How to How To Kill A Planet
Last night, National Geographic aired the episode of Naked Science called "How to Kill a Planet", about five ways we can literally and totally destroy the Earth. I was interviewed extensively for it, and contributed to the ideas and some of the script, too.
We filmed the clips I was in last year, in November and December. This involved a helicopter ride over Niagara Falls, and going to Phoenix, Arizona to detonate explosives and shoot guns.
I took a lot of pictures; they’re posted on Flickr for your enjoyment. It includes people shooting guns, aerial views of Niagara Falls, and an unfortunate shot of an injury I sustained due to holding a .38 pistol the wrong way. Watch out for powder burns!
I also took quite a bit of video, so here’s a little taste of what it’s like to film a documentary on destroying a planet.
FYI, our explosives and gun expert was Cory Starr, who was fun to work with. His assistant Cortney McLeod is in there too. The director of the clips (with the English accent) is Lorne Townend, and assistant producer Nicola Tremain organized all the logistics of the shoot.
And, I’ll add something funny to me. I’ve known astronomer Dan Durda since we were undergrads together at Michigan. We both write and both do a lot of documentaries, but in more than two decades this is the first time we’ve been in a show together! Even though we weren’t together for filming, that was still cool to see.
I’m also doing two more documentary interviews in the coming weeks, including working with Lorne again, so expect to hear more about stuff like this!
The show "Naked Science " on the National Geographic channel will had an episode called "How to Kill a Planet". Someone you know and read will be on it. Here’s a preview (an ad plays for 18 seconds).
The opening few seconds are funny; that must be the tail end of the Niagara Falls footage we shot, and they put it in the clip because of the voiceover segue. We filmed that in November, and it was about -8 Celsius outside… and the first thing in the morning we did: a helicopter ride. Standing on Canadian ground at 08:00 in subfreezing weather with a 60 kph wind in my face from the rotor chop was a tad unpleasant, but the I’m hoping the footage we got was worth it.
I actually have lots of other footage I shot myself (hmmm, literally in one case) I’ll post soon with some back story. I’ve done a few standup documentary interviews before, but this was easily the coolest and most fun I’ve had doing one. I can’t wait to see the show tonight! [Update: Hey, Clifford is in the show too! Cool.]
Doctor Reveals Human Cloning, Creation Of Animal-Humans Plan
Scientists and medical ethicists yesterday condemned the controversial fertility doctor Panayiotis Zavos for transferring cloned human embryos into the wombs of four women. Dr Zavos claimed in an interview with The Independent that he had created 14 cloned human embryos and transferred 11 of them into the wombs of the four women, who wanted to give birth to cloned babies... Dr Zavos also revealed that he has created human-animal "hybrid" clones by fusing the cells of dead people with the empty egg cells of cows. These hybrid embryos were created to study the cloning process, rather than being used for embryo transfer, Dr Zavos said. Professor Azim Surani of the University of Cambridge said that Dr Zavos had breached the taboo on creating human clones with the intention of transferring them into the wombs of women in order to achieve a pregnancy – a procedure that is a criminal offence in Britain. "This affair shows a complete lack of responsibility. If true, Zavos has again failed to observe the universally-accepted ban on human cloning, which was agreed because most of the resulting embryos from such animal experiments are abnormal," Professor Surani said...
Army: 3 Vials Of Virus Samples Missing From Biolab
Missing vials of a potentially dangerous virus have prompted an Army investigation into the disappearance from a lab in Maryland. The Army's Criminal Investigation Command agents have been visiting Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, to investigate the disappearance of the vials. Christopher Grey, spokesman for the command, said this latest investigation has found "no evidence of criminal activity." The vials contained samples of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, a virus that sickens horses and can be spread to humans by mosquitoes. In 97 percent of cases, humans with the virus suffer flu-like symptoms, but it can be deadly in about 1 out of 100 cases, according to Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman for the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. There is an effective vaccine for the disease and there hasn't been an outbreak in the United States since 1971. The vials had been at the research institute's facility at Fort Detrick, home of the Army's top biological research facility, for more than a decade. The three missing vials were among thousands of vials that...
The Jerusalem Post Looks At "Surviving In A Post-American World"
Like it or not, the United States of America is no longer the world's policeman. This was the message of Barack Obama's presidential journey to Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iraq this past week. Somewhere between apologizing for American history - both distant and recent; genuflecting before the unelected, bigoted king of Saudi Arabia; announcing that he will slash the US's nuclear arsenal, scrap much of America's missile defense programs and emasculate the US Navy; leaving Japan to face North Korea and China alone; telling the Czechs, Poles and their fellow former Soviet colonies, "Don't worry, be happy," as he leaves them to Moscow's tender mercies; humiliating Iraq's leaders while kowtowing to Iran; preparing for an open confrontation with Israel; and thanking Islam for its great contribution to American history, President Obama made clear to the world's aggressors that America will not be confronting them for the foreseeable future.
Australia should consider having a one-child policy to protect the planet, an environmental lobby group says. Sustainable Population Australia says slashing the world's population is the only way to avoid "environmental suicide". National president Sandra Kanck wants Australia's population of almost 22 million reduced to seven million to tackle climate change. And restricting each couple to one baby, as China does, is "one way of assisting to reduce the population". "It's something we need to throw into the mix," the former Democrats parliamentarian told AAP. More people means more coal-fired electricity, cars, houses, water use and food production, all of which increase greenhouse gas emissions, she said.
One of the toughest things for people to do is to anticipate sudden change. Typically we project the future by extrapolating from trends in the past. Much of the time this approach works well. But sometimes it fails spectacularly, and people are simply blindsided by events such as today’s economic crisis. For most of us, the idea that civilization itself could disintegrate probably seems preposterous. Who would not find it hard to think seriously about such a complete departure from what we expect of ordinary life? What evidence could make us heed a warning so dire—and how would we go about responding to it? For many years I have studied global agricultural, population, environmental and economic trends and their interactions. The combined effects of those trends and the political tensions they generate point to the breakdown of governments and societies. Yet I, too, have resisted the idea that food shortages could bring down not only individual governments but also our global civilization. I can no longer ignore that risk. Our continuing failure to deal with the environmental declines that are undermining the world food economy—most important, falling water tables, eroding soils and rising temperatures—forces me to conclude that such a collapse is possible.
The Immoral Research That Would Be Required To Make Human "Reproductive Cloning" Safe
The birth of the first cloned human may be just a few year away, according to a controversial fertility doctor who says he cloned 14 human embryos and transferred 11 of them to into the wombs of four women. While none of the women had a viable pregnancy as a result of the procedure, the test is a major step toward creating cloned humans, suggested Dr Panayiotis Zavos. "There is absolutely no doubt about it ... the cloned child is coming. There is absolutely no way it will not happen," he told Britain's Independent newspaper, Agence France Presse reported. Other scientists have created cloned embryos in test tubes in order to harvest stem cells, but Zavos has broken what's viewed as a taboo by implanting cloned embryos in women's wombs. His work is condemned by many fertility experts, who question the safety and morality of his methods.
Congressional lawmakers appear to be admitting that a leading pro-life group was right when it said the new NIH guidelines to implement President Barack Obama's embryonic stem cell research executive order amounted to a bait and switch. The NIH guidelines describe the process that scientists must use to get federal funding to be able to destroy human embryos supposedly left over from fertility clinics for their stem cells for research. The National Right to Life Committee called the guidelines a "bait-and-switch" strategy, under which Democratic leaders in Congress will suddenly bring up new legislation that they will claim codifies the NIH action. In reality, NRLC says the bill will overturn a federal law prohibiting the specific creation and destruction, possibly through human cloning, of human beings for the express purpose of killing them to conduct scientific experiments.
Cardinal Justin Rigali, the chairman of the pro-life outreach for the nation's Catholic bishops is condemning the new rules the Obama administration put in place allowing taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research. The NIH guidelines come after President Barack Obama issued his executive order overturning the protections President Bush put in place. The National Institutes of Health provided the guidelines for scientists using federal funds to obtain human embryos supposedly left over form fertility clinics and destroy them for scientific research. Cardinal Rigali says the NIH guidelines "mark a new chapter in divorcing biomedical research from its necessary ethical foundation."
Strictly from a point of political labeling, it wouldn’t be useful for us to characterize ourselves as techno-radicals instead of technoprogressives. But when it comes to some of the political positions and technological solutions we might deem necessary to promote, then preparing ourselves to think radically is probably wise. Already many of the emerging technologies with which we are associated—genetic engineering, molecular manufacturing, artificial general intelligence—are radical in their implications both for individuals and for societies. While the IEET is careful not to endorse the uncritical application of such transformative technologies, we do encourage exploration of their potential along with thorough study of both pros and cons and sensible policies for their use. As we confront the mounting challenges that the 21st century brings us, it’s likely that most or all of the these new technologies will be brought to bear at some point.
Wilson, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering, was confirming an announcement he had made two weeks earlier -- his lab had developed a way to post messages on Twitter using electrical impulses generated by thought. That's right, no keyboards, just a red cap fitted with electrodes that monitor brain activity, hooked up to a computer flashing letters on a screen. Wilson sent the messages by concentrating on the letters he wanted to "type," then focusing on the word "twit" at the bottom of the screen to post the message. The development could be a lifeline for people with "locked-in syndrome" -- whose brains function normally but who cannot speak or move because of injury or disease.
In the Nepomuk project, scientists from the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence have given computers a humanlike capacity to remember, as was demonstrated at the world’s biggest information and communication technology show, in Hanover, last month. Some background to the new development: imagine that you hear an interesting lecture by a Mr Muller from company XY in which he talks about the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence. The next time you meet Muller, you can probably still remember his talk well, even if you have, perhaps, forgotten his name. This partial memory is possible, as humans think associatively and intuitively handle relationships between information. The human brain connects individual elements that it perceives at the same time and is, thus, in a position to associate conference proceedings with speakers or dates, for example.
Western civilization at the present day is passing through a crisis which is essentially different from anything that has been previously experienced. Other societies in the past have changed their social institutions or their religious beliefs under the influence of external forces or the slow development of internal growth. But none, like our own, has ever consciously faced the prospect of a fundamental alteration of the beliefs and institutions on which the whole fabric of social life rests ... Civilization is being uprooted from its foundations in nature and tradition and is being reconstituted in a new organisation which is as artificial and mechanical as a modern factory... The ACW Review examined the corrosive work of the ‘Frankfurt School’ - a group of German-American scholars who developed highly provocative and original perspectives on contemporary society and culture, drawing on Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber. Not that their idea of a ‘cultural revolution’ was particularly new. ‘Until now’, wrote Joseph, Comte de Maistre (1753-1821) who for fifteen years was a Freemason, ‘nations were killed by conquest, that is by invasion: But here an important question arises; can a nation not die on its own soil, without resettlement or invasion, by allowing the flies of decomposition to corrupt to the very core those original and constituent principles which make it what it is.'
On Friday at 7pm Pacific (at www.BruceDCollins.com), The Big Finale welcomes Hilmar Von Campe as we explore his excellent book, "Defeating The Totalitarian Lie." Hilmar was a Hitler youth and his book serves as a warning to the United States. We will be asking Hilmar about his experiences in Nazi Germany as well as the striking similarities to the creeping fascism here in the West. Hilmar has been a guest on numerous programs, including Glenn Beck and Hannity & Colmes. RNN exclusive: If you would like to ask Hilmar a question, email Bruce before noon at Bruce@BruceDCollins.com...
U.S. and foreign government officials who attend are virtually all traitors because they put their world government goal ahead of the interests of their own nations. They scorn “nationalism” and work for “transnationalism.” All Bilderberg “regulars” must support these goals or be ostracized. More than 100 of the 120 or so attendees are “regulars,” invited every year. Typically, five or so participants are first-timers. A potential president is likely to be invited once but tossed aside when his political star dims, as former Vice President Dan Quayle can attest.
The Army's new ray gun research project combines the zap of a laser with the crackle of an electric shock and the pop of a high-power microwave pulse. Known as the Multimode Directed Energy Armament System, it offers a wide range of different effects against different targets. Defensively, it could knock out everything from improvised explosive devices to incoming rockets. As a weapon, its effects might range from Taser-like effects to a lethal lightning bolt -- and it should be able to stop vehicles in their tracks. Assuming the tech all pans out as planned, naturally. The technology, which I describe in this week's New Scientist magazine, uses an ultra-short pulse laser to create an ionized channel through the air; down this channel, you can then send bursts of energy. It'll conduct electricity. And it can also act as a waveguide for an intense pulse of microwaves. These could be used to destroy the fuze of a roadside bomb, fry the electronics of a missile, or burn out the ignition on any unshielded vehicle.
The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century. There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time. The observations are baffling astronomers, who are due to study new pictures of the Sun, taken from space, at the UK National Astronomy Meeting. The Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period. Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.
Astronomers have found the most distant evidence of water in the Universe, a major conference has been told. The vapour is thought to be present in a jet ejected from a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy that is billions of light-years away. The discovery, by a US-European team, was announced at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science meeting. The water was emitted from the black hole when the Universe was only about 2.5 billion years old.
NASA Will Try to Launch Hubble Repair Mission Early
Personally, I think this move is just in response to the Onion’s most recent dig at NASA (“NASA Embarks on Epic Delay”) but mission managers for the upcoming Hubble repair mission are considering moving the launch of space shuttle Atlantis up one day to May 11. This would allow an extra day for launch attempts. May 12 had been the target day, but deputy program manager LeRoy Cain told reporters at a press conference on Thursday that the shuttle will likely be ready a day earlier, which would give Atlantis and extra day for a launch attempt before having to stand down for a week to allow the military to proceed with a previously scheduled launch at the Eastern Test Range. A decision about whether Atlantis will be ready to fly on the 11th will come next week Thursday (April 30) following a mission management review. But an accident at the launch pad that dinged one of Atlantis’ payload bay doors might hinder moving the launch up a day, and engineers are assessing if a repair is necessary.
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New Finding Shows Super-Huge Space Tornados Power the Auroras
If you think tornadoes on Earth are scary, newly found “space tornadoes” sound downright horrifying. But they are likely the power source behind the beautiful Northern and Southern Lights. A new finding by a cluster of five space probes – the THEMIS, or Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms show that electrical funnels which span a volume as large as Earth produce electrical currents exceeding 100,000 amperes. THEMIS recorded the extent and power of these electrical funnels as the probes passed through them during their orbit of Earth. Ground measurements showed that the space tornadoes channel the electrical current into the ionosphere to spark bright and colorful auroras on Earth.
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On January 20, 2001, President George W. Bush during his first inaugural address faced the obelisk known as the Washington Monument and twice referred to an angel that "rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm." His reference was credited to Virginia statesman John Page who wrote to Thomas Jefferson after the Declaration of Independence was signed, saying, "We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?" Five weeks after the inaugural, on Wednesday, February 28, Congressman Major R. Owens of New York stood before the House of Representatives and prayed to the "Angel in the Whirlwind." He asked the spiritual force to guide the future and fate of the United States[1]. Twenty-eight weeks later (for a total of 33 weeks from the inaugural—a number invaluable to mysticism and occult franternities), nineteen Islamic terrorists attacked the United States, hijacking four commercial airliners and crashing two of them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third into the Pentagon, and a fourth, which had been directed toward Washington, DC crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. What happened that day resulted in nearly 3000 immediate deaths, at least two-dozen missing persons, and the stage being set for changes to the existing world order.
Speaking of Texan doomism…
… I don’t know what to make of this clip of Texas Congresscritter Joe Barton (who once said that taking action against global warming is "absolute nonsense") asking Secretary of Energy (and Nobel Laureate) Steven Chu about the origin of gas and oil in Alaska.
Is he denying global warming? Is he denying continental drift? Is he denying the multi-billion-year age of the age of the Earth? Is he denying all of them?
One thing he’s certainly denying: his own credibility. Wow. This guy is in the House of Representatives of the United States of America.
Wow.
Josh Rosenau has some more about Chu, too. I think I like this guy. Barton? Not so much.
Navies from the United States and 11 other countries launched two weeks of war exercises off Florida's Atlantic coast that will include training in combating piracy and drug smuggling. Several Latin American countries, Canada and Germany are taking part in UNITAS Gold, which is now in its 50th year and is the Navy's longest-running yearly exercise. Hundreds of white-uniformed officers held a starting ceremony before embarking on ships, submarines and aircraft to begin training that is meant to foster naval cooperation throughout the Americas. Sailors, Marines and other military forces will perform live-fire exercises, undersea warfare, helicopter and amphibious operations, among other training. More than 25 ships, four submarines, 6,500 sailors and 50 aircraft are taking part in the exercise hosted by the US Navy's 4th Fleet, based at Mayport Naval Station just north of Jacksonville.
Martial Law Lockdown Exercise in Seward, Alaska?
A caller into the Alex Jones Show today provided details about a possible Department of Homeland Security drill at the end of this month in Seward, Alaska, the seventh most lucrative fisheries port in the United States.
At the age of 15, Nikki Russo checked into a California hospital for treatment of an eating disorder. It was in this hospital that she was eventually abducted by a nurse, initiated into a coven of witches and thrown into a dark world filled with drugs, alcohol, abuse and intimidation.Today, Russo’s story and struggle to recovery is chronicled in the new book The Pomegranate Seed — Nikki Russo’s Sojourn Through Institutional Failure and the World of the Occult.
The book, published by iUniverse, is written by veteran Gulf Coast Newspaper staff writer Bob Morgan, who first interviewed Russo in October 2007 and wrote an article regarding her story.
Why come forward with such a painful book now?
“Timing is everything,” Russo, now 37, said this week. “It’s a means of survival. You can only keep the memories down to a certain point. It gets to the point that more or less you have to deal with it.
“I hope that people walk away with the knowledge of what is out there and what can happen,” Russo said. “I hope this book can open people’s eyes.”
Morgan, who has won 20 Alabama and Mississippi press awards, said Russo’s story is the most compelling he has personally encountered during his years in journalism.
“Two things I would say about Nikki’s story. First, anybody who has a loved one needs to hear Nikki’s story and confront the reality of what can potentially happen when people turn to societal institutions that should be trustworthy. And second, the amount of courage it took for Nikki to come forward and tell this story is beyond question. The book is not only shocking, but intensely personal.”
According to Morgan, the tone of The Pomegranate Seed was set by two considerations. The 2007 newspaper article, once it hit the Internet, was scrutinized by many Wiccans or witchcraft practitioners, some of whom dismissed Russo’s story as so-called “Satanic panic.” Thus, Morgan said the book was written with an eye to dates, court documents and depositions that leave no doubt that Russo’s story happened in the real world.
The other consideration was Russo herself and the personal pain and trauma she continues to go through after nearly 20 years. Going over the events that occurred from 1988-90 during interviews for the book often pushed Russo to her limits, Morgan said. He adds that on some occasions Russo had to take a week off before delving into the material again.
“You and I might take a day for granted but Nikki does not,” Morgan said.
According to Morgan, he got the idea for the book title from a poem of Homer, the ancient Greek writer. The “Hymn to Demeter” tells the story of a maiden who was forced to live her life partially in the light and partially in the dark because she ate pomegranate seed in the Underworld.
It was through this process and release of the book that Russo hoped she would find the closure she has so desperately sought. For Russo, unfortunately, the release of the book has not brought that closure.
“When stuff like this happens, you can’t walk away from it, it stays with you.” she said. “I’ll never get back what was taken. I’ll never be able to get away from the memories.”
Some of the frustrations that Russo encountered almost 20 years ago in dealing with the State of California, she continues to experience today in connection with what she calls the “victim-witness” program.
In the same way that Russo had to change her name years ago to escape threats from coven members, she knows today that the person they abducted no longer exists. At the same time however, she is comfortable with the person she is today.
After she left the “Brotherhood,” the coven of witches in which she was initiated, a deprogrammer told Russo she had two choices: She could either go into a padded room or try and function and contribute to society.
“The padded room was really not that appealing,” Russo said. Link To Original Post
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