It's a Funny Old World: Thick as Two Short Planks Edition

You probably shouldn’t Google how to kill someone before killing someone
By Ned Hepburn

A couple from Florida (where else?) have been tied to a murder after hundreds of text messages, Facebook messages, and Google searches revealed that they had turned to the Internet to find out how to craft an alibi as well as communicate to each other various ways to carry out the murder of Juliana Mensch, a 19 year old roommate of the couple. James Ayers, 32, was arrested a few days ago after apparently confessing to a friend. His girlfriend Nicole Okrzesik, 23, was arrested soon after yet blamed the murder on Ayers. And then the police checked their phones.

Turns out that Okzresik had extensively Googled how to kill someone the night of the murder. The Broward/Palm Beach New Times has links to everything she did on her phone that night (they even have the text messages.) More




Man jailed after bragging "I think I got away with it" on Facebook

A man was convicted of an assault after he bragged to friends on Facebook during his trial that he thought he had got away with it.
06 Jun 2012

Michael Ruse, 21, believed the two week trial had gone well and decided to share the news online before the jury was due to go out.

Ruse, who had denied beating up a friend's dad, wrote a status update shortly before the jury was due to go out, saying: "Another week at court!"

When asked by a friend about the case he said: "Yeah I think I get away with it tbh (to be honest) x," adding it was "looking good."

The exchange was printed out and delivered anonymously to the court, where it was handed to the prosecution.

Confronted by the new evidence Ruse, who used the name Michael Miles online, had little choice but to change his plea to guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm.

Ruse, who has previous convictions for assault and criminal damage, then went back on the social networking site to describe the judge as "stuck up" hours before his sentencing.

Judge Ian Pearson said Ruse's stupidity was no excuse.

He said: "You pleaded guilty part way through the trial only really because you were stupid enough to put on Facebook what amounted to a full confession.

"Your stupidity really is not much mitigation."

Ruse, of Leigh Park, near Portsmouth, Hants, was given a 46 week prison sentence, suspended for two years, and put on a six month curfew from 7pm to 7am.

Russell Pyne, defending, said his client had planned to move away from Leigh Park and change his ways.

He said: "He needs help with regards to thinking skills."

During the trial, Portsmouth Crown Court heard Ruse's friend, Terry Reeve, 20, had thrown a brick at his own dad's car earlier in the day in March last year.

Ruse and Reeve then armed themselves with a baseball bat and a baton and attacked the 45-year-old lorry driver in the street in Leigh Park.

Reeve's father was left with a cut to his head and bruises all over his body.

Reeve, of Leigh Park, was found guilty of the assault and of criminal damage after the trial. He was jailed for a year and 55 days.

Michael Williams, defending Reeve, said he had not had a happy childhood.

He said: "The reason that he perhaps thinks with his fists first comes from his father."

After the hearing, Ruse went back on Facebook to say: "Boom! Im (sic) coming home best start sorting myself out. Tag for 6 months...and got to stay out of trouble for 2 years."

He was also fined £250 in court costs. Telegraph

Obama Hamstringing Gitmo Lawyers?

I might not have run with this story, though must be said it's a worthy read in its own right, had I not previously featured this, this, I don't know how best to describe really, perhaps it's suffice to say that the setting is Louisiana. (Again)

....The mayor was quickly convicted of both charges but lawyers have raised challenges to the convictions, bringing a number of legal complaints. For example: in a town that is 60% African-American, Mayor Higginbotham had only one Black juror. Higginbotham’s counsel was disqualified by the DA, and the public defender had a conflict of interest, leaving the mayor with no lawyer. Two days before trial began, the DA gave Higginbotham 10 boxes of files related to his case. Higginbotham’s request for an extension to get an attorney and to examine the files was denied.

There’s more: during jury selection, when Higginbotham – forced to act as his own lawyer – tried to strike one juror who had relationships with several of the witnesses, he was told he could not, even though he had challenges remaining. There was also a problem with a sound recorder that the court reporter was using, and as a result there is no transcript at all for at least two witness’ testimony. Finally, during deliberation, the judge gave the jury polling slips that had “guilty” pre-selected, and then later hid the slips. I Don't Know What Justice Looks Like But I'm Sure It Doesn't Look Like This: Waterproof Louisiana

But don't you think in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the rest of these ''high value'' detainees, it's past time for America to end the charades, put away the hypocrisy for once, and just put these guys against the wall and shoot the fuckers, innocent or guilty. Because let's face it, there is only ever going to be one verdict for those that might one day see a ''trial.'' I know there's not a bit of shame to be found anywhere in America, its Presidents past, or its President present, Bush lite, Barack Obama. Because for shame, how on earth do you put a fellow in the dock that you have waterboarded a hundred and eighty three times and still call it a trial?

Hypocrisy, it's the American way, not arf!

Did Obama Kneecap the 9/11 Suspects' Defense Lawyers?

What an investigation into Gitmo attorneys means for the pending trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants.
By Nick Baumann

Last week, on the same day President Barack Obama launched his re-election campaign, his administration announced that it had officially reversed its decision to try the accused 9/11 plotters—including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed "mastermind" of the attacks—in federal court and would instead prosecute them via the military commissions system.

But, as the military commissions gear up for what could be their first cases to end in death sentences, a shadow hangs over the lawyers representing these most unsympathetic of defendants. For well over a year, civilian and military defense lawyers representing so-called "high-value detainees" at Guantanamo Bay were caught up in a secret Justice Department investigation. (The agency won't say whether the investigation is still ongoing.) Can Guantanamo lawyers mount full and fair defenses of the 9/11 conspirators while under the pressures of a past or present DOJ investigation—and the threat of a future probe by the Pentagon itself, as some congressional Republicans have called for? We're about to find out.




The genesis of the DOJ probe dates back at least to the summer of 2009, when guards at Guantanamo found a series of photos in the cell of Mustafa Ahmad al Hawsawi, an accused Al Qaeda financier and one of KSM's four co-defendants. The photos, according to multiple reports, showed CIA employees suspected of involvement in the interrogation of high-value detainees, including al Hawsawi himself.

The CIA, unsurprisingly, was deeply alarmed. John Rizzo, then the agency's top lawyer, demanded an investigation. He later described the incident as "far more serious than Valerie Plame," referring to the Bush-era leak of an operative's covert status. He wasn't alone in his concerns. "This is an agency that has reasons to be concerned as to whether or not somebody's got their back," another high-ranking former intelligence official told Mother Jones last year. "It's always operating out there on the edge, not unlawfully, but generally at the farthest reaches of executive prerogative."

The Justice Department launched an investigation, headed by Donald Vieira, a former Democratic Hill staffer. Vieira soon found that the photos had been taken for a reason. Since any successful defense of a high-value detainee would likely require proving torture—and calling the alleged torturers, if they existed, to the stand—members of the Gitmo defense bar felt they needed to identify whom, exactly, had interrogated their clients.

In any other criminal case, this would normally be a breeze—defense lawyers generally know which cops or FBI agents questioned their clients and can call them as witnesses if necessary. But when you're dealing with the CIA, it's a whole different story. more

Brian Haw: A Tribute

It was not with a certain amount of sadness that I noticed the recent passing of peace activist and thorn in the side of the government, Brian Haw. Obituary from Wedgwood here, and another Guardian piece here. Or try your own search; Brian Haw+Gestapo brings a result or two if you're interested.

Recently raised in conversation, was the subject of patriotism. I can think of no better tribute to Brian Haw, than to republish this piece I wrote back in 2007.

Put Away The Flags

Thankfully we don't do much of it any more, wave the flag of empire that is.
Do I say thankfully, because I'm not nationalistic? probably, or do I say this because of what the Union Flag represents? definitely.

You see when you are a realist and you cut away the nationalistic fervour and all the bullshit that surrounds these bits of cloth and take a good look at what they have been built on and truly represent, well they're not something a fellow can take a great deal of pride in, and the last thing that any realist wants to be seen waving is this symbol of empire and repression.

I hardly need to give you chapter and verse on British hegemony and our glorious colonial past, suffice to say the Empire is unregrettably no more.


But as is all too apparent and undeniable, Americans have taken the flag culture to it's extreme, and as the two are inextricably intertwined, have also taken the concept of patriotism, wrapped it in the same flag, stuck it on a pedestal and viewed it as something noble.

The horrific history, and the resulting deaths of millions brought on by American nationalist super-patriotism is indeed well enough documented, but I fear not near well enough read, or, just as likely read and ignored or read and denied.
One only has to remember quite recently the thunder of beating war drums and the waving of flags as America set fort on yet another invasion of a foreign land.


Yet another example of this wonderful thing called patriotism is how it has become a cheap and shoddy tool in the political arsenal.
Seemingly the moment anybody, pol or otherwise starts to talk a bit of sense, out comes the cannon and the patriotism shell is fired across the bows of anybody who might have the audacity to suggest that America isn't the land of freedom and democracy but a rogue nation drenched in the blood of millions of innocents that this shining beacon of light, this Christian Nation, has murdered.


What does it say of a country when it's blood soaked nationalistic symbol is so revered as this, (link now dead) and this is not the exception other examples abound throughout the country.

So let us move on to how this super nationalism is viewed by a realist.

I cannot get out of my mind the recent news photos of ordinary Americans sitting on chairs, guns on laps, standing unofficial guard on the Arizona border, to make sure no Mexicans cross over into the United States. There was something horrifying in the realization.........

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy. That self-deception started early...........more

Filed under the Patriotism tag.

Put Away The Flags

Thankfully we don't do much of it any more, wave the flag of empire that is.
Do I say thankfully because I'm not nationalistic? probably, or do I say this because of what the Union Flag represents? definitely.

You see when you are a realist and you cut away the nationalistic fervour and all the bullshit that surrounds these bits of cloth and take a good look at what they have been built on and truly represent, well they're not something a fellow can take a great deal of pride in, and the last thing that any realist wants to be seen waving is this symbol of empire and repression.

I hardly need to give you chapter and verse on British hegemony and our glorious colonial past, suffice to say the Empire is unregrettably no more.

But as is all too apparent and undeniable, Americans have taken the flag culture to it's extreme, and as the two are inextricably intertwined, have also taken the concept of patriotism, wrapped it in the same flag, stuck it on a pedestal and viewed it as something noble.

The horrific history and the resulting deaths of millions brought on by American nationalist super-patriotism is indeed well enough documented, but I fear not near well enough read, or just as likely read and ignored or read and denied.
One only has to remember quite recently the thunder of beating war drums and the waving of flags as America set fort on yet another invasion of a foreign land.

Yet another example of this wonderful thing called patriotism is how it has become a cheap and shoddy tool in the political arsenal.
Seemingly the moment anybody, pol or otherwise starts to talk a bit of sense, out comes the cannon and the patriotism shell is fired across the bows of anybody who might have the audacity to suggest that America isn't the land of freedom and democracy but a rogue nation drenched in the blood of millions of innocents, that this shining beacon of light, this Christian Nation, has murdered.

What does it say of a country when it's blood soaked nationalistic symbol is so revered as this, and this is not the exception other examples abound throughout the country.

So let us move on to how this super nationalism is viewed by a realist.

I cannot get out of my mind the recent news photos of ordinary Americans sitting on chairs, guns on laps, standing unofficial guard on the Arizona border, to make sure no Mexicans cross over into the United States. There was something horrifying in the realization.........

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy. That self-deception started early...........more

Paul Watson: To Stand With You Sir, The Honour Is Completely Mine

And ain't it just, Captain Paul Wilson, a remarkable human being.

If I could have found a photo of you from taken from behind, or if I had a similar one of Teddy, you would Captain Sir Paul Watson by now. But alas, both are like the proverbial rocking horse whatsit, so you'll have to wait until Betty gives you one, good heavens man you deserving enough. Not that I suppose you would be over impressed with such a gong I'm sure; but there you go.

Upped on this blog because I have just upped a post on t'other one and I would like it to stay on the front page for a spell.



This is the accompanying video.

Dear Teddy,

We did it! This week, we drove the entire Japanese whaling fleet from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. They are on their way home!

But we did not do it alone. We did it with you! Sea Shepherd is more than the ships and crew that operate them.

Yes, the crew is important - men and women from around the world from all walks of life who volunteer their time and skills and risk their lives to defend life in the seas. They are, of course, a very important reason for the success of our missions. They are the people who directly confront the killers on the high seas. It is their passion that makes Sea Shepherd all that we can be.
video thanks from captain watson

The crew on the ships could not function without our onshore crew, who make up our office staff and our many shore-based volunteers. Our onshore crewmembers are in a very real sense just as important as those who go to sea. They make budgets, answer phones, process donations, conduct legal research, respond to media inquiries, create merchandise, organize benefits like bake sales and art auctions, man information tables, prepare the ships in port, solicit donations of food and services for the ships--and so much more.

But, the foundation of what we are and what we do lies firmly upon the shoulders of our supporters from all around the world. Your financial backing puts the resources into our hands that feed our crew, put gas in the tank and paint on our hull, keep our engines running, and our safety and navigational requirements in tip top shape.

It is this trinity of sea crew, onshore crew, and financial support crew that keeps Sea Shepherd at sea and keeps the harpoons away from the whales, the clubs away from the seals, the longlines and driftnets away from the fish, turtles, and sharks, and the knives away from the dolphins.

Sea Shepherd is all of us who care about our oceans and are willing to stand up and ACT, in whatever way we are able, in defense of the wondrous diversity of life in our fragile oceans.

We are all Shepherds of the Sea and those who are not should be, because the stark reality is that if our oceans die, we die! Together we fight not just for the whales, sharks, seals, sea-birds, turtles, and fish, together we fight for our own survival.

Together we are a force for good, a force for change, a force for ecological sanity, and a force to be reckoned with!

We will be honored if you would continue to stand with us as we imminently face battles on other fronts - bluefin tuna overfishing in the Mediterranean, pilot whale slaughter in the Faeroes, dolphin killing in Taiji, poaching in the Galapagos, and more.

To all the Shepherds of the Sea that made it possible for us to drive the whale killers from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, I think I can speak for all the citizens of the sea in saying "Thank-you."

For the oceans,
Captain Paul Watson

Captain Paul Watson

Founder and President

• Click here to make a donation
• Click here to read about the whalers leaving the Southern Oceans.

See comments.

Why Don't Scientologists Burst Out Laughing and Walk Away?

I wondered, when I dropped on this third article by Tony Ortega, if it would go some way to explaining the same question that I asked when I earlier ran two previous articles by fellow. Basically, how can people be so fucking gullible when confronted with this tripe that is at the core of Scientology? Or as Ortega asks the very same:

Why don't Scientologists, when they've been in the organization long enough to reach the legendary material in "Operating Thetan Level Three" -- the stuff about Xenu the galactic overlord which made for a great 2005 episode of South Park -- bust out laughing and walk away?

One way of answering the question, would be to take the easy way out and dismiss it as simply the stupidity and gullibility of your average Yanky. Given that around half the population of America think the Earth is less than ten thousand years old and was willed into existence by a supernatural entity, I could be forgiven for thinking this. It may well turn out to be the case, for try as I may, and reading the accounts below, and doing so in all seriousness, I'm still at a loss as to the why of it all.

Is Ortega right in downplaying: their critical reasoning skills were so eroded, they would accept anything in favour of something else, something quite simple in fact:

. . . but by the time they learned it (the Xenu story) they had already spent so much of their lives invested in Scientology, they really had no personal will to walk away -- at least at that point.

Human nature being what it is, and considering how much time and money these people had invested to reach this level of enlightenment, OT3, it is not I think, an observation without merit.

Why Do Scientologists Accept the Xenu Story?
By Tony Ortega
July 21 2012

For going on 17 years I've been writing about Scientology, and over that time there's one question that has come up again and again.

Why don't Scientologists, when they've been in the organization long enough to reach the legendary material in "Operating Thetan Level Three" -- the stuff about Xenu the galactic overlord which made for a great 2005 episode of South Park -- bust out laughing and walk away?

Tom Cruise and John Travolta and thousands of other Scientologists have moved on beyond the space opera stuff in OT 3 (Cruise, for example, has moved up to OT 7), and for some reason, they accepted the Xenu story and never looked back.

When I've been asked that question, I had a ready answer that I'd put together after talking to many ex-Scientologists who told me their own experiences.

But now, I realize that the answer I was giving was wrong. The reason why Scientologists accept the story about Xenu and disembodied alien beings infesting this Earth is actually much simpler, and much more mindblowing, than I ever realized.

In the past, Scientologists had convinced me that their long, gradual indoctrination was so insidious, by the time they were allowed to read L. Ron Hubbard's strange OT 3 story -- which has a galactic overlord solving an overpopulation problem by bringing billions of disembodied alien souls to this planet 75 million years ago -- their critical reasoning skills were so eroded, they would accept anything.

I remember Jason Beghe, for example, telling me that other religions have their angels and demons, so was a story about alien spirits from another solar system really all that harder to believe? I could see what he was saying, but after spending so much money and time -- hundreds of thousands of dollars and several years of dedication to reach OT 3 -- wasn't it a shock for Scientologists to learn that this was what their religion is really all about?

Some ex-church members I met did admit that they had negative reactions to the Xenu story, but by the time they learned it they had already spent so much of their lives invested in Scientology, they really had no personal will to walk away -- at least at that point.

But then, recently, I had a new realization about what church members go through before they get to OT 3.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed a man named Dani Lemberger, and he made me understand the "whole track" and auditing better than anyone else had before. (In auditing -- Scientology's spiritual counseling -- a subject holds onto the sensors of an e-meter while an auditor asks questions prescribed by Hubbard, encouraging the subject to remember events earlier and earlier. The purpose is to remember and then disarm traumatic memories that happened in your past lives, and helps you move toward becoming "clear." As you do so, you gain a view down your entire "whole track" of existence as an immortal spirit, called a "thetan.")

For my story about Dani and the mission in Israel that is splitting away from the official church, I interviewed Lemberger for hours and sat, mesmerized, as he told me about his whole track auditing, during which he saw himself millions of years ago, leading groups during different lifetimes and on other planets. Over the eons, he said, he had lived lifetimes during which he had a tendency to get his head chopped off when his people rebelled.

Dani was serious. (And he's also a successful businessman with an MBA who characterizes himself as a "skeptic.")

Lemberger made me realize something very basic about Scientology that, for some reason, had never really sunk in before. And it is this...

The reason Scientologists accept Hubbard's bizarre story about Xenu is that by the time they reach OT 3, they have been "remembering" their own outlandish space opera "whole track" stories during auditing, perhaps for several years.

Why question Hubbard's tale about mass alien genocide 75 million years ago, when you've been "seeing" yourself as some kind of Buck Rogers fighting enemies and bedding beauties from one end of the galaxy to the other?

With this new realization, I went back to some of my ex-Scientology sources to put it to them: had they been holding out on me a little about their own Star Wars-like adventures?

Several of them admitted that yes, even ex-Scientologists long out of the church can be somewhat reluctant to discuss the wild things they "remembered" about their past during auditing. But I pressed them -- tell me about your adventures from millennia past.

"I blew up a water dam that destroyed a third of the cities that were downriver of it. That would be about 300 million years ago -- but you would say something like '346,767,813 years ago' to your auditor. I think it was on some planet that started with the letter 'V'," says Chuck Beatty, and he laughs, knowing how ridiculous it sounds.

Even after I had explained what I was asking, it took me some while to pry that answer out of Chuck, who is, just about anyone will tell you, the most forthcoming and talkative source of information on Scientology in the world.

Tiziano Lugli was the same way. He spoke to me at length about his own auditing and the entire progression of the OT levels. But I had to keep pushing him until he finally coughed up one of his whole track events...

"It was 250,000 years ago, in a space ship, and I'd gathered all these people from these planets, and I'm implanting them with mental pictures and then throwing them down to the earth, a prison planet," Lugli said. "I was the guy in charge, and I'm responsible for this prison planet. The feeling of that responsibility and what I went through freaked me out for a year."

And that's really the purpose of "remembering" such material -- Scientologists believe that if they can recall and "handle" things that happened to them eons ago, it will solve whatever problems they have going on in their current lives.

"At the end of a session you feel invincible," Lugli says. "You've been having planets built and destroyed. After that, you come out into this normal world and you feel like the most powerful person around because you've been traveling through space and time."

Marc Headley pointed out that if you're having those kinds of experiences, Hubbard's story about a galactic overlord is just not very surprising.

"OK, so there's a galactic overlord named Xenu. Big deal. That's not the craziest thing you're going to hear on your way to spending three hundred thousand dollars," he says, referring to the ballpark figure for what it takes to get through the years of services to get to OT 3. At the upper levels, such counseling reaches about a thousand dollars an hour.

But during their journey to OT 3, not everyone has such outlandish "memories," they all pointed out to me.

Amy Scobee, for example, told me a pretty mundane story about seeing herself in a scene from about two centuries ago (which, even though it was rather tame, she asked me not to share). Other memories she worked with were almost contemporary.

She just didn't have wild space opera experiences the way some others did. So when she she reached OT 3, I asked her, how did it hit her?

"I did wonder if it was true," she says. But when she then ran the auditing routines involved in the level, the e-meter's needle seemed to indicate that what the material proposed -- that disembodied alien souls were hovering around her -- seemed to be confirmed. "It's weird. I don't know what to say. I didn't feel like I went through that incident, but the needle was going wild, so I had to assume that someone had."

I also called Jefferson Hawkins, who I've always considered one of the smartest, most level-headed of the ex-Scientologists who speak out about their experiences. He laughed as soon as I explained why I was calling.

"I ran a lot of that stuff, as anybody does, and people don't want to talk about it because it's kind of silly when you get out. But when you're in it's very real," he says.

And Jeff's "whole track" auditing memory? "I was a navigator on a space ship, and it had this very complex navigation system that I was in charge of and I could describe it in great detail," he says. "It was just very vivid. I could see the equipment and could describe it."

He points out that Hubbard had suggested these kinds of stories in his books and lectures, talking about waves of "invader forces" that had colonized the solar system.

"As a kid I was a real science fiction fan. And the idea that this stuff had actually occurred millions of years ago -- it was crazy, but in a good way," he says.

So these Scientologists, in their auditing sessions, were "remembering" pretty mindblowing stuff. But there was a catch -- they weren't supposed to tell other church members about it.

Lugli describes the scene to me: "You would go to the restaurant at the Sandcastle Hotel in Flag [Scientology's spiritual mecca in Clearwater, Florida], and everyone is out of session, saying things like, 'Wow, this really blew me away! I've never handled more charge in one session!' But you can't actually say what happened," he says.

However, people would violate the rules and spill secrets about their past lives, they tell me. Some folks just couldn't help themselves.

"It was a status thing," Hawkins explains. "I knew probably four or five Scientologists who told me confidentially that they were Jesus."

And in the 1980s, he remembers, "there was this fad for a while that people were all remembering that they were Nazis in World War II, and that's why things were so screwed up in their present lives," Hawkins says. "That's why they had to be so active in Scientology, to atone for what they had done in past lives."

I also pointed out to Jeff that there seemed to be another status thing going on -- the better Scientologist you were, the farther back in your whole track you could go, retrieve incidents, and handle them. Hubbard himself seemed to promote this idea, that if his followers could travel back hundreds of millions of years, he was so advanced he was going back trillions of years. (Astronomers tell us the universe itself is only about 14 billion years old, but that didn't stop Hubbard.)

Hubbard claimed that he'd visited Heaven 43 trillion years ago and then a trillion years later. And, as we pointed out (and Beatty gave us credit for being the first ever to do so), when Hubbard died, Pat Broeker showed a number with 347 digits on it to the audience when it was announced that Hubbard had merely left his body in order to continue his research on another plane.

That number, Broeker told the audience, represented in years the farthest back in his whole track that Hubbard had been able to go at the end of his life.

We did the math, and here's what that number represented...

24 billion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years.

That's some time travel!

So you see, 75 million years ago is not really such a big deal, and Xenu and his alien overpopulation problem isn't going to scare off your average spacefaring Scientologist.

Someday, I'd love to hear Tom Cruise's whole track tales. They must be something. Update and two short clips

Again in all seriousness, I have upped this now infamous video of Tom Cruise, not to take the piss, which would be too easy, but to actually study someone who is so far off the wall, it's something to behold.

Thank You God: March of The Penguins

I was only looking for a few lines to give the post above some relevance, but then I found this movie review from Christian Answers.

It's not a miracle surely, but just as I was about to settle for something lesser, this review fell into my hands. It's almost as though my prayers were answered. Just as I was starving for the real thing, it seemed to fall out of the sky, manna from heaven then?

So do please read this wonderful account of God's creations on earth, but if you get lost somewhere on the way, just remind yourself this is a review about a wildlife documentary.

And my review of the review? These people are insane.

There is a caption or two in this poster I'm sure, but it just so happens I have a couple of penguin related graphics of my own. Below.

March of the Penguins - Movie review, Christian Answers

In the harshest place on earth, love finds a way.

A successful documentary presents facts artistically, Luc Jacquet succeeded. “March of the Penguins” is an extraordinary film narrated by Morgan Freeman (“God” in Bruce Almighty). The film follows a flock of Emperor penguins, for a year, as they emerge from the frigid waters of Antarctica and travel 70 miles in harsh winds and freezing temperatures to make it back to “where they were all born.”

After reaching their traditional breeding ground, they select a mate and are monogamous to that mate for the current mating season. After the female lays the egg, they will engage in an intricate dance to pass the egg from female to male. The male protects the egg while the mother makes the 70+ mile trek back to feed (the journey gets longer as the water gets further away due to freezing).

During the mother’s absence, the father shields the egg from hazardous weather conditions. The chick hatches while the mother is away, so upon her return she will see her chick for the first time. The father then departs for his 70+ mile trek back to the water for his food. The traveling back and forth by mother and father continues until the end of the season when they will all return to the water as a family.

Once they reach the water, the parents dive back in and part ways, and the chicks stay on the ice and will likely never see their parents again.

The movie gives a detailed account of the life of an Emperor penguin with many interesting facts. During the course of the year, the penguins seemingly show signs of love, jealously and grief for a variety of reasons. You may feel you know more about Emperor penguins than you ever wanted to know, but there are life lessons that can be learned.

It is a story of nature, not of Hollywood, so gone are the special effects and computer imaging. They are replaced with actual, breathtaking footage of Antarctica splendidly captured by filmmakers. The temperatures drop as low as 80° below zero, and the winds rage at 100 mph, which makes the filming of this movie phenomenal. Stay for the credits to see actual behind-the-scenes footage.

VIOLENCE: The violence in the film is brief and mild, only depicting what truly happens in nature. In one scene, a Leopard seal eats a penguin, and a couple of close-up images of the seal’s mouth and teeth just prior to the attack may be a little frightening for a young child. The actual attack is not shown, only implied. In another scene, a bird is preying on the newly-hatched chicks, and one is caught and eaten by the bird. It is obvious when these scenes are about to take place, if you felt the need to cover your child’s eyes.

DISTURBING: Some chicks die due to the elements, and they show one dead that may upset a young child.

PROFANITY: None

SEX/NUDITY: The penguins mate during the film, but it is understood, not shown.

OBJECTIONABLE: The male and female penguins select a mate and are monogamous to each other for that season only. Morgan Freeman says, “All bets are off” referring to the next season when they will choose a different mate. It seemed inappropriate and out of place in relation to the rest of the movie.

“March of the Penguins” has lessons to teach about:

“LOVE”: According to the film, the penguins take this tremendous journey for “love” and to find a mate and reproduce. The dedication, cooperation, and affection are exemplary between the pair.

PERSEVERANCE: We could learn a lot about perseverance from Emperor penguins. I was quickly reminded of the ant in Proverbs 6:7-8 “It has no commander, overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” No one is reminding these penguins what to do; they know what to do, and they do it. They are prepared, persistent and committed, much like we are called to be as witnesses for Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 4:15 “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”

The penguins endure treacherous conditions, yet they continue on their journey, focusing on what lies ahead (new life). It may be a bit of a stretch, but I thought of what we, as Christians have to endure to get what lies ahead for us (eternal life). Philippians 3:14 “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: One year in the life of an Emperor penguin is a great indication of the existence and character of God. Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” He is absolutely perfect! Every detail has been taken into account, and every provision has been made. Witnessing all the love and care that He must have put into creating the penguins is small compared to what He put into creating us. Matthew 6:26 “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Leaving the theater, I was more in awe and in love with my Creator.

FRIENDSHIP/COMMRADERIE: All the penguins wait to start their journey until the last of them is out of the water, giving a sense of unity. As the penguins make their journey, they will all stop from time to time until one of them picks up the trail again, and then they all start moving. It is similar to what we are called to do in the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:27-28 “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.”

While the fathers are caring for their unhatched chicks and braving the harshest of weather, they all huddle together in a huge heap for warmth. The ones on the outside rotate, so they all have a turn in the middle. Philippians 2:2-4 “then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

I was truly fascinated by the lives of these penguins, maybe because I felt we as humans could emulate much of it and be better followers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They all worked together towards a common goal; there was no fighting, gossiping and disorder. There was apparent “love,” cooperation and order. 1 Corinthians 12:25 “so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.”

I found the movie exciting and educational (but my three year old found it boring). What a great feeling it was to leave the theater without watcher’s remorse (sitting through a movie that went against my value system or offended my Lord and Savior). It was weird to see something on the big screen that I would normally watch on PBS on my 26-inch television. I would see “March of the Penguins” again, but not in the theater—in the cost-effective, comfort of my living room. Christian Answers

And as you do with these kinds of articles, you have a quick trawl through the comments. Just the one then for today, but it's a cracker. And do try the link, I pray.

Now, from a Christian perspective, in the opening scenes of the movie, it explains that the yearly penguin routine has gone on for millions and millions of years, which we all know is false. Since I was unable to see the whole film (thanks to the little ones—not my choice to take them by the way) I am not able to give further input from a Christian point of view. And, I have no intentions of ever viewing it again, so overall, I’ll have to give it a big thumbs down.
My Ratings: Average/3
Paula, age 26

"Which we all know is false" Paula age 26. Age 26, what bleedin' hope is there in this world?

Right click, open in new tag. Click again when opened.

Troy Davis: What is it About Americans and Punishment?

In a line taken from the article text that I have used for the header, I omitted the ''us'' for I am in no doubt the question at hand is asked far more frequently around the world than it ever might be in the one nation under God.

In metaphorical speak, it seems a lifetime ago that I first started to blog about Troy Davis' impending execution, but that was only four short years ago, short years for me, but I fear not such short years for Davis.

I have been keeping track of this story as Davis faces yet another date set for his execution, or state sponsored murder, dependant on your point of view. Keeping track, but holding off on reporting until Davis received a further stay or suffered the ultimate and final indignity and was put to death by the state of Georgia. A state I must add, whose backwardness is only equal to its intransigence in righting the wrongs of its viscous and flawed justice system. (See Genarlow Wilson in the sidebar.)

Holding off that is, until this article came along, an article that gives a few home truths and questions the questionable ethics of this jaundiced country and its equally jaundiced people. If indeed not shameless, callous and pitiless people as we all witnessed recently, the abhorrent spectacle regarding Rick Perry's unenviable record of putting to death by the state of Texas, an equally unenviable number of people.

Film noir: Troy Davis and the American Way
By Pubali Ray Chaudhuri
September 19, 2011

In another few days yet one more miserable insect—pardon me, where are my manners? One more black man will be put to death by the greatest country with the greatest justice system in the world, the U.S. of A.

And here I am, yet another writer, meditating—for what else can one do?—on this very commonplace event in the history of the U.S. justice system, the impending execution of a black man, Troy Davis, and on what his approaching fate says about us as a people.

What is it about us Americans and punishment? Certainly we continue overwhelmingly to support the death penalty, even though the days are past when men and women, in their thousands, thronged to watch an end be put to the life of a fellow human being. Then is ours now a secret vice, like onanism? Perhaps we derive a secret pleasure from the very idea of punishment, even though modern standards of civilization, a plague upon them, forbid us to gloat openly as of yore, have picnics and parties as we used to do, you know, a nice day out with the wife and kiddies? Teach the little ones first-hand about how the wheels of justice turn and how to enjoy the spectacle of strange fruit suspended, quivering, from a gibbet?

But I overlook our Puritan ancestors and their legacy that taught us how both our vices and pleasures must be decently straitjacketed, garbed decorously in the raiment of necessity and virtue. While the hand beneath tugs urgently at blood-engorged genitalia and tiny beads of perspiration gather on the brow in anticipation of the approaching climax, the eyes remain grave, the lips continue to utter pieties, the upper body remains decorously and even pompously still. So it is with the pleasures of many of us in this greatest of nations; so it is, too, with our secret vices. For what are vices but pleasures that we are fain to hide? And what a pleasure it is, isn’t it, to punish another—how our scalps tighten, how the blood surges to our vitals, how our very nerves twitch and tingle at the prospect of approaching punishment as at the prospect of approaching orgasm. There isn’t, one would think, that much of a gulf between enjoyment and sin, is there? No wonder so many of us are so suspicious of pleasure. Our Puritan ancestors taught us well; they knew what they were talking about.

It might surprise us, were we to dwell on the connection, how much of what we love and honour flows directly from the suffering of others. As Americans, we honour soldiers as “heroes,” even though these men and women set out to invade the lands of those who never did us any harm, and to whom the words “911” mean exactly nothing at all. Yet the more innocent people we kill and maim and incinerate, the higher rises our respect, nay, our adoration, of our beloved troops, and the more overblown and grotesque our pride in ourselves as a “great nation” “the leader of the free world” “a beacon of democracy” and any amount of similarly clichéd balderdash one cares to trump up.

Yet in this great bastion nation beacon shining light of liberty and justice and freedom for all, we’ve maintained one of our time-honoured American traditions—the punishment, by execution or imprisonment—of the poor, especially of the non-white poor, and most especially of the African-American poor. We don’t feel quite American, if you know what I mean, our red blood corpuscles don’t thump and pulse with quite as much vigour, unless we can sacrifice at frequent intervals a poor and/or black man at the altar of our criminal justice system.

Criminal justice system? Now there’s a Freudian slip for you. Never mind that grave doubts continue to exist about Troy Davis’ guilt. Never mind that appeals for the commutation of his sentence have poured in from as far away as Europe and South Africa, from individuals as distinguished as Nobel Peace Laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, Ravi Shankar and Sister Helen Prejean, and legal experts such as William Sessions. The NAACP points to “overwhelming evidence that calls into question his guilt, and repeated attempts at justice.” Amnesty International “believes that this is one in a long line of cases in the USA that should give even ardent supporters of the death penalty pause for thought. For it provides further evidence of the danger, inherent in the death penalty, of irrevocable error.” Never mind all of that; we are still the country that values freedom and justice above all else, especially when we are about exercise that freedom to execute a black and economically underprivileged man.

No poor black man in this country can take the life of a white individual, even if in self-defence, and expect to live free. But we have progressed further. A poor black man who comes under suspicion of having killed a white man can expect the great ponderous machinery of the law to begin rolling inexorably against him until his life or his spirit or both have been crushed under its weight. Troy Davis is only one black man who is finding this out the hard way. There have been many before him; no doubt there will be many after.

But let us see if we can turn off our seemingly endless fount of pious cant for a moment and make room for a few ugly truths. Truths indeed so hideous in their festering, gibbering, pus-filled forms that veil them and explain them away as we might, their loathsome stink yet creeps forth abroad. *This is a country built on racism and genocide, on the most massive land grab in history and on the trafficking of human souls and bodies for profit as though they were so many pounds of potatoes. A nation built on two of the most horrendous crimes in history cannot escape that legacy unless it first faces up to it. And that we have never done; that we shall never do. We will never admit that a country that prides itself on freedom was founded on that same freedom being denied to others. We will not admit that we have kept the original owners of this land, the Native people, as prisoners and forced them to beg for the barest of rights on their own soil.* We do not speak of the silent, unacknowledged apartheid that rests upon the reluctance of so many millions of white people to interact with black people, to befriend them, to live side-by-side with them, to accord them the respect and honour due to equal human beings.

Let us face for once what so much of white America truly feels in its innermost heart but cannot admit because such an admission is no longer socially acceptable. But just because a thing is no longer spoken of aloud does not mean it has ceased to exist in the hearts of men and women. White America (or a significant part of it) distrusts, despises and dislikes black America, thinking of the latter as a horde of freeloaders, drug-pushers, and hustlers, as cutthroats waiting to relieve you of your wallet or your life on a dark night or on a lonely street—in short, as a dark, amorphous, undifferentiated mass in which no trace of humanity is any longer distinguishable and which can therefore evoke no spark of reciprocal human sympathy to lighten its formlessness. Once we understand this prevailing attitude of one race towards another, it becomes a lot easier to grasp why so many black men are imprisoned for long periods for minor offenses and why so many are put to death in spite of their guilt being less than certain.

There you have a very real, and very seldom acknowledged reason, why Troy Davis, an African-American, has been held in prison for over 20 years and now may suffer the ultimate brutality of having his life snuffed out for a crime he may well never have committed. There you have the reason why this man, for whom no physical evidence exists linking him to the crime, and in whose case key witnesses have since recanted, is still to die. And why Johannes Mehserle, a white police officer who shot an unarmed black man, Oscar Grant, in broad daylight as the victim lay face down, surrounded by law enforcement, in the presence of numerous witnesses, walked free in a few months. This is the American reality four decades after the Civil Rights Movement.

It is necessary that a few black men die every so often for our pleasure, so that we can continue to beat our collective ego-chests and congratulate ourselves on justice being done, even as we perpetuate our long tradition of paradoxes that seem to define us as a people: the “greatest” country in the world is nothing but its greatest terror and bully; freedom is predicated (literally) on the legacy of slavery and domination, what we view as justice is too often its horrific miscarriage.

Troy Davis must die so that our illusions about ourselves may live.

Let me make a humble suggestion. If we are so proud of what we are doing to Davis, why not let this noble deed be performed in the open, as in the good old days? If justice is all that’s being done, then the more people to witness it the better, right? Don’t we want to bask in the admiration of the international community, whose leaders we proudly claim to be? Surely they can learn from our example. Once exposed to the awesome and solemn spectacle—the might of American justice, they may well feel inspired to rush off and adopt our ways themselves. At the very least, such a spectacle would be educational. Besides, as I have said earlier, we just like vengeance, or, as we like to call it, justice, in this country. Yes, sir, we’re great sticklers for doing the right thing here. A public execution might even improve tourism, and it would certainly be a fun show, and we could all look as solemn as we liked at the regrettable necessity that compels us to perform and/or witness this very sad deed.

How about it, then? Take this show on the road, but stop calling it justice. Call it what it is; a party—a lynching party.

Bring the kids.

Pubali Ray Chaudhuri is an Associate Editor of Intrepid Report. ICH

In view of the last paragraph you may think I composed this for the post, but it was in fact for something or other previous.

* My highlight: I had occasion to discuss these points with an American, who was no fool by the way, I was a guest writer on his blog for a while. And I wasn't ''having a go'' at him, mentioning rather matter of factly, that the Yanks were the new Brits, the new warrior race, and whereas we Brits had built an empire on genocide and dispossession, likewise had Americans built a country on the same principals. Which I have to say, didn't seem to go down awfully well with the chap, I must have touched a nerve. He preferring to use the term colonisation or some such excuse of a word.

Previous: A road to Damascus moment

Summary Execution on the Streets of Anaheim California?

In the main, and for reasons that matter not, I stopped doing 'police brutality' videos quite sometime ago. That doesn't mean however that there aren't sufficient examples under the sidebar tags of Police and Fascist.

This story of the cops in Anaheim California, is a day or two old. I was in two minds whether to run it or not, because I have to say, I did find it particularly disturbing. Bad enough that the cops feel they have the right to shoot, often in the back, just who they please, but it was the brutality with which the police set about the citizens of the community of Anaheim that was particularly concerning.

The community, involving women and babies and kids, was just that, the community, not the enemy; but watching the cops go into action, you would think that the Berserkers had put in an appearance. Well I suppose they had in a way, they were the ones in uniform, and boy oh boy, did they live up to the name or what?

But watching the footage surrounding the latest shooting* I couldn't help but be reminded of something that I had previously found equally disturbing, the summary execution of a young man on the streets of Rio de Janeiro by the local cops. If the details are to be believed, then this shooting itself is little different than the execution witnessed on the streets of Rio by Ross Kemp in his television series, Gangs.

Now I'm not that naive that I don't think this kind of thing goes on all the time, a dark alley, two in the head, and a throw away gun (do read) in place by the time an investigation appears at the scene. And thanks to Democracy Now, the details of a previous shooting were elucidated, and if that doesn't sound like summary execution, I don't know what does.

The forty two second clip of the Rio shooting, I had originally intended to embed at the end of the post, but perhaps it might be better to lead with the thing, it certainly helps put things in perspective.

*There was a second, unrelated fatal shooting by the Anaheim cops, before the first vic had cooled off. Details in the main clip.

Ross Kemp on gangs - Rio 42secs, caution advised.




Update: Anaheim police fire on media as unrest continues

Police Brutality in Anaheim Sparks Outrage After 2 Latinos Shot Dead and Demonstrators Attacked

Democracy Now: Police in the California city of Anaheim are facing allegations of murder and brutality after fatally shooting two Latino men over the weekend and firing rubber bullets at crowds of protesters. On Saturday, Anaheim police shot and killed 24-year-old Manuel Diaz after he reportedly ran away from a group of officers who confronted him in the street. Diaz was unarmed.

Hours after his death, a chaotic scene broke out when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at a crowd of local residents protesting the shooting. Another Latino resident, Joel Acevedo, was shot dead by police the following day. Police say Acevedo was suspected in a car robbery, but the circumstances around his death remain unconfirmed.

We discuss the situation in Anaheim with Gustavo Arellano, editor of the alternative newspaper, OC Weekly, and Theresa Smith, who has worked with families to call for police accountability in Anaheim since 2009, when officers shot and killed her son, Cesar Cruz, a 35-year-old father of five. "Given the fact that this is the eighttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhth officer-involved shooting within one year in the city of Anaheim ... the community is going to be very upset," Arellano says. "There’s a lot of angry residents, and rightfully so." transcript

Previous related articles, all featuring, and not by accident I suppose, Paul Craig Roberts

Tyranny In The Heartland

America’s Police Brutality Pandemic

Americans Are Oppressed, Too

Criminals With Badges

Further Fascist Fun In Florida

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Isn't it amazing how the law and order brigade have a road to Damascus moment when they find themselves in the hands of "law and order."

There's nothing like a basin full of reality to sweep away the illusions is there? I love stories like this, they're better than midget porn convert's corner at Richard Dawkins dot net.

And he prayed over him and made the sign of the cross over him and over his eyes, and breathed into his face; and the scales fell from his eyes and he saw immediately. His mother said to the saint, "Master, let him hear with his ears and let him walk." The righteous man said to her, "O woman, this is sufficient now; when I call him, he shall hear my voice, and shall walk and perform my words;" and she was unable to answer him a word, for she saw that his face was like that of an angel of God.

Caught on tape: More deputies accused of brutally beating inmate


Tampa, Florida- Former teacher Paul King says he used to be one of those people who said lock 'em up throw away the key.

However King has changed his mind since being arrested on public intoxication last July. A video shows deputies pushed him against a glass wall as he was being frisked, threw him to the ground for no apparent reason, held his neck back more than 2 minutes as he was being put into a restraint chair, put a hood over his face and then appeared to try to hide the action from cameras by moving paperwork to cover his head.

King says it's something like out of Guantanamo.More and video.

Isn't it just mister King, welcome to the real world.

Update: Video down, remainder of story below.

King says when he was out of camera view, two deputies took him out of the restraining chair and says they both started kneeing him up against a bench or a wall, as he was pleading please, please, please.

But it didn't stop there. King says they made him say you're a fucking pussy. And he says they were hurting him so he said “ I'm a fucking pussy and the deputies all laughed.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has ordered an inquiry into all the allegations, however a spokesman for the McCollum says it is too early to determine whether these are isolated incidents or there is a pattern of abuse occurring.

But despite the fact the attorney general and the sheriff's office each launched separate investigations, some have said they fear this is an attempt to sweep things under the rug rather than to find the truth.

Attorney John Trevena, who represents some of the people claiming abuse, met with McCollum's office on Thursday and says he believes there is a need for federal oversite in this. Trevena says he hopes he is wrong but he is losing confidence in the state's ability to handle this.

And those who claim they have been abused in the jail are losing confidence in the system. King says when he was going through this he thought it was something like the Orwell novel, "1984." King says they can do whatever they want.

And critics say right now no one is stopping them.

The Psychological Kevlar Act. A Moral Labotomy?

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I don't want to run the risk of turning this into a "War Blog" given that I have posted on the subject a few times of late, but this is not just about the war per se, it's the aftermath and it's knock on effect that not only relates to service personnel and their immediate families but the potential to effect society as a whole.

There is far too much material in the article to quote and I think I have done a poor job with what I have offered up.

Basically the proposed use of the drug Propranalol by the Pentagon is to put it mildly quite scary shit indeed.
I have in the past heard of the victims of sexual trauma being treated with this drug, the argument for it's use was quite obvious, to take away the trauma felt by the victim by means of desensitising the feelings and memory of the event.

And it is those very same reasons that are put forward by the opponents of such treatment, it being neither healthy nor wise. A victim should still have regard for the dangers and trauma that might arise from future everyday "at risk situations."

The writer makes brief mention of this towards the end of the article, but the gist is that combat troops would be treated in situ with Propranalol, and by being treated as such while still serving in a combat situation would end up as amoral desensitised killing machines.

At the end of the day it's only our inherent morality that stops us becoming monsters, take that away and the potential for horror is frightening.

Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War


In June, the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health acknowledged "daunting and growing" psychological problems among our troops: Nearly 40 percent of soldiers, a third of Marines and half of National Guard members are presenting with serious mental health issues.........

And last month, CBS News reported that, based on its own extensive research, over 6,250 American veterans took their own lives in 2005 alone -- that works out to a little more than 17 suicides every day..........


The Psychological Kevlar Act "directs the secretary of defense to develop and implement a plan to incorporate preventive and early-intervention measures, practices or procedures that reduce the likelihood that personnel in combat will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other stress-related psychopathologies, including substance use conditions.........

I cannot convince myself that what is really being promoted isn't a form of moral lobotomy.more

Psychiatric Medication

It's only got one side effect,

You really must give it a try,

It's only got one side effect,

It makes you want to die.

Carol Batton

Our Reliance on The Micro-Chip A Doomsday Scenario

As a blog writer, a fellow faces many decisions, none of them life threatening or earth shattering, some might say not even important, and they would probably be correct. Nevertheless, two decisions crop up almost daily, and those decisions often involve, how serious or how lighthearted be the content of what is offered up to you the reader.

Too frivolous the content; what would be the point in bothering at all? And on the other side of the coin, whereas nobody wants to read about a cat not stuck up a tree, I'm sure likewise, they don't want to visit a site where the blogger is only a merchant of doom, and constantly come away with an upside down smile.

Having said all that, what I'm going to offer you today is nothing more than a very glum post about a doomsday scenario. But it is an extremely interesting doomsday scenario nonetheless, nobody can argue with that evaluation, and all involving solar flares and our near total reliance on the micro chip.

Drive on!

More gifs @ Wikipedia Coronal Mass Ejection

Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe
by Michael Brooks
March 24 2009

It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colorful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.

It sounds ridiculous. Surely the sun couldn't create so profound a disaster on Earth. Yet an extraordinary report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January this year claims it could do just that.

Over the last few decades, western civilizations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.

The projections of just how catastrophic make chilling reading. "We're moving closer and closer to the edge of a possible disaster," says Daniel Baker, a space weather expert based at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and chair of the NAS committee responsible for the report.

It is hard to conceive of the sun wiping out a large amount of our hard-earned progress. Nevertheless, it is possible. The surface of the sun is a roiling mass of plasma - charged high-energy particles - some of which escape the surface and travel through space as the solar wind. From time to time, that wind carries a billion-tonne glob of plasma, a fireball known as a coronal mass ejection. If one should hit the Earth's magnetic shield, the result could be truly devastating.

The incursion of the plasma into our atmosphere causes rapid changes in the configuration of Earth's magnetic field which, in turn, induce currents in the long wires of the power grids. The grids were not built to handle this sort of direct current electricity. The greatest danger is at the step-up and step-down transformers used to convert power from its transport voltage to domestically useful voltage. The increased DC current creates strong magnetic fields that saturate a transformer's magnetic core. The result is runaway current in the transformer's copper wiring, which rapidly heats up and melts. This is exactly what happened in the Canadian province of Quebec in March 1989, and six million people spent 9 hours without electricity. But things could get much, much worse than that.

Worse than Katrina

The most serious space weather event in history happened in 1859. It is known as the Carrington event, after the British amateur astronomer Richard Carrington, who was the first to note its cause: "two patches of intensely bright and white light" emanating from a large group of sunspots. The Carrington event comprised eight days of severe space weather.

There were eyewitness accounts of stunning auroras, even at equatorial latitudes. The world's telegraph networks experienced severe disruptions, and Victorian magnetometers were driven off the scale.

Though a solar outburst could conceivably be more powerful, "we haven't found an example of anything worse than a Carrington event", says James Green, head of NASA's planetary division and an expert on the events of 1859. "From a scientific perspective, that would be the one that we'd want to survive." However, the prognosis from the NAS analysis is that, thanks to our technological prowess, many of us may not.

There are two problems to face. The first is the modern electricity grid, which is designed to operate at ever higher voltages over ever larger areas. Though this provides a more efficient way to run the electricity networks, minimizing power losses and wastage through overproduction, it has made them much more vulnerable to space weather. The high-power grids act as particularly efficient antennas, channelling enormous direct currents into the power transformers.

The second problem is the grid's interdependence with the systems that support our lives: water and sewage treatment, supermarket delivery infrastructures, power station controls, financial markets and many others all rely on electricity. Put the two together, and it is clear that a repeat of the Carrington event could produce a catastrophe the likes of which the world has never seen. "It's just the opposite of how we usually think of natural disasters," says John Kappenman, a power industry analyst with the Metatech Corporation of Goleta, California, and an advisor to the NAS committee that produced the report. "Usually the less developed regions of the world are most vulnerable, not the highly sophisticated technological regions."

According to the NAS report, a severe space weather event in the US could induce ground currents that would knock out 300 key transformers within about 90 seconds, cutting off the power for more than 130 million people (see map). From that moment, the clock is ticking for America.

First to go - immediately for some people - is drinkable water. Anyone living in a high-rise apartment, where water has to be pumped to reach them, would be cut off straight away. For the rest, drinking water will still come through the taps for maybe half a day. With no electricity to pump water from reservoirs, there is no more after that.

There is simply no electrically powered transport: no trains, underground or overground. Our just-in-time culture for delivery networks may represent the pinnacle of efficiency, but it means that supermarket shelves would empty very quickly - delivery trucks could only keep running until their tanks ran out of fuel, and there is no electricity to pump any more from the underground tanks at filling stations.

Back-up generators would run at pivotal sites - but only until their fuel ran out. For hospitals, that would mean about 72 hours of running a bare-bones, essential care only, service. After that, no more modern healthcare.
72 hours of healthcare remaining

The truly shocking finding is that this whole situation would not improve for months, maybe years: melted transformer hubs cannot be repaired, only replaced. "From the surveys I've done, you might have a few spare transformers around, but installing a new one takes a well-trained crew a week or more," says Kappenman. "A major electrical utility might have one suitably trained crew, maybe two."

Within a month, then, the handful of spare transformers would be used up. The rest will have to be built to order, something that can take up to 12 months.

Even when some systems are capable of receiving power again, there is no guarantee there will be any to deliver. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipelines require electricity to operate. Coal-fired power stations usually keep reserves to last 30 days, but with no transport systems running to bring more fuel, there will be no electricity in the second month.

30 days of coal left

Nuclear power stations wouldn't fare much better. They are programmed to shut down in the event of serious grid problems and are not allowed to restart until the power grid is up and running.

With no power for heating, cooling or refrigeration systems, people could begin to die within days. There is immediate danger for those who rely on medication. Lose power to New Jersey, for instance, and you have lost a major centre of production of pharmaceuticals for the entire US. Perishable medications such as insulin will soon be in short supply. "In the US alone there are a million people with diabetes," Kappenman says. "Shut down production, distribution and storage and you put all those lives at risk in very short order."

Help is not coming any time soon, either. If it is dark from the eastern seaboard to Chicago, some affected areas are hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away from anyone who might help. And those willing to help are likely to be ill-equipped to deal with the sheer scale of the disaster. "If a Carrington event happened now, it would be like a hurricane Katrina, but 10 times worse," says Paul Kintner, a plasma physicist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

In reality, it would be much worse than that. Hurricane Katrina's societal and economic impact has been measured at $81 billion to $125 billion. According to the NAS report, the impact of what it terms a "severe geomagnetic storm scenario" could be as high as $2 trillion. And that's just the first year after the storm. The NAS puts the recovery time at four to 10 years. It is questionable whether the US would ever bounce back.

4-10 years to recover

"I don't think the NAS report is scaremongering," says Mike Hapgood, who chairs the European Space Agency's space weather team. Green agrees. "Scientists are conservative by nature and this group is really thoughtful," he says. "This is a fair and balanced report."

Such nightmare scenarios are not restricted to North America. High latitude nations such as Sweden and Norway have been aware for a while that, while regular views of the aurora are pretty, they are also reminders of an ever-present threat to their electricity grids. However, the trend towards installing extremely high voltage grids means that lower latitude countries are also at risk. For example, China is on the way to implementing a 1000-kilovolt electrical grid, twice the voltage of the US grid. This would be a superb conduit for space weather-induced disaster because the grid's efficiency to act as an antenna rises as the voltage between the grid and the ground increases. "China is going to discover at some point that they have a problem," Kappenman says.

Neither is Europe sufficiently prepared. Responsibility for dealing with space weather issues is "very fragmented" in Europe, says Hapgood.

Europe's electricity grids, on the other hand, are highly interconnected and extremely vulnerable to cascading failures. In 2006, the routine switch-off of a small part of Germany's grid - to let a ship pass safely under high-voltage cables - caused a cascade power failure across western Europe. In France alone, five million people were left without electricity for two hours. "These systems are so complicated we don't fully understand the effects of twiddling at one place," Hapgood says. "Most of the time it's alright, but occasionally it will get you."

The good news is that, given enough warning, the utility companies can take precautions, such as adjusting voltages and loads, and restricting transfers of energy so that sudden spikes in current don't cause cascade failures. There is still more bad news, however. Our early warning system is becoming more unreliable by the day.

By far the most important indicator of incoming space weather is NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE). The probe, launched in 1997, has a solar orbit that keeps it directly between the sun and Earth. Its uninterrupted view of the sun means it gives us continuous reports on the direction and velocity of the solar wind and other streams of charged particles that flow past its sensors. ACE can provide between 15 and 45 minutes' warning of any incoming geomagnetic storms. The power companies need about 15 minutes to prepare their systems for a critical event, so that would seem passable.
15 minutes' warning

However, observations of the sun and magnetometer readings during the Carrington event shows that the coronal mass ejection was travelling so fast it took less than 15 minutes to get from where ACE is positioned to Earth. "It arrived faster than we can do anything," Hapgood says.

There is another problem. ACE is 11 years old, and operating well beyond its planned lifespan. The onboard detectors are not as sensitive as they used to be, and there is no telling when they will finally give up the ghost. Furthermore, its sensors become saturated in the event of a really powerful solar flare. "It was built to look at average conditions rather than extremes," Baker says.

He was part of a space weather commission that three years ago warned about the problems of relying on ACE. "It's been on my mind for a long time," he says. "To not have a spare, or a strategy to replace it if and when it should fail, is rather foolish."

There is no replacement for ACE due any time soon. Other solar observation satellites, such as the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) can provide some warning, but with less detailed information and - crucially - much later. "It's quite hard to assess what the impact of losing ACE will be," Hapgood says. "We will largely lose the early warning capability."

The world will, most probably, yawn at the prospect of a devastating solar storm until it happens. Kintner says his students show a "deep indifference" when he lectures on the impact of space weather. But if policy-makers show a similar indifference in the face of the latest NAS report, it could cost tens of millions of lives, Kappenman reckons. "It could conceivably be the worst natural disaster possible," he says.

The report outlines the worst case scenario for the US. The "perfect storm" is most likely on a spring or autumn night in a year of heightened solar activity - something like 2012. Around the equinoxes, the orientation of the Earth's field to the sun makes us particularly vulnerable to a plasma strike.

What's more, at these times of year, electricity demand is relatively low because no one needs too much heating or air conditioning. With only a handful of the US grid's power stations running, the system relies on computer algorithms shunting large amounts of power around the grid and this leaves the network highly vulnerable to sudden spikes.

If ACE has failed by then, or a plasma ball flies at us too fast for any warning from ACE to reach us, the consequences could be staggering. "A really large storm could be a planetary disaster," Kappenman says.

So what should be done? No one knows yet - the report is meant to spark that conversation. Baker is worried, though, that the odds are stacked against that conversation really getting started. As the NAS report notes, it is terribly difficult to inspire people to prepare for a potential crisis that has never happened before and may not happen for decades to come. "It takes a lot of effort to educate policy-makers, and that is especially true with these low-frequency events," he says.

We should learn the lessons of hurricane Katrina, though, and realise that "unlikely" doesn't mean "won't happen". Especially when the stakes are so high. The fact is, it could come in the next three or four years - and with devastating effects. "The Carrington event happened during a mediocre, ho-hum solar cycle," Kintner says. "It came out of nowhere, so we just don't know when something like that is going to happen again." Jim Pedan blog not been updated since 2009 hence full text coppied here.

H/T Michael Moore