HOW IT WORKS

wIckePEDIA

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

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

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

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

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

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

PICTURE THIS

Lomos: New take on an old classic

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


Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr


The Flickr Founders

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

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

Shedding light on Flickr

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

TORTURED MINDS

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANDROMEDA STRAIN

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

Peru meteorite crash 'causes mystery illness'

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

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

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

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

MONKEY BUSINESS

India to go ahead with 'sacrilegious' sea lane

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

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

WHIPPED BRAIN

Addict paralysed by nitrous oxide bulb

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

ANOMYMOUS POLICE

Badgeless APEC police cleared

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

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

MERCENARY ATTITUDES

US probes Blackwater shooting amid Iraqi fury

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

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Litvinenko suspect wants to be Russian president

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

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

TRUTH BE TOLD

Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil

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

THE LIST GROWS ... 5 July 2007

Australia 'has Iraq oil interest'

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

MONSTERS AMONG US

Sofia Rodriguez Urrutia Shu

Man pleads guilty to girl's murder

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

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

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Russia arrests 10 over murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya

A group suspected of killing the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was led by an ethnic Chechen organised crime boss, Russian authorities said.
Yuri Chaika, the prosecutor general, also told a press conference that the killers included serving government officers.
"The group was headed by a leader of a Moscow criminal group of Chechen origin," Mr Chaika said. "We have evidence that this group took part in the killing of [the US journalist] Paul Klebnikov ... Unfortunately, this group included retired and acting interior ministry and FSB (Federal Security Service) officers.

Her last incomplete article, published in October 2006, contained allegations of torture by pro-Russian Chechen security forces. Her newspaper, Noveya Gazeta, carried eyewitness accounts and photos of people with injuries said to have been sustained under torture.

Putin's Russia by Anna Politkovskaya.

POLICE STATE

APEC security crackdown was world standard (sadly)

Fifty-two-year-old accountant Greg McLeay claims he was pushed to the ground and arrested on Friday after walking in front of an APEC motorcade.
He was strip-searched and spent 22 hours in custody before being released on bail.
Police told him it was his fault his 11-year-old son, who was with him at the time, would be left on the street unaccompanied.

Police allege he assaulted an officer, resisted arrest, entered a restricted area and disobeyed a police command. [Full video 9 minutes]

HUMAN MENAGERIE

Zoo is a great place to watch a feral species

My daughter and I decided to take advantage of some recent spring weather and visit the zoo.
Outside the zoo she observed that there were elephants painted on the walls but, as she knew from previous visits, there were none inside.
The pachyderm has long been her favorite mammal and she always complains about this obvious shortcoming ... especially knowing that I was fortunate enough to see the great Samorn before his demise.
The spear tipped pikes on the entrance gates have been shielded with plastic following the grizzly impaling of a young man who attempted to climb over them one night.
The point of the pikes has been lost, in all senses, and the gates are now much easier to climb.
Inside the zoo, our first stop was the great apes.
One "enclosure" (not cage) was empty but had recently been used to exhibit human beings.
There was a life-size cut-out of a bald man with a banana on his head with a caption that he represented the world's most dangerous species.
The fine weather had brought specimens of that species out in force ...
mostly wearing track suits emblazoned with car names and pushing obnoxious mini-bogans around in a fleet of small wheeled machines.
Over by the mating hippos I saw a woman drag her kid away, saying to the father "he doesn't need to see that".
Another mum explained, "they are doing something dirty ...
making babies".
Confusing? Dirty? No. Smelly? Yes. The zoo odours were particularly fecund that day.
I don't know what the fuss was about: it was all happening underwater with just a couple of sets of nostrils showing.
My musings were interupted by a bird-like screech, it was a parent insisting her brat look at the llamas ...
actually deer.
And yet another mum was happily cuddling a "possum" until a zoo volunteer told her it was a rat.
In a burst of balletic movement she handed the animal back and recoiled 10m in horror.
Moments later I saw a father point out a tree to his mostly adoring family saying, "And this is a claret ash".
At this, a teenage daughter sighed heavily and said "Oh my god ...
dad, the sign says Australian red cedar."
It was about then I imagined the Emperor Nasi Goreng building the Great Wall to keep rabbits out of China.
Visit the zoo ... it's a great place to watch people.

BUSH'S BRAIN

Bush backs 'Austrian troops' at 'OPEC' during "Sidney" conference

Gaffe-prone US President George W Bush confused APEC with OPEC and transformed Australian troops into Austrians in a series of blunders in Sydney on Friday.
Mr Bush's tongue started slipping almost as soon as he started talking at a business forum on the eve of the APEC leaders summit.

[Bush's itinerary media release had him enjoying the sights of "Sidney" ... whoever he is.]

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Nuclear missiles mistakenly flown across US

There has been a major security blunder in the United States involving nuclear weapons.A B-52 bomber flew across the country after being mistakenly loaded with nuclear warheads.
The nuclear armed cruise missiles were mistakenly loaded onto the B-52 bomber's wings, before its three-hour flight last week from North Dakota to Louisiana.

OSCILLATING UNIVERSE

Before the Big Bang

"With only massless ingredients left, the universe loses track of time because it's just photons around and they don't care about it. So we can look at this picture in the future as well, and in the remote future, again, the universe loses track of time.
"I'm going to try and show you what this crazy scheme is. Here we have a cartoon of our universe expanding out indefinitely, and by two tricks we can represent this initial state, a nice smooth boundary, and the final state by another. These are just mathematical tricks for the moment, but as far as the matter in the universe is concerned, it doesn't even know the boundary is there because it has lost track of time.
"So here's the crazy idea. I'm considering that that universe phase is just one phase out of a succession of phases. I'm going to refer to these things as eons. This is our eon, if you like. That's our Big Bang, that's our remote future. This remote future will be the Big Bang of the next eon. This Big Bang was the other side of this boundary of the remote future of the previous eon." - Roger Penrose

NEVADA TRIANGLE

Fossett search reveals old wrecks

Rescuers searching for the adventurer Steve Fossett in the Nevada desert have found old wrecks of planes, some of them from crashes decades ago.
After six days of intensive searches, rescuers have not found any sign of Mr Fossett's plane, instead they spotted six planes which crashed in the desert in earlier years.

SWORN OFFICERS

APEC security crackdown was world standard (sadly)

Fifty-two-year-old accountant Greg McLeay claims he was pushed to the ground and arrested on Friday after walking in front of an APEC motorcade. He spent 22 hours in custody before being released on bail. Police say he allegedly assaulted a police officer.

Footage from Saturday's protest shows an officer repeatedly punching a protester while he is on the ground.

Sworn police officers removed their identification badges before confrontations with protesters, a claim New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says will be investigated.

New South Wales Police Minister David Campbell denies officers were too heavy-handed and says people who feel they have been treated unfairly by officers can make a complaint.

Who are the police and who are they meant to be? A police force is meant to be a subgroup of the community it is sworn to protect.

Community Police a Foundation for Restorative Justice
Community Policing is a new philosophy of policing based on the concept that the Police and citizens working together in creative ways can solve contemporary community problems related to crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder and general neighborhood conditions.

OH, THE HUMANITY

Security officer on the roof of the Sydney Opera House one of the snipers among the thousands of security officers deployed.

Apec security leaves bitter taste in Sydney

The normally good-humoured head of TTF Australia, a powerful tourism and transport lobby group which had lent strong support to Sydney's hosting of the 21 Pacific Rim leaders, like many, is incensed by what he regards as the needlessly aggressive and restrictive policing.
It carried a heftier security price tag than the 16-day-long 2000 Olympics and led to the construction of the 5km "great wall of Sydney".
"I'm so embarrassed and annoyed. Where was the sense of proportion? We replaced Olympic volunteers with riot squads," he says.
"Somebody in the security operation got very carried away with their own self-importance, and nobody in the state or federal government counterbalanced them.
"It was totally and utterly disproportionate."
[BBC]

HUMMER BUMMER

Couple attacked after admiring Hummer

Police are investigating the assault of a couple in the city early this morning.
The man and woman were admiring a silver-coloured Hummer vehicle in a secure car park in Melbourne.
The occupants of the Hummer – a mid-30s caucasian man with a tattoo of a cross on his right forearm and a man of Asian appearance – attacked the couple with a crowbar.

[Comes with the territory.]

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Excerpts from Bin Laden video

A video tape which US experts believe is from al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been released just days before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.



How does a guy living in a cave get hold of beard dye? What happened to the grey streaks?

Previous video appearance.
 

SQUASHED ANTS

Distant space collision meant doom for dinosaurs

A 10-kilometre wide meteorite struck Mexico's Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago.
That catastrophe eliminated the dinosaurs, which had flourished for about 165 million years, and many other life forms, and paved the way for mammals to dominate the Earth and the eventual rise of humankind, many scientists believe.
The impact is thought to have triggered a worldwide environmental cataclysm, expelling vast quantities of rock and dust into the sky, unleashing giant tsunamis, sparking global wildfires and leaving Earth shrouded in darkness for years.

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?]

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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.