Heather Whipps

LiveScience . February 22, 2007

The swirling Arabesque ceramic tiles used in medieval Islamic mosaics and architecture were produced using geometry not understood in the West until the 1970s, a new study suggests.

The inlaid patterned tiles grace the walls of many structures worldwide, in patterns of mind-boggling intricacy called “girih.” Historians have always assumed that medieval architects meticulously developed the patterns with basic tools.

But manuals written by the architects to share tricks of the trade actually include model tiles—like geometrical tracings—that helped lay out the complex “girih” designs [image] on a large scale, researchers discovered recently. The efficient system eventually allowed artisans to produce “quasicrystalline” wall patterns—a concept that was discovered by Western mathematicians just three decades ago.

“I compare the manual to a crib sheet of expert tips, from master to master,” said Peter J. Lu, a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University and co-author of the new study.

Polygons needed to be perfect

Most mosaic tile walls in medieval Islamic buildings are based on a polygon and star pattern, with lines atop them creating a zip-zag look [image]. Since polygons don’t fit together properly without near-perfect symmetry, it would have been very challenging to make the patterns look right, historians say, but they assumed a basic straight-edge and compass were used to get the job done.

Lu’s investigation of buildings and texts from throughout the Islamic world suggests the artisans had a better system.

He found 13th-century architectural scrolls from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan, among other predominantly Islamic countries, that contain diagrams of five different polygon shapes that artisans shared as standard models.

“Nothing written in there was an accident,” Lu told LiveScience. “There is direct historical evidence for the use of these scrolls, and that allowed for a wide range of use.”

The scrolls explain why designs mimic each other across the Middle East, Lu said. “The fact that we can explain so many sets of tilings, from such a wide range of architectural structures throughout the Islamic world, with the same set of tiles makes this an incredibly interesting universal picture,” he said.

Designs get dizzying

When architects started using the model “girih tiles”, as Lu calls them, the work of architects across the region became faster and easier because they were able to get the shapes bang on every time.

It also became easier to make more complicated patterns, Lu said. By 1453, architects had started designing walls with perfectly overlapping quasicrystalline tiles. Quasicrystalline patterns never repeat, but are completely symmetrical. A dizzying example is on display at its medieval best at the Darb-i Imam shrine in Iran.

Western science couldn’t describe the same pattern until the early 1970s, when English mathematician Roger Penrose introduced his famous “Penrose” tiling system.

The full study appears in the upcoming issue of the journal Science, and is co-authored by Paul J. Steinhardt of Princeton University.

Richard Gray

London Telegraph . February 25, 2007

Attempts to save mankind by smashing asteroids as they head towards Earth may do more harm than good, scientists believe.

Rather than Hollywood’s preferred option, engineers are trying to develop unmanned rockets that can land on space rocks and use the asteroids’ own material to propel them into a safer orbit.

The plan will be detailed at a conference, sponsored by Nasa next month, at which its scientists will reveal their -estimate that 100,000 asteroids orbiting near Earth are large enough to destroy a city. So far the agency has only been able to identify and track 4,000 of them.

Just one football pitch-sized asteroid smashing into the planet would create destruction on a terrifying scale, wiping out any area it hit, sending flaming debris into the atmosphere and causing tidal waves. Scientists claim that it is only a matter of time before one is found on a collision course.

Research to be unveiled at the three-day Planetary Defence Conference in Washington DC will reveal that defending the Earth may not be as simple as suggested by films such as Armageddon in which Bruce Willis’s character destroys a giant asteroid using a nuclear bomb.

Gianmarco Radice of Glasgow University will be one of more than 200 scientists at the conference. He said: “A nuclear blast may cause it to fragment. So instead of having one large object on an impact course, you have five largish objects.

“Also, we do not know a huge amount about the composition of these asteroids. Some are made of rock, others are ice while others are just piles of rubble. If you smash something into a pile of rubble, it will just break up and then reform by gravity.”

Nasa has already tested the approach by smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid in its Deep Impact mission last year. The European Space Agency is planning a similar test, sending a craft to smash into a 500-yard wide asteroid while another spacecraft -monitors the results.

Now an engineering firm in Atlanta, Georgia, has been commissioned by Nasa to develop a new kind of mission to land on an asteroid, drill through the surface and pump the debris into space. Anchoring several unmanned spacecraft, nicknamed Madmen, to an asteroid and ejecting material, would produce enough force in the opposite direction to push an asteroid slowly off its dangerous course.

“It is like throwing rocks out of a rowing boat on a lake. The rocks go in one direction and the boat is slowly pushed in the other under the laws of physics,” said John Olds, the chief executive of SpaceWorks, the firm behind the scheme. “Over several months we think we can make the difference between a hit and a miss.” Astronomers fear that a 400-yard wide asteroid will pass dangerously close to the Earth within 30 years. Typically, one the size of a football pitch strikes every 100 years or so, and it is also almost 100 years since the last major impact which caused an explosion equivalent to a 15 megaton nuclear bomb in Tunguska, Siberia on June 30, 1908.

Fears were heightened in 2004 by the discovery of a 45 million-ton rock orbiting the Sun called Apophis, which will pass just 22,000 miles from the Earth in April 2029. In 2036, it will have a close encounter. Some scientists calculate it may even hit the planet.

Nasa believes that it has managed to identify nearly 90 per cent of all asteroids larger than 1,000 yards. These are capable of causing a -global disaster, throwing huge amounts of debris into the air and have historically caused widespread extinction.

The first two minutes are about the “Banryu home robot”.  The rest is other weird shit from the strange far-away land of Japan.

Experts lay out scenarios for the next decade of robotic evolution

Alan Boyle

MSNBC . February 25, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO - Someday you could be taking orders from a robot … but in a nice way.

For example, imagine a body suit with sensors that can guide you through a golf swing like Tiger Woods’. Or a robo-birdwatcher that can tell you where to look for that rare ivory-billed woodpecker. Or an android gardener that can show you where to plant your seeds.

Those are just some of the examples of robot-human interaction sketched out by experts in the field — examples that may well become reality in the next 10 years.

The next big trends in human-robot interaction were among the topics covered here last weekend during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, featuring such pioneers as Cynthia Breazeal from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Breazeal has worked with Hollywood types for years to create friendlier, more socially aware robots, and one of her projects involves the development of therapeutic robo-toys that could improve a patient’s outlook. But she told MSNBC.com that the robots of the next decade may not always match the stereotypes of robotic people (think C-3PO from “Star Wars”) or animals (such as the cuddly Teddy from “A.I.”).

“The technology is becoming virtually ubiquitous,” she said. “Before, when the first computers came out, there were rooms and rooms of computers. … Now, they’re [embedded] in the doorknobs. Robotics is going to be the same way. You’re already seeing robotics integrated into your car today.”

Robotic coaches and companions

The voice-enabled, GPS-based navigational systems in cars are arguably one type of robot. Another type could be built right into your clothing. Breazeal is already working on the concept of a sensor-equipped suit that would enable a robot to read your mood based on whether you’re slouching or sitting up straight. She said the concept could also be applied to sports instruction — say, for tennis or golf. The robo-suit could read how your arms move through a swing, and even give you slight nudges to improve your form, she said.

That’s not to say robots will take control of your life. Rather, they’re more likely to serve as artificially intelligent advice-givers, assistants or companions, Breazeal said. As baby boomers become older, they’ll still want to lead active lives — but they may well welcome a little robotic help to do it.

“If i want to cook a meal, and I can’t do it by myself but I could do it with a robot … if I want to garden but I have a hard time getting down and the robot can help me do that … that’s where I would find value, as opposed to just saying, ‘Go do my gardening’ or ‘Go cook my meal,’” Breazeal said. “As we design technology, we have to respect the human life cycle.”

Robots on the watch

Robots would also make good sentinels: Ken Goldberg of the University of California at Berkeley described his robotic camera system, ACONE, which has been set up in the remote Arkansas woods to look for signs of the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker. ACONE sifts through a stream of video imagery, hanging onto the pictures that appear to show birds in flight. After three months of continuous operation, the system has identified birds such as red-tailed hawks and blue herons, Goldberg said.

“The next level is to determine what is a woodpecker as opposed to another bird,” he said.

The video-sorting system could be used for other applications as well, ranging from traffic monitoring to border patrol. “The other thing we can look for is UFOs,” Goldberg added.

Robotic sentinels may be watching closer to home as well. Even now, a rudimentary form of nanny-bot is on the market, capable of keeping an eye on the human nannies who are supposed to be watching the kids, said David Calkins of the Robotics Society of America.

“They’ve already been proven effective in terms of [seeing] nannies who are shaking babies or nannies leaving the house,” he said. “In the future, I think that will be taken many steps farther. Instead of just checking in on the nanny, the robot can become the nanny. The robot can actually watch the children — to make sure the children don’t leave the house, or that there are no fires, things like that.”

Robots on the march?

The anticipated rise of the robots in everyday life already has sparked worries that automatons could someday become overlords rather than underlings. Prominent futurist Ray Kurzweil projects that computers will match the capability of the human brain by the year 2029, leading to a socio-technological “singularity” that cannot be anticipated.

The fears have fueled literature ranging from the seminal essay “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” to the tongue-in-cheek guide “How to Survive a Robot Uprising.”

Breazeal said progress would likely come more slowly than anticipated. “There are a lot of hard problems that all have to come together,” she said.

But Calkins predicted it was just a matter of time before the various technologies that go into robots — including humanlike mobility, artificial vision and machine intelligence — were combined in new breeds of robots.

“I think that singularity is inevitable,” he said.

Thomas Horn . February 23, 2007

Two weeks ago a writer for Wired Magazine (www.wired.com), Elizabeth Svoboda contacted me to let me know she was writing an article “about research advances using transgenic animals to produce pharmaceutical compounds.” She had come across an editorial by me raising caution about this kind of experimentation, and wondered if I might be willing to provide points for her article, elaborating areas where I saw producing transgenic animals as potentially harmful. She stated that most of the scientists she planned to quote were “pretty gung-ho about the practice,” and thought it would be important to provide some balance. I thanked her for the invitation, and sent a short summary of some, though not all, of the areas where concerns about this science could be raised.

When the article was published by Wired last week, I was surprised that none of my notes had made it into the story. When I contacted Elizabeth and asked why, she said, “Unfortunately, my editors cut your quotes (originally included in “Pharm Animals Crank Out Drugs”) during the editing process.” She apologized and said she hoped the experience had not soured me on dealing with Wired Magazine.

“It doesn’t sour me,” I assured her. “I just think the reporting by most agencies is lopsided and missing the opportunity to thoroughly engage such an important issue.”

The Wired Magazine article was mostly positive about transgenic research and concluded with scientist Marie Cecile Van de Lavoir saying that potential human health benefits from transgenic research “justify tinkering” with nature’s plan. “If a transgenic animal produces a great cancer therapy,” she said, “I won’t hear anyone saying, ‘You shouldn’t do that.’”

The shortsightedness of Van de Lavoir’s comment was as scary as the science in my opinion, and in case anybody is interested, below is the short list — by no means a complete list — of areas where I suggested ethical issues could be raised about transgenic and related science and which need to be addressed for any balanced treatment of the field:

NUMBER ONE: What will the long term impact on the environment and health-related issues be? As we have seen with genetically modified crops, unpredictable things can occur when living organisms are modified in unnatural ways. Transgenics is one of the fields in biotechnology where the DNA of one species is blended with the DNA of a different species, thus crossing the species barrier, something that neither creation nor evolution allowed for. In the past I have cited laboratory results reported by Dr. Arpad Pustai and repeat verified by Irina Ermakova that showed GM food had surprisingly ill effects on the health of test rats, including organ deterioration, shortened life span and cancer development. The independent experiments led to the biotech industry suppressing the findings and an 8-year court battle with biotech corporations, who did not want the results made public. Just last week the suppressed report was in the news again as Greenpeace activists published evidence from the Russian trials verifying the ramifications of the negative health issues related to transgenic foods. Additional research on the significant health dangers represented by GM foods are archived at www.SeedsOfDeception.com.

NUMBER TWO: Transgenic research that includes inserting animal DNA into humans and human DNA into animals at the embryonic level could escape its control environment, thereby passing the altered DNA into nature. Once this happens it would be impossible to put the genie back in the bottle and could lead to hybrid viruses, prion contamination or new diseases that we neither can foresee or prepare for.

NUMBER THREE: Animal rights activists have raised questions in this area that have to do with the ethics of altering animals in ways that could be demeaning to them. For instance, creating zombie-like creatures that grow in feeder labs and gaze off into space from birth until death. Militarized animals that behave in unnatural, unpredictable ways. Humanized animals that become “self-aware,” or animals that produce human sperm and eggs, which then are used in vitro fertilization to produce a human child. Who would the parents be? A pair of mice?

NUMBER FOUR: Questions are evolving now over “patenting” of transgenic seeds, animals, plants and synthetic life forms by large corporations, which threatens to impact the economy of rural workers and farmers.

NUMBER FIVE: Biotech “patenting” of human genes. Consider Michael Chrichton’s piece for the New York Times last week “Gene patents aren’t benign and never will be” in which he claims that people could die in the future because they might not be able to afford medical treatment as a result of medicines owned by patent holders of specific genes related to those persons. Some of these gene modifications and patents are growing out of transgenic research.

NUMBER SIX: Where biotechnology is ultimately headed in redefining what it means to be a human. I have been a guest on Dr. James Hughes Changesurfer Radio show (Hughes is the author of “Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future” and a professor at Trinity College) and I know that James together with other transhumanists (such as professor Nick Bostrom of Oxford University) speak eagerly of advances in human genetic modification including transgenics as the next step in human evolution, ultimately leading to post-humans.

NUMBER SEVEN: Redefining basic human rights. Dr. Hughes wants transgenic chimps and great apes uplifted genetically so that they will have basic human cognitive ability as a way of proving that certain cognition and not “human-ness” should be the key to constitutional protections and privileges. Such changes to intrinsic sanctity of human life could pave the way for such things as harvesting organs from people like Terry Schiavo, due to a loss of cognitive ability. Adopting such “personhood” theory based on specific cognitive abilities would be to deny what bioethicists like Wesley J. Smith (www.wesleyjsmith.com) champion as “human exceptionalism”, the idea that human beings carry special moral status in nature and special rights, such as the right to life, plus unique responsibilities, such as stewardship of the environment. Some but not all believers in human exceptionalism base this concept on a biblical worldview: Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Others who do not necessarily have a biblical worldview are nonetheless concerned about the unnatural alteration of living organisms and the unknown repercussions.

NUMBER EIGHT: Transhumanist views of Biotechnology including transgenics are opening the door for a new eugenics and social Darwinism, which we already see developing in “Right to Die” laws and related issues. The whole idea of transhumanism is to use the fields of biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, mind-interfacing and related sciences to create a superior man. The result will lead to classifications of persons — the enhanced and the not enhanced — ultimately giving rise to a new eugenics.

In conclusion, there are numerous other reasons to be cautious about GM and transgenic fields. No doubt some positive advances could come of genetic engineering, but the president’s own former chairman for his Council on Bioethics, Leon Kass has warned that this technology is placing the animal and human species as well as other living organisms on the operating table for wholesale redesign; that we are reinterpreting what it means to be an animal, a human, a super-human or even a god. Professor Francis Fukuyama, in his book “Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution” says this is the most dangerous field of science in the history of man and could produce an extinction level event for the human race, a Pandora’s’ box. For these reasons and more, careful consideration should be given to the control environments where fields of study are being made. That has not always been the case, and given what we are seeing in open studies, it appears the public is the guinea pig in some cases.

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=21004

Alan Scholl

JBS.org . February 24, 2007

The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) got its start as a response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957. It developed ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet and, this decade, has been heavily involved in the attempted development of the elusive and possibly mythical “isomer bomb” that would be the most power non-nuclear explosive ever built – that is, if it could be built.

DARPA has its hands full with many other research projects as well, often doling out taxpayer dollars to researchers investigating all manner of strange and sometimes macabre – even if potentially useful – technologies and techniques. Consider, for instance, the use of a poison, hydrogen sulfide, to induce suspended animation in mammals. According to DARPA, the technique may someday be used to save the lives of people who, through catastrophic injury, have lost up to 60 percent of their blood. That’s usually a death sentence, especially on the battlefield, but DARPA believes that the new suspended animation technique might buy enough time to get the victims of such injuries to treatment in time to save lives.

In an interview with Noah Shachtman in Wired magazine’s “Danger Room” Blog, DARPA chief Tony Tether discusses this and several other DARPA projects. The interview is a rare opportunity to examine some of DARPA’s current projects as explained by the agency’s highest official, and he makes a case that DARPA’s work is not only useful but desperately necessary. But is it really?

Despite advances made as a result of DARPA involvement since the agency’s inception, the private sector still may be a more powerful source of innovation. DARPA, for one thing, spends a tremendous amount of money on questionable pursuits. According to the Washington Post, for instance, by 2004 the agency had spent $7 million on research related to isomer bombs utilizing nuclear isomers of hafnium. While promising to release prodigious quantities of energy – one gram of the material has 50,000 times the explosive power of a gram of TNT – there has been little progress in harnessing this potential, and many scientists find the project laughable.

On the other hand, the private sector seems to have harnessed the properties of plain old hafnium in a way that will benefit millions of consumers. In January, both Intel and IBM announced that they had found ways to replace some silicon elements in computer chips with hafnium, thereby fixing an electricity leakage problem in microchips that might have hindered the introduction of faster, more powerful computers. The Seattle Times noted that the technology will allow the shrinkage of “existing chip designs to smaller dimensions, meaning they will run faster and use less power.”

So, while DARPA might have the James Bond gee-whiz factor in its favor, in the end it is again private enterprise that does the better job of developing technology.

Ed Ward, MD . February 25, 2007

The climate involves many facets of complex science and those wishing to mislead for blood moneys are more than happy to make it even more technical if it supports their uncaring, greedy and biased objectives. The objective of this article is to find the unbiased truth in a format that most can understand.
 
No one knows every minuscule aspect of what produces our climate, but the major reactants are known. Almost all of the references are from studies that are unrelated to Earth’s industrial global warming and are almost universally accepted.
 
While researching our solar systems three CO2 planets’ atmospheres and temperatures, Johnson’s “Goldilocks and the Three Planets” popped up. This short, entertaining, and informative article is highly recommended for a brief overall view of the climates of Venus, Earth, and Mars, the Greenhouse effect, and the CO2 cycle (including volcanic action for the “no SUVs” history majors). It’s amusing title seemed unique until it was Googled and 73 other references popped up. One of which was an informative 10 minute video with a slightly different perspective.
 
It is extremely important to note that the Greenhouse Effect of CO2 on Venus and Mars are virtually undisputed. The CO2 molecule is a greenhouse gas because of its dipolar characteristics which absorb and radiate the infrared energy (1/3 the wavelength of a microwave). The effects of infrared energy on dipolar molecules are also virtually undisputed. Apparently, no ’scientist’ was able to gain personal blood or grant money for disputing these facts.
 
The current atmosphere of Venus is about 96% CO2 at 90 times the density of Earth’s (93 million miles from the sun) atmosphere which is about 100 times the density of Mars’ atmosphere. Venus (67 million miles from the sun) has an average temperature of 855 F, while Mercury’s (36 million miles from the sun with virtually no atmosphere) temperature ranges from -300 F to 870 F. Venus is hotter than Mercury in spite of being almost twice the distance from the sun which should make Venus (if it had no atmosphere) about 200 F cooler than Mercury.
 
The current thin atmosphere of Mars (142 million miles from the sun) contains 95% CO2 with less than 1% of the atmospheric pressure of Earth. The temperature range is from a high of 98 F to a low of -190 F. This sparse compaction of the greenhouse gas CO2 by Mars’ weak gravitational force is only enough to raise the surface temperature by 9 F.
 
“The Discovery of the Greenhouse Effect” (1820) on Earth (93 million miles from the sun) is also virtually undisputed. Without the greenhouse effect of the gases of our current atmosphere, Earth would be a very inhospitable planet and about 90 F cooler (also a good article for basic climate information). CO2 is a proven planet warmer. CO2 has increased from less than .03% (280 ppm) to .04% (390 ppm) in the last two decades without any signs of decreasing. Earth is rapidly approaching the CO2 effects of Mars which is responsible for at least 9 F without the effects of other greenhouse gases - water vapor, methane, N2O, various hydrocarbons - all of which add their warming effects. Once, like Venus, these compounds reach a concentration where more heat is retained than removed, as is the current situation, a runaway greenhouse effect is started. There is one proven way this effect has stopped of its own accord - the melting of all of the ice on the planet. Will it be enough to prevent the formation of another Venus? The facts say that Earth will start finding out by the year 2040.
 
While it is believed that Venus and Earth started as very similar planets, Venus suffered a “runaway” greenhouse effect. This event occurred sometime between four billion years ago when the sun was 30 to 40% cooler (this process continues daily at an imperceptible level - to such a small degree that it might take a century to notice a measurable change in the massive amounts of energy released) and now. The slightly smaller gravitational force and closer proximity to the sun explains why Venus would runaway prior to Earth. An average surface temperature of 80 F is believed to be the temperature range at which the runaway effect would start on Earth.
 
The basic properties of the gaseous components of the atmosphere are fairly standard science and are further illustrated by the current temperatures/climates/atmospheres of Venus and Mars. The blanket analogy for greenhouse effect is an excellent one. If one compares the amounts/density of greenhouse gases to the thread count of a blanket/sheet, the effects are very similar and more easily understood. Mars’ blanket has a thread count of one with minimal greenhouse effect, while the Venus’ blanket has a thread count 9,ooo and retains 99.9% of the heat that reaches its surface. Currently, Earth is in between those two climates. One day, hopefully millions of years from now as the sun continues its normal star progression, Earth will become Venus long before the sun reaches a red giant phase. However, basic chemistry and physics clearly show that mankind’s actions may drastically shorten the length of time for that to happen.
 
In the billions of years it took for life to develop on Earth, complete/incomplete meltdowns of Earth’s ice sheets has happened several times, without a runaway greenhouse occurring. So far, the article has only dealt with the ‘positive feedback’ loops of global warming. There are many ‘negative feedback’ loops that exist in nature to cool the earth, but history has shown that the negative feedback loops will not be significant enough to stop the complete meltdown of all natural ice sheets on Earth under the circumstances that existed in the past or in the present.
 
Second verse, same as the first… but a little different. So far the article has not included is the destruction of rain forests by the shifting of weather patterns, the acidity of the oceans decreasing the removal of CO2 in our normal carbon cycle, and the 900 billion tons of CO2 (90 times the amount of yearly CO2 production - as well as tons of methane) awaiting dispersal from it’s resting place in the ice that is melting.
 
There is nothing we can do to control the solar cycle (although there is ample evidence our government is trying with chemtrails), animal production of methane, and the physics of water vapor. But, there are existing easy methods of dealing with CO2 production and more difficult methods for dealing with methane production from refuse.
 
Complete melting of all natural ice on the planet will result in 200 to 300 feet of sea level rise based on previous occurrences. When this happens (some have evidence of its occurrence prior to 2040 and being beyond the point of no return - the most accurate assessment of our current situation, although it is slightly optimistic in this reporter’s opinion), there will certainly be some ‘negative feedback’ loops placed on global warming. The surface area of more reflective water will be dramatically increased - although this will be counteracted by the loss of more reflective ice sheets. Millions of coastal area inhabitants will be displaced or killed like the residents of New Orleans that were murdered by covering up the rising sea levels of global warming. Fertile farmlands will be drastically reduced by rising tides. Starvation will assure that there are far fewer sapiens to worry about or to pollute the environment. Salt water will contaminate many of our water sources that are not already drained, polluted by radiation or toxic chemicals (the reason ‘the shrub’ bought Paraguay - third largest aquifer and possibly the only large clean water source left - one can live without oil or gold, but you cannot live without water - How much will it be worth?) . We will not have to drive nearly as far to get to the beach. Hydro power sources will be much more available and there will be far fewer people requiring energy by the time they can be built.
 
There is no doubt that some on the global warming issue have finances influencing their actions. There is no doubt that most (all this reporter has seen) of the global warming ‘debunkers’ have financial reasons for their actions. However, there is a vast difference between supporting science facts for the continuance of all of mankind, and ignoring/hiding/distraction of science facts for the destruction of mankind for the sake of blood money. Just as there is a vast difference between creating a study to evaluate the facts and come to a conclusion (IPCC - click play - 2,500 expert reviewers, 800 authors, 450 lead authors, 130 nations), creating a conclusion for the cherry picking of any evidence to support that conclusion (ExxonMobil), or deliberately censoring all information in scientific articles contrary to massive profits (the shrub).
 
Anyone in the past that has denied greenhouse effects, or the fact this planet is warming - the solar cycle still accounts for about the temperature rise since 1900, it fails to explain a rise of 0.4 C since 1980 (It’s the heat being retained that is causing the temperature rise), or has taken money to prove a conclusion with some facts rather than taking all the facts to form a conclusion, should at the very least be read with skepticism of their motives.
 
The Kyoto pact - A Slight Division of NWO Agendas for Cash and Power. While ‘the shrub’ denies and classifies (at least until very recently denying, but probably still classifying the real facts) global warming for expansion of corporate and personal greed in his NWO agenda of the ineffectual buying and selling of pollution credits. The UN uses global warming for its NWO agenda of ’savior’ for gaining control of countries with its trivial reductions of CO2 decades from now. Both of these scenarios promote the continuance of the problem rather than a complete shift from the problem - an oil driven economy with corporate and government control.
 
Current hydrocarbon conversion to electricity wastes between 30 and 60% of the potential energy with the majority wasting as much as the process converts. Transfer of electricity over a great distance further degrades the conversion effectiveness. Even without further development of alternate energy sources there are currently more than adequate ways to completely change our delivery of needed energy without ‘living in a cave’ as the debunkers like promote. These current technologies are not cost effective because this government has supported the creation of massive profit corporations, instead of supplementing self sustaining individual energy creation and usage and alternate existing transportation.
 
 
Personnel solar, wind and water energy converters and vehicles get no subsidies, credits, or adoption by this government. Instead, the government prefers to subsidize the corporations and let alternate energy die on the vine. Tesla Motors already has an impressive electric performance roadster with plans to produce a vehicle more along the lines of a transportation car. GM and Toyota had electric cars and NiMh- Lithium batteries that were allowed to die on the vine. If any of these already existing technologies had been given a chance to compete with the destructive forms of hydrocarbon energy usage by subsidy, incentives, or taxing, they would have the volumes of production required to lower the manufacturing costs to where they would be directly competitive with our existing vehicles - similar to the reduced costs of computers and calculators. The technologies are already here. They just need to be granted the opportunity to compete instead of insuring the current corporation-government symbiosis - all without losing any of our energy requirements.
 
Billions of dollars have been spent on nuclear reactors which currently already have millions of tons of radioactive waste contaminating water, air and earth without any way of getting rid of them. Our current cancer rate may be as high as 10 times the pre-1950 rates. Billions of dollars have been spent on harvesting a hot fusion reaction - because it’s a way to get funding for nuclear weapons’ advancements without the pesky truth. Virtually nothing has been spent on zero point energy, Aquygen, or cold fusion, except to denounce it by this government, despite continued advancements and partial technology working models.
 
Related article: The Coast is Toast: Take the Money and Run
 
An update on The US Government’s Usage of Atomic Bombs - Domestic - WTC is planned for next week and will include ‘the vaporized cores’, the three craters - WTC 6, WTC 1, and WTC 2 - 40 feet deep and 120 feet wide, Tritium 30 times the environmental amount after dilution with 12 million liters of water, and more.
 
Dei Jurum Conventus - (God’s Rights (Unity)/Convention)
 
Ed Ward, MD
 
edward19@cox.net
 

 
Independent writer/Media Liaison for The Price of Liberty
 

This is a very large organized crime family we are dealing with. They should all be arrested. All their wealth should be seized. They should be tried and hanged.

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher

Tom Paine . February 25, 2007

A servile population is a standing invitation to predatory free men.

Both Plato and Aristotle set a limit to the ideal community of a few thousand citizens, because they could not conceive how a larger multitude of any sort could be held together by shared ideas.

Education has given us a servile population in communities of much more than a few thousand held together by shared ideas and ripe for predatory groups to plunder.

In this article I will address why these shared ideas spread by education are for the most part a grand mass-delusion of sorts.

That idea that holds us together is education, and more specifically science. By “science” I mean the broad spectrum of accumulated empirical knowledge implicit in what Aristotle posited as a system of “categories” and which has given rise to all our empirical sciences. Aristotle is the father of all the modern sciences and would-be sciences. A point in fact is that this is nothing to praise him for. Let me explain why.

First of all Aristotle’s categories, a system for categorization, should not be confused here with categorical knowledge. The latter is knowledge that is always true in every instance. Nor should the hypothetical of axioms and theories about categories be confused with categorical knowledge. The difference is that the axioms and theories that arise from Aristotle’s concept of categories are mere abstractions. Categorical knowledge, that which is always true, is, and must be, about the real world.

It takes some deep thought and a lot of concentration to ferret out the subtle difference here. The effort is well worth the time spent.

Though complexity can arise, it is a relatively easy once axioms are assumed to arrive upon a theory. The proof of a theory is generally made by casting off the real world, and dealing with universal forms that exist only in axioms that exist only in our minds. The value of a theory is how it relates to the real world, but only in a general sense. Exceptions to theories are merely details added to empirical knowledge about how theories work to make them accord better with real world experiences.

Categorical knowledge is different. Categorical knowledge is always true in every instance with no exceptions. Categorical knowledge makes it possible to both make statements and produce predictions about the real world that are categorically true, and that are not the mere approximations that arise from Aristotle’s system of categorization.

Categorical truth is a truth above 1+1=2, which is an axiom of sorts. If we add one idea and another idea, we do not necessarily get just two ideas. Thus, 1+1=2 is not categorical truth. There also are no two things in the Universe that can be added 1+1 and have them equate to 2 other than hypothetically. This is true because there is always a difference between those two things, 1+1. So in order to make a categorically true mathematical statement we may attempt it by saying 1+1=1+1, but here we still have a flaw in that we represent two different things as “1″ when they are clearly two different things.

Mathematics is an approximation of the real world, and it is an approximation that is insufficient at any point to describe wholly even the smallest part of the real world. Mathematics is also too large because mathematics can describe much more than ever could be the real world. Categorical truth only describes the real world.

Humans, being impatient and tempestuous have long reveled in the sort of knowledge derived from empirical methodologies that utilize categories and axioms. We like explosions. We like surprises. With Aristotle’s categories, we get them too.

The last time I went to a fireworks display was in Westborough, Massachusetts more than thirty years ago. One of the ten-pound-thumpers came down in the crowd before exploding, and subsequently after it did explode, I watched as a child of perhaps six was carried off by his or her parents unconscious and bleeding profusely from every facial cavity.

When I was a youth, I saw some older boys throw an M-80 firecracker (a quarter stick of dynamite) into the water at the beach. I watched as a young girl’s Sky Terrier ran into the water, swam out and retrieved that M-80. I saw the dog go, and the horrified look and tears of the young girl who ran screaming away.

When I was twenty-five or so I read an account of two junior high schools that came together for a field day having made arrangements for a massive tug-o-war between the schools. Each school had some fifteen hundred students. The school organizers of this event had some ten-ton strength, Navy-issued, finely woven nylon rope for the purpose.

Now, of all the empirically well-certified smart people that were there on the day of the event, junior high school teachers, principles, guidance counselors, and, coaches, apparently not one of them foresaw that there might be a problem with this scheme. And, if any one of them, or any of the no doubt very smart junior high school students did think there might be a problem, they were apparently too shy to speak a word against the tug-o-war idea. Who knows? Perhaps someone did speak against it, but failed to sound a convincing alarm.

With fifteen hundred students each pulling as hard as they could on the rope it immediately exceeded by a factor of ten or twenty the strength for which it was designed. Nylon rope stretches. When it let go, several dozen of the students closest to the center of the rope, the ones immediately facing each other, were severely maimed, one even loosing a leg, others arms and many lost hands when the ten-ton test rope snapped and whipped violently back upon the unsuspecting youths.

The world is full of dangers, most often human-made dangers unexpected by most. All that was needed that day was for one person using their brain to say, wait a minute, think what we’re doing here, and, the calamity could have been avoided. Perhaps some clever person instead said, “No one asked you for your opinion.”

In our empirical world, shit happens. That is categorically true. However, in the past hundred years, or two, we have created large enough empirical knowledge sets to make the inevitable happen, and, a necessity to create limits for the uses of these knowledge sets. Such restrictions are necessary, if purely for the survival of the species, our species, and to limit the sort of mass casualties accompanied by the ever increasing suffering of humanity we see occurring with much more alarming frequency all around the world.

This is the crux of the problem with progress, education, science and the empirical way. There is indeed much more suffering in the world today no matter how we slice it. We can say the suffering ratio per capita is higher, or we can say the suffering ratio per individual is higher. No matter how we slice it, human suffering is on the increase around the world due to empirical knowledge.

Empiricism is inherently dangerous, and grows increasingly dangerous with every empirical success that adds to empirical knowledge sets. Because empirical knowledge sets grow increasingly complex and dangerous over time, and because none of it is categorical truth, these knowledge sets necessarily require better oversight of the foundries and experimental applications made of empirical knowledge. Application of empirical knowledge has an ever increasing propensity to blow up in our faces.

If we examine the history of empirical bombs from black powder to TNT to plastic explosives to nuclear weaponry, it is easy to note their exponential growth in size. The first Hydrogen Bomb was exploded more than fifty years ago. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 and 21 kilotons respectively. These were not small bombs. The largest nuclear bomb ever exploded was 50,000 kilotons in 1961. In 1961 there were no pocket calculators. In 1970 I took Calculus with a slide rule. No one wants to see the next size empirical bomb as it will likely blow a hole in the earth’s surface the size of the moon.

Science theorists of every ilk create countless theories. Theorists are held in very high esteem within the academic community made of empirical experimenters. There are always competing theories for this is the nature of empiricism. The task of the theorist is to give a better explanation of phenomena described by categories and utilizing axioms, to produce a theory that describes better than all previous theories some superficial real world phenomenon.

As the real world is infinitely complex, no theorist can tell us as it really is. They are approximators. Theorists at best can describe something we might see occur, if we don’t look too close or for too long a period of time.

In this sense theorists are the best liars to date within the spectrum of the empirical knowledge and understanding in their respective fields of study.

The real world is so very complex however, that even the most educated and brilliant among us with the best equipment available can only get a glimpse of an infinitely small portion of a reflection of a shadow of the real world. Such a glimpse is generally enough not to trip over the obvious for which they might spend a lifetime looking. This is the nature of the history of scientific progress in every field.

When human beings were nomadic, a few young men of fourteen or so could tend to the entire hoofed wealth upon which a small community depended for survival.

We would not let a fourteen year old drive a tractor trailer truck today, operate a pharmacy or run a government. We simply know through experience this sort of work assignment would be irresponsibly dangerous.

Society has furthermore come to the conclusion there are no standards by which we can assign some tasks that have arisen due to increasingly complex empirical knowledge sets. The general consensus is no one has the necessary knowledge to capably and responsibly dispose of the accumulating empirical mountains of nuclear waste.

But here we are, without ever having had a choice about it, spreading depleted Uranium waste around the countryside of Iraq. How did this happen?

Empirical scientists who make weapons for the country simply decided that here is a very heavy and very hard substance that would make a very capable penetrator for use in munitions. How could my country end up with anyone in a position to make a decision to go through with such a plan? Did anyone vote for this? Was there ever a debate on Capitol Hill? Was there ever a debate at a convention of scientists? Is there a debate going on today?

Similarly we have a President and apparently an entire Cabinet anxious to and obviously implementing a pre-emptive war using these weapons in Iraq. There is sufficient talk about a bombing and a subsequent invasion of Iran that we can assume someone has determined this is their prerogative, to use depleted Uranium warheads and even nuclear bombs in Iran.

Where do these people, and more importantly, where do the scientists that arm these people, come from? They come from educational institutions and businesses. They are empirical scientists of every discipline, inventing, justifying, and building the societal support mechanisms required to sustain such an inherently dangerous situation, one that can only increase human suffering.

Ideally, humans would be sated in their existence implementing only categorical knowledge. However, the knowledge of categories is out of the bag, so to speak. There is something we can do to restrain how the empirical knowledge of categories is used, so it can hopefully be used to benefit humanity instead of imperiling it more at every turn.

We can borrow from Aristotle’s system of categories and apply the idea to human knowledge. We have categorical knowledge that we know is safe for humanity because it is true in every instance. And we have empirical knowledge, which we know is quite unsafe for human uses.

I have developed a general rule, and even though it is not categorical knowledge, it nonetheless is a rule that will drive empirical knowledge derived from categories toward categorical truth. It is a restatement of Murphy’s Law, and I call it Robertson’s Law. It will not perfect empirical knowledge, but it will greatly remediate its negative effects upon humanity.

Here is that general rule:

No matter the problem, no matter the solution, if it’s an exclusively empirical solution applied to the real world, the resulting byproducts of the processes of empirical reason will give rise to problems tenfold that of the original problem.

The proof of this statement’s general truth is all around us. No one should doubt the general veracity of this statement.

The important thing is that we now have categorized human knowledge to some small degree. We have 1st) Categorical truths, 2nd) Empirical truths, and to these two we can add a 3rd knowledge set, cultural truths including religion and folk wisdom.

I include the third set here because there are indeed truths to be found in our heritage that would otherwise be lost to humanity if we chose to simply exclude or overlook them.

This scheme of categorizing human truths completely covers what we know, as well as everything that it is possible to know. Even so, one could endlessly dissect these three categories in a seemingly endless and likely pointless epistemological contest that would get us no closer to truth, but would likely employ legions of academics teaching what they think is philosophy. Philosophy is about categorical truths. So we needn’t concern ourselves with counting fairies on the head of the truth pin.

From this analysis it seems abundantly clear there is a systemic problem with truth. It is a problem that is made no less severe by science. It is a problem made no less severe by the academics.

The systemic problem with truth can only be addressed by philosophy.

Philosophy cannot easily address the systemic problem with lies. For this the solution can only lay with human nature, a problem long known about and for which some my age had their mouths washed out with soap when they were young and impressionable enough for the experience to have had a lasting effect.

America is a nation of liars. Our businesses have developed complex and convoluted personnel management systems designed to substantiate lies for the purposes of excusing the otherwise wrongful dismissal of employees. Our businesses have almost uniformly used lies to backdate stock options for high level corporate employees and to steal billions from shareholders in this and a myriad of other ways. Every one of our governments at every level has a code of silence and lying designed to effect substantiation of decisions made and actions taken that are supported only by lies. Our science research institutions verify and re-verify endlessly the lies of other scientists. And our academic institutions are no better. Our courtrooms are so full of lies, liars and judges quite willing to adjudicate based upon what they know are lies made in testimony given before them, it is a national disaster that makes anyone rightly fear the court systems. And, our elected representatives commonly refuse to participate in public discourse during which they could be caught up in the lies upon which their careers have been built.

And yet, even in the face of an all pervasive ethic of lying in America, this President, his Cabinet as well as all his journalist attendants have perpetrated lies that have been so devastating, that have killed so many, and that have caused such utter disrepute, even to a disreputable nation, the perpetrators of these lies cannot escape with our simply washing their mouths out with soap. They require quick, immediate and resolute action. They right now are attempting to do the same thing all over again in one last vile attempt before this Administration is over.

If there were one honest man in Washington D.C. not too shy to speak up, none of this would have ever happened and the calamity could have been avoided. If there is a single man ashamed enough now of the lies that have killed so many, the President, his Cabinet and their attendant journalists will not be allowed to continue unarrested.

This is a very large organized crime family we are dealing with. They should all be arrested. All their wealth should be seized. They should be tried and hanged. And the empirical knowledge sets of the entire U.S. oil industry should be nationalized as it seems clear the danger intrinsic to them requires honest, open and public supervision.

This is the only solution that can possibly effect the sort of restraint necessary for the use of empirical knowledge sets that have arisen and that represent such a sure danger for increasing the suffering of humanity.

RAYMOND HAINEY

Scotsman . February 22, 2007

A £150 MILLION space mission should be launched to deflect an asteroid which is set to pass dangerously close to Earth, experts warned yesterday.

The call for action to protect the world from Apophis - named after the Egyptian god of destruction - came from a coalition of astronauts, engineers and scientists with close links to US space agency NASA.

Scientists have estimated the asteroid has a one-in-45,000 chance of striking Earth on 13 April, 2036. Travelling at 28,000mph it could release 80,000 times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb.

The group believes the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission - using a vessel called a “gravity tractor” - to knock Apophis off course.

Experts says that the recent approval of a NASA mandate to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover hundreds, if not thousands of threatening space rocks in the near future.

Rusty Schweickart, a former astronaut who orbited the moon in the 1969 Apollo 9 mission, said: “It’s not just Apophis we’re looking at.

“Every country is at risk and we need a set of general principles to deal with this issue.”

Mr Schweickart, a member of the Association of Space Explorers, is planning to present an update to the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space this week on plans to develop a global response to an asteroid threat.

Scientists believe that a gravity tractor - a spaceship which flies alongside the asteroid - is the best way to neutralise the threat of Apophis.

A gravity tractor spaceship exerts a slight pull on the targeted mass, slowly pulling it off course and potentially rendering it harmless to life on Earth.

Ed Lu, a veteran of the International Space Station, said that an asteroid the size of Apophis would take nearly a fortnight to deflect away from a collision course with the Earth.

The US is taking asteroid threat seriously, with a massive upgrading of its tracking of near-Earth asteroids.

The Association of Space Explorers, which also includes Russian cosmonauts, is to host a series of workshops this year to refine plans to avoid a potential disaster, then make a formal proposal to the UN in 2009.

Mr Schweickart said that the UN had to adopt a global plan for assessing asteroid threats and deciding when action would need to be taken to avert a massive rock on a collision course with the Earth. He added that launching an asteroid deflection system early to deal with Apophis would not only increase the chances of success, but need far less energy to put the asteroid on a course which will take it far away from Earth.

Typical stony-type asteroids generally burn up on entry to the atmosphere, but asteroids with a large iron content could survive entry and smash into the ground with devastating effect.

But Paul Slovic, president of the US-based Decision Research, which studies judgment, decision-making and risk assessment, said Apophis could destroy a major city or even a entire region.

The most severe asteroid hit in recent times was the Tunguska airburst explosion in Siberia in 1908. The asteroid exploded with the force of a ten-megaton nuclear bomb, flattening huge areas of forest.

Earth had a narrow escape in 1992, when the one to two-mile wide Toutatis asteroid passed within 2.2 million miles of the planet - very close in space terms. And they warned that if Toutatis had hit Earth, it would have had an impact equivalent to between 100 and 150 hydrogen bombs.

The explosion would have blotted out sunlight, caused rocketing global warming and killed off all plant life.

Scientists have calculated that if even if an asteroid misses Earth, if it passes close enough, the planet’s gravitational pull could be enough to drag it on to a collision course.

In 2004, NASA issued its highest ever warning on the Torino threat scale for when it gave the MN4 asteroid a rating of four on a scale of one to ten. The previous highest intergalactic threat warning was just one on the Torino scale. However, it failed to strike the Earth.

Astronomers warned then that between now and 2079, there would be at least 38 potentially hazardous encounters with rogue asteroids.

It is thought that dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago after an asteroid hit earth, creating a greenhouse effect which lasted 10,000 years.

It is estimated that asteroids larger than 800 metres wide strike earth about once every 500,000 years.

Major impacts, however, occur around once in a 1,000 years and the chance of dying due to an asteroid impact is estimated to be 20,000/1 - about the same as death from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and major floods.

Experts say that nuclear missiles could be used to blow up asteroid threats - but the weapons would have to be triggered some distance away to prevent the asteroid breaking up into smaller, but still dangerous, pieces.

Other suggestions - including using kinetic energy devices to pulverise asteroids and using lasers or solar sails to push threats off-course - have all been dismissed as ineffectual or requiring massive investment in new technology.