NASA SCIENTIST CLAIMS TO HAVE FOUND FOSSILIZED REMAINS OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL BACTERIA IN FRESHLY FRACTURED METEORITES
March 5th, 2011Via: Journal of Cosmology:
Journal of Cosmology, 2011, Vol 13,
JournalofCosmology.com March, 2011
Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites
Richard B. Hoover, Ph.D. NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
Synopsis
Dr. Hoover has discovered evidence of microfossils similar to Cyanobacteria, in freshly fractured slices of the interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites. Based on Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and other measures, Dr. Hoover has concluded they are indigenous to these meteors and are similar to trichomic cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes such as filamentous sulfur bacteria. He concludes these fossilized bacteria are not Earthly contaminants but are the fossilized remains of living organisms which lived in the parent bodies of these meteors, e.g. comets, moons, and other astral bodies. The implications are that life is everywhere, and that life on Earth may have come from other planets.
Members of the Scientific community were invited to analyze the results and to write critical commentaries or to speculate about the implications. These commentaries will be published on March 7 through March 10, 2011.
Official Statement from Dr. Rudy Schild,
Center for Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian,
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Cosmology.
We believe Dr. Hoover’s careful analysis provides definitive evidence of ancient microbial life on astral bodies some of which may predate the origin of Earth and this solar system.
Dr. Richard Hoover is a highly respected scientist and astrobiologist with a prestigious record of accomplishment at NASA. Given the controversial nature of his discovery, we have invited 100 experts and have issued a general invitation to over 5000 scientists from the scientific community to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis. Our intention is to publish the commentaries, both pro and con, alongside Dr. Hoover’s paper. In this way, the paper will have received a thorough vetting, and all points of view can be presented. No other paper in the history of science has undergone such a thorough analysis, and no other scientific journal in the history of science has made such a profoundly important paper available to the scientific community, for comment, before it is published. We believe the best way to advance science, is to promote debate and discussion.
Ex-FBI Informant, Claimed to Have Met Mohamed Atta, Involved in Police Shooting and Chase
March 5th, 2011Via: El Paso Times:
The man who allegedly tried to run down an El Paso police officer on Thursday reportedly infiltrated terror cells for the FBI and had claimed on a national television interview that the 9/11 terror attacks could have been prevented.
Elie Assaad, 38, was arrested near the University of Texas at El Paso after his SUV rolled over and police had fired at him during an early morning chase.
A woman who identified herself as his wife, Grecia Jill, confirmed that Assaad had worked for the FBI in Miami and now owns a talent agency in El Paso.
An FBI spokesman in El Paso did not comment.
But in a 2009 interview on ABC News, Assaad told how he infiltrated terror cells and said the FBI missed the opportunity to foil the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
Assaad, a Catholic native of Lebanon who pretended to be an Islamic extremist, told ABC News that he began working as an undercover informant in FBI stings in the U.S. and overseas in 1996.
Assaad claimed that he met 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta at a small mosque in the Miami area but that his FBI handlers were more interested in stings on wannabe terrorists than following those who turned out to be in al-Qaida.
Homeland Security Looked Into Covert Body Scans
March 5th, 2011Via: USA Today:
The Homeland Security Department paid contractors millions of dollars to develop and study surveillance systems that could covertly track pedestrians and check under people’s clothing with airport-style body scanners as they enter train stations, bus depots or major events, newly released documents show.
Two contracts the department signed in 2005 and 2006 were part of its effort to acquire technology to find suicide bombers in a crowd of moving people, according to documents given to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a privacy-rights group that is suing Homeland Security.
The department dropped the projects in a “very early” phase after testing showed flaws, Homeland Security spokesman Bobby Whithorne says.
With a Heavy Heart… The Dervaes Family’s Apparent Descent Into Madness
March 5th, 2011Path to Freedom inspired me to change my life. Early last decade, it was a candle in a dark room for me, so to speak. I can’t make similar statements about too many other things. Over the years, I’ve read their sites, sent them traffic with links from my sites, made several cash contributions to them and even bought a couple of T-shirts back in December to promote their message on my body! So, when I first heard the news about what they’re doing, I glanced at it and told myself, “This isn’t happening. Give it a few days and look again. Please, don’t let this be happening.”
Well, it’s happening.
Normally, when a previously good website, source or organization goes bad, what you’ll notice from me is that I turn my back. I stop linking. I’m not much into slinging mud at others, unless it’s fascist governments or corporations.
But this one hurts.
I was going to stick to my long running policy of just turning my back on this, but so many of you are writing in that I decided to post about it.
Please, if you feel the need to unburden yourself about this horrible situation, use this post to do that and stop emailing me. It’s a bit like grieving over someone who has died. I wouldn’t want people emailing me about my loss. It’s beyond words. I need to deal with it on my own.
Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation:
A leading candidate has emerged for the next EFF Takedown Hall of Shame induction: the Dervaes Institute, which is claiming broad ownership rights over the term “urban homesteading” — a term commonly used to describe a social movement dedicated to achieving more self-sufficient, sustainable living in cities. Last year, the Institute managed to register the term as a trademark (in connection with “educational services” such as blogging) and it is now sending takedown requests and warning letters targeting individuals and organizations that have been using the term for years.
The Dervaes campaign raises two related issues.
First, as explained in more detail in a letter EFF sent today on behalf of three of the targets (Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, authors of The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City, and their publisher, Process Media), the legal claims are baseless. Even assuming the registration is valid — there are reasons to question it — the term “urban homesteading” is commonly understood to refer to a popular movement and related set of practices. Our clients — and anyone else — are free to use it in that descriptive sense, and that is exactly what they did.
Second, this dispute highlights the increased danger of granting rights in descriptive marks such as this one. Time was, the registration of this kind of mark might have had limited impact, because sensible mark-owners would think twice before bringing legal action and, short of such action, most legal users could ignore any improper threats. In the Internet context, however, individuals and organizations rely on service providers to help them communicate with the world (YouTube, Facebook, eBay, Blogger, etc.). A trademark complaint directed to one of those providers can mean a fast and easy takedown given that those service providers usually don’t have the resources and/or the inclination to investigate trademark infringement claims. Moreover, because there is no counter-notice procedure, the targets of an improper takedown have no easy way to get their content back up.
50 Billion Planets Just in Milky Way Galaxy
March 5th, 2011Via: Space.com:
Our galaxy could be home to a whopping 50 billion planets, say scientists working on NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting telescope.
While Kepler hasn’t found nearly that many planets — to date it’s counted 1,235 candidate planets — that cosmic tally is researchers’ best guess, extrapolated from preliminary data. The Kepler spacecraft, which launched in March 2009, is the world’s most sophisticated observatory dedicated to studying alien planets.
Kepler scientists presented an update on the spacecraft’s findings this month at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.
“I am really delighted to find that we are seeing so many candidates,” said William Borucki, Kepler’s principal investigator. “It means there’s a very rich ocean of planets out there to explore.”
$1.2 Trillion: The Real U.S. National Security Budget
March 4th, 2011Via: Alternet:
If Americans were ever presented with the real bill for the total U.S. national security budget, it would actually add up to more than $1.2 trillion a year.
…
A country with a gross domestic product of $1.2 trillion would have the 15th largest economy in the world, ranking between Canada and Indonesia, and ahead of Australia, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia.
Strange NRO Mission Patches
March 4th, 2011I’ve seen a lot of weird military patches, but I think that this one might take the cake. It’s related to the NRO satellite that was launched back in January, USA-224, also known as NRO Launch 49 (NRO L-49).
NRO L-49
The Latin means something like, “First Heavy from the West,” or “First Heavy from the Sunset.” This was the first launch of the Delta IV Heavy rocket from west coast of the U.S. So, that’s probably that.
But for the rest of this, they threw the WTF?! into afterburner. I’m mainly curious about that dark moon/sun/death star thing that’s partially blotting out the… Earth? Yeah, the object with the the subliminal writing in it.
Also, why is “Betty” holding a trident and a wrench? What kind of creature is Betty?
Is this also Betty on the related, “Better the devil that you know,” patch: NRO L-49
Orange County: Pack of Snarling Imbeciles Released from Their Kennels, Given American Flags
March 4th, 2011To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
—They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
—Harold Pinter, 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
Research Credit: JH
Computer Expert Says U.S. and Israel Behind Stuxnet Worm
March 4th, 2011For your news-not-news file folder.
Via: AFP:
A German computer security expert said Thursday he believes the United States and Israel’s Mossad unleashed the malicious Stuxnet worm on Iran’s nuclear program.
“My opinion is that the Mossad is involved,” Ralph Langner said while discussing his in-depth Stuxnet analysis at a prestigious TED conference in the Southern California city of Long Beach.
“But, the leading source is not Israel… There is only one leading source, and that is the United States.”
There has been widespread speculation Israel was behind the Stuxnet worm that has attacked computers in Iran, and Tehran has blamed the Jewish state and the United States for the killing of two nuclear scientists in November and January.
Is Apple Going to Turn Mac OS Into a Tamperproof Vending Machine?
March 4th, 2011Via: Engadget:
Apple’s not saying that it beats other tablets on the market. It’s saying “we do one thing, and these guys do something else altogether.” They’re not competition — they’re not even playing the same game!
That’s not to say Apple has given up on PCs, and in fact, the company’s laptop sales are consistently exceeding expectations. But take a look at what’s creeping around the corner. There’s Lion, with its iOS-like interface, its simplified experience. If Apple has its way, and if the sales of its mobile devices carry on in the manner they have up until now, a post-PC outlook will even fit devices that look alarmingly like… PCs.
