HONOUR BOUND

Teen girl buried alive by family members

An autopsy has found that a 16-year-old Turkish girl was buried alive in her family's garden.
She was reportedly killed by her family for having male friends.

Dozens of so-called honour killings take place every year in Turkey, despite efforts by the government to stamp out the practice.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Forbes magazine appears to be on drugs

Forbes has declared Monsanto “Company of the Year,” calling criticism of the notorious company “vicious” attacks against a company that “has been working to make humanity better fed.”

What’s more, Forbes claims that the attacks come because Monsanto has close to a monopoly in some seed markets, which Forbes argues is because they are making “seeds that are too good.”

You read that right. Apparently, Monsanto’s decades-long attempt to control the seed market -- which has led it lawsuits against small farmers and genetically modified plants that never regerminate, forcing farmers to buy seeds year after year -- is apparently just a result of their being “too good.”

I encourage you all to BOYCOTT Forbes and cancel any subscription you may have.

CRYPTOZOOLOGY

Mysterious Segmenting Snake-Like Creature Reported On Pennsylvania Roadway

At about 3:45 pm, on a beautiful, clear and sunny afternoon a woman, her husband and child were in their car driving along the country road.
Suddenly, the woman seated behind her husband yelled out, “watch out for that snake.” The man slowed down as they focused on a black snake about four feet long that was slowly moving across the road ahead of them from right to left. The head of the reptile was in the center of the roadway. The fellow told me that while the creature looked like a snake, it did not slither like a snake, but instead, was “gliding real slow.”

Suddenly, something happened that the witnesses are still trying to explain. As the couple watched, the body of the snake broke apart into approximately eight individual creatures. The man related that this happened quickly, almost as if it exploded. Each creature was about four inches in length, but stretched up to approximately six inches as they moved. They were tubular shaped, with no tail, and charcoal black in color. The fellow said he was unsure if there was hair, but what might have been hair was of a “shiny wet” texture.

Each creature seemed to have four feet, two on each side of the body. The feet were hard to describe, since they were black, the same color as the body. They did not notice any eyes. The wife told her husband that she could see the mouth of one creature, which was wide open. The vehicle stopped about ten to twenty feet from the creatures, which were “moving individually, erratically, and extremely fast in the road.” The creatures moved like inch worms with the back hunched up and then stretching flat, growing at least two additional inches in length each time they moved.

NON-HUMAN PEOPLE

Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.

“The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions,” said Lori Marino, a researcher and zoologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

AUSTRALIA FIRST

 

Darwin revealed as world's biff capital

A Northern Territory surgeon says Darwin has the highest rate of broken jaws in the world and that can be attributed mostly to alcohol-related violence. Royal Darwin Hospital surgeon Mahiban Thomas says the hospital sees about 350 cases of broken jaws and noses every year.
"(This) puts us at about 17 per 10,000 population, which is well above anywhere else in the world," he said.
Dr Thomas says most assaults occur outside pubs and nightclubs on Thursday and Friday nights.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Double agent's bait too good for CIA to refuse

The Jordanian double agent who killed seven CIA employees in an Afghan suicide attack had been working with Jordanian intelligence.

It is understood he had already been to the CIA base in Afghanistan half a dozen times, and on this last occasion, when he went through three layers of security, local guards were told not to search him.
Seven CIA employees, including the station chief and two men who were private contractors from the security company formerly known as Blackwater, died when he detonated his explosives.

The Outfit Formerly Known as Blackwater

Some of your employees are facing manslaughter charges. Your biggest customers just yanked your contracts. How do you repair your image and your reputation? Simple: change your name and cover your tracks.

The Outfit Formerly Known as Blackwater, the huge military contracting and consulting firm, made its bones and its less-than-salubrious name in Iraq. And now it wants to unmake its notoriety. It is changing its name to Xe (pronounced Zee). In a memo to employees, Blackwater/Xe president Gary Jackson says the switch "reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security".

[To providing what now, exactly? Cupcakes?]

CODED DATA

The image of Color C Code on a CD cover decodes off-line as a 40 second music clip.

Color Code Technologies Targets Network Operators

Color Construct Code enables the transmission of large amounts of data and does not require an internet connection to decode and display digital formats such as such as text, images, music and video. A password and/or expiration logic may also be encoded in each code.

The code can be printed onto paper and stickers thereby reducing the costs of printing information. The code is also suitable for storing data, securing documents, preventing forgery, and managing products. The technology is completely compatible with Symbian systems, the current standard operating system for smartphones with an 85% market share of the world’s handset manufacturers.

THEY'RE HERE

Respected scientist says aliens are among us

A leading astrophysicist who has worked on space missions claims that he and his colleagues are in contact with extraterrestrials who are "living among us." And they don't like what they see.

"We sent (the aliens) 30 questions about global problems," said Filipov, who was vague about how he actually conveyed the queries. "And now we have some answers." The "answers" came in the form of pictograms in crop circles.

He said the aliens have told him SETI doesn't work, owing to a confusion about communication through "magnetic fields."
They also said there is some truth in the 2012 predictions, having something to do with volcanoes in Mexico.
Further, more prosaic revelations include that the aliens are angry about global warming, disagree with in-vitro fertilization and don't like cosmetics. Apparently, Filipov's aliens are grumpy Republicans.

SOLAR NEXUS

FLASHBACK: (December 2008)

Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field

NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist.
Solar wind can flow in through the opening to "load up" the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms.
But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange and unexpected way it forms, overturning long-held ideas of space physics.
"At first I didn't believe it," says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center.
"This finding fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction."

AGAINST THE TIDE

23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
(saharareporters.com)

Father warned US about plane bomb suspect's behaviour
The father of a Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a US jet on Christmas Day had voiced concerns to US officials about his son, it has emerged.The father, a top Nigerian banker, warned US authorities weeks ago about 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's extreme views.
Officials in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, told news agencies that Mr Abdulmutallab's name had been added to a security watch-list of more than half a million individuals, known as Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (Tide).

Homeland Stupidity
The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control,” said Russ Travers, in charge of TIDE at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean.
”TIDE has also created concerns about secrecy, errors and privacy. The list marks the first time foreigners and U.S. citizens are combined in an intelligence database. The bar for inclusion is low, and once someone is on the list, it is virtually impossible to get off it. At any stage, the process can lead to “horror stories” of mixed-up names and unconfirmed information, Travers acknowledged.
"TIDE is a vacuum cleaner for both proven and unproven information, and its managers disclaim responsibility for how other agencies use the data. “What’s the alternative?” Travers said. “I work under the assumption that we’re never going to have perfect information — fingerprints, DNA — on 6 billion people across the planet. . . . If someone actually has a better idea, I’m all ears.” — Washington Post.

SEA OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Wilkins went somewhere far distant from Sherman, who, at intervals, was supposed to "see" and describe the locale of where Wilkins was, what he was doing, and what was going on around him.

Sherman recorded his telepathic impressions three nights a week, and promptly mailed copies of them to a Mr. Samuel Emery, identified as a "resident of the City Club of New York," and to Dr. Gardner Murphy at Columbia University. Sherman’s "impressions" were therefore in good hands long before any confirmation of them could be achieved.

Sherman’s success rate and the specificity of many of his hits was extraordinary.
In his introduction to the Studies in Consciousness reissue of the book, renowned remote viewer Ingo Swann said he’d been “amazed and staggered” by Sherman’s accomplishment, which he originally stumbled upon in a used book bin in 1970.


THOUGHTS THROUGH SPACE, Sherman, Wilkins. First published by Creative Age Press, New York, in 1942. A revised paperback edition was later published by Fawcett Publications, New York, 1971.]

Real Story: Chapter 55

TIMES NARROW

Image credit: cguu.com.

Physicist Proposes Solution to Arrow-of-Time Paradox

Entropy can decrease, according to a new proposal - but the process would destroy any evidence of its existence, and erase any memory an observer might have of it. It sounds like the plot to a weird sci-fi movie, but the idea has recently been suggested by theoretical physicist Lorenzo Maccone, currently a visiting scientist at MIT, in an attempt to solve a longstanding paradox in physics.

Loschmidt’s paradox:
1. Physics says universe is time-invariant. That is, laws still hold if time is reversed.
2. Second law of thermodynamics: entropy increases or is static but never decreases.

COP OUT

Eyewitness: How China sabotaged climate talks

"I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks in every corner of the world," he wrote in the The Guardian.
"The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful 'deal' so Western leaders would walk away carrying the blame.

[ CENSORED ]

Computer says no: Google slams filter

In a post on Google Australia's official blog, the company said the plan raised concerns about censorship.

"At Google we are concerned by the Government's plans to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia, the first of its kind amongst Western democracies," the post said.

"Our primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide."

While Google accepted there must be some limits on internet content, it condemned the Government's filtering approach as heavy-handed.

THE QUICKENING

Climate changing faster than expected: scientists

Twenty six international scientists have collated the most recent data and observations, and they have found that climate change is accelerating beyond expectations.

Most of the 26 scientists are authors of reports published by the IPCC. They have updated the panel's latest scientific projections and their observations show an acceleration of change.

According to their research, the Arctic may be ice-free by the summer of 2030 and sea levels could reach the upper limit of 2 metres by the turn of the century.

www.copenhagendiagnosis.org

THE QUICKENING

Antarctic icesheet losing mass

A new study has found the east Antarctic icesheet, which sits behind Australia's Casey Station, has lost billions of tonnes of ice in the past three years.

Researchers from the University of Texas have been studying the ocean-icesheet interaction in Antarctica for the past seven years. They have found that since 2006, the east Antarctic icesheet is losing more ice than it is gaining.

THOSE CAZY ALIENS

Tutu-wearing Alien Spotted in Winchester

A UK councillor has had an out-of-this-world experience with a ‘ballerina-like alien’

He says he saw the ballerina-like alien under the city's Guildhall clock five years ago but has only now come clean about his strange encounter.
'It was staggering – I am not usually lost for words but I was that day,' he said.
She was a humanoid walking with a penguin-like gait. 'She had very large oval eyes and was twirling her hands in a circular motion. She was laughing and seemed to be enjoying herself. She was human enough to get away with it,' he added.
And the intrigue doesn't end there. Mr Hicks, who has spent £400 perfecting an artist's impression of the alien, believes she is linked to covert US and British military operations at a nearby base.

FIRST DROPS

Meteor lights up early morning sky

A fast-moving meteor lit up the night skies over most of Utah just after midnight Wednesday. Scientists are calling it a "remarkable midnight fireball." .


Spot the common theme in the following three flashbacks:

FLASHBACK - Nov 6 2009




Asteroid Flyby, Fireball over Utah, Meteor Shower

Asteroid 2009 VA flew past Earth at about 4.30pm. EST. It didn't disintegrate but it passed just 8700 miles (14,000 km) from our planet's surface -- slightly less than Earth's diameter. The space rock was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey only some 15 hours before it approached us.

FLASHBACK - Mar 2009

Asteroid narrowly misses Earth

A 200-foot wide asteroid zoomed past Earth today at an altitude of 40,000 miles - swerving far enough from our planet to avoid total destruction, officials said.

Dubbed 2009 DD45, the large rock was discovered only Friday by Australian astronomers.

The enormous asteroid narrowly avoided a collision with Earth at 8:44 EST, officials said.

Although 40,000 miles sounds like a safe distance, it's only about one-seventh of the way to the moon and less than twice as far out as most satellites, astronomers said.

Had 2009 DD45 slammed down onto the Earth, it would have exploded with the force of a large nuclear blast

FLASHBACK - Jan 2002

Huge Asteroid Narrowly Misses Earth

An asteroid capable of causing widespread devastation narrowly missed the Earth on Monday. This asteroid known as 2001 YB5 was discovered on December 26-7, 2001.

Although the nearest the asteroid came to Earth was 390,000 miles (627,644 kilometers), had it arrived four hours earlier on its journey around the sun it would have scored a direct hit.

The asteroid, measuring 300 meters (984 feet) across, passed Earth at 7:37 a.m. For a moment, it was less than twice as far from Earth as is the Moon.

Scientists were unaware of its approach until a month ago, when it was spotted by an American observatory dedicated to tracking near-Earth objects (NEOs).

Astronomers insisted there was never any danger of a collision with Earth. But they warned that the asteroid was one of up to 400,000 small NEOs up to 1000 meters (3280 feet) wide that could strike Earth with little or no warning because of the absence of an adequate early-warning system.

FIRST DROPS

Another fiery meteorite

As forecasters predicted, the Leonid meteor shower peaked during the late hours of Nov. 17th, favoring sky watchers in Asia with an outburst of 100+ meteors per hour.
 Just as the outburst was dying down, an even bigger event took place over the western USA.
Something hit Earth's atmosphere and exploded with an energy equivalent of 0.5 to 1 kiloton of TNT.  Witnesses in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and elsewhere say the fireball "turned night into day" and "shook the ground" when it exploded just after midnight Mountain Standard Time.
Researchers who are analyzing infrasound recordings of the blast say the fireball was not a Leonid.
It was probably a small asteroid, now scattered in fragments across the countryside. Efforts are underway to measure the trajectory of the asteroid and guide meteorite recovery efforts.

MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

John Muhammad, the Washington Sniper of 2002

Washington sniper is put to death

The man behind the 2002 sniper attacks in and near Washington DC is executed after a final appeal was thrown out.

Motive remains a mystery

"He showed no remorse at all that I've been able to see, from his arrest through the court proceedings. And I've had no reports at all of remorse in prison"

"I'm certain he would be back to killing people again if he had the opportunity."

Muhammad's former wife, Mildred, told BBC News that while he had been a soldier serving in Saudi Arabia, before the first Gulf War, his personality had undergone a powerful change.

"When he returned from Saudi Arabia… he was confused, puzzled, unsure of himself or his ability to do anything," she said. "And he was absolutely quiet."

Mildred added that she believed her ex-husband had intended to kill her as punishment for the break-up of their marriage and his estrangement from their children.

The other shootings, Mildred believes, were intended to disguise her murder, to make it appear random.

She said she had once heard John talk of the ability of an individual to terrorise a city.

"We were watching a movie, and he said, 'I could take a small city, terrorise it, they would think it was a group of people, but it would only be me'.