WAVE POWER

Wave-powered Boat Journeys from Japan to Hawaii

Ken-ichi Horie's travelled 7400km on a three-ton wave-powered boat.

Made from recycled aluminum alloy, the Suntory Mermaid II catamaran generated a “push-like” power to propel the boast forward.
The boat has  two adjacent fins beneath the bow, which  moved up and down with the waves. They generated thrust, absorbed the energy of the waves and gave the vessel stability and energy.

The Suntory Mermaid II is an eco-sailor's dream: electricity comes from eight solar panels that produce 560 watts (for the navigation lights) and it has a satellite phone, a PC and navigation light.
Small waves and opposing currents slowed the journey considerably, but Kenichi persevered and is now the first person to have traversed the Western Pacific on a boat powered by waves.

PALESTINE IN CRISIS

Tell-Tale Map

INFLATED EGOS

Enough to buy a sausage ... this week

This is the fourth set of high denomination notes to be issued this year, the first being in January when a 10 million dollar note was put into circulation. The next was on April 2 when a 50 million dollar note came into being before the 100 and 250 million dollar notes were introduced on May 2.
But how it can be useful?
We can't purchase even three packs of bread from it.

Zimbabwe has the worst inflation rate in the world. Almost 80% of the nation is unemployed. The Zimbabwean central bank has introduced $500 million bearer cheques (or currency notes) for the public, and $5 billion, $25 billion, $50 billion agro-cheques for farmers. Just last fortnight the nation had introduced $250 million bearer cheques.

A sausage sandwich sells for Zimbabwean $50 million. A 15-kg bag of potatoes cost Zimbabwean $260 million. But then, Zimbabwean $50 million is roughly equal to US$ 1!

PROOF READER

Now for some quite glorious proof that machines can’t be trusted with snubbing out errors ... This gem of an entry from the brilliant Regret the Error blog explains that the over-cautious chiefs over at OneNewsNow didn’t ever want to use the word ‘gay’ when referring to a homos-xual. How best to achieve this small detail? Simple: Use a machine to change it automatically! Genius! Genius, that is, until a rapid young chap named Tyson Gay won a race...

SUBPRIME PRIMER

THE QUICKENING

Wilkins ice shelf at risk of breaking from Antarctica

Scientists are growing increasingly concerned for the future of the huge Wilkins ice shelf that joins on to the Antarctic coast.

The latest satellite images suggest the ice shelf is disintegrating rapidly, and is now connected to the Antarctic mainland by a fairly small bridge of ice.

However, the images show that the bridge itself is about to go, with cracks appearing and ice floes breaking off.

LEGLESS DINOSAUR

Matora, or "bull eater




Colonel Rene van Lierde, above, was piloting his helicopter over the Katanga province of the Belgian Congo. Suddenly a gigantic snake reared up as if to attack his helicopter. He lifted up and took several photos of the snake and continued his journey.
His estimate of the size of the snake was about 40-50 feet, and that is the same estimation made by zoologists who later examined the photo.
Even still, the largest scientifically measured snake was a 32 foot long reticulated python killed in Indonesia as the world's longest snake. Until one of these magnificent creatures is brought in, dead or alive, the Sucuriju will always be known as a cryptid.

TORTURED TRUTH

Author Hitchens catches his breath after undergoing his first waterboarding session.

Believe Me, It's Torture:

What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture?
Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist - not inflict - it.

GIRL SAYS

art porn. « debauchette

That is to say, in the beginning, which was not very long ago, the term ‘pornography’ referred to written (-graph) descriptions of prostitution (porno-) and all the dirty dirty acts that prostitution entails (the sucking of cock, the fucking of ass). Since I’m here, I should mention that the term and concept of pornography is a nineteenth-century invention, though what we now call pornographic is as old as sex itself.

Eventually ‘pornography’ came to refer to salacious written and visual material, or, if we follow the legal definition in obscenity statutes, pornography is devoid of artistic value and serves only to stimulate us sexually. Unfortunately, for some of us, it’s the artistic value that makes us wet.

Or hard.

THE QUICKENING

Perito Morena glacier colapses

Argentine TV has captured the spectacular collapse of part of the Perito Morena glacier, the landmark's first winter rupture since 1917.

BLOW UP

Photographed girl defends nude magazine cover

A girl who posed nude as a six-year-old is defending the use of the photograph on the front cover of an arts magazine.
Now 11 years old, Olympia Nelson says she has no problems with the photo her mother, Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou, took of her when she was six.
The photo is on the front cover of this month's Art Monthly magazine, and the New South Wales Government is referring the magazine to the Classification Board.

The picture has reignited public debate about the use of children in art, after controversy in May when artist Bill Henson's photographs of a naked prepubescent girl in a Sydney gallery were confiscated by police.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said he cannot stand the picture and Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says he will ask the Federal Police to investigate.

But the model Olympia Nelson has taken umbrage at those comments.
"I think that the picture my mum took of me has nothing to do with being abused," she said.
"I'm really, really offended by what Kevin Rudd said about this picture."

ART ATTACK

Artists defend magazine's nude child cover

Australian artists are defending the controversial decision of Art Monthly magazine to run a photograph of a naked child on its front cover.

The front cover of the magazine features Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou's 2003 photo of her naked daughter, who was six at the time.
The Prime Minister has said he cannot stand the picture and federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett has said the magazine was being needlessly provocative.
"There's never been any study that suggests that there's a link between paedophilia and art," he said.
"Unfortunately we're working without any science; people are just making these assertions about protecting children, which is unarguable - I mean why would you not want to [protect them]?
"But no-one's really explained - protect them from what?"

LAWNCHAIR LARRY II

Armchair flier enjoys 400km of 'serenity'

A man from the US state of Oregon has succeeded on his third attempt to fly nearly 400 kilometres eastwards to Idaho in an armchair supported by helium-filled party balloons.
The man, Kent Couch, took an airgun and blowpipe with him, so that he could shoot some of the 150 large balloons to make sure he didn't fly too high.
Speaking before take-off, Mr Couch said he loves the peace up in the air.

Lawnchair Larry, the man who soared to 16,000 Feet attached to weather balloons

Mr Couch's adventure recreates that of Larry Walters who in In 1982 did pretty much the same thing.



The

COLD CHARITY

Give to beggars and cop jail time, says Indonesian city

Residents in one Indonesian city who give in to the tug of guilt could face three months in jail under a law which criminalises giving money to beggars and street children, the city's mayor said.
The new regulation approved last month by the legislative council in Makassar, South Sulawesi, is aimed at reducing the city's swelling population of beggars, Mayor Ilham Arif Sirajuddin said.

XTREME NERDS

Knights in the ring as chess boxers slug it out

Rarely do brains and brawn come together in this way. A Russian has been crowned world champion in the novelty sport of chess boxing that requires equal skill at moving pawns and throwing punches.
Mathematics student Nikolai Sazhin, 19, competing under the name "The President" knocked out 37-year-old German policeman, Frank Stoldt, who until recently was serving as a peacekeeper in Kosovo.
The loser said he was simply too punch drunk to fend off checkmate.

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Earth-sized planet predicted beyond Pluto

Japanese scientists believe another planet, up to two-thirds the size of Earth, is orbiting in the far reaches of the Solar System.
The researchers at Kobe University in western Japan said calculations using computer simulations led them to conclude it was only a matter of time before the mysterious, new "Planet X" was found.

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

An outer planet beyond pluto

Researchers from Kobe University propose that the orbital history of an outer planet can explain the trans-Neptunian belt orbital structure.
This massive body was likely scattered by one of the giant planets, which then stirred the primordial planetesimal disk to the levels observed at 40-50 AU and truncated it at about 48 AU before planet migration.
The outer planet later acquired an inclined stable orbit (≥100 AU; 20-40°) because of a resonant interaction with Neptune, guaranteeing the stability of the trans-Neptunian belt.
They say their model consistently reproduces the main features of each dynamical class with unprecedented detail; it also satisfies other constraints such as the current small total mass of the trans-Neptunian belt and Neptune's current orbit at 30.1 AU.
Observationally testable predictions are also proposed.

OZY AUSSIE

Olympic Underwear Relay

With this escort around him, the runner made his way through the streets all the way to the Sydney Town Hall. He bounded up the steps and handed the torch to the waiting mayor who graciously accepted it and turned to begin his prepared speech.
Then someone whispered in the mayor’s ear, “That’s not the torch.” Suddenly the mayor realized what he was holding. Held proudly in his hand was not the majestic Olympic flame.

Instead he was gripping a wooden chair leg topped by a plum pudding can inside of which a pair of kerosene-soaked underwear was burning with a greasy flame.

The mayor looked around for the runner, but the man had already disappeared, melting away into the surrounding crowd.

The identity of the rogue runner was only publicly revealed years later. It was Barry Larkin, a veterinary science student at Sydney University’s St. Johns College. He had dreamed up the prank in collusion with eight other students.
Their intention was to poke fun at the torch relay because they felt it was being treated with too much reverence considering the tradition’s dubious past. It traced its origins back to the 1936 Berlin games organized by the Nazis.

CRAZY TALK

Professor Plimer hits carbon dioxide doomsayers at Paydirt confab

The University of Adelaide Professor of Mining Geology said: "Humans have adapted to life on earth ranging from ice sheets to mountains to tropics and have survived far warmer and far colder climates than currently being experienced or forecast by the climate doomists.

[Survived as a species, perhaps, but the catastrophe that whittles our  numbers down will be painful.]

Professor urges icing on yellowcake for SA

SOUTH Australia could be the Saudi Arabia of the energy world with a "cradle-to-grave" uranium industry, a professor says.
Professor of mining geology at Adelaide University Ian Plimer said South Australia could do more than just export uranium. "I think it is an absolute no-brainer that we should look at a cradle-to-grave uranium industry," he said at a uranium conference in Adelaide.

[Saudi Arabia! Apart from images of despotic excess, it also absurdly implies that the  Saudis are taking back all the carbon resultant from their oil burning.]

SKY LIGHTS

Mysterious lights have been reported in the skies above WA this (Monday) morning.

Mystery lights seen over WA

“There’s been reports from white to green to yellow and they are all saying they are coming down from the sky,” the spokesman said. “It’s space junk probably or something like a meteorite.”
The spokesman said that the lights were not distress flares which were a distinctive bright red or pink colour and floated in sky for about 45 seconds before coming down.

FALLON HERO

Admiral William "Fox" Fallon: intelligent military.

Demise of a man who spoke his mind

Why would America's most senior military commander in the most volatile part of the world suddenly resign - well before his tour was over?

• In an Esquire article, titled The Man Between War and Peace, Admiral William "Fox" Fallon hardly comes across as a cheerleader of the Bush administration's policies in the region.
• In comments to Al-Jazeera (not the White House's favourite television station) last autumn, he said: "This constant drumbeat of conflict... is not helpful and not useful."
• Last September, the Washington Post reported sources saying that Adm Fallon believed the surge in Iraq "was not working".
• This February, the New York Times reported that Adm Fallon had spoken in favour of a "resumption" of US troop withdrawals in Iraq

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates claimed that their "differences" were more about "misperception" than reality or substance but was probably being more frank when he dismissed as "ridiculous" the suggestion in Esquire that Fallon's early departure would signal the build-up to war in Iran.

President George W Bush is a man who values loyalty above all else.
Admiral William "Fox" Fallon is a military man, apt to speak his mind.

Profile: William Fallon

As head of the US Central Command (CentCom), Adm Fallon oversaw US strategy in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. The 63-year-old admiral, known as Fox - his call sign when he was a Navy fighter pilot - is highly regarded as an astute commander.

MORE NEWDS

Miley Cyrus' topless controversy

Talking publicly about his daughter Miley Cyrus' Vanity Fair photo shoot for the first time, country music star Billy Ray Cyrus said he wasn’t there when the most controversial shot was taken.

"I didn't know they were gonna strip her down and wrap her in a blanket," Cyrus said, referring to the shot of his 15-year-old daughter taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz.

In the photo, the "Hannah Montana" star appeared to be topless, covered only by a sheet she clutched to her chest.

Though Cyrus doesn't approve of the photograph, which Leibovitz defended as "a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup," he said that heeded his dad's advice on the situation.
"My dad always told me the more you stomp in poop, the more it stinks," Billy Ray said. "So I was just, 'OK, this happened. We got to deal with it'."

NUDE AND PRUDE

GET UP! GARNAUT

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Your Government is your friend

According to secret and long-hidden documents, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government - a fake terrorist attack on citizens.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere.

People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked.

Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.

PAPAL BULL

Police investigate WYD queer kiss-in

Gay groups say police are unnecessarily scrutinising them over activities planned for Sydney's World Youth Day, as civil libertarians rile at new police powers for this month's week-long event.

This week, it was revealed NSW Police had been given the power to arrest anyone who they believe causes annoyance or inconvenience to pilgrims during World Youth Day. Offenders risk fines of up to $5,500.
"What they did suggest that we do though is that anything we are proposing to do, such as slogans on a T-shirt or banners or posters or whatever, that we run it past them first so they can check it," he said.

COSMIC CONNECTION

Fire in the sky: Tunguska at 100

Some 80 million trees were flattened over an area of 2,000 square km (800 square miles) near the Tunguska River.
The blast was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and generated a shock wave that knocked people to the ground 60km from the epicentre.
The cause was an asteroid or comet just a few tens of metres across which detonated 5-10km above the ground, 100 years ago today.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

World leaders Cremation of Care ceremony

MUGABE'S MADNESS

ZIMBABWE CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

LIFE CYCLES

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

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

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Baby's bottom censored by store

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

SHAPE SHIFTING

Dubai plans 'moving' skyscraper

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

WATER ON MARS

Water found on Mars

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

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

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

The digging continues.

DARK AGES

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

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

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

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

Asteroid Impact Caused Ice Age Extinctions?

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

GREAT DYING

Australian Meteor Impact Might Have Caused the Ice Age

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ENEMY COMBATANTS

US court backs Guantanamo inmate

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

SIX FEET UNDER

Police 'stumped' by grisly mystery

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

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

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

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

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

Six feet and plenty of questions

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

TRUTH BE TOLD

Keelty urged to act on Neal allegations

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

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

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

NEW WORLD DICTIONARY

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

ECONOMIC CRISIS

Signs Economic Commentary for 23 June 2008

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

BIG BROTHER

UK family's shock at council spying

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

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

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

Council surveillance review urged

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

STAR CHAMBER

Vow to allow anonymous witness testimony

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

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

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

STASI STADT

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

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

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

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

ENCYCLOPEDIA BARACKTANNIA

KARMA CHAMELEONS

Insane in the membrane

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

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap…”

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

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

THE QUICKENING

Arctic sea ice melt 'even faster'

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

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

PRIVY COUNCIL

MPs take on the cistern

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

PATHOCRACY

Leaders With No Conscience

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

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

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

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

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

REVERSE EQUITY

Thousands facing negative equity

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

VOICE OF REASON

Classification board clears Henson nudes

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

LEARNING CURVE

UK joins iTunes U

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

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

BIG BROTHER

Mobile phones expose human habits

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

TABLOID TURMOIL

Bild's headquarters in Berlin

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

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

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

INSANE ASYLUM

Asylum process 'causing new mental health condition'

A team of Australian psychiatrists has identified what they believe is a new mental health condition in asylum seekers.

The researchers say they're seeing a unique combination of depression, psychoses and anxiety in asylum seekers, and say the cause has less to do with the trauma of fleeing from a home country and more to do with the lengthy process of obtaining asylum in Australia.

Psychiatrist Dr Suresh Sundram, from Melbourne University, told Radio Australia he has found many asylum seekers are suffering from a new form of mental illness.

FEAR FACTOR

National Gallery quizzed on Henson

POLICE investing photographer Bill Henson have visited the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) and other Canberra galleries to examine their collections.
Police interviewed NGA director Ron Radford over the gallery's collection of 79 Henson photographs, none of which are currently on public display, The Australian reports.
The works had not been seized."ACT Police is currently assessing a number of photographic art pieces held by Canberra galleries," a police spokesman told The Australian.

DUMBKIN DONUTS

Dunkin' Donuts dumps Rachael Ray 'terror scarf' ad

DUNKIN' Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring a celebrity chef after critics argued that that her scarf offered symbolic support for terrorism.

NUDE NOT RUDE

Nude child's mum backs photographer Henson

THE mother of one of Bill Henson's under-age models has charged to the besieged photographer's defence.

Kerryn, whose daughter, Lizzie, posed in non-naked photos for Henson as a 12-year-old said it was his "prurient" critics who were damaging the young models, not Henson.
The teenagers she knew who had posed for him had grown into accomplished, well-adjusted adults, she said.
Emma De Clario, 36, a Melbourne artist and actor, yesterday said she had agreed to allow her 10-year-old daughter and six-year-old son to sit naked for Henson, though it had not been able to proceed.
Naked artistic photos of children were not pornography but natural intimacy, she said.
"It is the people who view our children as sexual objects that must be taken to task."

YOUNG LOVE

Facing 17 years in gaol


Teen Alex Phillips puts girlfriend's nude shots on MySpace: Child porn?

A 17-year-old in Wisconsin, was, for a time, dating -- well, that's probably a nice way to put it -- a 16-year-old girl (whose name hasn't been made public).

The pair were apparently quite close, so close that she, as teens these days do, gave him two cell phone-captured pictures of herself. One picture showed the girl naked, full-frontal; the other, to quote police, displayed her "buttocks, anus and vagina."

Ah, young love.

But then the relationship inexplicably turned sour. Mr. Phillips was apparently quite angry about this turn of events, and he responded in a most unadvisable manner. He posted the nude pictures on his MySpace page.

Police are charging him with being a child pornographer.

NUDE AND PRUDE

Police quiz photographer over nude shots

Police have interviewed photographer Bill Henson about an art exhibition featuring nude shots of teenagers.The exhibition was to open at the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in the Sydney suburb of Paddington last night.The gallery agreed to suspend the exhibition while police conduct interviews.

Bill Henson shows 'society exploits children in eroticised ways'

MARK COLVIN: As the former executive director of the Australia Institute, Clive Hamilton published a controversial report titled "Corporate Paedophilia".
On the Bill Henson case, he argues that while artists have a right to push boundaries, society has a responsibility to push back.
"The girl, the model, could not possibly understand the implications of being presented naked to the world."
"If this girl at age 30 has a completely different, you know has a career and an integrity and, you know, a history behind her and suddenly these pictures pop up in a magazine or on the internet, I mean, I'd imagine there's a good chance she'd be humiliated.
"And yet it seems to me that the adults around her who have her interests at heart and organised, approved the exhibition, were not fully aware of these dangers and have probably caused that child some damage."

Defiance as gallery tests boundaries

AUSTRALIA'S artistic community defiantly voiced its support for photographer Bill Henson yesterday as another senior government minister criticised his work and police continued their child pornography investigation.

In an act of solidarity with the embattled artist, leading dealer Denis Savill hung a Bill Henson image of two nude young people in the window of his Sydney gallery.

"This will give them something to grizzle about," Mr Savill said as he hung one of the works from Henson's 1992-1993 Untitled series.

Mr Savill, like many of his art industry colleagues, was appalled when police last week confiscated photographs by Henson - one of Australia's leading contemporary artists - and decided to hang the picture beside an Arthur Boyd nude, "to remind people that nudes have inspired artists for centuries".

"I'm saying, 'I'm supporting Bill', I don't see any problem with this work," Mr Savill said. "I think his images can be very thought-provoking, and it certainly raises your awareness about children in a modern society, but it's not offensive."

Zahava Elenberg, a former Henson child model ... "I'm a parent myself and I abhor child pornography, but this is not child pornography. It's artistic and creative."

This is not porn, say Henson's models

Zahava Elenberg was 12 when she posed for a series of dark and evocative photographs taken by Bill Henson.

More than 20 years later she still has vivid memories of working with the artist, but "absolutely no regrets".

"Bill asked my mother at an exhibition opening if I would like to pose for him and we talked about it and decided to do it," says Ms Elenberg, now a 34-year-old mother. "We went to this old building in Melbourne. It was quite dark but I never felt uncomfortable. Bill made you feel incredibly safe and calm. I was involved in the artistic process and I never felt that I wasn't in control.

"I absolutely support Bill Henson. I'm a parent myself and I abhor child pornography, but this is not child pornography. It's artistic and creative.

Nude Venus too risqué for London Underground

Transport for London was drawn further into a row over sex, censorship and artistic prurience last night as it backtracked on a decision to ban a Sadler's Wells poster of a naked man while insisting that another advertisement featuring a seductively smiling Venus was too risqué for travellers on the Tube.

A poster for a contemporary dance show portraying a nude man covering his modesty with a large cuckoo clock had previously been thought to breach the Underground's guidelines on nudity. Sadler's Wells said it had had to withdraw an ad for Insane in the Brain, a street dance version of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which opens at the Peacock Theatre on 27 February, because it was deemed potentially offensive to users of London Underground.

Its ban followed a similar decision by TfL to forbid the Royal Academy from previewing an exhibition with a poster showing Lucas Cranach the Elder's Venus.

Venus banned from London's underworld

Wearing nothing but her best necklace, a wisp of gauze and a foxy expression, Venus has been delighting connoisseurs for almost 500 years - but she has been banned from the underworld, as London Underground has decided she is likely to offend rather than enchant the capital's weary commuters.
She was intended as the main poster for the Royal Academy's show on the German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, noted for his sensuous nudes despite his close friendship with religious reformer Martin Luther.

But the design has been thrown out as the poster, which was planned for display in scores of tube stations across London, was about to go to the printers.

Sexy Chinese Earthquake Models

Another controversial photoshoot. The art world seems to be pushing boundaries all the time. We've had the recent underage "art" photoshoot scandal will the Bill Henshaw Exhibition and justa few weeks back we've had a scandal with a topless 16 year old posing with a 15 year old published in a fashion mag.
Now its some Lifestyle travel magazine in China called: "New Travel Weekly" who sent in models into the Chinese Earthquake zone and had a sultry photoshoot amongst the rubble.

BIG BROTHER

Warning on new anti-knife powers

New laws to crack down on knife crime could cause increased hostility among young people, the Children's Commissioner for England has said.
Sir Al Aynsley-Green called for more research into the effects of increased police powers.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Lizards and Vultures and Swine... Oh my!

War creates debt which creates profit made from money that is printed out of thin air by bankers. Debt grants control over policy and resources. That's all there is to it except for one thing. They enjoy doing it. They do it because it also makes them hard. You have to understand this. There is no secret wisdom that these men and women possess that requires them to behave as they do. There's no hidden charter that says they have to perform difficult acts that are for our own good but we can't know why. They do these things because they delight in evil and practice it for the sheer joy of doing it.

BIG BROTHER

UK: Sinister TV licence advert shows how we have become slaves of the database state

It's time we citizens stood up against this state-sponsored intimidation, particularly now that anti-terror legislation is being used to spy on whether our dogs are fouling the pavement and that we're closing our wheelie-bin properly.

The blades of the helicopter beat as it hovers over a city of computer components. A police siren sounds, changing pitch as it speeds to some crime scene. We hear a big dog barking. Then comes the authorities' message: "Your town, your street, your home. It's all in our database." The official voice is calm and patronising: "It's impossible to hide," we are reminded. There is a knock on the door. Our palms sweat. Everything fades to black.

No, I'm not in some nightmare from the days of Cold War Russia. Nor on the wrong side of the law in communist China. I'm watching the latest advertisement from the BBC as it tries to make us pay our licence fee.

This Orwellian campaign is complete thuggery. (BBC doesn't wield the cosh itself. It contracts such persuasion to TV Licensing, a consortium of Capita and other private businesses.

This sinister advertisement shows how far we have become the slaves of the database state, rather than its masters. You thought we lived in a free society? In a free society, no government could tell its citizens, with such quiet condescension and with no hint of embarrassment: "We are spying on you. We know all about you. Just watch your step".

OUR COSMOS

Exploding star caught in the act

Astronomers have been able to capture and record the first moments when a massive star blows itself apart. After decades of searching, researchers have used the world's top telescopes to observe the remarkable event.
Previously, scientists had only been able to study these "supernovas" several days after the event.
Typically, they occur when a massive star - more than eight times the mass of the Sun - runs out of fuel and collapses to form a hot relic called a neutron star.
Their extreme brightness allows them to be seen in distant galaxies.

BLUE GENES

Tasmanian tiger DNA comes alive in mouse

A University of Melbourne team has extracted genes from a tasmanian tiger and put them into a mouse embryo, reviving hopes that the extinct thylacine may one day be successfully cloned.
The DNA from the thylacine reproduced in the mouse's body, showing biological function, in what the university's Dr Andrew Pask says is the first time DNA from an extinct species has been used "to induce a functional response in another living organism."

MOBILE MADNESS

Mobile phone use 'leads to bratty kids'

PREGNANT women who regularly use mobile phones are more likely to have children with behavioural problems, according to a new study.
Mothers who used their mobile phone while pregnant were 54 per cent more likely to report issues such as hyperactivity and emotional problems in their children, Britain's Daily Mail reported.
Using a mobile two to three times a day was enough to raise the risk, and letting children under the age of seven use a mobile phone also put them in danger, the study of more than 13,000 women found.
The results were thought to be particularly significant as one of the study's authors had been a leading sceptic over claims mobile phones were a health risk.

WASTE OF SPACE

Deadly MySpace hoax
An American mother was indicted today in connection with a MySpace hoax that ended with a 13-year-old girl committing suicide after being spurned by a fictitious boy. A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Lori Drew, 49, on criminal charges of conspiracy and accessing MySpace computers "without authorisation to inflict emotional distress on the girl".
Drew was among several adults who pretended to be a 16-year-old boy named "Josh" on MySpace, according to prosecutors.
The girl met "Josh" in the online community after she opened her MySpace account in 2006. "Within days Josh was telling her she was sexy," O'Brien said. "The flirting continued for three weeks."
Josh broke off the virtual relationship and sent the girl a message saying the world would be better off without her, according to prosecutors. Within an hour of receiving the message the girl hanged herself in her bedroom. --AAP

PEOPLE AND POWER

Burma generals failing their people

A trail of wreckage and dead bodies stretched all along Burma's Irrawaddy Delta.
Two weeks on since Cyclone Nargis hit, the Delta is still devastated and hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting to be rescued.
They are hungry and homeless not just because of the disaster, but because of the government that does not seem interested in helping them.

BIG PHARMA

Uni backs down over pharmaceutical criticism

The University of Queensland (UQ) has admitted it may have over-reacted when it asked one of its senior lecturers to apologise to pharmaceutical company CSL over public criticism of the marketing of cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil.
The university rebuked Dr Andrew Gunn after he made the comments on ABC Radio.The university is in partnership with CSL to develop Gardasil

FIRST CASUALTY

Beijing denies 10 deaths at Bird's Nest Stadium

Beijing organizers on Monday denied a report that 10 workers had died during the construction of the showpiece stadium for the 2008 Olympics. A British newspaper reported on Sunday that China had covered up the accidental deaths of at least 10 workers since construction of the $400-million National Stadium, nicknamed the Bird's Nest, began in 2003.
It said the "conservative estimate" of 10 deaths "was reached by comparing numerous accounts of witnesses who worked at the site in different periods".

"The report by the Sunday Times that 10 people have died in the construction of the National Stadium is not true," said Sun Weide, spokesman for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG).

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE

Driver straps in beer, leaves kid loose

Police in Alice Springs stopped the unregistered sedan on the Ross Highway south of Alice Springs on the weekend.
They found the driver's 5-year-old child sitting in the back seat without a seatbelt, but he had put a seat belt around a slab of beer.

SEX CRIMES

Child porn man who searched for Angelina Jolie nude pics walks free

John Martin Cheney today ran from the District Court, using an umbrella to hide his face, after being released on a two-year, $100 good behaviour bond.
He was spared the maximum 12-year jail term because he had "rehabilitated" himself and suffered "punishment" through publicity and community scorn.
Cheney, however, had to face one more ordeal as he left the court room – police were waiting to serve notice he had been listed on the state's sex offender register.

FEAR FACTOR

West in midst of 'irrational fear' epidemic

We humans -- especially those in the Western world -- have never been healthier or freer from risk.
Yet according to Canadian author Dan Gardner, the Western world is in the midst of an epidemic of irrational fear.
The Canadian journalist has just published his book Risk: The Science and Politics Of Fear, in which he describes the growth of an unreasoning fear in all countries in the Western world and warns that this fear is causing us to make foolish, and at times, deadly decisions when we deal with everyday risks.

INFORMATION HOLOCAUST

Anger as every Italian's tax details posted online

There has been outrage in Italy after the outgoing government published every Italian's declared earnings and tax contributions on the internet.
The tax authority's website was inundated by people curious to know how much their neighbours, celebrities or sports stars were making.
The Italian treasury suspended the website after a formal complaint from the country's privacy watchdog.
The information was put on the site with no warning for nearly 24 hours.

BEIJING BAN

Smoking ban for Chinese capital

A ban on smoking in most public buildings has come into force in the Chinese capital, Beijing.
Authorities are organising 100,000 existing employees to act as an enforcement team.

DAY DREAMER

Mysterious dreams lead to creation of highly sought after loudspeakers

"Things were pretty dire and then one night I had this dream," Garth Murray explained. "And in the dream I saw myself making a loud speaker - something I'd never done before."
He woke up, drew up the plans and spent six months making it. Meanwhile the visions continued.
"I actually had a further dream where I saw one of our larger speakers and I saw the name of the company," Mr Murray said.
As it turns out, the name of his company Theophany means divine manifestation.

INFLAMMATORY ISSUE

Volunteers guard the sacred flame

Chinese Olympic torch escorts who put their lives on the line to protect the sacred flame should be commended, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday."They protect the world's holy fire with their bodies to prevent disruption and sabotage by Tibetan independence forces. Such spirit should be praised and understood," Jiang Yu said in a regular press briefing.

OFF TARGET

Russian space craft lands off-target

A Russian Soyuz space capsule has landed in Kazakhstan some 400 kilometres off-target.Russian officials say emergency helicopters are on the way to the site but the crew are safe and well.
The capsule was returning from an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.On board are South Korea's first ever astronaut, 29 -year-old Yi So-Yeon and two colleagues.

TORTURE RULES

Mugabe supporters set up torture camps: rights group

As Zimbabwe awaits for results of the election recount, a leading rights group has claimed supporters of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party have set up a network of torture camps where they have been assaulting opposition activists.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said that suspected supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were being rounded up and then beaten for several hours at a time with wooden sticks and batons in the wake of last month's disputed elections.

MIND OVER MATTER

Man hypnotises himself before op

Alex Lenkei, 61, from Worthing, chose to sedate himself by hypnosis before undergoing the 83-minute operation.
He said he was fully aware of everything going on around him during the procedure but was free from pain.
The operation at Worthing Hospital involved removing some bone in the base of the thumb and fusing some joints in an attempt to improve his arthritis.

BIG BROTHER

Google Street View Draws Concerns In Australia

Anthony Klan at The Australian writes:

Google Australia is expected within months to launch an application that will publish highly detailed, street-level photos of much of Australia, in a move that has drawn strong criticism from privacy advocates.

Google's picture-snapping cars have been cruising Australia's suburbs since late last year, with pictures of thousands of homes expected to be uploaded to the internet with Street View's launch.

While Google has defended the project, the internet company baulked when The Weekend Australian requested the personal details and addresses of the group's key figures to allow the paper's photographers to take pictures of their homes. "Providing those details would be completely inappropriate," said Google spokesman Rob Shilkin.

EARTH CHANGES

US climate change plan 'disastrous and Neanderthal'

US President George W Bush's plan to cap greenhouse gases by 2025 has been dismissed as "disastrous" and "Neanderthal" by some ministers at a climate change meeting in Paris.

In a statement entitled "Bush's Neanderthal speech," German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said: "His speech showed not leadership but losership. We are glad that there are also other voices in the United States."

South Africa blasted Mr Bush's proposal as a disastrous retreat by the planet's number-one polluter and a slap to poor countries.

George W

Beneath the photo from the Reagan Diaries is an actual quote that Reagan wrote about George "W" in his diaries, recently edited by author Doug Brinkley and published by Harper Collins:

Reagan Diaries - George W

"A moment I've been dreading. George brought his n'er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida; the one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work."

NO COINCIDENCE

Suicide Links Heart Donor, Recipient

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (April 6) - A man who received a heart transplant 12 years ago and later married the donor's widow died the same way the donor did, authorities said: of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

No foul play was suspected in 69-year-old Sonny Graham's death at his Vidalia, Ga., home, investigators said.

PEOPLE NEWS

World's smallest girl proud of her tiny size

At just 58.4cm (1ft 11in) tall, Jyoti Amge, 15, is dwarfed by her neighbour's baby.
"I'm just the same as other people. I eat like you, dream like you. I don't feel any different."

MALL GHOST

Ghost caught on camera

FRANCIS, the Adelaide Arcade ghost, has been caught on the centre's security cameras for the first time, so it appears.

Adelaide Arcade promotions manager Sharon Leaney provided the City Messenger with the eerie surveillance footage which shows a burst of light, man-like, fading in and out, near the Grenfell St end of the arcade.

"It's been on the surveillance cameras for quite a few days," Ms Leaney said.

"We have had lots of reports of people hearing footsteps, going cold, but this (film) is the first time I've ever seen anything."

The Adelaide Arcade ghost is said to be its former caretaker Francis Cluney.

He was investigating a flickering light one night in June, 1887, when he fell into the generator and died. Adelaide Arcade, built in 1885, was the first mall in Australia to boast electric lights.

Click HERE to see Francis.

GOOD GANESHA

The god with two faces

A baby girl in northern India has been born with two faces and is being worshipped as a reincarnated god.

After the un-named girl was born in a Delhi hospital with two faces, two mouths and four eyes, people in her rural village have been singing and dancing, offering money and asking for her blessings. Locals believe the four-day-old girl is the reincarnation of the Indian God Ganesha.

The 24-year-old father Vinod Kumar says she's eating and breathing normally — feeding through one mouth and sucking her thumb with the other, as reported by AFP.

The case comes just months after Indian doctors performed a rare marathon surgery to remove the extra limbs of a girl born with four arms and legs. Now whoever said Indians were two faced?

FIRST DROPS

Homeowner says five meteorite strikes must be deliberate

A Bosnian man whose home has been hit an incredible five times by meteorites believes he is being targeted by aliens.
Experts at Belgrade University have confirmed that all the rocks Radivoje Lajic has handed over were meteorites.

They are now investigating local magnetic fields to try and work out what makes the property so attractive to the heavenly bodies.
But Mr Lajic, who has had a steel girder reinforced roof put on the house he owns in the northern village of Gornja Lamovite, has an alternative explanation.

He said: "I am obviously being targeted by extraterrestrials. I don't know what I have done to annoy them but there is no other explanation that makes sense. The chance of being hit by a meteorite is so small that getting hit five times has to be deliberate."

The first meteorite fell on his house in November last year and since then a further four have smashed into his home.

Astronomy: Stardate (BBC)
Last year, I visited a home in Chicago where a 2.5 kilogram meteorite had fallen through the roof just days earlier. It crashed through the attic, destroying a thick wooden support joist along the way, then smashed through a bedroom ceiling, breaking the window and mirrored wardrobe doors as it bounced off walls around the room.

Stop Worrying (Time magazine)
What are the chances of being hit by a meteorite? In Popular Astronomy, Professor Lincoln LaPaz, head of the University of New Mexico's Institute of Meteoritics, estimates the odds: three chances out of ten that someone will be hit every 100 years. Since a little Japanese girl was nicked in 1927 by what was probably a meteorite, the danger for the rest of earth's inhabitants for the rest of the century is just about zero.

PLANE SIGHT

'Security threat' a misunderstanding: Qantas

Qantas has denied claims of a security threat on a flight from Adelaide to Melbourne on Friday night.
The plane was delayed on landing in Melbourne, after Australian Federal Police were notified of an incident onboard.
They gave the all clear around 8:00pm (AEST), saying they were satisfied there was no security threat.
A spokesman for Qantas says the incident was the result of a misunderstanding between the pilot and the control tower.

SPORTING LIFE

Chinese Olympic officials 'thugs': Seb Coe

Sebastian Coe, the London 2012 Olympics chief, has been overheard by a British broadcaster describing several Chinese officials guarding the Olympic flame as it passed through London as "thugs".

BOSON NOVA

'God particle' will be found soon: physicist

British physicist Peter Higgs says it should soon be possible to prove the existence of a force which gives mass to the universe and makes life possible - as he first argued 40 years ago.
Professor Higgs said he believes a particle named the "Higgs boson", which originates from the force, will be found when a vast particle collider at the CERN research centre on the Franco-Swiss border begins operating fully early next year.

The 78-year-old's original efforts in the early 1960s to explain why the force, dubbed the Higgs field, must exist were dismissed at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research.
Today, the existence of the invisible field is widely accepted by scientists, who believe it came into being milliseconds after the Big Bang created the universe some 15 billion years ago.

CERN's new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) aims to simulate conditions at the time of that primeval inferno by smashing particles together at near light-speed and so unlock many secrets of the universe.


A hardhat worker is dwarfed by the inner workings of the Large Hadron
Collider's ATLAS detector.

Could the collider create mini-black holes that last long enough and get big enough to turn into a matter-sucking maelstrom? Could exotic particles known as magnetic monopoles throw atomic nuclei out of whack? Could quarks recombine into "strangelets" that would turn the whole Earth into one big lump of exotic matter?

Doomsday fears spark lawsuit

The builders of the collider are being sued in US federal court over fears that the experiment might create globe-gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would destroy the planet.

MIND HACK

This delusion is false

The psychiatrist and philosopher Bill Fulford describes a patient who was the living embodiment of the logical paradox "this statement is false" during a discussion on the difficulties in assuming delusions are false beliefs, as described in the standard definition:

a 43-year-old man, was brought into the Accident and Emergency Department following an overdose. He had tried to kill himself because he was afraid he was going to be "locked up". However, this fear was secondary to a paranoid system at the heart of which was the hypochondriacal delusion that he was "mentally ill".

He was seen by the duty psychiatrist and by the consultant psychiatrist on call, neither of whom were in any doubt that he was deluded. Indeed, both were ready on the strength of their diagnosis to admit him as an involuntary patient.

Yet had their diagnosis depended on the falsity of the patient's belief, as in the standard definition, they would have been presented with a paradox: if the patient's belief that he was mentally ill was false, then (by the standard definition) he could have been deluded, but this would have made his belief true after all.

Equally, if his belief was true, then he was not deluded (by the standard definition), but this would have made his belief false after all. By the standard definition of delusion, then, his belief, is false, was true and, if true, was false.

AUSSIE YOWIE

Photographs back yowie claims

YOWIE hunter Paul Compton has long believed a giant animal lives in the Glen Innes district - and he claims he finally has photos to prove it.
“I’ve got hair at home that’s been identified by Dr Henner Fahrenbach from Oregon Regional Primate Research Centre in America who believes it to be a high primate and identical to the type of hair belonging to the (American) Big Foot or Sasquatch.”

Blogged with the Flock Browser

THE DOPE

Cannabis 'should remain Class C'

The official body which advises the government on drugs policy has decided that cannabis should remain a Class C drug, the BBC understands.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' decision would appear to go against the view of Gordon Brown, who favors returning the drug to Class B.
The government asked the council to review cannabis's legal status, amid concerns over stronger forms of it.

DOG DAYS

Seoul aims to reclassify dog meat

"Dogs are consumed in their millions in this country every year. That's a fact. We have to take care of this situation," Lee Hae-Woo, head of the city government's department of food safety, said.
"We plan to recommend to the central government that dogs are classified as livestock.