opednews

Nukes and Temples

April 20, 2010

Evidently, American presidents wish to continue to guard Israel's nuclear "secret." If the motivation is thought to be a simple case of double standard, surely one must recoil at the submissiveness of the general community. On the other hand, the more inquisitive mind would prod deeper and question the drive behind the guarding of this "secret"?

Perhaps motivations have changed over time. In 1969, Kissinger, aware that Israel had deceived the United States about its nuclear bomb program, which it was suspected to have stolen from the U.S., wrote to Nixon that pressuring Israel to reveal its nuclear arsenal would result in a Soviet nuclear guarantee for the [oil rich] Arabs and increase conflict in the region[i]. Ironically, it was Nixon who soon after had considered sending airborne troops to seize oilfields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi pursuing the 1973 war.

Today, the secrecy continues, as does the aid to Israel -- perhaps towards a messianic return - the building of the Third Temple.

WND

Official: Israel agrees to halt all Jewish construction

Decision on Jerusalem made under intense pressure from U.S., 'satisfies' Palestinians

By Aaron Klein

Posted: April 27, 2010

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to quietly halt all Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem as a "confidence-building gesture" toward the Palestinian Authority as demanded by the Obama administration, a top PA official told WND.

The PA official said Netanyahu will not make a public declaration on the subject for fear of upsetting his nationalist coalition, which would be forced to respond to any public Jewish construction freeze in Jerusalem. The official said while the Jerusalem freeze would not be announced, no new Jewish construction in the eastern sections of the city will be approved by the local municipality.

The official said the agreement, brokered last week by George Mitchell, Obama's envoy to the Middle East, satisfies the PA's precondition for beginning direct negotiations with Israel aimed at creating a Palestinian state.

The official also said Mitchell extracted a pledge from Netanyahu that he will extend a 10-month halt to all Jewish construction in the West Bank that he implemented in November, also as a so-called confidence building gesture to the PA demanded by the Obama administration.

Meanwhile, the PA has not been asked to make any major gestures to Israel to jumpstart talks. The U.S. has not demanded the PA recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Netanyahu's spokesmen could not be immediately reached for comment regarding the report of a de facto freeze in Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem.

On the ground, there have been almost no new building projects in eastern Jerusalem for more than a month.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper two weeks ago reported staff members of the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee have been instructed by Netanyahu's office to halt their work. The order followed a public spat with the Obama administration after housing was approved for 1,600 new homes in an already-existing Jewish community during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel in March.

At the time, the White House slammed the construction approval as an "insult" and an impediment to peace.

theshroudstory.com

Second Face on the Shroud of Turin

The peer-reviewed journal of the Institute of Physics in London, on April 14, 2004, announced that Giulio Fanti and Roberto Maggiolo, both of the University of Padua, Italy, have found a second face image on the back of the Shroud of Turin. This image corresponds to the front image but is much fainter. And this image, like the front image, is completely superficial to the topmost crown fibers of the cloth.

Because both images are superficial (meaning there is no image or colorant of any kind between the two image layers on the extreme outer faces of the cloth) and because the images are in registry with each other, all so-far-proposed fakery proposals are moot. The images are not paintings and not some form of medieval proto-photography.

When the Shroud was examined in 1978, the backside of the cloth was not accessible. At that time, the Shroud was sewn to a backing cloth. Quoting from the IoP press release of April 14, 2004:

Because the images are extremely faint, the duo [Fanti and Maggiolo] has used an array of image-processing techniques -- including Gaussian filters, Fourier transforms and template matching -- to highlight human features. - - They found that the face of the man that can be seen on the reverse of the Shroud matches that observed on the front. The image shows faint details of a nose, eyes, hair, beard and moustache . . . The Italian duo was also able to make out weak images of the man's hands, but could not produce images of his shoulders or back. - - These new findings could help to shed light on the origins of the cloth but are more likely to fuel further debate over it. In 1989 (sic 1988), carbon-dating techniques revealed that the Shroud dated from medieval times and therefore could not have been used to bury Christ. However, many scientists have argued that the carbon-dating techniques used to study the Shroud were flawed. - - Fanti and Maggiolo are now saying that the Shroud is unlikely to be a fraud because the image of the face is superficial on both sides of the cloth and only involves the topmost fibres of the material. "It is extremely difficult to make a fake with these features," says Fanti.

While this discover of imaging on the backside of the cloth makes artistic and photographic methods significantly more implausible, it does lend credence to the possibilities that gaseous amines released by the body reacted with the carbohydrate layers. Some gases would have penetrated through the weave of the cloth and reacted with the backside carbohydrate layer. (And it does not rule out miraculous cause or effect).

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telegraph.co.uk

Church warned that flag of Jesus is 'religious advertising'

A vicar has been warned by council officials about flying a flag depicting Jesus Christ outside his church because it was deemed to be "religious advertising".

By Richard Savill - Published: 5:00PM BST 29 Apr 2010

Rev Mark Binney, vicar of St Andrew's Church, Hampton, Worcs, said he had been told he needed planning permission if he wanted to fly a flag "advertising Christianity" in future.

The flag was put up outside the church in the week preceding Easter Sunday displaying the words 'This is Holy Week' and an image of Jesus on the cross.

Mr Binney said the warning was "appalling", and he felt it was part of a gradual erosion of Christianity in Britain.

Wychavon council said it investigated a complaint from a member of the public and decided no consent was required.

A spokesman said flags other than national flags, county flags, or flags for patron saints, required advertisement consent if they were flown from a vertical freestanding flagpole.

He said the council would consider allowing the flag to be flown for a week in future if it was approached by the church.

thenewamerican

American Military Unit Set to Impose Order in American Towns in Time for November Elections

April 26, 2010

Within one month of the November midterm elections, a specially tasked unit of the United States Army will be on alert and ready to deploy within the borders of the United States to quell "civil unrest" that some fear may afflict the nation in the summer months prior to the elections.

Predictably, advocates of the unlawful deployment of our military use fear to foment support this action. They call to mind the summer of 1968 when riots and demonstrations decrying the country's prolonged conflict with Viet Nam plagued some of America's large cities. The summer of 2010, they advert, could be "our long, hot summer of discontent." In order to prevent that eerie specter from becoming reality, proponents encourage Americans to welcome the calming presence of armed American troops patrolling potential hotspots.

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CNN

Can world's largest laser zap Earth's energy woes?

By John D. Sutter, CNN

April 28, 2010

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Scientists are trying to use world's largest laser to create nuclear fusion

Reaction could be used to produce nearly limitless energy

First live experiment with laser takes place this summer

Laser, which is the size of three football fields, is located in California

Livermore, California (CNN) -- Scientists at a government lab here are trying to use the world's largest laser -- it's the size of three football fields -- to set off a nuclear reaction so intense that it will make a star bloom on the surface of the Earth.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's formula for cooking up a sun on the ground may sound like it's stolen from the plot of an "Austin Powers" movie. But it's no Hollywood fantasy: The ambitious experiment will be tried for real, and for the first time, late this summer.

If they're successful, the scientists hope to solve the global energy crisis by harnessing the energy generated by the mini-star.

The lab's venture has doubters, to be sure. Nuclear fusion, the type of high-energy reaction the California researchers hope to produce, has been a scientific pipe dream for at least a half-century. It's been pitched as a miracle power source. But it hasn't yielded many results.

To make matters worse, the U.S. Government Accountability Office this month released an audit of the lab's work that cites delays and mismanagement as reasons it's unlikely the scientists will create a fusion reaction this year.

But researchers in Livermore, about an hour's drive east of San Francisco, say it's not a matter of if but when their laser-saves-the-Earth experiment will be proved successful.

"We have a very high confidence that we will be able to ignite the target within the next two years," thus proving that controlled fusion is possible, said Bruno Van Wonterghem, a manager of the project, which is called the National Ignition Facility.

That would put the lab a step closer to "our big dream," he said, which is "to solve the energy problems of the world."

How to build a star

Here is the boiled-down recipe for how the Livermore lab plans to cook up a star:

Step one: Build the largest laser in the world, preferably inside a drab-looking office building. (To do this, you'll have to suspend all previous notions about what a laser looks like. This one is basically a giant factory full of tubes. The laser beam, which is concentrated light, bounces back and forth over the distance of a mile, charging up as it goes.)

Step two: Split this humongous laser into 192 beams. Aim all of them -- firing-range style -- at a single point that's about the size of a BB.

Step three: On that tiny target, apply a smidge of deuterium and tritium, two reactive isotopes of hydrogen that can be extracted from seawater. Surround those atoms with a gold capsule that's smaller than a thimble.

Step four: Fire the laser!

If all goes well, the resulting reaction will be hotter than the center of the sun (more than 100 million degrees Celsius) and will exert more pressure than 100 billion atmospheres. This will smash the hydrogen isotopes together with so much force and heat that their nuclei will fuse, sending off energy and neutrons.

Voila. An itty-bitty star is born.

Miracle cure?

The fusion reaction at the heart of this recipe is the same one that fuels the sun in our solar system and other stars.

"It's the most fundamental energy source in nature," Van Wonterghem said.

Workers at the Livermore Lab insist that the reaction isn't dangerous. Their version of fusion is controlled, rather than explosive like in America's current arsenal of nuclear weapons, which include a fusion reaction.

"There's no danger to the public," said Lynda Seaver, spokeswoman for the project.

"The [worst possible] mishap is, it doesn't work."

The fusion reaction does emit radioactive neutrons. But to stop those neutrons from escaping, the Livermore lab surrounds the reaction chamber with concrete walls that are more than 6½ feet thick.

Despite the fact that the reaction will "even exceed the conditions at the center of the sun," Van Wonterghem said, the controlled fusion is expected to be incredibly small and short-lived.

The star being cooked up in Livermore this summer is expected to die 200 trillionths of a second after it's ignited, Van Wonterghem said.

And it will measure only 5 microns across, which is several times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Road to commercialization

The value of this summer's experiment in laser-induced fusion will be in proving that powerful beams of light can produce a controlled fusion reaction, Seaver said.

It will take at least another 20 years, with adequate funding, to develop a continuous fusion reaction that could heat water, create steam and turn generators at a commercial fusion power plant, she said.

Meanwhile, the project is behind schedule and over budget, according to government reports.

Since 2005, when the laser-fusion experiment was isolated in a government program called the National Ignition Campaign, the project has spent more than $2 billion, or 25 percent more than its budget of $1.6 billion, according to the April Government Accountability Office report.

And, in those recent years, the project has fallen a year off schedule, the GAO says, with the expected completion date for the research now at the end of 2012.

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telegraph.uk.co

Fried breakfast is healthiest start to day, say scientists

A breakfast of bacon, sausages, eggs, and beans could be the healthiest start to the day, according to new research.

Published: 01 Apr 2010

Photo: PA

Scientists believe that breakfast programmes the metabolism for the rest of the day, and a fatty meal will help the body break down fat later on.

Carbohydrate rich foods in contrast appear mainly to prepare the body to break down only carbohydrates, the International Journal of Obesity reports.

Dr Martin Young, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said: "The first meal you have appears to programme your metabolism for the rest of the day.

"This study suggests that if you ate a carbohydrate-rich breakfast it would promote carbohydrate utilisation throughout the rest of the day, whereas if you have a fat-rich breakfast, you (can) transfer your energy utilisation between carbohydrate and fat."

The team of researchers found there may be some truth in the old saying "'eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper' - may be the key to a healthy body and mind."

Their study looked at the effects of eating different types of food - and of eating them at different times in the day, according to the Daily Mail.

Mice fed a high fat meal after waking remained healthy, but those given a carb-rich breakfast, followed by a fatty dinner, did not fare as well.

Co-researcher Professor Molly Bray added: "Our study seems to show that if you really want to be able to efficiently respond to mixed meals across a day, a meal in higher fat content in the morning is a good thing."

The Advantages of Lag

Ten Reasons Why Lag is an Advantage

By Mary Jaksch

Imagine that you're driving a car and want to make a right-hand turn. You turn the steering wheel, but nothing happens. The car keeps on traveling straight ahead for another 100 yards or so before it slowly begins to veer off to the right. That doesn't sound like a safe car, does it? And it would be a stressful experience, because we are used to getting an instant response to a change of direction. It's the same whenever we start something new.

We want immediate results when we start something new. But life isn't like that. When we start something new, we bump up against the principle of lag. This means that there is a period of time between action and results. Lag can be very frustrating. Because when you start something new, you have a vision of success. And lag means that you may not see that success for a while.

My worst experience of lag was when I started out as a blogger two years ago. I created my blog and sat back, waiting for people to subscribe. For many months nothing happened. My posts seemed to disappear into a black hole in cyberspace. At times I was ready to give up. But I kept going, doggedly writing post after post. Patience paid off, and now the site is thriving.

Looking back, I realize that the period of lag was crucial. It taught me that lag is an advantage. Here is why:

1. It gives you time to acquire new skills. Whenever we start something new, we need a new set of skills. That might not be apparent first off. But as we become more familiar with the new direction, we tend to encounter challenges that need new skills. Lag time gives you time to build a new set of skills.

2. It allows you to refocus your life. Whenever we start something new, we need to build it into our life. Maybe something else that took center stage previously has got to move into the background. The lag time allows you to make considered decisions about how to reorganize your life.

3. It gives you time to practice. There is no instant mastery. When we develop a new skill, we need to practice it in order to get more experience. Lag time means that you can acquire the mastery you need, before it really matters.

4. It gives you time to assimilate a new subculture. Every new venture leads us into a new subculture. It's important to get to know it, and to adapt your style to it.

5. It allows you to make personal connections. In order to thrive in our new venture, we need to make good connections with others in the field. Whether it's a new hobby you're taking up or a new business venture, good connections are often the difference between success and failure.

6. It gives you time to step up to leadership. For every new venture we need a fair amount of leadership. It takes time to step up to leadership. Lag allows you to slowly develop the leadership skills you need.

7. It teaches you to be patient. Patience is a great character strength. It's something that we need to practice. Lag forces you to learn how to be patient.

8. It weeds out the determined from the enthusiastic. Everyone is enthusiastic when they start something new. But if it's an uphill battle without instant results, most people give up. Lag time weeds out all but those determined to succeed.

9. It allows you to fail and recover. Everyone makes mistakes, especially in a new environment. The great thing about lag time is that it gives you the chance to get things wrong--and then to learn from your mistakes and recover.

10. It creates organic growth. If you think of nature, there is no instant growth. You may be able to accelerate growth through using artificial means, such as a hothouse, but the plants that have been forced to grow fast will be a lot more delicate than the ones that have grown at their own organic pace. It's the same for any venture: organic growth leads to better long-term results.

You can see from these ten points how important the principle of lag is. If we accept lag as something positive, we can use the time to lay good foundations for future growth. However, if we struggle against lag and try to accelerate change, we can feel frustrated, and miss out on important steps of our development.

Next time you want change to happen faster in your life, check out the points above. They will remind you to be grateful and enable you to use the principle of lag to your advantage.