Wall Street protests reveal slice of America's barely tamed brutality
An amateur video shows a small group of women protesters, who are doing nothing menacing at all, having been kettled by police. As they stand there fenced in and defenceless, the two white shirts walk up to them, hold out a pepper-spray canister and zap them straight in the face.
It's the officers' insouciance that is most shocking. They engage the pepper spray as calmly as if they were handing out parking tickets, then turn and just as calmly walk away.
The video reminded me of another recent event at which I was present: last week's execution in Georgia of Troy Davis. The case drew international attention because there was no forensic evidence and seven out of nine key witnesses had recanted their testimony.
But it was the incidental details outside the prison that caught my eye. An impassioned but entirely peaceful crowd of protesters had gathered to make the pretty reasonable argument that states should not go around killing innocent people. Georgia's response was to line up a Swat team in black riot gear like extras in a Batman movie and fly police helicopters with spotlights overhead. Add to that the balmy night and the loud buzzing of the crickets and it was like stepping back in time into a pastiche of the old Deep South.
UFO hovered in front of Navy Destroyer
A UFO hovered in front of an Australian Navy destroyer for more than half an hour and did not appear on the warship’s radar, an Australian Navy reservist claims.
The 39-year-old man said he was working on the guided missile destroyer HMAS Brisbane in 1992 as quartermaster gunner when an “illuminating, bright light” appeared in front of the vessel.
“We were sailing in the Great Australia Bight when the light was suddenly in front of us, about 45 degrees, high in the sky.
“We watched it for about half an hour – but nothing was on the radar.”
The Navy Reservist said the light then “quickly moved to south east and then south west and gave a bit of a jiggle”, before it “shot up and disappeared”.
The man, who didn’t want to be named, came forward after visiting Katherine recently, where he heard about a spate of sightings of unexplained lights and objects in the sky.
Online gamers crack enzyme riddle
Foldit, developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, it is a video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - using a set of online tools. To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.
Zero: an investigation into 9/11
ZERO: An Investigation into 9/11, has one central thesis - that the official version of the events surrounding the attacks on 9/11 can not be true. This brand new feature documentary from Italian production company Telemaco explores the latest scientific evidence and reveals dramatic new witness testimony, which directly conflicts with the US Government's account.
The mysterious Saudi family that vanished two weeks before 9/11
Did you know that a Saudi family living in Sarasota, Fla., that met with 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta disappeared without a trace—leaving behind their cars, food, and furniture—two weeks before the attacks? Neither did Congress, or the 9/11 Commission! The FBI didn't think to tell them.
It turns out the couple, Anoud and Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii, had ties to the 9/11 hijackers.
