More Hacktivism: 9/11 Pager data, where are the UFO leaks?

From 3AM on Wednesday November 25, 2009, until 3AM the following day (US east coast time), WikiLeaks is releasing over half a million US national text pager intercepts. The intercepts cover a 24 hour period surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

The messages are being broadcast to the global community “live”, sychronized to the time of day they were sent. The first message is from 3AM September 11, 2001, five hours before the first attack, and the last, 24 hours later.

Text pagers are usualy carried by persons operating in an official capacity. Messages in the archive range from Pentagon and New York Police Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults to their operators as the World Trade Center collapsed.

The archive is a completely objective record of the defining moment of our time. We hope that its revelation will lead to a more nuanced understanding of the event and its tragic consequences.

An index of messages released so far is available here.

Twitter users should refer to #911txts. We will give status updates at twitter.com/wikileaks.

Observations may be posted to reddit. Please vote for important material.

via 9/11 Pager data.

Wikileaks has 14,263 Followers. About Wikileaks:

Wikileaks is a multi-jurisdictional organization to protect internal dissidents, whistleblowers, journalists and bloggers who face legal or other threats related to publishing. Our primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we are of assistance to people of all nations who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.

We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies. All governments can benefit from increased scrutiny by the world community, as well as their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires information. Historically that information has been costly – in terms of human life and human rights. But with technological advances – the internet, and cryptography – the risks of conveying important information can be lowered.

Wikileaks opens leaked documents up to stronger scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency can provide. Wikileaks provides a forum for the entire global community to relentlessly examine any document for its credibility, plausibility, veracity and validity. …In its landmark ruling on the Pentagon Papers, the US Supreme Court ruled that “only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.” We agree.

We believe that it is not only the people of one country that keep their government honest, but also the people of other countries who are watching that government. – wikileaks

Have there been any UFO leaks? Not yet, AFAIK, but if Gary McKinnon had downloaded the images of the craft he supposedly saw when he hacked into a NASA computer, Wikileaks would have been the place to post them.

For ufologists… the idea that someone in government, abroad or here, eventually, might disclose the cover-up about UFOs that they contend is rampant, and can do so anonymously, should come as heaven-sent… – wikileaks

He said he investigated a NASA photographic expert’s claim that at the Johnson Space Center’s Building 8, images were regularly cleaned of evidence of UFO craft, and confirmed this, comparing the raw originals with the “processed” images. He claimed to have viewed a detailed image of “something not man-made” and “cigar shaped” floating above the northern hemisphere, and assuming his viewing would be undisrupted owing to the hour, he did not think of capturing the image because he was “bedazzled”, and therefore did not think of securing it with the screen capture function in the software at the point when his connection was interrupted.^[39] McKinnon stated the image was approximately 256 megabytes in size, yet that the craft’s details were still distinct in the greatly inferior 4-bit color and low resolution he had to reduce the viewing image to appear across his mere 56k modem connection (approximate transfer rate 5.4kbps). – wiki

A person could submit documents to wikileaks here: https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Special:Leak but, of course, a person with proof of aliens would want to do something like that from an unmonitored public computer such as in a busy library to avoid being traced.  On the disinfo side of the coin, there is no reason someone could not fake some documents and leak them to “prove” something outlandish…. then again, the point of wikileaks is that you’d have a lot of people reviewing the leaked document(s) to determine if the veracity.

U.N. chief: Hunger kills 17,000 kids daily

Somewhere in the world, a child dies of hunger every five seconds — even though the planet has more than enough food for all. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon laid out this sobering statistic as he kicked off a three-day summit on world food security Monday in Rome.

“Today, more than 1 billion people are hungry,” he told the assembled leaders. Six million children die of hunger every year — 17,000 every day, he said. The summit opened with the leaders adopting a declaration to renew their commitment to eradicating hunger. They promised to do so by promoting investment, reversing the decline in funding for agriculture and tackling the effect of global warming on food security. Urgent action is critical, Ban said.  In 2050, the world will need to feed 2 billion more mouths — 9.1 billion in all. The steps Ban proposed included providing farmers with seeds and land and offering them access to better markets and fairer trade.

“These small-holder farmers are the heart and soul of food security and poverty reduction,” he said. “Our job is not just to feed the hungry but to empower the hungry to feed themselves.

“The summit came under criticism even before it began, with some aid groups skeptical that it would accomplish much. The United Nations hopes that donors will go beyond affirming their support to end hunger and fulfill a promise they made during a Group of Eight meeting in July to increase food aid significantly.

 

Though more than 60 world leaders are at the summit, all but one of the G-8 leaders were absent. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Belusconi is hosting the gathering. The United States sent the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Britain sent two ministers. During his speech, Ban also tied the global warming crisis to hunger eradication. …

via U.N. chief: Hunger kills 17,000 kids daily – CNN.com.

On the average, 1 person dies every second as a result of hunger – 4000 every hour – 100 000 each day – 36 million each year – 58 % of all deaths (2001-2004 estimates). – wikipedia

Wow, horrible.  Want to help fight starvation? 1) Stop having kids. 2) Try Action Against Hunger, Starvation.net, and …

 

Lion opens family’s car door with his teeth

In the comfort and security of their car, a family thought there was nothing to worry about as they drove through a South African safari park – until a lion calmly opened their back door with his teeth.

The lion may have appeared wild, but it had clearly learnt one or two things about cars after years of watching curious visitors drive past.

As the white Toyota came to a halt in the Lion Safari Park in Johannesburg, it slowly padded over while the family inside watched in excitement, unaware of what was about to happen.

he lion may have appear

Thier glee turned to horror as the 300lb lion firmly took the rear door handle with his teeth and pulled it open in one deft movement.

For several seconds the car remained still while the occupants digested the shock of what had happened before finally hitting the accelerator and driving off.

As they fled, the lion followed in pursuit until it reached the gates of the enclosure. There it was finally held back by a warden who hurled stones to shoo it back.

Richard Holden, a British tourist, was behind the family in the Toyota and managed to capture the action on his camera.

All the visitors were told to take off all removable items, like windscreen wipers and aerials, and lock their windows and doors.

But Mr Holden, 32, an engineer, who was on holiday with wife Candice, 32, a teacher, and their two-year-old daughter Faye, said the car in front had obviously left the doors unlocked.

However, even then if the animals managed to get inside they are well fed by park keepers and would be unlikely to attack any tourists.

“But they must have been panicking because they didn't drive off straight away,” said Mr Holden, from Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.

“If that had been me, I would have hit the gas.”

via Lion opens family’s car door with his teeth – Telegraph.

Leave your money to your cryonically perserved self?

The laws are complicated, and not stacked in your favor, but if done carefully it’s possible to leave a huge death benefit payoff from your life insurance policy to your cryonically-preserved self. And since life insurance can also be used to finance your cryopreservation, you need not wait until you are rich to sign up. Most in the middle class, if they seriously want it, can afford it now. So by taking the right steps, you can look forward to waking up one bright future morning from cryopreservation the proud owner of a bank account brimming with money.

Don’t get me wrong. Leaving money to your future self is complicated. The courts have decided that cryopreserved people are not suspended or preserved. Rather, they are irrevocably dead, and by being dead have no legal right of ownership or inheritance. These laws may change if the first cryopreserved people are resuscitated and sue for some new kind of civil rights, but that could be decades away. In the meantime, those who are not yet being preserved have spent years pondering and discussing possible methods of self-inheritance. They call it Cryonics Estate Planning and there are now at least three ways to achieve the goal.

One method requires individuals to join a foundation based in Europe that has no website and generally avoids publicity (like the piece you are reading now). It was created by wealthy cryonicists for the purpose of wealth preservation, as well as to fund both their cryopreservation and their eventual resuscitation. Meanwhile, Alcor — a more inclusive organization and one of the two main cryopreservation facilities in the United States — is in the process of developing a trust. And finally — for the use of his clients — Rudi Hoffman has created a trust.

Having written cryopreservation insurance policies for nearly a thousand people, Rudi Hoffman is well established as the world’s leading cryonics insurance provider. As a certified financial planner, he also has a longstanding record of helping people leave money to their future selves, and thus avoid the worry of being revived from cryopreservation to discover that they are penniless in wonderland.

A cryonics activist, volunteer, speaker and writer, Rudi teaches cryonic preservation to the uninitiated. “I signed up for cryopreservation back in 1994,” he said, “But being a transhumanist, it’s my hope that medical science will advance fast enough and soon enough that I never need to be cryopreserved. I look at cryonics itself as a form of insurance. If I need it, I’ve got it. It’s always good to have a backup plan.”

via Wake from Cryonics | h+ Magazine.

UK, enjoy it while it lasts. Six months could put you into a new Ice Age

It took just six months for a warm and sunny Europe to be engulfed in ice, according to new research.

Previous studies have suggested the arrival of the last Ice Age nearly 13 000 years ago took about a decade – but now scientists believe the process was up to 20 times as fast.

In scenes reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster The day After Tomorrow, the Northern Hemisphere was frozen by a sudden slowdown of the Gulf Stream, which allowed ice to spread hundreds of miles southwards from the Arctic.

Geological sciences professor William Patterson, who led the research, said: “It would have been very sudden for those alive at the time. It would be the equivalent of taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months.”

Professor Patterson’s findings emerged from one of the most painstaking studies of climate changes ever attempted and reinforce the theory that the earth’s climate is unstable and can switch between warm and cold incredibly quickly.

His conclusions, published in New Scientist, are based on a study of mud deposits extracted from a lake in Western Ireland, Lough Monreagh – a region he describes as having the ‘best mud in the world in scientific terms’.

Professor Patterson used a precision robotic scalpel to scrape off layers of mud just 0.5mm thick. Each layer represented three months of sediment deposition, so variations between them could be used to measure changes in temperature over very short periods.

He found that temperatures had plummeted, with the lake’s plants and animals rapidly dying over just a few months.

The subsequent mini Ice Age lasted for 1 300 years and was probably caused by the sudden emptying of Lake Agassiz in Canada, which burst its banks and poured freezing freshwater into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

That would have disrupted the Gulf Stream – the flows of which depend on variations in saline levels and temperature – and allowed the ice to take hold.

Some scientists believe that if the Greenland ice cap melts it could disrupt the world’s ocean currents and have a similarly dramatic effect. -

via News – Science: Last Ice Age took just six months to arrive.

Asteroid scrapes past Earth just 8,700miles away – with only 15 hours warning

Although no one noticed at the time, the Earth was almost hit by an asteroid last Friday.

The previously undiscovered asteroid came within 8,700miles of Earth but astronomers noticed it only 15 hours before it made its closest approach.

Its orbit brought it 30 times nearer than the Moon, which is 250,000 miles away.

But before you head for the nuclear bunkers you will be relieved to learn the tumbling rock was only 23ft across. Similar sized objects pass by this close to Earth about twice a year and impact on the planet about once every five years.Astronomers believe the object, called 2009 VA, would have almost completely burned up whi

stronomers believe the object, called 2009 VA, would have almost completely burned up while entering Earth’s atmosphere, causing a brilliant fireball in the sky but no major damage to the surface.

The asteroid was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on November 6, 2009. It was then identified by the Minor Planet Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a near Earth object.

Nasa’s Near Earth Object Programme plotted the orbit of the object and determined that although it would fly extremely close to our planet it wouldn’t hit us.

It was the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid.

The Nasa NEO programme aims to detect and track at least 90 per cent of the 1,000 asteroids and comets that approach Earth and are larger than 0.6miles in diameter, by 2020.

They monitored a 100ft asteroid that whizzed 45,000 miles above the Earth’s surface on March 2 this year. A similar sized object slammed into Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. The impact created a blast so powerful it levelled 1,200 square miles of forest.

via Asteroid scrapes past Earth just 8,700miles away – with only 15 hours warning | Mail Online.

We are sitting ducks, really. A space rock could smash through your roof in the next few minutes and kill you.  We have no shield, no interceptors.

Ricin ‘antidote’ to be produced

An anti-toxin that protects against ricin poisoning is to move into production for the first time.

It is the result of eight years of work by researchers at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory based at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

The antidote can protect against death up to 24 hours after exposure, according to Dr Jane Holley from DSTL.

Security experts say ricin – roughly 1,000 times more toxic than cyanide – could be used in a bio-terror attack.

Dr Holley told BBC News: “In the past there has been lots of research carried out using different methods. But this is the first [anti-toxin] that has been moved into production.

The principal scientist in biomedical sciences at DSTL added: “It is anticipated that a product will be available for use in the next couple of years.”

Ricin is extracted from castor beans, which are processed throughout the world to make castor oil. The toxin is part of the waste “mash” produced when castor oil is made.

It can cause harm if injected, swallowed or inhaled. A tiny amount can be lethal, but the amount needed to kill depends on the route of administration.

A combination of pulmonary, liver, renal and immunological failure can lead to death, though people can recover from exposure. …

Although the anti-toxin developed at Porton Down was initially intended for use by the military, DSTL scientists are investigating its potential use in a civilian environment.

Production of the anti-toxin involves immunising sheep with an inactive form of ricin, which results in the production of antibodies. These are proteins used by the immune system to neutralise harmful substances.

The antibodies are then harvested from the sheep to produce a freeze-dried product. This is reconstituted with water for injection into the body.

Dr Holley said that although the anti-toxin is ready to be manufactured, full licensing is likely to take about five years. ….

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Ricin ‘antidote’ to be produced.

Koalas ‘could face extinction’

Australia’s koalas could be wiped out within 30 years unless urgent action is taken to halt a decline in population, according to researchers.

They say development, climate change and bushfires have all combined to send the numbers of wild koalas plummeting.

The Australian Koala Foundation said a recent survey showed the population could have dropped by more than half in the past six years.

Many have been killed by the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia.

Previous estimates put the number of koalas at more than 100,000 – but the latest calculations suggest there could now be as few as 43,000.

The foundation collected field data from 1,800 sites and 80,000 trees to calculate the numbers.

In one area in northern Queensland estimated to have 20,000 koalas a decade ago, a team of eight people could not find a single animal in four days of searching.

The foundation said as well as problems caused by deforestation, hotter, drier conditions attributed to global warming had reduced the nutritional value of their staple food, eucalyptus leaves, leading to malnutrition.

Koalas, which are confined to forests in Australia’s east and south, are notoriously fussy about what types of the leaves they eat.

Foundation chief Deborah Tabart said: “The koalas are missing everywhere we look. It’s really no tree, no me. If you keep cutting down trees you don’t have any koalas.” …

via BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Koalas ‘could face extinction’.

Ford Announces Airbags for Backseat Passengers

Some cars today have as many as 20 airbags – in the front, on the sides, to shield heads, even airbags to protect knees. Now, Ford is going one step further. The automaker has announced it will become the first automaker to offer seatbelt airbags for backseat passengers. The airbags will appear first in the company’s next general Ford Explorer – due out in about a year.

The airbags will be sewn into the shoulder portion of the rear seat belts – and will deploy outward and sidewise, like a small tubular pillow. Ford says these seatbelt airbags deploy more slowly and with much less force than frontal airbags. That, they say, makes it safe for a rear seat occupant, from a young child to an elderly passenger.

Ford Vice President Sue Cischke told ABC News, “This marries two life-saving technologies – the airbag technology and the seatbelts.”

via Ford Announces Airbags for Backseat Passengers – ABC News.

Over logging ’caused Nazca collapse’

The ancient Nazca people of Peru are famous for the lines they drew in the desert depicting strange animal forms.

A further mystery is what happened to this once great civilisation, which suddenly vanished 1,500 years ago.

Now a team of archaeologists have found the demise of the Nazca society was linked in part to the fate of a tree.

Analysing plant remains they reveal how the destruction of forests containing the huarango tree crossed a tipping point, causing ecological collapse.

The team have published their findings in the journal of Latin American Antiquity.

“These were very special forests,” says Dr David Beresford-Jones from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK who led the team.

The huarango tree (Prosopis pallida) is a unique tree with many qualities and played a vital role in the habitat, protecting the fragile desert ecosystem, the scientists say.

“It is the ecological keystone species in the desert zone enhancing soil fertility and moisture and underpinning the floodplain with one of the deepest root systems of any tree known,” Dr Beresford-Jones says.

The tree was also a useful resource.

“This remarkable nitrogen-fixing tree was an important source of food, forage timber and fuel for the local people.”

Researchers have previously found evidence that suggests the disappearance of the Nazca society was a due to catastrophic flooding event as a result of El Nino around 500 AD. …

“Our research contradicts the popular view that Native American peoples always lived in harmony with their environment until the Spanish Conquest,” Dr Beresford-Jones says.

Dr Beresford-Jones explains that with sufficient huarango cover, El Ninos were in fact not great disasters and actually created years of abundance replenishing water aquifers.

Once too much clearance had occurred the landscape was exposed to the effects of the El Nino floods.

“The river down cut into its floodplain and that floodplain narrowed hugely, irrigation systems were left high and dry,” he says.

“Human induced gradual change is just as important to the full story of Nazca collapse as the major climatic impacts that eventually precipitated them.”

via BBC – Earth News – Logging ’caused Nazca collapse’.