6 die from brain-eating amoeba in lakes

It sounds like science fiction but it's true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die. Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it's killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future. "This is definitely something we need to track," said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better," Beach said. "In future decades, as temperatures rise, we'd expect to see more cases." According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL'-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s. In Arizona, David Evans said nobody knew his son, Aaron, was infected with the amoeba until after the 14-year-old died on Sept. 17. At first, the teen seemed to be suffering from nothing more than a headache. "We didn't know," Evans said. "And here I am: I come home and I'm burying him." After doing more tests, doctors said Aaron probably picked up the amoeba a week before while swimming in the balmy shallows of Lake Havasu, a popular man-made lake on the Colorado River between Arizona and California. Though infections tend to be found in southern states, Naegleria lives almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment. Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve. The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up into the brain, where it continues the damage, "basically feeding on the brain cells," Beach said. People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers. In the later stages, they'll show signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes, he said.

La Nina Could Wreck World’s Weather

Experts predict a run of severe weather in the coming months, with devastating floods striking some parts of the world while severe droughts afflict other regions, as the climate phenomenon known as La Niña gathers momentum. A chronic drought afflicting southern California and many southeastern states of America could be exacerbated, with Los Angeles heading for its driest year on record. In contrast, western Canada and the northwestern US could turn colder and snowier. Mozambique, southeast Africa, and northern Brazil may face exceptionally heavy rains and floods, while southern Brazil and much of Argentina suffer drought. La Niña could even rearrange the pattern of sea ice around the Antarctic.

China Aiming Smart Missiles At US Ships

China's DF-21 and DF-15 ballistic missiles use inertia plus gyroscope guidance at the middle course, and as a result the flight trajectories are quite inflexible. Even if new optical and radar image guidance technologies are applied at the terminal course, it is still extremely difficult to quickly adjust the direction when attacking a moving target. Suppose a DF-21M middle-range ballistic missile were to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier from a distance of 1,000 kilometers at an average speed of 7 Mach, or flying at a speed of 2,380 meters per second -- the whole course would take approximately seven minutes.

Psychotronic Pain Ray Heading for LA

It could soon get a lot hotter in LA. The Los Angeles County Sheriff is apparently looking at the Active Denial System, a directed energy weapon that created a burning sensation, for possible use in the City of Angels: Charles "Sid" Heal stands excitedly in the parking lot of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's station in San Dimas, tinkering with a prototype for the ominously named "Active Denial System." With one zap from what looks like a satellite dish on a tripod, those within target range feel a burning sensation on their skin.

Iran Threatens "EMP" Nuclear War

Not just computers in banks, Wall Street and similar high value financial targets but also subways, trains, traffic lights, auto engines, truck engines, electricity grids, shipping and harbor control, aircraft in flight and on the ground etc., etc. Anything that uses or relies on electronics and these days what does not? Telephone communications, landlines or cellular, radios and so on would cease to operate. Which is why I screamed to high heaven and anyone who would listen to me in the corridors of power the previous time Ahmadi-Nejad wanted to come to the USA. In a PRIVATE aircraft with some 20 or 30 armed security personnel who would remain on his aircraft and not pass custons or immigration. Luckily soneone heard and he was not granted permission for the private aircraft, nor as far as I remember the motley crew he wished to bring in. What purpose would they have? Other than to prevent access to the aircraft AND to either the electronic surveillance equipment on board to monitor and evaluate the New York area communications or implement other Russian or Chinese supplied spying techniques. The most dangerous, however, was the ability of this lunatic President of Islamic Iran to be making a speech at the United Nations, be behind the podium when this aircraft took off and detonated an EMP device.

Warship Being Made for Drone Battles

The UXV Combatant is a new class of warship being developed by BAE Systems to fight in the drone wars. BAE believes that the future battlefield will be full of intelligent robots fighting against each other, The ships looks and specs, expected to enter service around 2020, look terrifying: The 8,000-tonne carrier is designed "to launch, operate and recover large numbers of small unmanned vehicles for extended periods" that will operate in land, sea and air. According to BAE, it will have: Flexible and efficient twin flight decks, Variable ski jump, Rotary aviation facilities, Below-deck hangar and Smart munitions. For power, the UXV Combatant could be able to use "full integrated electrical propulsion with twin propeller shafts/motors supplied by gas turbine and diesel alternators. Alternatively, cruising power can be supplied by two shafts/motors and diesel alternators with boost power from one gas turbine driving two water jets."

Has Peruvian meteorite brought disease

The recent fall of the meteorite in the district of Desaguadero in Puno, Peru, has already evoked many rumors and speculations. Eye-witnesses have reported that the enflamed ball collided with the Earth and went inside to the depth of six meters, leaving a crater of about 30 meters with a gushing fountain of boiling water. After some time people felt an acrid smell and began to suffer from nausea and headaches. A representative from the Peruvian Health Ministry hastened to blame this on poisonous fumes from fragments of meteorites, which contain cyanide. Dr. Mikhail Nazarov, head of the meteoritics laboratory ay the Vernadsky Institute of Geo- and Analytical Chemistry, said that the reports from Peru describe phenomena typical for meteorites. But he pointed out that reports of the meteorite-linked "strange disease" sounded dubious: "In the past 250 years, 102 large meteorites have been registered; 70 of these have been found and 50 are kept in the Meteorite Collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences. But none have had any adverse effect on human health." No consequences were produced even by the unique Sikhote-Alin Fall (February 12, 1947), when a whole stream of meteorites with a general mass of up to a hundred tons crushed the Ussuri taiga in the Far East, covering a territory of 35 square km. There is no information about any meteorite-related negative influence on human health. All in all, there are about a thousand registered meteorites. "To the knowledge of scientists, the meteorite substance is harmless and sterile compared with the earth. No microbes, bacteria or extra-terrestrial viruses have been found on meteorites. As for radioactivity, it is much stronger in granite," Nazarov said.

DARPA Leads New AI Research

Computer scientists have long sought to develop computers that can match the subject expertise that humans acquire during a career or a lifetime. Despite intensive work with expert systems and other forms of artificial intelligence, researchers have discovered that building a computer that can learn like a person is more difficult that they expected. Now, with a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program called Bootstrapped Learning, the agency wants to generate renewed interest in achieving that objective. SRI International recently won a $10 million contract to lead the first 15-month development phase of the program.

UN-Led 'New World Order'

The United Nations should avail itself as an instrument for a "new world order of the 21st century," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said September 25, in his first address to the General Assembly. Sarkozy, who won the presidency this year on a strong reform platform to modernize France, urged the world body to embark on programmes ranging from equal wealth distribution to fighting corruption in his speech full of references to France's past revolutionary ideals. "In the name of France, I call upon all states to join ranks in order to found the new world order of the 21st century on the notion that the common goods that belong to all of humankind must be the common responsibility for us all," he told the General Assembly.

Robot Soldiers With Guns Coming Soon

"Transformers," the summer blockbuster movie about war on Earth between two robot forces, foreshadows a world that may be closer to reality than you think. As part of the Army's $160 billion Future Combat Systems, to be deployed within the next decade, robot soldiers will be programmed to invade hostile terrain and shoot to kill. If all goes according to plan, there could be virtually no humans on the battlefield -- at least on our side -- by the end of this century. And while "Transformers" remains science fiction today, "RoboCop" is already real: Over the summer, iRobot Corp. and Taser International announced that the iRobot's bomb-disposal PackBot can be equipped with a Taser X26 stun gun, which lets it double as a law-enforcement officer and "engage, incapacitate and control dangerous suspects." These cyborgs are only part of the coming robotic revolution.

Children Trafficked From Asia To UK

Hundreds of young children illegally trafficked into the UK are the new victims of Britain's booming cannabis trade. Figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveal that, as organised criminals push cannabis production to record levels, at least one child a week is being found by police raiding cannabis factories. Experts warn that children as young as 13 are been smuggled from south-east Asia to work as "slaves" for gangs in dangerous conditions, being kept captive in towns and suburbs across the UK. They believe there has been a five-fold increase in the trade in the past 12 months.

‘Hot’ Ice Could Lead To Medical Device

Harvard physicists have shown that specially treated diamond coatings can keep water frozen at body temperature, a finding that may have applications in future medical implants. Doctoral student Alexander Wissner-Gross and Efthimios Kaxiras, physics professor and Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, spent a year building and examining computer models that showed that a layer of diamond coated with sodium atoms will keep water frozen up to 108 degrees Fahrenheit. In ice, water molecules are arranged in a rigid framework that gives the substance its hardness. The process of melting is somewhat like a building falling down: pieces that had been arranged into a rigid structure move and flow against one another, becoming liquid water.

War Inches Closer to Iran

Iran's role with the violence in Iraq remains a major preoccupation of the Bush administration, with the U.S. military now building a base, practically within shouting distance of Iran — an extraordinary step to curb what it says is the smuggling of advanced weapons into Iraq. It will be called Combat Outpost Shocker, and it will hardly come as a pleasant surprise to Iran that the United States will have a new base just 5 miles from their border. Col. Mark Mueller, of the 3rd Infantry Division, said it is the first time the U.S. military will be that close to Iran.

The Middle East's Gathering Storm

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran's Islamofascist regime and a holocaust denier who says he wants Israel wiped off the map, apparently will not be allowed by New York City to visit the Ground Zero area during his trip to the United Nations next week. Like his other acts and statements, Ahmadinejad's request seems designed to provoke outrage from Americans. Is his apocalyptic Shiite belief in the coming of a 12th imam to fight a war against the antichrist behind his repeated "asking for it" from the West? Iran will fire 600 Shihab-3 missiles at targets throughout Israel in the event of an attack on either Iran or Syria, according to the Jerusalem Post. Former President Jimmy Carter says we shouldn't take the Iran threats seriously. "I think it would be almost inconceivable that Iran would commit suicide by launching one or two missiles of any kind against the nation of Israel," he said. Many of Churchill's critics said the same about Nazi Germany in the 1930s. But apocalyptic fanatics have been known to be suicidal, and Carter, of course, has been wrong about Iran before.

Spy Towers Being Developed

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s plan to build hundreds of all-seeing networked surveillance towers along American borders has run into further problems. The project in question is the technology portion of the Secure Borders Initiative (SBI). Under SBI, contractor Boeing would erect perhaps 1800 towers, each 98 feet tall, equipped with ground-sweeping moving target radar that would sniff out huddled masses yearning to breathe free, terrorist infiltrators, possible Canadian raiding columns etc. Once a radar blip was flagged up, the all-seeing day/night video eye would swivel round to get a more exact idea what was moving. Once the invader/terrorist/migrant had been analysed by a control room watchkeeper, an icon moving in real time would appear on the DHS networked map, or Common Operating Picture (COP). Border-patrolmen on the ground could then access the COP map, and so plan their operations more efficiently. That's the plan, anyway. For now, Boeing has only a $67m demonstration contract to set up a nine-tower, 28-mile barrier zone in the Arizona desert. This was supposed to go live three months ago, but in fact has yet to reach a suitable state of readiness for government testing to begin. On September 24, AP reported that Homeland Security overlord Michael Chertoff has said he will cut off SBI net payments to Boeing until the pilot project succeeds. It is thought that most of the money has already been paid, but Boeing will be expecting to receive around $5m more once it gets the initial nine towers up and running. "We are now looking to begin acceptance testing in about a month," Chertoff said. "We will then kick the tires again... like buying a car. We don't want to get stuck with a lemon." A Boeing mouthpiece said that the firm was "working with our customer to solve some remaining technical issues".

Educated Nuts Becoming The Norm

Students at many of the country's most prestigious colleges and universities are graduating with less knowledge of American history, government, and economics than they had as incoming freshmen, with Harvard University seniors scoring a "D+" average on a 60-question multiple-choice exam about civic literacy. According to a report released yesterday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the average college senior at the 50 colleges and universities polled did not earn a passing grade. "At the most expensive colleges, they actually graduate knowing less," the executive director of the Jack Miller Center at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Michael Ratliff, said.

Surveillance net watches U.S. Travelers

The Bush Administration has been collecting detailed records on the travel habits of Americans headed overseas, whether you fly, drive or take cruises abroad -- not simply your method of transit but the personal items you carry with you and the people you stay with, according to documents and statements obtained by the Washington Post. They even keep sometimes keep track of what books you read. For as long as 15 years. In a terrifying front-page article September 23, the Post outlines the latest in US government surveillance. According to officials, the records are intended "to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country." The new details suggest a much broader net than that. The details of the program were revealed when a group of activists requested copies of records on their travel and found someone had written a note about their flashlight carrying the symbol of a marijuana leaf. "The Automated Targeting System has been used to screen passengers since the mid-1990s, but the collection of data for it has been greatly expanded and automated since 2002, according to former DHS officials," the Post said. "The federal government is trying to build a surveillance society," said John Gilmore, a civil liberties activist in San Francisco whose records were requested and then first revealed in Wired News. The government, he said, "may be doing it with the best or worst of intentions. . . . But the job of building a surveillance database and populating it with information about us is happening largely without our awareness and without our consent."

Team To Perfect Plan For Iran Strike

The United States Air Force has set up a highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with “fighting the next war” as tensions rise with Iran. Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June. It reports directly to General Michael Moseley, the US Air Force chief, and consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

The Police State Is Here, Right Now

One of the most frightening realities of teaching college history is that most students rarely have a clue what fascism is. They know about Hitler and the extermination of Jews, but they see little connection with Nazi rule in the 1930s and 40s and the current political milieu in the United States. Overwhelmingly, they cannot define fascism, nor can they define socialism or democracy. After all, they were pre-occupied during grammar school with becoming standardized human beings by way of taking standardized "No Child's Behind Left" tests, five hours a day, four days a week. So why would they know the definitions of fascism, socialism or democracy?

Clinics to Grow Human Eggs

A major advance in fertility treatment is signalled today as doctors unveil details of a technique that will allow human eggs to be grown in the laboratory from ovarian tissue samples. The procedure, which is being pioneered by two British fertility clinics, involves taking a piece of ovary tissue from a woman and "banking" it in a laboratory until she is ready to start a family. It would allow career women, or those waiting to meet the right partner, to delay motherhood for years.

vCJD 'Could Infect Thousands in the UK'

Thousands of people could be infected with variant CJD (vCJD) without showing symptoms, Professor James Ironside, of the National CJD Surveillance Unit at Edinburgh University, said. As a result, they could undergo blood transfusions and have surgical equipment used on them which could lead to the spread of the disease. Prof Ironside will tell a lecture audience on September 25, that scientists must develop a rapid screening test for the disease. He will also challenge the perception that the vCJD outbreak in the 1990s was an isolated threat to humans. Prof Ironside said: ‘Although the number of BSE and vCJD cases is dropping, we ignore these diseases at our peril. ‘We know that a significant number of people could be infected with vCJD without showing symptoms. However, we do not know how many people may be affected, and there is no cure or treatment. ‘Until we develop a rapid screening test, the unknowing carriers pose a great risk of infecting others through donating blood or having surgical operations.’ Prof Ironside was a member of the team in the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh that identified variant CJD in 1996. It is a rare and ultimately fatal progressive degenerative brain disease and is linked with BSE in cattle.

Human-Animal Clones and Healthy Lives

The creator of Dolly the sheep has predicted that treatments using stem cells could become as common as antibiotics. Professor Ian Wilmut, director of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, said the first of these revolutionary therapies is expected to be available in around a decade and will develop rapidly over the coming years. His comments come in the wake of the decision by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to allow British scientists to create human-animal embryos for research, which Wilmut described as an "important opportunity" in the search for new treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Parallel Universes Do Exist

Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists that sweeps away one of the key objections to the mind boggling and controversial idea. The work has wider implications since the idea of parallel universes sidesteps one of the key problems with time travel. Every since it was given serious lab cred in 1949 by the great logician Kurt Godel, many eminent physicists have argued against time travel because it undermines ideas of cause and effect to create paradoxes: a time traveller could go back to kill his grandfather so that he is never born in the first place. But the existence of parallel worlds offers a way around these troublesome paradoxes, according to David Deutsch of Oxford University, a highly respected proponent of quantum theory, the deeply mathematical, successful and baffling theory of the atomic world. He argues that time travel shifts between different branches of reality, basing his claim on parallel universes, the so-called "many-worlds" formulation of quantum theory. The new work bolsters his claim that quantum theory does not forbid time travel. "It does sidestep it. You go into another universe," he said yesterday, though he admits that there is still a way to go to find schemes to manipulate space and time in a way that makes time hops possible.

Gender-Bender Bugs Baffle Scientists

Scientists have discovered a real gender-bender of a bug, a species in which most females impersonate males. Past research had already revealed the male bugs possessed fake female genitalia. "We ended up uncovering a hotbed of deception," said evolutionary biologist Klaus Reinhardt at the University of Sheffield in England. "Nothing like this exists anywhere else in the animal kingdom."

Archeologists find 2nd Temple quarry

In a major archeological discovery, an ancient quarry that supplied huge high-quality limestone for the construction of the Temple Mount has been uncovered in Jerusalem, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced on September 23. The quarry, which is located four km northwest of Jerusalem's Old City, in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, was used two thousand years ago during the construction of the Second Temple, archeologist Yuval Baruch said. "This unique and sensational find is the first Second Temple quarry ever found," he said. According to Baruch, the site, which spans at least five dunams, was uncovered by chance during a "salvage excavation" carried out by the state-run archeological body over the last two months following municipal plans to build an elementary school in the area. Dozens of quarries have previously been uncovered in Jerusalem - including ones larger than the present find - but this is the first one that archeologists have found which they believe was used in the construction of the Temple Mount, Baruch said. Archeologists had previously assumed that the quarry which was used to construct the Temple Mount was located within the Old City itself, but the enormous size of the stones discovered at the site - up to 8 meters long - as well as coins and fragments of pottery vessels dating back to the first century CE indicated that this was the site used 2,000 years ago in the construction of the Temple Mount walls - including the Western Wall. "We have never found any monument in Israel with stones of this size except for the Temple Mount walls," Baruch said.

Illegals to get driver's licenses in NY

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is preparing to announce a new policy that will enable illegal aliens to obtain a driver's license. The state's Department of Motor Vehicles no longer will require applicants to provide Social Security numbers or proof they're eligible for Social Security cards, the New York Post and New York Sun reported. Under the new rules, valid foreign passports, previous state driver's licenses and other verifiable proofs of ID will be considered on a point-based system, according to a source who spoke to the Post. "The DMV does not believe it's in the business checking a person's legal status; it's not the INS," the source said. The Sun said county clerks around the state came to Albany yesterday to discuss the new policy with DMV officials, according to a source. Spitzer said last year during the gubernatorial campaign he would allow illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses, because banning them would make life worse for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers without adding to security.

Irish defence forces eyed UFOs for years

Ireland's defence forces maintained a dossier on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) for 37 years, according to details released September 20, under the country's freedom of information laws. The documents dating back to 1947 that were released to the Irish Times newspaper log a range of strange sightings. Descriptions of UFOs that were reported range from being like fried eggs to a household iron with fins at the back, according to the newspaper. An early entry in the file from a shopkeeper and farmer in County Kerry in the southwest of the country in 1947 says he told police he saw a circular object moving "faster than a motor car" through the sky. "It was flat and was like a big wheel or large plate... the rim was white and it was hollow in the centre."

Sweeping Stun Guns to Target Crowds

Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe. At present, commercial stun guns target one person at a time, and work only at close quarters. The new breed of non-lethal weapons can be used on many people at once and operate over far greater distances.

Spy Station unleashes new cold war

Australia this week marked the 40th anniversary of a joint Australia-U.S. surveillance station in the Central Australian outback by indicating that the base could play a role in American ballistic missile defense plans. In rare public comments on the Pine Gap base, Defense Minister Brendan Nelson told lawmakers in Canberra that intelligence obtained there is critical for both countries, providing information relating to terrorism, proliferation and military and weapons developments. Critics argue that instead of making the world safer, BMD systems could unleash a new nuclear arms race, if nuclear powers like China or Russia respond by increasing the size of their arsenals so they will be capable of penetrating the shields

UK Christians Worry About Equality Laws

Christian groups here are warning that proposed new equality laws could wreak havoc on British churches, and lead to the further secularization of society. As part of its efforts to streamline decades' worth of anti-discrimination law, the British government is currently drawing up a new Single Equality Bill, which is due to be put before parliament in the near future. The (Anglican/Episcopalian) Church of England said in a formal response that the new laws could be twisted and turned against religious charities that operate in the public sector. For example, it charged that charities might be accused of harassment if they displayed crucifixes on their walls or said grace before meals.

Russian Bombers Buzz Alaska - Canada

Two Russian strategic Tu-95MS Bear-H bombers carried out a flight along the coasts of Alaska and Canada during recent command and post exercises, the Russian Air Force announced on September 20. "Each Tu-95 plane took about 30 tons of fuel on board, for the first time since the Soviet era. Their average flight duration was about 17 hours, during which the planes covered a distance of over 13,000 km [8,000 miles]," said Alexander Drobyshevsky, an aide to the Air Force commander. According to the Air Force, the bombers were refueled in the air by Il-78 Midas tankers. Drobyshevsky also said another pair of Tu-95MS flew around Greenland into the eastern Atlantic, a flight that took about 12 hours.

Presidental Candidate Ron Paul Says - ' Our American way of life is under attack. And it is up to us to save it.'

The world’s elites are busy forming a North American Union. If they succeed, as they were in forming the European Union, the good ol’ USA will only be a memory. We cannot let that happen. The UN wants to confiscate our firearms and impose a global tax. The UN elites want to control the oceans with the Law of the Sea Treaty. And they want to use our military to police the world. Our right to own and use property is fading because bureaucrats and special interests are abusing eminent domain. Our right to educate our children as we choose is under assault. “No Child Left Behind” is seeing to that. And our right to say “no” to forced mental screening of our school-aged children is nearly gone. The elites gave us a national ID card. They also gave us the most misnamed legislation in history: The Patriot Act. And these same people are pushing to give amnesty to illegal immigrants and erase our national borders. Record government debt is putting a burden on our children and grandchildren that is shameful. Yes. Our American way of life is under attack. And it’s understandable that many are concerned, even discouraged, about the kind of country our children and grandchildren will inherit. But we must never let discouragement become surrender. One reason I am NOT discouraged is because I know I am not fighting alone. Each day I head out I know that you and thousands of other patriotic, freedom-loving Americans are right beside me, standing brave and true for what is good and right. I need your help now, more than ever, to save the country we love…for the people we love. My wife Carol and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary early this year. We are proud parents of five children and 18 grandchildren. We love them very much, as I know you love your family. As a U.S. congressman, I always think about the well-being of my family and of all the families of our great nation when I cast a vote or introduce legislation. I also remember that I have sworn a solemn oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. For me, upholding that oath is the first and best way to preserve and protect the blessed American way of life for our children and grandchildren. And now you know why I’m running for president of the United States.

Israel to Syria: Use Chemical Weapons & We'll Wipe You Off Map

Israeli officials vowed to wipe Syria off the map if it is attacked with chemical weapons like one that reportedly exploded in July at a secret Syrian base staffed with Iranian engineers. Politicians in Israel said yesterday they were not picking a fight with their neighbor, but pledged to forcefully retaliate if chemical warheads come screaming across its shared border. "We will not attack them first. But if they ever use these weapons against Israel, then we must be clear — it will be the end of this evil and brutal dictatorship," Yuval Steinitz, a right-wing member of the Israeli parliament, told the Daily News yesterday. Sparking shock waves across the Middle East was a report in Jane's Defence Weekly about an accidental explosion at a top secret Syrian base in July. Citing Syrian intelligence sources, the report claimed a team of Iranian and Syrian engineers were killed July 26 while trying to arm a Scud-C missile with a mustard gas warhead.

'Brat Nav' keeps track of children in Britain

The Buddi - or "Brat Nav" as it is known - is no bigger than a matchbox. It uses GPS technology, a satellite-based navigation system, which enables parents to trace their children to within three metres anywhere in Britain. If they become worried - or just want to snoop - they log on to a website, and a detailed street map will show where their child is. The gadget, which can be attached to a belt, placed in a bag or worn around the neck, also allows parents to contact a call centre, which will give them their location. Sara Murray, 38, an Oxford-educated businesswoman from London, created the device after losing her young daughter in a supermarket and on a skiing holiday. "I was in a total panic when I lost my daughter and never wanted to go through that again," she said. "I couldn't believe there was nothing on the market which allowed parents to trace their children so I decided to look into it and the technology and I came up with the Buddi. "We live in difficult times and any service that can provide people with the confidence that they can be traced within seconds, or alert people in the case of emergencies, is something that I am sure will be seen as a benefit." The person given the device - a child or an elderly relative - can also use the gadget to alert friends or relatives in an emergency by pressing the panic button. This sends an alert to the emergency call centre, which informs parents, carers or friends, as well as local authorities and the police if necessary. Since it was launched a month ago - at a cost of £299 plus a £20 monthly subscription fee - more than 2,000 have been sold.

China, Russia spying on U.S.

China and Russia are spying on the United States nearly as much as they did during the Cold War, according to the top U.S. intelligence official. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, says in testimony prepared for a September 18, congressional hearing that a law passed last month expanding the U.S. government's eavesdropping power is needed to protect not just against terrorists but also against more traditional potential adversaries, such as those two Cold War foes. "China and Russia's foreign intelligence services are among the most aggressive in collecting against sensitive and protected U.S. systems, facilities and development projects, and their efforts are approaching Cold War levels," McConnell says in his testimony. "Foreign intelligence information concerning the plans, activities and intentions of foreign powers and their agents is critical to protect the nation and preserve our security."

U.S. War With Iran Predicted As Tension Rises Over Arms Smuggling, Nuclear Fears

The growing US focus on confronting Iran in a proxy war inside Iraq risks triggering a direct conflict in the next few months, regional analysts are warning. US-Iranian tensions have mounted significantly in the past few days, with heightened rhetoric on both sides and the US decision to establish a military base in Iraq less than five miles from the Iranian border to block the smuggling of Iranian arms to Shia militias. The involvement of a few hundred British troops in the anti-smuggling operation also raises the risk of their involvement in a cross-border clash. US officers have alleged that an advanced Iranian-made missile had been fired at an American base from a Shia area, which if confirmed would be a significant escalation in the "proxy war" referred to this week by General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq. "The proxy war that has been going on in Iraq may now cross the border. This is a very dangerous period," Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said.

Behold The Age Of Living Machines

Apart from buying a new computer every year it seems you need to upgrade your old machine on a regular basis to keep pace with ever bigger software packages and image files. Apart from the hassle of having to perform major surgery on your computer, these upgrades cost money. But, what if these upgrades were no longer necessary? What if your desktop computer came standard with the ability to store more data than you could ever possibly need and was able to function at unbelievable speeds? This would be too good to be true, right? Besides, who has the space for such a megacomputer. Well, imagine that this megacomputer could be packaged as a smaller device than current laptops, and cost only a fraction of today’s prices? This sounds like hard core science fiction, but like so many radical science fiction ideas - the real thing might happen sooner than you think. As chip designers are nearing the physical limits of Moore's law (some say that the exponential increase in the cost of semiconductor production will most likely stop the current miniaturization trend before its physical limits are reached), scientists around the globe are working hard on developing the field of molecular electronics. An interdisciplinary science that includes physics, chemistry, nanotechnology, materials science and even biology, molecular electronics involves using molecular building blocks in the manufacture of electronic components.

Treaty could pave way for European ID card

Euro passports and ID cards could be on the way under new powers written into the EU Treaty, disclosed on September 16. The Daily Telegraph has learned that existing safeguards preventing EU interference with national identity documents have been quietly dropped. Sources close to negotiations suggest that Britain has allowed the safeguards to be removed in order to participate in EU security measures, such as biometric passports and ID cards. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "Gordon Brown has absolutely no democratic mandate to sign Britain up to a possible Euro ID card scheme. "It illustrates how important it is that the British people have their promised say on this treaty." Derek Scott, chairman of the I Want A Referendum campaign, said: "Under the Constitutional Treaty, work on harmonisation of identity documents would gain momentum. "The EU is doing a lot of radical things in this area with far too little scrutiny, so it's no wonder that many people are uncomfortable with this."

British invention creates MORE energy than you put into it - and could soon be warming your home

It sounds too good to be true - not to mention the fact that it violates almost every known law of physics. But British scientists claim they have invented a revolutionary device that seems to 'create' energy from virtually nothing. Their so-called thermal energy cell could soon be fitted into ordinary homes, halving domestic heating bills and making a major contribution towards cutting carbon emissions. Even the makers of the device are at a loss to explain exactly how it works - but sceptical independent scientists carried out their own tests and discovered that the 12in x 2in tube really does produce far more heat energy than the electrical energy put in. The device seems to break the fundamental physical law that energy cannot be created from nothing - but researchers believe it taps into a previously unrecognised source of energy, stored at a sub-atomic level within the hydrogen atoms in water. The system - developed by scientists at a firm called Ecowatts in a nondescript laboratory on an industrial estate at Lancing, West Sussex - involves passing an electrical current through a mixture of water, potassium carbonate (otherwise known as potash) and a secret liquid catalyst, based on chrome. This creates a reaction that releases an incredible amount of energy compared to that put in. If the reaction takes place in a unit surrounded by water, the liquid heats up, which could form the basis for a household heating system. If the technology can be developed on a domestic scale, it means consumers will need much less energy for heating and hot water - creating smaller bills and fewer greenhouse gases.

Mahdi Return Imminent and end of U.S. and Israel Nears, Says Ahmadinejad

In several recent speeches, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad outlined Iran's nuclear policy and set forth his vision regarding the interrelationship between Iran and the West. In a speech about Iran's nuclear program, Ahmadinejad declared that Iran has become a global power, and that it would place its nuclear technology at the service of those determined to confront the U.S. and other Western countries. He announced that Iran was now successfully operating over 3,000 centrifuges, continued to downplay the impact of the U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran, and reiterated Iran's official stance of refusal to freeze its nuclear activity. Ahmadinejad also harshly censured senior Iranian officials who had called for compromise with the West on Iran's nuclear program out of fear of a possible U.S. attack on Iran, hinting that they were traitors. In addition, Ahmadinejad declared that the world was now at an historic turning point. The history of the West, he said, had reached its end, and the appearance of the Hidden Imam, heralding the era of Islamic Shi'ite rule, was nigh. Thus, he called on the nations of the world to rise up against the hegemony of the West, headed by the U.S., and predicted the imminent collapse of Israel, which he called "Satan's standard-bearer."

Humberto Grew Faster Than Any Storm On Record

Call it the instant hurricane. Humberto, which grew faster than any storm on record from tropical depression to full-scale hurricane landfall, surprised the Texas-Louisiana coast early Thursday with 85-mph winds and heavy rain that knocked out power to more than 100,000 and left at least one person dead. Meteorologists were at a loss to explain the rapid, 16-hour genesis of the first hurricane to hit the U.S. since 2005. "Before Humberto developed, you looked at the satellite imagery the day before, and there was virtually nothing there. This really spun up out of thin air, very, very quickly, said National Hurricane Center specialist James Franklin in Miami. "We've never had any tropical cyclone go from where Humberto was to where Humberto got."

Hackers Breaking Into Homeland Security

The Homeland Security Department, the lead U.S. agency for fighting cyber threats, suffered more than 800 hacker break-ins, virus outbreaks and other computer security problems over two years, senior officials acknowledged to Congress. In one instance, hacker tools for stealing passwords and other files were found on two internal Homeland Security computer systems. The agency's headquarters sought forensic help from the department's own Security Operations Center and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team it operates with Carnegie Mellon University. In other cases, computer workstations in the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration were infected with malicious software detected trying to communicate with outsiders; laptops were discovered missing; and agency Web sites suffered break-ins. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said such problems undermine the government's efforts to encourage companies and private organizations to improve cyber security. "What the department is doing on its own networks speaks so loudly that the message is not getting across," Thompson said. Congressional investigators, expected to testify September 12, during an oversight hearing about the department's security lapses, determined that persistent weaknesses "threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of key DHS information and information systems," according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office being released later in June. The Homeland Security Department's chief information officer, Scott Charbo, assured lawmakers his organization was working to prevent such problems. "We need to increase our vigilance to ensure that such incidents do not happen again," Charbo wrote in testimony prepared for Wednesday's hearing. "The department takes these incidents very seriously and will work diligently to ensure they do not recur." The computer problems disclosed to the House Homeland Security subcommittee occurred during fiscal 2005 and fiscal 2006, and occurred at DHS headquarters and many of the department's agencies, including TSA, the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Customs and Border Protection and others. The subcommittee's chairman, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said break-ins to government computer networks and theft of information are "one of the most critical issues confronting our nation, and we must deal with this threat immediately."

A New Russia is Emerging from History's Shadow

While the population issue is complex and multi-faceted, one reason why the Kremlin would like to see the population grow is that it’s hard to be a world superpower when you’ve got a huge elderly population and fewer potential soldiers at your disposal. Russia has been beefing up it’s military arsenal, and has been eager to show the world that they’re still a force to be reckoned with—a fact high-lighted by Russia’s recent testing of the world's most powerful vacuum bomb. Dubbed the "father of all bombs", the device unleashes a destructive shockwave with the power of a nuclear blast, but without the radioactive aftermath. "Test results of the new airborne weapon have shown that its efficiency and power is commensurate with a nuclear weapon," said Alexander Rukshin, Russian deputy armed forces chief of staff, told Russia's state ORT First Channel television. "You will now see it in action, the bomb which has no match in the world is being tested at a military site."

Like something out of the Sci-Fi Movie 'The Andromeda Strain' - Mystery Illness Strikes After Meteorite Hits Peruvian Village

Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said on September 17. Around midday on September 15, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia. Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP. Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said. Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache. "Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

600 Iranian Missiles Pointed At Israel

Six hundred Iranian Shihab-3 missiles are pointed at targets throughout Israel, and will be launched if either Iran or Syria are attacked, an Iranian website affiliated with the regime reported on Monday. "Iran will shoot at Israel 600 missiles if it is attacked," the Iranian news website, Assar Iran, reported. "600 missiles will only be the first reaction." According to the report, dozens of locations throughout Iraq, which are being used by the US Army, have also been targeted. The Shihab missile has a range of 1,300 km, and can reach anywhere in Israel. On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that the nuclear Iranian crisis forces the world "to prepare for the worst," and said that in this case it "is war."

Biometric Scanning To Verify Voters?

Biometric technology could be used to identify voters at the ballot box without requiring Muslim women to remove facial veils, but setting up a nation-wide system would be expensive and risks disenfranchising many electors. The same kind of fingerprint readers or iris scanners employed in some airports to identify pre-screened frequent fliers could be used to quickly confirm the identity of voters and prevent fraud at the ballot box. The problem with biometric authentication is the time-consuming and expensive process of "enrolling" potential voters in the system. Participants first have to be "scanned" to create baseline data to which their fingerprints or irises will be compared at the polling station. "Something that people often underestimate is the cost of doing that enrolment," said Steven Kent, a Massachusetts-based expert on identity authentication. "Whenever we talk about making changes, we have to realize there is a tremendous start-up cost." Once captured, a voter's biometric data could then be stored on a so-called smart card or in a central database. Voters would present the smart card at a polling station and a machine would scan their irises or fingerprints to electronically match against the information stored on the card. Or, the voter's biometric data could be compared against the reference data in a database, but that would require a stable electronic connection between the polling station and the database.

Al-Qa'eda 'as strong today as it was on 9/11'

The al-Qa'eda terror organisation of Osama bin Laden is as strong today as it was six years ago during the September 11 attacks and retains the capability to carry out similar atrocities, according to a report by one of Britain's leading think tanks. "Core" al-Qa'eda is proving adaptable and resilient and has retained the ability to plan and co-ordinate large-scale attacks in the Western world, says the Strategic Survey published yesterday by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Nigel Inkster, a former director for operations and intelligence for MI6, who contributed to the al-Qa'eda section of the report, said it showed that the tactics being used in the war on terrorism were proving ineffective. "The bottom line is that for six years the United States and its allies have been struggling to eliminate this threat and it is becoming increasingly clear that they have not succeeded in doing so," said Mr Inkster.

Organised Crime: The $2 Trillion Threat To The World's Security

International organised crime has become a $2 trillion behemoth that threatens to pervert democracy around the world and fuel already dangerous levels of global inequality, a new study warns. While the world is getting richer, the relentless rise of organised crime has emerged as one of the most potent threats to the planet's future, alongside global warming and the scarcity of drinkable water, according to the State of the Future survey by the World Federation of United Nations Associations.

U.S. Officials Begin Crafting Iran Bombing Plan

A recent decision by German officials to withhold support for any new sanctions against Iran has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime, FOX News confirmed on September 11. Germany — a pivotal player among three European nations to rein in Iran's nuclear program over the last two-and-a-half years through a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions supported by the United States — notified its allies last week that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to support the imposition of any further sanctions against Iran that could be imposed by the U.N. Security Council. The announcement was made at a meeting in Berlin that brought German officials together with Iran desk officers from the five member states of the Security Council. It stunned the room, according to one of several Bush administration and foreign government sources who spoke to FOX News, and left most Bush administration principals concluding that sanctions are dead.

With Schools using biometric finger scanning 'ID's get lost, but kids can't lose their thumbs'

Lockport Township High School District 205's new lunch line system will ease cafeteria congestion, officials said. And with lunch payment now possible with the swipe of a student's thumb, bullies won't be able to steal someone's milk money, officials joked. District 205 introduced a new lunch management system at Lockport Central High School last week. District officials expect to implement the program at Lockport East High School later this month. The voluntary system uses biometric finger scanning, said Rick Lesniak, business director. It identifies several points on a person's finger and creates a template, which is saved and used, but fingerprint templates can not be created, he said. Finger swiping should not be confused with fingerprinting. To participate, the school uses personal information to identify students and their account information. Stephanie Croix, District 205's assistant business manager, said the lunch accounts are similar to debit card accounts because every swipe will deduct the appropriate funds. The program allows students to add money in $25 increments into their account. The new system, which was initially presented to district officials in January, was approved at an April meeting. District officials visited Geneva High School in Geneva in the spring, where Croix said they saw a high ratio of students move quickly through the lunch line. Geneva School District 304 has been using a similar system for more than two years. Becky Selcke, general manager of District 304's contracted food service company, said it's easier to identify the students from kindergarten through high school. "ID's get lost, but kids can't lose their thumbs," she said. "It makes it easier on everyone." Croix said they witnessed three students swipe their thumb for transactions in the same amount of time it took for one cash transaction.

Democrat Sees Car Bombings in America's Future

The former top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said al Qaeda is a real and growing threat to the United States. "This is a very dangerous world. It's an era of terror, and fixing this problem will not be easy," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) at a briefing held by the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. "We can see in regions there is now al Qaeda ... there will surely be an umbrella group in Europe and possibly [a group] here," she said, noting that "car bombings and suicide bombings are likely to be in our future."

Genetically Engineered Sugar To Hit Stores In 2008

American Crystal, a large Wyoming-based sugar company, who ironically have launched an "organic" line of their sugar,and several other leading U.S. sugar providers have announced they will be sourcing their sugar from genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets beginning this year and arriving in stores in 2008. Like GE corn and GE soy, products containing GE sugar will not be labeled as such. Since half of the granulated sugar in the U.S. comes from sugar beets, a move towards biotech beets marks a dramatic alteration of the U.S. food supply. These sugars, along with GE corn and soy, are found in many conventional food products, so consumers will be exposed to genetically engineered ingredients in just about every non-organic multiple-ingredient product they purchase. The GE sugar beet is designed to withstand strong doses of Monsanto's controversial broad spectrum Roundup herbicide. Studies indicate farmers planting "Roundup Ready" corn and soy spray large amounts of the herbicide, contaminating both soil and water. Farmers planting GE sugar beets are told they may be able to apply the herbicide up to five times per year. Sugar beets are grown on 1.4 million acres by 12,000 farmers in the U.S. from Oregon to Minnesota.

UK Family flees home after 'being attacked by poltergeist

Allison Marshall, 27, bundled her children out of her three-bedroomed home in Carlisle at 4am just over a week ago after witnessing several spooky and violent incidents. The mum-of-four was so shaken by what she saw that night she fears she may never return home. Along with daughters Rebecca, three, Emily, four, Shannon, seven, and her son Aaron, eight she is staying with her mum Lesley Whitewick, 46, who lives just down the road. The strange and ghostly happenings over the last week have included: objects including tumblers and ornaments hurtling around the living room; disturbing noises, such as a baby's crying, bangs and tapping in the dead of night; suddenly plummeting temperatures that make hairs stand on end; The image of a skull appearing in a glass display cabinet. "I don't know if I can go back there because I still feel scared," said Allison. "I've lived in that house for four years and always been happy. "In many ways, it's been my dream home because it's so close to my mum and it's always handy when I want help with the children." Allison said the problems started on August 30 when she was relaxing at home with her boyfriend Liam Barnard, 21, and two friends. Unable to sleep, the group sat up at all night, mesmerised by one incident after another, as at: 2am: a hair brush and a dog's bone flew violently across the living room; 3am: a tumbler hurtled from a display cabinet, hitting Allison in the back; 3.30am: a glass leapt upwards in the living room, hitting the ceiling fan with such force that it dented it; 4am: another glass rocketed from a shelf, hitting a wall in the hallway with such force that it dented the plaster.

RFID Keeps Track of Seniors In Their Own Homes

Researchers have built two new systems that use radio frequency identification tags to monitor the elderly in their own homes. RFID tags, as they are called, are widely used as a part of building security passes, Speedpass key chain devices and E-ZPasses for paying highway tolls. Retailers also expect RFID tags to replace bar codes on store items over the next few years. RFID technology can also improve health care for the elderly, said researchers at Intel Research Seattle and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Caregivers receiving data via the Internet from RFID readers can monitor seniors' daily activities by recording which tagged items they have picked up, and when. By comparing real-time data with a record of an individual's normal daily routine, caregivers can easily spot any significant changes. Changes in an individual's daily routine often signal the onset of illness and cognitive decline, according to physicians and experts on aging. The new systems, Intel's Caregiver's Assistant and Georgia Tech's Memory Mirror, will also ensure that forgetful seniors take their medication on time and stick to their prescribed diets, their developers say. The Caregiver's Assistant even automatically fills out a daily activities form, which is normally completed by caregivers for the elderly when they make home visits. The researchers presented the Caregiver's Assistant and Memory Mirror at a demonstration of assistive technologies for the aging in Washington, D.C., this week. The demonstration marked the founding of the Center for Aging Services Technologies, or CAST, an organization run by Intel that will promote the development of devices to help people "age in place," which means growing old at home rather than in a nursing home.

Winston Backs Breeding 'Designer Pigs With Hearts for Humans'

British scientists could be breeding designer pigs in just two years that would offer hope to transplant patients. The research, led by fertility expert Professor Lord Robert Winston, eventually aims to breed genetically-modified animals with organs that would not be rejected when transplanted into desperately-ill men and women. The animals would ultimately carry a ready supply of hearts, kidneys, livers and other organs for transplant into humans.

Chertoff: We're Preparing for Nuclear Attack

Weapons of mass destruction, small boats packed with explosives and Islamic radicalization are the greatest terrorist threats facing the country, top U.S. security officials concerns. And while the department's goal is to keep nuclear weapons from entering the country, he said it also is focusing on how it would respond should a nuclear device get through and explode — particularly how to identify and track the nuclear materials. Chertoff also said the department is putting in place new screening regulations that would require providing information on flight crews and passengers before a private aircraft departs from overseas bound for the United States. The radicalization of potential new terrorists, in the U.S. and abroad, is another growing concern, the intelligence officials said at the hearing on the nation's terrorism preparedness.

Thundercloud "accelerator" fires gamma-ray beam

Physicists in Japan claim to have the best evidence yet that thunderclouds can act as high-energy particle accelerators for seconds or even minutes at a time. Using an array of radiation detectors installed at a nuclear reactor, the team recorded a 40-second burst of gamma radiation during a severe thunderstorm. According to the researchers, the energy distribution of the pulse suggests that the radiation is produced by electrons that have been accelerated by the high voltages present in a thundercloud. Physicists have known for over a decade that 10 - 20 MeV gamma rays are produced in millisecond bursts during electrical storms. These bursts are believed to occur when high voltages in a thundercloud accelerate electrons to energies up to about 35 MeV. These electrons are slowed down by colliding with atoms in the air and as a result give off bremsstrahlung -- gamma rays that are created when an electron is deflected off its course by an atom.

United States Planning To Take Global War On Terror To The Horn Of Africa

America is quietly expanding its fight against terror on the African front. Two years ago the United States set up the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership with nine countries in central and western Africa. There is no permanent presence, but the hope is to generate support and suppress radicalism by both sharing U.S. weapons and tactics with friendly regimes and winning friends through a vast humanitarian program assembled by USAID, including well building and vocational training. In places like Chad, American Special Forces train and arm police or border guards using what it calls a "holistic approach to counterterrorism." Sgt. Chris Rourke, a U.S. Army reservist in a 12-man American Civil Affairs unit living in Dire Dawa, in eastern Ethiopia, says it comes down to this: "It's the Peace Corps with a weapon."

Are a Series of California Mini-Quakes Gearing Up for the “Big One”?

A series of seven quakes has rattled southern California over the past few weeks. The event has led many to question if this could be the build up preceding the dreaded “Big One” that scientists have been warning is on its way. The experts say there is about 300 years of pent-up seismic stress about to explode along southern California fault lines. The future event has been predicted to perhaps match or exceed the 1906 earthquake that reduced the San Francisco Bay Area to piles of rubble. Those who live in the area are understandably eager to know when it’s coming, but geologists say there’s no way to pin down a day, nor know of these recent quakes are a good or bad sign.

Many Feel "Something" Is Up, And Those Who Know What Are Not Saying

Going into Labor Day weekend, there were lots of rumors anticipating another 9-11. Trainloads of armored vehicles rolled into Houston. The San Francisco Bay bridge closed for three days. Suspicious activity was reported on ferries in Puget Sound. Ominous civil defense exercises are being held in Oregon, as part of Operation Noble Resolve, which also involves military jets flying over New York. An antiaircraft division is ordered to Washington DC. We made it through the holiday safely. Then recently Congressman Paul Gillmor (R-OH) was found dead in his home. Now we're being told he fell down the stairs. Gillmor was investigating a series of option trades that are suspicious- someone is betting billions of dollars that the market will fall 50% by September 21st. Even with the housing crisis, it would take a major catastrophe, like a "terrorist" attack, to precipitate such a plunge. Was he murdered because he was about to reveal something? Now we learn that on August 30th, six nuclear warheads were "accidentally" shipped by B-52 from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Five arrived, did one get "lost"? This violates all military procedure, which requires that nuclear weapons always be shipped on the ground in the continental US, so that if there's an accident, a bomb detonation won't occur. It would take an order from the Commander-in-Chief to put nukes on a plane. The warheads were reportedly fastened to cruise missiles, which have a range of 1500-2000 miles. Not enough to cross the Atlantic, but enough to hit cities in the US as part of a false flag operation. This scenario is being claimed by "military investigators" on the Hal Turner show, and is making its way around the internet. It's being said the plan was to hit 5 American cities with nuclear weapons over Labor Day weekend in order to install martial law. If so, we have been saved by the grace of God, operating through loyal American whistleblowers, who made the "accidental shipment" of nuclear warheads public.

Record low Arctic sea ice called 'astounding'

Ice cover in the Arctic Ocean, long held to be an early warning of a changing climate, has shattered the all-time low record this summer, according to scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder. Using satellite data and imagery, NSIDC now estimates the Arctic ice pack covers 4.24 million square kilometers (1.63 million square miles) -- equal to just less than half the size of the United States. This figure is about 20 percent less than the previous all-time low record of 5.32 million square kilometers (2.05 million square miles) set in September 2005. Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at NSIDC, termed the decline "astounding." "It's almost an exclamation point on the pronounced ice loss we've seen in the past 30 years," he said. Most researchers had anticipated that the complete disappearance of the Arctic ice pack during summer months would happen after the year 2070, he said, but now, "losing summer sea ice cover by 2030 is not unreasonable." Scores of peer-reviewed scientific studies have documented a steady, worldwide decline in ice cover, from the sea-bound ice covering the North Pole to the vast, land-based ice sheets that cover the Antarctic continent. Glaciers, from Greenland to the Alps to Mount Kilimanjaro near the equator, also have been vanishing. The loss of land-based ice is predicted to lead to a future rise in sea levels. Most estimates predict a rise ranging from a few inches to a meter or more. A substantial rise in sea level could imperil low-lying areas from Bangladesh to Miami, Florida, to Lower Manhattan, and could magnify the damage from landfalling hurricanes and cyclones.

Spy Chief Details Top Threats Facing U.S.

Weapons of mass destruction, small boats packed with explosives and Islamic radicalization are the greatest terrorist threats facing the country, top U.S. security officials said Monday on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The officials told Congress the country is much better prepared to face terror threats than it was then, but that terrorists' desire to attack the United States remains strong - an assertion that has yet to be fully accepted by the American public, according to a new poll.

Teen Suicide Rate: Highest Increase In 15 Years

Following a decline of more than 28 percent, the suicide rate for 10- to-24-year-olds increased by 8 percent, the largest single-year rise in 15 years, according to a report just released in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). “This is the biggest annual increase that we've seen in 15 years. We don't yet know if this is a short-lived increase or if it's the beginning of a trend,” said Dr. Ileana Arias, director of CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. “Either way, it's a harsh reminder that suicide and suicide attempts are affecting too many youth and young adults. We need to make sure suicide prevention efforts are continuous and reaching children and young adults.” The report is an analysis of annual data from the CDC's National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). NVSS data are comprised of birth, death, marriage, divorce, and fetal death records in the United States. Researchers looked at trends during the 15-year period by gender, age group and suicide method. It did not examine reasons for the changes in suicide rates. An increase in the suicide rates for three gender-age groups accounts for the increase in the overall suicide rate, the report said. Rates rose for 10- to-14-year-old females, 15 -to-19-year-old females and 15- to-19-year-old males from 2003 to 2004. Prior to 2003, the rates for all three groups were generally decreasing. The analysis also found that changes had taken place in the methods used to attempt suicide. In 1990, firearms were the most common method for both girls and boys. However, in 2004, hanging/suffocation was the most common method of suicide among girls, accounting for 71.4 percent of suicides among 10- to-14-year-old girls and 49 percent among 15-to-19 year-old girls. From 2003 to 2004, there was a 119 percent increase in hanging/suffocation suicides among 10-to -14-year-old girls. For boys and young men, firearms are still the most common method.

Al-Qaida Has Revived, Spread And Is Capable Of Spectacular Strike

Al-Qaida has revived, extended its influence, and has the capacity to carry out a spectacular strike similar to the September 11 attacks on America, one of the world's leading security thinktanks warned yesterday. There is increasing evidence "that 'core' al-Qaida is proving adaptable and resilient, and has retained an ability to plan and coordinate large-scale attacks in the western world despite the attrition it has suffered", said the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "The threat from Islamist terrorism remains as high as ever, and looks set to get worse," it added.

Environmentalist Warns Of Covert Weather Warfare And Mind Control Technologies

A world authority on HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Programme) is to present his research on climate change, weather warfare technology, and mind control at a Global Issues conference in New Zealand. The Alaskan independent scientific & environmental researcher, Dr Nick Begich, is to attend the September conference in Rotorua where he will give two presentations concerning the controversial HAARP Star Wars technology, and manipulation of the human mind through new applied technologies. HAARP, a joint US Navy and Airforce project based in Alaska, has developed ground-based Star Wars weapon technology involving the manipulation of the ionosphere, Earths electrically-charged protective sphere, using super-powerful radio-wave beaming technology from the worlds largest radio-frequency-radiation transmitter. Co-author of the best-selling book, Angels Dont Play This HAARP Advances in Tesla Technology, Begich has lectured before scientific, legislative, and environmental organizations in over 40 countries on the possible devastating implications of HAARP, new weapons, and so-called non-lethal technologies. Begich states, The ability of HAARP to deliver energy comparable to a nuclear bomb, anywhere on Earth via this system, and to penetrate the land with ELF (extremely low frequency) waves is frightening. The military implications are alarming. It has the capability to alter climate by destabilizing the Earths magnetic field, and to set off earthquakes and volcanoes remotely using electromagnetic waves. However the US military continues to deny that they control such technology, Manipulation of the human mind, emotions and health through advanced technology continues to draw the attention of military planners around the world, with sinister potential. Begich states, Control of the human mind by external means is now a reality how we use this technology is the next challenge for this generation.

Russia tests powerful 'dad of all bombs'

The Russian military has successfully tested what it described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb, Russia's state television reported on September 11. It was the latest show of Russia's military muscle amid chilly relations with the United States. Channel One television said the new weapon, nicknamed the "dad of all bombs" is four times more powerful than the U.S. "mother of all bombs." "The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability," said Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, said in televised remarks. Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment, he added. The statement reflected the Kremlin's efforts to restore Russia's global clout and rebuild the nation's military might while the ties with Washington have been strained over U.S. criticism of Russia's backsliding on democracy, Moscow's vociferous protests of U.S. missile defense plans, and rifts over global crises. The U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast, nicknamed the Mother Of All Bombs, is a large-yield satellite-guided, air-delivered bomb described as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history. Channel One said that while the Russian bomb contains 7.8 tons of high explosives compared to more than 8 tons of explosives in the U.S. bomb, it's four times more powerful because it uses a new, highly efficient type of explosives that the report didn't identify. While the U.S. bomb is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT, the Russian one is equivalent to 44 tons of regular explosives. The Russian weapon's blast radius is 990 feet, twice as big as that of the U.S. design, the report said. Like its U.S. predecessor, first tested in 2003, the Russian bomb is a "thermobaric" weapon that explodes in an intense fireball combined with a devastating blast. It explodes in a terrifying nuclear bomb-like mushroom cloud and wreaks destruction through a massive shock wave created by the air burst and high temperature.

Loss of Arctic ice leaves experts stunned

The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at record lows, scientists have announced. Experts say they are "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as the UK disappearing in the last week alone. So much ice has melted this summer that the Northwest passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the Northeast passage along Russia's Arctic coast could open later this month. If the increased rate of melting continues, the summertime Arctic could be totally free of ice by 2030. Mark Serreze, an Arctic specialist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre at Colorado University in Denver, said: "It's amazing. It's simply fallen off a cliff and we're still losing ice." The Arctic has now lost about a third of its ice since satellite measurements began thirty years ago, and the rate of loss has accelerated sharply since 2002. Dr Serreze said: "If you asked me a couple of years ago when the Arctic could lose all of its ice then I would have said 2100, or 2070 maybe. But now I think that 2030 is a reasonable estimate. It seems that the Arctic is going to be a very different place within our lifetimes, and certainly within our childrens' lifetimes."

U.S. discovers 'Pearl Harbor II' plot - China's cyberwar plan to cripple Pentagon, battle fleet

America's key allies in the Pacific – Japan and Taiwan – could be left virtually defenseless in a deadly cyberwar attack China has secretly prepared. Codenamed "Pearl Harbor II" by the Pentagon, the plan calls for a simultaneous attack on the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet in the Pacific and the disabling of communications at its headquarters at Pearl Harbor and with the Pentagon. The plan has been uncovered by signals intelligence specialists at Britain's Government Communications Headquarters and at the equally ultra-secret National Security Agency base at Menwith Hill near Harrogate in the north of the country. Using a state-of-the-art software program called Moonpenny, the specialists have tracked the activities of the Chinese People's Liberation Army scientists based at their underground headquarters in the Western Hills outside Beijing. The scientists have been briefed to achieve "electronic dominance" not only in the Pacific but over all China's global military rivals in the U.S., Britain, Russia and South Korea. So serious is the threat to the U.S. battle fleet that President Bush raised it with the Chinese President Hu Jintao when they met in Sydney at the Apec summit.

Have You Eaten Your Genetically Modified Food Today?

To the average consumer, GM crops are invisible, especially because you don’t have to label them in the US. The attitudes towards GMO that matter to Monsanto are those held by big agribusiness seed buyers and corporate farmers, not Joe Six Pack. And the IT managers of the farming world love Monsanto. The chart is of US GE crop adoption of their big three products, corn, soybeans, and cotton, which just happen to compose 75 percent of the revenue generated from non-fruit and vegetable cash crops. If you’re an opponent of GM foods, here comes the scary punchline. A big chunk of all that genetically modified corn and soy go right into our processed foods and into feed for the animals we eat. So chances are, unless you are a raw or organic foodista, you ate a GM food derivative this very day.

Was 9/11 Prophesied In 1909 As Sign Of The Return Of Jesus Christ?

"On one occasion, when in New York City, I was in the night season called upon to behold buildings rising story after story toward heaven. These buildings were warranted to be fireproof. ... Higher and still higher these buildings rose. ... The scene that next passed before me was an alarm of fire. Men looked at the lofty and supposedly fireproof buildings and said: 'They are perfectly safe.' But these buildings were consumed as if made of pitch. The fire engines could do nothing to stay the destruction. The firemen were unable to operate the engines." Does this description sound familiar? Here are some clues to concentrate on. You have the mentioning of New York City, tall buildings rising "toward heaven," human expectation of safety, buildings consumed as if made of pitch, and the futility of fire engines. What a horrible daySep 11, 2001 was, and still is, in the collective consciousness of Americans. What is amazing about the quote that opens this article is when the quote was written and in what book it was written. You see, the above quote was written before 1909 in a book that was the last of nine volumes in a book called "Testimonies to the Church." The above quote is found in Volume 9 beginning on Page 11 - or, in abbreviated form, 9/11. What makes it more interesting is that the title of the chapter is "the last crisis" and it deals with conditions prior to the second coming of Christ. The clues mentioned in the second paragraph are too clear to think this was merely a coincidence. It is as if the author saw the events years before they would happen. This is not uncommon in the Bible either. Jesus says, "See, I have told you ahead of time" (Matthew 24:25), when speaking of last-day events. When these events come to pass, you may recognize that nothing takes God by surprise. We then can have confidence that God is in control of earth's history. Sept. 11 did not catch the Lord by surprise, and He is giving His warning to us so we may recognize that His second coming is soon. Are you ready?

Congress Eyes Bill To Force Religious Institutions To Hire Gays

Congress may soon call on religious institutions ranging from summer camps to charities to declare up-front whether they are unwilling to hire gay employees. A bill that, if passed, would become the first federal law to prohibit employment discrimination against gays contains a broad exemption for religious organizations. But to qualify for that exemption, religious groups would have to declare "which of its religious tenets are significant" and must be adhered to by employees. Lawyers say this requirement could put pressure on religious organizations to state a doctrinal prohibition against homosexuality in order to continue to legally exclude gay job applicants. "This is something new," a law professor at George Washington University, Ira Lupu, said. The effect of such a law, Mr. Lupu said, would be that "there is no more First Amendment right to be exempt unless you want to tell us that making us hire these people is really in conflict with our religious commitments."

Al-Qaeda Threatens More Attacks On U.S.

Six years after the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network is bleeding the U.S. military in Iraq while regrouping with an avowed aim of another strike on the United States. US intelligence agencies and other analysts say security improvements and international efforts against al-Qaeda have helped prevent another major U.S. attack. But the network's ability to attack the West is rebounding, they say, and already it has met what some analysts describe as a goal of luring the United States into a damaging Middle East war that would cripple U.S. influence in the region.

1st Robot Artificial Brain Built

Scientists in Spain have achieved a giant leap for robotkind by building the first artificial cerebellum to help them interact with humans. The cerebellum is the portion of the brain that controls motor functions. The four-year project, dubbed Sensopac (SENSOrimotor structuring of perception and action for emerging cognition) is funded by the EU under its Sixth Framework Program and brings together physicists, neuroscientists, and electronic engineers from leading universities in Europe. The next phase of the project will be to implant the man-made cerebellum into a robot designed by the German Aerospace Center in two year's time.The researchers hope that their work will also result in new directions on how to treat cognitive diseases such as Parkinson's. One of the near-term goals for the project will be to develop an artificial skin for the robots, making them look more human-like, as well as making them information-sensitive in the same way as human skin is. The scientists at the University of Granada are focusing on the design of microchips that incorporate a full neuronal system, emulating the way the cerebellum interacts with the human nervous system. Implanting the man-made cerebellum in a robot will allow it to manipulate and interact with other objects with far greater effectiveness than previously managed.

Mass Slaughter On Our Schools: The Terrorist's Chilling Plan

Probably the last place you want to think of terrorists striking is your kids' school. But according to two trainers at an anti-terrorism conference on the East Coast, preparations for attacks on American schools that will bring rivers of blood and staggering body counts are well underway in Islamic terrorist camps. The intended attackers have bluntly warned us they're going to do it. They're already begun testing school-related targets here.They've given us a catastrophic model to train against, which we've largely ignored and they've learned more deadly tactics from. "We don't know for sure what they will do. No one knows the future. But by definition, a successful attack is one we are not ready for," declared one of the instructors, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. Our schools fit that description to a "T"-as in Terrorism and Threat. Grossman, the popular law enforcement motivational speaker, and Todd Rassa, a trainer with the SigArms Academy and an advisory board member for The Police Marksman magazine, shared a full day's agenda on the danger to U.S. schools at a recent three-day conference on terrorist issues, sponsored by the International Assn. of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors (IALEFI) in Atlantic City. They reminded the audience that patrol officers, including perhaps some with their own children involved, will inevitably be the first responders when terrorists hit.

Is There A DNA-Paranormal Connection?

As Prince Charles will tell you, talking to plants or playing them soothing music can accelerate their growth. Now comes news that suggests he was right after all. Scientists in South Korea claim to have identified genes that can "hear” and have discovered which sounds enhance the growth of plants. They monitored gene expression in rice plants – the process by which their DNA code is translated into instructions for biological processes such as growth. Russian scientists experimenting with DNA have also claimed that it plays a vital role in certain paranormal phenomena. In the South Korean experiments, researchers led by Mi-Jeong Jeong of the National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology in Suwon, played 14 different classical pieces to rice plants. They found that sounds at specific frequencies – 125Hz and 250Hz – made certain genes more active, and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata was once of the pieces which had this beneficial effect, whereas waves at 50Hz made them less active. The genes in question (rbcS and Ald) are known to respond to light, so the scientists repeated their experiments in the dark, with the same results. According to the New Scientist the researchers speculate that the production of chemicals that lead to the genetic changes they observed could be harnessed to activate other specific genes that could trigger the flowering of crops. Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev and his colleagues have been carrying out cutting-edge research into “the more esoteric nature of DNA”. Working with linguists and geneticists, they are said to have proved that DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies, concluding that human DNA is a biological internet that is superior in many respects to the artificial one. Russian researcher Dr. Vladimir Poponin is said to have put DNA in a tube and beamed a laser through it. When the DNA was removed, the laser light continued spiralling on its own, like it would through a crystal. This phenomenon is called “Phantom DNA Effect”.

Plan To Add Long-Range RFID Technology To Driver's Licenses

The U.S. government plans to use long-range RFID technology as part of a border-crossing security initiative. Beginning Jan. 31, 2008, a valid driver's license won't be enough for travelers to pass between the United States and Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda, under new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rules. A standard government passport will be required, or a birth certificate with driver's license. But as an alternative, DHS is moving forward with a pilot program that has states adding long-range RFID technology to driver's licenses. The idea is to have U.S. border guards with RFID readers quickly read a traveler's RFID-enhanced driver's license remotely and make a face check and watch for any posted security red flags pulled up by a database.

Building self-aware AI systems

Steve Omohundro is president of Self-Aware Systems, which has a goal of developing an AI systems that understand their own behavior and work to improve themselves. He is applying machine learning and theorem proving to the task, building systems with models of their own behavior. “With a detailed model, it will be able to make changes, and by learning from its own experiences a system can develop a richer and more adaptive model than something that a person can put in,” he said. He gave an example of Microsoft Windows crashing–the Windows system doesn’t know it crashed or why it crashed and a human engineer has to fix it. A self-aware system would be able to fix its own code and learn from it. It turns out that machines will be far better than humans at writing software. The model will have constraints from the outside and an initial set of goals matched with the deepest human values so that as the system evolves and improves itself, a positive outcome, in human terms, will be produced, Omohundro said. The alternative is that AIs pursue goals that aren’t in the best interest of humanity. “We really have to envision what kind of world we want to live in, and only when we have a clear vision about where we want to go can we ensure that the technology we are building actually supports and creates that,” he said. “This is a turning point in history where we have a chance to create something entirely new.” The Singularity Summit 2007 will address the risks and benefits of advanced AI and how we should prepare for Singularity, the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence, driven by technology.

Glasgow University will start running courses on the Supernatural

High spirits on campus are more usually associated with student union bars than lecture halls, but one of Scotland's oldest seats of learning is offering classes studying spooks, poltergeists and demonic possession. Glasgow University will start running a course in psychical research next month, which aims to show that supernatural phenomena do occur. Subjects to be covered in the 20-week course include apparitions, haunted places and people, poltergeist activity, telepathy, mediumship, psychic surgery, paranormal healing, possession and reincarnation.

New Technologies & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Europa, Jupiter's smallest moon, might not only sustain, but foster life, according to the research of University of Arizona's Richard Greenberg, a professor of planetary sciences and member of the Imaging Team for NASA's Galileo Jupiter-orbiter spacecraft. Europa, similar in size to Earth's moon, has been imaged by the Galileo Jupiter-orbiter spacecraft. Its surface, a frozen crust of water, was previously thought to be tens of kilometers thick, denying the oceans below any exposure. The combination of tidal processes, warm waters and periodic surface exposure may be enough not only to warrant life, but also to encourage evolution.

Maryland Dialysis Center Prepares for Tag-Implantation Project

Independent Dialysis Foundation (IDF), a not-for-profit operator of dialysis centers in Maryland, has teamed with VeriChip to test the implantation of RFID chips in its patients to make it easier to access their health records during an emergency. Located in Delray Beach, Fla., VeriChip makes the VeriMed patient identification system, consisting of RFID interrogators and 134 kHz RFID tags compliant with the ISO 11784 and 11785 standards, as well as associated software and a VeriChip-hosted patient information database. Encased in glass and about the size of a rice grain, the tags are designed to be implanted, via syringe, just under the skin of a patients' arm. Each tag is encoded with a unique 16-digit ID number, which is associated with the patient's medical records stored in the VeriChip-hosted database.

Al-Qaeda Planning Massive Attacks On US: CIA Chief

CIA director Michael Hayden warned on September 7, that Al-Qaeda was plotting fresh attacks on the United States aimed at sowing death and destruction on a massive scale. His comments came just days ahead of the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks and as the US government said it was analyzing a copy of the latest video message said to have been made by elusive Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. "Our analysts assess with high confidence that Al-Qaeda's central leadership is planning high impact plots against the American homeland," Hayden told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Health barcodes cheaper, safer than RFID, says New Zealand author

The author of a report on improving patient safety in hospitals says identifying patients and their medications with a barcode is a more acceptable solution than radio-frequency identification (RFID). Some experts, such as IBM partner Bill Doak, have advocated RFID as a state-of-the-art tool for patient identification. However, report author Bruce Anderson says given the current state of technology, RFID markers are too expensive for the bedside verification procedures advanced as an answer to reducing medication errors. The scheme envisaged would involve marking each single dose of medication with the patient’s identifier and other data. There would be so many markers that RFID costs would quickly mount, he says. Barcodes are far less costly. RFID scanners are, moreover, less tightly focused than a barcode beam. With many containers of medication closely packed in a trolley, Anderson says there is a risk that the scanner will read the container next to the one the operator thinks is being read. This could mean a needless alarm or falsely approve administration of the wrong medication — the very problem the system is designed to prevent. Thirdly, there is a small risk that stray radio waves from the scanners and markers could interfere with the functioning of vital medical equipment, Anderson says. The markers, referred to as barcodes, could in fact be two-dimensional black-and-white printed patterns of squares within a square label, as well as the rectangular sequence of bars familiar from supermarket goods. The two-dimensional marker carries information in a smaller space and is suited to smaller packets of drugs. Although Anderson’s report is a draft, much of the discussion of the remedies it suggests has already been done and he expects fairly quick approval by the Ministry of Health and a move into implementation. Pilot implementations are likely first, within particular wards but, given success, these would quickly expand to whole hospitals and whole district health boards, he says. Most parts of most hospitals could be equipped with the new systems within two years, Anderson says. Some parts of hospitals will be difficult to equip, such as paediatric wards, where the doses are more variable in size, having to be matched to the weight of the infant, and these will be slower to be barcode-equipped than regular medical and surgical wards, he says.

UK government official admitted the existence of UFOs in a secret document about a dramatic sighting

The Ministry of Defence boss made the astonishing claim after dozens of eyewitnesses reported a "hovering" flying saucer in the skies in Shropshire. His confidential report features in a new book by Timothy Good, who is regarded as a world expert on alien phenomena. Good's book, Need To Know, features previously secret government papers about UFO sightings which have taken place around the world. A whole section is devoted to a mystery craft which "shot beams of light" near RAF Shawbury, Shropshire, in the early hours of March 31, 1993. It had earlier been spotted in the skies above Devon, Cornwall and South Wales. Up to 70 credible eyewitnesses later came forward to report the sighting, including some military personnel and police officers. The newly obtained document shows that a Head of Secretariat for the Ministry of Defence wrote to the Assistant Chief of Air Staff following the chilling encounter on the night and was convinced it was a genuine UFO. The release of the book comes as the MoD prepares to publish other UFO reports dating back to 1967. The documents to be released also include witness accounts from civilian pilots and military personnel.

State representative warns of National ID Card

State Rep. Jim Guest is a man on a crusade: to stop implementation of the National Real ID Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 2005. If allowed to move forward as proposed by the Department of Homeland Security, the act could threaten the religious freedom, privacy and personal security of Americans, the states’ right to issue identification and the nation’s sovereignty, Guest said. Guest, a Republican from King City, brought his message to the Liberty Rotary Club Aug. 22. “Freedom is not a Democrat or Republican issue,” Guest said. “It is an American issue.” Not only would a national identification system link citizens’ information among the states but around the world. He said the card would be required to board aircraft and enter federal buildings to transact business such as Social Security or Medicare. The national identification card could eventually be required to contain information on bank accounts, employment and medical history. Guest said anyone’s information would be available globally, wreaking havoc with personal information such as Social Security numbers, full legal names, addresses, driver’s license numbers and birthdays. “We should be very concerned,” Guest said. “This has no judicial or legislative oversight.” Hackers routinely now steal sensitive information from public and private computers, creating monumental problems for those whose identification has been stolen, Guest said. “How is government going to protect your personal data?” he said.

Bestselling Author Warns: Globalists May Release Pandemic Virus To Initiate Martial Law

The World Health Organization and the U.N. have been handed complete control over response procedures in the event of a pandemic outbreak in the U.S. after an agreement was signed by President Bush at the recent SPP meeting that bypasses congressional approval. "We've now got a North American plan for avian and pandemic influenza....and what this plan does is it puts U.S., Canadian and Mexican under the World Health Organization and under the United Nations' law and control should there be any health emergency," bestselling author Jerome Corsi told the Alex Jones Show on August 31.

Contactless cards allow no-touch payments

The debit or credit cards, such as the Chase Bank's Blink or MasterCard's PayPass, let users make a payment by simply waving them near a reader. No swiping is necessary. Using a contactless card can take "less than half a second," MasterCard's Oliver Steeley told the BBC on September 3. The company is now introducing its system in Britain. "The payment card industry estimates that over five million contactless cards will be issued by the end of 2008, and that they will be accepted by over 100,000 merchant locations," MasterCard UK said in a news release announcing the launch. In Canada, some Tim Hortons and Petro-Canada outlets are accepting PayPass cards, MasterCard's Canadian website said. The cards use radio frequency identification technology, the same process that powers London Transport's Oyster travel card system. Oyster is a smartcard which can store a £90 credit to be used on London's subways, buses, light rail transit trains, trams and some regular railway runs in the city. It's the same technology that enables drivers to pay road tolls with a microchip fixed to the car windshield. A competing technology turns cellphones into electronic wallets. In January, Visa announced a plan that would let people make payments by passing their cellphones near a special reader. And Sony Corp. and NXP Semiconductors have combined to create a global standard for a secure chip that will turn cellphones into payment devices.

China hacked into Pentagon computer network

China's military successfully hacked into the Pentagon's computer network, raising fears it could disrupt the US defence department's systems, the Financial Times reported on September 4. The Chinese military's cyber attack was carried out in June following months of efforts, the London-based newspaper said, citing unnamed current and former US officials. While the Pentagon declined to say who was behind the hacking, which led to the shutdown of a computer system serving the office of Defence Secretary Robert Gates, officials told the paper it was China's People's Liberation Army. "The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that disable our system," the paper quoted a former US official as saying. One senior US official reportedly said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origin of the attack. The paper quoted another person familiar with the event as saying there was a "very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty" that the PLA was responsible. The paper said both the US and Chinese militaries were widely assumed to conduct computer espionage on each other. "But US officials said the penetration in June raised concerns to a new level because of fears that China had shown it could disrupt systems at critical times," the Financial Times reported. A spokesman for the Chinese defence ministry declined to comment on the report when contacted by AFP on September 4. China's foreign ministry also declined to comment immediately, asking for questions to be faxed through. Reports of China hacking into German government systems were also raised last week between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. German weekly Der Spiegel reported that espionage programmes traced to the PLA had been detected in computer systems at Merkel's office, the foreign ministry and other government agencies in Berlin. "We in the government took (the reports) as a matter of grave concern," Wen said after meeting Merkel.

New Chip Promises To Track Kids From Miles Away

A technology originally developed to help the military track operatives in the field may be used by parents to find kids in an amusement park. Gentag will try to commercialize what it calls a Radar Response Tag, which effectively acts as an accurate homing beacon. In field tests, the tag can track someone more than 12 miles away and pinpoint their location within 3 feet, said Gentag founder John Peeters in an interview. Twelve miles far exceeds the capabilities of conventional radio frequency ID (RFID) chips. The signal range of those chips is measured in feet. The longer-range global positioning system reaches farther, but the radar response system can track people through walls and other environmental obstacles. "GPS is extremely accurate, but it doesn't work inside buildings," Peeters said. "You can think of this (radar response) as sort of super RFID." Gentag will market the system as a way to keep track of kids or elderly relatives. It will also be pitched at hikers and campers. The system can piggyback on existing wireless infrastructures, Peeters added. The technology is the outgrowth of a military project kicked off in 1990. The military wanted a better way to track soldiers without getting interference from leaves or buildings, so it commissioned Sandia National Laboratories to develop a solution. Seven years later, Sandia came up with the radar response system. The system works at the 430 megahertz frequency, Peeters added. "The military uses it for friendly-fire avoidance," he said. Sandia has now licensed its interest in the technology to Gentag. Mike Lovejoy, who helped develop the tag at Sandia, will work with Gentag to commercialize the technology. Because the military has been using the technology for years, much of the field testing is already accomplished. Gentag now hopes to fine-tune the consumer product and come out with credit-card-size devices that would exchange signals between each other. Ultimately, Gentag would like to cut deals with phone makers to incorporate the chips into cell phones.

More 'megafires' to come, say scientists

Fires of unprecedented ferocity are sweeping around the world, fuelled by global warming and misguided environmentalism. Dubbed "megafires", they rage over thousands of miles at 1,000C and create their own weather, even triggering tornadoes. Rapidly increasing in number, they are often unquenchable by any human efforts, burning unchecked until they reach coasts or are put out by heavy rainfall. The devastating fires that have ravaged Greece killed at least 63 people and charred 482,000 acres of land. This summer, as record heatwaves hit much of southern Europe, more than 1.9 million acres have gone up in smoke. Matters are even worse in the United States, where 20 years ago, fires burning over 5,000 acres were relatively rare. In the past 10 years, however, there have more than 200 conflagrations 10 times the size. Last year, 9.6 million acres of the country were devastated, beating an all-time record set 2005. This is the sixth time in the past decade that a record year has immediately been surpassed in the following 12 months.

Judge Wants Everyone In UK On DNA Database

The entire UK population and every visitor to Britain should be put on the national DNA database, a top judge said today. Lord Chief Justice Sedley, one of England's most experienced appeal court judges, described the country's current system as "indefensible". "We have a situation where if you happen to have been in the hands of the police, then your DNA is on permanent record. If you haven't, it isn't ... that's broadly the picture," Sir Stephen Sedley told the BBC. "It also means that a great many people who are walking the streets, and whose DNA would show them guilty of crimes, go free."

Russia to conduct more advanced missile tests

Russia's Strategic Missile Forces will conduct more tests of new warheads for its intercontinental ballistic missiles later this year, the SMF commander said on September 1. ‘This year we will continue test and combat-training launches of new types of warheads for the Topol-M and Bulava sea-launched missile complexes,’ Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov said. He said previously a second missile battalion, equipped with advanced Topol-M (SS-27) road-mobile ICBMs, will be put on combat duty before the end of the year and that the deployment of silo-based Topol-M systems in the Saratov Region and road-mobile systems in the Ivanovo Region (central Russia) would be completed in 2010. As of December 2006, the Strategic Missile Forces operated 44 silo-based and three mobile missile systems. The commander said the Topol-M system will be equipped with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV) in the next two or three years, adding that the new system would help penetrate missile defenses more effectively. His statement came against the backdrop of growing tensions between Moscow and the West regarding plans by the United States to deploy elements of its global antiballistic missile defense system in Central Europe.

North American Union driver's license created

The first "North American Union" driver's license, complete with a hologram of the continent on the reverse, has been created in North Carolina. "The North Carolina driver's license is 'North American Union' ready," charges William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration. A photo of an actual North Carolina license clearly shows the hologram of the North American continent embedded on the reverse. "The hologram looks exactly [like] the map of North America that is used as the background for the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America logo on the SPP website," Gheen said "I object to the loss of sovereignty that is proceeding under the agreements being made by these unelected government bureaucrats who think we should be North American instead of the United States of America. "To protest, I don't plan on applying for a North Carolina driver's license," Gheen said, "Even though I am a resident of the state. I don't see how a Division of Motor Vehicles authorized in a Department of Transportation of a state of the United States can force me to have a license place that is designed with a North American Union insignia printed on the backside. "My decision not to get a North Carolina driver's license could have very difficult consequences for me, Without a valid driver's license, I may not be able to drive a car, fly on an airplane, or enter a government building."

European Union OKs fusion project aimed at replacing fossil fuels

A team of British-led scientists have won approval from the European Union for the project, which aims to produce almost no greenhouse gases or long-lived radioactive waste, The Times of London reported on September 3. Nuclear fusion potentially could solve the world's energy crisis by harnessing the process that drives the sun. Years of research by U.S. military scientists have developed the basic technology but the energy needed to reach the temperatures at which such reactions occur has outweighed the energy produced. The prototype for the project is likely to be built in Britain, using the world's most powerful laser to generate temperatures of millions of degrees. If it works, laser fusion power stations could supply most of the world's energy needs by the middle of the century, said Mike Dunne, who leads the project team.

VeriChip Corporation Launches New ``Patient First'' Program for Its VeriMed Patient Identification System

VeriChip Corporation announced today the launch of its new "PATIENT FIRST" program. Under this new program, patients receive the VeriMed(TM) microchip with no up-front cost with a subscription to the VeriMed Patient Registry at a fee of $9.95 per month. The Company will initially launch PATIENT FIRST in the geographies it has an established presence of protocol-adopted hospitals, including South Florida, northern New Jersey, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Atlanta. Protocol-adopted hospitals are trained on using the VeriMed reader and database and have adopted the VeriMed Patient Identification System as standard protocol in their emergency rooms in the event a patient presents unconscious or non-communicative.

Russian bombers to fire cruise missiles over Arctic

President Vladimir Putin flexed Russia's military muscles once again yesterday when his government said that 12 strategic bombers would practise firing cruise missiles during an exercise over the Arctic. The giant Tupolev 95 aircraft were due to take off from five air bases, including one near the Bering Straits, separating Russia from Alaska. Mr Putin has made great efforts to extend Russian influence over the Arctic, which may have untapped mineral wealth. Russia has dispatched a scientific expedition to the polar ice-cap and last month a submarine dropped the national flag on the seabed beneath the North Pole. Yesterday's launch of a "tactical exercise" by the Russian air force, which is due to last for 48 hours, was the Kremlin's latest attempt to send a message of national resurgence.

Germany Foils 'Massive' Bomb Plot

Three men have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning a ‘massive’ terrorist attack on US facilities in the country, officials have said. Federal prosecutor Monika Harms said the three had trained at camps in Pakistan and procured some 700kg (1,500lbs) of chemicals for explosives. She said the accused had sought to target facilities visited by Americans, such as nightclubs, pubs or airports. Defence minister Franz Josef Jung said the men had posed ‘an imminent threat’. Media reports said they were planning attacks against a US military base in Ramstein and Frankfurt airport. Ms Harms said the men planned to use vehicles loaded with the explosives to kill or injure large numbers of people. The arrests had prevented ‘massive bomb attacks’, she added. The suspects were suspected members of the German cell of a group she named as Islamic Jihad Union. They had been under surveillance for six months, but the authorities decided to act when it became clear the men were planning to move their huge stores of hydrogen peroxide.

IBM Stores Data on Single Atoms

IBM Corp. has demonstrated how to perform certain computer functions on single atoms and molecules, a discovery that could someday lead to processors the size of a speck of dust, the company said on August 30. Researchers at IBM's Almaden Research Center in California developed a technique for measuring magnetic anisotropy, a property of the magnetic field that gives it the ability to maintain a particular direction. Being able to measure magnetic anisotropy at the atomic level is a crucial step toward the magnet representing the ones or the zeroes used to store data in binary computer language. In a second report, researchers at IBM's lab in Zurich, Switzerland, said they had used an individual molecule as an electric switch that could potentially replace the transistors used in modern chips. The company published both research reports in the latest edition of the journal Science. The new technologies are at least 10 years from being used for components in commercial products, but the discoveries will allow scientists to take a large step forward in their quest to replace silicon, said IBM spokesman Matthew McMahon. To build faster, smaller chips, IBM and other chip vendors like Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. have shrunk the dimensions of chip features from 90 nanometers to 65nm in the current generation of chips and plan to continue to 45nm and 32nm in coming years. The problem is that wires built from silicon tend to leak more electricity at each step on that scale, and will eventually reach a limit where they are no longer useful. "Across all our areas of nanotechnology research, we're trying to determine the new kinds of materials we can use in computing when silicon reaches its fundamental limits. The ultimate goal is molecular-level computers, but the interim products will probably be hybrids with current technology, using things like carbon nanotubes," McMahon said.

Mastercard launches touch and pay system in the UK

The prospect of a cashless society crept closer yesterday after a leading credit card company rolled out its "touch and pay" card - a system designed for transactions under £10. Mastercard launched the PayPass system at Canary Wharf in east London, ahead of a wider launch in London next week and a national roll-out next year. Barclaycard will introduce its version of the scheme next week. Supporters say the cards will end the days of fishing around for enough change to pay for a newspaper or cup of coffee and that they will cut queue times. However, critics claim such schemes are open to abuse and fraud. It is expected that by the end of this year, half a million customers will have a touch and pay card and that 1,000 retailers will have terminals that accept the payments.

Pentagon plan: Annihilate Tehran's military in 3 days: 1,200 targets ID'd for massive attack on nuke sites

The Pentagon has formulated a "three-day blitz" plan to annihilate Iran's military that targets 1,200 sites, including Tehran's nuclear facilities, in order to render its military incapable of conducting offensive, defensive or retaliatory missions. According to the London Sunday Times, citing Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, the Pentagon has rejected a strategy of "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities. "They're about taking out the entire Iranian military," Debat said. Despite a report last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency of "significant" cooperation by Iran over its nuclear program, Washington sees only continued stalling by the Islamic regime, reports the Times. President Bush increased his rhetoric against Iran's nuclear program last week, saying Tehran had put the Mideast "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust" and indicated action would be taken against the program "before it is too late." According to a Times source close to the Bush administration, the president's recent statements were meant as "a message to a number of audiences" – Iran and the U.N. Security Council. "A number of nuclear sites have not even been visited by the IAEA," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. "They're giving a clean bill of health to a regime that is known to have practiced deception." Revelation of a plan for a three-day blitz to destroy Iran's fighting ability indicates the administration leans toward the use of rapid, overwhelming force if the military option is used.

Scholars Endorse "The Kennebunkport Warning": Report Ominous Signs of a Privatized Takeover of the Nation

A warning about the prospect of an imminent but staged “9/11” attack followed by a strike on Iran and imposition of martial law in the US has been issued by Cynthia McKinney, Webster Tarpley and others. Known as “The Kennebunkport Warning” (August 26, 2007), it has drawn support from Scholars for 9/11 Truth. According to its founder, James H. Fetzer, not only are there multiple indications the United States is about to attack Iran, but a series of rather odd events suggest that martial law may be near at hand. “The threat is not from our own military, the strength of which is being depleted by the ongoing occupation of Iraq, but from privatized armies, such as Blackwater USA, which appear to be growing stronger as the US Army is growing weaker.” According to The Kennebunkport Warning, extensive evidence suggests that those allied with the neo-con faction headed by Vice President Cheney “are determined to orchestrate and manufacture a new 9/11 terror incident . . . (to) be used as a pretext for launching an aggressive war against Iran and for imposing a regime of martial law here in the United States. . . . We solemnly warn the people of the world that any terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction taking place inside the United States or elsewhere in the immediate future must be considered the prima facie responsibility of the Cheney faction.”

Possible remains of second temple found in Jerusalem

Remains of the Jewish second temple may have been found during work to lay pipes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, Israeli television reported on August 30. Israeli television broadcast footage of a mechanical digger at the site which Israeli archaeologists visited. Gaby Barkai, an archaeologist from Bar Ilan University, urged the Israeli government to stop the pipework after the discovery of what he said is "a massive seven metre-long wall." Television said the pipework carried out by the office of Muslim religious affairs, or Waqf, is about 1.5 metres deep and about 100 metres long. The compound, which houses both Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, is located in east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and then annexed. It is the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. For Jews it as known as the Temple Mount, which they revere as the site of the King Herod's second temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. It is the holiest site in Judaism. All that remains today is the temple's Western Wall, or Wailing wall.

Brain chip reads man's thoughts

Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001. The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone. The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher. He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks to the technology and software linked to devices in his home. Scientists have been working for some time to devise a way to enable paralysed people to control devices with the brain. Studies have shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain. Recently four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, were able to move a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes that pick up brain waves. Mr Nagle's device, called BrainGate, consists of nearly 100 hair-thin electrodes implanted a millimetre deep into part of the motor cortex of his brain that controls movement. Wires feed the information from the electrodes into a computer which analyses the brain signals. The signals are interpreted and translated into cursor movements, offering the user an alternative way to control devices such as a computer with thought.

Russia enters 'space race' to build moon base

Russia has revived another Cold War rivalry by entering a new “space race” with America to build a permanent base on the Moon. Anatoly Perminov, the head of the space agency Roskosmos, said Russia would organise a manned lunar mission by 2025 and would be ready to build an “inhabited station” between 2027 and 2032. From there, cosmonauts could strike out on a long-planned mission to Mars as early as 2035. “According to our estimates we will be ready for a manned flight to the Moon in 2025,” said Mr Perminov, adding that Mars remained a long-term ambition for Russia. Mr Perminov also said that Roskmosmos intended to complete its section of the International Space Station by 2015 so that the ISS “becomes a fully-fledged space research centre”, while “major modernisation” of its Soyuz spacecraft would also be completed. President George W. Bush in 2004 outlined plans for America, which landed the first men on the moon in 1968, to return by 2020 and use the mission as a stepping stone to Mars. A new spacecraft design and manned lunar base modules formed part of the plan. Launching a Mars mission from the Moon would remove the biggest cost factor of space travel – breaking out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Russia’s announcement comes as it attempts to revive Cold War prestige on the back of a buoyant economy fueled by booming energy prices. Among its aims is to secure its claim to Arctic territory - and the natural resources found beneath the sea bed. This month, President Vladimir Putin revived Russian daily long-range bomber patrols near Nato airspace, in part to respond to American plans to build a missile defence shield in the former Soviet territories of the Czech Republic and Poland.

Baltimore-based nonprofit partners in bringing microchips mainstream

But by the end of the year, as many as 500 kidney dialysis patients in Maryland will be equipped with microchips from Florida firm VeriChip Corp., and local hospitals will be carrying the technology to read the chips. The project is a partnership between VeriChip and the Independent Dialysis Foundation Inc., a Baltimore-based nonprofit that operates eight dialysis centers in the state. VeriChip has offered to implant its VeriMed microchip, the size of a grain of rice, at no cost in all the foundation's roughly 500 patients. The company also hopes to provide the readers at no cost to about 25 hospital emergency departments in the state. In return, VeriChip — traded on the Nasdaq as CHIP — will collect effectiveness data on its product to present to insurers and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to try to convince them to cover the cost of the device. The chips, injected into the triceps, do not contain any information except a 16-digit number corresponding with records stored on the VeriMed registry, a Web-based database. Patients enter their own information — similar to the medical history questionnaires patients fill out before seeing a new physician — and update it. About 350 patients have the chip, more than 10 percent of them part of studies on Alzheimer's, dementia and dialysis patients. About 180 American hospitals have the readers, and about 650 more have expressed interest, Caragol said. Doctors in the ER "often don't know what's wrong with the patient, and the patient isn't able to tell them," Sadler said, adding that elderly patients are more likely to arrive at hospitals disoriented and uncommunicative. The device could save time, said Dr. Brian Browne, chief of the emergency department at the University of Maryland Medical Center. "I think it's a pretty novel idea," said Browne, who has signed on his emergency room to be a part of the VeriChip study. Browne's hospital supplies medical directors at the foundation's centers, and the foundation operates the hospital's dialysis center. Sadler said he expected about half his patients to sign on to the study.

US Ambassador To UN Admits Middle East Turmoil Could Cause World War

According to the US Ambassador to the United Nations, turmoil in the Middle East could lead to another world war. "Zalmay Khalilzad told the daily Die Presse the Middle East was now so disordered that it had the potential to inflame the world as Europe did during the first half of the 20th century," The Middle East "is going through a very difficult transformation phase. That has strengthened extremism and creates a breeding ground for terrorism," Khalilzad said in remarks translated by Reuters into English from the published German. "Europe was just as dysfunctional for a while. And some of its wars became world wars. Now the problems of the Middle East and Islamic civilization have the same potential to engulf."

Microsoft building computer capable of reading your mind

A computer capable of reading your mind may sound like science fiction, but it's rapidly becoming reality. Researchers at Microsoft are now using relatively inexpensive electroencephalography (EEG) caps to measure the brain's electrical activity, then applying sophisticated algorithms to decipher this data into something meaningful enough for a computer to use. The list of possible applications is almost endless. Sony has already patented a similar application, hoping to provide an enhanced experience for video gamers. I'm sure that Microsoft is interested in doing likewise, to keep future versions of its Xbox competitive with Sony's PlayStation and future iterations of the Nintendo Wii. Longer-term, such a technology might be able to simplify our interactions with computers. For example, it's been suggested that by measuring a person's concentration level, a computer could tell whether its user was confused and needed assistance.The technology might also help a variety of household items. For instance, if pressing a button on a TV remote is too taxing for the average citizens of the future, they could merely think their way across the spectrum of channels. I just hope my two kids never get their hands on such technology -- the fights over what they want to watch would be horrendous. Mind-reading technology could also complement advances in robotics. Researchers at the University of Washington, right in Microsoft's backyard, have already demonstrated that they can rudimentally control a robot by thought alone.

Iran: Diplomatic Efforts Have Failed, Uranium Centrifuge Goal Reached

Iran has reached its long-sought goal of running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Sunday in a report on state media. The U.N. Security Council had threatened a third round of sanctions against the country if it did not freeze the uranium enrichment program — which Iran maintains is for peaceful energy purposes, but the U.S. says is to hide a weapons program. "The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week," the state television Web site quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Mexico Trucks To Roll On U.S. Highways

The Bush administration can proceed with a plan to open the U.S. border to long haul Mexican trucks as early as next week after an appeals court rejected a bid by labor, consumer and environmental interests to block the initiative. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco late on Friday denied an emergency petition sought by the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and consumer group Public Citizen to halt the start of a one-year pilot program that was approved by Congress after years of legal and political wrangling.

Opening Soon: Military Holodeck

This month, the Marine Corps and the Office of Naval Research will open an "immersive" training simulator at Camp Pendleton, Calif., perhaps the closest thing the infantry has to a Star Trek-style holodeck. "Fire teams or squads will participate within a 3-D video game of urban-battlefield streets in life-size combat driven by video-game simulations and interactive technologies that are more realistic and adaptable and easily incorporated into training facilities," the latest issue of Training & Simulation Journal notes.

36 members of one Christian church in Iraq disappear, 1 returns, over the course of a week

Three dozen members of one Christian church in Iraq disappeared over the course of a week, and only one returned, according to a minister who is warning of the increase of persecution of Christians in that violence-ridden nation. The warning from Rev. Canon Andrew White is being reported by Voice of the Martyrs, the ministry to persecuted Christians around the world. He said kidnappings, torture and executions of Christians are rising. He also noted the people's desire for Christ sometimes is overwhelming. The small church he leads in Baghdad was small, but has exploded to an attendance of more than 1,300 recently. "It is an Anglican church, and none of my people are Anglicans," he said. "They simply some to church because it is the closest church to come to in the midst of great danger." But White said the conditions have deteriorated at an increasing pace in the past few months, and it's sometimes hard to quantify the extent of the persecution. But he said he asked members of his congregation for their perspective on the situation. "Things are bad for everybody in Iraq. I said them (church members); tell me what has happened over the past week. And the people went through what had happened and I realized that 36 of my congregation in that past week [had] been kidnapped," White said. Only one was returned.

EU Project Builds Artificial Brain For Robots

Scientists in Spain have achieved a giant leap for robotkind by building the first artificial cerebellum to help them interact with humans. The cerebellum is the portion of the brain that controls motor functions. The project will now implant the man-made cerebellum into a robot so as to make its movements and interaction with humans more natural. The overall goal is to incorporate the cerebellum into a robot designed by the German Aerospace Centre in two year's time. The four-year project, dubbed Sensopac (SENSOrimotor structuring of perception and action for emerging cognition) is funded by the EU under its Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) and brings together physicists, neuroscientists and electronic engineers from leading universities in Europe. The scientists at the University of Granada are focusing on the design of microchips that incorporate a full neuronal system, emulating the way the cerebellum interacts with the human nervous system.

Alzheimer's Patients Lining Up for Microchip

For families of the nearly 5 million Americans currently living with Alzheimer's disease, keeping their loved ones safe is a major concern. In response to such concerns, a Florida-based company has developed an FDA-approved microchip that can be implanted in an Alzheimer's patient's arm, allowing critical medical details to be accessed instantly. Up to 200 Alzheimer's patients living near Palm Beach, Fla., will be implanted with the VeriChip for free in the next week. The chip, which is about the size of a grain of rice, contains a 16-digit identification number which is scanned at a hospital. Once the number is placed in a database, it can provide crucial medical information. David and Ida Frankel have been married an unbelievable 73 years. Seven years ago, Ida was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. "She was being very forgetful, repeating questions over and over again," David said. Ida was one of the first patients at an Alzheimer's center in Florida to be implanted with a VeriChip. "When an Alzheimer's patient gets lost, once their arm is scanned, it would identify who they are and that they are an Alzheimer's patient," said Scott Silverman, the CEO of VeriChip. Silverman stressed that the VeriChip is not a GPS device; it only provides code for a database.

Has a dead Chupacabra been found in Texas?

Phylis Canion lived in Africa for four years. She's been a hunter all her life and has the mounted heads of a zebra and other exotic animals in her house to prove it. But the roadkill she found last month outside her ranch was a new one even for her, worth putting in a freezer hidden from curious onlookers: Canion believes she may have the head of the mythical, bloodsucking chupacabra. "It is one ugly creature," Canion said, holding the head of the mammal, which has big ears, large fanged teeth and grayish-blue, mostly hairless skin. Canion and some of her neighbors discovered the 40-pound bodies of three of the animals over four days in July outside her ranch in Cuero, 80 miles southeast of San Antonio. Canion said she saved the head of the one she found so she can get to get to the bottom of its ancestry through DNA testing and then mount it for posterity. She suspects, as have many rural denizens over the years, that a chupacabra may have killed as many as 26 of her chickens in the past couple of years. "I've seen a lot of nasty stuff. I've never seen anything like this," she said. What tipped Canion to the possibility that this was no ugly coyote, but perhaps the vampire-like beast, is that the chickens weren't eaten or carried off — all the blood was drained from them, she said. Chupacabra means "goat sucker" in Spanish, and it is said to have originated in Latin America, specifically Puerto Rico and Mexico. Canion thinks recent heavy rains ran them right out of their dens. "I think it could have wolf in it," Canion said. "It has to be a cross between two or three different things." She said the finding has captured the imagination of locals, just like purported sightings of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster have elsewhere. To read more about the Chupacabra and many other creatures of Cryptozology, visit the website: http://www.unknown-creatures.com

Will Lady Liberty Survive?

Thomas Jefferson and the other founders of this once-great country believed there was a controlling cabal that was crafting America's servitude. With the assistance of Heaven, they decided to fight those forces. Pastors fought with fiery sermons from the pulpit; newsmen fought with the power of the pen; statesmen fought in the halls of congress; and merchants fought with the sacrifice of their material gain. Together, they lifted Lady Liberty to her feet and defeated the powers of darkness. It took the global elite a long time to recover, but they have reemerged with a vengeance. They are now on the precipice of accomplishing what their great granddaddies failed to do: bring the rebellious colonists under their power and control.

Israel Preparing For Nuke Attack With Underground Bunker

Israel is constructing an underground bunker, which will house the prime minister's office and military command centers, to withstand a nuclear attack, a media report here said. Construction of the USD 240 million worth new National Command Center, where the country's leaders would be taken, should Israel suffer a nuclear attack, is rapidly progressing, daily 'Yedioth Ahronoth' reported on August 28. "It's like something out of a movie, you walk around it in complete awe, knowing this is the place they'll be running the country from," a government source was quoted by the daily as saying. The bunker is being constructed in one of Jerusalem's mountains.... At an undisclosed depth lay a series of halls, dozens of feet high, where the official offices, quarters and emergency exits will be built, it said. Four of the world's leading construction companies have been working together to build the bunker, 'Ynet' reported.

Pentagon to Implant Chips in Soldiers' Bodies

We knew it was only a matter of time before the government started trying to track us by implanting computer chips in our bodies. And where do you start highly suspicious, Big Brother-esque projects like this? The Pentagon and our Armed forces, of course. Scarily enough, we're not talking about some conspiracy theory, or some black ops experiment -- this is for real, and the Pentagon has already awarded the first contract. It's a $1.6 million contract, to be exact, and it's with Clemson University's Center for Bioelectronics, Biosensors and Biochips (C3B). The mandate? To develop the chip that the armed forces hope will save lives by giving them instant access to, and constant tracking of, soldiers' vital medical signs and data on the battlefield. The chips are also considered to have potential for tracking astronauts' vitals during missions.

Directed-energy weapons keep on truckin

In its quest to develop laser weapons, the Pentagon is aiming both high and low. The sky-high plans for the Airborne Laser call for a squadron of 747s that would train chemically generated laser beams on ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) to knock out those missiles long before they become a threat to targets in the United States. A "lethality" test of that system is scheduled for 2009, though if past delays are any indication of future performance. A solid-state laser does its thing under the watchful eye of a Northrop Grumman engineer. At its new Directed Energy Production Facility in Redondo Beach, Calif., the defense contractor aims to build a 100-kW device that can be used on the battlefield. For a more down-to-earth system, look no further than a truck-mounted solid-state laser now in the early stages of development. Rather than intercontinental missiles, this system would protect ground troops from smaller projectiles including rockets, artillery rounds and mortar shells. Advantages that solid-state lasers have over their COIL (chemical oxygen iodine laser) counterparts include smaller size and lighter weight--there's a reason that the Airborne Laser requires a 747--and the avoidance of big doses of toxic materials. COIL systems pack a bigger punch, however. The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command has enlisted two defense sector heavyweights to vie with each other to produce the ruggedized beam control system, a key component of what will become the High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator (HEL TD). Northrop Grumman this week said it received an $8 million, one-year contract to do that work, followed in about a month by Boeing's receipt of a $7 million deal to do the same. For both contractors, options could extend the programs to about $50 million.

The disappearance of millions of bees is fueling fears of an agricultural disaster

It's a sweet time for honeybees in the rolling hills of eastern Pennsylvania, and the ones humming around Dennis vanEngelsdorp seem too preoccupied by the blooming knapweed nearby to sting him as he carefully lifts the top off their hive. VanEngelsdorp, Pennsylvania's state apiarist, spots signs of plenty within: honeycomb stocked with yellow pollen, neat rows of wax hexagons housing larval bees, and a fertile queen churning out eggs. But something has gone terribly wrong in this little utopia in a box. "There should be a lot more workers than there are," he says. "This colony is in trouble." That pattern -- worker bees playing Amelia Earhart -- has become dismayingly familiar to the nation's beekeepers over the past year, as well as to growers whose crops are pollinated by honeybees. A third of our food, from apples to zucchinis, begins with floral sex acts abetted by honeybees trucked around the country on 18-wheelers. We wouldn't starve if the mysterious disappearance of bees, dubbed colony collapse disorder, or CCD, decimated hives worldwide. For one thing, wheat, corn, and other grains don't depend on insect pollination. But in a honeybee-less world, almonds, blueberries, melons, cranberries, peaches, pumpkins, onions, squash, cucumbers, and scores of other fruits and vegetables would become as pricey as sumptuous old wine. Honeybees also pollinate alfalfa used to feed livestock, so meat and milk would get dearer as well. Ditto for farmed catfish, which are fed alfalfa too. And jars of honey, of course, would become golden heirlooms to pass along to the grandkids. (Used for millennia as a wound dressing, honey contains potent antimicrobial compounds that enable it to last for decades in sealed containers.) In late June, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns starkly warned that "if left unchecked, CCD has the potential to cause a $15 billion direct loss of crop production and $75 billion in indirect losses."

"Star-Trek" Medical Device Heals Internal Injuries With Ultrasound

While surface injuries can look gruesome, often the most serious medical dangers aren’t visible—such as an internal organ crushed in a car wreck, or maybe while wrestling a hostile alien. Star Trek fans will fondly recall how easy it is for doctors of the future to heal internal injuries. Apparently all you do is point a device at the body and push a button. Viola, as long as they weren’t totally dead to start with, you knew the character would be back vigorously exploring the universe by the end of the episode. Now, engineers at the University of Washington are working with doctors at Harborview Medical Center to create new emergency treatments right out of Star Trek. A tricorder type device using high-intensity focused ultrasound rays. Recently researchers published the first experiment using ultrasound to seal punctured lungs. "No one has ever looked at treating lungs with ultrasound," said Shahram Vaezy, a UW associate professor of bioengineering. Physicists were skeptical it would work because a lung is essentially a collection of air sacs, and air blocks transmission of ultrasound. But the new experiments show that punctures on the lung's surface, where injuries usually occur, heal with ultrasound therapy.