What is a “false flag operation”?

[A flase flag operation is ] ...where governments attack their own people or allies ? then blame it on their enemy ? in order to justify a war against that enemy.

Here's a detailed blog article which says 7 key insiders, people in our own government, could have pulled off 9/11 in order to obtain billions of dollars in war profits.

Does George have a Bald Man Fetish?

Massachusetts to provide health care for all

"Massachusetts appeared set to pass legislation yesterday to extend healthcare insurance to almost all of its residents, an accomplishment that has eluded policy-makers in Washington and the rest of the United States for decades.

The law, which only awaits the signature of Governor Mitt Romney, will require citizens of the state to hold health insurance as of 1 July 2007. The governor likened it to current laws that make it illegal to drive cars without insurance. If the plan works, Massachusetts will be the first state in the US to achieve something at least very close to universal healthcare. Nearly all of the half a million or so citizens in the state without insurance should end up being covered.

"Massachusetts has set itself apart from every other state in the country," declared Governor Romney. He said the bill, approved on Tuesday by both sides of the state legislature, was "something historic, truly landmark, a once-in-a-generation opportunity".

President George Bush and his predecessor, Bill Clinton, both made ill-fated attempts greatly to expand health insurance care for the whole country, although from very different ideological angles. Early in his first term, Mr Clinton passed the challenge to his wife, Hillary, whose universal healthcare blueprint was famously thwarted.

The passage of the bill in Massachusetts, meanwhile, could prove a significant political boon for Mr Romney, a Republican and former business tycoon, who has been quietly positioning himself to make a run for the US presidency in 2008." - independent

Two men detained after walking from USA to Russia.

Adventurers detained in Russia after crossing Bering Strait ice.

MOSCOW -- Russian authorities have detained an American and a British citizen in the far east after the pair made a rare crossing by foot of a frozen 56-mile stretch of the Bering Strait, officials said Tuesday.

The two were arrested in Chukotka province for failing to register with the authorities, Andrei Orlov, spokesman for the Federal Security Service's (FSB) northeastern border guard division, said on NTV television. All visitors are required to register with police within three days of their arrival in Russia, even if they have visas.

Russian authorities did not identify the two or say when they were arrested.

But one of the adventurers, Briton Karl Bushby, said on his Web site that he and Dimitry Kieffer of Anchorage, Alaska, reached Chukotka province Friday. It took them 15 days to walk the 56 miles from Alaska to Russian territory.

The Web site said Bushby, a 36-year-old former paratrooper, made the crossing as part of a round-the-world walk that began in 1998 at the southern tip of South America. - MORE

DHS spokesman arrested in child sex sting

The deputy press secretary for the US Department of Homeland Security has been arrested for using the internet to seduce what he thought was a teenage girl. Brian J. Doyle was arrested Tuesday at his home in Maryland. ... As he was online, detectives from agencies including the U.S. Secret Service and the Montgomery County, Maryland, Police Department knocked on his door and served the arrest warrant, Judd said. They also executed a search warrant for his residence.- CNN

It could be true. There is, of course, a small chance that he is being set up for political reasons such as keeping people frightened internally, or to make it clear to the terrorists that we keep tabs on our people.

In the first case, if you are about to rat out a superior who is involved in crimes, for example, you could be discredited and jailed with a set up like this. A lot of top people are getting nailed by whistleblowers lately: DeLay, Abramoff, etc. How hard would it be for the Secret Service (they probably have the entire country bugged by now) to just grab anybody they wanted for any reason, lock them up, make up a story, and tell the press they'd confessed?

In the second alternative, this shows that the Secret Service is up to some good in protecting our assets. It tells other countries that we keep a close eye on our intelligence people and we protect our kids.

"Doyle is a former news and assignment editor of Time magazine's Washington bureau who accepted a buyout in 2001 and later joined the Transportation Security Administration as a spokesman. He has been in 15-year relationship with a woman who attended his brief court hearing yesterday, Helfand said. "

U.S. team expects 9 Atlantic hurricanes, but not as big as Katrina

"...it is statistically unlikely that the coming 2006-2007 hurricane season, or the seasons that follow, will have the number of major hurricane U.S. landfall events as we have seen in 2004-2005," Gray said in a statement." - CNN

Does your statistical model take global warming into account?

Banned from laughing in woods

German laugh expert?

A German has been ordered to stop laughing out loud in the woods after joggers complained he was disturbing the peace. Accountant Joachim Bahrenfeld, 54, from Datteln said he goes to the woods after work and at weekends to have a good belly laugh.

"It's part of living for me, like eating, drinking and breathing. I feel much better when I laugh, it's freeing and healthy," he said.

But he now faces a ?4,000 fine or six months jail if he laughs out loud again after a jogger successfully took him to court saying he was disturbing the peace. German laugh expert Susanne Maier, who founded the German Laughter Academy which aims to teach serious minded Germans to lighten up, said: "Mr Bahrenfeld has been doing what we advise our students to do and that is to find a place they like to have a good old giggle.

"It would do the person who made the complaint and the judge good to come along to our school and learn for themselves the benefits of letting it all go."

Scientists grow bladder replacement in lab

For the first time an entire human organ has been created from a person's cells, grown outside of the body and transplanted into the person. How soon until we can grow new hearts? Brains? The possibilities are awesome.

A team of scientists has grown human bladder sacs in the laboratory and successfully transplanted them into people.

It is the first time that a complicated internal organ, rather than a scrap of skin or other tissue, has been grown in the lab and placed into people. The researchers say that they are already working on growing tailor-made kidneys, livers or hearts that might bypass the shortage of donor organs and problems with organ rejection.

Anthony Atala at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and his colleagues took cells from the malfunctioning bladders of seven children with spina bifida and used them to grow thin sacs of tissue. They grafted the artificial organs, which look a little like hollowed-out grapefruits, on to the patients' own bladders. The team started their work in 1999 and then tracked the progress of the patients for several years before publishing the results in The Lancet¹.

In the three patients who received the most promising version of the technique, the bladders worked better and leaked less than the current best treatment, in which a poor bladder is patched up with tissue cut from the bowel.

"This will definitely generate a lot of excitement for all tissue engineers," says Steve Chung who studies stem cells for bladder repair at the Advanced Urology Institute of Illinois in Spring Valley.

Grown on a scaffold

Growing a new body part is not easy. Medical researchers must first find a source of cells and coax them into multiplying in the lab. Next, they have to mould the cells into a structure that mimics the normal organ, often by growing them on a scaffold. They also have to ensure that the organ is properly nourished by blood vessels and nerves.

Atala's team did this by slicing a postage-stamp-sized fragment of bladder tissue from each patient and encouraging the cells to proliferate. They spread a layer of muscle cells on the outside of a bladder-shaped, biodegradable mould of synthetic polymer and collagen, and added a separate layer of bladder urothelial cells on the inside.

The organ part grew in a soup of nutrients for several weeks before the team sewed it to the patient's bladder.

Form and function

Researchers already use artificially grown skin tissue in surgery, and scientists are working to create patches or full replacements for virtually every other organ in the body. This latest work is a significant step forwards because "they were actually able to do this in humans and show an enhanced function," says David Mooney, an expert in tissue engineering at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But experts caution that the bladder is a relatively simple organ when compared to something like the heart. - NATURE

Xeno’s Perfect Pitch Course, Exercise 2.

Exercise 2. Exploring your voice pitch. Again using the free Audio Phonics Guitar Tuner for Windows, practice singing each note for one entire breath several times in a row. How much does the note jump around as you sing? Practice singing notes as solid as possible in both pitch and volume for each note E A D G B E. Can you keep the needle between +/- 25? How often can you hit 0? Are you able to make the needle stay still while still singing a note with volume above the left side of the curve. (In my screen captures, I'm sining the A loud enough so a real note is registering. For the E, my volume is too low and a note is not registering. You can tell because the needle is not blue. ) Play with this for an hour or so. You might try different vowels. If you do that you may notice that certain vowel sounds push the note sharp. Work on them until you can sing an "I" sound in tune just like an "O" sound. Another fun thing to do is sing a song you know very slowly, using this program to check your pitch.



After singing for years, it is fun to go back and figure out what notes I've been singing, for example, with Beatles songs and such. What note is the first note of Yesterday? Try singing the songs first before you listen and see how close you get to the key. Once you know the starting note, sing each one slowly, moderately, then quickly while using the tuner. Some legal Beatles song samples here. (Choose whatever music you know and like.):

Xeno’s Perfect Pitch Course, Exercise 1.

This is keeping me busy muscially. ( This also why I'm not currently adding new songs or playing shows right now. ) I've set a goal for myself: be able to sing any note out of the blue and identify instantly any note that is played. That's perfect pitch. Learning perfect relative pitch comes first. Relative pitch is the ability to sing any note when given any other. Different musicians will be at different stages with this ability. My course is primarily for guitar players who also sing.

Exercise 1. Learn to sing the open strings of the guitar in the following sequence. Tune your guitar with a good tuner. If you don't have a tuner and your computer has a mic, you can use this free program:

Guitar Tuner 1.0		Download
Audio Phonics Guitar Tuner is the fastest and most accurate guitar tuner available. Using proprietary pitch recognition technology, the program can find the note quickly and identify the correct octave. The recognition technology also adapts to the speed of the processor for the smoothest tracking of any tuner. The program is easy to use, good looking and best of all it's free.

When I'm not around a computer, I use a Sabine STX1100 Chromatic Digital Guitar Tuner. After your guitar is in tune, play the open strings and sing along. First: E (low) A D G B E (high), and then back down: E (high) B G D A E (low). Next sing the other notes one at a time, singing first without the guitar and then check on your guitar. Repeat until you get them all correct 5 times in a row going both up and down. Using the program above, you can just sing the notes and you don't even need a guitar because you can see in realtime how close you are. If you are using the program instead of the guitar, close your eyes and sing the next note, then open them and see how close you are according to the program.
When you can do this, you are ready to move on to Exercise 2.

Record ocean waves recorded

SOUTHAMPTON, England, April 3 (UPI) -- British scientists report observing some of the largest waves ever measured -- reportedly so big, some computer models indicate they shouldn't even exist.
The observations occurred Feb. 8, 2000, aboard the Royal Research Ship Discovery during a scientific expedition to the North Atlantic, 155 miles west of Scotland, when a series of gigantic waves hammered the vessel.

The scientists set to sea because an intense storm was forecast and the researchers from Britain's National Oceanography Center, located in Southampton, wanted to closely observe it, der Spiegel reported. The scientists' measuring instruments showed the tallest of the waves was nearly 98 feet high and the giant waves shook the ship for 12 hours, said Naomi Holliday, the leader of the expedition. The Discovery's crew witnessed waves of up to 95 feet from trough to crest -- the highest waves ever measured by a scientific instrument on the open sea, according to an article the scientists published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The new data may be troubling for shipbuilders, said der Spiegel, since the scientists' data suggest giant waves may be much more common than has been thought. - UPI

Top 100 April Fools Stories

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/

Iran to respond to U.S. strike with global terror?

Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes against its nuclear sites with global attacks by intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams, The Washington Post reported in an article on its Web site on Saturday, citing unnamed "intelligence and terrorism experts." Iran would attack U.S. targets in Iraq and there is "growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere," The Post said.

"U.S. officials would not discuss what evidence they have indicating Iran would undertake terrorist action," it said. But the article quoted one "senior official" as saying that the matter is "a huge issue" and another saying it "is consuming a lot of time" in the U.S. intelligence apparatus. Intelligence officials declined to say whether they have detected "preparatory measures" by Iran's foreign-based operatives, such as more surveillance, counter-surveillance or message traffic, The Post said.

The Post article comes amid increased international tension over Iran's nuclear program, which some nations say is aimed at building atomic bombs. Iran says the program is civilian.

"... However, even the combined power of the new computers will be no match for IBM's Blue Gene/L. This worldbeater is able to perform a staggering 280.6 trillion calculations per second. The computer has more than 130,000 processors and is installed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. So far, no other supercomputer has broken the 100 teraflops barrier. Although it already tops the rankings of the list of the Top 500 supercomputers on Earth Blue Gene/L still has not reached its maximum performance, thought to be in excess of 367 teraflops."? - BBC

What I wonder is what these super computers are being used for. I imagine that world leaders have programmed a simulated political landscape and have run scenarios to come up with the thing they should do. We have neural net type computers that can pick hit songs better than humans and programs that can predict the stock market, so why not?? Is the world already being run by computers? For comparison:

"A human brain's probable processing power is around 100 teraflops, roughly 100 trillion calculations per second, according to Hans Morvec. [Follow up post says: ] human brain is meant to run at 10 pflops.? ibm are devolping blue gene / q that will run at 3 pflops. current blue gene / l runs at 280 tflops. 100 tflops is not anywhere near human brain speed." - future

Scientists study ‘moon catapult’

A plan to support a moon mission using a giant slingshot is to be studied by researchers at Glasgow University.The three-month study will look at the feasibility of propelling food and equipment from earth to the moon. The theory is that cargo could be transferred using giant cables and the power of the moon and earth's orbits. The scientists, who have won funding from the European Space Agency, said the system could replace rockets and would be cheaper in the long-term.

The study, by Dr Gianmarco Radice and Prof Matthew Cartmell, will look at the maths surrounding the system, rather than creating a physical model. The cables used to propel items would be many kilometres long and could be made of Kevlar, tungsten or graphite. The idea is that another set of long cables could be built on the moon to pull the items towards it.

The scientists said there was renewed interest in lunar exploration, with the possibility of building bases on the moon in the next 25 years, so such a system could become a useful reality. Dr Radice said: "Tether systems are an extremely attractive possibility for space transportation as they do not require any fuel. "The cargo is transferred from one orbit to the other using the orbital velocity of the system. "There are a number of practical issues that have to be addressed, as the cables are kilometres long and have to be extremely resistant, but this could provide an efficient method of transporting goods between the earth and moon".

They aren't talking about connecting the Moon to the Earth by cables. Here is a bit more detail:

It sounds fantastical to the layman, but this device resembles a double-ended slingshot, powered by a central motor. Designed to remain in orbit around the earth, it would fling outgoing loads into space while also catching incoming loads and handing them safely down to Earth. The system works by building up speed, like a slingshot, until it has enough momentum to fling its load off into space. The attraction of this ?motorised tether system? would be its long-term cost-effectiveness. As Professor Cartmell says, ?It?s actually virtually free once it?s up there.? And he hopes that its curiosity value will do a lot to regenerate the public?s interest in space projects. - link

Hey, wanna be a FEMA director? “no thanks.”

Bush wants someone to blame for the next major disaster, but after he picked recently fired and?unqualified Michael Brown, ignored Brown during the disaster, then scapegoated him publically, Bush is having a bit of trouble finding the next sucker. Seven people have turned Bush down so far.

WASHINGTON -- The calls went out across the nation, [for] seasoned disaster response experts to consider the job of a lifetime: FEMA director. But again and again, the response was the same: "No thanks."

Unconvinced that the administration is serious about fixing the Federal Emergency Management Agency or that there is enough time to get it done before President Bush's term ends, seven candidates for director or another top FEMA job said in interviews that they had pulled themselves out of the running. ... Now, with the next hurricane season only two months away, Bush, several former and current FEMA officials said, intends to ask R. David Paulison, 59, a former fire official in Miami who has been filling in for nearly seven months, to take on the job permanently.

Others who have spurned requests to be considered for a FEMA job include Craig Fugate, the top emergency management official in Florida; Richard Andrews, the former homeland security adviser to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; Ellen Gordon, former homeland security adviser in Iowa; Dale Shipley of Ohio and Eric Tolbert of North Carolina, two former FEMA officials who served as the top emergency managers in their home states, and Bruce Baughman, president of the National Emergency Management Association and the top disaster planning official in Alabama.

The search for a permanent replacement for Michael Brown, who quit after criticism of his management of the Hurricane Katrina response, has gone on so long that Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees the Homeland Security Department's budget, threatened last week to hold up action on the budget bill until the top administrative posts at FEMA were filled. - CTRIB

Truck Carrying Explosives Crashes in Uintah County, Utah

The truck rolled over on Utah 88 near Pelican Lake and the town of Ouray, about 175 miles east of Salt Lake City. The truck was carrying 40,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, 10,000 blasting caps and several hundred pounds of dynamite, UHP spokesman Jeff Nigbur said.

Zorbing

Zorbing - effectively throwing yourself down a slope in a giant ball - has become the latest extreme sport craze to sweep the world. Although zorbing was invented in 2000, it has only recently begun to take off around the world. It involves a giant plastic ball, which has two skins - one inside the other. The person zorbing is in the area between the skins, which is pumped up with air. The middle ball effectively suspends them on a cushion of air 700mm off the ground, and the ball is then rolled down a hill.

"It's not really amazingly scary, it's not an amazing adrenaline rush - it's just bizarrely fun," the inventor of zorbing, Andrew Akers, told BBC World Service's Culture Shock programme. "I don't know why." Like a number of other extreme sports, such as bungee jumping, zorbing originated in New Zealand. ... There are two different ways to zorb - either harnessed inside the ball, or "hydrozorbing", which involves putting water in the ball, which zorbers can slide around on as it revolves. Mr Akers explained that initially, there were fears that people would be sick. "You can imagine if it happened it would be completely disgusting," he said.

"However, of over 100,000 people who have now done it, no-one has ever thrown up inside the zorb."

This is because as the zorb is 3.2m in diameter, it rotates only once every 10m - so even down 100m of hill, it will make a full rotation only 10 times. "The whole feeling is actually not that quick - it's kind of a slow going over and over," Mr Akers said. "For some people this will be the scariest thing they do, but for people who do bungee jumping or skydiving or white water rafting, this really is nowhere near that sort of level of adrenaline or fear factor," Mr Akers added.

Happy April Fools Day

Hope you are all having some fun today. I'm not going to pull your leg about anything. I am glad people will be reading new stories today with extra skepticism. For example, is this story about holographic teachers true? How about this one about pet food being healthier than fast food? What about the animated tatoo? Is that real?

On April 1, 1957, a respected BBC news program called ?Panorama? aired a bogus story about the annual spaghetti harvest in the Swiss town of Ticino. It was one of the all-time great April Fools? pranks.

Judge To Mom: ‘No More Sex’

A Brevard County mother accused of killing her own child is facing unusual sanctions.A judge has ordered her to not have sex, WESH 2 News reported. Prosecutors say Jaclyn Helsel, 20, gave birth to two babies just seven months apart, and they said she threw the second one out with the trash. So, a judge is trying to make sure she does not get pregnant again. Helsel was originally ordered held without bail, but she was released on Friday morning after a judge agreed to a $35,000 bail. WESH 2 News was there when she was released from jail on Friday, but she refused to comment. Last month, Helsel was arrested on a charge of aggravated manslaughter after the premature birth of a baby. Prosecutors said she failed to get any medical attention for the newborn boy, who was born at home and then put in the garbage dead. "It's something that is very tragic and unnecessary in this case," said prosecutor Julia Lynch.? Helsel had to do more than satisfy the $35,000 bond. She had to agree not to have sexual intercourse, and to not even associate with any male over the age of 15 unless she's supervised. "It's reasonable because it will prevent another unwanted pregnancy," Lynch said. - WESH

That's dumb and probably violates a constitutional right. Have people in Florida never heard of birth control? Has anyone seen the world population lately? 6.5 billion people. Okay, that's enough people. Too many, actually. Y'all need to stop breeding like rabbits. You're depleting the oceans, polluting everything and heating up the planet.