Red alert? Stay home, await word
If the US escalates to 'red alert,' which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, the New Jersey's anti-terror czar says.
Sid Caspersen, NJ's director of the office of counter-terrorism and a former FBI agent, was briefing reporters when, for the first time, he disclosed the realities of how a red alert would shut the state down.
A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.
A red alert means there is a severe risk of terrorist attack, according to federal guidelines from the Department of Homeland Security."
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
BIG BROTHER
Pentagon to Track American Consumer Purchases
A massive database that the government will use to monitor every purchase made by every American citizen is a necessary tool in the war on terror, the Pentagon said.
Edward Aldridge, undersecretary of Acquisitions and Technology, told reporters that the database, which he called another "tool" in the war on terror, would look for telltale signs of suspicious consumer behavior.
Examples he cited were: sudden and large cash withdrawals, one-way air or rail travel, rental car transactions and purchases of firearms, chemicals or agents that could be used to produce biological or chemical weapons.
It would also combine consumer information with visa records, passports, arrest records or reports of suspicious activity given to law enforcement or intelligence services.
Rear Adm. John Poindexter, former national security adviser to President Reagan, is developing the database under the Total Information Awareness Program. Poindexter was convicted on five counts of misleading Congress and making false statements during the Iran-Contra investigation. Those convictions were later overturned, but critics note that his is a dubious resume for someone entrusted with so sensitive a task.
A massive database that the government will use to monitor every purchase made by every American citizen is a necessary tool in the war on terror, the Pentagon said.
Edward Aldridge, undersecretary of Acquisitions and Technology, told reporters that the database, which he called another "tool" in the war on terror, would look for telltale signs of suspicious consumer behavior.
Examples he cited were: sudden and large cash withdrawals, one-way air or rail travel, rental car transactions and purchases of firearms, chemicals or agents that could be used to produce biological or chemical weapons.
It would also combine consumer information with visa records, passports, arrest records or reports of suspicious activity given to law enforcement or intelligence services.
Rear Adm. John Poindexter, former national security adviser to President Reagan, is developing the database under the Total Information Awareness Program. Poindexter was convicted on five counts of misleading Congress and making false statements during the Iran-Contra investigation. Those convictions were later overturned, but critics note that his is a dubious resume for someone entrusted with so sensitive a task.
TIME AND TIDE
Artist's concept of the LISA mission. LISA needs to measure the distance between proof masses, separated by five million kilometers, with an accuracy of 10 picometers (10 millionths of a micron).
LISA to attempt gravity wave detection
Gravitational waves passing through the solar system will generate small changes in the distance between three spacecraft in an equilateral formation, 5 million kilometres apart.
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, will observe gravitational waves from very massive black holes found in the centers of many galaxies.
Gravitational waves are one of the fundamental building blocks of our theoretical picture of the universe, yet they have not been observed.
TEUTONIC REMEDY
Picking a winner by ... a nose
"With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner. And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system. Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do. In terms of the immune system the nose is a filter in which a great deal of bacteria are collected, and when this mixture arrives in the intestines it works just like a medicine. Modern medicine is constantly trying to do the same thing through far more complicated methods, people who pick their nose and eat it get a natural boost to their immune system for free."
So says Austrian lung specialist Professor Doctor Friedrich Bischinger, and he should know.
"With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner. And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system. Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do. In terms of the immune system the nose is a filter in which a great deal of bacteria are collected, and when this mixture arrives in the intestines it works just like a medicine. Modern medicine is constantly trying to do the same thing through far more complicated methods, people who pick their nose and eat it get a natural boost to their immune system for free."
So says Austrian lung specialist Professor Doctor Friedrich Bischinger, and he should know.
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
CONSCIOUS UNIVERSE
Study shows psychic mediums really can read your deep secrets
Researchers at the Scottish Society for Psychical Research (SSPR) say mediums who took part in their tests beat odds of a million to one to correctly reveal information about volunteer test subjects.
Tricia Robertson, vice-president of the SSPR, a registered charity with around 250 members, said: “We were not trying to prove the existence of the afterlife or that personalities live on, but I think it is now important to recognise that mediumship can honestly gain information that ordinary people can’t.
Researchers at the Scottish Society for Psychical Research (SSPR) say mediums who took part in their tests beat odds of a million to one to correctly reveal information about volunteer test subjects.
Tricia Robertson, vice-president of the SSPR, a registered charity with around 250 members, said: “We were not trying to prove the existence of the afterlife or that personalities live on, but I think it is now important to recognise that mediumship can honestly gain information that ordinary people can’t.
THE OTHERS
Spidery 'man' in silver spooks anglers then disappears
Kevin: “You couldn’t see no facial. Its head didn’t move, its arms didn’t move, ‘til it turned, a little bit, and it took one step and it was gone. It kind of moved sideways and gone, disappeared.”
That’s when Steve threw his fishing pole in the water, took off running.
Tim: “I didn’t have fear, but him taking off like that with the panic that he had there, it was like, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, maybe we should get out of here’.”
Kevin: “What really got us to go and run, was when it stepped off that tree, it disappeared. It didn’t drop into the water, it just disappeared.
Kevin: “You couldn’t see no facial. Its head didn’t move, its arms didn’t move, ‘til it turned, a little bit, and it took one step and it was gone. It kind of moved sideways and gone, disappeared.”
That’s when Steve threw his fishing pole in the water, took off running.
Tim: “I didn’t have fear, but him taking off like that with the panic that he had there, it was like, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, maybe we should get out of here’.”
Kevin: “What really got us to go and run, was when it stepped off that tree, it disappeared. It didn’t drop into the water, it just disappeared.
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
Making noise over the hum
The Kokomo hum is drone so incessant that some claim it is making their lives miserable and ruining their health. While residents realize not everyone can hear their hum, they say it's time for the state to hear their pleas.
'We are appealing to the state, 'Will you help us?' ' said Gael Deppert, an Indianapolis attorney who said she is volunteering her services to help residents. 'We need to bring in scientists knowledgeable in various fields to try to grapple with this situation. We're asking the state to come in with an open mind.'
More than 100 people -- including Jeff Symmes, a Lafayette-area resident who says he became ill while working in Kokomo -- have complained of severe headaches, nausea, joint pain, debilitating heart problems or memory loss after they began feeling or hearing the hum.
[Testing HAARP's RHIC-EDOM, Radio-Hypnotic Intracerebral Control & Electronic Dissolution of Memory technology, perhaps?]
The Kokomo hum is drone so incessant that some claim it is making their lives miserable and ruining their health. While residents realize not everyone can hear their hum, they say it's time for the state to hear their pleas.
'We are appealing to the state, 'Will you help us?' ' said Gael Deppert, an Indianapolis attorney who said she is volunteering her services to help residents. 'We need to bring in scientists knowledgeable in various fields to try to grapple with this situation. We're asking the state to come in with an open mind.'
More than 100 people -- including Jeff Symmes, a Lafayette-area resident who says he became ill while working in Kokomo -- have complained of severe headaches, nausea, joint pain, debilitating heart problems or memory loss after they began feeling or hearing the hum.
[Testing HAARP's RHIC-EDOM, Radio-Hypnotic Intracerebral Control & Electronic Dissolution of Memory technology, perhaps?]
EARTH CHANGES
Global warming spirals upwards
Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have jumped abruptly, raising fears that global warming may be accelerating out of control.
Measurements by US government scientists show that concentrations of the gas, the main cause of the climate exchange, rose by a record amount over the past 12 months. It is the third successive year in which they have increased sharply, marking an unprecedented triennial surge.
Scientists are at a loss to explain why the rapid rise has taken place, but fear that it could show the first signs that global warming is feeding on itself.
Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have jumped abruptly, raising fears that global warming may be accelerating out of control.
Measurements by US government scientists show that concentrations of the gas, the main cause of the climate exchange, rose by a record amount over the past 12 months. It is the third successive year in which they have increased sharply, marking an unprecedented triennial surge.
Scientists are at a loss to explain why the rapid rise has taken place, but fear that it could show the first signs that global warming is feeding on itself.
WATCH THE SKIES
Canadian PM has airborne close encounter with fiery asteroid
What the prime minister's plane and many others saw that night was almost certainty a chunk of a comet or an asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere and burned up into fragments.
An amateur astronomer in Calgary captured the blazing streak on videotape. And it appears one or more such fireballs were seen by people across the Prairies and as far east as Quebec.
What the prime minister's plane and many others saw that night was almost certainty a chunk of a comet or an asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere and burned up into fragments.
An amateur astronomer in Calgary captured the blazing streak on videotape. And it appears one or more such fireballs were seen by people across the Prairies and as far east as Quebec.
OUR COSMOS
Earth on the 'Wimp highway'
Earth would be sitting in this stream of Wimps (Image by David Low)
Mysterious sub-atomic particles from another galaxy could be raining down on planet Earth, according to a collaboration of astronomers. If so, it could explain controversial results from a particle-detection experiment deep inside mountains to the east of Rome.
The story concerns Wimps - weakly interacting massive particles - which astronomers think may make up the bulk of the Universe. For every kg of material made up from atoms like the ones we have in our bodies, or which make up the stars, there are up to 20kg of something completely different, whose principal quality is that it has never been actually observed directly by scientists.
Which is why they call it dark matter. But they know it is there because its effect on the movements of galaxies can be weighed.
If Wimps exist, they would fill the spaces between the stars, and would interact with normal matter so weakly that they would pass right the way through the Earth.
Earth would be sitting in this stream of Wimps (Image by David Low)
Mysterious sub-atomic particles from another galaxy could be raining down on planet Earth, according to a collaboration of astronomers. If so, it could explain controversial results from a particle-detection experiment deep inside mountains to the east of Rome.
The story concerns Wimps - weakly interacting massive particles - which astronomers think may make up the bulk of the Universe. For every kg of material made up from atoms like the ones we have in our bodies, or which make up the stars, there are up to 20kg of something completely different, whose principal quality is that it has never been actually observed directly by scientists.
Which is why they call it dark matter. But they know it is there because its effect on the movements of galaxies can be weighed.
If Wimps exist, they would fill the spaces between the stars, and would interact with normal matter so weakly that they would pass right the way through the Earth.
NEW WORLD ORDER
Lies and character assassination are hallmarks of Team Bush
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds charged before some '50 reporters and 12 television cameras,' following yesterday's depositions to the 9/11 commission, that she was offered a 'substantial raise and a full time job to encourage her not to go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11, 2001, by the FBI and CIA.'
"Attorney General John Ashcroft told me he was invoking 'State Secret Privilege and National Security' when I told the FBI I wanted to go public with what I had translated from the pre 9-11 intercepts."
And what was in her original translations that Ashcroft wanted suppressed? 'My translations of the pre 9-11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date specific information enough to alert the American people, and other issues dating back to 1999 which I won't go into right now'.
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds charged before some '50 reporters and 12 television cameras,' following yesterday's depositions to the 9/11 commission, that she was offered a 'substantial raise and a full time job to encourage her not to go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11, 2001, by the FBI and CIA.'
"Attorney General John Ashcroft told me he was invoking 'State Secret Privilege and National Security' when I told the FBI I wanted to go public with what I had translated from the pre 9-11 intercepts."
And what was in her original translations that Ashcroft wanted suppressed? 'My translations of the pre 9-11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date specific information enough to alert the American people, and other issues dating back to 1999 which I won't go into right now'.
Monday, March 29, 2004
DID YOU KNOW
Supreme commander. suppreme irony
Military rules used in 1974 to ground two Washington Air National Guard airmen with access to nuclear weapons also applied to a Texas Air National Guard unit where Lt. George W. Bush was a fighter pilot.
Some military researchers and a former Texas Guard lieutenant colonel believe the stringent regulations -- known as the Human Reliability Program -- may have been invoked to stop Bush from flying Texas Air National Guard jets in 1972.
Military rules used in 1974 to ground two Washington Air National Guard airmen with access to nuclear weapons also applied to a Texas Air National Guard unit where Lt. George W. Bush was a fighter pilot.
Some military researchers and a former Texas Guard lieutenant colonel believe the stringent regulations -- known as the Human Reliability Program -- may have been invoked to stop Bush from flying Texas Air National Guard jets in 1972.
OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
Earth has near miss by 25m asteroid
Another small asteroid flew past Earth this weekend. 2004 FY15, which measures about 25 meters (75 feet) across, was only 0.6 lunar distances from our planet on March 27th (20:00 UT). At closest approach, the space rock was about as bright as a 14th magnitude star; now it's receding and fading fast.
Another small asteroid flew past Earth this weekend. 2004 FY15, which measures about 25 meters (75 feet) across, was only 0.6 lunar distances from our planet on March 27th (20:00 UT). At closest approach, the space rock was about as bright as a 14th magnitude star; now it's receding and fading fast.
PROPAGANDA CENTRAL
FLEETING GLIMPSE: Chevron's oiltanker the Condoleezza Rice, named when she was on the board, plies the Caspian Sea.
White House Trying to Explain Rice Policy
Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser to President Bush, says the Bush administration has a good story to tell about fighting terrorism and she's pouring it out in television appearances, interviews and newspaper articles.
The one place she won't talk is in public, under oath, before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
CRIME TIME
French lawyer to defend Saddam
The French lawyer known for defending Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and guerrilla Carlos the Jackal says he had accepted the job of defending Saddam Hussein and suggested his strategy would focus on the role played by the United States and other countries in supporting the Iraqi leader in the 1980s.
'We know very well that the Anglo-Americans armed Saddam Hussein, that the chemical weapons were sold by the allies," Verges said in a telephone interview. Washington helped Saddam obtain intelligence and military equipment and, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control document in the U.S. Senate record, Iraq also obtained from the United States biological agents that could have been turned into weapons.
Verges singled out U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a key advocate of last year's U.S.-led war to oust Saddam, for his role 20 years ago as a special envoy of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
[In an interview with ABCNews, Verges stated, "The United States considers they are the master of the world and they are not to be judged."]
The French lawyer known for defending Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and guerrilla Carlos the Jackal says he had accepted the job of defending Saddam Hussein and suggested his strategy would focus on the role played by the United States and other countries in supporting the Iraqi leader in the 1980s.
'We know very well that the Anglo-Americans armed Saddam Hussein, that the chemical weapons were sold by the allies," Verges said in a telephone interview. Washington helped Saddam obtain intelligence and military equipment and, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control document in the U.S. Senate record, Iraq also obtained from the United States biological agents that could have been turned into weapons.
Verges singled out U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a key advocate of last year's U.S.-led war to oust Saddam, for his role 20 years ago as a special envoy of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
[In an interview with ABCNews, Verges stated, "The United States considers they are the master of the world and they are not to be judged."]
PROPAGANDA CENTRAL
Operation Iraqi Infoganda
Real journalism may be reeling, but faux journalism rocks. As an entertainment category in the cultural marketplace, it may soon rival reality TV and porn. Television is increasingly awash in fake anchors delivering fake news, some of them far more trenchant than real anchors delivering real news.
Turn on real news shows and you might find Jayson Blair, the lying former reporter of The New York Times, continuing to play a reporter on TV as he fabricates earnest blather about his concern for journalistic standards.
Elsewhere on the dial you'll learn that a fake news show has been in a booking war with a real news show over who would first be able to interview the real (I think) Desmond Tutu.
At such absurd moments, and they are countless these days in our 24/7 information miasma, real journalism and its evil twin merge into a mind-bending mutant.
Real journalism may be reeling, but faux journalism rocks. As an entertainment category in the cultural marketplace, it may soon rival reality TV and porn. Television is increasingly awash in fake anchors delivering fake news, some of them far more trenchant than real anchors delivering real news.
Turn on real news shows and you might find Jayson Blair, the lying former reporter of The New York Times, continuing to play a reporter on TV as he fabricates earnest blather about his concern for journalistic standards.
Elsewhere on the dial you'll learn that a fake news show has been in a booking war with a real news show over who would first be able to interview the real (I think) Desmond Tutu.
At such absurd moments, and they are countless these days in our 24/7 information miasma, real journalism and its evil twin merge into a mind-bending mutant.
WATCH THE SKIES
NASA believes test jet hit Mach 7
Three years after its first test flight ended in an explosion, NASA on Saturday successfully launched an experimental jet that the agency believes reached a record-setting speed of about 8000 kph.
Flight engineer Lawrence Huebner said preliminary data indicated the needle-nosed jet reached a maximum speed of slightly over seven times the speed of sound after a rocket accelerated it.
Huebner said it was the first time an "air-breathing" jet had ever traveled so fast. The rocket-powered X-15 reached Mach 6.7 in 1967.
Three years after its first test flight ended in an explosion, NASA on Saturday successfully launched an experimental jet that the agency believes reached a record-setting speed of about 8000 kph.
Flight engineer Lawrence Huebner said preliminary data indicated the needle-nosed jet reached a maximum speed of slightly over seven times the speed of sound after a rocket accelerated it.
Huebner said it was the first time an "air-breathing" jet had ever traveled so fast. The rocket-powered X-15 reached Mach 6.7 in 1967.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
WEIRD SCIENCE
Scientists create magnetic carbon 'nanofoam'
Researchers have created a new form of carbon: a spongy solid that is extremely lightweight and, unusually, attracted to magnets.
The new structure was created when physicists at the Australian National University in Canberra bombarded a carbon target with a laser capable of firing 10,000 pulses a second. As the carbon reached temperatures of around 10,000 ºC, it formed an intersecting web of carbon tubes, each just a few billionths of a metre long. The researchers have called the solid a 'nanofoam'.
It is the fifth form of carbon known after graphite, diamond and two recently discovered types: hollow spheres, known as buckminsterfullerenes or buckyballs, and nanotubes.
Researchers have created a new form of carbon: a spongy solid that is extremely lightweight and, unusually, attracted to magnets.
The new structure was created when physicists at the Australian National University in Canberra bombarded a carbon target with a laser capable of firing 10,000 pulses a second. As the carbon reached temperatures of around 10,000 ºC, it formed an intersecting web of carbon tubes, each just a few billionths of a metre long. The researchers have called the solid a 'nanofoam'.
It is the fifth form of carbon known after graphite, diamond and two recently discovered types: hollow spheres, known as buckminsterfullerenes or buckyballs, and nanotubes.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
Mars rover parked at edge of ancient seashore
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is parked by the shore of what used to be a salty martian sea, scientists say.
'We think Opportunity is now parked on what was once the shoreline of a salty sea on Mars,' said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the science payload on Opportunity and its twin Mars exploration Rover, Spirit.
"This dramatic confirmation of standing water in Mars' history builds on a progression of discoveries about that most Earthlike of alien planets," said Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for space science.
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is parked by the shore of what used to be a salty martian sea, scientists say.
'We think Opportunity is now parked on what was once the shoreline of a salty sea on Mars,' said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the science payload on Opportunity and its twin Mars exploration Rover, Spirit.
"This dramatic confirmation of standing water in Mars' history builds on a progression of discoveries about that most Earthlike of alien planets," said Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for space science.
NEW WORLD ORDER
Airport security as political bullying
A recent trip by Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 79, to see for herself what is happening to Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza ended with shocking humiliation.
Epstein says she was questioned for five hours by a security team at Israel's Ben Gurion airport. After it was discovered that she had visited the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Qalqilya and participated in protests against the separation wall Israel is building, she was taken off to a side room.
A woman security officer carried out a "strip search of every part of my naked body," she recalls. "The only shame these security officials expressed was to turn their badges around so that their names were invisible.
Shot British peace activist dies
A recent trip by Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 79, to see for herself what is happening to Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza ended with shocking humiliation.
Epstein says she was questioned for five hours by a security team at Israel's Ben Gurion airport. After it was discovered that she had visited the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Qalqilya and participated in protests against the separation wall Israel is building, she was taken off to a side room.
A woman security officer carried out a "strip search of every part of my naked body," she recalls. "The only shame these security officials expressed was to turn their badges around so that their names were invisible.
Shot British peace activist dies
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