House Approves Whitelist of People Who Aren’t Terrorists

The House overwhelmingly adopted legislation this week mandating the creation of a new kind of terrorist watchlist: a database of people who aren’t terrorists, but are routinely flagged at airports anyway.

The U.S. government maintains a list of about a million names of suspected terrorists that is crosschecked with passenger names ahead of airline boarding. The list has been dogged for years by sloppy name matches that have ensnared innocent travelers, children, prominent politicians and government officials, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ secretary of education and all men named David Nelson.

Under the new plan, approved late Tuesday 413-3, innocent victims of the terrorist watchlist must prove to the Department of Homeland Security, through an undetermined appeals process, that they are not terrorists. They would then get their names put on what the legislation calls the “Comprehensive Cleared List.”

The legislation is another attempt to assist wrongly flagged passengers and would supersede the troubled DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, which has been criticized for being slow or unresponsive to flier complaints.

The FAST Redress Act, if approved by the Senate, requires the government to report within 240 days on its progress in implementing the new list.

via House Approves Whitelist of People Who Aren’t Terrorists | Threat Level from Wired.com.

UFO Examiner: Mysterious creatures and UFO sightings baffle Pennsylvanians

Pennsylvania Ufologist Stan Gordon is reporting that UFO and other unusual strange incidents came in during 2008 from 50 counties – up from 37 counties the previous year. Giant birds – also known as Thunderbirds – Bigfoot and UFOs continue to be reported in the Keystone state.

Motorists in Wasgington County traveling along a major route in May pulled over to watch as a ”huge dark colored flying creature that looked more like a giant bat than a bird” was low flying as it passed over the cars.

A Warren County woman reported in May that a Bigfoot-like creature climbed onto her home deck as she watched from inside.

While a major increase in UFO reports were coming from the eastern end of the state this year, Gordon reports that many unusual stories from the western end of the state include spherical, disc-shaped, luminous objects and triangular-shaped objects. Multiple witnesses from several locations reported a glowing whtie object on Sept. 5. Two Elk County hunters first saw glowing lights in the woods on Oct. 5, and soon discovered a glowing human-like form standing about 3 feet tall. On the same date in Tioga County, a cigar-shaped object was spotted approaching from the north.

… There has been a history from Pennsylvania and other states of sightings of giant birds with enormous wingspans that are occasionally reported, and are commonly referred to as “thunderbirds.” In recent years, the reports of these huge flying creatures have increased. Rick Fisher of the Paranormal Society of Pennsylvania received a report which occurred in February at a rural location outside of Harrisburg. The driver of a vehicle, who was also an active hunter, saw a huge bird-like creature drop from the trees and approach his vehicle. The man stopped and got out to take a better look at the creature, which seemed to soar or glide without flapping its wings. He hesitantly told Rick that what he saw looked, “prehistoric almost.”

Researcher Jim Brown investigated an incident which occurred on the afternoon of May 20, on a major roadway in Washington County. Motorists reportedly pulled off the road to watch as a huge dark colored flying creature that looked more like a giant bat than a bird, circled low, and passed over some cars. One witness noticed that the wingspan extended beyond the edges of the two lane highway. One man was seen taking pictures of the giant flying creature. That person has never come forward.

via UFO Examiner: Mysterious creatures and UFO sightings baffle Pennsylvanians.

Obama’s Proposed Space Weapon Ban Draws Mixed Response

U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent pledge to seek a ban on space weapons drew a mixed reaction from experts in the field, with some saying the president might be better off pursuing something more modest and less complex, such as a set of international rules governing space operations.

Arms control advocates nonetheless applauded the statement as a welcome departure from the space policy stance of former President George W. Bush, who rejected the notion of banning or limiting space weapons via treaty arrangements.

“The Bush administration rejected space diplomacy,” said Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a think tank here. “We refused to negotiate on any subject that could limit U.S. military options. We have a shift from an administration that was very dismissive of multilateral negotiations [as a whole], to an administration that is open to that possibility if it improves U.S. national security.”

Soon after Obama was sworn in Jan. 20, the official White House Web site was updated with a set of policy guidelines including one on restoring U.S. leadership in space. Under the heading “Ensure Freedom of Space,” the statement said the White House would seek a ban on weapons that “interfere with military and commercial satellites”; assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best military and diplomatic means for countering them; and seek to assure U.S. access to space-based capabilities, in part by “accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.”

Obama’s campaign in 2008 outlined similar goals, saying an Obama administration would oppose putting weapons in space, seek rules of behavior for spacefaring nations and reduce the vulnerability of U.S. space capabilities.

The Bush administration generally opposed international accords that might tie the nation’s hands in space. The National Space Policy issued by the Bush White House in 2006 states in part that the “United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon during the past few years carried out or planned a number of experiments that critics charged were thinly veiled tests of space-based weapons. Early last year, with then-President Bush’s approval, the Pentagon downed a wayward U.S. spy satellite using a sea-based missile interceptor.  …

via SPACE.com — Obama’s Proposed Space Weapon Ban Draws Mixed Response.

New Mexico canyon dwellers were earliest in what is now US to use chocolate

Chocolate for your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day? Folks may be surprised to know how far back chocolate goes — perhaps 1,000 years in what is now the United States. Evidence of chocolate was been found in Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, N.M., the earliest indication of the tasty substance north of Mexico, Patricia L. Crown of the University of New Mexico and W. Jeffrey Hurst of the Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition report in Tuesday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Drinking chocolate was associated with a variety of rituals in ancient Central America, including weddings, but Crown said she is not sure of its exact uses in her area.

The discovery, dated to between A.D. 1000 and 1125, indicates trade was under way between the Chaco Canyon residents and cacao growers in Central America.

But the nearest cacao plantation would have been more than 1,000 miles away, so importing the material would have been a major undertaking, she said. Chocolate was probably something not consumed often, she said in a telephone interview.

It also probably tasted bitter compared with what is available today. Central Americans didn’t sweeten their chocolate and sometimes mixed in hot peppers.

via New Mexico canyon dwellers were earliest in what is now US to use chocolate.

New World Powers: George Friedman, ‘The Next 100 Years’

FORGET THE CHINESE LESSONS. Instead, you’d better start brushing up on your Polish.

In George Friedman’s “The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century” (Doubleday), the author predicts that Poland along with Turkey, Japan and Mexico, will become new world powers by the end of this century. We won’t be worrying ourselves over Russia or China, because those countries will have experienced a breakdown of power, much like the first collapse of communism. And the war against militant Islamists that has been the primary focus of our country for the past eight years? It’ll become a distant memory.

All this may seem outlandish, especially in the current climate of a reawakened Russia, the economic boom in China, and a military campaign that has spiraled out of control with no clear end in sight. But the author is no kook.

George Friedman has had a long career in political theory — he taught political science for more than 20 years, has briefed the armed services on national defense issues, and founded the private global intelligence company Stratfor, consultants to a number of Fortune 500 companies and foreign governments, which has been referred to as “the Shadow CIA.”

In his 2004 book, “American’s Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies” (Doubleday), Friedman took a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at what led up to the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent U.S.-led war on terror, our relationship with countries in the Middle East, and provided insights into political and military strategies that no one had before. His revelations were well received and established Friedman as the go-to guy for political analysis. It’s with this kind of background that Friedman can theorize that the “U.S. doesn’t need to win wars. It needs simply to disrupt things so the other side can’t build up sufficient strength to challenge it.”

Friedman’s strength lies in his ability to join the dots, which gives his predictions some heft no matter how crazy they might sound. Because, as he writes in “100 Years“: “… I suspect that the world we are living in today would have seemed far-fetched to someone living at the beginning of the twentieth century.”

So, apart from emerging new powers and the collapse of China and Russia, what else can we expect from the next century?

Friedman predicts that the world’s falling population figures and longer life expectancy are going to mean fiscal chaos for those of us born between 1970 and 1990. It could also mean that our country will be engaged in a fight to attract a declining global labor force. We are turning immigrants away from our borders but 20 years from now, Friedman says, we will be offering incentives such as a streamlined visa program and even bonuses to anyone who will come to work in the U.S.

Which brings up Friedman’s other big threat to U.S. interests — that of Mexico. Friedman asserts that by 2080, Mexico, because of its proximity to the U.S, and because a large part of our labor force will be settled from there, will become a threat to our national interests which will lead, he says, to “a serious confrontation between the United States and an increasingly powerful and assertive Mexico.” …

via Express Night Out | Arts & Events | New World Powers: George Friedman, ‘The Next 100 Years’.

NASA – Green Comet Approaches Earth

In 1996, a 7-year-old boy in China bent over the eyepiece of a small telescope and saw something that would change his life–a comet of flamboyant beauty, bright and puffy with an active tail. At first he thought he himself had discovered it, but no, he learned, two men named “Hale” and “Bopp” had beat him to it. Mastering his disappointment, young Quanzhi Ye resolved to find his own comet one day.

And one day, he did.

Fast forward to a summer afternoon in July 2007. Ye, now 19 years old and a student of meteorology at China’s Sun Yat-sen University, bent over his desk to stare at a black-and-white star field. The photo was taken nights before by Taiwanese astronomer Chi Sheng Lin on “sky patrol” at the Lulin Observatory. Ye’s finger moved from point to point–and stopped. One of the stars was not a star, it was a comet, and this time Ye saw it first.

Comet Lulin, named after the observatory in Taiwan where the discovery-photo was taken, is now approaching Earth. “It is a green beauty that could become visible to the naked eye any day now,” says Ye.

Amateur astronomer Jack Newton sends this photo from his backyard observatory in Arizona:

“My retired eyes still cannot see the brightening comet,” says Newton, “but my 14-inch telescope picked it up quite nicely on Feb. 1st.”

The comet makes its closest approach to Earth (0.41 AU) on Feb. 24, 2009. Current estimates peg the maximum brightness at 4th or 5th magnitude, which means dark country skies would be required to see it. No one can say for sure, however, because this appears to be Lulin’s first visit to the inner solar system and its first exposure to intense sunlight. Surprises are possible.

Lulin’s green color comes from the gases that make up its Jupiter-sized atmosphere. Jets spewing from the comet’s nucleus contain cyanogen (CN: a poisonous gas found in many comets) and diatomic carbon (C₂). Both substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight in the near-vacuum of space.

In 1910, many people panicked when astronomers revealed Earth would pass through the cyanogen-rich tail of Comet Halley. False alarm: The wispy tail of the comet couldn’t penetrate Earth’s dense atmosphere; even it if had penetrated, there wasn’t enough cyanogen to cause real trouble. Comet Lulin will cause even less trouble than Halley did. At closest approach in late February, Lulin will stop 38 million miles short of Earth, utterly harmless.

via NASA – Green Comet Approaches Earth.

Kansas high school coach told to stop hypnotizing team

After the St. John High School boys team had won the state basketball championship two years ago and was runner-up last year, the team went just 7-6 through last week.

So the coach tried something different: hypnotism. Most team members underwent two 45-minute sessions last week to increase their concentration and focus. It’s not clear what happened during the sessions; the therapist who led them wouldn’t say, and the coach did not return phone calls. Monday night, the school board voted to stop the sessions.

“It won’t be going on any more at school,” said superintendent James Kenworthy. “If parents want their child to do that, they can contact the licensed therapist on their own.” Hypnotizing students perhaps sends the wrong message to students and surrounding schools, said Kenworthy, who has requested a transcript of the sessions. “At the high school level, it’s not appropriate. We are trying to get kids to understand who they are and what they are. It may give kids a mixed message if you can’t do it on your own.”

Winning basketball teams are a tradition in St. John, a town of 1,200 about 90 miles northwest of Wichita. Kenworthy said the hypnotism of the Class 1A team has been the talk of the town. Coach Clint Kinnamon had sought the help of Carl Feril, a Church of Christ minister who is also a clinical family and marriage therapist. Feril would not discuss what happened during the team’s sessions, saying his was a privileged therapist/client relationship.

via Kansas high school coach told to stop hypnotizing team – Kansas City Star.

Shooting victim spits out bullet

No arrests have been made in the case of a city man who was shot in the face Monday.

Police continued their investigation on Tuesday despite being unable to take a formal statement from the victim, who remained hospitalized in Camden.

Richard Jamison, 22, of Colfax Street, was shot at around 2:20 p.m. Monday, at a location that eventually was identified as the intersection of Garfield Avenue and Spruce Street.

Police said Jamison was involved in an altercation with at least two other people before one of the assailants fired a single shot from a handgun.

“It was some distance between the two,” Bridgeton Police Det. Lt. Michael Gaimari said of Jamison and the shooter.

Still, investigators are certain the shooter was aiming for Jamison, Gaimari said.

The bullet pierced Jamison’s right cheek, then struck his tongue. Jamison spit out the bullet, according to police.

Jamison had been upgraded to stable condition by Tuesday afternoon, Gaimari said.

An unidentified person drove Jamison to South Jersey Healthcare-Bridgeton Health Center for treatment before police arrived on the scene. Jamison was transferred to Cooper University Hospital, where he initially was listed in critical but stable condition.

Jamison reportedly began banging on the doors of Fremont Avenue homes seeking help after he was shot.

via Shooting victim spits out bullet – NJ.com.

The photo is from a story of a many who caught a bullet with his false teeth. He also spit out a bullet:

“The next thing I knew was something hit my false tooth and I spat out the hot lead. It hurt like hell but we’re both still alive.”

UFO spotted opposite Houses of Parliament

The number of UFO sightings logged with the Ministry of Defence more than doubled to 285 last year, a rise described as “phenomenal” by experts. It is the highest number of sightings in 10 years.

All the incidents are included in a document released by the MoD yesterday, which details the date, time and location of the sightings, along with a brief summary of the eyewitness reports.

The Palace of Westminster sighting on Feb 12 is described as follows: “There was a craft that had green, red and white lights. It was still and static in the sky. It was seen for about an hour and a half.” There is no information about who reported the UFO or what it may have been.

The MoD only investigates reports of unidentified flying objects that it considers may pose a risk to national security, and most of the incidents seem just to have been logged and ignored. One UFO, in the skies over Stroud in Gloucestershire on June 2, is recorded only as “a sighting of something”.

Many of the sightings read like the products of overactive imaginations. In Scarborough, North Yorkshire on June 11 a member of the public reported seeing “a cork shaped object that glowed like an angel, flew up and over some trees”.

Others are strikingly specific, like this description of a UFO seen near Blackpool in Lancashire on Sept 8: “An object, the shape of a chewing gum pack, black in colour and had three circles of lights underneath it, emitting a dull orange light. Was about 150 feet long and 50 feet wide.”

Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFOs for the MoD in the 1990s and is now one of the country’s leading UFO authorities, said that the doubling of sightings was “statistically extremely significant.” In 2007 there were 135 reported sightings, and just 97 in 2006.

via UFO spotted opposite Houses of Parliament – Telegraph.

Did Israel use “cancer bombs” in recent Gaza attack?

Doctors treating survivors of Israel’s recent attack on Gaza say they have never seen certain kinds of injuries before: a Norwegian doctor described wounds that appear to have been caused by a mine detonating – yet there is no shrapnel. A German doctor treating survivors in southern Gaza says that tiny particles can be found eating away at organs, rendering treatment ineffective. So what kind of weapon caused these injuries? Conn Hallinan is an analyst at Foreign Policy in Focus, and next week, he will publish a piece outlining what he says is Israel’s use of so-called “focused lethality” weapons – that is, a type of weapon that causes shattering injuries on its victims with minimal explosive damage. Israel has so far denied allegations that it’s used these focused lethality weapons. It also initially denied using white phosphorus during its recent incursion into Gaza – citing their adherence to international law. Israel was later forced to admit that they did, in fact, use the devise after eye-witness accounts confirmed it. In this FSRN exclusive, Hallinan talks about the destruction the weapon causes.

via Did Israel use “cancer bombs” in recent Gaza attack?–15:44 minute version | FSRN.

I hope this story turns out to be false. Humans have disgusted me so many times tonight as I read and avoided posting various gross and depressing accounts of brutality around the planet.  There is still plenty of good, if you look, but a showdown of self-loathing is brewing. The fighting in Gaza is, after all, only humans hating and killing other humans.