Arabs Fear Fallout Of Nuclear Conflict

Arab governments are deeply worried about the prospect of war between Iran and Israel and/or the US for the very good reason that several of them would be directly in the firing line if hostilities erupted. Any fallout could have devastating consequences. Iranian retaliation against oilfields, refineries and desalination plants in the Gulf, especially in eastern Saudi Arabia, is an obvious worry. Tehran has gone on the record as threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, the choke point for 40% of globally-traded oil, if it is attacked. Washington quickly insisted that it will not let that happen. As the sabres rattled this week, Iran warned that it would strike at Tel Aviv and the US navy, though Revolutionary Guard Shehab missiles would find it difficult to distinguish between American and Arab targets: the US Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain; US Central Command in nearby Qatar and the US navy has long relied on docking facilities at Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates. Even without the threat of war, Iran's Arab neighbours have long lived in fear of another Chernobyl: the Bushehr nuclear reactor, two miles from the Gulf coast, is closer to six Arab capitals (Kuwait, Riyadh, Manama, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Muscat) than it is to Tehran. Any nuclear accident would be an ecological disaster. But the recent sniping has been ominous. "We are sandwiched between Iran on the one hand and Israel and the US on the other," said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai. "We feel that we are going to be victims." Abdullah Alshayji, a Kuwaiti analyst, agrees, describing the Gulf states as "feeling like helpless bystanders with little room to manoeuvre". War would be "a nightmare of epic proportions for the whole region," he said. And Tehran is mistrusted in almost every Arab capital. None believe the insistent claim that it is interested only in civilian nuclear power and has no military ambitions. It is seen as working to establish its hegemony across the Middle East, setting the agenda through allies or "non-state" proxies such as Hizbullah and Hamas, confounding the US and Israel in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

Doctor Says 'ET's Hold The Secrets To Free Energy"

A doctor who thinks space aliens have the key to unlimited alternative energy - but that the government is keeping a lid on it - will speak in Denver on July 9. Dr. Steven M. Greer, founder of The Disclosure Project, says with gasoline at $4 a gallon, it's even more crucial now that government officials reveal what 60 years of studying UFOs has taught them. "The energy and propulsion systems used by so-called UFOs (or extraterrestrial vehicles) has been studied for over 60 years using taxpayer funds," Greer said on his Web site. "The disclosure of this vital information would completely replace the need for oil, gas, coal and nuclear power." Greer said that "Unacknowledged Special Access Projects" operate outside of congressional oversight and are beholden to corporate, financial and energy interests. A Denver man is lobbying the City Council to form a committee to greet extraterrestrials when and if they arrive in the Mile High City.

Scientists Identify Brain Development Genes

It's clear that there's a specific set of genes responsible for brain development when you're in the womb, and that those genes affect your ability to learn later on. But now a group of researchers in the U.S. and Canada have identified those genes. And their discovery could represent the first step in tweaking brain development. It's possible that that knocking out some of those genes or adding extra copies of them to a developing baby could result in the tailor-made human minds of Brave New World: Some will be born to develop cutting-edge technologies, and others to be slow-witted and compliant. Published this weekend in PLoS Genetics, the study is extraordinary not just because of its futuristic implications, but because of the cool new super-rapid system the researchers used to identify which genes are active during brain development. The technique is called RNA interference, or RNAi. This research will open up new ways to tinker with brain development, but right now the genes have only been identified in flies and mice. Humans share a lot of genes with both creatures. Still, don't expect to order your supergenius baby next week. Or your army of slave drones.

Bush's Secret Army of Snoops and Snitches

The full scale of Bush's assault on our civil liberties may not be known until years after he's left office. At the moment, all we can do is get glimpses here or there of what's going on. And the latest one to come to my attention is the dispatching of police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and utility workers as so-called "terrorism liaison officers," according to a report by Bruce Finley in the Denver Post. They are entrusted with hunting for "suspicious activity," and then they report their findings, which end up in secret government databases. What constitutes "suspicious activity," of course, is in the eye of the beholder. But a draft Justice Department memo on the subject says that such things as "taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value" or "making notes" could constitute suspicious activity, Finley wrote. The states where this is going on include: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. Dozens more are planning to do so, Finley reports. Colorado alone has 181 Terrorism Liaison Officers, and some of them are from the private sector, such as Xcel Energy.

Antichrists Kingdom Growing - Behold the Mediterranean Union

France on Sunday (13 July) launched the Union for the Mediterranean – the brainchild of President Nicolas Sarkozy, which will bring together EU member states and a number of North African and Middle East countries. "Do you know how moving it is for us to see the Arab heads of state sitting at the same table as the Israeli head of state, in a European capital?" Mr Sarkozy told journalists on July 10. "For me, the presence of all these European and Mediterranean heads of state in Paris in the name of Europe and the Mediterranean is something deeply moving and it's the best news for peace in the Middle East … I hope we will be able to note a number of advancements," he added. But there is already scepticism about what the new union can achieve after the original most exclusive and grander vision by Mr Sarkozy was watered down, predominantly at Berlin's behest. In addition, up until the last minute, there was uncertainty over some leaders' attendance at the summit.

After much foot-dragging, Algeria and Turkey both finally confirmed this week that they will be present. But Jordan's King Abdullah has declined the invitation for personal reasons, while Libya's Muammar Gaddafi – who has called it "another Roman empire" and spoken of its "imperialist design" – will also not attend. The Union for the Mediterranean was proposed by France last year to boost economic, political and cultural ties with the EU's southern neighbours. In March, the bloc's leaders agreed on a final and more general version of the project, which is to include 44 countries – the EU's 27 members, plus Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey – as well as Mauritania, Monaco, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania. The launch will be co-presided over by Mr Sarkozy and Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, in Paris' grandiose glass-domed Grand Palais.

Israel will have NO Choice after the formation of this giant when it comes to accept a EU brokered Peace Plan with her enemies, she will be under EU law and will have to follow it like all members.

World War III To Be Fought In The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Did the Chinese military cause the largest blackout in the history of North America? That is the assertion of Tim Bennett, the former president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, who says U.S. intelligence officials confirmed to him the People's Liberation Army gained access to a network that controlled electric power systems serving the northeastern U.S. in 2003. Some 50 million people were affected by the 9,300-square-mile blackout that hit parts of New York, Canada, Michigan and Ohio. The official explanation for the power outage was that overgrown trees came into contact with strained high-voltage lines in Ohio. But the story of this possible skirmish in the "electromagnetic spectrum" is widely whispered about in defense and intelligence circles. It is referred to by some as the first battle of World War III – a conflict to be fought asymmetrically in cyberspace and with weapons that might seem like science fiction. The Moscow newspaper Zavtra reported only a week ago that Russia has developed "special powerful electromagnetic impulse generators that may be used in design of new type radars and as a basis of electromagnetic weapons that will render enemy electronics inoperable." "The U.S. Army is convinced meanwhile that the Russians have already designed 'kinetic weapons' and 'directed energy weapons' (apparently lasers) for ASAT warfare," the article continued. "In any event, the Americans suspect that the recent episode with the Chinese laser that damaged an American spysat became possible precisely because Moscow had made this technology available to China."

The superweapons being developed for the next global conflict began coming into sharper focus last winter when China destroyed one of its own aging, low-Earth-orbit weather satellites while it was circling at an altitude of 500 miles, using a ground-based, direct ascent anti-satellite weapon. This year, the U.S., using its sea-based Aegis missile defense system, shot down a disabled American intelligence satellite at 100 or so miles altitude as it tumbled uncontrollably toward the planet. The Defense Department says China is developing non-kinetic means of attacking satellites, such as jamming and blinding, and using lasers, microwave, particle beam and electromagnetic pulse weapons. Cyber-warfare, one of the proven strengths of the Chinese military, can also be used as an anti-satellite capability. In congressional testimony this year, the director of national intelligence stated, "Counter-command, control and sensor systems, to include communications satellite jammers and ASAT weapons, are among Beijing's highest military priorities."

Bennett, meanwhile, told the National Journal he believes Chinese cyber-hackers were also responsible for another U.S. blackout last February in Florida – one that affected 3 million customers. Bennett told the National Journal he decided to speak publicly about the incidents to point out that security for the nation's critical electronic infrastructures is weak and to emphasize that government and company officials haven't sufficiently acknowledged these vulnerabilities.

Ahmadinejad Will Strike Soon To Bring Hidden Imam

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes in the Second Coming of the Iranian Messiah. The Messiah will appear when the globe is in utter chaos. Spell "chaos" as meaning "nuclear blow up." The President's Messiah is the Hidden Imam of Shia Islam. Ahmadinejad believes that his time has come to establish a government honoring the Messiah by preparing the planet for the Second Coming of that Messiah. The Messiah who has temporarily disappeared left the globe in the ninth century at age five. He will come back to the planet when the globe is in total disarray—international conflict and bloodshed. Following that, the Islamic Messiah will rule the world in peace. Ahmadinejad seems to have faith that all of these occurrences are near. Therefore, he must give allegiance to one voice alone—Allah—who informs him of what to do to prepare for the Messiah's comeback. In other words, a war with the West could mean Ahmadinejad envisions such to be the welcome mat for the Coming One.

Growing Belief That UFO's and ET are real

This story really starts on May 14 this year, when the Ministry of Defence began a four-year programme to release its entire archive of UFO files. The MoD has been investigating UFO sightings since the Fifties. To date, the MoD has received more than 11,000 UFO reports. Some of the older material has been available for some time, but it is releasing all its UFO files because it receives more Freedom of Information Act requests about UFOs than for any other subject. The National Archives set up a website to host the first batch of files and the release made national and international news. Within a week, the National Archives had recorded nearly two million downloads. Clearly, there was huge public interest in this subject. The irony of this was that much of the 2,000 pages of documentation was comparatively mundane, consisting of one or two-page sighting reports, most of which were clearly generated by people misidentifying aircraft lights, bright stars and planets, satellites and meteors. This interest was closely followed by two sensational new UFO encounters. In the first, late on the evening of June 7, three soldiers on guard duty at Tern Hill barracks in Shropshire sighted several UFOs over the base.

Regarding this as much as a security incident as anything else, one soldier, Corporal Mark Proctor, used a mobile phone to film the objects. Afterwards, they reported the incident up the chain of command and a report was duly forwarded to the MoD, where the episode is currently being investigated and the film footage analysed. Somewhere along the way, someone tipped off a national newspaper about this and passed it a copy of the film. It ran the story on the front page, under the headline "Army spot UFOs over Shropshire". A few hours later, in the early hours of June 8, a police helicopter was preparing to land at RAF St Athan in Wales. Suddenly, the crew of three saw a UFO pass close to their aircraft. Media reports of what happened next vary. One report states that a chase took place, with the crew only breaking off pursuit when they ran short of fuel and realised they stood no chance of catching the UFO. A later report denied any chase took place. The shape of the UFO is also the subject of some confusion. The initial report stated that the object was disc-shaped, while a later statement issued by South Wales police confirmed that a UFO had been sighted by the crew, but the incident was clearly being played down.

"In today's skies there are a large number of aircraft which come in a range of different shapes and sizes," a police spokesperson commented. The MoD is still investigating, with rumours of secret prototype aircraft and Government cover-ups further muddying the waters. These two high-profile sightings and the associated media coverage led to many other people coming forward to report their own sightings. And in an age when many people carry mobile phones with the facility to take photos and videos, many of these people had the footage to back up their claims.

Israeli scientists warn of large earthquake in north

In biblical times, earthquakes represented the fire and brimstone that swallowed Sodom and Gomorrah and, with apologies to Joshua, probably brought down the walls of Jericho. Now, thousands of years later, scientists and government officials are warning hospitals and emergency services in northern Israel to prepare themselves for the next big one. A warning has gone out from Israel's Ministry of Health for hospitals to restock essential equipment and test satellite phones in the wake of hundreds of minor earthquakes centred in southern Lebanon in the past three months. "The probability of an earthquake of a magnitude of up to 6 on the Richter scale, originating in Lebanon and being felt in Israel has increased," Health Ministry director-general Avi Yisraeli said in the letter. Israel and the West Bank sit on the Dead Sea Transform rift, where the African and Arabian tectonic plates join and which is active almost daily, though most of the earthquakes are imperceptible. Scientists say there is often little way to tell for certain whether an increase in small quakes is a warning of a larger tremor, but acknowledge this recent activity is unusual and say it does increase the likelihood of a strong quake.

"It's like when you come to a street corner and see a red light. You can cross it and maybe you won't get hit by a car. But it's a warning," said Shmuel Marco, a geologist with Tel Aviv University. A sizable earthquake, between magnitude 6 and 7, seems to hit the region once every century; the last big one, of magnitude 6.2, struck in 1927, killing 285 people and injuring nearly 1,000. The smallest fraction of increase in magnitude would increase the damage exponentially, particularly in areas that are heavily populated. Israel's central plain and the Jordan Valley, which runs from the Sea of Galilee - known here as Lake Kinneret - through the West Bank to the Dead Sea are also at high risk for a strong quake. "Strong earthquakes have happened in the past and they will happen again, we are very sure about that," said Avi Shapira, who chairs Israel's national committee for earthquake preparedness. "From my perspective, it is a serious threat and we have to get prepared for it."

A series of small earthquakes, magnitude 4 to 4.3, centred around the Dead Sea last fall stirred Israel's Infrastructure Minister, Binyamin Ben Eliezer, to seek five billion shekels (more than $1.5-billion) over the next two decades to reinforce buildings across the country. Similar warnings to prepare are now also going out in southern Lebanon, where the country's National Scientific Research Centre has recorded 800 earthquakes, ranging from 2.3 to 5.1, since Feb. 12. In Israel and the West Bank, an earthquake raises the spectre of damage to major archeological sites - from the ancient Jewish-mysticism centre of Safed in the north to Jerusalem's Old City, built on an unstable foundation of thousands of years worth of ruins. Many of the area's oldest and most historic buildings, dating to the Ottoman Empire and before, would be at risk of collapse.

Catholic School Adopts Cashless Biometric Payment System

Pupils are lining up to be scanned at All Saints Catholic College at Bradley Bar, which has followed other Kirklees schools in introducing a biometric payment system to replace cash for school dinners. Students have had their fingers scanned to set up accounts like bank accounts. They contain information about cash balances and what they have bought and when. Instead of handing over cash at the till the pupils press their finger against a machine which recognises the print and relays the information. A spokeswoman for the school said: “Each individual’s finger and thumb prints are unique. The biometric cashless system will store only a section of the print as a unique number and not as an image. Each student will have that unique number stored on a central server. This is done by scanning the finger or thumb with a non-evasive electronic scanner, which passes light over the finger or thumb.”

Prepping our Generation To Accept Nephilim As "Redeemer"

It seems to be becoming characteristically prescient that Tom Horn's careful examination of often obscure Biblical topics and text once again synchronizes with an unusually scripted and interestingly timed media 'event,' ABC Family's second season of "Fallen." From a series of four teen novels, “Fallen” focuses on angels who have fallen from grace and the one being who can help them back to heaven. Author Thomas E. Sniegoski said he did quite a bit of Biblical research about angels before he wrote the novels, rather then using pop culture references. "I think I drew my ideas from all kinds of sources, but my main source were from the tons of research books on angels and various mythologies that I'd collected over the years. It was really cool to read all this stuff and slowly build my own angelic mythology." Mr. Sniegoski's background work in this area suggests little familiarity except possibly a vague concept of western culture in the area of angelology. Thomas Horn, author of The Gods Who Walk Among Us, The Invisible Invasion, the bestselling Ahriman Gate and the recently released Nephilim Stargates, The Year 2012 and the Return of the Watchers would likely find pieces of truth in Mr. Sniegoski's "angelic mythology," but would caution that the spirit world is a subject to be taken very seriously.

Dr. Horn, an experienced pastor and veteran exorcist, has had first hand experience: speaking the horror and the reality of involvement with such activities, “These are real. I’ve seen things I hope I never see again…and that no one else ever does.” Apart from framing the script with Hebraic sounding names, the Judeo-Christian concept of a primal angelic rebellion and the subsequent hybridization described in Genesis chapter 6, “Fallen” gives no references to specific theological traditions but does designate the lead, Aaron Corbett as a ‘nephilim’ hybrid who is on Earth to fulfill a prophecy and meet his destiny: as the chosen Redeemer of the mutinous angelic domain. This is where the fantasy blurs, the positions reverse, the menace begins. As Dr. Horn notes in Nephilim Stargates, "Given the abundant and universal prophecies that the end times will witness what we have been calling a 'reopening of the gates of heaven' and the descending of a 'savior,' it is important to note that from the Middle Ages forward, many church leaders have believed that the Antichrist would ultimately represent the return of the Nephilim - the union of a demon and a human."

According to Catholic Online, “the program's pop-culture theology bears little in common with the Christian understanding of angels." Executive producer Pete Donaldson, said that the goal was to make the story ‘more secular,’ so there's no explanation of where God stands on the battle between the angels.” But how can such a topic, the subject of centuries of rigorous academic study and analysis be represented as “family entertainment?” With a distribution that includes nearly 90 million homes, ABC Family boasts, "A new kind of family." "We're not for families, we're about families," says ABC Family president Paul Lee, about his network's summer success. "We're not family television as it was in the 1950s. We're television about families that's relevant to today's 18-34 audience." There would be no trace of what he calls "your grandfather's 1950's Ozzie & Harriet television." The "family," he asserts, "is not what is was 30 years ago. And by the way, let's reclaim that word. Family. Let's not look at it through the narrow prism of politics and religion. Let's reclaim it for what it's really all about. 'My step-mom.' 'My friend Josie.' 'My dog.' It's not just different shades of families. The changing demographics of the United States make it a very different looking family than in the past."

And so, as it is with the reversal of the status of the previously (and admittedly) “fallen” angels that the word “family” has need of ‘reclamation’ as well? Has the position of theological scholarship for millennia and generations of conventional family life at last been correctly discerned and clarified in the 21st century? For those who find themselves drawn to remote spirituality characterized by an amorphous shadowy 'Creator," an entrance to an "alternate reality game" to the "world beyond" is available online. Mr. Lee explains, “Our millennial audience is on the move and our content needs to move with them and this real time online experience will do just that.” Though the concept is intriguing, and the scenes of winged angels battling with swords of fire are eye-opening, casual interaction with the unseen or even ‘fantasy’ world can be seductive – and dangerous. By relegating the visible and the invisible to ‘fantasy/science fiction’ status, the desensitization of two generations has been enormously successful. It is without question, an alarming prospect. But of far greater concern, American ‘families’ who look to sensational television programming for spiritual insight will be terrifyingly ill informed and gravely unprepared.

For Future of Mind Control, Robot-Monkey Trials Are Just a Start

The Force, it appears, may be with us sooner than expected. A study in the journal Nature this spring all but confirmed the latest evolution in the hard-charging, heady field of cybernetics: Monkeys can control machines with their brains. In the experiment, conducted by neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, a pair of macaque monkeys with electrodes implanted in their brains were able to quickly learn how to operate a robot arm as though it were their own, successfully fee ding themselves more than half the time. Aside from building a fleet of potentially potbellied test subjects, however, could this apparent breakthrough bring mind control to human prosthetics anytime soon? Or could it mean even more?... With a physical neural connection, Nicolelis believes that brain plasticity can be achieved quickly and with greater precision than current prosthetic control systems. “When you link the brain to a device, it could allow scaling in force and time—things that, today, your body can’t do,” he says. So the brain would not only respond to data from sensors in the bionic limb, but would account for unfamiliar amounts of speed and force. For sci-fi fans, the implications don’t need spelling out: prosthetics that are faster and stronger than normal limbs, with roughly the same level of control as their flesh-and-blood predecessors. Without a closed neural loop, it would theoretically take much longer to become accustomed to an enhanced arm and fold it into normal brain activity. The key to cybernetic devices that restore function and increase it rests with the humble electrodes currently popping out of monkey skulls—and the loads of data therein.

'Invisible Wars' of the Future: E-Bombs, Laser Guns and Acoustic Weapons

Geophysical weapons are essentially based on the manipulation of processes that occur in the earth’s crust, and its liquid and gaseous mantle, for military purposes. An atmospheric layer lying at an altitude of 10 to 60 kilometers is of special importance for this kind of warfare. Shortly after the end of World War II, the U.S. Department of Defense sampled lightning, earthquake, and hurricane manipulation studies in Project Skyfire, Project Prime Argus, and Project Stormfury. Information with regard to the results of those projects is scarce. However, there are reports of an experiment carried out by the U.S. military in 1961 when more than 350 thousand 2-cm metal needles were deployed into the atmosphere. The needles in the sky caused a dramatic change in the heat balance of the atmosphere. Scientists believe the needles may have caused an earthquake in Alaska. Besides, they are believed to have caused the sliding of a part pf Chile’s coastline into the ocean.

Western Intelligence: Iran Has Resumed Atomic Bomb Project

Iran has resumed work on constructing highly sophisticated equipment that nuclear experts say is primarily used for building atomic weapons, according to the latest intelligence reports received by Western diplomats. The work is aimed at developing the blueprint provided by Dr AQ Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, who sold Iran details of how to build atom bombs in the early 1990s. Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which has overall responsibility for the country's nuclear programme, has set up several civilian companies to work on the programme whose activities are being deliberately concealed from the United Nations nuclear inspection teams. The companies, based on the outskirts of Tehran, are working on constructing components for the advanced P2 gas centrifuge, which can enrich uranium to weapons grade two to three times faster than conventional P1 centrifuges. Iran's controversial nuclear enrichment programme at Natanz, which Tehran insists is designed to produce fuel for nuclear power, runs on P1 centrifuges. But Iranian nuclear scientists recently conducted successful tests on a prototype P2 centrifuge at Natanz, and the Revolutionary Guard has now set up a network of companies to build components for the advanced centrifuges. This has raised concerns among Western experts that Iran is continuing work on its nuclear weapons programme, despite Tehran’s protestations that its intentions are peaceful. “If Iran’s nuclear intentions were peaceful there would be no need for it to undertake this work in secret,” said an official familiar with the intelligence reports.

Phoenix Scientists To Analyze Martian Ice

Scientists with the US Phoenix lander will make their first analysis of Martian ice fragments in coming days but it could be the last done in one of the probe's small ovens, NASA said on its website Friday. A team of engineers and scientists were trying to get to the bottom of what caused a short-circuit on the TEGA (Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer) which has four small ovens able to heat samples of Martian soil up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. "Since there is no way to assess the probability of another short circuit occurring, we are taking the most conservative approach and treating the next sample to TEGA as possibly our last," said the University of Arixona's Peter Smith, Phoenix's principal investigator and top mission scientific official. TEGA is vital to determining whether Martian ice contains organic or carbon-based compounds which would be essential for life on Mars.

Jefferson Bible Reveals Founding Father's Strange View Of God, Faith

In a letter sent from Monticello to John Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his "wee little book" of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of inquiry and reflection and contained "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man." He called the book "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." Friends dubbed it the Jefferson Bible. It remains perhaps the most comprehensive expression of what the nation's third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence found ethically interesting about the Gospels and their depiction of Jesus. "I have performed the operation for my own use," he continued, "by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter, which is evidently his and which is as easily distinguished as diamonds in a dunghill." The little leather-bound tome, several facsimiles of which are kept at the Huntington Library in San Marino, continues to fascinate scholars exploring the powerful and varied relationships between the Founding Fathers and the most sacred book of the Western World. The big question now, said Lori Anne Ferrell, a professor of early modern history and literature at Claremont Graduate University, is this: "Can you imagine the reaction if word got out that a president of the United States cut out Bible passages with scissors, glued them onto paper and said, 'I only believe these parts?' "

Bigfoot Sightings on the rise in Cherokee County, Texas

Sightings are being reported again in Cherokee county of the tall, hairy creature with a face resembling a human and a strong stench - Bigfoot. “I feel like Faye Ray here,” said Sheryl Mast, of the Gideon community. Bigfoot is a common reference to an uncommon and unexplained occurrence. People seeing it may assume the creature is a bear or choose to not tell anyone about what they saw. After all who would believe them? Sightings have been reported in almost every state and many countries, of a creature known as Yeti in Asia, Yowie in Australia, Sasquatch in Canada and Chiya tanka by the Lakota Indians. Bigfoot prefers mountainous and forested regions. This time north of Tahlequah on rural State Highway 82 at Gideon, near Peggs, experiences include the thud of heavy footsteps running and shaking the ground, large footprints in the mud and a very strong, musky odor. Urban legends abound and can be tracked worldwide on the Internet from sworn affidavit accounts to obvious nonsense. But in an area known as Muphy’s Hill, between two branches of 14-Mile Creek, Sheryl Mast is sure she didn’t imagine the loud bang against the side of the trailer and the terrible smell. She’s lived there about a year. The closest neighbors are about five miles away, other than a second trailer that sets besides her boyfriends’, where a friend lives.

The Bigfoot is curious, Mast said, and is getting to be a regular visitor. “It’s getting bolder, coming out in the daytime,” she said. “Sunday afternoon the wind shifted and we smelled it.” Mast said she went up in the front part of the yard by the lane, where her dog was upset in a pen. “She was crying and moaning and squealing and I found a beer bottle in the pen,” she said. “Something broke the whole door almost in half.” A beer can was found in the area where trash is burned, “and none of us drink,” said Mast. On previous visits the Bigfoot has left small signs of being in the area. “It tore a branch off a tree in May,” Mast said. “And I think it threw our little dog against the trailer. When I opened the door it was panting and kept coughing for two days.” The dogs usually chase people, she noticed, “but they get really quiet when this thing is around.” Mast said the first time the Bigfoot came was around was in February. Their friend moved into the trailer in March. “He said he heard a deep, low growl and something shook his trailer,” Mast said.

One night they were outside talking and the dogs got still. Then the little dog started barking and chasing something tall and furry, which they saw running between the trailers. They went inside and locked the door. “It banged on the door,” she said. “Then we could hear and feel heavy footsteps running away.” There were no markings or dents left on the trailer, but this is when the little dog may have been, “picked up and tossed at the trailer,” Mast said. “It would have to be really big, have big hands, to pick up that little Jack Russell and throw it.” A lock hanging on the door was knocked or thrown and later found under the trailer, Two weeks ago she said the whole trailer shook. It only lasted five minutes, she said, “but we were scared to death.” They looked outside with a lantern but only smelled a strong musky odor. Mast thinks the location of the two trailers between two creeks may bother the creature, that they’re in its way.

There’s a path worn in the tall grass leading down the hill and to the woods, Mast said with, “a mashed down area where something has been laying. “We have no deer here and that’s strange for this area and by two creeks.” She’s not so much afraid, as uncomfortable. “So many appearances make me think we’re getting closer to a confrontation,” she said. “You know the feeling something is watching you. It gives you tingles.” It makes you really wonder what’s out there, she said. “I don’t feel threatened. I think it’s curious about us.” Since the 1990s sightings have been documented in the Daily Press by citizens certain what they saw was not a bear. And it always had a strong odor. As early as the 1800s reports have been given about Sasquatch from frontiersmen and Indians.

Wherever it’s seen, by whatever name, Bigfoot remains an unidentified mysterious animal whose existence has been reported but not proven - a cryptid. If you want to read a lot more about Bigfoot and other creatures of Cryptozoology, visit the website: Unknown Creatures - WWW.Unknown-Creatures.com

Disaster deaths worse so far in 2008 than tsunami year

Natural disasters killed at least 150,000 people in the first half of this year, more than in the whole of 2004 when south-east Asia was struck by a tsunami, a top insurer said recently. The figures came from German re-insurance group Munich Re which warned that the pattern this year fitted a trend of worsening weather-driven catastrophes, and the company called for increased efforts to fight climate change. Specialists at the German group recorded about 400 natural catastrophes in the first half of 2008, with overall losses so far estimated at 50 billion dollars (32 billion euros). In 2007, a total of 960 disasters caused about 82 billion dollars in damage, of which 30 billion was covered by insurance. In Burma, the cyclone Nargis killed 138,000 people in early May, and in mid May an earthquake left 69,200 dead or missing in China, the company said in a statement. Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek said that "risk awareness and measures designed to afford protection against such catastrophes in highly exposed regions must be given high priority." In China's Sichuan Province for example, that meant "adapting" building regulations, he added.

The first half of this year has been marked by "a large number of weather-related natural catastrophes," the statement said. "To this extent, the year is following the long-term trend towards more weather catastrophes, which is influenced by climate change", Jeworrek noted. In the United States, "there have never been so many tornadoes recorded in the first six months of a year," the statement added. Billions of dollars in damage was also caused by "heavy rain and hail and subsequent flooding in Iowa and other Midwest states."

Lives are turned upside-down after UFO Sightings in Texas

Constable Lee Roy Gaitan saw the brilliant red orbs hovering in the sky and hollered for his family to come out. It's probably an airplane, said his wife, Wendy, who didn't budge from the couch. Only 8-year-old Ryan went to the front yard. That's a UFO, the boy said. Gaitan, a 44-year-old lawman who has spent 16 years patrolling the Texas scrubland, faced a dilemma. With an election coming up, he could tell the world of this incredible sight — and look like an idiot — or keep his mouth shut. "People would say, 'Hey, this guy is nuts. He's crazy,' " said Gaitan of his sighting on Jan. 8. In the morning, there were no unusual police reports, leaving him to wonder whether anyone else had seen the lights. But the next day, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune came out with a front-page story: "Possible UFO Sighting Four area residents witness mysterious objects." Soon, scores more said they had seen the same thing. Stephenville, a ranch town 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, became home to the biggest mass UFO sighting since the 1997 Lights Over Phoenix, in which thousands of people, including then Gov. Fife Symington, reported seeing a boomerang-shaped object in the sky.

With so many reports, there was no easy way to dismiss it all as a hoax. A town that had called itself "The Cowboy Capital of the World" found itself riding an emotional bronco. Stephenville, the largest town in Erath County, is in the heart of dairy country. Cows outnumber the 34,000 humans in the county. It was a cool, clear January night when Steve Allen, 50, and a group of friends were warming themselves around a fire of brush and debris in nearby Selden, just south of Stephenville. They first saw a set of brilliant white lights heading from the east that looked like they were at the corners of something a mile long and a half-mile wide. The lights were quicker and quieter than anything Allen had ever seen. "They came within a mile of us," said Allen, the owner of L&S Enterprises and Texas Freight, a local trucking company. "It flipped us all out." The lights headed toward Stephenville, where they came to a stop. They reconfigured to form an arch "shaped like the top of a football," Allen said, and realigned themselves into two vertical lines of randomly flashing lights. Then the object burst into a white flame.

"It looked like something firing up, like a blow torch," Allen said. "It simply vanished." Ten minutes later, the group saw the lights coming from the other direction. Trailing them closely, Allen was certain, were two military jets followed by two massive red orbs. Allen, who as a licensed pilot was comfortable judging distance, said the lights were 3,000 feet above the ground. He went home and told his wife, who urged him to keep the encounter to himself. Allen spent a sleepless night, enthralled by what he had seen. In the morning, he contacted the Empire-Tribune. His call went to education reporter Angelia Joiner. She knew nothing about UFOs, but Allen sounded like a sensible man. "He was a pilot and seemed very intelligent," said Joiner, a 47-year-old former schoolteacher who had been a reporter for 18 months. Allen's friends confirmed the account.

Some believed the lights could be a sign from God. A Bible study group at the Bread of Life Ministries discussed the events at one meeting, and Sandra Evans, 59, said she thought maybe they were guardian angels sent to Earth. Her husband, Keith, 60, pastor of the church, wasn't sure. "Could be the military," he said. "Could be the end of times."

Tablet Of Great Deception? Debate Ignited On Jesus As Resurrected Messiah

A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time... To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era. Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.” To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days. He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David. “This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

Russia Threatens Military Response To US Missile Defence Deal

Russia threatened to retaliate by military means after a deal with the Czech Republic brought the US missile defence system in Europe a step closer. The threat followed quickly on from the announcement that Condoleezza Rice signed a formal agreement with the Czech Republic to host the radar for the controversial project. Moscow argues that the missile shield would severely undermine the balance of European security and regards the proposed missile shield based in two former Communist countries as a hostile move. “We will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Roswell 1947and 33 DEGREES - Warns of a 2012 ET - Satanic Event

According to the ancient Mayan calendar, on December 21, 2012, the Solar System will align itself with the center of the Galaxy. This heavenly event is said to happen once every 26,000 years. And, for some unknown reason the Mayan calendar stops on this date. Who gave the Mayan people this advanced knowledge of the heavens and why does their calendar end in 2012? According to the Mayan prophecy, the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl, will return to Earth in a winged spaceship. It is said that the dark secret behind this ancient tale is concealed within the shadows and symbols of secret societies, top-secret government agencies, and a ranch in New Mexico, where the dark world of the occult entered the picture in 1947. Thomas Horn suggests that the number 33 is featured prominently in occult doctrine. The compass and the square are the two most visible signs of Freemasonry and contribute to the science of navigation. The number 33, along with the compass and the square, are important to the "illumined elite," especially those who reach the "enlightened" 33rd degree. The mystical 33.33 degrees of the great circle of the earth is said to represent 2,012 nautical miles. Coincidently, Mt. Hermon, the earthly entry point of the fallen angels, lies precisely at 33.33 degrees north and 33.33 degrees east of the Paris Meridian -- 2,012 miles from the equator and 2,012 miles from the Paris Meridian (the meridian used by the Knights Templar). This corresponds to the year that the ancient Mayans believed their calendar will end -- 2012. Is this just an astonishing coincidence?

Here's where the book gets interesting. Using the sacred number 33 and the value of universal mathematical constant Pi, there is one other location on planet Earth where these same coordinates find dry land. They just happen to match up with a ranch in New Mexico -- the location of the Roswell UFO crash of 1947, an event that has been covered up at the highest levels of government for 60 years. Is this just a random coincidence, or were the "ancients" marking their arrival date for a future generation? Will the Watchers return in 2012?

UK Children 'to be given compulsory sex education from age four'

Children as young as four are set to be given compulsory sex education in primary school. They will be taught the names of body parts and basic ideas about different relationships. Government advisers claim that 'gradual education' from such a young age would help to stop children from rushing into sex when they are older. They argue that the sex education that children receive in science classes does not go far enough. But the recommendations caused a storm of protest, with family campaigners claiming that the views of parents and teachers are being ignored. Norman Wells, director of the pressure group Family and Youth Concern, said: 'What this is really all about is the sex education establishment trying to force schools to do something many parents - and many teachers - are uncomfortable with.' At present, primary heads and governors decide whether or not to provide sex education and what it should involve beyond the compulsory science requirements laid down by the national curriculum. They must have a policy on whether or not they provide sex education. If they do provide it, usually in personal, social and health education (PSHE) classes, parents have the right to withdraw their children.

But the fpa - formerly the Family Planning Association - the sexual health advice service Brook and the Sex Education Forum are recommending the introduction of compulsory lessons. They are taking part in a Government review of Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) in primary and secondary schools. The charities sit on a panel, which is currently examining 'the right age to begin teaching what the key messages are and content that young people should receive at each key stage'. They have pre-empted publication of their final report later this month and publicly announced their recommendation for statutory sex education from primary school onwards. This would bring sex and relationship education on to the curriculum alongside other compulsory subjects such as maths and English. Brook chief executive Simon Blake said: 'All the evidence shows that if you start sex and relationships education early - before children start puberty, before they feel sexual attraction - they start having sex later.

Human Modification - Brain Implants, Nanobots, and more

A British defense think tank predicts possible “key risks and shocks” for the future in a recently released report. The report predicts microchip brain implants, flash-bombs, Marxist middle-class revolutionaries, extreme globalization and more, all likely within 30 years... Artificial intelligence is referred to several times in the report, and is “likely to be employed to manage knowledge and support decision making across government and commercial sectors.” Genetic modification, “nanobots” and stem-cell therapies are predicted to create an “increase in human life span” and an improvement in quality of life, though they could also lead to a range of threats including bio-warfare and human rights violations. Electromagnetic pulse weapons will probably be created before 2035. These weapons might be able to wipe out all electronic devices in a given area without casualties. Perhaps one of the strangest predictions in the report consists of microchips that could be connected to brains, allowing for “synthetic sensory perception beamed directly to the user’s senses.” This technology could be used to download any amount of information, and could be used for communication, allowing for a sort of computer-aided telepathy.

Law SB200 allows banishment of Holy Bible

A lawmaker in Colorado who challenged the authors of SB200, a new law that bans discrimination based on the "perception" of gender, contends it was written to give a wide open door to anyone who wants to banish Christian beliefs or the Bible. "This is so loaded. It's written in an open-ended fashion that anybody can take just about any part of it and grow it into a huge monstrosity," state Rep. Kevin Lundberg said. "Section 8 of Senate Bill 200 is a wide open door for any judge to censor anything that condemns homosexuality, including Scripture," Lundberg said at the news conference. Section 8 is headlined, "Publishing of discriminative matter forbidden." "I do believe that the Bible is banned, under the plain language of this new statute," said Steve Crampton, general counsel of Liberty Counsel. Lundberg said the statute includes some "very troubling" provisions "that can be used in fairly heavy-handed ways. It goes so far and it goes so broad … the more I read it the more troubled I get." He said Section 8, for example, regarding the publication of discriminatory material.

""When it was on the floor of the house and we were debating it I discounted the overall effect, thinking it applied to the posting of rules for hotels and lodging," he said. "When I more seriously looked at all the particulars, then it starts to encompass a prohibition on anything of a printed nature that's distributed or sold or shared for virtually any purpose." Lundberg said it's clear the Bible could be targeted by those using the vague definitions in the law. "If you're going to be distributing Scriptures, there are clear passages that someone of a homosexual orientation could easily find offensive," he said. He said not only did Colorado lawmakers create an open-ended document, "any court could take it to whatever direction they wanted to take it, and they would have the authority of the statute to fall back onto."

British UFO sightings at 'bizarre' levels

Plotted on a map of Britain, the sightings can be seen to stretch from Liverpool to Dover and from Llanelli to Derby. Whatever the explanation, experts agree that the number of suspected flying saucers has hit unusual highs this summer. Malcolm Robinson, who studies the phenomenon, said: "Something very bizarre is happening in the skies over the UK." The founder member of Strange Phenomena Investigations, added: "There has been an unusual number of sightings recently. "Some experts believe it could be linked to global warming and craft from outer space are appearing because they are concerned about what man is doing to this planet." Among mysterious flying objects spotted in recent months was a 'glowing' disc spotted above the M5 motorway. Royal Navy aircraft engineer Michael Madden said he watched the UFO for three minutes before it 'zoomed off' near Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. Earlier, in Basingstoke, witnesses claimed to have seen a fleet of 12 orange objects in the night sky for half an hour. And in St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan a police helicopter crew gave chase to another UFO after it appeared to veer at speed towards their aircraft.

Sick Patients Used As Guinea Pigs In GM Foods Experiment

Patients have been fed genetically modified (GM) Russet Burbank potatoes in an experiment to determine their nutritional effects on the human body. Developed by Monsanto, a multinational biotech company, the potatoes, modified to resist Colorado beetles, were dispensed to Russian heart and blood pressure patients as part of a recent study. This experiment is detailed in an unpublished report by the Nutrition Institute of the Russian Academy of Medical Science. The report describes the patients as "volunteers" and states that they are "suffering from hypertensive disease and ischemic heart disease." According to the research, rats that ate similar potatoes suffered reductions in the weight of their hearts and prostate glands, but all changes were "within permissible physiological fluctuation." These same rats suffered "increases of kidneys' absolute weight" when compared to ones fed conventional potatoes.

Soil Holds Key to Past Life of Mars

For some UC Berkeley scientists, looking at soil from Mars is like looking at a key to the planet's climate history. By analyzing soil samples from Mars, scientists have determined that water on the planet came from the its atmosphere, rather than from deep within the ground, as was previously believed. The discovery, led by Ronald Amundson, a UC Berkeley professor of soil science in the department of environmental science and policy management, gives new insight into the planet's climate that may reveal more about whether life ever existed on Mars. Amundson said analysis of the salt distribution in the soil suggests water on the planet came from the atmosphere by rain or dew. Scientists who previously interpreted the soil content believed the water moved up from sources deep in the ground. The salt distribution of the planet's soil shows that the water on Mars came from the atmosphere first and traveled down through the soil, Amundson said. Since chloride salt, which is more soluble, is found in larger concentrations beneath sulfate, the less soluble salt, Amundson said scientists could tell water reached the surface of the planet first, dissolving most of the chloride while leaving behind most of the sulfate as the water moved into the ground. In other research, NASA sent a spacecraft to the planet in May that uncovered icy soil last week, stirring excitement in the science community. Data released from NASA showed that the planet could support life, as evidenced by soil analyses.

Human-Machine Hybrids Could Someday Be Reality

"Cyborgs" like "RoboCop" (1987) that combine humans and machines might seem the most far-fetched of film creations. Could they ever make the long leap into reality? The seeds of these fictional hybrids already exist, says Sidney Perkowitz in "Hollywood Science." In 2000, a Northwestern University researcher installed part of the living brain of a sea lamprey, an eel-like fish, into a small wheeled robot. Via implanted electrodes, the brain was connected to light sensors on the robot and to motors controlling its wheels, powering the brain-driven robot toward or away from light sources. Going even further, Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University implanted electrodes into a monkey's brain (the brain lacks pain sensors) to connect the animal to an artificial arm that mirrored the movements of the monkey's real arm. "Eventually, Nicolelis could train the monkey so that merely thinking about moving its arm moved the robotic arm correspondingly."

Scientists Getting Closer to Cloaking Technologies

One of the most enticing tenants of sci-fi has always been invisibility. Whether it's a Klingon Bird of Prey or a Panther Modern's mimetic polycarbon, the theoretical effect is the same: to hide the user from sight. While one mostly sees such technology being used for military purposes in books and movies, there are some applications that are grounded in reality. One approach to creating a cloaking device is using something called a superlens. A superlens has what's called a negative refraction index. This allows it to bend electromagnetic waves back upon themselves, in effect, using interference to render an object invisible. Graeme Milton, of the University of Utah, is working on mathematical models for superlenses. Thus far, the technology is not shaping up to be something that would be feasible for hiding something large, like naval destroyers. "We've seen it numerically -- not in practice, but we've got a theoretical proof that collections of particles become invisible," said Milton of their superlens work. While superlensing may not be the answer for making warships invisible, work with metamaterials looks like it may hold more promise for large objects. A group at Duke University, led by David Smith, has used copper-based metamaterials to create something of a cloaking cylinder.

Similar to the University of Maryland's plasmon-based cloaking device, the Duke team's metamaterial cylinder causes microwaves to be bent around itself rather than reflected. The cylinder has microscopic patterns on its surface and these patterns act to redirect the waves striking it, rather than allowing them to bounce off. While the Duke cylinder is not perfect -- it still suffers from distortion which can be seen in microwave images -- it does have implications for some real applications. The devices could be used to prevent objects from causing electromagnetic interference. For example, hiding two antennas from each other, or cloaking an object that obstructs cell phone reception. While the technology is not mature, Smith's group says it also has similar implications for bending sound waves around an object. Creative uses could act to prevent sound from escaping in a certain direction or hide an object from echolocation technology like sonar.

United Nations Parliamentary Assembly One World Government in disguise

A UN-styled One World Government has just taken a great leap forward. “Little more than a year after its launch, an international campaign to bring democracy to the United Nations has achieved a landmark,” says a June 30 media release from Ottawa. Like most things UN, the international campaign has an innocuous sounding name, the United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, UNPA for short. The UNPA’s 500 parliamentary endorsers, from over 80 countries, including Canada’s Senator Romeo Dallaire, have all signed the campaign’s appeal. “In addition to the support of 519 current parliamentarians, the UNPA campaign has been endorsed by the European Parliament, the Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the Canadian House of Commons, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Pan-African Parliament and (most recently) the Latin American Parliament’s Commission on Political Affairs. Andreas Bummel is head of the UNPA Secretariat, which is headquartered in Berlin. “The enthusiastic response of these politicians demonstrates that lawmakers elected at the national level readily appreciate the logic of having elected representatives at the global level and now want to take action,” says Bummel. What latter-day politician would not be enthused to have more power at the global level and be ready for action?

Luis Maria de Puig, Spanish Senator, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, promises “The establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly would be an important step to bring the UN closer to the world’s citizens.” Amadi Bethel, deputy of the People’s Democratic Party, Nigerian House of Representatives states “Through elected representatives the new assembly would give ordinary citizens a voice in international affairs. This would introduce a new dynamic at the UN, something which governments also might appreciate.” Problem is that governments everywhere now march to the tune of the politically correct and continue to create ways to tax the little people they were elected to serve. The appeal was initiated by an international campaign launched in May of 2007. The UN Parliamentary Assembly could be established as a consultative body—without requiring UN Charter reform. It would initially be composed of national and regional parliamentarians but at a later stage become a directly elected body. But ordinary people did not ask for the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly, politicians and NGOs did.

The Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly is a global network of parliamentarians and non-governmental organizations advocating citizen’s representation at the United Nations. The World Federalist Movement-Canada (WFM-C) is a not-for-profit research, education and advocacy organization. It is a member of the international World Federalist Movement (WFM), an association of 24 World Federalist organizations from around the world. WFM is headquartered in New York--next to the United Nations. To patriots everywhere, the UNPA should be as welcome as the threat of the looming North American Union (NAU). For in spite of the enthusiasm of the politicians who signed the appeal, it is nothing more than One World Government in disguise.

World oil market in fear of terror attack in Saudi Arabia

An attack -- or even an attempted attack -- by Islamic extremists on Saudi Arabia's oil sector would have disastrous consequences on the world market and the price per barrel, analysts warn. Of more than 700 people arrested in the course of the last six months in Saudi Arabia, dozens had been part of cells charged with preparing attacks against oil sites, according to authorities in Riyadh. With the price per barrel rising constantly and the capacity to increase global production almost non-existent, apart from in Saudi Arabia, the world market has never been so vulnerable to an offensive by Jihadists in the kingdom, they said. Michael Klare, head of the University of Massachusetts's peace and world security programme and author of the book "Resource Wars", said that even if an attack caused little damage, the impact would still be enormous. "There would be a tremendous psychological effect because the market is already prepared to expect terrorist events like this. It would have an immediate effect on prices," he said. "And if an attack actually damaged production or exploration, the effect would be even greater. The rise would be astronomical," he added. The Saudi oil sector, which spends considerable sums on security, has been an Al-Qaeda target for years.

Another Researcher Says UFO's - Aliens are Demonic or Spiritual

Joe Jordan is a longtime UFO investigator whose exploration of claims of alien abduction took him down an unexpected path. Next weekend, he'll run a conference in Roswell, N.M., site of the purported UFO crash of 1947. But what he has to say won't please many of those attending. "I am probably the most hated man in UFOlogy," says Jordan, who works for Sea Ray on Merritt Island in environmental health and safety. What some people see as an alien abduction, Jordan sees as a religious experience, a spiritual war. Still others, the skeptics, say those who claim such supernatural experiences are interpreting a waking dream, derived from a natural phenomenon called sleep paralysis. The controversy raises fascinating questions about the way the brain works and the way a mystery unfolds. This mystery starts in 1977 with eerie lights, a frightening night and William Deffendall of Titusville, who works for an industrial cleaning contractor at Kennedy Space Center. He was living in Christmas. On a Friday night in late summer or fall -- he can't recall the date -- he saw lights in the woods outside his window. He thought, perhaps, there was a drug raid going on and police were using a helicopter.

When he went to bed and lay next to his sleeping wife, his dogs were restless outside. He got up several times to open the window and shush them, then tried to get back to sleep. "I remember the dogs barking again, but then I couldn't move . . . and I couldn't see anything," Deffendall says. "It's like everything just turned gray, and my eyes were open. I'm scared to death. I didn't know what was happening . . . and then I felt like a presence around me other than my wife laying there on the bed, and I felt like I was floating up off the bed." He felt a pain from behind that he assumed came from something pushing him into the air. He tried to scream and couldn't wake up. "I was in such a panic," he says. "I was so scared. I didn't know what to do." Though he doesn't remember exactly what he said, he called the name of Jesus, and he woke up.

Are You Ready for a Mega Disaster ?

Mother Nature goes to extremes in the summer, spoiling the gift of good weather with hurricanes, heat waves, fires and floods. This year she started early. On May 2, Cyclone Nargis laid waste to large parts of Myanmar. According to the latest counts, the disaster left 2.4 million people destitute, more than 50,000 missing and at least 84,000 dead. On May 12, China’s Sichuan Province suffered an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale. China’s state media reported that more than five million people lost their homes; an estimated 80,000 people, many of them children, were killed. Consider the U.S. in June: Iowa experienced a deluge of historic proportions, with large-scale crop destruction spiking the cost of food and raising fears of an inflationary spiral. California, where the driest two months of spring on record turned grass and brush into kindling, endured more than 1,000 wildfires and braced for more to come. On the East Coast, more than 30 people perished during the kind of heat wave that usually comes in July or August. Is there anything we can do to avert such dangers? These days, of course, extreme weather is only one of the many perils we face. Terrorist attacks or technological accidents involving nuclear weapons; pandemic diseases that cannot be cured; comets and asteroids that could wipe out the human race.

We live in an age of risk assessment and risk analysis, when doomsday scenarios have become daily anxieties, and planning for improbable but world-changing events has become a focus of disaster policy. Now, with disaster season upon us and renewed jitters about a pre-election terrorist attack, government officials and nonprofits are urging us to plan for the next catastrophe... We can (and should) argue about the excesses of our new homeland-security policies, but isn’t developing a household emergency plan something all of us can (and should) do? Improving disaster preparedness is not merely a personal matter. Despite recent government blunders, there are many ways that public agencies and nongovernmental organizations can help. Start with the basics. A home emergency kit should not be a luxury item.

Earth Isn't Prepared to Stop a Rogue Asteroid

A group of scientists, joined by a member of Congress, used the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid event this week to draw attention to their concern that the United States is not doing enough to defend the planet against the dangers posed by near-Earth objects. "We are not prepared at this time to prevent the massive death and destruction that would occur if an object from space hit the Earth as it did in Tunguska," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., at the offices of the Planetary Society. If an asteroid the size of the one thought to have exploded in the air above Tunguska, in Siberia, were to explode over Los Angeles, he said, the destruction would range over much of Southern California.

Iran Likely To Launch Ballistic Missiles Against United States And Israel if attacked

A U.S. admiral warned earlier this week that Iran is likely to launch ballistic missiles against Israel and the United States and the NATO alliance should prepare for it. In recent years, the missile boats of the Sixth Fleet practiced intercepting Shahab-3 missiles from Iran aimed at Israel, along with the Arrow batteries of the air force and U.S. and Israeli batteries of Patriot missiles. In an article entitled "Maritime Strategy in an Age of Blood and Belief" in the U.S. Naval Institute's monthly Proceedings, fleet commander Admiral James Winnefeld describes the possibility of an offensive barrage of ballistic missiles fired from Iran against Israel as being "by far the most likely employment of ballistic missiles in the world today, and it demands our immediate attention in the event of a need for a U.S. or NATO response." He says Iran is an "unpredictable adversary," which could be provoked into action "by an isolated, and perhaps seemingly unimportant, event."... One of Mullen's hosts noted at the end of the visit that even though Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and the other senior officers did not discuss operational coordination, it was mentioned during discussions that both sides would like to avoid mistaken confrontations, of the sort that led to the IDF attack against the U.S. Navy ship, Liberty, in June 1967. At a briefing to reporters in the Pentagon Wednesday, Mullen discussed his good relations with Ashkenazi and his impressions of the visits with the IDF on the northern border and near the Gaza Strip. "Israel remains a vital and trusted military ally in the Middle East," he said, which faces "very real security threats" and "the tyranny of what I call 'close-quarters geography,'" Mullen said. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs added that "Iran is still working to develop nuclear weapons" and that the Israeli timetable in relation to Iran's nuclear program is shorter than the U.S's.

History Channel Researching 1897 Texas UFO Incident

This weekend, the search for flying saucers goes back where it all began in Texas 111 years ago: Wise County, grave site of the Aurora Spaceman. A half-century before Roswell, Texans were talking about the silver "airship" that supposedly crashed into a windmill in 1897 and whether the pilot inside might have been a Martian. A crew from the History Channel show UFO Hunters will try to dig up at least half of the real story. On Saturday July 5, workers are scheduled to unseal a long-covered water well where the windmill’s owner supposedly dumped crash debris. On Tuesday, crews plan to use radar imaging to examine the pilot’s Aurora Cemetery grave. On April 17, 1897, the following appeared in the Dallas Morning News: "AURORA, Wise Co., Tex., April 17 — About 6 o’clock this morning the early risers of Aurora were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been sailing through the country." The aluminum airship weighed "several tons," Haydon wrote. Maybe that explains why it crashed into a windmill north of what today is Texas 114. Supposedly, the pilot was carrying papers written in an unknown language. He was buried in the town cemetery.

Producers from UFO Hunters are trying to keep the Aurora dig and cemetery examination a secret, said Kenneth Cherry of Keller, state director of the nonprofit Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), a hobbyists’ club. Cherry said producers don’t want to draw attention to the crash site on private property or to the cemetery, where a grave was marked with a spacecraft tombstone until somebody removed it in 1971. The legend of the Aurora Spaceman has been the subject of one movie, The Aurora Encounter, and previous TV specials. It’s "one of the most enduring legends in UFOlogy," Cherry said Friday. "There are a number of very knowledgeable, bright people who have discussed this and come away with different conclusions." A 1973 MUFON investigation found "reasonable doubt" of a hoax. Cherry said the TV crew hopes hope to find proof in the well.

"We are the first people in 70 years to open that well," he said. "We hope something in there will help us determine whether this is fact. It’s hard to me to imagine that if this really happened, the people in Aurora wouldn’t have been written letters to relatives all over the country about it. But there is some evidence that something happened there." One metal fragment found near the well was analyzed Friday. Physics students at the University of North Texas found that it was mostly aluminum, physics professor Floyd McDaniel said. UNT scientists will examine more debris Monday, using the electron microscope at the Center for Advanced Research and Technology.

Earth's Core and Magnetic Field Changing Fast

Rapid changes in the churning movement of Earth's liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet's surface, a new study says. "What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth's magnetic field," said study co-author Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen. The findings suggest similarly quick changes are simultaneously occurring in the liquid metal, 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the surface, he said. The swirling flow of molten iron and nickel around Earth's solid center triggers an electrical current, which generates the planet's magnetic field. The study, published recently in Nature Geoscience, modeled Earth's magnetic field using nine years of highly accurate satellite data. The changes "may suggest the possibility of an upcoming reversal of the geomagnetic field," said study co-author Mioara Mandea, a scientist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. The decline in the magnetic field also is opening Earth's upper atmosphere to intense charged particle radiation, scientists say. Satellite data show the geomagnetic field decreasing in the South Atlantic region, Mandea said, adding that an oval-shaped area east of Brazil is significantly weaker than similar latitudes in other parts of the world.

FBI's Next-Gen ID Databank to Store Face Scans

Lockheed Martin is building a massive digital warehouse of criminal information, set to bring facial recognition and eye scans to local law enforcement within 10 years. The FBI may use biometric technology to bolster mug shots, fingerprints and DNA to catch crooks—but privacy advocates say there's reason for law-abiding citizens to worry... The FBI has confirmed that, along with adding palm prints to its existing “ten-print” records, the bureau will have to expand its photo repository. “That could be the basis for our facial recognition,” says Thomas Bush, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division. “And it's not a true biometric [marker], but scars and tattoos, we want to be able to search those nationwide.” Some of that information could come from prisons, where scar and tattoo databases have become increasingly common. But for accurate facial recognition, mug shots aren't the best source of data. Agencies would likely have to start taking photos of suspects from more angles, and at relatively high resolutions.

New UFO witness reopens 1970s 'Welsh Roswell'

One of Britain's greatest UFO riddles refuses to go away as a new witness emerged today - 34 years after the alleged 'close encounter'. The Government is said to have covered up 1974's event in North Wales, where scores of residents reported a massive tremor, strange lights in the sky and secret-service-style 'men in black' scouring the area. It has been dubbed the 'Welsh Roswell' after the famous U.S. case in which aliens were allegedly found by authorities in New Mexico. UFO believers claimed aliens crash-landed in the Berwyn mountain range and their bodies were transported by the MoD to top-secret Wiltshire research base Porton Down. No new details of the alleged incident emerged in May when hundreds of MoD documents about UFO sightings were released. But now, fresh claims by retired gamekeeper Geraint Edwards, of Llandderfel, Denbighshire, have reopened the debate. He told the makers of a new Channel Five documentary - being broadcast tonight - that a flying saucer hovered for 10 minutes above the mountains on February 15 1974 before it disappeared into space at impossible speed.

He said: 'It was definitely a flying saucer. It was a pity I didn't have a camera because it was there for at least 10 minutes, just hovering. 'We were on the way down to play darts when something caught our eye in the south-east, so we stopped. 'It looked like a rugger ball, but the ends of it were more pointy. When it took off, it just went like lightning on the same line as it hovered. 'I wrote it down in my diary. It was 6.45pm on the Friday night. 'If we were coming back from the pub, people would be saying, "They've had one or two." But we were going TO the pub.' Three weeks before, on January 23, 1974, the villages of Llandrillo and Llandderfel, near Corwen, were rocked by a tremor measuring 3.5 on the Richter scale. Reports of coloured lights and objects in the sky immediately afterwards, and unusual military activity in the following weeks, fuelled speculation that a UFO had crash-landed.

Farmer Huw Lloyd, 48, who was a teenager at the time, said: 'Whatever it was, it was kept quiet. I think there are things we should know about. And things that have happened have been covered up.' Firefighter Adrian Roberts, who was thrown from his settee by the tremor in January 1974, told the programme makers: 'What are they hiding? There was a lot of military action in the area. Areas were secluded off from the public. It was about three months before anyone was allowed to go near the site. 'What people have seen and reported simply could not be made up.' Retired North Wales Police Assistant Chief Constable Elfed Roberts, who was a sergeant at the time of the UFO incident, was rushing to Llandrillo moments after the tremor with his superior when they saw the mysterious lights. He said: 'As we were driving, all of a sudden we saw this green light in the sky ahead of us and it seemed to be an arcing light, but it was very sudden, totally unexpected, different to anything ever seen before.'

Palm Scanning is Better Than Fingerprints

Forget fingerprint scanners, which have replaced password access on some high-end laptops. Forget iris scanners, especially their creepy use portrayed in the 2002 Tom Cruise movie, "Minority Report." No, the future of biometrics (automated identification using body parts) involves scanning palms. At least, that's the message from Fujitsu Computer Products of America, which recently unveiled palm-scanning technology for the U.S. market that's already in widespread use in Asia. Hiroko Naito, Fujitsu's business development manager, said that the firm's PalmSecure technology uses near-infrared scanning to identify people by the pattern of veins in their palms, which are as distinctive as fingerprints. "It's a contactless device — you just hold your hand over the sensor, so it's hygienic and easy to use," Naito said. "We have heard so many times from customers that the reason they were hesitant about biometrics is that it could be intrusive." Scanning systems, offered by third parties using Fujitsu components and software, should retail for less than $1,000, she said.

Geoffrey Turner, senior analyst at Forrester Research, said that fingerprint scanners are already deeply entrenched in the U.S. market, and that the scanners used by fingerprint systems are much smaller than palm scanners, making them more attractive for desktop use. (Fujitsu, however, has come out with a palm scanner built into a mouse.) "The chief reason for the development of the palm scanner is that in Japan fingerprints are associated with criminality, so there is a strong cultural aversion to using fingerprint scanners," Turner said. "And there is the question of hygiene, since people will be touching something. To make an impact here, palm scanning will have to overcome the strong head start that fingerprint swipes have." Naito said that one of the major advantages that PalmSecure has over fingerprint scanners is that a significant percentage of the population — as high as 8 percent — cannot use them because of damaged or missing fingers.

"Anyone can use our system," she said. "If they have lost their hand they can do some other part of the body." Turner shrugged. "If you don't have even one finger left you really can't use a keyboard," he noted. The removal of body parts in order to fool a security scanner is a plot staple of grittier science-fiction movies, but Naito said that fooling a security system with an amputated body part should not be possible with palm scanning — or least, she didn't think so. "As soon as the hand loses blood pressure the veins start changing shape, so it should not work," she said. "But ethically we have not been able to test that, because it would involve cutting off someone's hand for the before-and-after test." However, the system has been tested with corpses and found to not work, since the system must detect blood flowing through the veins (just how is a secret) before it will issue an authorization. This technology also prevents the system from being fooled with color photographs, Naito said.

US to get access to British Citizens personal files

American intelligence agencies may soon be able to access the most private and personal details of British citizens. Under an agreement being negotiated between the EU and Washington., U.S. agencies including the CIA will be allowed to view details of bank accounts, travel plans and even the sites individuals visit on the internet. The deal will make it easier for American law enforcement organisations to obtain private information from banks, credit card firms and other companies - as well as from government offices. In the past, companies handing over such details ran the risk of breaching European data protection laws. But these laws are expected to be relaxed under the new agreement. American security organisations insist the information is necessary to prevent further atrocities such as 9/11. But the deal came under attack from former shadow Home Secretary David Davis, who resigned as an MP to force a by-election on civil liberties issues. He said: 'Given this Government's disastrous failure to protect data, whether losing 25million child benefit records in the post or laptops containing sensitive security information, the public will have real concern about the wholesale transfer abroad of its personal data, under a set of diluted safeguards negotiated in Brussels.'

Shami Chakrabarti, director of pressure group Liberty, said: 'We can barely trust our own authorities with sensitive personal information. What redress will we have on the other side of the Atlantic if our details are lost of abused?' Secret negotiations have been going on for nearly 18 months and sources in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security expect the data agreement to be approved and go into effect before President George Bush leaves office next January. One source at the department said that as a result of the deal, the U.S. was likely to ask for full details on everyone visiting from Europe. This will include all visitors' financial details - their bank statements, salaries, who they write cheques to and receive money from and what they buy with credit cards - and what internet sites they visit on their home computers. The information involved is already available on the massive computerised databases kept by private companies that closely monitor each individual's credit rating for the financial industry and by the major computer search engines that are used to browse the Internet.

At this point there are privacy laws that restrict unauthorised access to these databases but the new agreement would oblige the companies that keep them to hand over the information to Washington. It will result in a flood of information crossing the Atlantic but the American intelligence agencies can handle it with super-computers that are programmed to pick out only those reports that contain what the U.S. considers to be suspicious activity.

MULE Robots Ready For The Battlefield

At a desert test site in Texas, a street battle rages between US soldiers and local "insurgents". It's much like any other training exercise, except the soldiers are accompanied by a Mule (Multifunctional utility/Logistics & Equipment), an armed robot the size of a Humvee. The insurgents are positioned overlooking an intersection, a potential kill zone. The commander pulls out what looks like a PlayStation gamepad and the Mule is sent forward. It presents a tougher challenge than the typical human soldier. The Mule can fire Javelin anti-tank missiles and has a turret-mounted machine gun, in addition to a digital "eyeball" with laser and heat-recognising target acquisition systems for aiming its weaponry. It is semi-autonomous, using GPS to navigate and localised perception to avoid trees and buildings. Its six wheels are on pneumatic legs, enabling it to climb over cars and barriers. Within minutes, the formerly deadly intersection is secure.

Obamas Pro-Gay Beliefs Confusing Evangelicals

A Christian activist says Barack Obama has done nothing to reconcile his actions and words with his professed Christianity. Senator Obama (D-Illinois), the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, recently held meetings with prominent Christians, including Franklin Graham and Bishop T.D. Jakes. But Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America Action, says evangelical leaders send a confusing message when they meet with Obama. "This is a man that has never seen an unborn fetus that he wouldn't abort," chides Scarborough. "While serving in the state legislature in the state of Illinois, [he] served on a committee that literally prevented a bipartisan piece of legislation which would have offered medical services to botched abortions," he points out. Scarborough goes on to criticize Obama's stance on homosexuality. "He's radically pro-gay...even to legislating against sections of the Bible and preventing those of us who embrace those sections of the Bible from preaching biblical truth," he argues. "So I'm troubled by it."

Christian Parents Cannot Pull Kids From Pro-Homosexual School Lessons

The Vancouver school board has announced that it intends to enforce the B.C. Ministry of Education's policy that forbids parents from removing their children from the classroom during pro-homosexual discussions... The province of British Columbia has been subjecting its curriculum to a complete revamp in the last several years, largely under the supervision of a homosexual "married" couple, Murray and Peter Corren. In 1999 the Correns filed a human rights complaint against the B.C. Ministry of education, alleging that the Ministry's curriculum didn't adequately "address issues of sexual orientation." Subsequently the Ministry made a settlement with the Correns in the form of a contract that gave the couple an unprecedented level of control over the development of the province's revamped, pro-homosexual curriculum. Under the Correns direction, a host of new and redesigned courses in various subject areas that include positive portrayals of "alternative sexualities" have been introduced in B.C.

Training For Terror In 'Realistic Urban Environments'

Those mysterious black helicopters buzzing Denver last night weren't just your paranoid imagination. Several military choppers flew low around downtown and Coors Field during the Colorado Rockies game Monday night and the show isn't over. U.S. military Special Operations commandos will be conducting the airborne training with Denver police SWAT teams and firefighters from early afternoon until 11 p.m. through Friday night. It's the end of a two-week joint exercise between special ops troops and police and fire to prepare for a terrorism threat in a "realistic urban environment," said Lt. Steve Ruh, a spokesman for the U.S. Special Operations Command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. "It's all in preparation for anything that could possibly happen with the global war on terrorism," said Ruh, whose command coordinates all the military branches' crack commando units - from Army Rangers to Navy SEALS. The Special Operations Command calls itself the "Tip of the Spear" against the nation's gravest threats... The United States Special Operations Command's mission is to provide fully capable Special Operations Forces to defend the United States and its interests. Plan and synchronize operations against terrorist networks. The United States Special Operations Command was founded in 1987 as an umbrella command to better coordinate special operations. This followed a reassessment of special operations after the debacle of Desert One, the attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran in 1980. The mission ended in tragedy when U.S. aircraft collided on the ground in the southern Iranian desert. The command was given a more specific anti-terrorism mission after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Army's Drones of the 'Future' Heading to Iraq

The Defense Secretary and Congress have been pounding on the Army, to start showing some results from its massive modernization project, Future Combat Systems. The Army is getting the message, sending a platoon of Future Combat's flying robots to Iraq, immediately. 30 of the Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs, "are on their way to Baghdad two weeks from now," Future Combat Systems program manager Maj. Gen. Charles Cartwright tells Defense News. Unlike other small drones -- which fly like miniature airplanes -- the MAVs use ducted fans to float in the air. Hovering in one place, they can stare down with "electro­optical and infrared cameras, and soon will have a gimbal-mounted camera and a laser designator," Defense News notes. Pressure from Congress and from the E-Ring may not be the only bureaucratic push to put the MAV on the Sandbox Express. There's also a bit of an inter-service rivalry surrounding the drones. The Navy announced back in January that their bomb technicians would use the 18-inch high, 40-pound machines look out for roadside explosives. (The MAVs were originally developed in a joint service program, and were only later sucked into Future Combat Systems.)

The Army is keen on showing off FCS' relevance in today's fights -- especially since the Defense Secretary said that program "must continue to demonstrate its value for the types of irregular challenges we will face." So the service is working to get other FCS gear out the door. There's talk of speeding up the Fire Scout robotic helicopter project, for instance. Last week, the service brought Future Combat's first prototype of its next-generation cannon to the Capitol.

Occultism is growing in Our School Systems

Occultism can be defined as the wilful or unwilling association with supernatural beings or powers for ephemeral gains. Students tangle with the occult because most of them are always finding shortcuts to success.The ideals of hard work, discipline and selfless dedication to God as the path to profound success that pastors, priests and teachers profess, is often ignored by wayward students in search of material gains. Children of this calibre are easy prey for the devil. They are promised by evil spirits or their agents with popularity among their peers, successes in exams, personal beauty or handsomeness, excessive wealth and all a poor student can think of. Since money is the seed of all vanity, some parents are even the source of evil spirits that bedevil their offspring. They initiate them in satanic cults and make them worship tin gods, engage in sexual orgies, homosexuality, desecrate churches or do any outrageous thing that can displease God, so that the devil can see them as true disciples of Beelzebub. The bottom line of this hard talk is that the gainful teaching-learning process is handicapped as students no longer concentrate in classes. In the last couple of years, many schools have been subject to demonic cults, with students accused of all sorts of things.

Confessions were aplenty, as some admitted drinking blood or eating human flesh in night parties in the near or far skies, seas and lands.In the heat of exorcisms, some even admit the sequential killing of humans through accidents, so that the occultists can have their blood feasts. The question now is: where do we go from here? Schools have used all types of formulas to tackle the problem. Some resorted to outright dismissals in the case of any noticeable sign or invited the clergy to wipe out the challenge of the devil. Saint Paul's Higher Comprehensive College of Bonjongo, Buea, is one of such schools where the holistic approach was applied to tackle the problem of occultism. Last year was primetime for the students that tangle with occultism to manifest their spells. Demon-induced illnesses of cerebral malaria and asthma were plenty to the embarrassment of even medical doctors. They could not explain why their wonder drugs have miserably failed to foment cures or some relief as universally expected. However, Fr. Aloysius Ituka Ndifor, then principal of the college, took a fatherly approach to solve a problem that was threatening the smooth functioning of his school. The students were introduced to the culture of regular meditation and prayers as that path of the Lord's battle against evil.

Students who confessed their belonging to the occult were given the chance to repent and be delivered through a series of prayer sessions. Students who felt that their pacts with the devil couldn't be broken, because of the so-called comfort they derive from demonic powers, were dismissed. As an observer, I was particularly sad to see a mother cry out in agony when her daughter blatantly refused to say that Jesus Christ is Lord. The daughter was very friendly with Satan to the extent that she saw no good in our Lord and Saviour Jesus, despite all the prayers and persuasions. Technically speaking, such a student is not good for a school environment.

The first sign to suspect in a child that is dabbling with occultism is unexplained arrogance. A parent may notice some abrupt and sequential misbehaviour of his/her child. His or her sexual expression becomes very open for all to see. In other words, the child feels like he or she is the new master of the household. Secondly, bizarre objects like rings designed in the form of a coffin, ancient insignia of pagan gods and some desecrated Christian objects too, are used as a mask. Occult literature, is often used to permit the subject ascend the ranks of his/her newfound world, where the knowledge of evil is a criteria for promotion. Parents should not shy away from searching their children's room when they feel suspicious about something. Children in the occult world are prone to frightful nightmares as they often come across powers superior to theirs. They are often punished by their masters or goddesses when they fail to accomplish certain tasks. As sexual promiscuity has taken deep root in our society, handsome young men and beautiful ladies (mostly children in their teens) are recruited by the occult to spread their kind. Therefore, parents should note when their child suddenly becomes promiscuous.

Obama and his Monkey God Lord Hanuman

The support of the Indian Americans to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is steadily rising , thanks to his lucky charm Lord Hanuman, suggests a leading American daily. The backing for Obama has shot up among Indian Americans, who were earlier backing Hillary Clinton, since a photo published earlier this month revealed that the 46-year-old Illinois senator carries a tiny brass idol of Hanuman among his handful of good-luck charms. "When it comes to American politicians, Bill Clinton has been the darling of India," said an article in the Washington Post. "That love extended to Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries -- especially with respect to fundraising among Indian Americans, who grew to become a significant base of support for her White House bid," the article titled 'Indian Americans Take note of Obama, thanks to Hanuman' said. But now people are supporting Obama, it said. "It's a big deal," said Bhavna Pandit, 28, a political fundraising consultant based in Washington who thinks the revelations about Obama's lucky charm will lead to new interest in him among Indian American donors.

iRobot Will Build Soft Robots

iRobot, maker of Packbot and the Roomba vacuum cleaner, has announced that it was awarded a contract by the far-out thinkers at the Pentagon to build a robot that can slither under doors and through other small openings. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard will work with iRobot on the ambitious Chembots project, which is run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). "During military operations it can be important to gain covert access to denied or hostile space. Unmanned platforms such as mechanical robots are of limited effectiveness if the only available points of entry are small openings,” Mitchell Zakin, the Darpa program manager says. “We believe that a new class of soft, flexible, meso-scale mobile objects that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their dimensions to perform various tasks will be quite valuable in many missions.” While definitely on the rather far-out side, Darpa points to a number of examples from nature: "Many soft creatures, including mice, octopi, and insects, readily traverse openings barely larger than their largest "hard" component, via a variety of reversible mechanism."

Terrorists and Extremists Seek Nukes

Extremist groups continue to actively seek nuclear weapons, a senior US official said recently during a meeting in Spain of a US-Russian initiative to fight nuclear terrorism. "Combating nuclear terrorism is especially important today," US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Rood told a news conference. "Regretably we continue to see indications in the United States from information we collect of the very terrorist groups we are most concerned about making concerted efforts to acquire nuclear capabilities with the express intent to use them against our peoples," he added. Over 200 delegates from 56 nations, as well as the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency, are taking part in the three-day gathering which got underway in Madrid on Monday. The meeting is the fourth of its kind since the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism was founded in 2006 by US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin to reinforce control of nuclear facilities and materials in order to prevent such groups from accessing them.

'Third Temple in Waiting' Prepared in Jerusalem

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is one of the most sacred places on earth, and one of the most contested. For Jews, it's the place where the Holy Temple once stood. Today Muslims control the Temple Mount and Jews are forbidden to worhip there. But that hasn't stopped some people from making plans to build the next temple. Everyday, three times a day, Jews recite this prayer: "May it be your will that the temple be speedily rebuilt in our own time." It's a prayer they've prayed for almost 2,000 years. But today, Jews here in Jerusalem are doing more than just praying. Just a few steps away from the western wall, rabbis and craftsmen are building what they call a "temple in waiting." Chaim Richman is a director at the Temple Institute in Jerusalem. "The Temple Institute is actively engaged in the research and preparation of the resumption of service in the holy temple to the extent of actually preparing operational blueprints for the construction of the temple according to the most modern standards," he said. This menorah is just one of several vessels being created for the next temple. It's covered with 95 pounds of pure gold and has a price tag of $2 million.

Piece by piece, the third temple is taking shape, with priest's garments, vessels of copper, gold, and silver, and a new generation of levite priests specially trained for temple service. "We have enough in place now to resume divine service and to build the temple," Richman said. Dan Bahat spent 40 years excavating the tunnels around the Temple Mount, and he says the most compelling case for the temple is yet to be discovered. "I believe that behind this stone is a large arch which forms a storehouse, which stored all the treasures of the temple," he said. "In the future, when it will be possible to dig, maybe we'll get to there." But Bahat's interest in the temple is strictly in its past, not in its future. "There is no chance whatsoever for the third temple. The third temple will be when the Messiah comes," he said. "Both Jews and Christians are waiting for him so when he comes, let us see what happens. It won't happen before."

Elites Seek Control Over Rising Cashless Society

The terrorists in the federal government are continuing their push to implement a cashless economic enslavement system. According to a legislative notice from the U.S. Senate, a new Housing Bill (HR 3221) contains a provision that will require nearly every online credit card transaction to be reported directly to the Internal Revenue Service. The insanity of this is obvious and it is nothing more than a way to give the government a means to track and trace as many private transactions as humanly possible. Previously, Visa's CEO has stated that it is their goal to establish a cashless society by the year 2012. As technology increases, a greater number of businesses are accepting credit card payments. It wasn’t too long ago that fast food restaurants wouldn’t accept anything but cash for payment, now almost all of them accept credit cards. We are also starting to see biometrics utilized as a way to facilitate transactions. The bottom line is that there is an agenda at play to setup a cashless system that will allow the elite to take total control over the global economy. These people want to eliminate privacy in mutual exchanges and this is another step in doing just that.

The following is taken off of the legislative notice from the U.S. Senate Bill summary describing this draconian reporting scheme within HR 3221: The proposal requires information reporting on payment card and third party network transactions. Payment settlement entities, including merchant acquiring banks and third party settlement organizations, or third party payment facilitators acting on their behalf, will be required to report the annual gross amount of reportable transactions to the IRS and to the participating payee. Reportable transactions include any payment card transaction and any third party network transaction. Participating payees include persons who accept a payment card as payment and third party networks who accept payment from a third party settlement organization in settlement of transactions. A payment card means any card issued pursuant to an agreement or arrangement which provides for standards and mechanisms for settling the transactions. Use of an account number or other indicia associated with a payment card will be treated in the same manner as a payment card. A de minimis exception for transactions of $10,000 or less and 200 transactions or less applies to payments by third party settlement organizations. The proposal applies to returns for calendar years beginning after December 31, 2010. Back-up withholding provisions apply to amounts paid after December 31, 2011. This proposal is estimated to raise $9.802 billion over ten years.

Will Religion End On Mars?

As you read this, Nasa’s Phoenix Lander is sitting near the Martian north pole after travelling 680 million kilometres from Earth. Its onboard instruments are examining samples of soil looking for, among other things, some key chemical ingredients such as carbon-based compounds, which might be preserved there. It’ll help scientists evaluate whether the environment has ever been favourable for life. Later probes will establish if, indeed, life ever arose on Mars and then either died out afterwards or, perhaps, is still around. If the place turns out to be barren, life on Earth will continue as if nothing much occurred. If not, there’s going to be at least one alleged aftershock to reckon with. For example, some people are already writing off most major religions which are based essentially on an Earth-centric model, as never being able to recover from such a crippling body blow. (The Bible makes no mention of other planets or life on other planets.) Their reasoning is that even if the type of life found is only microscopic in nature which existed many millions of years ago in the past, it would prove once and for all that life on our planet is not a one-off event requiring the services of a creator. In other words, discover life on Mars; prove evolution; disprove God.

But life, unfortunately, is not so simple. Firstly, although evolution is easily the most elegant, encompassing and predictive theory providing a unifying explanation for the diversity of life on Earth, it may not be the last word on the subject nor even the central principle of extraterrestrial biology. Just like Newton was the last word only till Einstein came along. Also, forget carbon; ET may not be DNA-based at all. Thus its process of evolutionary development, if there is one at all, might be completely different from what we know happens here. Secondly, proving evolution has no connection with the origins of animate matter anywhere because things like natural selection and mutation only come into existence after the fact. The crunch that scriptural faiths will face, on the other hand, can loosely be termed decentralisation where the uniqueness of humanity along with Earth’s biosphere will no longer occupy centre stage as almost all belief systems have tried to sell us. These religions would, therefore, have no choice but to modify their dogma to bring extra-terrestrial life into their creation beliefs.

Christianity is flourishing in China

The Rev. Jin Mingri peered out from the pulpit and delivered an unusual appeal: "Please leave," the 39-year-old pastor urged his followers, who were packed, standing-room-only on a Sunday afternoon, into a converted office space in China's capital. "We don't have enough seats for the others who want to come, so please, only stay for one service a day." A choir in hot-pink robes stood to his left, beside a guitarist and a drum set bristling with cymbals. Children in a modern playroom beside the sanctuary punctuated the service with squeals and tantrums. It was a busy day at a church that, on paper, does not exist. Christianity -- repressed, marginalized and, in many cases, illegal in China for more than half a century -- is sweeping the country, swamping churches and posing a sensitive challenge to the officially atheist ruling Communist Party.
By some estimates, Christian churches in China, most of them underground, have roughly 70 million members, about as many as the party itself. A growing number of those Christians are in fact party members. Christianity is thriving in part because it offers a moral framework to citizens adrift in an age of Wild West capitalism that has not only exacted a heavy toll in corruption and pollution but also harmed the global image of products labeled "Made in China."

Some Chinese Christians say their faith is actually a boon for the party, because it shores up the economic foundation that is central to sustaining communist rule. "With economic development, morality and ethics in China are degenerating quickly," prayer leader Zhang Wei told the crowd at Jin's church as worshipers bowed their heads. "Holy Father, please save the Chinese people's soul." At the same time, Christianity is driving citizens to be more politically assertive, emboldening them to push for more freedoms and testing the party's willingness to adapt. For decades, most of China's Christians worshiped in secret churches, known as "house churches," that shunned attention for fear of arrest on charges such as "disturbing public order." But in a sign of Christianity's growing prominence, in scores of interviews for a joint project of the Tribune and PBS' "Frontline/World," clerical leaders and worshipers from coastal boomtowns to inland villages publicly detailed their religious lives for the first time.

Tunguska Event still a mystery 100 years on

Scientists will gather in Siberia to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska Event June 26-28, one of the world's most mysterious explosions which flattened 80 million trees but largely went unnoticed at the time. The massive blast, equivalent to around 15 megatons of TNT, occurred approximately 7-10 km (3-6 miles) above the Stony Tunguska River in a remote area of central Siberia early on June 30, 1908. The explosion, which was estimated to measure up to 5 on the Richter scale, knocked people off their feet 70 km away and destroyed an area of around 2,150 sq km (830 sq miles). And if the explosion had occurred some 4 hours and 47 minutes later, due to the Earth's rotation it would have completely destroyed the then Russian capital of St. Petersburg. However, despite the fact that the night sky was lit up across Europe and Asia and the shock waves were detected as far away as Britain, the Tunguska Event largely went unnoticed eclipsed by global events leading up to World War I, the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war and it was not until almost 20 years later in 1927 that any scientific expedition managed to visit the remote site. The 1927-expedition led by Leonid Kulik, a leading meteorite expert at the Academy of Sciences, discovered the massive destruction left by the blast and gathered witness statements from locals living in the area. It was assumed that a huge meteorite had hit the area, although Kulik failed, during his research in Siberia, to find an obvious crater.

And around 33 years later another expedition was also unsuccessful in its search for the elusive crater and scientists were faced with the Tunguska mystery - an explosion, 1,000 times more powerful that the WWII atomic bomb at Hiroshima, but which had left no trace as to its cause. Although there have been dozens of theories since, from UFOs, antimatter, doomsday events and black holes, the most likely being an airborne explosion of a 10-30-meter wide meteorite or comet, none of them has provided conclusive evidence which has merely fuelled the speculation surrounding Tunguska. At the Tunguska conference in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in Siberia scientists from all over Russia will gather to discuss, using the latest computer technology, as well as less traditional methods, what actually caused the destruction in the remote Siberian region. As part of the anniversary, in the Evenki autonomous area, a statue of the Evenki god of Thunder, which reflects eyewitness testimony to the events 100 years ago, will be erected at the site believed to be the meteorite crash location.

No ice at the North Pole as early as this year

It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer. "From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water," said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado. If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above. Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year. This one-year ice is highly vulnerable to melting during the summer months and satellite data coming in over recent weeks shows that the rate of melting is faster than last year, when there was an all-time record loss of summer sea ice at the Arctic.

The polar regions are experiencing the most dramatic increase in average temperatures due to global warming and scientists fear that as more sea ice is lost, the darker, open ocean will absorb more heat and raise local temperatures even further. Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, who was one of the first civilian scientists to sail underneath the Arctic sea ice in a Royal Navy submarine, said that the conditions are ripe for an unprecedented melting of the ice at the North Pole. "Last year we saw huge areas of the ocean open up, which has never been experienced before. People are expecting this to continue this year and it is likely to extend over the North Pole. It is quite likely that the North Pole will be exposed this summer – it's not happened before," Professor Wadhams said.

Russia Could be Trigger for $200 Oil and Global Recession

"Two-hundred dollar oil would break the back of the global economy," Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank AG ( DB ), said recently in an interview in Tokyo. "Next step after $200 would be global recession and bad news for everybody." Just a little over a year ago, $200 oil seemed out of the question. But the Deutsche Bank prediction of oil-fueled global recession follows a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ( GS ) forecast that oil might climb as high as $200 per barrel in two years. Keith Fitz-Gerald, Money Morning's Investment Director - and one of the first global financial gurus to predict triple-digit oil prices - recently boosted his target price for crude oil from $187 to $225. "The math is really simple here," Fitz-Gerald said back in May, when oil futures were trading around $123 a barrel. "We are burning through supplies at a rate that's four times to five times faster than we're discovering new reserves," he said. "Throw in a few [surprises]… perhaps a terrorist event… and add in the accelerating use of oil and gasoline in Third World countries, and we have the recipe for far higher prices."

Since the time of Fitz-Gerald's prediction, oil has gone on to several new highs, nearly breaking through the $140 barrier on June 16, earlier this month. Exacerbating the high oil prices are production problems in Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter. Aging oil fields and a lack of infrastructure investment has led to the country's first annual production decline in 10 years. Output fell 0.9% to 9.76 million barrels a day in the first five months 2008, Bloomberg reported. "Growth last quarter fell on a year-on-year basis, and this has to do with the policies implemented over the prior year to raise taxes on oil industries," Deutsche Bank's Sieminski said, speaking of Russia's oil difficulties. "This made it difficult for foreign capital to come in."

UFOs Terrorize Marlinja Northwest Territories

A small territory community is still reeling with shock after four UFOs descended on their Outback homes. Families spent hours in fear as what appeared to be three spaceships hovered in the distance with another just metres above their houses. "The kids were on the basketball courts, shooting a few hoops, and I was indoors talking to my two nieces when we heard a strange, loud noise," she said. "We ran outside but at first we couldn't see anything -- it was really dark and we could hear the sound. "The sound was horrible. It sounded like something was going past. "We thought it was a jet. I saw what I thought at first was the evening star, the first star you usually see at night. "But then we saw three red lights in the distance, and the sound kept getting louder. "The ground felt like it was shaking, so we ran inside and shut the doors. "My nephew and niece were looking out through curtains. The thing came closer, circled around the basketball courts and then came so close above our house. "The kids at the basketball courts ran -- two girls stood there looking towards the sky. "They tried to see what it was but all they could see was this bright red light in the pitch black." Ms Dixon said the UFO hovered above the homes for what seemed like a couple of hours.

She said at one stage the phone rang, but went dead when she tried to answer it. "Then the light in the house became so bright, it was like we were sitting in a football stadium," she said. "After a while, after the things all disappeared... I think it was about 11pm by then. "We went outside and were just sitting around drinking tea and talking about it all. The kids were put to bed. "We heard the noise again and it came back, but disappeared again moments later. "We were all really frightened. "It was a big shock and I couldn't sleep."