Amazing footage of East Creek near Chalk Drive / Chalk Lane rising and washing away lots of cars during Flash Flood in Toowoomba on Monday 10 January 2011. This is some of the best footage I have seen of the Flood and was taken from the second floor of our office which backs onto Chalk Lane.

It shows just how fast the creek turned into a torrent and quickly flooded Chalk Drive and Chalk Lane.

I also got some video of where the creek crosses Neil Street and some video of the aftermath and the huge amount of cars damaged and piled on top of one another in the Chalk Drive car park.

In 2001, Pakistani soldiers captured Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi as he fled Afghanistan. The Pakistani government turned the Libyan paramilitary trainer affiliated with al Qaeda over to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency requested permission to take al-Libi instead and send him to another country - Egypt - for interrogation, permission the Bush administration granted. While undergoing interrogation - potentially of the "enhanced" variety that includes prolonged sleep or sensory deprivation or painful body positions, among other treatments - al-Libi revealed that Iraq had been providing al Qaeda with training in making weapons of mass destruction.

What al-Libi revealed was false, and a trio of physicians now points to this case as an example of how torture provides information of "questionable reliability," in the January 6 issue of Science.

In fact, the doctors, from Physicians for Human Rights and the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, argue that science has proven that torture is an unreliable method for obtaining accurate information. In support of their claim, they cite a review paper published in Trends in Cognitive Science in September 2009 by neuroscientist Shane O'Mara of Trinity College in Dublin. Dr. Vincent Iacopino and his colleagues also argue in the latest essay that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" employed by the CIA and explicitly authorized by the Bush administration constitute torture.

Food inflation is here and it's here to stay. We can see it getting worse every time we buy groceries. Basic food commodities like wheat, corn, soybeans, and rice have been skyrocketing since July, 2010 to record highs. These sustained price increases are only expected to continue as food production shortfalls really begin to take their toll this year and beyond.

This summer Russia banned exports of wheat to ensure their nation's supply, which sparked complaints of protectionism. The U.S. agriculture community is already talking about rationing corn over ethanol mandates versus supply concerns. We've seen nothing yet in terms of food protectionism.

Global food shortages have forced emergency meetings at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization where they claim "urgent action" is needed. They point to extreme weather as the main contributing factor to the growing food shortages. However, commodity speculation has also been targeted as one of the culprits.

Test Was Designed by Psychologist Who Inspired CIA's Torture Program

An experimental, Army mental-health, fitness initiative designed by the same psychologist whose work heavily influenced the psychological aspects of the Bush administration's torture program is under fire by civil rights groups and hundreds of active-duty soldiers. They say it unconstitutionally requires enlistees to believe in God or a "higher power" in order to be deemed "spiritually fit" to serve in the Army.

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a $125 million "holistic fitness program" unveiled in late 2009 and aimed at reducing the number of suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, which have reached epidemic proportions over the past year due to multiple deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the substandard care soldiers have received when they return from combat. The Army states that it can accomplish its goal by teaching its service members how to be psychologically resilient and resist "catastrophizing" traumatic events. Defense Department documents obtained by Truthout state CSF is Army Chief of Staff George Casey's "third highest priority."

CSF is comprised of the Soldier Fitness Tracker and Global Assessment Tool, which measures soldiers' "resilience" in five core areas: emotional, physical, family, social and spiritual. Soldiers fill out an online survey made up of more than 100 questions, and if the results fall into a red area, they are required to participate in remedial courses in a classroom or online setting to strengthen their resilience in the disciplines in which they received low scores. The test is administered every two years. More than 800,000 Army soldiers have taken it thus far.

But for the thousands of "Foxhole Atheists" like 27-year-old Sgt. Justin Griffith, the spiritual component of the test contains questions written predominantly for soldiers who believe in God or another deity, meaning nonbelievers are guaranteed to score poorly and will be forced to participate in exercises that use religious imagery to "train" soldiers up to a satisfactory level of spirituality.

On New Year's Day, a devastating terrorist bombing at a Coptic church in Egypt killed 21 people and injured 79 others. Although the identity of the culprits was not known, it was assumed that they were Muslim extremists, intent on targeting those they saw as heretics. Religious tensions immediately rose in the country, and angry Copts stormed streets, battled with police, and even vandalized a nearby mosque. The riots and heightened tensions between the Muslim and Coptic communities was likely what the terrorists wanted - to divide the Egyptian community and create sectarian strife between different religious groups.

Yet by Coptic Christmas Eve, which took place Thursday night in Egypt, things had changed completely. As Egyptian Copts attended mass at churches across the country, "thousands" of Muslims, including "the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak," joined them, acting as "human shields" to protect from terrorist attacks by extremists. The Muslims organized under the slogan "We either live together, or we die together," inspired by Mohamed El-Sawy, an Egyptian artist:

Egypt's majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside. From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as "human shields" for last night's mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

"We either live together, or we die together," was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the "human shield" idea. Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole. "This is not about us and them," said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. "We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together."

One of psychology's most respected journals has agreed to publish a paper presenting what its author describes as strong evidence for extrasensory perception, the ability to sense future events.

The decision may delight believers in so-called paranormal events, but it is already mortifying scientists. Advance copies of the paper, to be published this year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, have circulated widely among psychological researchers in recent weeks and have generated a mixture of amusement and scorn.

The paper describes nine unusual lab experiments performed over the past decade by its author, Daryl J. Bem, an emeritus professor at Cornell, testing the ability of college students to accurately sense random events, like whether a computer program will flash a photograph on the left or right side of its screen. The studies include more than 1,000 subjects.

Medical journal: Study linking autism, vaccines is 'elaborate fraud' ... A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines is an "elaborate fraud," according to a medical journal -- a charge the physician behind the study vigorously denies. The British medical journal BMJ, which published the results of its investigation, concluded Dr. Andrew Wakefield misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible. The journalist who wrote the BMJ articles said Thursday he believes Wakefield should face criminal charges. However, Wakefield said his work has been "grossly distorted." Speaking on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, he said Wednesday he is the target of "a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns." The medical publication says the study has done long-lasting damage to public health. - CNN

Dominant Social Theme: Vaccines are safe. Period. And those who deny it are criminals.

Free-Market Analysis: Dr. Wakefield's journey into medical purgatory continues. He initially co-authored a study back in 1998 that suggested that a link between autism and vaccines deserved further study. Since then his views have hardened. He has been outspoken about the dangers of giving children so many vaccines in early childhood - by some estimates up to 35 vaccines before a child is five years old. His arguments have found fertile soil, with both parents and Dr. Wakefield suggesting that children with compromised immune systems - or even children with a certain genetic profile - ought to forego an aggressive vaccination schedules.

The idea of bombarding the young body with so many faux-illnesses over such a short period of time is probably bound to generate certain side-effects in certain children - or at least this seems to be a reasonable perspective. Doctors in private may admit to this possibility, yet Big Pharma, behind the vaccine industry, seems unable to countenance the perspective that vaccines are in any way responsible for any side-effects at all. The idea that a single one-size-fits-all medical treatment has NO untoward effects EVER seems a somewhat doctrinaire view, but it is the one that some in the field, including the pharmaceutical industry itself, continue to advance.

The last four months of 2010, nearly 500 earthquakes rattled Guy, Arkansas.^[1] The entire state experienced 38 quakes in 2009.^[2] The spike in quake frequency precedes and coincides with the 100,000 dead fish on a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River that included Roseville Township on December 30. The next night, 5,000 red-winged blackbirds and starlings dropped dead out of the sky in Beebe.^[3] Hydraulic fracturing is the most likely culprit for all three events, as it causes earthquakes with a resultant release of toxins into the environment.^[4]

A close look at Arkansas' history of earthquakes and drilling reveals a shocking surge in quake frequency following advanced drilling. The number of quakes in 2010 nearly equals all of Arkansas' quakes for the entire 20th century. The oil and gas industry denies any correlation, but the advent of hydrofracking followed by earthquakes is a story repeated across the nation. It isn't going to stop any time soon, either. Fracking has gone global.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) pumps water and chemicals into the ground at a pressurized rate exceeding what the bedrock can withstand, resulting in a microquake that produces rock fractures. Though initiated in 1947, technological advances now allow horizontal fracturing, vastly increasing oil and gas collection.^[5] In 1996, shale-gas production in the U.S. accounted for 2 percent of all domestic natural gas production, reports Christopher Bateman in Vanity Fair. "Some industry analysts predict shale gas will represent a full half of total domestic gas production within 10 years."^[6] In 2000, U.S. gas reserve estimates stood at 177 trillion cubic feet, but ramped up to 245 tcf in 2008. These new technologies prompt experts to increase global gas reserve estimates ninefold.^[7]

The Obama administration said Monday that 13 companies whose deepwater drilling activities were suspended last year may be able to resume drilling without detailed environmental reviews.

The companies - including Chevron USA Inc. and Shell Offshore Inc. - will be allowed to resume work at previously drilled wells, as long as they meet new policies and regulations, officials said.

"For those companies that were in the midst of operations at the time of the deepwater suspensions [last spring], today's notification is a significant step toward resuming their permitted activity," said Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

The decision is a victory for the drilling companies, which in the past had routinely won broad waivers from rules requiring detailed environmental studies. After the disastrous BP spill in April, the Obama administration pledged it would require companies to complete environmental reviews before being allowed to drill for oil.

If an asteroid were on a collision course with Earth, would we be ready to defend against its destructive impact or would we be helpless and defenseless?

NASA, America's space agency, is being charged with leading the way to protect not only the U.S. but the entire world in the event of such a horrifying scenario. And a top White House science adviser says we have to be prepared.

In separate 10-page letters to the House Committee on Science and Technology and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP, outlines plans for "(A) protecting the United States from a near-Earth object that is expected to collide with Earth; and (B) implementing a deflection campaign, in consultation with international bodies, should one be necessary."