Here We Go Again

Conditions: Cold, Wet, Typical.


Creeping On

In all the fear mongering recently over Iranian Nuclear Weapons factories, a little thing got overlooked: the truth. So here's a little update to the story the London Times newspaper published regarding papers proving Iran is working on a nuclear trigger mechanism

Washington - New revelations about two documents leaked to The Times of London to show that Iran is working on a "nuclear trigger" mechanism have further undermined the credibility of the document the newspaper had presented as evidence of a continuing Iranian nuclear weapons programme.

A columnist for the Times has acknowledged that the two-page Persian language document published by The Times last month was not a photocopy of the original document but an expurgated and retyped version of the original.

A translation of a second Persian language document also published by The Times, moreover, contradicts the claim by The Times that it shows the "nuclear trigger" document was written within an organisation run by an Iranian military scientist.

Former Central Intelligence Agency official Philip Giraldi has said U.S. intelligence judges the "nuclear trigger" document to be a forgery, as IPS reported last week. The IPS story also pointed out that the document lacked both security markings and identification of either the issuing organisation or the recipient.

The new revelations point to additional reasons why intelligence analysts would have been suspicious of the "nuclear trigger" document.

On Dec. 14, The Times published what it explicitly represented as a photocopy of a complete Persian language document showing Iranian plans for testing a neutron initiator, a triggering device for a nuclear weapon, along with an English language translation.

But in response to a reader who noted the absence of crucial information from the document, including security markings, Oliver Kamm, an online columnist for The Times, admitted Jan. 3 that the Persian language document published by The Times was "a retyped version of the relevant parts of that original document".

Kamm wrote that the original document had "contained a lot of classified information" and was not published "because of the danger that it would alert Iranian authorities to the source of the leak".

- truthout.org/

Ahh, yes. The old we don't want to go into details because you're not allowed to know the details defense. Of course the legitimate next move would be to publicly announce the new findings, and so clear Iran of the allegations, but we already know that's not going to happen. Fake or not, stories about Iran's nuclear weapons program are exactly what the western powers want people to be reading about, for the obvious reasons.



Danger In Pursuit Of Safety

In the wake of the underwear bomber, airports around the world are scrambling to install new and expensive full-bodied scanners able to look through clothing to check if passengers are concealing weapons. But are these new scanners safe and effective? And does anyone care?

In researching the biological effects of the millimeter wave scanners used for whole body imaging at airports, NaturalNews has learned that the energy emitted by the machines may damage human DNA.

Millimeter wave machines represent one of two primary technologies currently being used for the "digital strip searches" being conducted at airports around the world. "The Transportation Security Administration utilizes two technologies to capture naked images of air travelers - backscatter x-ray technology and millimeter wave technology," reports the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit currently suing the U.S. government to stop these electronic strip searches.

In order to generate the nude image of the human body, these machines emit terahertz photons -- high-frequency energy "particles" that can pass through clothing and body tissue.

The manufacturers of such machines claim they are perfectly safe and present no health risks, but a study conducted by Boian S. Alexandrov (and colleagues) at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico showed that these terahertz waves could "...unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication."

In layman's terms, any time you're talking about interfering with "gene expression" and "DNA replication," you're essentially talking about something that could be a risk to human health.
[...]

"At first glance, it's easy to dismiss any notion that they can be damaging," reports TechnologyReview.com. "But a new generation of cameras are set to appear that not only record terahertz waves but also bombard us with them. And if our exposure is set to increase, the question that urgently needs answering is what level of terahertz exposure is safe."

And yet no such long-term safety testing has ever been conducted by a third party. There have been no clinical trials indicating that multiple exposures to such terahertz waves, accumulated over a long period of time, are safe for humans. The FDA, in particular, has never granted its approval for any such devices even though these devices clearly qualify as "medical devices."

- truthout.org/

We shouldn't really be surprised. Fear always makes us do crazy and unhealthy things, and reacting to a failed attempt to blow up a plane by causing untold amounts of people in the future to get irradiated at airports seems perfectly normal.

What's really great in all of this is the boon it will be for the media. First they get to do the stories around the bombing attempt itself, then they get to do stories about the scanners and how they work and who's installing them, and then they get to do stories about the health scare for passengers exposed to the scanners. It's win win win.

More: Alternet: Who's Getting Rich From The Scanner Boom?



Film Review: Sherlock Holmes

Guy Ritchie has made his name directing scatter shot British crime movies like RockinRolla, so moving to a more stable platform like Sherlock Holmes is not as big of a stretch as it could of been. Casting Robert Downey Jr as Holmes is also not a stretch, as he has made his name playing odd, eccentric, brilliant characters, and effortlessly conveys the most famous and eccentric detective. And Jude Law is also an easy fit for the solid ex-military man Watson. In fact, since the actors are solid, and the setting is solid, and the characters are so well known, the film really feels like you've seen it before. In fact the relationships here are so well established that one of the themes of the film is about Watson and Holmes splitting up and going their separate ways, as they've been a team for too long. There's also conspiracies afoot concerning secret societies and the British parliament, and various steam punk influenced gadgets are on display, as if in an episode of CSI: Olde England.

The film is well shot, the music is appropriate, Holmes' antics are odd and fun, everything has a complicated explanation, and there's a variety of fistfights, gunfights and explosions to keep us interested. It's almost too easy. In fact the problem with Sherlock Holmes is basically that every part of his legacy has been stolen in some way by later generations. Hence this movie cannot surprise anyone who has seen an episode of Monk, House, CSI, or that Jackie Chan movie where he went to England and met Arthur Conan Doyle.

Another thing, and this is probably just me, but old england is so decrepit and dirty that it really comes across as a big downer. It makes you wonder how did a whole population live like this without either dying, killing themselves or leaving? If you can sit through the opening credits of Coronation Street without clawing your own eyes out then you should be fine, but frankly I wasn't really comfortable with the bleak and unendingly-grey sets covered in four layers of dust. Is it a great film? No, but it does what it sets out to do, hoisting Holmes one more time into popular culture. Three Elementaries out of Five.