As the trumped up Swine Flu Threat™ is spun into the sinister scenario of mass compulsory vaccinations and the hidden hand of western intelligence agencies becomes increasingly obvious in colorful "revolutions", perhaps a quote from one of our favorite psychologists would be an appropriate introduction to this installment of Connecting the Dots:
The biological, psychological, moral, and economic destruction of this majority of normal people is a "biological" necessity to the pathocrats. Many means serve this end, starting with concentration camps and including warfare with an obstinate, well-armed foe who will devastate and debilitate the human power thrown at him, namely the very power jeopardizing pathocrats rule.
An almost-but-not-quite CIA coup in Iran, the spread of the Franken-flu, the US Empire's continued military agression in the Middle East and the courting of trouble with North Korea all should be enough to remind us that suffering is the daily bread of millions of people on our planet.
As often happens in life, when it rains - it pours. The month of June was a smashing one indeed; the mysterious loss of an Air France transcontinental flight provides a clue about the stage of the cycle of history that we are in. This detail is important enough to occupy the first place in our monthly analysis.
Having won the presidential election by a landslide, Ahmadinejad and his backers within the Iranian regime should be basking in the glory of an overwhelming mandate from the Iranian people. Instead they face unrelenting pressure from within and without as they confront their deadliest crisis yet. The US and British media is presently falling over itself to broadcast images of an Iranian protestor shot dead in broad daylight, while repeatedly decrying "election fraud" in Iran.
Here's the BBC's coverage of the event. Note the well-placed image and caption (as appears in original article) of "grave spaces." The implication is left unsaid, but the suggestion is tantalising bait for readers by now emotionally charged from accounts of the martyred symbol of Iranian Freedom™: the Iranian regime is quietly burying evidence of its crimes in 'mass graves'...
She was near the area, a few streets away, from where the main protests were taking place, near the Amir-Abad area. She was with her music teacher, sitting in a car and stuck in traffic.
She was feeling very tired and very hot. She got out of the car for just for a few minutes.
And that's when it all happened.
That's when she was shot dead. Eyewitnesses and video footage of the shooting clearly show that probably Basij paramilitaries in civilian clothing deliberately targeted her. Eyewitnesses said they clearly targeted her and she was shot in the chest.
Newsweek's Canadian-Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari has admitted to giving "false and biased" reports about the recent post-election events in Iran.
Bahari, who also had connections with the BBC and Britain's Channel 4 news, was arrested in Tehran during the unrest that followed the announcement of the result of the 10th presidential election.
In a Tuesday press conference that was held while he was still in custody, Bahari explained the nature of some of his activities in Iran over the past years and the role that Western media had played in the events, which unfolded in the country.
"Most of the work I did for BBC and Channel 4 had to do with highlighting problems in various areas... the journalist work I did revolved around daily news and issues such as the parliamentary and presidential elections," Bahari told reports.
In this video, award-winning journalist Christopher Bryson examines one of the great secret narratives of the industrial era; how a grim workplace poison and the most damaging environmental pollutant of the cold war was added to our drinking water and toothpaste.
Hardly a day goes by when I don't think about 9/11 and the mountain of hard, cold facts that prove beyond question that the official story is a lie. Lately we've been treated to a particular insidious morphing of perception. From demagogue Glenn Beck to any number of government and corporate shills we are now hearing that 9/11 truthers are "low level terrorists" and that they would be willing to work with Al Qaeda or any other terror organization that came along. We've even got Howdy Doody weighing in on the matter.
Of course, the cover-up was a fait accompli from the moment that Zionista, Philip Zelikow was appointed to head the 9/11 commission. You can read all about his pedigree in the preceding link. It's just one more coincidence that an Israel firster would be appointed to control an investigation where so much of the evidence that has surfaced over the years points to Mossad as one of the main players in the attack.
I've looked for reasons why the whole world isn't convinced of what actually took place on that day. There are a number of possibilities and when they are combined it's not hard to see how chicken salad can be turned into chicken shit and served as a global lunch. There is the progressive dumbing down of the population through a violated education system; there's the junkie fixation on mass media reports, there's the steroidal entertainment industry and strange compounds in the air, food and water. But,
...the evidence is so damning and comprehensive that even a borderline intellect should be able to see through a plot that is more gossamer than a reality starlets dress. The endless looping of three massive buildings coming down at freefall into their own footprint tells more than enough. It defies the laws of physics. It goes against irrevocable laws of nature and yet... and yet...... mystifying.
Marie Magleby and Monica Gabriel CNSNews 2009-06-29 14:41:00
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) will not give the public a week to review the final text of a health-care reform bill before it is voted on later this year.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) has also declined to commit to giving the public a week to read and consider the final health-care bill.
It's the stuff of a good Hollywood movie-a potentially toxic chemical lurking in the bodies of most unwitting Americans; a decade of mounting but scuttled scientific evidence; government inaction; undue influence and public denials of harm by the powerful chemical industry; congressional inquiries; a crescendo of outcry by consumers demanding that something be done-and still, the battle to ban bisphenol A (also known as BPA) in food and drink containers rages on.
Now, California has become the prime battleground for this David v. Goliath contest.
A Florida woman tragically committed suicide on the day she was getting evicted from her home.
Heather Newnam, 28, of Tamarac, Fla., shot herself when a real estate agent, a locksmith and movers showed up at her home on Monday after she failed to pay her rent. She told them she had to secure the dogs first, and then a shot was fired, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office. The SWAT team arrived on the scene and found her dead from a gunshot wound to the head.
Newnam documented her life on Twitter as user rsangel04. Her last post on June 24 read, "Rich get richer, poor get poorer, families on the street, govt doesn't care. God bless the usa, but can He save it?"
Larry Gordon Los Angeles Times 2009-06-25 01:50:00
In a case that triggered national debate about academic freedom, a UC Santa Barbara investigation has cleared a sociology professor of improper conduct for e-mailing students images that compared Palestinian casualties of Israel's Gaza offensive this year to Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
However, professor William Robinson said Thursday he was not satisfied with faculty and administrative findings that he should not be disciplined. Robinson wants a campus apology and an investigation of what he said were improper efforts to silence him.
Cinnamon Stillwell never thought she'd be the founder of a political organization. She certainly never expected to start a group for conservatives, most of whom became conservatives on the same day - September 11, 2001. She organized the group, the 911 Neocons, as a haven for people like her - "former lefties" who did political 180s after 9/11.
Stillwell, now a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, had been a liberal her whole life, writing off all Republicans as "ignorant, intolerant yahoos." Yet on 9/11, everything changed for her, as it did for so many. In the days after the attacks, the world seemed "topsy-turvy." On the political left, she wrote, "There was little sympathy for the victims," and it seemed to her that progressives were "consumed with hatred for this country" and had "extended their misguided sympathies to tyrants and terrorists."
Kirann Randhawa and Felix Allen London Evening Standard 2009-07-02 08:34:00
The family of Ian Tomlinson were told by a senior investigator he may have been assaulted by a police impersonator shortly before he collapsed and died, it was revealed today.
The suggestion by the City of London Police was made after video evidence showed the newspaper vendor being attacked with a baton and pushed to the ground by an officer in riot gear.
According to an officer investigating the 47-year-old's death he could have clashed with a protester "dressed in police uniform" before he collapsed at the G20 demonstrations on 1 April.
The UK South Central Strategic Health Authority (SHA) is facing a legal challenge over its recent decision to fluoridate areas of Southampton against the overwhelming weight of public opinion, and the vote of 6 out of 7 local Councils. The SHA has allowed £400,000 (about $NZ 1 million) for legal costs to defend the law suit.
"The legal challenge itself is not about the pros and cons of the fluoridation, it's about the fact that they have messed up how they have gone about the process," said Sean Humber, of Leigh Day and Co, the solicitors handling the claimant's case.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader on Wednesday announced his sudden resignation from the post of the government head and would not explain clearly the reasons for his decision.
Sanader, who is president of the senior ruling party Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), told an extraordinary news conference that he also decided to withdraw from his party duty and from active politics and become HDZ honorary president, the Croatian news agency HINA reported.
Sanader said he had made the decision after deep consideration, and recalled that he had been in politics 20 years, and at the helm of the HDZ for 10 years. He said he would not run for president of the country later this year, and dismissed speculation that he is ill.
Air France flight 447 did not break up in the air but plunged vertically into the Atlantic Ocean, according to the French head investigator of last month's crash, which killed all 228 people on board.
Alain Bouillard said life vests found among the wreckage were not inflated, indicating the accident happened so quickly that the passengers had no time to react.
Speed sensors on the Airbus A330 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris were not to blame, he said, though "we are far from understanding the cause of the crash".
James Suggett Venezuelanalysis.com 2009-07-02 15:19:00
On Tuesday Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed multi-national military, economic, and legal measures to restore Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to the presidency and bring an end to the military coup d'etat that began last Sunday, if planned diplomatic measures fail.
Zelaya plans to defy the coup and return to Honduras on Saturday along with a delegation of Latin American leaders, including the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador. The coup leaders have vowed to arrest Zelaya upon his return.
"Aggression against the delegation that goes to Honduras would open another type of door," said Chavez. "Then, we would have to consider, for example, a military intervention by the United Nations."
Fisnik Abrashi and Lara Jakes Associated Press 2009-07-02 01:07:00
Thousands of U.S. Marines and hundreds of Afghan troops moved into Taliban-infested villages with armor and helicopters early Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's revamped strategy to stabilize Afghanistan.
The offensive in the once-forgotten war was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold in the southern part of the country and the world's largest opium poppy producing area.
The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested Helmand River Valley before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.
Steven Ross Johnson Courier News 2009-07-01 03:46:00
Elgin - Area Metra riders soon will have to make room for a new kind of passenger along their daily commutes.
Metra announced Tuesday plans to allow security teams from the federal Transportation Security Administration to regularly patrol trains coming in and out of Chicago.
American Civil Liberties Union 2009-06-30 03:41:00
Widespread racial profiling by law enforcement agents as a result of Bush-era policies remains a pervasive problem throughout the United States, according to a report out today by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rights Working Group (RWG). Government policies are a major cause of the disproportionate stopping and searching of racial minorities by law enforcement agencies, according to the report, which was submitted today to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
"Racial profiling remains a widespread and pervasive problem throughout the U.S., impacting the lives of millions of people in the African American, Asian, Latino, South Asian, Arab and Muslim communities," said Chandra Bhatnagar, staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program and the main author of the report. "The U.S. government must take urgent, direct action to rid the nation of the scourge of racial and ethnic profiling and bring this country into conformity with both the Constitution and international human rights obligations."
The music industry group is shifting away from targeting individuals and toward going after companies that make copyright violations possible.
The Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday said it has won a copyright-infringement suit against Usenet.com, a site that lets newsgroup users share documents, music, and other files. The federal court ruling in the Southern District of New York was handed down Tuesday. The RIAA had sued Usenet.com, a longtime online newsgroup provider, in October 2007.
Usenet.com works differently than many file-sharing sites in that it stores content on servers and makes it available on-demand. Other sites use a peer-to-peer architecture in which content is downloaded from people's computers on a network.
The Transportation Security Administration has deployed two explosives detection canine teams in Florida following the successful completion of training.
The TSA says it deployed the advanced canine teams to Orlando International Airport to provide explosive threat detection capabilities at the airport's air cargo facilities.
Egyptian blogger and human rights activist Wael Abbas was stopped at Cairo airport by security officers early on Tuesday morning as he was returning home from a conference in Sweden, sources told Menassat. Security officers temporarily confiscated Abbas' passport and then proceeded by searching his personal belongings.
"They're checking every single paper in his bag. I can see him from out here," Egyptan blogger Wa7damasrya who was at the airport waiting for Abbas told Menassat.
A senior member of the Jundullah terrorist group says that the group has been trained and financed by "the US and Zionists".
Abdolhamid Rigi, the brother of Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi made the remarks in a court session held in the southeastern city of Zahedan on Wednesday.
Abdolhamid Rigi was among the thirteen members of the Jundullah who were accused of terrorist activities, Fars news agency reported.
Pakistani security forces arrested Abdolhamid last year and extradited him to Iran.
President Barak Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget request for $2.775 billion in military aid to Israel is proceeding smoothly through the Congress.
On June 17, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs held a "mark-up" session on the budget. The subcommittee came under pressure from an antiwar group that sought to suspend or condition foreign aid over Israel's use of US weapons which left 3000 Palestinians dead during the Bush administration. The subcommittee held its session in a tiny Capitol room denying activists and members of the press access. The budget quickly passed and is now before the full House Appropriations Committee.
Israel enjoys "unusually wide latitude in spending the [military assistance] funds," according to the Wall Street Journal.
Amnesty International on Thursday accused Israeli forces of war crimes, saying they used children as human shields and conducted wanton attacks on civilians during their offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The London-based human rights group also accused Hamas of war crimes, but said it found no evidence that the Islamist rulers of Gaza used civilians as human shields during the 22-day offensive Israel launched on December 28.
It also reiterated its call for an international arms embargo against Israel.
Dennis Kucinich Information Clearing House 2009-07-02 00:30:00
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement regarding the announcement that U.S. troops have left the cities and towns of Iraq and turned over formal security to Iraqi security forces.
"The withdrawal of some U.S. combat troops from Iraq's cities is welcome and long overdue news. However, it is important to remember that this is not the same as a withdrawal of U.S. troops and contractors from Iraq.
"U.S. troop combat missions throughout Iraq are not scheduled to end until more than a year from now in August of 2010. In addition, U.S. troops are not scheduled for a complete withdrawal for another two and a half years on December 31, 2011. Rather, U.S. troops are leaving Iraqi cities for military bases in Iraq. They are still in Iraq, and they can be summoned back at any time.
On June 30, the government of Israel committed an act of piracy when the Israeli Navy in international waters illegally boarded the "Spirit of Humanity," kidnapped its 21-person crew from 11 countries, including former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Nobel Laureate Mairead MaGuire, and confiscated the cargo of medical supplies, olive trees, reconstruction materials, and children's toys that were on the way to the Mediterranean coast of Gaza. The "Spirit of Humanity," along with the kidnapped 21 persons is being towed to Israel as I write.
Gaza has been described as the "world's largest concentration camp." It is home to 1.5 million Palestinians who were driven by force of American-supplied Israeli arms out of their homes, off their farms, and out of their villages so that Israel could steal their land and make the Palestinian land available to Israeli settlers.
Iran's Police Chief says the mysterious death of Neda Aqa-Soltan, who became a symbol of post-election street rallies in Iran, was a 'prearranged scenario'.
Neda, 26, was shot dead on June 20 in an alley away from the scene of clashes between security forces and demonstrators in Tehran.
She immediately became an international icon after graphic videos of her death grabbed the attention of world media outlets.
Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam, commander of the Iranian Police, said Wednesday that the unfortunate incident - which has been hyped and dramatized by Western media outlets - was in fact a 'premeditated act of murder'.
The finances of several states around the nation are sinking deeper into chaos as lawmakers struggle to work out budget differences amid a recession that has wiped out tax revenue and set the stage for dramatic cuts in service and pay for government workers.
The start of the new fiscal year arrived Wednesday with states from California to Connecticut still without spending plans in place.
The CoC is the world's most powerful lobbying machine and it's working to make sure our money gets funneled to corporate execs.
Perhaps the greatest public deception surrounding today's financial meltdown is the notion that it is unique -- a once-in-a-lifetime crisis that reflects bad luck rather than any fundamental problem with the U.S. banking system's sway in global politics.
The truth is that throughout the 1980s, the major money center banks were in much the same situation they find themselves in today.
But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to spend $100 million on a lobbying push to tell you the otherwise. It's a very careful strategy designed to ensure that Wall Street maintains the power to hijack the economy and demand epic bailouts from ordinary citizens as a reward for its own greed.
The name may sound like a coalition of your friendly neighborhood small-business proprietors, but in truth, the CoC is the world's most powerful lobbying machine for the corporate executive class.
Washington - A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer warned about irregularities at Bernard Madoff's financial management firm as far back as 2004, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing agency documents and sources familiar with the investigation.
Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, a lawyer in the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, sent emails to a supervisor saying information provided by Madoff during her review didn't add up and suggesting a set of questions to ask his firm, the report said.
Washington - U.S. employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected, while the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the government said on Thursday in a report that showed a labor market continuing to struggle with a deep recession.
The June job losses were more than 100,000 greater than the 363,000 consensus of Wall Street economists polled by Reuters and broke a four-month trend of moderation in job losses.
In a move set to infuriate and send many Zero Hedge readers over the top, the NYSE has taken action to make sure that nobody will henceforth be able to keep track of the complete dominance that Goldman Sachs exerts over the New York Stock Exchange. This basically ends our weekly Program Trading updates disclosed every Thursday indicating that Goldman has singlehandedlycaptured all of NYSE's program trading.
San Francisco - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency on Wednesday, forcing lawmakers to tackle a budget gap that has raised the prospect of drastic measures to keep the state working.
Lawmakers debated late into the night Tuesday but could not agree on a plan to balance California's budget -- now showing a deficit of $26.3 billion -- in time for the new fiscal year, which began on Wednesday.
Amanda Milkovits The Providence Journal 2009-07-02 16:03:00
Welcome to the first day of July - - which brought more rain than the entire month of June.
Severe thunderstorms rumbled into Southern New England beginning at daybreak on Wednesday and continuing at 11 a.m. for a second round, clustering together over the southernmost tip of Rhode Island with wave after wave of heavy rain and lightning strikes.
Roads flooded and left motorists stranded in their swamped cars. Lightning struck houses from Westerly to Coventry. Torrential downpours - - at times about an inch an hour - - overwhelmed drainage systems, forcing street and highway closures in parts of South County. The rain gauges used by engineers at the Department of Transportation showed 4 inches of rain fell in just two hours in Charlestown - - approaching levels of a hundred-year storm, said department spokesman Charles St. Martin.
Richard Morrison Competitive Enterprise Institute 2009-06-26 07:43:00
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is today making public an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration's agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.
The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations' 2007 "Fourth Assessment" report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.
In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama saluted the House of Representatives for passing Waxman-Markey, the gargantuan energy-rationing bill that would amount to the largest tax increase in the nation's history. It would do so by making virtually everything that depends on energy - which is virtually everything - more expensive.
The president doesn't describe the legislation in those terms now, but he made no bones about it last year. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in January 2008, he calmly explained how cap-and-trade - the carbon-dioxide rationing scheme that is at the heart of Waxman-Markey - would work:
"Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket . . . because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, natural gas, you name it . . . Whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money, and they will pass that [cost] on to consumers.''
Despite an active start to the month and a rather steady stream of cycle 24 microdots, the official sunspot number for June came in at 2.6 below the 3.5 needed to make November 2008 the solar minimum. This means it can't be earlier than December, 2008. It seems unlikely unless the sun goes back into a deep slumber as it did last summer and July stays at or below 0.5 (the value of the month it will replace in the 13 month average), December 2008 won't be the sunspot minimum with a 13 month mean of 1.7. Only three minima since 1750 had official minima below 1.7 (1913 1.5, 1810 0, 1823 0.1). Of course modern measurement technologies are better than older technologies so there is some uncertainty as to whether microdots back then would have been seen.
Home gardeners beware: This year, late blight -- a destructive infectious disease that caused the Irish potato famine in the 1840s -- is killing tomato and potato plants in gardens and on commercial farms in the eastern United States. In addition, basil downy mildew is affecting plants in the Northeast.
"Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the U.S," said Meg McGrath, associate professor of plant pathology and plant-microbe biology.
One of the most visible early symptoms of the disease is brown spots (lesions) on stems. They begin small and firm, then quickly enlarge, with white fungal growth developing under moist conditions that leads to a soft rot collapsing the stem.
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have discovered that gene mutations that once helped humans survive may increase the possibility for diseases, including cancer.
The findings were recently the cover story in the journal Genome Research.
The team of researchers from BGU's National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev (NIBN) set out to look for mutations in the genome of the mitochondria, a part of every cell responsible for energy production that is passed exclusively from mothers to their children. The mitochondria are essential to every cell's survival and our ability to perform the functions of living.
"Our ancestors responded to environmental changes, such as climate shift, with mutations that increased their chances of survival. But today, these same mutations predispose us toward complex diseases such as cancer," according to researcher Dr. Dan Mishmar, a molecular biologist from the Department of Life Sciences at BGU. "Although mitochondria's role in the emergence of new species has been investigated recently, the idea that they are responsible for our susceptibility to illness startles many."
A new study by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) reveals the genetic underpinnings of what causes lung cancer to quickly metastasize, or spread, to the brain and the bone - the two most prominent sites of lung cancer relapse. The study will be published online in the journal Cell on July 2.
Researchers discovered that the same cellular pathway that has been shown to be involved with the spread of colorectal cancer is also responsible for providing lung cancer with an enhanced ability to infiltrate and colonize other organs without delay and with little need to adapt to its new environment. This is a dramatic departure from other cancers, like breast cancer, in which recurrences tend to emerge following years of remission, suggesting that such cancer cells initially lack - and need time to acquire - the characteristics and ability to spread to other organs.
The investigators hypothesized that because not all lung tumors have spread before diagnosis and removal, metastasis may depend on some added feature beyond the mutations that initiate these tumors.
New research by a team of scientists at the University of Cincinnati (UC) shows that bisphenol A (BPA) may be harmful for the heart, particularly in women.
Results of several studies are being presented in Washington, D.C., at ENDO 09, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting, June 10-13.
A research team lead by Scott Belcher, PhD, Hong Sheng Wang, PhD, and Jo El Schultz, PhD, in the department of pharmacology and cell biophysics, found that exposure to BPA and/or estrogen causes abnormal activity in hearts of female rats and mice.
In an attempt to gauge just how dangerous the mercury in fish is, writer David Ewing Duncan decided to measure his blood levels of the toxic metal both before and after gorging on various types of fish.
Mercury is a naturally occurring metal, but one that is highly toxic to the nervous systems of vertebrates, including humans. Studies have shown that it can cause damage to brain functioning, including memory, learning and behavior, and that it can also harm the heart and immune system. The developing nervous systems of children and fetuses are particularly susceptible to its effects.
Folic acid is also known as Vitamin B9 or Folacin. It is water soluble and essential to many bodily functions such as producing healthy red blood cells and preventing anemia. There are many benefits of folic acid; it inhibits colon cancer, prevents heart disease and is beneficial for pregnant women. Folic acid is abundant in fruit, green leafy vegetables, beans and nuts, but it can also be bought in supplement form.
The makers of Tylenol, Excedrin and other medications on Monday tried to dissuade regulators from placing new restrictions on their popular painkillers, including possibly removing some of them from store shelves.
The Food and Drug Administration assembled more than 35 experts for a two-day meeting to discuss ways to prevent overdose with acetaminophen - the pain-relieving, fever-reducing ingredient in Tylenol and dozens of other prescription and over-the-counter medications.
Only two sizes of black holes have ever been spotted: small and super-massive. Scientists have long speculated that an intermediate version must exist, but they've never been able to find one until now.
Astrophysicists identified what appears to be the first-ever medium-sized black hole, pictured in an artist's rendition above, with a mass at least 500 times that of our Sun. Researchers from the Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements in France detected the middling hole in a galaxy about 290 million light-years from Earth.
Dr. Jonathan Williams University of Hawaii at Manoa 2009-07-02 00:36:00
Two University of Hawaii at Mānoa astronomers have found a binary star-disk system in which each star is surrounded by the kind of dust disk that is frequently the precursor of a planetary system. Doctoral student Rita Mann and Dr. Jonathan Williams used the Submillimeter Array on Mauna Kea, Hawaii to make the observations.
A binary star system consists of two stars bound together by gravity that orbit a common center of gravity. Most stars form as binaries, and if both stars are hospitable to planet formation, it increases the likelihood that scientists will discover Earth-like planets.
Michael Baum National Institute of Standards and Technology 2009-07-02 00:25:00
A tiny grid pattern has led materials scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Institute of Solid State Physics in Russia to an unexpected finding - the surprisingly strong and long-range effects of certain electromagnetic nanostructures used in data storage. Their recently reported findings* may add new scientific challenges to the design and manufacture of future ultra-high density data storage devices.
Is this the moment a notorious 17th century ghost was captured on camera? Or is it just a snapshot taken by the unstable hands of an amateur photographer?
According to 30-year-old Colin Iles and his girlfriend Elaine Della Camera - who snapped the suspected spirit in Ham House - the image represents the "capture of the century".
The couple believe the photograph they took at the stately home shows the ghostly figure of Elizabeth, Duchess of Lauderdale, and her beloved spaniel - former residents of the property who many visitors over the years claim to have seen wandering the halls centuries after their deaths.
Ed O'Mara Peterborough Today/The Evening telegraph 2009-07-02 16:03:00
Evening Telegraph readers are being asked for help to identify a collection of mysterious lights spotted in the night sky above Peterborough at the weekend.
Pensioner Joan Wilkinson claims she saw four "glowing globes" drifting silently across the sky before disappearing into the clouds at about 10.40pm on Saturday.
Mrs Wilkinson, of Linnet, in Orton Wistow, Peterborough, made the curious sighting between her home and nearby Paulsgrove while she was out walking in the area.
She said: "I was walking home from the bus stop when I happened to look up and there were what looked like four glowing globes all together in the sky, almost as though they were one single unit.
Date of Sighting: June 20, 2009
Time of Sighting: 10 PM CDT
Location of Sighting: About 10 Miles North of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (Few Miles N. of ND Border)
Description: I was wondering if anyone reported an object in the Manitoba skies. I spotted this in the western sky around 10:00 PM on June 20 at Birds Hill Park. An object traveled across the sky on a level plane at an extremely high speed. It seemed to change from a fiery to a silver color as it went by. This object was a great distance away. I have at least three other witnesses and we were wondering if there is any explanation.
The plot is beginning to thicken over the fabled 'Llanidloes Hum.'
No longer can it be traced to one source, as discovered this week when a Middletown reader contacted County Times to tell of his experiences.
Tony O'Leary, who read the story of Peter Danks' experiences of the hum, contacted us to say he too is suffering at the hands of this mysterious force: "It has been happening now for around two years," said Mr O'Leary, "There is a sort of quiet buzzing noise we can hear which comes and goes. I've heard it, and the fact that my kids and wife have also heard it means I'm not imagining it!"
Witness Statement: Me, my wife and children and friends were standing in the garden, we seen directly above us, it looked like a big black bin bag with a fire at the rear end. It was about as big as a helicopter and flew at a constant speed and height until it disappeared over the Manchester area. Can any one help explain what we saw, thanks.
Witness Statement: I had just woken up and stepped on to the balcony when I noticed a large orange shape in the distance. Initially I thought it was the moon partially hidden behind the clouds. However this bright orange diffuse light gradually became less diffuse forming a cigar shape. It then split gradually in two and then faded into just one shape again .
Ten days ago, on Friday, June 13th, 2008, I had the extraordinary privilege of talking to George Carlin. As far as I know it was the last in-depth interview he gave before he passed away yesterday at age 71. Originally it was slated to run as a 350-word Q&A on the back page of Psychology Today. But I was so excited to talk to him - and he was so generous with his time - that I just kept on going. By the end I had over 14,000 words.
On stage, George Carlin came across as a grouch, often vulgar and sometimes misanthropic. But with me he was patient and warm, happy to talk through the minutiae of his creative process and eager to share stories about his childhood, his evolution as a comic, and his influence. What struck me most was the joy in his voice as he talked about the wonderful feeling he got in his gut while writing. I was also moved by the gratitude he expressed for his mother, who he said "saved" him and his brother - leaving her bullying, alcoholic husband when George was just two months old, getting a job during the worst years of the Depression, and raising two boys on her own.
