POLICE POWER

Chief constable zapped by Taser

Video footage shows North Wales Police Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom being supported by two officers as he is shot in the back with a Taser by a third officer.
He makes what he described as a "strangulated yell" as he is zapped for 1.5 seconds, and tells his officers: "That was long enough, thanks".
Speaking to camera afterwards, Mr Brunstrom - who recently passed his force's fitness test - said: "What was it like? Not pleasant, is the answer".
He added: "I was completely incapable of movement. I would have fallen if I hadn't been supported by my colleagues.
"I very strongly advise you, if faced by an officer and a Taser, that you follow the instructions of the nice police officer, because you will not enjoy the consequences of disobedience."

RIGHTS TRASHED

Police want court order against APEC protesters

New South Wales Police will today seek a Supreme Court order to prevent the biggest APEC protest planned for this Saturday.
Police have been in discussions with the Stop Bush Coalition for weeks over their proposed route for a protest march this Saturday.
There is a clear signal today that those negotiations have failed, with police confirming they will take the issue to the Supreme Court.
The group's leader, Alex Bainbridge, says police gave him a letter last night to say he would receive a court summons today.
Mr Bainbridge says the group is ready to take on the legal challenge.
"We have lawyers that are prepared to work with us because they also believe in the rights of the democratic protests," he said.

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Scientists Find Alfvén waves in Solar corona

Scientists for the first time have observed elusive oscillations in the sun's corona, known as Alfvén waves, that transport energy outward from the surface of the sun.
The discovery may give researchers more insight into solar magnetic fields, eventually leading to a better understanding of how the sun affects Earth's atmosphere and the entire solar system.

Alfvén waves, transverse incompressible magnetic oscillations, have been proposed as a possible mechanism to heat the Sun's corona to millions of degrees by transporting convective energy from the photosphere into the diffuse corona.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Rabble-proof fence

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Sydney is a poitical event being held in a democratic country, but the increasing fever in pitch of threats of violent protest has lead to the virtual banning of any protest and the use of the words "protesters" and "terrorists" in the same breath.

The security crackdown will shut down the city. A 5.5km exclusion fence of huge concrete blocks and cyclone mesh has been erected, 500 gaol cells have been evacuated to make way for mass arrests. Even Meals on Wheels has been cancelled for the Friday.

Australia's government has spent $169m (US$138m) on security for the event over six years.

The State Government Transport Minister John Watkins says the security barrier "[is] a big, ugly, strong fence and it's there to keep protesters out and to protect against terrorism".

That means the fence has been designed to keep out those who belive in democratic rights (eg to air dissenting political opinions) and those who don't believe in the democratic process: in short, everybody except the ruling elite.

Sydney will be in virtual lockdown with some roads and train stations closed, many shops shut and Friday declared a public holiday to encourage residents to leave the city for the weekend.

Despite the 5.5km fence, the constant overflight by jet fighters, virtual lockdown of the city, and the presence of thousands of armed police and soldiers, an official threatened protesters "who interrupt the normal running of Sydney" with tough punishment.

THE MONTHS BEFORE

NSW Govt says APEC great for Sydney's profile

May 3, 2007: Earlier this week, Deputy Premier John Watkins said the conference would lock down the city and provide nothing tangible for the people or business of Sydney. Mr Iemma has contradicted the claims.
"The benefits to the city are the obvious benefits of the city's profile," he said.
But he has supported Mr Watkins' warning about the level of the disruption that the event is expected to cause.




'Ring of steel' blockades Sydney
As the wall was being erected, a police helicopter flew overhead, large numbers of police patrolled the city on pushbikes, in vehicles and on foot while several coasted around the harbour on jet skis.
"We think this wall is unnecessary and shouldn't be there. It's dividing Sydney in two," says a protester.

In stark contrast to the security wall, APEC organisers have erected colourful street banners and flower beds to welcome the visiting officials.

APEC 'security wall' undemocratic: Greens

Aug 2, 2007: The incoming New South Wales Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, says details about security fencing for the APEC summit in Sydney will be made public soon.
Mr Scipione has refused to confirm rumours the barrier will be made of high reinforced concrete almost 3m high and will be used to cordon-off several blocks of central Sydney from Circular Quay. He says any measures being planned by authorities are necessary.
Greens MP, Lee Rhiannon, says no part of Sydney should be fenced off. She said the fence would be "symbolic that this [Iemma] government does not understand peaceful protest which is such a critical part of a healthy democracy - this fence is not needed".

More APEC restrictions announced

Aug 24, 2007: Additional areas in the Sydney CBD, eastern suburbs and the airport have been added to the list of restricted zones for next month's APEC summit.
The Government has revealed the RAAF base at Richmond, Sydney Airport, parts of Kirribilli, areas of Bondi and four major hotels in the city will today be officially-gazetted declared zones for the APEC conference.
The Deputy Premier, John Watkins, says the decision gives police additional powers to stop and search and move people on in those areas. "This enables the police to exercise greater power and a level of control," he said.
He also warned Sydneysiders to expect "significant disruptions" in the CBD from Saturday September 1 to Monday September 10, due to the US President's decision to arrive two days earlier.

1500 ADF personnel to provide APEC security

Aug 29, 2007: Security operations during APEC will involve 1500 Australian Defence personnel. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the New South Wales Police signed a memorandum of understanding outlining the state police role as the primary security agency.
Brigadier Andrew Smith says the ADF will provide unique security services to help support the event."
That includes Black Hawk helicopters, some FA18 hornet fighter aircraft divers on the harbour, some other Royal Australian Navy Ships, some specialist search teams from the Army Reserve and a special operations task group," he said.
The federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, says several of the delegations attending the APEC summit have applied for certificates to carry guns in Australia.
A familiarisation flight over the Harbour Bridge and Goat Island by an SA18 involved an aircraft travelling at 420kmh at an altitude of 1000 metres.

New police powers come into force

Aug 30, 2007: New police powers come into force today, allowing officers to stop and search anyone trying to enter a restricted zone.
The police centre in Surry Hills is also now fully operational, with a wall of video screens showing live shots of the city's streets.
Exclusion notices are also being sent out from today to individuals considered by police to be a security threat.
"The police are ready and they have the equipment the powers and the training needed to protect our citizens and our guests," Mr Iemma said. "The Police Minister, David Campbell, has defended the measures, saying violent protests are being planned.

PROTESTS BANNED
APEC protesters say the police are being unreasonable in their continued opposition to the Stop Bush Coalition's planned route during the September 2-9 conference. Police and protest organisers met again today and failed to reach an agreement on the route.
A student demonstration on the Wednesday has not been allowed to march.
The Greens have been told they are not allowed to have a stationary action with 21 people inside Martin Place.

["It's a shocking thing to see these leaders come here and not talk about the plight of workers in their own countries, not stand up to multinational companies and say, 'Enough - we want our citizens, our families, our workers treated with dignity and respect.'" - ACTU president, Sharan Burrow]

Sydney locks down for APEC meeting

Aug 30, 2007: Sydney is in lock down amid fears of violent protests and terrorist strikes.
Many of the city's top tourist attractions, including the Sydney Opera House, will be hidden behind a 5.5m long, 2.8m high steel and concrete fence.
New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says 3500 police and 1500 counter-terrorism and special force soldiers will protect US President George W Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other "dignitaries".
Police have purchased a water cannon for the event, cleared enough jail cells to hold 500 demonstrators, and converted 30 buses into mobile holding cells that can also be used as street barricades. Mounted officers would not be used because of an outbreak of the highly-contagious equine influenza but dogs will be brought in to screen the crowds.
"The intelligence that has been coming through would cause us to prepare for a mass arrest arrangement," Incoming New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said.
The military will enforce an 80-kilometre no-fly zone around the city with F/A-18 fighters and Blackhawk helicopters, while navy divers and patrol boats guard Sydney Harbour.
"We are planning a peaceful protest but the police are making it very difficult and being very provocative," StopBush organiser Alex Bainbridge said.
"They're basically treating us like terrorists and denying our democratic right to protest."
NSW Greens politician Lee Rhiannon described the city centre fence, which is designed to withstand attack from an explosives-laden car, as "an absolute insult (to) the process of democracy".
But Prime Minister John Howard said the protesters had only themselves to blame for the tough measures.

Police blacklist IDs those banned from city

Aug 31, 2007: Greens Senator Kerry Nettle is calling on the Federal Government to reveal its role in the creation of a black list of APEC protesters.
Senator Nettle said "I want to know about what involvement Federal Police and ASIO had in determining which people should be excluded from being able to be in Sydney".
"This black list has been drawn up with no regard for the courts - there is no judicial oversight for determining whether people should be on that list people.
"If they find out they are on it, [they] have got no right of appeal."

Police Minister David Campbell says people on an exclusion list for the APEC week will be contacted by police to be told they are not allowed to enter the restricted APEC zones.
The Minister said police will contact individuals and say "'We believe that you are an excluded person'."

Roads will be closed within restricted zones and police will have more power to search people.
The names and photographs of about 30 on the blacklist were published in a Sydney newspaper.

Scipione takes over as NSW Police Commissioner

Sep 1, 2007: Andrew Scipione has taken over as NSW's 21st Police Commissioner, officially succeeding Ken Moroney at midnight. Mr Scipione's swearing in has been postponed until the summit is over.

"If you intend to come here and protest violently, you should realise that we're going to be very hard on you," he said. "...if you've got that in mind, you can understand that we'll be looking to take you into custody and putting you into a cell and putting you before a court," he said.

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TRUE COLOURS

"I don't know Mr Rudd, I'm looking forward to getting to know him. He doesn't know me and I don't know him. So I'm looking forward to sharing my views with him." -- Bush (looking forward to Rudd talks

QUIT CAMPAIGN

NSW drug arrests skyrocket

The latest crime report for New South Wales shows the number of people being caught in possession of cocaine and amphetamines is up by 60%. The quarterly crime report, released today, shows 359 people were arrested for cocaine possession in the year leading up to June, up by about 150 on the previous year.
The director of the state's Bureau of Crime Statistics, Don Weatherburn, says "These changes are not just indicative of a crackdown by police, I think they're indicative of a growing problem".

HEARTS AND MINDS

Marine Sergeant Frank Wuterich, 27, faces 17 counts of murder over the Haditha killings - the most serious war crimes allegations faced by US troops in Iraq.

Marine 'ordered to execute women and children'

A US marine was ordered to execute a room full of terrified Iraqi women and children during an alleged massacre in Haditha, Iraq that left 24 people dead, a military court has been told.

The testimony came in the opening of a preliminary hearing for Marine Sergeant Frank Wuterich, who faces 17 counts of murder over the Haditha killings, the most serious war crimes allegations faced by US troops in Iraq.

Lance Corporal Humberto Mendoza:

"When I opened the door there was just women and kids, two adults were lying down on the bed and there were three children on the bed ... two more were behind the bed," Mendoza said.

"I looked at them for a few seconds. Just enough to know they were not presenting a threat ... they looked scared."

After leaving the room Mendoza told Tatum what he had found.

"I told him there were women and kids inside there. He said 'Well, shoot them,'" Mendoza told prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Sean Sullivan.

"And what did you say to him?" Sullivan asked.

"I said 'But they're just women and children.' He didn't say nothing."

Mendoza said he returned to a position at the front of the house and heard a door open behind him followed by a loud noise. Returning later that afternoon to retrieve bodies, he said he found a room full of corpses.

Prosecutors allege marines went on a killing spree in Haditha in retaliation for the death of their colleague in the bomb attack.

Defence lawyers will argue that Wuterich followed established combat zone rules of engagement.

A total of eight marines were initially charged in connection with the Haditha deaths. Four were charged with murder while four senior officers were accused of failing to properly investigate the killings. Of the four marines charged with murder, two have since had charges withdrawn, while allegations against Tatum are also expected to be dismissed.

DEMOCRACY DYING

High Court overturns prisoner vote ban

Prisoners will be able to vote at the upcoming federal election after the High Court overturned the Federal Government's ban today.
Prisoner Vickie Lee Roach successfully challenged amendments passed last year by the Federal Government to prevent prisoners voting.
In a majority decision, the High Court agreed to overturn the ban.
But the court has reaffirmed earlier laws that stipulate that prisoners serving a sentence of three years or more cannot vote.

[The Commonwealth Electoral Act was changed last year to make an amendment to disqualify all prisoners. However Sections 7 and 24 of the Constitution say that the only rational and legitimate basis under which voting rights can be limited is by virtue of a person's mental capacity.
Section 41 of the Constitution, what the lawyers are using as one of the arguments in this case is that no adult person who has or acquires a right to vote shall, while the right continues, be prevented by any law of the Commonwealth from voting at election for either House, etc. In that Section 41 there are also three words: 'while the right continues'.]

The Law Report (June 12, 2007

Anita Barraud: What about the argument that if you're not fit to walk the streets, you're not a proper person to cast a vote.

Phil Lynch, Human Rights Law Resource Centre, Melbourne: That's an argument which is completely contrary to recognised principles of human rights law, and it's also an argument that's completely contrary to recognised principles of commonsense.

Anita Barraud: But this was the rationale for last year's legislation which denies prisoners the vote.

Phil Lynch: That is the rationale, and we say that it's an illegitimate and irrational rationale. The reason we say that, among others, is that at international law it's well recognised that prisoners shouldn't be deprived of any of their rights or freedoms other than those which are a necessary incident of the deprivation of liberty itself. And that basic principle of human rights comes from commonsense. The overwhelming majority of prisoners are not serving life sentences, they will be released into the community and it is absolutely critical, therefore, that if they're going to be released, that our policies and practices in prison, and our policies and practices pertaining to prisoners, promote rehabilitation, reintegration, and a sense of social responsibility.

Professor Kim Rubenstein from the ANU College of Law, is also director of the Centre for International and Public Law says that if the court determines that it's within the Commonwealth's power to limit who the people of the Commonwealth are, and in this circumstance limit it in the way that prisoners are not the people of the Commonwealth for the purposes of voting in our Australian elections, then what does that say about the capacity of the Commonwealth to really limit people's rights in Australia and in fact what we think of as their citizenship rights. So voting is one of the rights that we think of as citizenship; another is the right to live here in Australia and to travel in and out of Australia freely as Australian citizens.

STATE ASBO

APEC antisocial behaviour

According to the NSW Meals on Wheels Association, no client should go without.
Because the NSW government has declared APEC Friday a public holiday in 25 local government areas around central Sydney, no meals on wheels workers will be working.
The association cited the necessity of paying workers double time as the reason.
Extra meals will be provided on Thursday to cover Friday according to a Meals on Wheels spokesperson.

Also, according to Crikey.com.au:
The alert citizens of Sydney got a little bit alarmed last night. At 11.30pm a truck with massive loudspeakers was driving around the CBD, stopping at intervals to announce, very loudly, that this was "a public safety announcement to test the city's response system in the event of a natural disaster' (or something along those lines). Sound preparation, security overkill or public scare campaign?

 * I was told today by somebody that works there that Sydney's homeless (at least those who seek shelter in the CBD) will be rounded up and housed at Long Bay Jail for the duration of the APEC soiree.

 * Perhaps Pru Goward might like to ask the Minister of Police in NSW whether it is true that the 225 graduates from the Goulburn Police Academy as of August 28th, 2007, will be deployed in the Sydney CBD during APEC as one of the new graduates has been instructed? If so, does the Minister and/or Goward think that inexperienced officers might a) endanger their fellow officers, b) the visiting worthies, c) members of the public, particularly those peacefully protesting in an atmosphere of government and media generated hysteria, or d) themselves.

ABC Radio recently had a vox pop on the installation of loudspeakers around Sydney. No one knew what they were for. Some guessed APEC.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

FLASHBACK: Lockerbie's dirty secret

More people died at Lockerbie than in Madrid, and you would have thought that the government, if only as proof of its horror at terrorism, would be keen to question its new friends in Tripoli about the bombing. Not so, apparently. So the only hard information the families have is that Abdul Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan official, apparently working in intelligence, was convicted in January 2001 of bombing the airliner. How he accomplished this feat is still a mystery. The details of the crime did not emerge at the trial, which was held by Scottish judges sitting without a jury in Holland. It lasted 18 months and cost an estimated £50m.

Megrahi's co-accused was acquitted, so the prosecution's suggestion that the two men conspired to bomb the plane cannot be right. Indeed, the crucial evidence that the bomb was put on a feeder flight at Malta and was transferred twice, at Frankfurt and at Heathrow, was so thin it was derisory.

No one knows whether anyone else took part in this sophisticated crime of terror. One man has been convicted. The Libyan government has forked out many millions in compensation. And that, apparently, is the end of the matter. Many of the bereaved relatives, including Dix, are increasingly disturbed at the behaviour of ministers who talk business and politics to the Gadafy regime, but are not remotely interested in pressing anyone in it to tell the whole story about Lockerbie.

There is, in my opinion (not necessarily shared by the families), an explanation for all this, an explanation so shocking that no one in high places can contemplate it. It is that the Lockerbie bombing was carried out not by Libyans at all but by terrorists based in Syria and hired by Iran to avenge the shooting down in the summer of 1988 of an Iranian civil airliner by a US warship. This was the line followed by both British and US police and intelligence investigators after Lockerbie. Through favoured newspapers like the Sunday Times, the investigators named the suspects - some of whom had been found with home-made bombs similar to the one used at Lockerbie.

This line of inquiry persisted until April 1989, when a phone call from President Bush senior to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned her not to proceed with it. A year later, British and US armed forces prepared for an attack on Saddam Hussein's occupying forces in Kuwait. Their coalition desperately needed troops from an Arab country. These were supplied by Syria, which promptly dropped out of the frame of Lockerbie suspects. Libya, not Syria or Iran, mysteriously became the suspect country, and in 1991 the US drew up an indictment against two Libyan suspects. The indictment was based on the "evidence" of a Libyan "defector", handsomely paid by the CIA. His story was such a fantastic farrago of lies and fantasies that it was thrown out by the Scottish judges.

In Britain, meanwhile, Thatcher, John Major and Blair obstinately turned down the bereaved families' requests for a full public inquiry into the worst mass murder in British history.

PORNUCOPIA

Why internet safety policy is cracked

A 16-year-old disables and bypasses the Australian Government's much vaunted pornography filter within 30 minutes.

Tom Wood, unlike some of his peers, did not post the instructions on the internet for others to follow but has used his knowledge and skill to ask some rather pertinent questions of the Government: Why did they spend $84 million on a solution which was ineffectual and - more importantly - where is the current Australian research data that recommends this solution?

OUR COSMOS

Great 'cosmic nothingness' found

Astronomers have found an enormous void in space that measures nearly a billion light-years across.It is empty of both normal matter - such as galaxies and stars - and the mysterious "dark matter" that cannot be seen directly with telescopes.
The "hole" is located in the direction of the Eridanus constellation and has been identified in data from a survey of the sky made at radio wavelengths.

THOUGHT CRIMES

Concern over SA's ASBO plans
Welfare groups say a South Australian State Government plan to introduce a controversial British law to curb anti-social behaviour is an over reaction.
The State Government wants to introduce Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), which restrict where people can travel and who they associate with.Attorney-General Michael Atkinson says crime often follows anti-social behaviour.
"The crime may be hard to prove. The precursor is easy to prove because it's in everyone's face," he said.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Howard pressured over children overboard knowledge

Mike Scrafton was the defence liaison officer in Peter Reith's office, and was well aware that the claims made by his boss and the Prime Minister were hotly disputed at Defence headquarters.
Prevented from giving his side of the story to the Senate inquiry, Mr Scrafton has now spoken out, claiming he personally told John Howard that there was no evidence to back the story.
But, as he has done for almost three years, Mr Howard denies anyone ever told him of such doubts before the 2001 election.

Rudd strip club visit sparks rash of confessions | NEWS.com.au

Rudd strip club visit sparks rash of confessions

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said the Rudd strip-club revelations should be kept in perspective.
"Four years ago Kevin Rudd got drunk and took himself into a strip club," Senator Brown said.
"Four years ago John Howard, sober, took Australia into the Iraq war.
"I think the electorate can judge which one did the more harm," he said.

POLICE STATE

Terrorism suspects Adham Amin Hassoun, second left, Jose Padilla, second right, and Kifah Wael Jayyousi listen as attorney Michael Caruso, left, presents his closing arguments in this Aug. 16, 2007 courtroom drawing in

A travesty of justice: Jose Padilla found guilty

Jose Padilla, a 36-year-old American citizen from Chicago, faces a possible life sentence.

The verdict is a travesty of justice and a testament to the growth of police state measures and the advanced state of decay of democratic rights in the United States.

Padilla was convicted along with two co-defendants -- Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi -- on two counts of material support for terrorism and one count of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas. The verdict was reached after only a day and a half of deliberations.

Padilla was arrested in May 2002 in Chicago’s O’Hare International airport. The government first held Padilla as a “material witness” to the September 11 attacks, but in June of that year, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft held a press conference to announce that Padilla had plotted to explode a radioactive “dirty bomb” somewhere in the United States. He was declared an “enemy combatant” and shifted to a military brig in South Carolina, where he was held in an isolation cell without being charged and without access to a lawyer for three-and-a-half years.

It quickly became clear that the allegations against Padilla were not only sensationalized, but of highly dubious substance. While Padilla evidently had some ties to Islamic fundamentalists, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged at the time that there was “not an actual plan” to carry out a dirty bomb attack.

The portrayal of Padilla as a major terrorist threat who was, in the words of Ashcroft, prepared to inflict “mass death and injury,” served two essential purposes. It came at a convenient time for the Bush administration -- amidst revelations that US intelligence agencies and Bush himself had ignored or suppressed warnings of the September 11 terrorist attacks -- and enabled the administration to divert attention from the many unanswered questions about its failure to avert the attacks, while promoting the Padilla case as a victory in the “war on terror.”

More fundamentally, the Bush administration wanted to use Padilla to assert its claim that the president could order the indefinite military detention of a US citizen, detained on US soil. On the grounds that he was an “enemy combatant,” Padilla was denied communication with the outside world, stripped of his habeas corpus rights, and subjected to systematic physical and psychological torture.

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CLOAK AND DAGGER

See Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign

On November 17th, 2005, an anonymous Wikipedia user deleted 15 paragraphs from an article on e-voting machine-vendor Diebold, excising an entire section critical of the company's machines. While anonymous, such changes typically leave behind digital fingerprints offering hints about the contributor, such as the location of the computer used to make the edits.

In this case, the changes came from an IP address reserved for the corporate offices of Diebold itself. And it is far from an isolated case.

METEOROLOGICA

These strange sky circles of unknown origin were spotted on 28th of July in Murmansk city. The author of the shots says that they appeared suddenly, without any sound of flying jet and there are even no any air bases in this area.

See also Red Dots on Moscow Skies
(more…)

PANTS ON FIRE

Costello speaks: an ethics lesson from a liar

A low key Peter Costello fronted a doorstop outside the Ministerial Entrance at 8:40 this morning with a very important message: you can’t trust journalists. (Click here to listen to the audio.)
Those of us in the handful of hacks who were around at that time – and there were some senior people there, like Michelle Grattan, Paul Bongiorno, Fran Kelly and David Speers – got an ethics lessons from a liar.
Twice yesterday – in the morning, on Channel 9, and later in the day on Sky – the Treasurer was asked if he’d said of the Prime Minister and the government: "He can't win; I can. We can, but he can't."
Twice he denied it – but he was in trouble once he’d done it on Sky, because the interviewer countered with: "Because one of those who was there present has told me today there's no question you did and there were others present."
At the doorstop today he denied a charge that has not been made – "I have never urged supporters of mine to carp against the prime minister nor have I ever urged supporters of mine to do anything which would undermine the Liberal Party" – and then tried to turn the matter into an ethical issue.

DARK FUTURE

Milky way will become an island galaxy

"So dark energy is even more mysterious than dark matter, because dark energy is something that's completely uniform, fills up the universe and, unlike gravity, it seems to repel matter and it's intrinsically repulsive in the sense that it causes the universe not to come together, but to accelerate," he said.

"We've found the universe seems to be accelerating, and this acceleration is due to a sort of anti-gravity, in effect, which we call dark energy."

But he says scientist do not know if the acceleration will come to an end.

"One hypothesis is that the expansion, the acceleration will continue forever and the universe will never be able to re-collapse, it'll just... all galaxies will move farther and farther apart," he said.

"Right now we can see many billions of galaxies when we look around the sky with the biggest telescopes. As the universe accelerates they will drift away from us, they'll become invisible.

"Some day there'll be only our own galaxy and nothing else and after that, very little at all in the visible universe."

Professor Joe Silk, Oxford University

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Too much haste to nuclear waste

Halliburton, Dick Cheney's former company, constructed the railway line between Adelaide and Darwin, now managed by Serco Asia Pacific, a leader in the management and transport of Britain's nuclear waste.
It runs adjacent to both the SA Olympic Dam uranium mine and to Muckaty Station at Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory - the preferred site chosen by the Federal Government to store radioactive waste from Lucas Heights.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard is mooting domestic uranium enrichment, construction of 25 nuclear reactors on the East Coast, storage of foreign radioactive waste in Australia and reprocessing spent radioactive nuclear fuel in a "closed nuclear fuel cycle".
Even the 'alternative government', the Labor Party, has joined the Coalition's open-slather uranium mine policy

[Has our nuclear future already been decided? All that is left to do is to spring the plan on 'we the people'.]

GOD SQUAD

Baseball games get evangelical

Christian groups are holding evangelical extravaganzas after sporting events, and they want to bring the practice to Australia.
Baseball teams use all sort of promotions to lure fans to game. There are bald nights, when men without hair get in for free.
But the major league team in Washington, the Nationals, is using a different and more controversial strategy - a Faith Night.
After a Nationals baseball game, 3,000 people pay $US10 extra to stay behind for an evangelical extravaganza.

Carl Jung recalls his boyhood:

Church gradually became a place of torment to me. For there men dared to preach aloud - I am tempted to say, shamelessly - about God, about his intentions and actions. There people were exhorted to have those feelings, and to believe that secret which I knew to be the deepest, innermost certainty, a certainty not to be betrayed by a single word. I could only conclude that apparently no-one knew about this secret, not even the parson, for otherwise, no-one could have dared to expose the mystery of God in public and to profane those inexpressible feelings with stale sentimentalities.
Moreover, I was certain that this was the wrong way to reach God, for I knew, knew from experience, that this grace was only accorded to one who fulfilled the will of God without reservation. This was preached from the pulpit, too, but always on the assumption that revelation made the will of God plain. To me, on the other hand, it seemed the most obscure and unknown thing of all. To me it seemed that one's duty was to explore daily the will of God. I did not do that, but I felt sure that I would do it as soon as an urgent reason for doing so presented itself. ['Memories, dreams reflections']

GO BANANAS

A future with no bananas?

The world's most popular fruit and the fourth most important food crop of any sort is in deep trouble. Its genetic base, the wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in India, has collapsed.

Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety, the Cavendish, the genetic roots of which lie in India. The world Cavendish crop is threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caused by the black sigatoka fungus. The main hope for survival of the Cavendish lies in developing new hybrids resistant to the fungus, but this is a difficult and time-consuming task because the seedless modern fruit does not reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings.

Now the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that wild banana species are rapidly going extinct as Indian forests are destroyed, while many traditional farmers' varieties are also disappearing. It could take a global effort to save the bananas' gene pool.

GO BANANAS

A future with no bananas?

The world's most popular fruit and the fourth most important food crop of any sort is in deep trouble. Its genetic base, the wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in India, has collapsed.

Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety, the Cavendish, the genetic roots of which lie in India. The world Cavendish crop is threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caused by the black sigatoka fungus. The main hope for survival of the Cavendish lies in developing new hybrids resistant to the fungus, but this is a difficult and time-consuming task because the seedless modern fruit does not reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings.

Now the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that wild banana species are rapidly going extinct as Indian forests are destroyed, while many traditional farmers' varieties are also disappearing. It could take a global effort to save the bananas' gene pool.

RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW

Animal battle video becomes hit

An eight-minute-long amateur video - filmed in South Africa's Kruger National Park - shows how a big buffalo from a herd gores a lion and tosses it in the air to save a calf.
The buffalo calf is then seen running away to rejoin the herd, while the lion pack is forced to retreat.
The footage first shows several lions attacking a group of buffalo, snatching a calf.As the lions wrestle with a calf by a watering hole, a crocodile joins in the battle, pouncing on the buffalo. The lions win the tug-of-war, but then the buffalo herd returns, chasing away the lions and freeing the calf.
Video

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Ministers accused of 'driving' Haneef case

Civil libertarians say any inquiry into the bungled prosecution of Dr Mohamed Haneef should focus squarely on the actions of Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.

The terrorism-related charge against the 27-year-old Indian was dropped yesterday after prosecutors abandoned their case amid revelations of mistakes in the case against him.

The outrages concerning this case include:

1. Accusations by the prosecuting lawyer that the mobile phone SIM card which Dr Haneef was alleged to have given to his second cousin in Britain was found in the burning
Jeep rammed into Glasgow airport.

[The SIM card, given to his cousin a year ago, was discovered not in Glasgow but in Liverpool.]

2. Police claimed he offered no explanation of why he tried to leave Brisbane on a one-way ticket to India.

[A transcript of his first police interview, leaked to the press by his defence team, showed he did: he wanted to see his wife, who had just given birth to their child.]

3. When the magistrate at that hearing in Brisbane, Jacqui

Payne, decided to grant the doctor conditional bail,
the government controversially intervened. Kevin Andrews, the immigration minister, decided to cancel his visa and keep him detained under immigration laws.

4. Following a story in the Queensland press Police at first refused to confirm or deny whether its officers found photographs of a prominent Gold Coast building and documents relating to the destroying of structures while searching Haneef's unit.

5. Police officers wrote the names of terrorism suspects in
Haneef's personal diary after he was taken in for questioning in
Brisbane. The paper says police then asked Haneef if he had written the names, before admitting their mistake.

APE ASCENDANCY

Fossil find casts doubt on origins of man

Research published in the journal Nature today has thrown up a serious challenge to the widely accepted view on human evolution.

An international team of researchers, including a geologist from the Australian National University (ANU), has found that two different species of early man lived side by side in the same place for almost half a million years.

Susan Anton, an associate professor of anthropology at New York University and co-author of the research, said "the co-existence of the two species suggests that they were more like sister species, as opposed to homo habilus being the mother to homo erectus".

ANU geologist Ian MacDougall was part of the research team that travelled to the Koobi Fora Formation in Kenya.

"It really does throw into doubt a whole series of assumptions that have previously been made on the basis of the fossils," he said.

DEMOCRACY DYING

If you live in Australia, you may have seen Diebold ATM machines around the place. After a transaction you get a receipt on request.
Diebold's electronic voting machines do not give receipts and the machines connect to a central server. With no paper trail and no ability to presume the machines can be imune from hacker or government interference. At a meeting with George W Bush fans the president of Diebold is reported to have said he would give Mr Bush the presidency.

Freepress (2004) Sworn testimony from election observers in Lucas County and Hocking County revealed that technicians from the Diebold and Triad companies had inexplicably taken control of voting machines and dismantled them, rendering verifiable recounts impossible.

Miami Herald:
Florida Voting Machines Can Be Hacked
The study by Florida State University found that, despite recent software fixes, an "adversary" could use a pre-programmed computer card to swap one candidate's votes for another or create a "ballot-stuffing attack" that multiplies votes for a candidate or issue.


Electronic voting machines like this one leave no paper trail and have a handy infra-red port to their internal processor.

Pencil and paper voting still the safest

Diebold AccuVote TS electronic voting machines have an infrared (IrDA) port installed. This is a remote communication port through which another remote device could communicate with the touch screen and change either its data or its software or both.


Open your eyes, this is the thin edge of the wedge?

Blind and vision impaired voters in Adelaide will have the chance to trial electronically assisted voting machines when they go to the polls at this year's Federal Election. The Australian Electoral Commission will trial the machines in 29 locations around the country, including in the SA seats of Sturt, Kingston and Adelaide. The system aims to help vision impaired people cast a secret ballot, without help from friends, family or official

HISTORY ...


News site mysteriously shut down after Diebold-US election criticism

California to sue Diebold over false claims
Installation of touch-screen voting systems that were not tested or approved nationally or in California.

EARTH CHANGES

© abk.

SERIOUS LEVITY

Experts float levitation theory

"The Casimir force is the ultimate cause of friction in the nano world, in particular in some microelectromechanical systems," explained St Andrews University physicists Professor Ulf Leonhardt.
"Such systems already play an important role - for example tiny mechanical devices which trigger a car airbag to inflate or those which power tiny devices used for drugs testing or chemical analysis.
"Micro or nano machines could run smoother and with less or no friction at all if one can manipulate the force."
Prof Leonhardt added: "In order to reduce friction in the nano world, turning nature's stickiness into repulsion could be the ultimate remedy.
"Instead of sticking together, parts of micro machinery would levitate."

[The research is due to be published in the New Journal of Physics.]

WEIRD SCIENCE

The memory of water a reality?

Scientists are discussing recent scientific work exploring the idea that water can display memory effects.
The concept of memory of water is important to homeopathy because it offers a potential explanation of the mechanism of action of very high dilutions often used in homeopathy.

Guest editor Professor Martin Chaplin of the Department of Applied Science at London South Bank University, remarks: “There is strong evidence concerning many ways in which the mechanism of this ‘memory’ may come about. There are also mechanisms by which such solutions may possess effects on biological systems which substantially differ from plain water.”

The concept of the memory of water goes back to 1988 when the late Professor Jacques Benveniste published, in the international scientific journal Nature, claims that extremely high ‘ultramolecular’ dilutions of an antibody had effects in the human basophil degranulation test, a laboratory model of immune response. In other words, the water diluent ‘remembered’ the antibody long after it was gone. His findings were subsequently denounced as ‘pseudoscience’ and yet, despite the negative impact this had at the time, the idea has not gone away.
In a special issue of Homeopathy, scientists from the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, USA and the UK present remarkably convergent views from groups using entirely different methods, indicating that large-scale structural effects can occur in liquid water, and can increase with time. Such effects might account for claims of memory of water effects.

[Water memory is a concept, basic to homeopathy, which holds that water is capable of retaining a "memory" of particles once dissolved in it. This memory allows water to retain the properties of the original solute even when there is literally no solute left in the solution. No proof exists to support this theory.]

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Bad bosses get promoted, not punished: study

One way people get ahead in the workplace seems to be by making their subordinates miserable, according to a new Australian study.
The study found almost two-thirds of 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for domineering ways.
The study's authors, Anthony Don Erickson, Ben Shaw and Zha Agabe from Bond University on the Gold Coast, said "the fact that 64.2% of the respondents indicated that either nothing at all or something positive happened to the bad leader is rather remarkable - remarkably disturbing".
They faulted senior managers for not recognising the signs of workplace strife wrought by bad bosses.
"The leaders above them who did nothing, who rewarded and promoted bad leaders... represent an additional problem," they wrote.

[How do they think the leaders above them got there?]

Blogged with Flock

SWEET SIXTEEN

Atefeh Rajabi

Girl, 16, hanged in public in Iran

Ateqeh Sahaleh was hanged in public on Simetry Street off Rah Ahan Street at the city center.
The sentence was issued by the head of Neka’s Justice Department and subsequently upheld by the mullahs’ Supreme Court and carried out with the approval of Judiciary Chief Mahmoud Shahroudi.
In her summary trial, the teenage victim did not have any lawyer and efforts by her family to recruit a lawyer was to no avail.
Ateqeh personally defended herself. She told the religious judge, Haji Rezaii, that he should punish the main perpetrators of moral corruption not the victims.
The judge personally pursued Ateqeh’s death sentence, beyond all normal procedures and finally gained the approval of the Supreme Court. After her execution Rezai said her punishment was not execution but he had her executed for her “sharp tongue”.




Violence, poverty and abuse led girl, 16, to gallows

The orphaned 16-year-old girl hanged in front of residents in this town close to the Caspian Sea suffered years of brutal violence, exploitation and torture in the hands of relatives, local officials and plain strangers, and in a country where girls are the most vulnerable members of society, she had no one to go to for help.
The hanging of Atefeh Rajabi has shocked the residents of Neka, who still differ widely in their assessment of the girl, but none voices support for the punishment that she has received.

AUTEUR EGOS

It is shaping up to be a bad week for film directors.

Director Ingmar Bergman dies

Legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman has died at the age of 89.

Ingmar Bergman found bleakness and despair as well as comedy and hope in his indelible explorations of the human condition. He is regarded as one of the great masters of modern cinema.

He grew up surrounded by religious imagery and discussion. His father was a rather conservative parish minister and strict family father: Ingmar was locked up in dark closets for infractions such as wetting the bed.

"I devoted my interest to the church’s mysterious world of low arches, thick walls, the smell of eternity, the colored sunlight quivering above the strangest vegetation of medieval paintings and carved figures on ceilings and walls. There was everything that one’s imagination could desire — angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans."

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born on July 14, 1918, in the Swedish university town of Uppsala.

Film legend Antonioni dies

Michelangelo Antonioni, one of Italy's most famous and influential film-makers, has died in Rome aged 94.

Considered the cinematic father of modern angst and alienation, Antonioni had a career spanning six decades, which included the Oscar-nominated Blowup and the internationally acclaimed L'Avventura (The Adventure).

Antonioni has been described as a poet with a camera.

LONG SHOT

Woomera recognised for historic value

A space archaeologist says the Woomera rocket range in South Australia has been recognised internationally for its historic importance, and this should be the catalyst for Australian authorities to place it on the heritage list.

Dr Alice Gorman from Flinders University says the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics has given Woomera the status of a Historic Aerospace Site.

This puts it in the same league as Tranquillity Base, the site where man first landed on the moon.

[When Woomera was established in 1947 as part of the Anglo-Australian Joint Project it was one of only four rocket ranges in the world.]

SOLAR ROAD

Solar roadway: big black water heaters

If we are all going to fry because of global warming, at least get some cheaper hot water. The principle is the reverse of under-floor heating.

Instead of pumping hot water into a floor, the floor (or road, to be precise) heats the water.

Special pipes are laid on top of a grid frame, under the tarmac or asphalt, or whatever it is called in your neck of the woods.

Sunlight is absorbed by the wide, black road surface, which boosts the temperature of the water just beneath. This turns roads into massive solar hot water heaters.

ARMS ALMS

US plans huge Mid-East arms deal

A high-level US delegation is travelling to the Middle East, after confirming plans for massive arms deals for allies in the region.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates are due to meet Arab ministers at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
The main beneficiaries of the deals are Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

OVER REACTION

Loved ones 'lost to drug-driving'

Police are targeting drivers under the influence of drugs as part of a summer crackdown in England and Wales.
They say drug-driving is a "growing problem" and can be as dangerous as driving while under the influence of alcohol.
Anne Maria Rennie, 56, of Peebles, Peeblesshire, lost her daughter, Chantelle Shalice, 35, and two-year-old granddaughter, Ellora, in a car accident in Australia.
"Their car was hit by another vehicle that had lost control at a roundabout. The other driver was found to have smoked cannabis the night before the accident.

NEW WORLD ORDER

The scum always rises


Zoltan Torey (b 1929, Budapest, Hungary)
Psychologist, philosopher, independent scholar and author of autobiographical memoir "Out of Darkness" and "The Crucible of Consciousness"
Broadcast July 2003, repeated LNL 2007-06-15
CLASSIC Late Night Live (ABC Radio, Australia)

PHILIP ADAMS: ... I asked him about his statement that after Hungary declares war on the Soviet, there were scum that took advantage of the situation.

TOREY: Ah yes, the scum is always there. One of the lessons I have learned is that about 90% of the population consists of decent, normal people who mind their own business and who don't want trouble.
Now, 10% is all that is needed to give us permanent trouble.
About one third of it is ideologues. Ideologues, whether they are Marxists, economic rationalists, nazis, communists, makes no difference.
These are people who really believe in the fact that it is some mental model that constitutes reality. And this is what has to be followed, regardless. A bit like the medieval church ... essentially a very dangerous organisation and frame of mind.
The second third of this 10% consists of opportunists. People who are quite willing to cash in on whatever goes and to milk the system and to lord it over us and to push us around and to bring us into situations which are not of our chosing, whether they be wars or economic changes or whatnot.
And a final third of this 10% consists of the thugs. Young men usually, sometimes psychopathic. But basically people prepared to do anybody's dirty work.

OUR COSMOS

Astronomers spot most distant galaxies ever seen

Astronomers using a giant telescope say they have found glimpses of the most distant -- and oldest -- galaxies ever seen.
"The light the researchers viewed originated when the universe was only 500 million years old and has been traveling through distant space for billions of years, said Richard Ellis, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology.
This means the team found galaxies further back in time than anyone has ever seen as scientists try to better understand how the universe was born some 13.5 billion years ago, he said.
Ellis is due to present his findings of work he did with graduate student Dan Stark at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"The implication is these are the early generation of stars switched on when the universe was in its infancy."
The team used the giant Keck telescope in Hawaii.

QUANTUM UNIVERSE

'Hidden' order ups odds for quantum super computers

An international team of scientists, including several at The Johns Hopkins University, has detected a hidden magnetic “quantum order” that extends over chains of nearly 100 atoms in a material that is otherwise magnetically disordered. The findings have been published in the journal Science,
The team’s results are important because they demonstrate that the magnetic moments (the measure of the strength of a magnetic source) of a large number of atoms can band together to form quantum states much like those of a very large molecule.
Though, on the surface, these atomic “compass needles” seem to be disorganized and disordered, the team was able to discern “a beautiful, underlying quantum order,” said team member Collin Broholm, professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
“Quantum mechanics is normally appreciated only on the atomic scale. However, here we present evidence for a very long and very quantum mechanical magnetic molecule,” Broholm said.
“While disordered to a classical observer, the magnetic moments of almost 100 nickel atoms arranged in a row within a solid were shown to display an underlying quantum coherence limited only by chemical and thermal impurities."

POWER WITHOUT GLORY

Haneef: I was the victim

On Sunday morning Australia's Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said that Dr Haneef's decision to travel to India after having his passport returned "heightens rather than lessens my suspicion".
Mr Andrews said he still believed the decision to throw the doctor out of Australia was the right one.

Dr Haneef returned home to Bangalore after 27 days in police custody, leaving behind a political storm which has erupted since the terrorism-related charge against him was dropped on Friday.

EARTH CHANGES

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Ministers accused of 'driving' Haneef case

Civil libertarians say any inquiry into the bungled prosecution of Dr Mohamed Haneef should focus squarely on the actions of Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.

The terrorism-related charge against the 27-year-old Indian was dropped yesterday after prosecutors abandoned their case amid revelations of mistakes in the case against him.

The outrages concerning this case include:

1. Accusations by the prosecuting lawyer that the mobile phone SIM card which Dr Haneef was alleged to have given to his second cousin in Britain was found in the burning Jeep rammed into Glasgow airport.

[The SIM card, given to his cousin a year ago, was discovered not in Glasgow but in Liverpool.]

2. Police claimed he offered no explanation of why he tried to leave Brisbane on a one-way ticket to India.

[A transcript of his first police interview, leaked to the press by his defence team, showed he did: he wanted to see his wife, who had just given birth to their child.]

3. When the magistrate at that hearing in Brisbane, Jacqui Payne, decided to grant the doctor conditional bail, the government controversially intervened. Kevin Andrews, the immigration minister, decided to cancel his visa and keep him detained under immigration laws.

4. Following a story in the Queensland press Police at first refused to confirm or deny whether its officers found photographs of a prominent Gold Coast building and documents relating to the destroying of structures while searching Haneef's unit.

5. Police officers wrote the names of terrorism suspects in Haneef's personal diary after he was taken in for questioning in Brisbane. The paper says police then asked Haneef if he had written the names, before admitting their mistake.

THE QUICKENING

Study has bad news about sea level rise

A study by scientists at the institute of Arctic and Alpine Research of the University of Colorado, Boulder, has bad news for coastal areas around the world.
The team, led by Mark F. Meier, suggests in Science magazine that the latest International Panel on Climate Change projection of sea level rise in the 21st century by is too low by 10-25 centimeters because it leaves out the contributions of increasing glacier melt water.
To quote New Scientist, the IPCC report "predicted that sea levels worldwide will most probably rise between 21 and 47 cm by 2100, taking the averages of the six scenarios considered.
Using the new figures on small glaciers, Meier calculates the rise to be between 27 and 97 cm.
"This is an appreciable adjustment," Meier says. He notes that more than 100 million people live within one meter of the current sea level.

CAT A TONIC

Cat predicts patients' deaths

A cat at a US nursing home appears to be able to predict when patients are going to die. According to an essay in the respected New England Journal of Medicine, Oscar's predictions are proving more accurate than trained medical staff.
A detailed essay of Oscar's behaviour in the New England Journal Of Medical Science says the cat has presided over the deaths of 25 patients in the advanced dementia unit of Steere House in Providence, Rhode Island.
Oscar, rescued as a kitten from an animal refuge two years ago, does not usually care much for human company but every now and then, he snaps to attention, seeks out a patient and curls up in bed next to them.
He stays there paying attention to the patient as family members say their goodbyes and the priest give last rights, and then dissappears once the patient has died.
Oscar's predictions have been so accurate that staff now call a patient's family if the cat appears purring at the door. Loved ones often have just enough time to say goodbye.

BROWN BROWN

MIT finds mechanism behind fear

Researchers from MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have uncovered a molecular mechanism that governs the formation of fears stemming from traumatic events.

The work could lead to the first drug to treat the millions of adults who suffer each year from persistent, debilitating fears - including hundreds of soldiers.

[Child soldiers used by African warlords drug their young recruits with 'brown brown' to eradicate fear and help instil a murderous rage.]

DIRTY CREATURES

Toxic spill, inferno follows rail crash

Carriages burn after a freight train carrying highly toxic phosphorus derailed in western Ukraine, near Lviv. Eleven carriages loaded with yellow phosphorus derailed and erupted in flames in the Lvov region, Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry official Alexander Kravchuk said.

HYDRA PHOBIA

The Hydra was a many-headed monster from Greek mythology. If any of its heads were severed two would grow in its place.

Al Qaeda recoups post-9/11 losses: report

Leaks of a US intelligence report show Al Qaeda's operating capabilities are at their strongest since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.The report suggests the network has rebuilt itself despite a six-year campaign to dismantle it.

Al Qaeda getting stronger: experts

"It's a paradox: we have succeeded in degrading the operational capabilities of the jihadist enterprise and yet almost every assessment indicates that we are not succeeding," RAND Corp terrorism expert Brian Michael Jenkins said.

US backs Pakistan's campaign to crush militants

General Musharraf has vowed to root out extremists from every corner of the country, and the United States says it fully supports Pakistan's efforts to crush Islamic militants.

Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser to US President George W Bush says the situation is of concern to the US.

"We have seen, in the north-west territories of Pakistan, Taliban pooling, planning and training," he said.

Pakistanis baffled by US support for their corrupt military dictatorship

Well, it could have something to do with the fact that Musharraf’s regime has supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda which are the boogy-men needed to wage the phony War on Terror and that the Pakistani ISI, which has trained Al Qaeda, is a front for CIA’s plausible denialability.

Then there was the little matter of ISI Gen Mahmoud Ahmed, who had wired Mohammed Atta money, and who was meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee on the morning of 9/11. But the 9/11 Commission didn’t think that merited investigation.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Expulsions escalate UK-Russia diplomatic row

London has expelled four Russian diplomats in protest over Moscow's refusal to extradite a former KGB agent to stand trial over the murder.

In response, Russia has warned of serious consequences and that is expected to include tit-for-tat expulsions of British diplomats.

It is nearly nine months since Litvinenko, a former Russian agent living in exile in the UK, died a horrifying and lingering death after he was poisoned by the highly radioactive isotope, polonium 210, which is used as a trigger in nuclear weapons.

HOT AIR

Howard grilled on emissions package

Australian Prime Minister John Howard says Australia needs to move on from the Kyoto protocol and take a market approach to tackle climate change.

But the full details of its carbon trading scheme have not been revealed yet.

Opposition environment spokesman Peter Garrett says the Federal Government's carbon emissions trading scheme cannot work until it sets a price on carbon.

[Market approaches continue to fail the presupposed beneficiaries -- the people.]

WAR ON SHARING

© abk.

GEOMETRY

Moebius strip riddle solved at last

A moebius strip is a loop that has an intriguing quality, dazzlingly exploited by Escher, in that it only has one side. To make one, take one end of a strip, twist it through 180 degrees, and then tape it to the other end.

Since 1930, the Moebius strip has been a classic poser to resolve the in the form of an equation.

In a study Gert van der Heijden and Eugene Starostin of University College London, say the strip's shape is its differing areas of "energy density".

"Energy density" means the stored, elastic energy that is contained in the strip as a result of the folding. Places where the strip is most bent have the highest energy density; conversely, places that are flat and unstressed by a fold have the least energy density.

If the width of the strip increases in proportion to its length, the zones of energy density also shift, which in term alters the shape, according to their equations.

A wider strip, for instance, leads to nearly flat, "triangular" regions in the strip, a phenomenon that also happens when paper is crumpled.

MARKET FORCES

Mystics and merchants in fourteenth century Germany

The thesis of this paper is that fourteenth century German mystics administered psychotherapy to fourteenth century German merchants, thereby aiding the efforts of the merchants to rationalize commerce and society. The argument runs that the merchants' emphasis on economic rationalism violated traditional values of the Church and of medieval society in general. Since the Church and the associated social order were perceived as controlling every man's chances for salvation, the merchants felt anxious and guilty about their rationalist tendencies, and were therefore tempted to dilute them. Another solution, however, was to continue the rationalism but to seek therapy for the anxiety and guilt that it evoked. Mysticmonks were among those who provided such therapy. Analyses and speculations are offered regarding the symbolism that goaded the therapy forward.

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring, 1969), pp. 47-59

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Russia suspends arms control pact

Russian President Vladimir Putin has suspended the application of a key Cold War arms control treaty.

Mr Putin signed a decree citing "exceptional circumstances" affecting security as the reason for the move.

Russia has been angered by US plans to base parts of a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

EARTH CHANGES

Warming waters to drive fish south: CSIRO

A CSIRO study of the waters off the south-east coast of Australia reveals that they are warming up faster than anywhere else in the southern hemisphere.

The scientists warn that these warmer waters will not only dramatically change the marine environment, but could devastate local fisheries.

However fisherman from the area say they are not worried yet because they have just had their best catch in years.

DEATH OF DEMOCRACY

Missing the vote

Tightening of the electoral roll provisions may mean tens of thousands of Australian citizens will miss out on voting in the forthcoming federal elections.

Should prisoners be allowed to vote?

Today a full bench of the High Court will start considering the case of Vicki Lee Roach, an inmate of a Melbourne jail. Her lawyers will argue that the ban on prisoners voting in parliamentary elections is unconstitutional.

FLASHBACK

Electoral commissioner appointed in clouded circumstances

(May 25, 2005) A career public servant will head the Australian Electoral Commission amid claims the selection committee for the post was tainted by a political operator.

Ian Campbell, deputy president of the Repatriation Commission and a member of the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission, will succeed Andy Becker as the electoral commissioner from July 2.

FLASHBACK

Finding fault where there was none before

(Apr 4, 2006) SOMETHING puzzling has happened at the Australian Electoral Commission over the past 12 months.

In March 2005, when it made its first submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the 2004 federal election, the AEC expressed no concern whatsoever about the workload it faces at each election, when voters are given seven days' grace to enrol or to update their enrolments.

Nor did it express its support for the argument that the last-minute rush of enrolments creates opportunities for electoral fraud. Although several members of the committee repeatedly returned to the issue, they failed to persuade the commission to support the closure of the electoral roll as soon as the prime minister calls an election.

Almost exactly a year later, appearing before a Senate committee on March 7, recently appointed Australian Electoral Commissioner Ian Campbell expressed almost exactly the opposite view.

The committee was inquiring into the innocuously titled Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill [PDF], which proposes to abolish the period of grace and - if history is any guide - prevent perhaps 300,000 otherwise eligible people from voting at the next federal election. The committee reported to the Senate on March 28 and the Coalition majority supported early roll closure.

HELL IS FOR CHILDREN

Catholic school gives in over Hell enrolment

A row over a Melbourne Catholic school refusing to enrol a boy whose surname is Hell has been resolved.

Max Hell had applied for a prep place at St Peter Apostle Primary School at Hoopers Crossing in Melbourne's west.

His father, Alex, says he was refused because of his surname.But the Catholic Education Office says the matter has been resolved.

The office says the school was concerned the child would be teased.

Pat Benatar - Hell is for Children

BUDDY JESUS

you're the shit ... no really, I mean it ...

GOOD NEWS

BBC reporter free after 'terrifying' ordeal

Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist held hostage in the Gaza Strip since March, has been freed by his Islamist captors.

"It was an absolutely appalling experience. You can imagine 16 weeksof solitary confinement in the hands of people who sometimes talkedabout killing you and so on.
"I literally dreamt many, many times of being free and always wokeup back in that room and now it really is over and it is indescribablygood to be out."

Related: Kidnappers threaten to 'slaughter'

EARTH CHANGES

'Scepticism' over climate claims

The public believes the effects of global warming on the climate are not as bad as politicians and scientists claim, a poll has suggested.

The Ipsos Mori poll of 2,032 adults - interviewed between 14 and 20 June - found 56% believed scientists were still questioning climate change.There was a feeling the problem was exaggerated to make money, it found.

The Royal Society said most climate scientists believed humans were having an "unprecedented" effect on climate.

The survey suggested that terrorism, graffiti, crime and dog mess were all of more concern than climate change.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Democrat fury as Bush commutes Libby jail term

US President George W Bush has commuted the prison sentence of former top White House official Lewis 'Scooter' Libby.

Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice-President Dick Cheney, was originally jailed for two-and-a-half years for obstructing an investigation into who blew the cover of a CIA agent whose husband criticised the Iraq war.

The original sentence outraged some Republicans and Mr Bush was under pressure to issue a pardon. Instead Mr Bush has commuted the sentence, which means Libby still has to pay $US250,000 in fines but will escape a jail term.

"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr Libby is excessive," Mr Bush said in a statement.
"Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison."

Mr Bush's decision has been condemned by the top Democrat in the US Senate.
"The President's decision to commute Mr Libby's sentence is disgraceful," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said in a first reaction to the move.
"Libby's conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq war.
"Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone," he said in a statement.

SHOOT THE MESSENGER

Kidnappers threaten to 'slaughter'

A Palestinian militant group holding BBC reporter Alan Johnston says there is no deal to free the Briton abducted in Gaza three months ago and says he will only be released if its demands were met.

A man identified as a spokesman for the Army of Islam in Gaza told Al Jazeera television said, "If they do not meet our demands there will be no release for that detainee and if things become more difficult ... then we would seek God's satisfaction by slaughtering this journalist," the spokesman said, identified as Abu Khatab.