SOTT Focus:


Better Earth

SOTT Focus: Thirty Years of Cults and Comets



©Unknown
Comet of 1532


This morning I was thumbing through a newly arrived book: Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society, published by the eminent scientific publishing house, Springer, edited by Peter T. Bobrowsky and Hans Rickman. This book is a collection of scientific papers presented at a workshop under the aegis of the International Council for Science. In the introduction, we read:
The International Council for Science recently recognized that the societal implications (social, cultural, political and economic) of a comet/asteroid impact on Earth warrants an immediate consideration by all countries in the world.
Wow! You think? You mean it's not just us here at SOTT (and a few others on the net) who are keeping track of the increasing number of Fireballs and Meteorites that suggest we are passing through rather dangerous areas of space, or that maybe Something Wicked This Way Comes?

Yes, it seems so. In the chapter entitled "Social Perspectives on Comet/Asteroid Imact (CAI) Hazards: Technocratic Authority and the Geography of Social Vulnerability" we read:
Until quite recently, research into comet and asteroid hazards was focused on establishing the scale and scope of past impacts, credible estimates of their recurrence, and models for physical impact scenarios. ... CAI hazards have moved well beyond the realm of ungrounded speculation and apocalyptic visions. The results represent more than just new findings. They revolutionize, or are about to revolutionize, some basic understandings about the Earth, its history, biological evolution and future. Although human life has had a tiny place in the story so far, our longer term fate seems to be challenged by these forces and may be decided by them.
No kidding.

In a chapter entitled "Social Science and Near-Earth Objects: an Inventory of Issues", we read:
It would have been ridiculous, not too long ago, to admit openly that you were thinking about asteroids and comets slamming into the Earth. Such events could mean the end of the world as we know it - TEOTWAWKI as millenialists call it - and that kind of talk is often ridiculed. ...

Respectable people are pondering the issues. For example, S. Pete Worden, who is a Brigadier General in the US Air Force and Deputy Director for Command and Control Headquarters at the Pentagon, has said that he believes "we should pay more attention to the 'Tunguska-class' objects - 100 meter or so objects which can strike up to several times per century with the destructiveness of a nuclear weapon."
I located the General's comments and they are now in the SOTT database. It seems that the above is not all the general said. In fact, he states quite unequivocally:
I can show people evidence of real strikes inflicting local and regional damage less than a century ago. Even more compelling are the frequent kiloton-level detonations our early warning satellites see in the earth's atmosphere. ... Within the United States space community there is a growing concern over "space situational awareness."
The general was writing back in 2000. "Less than a century ago." That would be after 1900. He said that there were "real strikes inflicting local and regional damage" since 1900?!

Did I miss something? Did all of us miss something?

Comment: Continue to Part Six: Comet Biela and Mrs. O'Leary's Cow


Magic Wand

SOTT Focus: The Disappeared: SOTT.net and Google's conspicuous omissions

google censored
Google omitting SOTT.net from search results?

A few days ago one of our readers brought this curious detail to our attention. While searching for an article on Google, they discovered a problem with results from SOTT.net being consistently omitted from Google listings.


Calculator

SOTT Focus: Survival in Times of Uncertainty: Growing Up in Russia in the 1990s



"Dacha"

News about political upheavals, signs of impending economic disaster or projected natural catastrophes tend to generate strong 'fight or flight' emotional reactions in readers. We want to sell all we own, run for the hills and barricade ourselves in a fully stocked compound - preferably one with a bomb and meteorite shelter attached to it.

Major changes to our lifestyle are inevitable; yet the time frame and the exact way the changes will occur are uncertain, which only adds to our stress. I grew up in Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the accompanying economic upheaval, i.e., during the time of high uncertainty. I was 10 when the Perestroika started in 1985. The economic situation got progressively worse, with the very worst hitting in the early 90-s. I admit I don't remember things as well as I should have. Psychologically and physically, I was sheltered by my age and its petty egotistical concerns, by my parents' effort to provide for the family, and by living in a close-knit community that had a lot of strength, spirit and intellectual resources. Now that I think about it though, memories and conclusions are coming up that I never thought about. Some of them are unexpected and counterintuitive to the prevailing survivalist mentality; but they may be relevant to the coming changes and end up being useful to someone.

USA

SOTT Focus: Good Times, Bad Times 3: The USA and the Hysteroidal Cycle



©Unknown

We have looked at the cycle of good times and bad times that affects nations and countries, known as the Hysteroidal Cycle. The cycle gets its name from the similarities between the psychological state known as hysteria that affects individuals and the psychological state of a society during the course of the hysteroidal cycle.

You have probably noticed that certain aspects of American society are becoming more and more hysterical. One of the most noticeable is the overreaction of police, using extreme measures for very ordinary incidents. Some of the following come to mind:
  • A woman from Iceland on a shopping trip to New York City is arrested and humiliated for a visa violation in 1995.
  • A man in a pizza place in Boston gets the SWAT team called in on him because he looked "jittery". Turns out he was executive director of Geneva-based U.N. Watch, Hillel Neuer.
  • Drivers are being tasered for taking too long to get out of their cars when stopped for traffic violations. One man was recently killed by a taser in Minnesota.
  • But that hasn't stopped people from having taser parties and they can now get a holster that doubles as a mp3 player.
  • A mother was shot and killed in her own home as she held her one year old child in her arms.

Better Earth

SOTT Focus: Wars, Pestilence and Witches



©Unknown

It was a warm, clear afternoon in the capital. The bustle of metropolitan commerce and tourism filled the streets. Small sailing vessels dotted the sheltered waters within sight of the government buildings, riding on a soft southerly breeze. The Sun sparkled on the gentle swells and wakes, lending a luminous glow to the poppies and tulips nodding in the parks along the water's edge. All was in order.

But suddenly, the sky brightened as if with a second, more brilliant Sun. A second set of shadows appeared; at first long and faint, they shortened and sharpened rapidly. A strange hissing, humming sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. Thousands craned their necks and looked upwards, searching the sky for the new Sun. Above them a tremendous white fireball blossomed, like the unfolding of a vast paper flower, but now blindingly bright. For several seconds the fierce fireball dominated the sky, shaming the Sun. The sky burned white-hot, then slowly faded through yellow and orange to a glowering copper-red. The awful hissing ceased. The onlookers, blinded by the flash, burned by its searing heat, covered their eyes and cringed in terror. Occupants of offices and apartments rushed to their windows, searching the sky for the source of the brilliant flare that had lit their rooms. A great blanket of turbulent, coppery cloud filled half the sky overhead. For a dozen heartbeats the city was awestruck, numbed and silent.

Comment: Continue to Part Five: Thirty Years of Cults and Comets


Vader

SOTT Focus: Provoking Stupidity and Violence: Hal Turner outed as Agent Provocateur



©Unknown

Dave Neiwert at Orincus recently wrote a blog post describing how rabid, right-wing talk show host Hal Turner was outed as an FBI agent when hackers found incriminating emails on his server. Neiwert cites a report from the SPLC that says in part:
On Jan. 1, unidentified hackers electronically confronted Turner in the forum of his website for "The Hal Turner Show." After a heated exchange, they told Turner that they had successfully hacked into his server and found correspondence with an FBI agent who is apparently Turner's handler. Then they posted an alleged July 7 E-mail to the agent in which Turner hands over a message from someone who sent in a death threat against Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.). "Once again," Turner writes to his handler, "my fierce rhetoric has served to flush out a possible crazy." In what is allegedly a portion of another E-mail, Turner discusses the money he is paid.

On Thursday, as the E-mail exchange was heatedly discussed on a major neo-Nazi website, Turner suddenly announced he was quitting political work. "I hereby separate from the 'pro-White' movement," he said, adding that he was ending his radio show immediately. "I will no longer involve myself in any aspect of it."

Comment: Apparently an article that Google does not want you to read on SOTT.net. Try Goolging a small section of text from the above in "quotes" and as if by magic, the original source here at SOTT.net is seemingly nowhere to be found! (To find the SOTT.net original dig a few pages into "repeat the search with the omitted results included.")

Click for larger view.




Propaganda

SOTT Focus: SOTT Responds to Damian Thompson: Lies, damn lies and 'counterknowledge'

Outright fiction is being peddled as historical and scientific fact, warns Damian Thompson in an extract from his provocative new book

George Bush planned the September 11 attacks. The MMR injection triggers autism in children. The ancient Greeks stole their ideas from Africa. "Creation science" disproves evolution. Homeopathy can defeat the Aids virus.

Do any of these theories sound familiar? Has someone bored you rigid at a dinner party by unveiling one of these "secrets"? If so, it is hardly surprising. In recent years, thousands of bizarre conjectures have been endorsed by leading publishers, taught in universities, plugged in newspapers, quoted by politicians and circulated in cyberspace.

This is counterknowledge: misinformation packaged to look like fact. We are facing a pandemic of credulous thinking. Ideas that once flourished only on the fringes are now taken seriously by educated people in the West, and are wreaking havoc in the developing world.


Comment: Outright fiction is being peddled as historical and scientific fact, warns SOTT, in their provocative daily news website.

A lone madman in a cave planned the September 11 attacks. State-imposed vaccines are infallibly safe. Western civilisation is healthily altruistic. Modern science is immune to dogma, egotism and conflicts of interest. Hijacking of the health service by pharmaceutical giants is all 'for your own good'.

Do any of these theories sound familiar? Has the BBC bored you rigid by repeatedly unveiling this "secret" propaganda. If so, it is hardly surprising. In recent years, thousands of bizarre conjectures have been endorsed by leading publishers, taught in universities, plugged in newspapers, quoted by politicians and circulated in cyberspace.

This is COINTELPRO: misinformation packaged to look like fact. We are facing a pandemic of credulous thinking. Ideas that once flourished only in the minds of some power-crazed politician or behind the closed board room doors of some corporate giant, are now taken seriously by educated people in the West, and are wreaking havoc across the world.


Magnify

SOTT Focus: Would The Real War Criminals Please Stand Up



Diamonds are a spooks best friend

Charles Taylor, Liberian President for 6 years until 2003, is currently on trial for international war crimes at a U.N.-backed special court in the Hague. Those that facilitated his crimes will not be there.

Taylor seized the presidency in 1998 after an appalling eight-year campaign of terror. Taylor is accused of orchestrating rape, murder, mutilation and recruitment of child soldiers during the 1991-2002 civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Some of the harrowing testimony has been provided by Alex Tamba Teh. Teh claims that he saw a rebel commander from Liberia called "Rocky" shoot 101 people:

"After he killed the civilians... he gave the instruction that they should be decapitated. Rocky gave the order to the small boy units"

Tamba Teh recounted how child soldiers rounded on one child and chopped off his hand, then his arm, then both his feet, before tossing him into a toilet pit. In all somewhere between 75,000 and 200,000 Sierra Leoneans were killed (estimates vary) with many more suffering mutilations and around 2 million left homeless.

Question

SOTT Focus: The Third Force In Kenya

What do John Kerry, Israeli businessmen, the state of Israel, the 2002 bombing of the Mombasa Paradise Hotel in Kenya and Kenyan gold mines have in common?

Find out below:

Better Earth

SOTT Focus: The Hazard to Civilization from Fireballs and Comets

Image
© SVM Clube
Having recently written a review of New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection by dendrochronologist Mike Baillie of Queen's University, Belfast, Ireland, I decided to go deeper into the subject. Over the past few weeks a whole case of books I ordered have been arriving and getting piled on my desk after a quick thumb-through... so much to do, so little time.

In the meantime, a friend of mine (who is a climate scientist at a major U.S. research facility) turned me on to an interesting find, a paper addressed to the European Office of Aerospace Research and development, dated June 4, 1996, entitled: "The Hazard to Civilization from Fireballs and Comets" by S.V.M. Clube. (For the uninitiated, Clube is an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford).

In this short (4 pages) letter and summary statement, Clube writes (emphases in the original, make of them what you will):
Asteroids which pass close to the Earth have been fully recognized by mankind for only about 20 years. Previously, the idea that substantial unobserved objects might be close enough to be a potential hazard to the Earth was treated with as much derision as the unobserved aether. Scientists of course are in business to establish broad principles (eg relativity) and the Earth's supposedly uneventful, uniformitarian environment was already very much in place. The result was that scientists who paid more than lip service to objects close enough to encounter the Earth did so in an atmosphere of barely disguised contempt. Even now, it is difficult for laymen to appreciate the enormity of the intellectual blow with which most of the Body Scientific has recently been struck and from which it is now seeking to recover.

Comment: Continue to Part Three: Cosmic Turkey Shoot