BAD, SAD MAC

Death by Gadget in Congo  by Nicholas d. kristof

An ugly paradox of the 21st century is that some of our elegant symbols of modernity — smartphones, laptops and digital cameras — are built from minerals that seem to be fueling mass slaughter and rape in Congo.
With throngs waiting in lines in the last few days to buy the latest iPhone, I’m thinking: What if we could harness that desperation for new technologies to the desperate need to curb the killing in central Africa?
In Congo, I’ve seen women who have been mutilated, children who have been forced to eat their parents’ flesh, girls who have been subjected to rapes that destroyed their insides. Warlords finance their predations in part through the sale of mineral ore containing tantalum, tungsten, tin and gold. For example, tantalum from Congo is used to make electrical capacitors that go into phones, computers and gaming devices.

Electronics manufacturers have tried to hush all this up. They want you to look at a gadget and think “sleek,” not “blood.”

I'm a Mac ... And I've Got a Dirty Secret

MARKET FORCES

Journalist and filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin.
(Photo: Razak / Ségolène Royal)

Monsanto, Big Brother of the New World Agricultural Order. Discuss

Award-winning French journalist and filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin is the author of "The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption and the Control of Our Food Supply" (The New Press) and the creator of the film by the same name.

In a review of these two projects, Leslie Thatcher writes:
"What Marie-Monique Robin most effectively documents are the perverse effects - the moral, social, technological, economic and market failures - of Western society's economic organization, most specifically with respect to science and the products of science and, ultimately, with respect to the preservation of the public commons and human life on the planet."

SOME LIKE IT COLD

X-Rays of Marilyn Monroe's Chest Sold for $45,000

A set of X-rays of Marilyn Monroe's chest was sold for $45,000 at an auction. The X-rays, which were taken during a 1954 hospital visit, were sold at a movie memorabilia auction. The pre-sale estimate was $3000.
A chair from the star's final photo shoot was purchased for $35,000.

Monroe died in 1962 at the age of 36. Her movies included Some Like It Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

PREMONITION

Seven Australians injured in boat crash in Thailand

ONE of seven young Australians injured in a horror boat crash in Thailand almost didn't board the vessel because she had "a bad feeling" that something might happen.

Hairdresser Chloe Bucknell said yesterday she was lucky to be alive after the 40-seat speedboat she was in collided head-on with a similar vessel off the resort island of Koh Phangan on Saturday night.

The 21-year-old, from Bayview on Sydney's northern beaches, was on her way with three friends to a full moon party on the island as part of a two-week Thai trip. Up to 40 people, including Ms Bucknell, her three friends and three other Australians, were injured in the crash.

From her bed in Bandon International Hospital in Samui, Ms Bucknell said: "We all had a bad feeling about it but thought `We're here now, we might as well go'."

ET PHONE HOME

ET asks: do you want us to make ourselves known globally?

The main proposition in a letter purportedly from humanity's extraterestrial cousins is that the mass appearance of ET in the skies may help us clear away the veils of illusion and deceits, help settle many existential issues and dilemmas and provide an “attractor” to help pull positive mentalities out of the social death-vortex, enable us to refocus the next stage in evolution.

The main assertion in the letter is that human civilization is now in an uncontrollable free-fall implosion which cannot be “fixed” from within existing social systems.
The implosion is causing a major rupture in all human orders. There is a dark road down toward the use of technology to rapidly enslave human populations in a badly degraded and unhealthy environment.
Those who are defining this path, many of them unintentionally, have the greater advantage of power over resources and may gain the upper hand during the coming rupture.
There are many who would take a liberating path, they could gain the upper hand if they lose their fear, sense of isolation, and ignorance about the true state of affairs and understand their choice.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

FLASHBACK: Crop circle experts dies in unusual circumstances

The body of crop circle investigator Paul Vigay was found on the Hampshire coast at Southsea. Paul Vigay, a mathematician and computer expert, became one of the leading lights of the crop circle world.

His body was found on the shore at Southsea, near Portsmouth, last Thursday – police say the circumstances surrounding his death are not suspicious.

Mr Vigay, 44, was well known in the fields of Wiltshire and renowned among crop circle devotees as an expert at decoding the hidden meanings in crop circle patterns. "Paul was one of the brightest stars in the crop circle universe," said circle photographer and researcher Lucy Pringle.

"A talented mathematician, computer technician and a maker of electronic gadgets, he was one of the first researchers into the crop circle phenomenon in the early 1990s, where his talents were quickly recognised.

"He had an exceptional gift for investigation and often led the field in deciphering the mathematical aspects found in certain crop circles. He was amazingly articulate and he had a rare knack of being able to explain technical details in the simplest language. He has made a major contribution to the subject and his place will not be easily filled," she added.

Mr Vigay's friend of 23 years Claire Diestler, 39, from Bedhampton, said she visited him for a cup of coffee last Tuesday. She said: "He was absolutely fine, that's why I am so shocked. There was absolutely no indication that anything was wrong. In fact he was quite jokey. We all feel a bit guilty having seen him.

Mrs Diestler added: "He was really popular and had a lot of friends. He was very funny and we always had some great laughs."

MEANWHILE: The crop circle community was left stunned by the loss of two of its leading lights within hours of each other. Dorset investigator and conference organiser David Kingston also died last week after a year-long battle with cancer.

OIL ADDICTION

The Oil Spill's Worst-Case Scenario?

The grim video feed of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico got even worse on Wednesday after BP had to remove the containment cap because a robotic submarine collided with a vent.

Even before this setback to contain the massive flow of oil into the gulf, online speculation has fueled fears that the leaks could be much greater than what's been shown.
According to these theories, such leaks at the bottom—that is, below the sea floor—could present a new “worst-case scenario” for the disaster.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

FLASHBACK: Crop circle experts dies in unusual circumstances

The crop circle community has been left stunned after two of its leading lights died within hours of each other. Dorset investigator and conference organiser David Kingston passed away last week after a year-long battle with cancer.

Meanwhile, the body of crop circle investigator Paul Vigay was found on the Hampshire coast at Southsea.

Paul Vigay, a mathematician and computer expert, became one of the leading lights of the crop circle world.

His body was found on the shore at Southsea, near Portsmouth, last Thursday – police say the circumstances surrounding his death are not suspicious.

Mr Vigay, 44, was well known in the fields of Wiltshire and renowned among crop circle devotees as an expert at decoding the hidden meanings in crop circle patterns. "Paul was one of the brightest stars in the crop circle universe," said circle photographer and researcher Lucy Pringle.

"A talented mathematician, computer technician and a maker of electronic gadgets, he was one of the first researchers into the crop circle phenomenon in the early 1990s, where his talents were quickly recognised.

"He had an exceptional gift for investigation and often led the field in deciphering the mathematical aspects found in certain crop circles. He was amazingly articulate and he had a rare knack of being able to explain technical details in the simplest language. He has made a major contribution to the subject and his place will not be easily filled," she added.

Mr Vigay's friend of 23 years Claire Diestler, 39, from Bedhampton, said she visited him for a cup of coffee last Tuesday. She said: "He was absolutely fine, that's why I am so shocked. There was absolutely no indication that anything was wrong. In fact he was quite jokey. We all feel a bit guilty having seen him.

"We are all worried we did not pick up on something.'

Mrs Diestler added: "He was really interested in UFOs and anything a bit unusual like crop circles.

"He used to go to Wiltshire quite a lot to take photographs of them. He was really popular and had a lot of friends. He was very funny and we always had some great laughs," she said.

HOWARD HUGHES II

Entrepreneurs Enter the Commercial Space Race

At the Bigelow Aerospace factory here, the full-size space station mockups sitting on the warehouse floor look somewhat like puffy white watermelons. The interiors offer a hint of what spacious living in space might look like.
“Every astronaut we have come in here just says, ‘Wow,’ ” said Robert T. Bigelow, the company founder. “They can’t believe the size of this thing.”

His space stations are not his only interest in space. “I’ve been a researcher and student of UFOs for many, many years,” Mr. Bigelow said.

“Anybody that does research, if people bother to do quality research, come away absolutely convinced. You don’t have to have personal encounters.”
He added: “People have been killed. People have been hurt. It’s more than observational kind of data.”

GADGET WAR

The iPed, left, and iPad, right.

The iPad Riped off with the iPed

According to this TBS news report, the iPed is on sale in Shenzhen, China, for a fifth of the price of the Apple iPad.
Shenzhen is the location of the largest Foxconn plant, where the iPhone and the iPad are manufactured.
The iPed comes packaged in a box that looks like the iPod.
While it is slightly heavier than the iPad, the device is powered by an Intel chip and runs on Google's open source operating system Android. But like the iPad, it is a multi-media device.

CROP CIRCLES

Typographical error in Euler crop glyph?

Transcrib the binary digits, each byte (8 bits) into its corresponding ASCII character, starting from the direction of the windmill and working clockwise around the circle and out from the centre. The result is: e^(hi)pi)1=0

In Google the top result was Euler's identity: e^iπ+1=0. "The most beautiful theorem in mathematics". Euler's formula demonstrates the deep relationship between the trigonometric functions and the complex exponential function.

An anomalous 'h' in the glyph and an absent '+'

Perhaps significantly, the 'h', with the adjacent 'i', reads 'hi' but 'h' could be a reference to the Planck constant, taking us from the world of maths into the world of physics.

Could the makers have left a 'Planck' in the design as a subtle joke on all the croppies who might pronounce this a 'genuine' crop circle as opposed to a circle made with a plank?

Maybe the circle-makers made a mistake. The binary encoding for 'h' - 01101000 is just one binary digit different to that for '(' - 00101000. The extra opening bracket would pair up with the otherwise unpaired closing bracket in the message to give us e^((i)pi)1=0.

But then, The ASCII code for right parentheses ')' differs by just one digit from '+' so that is possibly what was meant.

Euler Identity - e^(i)pi+1=0
Crop ASCII - e^(hi)pi)1=0
Crop ASCII corrected - e^(hi)pi+1=0

wilton windmill crop circle may 2010

Going Around in (Crop) Circles

Over the past fortnight, legendary paranormal researcher Jacques Vallee has posted two guest-blogs on (the insanely popular website) Boing Boing, on the topic of crop circles. In the first, "In Search of Alien Glyphs", he details his own alternative theory for their construction (first set out in "Crop Circles: 'Signs from Above' or Human Artifacts?":

"In Sept. 1991, I published in a New Age magazine my own hypothesis about the Crop Circles phenomenon. I speculated they involved a military aerial device (not a space-based instrument) for generating such designs using focused microwave beams, such as a "maser." At the time nobody wanted to hear that the beautiful pictures in English corn fields might be crafted by a technical team inside some lab, bouncing signals from a hovering platform and using individual corn stalks as simple pixels to calibrate a lethal device. So my paper was met with dead silence."

More

WATCH THE SKIES

The truth is out there

An amazing number of high ranking military officers, government officials and generally sensible folk believe we are being visited by aliens from other planets. They have seen unidentified flying objects for themselves.

With the New Zealand Government soon to release previously classified material on UFO sightings, reporter Sarah Hall goes looking for the evidence.

YOGI BARE

Study on yogi Prahlad Jani’s fasting concludes

India’s Defense Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences concluded its study of 82-year-old yogi Prahlad Jani Jani, a hermit from Ahmedabad who claims to have lived without food or water for the last 70 years, was under the close watch of three video cameras 24 hours a day.

Researchers conducted various medical tests on him. The research team, consisting of 35 scientists, could not find any evidence that Jani ate or drank anything during the 15 days.

Doctors have not found any adverse effects in his body from hunger or dehydration. They think that yoga exercises may have caused Jani’s body to undergo a biological transformation. The researchers said tests found that his brain is equivalent to that of a 25-year-old. The doctors said that after fasting for two weeks, Jani was healthier than the average 40-year-old.

Jani said he left home when he was 7 to live as a wandering monk, and was blessed by a goddess a year later. He claims that there is a hole in his palate through which his head drops nectar, giving him nutrition and enabling him to live without food or water.

MORE: Indian Man Lives Seven Decades Without Food or Water | Researchers Find Miracles in Yogi’s Fasting

WHALE RESEARCH

Carbon neutral: A sperm whale swims in the Southern Ocean, leaving a cloud of poo behind it. (Flinders University, Adelaide: Peter Gill)

Whale poo fights climate change: study

The fight to stop whaling has been boosted with new research showing the southern ocean sperm whale can remove large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.
A study has found that instead of increasing carbon levels through respiration, the sperm whale offsets its emissions by defecating.Flinders University researcher Trish Lavery says the poo is rich in iron, which stimulates phytoplankton to grow, and that traps the carbon dioxide.

CASHLESSNESS

Human implant RFID chips

People around the world have been implanted with a computer-like device that allows them, with just a swipe of a hand to open a door or even activate a computer
It was in 2004 that microchips were first approved for human use in the United States. It's been marketed as a device linked to a medical records database so in an emergency a doctor can scan the chip and find out vital medical information.... like your credit card number.

FLASHBACK: Mesopotamia, waaay back.
"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666" (Rev. 13:16-18).

VI is 6 in Roman numerals. S was 6 in ancient Egypt. A was 6 in Sanskrit. VISA = 666. To travel for extended periods requires a "visa".

HORN OF AFRICA

GODS PARTICLES

US experiment hints at 'multiple God particles'

Despite decades trying, no-one, so far, has detected the theoretical Higgs boson. The elusive particle provides the method by which all other particles have mass.

Now, results from the Large Hadron Collider's US rival -- the DZero experiment at the Tevatron particle accelerator, operated by Fermilab in Illinois, US -- suggest physicists could be hunting five Higgs bosons particles, not one.

ALIEN PROBE

Damaged probe set for Woomera touchdown

AN extraordinary space adventure to find the origins of the solar system is about to end, with a pioneering spacecraft scheduled to parachute its precious cargo into the Woomera Prohibited Area after landing on a distant asteroid and scooping up samples of its primordial matter.
The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa is hobbling home after a seven-year mission in which it travelled more than four billion kilometres, twice landed on the asteroid Itokawa, broke down, came back to life after two years, and headed home with failed or malfunctioning engines.

It will be the first time an unmanned spacecraft has rendezvoused with an asteroid, taken soil samples and returned to Earth. The 510kg Hayabusa - the size of a large fridge - was launched from Japan in May 2003 and, after travelling two billion km, landed on the 500m long Itokawa in November 2005.

FIRST DROPS

ABOVE: Jupiter compared with Earth. BELOW: Most recent impact
caused by meteor or comet. Note the impact size. A similar one on
Earth would likely mean the end of an era.


Aussie amateur astronomer catches second Jupiter impact on film

Amateur astronomers Anthony Wesley of Australia and Christopher Go of the Philippines have independently observed an impact event on Jupiter. The strike at 20:31 UT on June 3, produced a bright flash of light in the giant planet's cloudtops. Wesley, from the Broken Hill region in Western Australia, pinpointed the impact site at Jovian latitude minus 16.1deg, and central meridian longitudes CM1: 300deg, CM2: 33.8deg and CM3: 210.4deg.

FLASHBACK: Almost a year ago, Wesley captured a similar Jupiter impact:

[More.]

photographing Jupiter from his backyard observatory in Murrumbateman, Australia,

Christopher Go, made a 46mb video of the event. "I still can't believe that I caught a live impact on Jupiter," says

[46 MB video of this impact.]

BILLY MEIER'S BEGINNINGS

Eduard "Billy" Meier, farmer, states he has contacts with Pleiadians
(later renamed Plejarans) at least since 1942. His first extraterrestrial contacts
occurred with Sfath and Asket, from 1942 until 1964. In 1975, contacts resume
with the beautiful Semjase. The controversy has started.

Click to enlarge:

SMILE

BATTLE PLAYSTATIONS

Drone killings lead to 'Playstation mentality' 

A United Nations investigator has called for a halt to CIA-directed drone strikes on suspected Islamic militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan, warning that killings ordered far from the battlefield could lead to a video-game mentality.

Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, says missile strikes can be justified only when it is impossible to capture insurgents alive instead.
The United States is believed to control its fleet of drones from CIA headquarters in Virginia, coordinating with civilian pilots near hidden airfields in Afghanistan and Pakistan

SCHOOL OF THOUGHT

Westall 66: A Suburban Ufo Mystery

In suburban Melbourne in 1966, 200 Westall High School and Westall State School students, staff and local residents watched a strange object hover overhead for several minutes. It landed briefly at Grange Reserve before lifting off, pursued by five aircraft, and vanishing.
Witnesses were told by uniformed military they were just hallucinating and footage of inverviews of the witnesses by Channel 9 has gone missing.
A local documentary maker has interviewed the witnesses four decades later and they remain adamant that what they saw was a real event.

PUBLIC PRIVACY

Surveillance cameras target forest vandals

South Australian Forestry Minister Michael O’Brien has commended the establishment by ForestrySA of a surveillance network across its estate to reduce and control illegal activity in forest areas.
"ForestrySA has adopted a zero tolerance approach,” Mr O’Brien said.

“Surveillance cameras are very small, hard to find and can record video, still and infra-red images,” ForestrySA Ranger Green Triangle Mark Whan said.

Meanwhile ...

US Forest Service admits putting surveillance cameras on public lands

Last month, Herman Jacob took his daughter and her friend camping in the Francis Marion National Forest. While poking around for some firewood, Jacob noticed a wire. He pulled on it and followed it to a video camera and antenna.

The camera didn't have any markings identifying its owner, so Jacob took it home and called law enforcement agencies to find out if it was theirs, all the while wondering why someone would station a video camera in an isolated clearing in the woods.

He eventually received a call from Mark Heitzman of the U.S. Forest Service.

In a stiff voice, Heitzman ordered Jacob to turn it back over to his agency, explaining that it UShad been set up to monitor "illicit activities." Jacob returned the camera but felt uneasy.

Why, he wondered, would the Forest Service have secret cameras in a relatively remote camping area? What do they do with photos of bystanders?

How many hidden cameras are they using, and for what purposes? Is this surveillance in the forest an effective law enforcement tool? And what are our expectations of privacy when we camp on public land?

Officials with the Forest Service were hardly forthcoming with answers to these and other questions about their surveillance cameras. When contacted about the incident, Heitzman said "no comment," and referred other questions to Forest Service's public affairs, who he said, "won't know anything about it."