990s.

BUSH BRAIN

Seymour Hersh: We've Been Taken Over By a Cult

George Bush thinks this is the right thing. He is going to continue doing what he has been doing in Iraq. He's going to expand it, I think, if he can. I think that the number of body bags that come back will make no difference to him. The body bags are rolling in. It makes no difference to him, because he will see it as a price he has to pay to put America where he thinks it should be. So, he's inured in a very strange way to people like me, to the politicians, most of them who are too cowardly anyway to do much.

HEATED DEBATE

Global warming approaching point of no return, warns leading climate expert

Global warning has already hit the danger point that international attempts to curb it are designed to avoid, according to the world's top climate watchdog.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has 'already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere' and called for immediate and 'very deep' cuts in the pollution if humanity is to 'survive'.
His comments rocked the Bush administration - which immediately tried to slap him down - not least because it put him in his post after Exxon, the major oil company most opposed to international action on global warming, complained that his predecessor was too 'aggressive' on the issue.

Countdown to global catastrophe

The global warming danger threshold for the world is clearly marked for the first time in an international report to be published tomorrow - and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already.

FOX HUNTING

Reporters challenge renewal of Fox's licence for distorting and falsifying news

Two former WTVT, Channel 13, reporters filed a petition Monday with the Federal Communications Commission to deny renewal of the station's license for 'intentionally airing false and distorted news reports'' in 1997.
Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, who worked for Channel 13 in 1996 to 1997, say the station violated the public trust by ordering them to put a favorable slant on news reports they were preparing about a growth hormone given to dairy cattle in Florida.
The married couple, who now live in Jacksonville, say Fox-owned WTVT feared a lawsuit from hormone maker Monsanto because their reports would have raised questions about health hazards.

TECHNO FEAR

Army prepares 'robo-soldier' for Iraq

The US Army is preparing to send 18 remote-controlled robotic warriors to fight in Iraq beginning in March or April.
A SWORDS [Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems] robot shoots only when its human operator presses a button after identifying a target on video shot by the robot's cameras.
'The only difference is that his weapon is not at his shoulder, it's up to half a mile a way,' said Bob Quinn, general manager of Talon robots for Foster-Miller Inc., the Waltham, Mass., company that makes the SWORDS. As one Marine fresh out of boot camp told Quinn upon seeing the robot: 'This is my invisibility cloak.'

[The more like a video game war becomes, the less compassion there will be for our fellow man.]

GUILTY SECRETS

Rumsfeld cancels trip fearing war crime suit

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cancelled a planned visit to Germany after a US human rights organisation asked German authorities to prosecute him for war crimes, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) has learned.
Rumsfeld has informed the German government via the US embassy that he will not take part in the Munich Security Conference in February, conference head Horst Teltschik told DPA on Thursday.
The New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights filed a complaint in December with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office against Rumsfeld accusing him of war crimes and torture in connection with detainee abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Rumsfeld made it known immediately after the complaint was filed that he would not attend the Munich conference unless Germany quashed the legal action.

EVA BROWN

Rice defends her imaginary friends: Integrity and Truth

'We can have this discussion in any way that you would like, but I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity,' Rice told Boxer. 'I really hope that you will not imply that I take the truth lightly.'

Condoleezza Rice's response when California Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer argued that the Bush administration had shifted its justification for the war because it had failed to find stocks of biological and chemical weapons it had asserted were there.
"You sent them in there because of weapons of mass destruction. Later the mission changed when there were none," Boxer told Rice. "Let's not rewrite history, it's too soon to do that."

SOUL SEARCHING

Lest the abyss stare back?

Parade performers at the US Preznit-dental in-augur-ation will have security escorts to the bathroom, and they've been ordered not to look directly at President Bush or make any sudden movements while passing the reviewing stand.
Parade spectators have been banned from bringing eskys (coolers), folding chairs, bicycles, pets, papier-mache objects, displays such as puppets, mock coffins, props and "any items determined to be a potential safety hazard" ... and weapons.

BRAIN SPACE

The future of lying

Imagine the Pentagon equipped with a machine which can read minds. Sound like the plot of a Hollywood thriller? Well, it might not be that far away.
The US Department of Defense has given Dr Jennifer Vendemia a $5m grant to work on her theory that by monitoring brainwaves she can detect whether someone is lying.
Her system involves placing 128 electrodes on the face and scalp, which translate brainwaves in under a second. Subjects only have to hear interrogators' questions to give a response.
"In the United States it could be unconstitutional because, under the Fifth Amendment, citizens have a right not to self-incriminate themselves," says Steven Aftergood, of the Federation American Sciences.
"If there was a machine which was able to read people's minds, it would give greater urgency to questions of people's privacy."

BRAIN FINGERPRINTING
Brain fingerprints under scrutiny

Brain Fingerprinting, developed by Dr Larry Farwell, chief scientist and founder of Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, is a method of reading the brain's involuntary electrical activity in response to a subject being shown certain images relating to a crime.

Matching evidence from a crime scene with evidence on the perpetrator

Dr. Lawrence A. Farwell has invented, developed, proven, and patented the technique of Farwell Brain Fingerprinting, a new computer-based technology to identify the perpetrator of a crime accurately and scientifically by measuring brain-wave responses to crime-relevant words or pictures presented on a computer screen. Farwell Brain Fingerprinting has proven 100% accurate in over 120 tests, including tests on FBI agents, tests for a US intelligence agency and for the US Navy, and tests on real-life situations including actual crimes.

PROPAGANDA CENTRAL

Media training now required for Iraq-bound soldiers

As the US military approaches nearly two years in the Iraq conflict, media training for soldiers going into the war zone has been stepped up, becoming mandatory for Army troops since October, 2004.
The first talking point in a slide show for troops at Fort Bragg was: "We are not an occupying force".

A list of "wallet-card" talking points given to a group of Marines heading to Iraq included:
* The Marine Corps is trained, resourced, and ready to accomplish its missions. We are committed to the cause and will remain in Iraq as long as we are needed.
* The fight in Iraq is tough, but we will remain steadfast and not lose heart.
* We are moving forward together with the Iraqi government as partners in building a future for the sons and daughters of Iraq.
* Coalition forces will help our Iraqi partners as they build their new and independent country and take their rightful place in the world community.
* Our troopers and their families are our greatest and most treasured resource.
* The Corps is a national institution -- it has never failed to do the will of the American people.

VOICE OF TREASON

What the Pentagon can now do in secret

The CIA will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as 'facilitators' of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Ali G star escapes 'lynching' over hoax

Sasha Baron Cohen (aka Ali G) has been escorted from an American rodeo after infuriating a crowd by claiming that President Bush drinks blood and singing a mangled version of the American national anthem.
Cohen, posing as his Kazakhstani journalist character Borat, convinced rodeo organisers in Salem, Virginia, that he was filming a documentary about America.
He told them he supported the war on terrorism and said: "I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards. And may George W Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq."
Then he asked if he could show his appreciation by singing the Star Spangled Banner. His version ended with the words "your home is the grave".
"If he had been out there a minute longer, I think someone would have shot him," said local Robynn Jaymes.

DUH!

Bush says we can't find Osama because "he's hiding"

As for perhaps the most notorious terrorist, Osama bin Laden, the administration has so far been unsuccessful in its attempt to locate the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Asked why, Bush said, 'Because he's hiding'.

MISSIONARY POSITION

Villagers furious with 'Christian' aid workers

Rage and fury has gripped this tsunami-hit tiny Hindu village in India's southern Tamil Nadu after a group of Christian missionaries allegedly refused them aid for not agreeing to follow their religion.
Jubilant at seeing the relief trucks loaded with food, clothes and the much-needed medicines the villagers, many of who have not had a square meal in days, were shocked when the nuns asked them to convert before distributing biscuits and water.
"We are staunch followers of Hindu religion and refused their request. And after that these people with their aid materials are leaving the village without distributing that to us," Rajni Kumar, a villager said.

NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

Huygens loses communication line with Cassini spacecraft

The communications failure occurred on Cassini, not Huygens, and was caused by an error "as simple as throwing a switch to, 'On.' We did not set the Cassini software to 'On' and it's our fault," said Jacques Louet, head of science projects at ESA. "Space does not forgive stupid mistakes, and we made a stupid mistake. I take full responsibility.

SHEARING THE SHEEPLE

Campaign designed to promote allowing workers to invest superannuation in stockmarket

White House allies are launching a market-research project to build pressure on lawmakers to allow workers to invest part of their Social Security taxes in the stock market.
The campaign will use Bush's campaign-honed techniques of mass repetition, never deviating from the script and using the politics of fear to build support -- contending that a Social Security financial crisis is imminent when even Republican figures show it is decades away.

DEATH OF REASON

It's official: my brother died in vain

"My brother was Sgt. Sherwood Baker. He was a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard deployed a year ago with his unit out of Wilkes-Barre. He said goodbye to his wife and his 9-year-old son, boarded a bus and went to Ft. Dix, N.J., to be hastily retrained. His seven years of Guard training as a forward observer was practically worthless because he would not face combat. All he needed to do was learn how to not die.
"He received a crash course in convoy security, including practice in running over cardboard cutouts of children. We bought him a GPS unit and walkie-talkies because he wasn't supplied with them. In Iraq, Sherwood was assigned to the Iraq Survey Group and joined the search for weapons of mass destruction."

EARTH CHANGES

How the Earthquake affected Earth

NASA scientists studying the Indonesian earthquake of Dec. 26, 2004, have calculated that it slightly changed our planet's shape, shaved almost 3 microseconds from the length of the day, and shifted the North Pole by centimeters.
Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Dr. Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said all earthquakes have some effect on Earth's rotation. It's just that the effects are, usually, barely noticeable.
This one was not usual: The devastating megathrust earthquake registered nine on the new 'moment' scale (modified Richter scale), making it the fourth largest 'quake in one hundred years.

SCENE SETTER

Congress passes 'doomsday' plan

With no fanfare, the U.S. House has passed a controversial doomsday provision that would allow a handful of lawmakers to run Congress if a terrorist attack or major disaster killed or incapacitated large numbers of congressmen. 
"I think (the new rule) is terrible in a whole host of ways - first, I think it's unconstitutional,'' said Norm Ornstein, a counselor to the independent Continuity of Government Commission, a bipartisan panel created to study the issue.
"It's a very foolish thing to do, I believe, and the way in which it was done was more foolish."

GHOST TOWN

Fallujah: the real story of the fall

Last November, US military forces, backed by British soldiers from the Black Watch, launched their biggest ever assault on the city of Falluja, Operation Phantom Fury.
Over the last two weeks, Ali Fadhil, an Iraqi doctor turned film-maker for Guardianfilms, has succeeded in making it into the city and the surrounding refugee camps. He discovered people had been shot in their beds, rabid dogs were feeding on corpses, and there was little to no water, electricity or sewage. A city of over 300,000 people had been destroyed and its inhabitants were homeless.
With just two weeks until the Iraqi elections, not a single voter in Falluja has received a ballot paper. Far from stabilising the region in preparation for the election, it seems the US military's decision to use the Iraqi National Guard against this Sunni city has fanned the flames of civil war in the entire country.

EARTH CHANGES

No coast safe from wave of destruction

Tsunamis can have their origins in space. Australian geographer Professor Ted Bryant points out that a meteorite striking the ocean can have a devastating effect. He maintains that on February 22, 1491, a meteorite strike caused tsunamis more than 130m high along the Australian coast.
Like earthquakes, volcanoes can cause these surges, and often do. One of the most destructive tsunamis in recent history occurred when the island volcano of Krakatoa erupted in 1883.
Bryant has found signs of tsunami waves more than 100m high on such unlikely places as coastal southeast Australia and the Scottish coastline north of Edinburgh.
In 1958, a landslide into Lituya Bay, Alaska, created tsunami waves reportedly more than 400m high along a wilderness coastal area, stripping the forest to bare rock to an incredible height of more than 500m above sea level.

WEIRD SCIENCE

Merlin a high-tech way to forecast the future

MERLIN is a computer-based forecasting technology that combines equations derived from planetary time cycles with past historical data and blends that information into a chronograph® or Timetrak® that plots the chronology of future events. It was created by Boston-based futurist Paul Guercio and physicist Dr. George Hart excimer laser co-inventor and currently a BMDO contractor performing work related to GPS test target characterization of the TMD-GBR radar and interceptor laser radar technology development.

Prediction for 2005: At the end of 2005, something profound will happen. They're not sure what, exactly, but it could be an asteroid strike or a massive UFO invasion.

ANIMAL CUNNING

Did animals' 'sixth sense' save them from tsunami?

Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a "sixth sense" for disasters, experts said on Thursday.
Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.

Tsunami kills thousands of people in Sri Lanka but few animals, wildlife experts say

An Associated Press photographer who flew over Sri Lanka's Yala National Park in an air force helicopter saw abundant wildlife, including elephants, buffalo, deer, and not a single animal corpse.
Floodwaters from Sunday's tsunami swept into the park, uprooting trees and toppling cars onto their roofs -- one car even ended up on top of a huge tree -- but the animals apparently were not harmed.

Yala, Sri Lanka's largest wildlife reserve, covers 1000 square km. 200 people were killed at Yala when waves sent floodwater surging 3.5km inland.

[The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean last week which is expected to have killed more than 100,000 people. ]