KECKING THEMSELVES

UFO evidence being searched for by NASA

Bill Bulebush, 82, says he knows what he saw, heard and smelled, despite the doubts of the government.

"I looked up and saw it flying overhead and it was sizzling," said Bulebush, a retired truck driver.

"I found it in the woods down there [in a valley] and I got to it 15 to 20 minutes after it landed. I saw it 10 to 15 feet away from behind a big tree -- because I was worried it might blow up -- and it smelled like sulfur or rotten eggs and was shaped like a huge acorn, about the size of a VW."

Other people said that shortly afterward, dozens of Army soldiers and three members of the Air Force showed up; later that night a flatbed military truck took the object away.

A recent settlement in a 4-year-long Freedom of Information Act court battle requires NASA to meticulously comb its files for documents about the Kecksburg incident.

According to a transcript federal Judge Emmet Sullivan, who had tried to move NASA along for more than three years, angrily referred to NASA's search efforts as a "ball of yarn" that never fully answers the request, adding: "I can sense the plaintiff's frustration because I'm frustrated."

NUCLEAR DAYS

The Coming Age of the Personal Nuclear Reactor

The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction.
The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core.
The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

IMAM

Six imams ejected from US flight

Six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight, bound to Phoenix from Minneapolis, after a passenger reported "suspicious activity" to cabin crew.
The men were told to disembark shortly after saying evening prayers. Three of the six had stood as they prayed.
The scholars, who were returning from a conference, allege they were handcuffed and "humiliated" during the ordeal. They were questioned by police, they said, for several hours.

A spokeswoman for US Airways said concerns about the group had been raised by a passenger, who had passed a note to a flight attendant.

POLICE STATE

AdelaideNow... Police guard their law breaches

POLICE are being accused of "excessive secrecy" for taking a year to release sparse details of individual cases of serious misconduct by officers.

Details of the 29 officers' cases, proved before the Police Disciplinary Tribunal, are contained in a written response to an Opposition question asked in November last year.

It reveals little extra detail to the brief summary provided in police annual reports, further intensifying pressure for greater scrutiny of police misconduct.

The data included officers found guilty on two occasions of "improperly obtaining benefit or advantage" and, in six instances, of breaching "confidentiality of information".

The 2005-06 details show misconduct charges were withdrawn against five officers because they either had resigned or had retired.

BROWN DWARF

Does the Nemesis Star really exist?

The Nemesis Star was suposed to be a distant companion of the Sun in a 26 million year orbit. It would perturb comets in the Oort Cloud and send thousands of them into the inner solar system where some would collide with Earth and produce mass extinctions.
It was proposed for non-astronomical reasons to explain the seemingly periodic extinction record every 26 million years.

EAT SHIT AND DIE

Toilet home 'may have traumatised' compost worms

A New Zealand inventor has been forced to defend the use of worms in a composting toilet he has developed after officials became concerned that the creatures might become traumatised by the procedure.

Coll Bell was told to get an expert's report on the mental impact on the tiger worms being used after an official became concerned during a site visit.

He says the official felt that the worms were being unfairly treated, being expected to deal with human faeces, and that it could affect them in a psychological way.

Mr Bell was told he had to get someone with the necessary qualifications to say the worms were happy.

A vermiculture consultant was called in and she has found the worms are in excellent health and breeding happily.

VOICE OF REASON

New Jersey abolishes death penalty

New Jersey became the first US state in four decades to vote to abolish the death penalty, in a move on Thursday hailed by human rights activists as a step towards ending capital punishment.
The Democratic-controlled state assembly passed the law by a vote of 44 to 36, assembly spokesperson Joe Donnelly told AFP, after an emotional three-hour debate.

SEPARATION OF POWERS

Dennis Hood apologises to Judge Marie Shaw

FAMILY First politician Dennis Hood has "unreservedly withdrawn" his call for a District Court judge to be sacked.
Mr Hood, a member of the state Legislative Council, last month called for Judge Marie Shaw to be dismissed after she imposed a suspended sentence upon a sex offender.

FRIEND IN DEED

Dogs may get bravery awards for saving toddler

The RSPCA says it is considering giving bravery awards to two dogs who saved a north Queensland toddler from drowning.
Police say the dogs followed the two-year-old boy when he wandered from the family home in Andergrove in Mackay yesterday morning and then dragged him to safety when he fell into a dam.

VOICE OF REASON

US House votes to outlaw CIA waterboarding

The Democrat-led US House of Representatives has voted to outlaw harsh interrogation methods that the CIA has used against suspected terrorists, such as the practice known as 'waterboarding'.

On a 222-199 vote, the House approved a measure to require intelligence agents to comply with the Army Field Manual, which meets the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of war prisoners and prohibits torture.

The measure passed amid a congressional probe into the recent disclosure that the CIA destroyed videotapes of Al Qaeda suspects undergoing waterboarding, a simulated drowning.

ACCESS ALL AREAS

The Access Card - Good for Your Health?

The Access Card will replace seventeen existing cards including Medicare and pensioner concession cards.

It will display your computer-linked number, photo and signature.

The new feature is inside the card - a microchip which will store a photo, your address, date of birth and details of your dependents.

There'll also be space to enter your own personal details and it's up to you what you put into it.

COMPUTERS TAKE-OVER

2001 paper shows Centrelink's error 'breaches' increasing

While Centrelink breaches have increased dramatically, so have appeals with nearly 35% of all breaches implemented by Centrelink for 1999-2000 revoked through an appeals process.

It has been extremely difficult to obtain data relating to young people and breaches as Centrelink has refused requests, including an FOI request stating the information is 'politically sensitive'.

In a society celebrating its centenary of federation, it may be worth asking not only, where welfare policies such as mutual obligation are heading, but also why access to information related to welfare policies is denied.

Welfare reform can only be debated and analyzed in a forum where access to data is available. The data that is available indicates very high rates of breaching that suggests that there ought to be further questioning about the effectiveness and justice of such policies for young people. And more importantly, why material relating to the breaches is denied to independent
researches.

MARK OF THE BEAST

Joe "Shrek" Hockey ... he only LOOKS like a socialist.

Show me your papers!

Part of the report to Government on it's proposed ID card runs under the heading, Reducing Opportunities for Fraud, before indicating that it may actually increase the incidence of widespread if the card security was breached.
Such a breech was carried out as part of a media stunt within minutes.

Then there is the case two compact discs full of personal details being lost.
The data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people.

* Reducing Opportunities for Fraud: Having one Point of Issue (POI) would reduce opportunities for some fraud. However, this will also introduce a single point of failure. Failure of the smart card security would expose the system to a risk of widespread fraud. Increased security could instead be achieved by using existing identification means in the financial and telecommunications industries and strengthening those means.

"KPMG Access Card Business Case", KPMG, February 2006
Australian Government Smart Card Project

SATURN RETURNS

Saturn's rings (Nasa). The UVIS instrument sees the rings in the ultraviolet

Saturn's rings 'may live forever'

Saturn's iconic rings may be much older than we thought, scientists say.
New data from the Cassini probe shows these thin bands of orbiting particles were probably there billions years ago, and are likely to be very long-lived.
It means we are not in some special time -- the giant planet has most likely always provided a stunning view.

POLICE STATE

Police powers 'to protect ads, not Pope'

Commissioner Scipione says the legislation, passed by Parliament last week, does not give police any special security powers.
He says the power to search pilgrims and evict them from World Youth Day events next July are ordinary police powers, and other features of the legislation are designed to protect commercial sponsors.
"It's about restrictions on things like advertising and where billboards could be placed," he said. "That's about aerial advertising."

THE QUICKENING

Global warming causing record disasters: report

The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) says global warming caused a record number of natural disasters across the world in 2007, up nearly 20 per cent from a year earlier.

"As of 10 October 2007, the Federation had already recorded 410 disasters, 56 per cent of which were weather-related, which is consistent with the trend of rising numbers of climate change-related disasters," the IFRC said in its World Disasters Report.

In 2006, the IFRC recorded 427 natural disasters, a rise of 70 per cent in the two years since 2004

MAMMOTH TUSK

Great beasts peppered from space

Startling evidence has been found which shows mammoth and other great beasts from the last ice age were blasted with material that came from space.

Eight tusks dating to some 35,000 years ago all show signs of having being peppered with meteorite fragments.

CHUCKLE, SERIOUSLY

Action-film star Chuck Norris, right, has found common ground with Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee.

Chuck Norris doesn't endorse candidates, he kicks them into the stratosphere

"Chuck Norris doesn't wear a watch, He decides what time it is."
"When the boogeyman goes to bed, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris."
"Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he's never cried. Ever."
"Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits."
"There's no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard. This is only another fist."

JUSTICE CAN SEE

Judge in trial by media (and politicians) over 'soft' sentencing [PDF download]

News of Judge Sarah Bradley's "soft" sentences for nine Indigenous offenders who pleaded guilty to raping a 10-year-old girl has made its way around the world, from BBC News to Aljazeera.
Justice Bradley, a District Court Judge in the Cairns region, would know much of that problem. In February 2006, she presented a considered paper, "Applying restorative justice principles in the sentencing of indigenous offenders and children" at the Sentencing Principles, Perspectives and Possibilities Conference in Canberra.

Restorative Justice, she said, "involves an emphasis on reparation, rehabilitation and reconciliation rather than punishment, condemnation and retribution. It is about healing rather than hurting and usually involves some sort of community participation and involvement." In the speech, she talked of the need for judges to consult with Indigenous community representatives, noted that it was desirous for judges to get to know the community they were dealing with and underlined the problems of an underfunded justice system.

GOATSKIN SPACESUIT

Astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin took this Masonic flag to the moon on Apollo 11, landing July 20, 1969, and conducted a Masonic ritual.

Masonic ritual performed at historic moon landing

A number of the early astronauts were Masons, including Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong.

Aldrin took the flag of the 33rd Degree Masonic Temple on 16th Street in Washington, DC, to the moon with him and carried out a brief Masonic ceremony on the moon and returned that flag from the moon’s surface to the 33rd Degree Masonic Scottish Rite Temple in Washington, DC, personally in September of 1969.

DEMOCRACY DYING

Democracy is: fighting with one hand tied behind our back

In September 1999 the Supreme Court, in an expanded panel of nine judges, unanimously repealed the former governmental guidelines regarding use of physical means during interrogations, which were previously criticized by this Committee. The Supreme Court stated that the ISA - the Israeli Security Agency (which is the English title for what was known as the General Security Service) has no authority under Israeli law to use physical force in its interrogations. As if to further heighten the dilemma, this ruling was given less than eighteen hours after two car bombs exploded in the heart of two northern cities - Haifa and Tiberias.

In the words of the court:
This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and its strength and allow it to overcome its difficulties.

FADED GENES

Spilled GM Canola Growing in Japan

Japan does not produce any GM crops. But because it imports GM canola from Canada, GM contamination has already occurred and is reportedly spreading to a wide area throughout the country and at a greater extent than was expected.

Surveys conducted since 2005 have found that GM canola has appeared around ports where canola is imported, and around factories where canola oil is extracted as well as along canola transportation routes. There were some cases where GM canola was found along residential areas. GM canola was also found growing in certain ports where animal feed factories are situated.

In this year's findings, GM canola found near to an oil extraction factory in Chiba prefecture was tolerant to both Roundup and Basta (the GM canola imported from Canada is all herbicide tolerant -- either to Monsanto's 'Roundup' or to Bayer CropScience's 'Basta'.) As there is no GM canola variety currently available which has transgenes for both types of herbicide tolerance, this GM canola must have been crossed at a seed or cultivation stage, or possibly at the spot where it was spilled.

These findings suggest that the danger of spillage of GMOs and subsequently the possibility of contamination through transfer of transgenes to non-GM crops are very real.

ORDINARY RENDITION

CIA 'wiped' interrogation tapes

The CIA has confirmed that it destroyed at least two video tapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects.

According to the intelligence agency, the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of CIA agents and because they no longer had intelligence value.

But the New York Times says that they were wiped because they showed severe interrogation methods being used.

Officials feared the tapes could have raised doubts about the legality of the CIA's techniques, the newspaper says.

DOGS OF WAR

Boom times ahead for dogs of war

The British Association of Private Security Companies (BAPSC) was gathering for its annual conference in London - its second since the association was formed last year "to raise the standards of operation of its members and this emergent industry".

Even though huge sums of money are already being spent, many private contractors see it merely as a profitable foretaste of things to come.

BAPSC chief Andrew Bearpark said "the British military is more and more strapped. I think it is inevitable that in years to come, the private security companies will be asked to make up some of that shortfall."

One of the (unnamed) delegates at Tuesday's conference gave a good insight into why governments like to work with private security contractors:
"Private security companies are not subject to political considerations in the same way conventional armies are. Plus you don't have necessarily have to flag up money you spend on hiring mercenaries. It doesn't necessarily appear in the official defence budget.
"Most importantly, if a private security contractor is killed on active duty, you don't get any body bag pictures on the front pages. That means no bad publicity for the government."

MOON FOOD

Moonstruck flock to Arizona light collector

Financial adviser Jaron Ness stands in the cool desert air waiting for the clouds to clear and the moon to rise.

As the conditions come into alignment, he steps into the path of a cool blaze of blue-white light bounced off a wall of highly polished parabolic mirrors five stories high.
"It feels magnetic," he says, turning his hands slowly in the reflected glow of the light from the almost full moon.
The young professional from Colorado is among a growing number of curious people beating a path to this patch of scrub-strewn land out in the Arizona desert to bask in light from the world's first moonbeam collector.

Visitors enjoy the experience. Some say it is like swimming underwater, while others say it feels like standing in a warm breeze and leaves them feeling upbeat.
"When I got in the moonlight it was an instant and profound sense of euphoria ... it was very peaceful," said Eric Carr, a hypnotherapist from Tucson who has visited several times.
Aranka Toniatti, a cancer patient who has driven from Colorado twice to stand in the moonlight, said it is "a gorgeous feeling"."You feel almost like you are in heaven," she said.

CULTURE WARS

Santa sacked for saying ho ho ho

A 70-year-old man working as Santa Claus says he was sacked from a Cairns department store for saying "ho ho ho" and singing Christmas carols.In a case of political correctness seemingly gone mad, retired entertainer John Oakes says he was fired from his job at Myer for his rendition of Santa's famous laugh.

His employer, Westaff, last month sparked national outrage when it ordered its Santas to say "ha ha ha" instead of "ho ho ho" because it could be derogatory to women.

Urban Dictionary
Ho: A word Santa Clause says three times when he sees your wife, mother and sister together in the same room.

ILL WIND

Flatulence ban for club pensioner

A social club in Devon has banned a 77-year-old man from breaking wind while indoors.
Maurice Fox received a letter from Kirkham Street Sports and Social Club in Paignton asking him to consider his actions, which "disgusted" members.

Mr Fox, a club regular for 20 years, said: "I am happy to oblige them, there is no problem. I do get a bit windy - I am an old fart now.
"I think someone has complained about the noise. I am a loud farter, but there is no smell.
"I do not think it [the letter] is unreasonable, you get ladies in there."

BLEEDING OBVIOUS

It's not the economy, stupid

There is growing recognition that economic activity is a means to the end of human wellbeing rather than an end in itself. The economy should be the servant of society, rather than society the servant of the economy.
An opinion poll conducted since the election confirms those held before it which showed that more voters were concerned about health, education, workplace relations and climate change than about taxation, interest rates or prices.

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

U.S. Officer Faces Court Martial For Suicide Attempt

In a nondescript conference room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside listened last week as an Army prosecutor outlined the criminal case against her in a preliminary hearing.
The charges: attempting suicide and endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq.Her hands trembled as Maj.
Stefan Wolfe, the prosecutor, argued that Whiteside, now a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed, should be court-martialed.
After seven years of exemplary service, the 25-year-old Army reservist faces the possibility of life in prison if she is tried and convicted.

Under military law, soldiers who attempt suicide can be prosecuted under the theory that it affects the order and discipline of a unit and brings discredit to the armed forces.

Blogged with Flock

DEATH OF DEMOCRACY

Harassment claims mar Russia poll

The United Russia party is portraying the poll as a referendum on Vladimir Putin's eight years in office.
And when he visited Krasnoyarsk early in the campaign, Mr Putin himself increased the stakes by saying a big majority would give him the "moral right" to continue to wield political influence even after he comes to the end of his term as president next spring.

All the 85 powerful regional governors now owe their loyalty to the Kremlin. Instead of being elected by the local population, they are directly appointed by Mr Putin.

Nikolai Petrov, an expert on Russian regional government at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow, said "the goal for governors is to deliver as many votes as possible... it is an exam for them to prove their loyalty and efficiency".

"So I would say that fraud is inevitable and will be higher than ever." Mr Petrov said.

POLICE STATE

Gold Walkley winner hits out at AFP

This year's Gold Walkley winner Hedley Thomas has criticised the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for pursuing the lawyers who leaked the information that allowed him to write his award-winning articles.

Mr Thomas from The Australian won the country's top journalism prize for a series of stories about the government's handling of the Dr Mohamed Haneef case.

In his acceptance speech, he thanked Dr Haneef's lawyers Peter Russo and Stephen Keim for risking their careers to expose vital facts about the case.

"They went out on a limb, Stephen Keim particularly, risked his career and livelihood to help me see the facts in this case and for that he is still being pursued by the Australian Federal Police who have lodged and have active a formal complaint against him," he said.

"And I believe that every journalist in this room should understand that the Australian Federal Police and its Commissioner Mr Mick Keelty is still trying to punish Steven Kime for bringing out the truth."

BIG BROTHER

UK's families put on fraud alert

Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing.
Alarm bells should be sounding in Canberra -- as well as in commercial, legal, law enforcement and policy-making circles -- following the news from Britain that data on 25 million people has been lost in the post.
Personal details of half the UK's population stored on two computer discs went missing while being couriered from HM Revenue and Customs, the UK tax office.
"It is inexcusable, I deeply regret it, I unreservedly apologise for what has happened," grovelled Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling.

TOE IN THE WATER

Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing.

Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything

An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists.
His proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics. Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space.

The new theory reported today in New Scientist has been laid out in an online paper entitled "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" by Lisi, who completed his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1999 at the University of California, San Diego.

Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, describes Lisi's work as "fabulous". "It is one of the most compelling unification models I've seen in many, many years," he says.

"Some incredibly beautiful stuff falls out of Lisi's theory," adds David Ritz Finkelstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. "This must be more than coincidence and he really is touching on something profound."

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Saudi court orders 200 lashes for rape victim

The United States has given only mild criticism of a Saudi court's order to double the number of lashings for a gang rape victim.

"This is a part of a judicial procedure overseas in the court of a sovereign country," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, when asked to comment on the case. Mr McCormack declined to directly criticise America's close ally, or the Saudi legal system, which has made a series of erratic verdicts in recent months.

The 19-year-old Shiite woman from the town of Qatif in the Eastern Province was raped by seven men in 2006.
A court had originally sentenced the woman to 90 lashes and the rapists to jail terms of between 10 months and five years.
But the victim's lawyer told Reuters last week the court had increased her sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison.

He said the court had blamed the woman for being alone with unrelated men.

INNER SPACE

Professor proposes theory of unparticle physics

Howard Georgi, a physicist at Harvard University, has recently published a paper on so-called unparticle physics, which suggests the existence of “unparticle stuff” that cannot be accounted for by the standard model. Appearing in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters, the paper says that unparticle stuff would be very different than anything seen before.

Georgi – a pioneer in supersymmetry, quantum chromodynamics, and grand unified theories – explains that the low-energy physics of nontrivial scale-invariance cannot be described in terms of particles. In this initial investigation of the idea, he gives a quantitative scenario of the production of unparticle stuff, and predicts how it could be experimentally detected in the upcoming Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator that will open in early 2008.

In many ways, science is all about finding the meaning in the mysteries of math.

DOUBLE ENTENDRE

Dong sues over sex scene cuts

A CHINESE moviegoer is suing China's film watchdog in frustration with the censored version of Ang Lee's steamy World War Two drama Lust, Caution, Beijing media reported today.
The film was shown minus the on-screen sex and other scenes cut at the behest of local censors.
Mr Dong Yanbin had filed a suit against the nation's film censor for infringing upon his "consumer rights".

HIGH STRANGENESS

Global panel calls for new UFO probe

An international panel of two dozen former pilots and government officials has called on the US Government to reopen its generation-old UFO investigation as a matter of safety and security, given continuing reports about flying discs, glowing spheres and other strange sightings.
The panellists from seven countries, including former senior military officers, said they had each seen a UFO or conducted an official investigation into UFO phenomena.

"It's a question of who you going to believe: your lying eyes or the Government?" remarked John Callahan, a former Federal Aviation Administration investigator, who said the CIA in 1987 tried to hush up the sighting of a huge lighted ball four times the size of a jumbo jet in Alaska.

WORK ETHIC

Buster Martin blows out the candle of his cake at work

100-year-old told 'take day off'

A man has turned up for work despite being told to take the day off for his 100th birthday.
Buster Martin began cleaning vans for Pimlico Plumbers despite retiring as a market worker three years ago.
Buster Martin said he went back to work because he was bored.
Colleagues at the firm in Lambeth, south London, threw him a surprise party and were treating him to a tour of Chelsea FC's Stamford Bridge ground.
He joined the Army at 15 and served 35 years before joining the Navy.
Mr Martin said the last time he had a party he was in the desert "getting as drunk as a Lord when I was 21". (c. 1928)
He said the secret of his longevity could be due to a pint of bitter every day and daily press ups.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Press freedom declining: audit

An independent audit by former New South Wales ombudsman Irene Moss has found a general "subtle shift" towards secrecy in Australia.The audit reviewed legislation and practices related to free speech issues affecting the media in Australia.

NERD UP

© abk.

New Scientist published a woman's breast in the June 2, 2007, issue. Compared with the inverted version, the printed image appears to be upside down.

ON THIS DAY

Mother jailed in dingo baby murder

Lindy Chamberlain has been found guilty of the murder of her nine-week-old daughter after a jury dismissed her claim that a dingo took the baby
The court was told that she cut the baby's throat and disposing of the body whilst at a campsite near Ayers Rock.
Four years later on 2 February, a matinee jacket worn by Azaria was found partially buried in a dingo's lair at Ayers Rock - this seemed to back up Lindy Chamberlain's version of events.
She was released five days later. The Northern Territory government said it was because she had "suffered enough". [29 Oct 1982]

Torun found that the ratio of the surface area of a sphere, to the surface area of an inscribed tetrahedron, the simplest platonic solid is 2.720699, almost exactly the constant "e", which is 2.718282. 2.720699 (e) / pi = Ö3/2 = 0.866
Cydonia 101: Page 8

OUR COSMOS

Hexagon Spied Around Saturn's Pole

A new image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft offers the first direct view of a six-sided feature that encircles Saturn's north pole. The 15,000-mile-wide (25,000-kilometer-wide) cloud formation was initially spied during the Voyager missions in the 1980s. But scientists remain baffled by the atmospheric forces driving the unusual feature.



Saturn's North Pole Hexagon and Aurora

This nighttime view of Saturn's north pole by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on NASA's Cassini orbiter reveals a dynamic, active planet at least 75 kilometers (47 miles) below the normal cloud tops seen in visible light. Clearly revealed is the bizarre six-sided hexagon feature present at the north pole.

TRUTH BE TOLD

Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

I hate all Iranians, US aide tells MPs

Britsh MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior women officials: "I hate all Iranians."
The all-party group of MPs say Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates, made the comments this month.

The Pentagon denied Ms Cagan said she "hated" Iranians.
"She doesn't speak that way," said an official.

But when The Mail on Sunday spoke to four of the six MPs, three confirmed privately that she made the remark and one declined to comment. The other two could not be contacted.

USED BATTERIES

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Cheney, Howard 'did deal on Hicks'

A report, published in Harper's Magazine, cites an unnamed US military officer saying that a military staffer was present when Mr Cheney interfered directly to seal Hicks's plea bargain deal.
"He [Mr Cheney] did it, apparently, as part of a deal cut with [Australian Prime Minister] Howard," the unnamed source is quoted as saying."I kept thinking: this is the sort of thing that used to go on behind the Iron Curtain, not in America.
"And then it struck me how much this entire process had disintegrated into a political charade. It's demoralising for all of us."

DUCK AND COVER

Airmen punished for nuclear error

The US Air Force has relieved several officers of their commands after a B-52 bomber was mistakenly flown across the US loaded with nuclear-armed missiles.
The incident has been described as one of the worst known breaches of nuclear weapons procedures in decades.Six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads were mounted on the bomber's wings before it was flown to Louisiana.

BLACK BOX

Internet voting needed, says poll candidate

A candidate for Adelaide City Council says that internet voting is needed for local government elections, as a way to encourage more young people to vote.
At the halfway mark of the council voting period last week, only 20 per cent of registered voters had returned their ballot paper through the post.

Electronic voting

A fundamental challenge with any voting machine is assuring the votes were recorded as cast and tabulated as recorded. Non-document ballot voting systems can have a greater burden of proof. This is often solved with an independently auditable system, sometimes called an Independent Verification, that can also be used in recounts or audits. These systems can include the ability for voters to verify how their votes were cast or further to verify how their votes were tabulated.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Ruddock stands by counter-terrorism laws

The Federal Attorney General has backed the Commonwealth's counter-terrorism laws, after suggestions they may exacerbate terrorism.
A report from Monash University has found that Victorian police efforts to engage the community will help in the long term to build social cohesion and combat terrorism.
But the report found these efforts may be undermined by the Federal counter-terrorism laws.
Associate Professor Jude McCulloch, says the tough laws may help address short term threats, but could alienate sections of the community.

HI FIVE

Phone designers flip

A touch-sensitive screen but with the sensors on its back.
Using fingers behind the device allows a firmer grip and more accurate performance without obscuring the screen. [Video]

QUANTUM FUTURE

Material may lead to advances in quantum computing

A compound made from the elements potassium, niobium and oxygen, along with chromium ions -- could provide a technological breakthrough that leads to the development of new quantum computing technologies. Quantum computers would harness the power of atoms and molecules to perform memory and processing tasks on a scale far beyond those of current computers.

The research was recently published in Physical Review Letters.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Genetically modified corn may harm ecostystem

A new study indicates that a popular type of genetically engineered corn--called Bt corn--may damage the ecology of streams draining Bt corn fields in ways that have not been previously considered by regulators.
This study provides the first evidence that toxins from Bt corn may travel long distances in streams and may harm stream insects that serve as food for fish. These results compound concerns about the ecological impacts of Bt corn raised by previous studies showing that corn-grown toxins harm beneficial insects living in the soil.
Licensed for use in 1996, Bt corn is engineered to produce a toxin that protects against pests, particularly the European corn borer. Bt corn now accounts for approximately 35 percent of corn acreage in the U.S., and its use is increasing.

The study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, appears in the Oct. 8 edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

LIES AND STATISTICS

LaThe Pirahã and us

The Pirahã language and culture seem to lack not only the words but also the concepts for numbers, using instead less precise terms like "small size", "large size" and "collection". And the Pirahã people themselves seem to be suprisingly uninterested in learning about numbers, and even actively resistant to doing so, despite the fact that in their frequent dealings with traders they have a practical need to evaluate and compare numerical expressions.

How could rational people resist learning to understand and use them? I don't know the answer. But I do know that we can investigate a strictly comparable case, equally puzzling to me, right here in the U.S. of A.

Until about 100 years ago, our language and culture lacked the words and ideas needed to deal with the evaluation and comparison of sampled properties of groups. Even today, only a minuscule proportion of the U.S. population understands even the simplest form of these concepts and terms. Out of the roughly 300 million Americans, I doubt that as many as 500 thousand grasp these ideas to any practical extent, and 50,000 might be a better estimate. The rest of the population is surprisingly uninterested in learning, and even actively resists the intermittent attempts to teach them, despite the fact that in their frequent dealings with social and biomedical scientists they have a practical need to evaluate and compare the numerical properties of representative samples.

PITTER PATTER

'4D ultrasounds' may test abortion laws

Ultrasounds that produce video-quality moving images of the foetus have changed the debate about late-term abortion, an Australian ethics expert says.
Senior law lecturer Dr Kristin Savell from the University of Sydney says so-called 4D ultrasound technology has "democratised foetal imagery" by giving the public direct visual access to realistic images.

SPIN CITY

Nanotechnology pioneers win 2007 physics Nobel 

France's Albert Fert and Germany's Peter Gruenberg have won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physics, recognised the pair's discovery of giant magnetoresistance, which has helped revolutionise computer data storage and retrieval.

Harnessing these tiny magnetic changes - dubbed spintronics - made it possible to pack much more data onto hard disks and the development of handheld devices such as mobile phones or music players.

+++

The giant magnetoresistive effect (GMR) is a quantum mechanical effect observed in thin film structures composed of alternating ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic metal layers. The 2007 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg for the discovery of GMR.

The effect manifests itself as a significant decrease in resistance from the zero-field state, when the magnetization of adjacent ferromagnetic layers are antiparallel due to a weak anti-ferromagnetic coupling between layers, to a lower level of resistance when the magnetization of the adjacent layers align due to an applied external field. The spin of the electrons of the nonmagnetic metal align parallel or antiparallel with an applied magnetic field in equal numbers, and therefore suffer less magnetic scattering when the magnetizations of the ferromagnetic layers are parallel.

WHY DEMOCRACY

Think again

"I tend to resist romantic definitions that feature phrases like “noble ideal” and opt instead for something more analytic: democracy is a form of government that is not attached to any pre-given political or ideological ends, but allows ends to be chosen by the majority vote of free citizens." - Stanley Fish

HARD WOOD

Moving with the times
For the Supply and Delivery of Sawn Hardwood Railway Timber Sleepers
Issued by TransAdelaide
Request for Tender
Tender State: Current Tender
Tender Code: TRANS014948
Contract Number: 41/07
Category: Unassigned.

GUNN GUFF

Gunns contradicts itself over delays and hearings on pulp mill

Last week, Gunns CEO John Gay questioned the need for public hearings about the pulp mill and complained about so-called ‘delays’ in the assessment. In response, Premier Paul Lennon has reportedly promised to expedite the process on behalf of Gunns.
However, the pulpmill assessment timetable Gunns and Mr Lennon are complaining about is a timetable that was requested by Gunns itself, according to the Wilderness Society.
And the delays about which Gunns has complained are largely delays caused by Gunns itself.

TOP GUNNS

Gunns chief says mill conditions unfair

The head of timber company Gunns, John Gay, says the Federal Government's conditions placed on the Tasmanian pulp mill are unfair.
Meanwhile, Gunns shares surged around 11 per cent after Federal Environment Minister Mr Malcolm Turnbull's announcement.
The company has a record of sizeable donations to the Liberal and Labor parties.

PULP FACT

"Thank you ant-people ... and now here is where we are going to put it."



Most of the native forest that is logged in Tasmania is woodchipped by Gunns

Most of the native forest clearfell logged in Tasmania is woodchipped by a company called Gunns.
Gunns has four woodchip mills in Tasmania. Two of these woodchip mills are located at Bell Bay (north of Launceston), one is at Burnie, and the other is at Triabunna (East Coast). Gunns exports these woodchips, mostly to Japan.

BIG BROTHER

Interpol in rare sex abuse appeal

Interpol has launched an unprecedented global public appeal to help identify a man shown sexually abusing children in photographs posted on the internet.
The pictures had been manipulated to disguise the man's face with a swirl pattern, but computer specialists at Germany's federal police agency, the BKA, worked with Interpol's human trafficking team to produce identifiable images.

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BIG BROTHER

Video footage shows accused carrying woman's body

Neil Chamlers, 48, is accused of murdering of his partner Shirley Liang in February last year.
A Supreme Court jury was today shown surveillance camera footage of the accused carrying her body from the couple's Southbank apartment to a downstairs carpark.
Prosecutor Peter Rose SC said data taken from the global positioning system in Chalmers' car shows he drove to Tallarook then returned to Melbourne.

ZIG HEIL

NAZI bedspreads infuriate Indian Jews

A new line of bedspreads called the 'NAZI Collection' has provoked fury among India's Jewish community.
The makers say 'NAZI' stands for 'New Arrival Zone of India', while the swastika is also a commonly-used Hindu symbol.

US Navy to remodel 'swastika-shaped' barracks

The US Navy is to spend $US600,000 ($680,000) to remodel a set of barracks in Southern California that resemble a swastika when viewed from above, officials said.
From ground level the layout of the four L-shaped buildings at the US Navy base outside San Diego is unremarkable.

SENDING MESSAGES

Fined $US220,000 for sharing 24 tunes

Jammie Thomas, 30, was the first among more than 26,000 people sued by the world's most powerful recording companies to refuse a settlement after being slapped with a lawsuit by the Recording Industry of America and six major music labels.

MONKEY BUSINESS

Orangutan shows fetish for blondes with body art

Sibu the orangutan has miffed his Dutch keepers by refusing to mate with females and showing sexual interest only in tattooed human blondes.
Apenheul Primate Park hoped Sibu would become its breeding male when he arrived two years ago, but orangutans do not seem to be his type. "He chases them, or ignores them, but he doesn't do what he should do," said a spokeswoman for the park.
Instead, Sibu fancies his female keepers, especially blondes.
That, the spokeswoman says, is common for orangutans but Sibu has a fetish for tattoos, harking back to a heavily-tattooed keeper who reared him.

CAMPAIGN LAUNCH

Eve: "Apple Mac?"

MOURNING SUITS

Moving farewell for Tracey's brave Hannah

The funeral for Hannah Ciobo, attended by family and friends including husband Tom O'Driscoll (left) and mum Tracey Wickham (right).

THREE hours before she died of cancer in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Tracey Wickham's daughter Hannah's most fervent wish came true: she was married.

CORPORATE OVERKILL

Ms Thomas was the first person accused of illegal file-sharing who decided to fight the case in court.

Jury rules against woman in music downloading case

In the first US trial to challenge the illegal downloading of music on the Internet, a single mother from Minnesota has been ordered to pay more than $US220,000 for sharing 24 songs online.
Jammie Thomas, 30, is the first among more than 26,000 people sued by the world's most powerful recording companies to refuse a settlement after being slapped with a lawsuit by the Recording Industry of America and six major music labels.

About 26,000 lawsuits have been filed against alleged file-sharers, but most defendants settle privately by paying a fine amounting to a few thousand dollars. However, contesting the charge and losing will cost Jammie Thomas almost a quarter of a million dollars.
Her lawyer, Brian Toder said, "this is a girl that lives from paycheque to paycheque, and now all of a sudden she could get a quarter of her paycheque garnished for the rest of her life," he said.
The US record industry said people would understand the verdict.

ANAGRAM

October Sky' best offering of a still-young year

Set in 1957, "October Sky" is based on Homer Hickam, Jr.'s autobiography "Rocket Boys," in which he recounts his struggles as a young man to escape the small mining town where he was born, an escape that would allow him to literally reach for the stars.
Produced by Chuck Gordon, who also produced "Field Of Dreams," this film once again uses similar themes regarding hopes and dreams and the realization that we all have dreams -- they're just not always the same ones.
At times the film becomes a Norman Rockwell painting come to life and it does get a little too cute for its own good -- the later rocket launches actually have cheerleaders from the local high school shaking their pom-poms for the boys (this probably did happen in real life) -- plus, there is no doubt this film could have been made by the public relations office at NASA.

SEMA4 MEDIA

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Burma death toll much higher than reported

Potentially deadly games of cat and mouse went on for hours around the barbed-wire barriers in a city terrified of a repeat of 1988, when the army killed an estimated 3,000 people in crushing an uprising.
Few Buddhist monks were among the crowds, unlike in previous days, after soldiers ransacked 10 monasteries on Thursday and carted off hundreds inside.

OCEAN METHANE

Methane 'belch' theory gets boost

Scientists have found a series of vents in the Nordic Seas that may have burped enough methane to cause massive global warming 55 million years ago.
The early Eocene Period witnessed a dramatic increase in temperature, which was triggered by a sudden surge of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
But just where these gases came from has been something of a mystery.Nature magazine reports the discovery of gas vents dating from the right time and which could represent the source.

THE QUICKENING

Does ocean methane pose a risk?

Methane trapped as hydrates in ocean floor sediments represents an important reservoir of carbon, an untapped energy source, and a potential “time bomb”. There is growing evidence that this methane has been and could again be released during times of rapid climate warming.

Now, using a new biomarker to examine historical records, researchers from the University of Bremen in Germany suggest that continuous and widespread methane release could have a profound and lasting effect on aquatic ecosystems and the carbon cycle.

FAIR COP

NZ police let public write laws

New Zealanders have been given the chance to write their own laws, with a new online tool launched by police.
The "wiki" will allow the public to suggest the wording of a new police act, as part of a government review of the current law, written in 1958.
Police say they hope to gain a range of views from the public on the new law before presenting it to parliament.

DICK HEAD

Condoms infected with AIDS claims archbishop

The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with the HIV virus deliberately.
Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people".

NEWS FLASH

Sky News gets it right.

YELLOW SQUARE

Twenty-Five Years of Post-it Notes

The invention that prefigured email, hypertext, and the digital revolution.

HOT IDEAS

Some facts

1. The Peltier–Seebeck effect, or thermoelectric effect, is the direct conversion of thermal differentials to electric voltage and vice versa.
Related effects are the Thomson effect and Joule heating. The Peltier–Seebeck and Thomson effects are reversible (in fact, the Peltier and Seebeck effects are reversals of one another); Joule heating cannot be reversible under the laws of thermodynamics.

2. A voltage exists between two ends of a metal bar when a temperature difference exists in the bar.

3. A compass needle is deflected when a closed loop is formed of two metals with a temperature difference between the junctions. The metals respond differently to the temperature difference, which creates a current loop, which produces a magnetic field.

4. There's a lot of water in the air. It rises to a height of almost 100km. You feel it in high humidity, but there's almost as much invisible moisture in the air above the Sahara or the Nullarbor as there is in the steamy tropics.



Whisson Windmill

The water that pools beneath an air-conditioned car, or in the tray under an old fridge, demonstrates the principle: cool the air and you get water. And no matter how much water we might take from the air, we'd never run out. Because the oceans would immediately replace it.

Using the sun and the wind to extract water from the air

CRYPTOZOOLOGY

The Beast of Gévaudan (French: La bête du Gévaudan) was a mysterious wolf-like creature that terrorised the former province of Gévaudan (modern day Lozère département), in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France from about 1764 to 1767.

An estimate based on official documents gives over 198 attacks, including 36 wounded and 88 dead.

The creature's reported method of killing was unusual for a predator, often targeting the head, and ignoring the usual areas targeted by predators, including the legs and throat. Often the head was crushed or removed. It also seemed to target people over farm animals, reportedly having an aversion to cattle; many times it would attack someone while cattle were in the same field.

The Beast's preference towards women and children is perhaps due to their working the country-side farms in pairs or even alone, making themselves easier targets. Men, however, tended to have objects that could be used as weapons and often worked the fields in groups.

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LIFE, JIM

Hegelian Dialectic

Hegel claimed to proceed by making implicit contradictions explicit: each stage of the process is the product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage.
For Hegel, the whole of history is one tremendous dialectic, major stages of which chart a progression from self-alienation as slavery to self-unification and realization as the rational, constitutional state of free and equal citizens.
The Hegelian dialectic cannot be mechanically applied for any chosen thesis. Critics argue that the selection of any antithesis, other than the logical negation of the thesis, is subjective.
Then, if the logical negation is used as the antithesis, there is no rigorous way to derive a synthesis. In practice, when an antithesis is selected to suit the user's subjective purpose, the resulting "contradictions" are rhetorical, not logical, and the resulting synthesis not rigorously defensible against a multitude of other possible syntheses. The problem with the Fichtean "thesis — antithesis — synthesis" model is that it implies that contradictions or negations come from outside of things.
Hegel's point is that they are inherent in and internal to things.

HOW IT WORKS

wIckePEDIA

The Global Elite controls the Brotherhood and the world using what Icke calls a "pyramid of manipulation," consisting of sets of hierarchical structures involving:

banking
business
the military
education
the media
religion
drug companies
intelligence agencies and
organized crime.

At the very top of the pyramid are what Icke calls the "Prison Warders," who are not human. He writes that: "A pyramidal structure of human beings has been created under the influence and design of the extraterrestrial Prison Warders and their overall master, the Luciferic Consciousness. They control the human clique at the top of the pyramid, which I have dubbed the Global Elite."

Icke cites the Holocaust, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the September 11, 2001 attacks as examples of events financed and organized by the Global Elite.

British journalist Simon Jones writes that, according to Icke, "Ordinary people are being massively duped into believing that the ordinary course of world events are the consequence of known political forces and random, uncontrollable events. However, the course of humanity is being manipulated at every level.

These individuals arrange for incidents to occur around the world, which then elicit a response from the public ('something must be done'), and in turn allows those in power to do whatever they had planned to do in the first place." Icke refers to this as problem-reaction-solution, a  variation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's "Hegelian Dialectic".

PICTURE THIS

Lomos: New take on an old classic

a bizarre-sounding meeting in 1995 between Mr Putin and a group of Austrian photography experimentalists today underpins a growing photographic movement that occupies the narrow space between the worlds of art and commerce.Then mayor of St Petersburg, the man who would soon be Russian president gave an audience to the Austrians to hear their pleas.They had recently started selling refurbished Soviet-era cameras from the Leningrad Optics and Mechanics Association (Lomo) to enthusiasts around the world.


Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr


The Flickr Founders

Tom Sawyer got it right. Why paint a fence when you can get your friends to do it for you for free? He would have been the perfect new-media mogul. Spending time and money creating content on the Internet is so hopelessly dated, so dotcom, so very, very 1.0. The secret of today's successful Web 2.0 companies: build a place that attracts people by encouraging them to create the content—thereby drawing even more people in to create even more stuff. The poster child of this Sawyeresque business model is the photo-sharing site called Flickr.

Caterina Fake, 37, an art director turned marketing whiz, and her Web designer husband Stewart Butterfield, 33, hatched the idea after an engineer at their fledgling online-gaming company devised a cool hack that let anyone share a photo on the Web fast and effortlessly.

Shedding light on Flickr

A global gallery was not what the Flickr founders intended, but Fake sees how events like Hurricane Katrina can lead to instant photo collections that are visible worldwide.

TORTURED MINDS

New machine has the ability to inflict limitless, unbearable pain'

Its makers claim this infernal machine is the modern face of warfare. It has a nice, friendly sounding name, Silent Guardian.

When turned on, it emits an invisible, focused beam of radiation that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings. It can throw a wave of agony nearly a kilometre.

Anyone in the beam's path will feel, over their entire body, an agonising sensation. In tests, even the most hardened Marines flee after a few seconds of exposure. It just isn't possible to tough it out.

Perhaps the most alarming prospect is that such machines would make efficient torture instruments. They are quick, clean, cheap, easy to use and, most importantly, leave no marks.

[The word "medieval" is shorthand for brutality. The truth is that new technology makes racks look benign.]

ANDROMEDA STRAIN

The meteorite, which left an impact crater 20m wide and 5m deep, is causing a wave of illness.

Peru meteorite crash 'causes mystery illness'

A meteorite has struck a remote part of Peru and carved a large crater that is emitting noxious odours and making villagers ill.

A fireball streaked across the Andean sky late on Saturday night and crashed into a field near Carancas, a sparsely populated highland wilderness near Lake Titicaca on the border with Bolivia, witnesses said.

The soil around the impact crater appeared to be scorched, with what appeared to be chunks of lead and silver around the site, and there was a "strange odour", a local health department official, Jorge López, told Peru's RPP radio.

Later the farmers complained of headaches and vomiting. Police who went to investigate the crater were also stricken with nausea, prompting authorities to dispatch a medical team that reached the site today. At least 12 people were treated in addition to seven police officers who required oxygen masks and rehydration.

MONKEY BUSINESS

India to go ahead with 'sacrilegious' sea lane

The Indian Government says it will go ahead with a controversial plan to build a sea lane in the Bay of Bengal despite a storm of protest from Hindus who say it will destroy a sacred site.
The project would allow ships to navigate the southern tip of India instead of skirting around Sri Lanka, cutting the journey between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal by more than 30 hours.

It would mean dredging sand banks that the Hindu epic Ramayana says were built by an army of monkeys to allow the god Ram to cross the narrow strip of sea between India and Sri Lanka and rescue his kidnapped wife.

WHIPPED BRAIN

Addict paralysed by nitrous oxide bulb

The Medical Journal of Australia has revealed a young woman recovering from a heroin addiction has been paralysed by sniffing nitrous oxide from whipped cream charger bulbs.
Dan Lubman from the Orygen Youth Health Centre says most users on the party scene consider the use of the bulbs, or 'nangs', to be safe.
He says it is tragic that the woman, who was on a methadone program and malnourished, was badly hurt by her 20-bulb-a-day habit.

ANOMYMOUS POLICE

Badgeless APEC police cleared

New South Wales police officers who took off their identification badges during APEC protests will escape punishment after a police inquiry found they feared the pins on the badges could be used against them.
Photographs taken during the main APEC protest on Saturday, September 8, showed officers wearing badgeless uniforms.

The revelation sparked public criticism, including suggestions police were told not to wear their name tags so protesters could not identify them.

MERCENARY ATTITUDES

US probes Blackwater shooting amid Iraqi fury

US officials will investigate a shooting incident in Baghdad involving the US security firm Blackwater in which eight people were killed, the State Department said.
The move came after Iraqi authorities cancelled the operating licence of the North Carolina firm, which offers personal security to US officials working in Iraq.
On Sunday, a US diplomatic convoy protected by Blackwater was involved in a shootout in Baghdad's Al-Yarmukh neighbourhood which killed at least eight people and wounded 13.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned what he called the "criminal" response of the convoy's Blackwater guards. The US embassy said the convoy had been been attacked by insurgents.
"The interior minister (Jawad al-Bolani) has issued an order to cancel Blackwater's licence and the company is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq," interior ministry director of operations Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.
"We have opened a criminal investigation against the group who committed the crime."

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Litvinenko suspect wants to be Russian president

The Russian wanted by Britain on suspicion of killing Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko says he will stand for election to parliament and would like to become president of Russia.
Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB security service officer, said he would represent the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), which is headed by ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
He denied seeking the immunity from prosecution that election to parliament would give him. Russian prosecutors have said there was no basis for a criminal case against him, he said.

British prosecutors want to extradite Lugovoi from Russia to face trial in London for the murder of Mr Litvinenko, who died in a London hospital on November 23 last year after receiving a dose of radioactive polonium-210, a rare and highly toxic isotop.

TRUTH BE TOLD

Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil

AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.
In his long-awaited memoir Greenspan, a Republican whose had an 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve, aired his views on the 2003 Iraq invasion:
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.
Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

THE LIST GROWS ... 5 July 2007

Australia 'has Iraq oil interest'

Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has admitted that securing oil supplies is a key factor behind the presence of Australian troops in Iraq.
He said maintaining "resource security" in the Middle East was a priority.
But PM John Howard has played down the comments
The remarks are causing heated debate as the US-led Iraq coalition has avoided linking the war and oil.

MONSTERS AMONG US

Sofia Rodriguez Urrutia Shu

Man pleads guilty to girl's murder

A 22-year-old man has pleaded guilty to murdering an eight-year-old girl at a Western Australian shopping centre
Sofia Rodriguez Urrutia Shu's body was found in a disabled toilet cubicle.
Original charges of wilful murder and sexual assault were withdrawn after a review of evidence available.
The man pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of murder and will be sentenced next month, potentially to a jail term with a minimum of between seven and 14 years.

[The girl was with her mother and siblings in the centre but was allowed to visit the toilet alone.]