Constant Skeptic Daily Updates

SITE MOVED

2006-07-03T14:12:00.000-04:00

THE CONSTANT SKEPTIC UPDATE SITE HAS CHANGED TO WORDPRESS:

http://www.constantskeptic.com/wordpress

sorry for the inconvenience... but self hosting is a lot better than blogger hosting

Alberto Strengthens, Networks Salivate

2006-06-12T13:06:00.000-04:00

Alberto strengthens, but I'm still skeptical about this
one, probably just a lot of rain... wind speeds are right
around 85... it has strengthened and regained it's center,
which was not expected to happen... I predict Category 2
when it hits sometime tomorrow on the northern gulf coast.

The longer it lingers over the gulf, the greater chance it
has of strengthening to a Cat 3 or even 4, which of course
the news media is hoping will happen. They are salivating
in their mobile new units right now waiting and watching
for any sign of destruction.

Take my advice, shut the doors, lock the shutters, unplug
the TV and hope for a tidal wave to wash away all the evil
networks out there. Don't forget your scuba gear and
canned food.

The threat posed by bad television and misinformation is
way worse than any destruction a hurricane could
muster.... for misinformation destroys the fabric of
rational free thinking which is the only hope we can have
for humanities sustainable progress in the coming years.

Oldest book to be deciphered using same technique as Judas Gospel

2006-06-11T21:25:00.000-04:00

Associated Press Athens, June 1, 2006
A collection of charred scraps kept in a Greek museum's storerooms are all that remains of what archaeologists say is Europe's oldest surviving book - which may hold a key to understanding early monotheistic beliefs. More than four decades after the Derveni papyrus was found in a 2,400-year-old nobleman's grave in northern Greece, researchers said Thursday they are close to uncovering new text - through high-tech digital analysis - from the blackened fragments left after the manuscript was burnt on its owner's funeral pyre. Large sections of the mid-4th century B.C. book - a philosophical treatise on ancient religion - were read years ago, but never officially published.

Now, archaeologist Polyxeni Veleni believes U.S. imaging and scanning techniques used to decipher the Judas Gospel - which portrays Judas not as a sinister betrayer but as Jesus' confidant - will considerably expand and clarify that text.

The scroll, originally several metres of papyrus rolled round two wooden runners, was found half burnt in 1962. It dates to around 340 B.C., during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.

"It is the oldest surviving book, if you can use that word for a scroll, in western tradition," Veleni said. "This was a unique find, of exceptional importance."

Greek philosophy expert Apostolos Pierris believes the text may be a century older.

"It was probably written by somebody from the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras, in the second half of the 5th century B.C.," he said Thursday.

Anaxagoras, who lived in ancient Athens, is thought to have been the teacher of Socrates and was accused by his contemporaries of atheism.

"I believe some 10-20 percent of new text will be added, which however will be of crucial importance," said Veleni, director of the Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum where the manuscript is kept. "This will fill in many gaps, we will get a better understanding of the sequence and the existing text will become more complete," Veleni told The Associated Press.

Meteor evidence found in Antarctica - 250 million years old

2006-06-11T21:21:00.000-04:00

A massive crater in Antarctica may have been caused by a meteor that wiped out more than 90 percent of the species on Earth 250 million years ago, a geologist said. The 300-mile-wide crater lies hidden more than a mile beneath a sheet of ice and was discovered by scientists using satellite data, Ohio State University geologist Ralph von Frese said WednesdayJUne 7, 2006. This image shows the thickness of the Earth's crust across Antarctica . Thicker crust appears red. The location of the Wilkes Land crater is circled (below right of center). (AP Photo/Ohio State University) (AP)

Cholesterol Myths exposed? Or wackos?

2006-06-11T21:11:00.000-04:00

Uffe Ravnskov's The Cholesterol Myths - Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease (2000) is the bible of cholesterol contrarianism. (Henceforth, the author will be referred to as UR.) These contrarians call themselves skeptics but their goal is not to examine all the evidence and think critically about it in the large context of our medical knowledge. Their goal is to cherry pick data to support their contention that low cholesterol is bad for you and high cholesterol is positively good for you. A diet high in saturated fats is never unhealthy, in their opinion. Not everything they say is false. Much of it is true. But everything they say is taken out of context to support their contention.

Joel M. Kauffman, a cholesterol contrarian, exemplifies the claims and methods of these folks. He wrote in Skeptic [vol. 12, no. 2]: "Cholesterol is highly protective against cancer, infection and atherosclerosis" and "high TC [total cholesterol] and LDL levels are beneficial at all ages." These are extraordinary claims and could be deadly, if taken seriously. It is hoped that no reader of Skeptic will throw away his or her cholesterol-lowering medications after reading these claims. Kauffman's source for this claim is a paper by UR: "High Cholesterol May Protect Against Infections and Atherosclerosis." Kaufmann changes UR's "may protect" to "are beneficial" and adds "cancer" for good measure. This kind of looseness with the facts is something to look for when reading the cholesterol contrarian literature.

This is the first installment of a "review" of UR's book. I use scare quotes because I do not plan to point out the good and the bad in the book. I plan to focus only on the bad. Part 1 of this review will cover the foreword, the introduction, and chapter one. But first let me assert that I agree with the contrarians that there is not a strong body of peer-reviewed published research that shows that a person who eats a low-fat diet is guaranteed to have low cholesterol which will prevent that person from getting atherosclerosis which in turn will prevent that person from getting a heart attack. Nor is there strong evidence that a person who eats a high-fat diet is guaranteed to have high cholesterol and get atherosclerosis and die of a heart attack as a result.

all of this taken from The Skeptic's Dictionary:
http://www.skepdic.com

Tropical Storm Alberto

2006-06-11T17:06:00.000-04:00

Tropical Storm Alberto is expected to remain a tropical
storm or weaken when it hits the Gulf Coast, thanks to
lots of wind shear tearing apart the storms center. As of
right now there is only a 5% chance of it strengthing to
hurricane force.

Quote of the Weekend

2006-06-11T16:42:00.000-04:00

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to
our liberties than standing armies. " - Thomas Jefferson

First Hurricane of season heading for Gulf Coast

2006-06-10T23:03:00.000-04:00

First tropical storm of the season.. looks like it is going to strength to a hurricane by Monday, for right now its sustained winds are around 35 mph. read more about it here: http://www.weather.com

Fixing United States perception in the world

2006-06-10T20:59:00.000-04:00

Arab-American Corporate Summit - An initial Arab-American Exchange will take place in New York in Fall of 2006, bringing together 50 YAL members with top executives from the U.S. private sector, to establish growth opportunities for qualified interns from the Middle East. This is the first summit of its kind, intent on building international bridges of mutual understanding and respect through business-led actions and initiatives.

from - Keith Reinhard

http://www.businessfordiplomaticaction.org

Scientists can't identify mysterious alien red cells

2006-06-09T23:16:00.000-04:00

As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens.

In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples -- water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001 -- contain microbes from outer space.

Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit . (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit .)

So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India.

World Controllers Hire Elite Security Firm To Guard Top-Secret Meetings

2006-06-09T23:08:00.000-04:00

The highly secretive session will cover global issues such as the direction of oil markets, whether or not to attack Iran, and who the next president of the United States should be. The list of attendees at last year's conference in Germany is believed to have included the queens of Spain and the Netherlands, former U.S. secretary of defence Henry Kissinger, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz...Read Article

New technologies being thwarted by armed thugs?

2006-06-09T23:05:00.000-04:00

VENTURA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, USA -- On May 16, a technician who was one of a team of garage experimenters investigating a hydrogen-on-demand technology was run off the road near a rural intersection and accosted by four white, middle-aged males in black suits, carrying Glocks and Mac tens. The assailants were driving a late model, black Lincoln Town Car.

This comes just one month after Bill Williams was similarly threatened because of his alleged experimentation with running a vehicle on a Joe cell.The victim in this latest incident is an associate of New Energy Congress member, Ken Rasmussen, who had been working together with him on the project. Rasmussen also runs an alternative energy news service at http://www.commutefaster.com/Energy.html

A week before the incident, Rasmussen learned of the work being done by Professor Kanarev in Russia. Both use a pulsed signal, and both were seeing similar performance rates. Kanarev holds multiple patents, and is widely published.

A day before the incident, a person who was interested in funding the project of Rasmussen et al., and who had been trying to reach him since November, had finally made contact.Rasmussen reported the incident for the first time publicly in his news today. He said, "As editor of this page, my life has now been threatened by 2 loaded guns pointed in the face of a good friend."

"Using information which could only have been obtained by monitoring digital cell phones and e-mail, the assailants portrayed to the victim that they had total control over his personal life, and was told to remain silent and to not talk to government authorities." He was told that if he did not comply, a family member would be killed. The assailants produced extensive details about this target family member. The threat also included himself, his family and all associates if he did not stop work on the process immediately.

The threats made actually applied broadly to anyone working on overunity."I'm breaking the story to warn others who might be involved in similar technologies," said Rasmussen.Obeying the threats made to him, the person threatened has stopped all work on the project.

"When happy people start acting silent and paranoid, friends get suspicious," said Rasmussen, who waited to publish this account until the necessary measures had been taken to protect the lives of those directly threatened in the incident.

At the time of the assault, Rasmussen had been in discussion with several pre-screened, suitable investors, who were waiting on Rasmussen's team to fix a final detail before attending a live demonstration.

Recent Human History suggests ecological patterns altered

2006-06-09T12:34:00.000-04:00

Las Cruces NM (SPX) Jun 09, 2006 - A new study published in the Journal of Biogeography provides some of the first evidence that ecological patterns at large spatial scales have been significantly altered within recent human history suggesting a role for human activities as potential drivers.

read the rest here...

Indonesia's volcano ready to blow

2006-06-09T12:32:00.000-04:00

Mount Merapi, Indonesia (AFP) Jun 09, 2006 - Indonesia's Mount Merapi roared back to life Thursday, belching its largest clouds of hot gas and ash yet and sparking panic among residents already jittery from last month's quake. Television footage showed stunning clouds spewing from the volcano's crater against a clear blue sky just after 9:00 am (0200 GMT).

read more here...

Bio-Ethanol progess

2006-06-09T12:29:00.000-04:00

Delft, The Netherlands (SPX) Jun 09, 2006 - Research conducted by Delft University of Technology has brought the efficient production of the environmentally-friendly fuel bio-ethanol a great deal closer to fruition. The work of Delft researcher Marko Kuyper was an important factor in this. His research in recent years has greatly improved the conversion of certain sugars from agricultural waste to ethanol.

read the full story here...

Bookies bet on monsoon season in India

2006-06-08T14:01:00.000-04:00

New Delhi (AFP) Jun 08, 2006 - Bountiful early monsoon
rains are raking in millions of dollars for Indian bookies
taking bets on the amount of rain that will drench the
country between June and September, a report said Monday.
read more here:

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Indian_Bookies_Raking_In_Millions_Thanks_To_Heavy_Monsoons.html

Indonesia Defense Minister Warns US of being too overbearing in fighting terrorism

2006-06-08T13:29:00.000-04:00

Jakarta (AFP) Jun 08, 2006
Indonesia's defense minister bluntly warned US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Tuesday that an overbearing US
approach the war on terrorism has led many in the world to
view US power as a threat.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Indonesia_Warns_Rumsfeld_Over_US_Approach_To_War_On_Terror.html

Quote of the Day - June 7th

2006-06-07T23:00:00.000-04:00

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting." - Charles Bukowski

HIllary Clinton called "Satan"

2006-06-07T22:55:00.000-04:00

Echoing MSNBC host Don Imus's repeated references to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) as "Satan," CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck referred to Clinton as the "Antichrist" on the June 6 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck program.

During a segment about author Anne Karpf's theory that women's voices have become deeper over the past 50 years, Beck said he "wanted to see if there was anything to this." He proceeded to play two video clips of Clinton, one from 1993 and the other from "today." During the first clip, Beck interrupted Clinton as she stated "I'm not looking for any particular role or position," and said "OK, OK. Bringing back too many memories. Please, stop with that." Beck then presented a second clip of Clinton with her voice artificially deepened, at which point Beck remarked: "I think we may have found our Antichrist and our next president."

Earlier in the broadcast, Beck also considered actress Bea Arthur, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, and actress Angelina Jolie as candidates for the "Antichrist," before concluding that he had "found our Antichrist" with Clinton.

Strange - women of 73 dies from falling banana

2006-06-07T22:04:00.000-04:00

"I can't believe after all this time it was a bloody banana that killed me." It wasn't long after she spoke these words that 73-year-old Ivanka Perko took her last breath in an Australian hospital. "She had tried to open a banana and dropped it," a friend said. "The pointy end scraped down her leg and she died from complications."Perko's migration to Australia from Slovenia began with "nothing but the clothes on her back and a pocket full of pepper to ward off the guard dogs," said her son Izzy.i guess son may think Perko's death under such circumstances an unfitting end to a brave woman's life. But by all accounts, she is described as tough, with a good sense of humor, and I think it's pretty cool way to exit. It is, at least, much better than death by guard dog.

Thirsty? Try sour horse milk...

2006-06-07T21:59:00.000-04:00

If your thirsty, I mean really thirsty, you might be tempted to chug down a cup of koumiss. But even if you manage to get the fermented sour horse milk down your gullet without blowing chunks, you'll probably still be thirsty. The American Beverage Association has placed koumiss at the top of its list of beverages least likely to quench your thirst.

According to the report, "Asian beverages were also high on the list, notably mango puree carbonated drinks, guava juice, and 'liquid breakfast cereals' made from sweetened soy and wheat, all of which leave a variety of strange and alarming after tastes, notably soapy syrupy. Many popular American drinks scored badly as well, such as prune juice, tomato juice, Red Bull, grape soda, chocolate flavored kids drinks such as Yoo-Hoo, and heavy, dark malted beers. While occupying a wide niche in the beverage market, and crossing the line into liquid food, these drinks hardly can be considered refreshing.

Koumiss, It's What's for Dinner!

Britain to appoint climate envoy

2006-06-07T21:07:00.000-04:00

The government is to appoint a climate envoy... read more here:
Britain to appoint climate envoy

New lava flows from volcano in Java

2006-06-06T13:43:00.000-04:00

MSNBC Breaking News: 11,000 evacuated as new lava flows spurt from Java volcano.

China world leader in artificial rain

2006-06-06T13:39:00.000-04:00

BEIJING (Reuters) -- Drought-plagued China has used an arsenal of rockets, artillery and aircraft to seed clouds and produce enough artificial rain to fill one of the country's biggest rivers four times over, Xinhua said. China has created "the world's leading force" in artificially inducing rain to relieve droughts and fight fires, the official news agency said, citing the National Meteorological Bureau.

"Its aircraft alone have undertaken enough missions to fill four Yellow Rivers, the country's second longest river, in the past five years," it said.

Engineers "seed" clouds by burning chemicals such as silver iodide to induce rain to ease droughts, prevent hail and help extinguish fires, Xinhua said.

Cloud seeding helped put out three major forest fires that raged in north and northeast China for 10 days before they were subdued on Friday. And rain was induced in Beijing in early May to help cleanse the capital after a series of sandstorms.

In 2,840 flights from 2001 to 2005, cloud seeding by aircraft brought down 210 billion cubic meters of water over an area making up nearly a third of China's territory, a bureau official said.
The scheme employed more than 3,000 people with an arsenal of 7,000 cannon and 4,687 rocket launchers, the official told a meeting in Jinan, capital of the eastern province of Shandong.

Lake Tahoe Monster?

2006-06-04T22:39:00.000-04:00

If you talk to anybody who's spent some time on Lake
Tahoe, you'll hear the stories - tales of monstrous
creatures that lurk in the depths. There are stories of
encounters with strange, unidentified beasts. In fact, you
may have already heard of "Tahoe Tessie" - the dinosaur
like critter that is rumored to live in the lake.

Well, I think the Tessie deal is more of a product of the
Lake Tahoe area Chamber of Commerce's marketing director
than anything else, but there have been enough accounts of
strange things in the lake that make me think that there
could be something out there.

Every charter boat skipper on Tahoe has had at least one
run-in with something big - really big. I've talked to a
captain who had a 15-pound mackinaw trout hooked, only to
have something gigantic grab it on the way in. When they
eventually got the mack, it had huge teeth marks in it.

Imagine how big something would have to be to try to make
a snack out of a 35-inch fish! Another skipper I talked to
was reeling in a small fish when some leviathan grabbed it
and immediately dove to the bottom of the lake - 600 feet
down. He never saw it, never even got it close.

I've also heard the rumors of giant fish remains washing
up on the shore during winter storms; stories of fish-like
creatures as big as eight feet long jumping, and tales of
huge shapes seen swimming around pier pilings late in the
evening.

Who knows how many of these stories are true but with a
lake as big and deep as Tahoe (more than 1,600 feet), the
mind reels at the possibilities.

Furthermore, consider that Tahoe was once part of an
ancient, immense body of water - Lake Lahontan - which
also covered what is now Pyramid Lake. The gigantic lake
had all kinds of strange and unusual critters in it. Could
something from the prehistoric days survived in Tahoe?

Perhaps. After all, a fish living in the depths of the
lake (say below 500 feet) would be able to escape
detection from anglers, who rarely drop their gear below
300 feet. Subs and test nets have been deployed in the
lake over the years to unlock its mysteries, but there's a
lot of water out there and it would be impossible to see
all there is to see.

The meaning of the famous classical Labyrinth

2006-06-03T14:24:00.000-04:00

By Jerry Vano

Ancient sages new that in the process of the precession of
the equinoxes when the earths polar axes was pointing
away from the center of the galaxy, mankind would fall
asleep and lose the memory of the past. During the
precession when the pole was pointing toward the center of
the galaxy, mankind would wake up and remember the past.
As we go through the 12 constellations of the zodiac in
our trek through the precessonal cycle, each sign is as a
world age and is a copy or image of the precessonal cycle.
Because of this the same sleep process happens in each
zodiacal age.

During the first half of a zodiacal cycle mankind is awake
but about 1000 years into the age mankind falls asleep and
forgets the knowledge of the past. This is a natural
process in the evolution on this planet. Because we are
now going through the last half of the age of Pisces, we
have been sleeping and lost the knowledge of our past. As
an example this is evident in the fact that much of the
knowledge of our past was lost because of the destruction
of the Alexandrine Library.

But because we are on the cusp of the Age of Aquarius we
are starting to wake up. People are starting to see and
understand the truths of the past that have been hidden.
Jesus said, in the end times all mysteries will be
uncovered and you will know the truth and be set free.
The Bible says in a chapter of Joel that God says in the
end time I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Many
people think that what is meant by the end time is the end
of the world, but what was meant here is the end of the
age, the Piscean age. In other words mankind is, as was
said a few paragraphs back, going through the natural
process of waking up by resonating with Gods holy spirit.
One of the examples of how we lost the knowledge of the
past is evident in the fact that we have lost the
knowledge of the meaning of the symbolism of the classical
labyrinth, a picture of it is shown in the following
drawing.

This symbol represents a real mystery: It appeared in so
many different places in the world and at different eras
of time. Pictures of the labyrinth were scratched on rocks
and cave walls as well as painted on temple walls and set
in mosaics on temple and church floors. They started from
as far back as 10000 BC. And continued on until 2 or 300
years ago. Its meaning has been lost to the past. Its
common appearance in so many different cultures through
out the world leads scientists to believe that it has a
meaning of some kind of an important common thread of
knowledge that ancient man knew. Some researchers believe
that it is a "ritual course", confining it to the
religious-mystic field.

Saturn Moon Enceladus Rolled Over

2006-06-01T17:16:00.000-04:00

Saturn's moon Enceladus - an active, icy world with an
unusually warm south pole - may have performed an unusual
trick for a planetary body: It may have rolled over.
Enceladus recently grabbed scientists' attention when the
Cassini spacecraft observed icy jets and plumes indicating
active geysers spewing from the tiny moon's south polar
region.

"The mystery we set out to explain was how the hot spot
could end up at the pole if it didn't start there," said
lead researcher Francis Nimmo of the University of
California, Santa Cruz.

Reporting in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature,
Nimmo's team proposes that the reorientation was driven by
warm, low-density material rising to the surface from
within Enceladus. A similar process may have happened on
Miranda, one of the moons of Uranus, they said.

"It's astounding that Cassini found a region of current
geological activity on an icy moon that we would expect to
be frigidly cold, especially down at this moon's
equivalent of Antarctica," said Robert Pappalardo,
co-author and planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. "We think the moon rolled over to put a deeply
seated warm, active area there."

http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/Saturn_Moon_Enceladus_Rolled_Over.html

HIV infection rate stable for first time

2006-05-31T21:30:00.000-04:00

By Jonathan Fowler

NEW YORK: The incidence of new HIV infections appears to
have stabilized for the first time in the 25-year history
of AIDS, although the global pandemic will still have a
deep, long-term impact, a new UN report said Tuesday.

While the world is at last making progress against the
disease, thanks to a massive increase in spending, better
access to drugs and growing awareness, huge problems
remain, the UN agency coordinating the fight against
HIV/AIDS warned.

In its report, issued on the eve of a UN General Assembly
session on the disease, UNAIDS underlined the dangers
caused by prevention programs which it said in many
countries were still far off-target and inaccessible to
millions of people.

Overall, the HIV incidence rate [the proportion of people
who have become infected with HIV] is believed to have
peaked in the late 1990s and to have stabilized
subsequently, notwithstanding increasing incidence in
several countries, UNAIDS said in the latest Report on
the Global AIDS Epidemic.

However, the agency warned that there was no room for
complacency.

AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was
first recognized in 1981, UNAIDS said, while the HIV virus
which precedes the disease infected 65 million people over
the same period.

Last year AIDS claimed the lives of 2.8 million people and
over 4.1 million were newly infected with HIV, according
to the report.

In 2003 the UN estimated that 4.8 million were newly
infected with HIV.

An estimated 38.6 million people were living with HIV at
the end of 2005, the vast majority of whom were unaware
that they were infected, it added.

China Warns of Toxic Baby Bottles

2006-05-31T21:20:00.000-04:00

Chinese investigators have seized baby bottles made from
recycled compact discs containing dangerous levels of the
toxic chemical hydroxybenzene, official media reported
Tuesday.

read it here:
http://mail.constantskeptic.com/Redirect/www.enn.com/today.html?id=10578

Quote of the day

2006-05-31T21:15:00.000-04:00

I am for those that have never been master'd, For men and
women whose tempers have never been master'd, For those
whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master. --
Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass

Students protest in India over new amendment for 'backward classes' caste reservation system

2006-05-30T08:29:00.000-04:00

The Anti-reservation protests 2006, currently taking place all over India, are in opposition to the 93rd Constitutional Amendment passed in the Parliament of India, which allows the government to make special provisions for "advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens", including their admission in aided or unaided private educational institutions.

In the year 2005, based on the recommendations of an independent political panel[citation needed], the Union government of India (the multiparty coalition United Progressive Alliance led by the Congress Party, under the Prime Ministership of Dr. Manmohan Singh) proposed to reserve 27% of seats in the the All India Institute of Medical Studies (AIIMS), Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and other central institutions of higher education, for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in order to help them gain higher levels of representation in these institutions. This move is considered to discriminate on the basis of caste and has led to massive anti-reservation protests throughout India.

Scientists predict how to detect a fourth dimension of space

2006-05-29T20:20:00.000-04:00

From:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/du-sph052506.php

DURHAM, N.C. -- Scientists at Duke and Rutgers
universities have developed a mathematical framework they
say will enable astronomers to test a new five-dimensional
theory of gravity that competes with Einstein's General
Theory of Relativity.

Charles R. Keeton of Rutgers and Arlie O. Petters of Duke
base their work on a recent theory called the type II
Randall-Sundrum braneworld gravity model. The theory holds
that the visible universe is a membrane (hence
"braneworld") embedded within a larger universe, much like
a strand of filmy seaweed floating in the ocean. The
"braneworld universe" has five dimensions -- four spatial
dimensions plus time -- compared with the four dimensions
-- three spatial, plus time -- laid out in the General
Theory of Relativity.

The framework Keeton and Petters developed predicts
certain cosmological effects that, if observed, should
help scientists validate the braneworld theory. The
observations, they said, should be possible with
satellites scheduled to launch in the next few years.

If the braneworld theory proves to be true, "this would
upset the applecart," Petters said. "It would confirm that
there is a fourth dimension to space, which would create a
philosophical shift in our understanding of the natural
world."

The scientists' findings appeared May 24, 2006, in the
online edition of the journal Physical Review D. Keeton is
an astronomy and physics professor at Rutgers, and Petters
is a mathematics and physics professor at Duke. Their
research is funded by the National Science Foundation.

The Randall-Sundrum braneworld model -- named for its
originators, physicists Lisa Randall of Harvard University
and Raman Sundrum of Johns Hopkins University -- provides
a mathematical description of how gravity shapes the
universe that differs from the description offered by the
General Theory of Relativity.

Keeton and Petters focused on one particular gravitational
consequence of the braneworld theory that distinguishes it
from Einstein's theory.

The braneworld theory predicts that relatively small
"black holes" created in the early universe have survived
to the present. The black holes, with mass similar to a
tiny asteroid, would be part of the "dark matter" in the
universe. As the name suggests, dark matter does not emit
or reflect light, but does exert a gravitational force.

The General Theory of Relativity, on the other hand,
predicts that such primordial black holes no longer exist,
as they would have evaporated by now.

Students protest to postone tests until after world cup

2006-05-29T14:30:00.000-04:00

DHAKA (Reuters) - Hundreds of students at a Bangladesh
university besieged the office of their vice-chancellor
demanding exams be postponed during the World Cup.

The Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
(BUET) had announced exams would run from June 3 to 29,
ignoring a call from the students to defer the tests for a
month.

"We will not withdraw the siege unless the authorities
scrap the exam schedules," said a protester at the
university for 7,000 students in the capital.

The authorities called in police but they did not try to
break up the protest.

"We are giving the students time to go back to their
dormitories," a police officer on the campus said.

Alee Murtaza, the vice-chancellor of the university said:
"We understand the students' sentiments but we cannot put
everything on hold for a month just for the World Cup."

Bangladesh are not in the finals but soccer is
enthusiastically followed throughout Asia.

Quote of the Week

2006-05-29T11:27:00.000-04:00

"It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason
and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an
act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation
to reality at all." -- G. K. Chesterton

Quest for energy alternatives steps up

2006-05-29T11:25:00.000-04:00

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- The future of energy is bright
in Said Al-Hallaj's invention lab at the Illinois
Institute of Technology, and not just because of the solar
window that lies in development on a table.

All around the lab are advanced alternative energy
projects that testify to the war on oil that's proceeding
quietly at laboratories and research centers across the
country.

A tiny two-passenger electric car stands ready to drive 25
miles on one charge of its custom-designed pack of
lithium-ion batteries, not unlike the ones that power
laptops. A research assistant who's working out the kinks
on an electric bicycle motors down a hallway at 20 mph,
triple the speed of the hybrid fuel-cell scooter developed
here.

Elsewhere, Al-Hallaj and another professor are converting
an SUV into a plug-in hybrid vehicle using lithium-ion
cells to double the fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
And a team of students is converting a gasoline-powered
lawnmower to use hydrogen as fuel.

Some of the projects could be manufactured commercially
right now, said Al-Hallaj, research associate professor of
chemical and environmental engineering and coordinator of
IIT's renewable energy program. The problem is cost, which
keeps them from competing with oil -- for now.

"The implications if we succeed are unbelievable,"
Al-Hallaj said. "You're coming up with a solution that is
clean and advanced -- [good for] energy, the environment
and people who are burdened by high prices."

Paratroopers could fly 200km with new wings system

2006-05-29T11:20:00.000-04:00

A new military parachute system which fits wings on
soldiers could enable them to travel to 200 kilometres
(124 miles) after jumping, Jane's Defence Weekly defence
magazine said Friday.

The system, which involves the development of new modular
carbon-fibre wings, will mean that aircraft can drop
parachutists from 30,000 feet (9,150 metres) into an area
of operations without flying into a danger zone.

Trials of the modular wing are being developed by the
German firm Elektroniksystem und Logistik and Draeger.
They are due to finish by the end of 2006, with the entire
parachute and wings combination expected to be available
during 2007.

Peter Felstead, editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, said the
new system has been in use with the German army since
2003, but the development of the new wing means soldiers
can travel much further than the current 48 kilometres.

"The new wing will also reduce the impact of wind
conditions on the jumper and allow operatives to travel up
to 40 kilometres carrying loads of around 100
kilogrammes," Felstead said.

"The system is reportedly 100 percent silent and extremely
difficult to track by air on ground-based radar systems."

Jane's Defence Weekly reported that the next stage of the
development will utilise small turbo-jet drives, as used
on unmanned aerial vehicles, allowing jumpers to be
carried longer distances without jumping from such extreme
heights.

The cold war is not over

2006-05-24T19:57:00.000-04:00

by Claude Salhani
UPI International Editor
Washington (UPI) May 24, 2006

The Cold War is over. The Soviet empire has collapsed. The West has won. The countries of the former Eastern Bloc have nearly all turned to democracy and many have even joined NATO and the European Union. Nuclear weapons (at least some of them) have been dismantled. The world is a far safer place now. Or is it?

read more here:

Richest Russian building world's largest yacht in secret facility

2006-05-24T18:53:00.000-04:00

Roman Abramovich was Russia's richest man
here is his current yacht the Pelorus.... his new one is going to be 475 long. - read more about him here:
http://funreports.com/fun/09-08-2005/1251-Abramovich-0

Clean water can still yield polluted sand

2006-05-24T18:44:00.000-04:00

Sand Can Be Polluted Even with Clean Water

May 24, 2006 By Associated Press

LOS ANGELES Beach sand can be teeming with bacteria even
when the ocean water is clean, according to a study
released on Tuesday.

Health officials have long known that urban runoff
pollutes ocean water with microbes including E. coli and
enterococci bacteria found in fecal material. The study by
University of California, Los Angeles researchers found
microbes can grow in the sand as well, and remain there
long after the ocean has flushed itself clean.

"Even on days when the water is very clean, bacteria is
still in the sand for a week," said Jennifer Jay, a UCLA
environmental engineering professor who headed the study.
"We feel it can be an important exposure route" for
contamination.

Jay and a graduate researcher tested three beaches --
Surfrider Beach in Malibu, Santa Monica Beach and Mother's
Beach in Marina del Rey -- during a storm in February
2003. They also surveyed sand at 13 Santa Monica Bay
beaches from Malibu to Redondo during the summer, focusing
on wet sand near the water's edge.

They found that sand bacteria concentrations at sheltered
beaches favored by parents with toddlers were 1,000 times
higher than at beaches that were open to the ocean.

However, Jay said it's hard to evaluate the health risk
these bacteria pose because health standards for beach
sediment have not been developed.

Old Ammunition in French Fries

2006-05-24T18:14:00.000-04:00

LONDON (AP) - May 23, 2006 - There was more than ketchup
in the fries.

Workers at a french fries factory in northern England had
to be evacuated twice last week because of bombs in the
spuds.

McCain Foods says suspected munitions from the two World
Wars turned up in batches of European potatoes that were
to be processed into frozen french fries.

First an artillery shell tip was found. A day later a
suspected hand grenade was spotted in the taters.

Members of a bomb squad evacuated a hundred-yard exclusion
zone and detonated the antique armaments.

(Copyright 2006 by the Associated Press. All Rights
Reserved.)

Fish species close to extinction

2006-05-21T17:43:00.000-04:00

London - Fish stocks in international waters are being
plundered to the point of extinction because Governments
are failing to protect them, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
has warned.

Species including the tuna and the orange roughy are among
those under threat by illegal fishing and the notorious
practice of bottom-trawling, by which heavy rollers are
dragged over the ocean floor, trapping fish and mammals
and destroying entire eco-systems.

The most emperilled species are within international
waters, away from the protection of national government
control. These waters account for more than half the
world's surface, yet many governments are ignoring
controls on them and allowing pirate fishing to go
unchecked, said Simon Cripps of WWF's marine programme.
Countries such as Australia, Britain and Canada should be
taking more responsibility, setting examples and putting
pressure on other states, he said.

Wall finished on Yangtze River

2006-05-21T17:32:00.000-04:00

Chinese officials and construction workers yesterday celebrated the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, 13 years after work first started on one of the world's largest and most controversial engineering projects.

In a live TV broadcast, workers poured the last of 28 million cubic metres of cement to finish the gargantuan structure, which stretches for a mile and a half across the Yangtze river. They waved the Chinese national and Communist party flags and set off firecrackers to mark the realisation of an idea first mooted in 1918: to build the planet's largest hydroelectric dam across Asia's mightiest river.

More than 1.3 million people have been uprooted to make way for the project. At 185 metres high, 15 metres thick and costing £13bn, the dam is the largest and most expensive ever built.
It has been dogged by controversy since its inception. Now, as the water level behind it inches upwards, the people being resettled in newly built villages on higher ground complain of a lack of fertile farmland and jobs. A total of 13 cities, 140 towns and 1,300 villages will be completely submerged, and thousands of irreplaceable archaeological treasures have or will be drowned in the process.

But taming the Yangtze, which regularly floods when the summer rains arrive, has been a dream of farmers and government alike for hundreds of years. Yangtze floods claimed an estimated 300,000 lives last century, and experts expect the dam will protect 1.5 million hectares of farmland and save hundreds of millions of dollars.

Government officials also say that power generated by the dam is essential to keep China's booming economy on track and boost development in central China - a major concern of Hu Jintao's administration, which has sought popular support by promising to increase living standards in China's poor central and western regions.

Scientists finish sequencing final chromosome - let the cloning begin!

2006-05-21T16:51:00.000-04:00

Scientists have reached a landmark point in one of the world's most important scientific projects by sequencing the last chromosome in the human genome, the so-called "book of life".
Chromosome 1 contains nearly twice as many genes as the average chromosome and makes up eight percent of the human genetic code.

It is packed with 3,141 genes and linked to 350 illnesses including cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

"This achievement effectively closes the book on an important volume of the Human Genome Project," said Simon Gregory, who headed the sequencing project at the Sanger Institute in England.

The project was started in 1990 to identify the genes and DNA sequences that provide a blueprint for human beings.

Chromosome 1 is the biggest and contains, per chromosome, the greatest number of genes.
"Therefore it is the region of the genome to which the greatest number of diseases have been localized," added Gregory, from Duke University in the United States.

The sequence of chromosome 1, which is published online by the journal Nature, took a team of 150 British and American scientists 10 years to complete.

Astronomers rely on high tech software to find new planet 600 light years away

2006-05-20T16:03:00.000-04:00

An international team of professional and amateur
astronomers, using simple off-the-shelf equipment to trawl
the skies for planets outside the solar system, has hauled
in their first catch.

The astronomers discovered a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting
a Sun-like star 600 light-years away in the constellation
Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown.

Using modest telescopes to search for extrasolar planets
allows for a productive collaboration between professional
and amateur astronomers that could accelerate the planet
quest.

"This discovery suggests that a fleet of modest telescopes
and the help of amateur astronomers can search for
transiting extrasolar planets many times faster than we
are now," said team leader Peter McCullough of the Space
Telescope Science Institute.

McCullough deployed a relatively inexpensive telescope
made from commercial equipment to scan the skies for
extrasolar planets. Called the XO telescope, it consists
of two 200 millimeter telephoto camera lenses and looks
like a pair of binoculars. The telescope is on the summit
of the Haleakala volcano, on the island of Mau`i, Hawaii.

"To replicate the XO prototype telescope would cost
$60,000," McCullough explained. "We have spent far more
than that on software, in particular on designing and
operating the system and extracting this planet from the
data."

quote of the day

2006-05-19T14:10:00.000-04:00

"Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where
we may. By attempting to rigidly classify ethereal
concepts like faith, we end up debating semantics to the
point where we entirely miss the obvious that is, that
we are all trying to decipher life's big mysteries, and
we're each following our own paths of enlightenment." --
Dan Brown

BBC interviews wrong person

2006-05-15T13:15:00.000-04:00

LONDON, England (AP) -- The BBC has admitted it was taken
for a ride by a cabbie.

The network has apologized to its viewers for a studio
mix-up that resulted in a cab driver appearing on live
television as an expert on Internet music downloads.

"We interviewed the wrong person," a British Broadcasting
Corp. spokeswoman said Monday while speaking on condition
of anonymity in line with company policy. "We apologize to
viewers for any confusion."

The case of mistaken identity occurred May 8 -- the day
Britain's High Court awarded Apple Computer a victory in a
lawsuit against Apple Corps, the Beatles' commercial arm.

In a reaction story to the verdict that is now circulating
widely on the Internet, consumer affairs correspondent
Karen Bowerman welcomed who the BBC thought was computer
expert Guy Kewney.

Climate Change Threatens Development of Poorer Countries

2006-05-15T13:13:00.000-04:00

Climate Change Threatens Development of Billions of
World's Poorest People, Charity Says

May 15, 2006 By Associated Press
LONDON Millions of people around the world face death
and devastation due to floods, famine, drought and
violence caused by global warming, a charity warned.

A report to be released Monday by Christian Aid said 162
million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die of
disease directly attributable to global warming by the end
of the century.

It urged the British government to lead the world's richer
countries in taking urgent action to curb global warming.

Poorer regions, the charity added, should be encouraged to
use renewable energy sources.

If sub-Saharan Africa was to switch from fossil fuels to
other sources of energy, including sun, wind and water,
the environment would benefit and there would be more
jobs, better health and enhanced opportunities for
learning, the report said.

It estimated that every household in Africa could change
to clean, renewable energy sources for less money than it
would take to pay the region's oil bill for the next
decade.

Developing technology could even transform the world's
most impoverished continent into a net exporter of clean
energy, the report said.

request in 2007 budget to include reprocessing of nuclear waste

2006-05-12T21:02:00.000-04:00

The Bush administration is requesting a FY2007 budget of
$250 million to begin development of a major new nuclear
energy initiative, called the Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership (GNEP), which involves the "reprocessing" of
the used (or "spent") fuel from nuclear power reactors.
The separated plutonium can be used to fuel reactors, but
also to make nuclear weapons. Nearly three decades ago,
the United States decided on non-proliferation grounds not
to reprocess spent fuel from U.S. power reactors, but
instead to directly dispose of it in a deep underground
geologic repository where it would remain isolated from
the environment for at least tens of thousands of years.

While some supporters of a U.S. reprocessing program
believe it would help solve the nuclear waste problem,
reprocessing would not reduce the need for storage and
disposal of radioactive waste. Worse, reprocessing would
make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons
materials, and for nations to develop nuclear weapons
programs.

Reprocessing would increase the risk of nuclear terrorism.

Less than 20 pounds of plutonium is needed to make a
nuclear weapon. If the plutonium remains bound in large,
heavy, and highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies, it is
nearly impossible to steal. In contrast, separated
plutonium is not highly radioactive and is stored in a
concentrated powder form. Some claim that new reprocessing
technologies that would leave the plutonium blended with
other elements, such as neptunium, would result in a
plutonium mixture that would be too radioactive to steal.
This is incorrect; neither neptunium nor the other
elements under consideration are radioactive enough to
deter or preclude theft.

Light travels faster than the speed of light?

2006-05-12T07:17:00.000-04:00

In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed, but now researchers have gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light.

"I've had some of the world's experts scratching their heads over this one," said lead author Robert Boyd of the University of Rochester. "Theory predicted that we could send light backwards, but nobody knew if the theory would hold up or even if it could be observed in laboratory conditions."

Boyd recently showed how he can slow down a pulse of light to slower than an airplane, or speed it up faster than its breakneck pace, using exotic techniques and materials. Now, his team has taken what was once just a mathematical oddity - negative speed - and shown it working in the real world.

"It's weird stuff," Boyd said.
Reporting in the May 12 issue of Science, the researchers said they sent a burst of laser light through an optical fiber that had been laced with the element erbium. As the pulse exited the laser, they split it in two. One pulse went into the erbium fiber and the second traveled along undisturbed as a reference.

They found the peak of the pulse emerged from the other end of the fiber before the peak entered the front of the fiber, and well ahead of the peak of the reference pulse.

To find out if the pulse was truly traveling backward within the fiber, the team cut back the fiber every few inches and re-measured the pulse peaks when they exited each pared-back section. By arranging that data and playing it back in a time sequence, they were able to depict, for the first time, the pulse of light was moving backward within the fiber.

Boyd describes the reverse-traveling light pulse as the equivalent to a person's image captured by a video camera and played on a big-screen TV. When a person passes such a display in a store window, as he or she walks past the camera, the on-screen image appears on the far side of the TV. It walks toward the subject, passes in the middle, and continues moving in the opposite direction until it exits the other side of the screen.

A negative-speed pulse of light acts much the same way: As the pulse enters the material, a second pulse appears on the far end of the fiber and flows backward. The reversed pulse not only propagates backward, but also releases a forward pulse out the far end of the fiber.
In this way, the pulse that enters the front of the fiber appears out the end almost instantly, apparently traveling faster than the regular speed of light.

quote of the day

2006-05-11T22:16:00.000-04:00

"Positive vibrations man. That's what makes it work.
That's reggae music. You can't look away because it's
real. You listen to what I sing because I mean what I
sing, there's no secret, no big deal. Just honesty, that's
all." -- Bob Marley

Alligator Grabs and Kills Florida Woman while jogging

2006-05-11T21:45:00.000-04:00

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- An alligator grabbed and killed a Florida woman who disappeared while jogging near a canal, a medical examiner determined Thursday.
Construction workers found the woman's dismembered body floating Wednesday in a canal in Sunrise, a northwest suburb of Fort Lauderdale.
An autopsy showed she died of bleeding and shock from alligator bites. (Watch as police hunt for the killer -- 1:20)

Ice melting to form desert?

2006-05-10T22:29:00.000-04:00

Ice-capped roof of world turns to desert

Scientists warn of ecological catastrophe across Asia as
glaciers melt and continent's great rivers dry up

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 07 May 2006

Global warming is rapidly melting the ice-bound roof of
the world, and turning it into desert, leading scientists
have revealed.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences - the country's top
scientific body - has announced that the glaciers of the
Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they will be
reduced by 50 per cent every decade. Each year enough
water permanently melts from them to fill the entire
Yellow River.

10 million dollar prize for hyrdogen researchers

2006-05-10T21:13:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs
will be able to vie for a grand prize of $10 million, and
smaller prizes reaching millions of dollars, under
House-passed legislation to encourage research into
hydrogen as an alternative fuel.

read more here:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/10/hydrogen.prize.ap/index.html

quote of the day

2006-05-10T21:02:00.000-04:00

"The Truth lies not in the Yes and not in the No, but in
the knowledge and the beginning from which the Yes and the
No arise." -- Karl Barth

Dolphins Recognize Names?

2006-05-09T19:24:00.000-04:00

Dolphins, Like Humans, Recognize Names

May 09, 2006 — By Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters WASHINGTON — Bottlenose dolphins can call each other by name when they whistle, making them the only animals besides humans known to recognize such identity information, scientists reported Monday.

Scientists have long known that dolphins' whistling calls include repeated information thought to be their names, but a new study indicates dolphins recognize these names even when voice cues are removed from the sound.

For example, a dolphin might be expected to recognize its name if called by its mother, but the new study found most dolphins recognized names -- their signature whistles -- even when emitted without inflection or other vocal cues.

More than that, two dolphins may refer to a third by the third animal's name, said Laela Sayigh, one of three authors of a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"They are known to produce these individually distinctive signature whistles, like names," Sayigh said in a telephone interview. She said the researchers wanted to know what information in the whistles helped dolphins identify each other's names.

The scientists already knew that dolphins responded to whistles, but wondered if something in the actual voice of the whistling dolphin was making the identity clear, or if the name itself was enough for recognition.

To find out, they studied bottlenose dolphins in Sarasota Bay, Florida. Instead of playing recordings of actual dolphins making signature whistles, the researchers synthesized signature whistles with the caller's voice features removed and played them to dolphins through an underwater speaker.

In nine out of 14 cases, the dolphin would turn more often toward the speaker if it heard a whistle that sounded like a close relative's.

"It's a very interesting finding that encourages further research, because they are using whistles as referential signals -- that's what words are," said Sayigh, of the University of North Carolina Wilmington. "Dolphins appear to be using these arbitrary signals to identify another dolphin."

She stopped short of saying dolphins might have a human-like language.

"I tend to shy away from using the word 'language' myself, because it's such a loaded term," Sayigh said. "I still really feel strongly that there is no evidence for something like our language. (Dolphins) have got the cognitive skills at least to have referential signals."

Source: Reuters

Man Rides Horse to Protest High Gas Prices

2006-05-09T15:56:00.000-04:00

ARLINGTON, Texas - Egon Settle says he's riding a horse to
do his errands, as a protest against the price of gas.

Settle says he has saved $565 over the past four weeks by
pulling his horse trailer to work with his truck and then
using his horse to run errands.

Settle has certainly gotten a lot of attention. He says
people stop and shake his hand, and tell him, "I
appreciate what you're doing."

GM is reportedly looking to buy into horse farms to breed
"the next generation of retro renaissance travel" A whole
new meaning for the word horsepower and mustang.

Whatever makes a buck I guess.

The Aurora TX UFO incident - debunked? or real?

2006-05-07T15:16:00.000-04:00

The history of UFO cases is pretty straightforward, as much as the UFO enthusiast would like you to believe otherwise. In the 1890s, people began reporting seeing airships that looked like blimps or zeppelins floating above their cities. The vast majority have been shown to be the product of hoaxes or people looking for attention. Unfortunately, time and exaggeration have blown this phenomenon out of proportion.

Not much happened for the next few decades, until people started to report seeing flying objects shortly after the second world war. This is when the term 'flying saucer' was coined, and no one really knew what was going on. There were a few "flaps", during which thousands of people saw the objects, that concerned the government to the extent that the Air Force was ordered into investigating. They were afraid that the Soviets could use UFO reports to cause confusion in the critical, early stages of some sort of Russian/American war, so the Air Force bent over backwards to discredit everything even peripherally related to UFOs. Even when they couldn't find an explanation, they really went to town to try and quell the publics' fears. Considering that the Soviets were well-armed and deficient in the morals department, I can hardly blame them. Anything that the Soviets could use to even a tiny advantage over us had to be neutralized.

Of course, the UFO enthusiast sees things differently. They would have you believe that it was not crippling fear of the Red Menace that led our government to try and discredit UFO reports; rather, the government is in league with space aliens for some nefarious reason and needs to cover things up. I can also understand and respect this; the American people have a long history of not trusting the government farther than they can throw it. It's healthy to be a little paranoid about a group of people that controls our whole lives and has a giant pile of atomic weapons. On the other hand, thinking that the government is in league with space aliens is based on only the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence. I'd suggest going back to thinking that they're trying to tax you too much.

Anyway, during the 1950s a group of people calling themselves Contactees sprung up. They claimed that they'd been contacted by space aliens and given some important information about how to live life without exploding our planet. Usually, they started cults and bilked people out of money. Over time, the contactees disappeared and were replaced by abductees, who spoke of substantially less pleasant contact with life from outer space.

read the rest here...

Old news about Aurora Texas UFO CRASH from 1897

2006-05-07T15:00:00.000-04:00

"Aurora, Tex. -- (UPI) -- A grave in a small north Texas cemetery contains the body of an 1897 astronaut who was 'not an inhabitant of this world,' according to the International UFO Bureau. The group, which investigates unidentified flying objects, has already initiated legal proceedings to exhume the body and will go to court if necessary to open the grave, director Hayden Hewes said Wednesday."

"After checking the grave with metal detectors and gathering facts for three months, we are certain as we can be at this point [that] he was the pilot of a UFO which reportedly exploded atop a well on Judge J.S. Proctor's place, April 19, 1897," Hewes said." "He was not an inhabitant of this world."

The legend was back in the news! Only a couple of days later, UPI followed up the first report with another from Aurora. They had located a living witness to the event. A ninety-one-year-old who had been a girl of fifteen in Aurora at the time of the reported incident was quoted. "I had all but forgotten the incident until it appeared in the newspapers recently." She said her parents had actually been to the crash sight, but had not allowed her to accompany them for fear of what might be in the debris. She recalled that the remains of the pilot, "a small man," had been buried in the Aurora cemetery, validating the other legends.

The Associated Press now joined the chase for the sensational story. From the city of Denton, Texas came this account: "A North Texas State University professor had found some metal fragments near the Oates gas station (former Proctor farm). One fragment was said to be 'most intriguing' because it consisted primarily of iron which did not seem to exhibit magnetic properties." The professor also said he was puzzled because the fragment was "shiny and malleable instead of dull and brittle like iron."

read more here...

Drunk driver sues person he hit - only in America

2006-05-07T14:54:00.000-04:00

Convicted drunk driver Joshua Campbell, 23, filed a lawsuit in April against the driver he hit, Bloomfield Township, Mich., police officer Gary Davis, asking the police department to pay him for the "humiliation," "embarrassment" and physical injuries he received. Campbell claims that Davis unsafely turned around on Interstate 75 after a traffic stop and that the turnaround was the cause of the collision. Bloomfield police say that Campbell, in addition to having a 0.17 blood alcohol reading, was going 90 mph and that three patrol cars on the scene with flashing lights should have been a signal to Campbell to slow down. [Oakland (Mich.) Press, 4-7- 06]

Astronauts onboard the International Space Station have been observing electric blue "noctilucent" clouds from Earth-orbit.

2006-05-07T14:48:00.000-04:00

They hover on the edge of space. Thin, wispy clouds, glowing electric blue. Some scientists think they're seeded by space dust. Others suspect they're a telltale sign of global warming.

They're called noctilucent or "night-shining" clouds (NLCs for short). And whatever causes them, they're lovely.

"In January 2003 we enjoyed outstanding views of these clouds above the southern hemisphere," said space station astronaut Don Pettit during a NASA TV broadcast in January 2003."We routinely see them when we're flying over Australia and the tip of South America."

Sky watchers on Earth have seen them, too, glowing in the night sky after sunset, although the view from Earth-orbit is better. Pettit estimated the height of the noctilucent clouds he saw at 80 to 100 km ... "literally on the fringes of space."

16000 species threatened with global extinction, are humans one of them?

2006-05-07T14:44:00.000-04:00

Polar bears, hippos and many freshwater fish are among more than 16,000 species of animal, bird, fish and plants threatened with global extinction, the World Conservation Union said Tuesday.

According to the Swiss-based conservation group, known by its acronym IUCN, the number of species classified as in serious danger of extinction rose from about 15,500 in its previous "Red List" report, published in 2004.

These include one in three amphibians, a quarter of the world's coniferous trees and mammals and one in eight birds, according to a preview of the 2006 Red List. The full report is expected to be published later this week.

read the rest here...

Joint US/Japan supersonic jet Project - Mach 2 by 2020

2006-05-07T14:39:00.000-04:00

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and several Japanese firms will launch a joint project with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Boeing Co. of the United States to develop a next-generation supersonic passenger aircraft, business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) reported on Sunday.

The project, due to start this summer, aims to develop a supersonic jet by around 2020 that could travel at Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound, carrying 200-300 passengers, the daily said.

The Japanese firms involved include Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., Nikkei said.

Officials were not immediately available for comment.

The paper said the new jet would make only around one-hundredth of the noise produced by Concorde, the first supersonic jet jointly developed by Britain and France in the 1960s. Concorde was retired in 2003, three years after one of the jets crashed during take-off in Paris in July 2000, killing 113 people.

Woman sets snake and apartment on fire - more dumbness

2006-05-07T14:26:00.000-04:00

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- After being told by her apartment complex that it was not management's responsibility to remover a snake from her porch, a Jacksonville woman set the reptile -- and her apartment on fire.

Shatavia Kearney called the Charter Landing Apartments office Sunday afternoon and asked someone to remove a snake for her porch.

The 19-year-old told police she was told do deal with the situation herself. So Kearney doused the snake with a flammable liquid and set it on fire. In the process, the vinyl siding caught fire and was charred and melted in two places.

The total damage was about one-thousand dollars.

No one was charged and the snake got away.

Excavation of the Bosnian Pyramid has begun

2006-05-07T13:56:00.000-04:00

VISOKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Archaeologists began digging Friday for what they hope is an ancient pyramid hidden beneath a mysterious Bosnian hill that has long been the subject of legend.

The Bosnian archaeologist leading the work says the 2,120-foot (650-meter) mound rising above the small town of Visoko resembles pyramid sites in Latin America that he has studied. It would be the first pyramid ever discovered in Europe.

Initial research on the hill, known as Visocica, found that it has perfectly shaped, 45-degree slopes pointing toward the cardinal points and a flat top. Under layers of dirt, workers discovered a paved entrance plateau, entrances to tunnels and large stone blocks that might be part of a pyramid's outer surface.

Quote of the Day

2006-05-07T13:51:00.000-04:00

"The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of
great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical
interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the
commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in
each new revelation." -- Rabindranath Tagore

Saturn's Moon Titan covered with sand dunes and ice?

2006-05-07T13:46:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Saturn's moon Titan has huge regions covered with dunes, possibly made out of ice crystals, sand or some other unknown material, international space scientists reported on Thursday.

Images of Titan beamed back to Earth from the joint U.S.-European Cassini mission look very much like sand dunes in the Sahara desert, Namibia, Saudi Arabia and Australia, the researchers said.

"It's bizarre," said Ralph Lorenz of the University of Arizona, who worked on the study.

"These images from a moon of Saturn look just like radar images of Namibia or Arabia. Titan's atmosphere is thicker than Earth's, its gravity is lower, its sand is certainly different -- everything is different except for the physical process that forms the dunes and resulting landscape."

The Cassini craft was launched in 1997 and reached Saturn in 2004 after an interplanetary cruise that took it past Venus and Jupiter.

The latest radar images show the dunes are up to 500 feet (150 meters) high and hundreds of miles (kilometers) long.

Dark patches on Titan, the largest of Saturn's 47 moons, were at first thought to be seas -- but now they appear to be largely made up of these dunes.

read about the science behind the discovery here:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000820.html

Bird Flu Cases aren't being reported fast enough... the pandemic could have already started!

2006-05-06T16:28:00.000-04:00

DANANG, Vietnam (AP) - Only half the world's human bird flu cases are being reported to the World Health Organization within two weeks of being detected - a response time that must be improved to avert a pandemic, a senior WHO official said Saturday.

read the article here

World's Oldest stone drill bits found at archeological site in China

2006-05-06T16:24:00.000-04:00

From: http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-4-1/39954.html

Superb drilling technology and the world's earliest stone drill bits were found at site Epoch

Times Staff

In Lingjiatan, Hanshan County of Anhui Province in China, archaeologists have discovered a primitive tribal site that was inhabited 5,000 years ago. Superb drilling technology and the world's earliest stone drill bits were found at the site. Archaeology professor Zhang Jingguo said there are still many mysteries in the Lingjiatan ruins waiting to be solved.

The Lingjiatan ruins are located in Lingjiatan Village, Tongzha Township of Hanshan County in Chaohu City, Anhui Province, covering about 1.5 million square meters. Archaeologists say the 5,000 year old city was probably a prosperous city with developed construction, animal husbandry and handicrafts. Prior to the discovery of the Lingjiatan ruins, the oldest city in China acknowledged by archaeologists was in Dantu Village in Wulian County at Rizhao City, Shandong Province, which was built more than 4,000 years ago.

In the fall of 1985, a Lingjiatan villager by the name of Wan Chuancang found jade rings, stone axes and stone chisels when digging a grave for his mother. That was the beginning of the discovery of these most important ruins of the late Neolithic Age.

From 1987 to 2000, archaeologists performed four archaeological excavations at the site. They discovered more than 1,200 pieces of precious artifacts including: an altar, 66 graves, refined jade, stoneware and pottery dating back to the late Neolithic Age. Among these are the earliest Jade Dragon and the largest stone shovel discovered in China to date.

Only In Pennsylvania - Mother rewards son with pot

2006-05-06T14:03:00.000-04:00

Woman, 30, Faces Corruption Of Minor Charge

HANOVER, Pa. -- A 13-year-old Pennsylvania boy said his mother required him to do his homework first thing when he got off the school bus -- then smoked marijuana with him as a reward.According to court documents, she'd been doing it since the boy was 11.

Police said they searched Amanda Livelsberger's home in York County last weekend and seized marijuana, drug paraphernalia and $600 in cash that she said belonged to a drug dealer. The 30-year-old woman was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Friday on charges of marijuana possession, corruption of minors and other offenses.

Police said Livelsberger told them she also smoked marijuana with two of her son's friends, who are 17 and 18.Police said the 18-year-old told investigators he bought heroin from her.

jeez.... these people should be put on an island somewhere....

Grandmother hands over kid at wrong address

2006-05-06T14:02:00.000-04:00

OMAHA, Neb. -- What started out as a possible child abandonment case in Omaha turned out to be a misunderstanding, police say.

Police received a call from a woman who said another woman she didn't know had driven up to her home, handed her a baby boy and a diaper bag and left. It turns out the woman was the baby's grandmother and thought she was dropping the baby off at day care, but she had the wrong address, officers said.

Police said the incident on Wednesday was a misunderstanding, and no charges will be filed. The infant was placed in foster care for several hours until his mother showed up at police headquarters after seeing pictures of her baby on television news.

Cops pull over car going 6 mph

2006-05-06T14:00:00.000-04:00

Cop pulls over car - on foot

A Dutch driver who was driving along a motorway at just 6mph was pulled over - by a policeman on foot.

The officer was patrolling on the A4 in Woensdrecht when he passed the car, reports Het Laatste Nieuws.

He pulled up, jumped out of the car and ran after the slow car before jumping in the passenger's seat and ordering the driver to pull over.

Police say the 36-year-old driver was acting suspiciously. He was taken to a police station where he was found to be under the influence of drugs.

A Woensdrecht police spokesman said the man's licence was confiscated for 12 hours.

Wars cost a lot of money...

2006-05-06T13:13:00.000-04:00

Iraq, Afghan Wars Cost 439 Billion So Far http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iraq_Afghan_Wars_Cost_439_Billion_So_Far.html

33 yr old man marries centarian

2006-05-04T21:47:00.000-04:00

A 33-year-old man in northern Malaysia has married a
104-year-old woman, saying mutual respect and friendship
turned to love.

It was Muhamad Noor Che Musa's first marriage and his
wife's 21st, according to The Star newspaper which cited a
report in the Malay-language Harian Metro tabloid.

"I am not after her money, as she is poor," Muhamad
reportedly said. "Before meeting Wook, I never stayed in
one place for long."

The report did not say if any of Wook's previous 20
husbands are still alive.

World's Oldest Woman - 128th Birthday

2006-05-04T21:40:00.000-04:00

World's oldest woman marks her 128th
Reuters TV: Oddly Enough
5/4/2006 11:08:52 PM
May 4 - El Salvador's Cruz Hernandez may be the oldest living person in the world at 128 years old.
Read More...

Finally - Bipartisan Bill leans towards conservation!

2006-05-04T17:11:00.000-04:00

Bipartisan bill seeks to cut U.S. oil use by half; one of the few moves experts believe might actually reduce prices.

May 4, 2006: 4:35 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Senate Republicans and Democrats introduced legislation Thursday to cut U.S. oil demand by 10 million barrels a day over the next 25 years and reduce America's dependence on oil imports.

The legislation is the latest bill to be dropped on the Senate and House floor by lawmakers who are scrambling to show their constituents back home they are doing something to tackle high gasoline prices.

Democrats believe voter anger over soaring pump costs could help them wrestle majority control from Republicans over both chambers in the Congress during this November's mid-term elections.

"The high gas prices we are facing today can only be addressed by a serious, long-term effort to reduce our dependence on foreign oil," said Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana, a co-sponsor of the legislation, titled the Enhanced Energy Security Act of 2006.

The bill aims to slash U.S. oil consumption from projected levels: 2.5 million barrels a day by 2016, 7 million barrels a day by 2026 and 10 million barrels a day by 2031.

The United States currently uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day, with imports meeting about 60 percent of current demand and forecast to increase in the years ahead.

Experts have said cutting consumption is one of the few things lawmakers can do to actually bring down prices, with even the head of Exxon mobile calling Tuesday for a reduction in demand.

"It's time we take our energy future out of the hands of foreign nations and implement an aggressive national energy plan that returns Americans to the driver's seat," said Republican Norm Coleman of Minnesota.

"This legislation would put our economy on an oil-reducing diet and push to market the alternative fuels and advanced technologies that will end our oil addiction," said Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

To help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil by cutting domestic oil consumption, the bill includes programs that will:

- Speed the development of new vehicle technologies such as plug-in hybrids and the use of light weight materials in vehicles.

- Provide government loan guarantees and competitive grants to automakers and parts manufacturers to convert existing plants or build new facilities to make fuel-efficient vehicles.

- Increase access to alternative fuels, such as motor fuel made from 85 percent ethanol, across the country by providing funding for alternative fueling stations.

- Provide funds to state programs to encourage motorists to retire gas-guzzling vehicles.

- Provide financial incentives to produce cheaper ethanol from crop waste.

In other energy events on Capitol Hill, Democrats introduced companion legislation in the Senate and House to repeal at least $28 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for oil and natural gas companies.

National Academy of Sciences concludes that physics in America is at a crossroads

2006-05-04T10:01:00.000-04:00

Physics in America is at a crossroads and in crisis, just
as humanity stands on the verge of great discoveries about
the nature of matter and the universe, a panel from the
National Academy of Sciences concludes in a new report.

The United States should be prepared to spend up to half a
billion dollars in the next five years to ensure that a
giant particle accelerator now being designed by a
worldwide consortium of scientists can be built on
American soil, the panel said. If that does not happen,
particle physics, the quest for the fundamental forces and
constituents of nature, will wither in this country, it
said.

"That is a risky investment," Harold T. Shapiro, an
economist at Princeton and the chairman of the 22-member
commission, said Wednesday at a news conference in
Washington.

But, Mr. Shapiro added: "It's least risky path we could
find. To stay where we are is equivalent to folding our
cards."

Failure to build the machine, the International Linear
Collider, in the United States, the panel said, would
force American particle physicists to do their research in
Europe, where a major machine is to come online next year,
and other places, perhaps Japan.

The blow to American physics would erode the base of
science and technology that has fueled innovation,
provided intellectual and cultural inspiration and
bolstered national security over the last century.

The collider recommendation, along with others, was in a
new report, "Revealing the Hidden Nature of Space and
Time, Charting the Course for Elementary Particle
Physics." Among its other recommendations, the group said
the United States should energetically pursue
international collaborations in high-energy physics,
expand programs in related fields of research like
cosmology and underground experiments and take steps to
make a long-term plan for particle physics research and
then carry it out.

Invisibility device close to being invented, or just a paper theory?

2006-05-04T10:00:00.000-04:00

Two mathematicians have boldly gone where no boffin has
gone before and described the theoretical possibility of a
cloaking device, the BBC reports.

However, before the Trekkies among you don your Romulan
cozzies and rush for a copy of the Royal Society
publication in which Nicolae Nicorovici and Graeme Milton
expound their cloak of invisibility, be aware it's very
much a paper concept, currently applicable only to small
objects of a particular range of shapes.

The theory is based on "anomalous localised resonance" -
analogous to the effect by which a vibrating tuning fork
placed close to a wine glass will cause the latter to
vibrate, as the Beeb notes. Nicorovici and Milton say an
illuminated speck of dust (yup, that's the scale we're
talking about), in close proximity to a "superlens*"
cloaking material, would "scatter light at frequencies
that induce a strong, finely tuned resonance in a cloaking
material placed very close by". Said resonance cancels out
the light coming from the speck, and voila! -
invisibility.

At least, that's the plan. Superlens pioneer Sir John
Pendry, of Imperial College London, said of the
mathematicians' admission that "the cloaking effect works
only at certain frequencies of light, so that some objects
placed near the cloak might only partially disappear": "I
believe their claims about the speck of dust and a certain
class of objects. In the paper, they do give an instance
about a particular shape of material they can't cloak. So
they can't cloak everything."

He further explained: "Providing the specks of dust are
within the cloaked area, the effect will happen. A cloak
that only fits one particular set of circumstances is very
restrictive - you can't redesign the furniture without
redesigning the cloak."

Accordingly, we don't think Starfleet Command will be
losing any sleep over this one just yet.

Nicorovici and Milton's research is published in the
Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical
and Engineering Sciences. ®

Secrecy breach by US officials steals thunder of climate change report

2006-05-04T09:55:00.000-04:00

David Adam, environment correspondent Thursday May 4, 2006 The Guardian A confidential draft of a high-level international report on the state of climate change has been posted on the internet by US officials months before it was due to be made public. The move to effectively publish the findings of the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has surprised experts, who say it could undermine the final report when it is released in February. The IPCC's fourth report draws together research over the last five years to predict the likely course of global warming. The draft was sent to governments for comment last month. The draft report reflects a debate that has moved on from whether man-made climate change is real to what the effects could be. It says human activity since the industrial revolution is "very likely" to be warming the planet and "more likely than not" to be behind an observed increase in the intensity of tropical cyclones. It was posted on the web by the US Climate Change Science Programme, a government office that coordinates global warming research, which said it made the report available for "expert comment" to help frame its official response. Its website says participants should not quote or redistribute the document, which can be accessed with a password provided automatically to anyone who sends an email. The office has contacted thousands of scientists, environmental groups and industry lobbyists. Most other countries have solicited comments from a small number of experts, who are asked to judge whether the report accurately reflects scientific thinking. The IPCC process allows individuals to request a copy of the draft report, but requires them to prove their scientific expertise. Staff at the Climate Change Science Programme referred questions to Harlan Watson, senior climate negotiator at the state department, who said: "I find it quite ironic that running an open process would be criticised. What we're doing is providing an opportunity for people to comment. It's not for us to say who the experts are." read the whole article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1766866,00.html

Black holes most efficient for creating galaxies?

2006-05-04T09:52:00.000-04:00

Black holes seem to control galaxy development
BY ERIC HAND
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS - Black holes need an image makeover.

It's tough to feel warm and fuzzy about an infinitely
dense object that holds light hostage, a dead star that
would rip your feet from your head if you came within a
few thousand miles of it.

But it turns out that the bete noires of our universe
aren't so beastly. New research suggests they are triggers
for galaxy development - nurturing nannies for star
systems.

"They're not just Shiva the Destroyer; they're Brahma the
Creator," said Scott Hughes, a black hole expert at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

And they aren't so black, either. Matter that doesn't fall
in gets shot off at near-light speeds in bright,
superheated plasma jets. On top of that, Albert Einstein's
theories say black holes should be creating gravitational
waves, tiny ripples in space that astronomers are trying
to detect, in what could become a new way of doing
astronomy.

First, a quick primer on the two types of black holes.

One type results when stars just a bit bigger than our sun
run out of fuel. (Our sun is destined to become a white
dwarf).

Without the outward pressure of nuclear fusion, the
crushing weight of all that mass turns in on itself and
shrinks to an infinitely dense point. Around that point is
a black sphere of influence known as the event horizon,
the boundary from which even light can't escape.

The second type of black hole - a supermassive black hole
- has devoured the mass of millions or billions of suns.
Astronomers have only discovered a few dozen super massive
black holes, but the consensus is they sit at the center
of every large galaxy. These grow as galaxies merge and
the holes gather up new stars and other black holes.

Washington University physicist Clifford Will is
interested in the special case of binaries - two black
holes orbiting each other in a death spiral.

Einstein's theories say the holes, as they fall into each
other's grip, should emit gravitational waves that
undulate away at the speed of light. These waves have
momentum. Will calculated the equal and opposite reaction
the merged holes experience as they cast off that
momentum. You could say Will figured out how black holes
get their kicks.

The recoil speed - about 200 kilometers per second - is
fast enough to eject the merged black hole from small
galaxies.

"They'd be off floating in intergalactic space," said
Will, who will present the results next month at a black
hole conference at Harvard University.

But the kick speed isn't fast enough to overcome the
gravity of big galaxies. That's good, because that would
have contradicted the black holes astronomers are finding
at the center of galaxies.

In his office, Will opened his laptop to show a picture of
the biggest black hole known, at the center of galaxy M87.
The black hole is about the size of our solar system and
contains the mass of 3 billion suns.

In the picture, a bright jet of gas thousands of
light-years-long shoots out from the hole. A light year is
the distance light travels in a year: 6 trillion miles.

These are black hole paradoxes astronomers are just
beginning to appreciate. "The brightest objects in the
universe and the most powerful cannons in the universe ...
are both associated with black holes," said Craig Sarazin,
a University of Virginia physicist who this month
announced the discovery of the first binary pair of
supermassive black holes falling toward each other.

Sarazin further explained the paradox: Just inside the
event horizon, black holes are inviolable light traps. Yet
right at their edge, gas is heated up and turned into
light more efficiently than any other process known.

Vultures sucking NASA dry? No we aren't talking about the US government either

2006-05-04T09:48:00.000-04:00

Vultures are attacking NASA, and this time it isn't Budget
cuts from Congress....

FLORIDA- Nasa is trying to rid the Kennedy Space Centre of
vultures after the shuttle struck one of the large birds
during lift-off last year on the first flight after the
Columbia disaster.

The space centre has set up what it calls a "road kill
posse" to quickly clear as many carcasses as possible from
the 2400-hectare site, in hopes of encouraging the vulture
population to relocate by cutting off its food supply.

When shuttle Discovery lifted off the launch pad last July
on the first flight since the 2003 Columbia accident, it
hit a vulture during its climb to orbit.

Discovery did not suffer any damage that time, from the
vulture or from the chunks of foam that fell off its fuel
tank during launch.

But Nasa fears collisions with the large, carrion-eating
birds could damage shuttle heat shields, leaving the
spacecraft vulnerable to an accident like the one that
killed Columbia's seven astronauts.

"We need everyone's help," the agency wrote in newsletters
distributed to the space centre's work force last week.

"A crew will be sent to quickly remove the carrion before
the vultures are attracted to the free meal."

About 250kg of animal carcasses have been removed since
the programme began two weeks ago, the centre said.

In addition to picking up dead animals, the space centre
said it was employing other tactics to discourage the
vultures, including testing a sound system that would
broadcast loud noises and spraying a noxious chemical.

Dophin deaths numbers reach to the 400s on the beaches of Zanzibar

2006-05-04T07:59:00.000-04:00

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania — Preliminary investigations have failed to yield an explanation of why hundreds of dolphins left their deep offshore habitat, got stranded in shallow waters and later washed up dead on Zanzibar's northern coast, a scientist said.

"It is a mystery," Narriman Jiddawi, a marine biologist at the Institute of Marine Science of the University of Dar es Salaam, said after studying tissue samples and the remains of some of the 400 common bottleneck dolphins.

Dolphin carcasses washed up Friday along a 2.5-mile stretch between Kendwa and Nungwi beaches. The dolphins had no bruises to indicate they had been entangled in fishing nets, Jiddawi said. A U.S. Navy task force patrols the coast of East Africa in counterterrorism operations. A Navy spokesman ruled out the possibility Navy sonar might have disoriented the dolphins and led to their deaths. He said there were no U.S. Navy vessels within 580 miles of the location in the 48 hours before it happened.

"In the U.S. alone, a person is 10 times more likely to be struck by lightning than for sonar to cause a marine mammal stranding," Lt. William Marks said. Scientists said they were mystified by the mass deaths. "A day earlier, fishermen reported seeing them at sea at high tide, but the next morning they appeared dead," Jiddawi said.

"We don't know why they left offshore waters in such a large number and got stranded."

Preliminary examination of their stomachs indicated the dolphins had either not eaten for a long time or had vomited severely. Their general condition, however, showed that they had not starved, she said.

Experts planned to further examine the dolphins' stomachs for traces of poison, including from the toxic "red tides" of algae. Zanzibar's resorts attract many visitors who come to watch and swim with wild dolphins.

The Indo-Pacific bottlenose, humpback and spinner porpoises, commonly known as dolphins, are the most common species in Zanzibar's coastal waters, with bottlenose and humpback dolphins often found in mixed-species groups. Source: Associated Press

Super Hacker was searching for suppressed UFO data - found NASA coverup

2006-05-04T07:53:00.000-04:00

ALLEGED SUPER-HACKER Gary McKinnon has spoken of his fears of what will happen to him if extradited to the US on hacking charges.

McKinnon claimed folk overreact in cases of hacking that do not match the level of the supposed crime.

"I did not do any damage," he complained. "Lovebug did more damage than my alleged damage did, not just to military systems but to ATMs, hospitals, power grids, all sorts of systems."

KcKinnon is a guest speaker this week at the Infosec show in London's Olympia. He compared his plight to that of Matthew Bevan , who was arrested in 1996.

"They called him the biggest threat to national security since Hitler. What a load of rubbish!"

The decision as to whether McKinnon will be extradited to the United States on charges of hacking into top secret military installations and causing thousands of pounds worth of damage will be made at a hearing on 10 May. He rates his chances as 50-50.

"I'm worried," he said. "I know I've got a fight on my hands."

McKinnon questioned the whole extradition procedure America is using. "The new extradition treaty, which isn't ratified by the US Senate yet, is a one-ended treaty. It is also retrospective, which is against international treaty laws," he said.

"It's also meant to be a fast track for combating terrorism, but it's being for used for people like me, people in finance, lots of businessmen. The US administration is completely misusing the law."

According to McKinnon, the top military brass claim "it's where he's been and what he's seen" that poses the threat.

McKinnon has always asserted that he was hacking to get at information about UFOs.

"I was looking for suppressed technology and UFOs," he said. "I'd read a book by Stephen Greer, called Disclosure, that has expert testimonies ranging from civilian air traffic controllers and military radar operators, right up to the guys who are in charge of whether or not to launch nuclear missiles."
McKinnon claims that he found secret files on the Johnson Space Center's systems, including photos in a proprietary Nasa image format.

He describes a cigar-shaped object surrounded by domes, which looked like it was made from a single piece of metal without any seams.

- editors note - Do you think he knows something that the government doesn't want him to know so they will silence him at any cost? Be careful what you search for, what you find might ruin your life.... maybe he found out about the infamous NASA airbrushing program to cover up UFO's from NASA footage to "sanitize" it for public view

US seeks laser weapon to shoot down enemy satellites

2006-05-04T07:48:00.000-04:00

US seeks laser weapon to shoot down enemy satellites:
report
WASHINGTON, May 3 (AFP) May 03, 2006
The US government is conducting research into building a
ground-based laser weapon that could destroy enemy
satellites in orbit, the New York Times reported
Wednesday.
The secret project, which according to the Times was
partially made public through Air Force budget documents
submitted to Congress in February, would use beams of
concentrated light to destroy enemy satellites in orbit.

The weapon is part of a wide-ranging effort to develop
defensive and offensive space weapons, the Times said,
citing federal officials who spoke on condition of
anonymity.

The weapon would use sensors, computers and flexible
mirrors to counteract the atmospheric turbulence.

"The White House wants us to do space defense," a senior
Pentagon official who oversees several space programs,
including the laser effort, told the Times. "We need that
ability to protect our assets" in orbit.

But any potential weapon applications of the research, if
approved, "are out there years and years and years into
the future," the official said.

Schools to become pop-free - finally something to fight child obesity

2006-05-04T07:44:00.000-04:00

U.S. schools to become pop-free
Last Updated Wed, 03 May 2006 11:22:57 EDT
CBC News

In an effort to combat child obesity, about 35 million
students in the United States will no longer be able to
buy regular soft drinks at school.

Major beverage distributors and anti-obesity advocates
have reached a deal, brokered by the William J. Clinton
Foundation, to restrict the selection in vending machines.

Only water, juice and low-fat milks will be sold in
elementary and middle schools.

In high schools, diet soda will still be sold, as will
unsweetened teas, sports drinks and flavoured water.

Whole milk will no longer be offered to any schools
because of its high calorie content.

The agreement should reach an estimated 87 per cent of the
school drink market, said Susan Neely, the president and
chief executive officer of the American Beverage
Association.

Along with her group, the deal's signatories include
industry giants such as Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and
Cadbury Schweppes PLC.

Good News - Ozone Shows Signs of Recovery

2006-05-04T07:41:00.000-04:00

Ozone Layer Shows Signs of Recovery, Scientists Claim

May 04, 2006 By Patricia Reaney, Reuters
LONDON The ozone layer is showing signs of recovering,
thanks to a drop in ozone-depleting chemicals, but it is
unlikely to stabilise at pre-1980 levels, researchers said
on Wednesday.

Depletion of the earth's protective ozone layer is caused
by the chemical action of chlorine and bromine released by
man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are used in
aerosol sprays and cooling equipment.

Ozone-depleting chemicals were banned by the 1987 Montreal
Protocol which has now been ratified by 180 nations.

"We now have some confidence that the ozone layer is
responding to the decreases in chlorine levels in the
atmosphere due to the levelling off and decrease of CFCs,"
said Dr Betsy Weatherhead, of the University of Colorado
in Boulder.

"Not only is the ozone layer getting better, we feel it is
due to the Montreal Protocol," she added in an interview.

The depletion of the ozone layer, which absorbs most of
the harmful effects of the sun's ultraviolet radiation,
increases the risk of skin cancer and cataracts in humans
and may harm crop yields and sea life.

Despite the signs of recovery, Weatherhead, who reported
the findings in the journal Nature, said people should
still protect themselves from harmful ultraviolet rays.
- from ENN news
http://www.enn.com/today.html

Europe approves new bill for collecting old batteries to curb pollution

2006-05-04T07:37:00.000-04:00

The European Parliament on Wednesday gave preliminary
approval to a new program for collecting and recycling
batteries to limit pollution; the plan is expected to cost
industry at least 200 million.

Representatives of the European Parliament, EU governments
and the European Commission agreed late Tuesday on rules
that have been under discussion since they were first
suggested in 2003, the European Parliament said in a
statement.

Programs to protect nature from the often toxic substances
contained in batteries are to be enacted in all 25 EU
countries by 2008.

The legislation, which affects companies like Energizer
Holdings and Philips Electronics, "will help consumers to
consume more intelligently and producers to reduce
pollution," Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, a German member of the
Parliament, said Wednesday in Brussels.

The new legislation will require 19 of the EU's 25 members
to set up programs for collecting spent consumer
batteries. Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, the
Netherlands and Sweden already have such systems in place.

The law will also ban some portable cadmium batteries and
prohibit the dumping in landfills or burning of automotive
and industrial batteries, most of which are already
collected. The EU wants to ensure that all such batteries,
which make up about 86 percent of the market, are
collected.

By 2012, a quarter of all batteries sold must be collected
once they run out. By 2016, the target will rise to 45
percent.

Distributors will be required to take used batteries back
at no charge. The rules also determine how batteries must
be recycled once collected.

Battery producers and distributors will foot most of the
bill for implementing the recycling programs and educating
the public about where to turn batteries in. The European
Commission calculates that the recycling and education
programs cost at between 200 million and 400 million.
-from Bloomberg News, The Associated Press

113 lost in Armenian plane crash in the Black Sea

2006-05-04T07:32:00.000-04:00

113 die as Armenian jet goes down in Black Sea
The Associated Press

THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2006

SOCHI, Russia Boats laden with dead bodies and twisted
metal sailed into the palm-fringed harbor of this Russian
resort on Wednesday, carrying the remains of some of the
113 people who died when an Armenian airliner crashed into
the Black Sea.

The plane went down about 2:15 a.m. in heavy rain and poor
visibility as it was approaching the airport in Adler,
about 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, south of this city
wedged between the sea and snowcapped mountains.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, and
divers were attempting to retrieve the Airbus A-320's
recorders from the crash site, about six kilometers
offshore.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor general's office,
Nataliya Vishnyakova, dismissed the possibility of
terrorism, and other officials pointed to the rough
weather or pilot error as the likely cause.

Rescue boats battled stiff winds and heavy seas to try to
retrieve bodies and fragments of the plane, which was
leased by Armavia, Armenia's largest airline. By late
afternoon, 46 bodies had been brought into the port and
taken to the city's two morgues for identification.

Outside one of the morgues, about 100 people stood grimly,
rushing forward every time a truck carrying remains pulled
up to the gates.

At Yerevan's Zvarnots Airport, from which the doomed plane
had taken off, other relatives were in agony.

"I've lost my sweetheart, my son!" Anait Bagusian wailed
as doctors hovered nearby because she had fainted several
times.

Samvel Oganesian said his 23-year- old son, Vram, and a
friend, Hamlet Abgarian, had been heading to Sochi on a
vacation. "Why did he go?" Oganesian asked over and over
again.

Twenty-five boats, many carrying divers, were involved in
the search, and a deep-sea robot was to be used to try to
recover the plane's recorders, the Emergency Situations
Ministry said.

But Rudolf Teymurazov of the Russian Intergovernmental
Aviation Committee expressed doubt the recorders could be
found because water at the crash site is as deep as two
kilometers.

The aircraft broke up on impact, and passengers' personal
belongings and plane fragments were found scattered over
an area extending 1.5 kilometers from the crash site.

A spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry, Viktor
Beltsov, said that the plane had disappeared from radar
screens while making a repeat attempt at an emergency
landing.

But Interfax quoted the Russian air control agency as
saying that the plane's crew had not declared any
emergency prior to the crash.

Tsunami watch in effect

2006-05-04T07:29:00.000-04:00

Tsunami watch in effect for New Zealand, Fiji after 8.0
quake off Tonga

Find out more at http://breakingnews.msnbc.com

Quote of the Day

2006-05-04T07:28:00.000-04:00

"Education is what you get when you read the fine print;
experience is what you get when you don't." -- Pete Seeger

Boys take over steam roller

2006-05-03T15:30:00.000-04:00

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - A group of school boys
allegedly started steamroller Tuesday, which ran out of
control and smashed into a school in central Serbia, a
Serbian news agency reported.

No one was injured in the accident in Gornji Milanovac, 50
miles south of Belgrade, but the school was seriously
damaged by the 4.5 metric ton piece of machinery, the Beta
news agency reported.

Officials were not immediately available to confirm the
report.

Authorities were investigating how the school boys, whose
identities were not released, got access to the
steamroller, which was parked outside the school by
workers who were repairing pavement.

The workers reportedly left the vehicle unattended to seek
shelter from pouring rain, and the boys found the keys
underneath the seat and started the engine.

They jumped off the steamroller when they realized they
could not control it, but machine rolled toward the
school, and smashed through the main entrance, hitting a
few walls and before stopping at a staircase, the report
said.

Pentagon hit by a missle or not, the proof from Germany?

2006-05-02T20:51:00.000-04:00

Since the Pentagon refuses to release any of the 85 videos the FBI claims don't show the impact of Flight 77 into the Pentagon, any other supporting photos, OR not one Flight 77 part with its identifying part number, we have found rare photos from a German website (Made in USA as was 9/11) that make it crystal clear that a A3 Skywarrior substituted for Flight 77 hit the front Pentagon masonry wall like a bug on a windshield. What did the Pentagon do with the passengers of Flight 77? You decide what happened for yourself...

read the whole article including more pictures here

The Gospel According to Judas

2006-05-02T20:22:00.000-04:00

Taken from the Skeptic Dictionary - check it out here...
The gospel according to Judas

I gave up reading the gospels long ago and I don't plan to read The Gospel of Judas, but I did watch the hour-long National Geographic special that tried to convince the viewer just how special this disintegrating bunch of fragments really is. The show and the gospel are a reminder that, as Adam Gopnik put it: "religions actually have no fundament ... inerrant texts and unchallenged holies of any faith are the work of men and time. Any orthodoxy is the snapshot of a moment." Christianity's gospels are a snapshot taken by Bishop Irenaeus in the second century. That Irenaeus and other church fathers dumped more than two dozen other gospels means that groups like the gnostics were the losers and declared heretical by the winners. It doesn't mean that the "truth," if there is any in these gospels, can be found only in the four gospels deemed orthodox. Those who accept the four canonical gospels have faith that Irenaeus was guided by God. Nobody knows for sure what criteria he used to choose which gospels stayed in and which were thrown out, except that he considered anything related to gnosticism to be wrong. In any case, many people will probably be amused or annoyed by two messages in the gospel according to Judas: Jesus laughed at his disciples a lot and he chose Judas to betray him so a prophecy could be fulfilled. Yes, the man who has come to symbolize betrayal was actually doing the Lord's work when he turned in his master. Maybe Germany will have to change its laws. It remains illegal to name a child Judas in Germany.*

Vatican Instigated Cataclysm? Evil Pope?

2006-05-02T19:21:00.000-04:00

By Greg Szymanski
2 May 2006

The United States has been transformed "from a beacon of light to an empire with beast-like tendencies," according to Canadian author C.T. Wilcox, as the world is headed "for a Vatican led and instigated cataclysm" while the U.S. population sleepwalks towards the edge of extinction. Wilcox wrote these words, explaining his must read book called The Transformation of the Republic: The Origins of the Religious Hi-Jacking of the American Government and the Truth Behind the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Transformation, said Wilcox, is a 375 page expose of Vatican and Jesuit intrigues and interference into the political structure of the United States and Europe. And according to the author it contains irrefutable evidence, shocking revelations and fully authenticated documentation - much of it hidden for almost 100 years - to support the his conclusion that the American Republic has been hi-jacked by the Papacy through the corrupt and evil influences and diabolic direction of the Jesuit Order.

Read More

New Voo Dooz Dolls Make Vengence Child's Play

2006-05-02T17:44:00.000-04:00

New Voo Dooz Dolls Make Vengence Child's Play

By: Michael C Drake

NY- Spring is in the air and many a young person’s thoughts turn to romance, others turn to vengeance. Either way, Mezco Toyz has a new series of plush action figures that can help; they are The Voodooz. Standing ten inches tall, each plush character features an endoskeleton that allows the figures to be posed in ways previously unknown by plush figures. Clearly, these are not the voodoo dolls of old. Series 1 consists of a sinister quartet of figures;

Uchawi- Perhaps the calmest of the bunch. This figure is for day-to-day, general purpose voodoo. He’s a dependable character with a quiet charm.

Ezili- Perfect for those seeking love or suffering a broken heart. This little intriguing creature features an exposed heart that can be violently ripped from its chest or treated with care.

Kennis- With his giant eye and green color, Kennis observes quietly and yearns to possess all he sees. Bingo trolls watch out, there is a new lucky charm in town!

Baka- Clearly the bad boy of the bunch, Baka can be your best friend or worst enemy. Use him with care and be careful what you wish for!

Each figure comes with loads of accessories, including pins you can stick them with, mojo bones, idols, trinkets, binding twine, accessory storage bag and journal booklet, all packaged in an oversized slide-out matchbox.

All of the figures are carefully designed to exacting specifications so that they may be used for either good or evil, depending on the needs of their keepers. Proud new Voo Dooz owners can trade stories and find additional spells on www.TheVooDooz.com

Mezco Toyz is a toy company unlike any other. Mezco combines humor and horror, with action and adventure to produce the most sought after collectibles and toys on this or any planet. Mezco Toyz is a developer and manufacturer of action-figures, toys and collectibles and has created figures for such high-profile licenses as Family Guy, South Park, Hellboy, Animal House, Blues Brothers, Scarface, and Edward Scissorhands.

4-year-old 'Forrest Gump' runs 40 miles

2006-05-02T13:58:00.000-04:00

4-year-old 'Forrest Gump' runs 40 miles
05/02/06 01:12 PM, EDT [original from http://www.cnn.com]
Cheered by thousands, a 4-year-old boy dubbed "India's
Forrest Gump," who was nearly sold by his impoverished
mother, ran 40 miles (65 kilometers) Tuesday to enter the
country's foremost record book

Travel to Mars in THREE HOURS - new advanced technology

2006-05-02T12:00:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip
IAN JOHNSTON
SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
AN EXTRAORDINARY "hyperspace" engine that could make
interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other
dimensions is being investigated by the United States
government.

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in
principle but is based on a controversial theory about the
fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a
spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to
a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a
report in today's New Scientist magazine.

The theoretical engine works by creating an intense
magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by
the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would
produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a
spacecraft.

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the
craft would slip into a different dimension, where the
speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be
reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in
the engine reappearing in our current dimension.

The US air force has expressed an interest in the idea and
scientists working for the American Department of Energy -
which has a device known as the Z Machine that could
generate the kind of magnetic fields required to drive the
engine - say they may carry out a test if the theory
withstands further scrutiny.

Professor Jochem Hauser, one of the scientists who put
forward the idea, told The Scotsman that if everything
went well a working engine could be tested in about five
years.

However, Prof Hauser, a physicist at the Applied Sciences
University in Salzgitter, Germany, and a former chief of
aerodynamics at the European Space Agency, cautioned it
was based on a highly controversial theory that would
require a significant change in the current understanding
of the laws of physics.

"It would be amazing. I have been working on propulsion
systems for quite a while and it would be the most amazing
thing. The benefits would be almost unlimited," he said.

"But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to
prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a
few physicists who have a different opinion.

"It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on
that."

He said the engine would enable spaceships to travel to
different solar systems. "If the theory is correct then
this is not science fiction, it is science fact," Prof
Hauser said.

"NASA have contacted me and next week I'm going to see
someone from the [US] air force to talk about it further,
but it is at a very early stage. I think the best-case
scenario would be within the next five years [to build a
test device] if the technology works."

The US authorities' attention was attracted after Prof
Hauser and an Austrian colleague, Walter Droscher, wrote a
paper called "Guidelines for a space propulsion device
based on Heim's quantum theory".

More Craziness - Bush and Neo-Cons responsible for Illegal Immigrants protests?

2006-05-02T11:57:00.000-04:00

-editors note: The main question we need to ask ourselves
is why the government hasn't cracked down from the
beginning on companies who hire illegal immigrants to
work. There are plenty of LEGAL immigrants who are
gainfully employed in the US and who are really upset that
illegal immigrants are tarnishing their image. The
government needs to start sending the owners of these
companies to jail if they have illegal workers in their
workforce. Yes... this will hurt the US economy a bit in
the short term, but it will protect American culture from
being converted into a quasi Spanish/Latin
American/American mix. I don't want to get lost in LA
because all of the signs are in SPANISH. If you want to
become a citizen of our nation, have the courtesy to learn
our LANGUAGE and follow the proper citizenship procedures,
either that or annex Mexico to the US as the 51st state,
who cares, but don't "sit on the fence" because they're
sneaking in under you while you do. That is all for me.

the following is from Prison Planet:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/

Today's scenes do not herald 'new civil rights movement,'
only invading army of foreigners

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | May 1
2006

Today's massive immigration protests which are being
afforded lavish and complimentary media attention were
orchestrated by the Neo-Cons and the Bush administration
and represent a fifth columnist movement openly intent on
destroying America as we know it.

The agenda is multi-faceted and includes protecting
government drug-running operations, balkanizing the US and
lowering the standard of living, and inciting race riots
that lead to the justification of martial law and
internment procedures being implemented.

As we reported last month, in late December 2005, Mexican
President Vicente Fox hired a lobbying firm to sweeten
political sentiment in the US towards Mexicans and the
immigration issue. The same PR expert and GOP political
consultant helped George W. Bush defeat Ann Richards for
the governorship of Texas in 1994 and worked on both
Bush's presidential campaigns.

Rob Allyn of Rob Allyn & Co. secretly engineered Fox's
2000 presidential victory and is closely tied with George
W. Bush.

There can be no doubt that a foreign government is working
in tandem with the government of the United States and a
powerful, politically-connected public relations firm to
manufacture consent and to hold back a growing grassroots
movement to defend America's sovereignty.

The LA Times reported that Vicente Fox hired Allyn & Co.
when the rumblings of immigration reform began to be heard
in Congress. The firm was hired to create a mechanism to
sway public opinion in favor of Mexico and Mexican
immigrants into the U.S. at the same moment public concern
over border security was beginning to reach a fever pitch.
The timing is impeccable.

The legislation that Fox found so "shameful" is the very
same that is being protested so vehemently by hundreds of
thousands around the country. The mainstream media's
massive protest coverage kept coming back to a few central
themes: the protesters are against "criminalizing" the
illegal crossing of U.S. borders and they are seeking a
blanket amnesty for undocumented immigrants currently
residing in the country. Fox turned to Allyn & Co. to push
this very agenda.

Comet Break up continues, maybe Earth will be spared, this time

2006-05-01T22:26:00.000-04:00

Comet Catastrophe

Follow the link below and see if you see what I see... I
see a massive NASA cover up... this picture from CNN looks
like a little kid could have made it with a flashlight and
some dust bunnies... I'm glad I'm skeptical of everything
even conspiracy theories too...

New images from the Hubble telescope show a comet breaking
up:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/04/28/comet.breakup/index.html

Devil Day coming - June 6 2006 or 6/6/06

2006-05-01T22:20:00.000-04:00

From The Times (Online);
For one group of expectant mothers, their due date holds
an extra dimension of dread. The prospect of giving birth
on June 6, 6/6/06, has prompted talk of spawning devil
children on Armageddon Day.

How in heavens name did the Number of The Beast get
turned into a date, of all things? Sounds like the
Database Administrator of The Beast applied the wrong
Oracle conversion function: date_armageddon :=
TO_DATE(NUM_OF_BEAST, MMDDYY).

A British self-help group that usually exchanges routine
tips on parenting has turned its attention to the dangers
of a date marked by the satanic symbol.

For Hollywood and the worldwide entertainment industry it
is by contrast a once-in-a- century opportunity to turn
evil into gold. Leading the charge is 20th Century Fox,
whose remake of The Omen, the classic 1970s horror film,
will appear on June 6.

The approach of the sixth day of the sixth month of a new
centurys sixth year has prompted animated discussion
among women participating in the website of Mother & Baby,
a British parenting magazine.

One pregnant woman, Francesca Renouf, said she had been so
worried that she had booked a doctors appointment to
ensure that she would avoid giving birth on the sixth.

Others appeared to take the dangers less seriously. One
woman, Emma Parker, wrote that she intends to call her
baby Damien, after the satanic boy in The Omen. Another,
Donna Magnante, said she would name her baby after Regan
in The Exorcist.

Pollution choking North China's largest lake - still think China's press is censored?

2006-05-01T22:15:00.000-04:00

Pollution slowly choking North China's largest lake to
death
ANXIN, China, April 28 (AFP) Apr 28, 2006
When a slick of pollution in north China's biggest
freshwater lake left fish farms decimated in early March,
locals and environmentalists were little surprised.
Large-scale fish deaths have occurred regularly since the
1980s as excessive amounts of untreated industrial waste
water and raw sewage, coupled with drought and constantly
falling water levels, have left Baiyangdian Lake in
northern China's Hebei province choking for its life.

"When we were kids we used to drink the water straight
from the lake," Liu Zhanbing, 41, a fish farmer who has
lived his entire life on the banks of the lake in
Dazhangzhuang village, told AFP.

"Now we can't even cook with it. We have to use well water
for our drinking water."

This year's fish kill came after upstream reservoirs of
waste water in the Baoding city region, home to about 10
million people, emptied their putrid sludge into streams
and rivers that run into the lake, state media said.

The pollutants, full of phosphorous and nitrogen, sapped
the oxygen out of the blackish green water and when the
frozen lake thawed, farmers found their suffocated fish
floating to the top.

"Farmers who didn't harvest their fish in October, lost
their entire crop," Liu said. "They were hoping that the
fish would grow bigger over the winter and then they would
be able to get better prices this spring."

Liu, like many other farmers on the marshy lake, turned to
fish farming after wild fish began dying out years ago. He
said he barely makes ends meet farming fish, mostly carp,
but there is no other work for him to do.

With environmental disasters on the rise and especially
following a huge toxic benzene spill on the Songhua river
in northeast China in November, the government has
repeatedly vowed to put an end to the environmental
degradation that has come with 25 years of unbridled
economic growth.

For Chinese environmentalists and academics who have long
called for more environmental protection, cleaning up
Baiyangdian Lake has now become a test of China's
determination to avoid an environmental crisis and clean
up its act.

So far, the government response has been strong with 218
polluting tannery, paper making and other factories above
the lake shut down, while at least seven environmental
protection officials in towns and cities up stream have
been fired for allowing the waste water to be released
into the lake.

Upstream reservoirs which have hoarded natural run-off
water for irrigation and industrial purposes have been
ordered to share their water and open flood gates to help
dilute the pollution in the lake.