Kerry Fires Back, then Rolls Over

Kerry was attempting to insult Bush, not the troops when he mentioned getting "stuck in Iraq". He intended to say that if you don't study hard in college, you can end up " getting us stuck in Iraq". He was trying to say that Bush didn't have the intelligence to plan the war because Bush did not study hard or make an effort to be smart in college. Kerry's reaction to the White House calls for an apology are right on:

Kerry said it is the president who owes U.S. soldiers an apology for "a Katrina foreign policy" that misled the country into war in Iraq, failed to adequately study and plan for the aftermath, has not properly equipped troops and has expanded the terrorist threat.

"I'm sick and tired of a bunch of despicable Republicans who will not debate real policy, who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes, standing up and trying to make other people the butt of those mistakes," he said. "It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who've never worn the uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did." - abc

Well, it's about time! That's what we need. A democrat with a spine.

UPDATE: He blew it by apologizing for something he did not do wrong, thus showing he's still subservient to the lying country-stealing Bush mob. As in old days, the ruler shall be the most ruthless and shall have the loudest voice with which to falsely accuse opponents. And so it is today.

People really ARE stupid in my country. They can't even understand simple sentences anymore. Kerry left one WORD out of a sentence and the meaning was changed. He corrected the slip, and still, my BS right wing talk radio stations are broadcasting 24/7 people calling up to wave flags and say how smart their friends and relatives in the military are and how insulted they are.

You know what? This slip by Kerry touched a nerve because the truth is we are a bunch of flag waving yahoos who got SUCKERED by lies about WMDs and about how we'd be welcomed in Iraq. We let thugs trick us into giving up rights. We let ourselves be tricked into invading a country which Bush himself says had NOTHING to do with 9/11. You think that's smart?

Don't feel bad if you were fooled. You were actually fooled by some very powerful military grade propaganda with tricks developed over many decades. Mind control is real, but it isn't done with radio waves, ufos or implanted devices.

Mind control is done with talk radio. It is done with spin. It is done with FOX. It is done with fear. It is done with hate.

Super Mario on a Super Bass

[youtube]yf56jYDv2fc[/youtube]

WP Password Recovery

http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/phpmyadmin/

The History of Halloween

A little background on the origins of Halloween:

"2,000 years ago, the Celts lived in what is now Ireland, Scotland, the United Kingdom and France. Their new year began on November 1, which for them marked the end of summer and the onset of winter. They believed that the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred on the night of October 31 as their calendar changed. Spirits of the dead were believed to roam the earth, causing havoc. The Celts also believed that the presence of these spirits enabled the Druids, their priestly class, to predict the future.

October 31 was called Samhain (pronounced sowen) meaning ?summer?s end,? after the god of the same name, whom the Celts believed imprisoned the sun god for the winter. To commemorate the day, the Druids built bonfires and the people dressed in costumes made of animal heads and skins.

The Romans had conquered the Celts by 43 CE. They ruled for 400 years and combined two of their own holidays with Samhain. One was Feralia, a holiday commemorating the dead. The other was the holiday honoring Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees. (Pomona?s symbol was an apple and this is part of the origin of the custom to ?bob for apples? on Halloween.)

By the 800s, Christianity had spread into the Celtic lands. The Church was having some trouble getting people to stop celebrating their old pagan holidays, so they decided to assign Christian holidays to coincide with them. November 1 was designated ?All Saints Day,? honoring martyrs and saints. October 31 was the eve of All Saints Day, ?All Hallows Eve? (from which came the name Halloween). In 1000 CE, November 2 was designated All Souls Day, honoring the dead. Collectively, the three day festival from October 31 through November 2 was called ?Hallowmas.?

All Souls Day in England featured parades. During these festivities, the poor would beg for ?soul cakes,? which they received in exchange for promises to pray for the donor?s dead relatives. The Church encouraged the practice of soliciting soul cakes to replace the practice of leaving food out to appease wandering spirits. This, of course, is the source of the modern ?Trick or Treat.?

Dressing in costume comes from the Celtic tradition of dressing up in animal skins (as described above) and from a European custom. People were afraid that they would encounter ghosts if they went out on Halloween. They dressed up and wore masks to disguise themselves so that the spirits would mistake them for other ghosts.

Halloween traditions were popularized in America in the latter half of the 19^th century by Irish immigrants fleeing the great potato famine of 1846. By the middle of the 20^th century, ?trick or treating? had become associated with vandalism. Harmless mischief perpetrated on those who refused gifts of food or money had grown into acts of property defacement and felonious assault. It continues to be that way in many places today.

It?s ironic that many Fundamentalist Christian groups object to Halloween because of its pagan origins. The same superimposition of Christian holidays over existing pagan holidays was accomplished with Lupercalia (St. Valentine?s Day), Eostre (Easter) and Yule (Christmas).

So what is the origin of Halloween? It?s a combination of Celtic, Roman and Christian holidays. ... No matter how you look at it, Halloween is not a secular holiday. - ou.org

Halloween Fun

Hi People, How are your costume parties this year? Check out the great Halloween features on Retrocrush.com including the 100 coolest monsters!

And while you're at it, check out people's Halloween Costumes on YouTube.

If you are in Sacramento, come say hello to me at the TFO 'Killer Klowns From Outer Space' on Halloween Night at the Crest.

Global warming will devastate economy: report

Global warming could devastate the world economy on a scale we haven't seen since the world wars and the Great Depression, a major report by a British economist says.

Sir Nicholas Stern, the report's author and a senior government economist, said unchecked global warming could shrink the global economy by 20 per cent -- and cost a whopping $7 trillion in lost output. However, taking action now would cost just one per cent of global gross domestic product, Sterns says in his 700-page study.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who introduced the report today, called for "bold and decisive action" to cut carbon emissions and stem the worst of temperature rise. He said the Stern Review showed scientific evidence that global warming was "overwhelming" and its consequences "disastrous." - more

Ah, what do the British know anyway? Just trust Bush. Believe Inhofe:

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ... has called global warming a hoax perpetrated by environmentalists on the American public. - cbs

This video explains Bush's view on the Global Warmings:

[googlevideo]-7408504973132978571[/googlevideo]

Terror Storm: An video about False Flag operations and 9/11

History of false terrorism trickery by governments. 1 hr 50 minutes. Alex Jones uses documented facts to show that governments sometimes kill their own people and use false blame to gain control, to invade other countries, etc. Includes info on the London bombings (7/7) and much more.

[googlevideo]786048453686176230[/googlevideo]

I don't share Alex Jones' generalized view of Governments being evil. My estimation is that most people in the CIA, FBI, NSA and so on are working to protect America, support the Constitution, maintain civil liberties, etc. Still, in the name of doing those things, lines are crossed. I think this crap does happen and with compartmentalization "need to know" information control it isn't terribly difficult for a small powerful group to pull off state sponsored terrorism from the inside. Change has to happen from the inside out. It does, and it will eventually.

Mysterious Gelatinous Ball

A mysterious gelatinous ball has puzzled and fascinated researchers after undersea photographer Rudolf Svensen spotted it while diving at the mouth of the Matre fjord in Hordaland, western Norway.

On Oct. 1 Rudolf and his brother Erling were diving when he spotted the unusual object.

"It was 50-70 centimeters (19.5-27.5 inches) in diameter and looked like a huge beach ball. It was transparent but had a kind of thick, red cord in the middle. It was a bit science-fiction," Svensen told newspaper Bergens Tidende's web site.

... A zoology professor and squid expert in New Zealand corroborated by email - the peculiar gelatinous ball was a large squid egg sack.

"The gelatinous lump contains several fertilized eggs. This is not at all a common sight, because squids are some of the most inaccessible animals known," Fjellheim told iBergen.no. - aftenposten

New Glowing Mushrooms Found in Brazil

Like a black light poster come to life, a group of bioluminescent fungi collected from Ribeira Valley Tourist State Park near S?o Paulo, Brazil, emanates a soft green glow when the lights go out.

The mushrooms are part of the genus Mycena, a group that includes about 500 species worldwide. Of these only 33 are known to be bioluminescent?capable of producing light through a chemical reaction. - natgeo

Diver deaths spawn rumors of underground waterway

About 120 miles east of Albuquerque, on the eastern edge of the town of Santa Rosa, N.M., lies a tiny oval of blue water - a spring-fed sinkhole about 80 feet wide and 81 feet deep - known as the Blue Hole.

Sometime ago a group of scuba divers dove into the Blue Hole, eager to explore every nook and fissure of the smooth-walled sinkhole. After climbing out, they realized one of their divers had disappeared.

Six months later, the body of that diver finally surfaced, but not in Santa Rosa. It was discovered, the story claims, in Lake Michigan - more than a thousand miles away - naked, waterlogged and with much of its skin scuffed off, as if it had been pushed and scraped through miles of rocky tunnels.

If the story is true, one of the longest underground waterways in the world could lie directly beneath us. Perhaps the direct water route across the continent searched for by the explorers Lewis and Clark actually exists - underground. Andrea Sachs, in a Dec. 19, 2004, Washington Post article, wrote that there is a protective metal grate covering a spring that produces about 3,000 gallons of fresh water per minute on the Blue Hole's limestone floor. And, she wrote, that grate also seals off an elaborate network of caves that twists southward 200 miles, down to Texas. ...

There are reportedly some rooms below the sink, and it goes to 250 feet with a going passage beyond," said Mike Poucher, cartographer for the National Speleological Society Cave Diving Section. "How far does it go? No one knows."

Poucher said the grate blocking the cave system was installed in the early 1980s, after at least four divers died in the caves during the previous decade. - dailylobo

This is not the only Blue Hole. There are others.

Painting town red? No, pink

THE crime-infested city of Aurangabad in eastern India is being painted pink in the hope that an image makeover will lift the sagging morale of residents who are fed up with the decline in law and order, officials said.

The city of two million people is a hotbed of killing, inter-caste wars, extortion and abduction. - scots

This will really be a story if it actually reduces crime.

Korean scientist paid mafia for mammoth

Disgraced South Korean stem cell scientist Professor Hwang Woo-suk says he spent private donations for research to pay the Russian mafia for mammoth tissues to clone extinct species.

Hwang, once celebrated as a national hero, was indicted in May on charges of fraud and embezzlement after prosecutors said he was the mastermind of a scheme to make it look like his team had produced stem cells through cloning human embryos.

He previously told a Seoul court that he spent part of more than US$1 million in corporate donations for "peripheral activities related to research".

"Some of the money was spent in contacting the Russia mafia as we tried to clone mammoths," Hwang told the court during a hearing this week.

"But you can't say that [on the expense claim] so we expensed it as money for cows for experiment."

Hwang previously said he obtained mammoth tissues from glaciers and tried to clone them three times but failed. - abc

The Russian mafia can get you just about anything I guess... for a million dollars. Professor Woo-suk may spend 10 years in prison for violating bioethics laws for fabricating data in his human cloning research.

The Terror Bird: Big Bird’s bad, buff brother.

Terror birds were first discovered in the late 1800s and are believed to have become South America's top predators after the dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago.

A high school student unearthed the ancient remains of the new species three years ago in the Patagonia region of Argentina (see photos of Patagonia).

Chiappe and his colleagues examined the specimens and found that the fossils?a well-preserved skull and foot bones?are about 15 million years old.

...

Terror birds were the biggest birds the world has ever seen, and the new species is by far the largest terror bird yet, says paleontologist Luis Chiappe, director of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California.

"Some of these birds had skulls that were two and a half feet [almost a meter] in length. [They] were colossal animals," he said.

The new, currently unnamed species stood about ten feet (three meters) tall and had a head as big as that of a horse.

The largest terror birds could likely swallow dog-size prey in a single gulp, experts say.

Mystery ‘explosion’ damages homes

Reports of a loud explosion on the north Cornwall and Devon border are being investigated. A number of residents reported hearing a loud bang between 1130 and 1200 BST around the Bude and Holsworthy area. Others said their homes were damaged.

Western Power and the British Geological Survey have carried out checks in the area.

Pc Baxter Proven of Devon and Cornwall Police said an investigation was under way into the cause.

He said: "One theory being considering is perhaps a military aircraft has broken the sound barrier a little too close to the land and that has caused this sonic boom and this, in turn, caused some light damage around the north Cornwall area." - bbc

My Sacramento Burlesque Show Audition

Tonight Amy Anne and I auditioned for a new Burlesque show that is opening up in Old Sacramento at a club called the SpeakEasy Lounge. Here are some pics of the dance floor, the DJ, some people who auditioned with us tonight and myself and Amy. Click to enlarge:




We've actually done something like this before. Amy and I played one time at the Derby in 2003 in Hollywood (pics) with the Velvet Hammer Burlesque group when we were working with the "I Can't Believe it's Not Comedy" troupe. This new show opens in December or January and everyone is thinking it will play to packed audiences.

David Blaine Street Magic Spoof

Warning: Language. I'm still laughing ... if you've seen David Blaine's Street Magic video then you have to see this:

[youtube]AYxu_MQSTTY[/youtube]

Private: Crazy Kid at the Beach

This kid from the Man Show has some pretty funny lines as he invades people at the beach.

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U.S. generals call for Democratic takeover

Disgusted with the leadership of the Iraq war, two retired generals say the GOP must go. Plus: More than 100 current military personnel join a campaign to get the U.S. out of Iraq -- now. Two retired senior Army generals, who served in Iraq and previously voted Republican, are now openly endorsing a Democratic takeover of Congress.

The generals, and an active-duty senior military official, told Salon in separate interviews that they believe a Democratic victory will help reverse course from what they consider to be a disastrous Bush administration policy in Iraq. The two retired generals, Maj. Gen. John Batiste and retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, first openly criticized the handling of the war last spring, when they called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. - salon

Why would Bush or Cheney want to leave Iraq when it is making them so rich? It seems? Cheney owns stock in Halliburton which is getting fat from this messy war. If we don't fix the electronic voting fraud we will have a third election stolen by the GOP.

How the Bush Family Makes a Killing from George’s Presidency

Halliburton scored almost $1.2 billion in revenue from contracts related to Iraq in the third quarter of 2006, leading one analyst to comment: "Iraq was better than expected... Overall, there is nothing really to question or be skeptical about. I think the results are very good."

Very good indeed. An estimated 655,000 dead Iraqis, over 3,000 dead coalition troops, billions stolen from Iraq's coffers, a country battered by civil war - but Halliburton turned a profit, so the results are very good.

Very good certainly for Vice President Dick Cheney, who resigned from Halliburton in 2000 with a $33.7 million retirement package (not bad for roughly four years of work). In a stunning conflict of interest, Cheney still holds more than 400,000 stock options in the company. Why pursue diplomacy when you can rake in a personal fortune from war?

Yet Cheney isn't the only one who has benefited from the Bush administration's destructive policies. The Bush family has done quite nicely too. - more

British twins have different skin color

LONDON - A pair of British twin boys has been born with different skin color, a rare genetic occurrence according to experts. In an interview with Britain's Sky News program, mother Kerry Richardson said that the boys were both born white but as they've gotten older one of the boys got darker and the other lighter. Today, she says, the twins attract attention wherever they go. -msnbc

Waterboarding is Torture, Attempted Murder

Any living human will die from lack of oxygen in just a few minutes. Waterboarding combines suffocation (lack of new oxygen intake) with drowning (water in the lungs preventing oxygen transfer to the blood). Only a small amount of water is needed to kill a person.
So, when this expert torturer describes water boarding as strapping someone to a board, tilting them back, covering their head with a t-shirt, and then pouring water so some goes in the nose and mouth, he knows what he is talking about. He trained people to do this (SERE). He is also a lying son-of-a-bitch when he says this is not torture.

The tortured person's perception of possible death is, in fact, correct. If you are water boarded, odds are you will panic and puke. You may choke to death on your own vomit. If you survive, you may die minutes to days later. You may have life long severe brain damage. Your heart can stop and you can die. Water boarding is not just "a mental trick" as this psychopath says with a smile. It is attempted murder. It is torture.

According to the 1996 War Crimes Act, if retired Marine Bob Newman who served as an interrogator conducted water boarding (and it sounds like he has) then he can be tried for the war crime of torture and sentenced to death.

My guess is that he knows this, which is why he has called for the "execution or imprisonment of John Kerry, Howard Dean, and John Murtha". He's protecting himself from execution by saying water boarding is not torture.

I can not BELIEVE that I just saw a torturer consulted as an expert on the news. What's next, mass murder reality shows?

Update: This torturer has his own talk show (!) on the same station where another hate radio host was assassinated in 1984. The killer(s) were never caught.

Guitar Solos: Eruption by Eddie Van Halen

Here's Eddie's live version of Eruption. People can imitate him, but you can tell from this that he is the source. The recorded eruption solo that kids imitate is just one small part of the music in Eddie's head that he is able to produce with a guitar.

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And here is some kid copying the album version of Eruption.

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This one is pretty good too. It is interesting to hear and see how people are playing this since I used to play it myself.

[youtube]KJ-Y7_cSB94[/youtube]

Here's another with some extra amazing stuff thrown in at the end.

[youtube]9WvqbBaOc9c[/youtube]

A collection of people on YouTube

This is an interesting collection of humanity as found on YouTube. This should be sent to the stars as a record of who we are in 2006.

[youtube]VXwarrIYLJ4[/youtube]

Dilbert Cartoonist recovers from rare disease

For a while there, Scott Adams could only speak in rhyme. Or while pinching his nose. The man behind the "Dilbert" cartoon strip says he suffers from Spasmodic Dysphonia, an ailment in which the parts of the brain controlling speech don't work properly. Those with the disorder can speak in unique circumstances -- while reading poetry, in exaggerated falsetto or right after sneezing -- but can't talk in their normal voices. Adams developed the disease in 2005. Treatments involved injecting Botox into muscles around the larynx in order to quell spasms. Adams, who hated the injections, began reciting nursery rhymes in order to "re-map" his brain. He can talk now, but his voice is a bit raspy, as if he's getting over the flu. - kpl

Adams, 49, appears to be a rare example of someone who has largely - but not totally - recovered from Spasmodic Dysphonia, a mysterious disease in which parts of the brain controlling speech shut down or go haywire. As many as 30,000 Americans are afflicted, typically in their 40s and 50s, experts say.

Adams, the former Pacific Bell financial analyst whose doodles mocking middle management became one of the country's most popular comic strips, hated the injections. His only comfort was that he could sing and recite poetry with only minimal gasping and stammering. He decided to recite nursery rhymes every night in hopes of "re-mapping" his brain.

Last weekend, Adams was chanting "Jack Be Nimble" for the umpteenth time when it dawned on him: He wasn't having a stitch of difficulty. He's been talking ever since - albeit with a raspy, tinny voice that sounds as if he's still recovering from the flu. - ap

Man banned from touching muscles

Home town of the Beatles. Banned from feeling muscles? Could he go to jail for shaking hands, then?

A man has been ordered by a judge not to feel people's muscles or ask them to do exercises in public.

Akinwale Arobieke, 45, from Liverpool, was also banned from measuring the size of muscles, under the order requested by Merseyside Police. Arobieke, who is known in the area as Purple Aki, is out of jail on licence after a sentence imposed in 2003 for 15 counts of harassment. He pursued young people with requests such as asking to feel their muscles. Deputy District Judge Aled Jones granted the order to coincide with Arobieke's release on Thursday.

Town ban Merseyside Police applied to Liverpool Magistrates' Court for a Sexual Offences Prevention Order against Arobieke - despite the fact he has not been convicted of a sex crime. A spokeswoman for Merseyside Police confirmed an interim order had been granted until 23 November. Under the terms of the order Arobieke cannot touch, feel or measure muscles or ask people to do squat exercises in public. Neither can he approach or do paid or voluntary work with any young person under 18. He is also banned from St Helens, Warrington or Widnes without the permission of either the chief constable of Merseyside or the chief constable of Cheshire. And he cannot loiter near educational establishments, gyms or sports clubs.

I originally wrote that this was an example of control freakism. I addded, "Neither shall he converse with people as in doing so, he may view the tongue of others, and that organ is known to consist of muscles. Neither shall he be allowed to look at the muscles of animals in stores (known as "meat"), neither shall he be allowed to look upon the oceans, as they are known to contain a multitude of muscles.", which for the humor challenged, let me be clear, was indeed humor. Good humor at that. But nevertheless, upon further research, this person's history makes this ruling make some sense...

South Park - 9/11 Conspiracy Episode + Some Little Known Conspiracy Highlights

Check out the South Park 9/11 Conspiracy episode before it is taken down for copy write infringement. I enjoy South Park's creativity and irreverence but some of the "humor" is just stupid.

Even though it "slams the conspiracy theorists", this episode will get a lot of people to visit 911truth.org. It also provides, for people who don't have the emotional ability to handle the facts, plenty of what I call the right wing security blanket: 4th grade name calling.

Anyway, the number of Americans who blame Bush/Cheney now is rising. It may have been 1/4th at the time this South Park episode was made, but the number has now risen to 36 percent. That's over 100 million Americans. Quick, increase the fluoride! ;-)

"A recent Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll of 1,010 Americans found that 36 percent suspect the U.S. government promoted the attacks or intentionally sat on its hands. Sixteen percent believe explosives brought down the towers. Twelve percent believe a cruise missile hit the Pentagon."

South Park mentions the Pentagon hole and the explosives, but not the 9/11 conspiracy facts which are the most bizzare: 1. The CIA was conducting a plane into building "exercise" on 9/11. 2. Eventual CIA chief Porter Goss was meeting on the morning of 9/11 with Pakistan's Ahmad whom we later learned paid 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta $100,000. 3. Cheney was in direct command and control on 9/11 of NORAD field exercises -- some involving hijack simulations -- taking place on that day. 4. These war games drew most US fighter jets away up north and put false blips put on radar screens, paralyzing our defenses. If you have only a few fighters and possibly 22 hijacked planes on radar, which ones do you intercept?

Were some of the "blips" on the FAA's radar screens artifacts created by government hijacking scenarios scheduled on September 11? Credit: FAA

What was the value-added benefit for the 9/11 hijackers in turning off their transponder signals?

The planes remained visible to radar; the transponders merely ID'd the flights.

And yet the transponders of all four flights were switched off. What was gained?

I think the answer is found in the proliferation of war games on September 11, particularly the exercise called "Vigilant Guardian": the live-fly simulation of hijackings in the US Northeast staged by the Joint Chiefs and NORAD the very morning of the attacks. (Health advisory to coincidentalists: chew carefully before digesting.)

At one time on 9/11, as many as 22 aircraft appeared to be hijacked. Suddenly, the virtue, now verging on necessity, of switching off the transponders becomes evident.

With loss of transponder signals the planes became bogies, and discriminating real from simulated hijackings became next to impossible.

This confusion compounded the paralysis already introduced to the system by drawing most of the Eastern seaboard's combat-ready interceptors into Northern Canada for the wargame "Northern Vigilance," and changing the standing orders for a shoot down in June 2001 by removing the discretion of field commanders and placing it solely in the hands of the Secretary of Defense. - oilempire

So, if you start looking at the facts (and many never do) you become either a conspiracy theorist or a coincidence theorist. There are an insane number of oddities and coincidences. The detail supporting the possible conspiracy is amazing. Read this guide to 9/11 coincidences. Here is another with many more.

Man Arrested For Daring To Criticize Cheney

Vice president Dick Cheney had a Colorado man arrested for telling him that his policies on Iraq were reprehensible. Attorney David Lane said that on June 16, Steve Howards was walking his 7-year-old son to a piano practice, when he saw Cheney surrounded by a group of people in an outdoor mall. Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible," or words to that effect, then walked on.

Ten minutes later, according to Howards' lawsuit, he and his son were walking back through the same area, when they were approached by Secret Service agent Virgil D. "Gus" Reichle Jr., who asked Howards if he had "assaulted" the vice president. Howards denied doing so, but was nonetheless placed in handcuffs and taken to the Eagle County Jail. Howards has filed suit against the secret service.

The lawsuit filed today alleges that Howards was arrested in retaliation for having exercised his First Amendment right of free speech, and that his arrest violated his Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful seizure. When did it become a crime to tell the truth? When did it become a crime to dare speak up to the powerful?

The Bush administration seems to think that they have been anointed American royalty. America doesn?t need a king, and we damn sure don?t need these two bit dictators. ... - humpin

See this article in the NY Times for more. Steven Howards of Colorado is on the right.

?It was our understanding that the vice president did not want to prosecute,? Mr. Hurlbert said in a telephone interview. ?The original indication was that he had pushed the vice president. Later it looked to be that he had just spoken to him.?

Congressman Ed Markey Wants Security Researcher Arrested

Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wants the federal government to arrest security researcher Christopher Soghoian for creating the Northwest Airline Boarding Pass Generator, a site which lets anyone create a facsimile of a Northwest Airlines boarding pass. Soghoian hoped to spur Congress to look closely at the nation's aviation security policies, which he calls "security theater."

Instead, Markey, a member of the House Homeland Security committee, wants the site shut down and Soghoian arrested.

"The Bush Administration must immediately act to investigate, apprehend those responsible, shut down the website, and warn airlines and aviation security officials to be on the look-out for fraudsters or terrorists trying to use fake boarding passes in an attempt to cheat their way through security and onto a plane," Markey said in a statement.

... While Soghoian's hack drew widespread attention on the internet Thursday, the security hole it exposes has long been known. Boarding passes that are printable online can be edited simply by manipulating the html code, and Slate magazine, among others, publicized a method for those on government watch lists to avoid extra-screening or being banned from travel.

---
Reader comment: "This is totally something out of the X files, where people in the government are arresting people who are just trying to expose them. " - blog.wired

Sure, shut down the site. It has served its purpose: to alert people to the problem. But Soghoian is the messenger. He should be thanked, not attacked. See this info from 2005.

Drivers attempt to twart license plate photos

This article talks about sprays. I've heard about using clear high gloss fingernail polish. No idea if it works or if it is legal in CA.

Britons are vandalizing the country's growing army of speed surveillance cameras. The government has set up thousands of cameras to catch speeders; one vigilante group alone claims to have damaged more than 1,000. Favored techniques: "digging them up; shooting, hammering and firebombing them." - slate

Alloy of hydrogen and oxygen made from water

Pure water made into a metal. Cool.

Researchers have now used x-rays to dissociate water at high pressure to form a solid mixture--an alloy--of molecular oxygen and molecular hydrogen. The work, by a multi-institutional team that includes Russell Hemley and Ho-kwang Mao of Carnegie's Geophysical Laboratory, appears in the October 27 issue of Science.

The researchers subjected a sample of water to extremely high pressures--about 170,000 times the pressure at sea level (17 Gigapascals)--using a diamond anvil, and zapped it with high-energy x-rays. Under these conditions, nearly all the water molecules split apart and re-formed into a solid alloy of O₂ and H₂. X-radiation proved to be the key to cleaving the O-H bonds in water; without it, the water remained in a high-pressure form of ice known as ice VII--one of at least 15 such variants of ice that exist under high pressure and variable temperature conditions. - physorg

An alloy is a combination, either in solution or compound, of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal, and where the resulting material has metallic properties.

"The existence of this new alloy is very interesting but not hugely surprising," says Sean McWhinnie, at the Royal Society of Chemistry in London, UK. "Given high enough pressures, even hydrogen will behave as a metal. All, the other heavier elements in hydrogen's group of the periodic table are metals," she points out. - newsci

This much pressure happens naturally at more than 300 miles beneath the Earth's surface.

Arson kills 4 in California

Four firefighters have died fighting this arson fire in Riverside county. A 5th is in critical condition. High winds have fed flames which so far have destroyed 24,000 acres.

Fire officials say the Esperanza fire began about 1 a.m. Thursday in the foothill area along Esperanza Avenue. Forensic specialists combed the ground near the area searching for clues. One neighbor near the fire's starting point told The Times he saw two white males in their early 20s fleeing the area. - latimes

Bobby McFerrin improvisation Montreaux

Bobby McFerrin is someone I saw before the "Don't Worry Be Happy" hit. He could imitate any instrument and he had perfect pitch. I was impressed as a kid by that. In this improv, without words, he creates an instrument out of the audience and then plays it and jams along. Part of the beauty is that the audience has no idea what he's doing at first.

[youtube]MVVUMNv1t9w[/youtube]

Bill Cosby Sings the Beatles

I like his jazzy thing at the end of this video.

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Uniter Approves Divder

US border barrier faces a wall of criticism.American President George Bush has come under fire for signing legislation to build a fence on its border with Mexico to fight illegal immigration. ... In signing the bill, Bush said that he is taking seriously America's responsibility to secure its borders. But many critics say the fence is just a gimmick to win votes with mid-term elections just ten days away. Illegal immigration is top of the political agenda in the southern states bordering Mexico, and the Republicans face a fight to keep control of congress in the up-coming ballot.

Mexico's President-elect Felipe Calderon has likened the fence to the Berlin Wall. He was speaking on a tour to Canada. "I'd like to repeat that it seems to us a deplorable decision that the United States Congress and the government has made to go ahead and build a wall along the border. Walls do not resolve anything." - eunews

Mexican officials have condemned US plans for a 700-mile (1,125km) fence along the two states' border, signed into law by President Bush on Thursday" - bbc

This $2.2 billion wall will also keep people in the US when Bush has the military take over the country.

4X4 Stright Up

Sometimes it is the gas and not the break that saves you. If this driver didn't hit the gas at the right moment, there could been some very bad rolling down the hill sideways.

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Rare “Rainbow” Spotted Over Idaho

It looks like a rainbow that's been set on fire, but this phenomenon is as cold as ice. Known in the weather world as a circumhorizontal arc, this rare sight was caught on film on June 3 as it hung over northern Idaho near the Washington State border (map of Idaho). The arc isn't a rainbow in the traditional sense?it is caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. - national

Chemtrails? ;-)

U.S. troops on active duty call for Iraq withdrawal

More than 200 active duty U.S. armed service members, fed up with the war in Iraq, have joined an unusual protest calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, organizers said on Wednesday.The campaign, called the Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq, is the first of its kind in the Iraq war and takes advantage of Defense Department rules allowing active duty troops to express personal opinions to members of Congress without fear of retaliation, organizers said.

"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq," states the appeal posted on the campaign's Web site at www.appealforredress.org.

"Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home," it adds. - reuters

Do you support the troops or not? Support their right to come home. Well, it won't be long now because Bush says we are winning the war in Iraq. Good thing? Bush never lies.

Home Prices Plunge by Most in 35 Years

Is this what a housing bust looks like? New home prices fell last month by the largest amount in 35 years and owners are being warned to brace for further declines, especially in formerly hot markets. After years of increases, some buyers say prices are still out of their range. The Commerce Department reported that the median price for a new home sold in September was $217,100, a decline of 9.7 percent from September 2005. - ap

Steven Wright on SNL in the 80’s

Here's my favorite comedian. "My house is made out of balsa wood..."

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Cheney endorses simulated drowning

Is Cheney psychopathic? Some think he orchestrated the events of 9/11. Seems to me the type of person who would approve of water boarding could do something like 9/11. Sick sick sick.

Vice President Dick Cheney has confirmed that U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al Qaeda suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called "water-boarding," which creates a sensation of drowning.

Cheney indicated that the Bush administration doesn't regard water-boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said at one point in an interview Tuesday with WDAY Radio in Fargo, N.D.

It was the first time that a senior Bush administration official has confirmed that U.S. interrogators used water-boarding against important al Qaeda suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged to have been chief architect of 9-11. Mohammad was captured in Pakistan on March 1, 2003, and was turned over to the CIA.

Conservative talk show host Scott Hennen told Cheney that listeners had asked him to "let the vice president know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives." - dfw, msnbc

The problem is, people lie to avoid pain and death, so you get BAD INTELLIGENCE from water boarding. If you want real information, it is easy to get. The reasons to torture are: 1) because you are sick and you like to see people suffer and die, and/or 2) because you yourself are guilty and you want to torture other people into giving false confessions for your crimes.

Pravda’s Top 10 Ghost Photos

The 10 most real life ghost photos.

UK gets face transplant go-ahead

A UK team has been given permission to carry out what would be the world's first full face transplant. Peter Butler at London's Royal Free Hospital said he was "delighted" to get the go-ahead from an NHS ethics board for an operation "within months". No patient has been selected for the procedure, although the team has been approached by about 30 patients. Last November Isabelle Dinoire from France became the first person to receive a partial face transplant. She had her nose, lips and chin torn off after being mauled by the family dog. - bbc

The bone structure of one person changes the appearance of the 2nd person's face when transplanted. Simulation result:

The Native American Listening to an iPod Face on Earth

Click image for the link to Google Maps. Zoom out and look at the surrounding areas. Is this a natural formation, or proof that the ancient Native Americans were aliens who foretold the coming of the iPod. Did they create this monument to the future which they knew would one day be seen on Google Maps by YOU on my blog?

Sniper shoots gun out of criminal’s hand

Is this some new technology or are police snipers really this good?

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Universal Translator one step closer

A "Tower of Babel" device that gives the illusion of being bilingual is being developed by US scientists.

Users simply have to silently mouth a word in their own language for it to be translated and read out in another.

The researchers said the effect was like watching a television programme that had been dubbed.

The system, detailed in New Scientist, is not yet fully accurate, but experts said it showed the technology was "within reach" - bbc

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Math formula wins $13 M in lottery

MOST of us believe winning lotto is down to the luck of the draw. But a syndicate of university professors and tutors in Britain thought it could also be related to the principles of mathematical probability....

A syndicate of mathematics professors in Britain develop a formula for picking lotto numbers. .. they win $13 million.? ... The syndicate then set up a computer program to check the numbers every week.? It took four years and a total outlay of $8700, but on Saturday, the formula succeeded. Matching the winning numbers and the bonus ball, they hit the jackpot. .. The syndicate, made up of 17 staff members at Bradford University and College, bagged the big prize by using two boxes, 49 pieces of paper and a large amount of brainpower.- more

Here is the method they used:

Instead of each member randomly choosing numbers or relying on birthdays and significant dates as they had done this time they came up with an unbeatable formulae. All 49 numbers were written on pieces of paper and placed in one box. Each syndicate member in turn then picked out six numbers, until eight lines were filled, using 48 of the 49 numbers. The remaining number was then used to start a new line by the next syndicate member, who picked from a second box where the pieces of paper already drawn had been placed. As a result each number appeared at least twice in the syndicate's 17 lines, with four numbers appearing three times. -mailonsunday

The article is misleading. The formula / method they used did not increase their odds. There is always a 1 in 13.98 million chance of winning. You can't increase those odds because the motion of the balls is random. As one commenter put it:

This is a simple system that anyone could have used. It has no more to do with any 'mathematical formula' than sticking your finger up your nose.

Read more: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-412386/University-lottery-syndicate-wins-5m-jackpot-devising-formula.html#comments#ixzz0V3bPijPw

Here is the real scoop on lottery math:

In a typical 6/49 game, six numbers are drawn from a range of 49 and if the six numbers on a ticket match the numbers drawn, the ticket holder is a jackpot winner—this is true no matter the order in which the numbers appear. The probability of this happening is 1 in 14 million (13,983,816 to be exact).

Don't email Dr. Jordan or myself because you think one of us knows a secret formula for increasing your chances of winning the lottery.

Rush Limbaugh calls Michael J. Fox a faker

There is some probably well earned creative trashing of Rush at the end of this article. For example, one person writes "His opinions are as welcome as head-lice." Yes, in my own words, Rush Limbaugh is a sort of infectious disease spread by radios.

Huge prehistoric shark-like monster tooth found in wall

Angela Foster at first thought the tooth was an arrow head
A tooth belonging to a prehistoric shark has been donated to a Kent museum after it was found in a wall.

The palm-sized incisor belonging to a creature called a Megladon was discovered by Angela Foster after her garden wall in Maidstone collapsed.

Experts at Maidstone Museum believe the tooth could be 10 million years old, but they do not know how it could have ended up where it was found.

Prof Ed Jarzembowski said the shark could easily have swallowed a human. ... The Megladon, [sic Try Megalodon instead] which died out two million years ago, was 15 to 20m long and capable of devouring a large whale. - bbc

Here's a video which seems to show someone finding a lot of these while SCUBA diving.

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Checking the Visitor Log

Here are the visitors to this blog (not the entire site, just this blog) just in the US on just one day: Oct 25th 2006. Awesome. Hello to you all. Click image to check it out. Can you find yourself? (Note: It only shows the last 100 visitors at any given time.)

Aerial Armchair Archaeology: Google Earthing China’s Pyramids

"I banked to avoid a mountain and we came out over a level valley. Directly below was a gigantic white pyramid. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. It was encased in shimmering white. This could have been metal, or some sort of stone. It was pure white on all sides. The remarkable thing was the capstone, a huge piece of jewel-like material that could have been crystal. There was no way we could have landed, although we wanted to. We were struck by the immensity of the thing" - March 28, 1947 the "New York Times" [If I'm reading this bad translation correctly].

The White Pyramid with a jewel-like capstone hasn't been found, but with Google Earth, there is now no doubt that the Pyramids of China are real. I call this aerial armchair archaeology.

So, a few days ago I told you how to enter latitude and longitude in Google Maps. Can you just enter "34.26 North 108.52 East"? No, but you can enter "34.26 108.52" and you will end up somewhere in China. Here's a link I made for you. There may be something to see there in Google Earth, but the maps on line are too low-res at that location to see pyramids currently. There is a high-res area nearby if you hunt around, however.