FoolishPeople

The Clinic to Save us all..

DAXING, China -- Sun Jiting spends his days locked behind metal bars in this military-run installation, put there by his parents. The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients. Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, "This is for your own good!"

Sun's offense: Internet addiction.

A 12-year-old boy is treated with a series of low-voltage shocks in a therapy that doctors at an Internet addiction clinic in China say helps patients sleep better. (By Greg Baker -- Associated Press)

Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls "a grave social problem" that threatens the nation.

Found Via io9

Checkmate Near At Hand -

Link: Untitled Document.

Strategic Foresight

Call it a conspiracy theory or maybe just call it strategic foresight, but I see a frightening setup taking place. I see a strategic positioning of pieces. A closing in of a trap, and at this late date, there is little room for escape.

If current directions do not change, the ONLY prognition that ANYONE could make, is that come August we will be at war.

Lunar Eclipse 20:18-02:24

The moon has just emerged from dancing in the shadows.
Was beautiful watching the throbbing heart in the sky with Cats who had ventured into our garden.
Sirens blazed up all around, just as the magick became a bronze smudge in the sky.

Whoops Apocalypse Iran

US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington.

The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office.

From our friends at Tactical Magic

Esozone

Uganda's mystic rebel leader dies

The woman who began the long running insurgency in northern Uganda, Alice Lakwena, 50, has died in exile in Kenya after a long illness. The self-proclaimed prophetess founded the Holy Spirit Movement in the 1980s.

Her followers believed magic potions protected them in battle, but they were defeated by government forces.

Imminent Flip of Earths Magnetic Poles possible cause of recent bird deaths?

"Consider the facts: Many birds died at once or in a very short time span. Many different species of birds were affected. Opposite sides of the globe may be significant or it may be coincidence. I think the former. The Earth's magnetic field has been weakening and scientists do think a "flip" - where the magentic poles reverse, is iminent. Of course, in geologic terms, imminent can mean tomorrow or 100K years from now. However, geologic studies have shown "flips" in Earth's past and based on the geo-record, we are WAY overdue for a flip."

Probe studies 'extreme physics'

A pioneering US space agency spacecraft is set to launch on a mission to explore the most energetic phenomena in the Universe.

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (Glast) has been described as an "extreme physics" laboratory.

As its name suggests, Glast will detect the emissions of gamma rays in space. Gamma rays are the most energetic form of radiation known to science.

Other targets for Glast include pulsars - rotating neutron stars which emit radio waves - as well as the remnants of exploded stars, and galaxy clusters.

He Opens Your Mail

January 8, 2007

The Honorable George W. Bush

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I am deeply concerned about the signing statement that you issued on December 20, 2006, regarding H.R. 6407, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. It raises serious questions about whether the government is reading Americans’ first class mail without obtaining a search warrant or other court order as required by statute.

The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act recodified in a different location an existing provision of federal law, without change, that states as follows:

No letter of such a class of domestic origin shall be opened except under authority of a search warrant authorized by law, or by an officer or employee of the Postal Service for the sole purpose of determining an address at which the letter can be delivered, or pursuant to the authorization of the addressee.[1]

In your signing statement, you stated that the executive branch would construe this provision “in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials, and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.”

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in February 2006 on the National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program, Senator Leahy asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales whether the executive branch was relying in other contexts on the theory that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force gave it the authority to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and other statutes. Specifically, Senator Leahy asked: “Did it authorize the opening of first-class mail of U.S. citizens?” The Attorney General attempted to avoid answering the question, but ultimately stated: “Senator, I think that, again, that is not what is going on here. We are only focused on communications, international communications, where one party to the communication is al Qaeda. That is what this program is all about.”

You have already confirmed that you have authorized the NSA to conduct surveillance of communications without obtaining the court orders required by FISA. Your December 20, 2006, signing statement now suggests that you believe you have the authority to violate the law with regard to opening regular mail. The American people and Congress are entitled to know whether you have acted on that theory. Please answer the following question: has your administration authorized any government agency to read Americans’ first-class mail without obtaining a search warrant, complying with the applicable court order requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or satisfying Postal Service regulations?

I look forward to your expeditious reply.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Feingold

United States Senator

1: A separate regulation, promulgated in 1996, states that the Postal Service can open a piece of mail when there is a credible threat that it contains a bomb or other explosive device. 39 C.F.R. § 233.11

Rumsfield Replaced

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is to stand down, after anger over the war in Iraq led to bruising losses for Republicans in mid-term elections.Finally some good news...

Physicists discover the structure of a Brain cell is the same as the entire Universe

It seems the universe is us and we are the unviverse.

Is there anybody out there? How the men from the ministry hid the hunt for UFOs

The Ministry of Defence went to extraordinary lengths to cover up its true involvement in investigating UFOs, according to secret documents revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The files show that officials attempted to expunge information from documents released to the Public Records Office under the "30-year rule" that would have revealed the extent of the MoD's interest in UFO sightings.

Well Done Mr Pope

"You infidels and despotic, we will continue our jihad (holy war) and never stop until God avails us to chop your necks and raise the fluttering banner of monotheism when God's rule is established governing all people and nations,"

Academics claim 9/11 was 'inside job

The 9/11 terrorist attack on America which left almost 3,000 people dead was an "inside job", according to a group of leading academics.
Around 75 top professors and leading scientists believe the attacks were puppeteered by war mongers in the White House to justify the invasion and the occupation of oil-rich Arab countries.

Steve Irwin killed in freak accident at sea

A DOCTOR has told of the desperate efforts to save Australian icon Steve Irwin after the Crocodile Hunter was struck in the chest by a stingray barb today.

Irwin, 44, died this morning after being fatally injured while filming a nature documentary off Queensland.

Google negates dont be evil maxim

Google developing eavesdropping software that uses your PC microphone to listen to your TV in the background, then places relevant ads on your PC.

Ronald McHummer

This month McDonald's is giving away toy Hummers — 42 million of them, in eight models and colors — with every Happy Meal or Mighty Kids Meal. That's right: The fast-food chain that helped make our kids the fattest on Earth is now selling future car buyers on the fun of driving a supersized, smog-spewing, gas-guzzling SUV originally built for the military. Use the Ronald McHummer Sign-O-Matic™ to tell everyone what you think of this misguided marriage of two icons of American excess.

X-rays reveal Archimedes secrets

A series of hidden texts written by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being revealed by US scientists.

Until now, the pages have remained obscured by paintings and texts laid down on top of the original writings. Using a non-destructive technique known as X-ray fluorescence, the researchers are able to peer through these later additions to read the underlying text.

Man forces girlfriend to swallow cell

Prosecutors say a man shoved a cellphone down his girlfriend's throat because he was angry and jealous. But the defence insisted as a trial got underway that the woman swallowed the phone intentionally to keep him from seeing whom she had been calling.

Arts Catalyst Presents: Marching Plague

In May 2004, FBI agents and the Joint Terrorism Task Force raided Critical Art Ensemble founder Steve Kurtz’s home, seizing art works and research materials for the Marching Plague project, dedicated to demystifying the issues surrounding germ warfare.

After spending millions of dollars, the US government has been unable to produce any evidence that Kurtz is a “bioterrorist”— yet they refuse to return the seized materials.  Despite this, Kurtz has been able to reconstruct the research and produce the film Marching Plague, commissioned by The Arts Catalyst, and accompanying publication.

Following a screening of Marching Plague, bioweapons experts and artists join Steve Kurtz and Steve Barnes of Critical Art Ensemble to discuss bioterrorism, the culture of fear and artistic censorship.

An installation in the ICA outlines the tragedy-to-farce timeline of this art work and can be seen in the bar from Sat 29 July – Fri 5 Aug daily, 12-7.30pm.

(Thanks to heather for pointing this out - J)

Former CIA officer sues Cheney over leak

The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.

David Lynch to be awarded Golden Lion

David Lynch is to be awarded the prestigious Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at this year's Venice film festival. The presentation will coincide with a screening of Lynch's latest film, Inland Empire.

Mystery Object Found In Supernova Heart

Embedded in the heart of a supernova remnant 10,000 light-years away is a stellar object the likes of which astronomers have never seen before in our galaxy.

Thrill Kill Cult.

China's biggest Christian sect, Three Grades of Servants, has been dominating news today. Their founder and leader, Xu Shuangfu, 60, has been sentenced to death along with two of his acolytes for the murder of about 20 followers of a rival apocalyptic group.

The case has slashed wide open the closed doors of China's underground churches and revealed the violent competition for souls in this nominally atheist country.

"This is absurd. My father only found out about the murders after the hearings opened," said his daughter, Xu Baiyin. "He signed a confession because they connected electric cables to his fingers, toes and penis.

According to a reliable source that obtained a copy of the verdict issued by the Chief Judge Mr. Liu Qingyi of Intermediate People’s Court of Shuangyashan City, Heilongjiang Province, June 28, and delivered to the defense lawyers July 5, 2006, among the seventeen convicted in this case, Mr. Xu Shuangfu (60-years-old), Mr. Li Maoxing (55-years-old) and Mr. Wang Jun (36-years-old) were sentenced to death for murder.

Fourteen other members of the sect, which claims millions of adherents, were given suspended death sentences or prison terms of up to 15 years.

Despite controls on churches, mosques and temples, (and some say oppression) competition for believers is heating up in China. The dominant communist ideology is being destroyed by the capitalist pursuit of wealth leaving a spiritual void. Established religions and new sects are rushing to fill, or overfill, this void with the same sort of westernised manipulation that we have long been familiar with.

Murderous battles between sects, victims killed and mutilated after trying to convert their neighbours and others with their faces sliced off...it seems they are set on making their own apocalyptic prophecy come true via divine intervention - or not

Study: South America's Aymara people have a opposite concept of time

The Following fits in well with the concept of Retroactive enchantment.

New analysis of the language and gesture of South America's indigenous Aymara people indicates they have a concept of time opposite to all the world's studied cultures -- so that the past is ahead of them and the future behind.

New analysis of the language and gesture of South America's indigenous Aymara people indicates a reverse concept of time. Contrary to what had been thought a cognitive universal among humans – a spatial metaphor for chronology, based partly on our bodies' orientation and locomotion, that places the future ahead of oneself and the past behind – the Amerindian group locates this imaginary abstraction the other way around: with the past ahead and the future behind.

Appearing in the current issue of the journal Cognitive Science, the study is coauthored, with Berkeley linguistics professor Eve Sweetser, by Rafael Nunez, associate professor of cognitive science and director of the Embodied Cognition Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego.

Paranoia more common than thought

One in three people in the UK regularly suffers paranoid or suspicious fears, clinical psychologists have found. A team at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London interviewed 1,200 people about whether they had thoughts about others doing them harm. They found levels of paranoia were much higher than previously suspected - and almost as high as those for depression and anxiety. The researchers say paranoia can cause real distress. The study found that:    

• Over 40% of people regularly worry that negative comments are being made about them 
• 27% think that people deliberately try to irritate them
• 20% worry about being observed or followed     * 10% think that someone has it in for them
• 5% worry that there is a conspiracy to harm them Researcher Dr Daniel Freeman said:

"We were astonished at how common paranoia and suspicion are amongst the population.

The Singularity: Gravity Wave Experiement Online

One of the great scientific experiments of our age is now fully underway.

A German/UK team has put the giant GEO 600 gravitational wave detector in a continuous observational mode. The Hanover lab is trying to detect the ripples created in the fabric of space-time that sweep out from merging black holes or exploding stars.

Success would confirm fundamental physical theories and open a new window on the Universe, enabling scientists to probe the moment of creation itself.

"The basis of this science formed the storyline to FP's 02 project The Singularity"

Ghost Protestors

Protesters in East Timor's capital Dili, painted in white to represent the ghosts of those killed in recent unrest, celebrate the resignation of PM Mari Alkatiri.

US probes new Iraq massacre claim

The US military has told the BBC it is investigating an incident in which 11 Iraqi civilians may have been deliberately killed by US troops.

Video footage obtained by the BBC appears to challenge the US account of events in the town of Ishaqi in March. The US said at the time that four people died during a raid, but Iraqi police said 11 were shot by US troops. The video evidence comes in the wake of the alleged massacre by US marines of up to 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha. Click the link to watch part of this new video.

Villagers Blame Radioactive Pollution for 2-Headed Calf Birth

A calf with two heads has been born in a Siberian village near a nuclear plant, Gazeta.ru website said Tuesday.

Naumovka village is located in dangerous proximity to one of Russia’s largest nuclear sites — the closed Seversk territory, the former secret Tomsk-7 site, where weapons-grade plutonium used to be produced.

Japan's nerve-gas cult guru nears gallows

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday rejected a second appeal against the death sentence of a doomsday cult guru convicted over the deadly 1995 nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway.

The decision brought Aum Supreme Truth founder Shoko Asahara closer to the gallows, more than 10 years after his sect stunned the nation with crimes based on his apocalyptic visions. His lawyers still have five days to bring the case to the Supreme Court which, however, examines appeals only on constitutional violations.

Mission to target highest clouds

A Nasa satellite mission will be launched this year to study the highest and most mysterious clouds on Earth. Noctilucent, or "night-shining", clouds appear as thin bands in twilight skies, some 80km (50miles) above the surface.

Recent records suggest they have become brighter, more frequent and are being seen at lower latitudes than usual. Scientists cannot say for sure but they suspect human activity may be altering the conditions in the mesosphere that drive the clouds' formation.

Hacker Gary McKinnon on UFO Cover up

In 2002, Gary McKinnon was arrested by the UK's national high-tech crime unit, after being accused of hacking into Nasa and the US military computer networks.

It was above the Earth's hemisphere. It kind of looked like a satellite. It was cigar-shaped and had geodesic domes above, below, to the left, the right and both ends of it, and although it was a low-resolution picture it was very close up.

This thing was hanging in space, the earth's hemisphere visible below it, and no rivets, no seams, none of the stuff associated with normal man-made manufacturing.

The digital shadow of a Child Murderer

"It is one of those crimes that makes you feel dirty to be a human being. Underwood had worked for a fast-food restaurant for seven years and later as a shelf-stacker. People in both places remembered him as boring but otherwise unremarkable. He seemed to have had no special friends or enemies. But he left a life online. He had marked out his tastes and his territory in almost every way the internet allows. As well as his blogs, he had wish lists, links to other sites, a presence on eBay, and identities on large discussion sites. His blogs are shocking because they are so profoundly ordinary. He seems indistinguishable from millions of other nerds online."

Guardian online discuss the digital shadow of child murderer Kevin Underwood.

Black hole mergers modelled in 3D

Simulations on a supercomputer have allowed Nasa scientists to understand finally the pattern of gravitational waves produced by merging black holes.

The work should help the worldwide effort that is currently underway to make the first detection of these "ripples" in the fabric of space-time.

Dark Nights of the Soul Predictions: Cycle II - Suicide-clinic entrepreneur:We Never Say No

As predicted from the Cycle II narrative Suicide Clinics now plan on assisting people suffering from depression.

The founder of Dignitas – a Zurich, Switzerland, clinic that assists those with illnesses end their lives – says he wants to open a chain of "suicide clinics" in other countries to give everyone, including the mentally ill, the "the choice of a choice."

Judas 'helped Jesus save mankind'

Judas Iscariot's reputation as one of the most notorious villains in history has been thrown into doubt with the translation of an ancient text.

The Gospel of Judas, a papyrus document from the 3rd or 4th Century AD, casts the fallen disciple as a benevolent figure, helping Jesus to save mankind.

The early Christian Church denounced such teachings as heretical. The 31-page fragile document, alleged to be a copy of an even older text, was discovered in Egypt in the 1970s. The National Geographic Society in the US published the first translation of the text from Coptic to English on Thursday, and showed some of the papyrus pages for the first time.

Record set for hottest temperature on Earth

Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.

This is hotter than the interior of our sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

Haunted Exorcism father killed himself in fire

A FATHER haunted by the torture and murder of his daughter during an "exorcism" died after setting himself on fire - just days after the sudden death of his wife.

Mohammed Bashir's 20-year-old daughter, Kousar Bashir, died in June 1991 after enduring systematic beatings during an horrific eight-day ritual after Mr Bashir paid two alleged holy men £200 to rid her of "an evil spirit".

Telescopes 'worthless' by 2050

Ground-based astronomy could be impossible in 40 years because of pollution from aircraft exhaust trails and climate change, an expert says.

Aircraft condensation trails - known as contrails - can dissipate, becoming indistinguishable from other clouds.

Playwright Dario Fo faces Milan voters

Nobel Prize winning satirist Dario Fo is campaigning for election as mayor of Italy's financial capital, Milan. On Sunday he faces a run-off to become the candidate of the centre-left coalition in May's election. It is a dramatic change of direction for a man known for his scathing attacks on the rich and powerful.

If elected, Mr Fo is promising to wage war against property speculators as well as the cars whose fumes make Milan one of Europe's most polluted cities.
He also wants to revitalise Milan's suburbs

New X-Ray Machine

Full body images in 3D and cross-sections...A hi-tech scanner has been developed which takes images in less time than it takes the human heart to beat. The Somatom Definition machine contains two X-ray scanners so full body images can be taken twice as fast.

Enjoy wearing your pretty fur

Instead of being clubbed to death the animals are electrocuted with home made devices wired to tractor batteries. They struggle to escape as one prong goes in their mouth the other in their anus, then lie twitching and whimpering on the ground. Often the voltage isn’t strong enough. There is no effort to check they are dead before they are strung up on the tractor and skinned. In the back of the vehicle their skinless bodies pile up, some clearly still alive, their hearts still beating.

Santa Gonna Cut You

It's usually easy to tell where a person stands in the culture wars, but whose side is someone on when his Christmas decor is a blood-spattered Santa Claus holding a severed head?

Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos decked the front of their Manhattan mansion this year with a scene that includes a knife-wielding 5-foot-tall St. Nick and a tree full of decapitated Barbie dolls. Hidden partly behind a tree, the merry old elf grasps a disembodied doll's head with fake blood streaming from its eye sockets.

No one answered the family's door to explain on Tuesday, but Krupnik told the New York Post it was a statement about the commercialization and secularization of Christmas.

Is the Pentagon spying on Americans?

A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.

“This is incredible,” adds group member Rich Hersh. “It's an example of paranoia by our government,” he says. “We're not doing anything illegal.”

The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.

“I think Americans should be concerned that the military, in fact, has reached too far,” says NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin.

Plasma engine passes initial test

The European Space Agency (Esa) says initial testing of a new plasma drive for spacecraft has been a success.

The 'double layer thruster' is a new kind of ion drive which could give much more power than existing versions. It works by accelerating charged particles between two layers of argon plasma, gas where the atoms have been stripped of electrons. Esa says it has 'proven the principle', and will proceed with simulations and perhaps bigger prototypes. Esa already uses an ion drive on its Smart 1 Moon probe, and the US space agency Nasa deployed one on Deep Space 1, which flew out to Comet Borrelly in 2001.

The 1,000th Execution

The US has carried out its 1,000th execution since capital punishment was reintroduced in 1976.

Kenneth Boyd, a convicted killer, was put to death by lethal injection in North Carolina for the murder of his estranged wife and her father in 1988. He was given three drugs - one to put him to sleep, another to paralyse him, and a third to stop his heart.

Though a majority of people in the US back the death penalty, polls indicate support is starting to wane. "This 1,000th execution is a milestone. It's a milestone we should all be ashamed of and hopefully one day we will all learn that meeting violence with violence is not the answer," Boyd's lawyer Thomas Maher said after watching the execution.

US EXECUTIONS SINCE 1976
Texas - 355
Virginia - 94
Oklahoma - 79
Missouri - 66
Florida - 60
Georgia - 39
North Carolina - 38
South Carolina, Alabama - 34 each
Louisiana, Arkansas - 27 each
Arizona - 22
Ohio - 19
Indiana - 16
Delaware - 14
Illinois - 12
Nevada, California - 11 each
Mississippi, Utah - 6 each
Maryland, Washington - 4 each
Nebraska, Pennsylvania - 3 each
Kentucky, Montana, Oregon - 2 each
Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, New Mexico, Tennessee, Wyoming - 1 each
US government - 3
Source: US Death Penalty Information Center