Conspiracy Theories Behind Those Cut Undersea Cables

Reports that a fifth undersea communications cable in the Middle East has been damaged in less than a week � further compromising Internet access in countries there, and knocking Iran off the grid entirely � are triggering wild conspiracy theories about who�s at fault, from Islamic extremists to the CIA. But BizTech readers can proceed with global business as planned: the reports aren�t true.So says Stephan Beckert, research director at TeleGeography, who studies these cables for a living. (Yes, there�s a chance Beckert is part of some vast conspiracy, but in this blog�s opinion, he knows what he�s talking about.) Beckert tells the Business Technology Blog that he hasn�t heard anything about a fifth cable from his sources in the industry and that the newspaper that reported the outage, the Khaleej Times in the United Arab Emirates, seems to have double counted two of the cables and missed a fourth one entirely. Beckert also tells us that one of the cut cables wasn�t cut at all � it�s down because of a power outage. And while Iran is experiencing Internet slowdowns just like the rest of the Middle East, it isn�t off line. (This site seems to be working fine.)Beckert says that the most likely explanation is that a fishing boat damaged the cables by catching them in its net or that a ship accidentally cut them with its anchor � these are responsible for 65% and 18% of cable problems respectively. The first two cables were only 400 yards apart, suggesting that they were damaged in the same incident. �It might have been sharks with laser beams on their heads but I�m guessing it�s not,� says Beckert. Viewed this way, it�s two incidents in a week, which is higher than average but not unusual � last year their were 50 damaged cables in the Atlantic alone.What about other conspiracy theories? Beckert doesn�t understand why the U.S. military would cut the cables, seeing as its service men in the Gulf use them to communicate with their families. And a lone saboteur is out of the question because the cables are �awfully deep for a wet suit.� And he�s ruling out Islamic extremists who want to disconnect the Middle East from the rest of the world. �All it�s done is demonstrate how tied to the rest of the world they are,� he says. That leaves an accident. Or those laser-equipped sharks.

… There�s some disagreement over how many cables have been cut: Beckert says it�s three; most news reports put it at four or five; this guy says it�s at least nine (although he�s also written books about alien-inhabited undersea bases, which we suppose also explains how the cables are getting cut.)

The other day we wrote that the most likely explanation was an errant boat anchor. And, indeed, we�ve just received word that Flag Telecom, which operates the cable that was cut between Dubai and Oman, found an abandoned five-ton anchor at the scene. We did allow that there was a chance � albeit slight � that the cables were cut by sharks with laser beams on their heads. But by and large, our goal was to persuade people to take off the tinfoil.

That didn�t stop BizTech readers from contributing conspiracy theories of their own. There were some obvious ones � the CIA, Mossad, Islamic terrorists � and some that we hadn�t thought of � Godzilla, Gamera and the monster from Cloverfield. Our favorite theory: �The citizens of Atlantis are pissed off about pollution, overfishing, and destruction of undersea habitat, and they aren�t going to take it any more!�

Source: WSJ

one off of Marseille, France
two off of Alexandria, Egypt
one off of Dubai, in the Persian Gulf
one off of Bandar Abbas, Iran in the Persian Gulf
one between Qatar and the UAE, in the Persian Gulf
one in the Suez, Egypt
one near Penang, Malaysia
initially unreported cable cut on 23 January 2008 (Persian Gulf?)

Source: GodLikeProductions

Why Parents Eat Their Young, Especially the Big Ones

Kids taking too long to grow up? Just eat ‘em.When offspring don’t move out from home, humans might gently encourage their children to leave, but sand goby fathers might devour them.

These new findings shed light on why parents might cannibalize their own young.

A wide range of animals gobbles their own kids � polar bears, burying beetles, hamsters, wolf spiders and a range of fish species. Such actions are puzzling, given all the time and energy that goes into producing offspring that are supposed to continue one’s genetic legacy.

To further understand why such cannibalism might happen, scientists focused on the sand goby (Pomatoschistus minutus), a fish in which the males alone take care of the eggs.

“Overall, dad does a pretty good job of taking care of the eggs, except for one thing � he tends to eat about a third of them,” said researcher Hope Klug, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Helsinki in Finland. “Based on previous work in this species, we know that the males aren’t just doing this because they’re hungry � even when they have excess food, they continue to eat a really large number of their own eggs.” …

The scientists found the males preferred to eat larger eggs � which take longer to hatch � from the second female they spawned with. They conjecture the fish do so to cut down on the amount of time spent caring for their young, thereby enabling the dads to reenter the mating game sooner.

Sand goby dads have to care for thousands of eggs “until they hatch � about one to two weeks � and during this time he isn’t able to attract any new females,” Klug explained. Eating his young might “allow him to increase the total number of offspring he produces over the breeding season.” …

Source: LiveSci

It’s Not Unusual to … Insure Your Chest Hair?

When you’ve got a valuable asset attached you your body, it definitely makes sense to get some insurance. Surgeons insure their hands; professional runners insure their feet. And Tom Jones, the aging “heartbreaker” who croons to little old ladies in Vegas, insures his chest hair.That’s right, Lloyd’s of London gave him a policy worth almost $7 million to make sure his follicles stay put.

“Admittedly, this is one of the most obscure requests I’ve had — but I still came up with a wording that addressed the need,” underwriter John Thomas is quoted as saying.

In the past, Lloyd’s has insured other celebrities’ body parts, including Keith Richards’ fingers and Jennifer Lopez’s booty.

But if you don’t have the cash to insure that love rug on your man-cleavage, we’ve come across some tips for keeping yours in shape, after the jump.

According to Isabella Snow, there’s definitely some value in keeping your pelt in primo condition. She suggests that you trim the hair, but not shave or wax your chest.

“If you really want to highlight your chest, the best way is to bring the hair in line,” she writes. “All you need to do is trim it. Keep in mind, if you trim it too much, it will not look natural. The idea is to maintain it without making it look like you put too much effort into it.”

Source: Asylum

If only evil didn’t pay

UFO in Stephenville, Texas on Elvis’ Birthday

…Beginning in 1947 with reports of a crashed spaceship in Roswell, New Mexico, the public curiosity about extraterrestrial visitors to our planet has grown into a global phenomenon. …

On the evening of January 8, 2008, dozens of people observed a mysterious phenomenon in the skies above the small farming community of Stephenville, Texas. Eyewitnesses throughout the town and its suburbs saw impossibly bright lights of red, yellow, blue, and brilliant white that glowed, danced and flashed before rocketing away at incredible speeds. The lights spanned huge distances, and they seemed to originate from a curiously low altitude for an aircraft. The entire event was eerily silent. A few recall observing military jets resembling F-16s trailing after them, into the darkness.

Two days later, after the Stephenville Empire-Tribune ran a front page story with the headline “Possible UFO sighting”, the otherworldly lightshow was the talk of the town. Reporter Angelia Joiner spoke with four area residents who witnessed something supremely odd while taking in a tranquil sunset over suburban Selden. As dusk closed in, the friends were startled to notice an array of intensely bright flashing lights in the distance, several thousand feet in the air. Steve Allen, a seasoned pilot, offers a detailed account of the events:

“The ship wasn’t really visible and was totally silent, but the lights spanned about a mile long and a half mile wide”. The lights went from corner to corner. It was directly above Highway 67 traveling towards Stephenville at a high rate of speed ” about 3,000 miles per hour is what I would estimate.”

As they stared on in disbelief, the lights suddenly shifted configuration from one long horizontal row to two vertical groups. “Then they turned into dirty burning flames,” Allen continues. “The flames were not blue. They were white in color. About two seconds later it disappeared completely.”

As the friends puzzled over what they had just seen, the lights reappeared ten minutes later moving across the sky to the east, this time pursued by a pair of military jets. Bewildered by the incident, they got in touch with the town paper to share their story. Before long, other Stephenville area residents began to come forward with their own reports of inexplicable lights in the sky that same evening. Joiner followed up the next day with an article titled “Mysterious sightings keep locals guessing”, quoting four additional eyewitnesses including a county constable and an ex-Air Force serviceman.

Alongside striking similarities in their descriptions of extremely fast-moving, intensely bright lights, the humbled observers share a sense that whatever was behind this luminous phenomenon defies simple explanations.

“It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” says Dublin Constable Lee Roy Gaitan. “It started moving towards Stephenville and moving so fast I had trouble following it with my binoculars. It covered a big area.”

Source: RealitySandwich