Americans Blast Muslims With Anti-Christian, Pro-Insurgency Songs

Death Metal Band Stoked To Be Number One On Prisoner Torture Play List

"It's Cool...We're Up To Military Standards Of Audio Abuse"


Anti-Christian death metal band, Deicide, are proud and loud that they have been ranked Number One on a list of songs used by the American military, and private military contractors, to interrogate and torture 'War on Terror' prisoners.

So stoked are Deicide that their song 'Fuck Your God' has reached the top of at least one chart that they've renamed their MySpace to pay homage to torture and, well, themselves :

Deicide : US Tortures Prisoners With Our Music

Here's Deicide's drummer Steve Asheim :

"It's cool. If we're up to military standards of audio abuse, it makes me feel like Deicide's doing our part for the troops."

The non-Christian troops anyway.

Of course this moment is not the only history that Asheim has with the armed forces. "My dad was a marine, as were my uncle and grandfather...I didn't follow in their footsteps since I was so busy with the band thing...."

Some of the tactical circumstances where prisoners may have heard "Fuck Your God" include sleep deprivation and interrogation disorientation.

Strange indeed that Americans would be blasting Deicide's 'Fuck Your God' at brain-rattling volume at Muslims, considering the song is a pummeling blast of hate aimed at Christians :

It is our time to remove the savior,
Christians are weak and the bible is beaten....

Fuck Your God, Holy mother for the whore she is,
Fuck your God, bible thumper preaching threats from hymn,
Fuck your god, his revival and the holy Ghost,
Fuck your god; only tell us what we need to know,
Fuck your god, pointing fingers and then do as me,
Fuck your god, you are nothing and you'll never be,
Fuck your god; it is Satan who in trusts my soul,
Fuck your god, where the Christians are I will not go.

And stranger still is this song choice considering that the 'God' of Christians and Muslims is the same alleged entity.

So who's God is supposed to be fucked here?

Of course, as any Deicide fan will tell you, it's all but impossible to decipher most Deicide lyrics from out of the apocalyptic blast of rampaging guitars and drums usually hammered at cyclonic speeds.

As the Torture Playlist reveals, it's not so much the lyrics that are supposed to break the prisoners, but the chanting choruses and rhythms, some of which you would probably agree would be absolutely torturous to hear 20 or 30 times in a row at jet-engine level volume in a concrete cell or locked inside a shipping container :

Enter Sandman - Metallica

Raspberry Beret - Prince

White America - Eminem

Sesame Street theme music

Barney The Dinosaur theme music

Born In The USA - Bruce Springsteen

Hell's Bells - AC/DC

Stayin' Alive - Bee Gees

Bulls On Parade - Rage Against The Machine

Cold - Matchbox Twenty

Bodies - Drowning Pool

Swan Dive - Hed pe

If the inclusion of music from Sesame Street and Barney The Dinosaur for the purposes of sleep deprivation and general torture confuses you (and you don't have young children), consider that while some of the music blasted at prisoners in Abu Ghraib, in Gitmo and at US bases in Afghanistan was chosen by military personnel and contractors, military psychological operations (psy-ops) also had a hand in song selection. Which probably explains Barney The Dinosaur and 'Staying Alive'. And how many times could you take 'Raspberry Beret' or anything by Matchbox Twenty played at 130 decibels before you snapped?

The problem of lyrical content, and theme, of the Songs To Torture Prisoners By (Or With) doesn't end with Deicide.

From Bulls On Parade by Rage Against The Machine :

Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed tha war cannibal animal
I walk tha corner to tha rubble that used to be a
Library
Line up to tha mind cemetery
They don't gotta burn tha books they just remove 'em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as tha cells
Rally round tha family, pockets full of shells
Rally round tha family
With pockets full of shells

Not exactly singing the praises of the military industrial complex, and clearly a call to arm for those ready to take up weapons to protect their families. Why blast insurgents with a pro-insurgency song?

From White America by Eminem :

(I've been) sent to lead the march right up to the steps of Congress
and piss on the lawns of the White House
To burn the flag....
To spit liquor in the faces of this democracy of hypocrisy

Mmmm, smell the patriotism.

From Born In The USA by Bruce Springsteen :

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone

The inclusion of a song called 'Born In The USA' would seem to make sense, but Springsteen's classic is clearly an anti-war song, even though a number of Republican politicians have, over the years, stupidly chosen it as their campaign theme songs. Springsteen was pissed when he learned Ronald Reagan was blasting 'Born In The USA' at rallies. How ticked off will he be when he finds out Americans are torturing Muslims to his biggest hit?

Hell's Bells by AC/DC is probably closer to the 'get the message' word blast they might have been looking for :

I'm rolling thunder, pouring rain
I'm coming on like a hurricane
My lightning's flashing across the sky
You're only young but you're gonna die
I won't take no prisoners won't spare no lives
Nobody's putting up a fight
I got my bell I'm gonna take you to hell
I'm gonna get ya
Satan get ya

'Hell's Bells' has been an immensely popular song for the American military for more than two decades. It was used as a sound weapon (to terrify the locals and force enemies from their hiding places) in Panama, the Gulf War of 1990-1991 and in the Battle Of Fallujah in 2004.

Drowning Pool's 'Bodies' was a popular tune for US Army tank crews in Iraq during the first year of the war, as detailed in the excellent documentary Soundtrack To War.


Note - Back in an earlier career as a music journalist, I had a couple of interview-conversations with Deicide's notorious singer/bassist Glen Burton. His voice on the phone was deep, threatening and perhaps just a little Satanic. Until, that is, he learned I was not taping the interview, and was getting down his quotes in shorthand. Then he laid off the Satan-voice, and sounded like an average suburban American dad. Which he was. The interview was interrupted by his wife (or partner) reminding him to pick up toilet paper and more milk when he went to the shops, after picking up the kid(s) from school. He had to wrap up the interview a few minutes early because one of his pets was sick and needed feeding.

So little time left in a day to kill God with a family and a mortgage to worry about.

"Can I Go For A Ride On The Projectile Vomiting Mouse?"

Children don't want to see stupid dancing n' singing mice and ducks when they go to a theme park. They want to see things that kids are interested in - like poo, like vomit, like snot, like animals farting.

Forget Disneyland, the Danes obviously know how to put together a theme park that will really capture the attention of bored children. Welcome to Bon Bon Land :






A video tour of Bon Bon Land. Enjoy the human powered and self-operated rides :



But Bon Bon Land isn't the most bizarre theme park, by any stretch. There's plenty more here.

Anyone for StalinWorld?

Climate Change : The Hague Remains Unabandoned

Let's take a look back at some of the MegaHell predictions from this infamous Pentagon report from 2004 which supposedly rocked the Bush White House on the looming, dooming reality of climate change :

· Future wars will be fought over the issue of survival rather than religion, ideology or national honour.

· By 2007, violent storms smash coastal barriers rendering large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable. Cities like The Hague are abandoned. In California the delta island levees in the Sacramento river area are breached, disrupting the aqueduct system transporting water from north to south.

· Between 2010 and 2020 Europe is hardest hit by climatic change with an average annual temperature drop of 6F. Climate in Britain becomes colder and drier as weather patterns begin to resemble Siberia.

· Deaths from war and famine run into the millions until the planet's population is reduced by such an extent the Earth can cope.

· Riots and internal conflict tear apart India, South Africa and Indonesia.

· Access to water becomes a major battleground. The Nile, Danube and Amazon are all mentioned as being high risk.

· A 'significant drop' in the planet's ability to sustain its present population will become apparent over the next 20 years.

· Rich areas like the US and Europe would become 'virtual fortresses' to prevent millions of migrants from entering after being forced from land drowned by sea-level rise or no longer able to grow crops. Waves of boatpeople pose significant problems.

· Nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable. Japan, South Korea, and Germany develop nuclear-weapons capabilities, as do Iran, Egypt and North Korea. Israel, China, India and Pakistan also are poised to use the bomb.

· By 2010 the US and Europe will experience a third more days with peak temperatures above 90F. Climate becomes an 'economic nuisance' as storms, droughts and hot spells create havoc for farmers.

· More than 400m people in subtropical regions at grave risk.

· Europe will face huge internal struggles as it copes with massive numbers of migrants washing up on its shores. Immigrants from Scandinavia seek warmer climes to the south. Southern Europe is beleaguered by refugees from hard-hit countries in Africa.

· Mega-droughts affect the world's major breadbaskets, including America's Midwest, where strong winds bring soil loss.

· China's huge population and food demand make it particularly vulnerable. Bangladesh becomes nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea level, which contaminates the inland water supplies.

The Netherlands is still habitable, and The Hague has not yet been abandoned.

The 'prediction' that bothers me the most from that list is this one :

"Deaths from war and famine run into the millions until the planet's population is reduced by such an extent the Earth can cope."

Is that a prediction, or a game plan?

Controversies Over "Martial Law Concentration Camps" In United States Reaches Mainstream Media

When The 'War On Terror' Becomes A War On You

The internet is stuffed with stories, photos, rants and warnings about the building of 'concentration camps' inside the United States. Many of these stories come from blogs, small independent newspapers and media sites, and might encourage the more paranoid to reach for a tin-foil hat. The problem, however, is that the weight of evidence that large-scale internment camps for illegal immigrants and American citizens are now being built tips the scales on this supposed conspiracy theory towards fact, into reality.

Stories about internment camps large enough to hold tens of thousands of people (collectively), and the nightmarishly dictatorial powers now available to President Bush (and the next American president) are hitting the mainstream American media. For now at least.

A few days ago, the following story was published in the San Francisco Chronicle, and sparked a storm of reader comments, the vast majority of which took the story utterly serious and expanded on the details and scope of a presidentially decreed Police State America :

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."

Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.

According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."

What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?

Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.

Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government." This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.

According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.

A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters ... the list goes on and on.

What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?

Today, a Bin Laden worshiping Muslim-American who buys absurd amounts of fertilizer is a terror suspect worthy of detainment. Tomorrow it may be the ex-mayor who organises local protests against food and water shortages in an Ohio town centre.

The 'War on Terror' hooks state governments and city councils on federal funds to 'fight terror', but what happens when the pool of suspected, or potential, terrorists dries up, and future funding for 'anti-terror' programs on a local level is threatened?

Find more terrorists, or create new categories for what constitutes a suspected or potential terrorist.

The international 'War on Terror' ultimately becomes a war waged by the state against its own people. The more they fight back against ceaseless surveillance, profiling, privacy violations and ridiculously intrusive security screenings at airports, malls and the workplace, the more suspected terrorists there are for the 'war' to be waged against.

American Internment Camps For American Citizens - Bush's Disturbing "New Programs"

McMansion Suburbs Tipped As Slums Of Tomorrow

This is just one of a number of major news stories piling up on how the fermenting deep recession in the United States, along with falling and flailing house prices, are likely to turn great swathes of suburban American 'McMansionLand' into the slums of tomorrow :

Strange days are upon the residents of many a suburban cul-de-sac. Once-tidy yards have become overgrown, as the houses they front have gone vacant. Signs of physical and social disorder are spreading.

At Windy Ridge, a recently built starter-home development seven miles northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, 81 of the community’s 132 small, vinyl-sided houses were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in. In December, after a stray bullet blasted through her son’s bedroom and into her own, Laurie Talbot, who’d moved to Windy Ridge from New York in 2005, told The Charlotte Observer, “I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.”

In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, California, south of Sacramento, the houses are nicer than those at Windy Ridge—many once sold for well over $500,000—but the phenomenon is the same. At the height of the boom, 10,000 new homes were built there in just four years. Now many are empty; renters of dubious character occupy others. Graffiti, broken windows, and other markers of decay have multiplied.

The decline of places like Windy Ridge and Franklin Reserve is usually attributed to the subprime-mortgage crisis, with its wave of foreclosures. And the crisis has indeed catalyzed or intensified social problems in many communities. But the story of vacant suburban homes and declining suburban neighborhoods did not begin with the crisis, and will not end with it. A structural change is under way in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound.

Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, has looked carefully at trends in American demographics, construction, house prices, and consumer preferences. In 2006, using recent consumer research, housing supply data, and population growth rates, he modeled future demand for various types of housing. The results were bracing: Nelson forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.

If there are not enough customers to buy these millions of homes, entire suburbs may have to be bulldozed, or McMansions will have to be converted into apartments.

Americans are moving back to the cities, searching for lifestyles that don't include long hours of commuting and lifeless mall complexes. Town planners are reacting to new lifestyle demands that don't include needing to pile the family into the car to go and buy an ice-cream, or to catch a movie. Americans, apparently, want to do more walking.

If the American Dream was actually the Suburban Dream, owning your own three or four bedroom home on a large block in tree-lined suburbia, it sounds like that dream is coming to an end. At least, the growth of suburban America as typified by 1950s and 1960s television shows and domestic-bliss Hollywood movies is apparently peaking. Smaller families, lower wages, higher inflation means smaller homes for most.

Tens of thousands, and expected to soon be hundreds of thousands of Americans, are giving up on fighting the banks to keep their homes in the suburbs, and are choosing instead to walk away rather than attempt to pay off a home they brought for far more than what it's now worth.

They are simply packing up and disappearing into the night, abandoning their homes to intruders, squatters and the elements.

The rest of the story, from The Atlantic, includes a fascinating history of how in the 1940s, Americans home from World War 2, and starting families, were sold on the suburban dream and how the rise of American suburbia denotes one of the most successful marketing campaigns in all history.

How the United States deals with the long-term economic destruction of the sub-prime fiasco, and how Americans return to the cities and urban centres and what results from such a monumental reshaping of where Americans choose, or are forced, to live will be extremely interesting to watch.

How Hillary Trashed Her Shot At The Presidency



Is it all over for Hillary Clinton yet? Has she effectively trashed her chances of entering the White House as POTUS in January, 2009?

Probably not, but the likelihood of her winning the tick from the Democratic Party as their choice for POTUS is fading by the day.

Americans are clearly sick of the Clintons, as they are sick to death of the Bushes. They know they are being conned by the establishment, regardless of whether it is Democrat or Republican or CNN.

Barack Obama has managed to give the impression, which is hopefully true, that he is not a part, or party to, the power elite who did everything they could to ensure the United States invaded, destroyed and depopulated Iraq, and so very quickly emptied the US Treasury.

Some journalists are not waiting until the results are in, they're already writing off Hillary, and deconstructing how she managed to blow what was widely deemed, only this time last year, to be one of the sweetest and easiest rides into the White House in American presidential history :

She had everything going for her. The most famous name in politics. A solid lead in the polls. A war chest of at least $133 million.

Yet Hillary Clinton now finds herself struggling for political survival, her once-firm grasp of the Democratic presidential nomination seemingly slipping away.

What happened?

Barack Obama, for one thing, a uniquely gifted speaker with a face that appeals deeply to the Democratic Party. He also had a better-organized campaign.

But Democrats say that Clinton, whose central theme is her readiness to be president, also made blunder after blunder. She chose an inexperienced campaign manager, crafted a message that didn't match the moment, fielded poor organizations in key states and built a budget that ran dry just when she needed money most.

"She got outmaneuvered," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist who isn't aligned with any of this year's candidates. "Her campaign allowed her to be outmaneuvered on several fronts."

"To think that someone named Clinton with $130 million could end up here is amazing," another neutral Democratic strategist said.

It's not that amazing. Americans have become more politically aware since the War On Iraq began, and it's not exactly a secret that Hillary Clinton voted for the war, and refuses to commit to withdrawing the troops. Obama said he will bring them home. Considering how deeply unpopular the War On Iraq now is, and how its military bodycount has reached into cities, towns and villages across the country, the knowledge that Clinton will keep the war going and Obama will end it (or so he now claims) might be enough in itself to end Hillary's White House dreams.

The biggest problem of all for Hillary is, of course, that her job is not to end the War On Iraq. Her job is to keep the war going and to keep those hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into the American war industries.

The rest of the deconstruction can be read here.

Obama's Fictional Reality

If you were a dedicated viewer of the West Wing's final series, relax, you're not going mad, the rise of Barack Obama really is spectacularly close to the WW's storyline of how an outsider Democratic wannabe presidential nominee ultimately reaches the White House.

Some of the coincidences, detailed below, are downright uncanny.

But the story gets even weirder. Barack Obama, even before he became a senator, turns out to have been a major inspiration for the West Wing's key final series storyline. Reality into fiction into reality :

Both the real and imagined (West Wing TV show) campaigns have centred on a young, charismatic candidate from an ethnic minority, daring to take on an establishment workhorse with a promise to transcend race and heal America's partisan divide.

But there's a twist.

For what those West Wing fans stunned by the similarity between the fictitious Matthew Santos and the real-life Barack Obama have not known is that the resemblance is no coincidence. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Illinois politician - not yet even a US senator - by the name of Barack Obama.

The result is a bizarre case of art imitating life - only for life to imitate art back again.

In the TV show, Santos begins as the rank outsider up against a national figure famous for standing at the side of a popular Democratic president. There are doubts about Santos's inexperience, having served just a few years in Congress, and about his ability to persuade voters to back an ethnic minority candidate - even as his own ethnic group harbour suspicions that he might not identify with them sufficiently.

But the soaring power of his rhetoric, his declaration that the old divisions belong in the past and his sheer magnetism, ensure that he comes from behind in a fiercely close primary campaign and draws level with his once all-commanding opponent. Every aspect of that storyline has come true for Barack Obama. Axelrod, now chief strategist for the Obama campaign, recently joked in an email to Attie: "We're living your scripts!"

What's more, the West Wing had the Republicans choose between a Christian preacher - a pre-echo of Mike Huckabee - and an older, maverick senator from the American west whose liberal positions on some issues had earned the distrust of the party's conservative base: a dead ringer for John McCain.

In the West Wing, the McCain figure emerges comfortably as the party's choice. Apparently the character was not based on the current Republican frontrunner, but was simply a function of the casting of Alan Alda.

"It was always an inside joke on the West Wing that the show had a prophetic quality..."

It's also interesting to remember that when the final series of the West Wing was written, Hillary Clinton was deemed to not only be the rolled-gold choice for the Democratic nomination but all but a sure thing to win the 2008 presidential elections.

Even President Bush had a few chuckles about the whole "Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton" thing, referring to the fact that if Hillary Clinton were to win two terms in the West Wing, the most powerful political office in the world would have been ruled by members of two elite American families for three decades. Four decades if you accept that then vice-president George HW Bush was pulling most of Ronald Reagan's strings during his final years in the White House.

Barack Obama? It was never supposed to be this way. Hillary had been promised the top job, and it was hers for the taking. Which is why the fight will get even nastier. Which is why the 'Obama Is Gay' rumours will begin, within a week or two.

Camp Hillary has got nothing left. Obama will be the Democratic presidential nomination. Unless, of course, he suddenly develops cancer, or has a brain anueryism, or the 'gay thing' really hits him hard.

I Think I'm Going To Be....

Live TV. Not feeling well. How to cope? Get it out of the way, take a short breather and then get on with it. It's called being a professional.




I like the way she checks her hair a couple of times to make sure there are no visible chunks clinging there.

(thanks to the seven regular readers who forwarded this clip to me, in the space of one hour. Why now all of a sudden?)

Involuntary Wonderland



Hallucinatory experiences are only truly fun when real-life reality doesn't intrude too much. And there's nothing fun at all about suddenly suffering a reality-shattering hallucination when you're drug free, or a small child.

A few minutes of the following kind of 'Alice In Wonderland Syndrome'-generated hallucinatory experience may sound spectacular, but not when you're trying to do your shopping, or get to work :

When it first happened, I was a 21-year-old undergraduate.....

I stood up, reached down to pick up the TV remote control from the floor and felt my foot sink into the ground. Glancing down, I saw that my leg was plunging into the carpet. It was a disturbing sensation, but it lasted only a few seconds, so I put it down to over-tiredness and forgot all about it.

It wasn't long, however, before I started experiencing more extreme spatial distortions. Floors either curved or dipped, and when I tried walking on them, it felt as though I was staggering on sponges. When I lay in bed and looked at my hands, my fingers stretched off half a mile into the distance.

Everything was now distorted, all the time. Walking down the road, parked cars appeared the size of Corgi models, while I'd feel disproportionately tall. At work, my chair seemed enormous, while I seemed to have shrunk.

Seeing the world through a fisheye lens made day-to-day life very difficult. Unable to judge distances accurately, I would often move clumsily or overcompensate. Soon I found it a struggle to leave the house; I had difficulty correctly perceiving the ground, so walking was tricky. If I didn't think about it I was OK, but as soon as I did, I found myself slumping and struggling to walk in a straight line. Crossing the road began to feel dangerous; when I saw a car coming, I had no idea what size it was, or how far away.

Suffering from 'Alice In Wonderland Syndrome' wasn't all bad news, however :

....but there is one part of it that I really enjoyed: sometimes, especially shortly after waking up, I would experience a kind of binocular vision. Lying in bed, I would find myself staring out of the window, watching crows flying over trees 100m away, but able to see the details on each bird and treetop as if they were at arm's length. That particular side-effect seems to have stopped now, and I almost miss it.

Plug Your Brain Into A Video Game

Video games are fine ways to wind down and relax. But all those hand movements required to operate a game's controls are obviously exhausting. It's far too close to actual physical activity.

What if there was a way to make marathon video game sessions a total sedentary experience for every part of you except your brain?

Your dream has come true. Soon enough you will be able to play video games completely hands-free :

Gamers will soon be able to interact with the virtual world using their thoughts and emotions alone.

A neuro-headset which interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain will go on sale later this year.

"It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer," said Tan Le, president of US/Australian firm Emotiv.

"It allows the user to manipulate a game or virtual environment naturally and intuitively," she added.

The Epoc technology can be used to give authentic facial expressions to avatars of gamers in virtual worlds. For example, if the player smiles, winks, grimaces the headset can detect the expression and translate it to the avatar in game.

It can also read emotions of players and translate those to the virtual world. "The headset could be used to improve the realism of emotional responses of AI characters in games," said Ms Le.

"If you laughed or felt happy after killing a character in a game then your virtual buddy could admonish you for being callous," she explained.

The $299 headset has a gyroscope to detect movement and has wireless capabilities to communicate with a USB dongle plugged into a computer.

The Emotiv said the headset could detects more than 30 different expressions, emotions and actions.

They include excitement, meditation, tension and frustration; facial expressions such as smile, laugh, wink, shock (eyebrows raised), anger (eyebrows furrowed); and cognitive actions such as push, pull, lift, drop and rotate (on six different axis).

Gamers are able to move objects in the world just by thinking of the action.

Eventually, this kind of brain-directed activation of electronic equipment will find its way into Human 2.0, the new generation of robots and androids that will increasingly become a part of everyday life in the next two decades. Your brain is wired to the 'brain' of the Human 2.0 so you can see, hear and feel what it sees, hears and feels. And vice-versa, if you allowed the artificial brain to access your human brain.

And computers will want to come down the pipeline and get into your head once this level of interactivity becomes commonplace. The video game will eventually reshape itself to fit your skill level, or to ramp up the challenge levels.

The science fiction era of fear of computers linking to human brains barely exists for youth now raised on computers and video games. Ditching the controls for direct human-to-computer control will not seem futuristic, or too tempting of the implementation of the inevitable robotic overthrow of humanity. It will simply be seen as a much easier and far more practical way for humans to operate their computers and artificial brains.

Here's how it works :

The brain is made up of about 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons, which emit an electrical impulse when interacting. The headset implements a technology known as non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) to read the neural activity.

Ms Le said: "Emotiv is a neuro-engineering company and we've created a brain computer interface that reads electrical impulses in the brain and translates them into commands that a video game can accept and control the game dynamically."

Soon you won't have to pause in the middle of completing another important raid in WoW just to cram in a life-sustaining slice of pizza. Progress!

"Oh, What A Pretty Sea Shell"....KABOOM!

How The CIA Plotted To Kill Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro, the Communist dictator of Cuba, has survived numerous assassination attempts and plots during his 49 years in power. Now he is stepping down, presumably a few weeks or months before his death, you can expect more light to be thrown on the ways the CIA plotted to kill Castro as more warehouses of paper are declassified.

The CIA has killed a slew of elected leaders and dictators around the world, since the end of World War II. The CIA already knew plenty about Latin American revolutionary Fidel Castro before he took control of Cuba in 1959, and they tracked him relentlessly during the next five decades, fermenting dozens, if not hundreds, of assassination plots, while Castro refused to bow to the demands of nine American presidents.

Here's a few of the ways the CIA planned to take out Castro :

One of the assassination plots involved the use of poisoned cigars...in August 1960, the CIA instructed an official to lace a box of Castro's favourite cigars with a toxin so potent it could kill simply by being placed in the mouth. CIA records showed they were passed on to an unidentified person, but it was unclear if they ever made their way to Castro.

The CIA also tried to use the criminal underworld to assassinate Castro....The CIA made contact through intermediaries to underworld figures in the United States hoping they could make arrangements with gambling syndicates in Cuba.

Before the Bay of Pigs invasion, poisonous pills were passed via the shadowy figures on several occasions to individuals in Cuba who supposedly had access to Castro. Those plots never panned out and eventually agents tapered off their communications with Cuban operatives.

A post-Bay-of-Pigs plot was later launched that again involved the use of the mafia, this time using pills and small arms. But when it appeared the operation would not succeed, it was called off.

The CIA later explored the possibility of using an "exotic seashell" laden with explosives that could be placed in waters where Castro was known to go diving. The shell's illuminating appearance, according to the plan, would lure Castro to it, then blow him up. The plan was later dismissed as "impractical"....

The CIA also explored giving Castro a diving suit contaminated with a fungus that would cause a infectious skin disease. That suit, however, never left the laboratory.

In another of the plots that went on until 1965, the CIA devised and passed on poison-tipped pens to agents in Cuba.

The CIA also weighed methods of humiliating Castro, including a poison that would cause his legendary beard to fall out, and a chemical agent similar to LSD that would make him look foolish during public speaking events.

Dying Bees Might Mean Pork Rind Flavoured Ice Cream Instead Of Strawberry Delight

Cactus flavoured ice-cream anyone? How about corn n' soy? Cheeseburger swirl? Anyone?

The Great Bee Dying Off in the United States right now is putting the nation's food supply at risk, claims ice-cream maker Haagen-Dazs, particularly the food supply that goes into their most popular flavours.

If the bees keep dying, and the pollination of fruits and nut-bearing plants and trees becomes scarcer, ice-cream makers will have no choice but to diversify their flavours, to make use of more inexpensive and bountiful produce.

There has been a wave of theories attempting to explain the massive dying off of American bee colonies. Was it cell phone radiation or a mysterious virus? Surely it can't be long now before global warming gets to take some credit for the disaster?

Haagen-Dazs is warning that a creature as small as a honeybee could become a big problem for the premium ice cream maker's business.

At issue is the disappearing bee colonies in the United States, a situation that continue to mystify scientists and frighten foodmakers.

That's because, according to Haagen-Dazs, one-third of the U.S. food supply - including a variety of fruits, vegetables and even nuts - depends on pollination from bees.

Haagen-Dazs, which is owned by Nestle, said bees are actually responsible for 40% of its 60 flavors - such as strawberry, toasted pecan and banana split.

Pien said Haagen-Dazs is hoping scientists get a breakthrough in this mystery soon. Otherwise, she said, the company may have to "re-examine the flavors that we currently offers our customers."

Perhaps they can draw inspiration from this story about bizarre ice-cream flavours from around the world, including chunky bacon, raw horseflesh, carrot and fried pork rind.

Final Heath Ledger Movie Will Not Be Batman Sequel

Johnny Depp Joins Director Terry Gilliam To Finish Ledger's Last Movie, In Honour Of Their Friend


Image from the Just Jared website.

A few weeks before he was found dead from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs in New York City, actor Heath Ledger was hanging from a noose beneath a London bridge.

He was shooting a scene for the new Terry Gilliam movie The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus, and it was one of the last on location scenes Ledger had to shoot. In late January, Ledger was supposed to be back on set but this time acting in front of green screens, so CGI special effects and backgrounds could be added later.

Ledger died before most of his green screen scenes had been shot. But director Terry Gilliam thinks he has found a way to finish the movie, with only half of Ledger's scenes completed. Fortunately for Gilliam, Ledger's character takes repeated trips through a magical mirror, and this 'gateway' now turns out to be the key to salvaging Dr Parnassus and paying tribute to Ledger (who starred in Gilliam's take on The Brothers Grimm). Whenever Ledger's character climbs through the mirror to enter fantasy lands, his character will be played by another actor. Or three actors.

Movie industry insiders in London insist that Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law have all signed up to stand in for Ledger and to help Terry Gilliam finish what has turned out to be yet another troubled production.

So Heath Ledger's final movie role will not be The Joker in the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, but will instead be that of a troubled man who is saved from his own suicide and welcomes the chance to escape reality by climbing into a fantasy realm.

After weeks of speculation and revelations by 'close friends', Heath Ledger's death turned out to be an accident. Despite overdosing on a "low dose" combination of Valium, Oxycontin and other drugs, highlighting just how dangerous and deadly combining pharmaceuticals can be, the MSM has all but dropped the story :

The actor Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs, the New York city medical examiner ruled today.

Ledger, 28, was found lying dead at the foot of his bed in his New York apartment on January 22. Sleeping pills and other medication were discovered near his body.

A statement issued by the medical examiner's office said the Brokeback Mountain star had died after taking a combination of painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medicine.

It said: "Mr Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine."

The drugs are better known as OxyContin, Valium, Restoril, Xanax and Unisom. Hydrocodone is a widely used prescription painkiller.

Ledger's father, Kim, said today: "While no medications were taken in excess, we learned today the combination of doctor-prescribed drugs proved lethal for our boy. Heath's accidental death serves as a caution to the hidden dangers of combining prescription medication, even at low dosage."

The Just Jared website snapped some photos of Ledger on the Blackfriar's Bridge location for Dr Parnassus, hanging from the bridge itself, and taking a smoke between shots.



Here's a synopsis for The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus :

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a fantastical morality tale, set in the present day.

It tells the story of Dr Parnassus and his extraordinary 'Imaginarium', a travelling show where members of the audience get an irresistible opportunity to choose between light and joy or darkness and gloom.

Blessed with the extraordinary gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Dr Parnassus is cursed with a dark secret. Long ago he made a bet with the devil, Mr Nick, in which he won immortality. Many centuries later, on meeting his one true love, Dr Parnassus made another deal with the devil, trading his immortality for youth, on condition that when his first-born reached its 16th birthday he or she would become the property of Mr Nick.

Valentina is now rapidly approaching this 'coming of age' milestone and Dr Parnassus is desperate to protect her from her impending fate. Mr Nick arrives to collect but, always keen to make a bet, renegotiates the wager. Now the winner of Valentina will be determined by whoever seduces the first five souls. Enlisting a series of wild, comical and compelling characters in his journey, Dr Parnassus promises his daughter's hand in marriage to the man that helps him win. In this captivating, explosive and wonderfully imaginative race against time, Dr Parnassus must fight to save his daughter in a never-ending landscape of surreal obstacles - and undo the mistakes of his past once and for all....

More details from an in-depth review of the script for The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus can be read here.

US Drug Recall Delay Cost "22,000 Lives"

This alleged corporate genocide won't be noticed too much. It's main victims were poor, old and sick and Bayer buys a lot of advertising time on American televisions :

The lives of 22,000 patients could have been saved if U.S. regulators had been quicker to remove a Bayer AG drug used to stem bleeding during open heart surgery, according to a medical researcher interviewed by CBS Television's 60 Minutes program.

The drug Trasylol was withdrawn in November at the request of the FDA after an observational study linked the medicine to kidney failure requiring dialysis and increased death of those patients.

It had been given to as many as a third of all heart bypass patients in the United States at the height of its use over a period of many years, according to the report.

Dr. Dennis Mangano, the study's researcher, said during the program that 22,000 lives could have been saved if Trasylol had been taken off the market when he first published his study in January 2006, according to a CBS News report on its Web site ahead of a broadcast slated for next Sunday.

He said in the broadcast that Bayer failed to disclose to the FDA during an FDA advisory panel meeting in September 2006 -- at which Mangano's negative findings were discussed -- that the German drugmaker had conducted its own research which confirmed the same dangers established by his study.

This isn't the first time Bayer has been connected to "experimental" drugs that maim and kill.

International Arms Trade Rife With Billion Dollar Bribes And Threats Of Terrorist Attacks

"We Will Not Negotiate With Terrorists....Unless They're Saudi Royalty"

It's not often you get such insights into the secret world of international arms trading, still the second biggest money churning business in the world, second only to drugs.

Of course, you can rest assured that what it being revealed about the scandalous arms trading affair between the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, American ambassador at the time, is only a few orange wedges out of the whole fruit salad.

Still, it's all incredibly greasy and raises interesting questions about targets in the 'War on Terror' :

Investigators working on the fraud probe into Saudi arms deals were told they faced "another 7/7" and the "loss of British lives on British streets" if they continued the inquiry, secret papers reveal.

Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless the corruption investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was stopped, according to documents shown to the High Court.

Helen Garlick, assistant director of the SFO, told the court that officials from the Foreign Office had told her that "British lives on British streets" were at risk.

She said: "If this caused another 7/7 how could we say that our investigation, which at this stage might or might not result in a successful prosecution, was more important?"

And so investigations digging into claims that the Saudi Prince Bandar had taken more than $US1.6 billion in bribes from British Aerospace were dropped.

Blair was clearly so horrified by the Saudi threat of terrorism in England that he quickly folded, and within three days had called his attorney general and told him to get dump the entire corruption investigation.

What Blair should have done is called a press conference, with the Saudis invited, and then revealed the threat made against the British people and demand the Saudis explain themselves.

Of course that is not done in international diplomacy, and international arms trading when the deals reach double-digit billions. Dictators are forgiven of their sins if they buy enough arms, mass murderers are negotiated with and encouraged to do business and Saudi princes can threaten the British public with bomb attacks if the government doesn't do the 'right thing' when billions in arms sales and trades gets dirtier than usual.

Sounds like the Saudis have more control over terrorists and Al Qaeda groups than they've previously disclosed. Terrorism is the new way of state sabotage and espionage. Governments around the world use 'terrorists' to unleash terror on civilian populations. How many acts of terrorism begin with a memo to a government agency, instead of a satellite phone conversation from Afghanistan wastelands to European hotel rooms?

Play the fucking game or we will bomb your people - the Saudis have a lot of explaining to do. Or none at all, as will probably be the case here, yet again.

After all, the Saudis do have a lot of oil and they do buy a lot of bombs, guns and jets.

Twang!

Like most people, I've often wondered if those classical musicians carrying around millions of dollars in rare instruments live in fear of taking a big stumble and landing on the thing.

Finally, some poor bastard has taken a spill carrying a "near priceless" violin, destroyed it really, and we can take a curious glance into his misery :

The instrument is a 290-year-old Stradivarius, so rare that it would be almost impossible to estimate its value.

"I was all packed up and ready to go when I slipped...People said it was as if I'd trodden on a banana skin. I fell down a flight of steps and on to the case. When I opened it, the violin was in pieces. I couldn't speak and I couldn't get up. I didn't even know if I was hurt – I didn't care. I've had that violin for eight years. It was like losing a friend."

The violin, known by its sobriquet San Lorenzo, is one of about 600 surviving instruments made by Antonio Stradivari.

Too Nude



A 500 year old painting has been deemed too graphic to display in the London Underground :

A 16th Century painting of Venus featuring the Roman goddess of love wearing little but a smile has been deemed too risque for the eyes of London's Tube travellers.

London Underground bosses have banned a poster of the 1532 work by German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, promoting an upcoming Royal Academy exhibition.

The Academy is outraged.

Don't make the Academy angry. You won't like them when they're angry.

It's from a fantasy game, so is it art? Of course.

See the full, far more spectacular, image from Hellgate London here.

Beware Of Bearded White Guys Wearing Sunglasses And Backpacks Standing Near Bridges

You Might Be A Terrorist And Not Even Know It






The Michigan state police department responsible for this 'Seven Signs Of Terrorism' video expect to get some Homeland Security funding to distribute it to more schoolchildren, and they will surely get that money. It sends the right message. Don't just be afraid of people who kinda look like Osama Bin Laden, that bird watcher of Irish ancestry who lives down the street and went to school with your dad could be up to something connected to Al Qaeda as well. What if he has just been pretending to be an avid birdwatcher for the past three decades to 'deploy assets' and mask his real Destroy America intentions?

But YouTube is already doing some of the distribution work for Michigan state police, and has turned up at least six suspects, as one YouTuber explains :

According to these standards I have positively identified the following terrorists. Just to name a few.

1. My landlord
2. Jehovahs witnesses
3. My hockey buddies.
4. The mayor
5. My birdwatching grandpa
6. The new to town parents.

The music from the 'Seven Signs Of Terrorism' will stay with you for days, like the themes from The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror or The Omen. Not an accident.

Each Year, America's 'War In The Home' Claims 1200 Lives, Leaves 2.5 Million Injured

Like most people of the world, Americans too like to beat the absolute shit out of those they love, or once loved :

Every year in the United States, such violence accounts for some 1,200 deaths and 2 million injuries among women, and almost 600,000 injuries among men, according to new statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday.

"One in four women and one of seven men experience physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime..."

Absolute carnage.

Today's Billionaires Shamed By Monumental Wealth Of 11th Century Mega-Billionaires

The Domesday Book, that almost mythological volume of 11th century census data, is now available online and is spilling long-forgotten jaw droppers :

The total value of all property in England in 1086 was calculated at £75,000 - which in today's money would be £1 trillion.

The dozen wealthiest individuals were each richer than any later billionaires in English history, with fortunes ranging from the equivalent of £56bn to £104bn today.

So twelve people owned virtually all the wealth of England, and one landholder owned some 10% of all the land in England in the late 1000s?

China Says STFU To International Olympic Athletes

British Olympics Boss Threatens "Action Will Be Taken" If Athletes Dare To Criticise China

China Says 'Same World', We Hear 'One World'

To the surprise of few, China has told international athletes that if they don't sign STFU contracts, agreeing not to mention Tibet or human rights, they will not be allowed to attend the 2008 Olympic Games.

If they sign the STFU contract and then make any kind of 'political comment' in front of the world's media, they will be immediately sent home.

Interestingly enough, the new clause that demands athletes not speak out does not refer to China by name. That is because it will be a standard rule for all athletes attending Olympic Games in the future. No 'political comment' allowed about the host country.

Which means the same rule will apply in 2012, when the Olympics host city is London.


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The chief executive of the British Olympics organisation thinks China's demands for athletes to STFU is brilliant, and he sees dark conspiracies about freedom of speech, and truth :

BOA chief executive Simon Clegg said if athletes stepped out of line in Beijing "action will have to be taken".

"There are all sorts of organisations who would like athletes to use the Olympic Games as a vehicle to publicise their causes," he told the newspaper.

"I don't believe that is in the interest of the team performance. As a team we are ambassadors of the country and we have to conform to an appropriate code of conduct."

One of the causes being vehiclelised for the 2008 Olympics is, funnily enough, freedom of speech.

Under the new clause, the 'appropriate code of conduct' will mean that American athletes will have to sign STFU before they can attend the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Australia Must Pull Out Of 2008 Olympics If Athletes Are Forced To Sign STFU Contracts


From The Orstrahyun :

The English language version of China's 'theme' for this year's Olympics is :



Only the one dream?

From the 'One World, One Dream' site :

"One World, One Dream" is simple in expressions, but profound in meaning.

It voices the aspirations of 1.3 billion Chinese people to contribute to the establishment of a peaceful and bright world.

In Chinese, the word "tongyi", which means "the same", is used for the English word "One". It highlights the theme of "the whole Mankind lives in the same world and seeks for the same dream and ideal".

One World. Same World.

The difference between those two descriptions of a united world could not be more immense.

Or pronounced.

British Military Evacuate Hundreds From North Sea Oil Rig

"It's Unusual..."

A massive evacuation of an oil rig 160km from the Scottish coast is underway. Some 14 British Air Force helicopters have pulled out more than 500 people, claims this news story.

Bomb threat is reported.

Presence of woman on oil rig noted :

Squadron leader Barry Neilson, from RAF Kinloss, told the BBC: "It's unusual, that's probably the best way to describe it. But it falls within our normal operating procedures and we are reacting accordingly."

He added that there was a report of a woman on the platform who had sparked the incident, but he could not go into details at this stage.

No mention made of likely sea monster involvement.

UPDATE : Incredibly, this full-scale oil rig evacuation has now been blamed on a female worker recounting a strange dream :

"It was complete madness. This girl had a dream about a bomb being on board and she was a bit shaken. The next thing anyone knew workers were being evacuated."

More than 540 workers were airlifted off the North Sea oil platform in a massive emergency operation involving 14 helicopters and the Royal Air Force.

The word of the moment is "over-reaction."

A pitiful cover story to hide the truth about ongoing sea monster attacks on large ships, oil rig platforms, lighthouses, Tokyo and New York City.

They think we'll believe just about anything.

Gorilla Transport



Photo journalist Brent Stirton's remarkable image of a dead gorilla being transported through a jungle in the Eastern Congo has won a World Press Photo Of The Year award, deservedly so.

More Press Photos Of The Year

Go Here For Photojournalist Brent Stirton's Homepage and Image Galleries

Here, Hold This...

When bankers get too greedy, the public always pays :

Gordon Brown’s reputation for prudent economic management was dealt a blow yesterday after an estimated £91 billion of debt from Northern Rock, the troubled bank, was moved on to the Government’s balance sheet.

Shifting the bank’s entire debt, which could grow to as much as £100 billion once calculations are complete, on to the public sector balance sheet will shred the Prime Minister’s “golden rule” that government debt should represent no more than 40 per cent of national income. Experts said last night that the debt had now risen to 45 per cent.

Northern Rock was forced last September to borrow an estimated £25 billion from the Bank of England, forcing the central bank to take control of the Rock’s activities. As a result, the Office of National Statistics said yesterday that Northern Rock must be classified as part of the public sector.

In the longer term, the increased debt could lead to higher taxes or reduced government spending, analysts said.

And how the public will pay :

In the longer term, the increased debt could lead to higher taxes or reduced government spending, analysts said.

George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, said the figure was the equivalent of £3,000 for every family.

“Gordon Brown has effectively saddled every taxpayer with a second mortgage as a result of his mishandling of the Northern Rock crisis.”

And that's the fallout from the collapse of one bank in England.

What happens when five or six go at once?

And So The Sons Of Iraq Were Born...

Iraq's Sunni militias already had a new name given to them by the US Military, but it wasn't good enough. That is, it wasn't marketable enough.

'Concerned Local Citizens' is what these Sunni neighbourhood patrol groups were, and are, but obviously it doesn't roll off the tongue, and it doesn't sound very exciting. The main battle for Iraq War hearts and minds is back home in the United States. Concerned Local Citizens (CLC) didn't look or sound good on Fox News. It was too hard to give the name of those now helping the US to 'win' the Iraq War that real Fox News polish. The spinning logo, splashing out laser-bright reflections and beams of light as it tumbles and reverses. Hypnotically.

At least, Concerned Local Citizens sounded better than the old name for Sunnis who fought Americans and Shiite militias in the endless maze of Baghdad's cramped neighbourhoods. The CLC used to be called" "insurgents" and, more commonly, "terrorists" and even "killers who kill". Particularly by President Bush. But that was back in 2004 and 2005.

The CLC Sunni militia collective has been rebranded, and they've got a rocking new name :

The Sons Of Iraq

Yes, now that works. It sounds like the title of a great action movie, or an obliteratingly hard death metal band. Even better, a video game.

No doubt you'll be hearing plenty more about The Sons Of Iraq in the mainstream media.

Can't wait to see the Fox News logo.

You know it will look great on a t-shirt.

More on this :

The U.S. military has changed the term is uses to describe the neighborhood militia groups that have become a linchpin of the improved security situation in Iraq.

Now known as “Sons of Iraq,” the groups previously had been called “concerned local citizens” throughout the military and in press releases. In recent days, briefings by military officials and news releases have used the new name.

Spokesmen in Baghdad said the change was made because of both a language shortcoming and to make a distinction between two different movements — the “Awakening” groups in Anbar and the local militias that have been funded by U.S. troops in other parts of the country.

The Awakening began in Anbar province last summer, when sheiks and tribal leaders — saying they were fed up with al-Qaida in Iraq attacks and intimidation — pledged their loyalty and their men to the U.S. military. Since then, similar deals have been struck with mostly Sunni groups throughout Iraq, with some Shiite clans following suit.

Whatever they are called, local militias, which are paid and sometimes given uniforms by U.S. troops, have been credited with a role in solidifying gains in Iraq.

Once an urban war has been underway for more than a few years and you realise the locals will never stop fighting, it usually works out cheaper to pay the militias and insurgents not to fight.

At least, not to fight you.


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Freaky Legs

The makers of this advertisement set their age of the genetically altered sports superstars to more than 100 years in the future.

Wrong. We'll be seeing 'athletes' who have used cloning and stem cell technology to reconfigure their own limbs, and alter their physical appearance with custom-made, DNA-unique hormones and steroids and designer drugs, within decades.



The age of near miraculous natural sporting ability is coming to an end.

The market will eventually demand its sporting spectacles be all that more spectacular and put to use cutting-edge biotech to create triumphs of sporting prowess and achievement beyond what is, currently, physically possible.

How could the standard, supposedly drug-free Summer Olympics compete with an event where horse-legged track stars regularly shave entire seconds off sprinting and long distance records, and weightlifters with inbuilt bone braces and new shoulder architecture can literally hoist a car above their heads?

Major sporting events as we now know them, with their anti-doping restrictions and bans on people with false, or new and improved, limbs will seem soon seem so very, very 20th century.

Even before we see super sports stars with the legs of cheetahs and the wings of eagles, there will soon come a bizarre day when any number of professional sprinters decide that the super-lightweight titanium replacement limbs, with greatly improved knee strength and flexibility, are far superior to their own human limbs and volunteer for amputations.

The only reason we haven't already seen such cyborg-like voluntary human alteration (outside of the standard hormone and steroid-based doping scandals) is because there are no major, profitable, sporting events that will allow them to compete.

When new sporting events allow in competitors with new generation eyeballs, legs, chest, lungs, spines and forearms, and let the competitors use performance-enhancing drugs, the major self-mutilation for the sake of sporting fame will begin.

Another generation on and DNA-screened infants will be chosen from birth to become genetically-altered athletes. There will be outrage, and protests, but if the 'athletes' look more like supermen than living freaks they will become immensely popular.

This technology is racing towards us faster than our capacity to adjust and understand that the next phase of human evolution will be guided by human minds and creativity, not simply nature. And not in a hundred years, but in 30 years, or ten years, or tomorrow.

Fox News Treads Lightly On Willie Nelson's 9/11 Comments

Drudge Report Pulls 'Willie Nelson Disputes 9/11 Official Story' Headline In 20 Minutes



In its first piece of reporting on Willie Nelson's statement that he doesn't believe that three World Trade Centre towers collapsed on September 11, 2001, due to fire damage, Fox News plays it very, very safe indeed :

Texas icon Willie Nelson said on a nationally syndicated radio show this week that he questions the official story of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City.

"I certainly do," Nelson said Monday when asked by talk show host Alex Jones if he questions the official story.

"I saw those towers fall and I've seen an implosion in Las Vegas, there's too much similarities between the two. And I saw the building fall that didn't get hit by nothing," the singer-songwriter said. "So, how naive are we, you know, what do they think we'll go for?"

On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked planes, crashing them into each of the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York City, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

Nelson, who turns 75 this year, said if he were president, he would "stop the damn war, it's just that simple."

"The way I heard it, the 15 people from Saudi Arabia hit us in New York and we go jump on Afghanistan," Nelson said. "I never could figure that one out in Iraq."

Nelson's publicist would not comment on the remarks.

Jones, an Austin-based talk show host on the Burnsville, Minn., Genesis Communications Network, is sometimes described as a "conspiracy theorist." He regularly rails against globalism, the United Nations and World Bank on satellite and Internet radio.

The standard response from conservative Bush and NeoCon aligned media and bloggers will be, of course, that Willie Nelson smokes pot.

And Nelson is a "Texas icon"? How about American icon? Or one of the most successful American recording artists in history?

Fox News and other mainstream corporate media won't be so ready and willing to smear Willie Nelson for raising reasonable questions about the 9/11 attacks, as they did when Charlie Sheen and Rosie O'Donnell aired their doubts on the official story.

Willie Nelson is widely respected and admired in the United States for his work with Farm Aid relief and numerous charity concerts and events aimed at helping the millions of poverty stricken farmers and rural residents of the American mid-west.

Nelson's comments come in the same week that 9/11 widows renew calls for a more independent and thorough investigation of the terrorist attacks that led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the news that the 2004 9/11 Commission's integrity was polluted by interference from President Bush's advisor Karl Rove and other BushCo. NeoCon operatives.


The Drudge Report listed the Willie Nelson-9/11 headline on its main page, and tagged it as a 'developing story', meaning there would be follow-up reports. Within 20 minutes, the headline had been dumped and no follow-up headline or story link appeared :



So what is Matt Drudge so afraid of?

Humans Preferring Video Games To Nature

More and more we are locking ourselves away in our house bubbles watching TV, DVDs, on the internet and playing video games. Nature is having a hard time competing with virtual reality for our attention :

As people spend more time communing with their televisions and computers, the impact is not just on their health, researchers say. Less time spent outdoors means less contact with nature and, eventually, less interest in conservation and parks.

Camping, fishing and per capita visits to parks are all declining in a shift away from nature-based recreation, researchers report in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Declining nature participation has crucial implications for current conservation efforts," wrote co-authors Oliver R. W. Pergams and Patricia A. Zaradic. "We think it probable than any major decline in the value placed on natural areas and experiences will greatly reduce the value people place on biodiversity conservation."

"The replacement of vigorous outdoor activities by sedentary, indoor videophilia has far-reaching consequences for physical and mental health, especially in children," Pergams said in a statement. "Videophilia has been shown to be a cause of obesity, lack of socialization, attention disorders and poor academic performance."

By studying visits to national and state park and the issuance of hunting and fishing licenses the researchers documented declines of between 18 percent and 25 percent in various types of outdoor recreation.

The decline, found in both the United States and Japan, appears to have begun in the 1980s and 1990s, the period of rapid growth of video games, they said.

It's not a fair fight. How can a stretch of not-so-majestic bushland ever hope to compete with Halo 3 or a DVD box set of the Trailer Park Boys?

Is A Six Pack On A Riot Police Suit Really Necessary?



Did Peru's security services hire Marvel Comics artists to design their new riot police suits?

They forgot to include nipples.

Mossad : Iran Will Have Nuclear Weapons In Three Years

Add this to the already long list of warnings from Mossad and hawk-minded Israeli politicians on just when Iran will finally get nuclear weapons.

Iran will have nukes in six months, one year, two years, five years, six months ago, they've already got 'em, they're just about to get 'em, they want 'em, they will get them from North Korea, they will get them from Syria, they will get them from Hezbollah, they will get them from Russia, from Pakistan, from Brotherhood smugglers, from international Islamofascist suitcase nuke traders...

Israel's Mossad spy agency estimates Iran will develop a nuclear weapon within three years...

Mossad director Meir Dagan, in an intelligence assessment presented to Israel's powerful foreign affairs and defence committee on Monday, said the Jewish state would face increased threats on all fronts, Maariv daily said.

But of course. And that will require a larger multi-billion dollar annual defence funding package from the next US president.

Dagan's estimate of Iran's nuclear ambitions differs sharply from an assessment by the US intelligence community late last year that said Iran had mothballed its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

That report compiled by 16 US intelligence agencies said the Islamic republic would not be able to attain a nuclear weapon until 2015.

Israel has questioned those findings, claiming that although Iran may have temporarily halted its nuclear drive five years ago it has since relaunched it while pressing ahead with a public uranium enrichment programme.

Tehran has always insisted its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

Israel is yet to come clean on its own nuclear arsenal, widely estimated to include some 200 warheads, despite numerous demands from the United Nations in the past two decades to tell the truth.

As with Iraq's alleged stockpile of WMDs in 2002, no intelligence agency, including Mossad, has been able to provide any proof to back up its claims that Iran has, or is developing, nuclear weapons.

It doesn't mean they aren't, but the essential question is not "When?" but "Where's The Proof?"

An attack on Iran by the United States and/or Israel will bring China and Russia into a global conflict far beyond the scope, destruction and death toll of the 'War on Terror'.

BushCo. Firms Up $30 Billion In Defence 'Aid' For Israel

Majority Of Brits Believe Sherlock Homes Was Real, 25% Think Winston Churchill Was Fiction

They are the kind of survey results that induce spontaneous projectile vomiting in historians, and make retired school teachers cringe and reach for the Scotch :

Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.

Reality is fiction, fiction is reality.

Willie Nelson On 9/11 : Twin Towers Fell Like An Imploded Las Vegas Casino



American country music icon Willie Nelson went on national radio yesterday, only hours after an appearance at the Superbowl, watched by tens of millions of Americans, and aired his opinions on the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington DC and New York City.

"I saw those towers fall and I've seen an implosion in Las Vegas - there's too much similarities between the two, and I saw a building fall (WTC 7) that didn't get hit by nothing,"

"How naive are we - what do they think we'll go for?"

"I saw one fall and it was just so symmetrical, I said wait a minute I just saw that last week at the casino in Las Vegas and you see these implosions all the time and the next one fell and I said hell there's another one - and they're trying to tell me that an airplane did it and I can't go along with that."

"What does it take for us to realize we're having the wool pulled over our eyes...?"

Excerpts from the interview have been picked up by the Drudge Report offshoot Breitbart.

Expect hysterical smearing of Willie Nelson by the mainstream media to begin soon, unless they choose to completely ignore his remarks.

You can hear the full Willie Nelson interview here.


Nelson Fears US Presidential Elections Could Be Canceled, Bush Stays In White House For Another Decade

Just Because It's From A Supermarket Freezer, Doesn't Mean It's Bad For You

There were stories on the evening tabloid current affairs shows in Sydney, a few weeks back, detailing how 'fresh' fruit on the shelves of supermarkets and veggie shops were up to ten months old. Apples that had spent most of 2007 in cold storage, but had been waxed and sprayed and buffed to look like they had just fallen from a tree out back.

If those seeking 'fresh' fruit had headed over to the freezer aisle instead, they would have found frozen apple pies and bags of berries that were many months younger, and had not been leeched of most their goodness.

The same also goes for a lot of what passes for 'fresh' vegetables, even in the biggest supermarket chains. If you really want some fresh vegetables, in most cases you'd be better off loading up on some bags of frozen corn, broccoli and peas. Frozen vegetables are usually sealed into their bags within days of coming off the farms.

But that head of lettuce you've picked up in the 'fresh' veggies aisle might be older than the tub of forgotten yohgurt in the back of your fridge which is now developing consciousness.

With the slew of cooking shows guilt-tripping busy parents and young couples into spending an hour in the kitchen every night reducing stock and grinding up their own Cajun spices, it's easy to believe that what you see the TV cooks creating in "just a few minutes" must be healthier than the bowl of pre-gravied frozen veggies you've prepared in just one single ad break.

That, too, is another food myth that needs to be busted :

...experts in nutrition pleaded for greater tolerance of the ready meal as a necessary constituent of the modern diet. "Convenience foods are a fact of 21st century living and fill a need in today's busy hectic and demanding lifestyles. They help to create time," said Becky Laing, a scientist at the Medical Research Council's Human Nutrition Unit.

The average amount of time spent preparing food (in England) has slipped to 20 minutes a day compared with two hours a day in 1980, according to a Department of Health report.

In two-thirds of families both parents now work outside the home, up from half in 1980, and for many working hours have lengthened and journey times increased. Ms Laing said: "As a nutritionist I know that some convenience foods are healthy. But as a mother I feel bombarded with messages to do home cooking for my family.

Though some convenience foods were rightly termed junk food because they were high in fat, sugar and salt, many others were not. Frozen fruits and vegetables were the perfect example of a healthy convenience food – quick from the freezer, readily available and often higher in nutrients than fresh produce which had been stored.

It was the ingredients that determined whether a meal was healthy or unhealthy, not whether it was bought from a supermarket or prepared at home.

Ms Laing said: "Convenience foods come in all shapes and sizes. If we continue to press the message that it is impossible to eat healthily while using convenience foods then we simply make healthy eating unattainable. Instead we need to press manufacturers to develop more healthy but convenient options – and we need to encourage people to read the labels and look at what they buy."

Unfortunately, adding extra butter and cheese to a Deluxe Kraft Macaroni And Cheese doesn't qualify as healthy eating. Curses.

If you want guaranteed fresh veggies, but you don't want anything frozen, you can always grow your own.

The couple of hours you spend a week watching TV cooks ladelling cream and forklifting great chunks of cheese into their food-stylist touched up meals (Jamie Oliver has more food stylists than camera crew) is time enough to maintain a steady supply of carrots, beans, lettuce and tomatoes in old tubs on your apartment balcony, or in a raised garden bed in your backyard.

Our grandparents were really onto something.

Because It's There





An awesome animation of the Mars Rover mission, from Earth to the red planet's surface, set to the equally awesome 'Sunspots' by Nine Inch Nails.

No More Tears : High Tech Onion Scientists Ignore Low-Tech Solution

Scientists in New Zealand have developed an onion, they claim, doesn't cause tears when you slice it :

...they have developed a tearless onion by switching off the gene behind the enzyme that makes us cry at the chopping board. The tearless onion appears just like the ordinary garden variety vegetable but has been engineered not to disturb the lachrymal glands of the eye, which secrete tears.

Or you can just keep your normal onions in the fridge instead. That works fine. The tearless onions are more than a decade away.

Here's my favourite part of the story :

The international trade journal Onion World devoted a cover story to the tearless onion. It quoted Michael Harvey, a horticultural professor at the University of Wisconsin, as saying that the onions will become the fare of kitchen tables around the world.

Onion World! A magazine devoted to onions!

And here it is :



Unfortunately, I couldn't find a trade journal devoted exclusively to broccoli. A gap in the publishing market?

Three Separate Internet Cables Cut In 'Accidents'?

Iran's Internet Access Cut

The story goes that a ship's anchor is responsible for the cutting of an internet cable that has delivered drops in service of some 75% to Egypt and India, in particular. And now Iran is offline as well :

The first cable - the Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) - was cut at 0800 on 30 January, the firm said.

A second cable thought to lie alongside it - SEA-ME-WE 4, or the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 cable - was also split.

FLAG is a 28,000km (17,400 mile) long submarine communications cable that links Australia and Japan with Europe via India and the Middle East. SEA-ME-WE 4 is a submarine cable linking South East Asia to Europe via the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.

The two cable cuts meant that the only cable in service connecting Europe to the Middle East via Egypt was the older Sea-M-We 3 system, according to research firm TeleGeography.

The firm said the cuts reduced the amount of available capacity on the stretch of network between India and Europe by 75% percent.

As a result, carriers in Egypt and the Middle East re-routed their European traffic around the globe, through South East Asia and across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Some other headlines :

Internet outages seen across Middle East

Internet Slowdowns Hamper India's Financial And Online Services Industries

Badly Damaged Undersea Internet Cable Cripples India, Middle East, Large Parts Of Asia

India's Outsourcing Sector Hit Hard By Cut To Internet Cable

Here's a map of the world's internet cables :


The blow-up of the map, with readable details, can be viewed here.

It's incredible how vulnerable we have left ourselves to the combination of an undersea cable and a ship's anchor.

During World War I and World War 2, great effort was expended on all sides trying to cut undersea cables used for telegraphic communications. You would presume that in our new world war that such efforts to damage the enemy, or enemies, would remain a threat.

UPDATE : This is starting to sound like anything but an accident :

An undersea cable carrying Internet traffic was cut off the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, officials said Friday, the third loss of a line carrying Internet and telephone traffic in three days.

Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.

Could such valuable, vital cables really be that easy to break with anchors from fishing boats?

According to this report, the internet cables are very thick, steel reinforced and heavily anchored to the seabed. Some cables are buried under the seabed.

Is something big about to happen in the Middle East that requires cuts in communications?

UPDATE : More on the unlikelihood that ship's anchors are responsible for the latest internet cable being cut in the Persian Gulf :

Omar Sultan, chief executive of Dubai's IPS DU, said the incident was "very unusual." He said it wasn't known how the underwater FLAG FALCON cable, stretching between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, had been damaged.

Old Memories Flow Like Movies In The Mind

Anyone over 40 would probably pay good money to have this experience :

A surprise side-effect of experimental deep-brain stimulation surgery, intended to suppress a 50-year-old man's appetite, instead stimulated his memory, producing a vivid recollection of an experience in his life three decades earlier.

Researchers were trying to identify potential appetite-suppressant sites in the hypothalmus area of the brain using electrode implants when the patient reported a sudden feeling of déjà vu.

The man recalled in detail a memory from 30 years earlier, and as the intensity of the current increased, so did the detail of the memory.

Professor Lozano said: "He reported the experience of being in a park with friends from when he was around 20 years old, and as the intensity of stimulation increased, the details became more vivid.

"He recognised his girlfriend. The scene was in colour. People were wearing identifiable clothes and were talking."

I can think of about 200 rock gigs I was lucky enough to attend in my early 20s that I would love to go back and relive, due to great swathes of the memory bank being depleted due to....well, that's not important. Re-experiencing vivid memories of long-departed family members, school days, childhood adventures and early encounters with women would be pretty damn cool as well.

Unfortunately, using the techniques described above, you wouldn't be able to pick and choose which memories you get to re-experience, so you might be just as likely to be plunged back into some horrors you'd hoped you had already long forgotten.

What sort of long-term fallout could there possibly be from having parts of your brain lightly electrified in order to fire up the movie screen in your mind and get those old memories flowing again?

You'd presume that a clinic where you could waste away a few hours re-experiencing vague or mostly forgotten memories would be a huge success. It would sure beat the hell out of television.

India Is Now Bird Flu 'Ground Zero'

Dozens Under Quarantine With Bird Flu Symptoms, Hundreds More Being Monitored



The H5N1 (bird flu) virus has now spread across 75% of India, with millions of poultry birds already culled and millions more expected to be culled in the coming weeks.

Workers now returning from the culls are being monitored for signs of bird flu. The majority of the cullers wore no protective clothing at all, not even face masks or gloves.

At least 26 people are now showing symptoms of bird flu, and hundreds more are being monitored for fever and other signs that they have picked up the virus.

Emergency quarantine centres are being set up in hospitals and health care clinics.

From the Bird Flu Blog :

How India deals with this crisis, and winds back the spread of the virus to more than 75% of the country, and whether or not such widespread exposure to the virus will result in many human victims, will tell us a lot about how serious bird flu may become in 2008, and how effectively current control measures and guidelines are for dealing with outbreaks.

Such widespread outbreaks of bird flu amongst poultry, in a country where living conditions for many hundred of millions of people are third world bad, is something of a perfect storm for the fermenting of the long-dreaded bird flu pandemic.

Does bird flu really have the potential to kill hundreds of millions of people, or is just "global warming with feathers" (as the editor of whatreallyhappened.com calls it)?

We are very likely to get closer to the truth in the coming weeks.

Deaths are expected.



West Bengal Hit By Bird Flu Outbreak

Bird Flu Outbreak Hits Pakistan

Bird Flu Outbreak In Thailand

150,000 Poultry Birds Culled In Saudi Arabia After Bird Flu Confirmed

India : Poultry Cullers Ordered Into Compulsory Quarantine

Fresh Outbreaks Of Bird Flu Reported In North Vietnam

Indonesia : Bird Flu Claims Fifth Human Life In Seven Days

Swans Dying From Bird Flu In UK

US Terror Drill IDs Bloggers, Journos As A Threat

Real-World Hackers Attack During Simulated Attack By Hackers

It's important that emergency drills are conducted to deal with eventualities that could throw society into chaos, whether they come from terrorists or natural disasters. Doesn't always mean they will cope with all eventualities, however.

Bizarrely enough, there were terror-and-accident related drills being held on the mornings of September 11, 2001 and July 7, 2005, simulating almost the same kinds of terrorist attacks that occurred on those very same days, at the same times, in the US and England.

From the Associated Press :

It's the government's idea of a really bad day: Washington's Metro trains shut down. Seaport computers in New York go dark. Bloggers reveal locations of railcars with hazardous materials. Airport control towers are disrupted in Philadelphia and Chicago. Overseas, a mysterious liquid is found on London's subway.

And that's just for starters.

Those incidents were among dozens of detailed, mock disasters confronting officials rapid-fire in the U.S. government's biggest-ever "Cyber Storm" war game, according to hundreds of pages of heavily censored files obtained by The Associated Press. The Homeland Security Department ran the exercise to test the nation's hacker defenses, with help from the State Department, Pentagon, Justice Department, CIA, National Security Agency and others.

Imagined villains include hackers, bloggers and even reporters. After mock electronic attacks overwhelmed computers at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an unspecified "major news network" airing reports about the attackers refused to reveal its sources to the government. Other simulated reporters were duped into spreading "believable but misleading" information that worsened fallout by confusing the public and financial markets, according to the government's files.

The $3 million, invitation-only war game simulated what the U.S. described as plausible attacks over five days in February 2006 against the technology industry, transportation lines and energy utilities by anti-globalization hackers. The government is organizing another multimillion-dollar war game, Cyber Storm 2, to take place in early March.

For the participants — including government officials from the United States, England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and executives from leading technology and transportation companies — the mock disasters came fast and furious: Hacker break-ins at an airline; stolen commercial software blueprints; problems with satellite navigation systems; trouble with police radios in Montana; school closures in Washington, Miami and New York; computer failures at border checkpoints.

The incidents were divided among categories: computer attacks, physical attacks or psychological operations.

...key players didn't understand the role of the premier U.S. organization responsible for fending off major cyber attacks, called the National Cyber Response Coordination Group, and it didn't have enough technical experts.

Also, the sheer number of mock attacks complicated defensive efforts.

The little-known Cyber Response group, headed by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, represents the largest U.S. government departments — including law enforcement and intelligence agencies — and is the principal organization for responding to cyber attacks and recovering from them.

...government's files hint at a tantalizing mystery: In the middle of the war game, someone quietly attacked the very computers used to conduct the exercise. Perplexed organizers traced the incident to overzealous players and sent everyone an urgent e-mail marked "IMPORTANT!" reminding them not to probe or attack the game computers.

Obviously the next drill will have to include the scenario of a hacker attack using a terror drill as a cover for a real-world attack on electronic infrastructure.

Which would then require the follow-up exercise to include the scenario of a real-world hacker attacking the terror drill exercise scenario of a real-world hacker attacking the a terror drill attack by hackers.

Infinite regress.

Go Fetch Mah Beating Stick, Boy, While I Finish Mah Macchiato



Did you know strong coffee can lead to fathers beating and abusing their children?

Neither did I.

Planet Mercury Researchers Only Live To Discover Weird Surface Formations


An 'added colour' image of Mercury from the Messenger probe

NASA's Messenger probe took a swing around Mercury on January 18, and there's a heap of photos, videos, graphs and laser-spectral-thingy majiggys to be viewed here.

NASA hopes further analysis of its images, and the information provided by future fly-bys and orbits of Mercury by the Messenger probe will solve some of the mysteries of the Sun's closest planet.

But here's a more immediate mystery that requires answering : why did NASA spend hundreds of millions of dollars flinging a space vehicle into Mercury's orbit and then release a pile of only black-and-white footage and photos? (or 'single colour' as NASA calls black-and-white).

Doesn't that seem kind of strange?

It sure is annoying.

UPDATE : The bizarre Mercury surface formation nicknamed 'The Spider' is getting scientists and space freaks very, very excited. Here's what it looks like :



And here's what they think it is :

...a central depression with more than 100 narrow troughs radiating from it.

...the puzzling feature is the kind of surprise that researchers live for.

The researchers wives, children and parents will be happy to know that.

The principal investigator, Sean Solomon, said: "Messenger has sent back data near perfectly, and some of it confirms earlier understandings and some of it tells us something brand new. The Spider is definitely in the category of something we never imagined we'd find."

Again, why can't we see this image in colour?

Wild Weather World

Snowball Fights In Syria, Floods Carry Crocodiles Into African Towns

Blame climate change, global warming, worldwide media interest or James Bond-esque villains firing up their weather control systems, but there sure seems to be a lot of freakish weather events breaking out across the planet in these first few weeks of 2008 :

Extreme or rare weather conditions played havoc with much of the world yesterday with snowball fights in the Holy Land, ravenous crocodiles terrorizing flood-stricken Africa and China's worst winter storms in 50 years crippling the transport system.

A rare snowstorm swept the Middle East, blanketing the Holy Land in white, shutting schools and sending excited children into the streets for snowball fights. The weather in Jerusalem topped local newscasts, eclipsing a government report on Israel's 2006 war in Lebanon.

Men in long Arab robes pelted each other with snowballs and children used inflatable tubes as sleds in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Snow blanketed the hills overlooking the Syrian capital of Damascus and covered most mountain villages and blocked roads in Lebanon. Many residents were surprised to see snow when they awoke. For some, it was their first time.

"I am just astonished with the snow. When I saw the snow ... I felt happy, my heart was laughing," Mary Zabaro, 17, said in Ramallah.

"The white snow is covering the old world and I feel like I am in a new world where everything is white, clean, and beautiful," said Bothaina Smairi, 28.

There was little of beauty in southern regions of Africa where floods and heavy rains have left about 70,000 people in Malawi homeless and destroyed farming communities along the Shire River valley. Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique have also been hit by floods that have killed dozens and ruined lives.

Amid the destruction, hungry crocodiles hunted the displaced, emergency officials said. Some 3,000 Mozambicans fled floods in their own country seeking refuge in Malawi.

"They are coming in dug-out canoes from the Mozambican side of the Shire River and our reports indicate that crocodiles are just swimming all over attacking people," emergency agency official Lillian Ngoma said.

More on the horrors of crocodile-infested floodwaters in southern Africa here :

Crocodiles have killed five people forced to wade through floodwaters devastating Somalia, officials said on Sunday, as the interim government appealed for international help.

Floods have killed scores, driven tens of thousands from their homes, submerged villages, and washed away bridges and roads in south-central Somalia, making it difficult to get aid to victims still trapped and stoking fears of epidemic disease.

Residents in Bulo Burde town in the worst-hit central Hiraan region climbed trees to escape both the floodwaters and hungry crocodiles.

China Declares "All Out War" On Weather Chaos

No country in the world has been as severely hammered by chaotic weather in the past three years than China. Monumental floods, typhoons, drought, desertification and now snow storms so intense that entire cities have virtually shut down.

With the Olympic Games only a few months away, the Chinese government is promising to take control of the weather over Beijing, and banish the usually sudden, and intense summer storms.

The cloud-seeding program to break up storm fronts, or to encourage them to dump their rain before reaching Beijing, has been under trials for years, with the help of the Russians, who claim they can guarantee rain free military parades and celebrations in Red Square.

The official Chinese government news agency says that "all out war" has now been declared on unruly, and disruptive, weather :

There has been much interest in China's attempt to reduce pollution ahead of the Olympic Games - but that is just one area of intense activity.

There is also a team of scientists working on reducing rainfall, to try to ensure that the Games' Opening, on August 8, goes as smoothly as possible.

At a news conference, Beijing Meteorological Bureau deputy chief Wang Jian Jie announced that the work is beginning to pay off.

The scientists explained that, depending on the temperature, they have been seeding clouds with liquid nitrogen or silver iodide, to try and curb rainfall.

As the meteorologists work on manipulating the weather later this year, officials across the country are struggling to cope now with the worst winter the country has seen in decades.

Heavy snowfalls and freezing conditions have left hundreds of thousands of people without power.

The outages have led to the cancellation of trains, just as millions of migrant workers try to head home for the Lunar New Year holiday season.

Hundreds of thousands of travellers have been stranded ahead of the peak holiday season.

One worker said he had been stranded for 10 days.

The chaos saw Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao travel to the southern city of Guangzhou to address the crowds at the train station with a megaphone.

In a rare political event, he apologised for the inconvenience.

"I have come to see how everyone is," he said.

"You're all suffering. Everybody wants to go home. We totally understand how you're all feeling."

...with frustration growing among those stranded, the official Xinhua news agency has spoken of the need to wage "all out war" on the weather chaos.

500,000 Stranded At Chinese Train Station During Massive Blizzard