OUR ALIEN MASTERS

World leaders Cremation of Care ceremony

MUGABE'S MADNESS

ZIMBABWE CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

LIFE CYCLES

I wrote a piece on mandala designer Margie Hann Syme. It was published with some pictures I took.
The page is available here. [PDF format]

I'm looking to write on the connexions between consciousness and geometry, the orb phenomenon and crop circles.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Baby's bottom censored by store

A mother who wanted to give a birthday cake to her son featuring a photo of him as a baby was forced to have it censored because it showed his bottom.Gail Jordan, 41, had gone to Asda in Liscard, Wirral, on 13 June with the photo of her 21-year-old son David taken when he was five months old.
Staff at the supermarket refused to scan the picture onto a cake as it featured nudity.

SHAPE SHIFTING

Dubai plans 'moving' skyscraper

The world's first moving building, an 80-storey tower with revolving floors giving a shifting shape, will be built in Dubai, its architect says.
The Dynamic Tower design is made up of 80 pre-fabricated apartments which will spin independently of one another powered by wind turbines located between floors.
"It's the first building that rotates, moves, and changes shape," said architect David Fisher.
"This building never looks the same, not once in a lifetime," he added.

WATER ON MARS

Water found on Mars

Scientists have figured out the mysterious white substance unearthed by NASA's Phoenix lander on Mars. It's frozen water. The breakthrough came last week when Phoenix's stereo camera caught the substance in the act of disappearing.

Bathed in Martian sunlight for four days, the white substance sublimated--i.e., it transformed from solid to gas without passing through the liquid state.

So how do we know the white substance is not frozen CO₂ (dry ice) instead of frozen water?
Answer: Phoenix's landing site is too warm for dry ice. The average daily temperature is about -70 F while dry ice requires temperatures lower than about -109 F.

The digging continues.

DARK AGES

A glassy carbon sphere that contains evidence of extraterrestrial impact.
The sphere measures about 0.3mm in width.
(Credit: SEM imaging by Jim Wittke)

Astronomers Unravel A Mystery Of The Dark Ages:
Undergraduates' Work Blames Comet For 6th-century 'Nuclear Winter'

Scientists at Cardiff University, UK, believe they have discovered the cause of crop failures and summer frosts some 1,500 years ago – a comet colliding with Earth.
Historical references from this period - known as the Dark Ages – are sparse, but what records there are, tell of crop failures and summer frosts.

Evidence from tree rings suggests the Earth underwent a series of very cold summers around 536-540 AD, indicating an effect rather like a nuclear winter.
The scientists in the School of Physics and Astronomy believe this was caused by a comet hitting the earth and exploding in the upper atmosphere.
The debris from this giant explosion was such that it enveloped the earth in soot and ash, blocking out the sunlight and causing the very cold weather.

Asteroid Impact Caused Ice Age Extinctions?

About 12,900 years ago, wooly mammoths, giant sloths, saber-toothed cats and other large animals inhabited North America - then suddenly disappeared. A team of scientists now propose that these extinctions were caused by a climate change triggered by a large impact event.

GREAT DYING

Australian Meteor Impact Might Have Caused the Ice Age

An impact crater believed to be associated with the "Great Dying," the largest extinction event in the history of life on Earth, appears to be buried off the coast of Australia.

NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the major research project headed by Luann Becker, a scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Science Express, the electronic publication of the journal Science, published a paper describing the crater today.

Most scientists agree a meteor impact, called Chicxulub, in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, accompanied the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But until now, the time of the Great Dying 250 million years ago, when 90 percent of marine and 80 percent of land life perished, lacked evidence and a location for a similar impact event.

Becker and her team found extensive evidence of a 125-mile-wide crater, called Bedout, off the northwestern coast of Australia. They found clues matched up with the Great Dying, the period known as the end-Permian. This was the time period when the Earth was configured as one primary land mass called Pangea and a super ocean called Panthalassa.

During recent research in Antarctica, Becker and her team found meteoric fragments in a thin claystone "breccia" layer, pointing to an end-Permian event. The breccia contains the impact debris that resettled in a layer of sediment at end-Permian time.

They also found "shocked quartz" in this area and in Australia. "Few Earthly circumstances have the power to disfigure quartz, even high temperatures and pressures deep inside the Earth's crust," Becker said.

Quartz can be fractured by extreme volcanic activity, but only in one direction. Shocked quartz is fractured in several directions and is therefore believed to be a good tracer for the impact of a meteor.

Becker discovered oil companies in the early 70's and 80's had drilled two cores into the Bedout structure in search of hydrocarbons. The cores sat untouched for decades. Becker and co-author Robert Poreda went to Australia to examine the cores held by the Geological Survey for Australia in Canberra. "The moment we saw the cores, we thought it looked like an impact breccia," Becker said. Becker's team found evidence of a melt layer formed by an impact in the cores.

ENEMY COMBATANTS

US court backs Guantanamo inmate

A US court has for the first time rejected the classification of a prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay as an "enemy combatant".
Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Muslim, has been held since he was captured in Afghanistan in 2001.
He is now free to seek immediate release in a US district court.
This follows a US Supreme Court ruling this month that gave foreign Guantanamo Bay detainees the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts.

SIX FEET UNDER

Police 'stumped' by grisly mystery

A sixth human foot, wearing an Adidas training shoe, bobbed ashore near Vancouver yesterday in a grisly mystery that has gripped Canada.
The discovery of five right feet and one left foot has spawned wildly contrasting theories about their origin, ranging from murders by biker gangs to the floating remains of Asian tsunami victims.

The first foot was found last August by a girl playing on a remote beach on Jedidah Island, who picked up the size 12 white training shoes and undid the laces to check inside.

Six days later, a woman hiking on nearby Gabriola Island came upon another size 12 training shoe — also a right foot. Two more right feet were found on February 8 on Valdes Island and on May 22 on Kirkland Island.

The first left foot was recovered on Monday on nearby Westham Island when two people out walking their dog pulled a shoe from the water.

The sixth foot was found on a beach in Vancouver Island inside a size 10 black Adidas shoe yesterday morning.

Six feet and plenty of questions

As yet forensic pathologists have been unable to positively identify any of the remains and while the recently discovered sixth "foot" turned out to be an animal paw stuffed into a sneaker, the mystery continues to deepen.

TRUTH BE TOLD

Keelty urged to act on Neal allegations

Ms Neal's former secretary, Melissa Batten, told Channel Nine that the MP pressured her into changing her statutory declaration.

"I know I should have put [the full version] in because I've always taught my sons and I've always been brought up on honesty is the only [way]," she said.

"I didn't put it in, I crumbled under her."Ms Batten resigned from her job as a secretary for Ms Neal after the events.

NEW WORLD DICTIONARY

MOVING FORWARD: In the future. (usu. redundant). Eg. "Amazon and LOVEFiLM have entered into an arrangement whereby LOVEFiLM will take over Amazon's DVD rental business. As a result of the arrangement with LOVEFiLM, we will no longer be able to offer any Referral Fees moving forwards relating to DVD Rental."

ECONOMIC CRISIS

Signs Economic Commentary for 23 June 2008

The real fear now in the U.S. is that there is no way out of the downward spiral. Rising prices and the falling dollar would normally induce the Fed to raise interest rates - but if they did that now to any significant extent, it would plunge the economy into a depression.

BIG BROTHER

UK family's shock at council spying

A couple have spoken of their shock after their local council spied on them to see if they had been cheating the school catchment system.

Tim Joyce and Jenny Paton and their children were put under surveillance by Poole Borough Council for more than two weeks without their knowledge.
Miss Paton said this kind of scrutiny was "hugely disproportionate".
The council has defended its actions, carried out under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).

Who watches the watchers?
The recent spate of reports on bugging and intercepting communications has revealed how little people really know about the level of surveillance they are under.

Council surveillance review urged

Councils in England have been urged to review the way they use surveillance powers to investigate suspected crime.
Under laws brought in to help fight terrorism, councils can access phone and e-mail records and use surveillance to detect or stop a criminal offence.
But Local Government Association chairman Sir Simon Milton has written to councils warning overzealous use of the powers could alienate the public.
They should not be used for "trivial offences" such as dog fouling, he adds.

STAR CHAMBER

Vow to allow anonymous witness testimony

The government has vowed to change the law to allow anonymous witnesses in some court cases after a key Law Lords ruling* effectively halted the practice.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw said there was a real need for some witnesses to have their identities protected.
Mr Straw said the law will be changed "as quickly as possible".

* UK: Anonymous testimony: The use of anonymous witnesses in Operation Trident trials has led to several high profile convictions in recent months.

US Judge allows anonymous testimony in hate crime trial: December 8, 2006 A judge decided to shield the identities of witnesses and alleged victims after a witness’s car was smashed while she was testifying.

STASI STADT

Stasi Files, How to profit by turning in your neighbor?

The US tax office  has told taxpayers how they can report violations of the tax law and claim a reward.

The amount of award will be at least 15%, but no more than 30%, of the collected proceeds. Tax and additional amounts in dispute must exceed $2 million for any taxable year and if the taxpayer is an individual, the individual’s gross income must exceed $200,000 for any taxable year in question.

STASI: Staatssicherheitsdienst (in der ehemaligen DDR)
Public security service (in the former GDR) (Babel Fish)

ENCYCLOPEDIA BARACKTANNIA

KARMA CHAMELEONS

Insane in the membrane

Evolve or die: Can we shed our moral primitivism before it’s too late?

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap…”

Endless resource wars, globalization, privatization, profits over life, exploitation, raping the Earth, poisoning and irradiating the environment, exponentially criminal levels of unnecessary suffering caused by the concentration of wealth into the hands of a few, Climate Change, alarming rates of species extinction, Peak Oil, a jungle of cronyism and corruption so dense you couldn’t hack your way through it with the sharpest of machetes, and increasingly powerful monopoly entities intensifying their stranglehold on the “free market” are the rotting fruits that comprise the bitter harvest we are reaping by the bushel-basketful.

And our Karma’s not through with us yet. Not by a long-shot. As long as we maintain our jejune, myopic, and infinitely idiotic devotion to capitalism, all but a select few of the Earth’s inhabitants will continue to suffer unnecessarily. Ultimately, our malignant system, premised as it is on infinite growth and the relentless pursuit of profit, will be our undoing and will destroy the planet.

THE QUICKENING

Arctic sea ice melt 'even faster'

Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than last year, despite a cold winter.
Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that the year began with ice covering a larger area than at the beginning of 2007.
But now it is down to levels seen last June, at the beginning of a summer that broke records for sea ice loss.

Scientists on the project say that much of the ice is so thin that it melts easily, and the Arctic may be ice-free in summer within five to 10 years.

PRIVY COUNCIL

MPs take on the cistern

In Richmond, south west London, pubs, restaurants and supermarkets are paid £600 a year to open their facilities to non-customers.
The borough used to be like many other parts of the UK - its public lavatories were difficult to find and - in the words of one council officer - in a pretty "horrible" condition.
But the public has access to 75 clean, well-maintained loos in prime locations around the borough, thanks to its Community Toilet Scheme.

PATHOCRACY

Leaders With No Conscience

Definition: pathocracy (n). A system of government created by a small pathological minority that takes control over a society of normal people (from Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, by Andrew Lobaczewski).

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

9-11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press

Dr. Griffin presents a sequence of irrefutable facts drawn from documents and testimony that demonstrate twenty five internal contradictions in the official 9/11 story. As each contradiction is presented, the author juxtaposes documented timelines and official memos, eye-witness testimony, television broadcasts and news articles that are logically inconsistent with the narrative contrived by the 9/11 Commission.

Griffin objectively questions these contradictory narratives, some of them inherent within individual alibis, and observes that the Commission avoided confronting these inconsistencies by eliminating all mention of them in its report. Facts that could not be logically refuted were strategically omitted, thereby erasing from the historical record all evidence of possible perjury and complicity. Each chapter is devoted to one category of contradictions and ends with the request that Congress and the press investigate this inconsistency.

REVERSE EQUITY

Thousands facing negative equity

More than 23,200 people who took out 100% mortgages in the year to 31 March could face negative equity, according to figures obtained by the BBC.
Falling house prices mean the amount borrowed could be greater than the value of their properties.

VOICE OF REASON

Classification board clears Henson nudes

THE country's chief censor has ruled that photographer Bill Henson's controversial child nudes are harmless. New South Wales police are now likely to drop their investigation of the artist.
Last month, police seized 32 of Henson's photographs of a naked adolescent girl and boy from Sydney's Roslyn Oxley9 gallery, after receiving a complaint.

LEARNING CURVE

UK joins iTunes U

University College London and the Open University are the first UK institutions to join iTunes U, Apple's online repository of free education material.

Trinity College Dublin plus universities in Australia and Canada have also joined the project, with several more expected to join in the near future.

BIG BROTHER

Mobile phones expose human habits

The whereabouts of more than 100,000 mobile phone users have been tracked in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of human movements.
The results could be used to help prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic, the scientists said.
"It would be wonderful if every [mobile] carrier could give universities access to their data because it's so rich," said Dr Marta Gonzalez of Northeastern University, Boston, US, and one of the authors of the paper.
Dr William Webb, head of research and development at the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, agreed that mobile phone data was still underexploited.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," he told BBC News.

TABLOID TURMOIL

Bild's headquarters in Berlin

German Paper Bild Admits Running Topless Photo of 13-Year-Old Girl

A major German newspaper admits it ran a naked photo of a 13-year-old girl on its front page as part of a contest to find the country's "hottest summer girl."

Germany's largest-circulation newspaper, the tabloid Bild, which routinely places nude photos of women on its front page, has admitted that it published a topless photo of a 13-year-old girl.