BBC News Can't Keep Up

Things are happening so fast today that it seems the BBC News website is finding it hard to keep up with all the details:

"Three more failed London bomb suspects are reported to be in custody following armed raids in the UK capital and Rome.

The London arrests are thought to be the men wanted for the 21 July Oval Tube and No 26 bus attacks. A third bomb suspect is already being held.

The fourth suspect, wanted for the attempted Shepherd's Bush Tube attack, has been arrested in Rome, said the Italian interior minister.

...

Anti-terrorist police are still looking for a fourth suspect in connection with an attempt to bomb a train at Shepherd's Bush, and possibly a fifth man."

Come on guys, sort your news out.

TRansexual Shaving Cream

I use this type of shaving cream. What does that say about me? Hmmm.

New name for 'war on terror'

The Bush administration is abandoning the phrase "war on terror" to better express the fight against al-Qaeda and other groups as an ideological struggle as much as a military mission.

The move is designed to reflect the wider US campaign against terror

While the slogan - first used by President George W Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks - may still be heard from time to time, the White House says it will increasingly be couched in other language.

In recent days, senior administration figures have been speaking publicly of "a global struggle against the enemies of freedom", and of the need to use all "tools of statecraft" to defeat them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4719169.stm

Microsoft "Genuine Advantage" cracked in 24h

AV sez, "This week, Microsoft started requiring users to verifiy their serial number before using Windows Update. This effort to force users to either buy XP or tell them where you got the illegal copy is called 'Genuine Advantage.' It was cracked within 24 hours."

Before pressing 'Custom' or 'Express' buttons paste this text to the address bar and press enter:

     javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')

It turns off the trigger for the key check.

100 Photographs that Changed the World

Life Magazine's 100 Photogrpahs that changed the world.

Terrorists on my Doorstep

Most of them have moved out now, to Birmingham (thanks Brummies!) and elsewhere, but here's a quick map of raids on addresses in my area. Incidents and raids are black dots, I live at the red dot.

Yet Another Reason the Moon Landings Were Faked

Early February 2003: The space shuttle Columbia broke into small pieces as it re-entered the atmosphere. This failure was attributed to damage sustained during the take-off fifteen days earlier when a piece of foam covering the fuels tanks broke off and hit the shuttle.

Seven astronauts – Rick Husband, William McCool, Ilan Ramon, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, and Laurel Clark - died when Columbia broke up. more...

26th July 2005: Nasa has launched its first manned space mission in two-and-a-half years as space shuttle Discovery blasted off on its 12-day flight at 1039 local time (1539 BST) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. more...

US space agency officials said they were happy with the launch, despite the sighting of what appeared to be some debris falling around the vehicle during the flight to orbit.

28th July 2005: Nasa grounds its shuttle fleet after large pieces of foam debris peeled off Discovery's external fuel tank during Tuesday's launch. more...

Now look, they can't even get this right, after two years of changes, enahancements, alterations in both the technology and procedures.

Is anybody else thinking that this is yet more circumstantial, yet compounding evidence that the moon landing were faked?

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Friday July 29, 2005

refulgent \rih-FUL-juhnt\, adjective:

1. Shining brightly; radiant; brilliant; resplendent.

If Moore was not quite a burned-out case, his once refulgent light flickered only dimly in his sad last years.
--Martin Filler, "The Spirit of '76," New Republic, July 9, 2001

With its improbable towers tilting against themselves and its titanium sheathing in full refulgent glow, it brings on a question that the world has not enjoyed asking itself since the first moon landings: If this is possible, what isn't?
--Richard Lacayo, "The Frank Gehry Experience," Time, June 26, 2000

To the Renaissance, they [the Middle Ages] were nothing but a dank patch of history, a barren stretch of time between luminous antiquity and an equally refulgent present.
--Justin Davidson, "On the Record," Newsday, January 19, 1997

Refulgent comes from the present participle of Latin refulgere, "to flash back, to shine brightly," from re-, "back" + fulgere, "to shine."

Whack the Aussies

Smack willow against the aussie convicts to send them back whence they came

World Stupidity Awards

It was a night of suspense and absolute idiocy as the World Stupidity Awards awarded achievement in ignorance and stupidity in one of the hottest ticket's at Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival Friday night.

While there were surprises, US president George W. Bush and Hotel Heiress Paris Hilton dominated the evening, with Hilton taking the Stupidest Woman of the Year category and Bush winning for Stupidest Statement for his comment: "They never stop thinking of ways of harming America, and neither do we. "

Some of the others winners include:

• Conservative columnist Ann Coulter won the award as Stupidest Man of the Year. She beat out Bush, U.S. Senator John Kerry, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and Players Association director Bob Goodenow, and former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma.
• Ashlee Simpson's lip-synching performance on Saturday Night Live for Dumbest Moment of the Year
• Crystal meth for Stupidest Trend of the Year
• North Korean dictator Kim Jong for Stupidity Award for Reckless Endangerment of the Planet
• Fox News for Media Outlet Which Has Best Furthered Ignorance

And John Gibson is still a twunt

http://www.stupidityawards.com/winners.html

Word of the Day

Word of the Day for Tuesday July 26, 2005

indelible \in-DEL-uh-buhl\, adjective:

1. That cannot be removed, erased, or washed away.
2. Making marks that cannot easily be removed or erased.
3. Incapable of being forgotten; memorable.

It was part of his image, indelible as the ink stains under the breast pocket.
--Mark Childress, Gone for Good

In a sense, these years were like a blur of hunger, a time without roots or a sense of stability that made an indelible mark and colored his every move years later.
--Marcos Bretón and José Luis Villegas, Away Games

It had been an indelible performance, an astonishing display of spiritual determination; he had done nothing less than give a clinic in what set him apart from everyone else in his profession.
--David Halberstam, Playing for Keeps

Lore would have it that he lost only once before he drew an indelible lesson about gambling and life.
--Sally Denton and Roger Morris, The Money and the Power

Indelible is from Latin indelebilis, from in-, "not" + delebilis, "that can be obliterated or destroyed," from delere, "to blot out, to efface, to destroy."

Zombie Survival

http://www.theflashgames.com/zombie_survival_game-swf.html

BIG Beer Advert

It's just so huge I can't even show you. You'll have to see for yourself.

http://www.bigad.com.au/

Perfect Day

Lou Reed
Transformer (1972)
Perfect Day

Just a perfect day,
Drink Sangria in the park,
And then later, when it gets dark,
We go home.
Just a perfect day,
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later, a movie, too,
And then home.

Oh it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on.

Just a perfect day,
Problems all left alone,
Weekenders on our own.
It's such fun.
Just a perfect day,
You made me forget myself.
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.

Oh it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on.

You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow...

Only in America?

Killer's fate hanging on his IQ

The life of a convicted murderer is hanging in the balance while a US jury considers whether his intelligence has increased enough to allow him to be put to death.

Daryl Atkins was named in a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2002 that said it was unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded.

But the intellectual stimulation the killer got by constant contact with lawyers in the case is thought to have raised his IQ above the threshold of 70, which puts him in line for the death penalty in Virginia.

The 27-year-old's case has divided lawyers and psychologists and has become the latest battleground for those arguing for and against state-sanctioned executions in America.

It raises questions over who should decide on a criminal's competency and whether knowing details of their crime can skew that life-or-death decision.

Another Word Of The Day

badinage \bad-n-AHZH\, noun:

1. Light, playful talk; banter.

Ken was determined to put the cares of the world behind him and do what he loved best -- having a few celebrity friends round and enjoying an evening of anecdote and badinage over a bottle or two of vintage bubbly and some tasty cheese straws.
--Bel Littlejohn, "My moustache man," The Guardian, March 24, 2000

The badinage was inconsequential, reduced to who knew whom and wasn't the weather glorious in St. Tropez, or the Bahamas, Hawaii, or Hong Kong?
--Robert Ludlum, The Matarese Countdown

Badinage comes from Frenc, from badiner, "to trifle, to joke," badin, "playful, jocular."

Word Of The Day

eke \EEK\, transitive verb:

1. To gain or supplement with great effort or difficulty -- used with 'out'.
2. To increase or make last by being economical -- used with 'out'.

When the PRI unites around a candidate and the two opposition parties divide the rest of the vote, the ruling party can usually eke out a victory.
--Mary Beth Sheridan, "PRI Wins Mexico State Governor's Race, but Loses Smaller Stronghold," Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1999

Inevitably, the prodigious footnotes get in the way of what is, basically, a simple parable. Like the wide margins the publishers use to eke out a skimpy text, they make the novel seem bigger than it is.
--James MacBride "What Did Myra Want?" New York Times, February 18, 1968

Although life was hard it was not unendurable, and the rugged and resourceful villagers eked out a living on the thin crust of the soil.
--Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet

But the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies managed to eke out a gain, rising 0.04 points, to 456.55.
--Kenneth N. Gilpin, "Tuesday's Stocks: Selloff Leaves Stocks Slightly Lower," New York Times, July 7, 1999

Eke is from Old English ecan, "to increase."

Oh My God I Rule - apparently

Hi Score on Raiden X = 3602700 - Can anyone beat this?

Bee on a String

Quite on earth how this guy managed to tie a piece of string to a bee is anyone's guess, but it looks like he's having loads of fun with it.

You Blew Me Up You Bastard

If you're killed by an act of terrorism, the newspapers and television stations will use whatever photo they can. From graduation, your holiday snaps, or if you're really unlucky, CCTV.

None of these express the anger, the rage, even the disappointment your disembodied spirit will feel at having your life untimely snuffed out.

That's where YouBlewMeUpYouBastard.com comes in. We'll store a photo of you, giving it large at the terrorists what done you in, and in the event of your body being blown to bits by a suicide bomber, we'll supply your disgusted image to all news services.

Richard, London, UK. "Is that all you've got?"

So don't let your death stop you telling the terrorists how much they stink. Contact YouBlewMeUpYouBastard.com

Reinhardt Adolfo Fuck

It's a real person.

Googletutor

"I began GoogleTutor.com with a great idea–to provide practical, useful information for everyday users of Google. I knew that most people had no idea of what they could do with Google. The site was an instant success, receiving up to 5,000 unique visitors a day.

The web site has tons of great information in it, and hundreds of incoming site links/deep links form others. It’s a great web site for a Google-lover who wants to be a blogger to step in to."

Audio Vibrator

The mesmerizing Audi-Oh is the very first vibrator that vibrates to the throbbing beat of music, sexy talk, or any external sounds. It’s a pearl-shaped clitoral vibrator with a soft silicone butterfly and has a thin elastic harness that allows you to strap it in place. The Audi-Oh will then vibrate to music coming from your stereo or directly from your iPod, other MP3 player or portable music device while you listen through your headphones. You can even wear the Audi-Oh discreetly under your clothes while you "dance with yourself" at your favorite dance music club. It will even pulsate to the sounds of your partner talking dirty to you. The Audi-Oh can also be used as a variable-speed vibrator without any music input.

Naked Drumming

Great, but one question - why?

Yatta

I know I have posted this before but it's really too good to miss. It makes me feel so happy to know there's people like this in the world.

Yatta

Are you Adam Phillips

I just sent this email from my gmail account:

From: Adam Phillips
To: (Loads of other people called Adam Phillips, also at gmail.com)

Hi everyone,

My name is Adam Phillips and quite recently I have been receiving a number of emails into my gmail account which appear to be genuine - i.e. not spam - but no intended for me. One nice person was kind enough to realise their mistake and got back in touch to let me know. It turns out she was trying to get hold of her son who's email adress is very similar.

This started me thinking that there's probably quite a few Adam Phillips' around the place, and now I am kind of curious as to who you all are. I won't be offended if you don't write back, but you must admit you are curious too, right?

A few years ago a UK comedian, Dave Gorman - http://www.davegorman.com/ - went on a half year trip around the world, meeting other people with the same name. He wrote a book about it too - http://www.davegorman.com/search.htm, http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0091884713/026-9037998-2954842. Now I am not proposing we all do the same, but it's oddly comforting to know there's a few other Adam Phillips' (or Adam Philips') around the world.

So who are you? What do you all do? Where do you all live? Are there more in the UK than the rest of the world? Do any of you know of any other Adam Phillips'?

Your's in anticipation,
Adam Phillips

Holly McBride

So a couple of weeks ago I received this email from a someone calling themselves Holly McBride. It was sent to an underused gmail account from another gmail account. I have no idea if this is real and she accidentally sent it to the wrong address. I suspect not, but I am going to have a play anyway

On 6/15/05, Holly McBride wrote:
Hey,

Long time no see!

How's things with you? I'm still in Europe, spent last night in a
horrible hotel in Germany. Olga (the girl who's showing me round) got
really drunk and started licking me. Crazy! I hope I attached a
photo to show you how impressed I looked!

Anyway, there was another reason I e-mailled you. I've had a lot of
time to think while I've been out here, about where I am in life, and
the way things are going and stuff… I really miss you. It sounds
silly, but I've just had such a bad time out here without you. I know
you see us as just friends, and I feel so silly saying this to you,
but I really love you.

I don't want to sound stupid or anything, but I've been saying those
words to myself over and over, trying to come up with the best way to
let you know. I'm not home for another two months, and it's killing
me not knowing your answer. Please, please let me know how you feel.

Love,

Holly
x

So here's my reply. I'll keep you posted if anything turns up.

Hey Holly,

It's so good to hear from you.

Things are pretty good here, work is going well, but it's hot hot hot. There a serious heatwave right mow and it's expected to last for another week or so. Shorts and t-shirts around this place.

I hope Olga didn't lick you too much. There's nothing worse than being all licked out.

I have had plenty of time to think about this myself. Since you went I have tried to get on with my life but have not been able to think about anything else. I love you too, but I am not willing to go through all that stuff like last time. I mean how many times am I expected to come home and put up with you watching the terrapins nip at each others bottoms. (Bt the way, how exactly did you get them to do that?)

If we are to be together then things are going to have to change. Firstly you're going to have to lose the hair, you know how much it turns me off. And I mean *all* of it. The words bald and coot spring to mind. Secondly, you're going to have to get to a doctor at some point. I know uncontrollable flatulance is a common problem, but surely not on that scale? That poor man in the supermarket could breathe for ages, and when he did he couldn't walk in a straight line.

Please send more pictures of your trip. I love that one. I'll put it with the other hot girl-on-girl action shots you've sent me over the years. Don't make me wait another two months for a money-shot though. I think I may explode if I have to wait.

Oh that reminds me, your mum says hi.

Tommy

We Are Not Afraid

It's a beautiful thing

Bomb hunt focuses on masterminds

Police investigating the London bombs are now focusing on finding those who masterminded the suspected suicide attacks that have killed at least 52.

Detectives believe three British men of Pakistani descent died carrying out the first attacks of their kind in the UK.

The fate of a fourth man on the bombed Piccadilly Line train remains unclear. One man was arrested in West Yorkshire, where three of the suspects were from.

Terrorism experts say the men may have been guided by a "controlling hand".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4677601.stm

London bomb suspects: key facts

The police have revealed important new developments in the hunt for those responsible for the London bomb attacks.

• All four suspects were British nationals of Pakistani descent. Three of the four were from West Yorkshire


• All four were captured on CCTV at King's Cross station, wearing rucksacks, shortly before 0830 BST on the morning of the attacks. The footage was found on Monday night


• One suspect was reported missing by his family. Some of his belongings were found on the bombed Number 30 bus in Tavistock Square


• Property linked to a second man was found at the scene of the Aldgate/Liverpool Street Tube bomb


• Items belonging to a third suspect were found at the site of the Aldgate/Liverpool Street and Edgware Road Tube bombs


• It is very likely the three men whose belongings were found at the bomb scenes are dead, police sources say


• Questions remain over the identity of the fourth bomber. Police do not know if he was killed at King's Cross or has fled


• One man has been arrested in West Yorkshire and is being questioned in London. He is believed to be related to one of the suspected bombers


• Police have searched the homes of three of the four suspects in West Yorkshire


• Six search warrants were executed in the Leeds area on Tuesday. A controlled explosion was carried out in the Burley area


• A "significant amount" of explosive material was found at an address in Leeds


• The men boarded a Thameslink train from Luton to King's Cross. Two cars in Luton, one of which had explosives in it, are connected to the inquiry


• It is thought the cars were hired by the suspects in West Yorkshire before being driven to Luton


• More than 1,000 calls have been made by the public to an anti-terrorist hotline. Police have studied 2,500 CCTV tapes

Flippant

Excuse me for being flippant and way too easily amused, especially after the previous posts of today, but hell, we could all do with some cheering up.

I went to click on this link on CNN:



And got this warning:

Arrests made in Yorkshire by police hunting for London bombers. More soon.

BBC News

Bomber died in bus explosion in Tavistock Square, say security sources. More soon.

BBC News

A brief history of habeas corpus

Habeas corpus is under attack, say critics of the government's anti-terror bill. But what is it and why is it so cherished?

Habeas corpus (ad subjiciendum) is Latin for "you may have the body" (subject to examination). It is a writ which requires a person detained by the authorities be brought before a court of law so that the legality of the detention may be examined.

The name is taken from the opening words of the writ in medieval times.

Although rarely used nowadays, it can theoretically be demanded by anyone who believes they are unlawfully detained and it is issued by a judge.

It does not determine guilt or innocence, merely whether the person is legally imprisoned. It may also be writ against a private individual detaining another.

If the charge is considered to be valid, the person must submit to trial but if not, the person goes free.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4329839.stm

Terror Alert Level

From a BBC news video

"The whole of the uk is at the highest possible state of alert - Critical"

Also:

Elsewhere, police say they have found a car at Luton train station they believe may be connected to the attacks.

No-one has been arrested, but police in Leeds are looking for explosives and have already seized some material.

Tarzan Rubber Band

After getting over the fact that's it's very, very, very weird, this video is actually quite catchy.

http://www.jewmilk.com/tarzanrubberband.htm

Worst Movie Tie-In Toy Ever

FANTASTIC FLOP!

Why the Fantastic 4 Human Torch ATV (with Light-Up Headlights!) is the Worst Movie Tie-In Toy Ever

Bomb officers carry out explosion

A controlled explosion has been carried out by army bomb disposal experts at a house in Leeds as part of the hunt for the London bombers.

The unoccupied house was one of six in the city raided early this morning following the attacks that have claimed at least 52 lives.

No-one has been arrested, but police are searching for explosives after the army operation allowed them access.

Up to 600 people have been evacuated from the area as part of the operation.

Police cleared people from homes as well as a mosque, a health centre and an old people's home.

Parts of Beeston and Holbeck, suburbs of Leeds, have been cordoned off, as well as a street in Dewsbury near Leeds.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4674463.stm

BNP campaign uses bus bomb photo

The British National Party has used a photograph of the bombed London bus for an election leaflet.

"Maybe now it's time to start listening to the BNP," says the slogan alongside the photo in a leaflet for a council by-election in Barking, East London.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the BNP "have tried to cynically exploit the current tragic events in London to further their spread of hatred".

BNP leader Nick Griffin said the photo showed the cost of voting Labour.

The leader of the Conservatives in London, Bob Neill, said it was "disgraceful and sick... as contemptible an election tactic as I have ever seen in my life".

The BNP's best result in the general election was in Barking, where it took 16.89% of the vote.

US forces lift London travel ban

The US military has rescinded an order to its personnel to avoid London in the aftermath of the bombings.

Personnel, most of them from US Air Force units at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath, in Suffolk, were told last week not to go within the M25 motorway.

But there was criticism that it sent out the wrong signals at a time when the emphasis was on "business as usual" in London after the attacks.

The US embassy said the order had been reviewed and had now been lifted.

The Commander of US Forces in Europe, General James L. Jones, based at Mons in Belgium, said in a statement: "[We have] lifted all travel restrictions for US personnel stationed in the United Kingdom.

"While all personnel are encouraged to be vigilant, we cannot allow ourselves to be intimidated by the acts of terrorists. All US personnel are encouraged to continue with their normal routine."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4673987.stm

Cold Fusion

In from the cold

Sixteen years after the hope, hype and recriminations, cold fusion is news again. David Adam investigates a scientific controversy that won't go away

In the late afternoon of January 24, the academic calm of Japan's Hokkaido University was shattered by an explosion in one of its laboratories. Physicist Tadahiko Mizuno was taking a guest through experiments into a phenomenon called cold fusion. The pair were showered in flying glass, suffering wounds to their face, neck, arms and chest. Mizuno needed a large chunk of detonated scientific apparatus removed from next to his carotid artery and both were deaf for a week.

The blast raises several questions: What went wrong? Have sufficient lessons been learned from a similar explosion in California that killed the British researcher Andrew Riley more than a decade ago? And perhaps most commonly, what on earth are scientists doing still flogging the dead horse that is cold fusion?

The Japanese accident is not the first time that cold fusion has blown up in the faces of its progenitors. Just ask Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, two previously well respected chemists who found themselves at a University of Utah press conference 16 years ago yesterday, where they heralded cold fusion as an astonishing scientific breakthrough and a limitless source of future energy. The two announced that, with little more than some special water and two metal electrodes, they could harness the power of the sun in a laboratory flask - a star in a jar.

While Pons and Fleischmann went onto the front pages of newspapers worldwide, legions of curious, enthusiastic and sceptical scientists went into their labs to try the simple experiments themselves. As failed attempts to replicate the results piled up, scepticism turned to hostility.

A few months later, a report from the US Department of Energy found no evidence for the effect and put the nascent field out of its misery. That, as far as mainstream science was concerned, was that.

Cold fusion may now be about to get a second chance. In a landmark decision in December, the same US Department of Energy gave a cautious green light to funding cold fusion research. It follows a decade-long investigation by the US Naval Research Laboratory, which concluded that there might be something in the phenomenon after all.

And if, as some predict, cold fusion is due a comeback, then it could start today in Los Angeles, where the American Physical Society has scheduled a session on the subject at its annual meeting.

A handful of scientists have always believed that Pons and Fleischmann were right and - using cash and equipment scraped together from wealthy individuals, private companies and, in at least one case, the US military - have been trying to keep the dream alive. Shunned by the scientific establishment, this hardy band of cold fusion researchers carry out experiments, organise an annual meeting and publish their results in whatever journal will have them. Today, they will get a chance to tell the rest of the world what it is missing.

One speaker is George Miley, a cold fusion believer at the University of Illinois. He says: "Much of the criticism has come from people who haven't worked in the field and much of it stems from the rather sad beginning. The ability to have nuclear reactions take place in solids is remarkable and it opens up a whole new field of physics."

This is where both the promise and the problems begin. Fusion of atoms releases energy, and that process drives the nuclear furnaces at the heart of stars. For decades, scientists have talked about mimicking this stellar fusion on Earth in a reactor; arguments continue about where to build the first prototype, called ITER.

But, just as forcing the north poles of two magnets together takes effort, the driving of two atoms together for them to fuse takes huge amounts of energy. The massive temperatures and pressures inside stars manage it, but scientists are not yet convinced that it could be done efficiently in an artificial way.

So when Pons and Fleischmann said they could do it at near room temperature and pressure, using kit not out of place in a chemistry set, the fusion world stood still. When they switched on their experiment, they said, a palladium electrode absorbed atoms of deuterium (hydrogen with an extra neutron) from the water and crammed them so close together they fused. As evidence, they said the setup churned out more heat than they put in.

"There's not an accepted theory for how this can happen," Miley admits. Worse, even those conducting the experiments concede that the observed effects are sporadic - what works in one laboratory fails in another. To mainstream science, built on the importance of theory, experiment and reproducibility, this puts cold fusion on the wrong side of the tracks.

Miley says: "Mainstream people have no motivation to look at this. They hear it's witchcraft, and people are frightened away. Certainly people in universities don't want to work on it because they would be ridiculed by their colleagues."

So does today's American Physical Society session signal that mainstream science is softening its scepticism? Absolutely not, says Bob Park of the society and one of cold fusion's biggest critics over the past decade. In fact, Park says, there is a cold fusion session every year. "Anyone can deliver a paper. We defend the openness of science. Anyone can get up to speak and if they can convince people, then OK. Early on, we used to have a session in which we collected all the crackpot papers together. It was very popular."

If the American Physical Society has not yet changed its approach to cold fusion, those working in the field can draw some comfort from a more unlikely source. Some 15 years after effectively killing it off, late last year the US Department of Energy performed a remarkable U-turn, at least as far as some cold fusion supporters are concerned. After reviewing the available evidence, it concluded that: "Funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in palladium-deuterium systems."

It is far from a ringing endorsement, but it was enough for Peter Hagelstein, a former rising star of physics who now devotes his time to developing cold fusion theories at MIT.

He says: "We've faced some of our harshest critics and we've come away with many of them recommending that funding be made available. If you took a hot fusion or string theory initiative and gathered together their worst critics and presented them with a 15-page document and allowed for one day's worth of presentations, I'm not sure you would get as many people proposing public money be spent on these projects." Hagelstein and other cold fusion advocates insist that there is just too much evidence of unusual effects in the thousands of experiments since Pons and Fleischmann to be ignored.

David Nagel, an engineer at George Washington University in Washington DC, says: "Of the 3,000-plus papers in the field, 10% are very hard to make go away. One per cent are, in my view, essentially bulletproof, as good as key papers in other fields of science."

Little has changed over the past 16 years in both the experimental setup and the results produced: modern cold fusion researchers still look for evidence of the cherished "excess heat" alongside the fusion products neutrons and helium-4.

"There have been many experimental studies that report significant effects. They have been performed by credentialed scientists with adequate materials, good protocols - including calibrations and controls - and data analysis using known methods," Nagel says. "I have been deeply involved in this adventure from the outset and know most of the players. I am certain they are not all liars or fools."

Park, at the American Physical Society, sees it differently: "They're running the same old experiments over and over and getting the same kind of screwy results. Each year there's a new saviour who finally has the proof and a year later we don't hear from them any more."

Both sides say what's needed to break the impasse is the production of a working, cold fusion device. According to Scott Chubb at the Naval Research Laboratory, Roger Stringham of First Gate Energies in Hawaii described just that at a cold fusion conference in France last year. "He puts 200W in and 400W comes out. That's a device, it's a heater. It's probably the first cold fusion device."

Chubb is equally excited about rumours of a breakthrough at a Las Vegas company called Innovative Energy Solutions. In November, it issued a press release heralding "clean energy technology" to "generate six times (12MW) more electricity than it consumes (2MW)". Rod Foster of the company says the technology is based on cold fusion, but could offer no more information about how it works.

"You're getting out enough heat that you can turn the supply off so you've got what looks like some kind of perpetual motion machine," Chubb says.

Extraordinary claims, as the old saying goes, demand extraordinary proof. It may yet be provided, but sceptical mainstream scientists require more than promises and rumours, especially when a miracle energy supply of the future is at stake.

As Park says: "Science is contingent and if somebody comes along with a convincing experiment then we'll have to rewrite the textbooks. But I don't think that's going to happen."

Mike McKubre, a long standing cold fusion researcher at SRI International in California who was injured in the explosion that killed Andrew Riley, disagrees, not surprisingly. "The ability to wield the power of nuclear physics on a tabletop has enormous technological importance," he says. "When the smoke clears it will be obvious to all, and our current critics will claim it was obvious to them all along."

Maximum Working Heat

This applies to the UK

There is no maximum working temperature laid down by law, but the Health & Safety At Work Act demands that the temperature in workplaces inside buildings must be ‘reasonable’. The Offices, Shops & Railway Premises Act also obliges employers to maintain a ‘reasonable’ temperature. Both acts specify that a sufficient number of thermometers must be provided so that the temperature may be measured.

The accepted zone of thermal comfort for most kinds of work lies between 16º-24º C.

The Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers recommends that the temperature in offices and banks should be around 20º C. The World Health Organisation recommends a maximum working temperature of 24º C.

The Approved Code of Practice to the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 states that "all reasonable steps should be taken to achieve a comfortable temperature".

This code suggests insulating hot pipes and equipment, providing air cooling plants, shading windows, siting workstations away from hot areas and using fans to increase ventilation. It also suggests rest breaks, cool drinks and limiting the amount of time spent in particularly hot areas.

It is also possible for employers to hire portable air conditioning equipment if heat is excessive.

You don’t have a legal right to walk out if your office is too hot (unless there is a serious and imminent danger to health).

However, you do have a right to demand that your employer takes urgent action to deal with excessive heat and you should contact your Union Representative, Safety Representative or full-time Union Official if your management doesn’t take the matter seriously.

John Gibson is a Twunt

And he's also not aged well.

Here he is in his offical photo for Fox News:



And now here he is on his show:



Did I mention that in my opinion he is a complete fucktard twunt?

John Gibson is a Twunt

From the "My Word" Archive:

You may have noticed the news out of Singapore Wednesday:

The host city for the 2012 Olympics (search) was picked. New York was out early and that was a big relief to me, personally. I think New York needs a rest from big events. All that security wears on you.

Then it was down to Paris and London. And the Olympic big wigs picked London.

All day long people have been saying to me, "Wasn't it great they didn't pick Paris?" And I've been saying, "No, no, no."

Paris was exactly the right place to pick and the Olympic committee screwed up.

Why? Simple. It would have been a three-week period where we wouldn't have had to worry about terrorism.

First, the French think they are so good at dealing with the Arab world that they would have gone out and paid every terrorist off. And things would have been calm.

Or another way to look at it is the French are already up to their eyeballs in terrorists. The French hide them in miserable slums, out of sight of the rich people in Paris.

So it would have been a treat, actually, to watch the French dealing with the problem of their own homegrown Islamist terrorists living in France already.

What would the French have done about rounding up their own citizens?

Would they have afforded their own terrorists the rights they insist we give the detainees at Gitmo? Not a chance. They'd throw them in the clink, or ship them off to North Africa pronto.

Would they have blocked terrorists at the border with unreasonable search and seizure — precisely what they say we should not do? Of course they would. Anybody looking faintly Arab would have had the gendarmerie on them in a flash.

It would have been a delight to have Parisians worried about security instead of New Yorkers. It would have been exquisite to watch.

But, alas, they picked London. I like the Brits. I like London. I hate to see them going through all this garbage when it would have been just fine in Paris.

C'est la vie. Goes to show the Olympic committee doesn't recognize the perfect opportunity when it presents itself.

That's My Word.

Houses searched in bomb inquiry

Four homes in West Yorkshire have been searched by police investigating last week's London bombings.

Officers from the Met Police were assisted by the West Yorkshire force in an intelligence-led operation, a police spokeswoman said.

She said officers were searching a fifth address in the area, but no arrests had been made.

Some 52 people were killed and 700 injured in last Thursday's explosions.

US troops ordered to avoid London

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4673987.stm

Thousands of US military personnel based in the UK have been banned by commanders from travelling to London in the wake of Thursday's bomb attacks.

Personnel, most of them from US Air Force units at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath, in Suffolk, have been told not to go within the M25 motorway.

Ahh, they are scared, bless them.

www.werenotafraid.com

And Another

From: Kathleen O'Toole (Sr. Associate, National Church Outreach - Bread for the World)
Subject: IAF and Brian McLAren

now there's an odd couple! Two separate items: 1) I talked to Jonathan Lange this morning. He'll be at the trianing next week. He'll look for you, but if you don't have him as a trainer (they rotate among the sections) definitely look for him. He was my colleague in Baltimore on the living wage campaign and is starting to work in Ohio (he did the voter turnout work for them in the Cleveland area.

2) I was filing and sorting some of your old e-mails and found Brian McLaren "update". Do you think we should order Generous Orthodoxy (or the coming "set" of the "New Kind of Christian" trilogy, for the BFWI library???

Have a great time at the training. THanks again for staying in touch. It's quiet here (blessedly quiet) this week.

More Gmail Wierdness

This is another one I've just found in my Gmail account. Is it a real person, trying depserately to find out my answer to something? Is it a clever piece of subliminal marketing? Did the original email contain somekind of virus?

Whatever it is I think I shall reply and find out.

Holly McBride

Hey,

Long time no see!

How's things with you? I'm still in Europe, spent last night in a
horrible hotel in Germany. Olga (the girl who's showing me round) got
really drunk and started licking me. Crazy! I hope I attached a
photo to show you how impressed I looked!

Anyway, there was another reason I e-mailled you. I've had a lot of
time to think while I've been out here, about where I am in life, and
the way things are going and stuff… I really miss you. It sounds
silly, but I've just had such a bad time out here without you. I know
you see us as just friends, and I feel so silly saying this to you,
but I really love you.

I don't want to sound stupid or anything, but I've been saying those
words to myself over and over, trying to come up with the best way to
let you know. I'm not home for another two months, and it's killing
me not knowing your answer. Please, please let me know how you feel.

Love,

Holly
x

Emailed in error

On July the 4th I received an email from a woman in Australia to my gmail account, which I hardly use. It wasn't meant for me, it was intended for her son who's email address is similar:

I sent you a gmail earlier but realised I didn't place a stop between
your two names. I would like you to help me (not finiancially)
purchase a pair of remote headphones for Dad for his birthday. The
pair he has now only work in one ear. I paid $120 for them in Perth.
Can you see what you beaut new ones they have available at the moment.
Let me know if you can't and I will source them locally.

Two days later I received another one from her:

Hello adam.phillips@gmail. I accidently sent you an email that was
meant for my son. His name is Adam Phillips and he has told me he
didn't get the message from me. Then we realised I had the address
wrong. His is phillips.adam because the other address was taken.
Obviously by yourself.

Hope you are as lovely as he is. God bless you.

The thing is I want to reply because she sounds nice and god knows I could do with a new family, but I don't know how "lovely" he is. He could be an axe-wielding homocidal maniac, but a lovely one.

What should I say?

London Underground Blog

http://london-underground.blogspot.com/

Body scan machines to be used on Tube passengers

TUBE passengers are to have their bodies scanned by machines that see through clothing in an attempt to prevent further terrorist attacks. The millimetre wave imagers will be used to carry out random checks as people enter stations after services resume today.

Police and transport officials are also considering installing the equipment permanently at stations across the network. The technology is already used to catch illegal immigrants who hide in lorries at Channel ports but has not previously been used on the Underground because of the high cost and concerns about privacy.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20409-1686151,00.html

al-qaeda

I am not making or supporting any connections between the London Bombs and al-Qaeda but just in case you were wondering here is a little background information on the organisation.

What is al-Qaeda?

• Al-Qaeda is an international terrorist network. It seeks to purge Muslim countries of what it sees as the profane influence of the West and replace their governments with a fundamentalist Islamic regime.

What does “al-Qaeda”mean?

• It’s Arabic for the base

Where does al-Qaeda operate?

• Around the world. Al-Qaeda has autonomous underground cells in some 60 countries, including the United States. Law enforcement has broken up al-Qaeda cells in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Albania, Uganda, and elsewhere.

Was al-Qaeda behind the September 11 attacks?

• Many in the Arab world doubt its guilt, but on several videotapes, important al-Qaeda operatives—including one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 and Osama bin Laden himself—have effectively acknowledged responsibility for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

How big is al-Qaeda?

• It’s impossible to say precisely, since al-Qaeda is decentralized. Estimates range from several hundred to several thousand members.

Before September 11, had al-Qaeda attacked U.S. interests?

• Yes, repeatedly. In 1995, a car bomb outside the Saudi National Guard building in Riyadh killed seven people, five of them Americans. In 1998, simultaneous bombings at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. In Yemen in 2000, a small boat laden with explosives hit the destroyer U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 American sailors. Other al-Qaeda plots—such as 1995 plans to simultaneously blow up a dozen American airliners over the Pacific and to reportedly crash a plane into CIA headquarters—were uncovered before they could be executed

Reproduced from http://vialardi.org/IRAQ/iraq_al_qaeda.html

Timeline: al-Qaeda (BBC News)

Terror alert highest ever as police fear new attack

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1689497,00.html

BRITAIN’S terrorist alert has been raised to its highest-ever level because the London rush-hour bombers are alive and planning another attack, The Times has learnt.

Security services, military and police are on “severe specific” alert — the second highest status and higher than after the September 11 atrocities — after it emerged that the terrorists who killed as many as 70 people were not suicide bombers.

The Times understands that the country’s biggest manhunt is focusing on evidence being gathered from King’s Cross station, which all three of the bombed Tube trains passed through on Thursday morning.

A re-examination of the timings of the explosions has revealed that the Underground bombs exploded within seconds of one another at 8.50am.

Investigators believe that the bombers assembled at the huge station, with its many rail connections, before dispersing to plant their devices around the Tube network.

The Circle Line bombs detonated when the Aldgate train was eight minutes east of King’s Cross and the Edgware Road train was eight minutes to the west. The Russell Square train was blown up seconds later, south of King’s Cross on the Piccadilly Line.

The bombers who killed 191 people in Madrid last year also gathered at one place before separating to plant devices timed to explode simultaneously.

Examination of CCTV footage from the dozens of security cameras around King’s Cross is a priority for investigators.

Scotland Yard also appealed yesterday for Tube passengers to send in mobile phone pictures and videos they may have made in the bombings. Streets and car parks near the station are being searched to discover if the terrorists left a vehicle.

The bombers travelled from outside London. “We believe they started out together, to ensure that there were no slips on the journey. Then they are likely to have split up to join separate trains,” a senior anti-terrorist source told The Times. “We need to find where these men were staying in the days before the attacks and where they collected the rucksack bombs.”

The other main line of inquiry is to recover forensic evidence from the mangled remains of the No 30 bus at Tavistock Square, where officers think a fourth bomber may have died at 9.47am.Police are trying to discover why his bomb — thought to have been of the same size and design as the Tube bombs — detonated 57 minutes after the synchronised devices.

One theory is that the man was to launch a second wave of attack, targeting people fleeing closed Tube stations.

When he found that stations had been quickly shut, the terrorist may have panicked, or been under orders to switch his attention to a bus, another symbol of London’s travel network.

One Scotland Yard source said: “We will never know for certain what happened in those last few minutes. He might not have woken up that morning as a suicide bomber, but circumstances meant he became one.”

Passengers on the bus noticed a 6ft tall, olive-skinned man, thought to be aged in his early 20s, looking agitated and rummaging in a rucksack.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said that the Government’s priority was catching the surviving bombers before they struck again.

The heightened security and a sense of nervousness has led to more than 100 bomb alerts, including the evacuation of 20,000 people from the centre of Birmingham on Saturday.

Three Britons were arrested under the Terrorism Act at Heathrow after being refused entry to the US but police said that they were not suspects. A US report that a Pakistani man was detained at Stansted on Friday, in possession of a marked Tube map, was dismissed.

None of the dead have been formally identified but autopsies have begun on 49 bodies. A further 31 people are listed as missing. London hospitals are still treating 62 injured, of whom 15 remain in a critical condition or in intensive care.

Police liaison officers have been sent to 59 families who fear that loved ones are dead or critically injured, while 31 families have visited an assistance centre for relatives of the missing.

The UK’s threat assessment level had been “severe general” until last month when, after the general election, it was dropped to “substantial”. After the rush-hour bombs, it has been raised two rungs.

The Metropolitan Police said yesterday that officers were looking into the firebombing of a Sikh temple and a number of other possible reprisal attacks in London since Thursday.

STATES OF ALERT

• Imminent Precise intelligence of a planned attack with timing and location known
  
• Severe specific Intelligence warning of a known terrorist plot
  
• Severe general A high possibility of attack at some stage but without knowledge of the timing or target
  
• Substantial Still a high alert but no intelligence of a specific plot
  

You guys wanna go to Chochky's?

I really need to get out of here.

Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays.

And that someone would be me.

Bus Riders: It Was Homicide Bomb

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,161924,00.html

Once again, trust Fox News to try to play with the racial angle.

"He said he became suspicious of the olive-skinned man because he looked anxious and was fiddling constantly with his bag."

Ever ridden a double-decker through London? Aside from the feeling you get that it's far too big for the road and is going to hit everything along the way, you would need to constantly fiddle with your rucksack to ensure no fucker has stolen it.

That wins my weekly titsarse award. And it's only Monday.

Bush to Address London Attacks in Speech

WASHINGTON — President Bush is citing the bombings on London's mass transit as fresh evidence of the need to aggressively stamp out terrorism, providing a new urgency to the cause that has been the strong suit of his presidency.

Bush was scheduled to deliver a progress report on the war on terror in a speech Monday at the FBI training academy in Virginia. The White House said the address was planned before last week's bombings in London, but the deadly attacks give his remarks even more significance.

Bush's war against the terrorists is a major reason he won re-election. Yet his approval numbers have slipped in recent months leading up to Monday's speech at Quantico.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president wanted to use the speech to talk about two strategies behind the war on terrorism. The first is a short-term plan to fight the terrorists abroad, and the second is a long-term strategy to bring freedom and prosperity to the places that produce terrorists.

"We will continue to deny the terrorists a safe haven and the support of rogue states," Bush said in his radio address over the weekend. "And at the same time, we will spread the universal values of hope and freedom that will overwhelm their ideology of tyranny and hate. The free world did not seek this conflict, yet we will win it."

Bush was in Scotland for the annual meeting of leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations when bombs exploded across London's subway system and on a double-decker bus during the morning rush-hour Thursday, killing dozens and wounding hundreds more. A little-known group claiming links to the al-Qaida terrorist network claimed responsibility.

"The war on terror goes on," Bush told reporters hours after the explosions.

Some have questioned whether Bush's strategy to fight the terrorists abroad so "we do not have to face them at home" is working when terrorists are planting bombs on London's public transportation. Great Britain is a key member of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

Bush's homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, defended the strategy during an interview on "Fox News Sunday."

The war in Iraq, she said, attracts terrorists there "where we have a fighting military and a coalition that can take them on and not have the sort of civilian casualties that you saw in London."

Oh yeah?

Many dead in Iraq suicide blast

A suicide bomber has killed more than 20 people who were queuing outside an army recruiting centre in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
The attacker walked into a crowd of young men who were waiting to be signed up by the military and blew himself up.

London, Britain

To help out their dear readers, Fox News have posted this handy guide to the UK, showing where the the bombings occured:



What's with the red star? Is that the shape of London? Or are they still trying to imply we are goddam commie pinkos?

Please note that the lighter-coloured part implies BRITAIN. In fact Britain is the bit of land where BRITAIN is written. The bit over there in Ireland is not part of BRITAIN, but part of the UK (United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland) - check your passports, it's true.

7/7 - 7-7 - Londom Bombings?

Ok so I know that this seems like a pretty flippant question, in the light of the circumstances, but what should the london bombings be known as? Some of the descriptions I have seen so far are: London Attacks (BBC News), London Terror (CNN), Attack On London (Guardian), London Bombs (Times)

I can't find a tagline from Fox News - very unusual. Can anybody furnish me with one please? Is it something like "London Terror Bomb Blasts - Run Screaming Then Invade Iran"?

So what is it to be called? 7/7 seems a little too much like 9/11. And let's face it with so many people killed in that one they do have more claim over the month/day naming convention than we do. It's all in the numbers. Having said that, the date usage is restricted for us anyway. Because of the day and month being the same number we can do 7/7 or 7/7, see? They can do 9/11 or 11/9 or 7/11 or Store24.

Incidentally is 9/11 copyrighted?

Can we do 7/7? 77.com I am all up for www.7th7th.com but that smacks a little too much of Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

Answers on a postcard please.

First 7/7 Victim Identified

The first London bomb victim is formally identified as Susan Levy, 54, of Cuffley, Herts.

Where was that bomb going?

From the previous post

"Among the theories being examined about the bus bomb yesterday is that it may have been a deliberate tactic to cause maximum mayhem as those fleeing the tube boarded buses. Another theory is that the device went off by accident as the bomber tried to make his way to another target."

IMHO that would would be my guess too. The other three bombs were timed to explode on busy tube carriages, simultaneously. This one was almost an hour later, on a bus. If somebody wanted to maximum damage to a crowded bus I would not have expected it to be primed to go off so late - after rush hour. However, the bus was pretty packed, so if that was the intention it certainly seems to have achieved its goal.

But why one on a bus and three in the tube? Were there other devices? If that one was not meant for the bus, where was it going?

Bus bomb clues may hold key to terror attack

The police and security services were last night pinning their hopes for an early breakthrough in their search for the perpetrators of Thursday's attacks in London on evidence from the shattered number 30 bus and its passengers, both living and dead.

It was reported last night that Britain's security alert had been raised to its highest level - "severe specific" alert - by the joint terrorist analysis centre. The upgrading makes it clear that the security services believe that the perpetrators of the attack are still at large.

Officials indicated that the three synchronised bombs on the underground were placed by individuals who then fled, leading to a warning from the home secretary, Charles Clarke, of possible further attacks as the total of dead was expected to reach 60.

The key to the investigation is now seen to lie in the bomb on the bus, which went off about an hour after the underground Explosions, killing 13 passengers as the bus passed through Tavistock Square. Police are now almost certain the tube bombs were not suicide attacks, but were positioned at the doors of carriages before the perpetrators got off.

Among the theories being examined about the bus bomb yesterday is that it may have been a deliberate tactic to cause maximum mayhem as those fleeing the tube boarded buses. Another theory is that the device went off by accident as the bomber tried to make his way to another target.

Police sources said they could not rule out that the bomber may be among the dead, who have not been formally identified.

A number of passengers and the bus driver survived the blast, and detectives will interview them in the hope that they can provide clues, all the more so as the CCTV camera on the bus was not working.

Police will examine hundreds of thousands of hours of CCTV footage from tube stations and street cameras all over London today in the hope this could yield pictures of the bombers. But this will be a long process because they have not yet established which stations the bombers used. Scotland Yard set up a special email address for witnesses to send mobile phone and video footage and photographs of the scenes to detectives at images@met.police.uk.

There have already been 1,700 calls to the confidential anti-terrorist hotline, some of which, police said, contained important information.

Specialists from 30 countries are assisting the Metropolitan police in their investigation. Spanish police have brought with them information about how the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people were carried out last March.

Security sources said they were keeping an open mind about who was responsible.

One person under scrutiny yesterday was Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, a Syrian linked to the Madrid bombers and now said to be in Iraq, who was reported to have set up a "sleeper cell" in London.

A Spanish-nationalised Syrian who lived in north London from 1995 to 1998, Nasar was described by the chief prosecutor in the Madrid bombings case as a suspect in the "initiation, preparation and carrying out" of the attacks. Tall, red-haired, pale-skinned and green-eyed, Nasar, according to Spanish police, has been able to travel without raising suspicion.

Security sources said they were pursuing a number of individuals. "No one name has risen to the top of the heap. They are all being looked at, all given equal weighting," a senior anti-terrorist official told the Guardian.

The former commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Lord Stevens, said yesterday that he believed the people who had carried out the attacks were "British born and bred, brought up here and totally aware of British life and values". He dismissed suggestions, both by security sources and in the media, that the terrorists were possibly Algerian or Moroccan.

Lord Stevens, writing in the News of the World, said he believed that up to 3,000 British-born or British-based people had passed through Osama bin Laden's training camps. Of these, he believed that there were now about 200 committed "home-grown terrorists willing and able to slaughter innocents for their perverted view of Islam".

Lord Stevens said that eight planned attacks had been thwarted in the past five years. On one occasion, he said, 1,000 undercover Metropolitan police officers had been deployed to watch suspected terrorists believed to be about to carry out an attack.

"No one can say Lord Stevens is right or wrong," a senior intelligence official said.

Intelligence sources described a "very small number of inner-core al-Qaida people" in Britain consisting of 30 or so members, with several hundred who have been to training camps or have fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia or Chechnya. They also referred to a third group of "home-grown" radicalised Britons not linked to the other groups and therefore difficult to investigate and know about.

A joint Home Office and Foreign Office report, Young Muslims and Extremism, said Britain might now be harbouring thousands of al-Qaida sympathisers.

Forensic pathologists have begun the process of identifying the dead at a temporary mortuary set up in a military barracks in the City of London, but because many of the victims were so badly injured in the blasts formal identification may take some time. Names of the dead will not be publicly released until the legal identification process through the coroner has taken place.

Police arrested three British men returning from the US at Heathrow early yesterday morning, but a senior Scotland Yard source said they had been picked up at the airport after being turned back by the US authorities and were not believed to have had anything to do with the bombings. They were later released without charge.

A security alert which led to the evacuation of 20,000 people from Birmingham city centre on Saturday was said yesterday by senior police sources not to be connected to the London attacks.

Mr Clarke warned that the terrorists could strike again. "Our fear is, of course, of more attacks until we succeed in tracking down the gang that committed the atrocities on Thursday," he said.

It also emerged yesterday that friends and relatives of the missing are being charged up to 40p a minute when they call the police casualty bureau.

More than 100,000 people have called the 0870 number since Thursday's attacks hoping for news of their missing loved ones. The calls cost up to 10p a minute from landlines and 40p from mobiles.

The telecoms regulator Ofcom yesterday criticised the use of the 0870 number for the hotline, describing it as "inappropriate". Ofcom said its guidelines stated that public service bodies should be wary of using the code, both because of the costs to callers and because the number could not always be accessed by people calling from abroad.

It was announced over the weekend that a two-minute silence is to be held at 1pm this Thursday to remember those dead and injured.

Misinformation

My brother-in-law has just arrived in London from the states and is certain that he saw news reports that two unexploded devices were found on thursday, leading to the possibility of forensic evidence.

He also seems to think there have been a number of racially incited backlash attacks on muslims in the UK.

He is fairly certain that both of these reports were on CNN. I have searched and can find no mention of them at all. Can anybody verify that these news stories were actually reported? Or is my brother-in-law a complete crackhead?

UPDATE:

UK Muslims 'feel more vulnerable'

Police chiefs say community relations in the UK are "reassuringly calm" in the wake of the London bombings, although several forces have reported attacks on mosques.

The Muslim community is feeling increasingly vulnerable and concerned, a monitoring team from the association found. But it also claimed there had been no upsurge in violence and abuse directed at minority groups.

However, since attacks on London, incidents reported by individual police forces have included arson attacks on mosques in Leeds, Belvedere in Kent, Birkenhead in Merseyside and Telford in Shropshire.

Acpo (The Association of Chief Police Officers) said these attacks had caused "little damage".

7/7 Coverage from News Sources

BBC News

Times Online

Guardian Online

CNN International

Hold the Front Page

8 minutes from Kings Cross

Downed US Seals may have got too close to Bin Laden

Tony Allen-Mills, Washington and Andrew North, Kabul

THE first sign of trouble was a radio message requesting immediate extraction. A four-man team of US Navy Seal commandos had run into heavy enemy fire on a remote, thickly forested trail in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

Trouble turned to disaster when a US special forces helicopter carrying 16 men was shot down as it landed at the scene, killing all on board. Almost two weeks later, a mission that led to the worst US combat losses in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001 has turned into an extraordinary manhunt. It has also opened an intriguing new front in the coalition’s battle against terrorism.

The story of Operation Red Wing, a US-led search for Taliban and Al-Qaeda guerrillas in the mountain wilderness of Kunar province, contains remarkable human drama and an unresolved military mystery.

For five days amid the hostile peaks and ravines along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, a lone American commando eluded the guerrillas who had killed at least two of his colleagues and destroyed the Chinook helicopter.

When the unnamed Seal finally collapsed from exhaustion he was found by a friendly Afghan villager who summoned US forces. The subsequent search for his colleagues turned up two bodies and the manhunt for the fourth commando continues this weekend despite claims by Taliban guerrillas yesterday that he had been captured and beheaded.

“We killed him at 11 o’clock today; we killed him using a knife and chopped off his head,” declared Abdul Latif Hakimi, a Taliban spokesman who has made several false claims in the past.

Yet whatever the final death toll from the worst incident in the history of the Seals — the Sea Air Land Commandos — there were tantalising hints that the original mission had been far from routine.

According to former special forces officers and other military sources, the four-man Seal strike team may have come too close to one of the US-led coalition’s highest-priority targets — perhaps Mullah Muhammad Omar, the former Taliban leader, or even Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda. Other military sources suggested the target was a regional Taliban commander suspected of links with Al-Qaeda.

More than 300 US troops were yesterday combing the area for signs of the missing commando and the militants who apparently used a portable rocket-propelled grenade launcher to destroy the Chinook.

Other helicopters and remotecontrolled aerial drones were flying over deep, inaccessible valleys. Rainstorms were slowing the search, and there was a danger of growing local hostility after claims that up to 25 civilians died when US aircraft bombed a compound in Kunar province last weekend.

US officials insisted the compound was used by militants and one spokesman said the attack with precision guided weapons was part of an “intelligence-driven” operation.

But Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s pro-US president, warned Washington that civilian casualties could erode public support for the coalition.

It was late in the evening of Tuesday, June 28, that Lieutenant Michael Murphy and the three members of his specialist team reported an encounter with the enemy.

Pentagon spokesmen said Murphy’s unit was engaged in general reconnaissance as part of a sweep through the region amid fears that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have quietly been regrouping and are preparing for an Iraq-style insurgency.

Yet other special forces sources noted that small Seal units like Murphy’s are primarily designed for concealment and stealth, which indicated a more specific mission.

“Its insertion represented an extraordinary risk,” said the author of an influential military blog known as Wretchard. “They would be operating in an area known to be a stronghold of the Taliban, where any contact with the enemy automatically meant they would be grossly overmatched.”

Another source noted that Murphy’s unit bore all the hallmarks of a long-range sniper team sent to hunt down a particular target. US Navy Seals are trained to spend long periods operating clandestinely.

“The fact that the US did not send in several hundred troops for a sweep instead of the four-man recon team strongly suggests the team’s mission was to fix a very high target before it could flee from an airmobile assault,” Wretchard said.

Whatever the team’s real objective, it found itself trapped in heavy rain with darkness falling. Seal veterans boast that they never call for help unless absolutely desperate. Exactly what befell Murphy and his team remains unknown, but commanders at Bagram airbase near Kabul wasted no time in dispatching eight more Seals on a helicopter crewed by eight members of an elite army unit.

As it was coming in to land in the Waigal valley, near the provincial capital of Asadabad, the helicopter was struck by what officers believe was a rocket-propelled grenade fired from the cover of nearby trees.

Lieutenant-General James Conway, chief of operations at the Pentagon, described it as a “pretty lucky shot” but when communications with the Chinook were lost, commanders were taking no chances. The next wave of troops landed a safe distance away and took 24 hours to reach the site, where it was confirmed that all 16 men on the helicopter had died.

For the four Seals on the ground, a desperate battle for survival had begun. Their story may not be told in full until the fate of the fourth member of the team is clear — the one Seal who survived has been debriefed by military officers but the Pentagon has released only the barest outline of his story for fear of compromising continuing operations in the area.

From the details released, it appears that the Seals may have dumped their backpacks to move faster on steep terrain. Former special forces sources said that when facing a superior enemy, the commandos would give each other covering fire as they mounted a phased retreat.

Coalition commanders acknowledge that for all their superior weaponry and communications, US forces are at a disadvantage in fighting in the Afghan mountains.

At some point in the mountain battle, Murphy, 29, was killed. So was Petty Officer Danny Dietz, 25. But at least one of the four Seals survived.

When he was found last weekend he was several miles from the helicopter wreckage. A friendly tribal elder notified authorities that he was caring for a wounded American. The commando was airlifted to Bagram, where his injuries were said not to be life-threatening.

US officials have not yet explained how the surviving Seal might have become separated from his missing colleague. The two dead commandos were said to have been “killed in action”.

To some US military sources, the strength of the force sent into the area suggested more than a simple search for a soldier who has been missing for 11 days. The manhunt may be providing cover for what might have been the original mission — to track down an elusive “high value” target who may once again be about to slip away.

Andrew North is the BBC’s Kabul correspondent. His reports on the security situation in Afghanistan are broadcast on all BBC news programmes

The Origins and Common Usage of British Swear-words

This entry discusses the etymology and application of a selection of words that, to varying degrees, can be considered vulgar or offensive. As a necessity, this entails the use of said words, and it is strongly advised that, should you find such words distressing or inappropriate, you do not read on beyond this point.

For the rest of you, there now follows an informative and hopefully educational entry on a potentially controversial topic - bad language...

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Tuesday July 5, 2005

nostrum \NOS-truhm\, noun:
1. A medicine of secret composition and unproven or dubious effectiveness; a quack medicine.
2. A usually questionable remedy or scheme; a cure-all.

James is put to work at country fairs, promoting a quack nostrum for pain relief.
--Patrick McGrath, "Heart of Ice," New York Times, April 13, 1997

His hopeful message attracted an audience eager to believe he had found the nostrum for all of society's ills.
--Warren Sloat, "Looking Back at 'Looking Backward': We Have Seen the Future and It Didn't Work," New York Times, January 17, 1988

Old ladies were always offering her their advice, recommending this or that nostrum.
--Charlotte Brontë, Shirley: A Tale

Nostrum comes from Latin nostrum (remedium), "our (remedy)," from nos, "we."

More Movies

Jackanory

Classic children's storytelling programme Jackanory is to be brought back to TV screens.

Alison Sharman, who took over as controller of the BBC's children's department in June, has signalled her intention to revive it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4648357.stm

Word Of The Day

Word of the Day for Monday July 4, 2005

varicolored \VER-ih-kuh-lurd\, adjective:
Having a variety of colors; of various colors.

Where a bottleneck of sky showed between the hills, dark and light clouds lay in alternating layers like varicolored liquid that would not mix.
--William Gay, The Long Home

Along with wild hogs, cattle, horses, and dogs, the varicolored wild African jungle fowl was domesticated early in our distant ancestors' spread around the globe.
--Buff Orpingtons, "Save the chickens!" Mother Earth News, December 10, 1996

Varicolored is from vari- (from Latin varius, "various, diversified") + colored (from Latin color, "color, tint, hue.")

Weekend Words Of The Day

Word of the Day for Saturday July 2, 2005

acumen \uh-KYOO-muhn; AK-yuh-muhn\, noun:
Quickness of perception or discernment; shrewdness shown by keen insight.

With Leo's rare combination of editorial acumen and business know-how, he might have become a publishing giant had he not permitted his drinking and gambling to hold him
back.
--Ellis Amburn, Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac

The family store gave him a sharp business acumen -- acquired, he would say, by manning the cash register -- that few of his rivals possessed.
--David Schiff, "Who Was That Masked Composer?" The Atlantic, January 2000

Acumen comes from Latin acumen, "the sharp point of something; sharpness of understanding; cunning," from acuere, "to sharpen."

Synonyms: Sharpness, sagacity, perspicacity.

Word of the Day for Sunday July 3, 2005

sentient \SEN-shee-uhnt; -tee-; -shuhnt\, adjective:
1. Capable of perceiving by the senses; conscious.
2. Experiencing sensation or feeling.

I can remember very vividly the first time I became aware of my existence; how for the first time I realised that I was a sentient human being in a perceptible world.
--Lord Berners, First Childhood

Answers to such profound questions as whether we are the only sentient beings in the universe, whether life is the product of random accident or deeply rooted law, and
whether there may be some sort of ultimate meaning to our existence, hinge on what science can reveal about the formation of life.
--Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle

Sentient comes from Latin sentiens, "feeling," from sentire, "to discern or perceive by the senses."

Farting On Camera

It's not the fact that this newsreader passes wind in front of the TV camera that makes me laugh, it's that she can't help but laugh herself. The see how embarrassed she looks. Ahh bless.

http://www.ugoto.com/flash/go/newsanchorfartsoncamera

Burnt face man returns

From the mighty brain of David Firth springs another senses-shattering episode of...
Burnt Face Man. This is funny, funny stuff. The clip for 'next episode' is particularly fine.

http://www.burntfaceman.com/4.htm

Voodoo Trombone Quartet

http://www.voodootrombonequartet.com/

With such classics as "Voodoo Trombone Quartet From the Block"

Soundboards

At home, in front of your pc and need to convince somebody you really are sick? Check out these soundboards and you'll be able to make believe you're at the train station.

The Ridiculously Thorough Guide to Making Your Own Pizza

There are a few "secrets of the trade" in making your own pizza; once you know them, it is not hard to make your own and it takes very little time. In fact, after you make it a few times you'll wonder why I made such a big deal out of it.

From Attu Sees All