Steve Knight

http://www.eads.com/eads/int/en/our-company/where-we-operate.html

Global! Even in USA, and Sth America!

Actually, I kinda like that part of their website. Niiiiice!

EADS Astrium Space Transportation was formed in June 2003 from the Space Infrastructure division of Astrium (whose core was originally ERNO) and the EADS Launch Vehicles division (formerly Aérospatiale's Space division). Until July 2006 it was called EADS Space Transportation and was a fully owned subsidiary of EADS Space. In July 2006 the three subsidiaries of EADS Space (EADS Space Transportation, EADS Astrium, and EADS Space Services) were reintegrated into one company, EADS Astrium, of which EADS Astrium Space Transportation is a business division. Currently 4397 employees work in the launcher segment.

The company has facilities in France (Les Mureaux near Paris and Aquitaine near Bordeaux) and in Germany; the main facility in Germany is located in Bremen.

Astrium is an aerospace subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) and which provides civil and defence space systems and services. In 2009, Astrium had a turnover of €4.8 billion and 15,000 employees in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands.

French/European company that just happens to have facilities in Germany and elsewhere. Not "Germany builds them for France"....

I love the smell of spin in the morning. It smells like....desperation!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16909592

The US space agency Nasa recently announced that half of the moon rocks brought back to Earth from two Apollo space missions have gone missing. They were given as gifts to the nations of the world. So what happened to them?

Towards the end of the Apollo 17 mission on 13 December 1972, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt - the last men to have set foot on the moon - picked up a rock.

Cernan announced: "We'd like to share a piece of this rock with so many of the countries throughout the world."

His wish was fulfilled.

President Richard Nixon ordered that the brick-sized rock be broken up into fragments and sent to 135 foreign heads of state and the 50 US states.

Each "goodwill moon rock" was encased in a lucite ball and mounted on a wooden plaque with the recipient nations' flag attached.

Moon rock collected during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 was also distributed to the same nations and US states.

There were 370 pieces gathered from the two missions. Two hundred and seventy were given to nations of the world and 100 to the 50 US states.

But 184 of these are lost, stolen or unaccounted for - 160 around the world and 24 in the US.

The rocks were distributed to countries ranging from Afghanistan to Trinidad and Tobago.

"Gaddafi's government was given two moon rocks - they're missing. Romania is missing its Apollo 17 goodwill moon rock," says Joseph Gutheinz Jr, the Texas-based lawyer and former Nasa agent, who has become known as the "moon rock hunter".

His obsession began in 1998 when - still at Nasa - he set up an undercover sting operation called Operation Lunar Eclipse.

He placed an advert entitled "Moon Rocks Wanted" in USA Today, to entice con-artists selling bogus moon rocks to approach him.

"What I did not anticipate was that a person with the real thing, the Honduras goodwill moon rock, would call me," he says.

The rock - which weighed 1.142 grams - was offered to Gutheinz for $5m (£3.1m).

He did not pay the money, but says the asking price was reasonable.

These valuable rocks are not being protected as well as they could be, he says, and both Nasa and the recipient nations have done a poor job of entering them into an inventory system.

He says the only authorised sale of lunar material that he is aware of was in 1993, when the Russian government sold material gathered from the Soviet Union's Luna 16 mission at Sotheby's auction house in New York.

An anonymous private collector bought 0.2 grams of lunar dust for $442,500 (£280,800).

With potential prices in this range, it is no surprise there is a lucrative black market in moon rocks, both real and fake.

Mr Gutheinz says a woman in California allegedly tried to sell a moon rock online, and that attempts to sell Spain's and Cyprus's moon rocks have been well documented.

"I once offered $10,000 for the recovery of Malta's stolen Apollo 17 goodwill moon rock but it still hasn't been recovered," he says.

"I know for certain that this was an amateur thief as he only took the rocks, and not the self-authenticating plaque."

Some moon have gone astray at times of revolution or political transition. The US national archives show that a rock was presented to the late Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, but Gutheinz believes it was sold after his execution.

Then there is the mysterious tale of how - after a fire at an observatory in Dublin - Ireland's Apollo 11 moon rock ended up lying in a rubbish dump, after apparently being thrown out with the rest of the debris.

"It's still there under a couple of tonnes of trash. That could definitely be worth over $5m (£3.1m). I'll tell you where it's at. It's in the Finglas landfill dump in Dublin," Gutheinz says.

Because of the enormity of the task he has challenged his students at the University of Phoenix and Alvin Community College in Texas - where he teaches criminal justice - to help find the missing rocks.

So far, they have helped to track down 77, including those that were given to the governors of the US states of Colorado, Missouri and West Virginia.

Dr Carle Pieters, a planetary geologist at Brown University, Rhode Island, says the knowledge gained from these tiny rocks is priceless.

"I am continually awed when I work with four-billion-year-old lunar samples. They are beautiful and don't have ugly weathering products often seen in Earth rocks.

"The lunar rocks retain a record of events in the early solar system that we cannot obtain elsewhere."

While Joseph Gutheinz has compared them to works of art, not everyone is so enthusiastic about them. London-based art writer and curator, Francesca Gavin, describes them as "ugly little things", although she is not opposed to the idea of seeing one in an art gallery.

"Moon rocks could be seen as artworks - relating in particular to the Chinese tradition of the Philosopher Stones as naturally occurring artworks reflecting the universe in microcosmic form," she says.

Gavin does not think the rocks are worth $5m (£3.1m), however, and questions the way they are mounted as goodwill gifts.

"The brown plaque, text and flag? It's pretty uneasy on the eyes."

Gutheinz concedes he will never be able to recover all of the missing moon rocks - many are now in private collections - but says there are some he particularly wants back.

"Definitely the Malta moon rock. I'd really like to see that back, and the Romanian rock. If I go to Europe, I will hunt that one down. I have a few ideas as to how I'll do that.

"And I love the story about the Ireland moon rock - that pot of gold under a dump."

This is quite interesting to read. Sheds a light that they've not just been sat in some vault somewhere, but actually distributed....and being stolen!

He's got to be better than Newt "I'm going to smack the judiciary HARD! for banning religion in schools and public buildings" Gingrich.

Funny thing. Was watching the SOTU speech on BBC news, and a friend (American) posts on Facebook that the perfect speech would be "The state of the union sucks, I failed, I resign effective noon tomorrow."

I ask who the VeeP is, and damn me if I can name one since Quiverin' Dan.

Got me to wondering if the Americans had been hiding them all to keep them out of trouble.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/16/smart_meters_no/

UK Ministers and Which? Magazine urge government to halt Smart Meter installations.

Links go to last page of thread, but start on page 117 of it. "booNyzarC" is the poster to read. Post number #1755, right at the bottom.

Very interesting reads. Some (mild) supposition on his part, but I concur : It does make sense from a logical point of view.

Will have to do some research meself, methinks, just to make doubly sure.

Billy Mitchell (amongst other things) predicted the circumstances of the attack in his 1925 courts-martial. To an uncanny degree.

It was definitely no surprise to anyone. Let alone that US Intelligence services had been intercepting and decoding a large amount (Not all, certainly) of Japan's diplomatic messages - although the military aspect of their plan was not transmitted - to be intercepted - but transferred by Personal Couriers. What little message traffic there was of that.

Less well known, generally, is that the Japanese sent observers to the aftermath of the British attack on the Italian Fleet in Taranto Harbour, the year before (possibly giving them a basis to plan a similar strike at Pearl...).

Personally, I think a lot of weight is being given to FDR's "Japan has to strike first" comments, and not necessarily in the intended manner...I think he, and his cabinet, really did believe the sanctions they imposed on Japan (oil embargo, etc) really would bring them to heel, as it were, and they would not be insane enough to start a war they could never win for it....

O.M.F.G!

He did NOT just say THAT!!

"Mr Murdoch, I believe you are the first Mafia Boss in history that did not know he was running an illegal empire." - Tom Watson, MP.

PMSL!! :lol:

If you'll pardon the pun

More food for thought : http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all

And the idiots in "Occupy London" are .... going home each night to sleep in their own warm beds, and have food and showers....

Makes you proud, wot? :lol:

Sorry, but that video about "PressTV" is full of xxxx.

Distorted and outright misleading on many "facts".

Riots were NOT in response to Cameron's policies. At All. The FIRST peaceful protest was against the police for the death of a convicted felon - drugs and firearms, and when they tried to arrest him, he brandished a weapon at them. Events after that are unclear, but one police was shot at (apparently by one of his compatriots), and the suspect was mortally wounded. Investigations are underway (at least two, the last I heard).

Idiots jumped on the bandwagon, and hijacked that peaceful protest, turning it violent.

ALL subsequent disturbances were less riots, and more retards causing violence and taking opportunity to loot themselves even spankier new gear - TVs, computers, jewellery, light snacks, or just smash shop windows when passing.

Police response to the "riots" was anything but excessive. Quite the contrary - light to non-existent at first, and only after a few days, of shuffling personnel from unaffected areas to the hotspots was it effective. Some of he "rioters" even had firearms, and aimed (if not shot at) the police on several occasions.

I think there was maybe a few occasions of police "beating" up "protesters", but not many, considering.

I have absolutely zero compassion for the idiots - they got everything they deserved : including, but not limited to heavy jail time, heavy fines, and losing their council homes, upon conviction.

Teachers, mechanics, graduate students do NOT have any excuse stealing from stores under the "cover" of "public disorder". At all. Some of those are really damned lucky to still have jobs, let alone escape jail for their actions.

It truly was pathetic.

And if the rest of that PressTV reporting was as ill-presented as the riot part, Offcom was right to pull the plug on them. Murdoch-esque reporting of the very worst kind.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15095191

Now covering their tracks....an analysis of what he said, and how true/false it was.

Lol, just found that myself. Saves me the bother of posting it, thanks

BBC has the video :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15078419

Say he was a legitimate trader, and not a hoaxer, as some have claimed....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8777717/Phone-Hacking-Scotland-Yard-drops-Official-Secrets-Act-bid-against-Guardian.html

Phone Hacking: Scotland Yard drops Official Secrets Act bid against Guardian

The Metropolitan Police has backed down in its attempt to use the Official Secrets Act to force a national newspaper into revealing its journalistic sources.

By Mark Hughes, Crime Correspondent

8:51PM BST 20 Sep 2011

Scotland Yard had intended to take the Guardian newspaper to court on Friday in an attempt to force the newspaper into revealing how it obtained information that missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s mobile phone had been hacked.

However, following discussions with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the force has abandoned its application for production orders against the newspaper.

The decision comes following heavy criticism of the force’s attempt to make the Guardian, and one of its journalists, hand over information which would have revealed the source of many of the newspaper’s phone hacking stories.

Various MPs, including the shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis, questioned the Yard’s attempt. While many national newspapers carried leading articles condemning the Metropolitan Police’s apparent attack on press freedom.

And today the former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith told the Daily Telegraph that the force’s decision to invoke the Official Secrets Act was “unusual” and could threaten press freedom.

The force made the application, which would force the newspaper to hand over material which would identify the source of several phone hacking stories the paper has revealed, on Friday.

But advice from Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, was not sought until Monday afternoon, three days after the application was made. The consent of the DPP is required for most prosecutions under the Official Secrets Act.

The DPP was engaged in discussions with officers from the Metropolitan Police’s professional standards department, the team which made the application for the production order.

Last night a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “The CPS has asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter.

“In addition the Metropolitan Police has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders.”

The order against the Guardian was sought under the police and criminal evidence act, but the application said that potential offences may have been committed under the Official Secrets Act.

A serving detective on Operation Weeting, the Yard’s phone hacking investigation has been arrested on suspicion of leaking information to the newspaper, including the revelation that the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked.

Scotland Yard believe the 51-year-old officer may have breached the Official Secrets Act.

The application for a production order asked that the Guardian, and its reporter Amelia Hill, hand over material which would disclose its sources for the Milly Dowler story and also who provided them with information which allowed it to reveal almost immediately the identities of those arrested in the hacking scandal.

The Scotland yard statement explained that “there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists’ obligations to protect their sources.”

But it adds: “It is not acceptable for police officers to leak information about any investigation, let alone one as sensitive and high profile as Operation Weeting.”

The force also did not rule out applying for production orders against the newspaper in the future, saying: “This decision does not mean that the investigation has been concluded. This investigation has always been about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that.”

Edit : Quote tag fail.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14899265

13 September 2011 Last updated at 13:52

Hacking MPs recall News International's James Murdoch

James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch give evidence before a parliamentary committee James Murdoch was questioned by MPs for nearly three hours in July

James Murdoch is to face more questions from MPs investigating the News of the World (NoW) phone-hacking scandal.

Culture committee chairman John Whittingdale said he was recalling News International's chairman to give evidence for a second time.

It comes after MPs heard conflicting evidence over how much Mr Murdoch knew about the practice at the NoW.

Separately, it has emerged the mother of a 7/7 bombing victim is to pursue a civil case against News International.

The case of Sheila Henry, whose son, Christian Small, was killed in the 2005 Russell Square explosion, will be one of six test cases for civil damages claims against News Group Newspapers over phone-hacking claims.

'Happy to appear'

It is not known when Mr Murdoch will appear before the culture committee.

Mr Whittingdale, its chairman, said the committee wanted to first hear evidence from other witnesses, including former senior News Corporation executive Les Hinton and Mark Lewis, the lawyer representing alleged phone-hacking victims.

A spokesman for News Corp, the parent company of News International, said: "James Murdoch is happy to appear in front of the committee again to answer any further questions members might have."

Earlier this month, former NoW legal manager Tom Crone told MPs he was "certain" he told Mr Murdoch about an email which indicated phone hacking at the paper went beyond one rogue reporter.

Mr Crone said "it was the reason that we had to settle" a case. Former editor Colin Myler also told the committee the email was discussed.

Mr Murdoch, however, has insisted he was not told about the email.

In July, he and his father - Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp - faced nearly three hours in front of the parliamentary committee, answering questions about what they had done to unravel the scandal at the News of the World.

At the High Court, Lord Justice Vos has been considering applications from a number of alleged phone-hacking victims to decide whose will be heard as test cases in the new year.

Earlier, he added that of Sheila Henry to a list including actor Jude Law, MP Chris Bryant, interior designer Kelly Hoppen, sports agent Sky Andrew and ex-footballer Paul Gascoigne.

Other developments to emerge from the High Court hearing include:

The family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, whose phone was allegedly hacked, have not issued proceedings

Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes issued proceedings against the NoW

New and significant information has been found at News International

Scotland Yard is currently investigating claims that reporters hacked into the messages of celebrities and public figures between 2005 and 2006.

It's good to see that Avery has been talking to witness, seeing evidence, etc, and come to the right conclusions... but people have been pointing to the facts for years, and I thought he interviewed witnesses?. I think the line of "...it's easy to come to that conclusion..." is a bit of a copout.

I do agree that the real cover-up needs to be investigated: who was responsible for the intelligence failures?

The US has a LONG history of intelligence failures. I believe it's endemic to their arrogance that "no one is stupid enough to attack us, because we're the biggest, badd-assest, powerfullest country on the planet".

Look at Pearl Harbor. They'd been getting warnings from their own people since 1925! (Billy Mitchell), that Japan would attack the Pacific Fleet, in harbour, on a Sunday and by surprise.

Let alone starting in January, 1941 by the Peruvian Ambassador to Japan and throughout the whole year.

1925. 1941. SIXTEEN years, they'd been told that something would happen. How much MORE warning do they need to take steps against something??

I don't see that changing any time soon, TBH. They'd either have to completely replace the whole intelligence sector, or the system itself....

The US is hardly unique in that regard:

• If the British and French had better intel. they probably would not have gotten trapped in Dunkirk.
  
• Soviets agents in Germany tried to warn them about Operation Barbarosa but this was ignored.
  
• Similarly the German's had intel. the Allies would land at Normandy but chose to believe they would attack further north.
  
• The Israeli government ignored signs of an impending attack in 1973.
  
• The British missed the signs that Argentina was going to invade the Falklands.
  

Indeed...National/Military "Intelligence" is definitely an oxymoron

Although - getting "trapped" at Dunkirk wasn't really a failure of intelligence. It was a failure of tactics (at least for the Allies). Germans went around the Maginot Line, and flanked the Belgians and French. Everyone had to pull back, or get cut-off, and ground into mincemeat by the German Blitzkrieg. Turning Dunkirk from certain defeat into a somewhat tactical victory was, dare I say, genius!

They had to leave their weapons behind, but saving the men counted for a LOT, later.

Soviets were unreliable at that time - it wasn't until much later that *anyone* listened to them. That's what they got for playing both sides of the fence.

Israeli/Arab wars - can't remember enough to comment. Didn't they end up winning those, though? Quite easily?

German Intelligence apparatus had been infiltrated and subsumed on a LARGE order, throughout the war. Double Agents, misinformation, massive erroneous assumptions, and of course, for the Normandy invasion, leaked plans showing the invasion would be at the MUCH narrower Pas de Calais, rather than the larger width it actually was (See "The Man Who Never Was" for more info.

It was really only Rommel who considered the real route, but the "Tactical Genius" that was Hitler, over-ruled him, and withheld the tanks, and more...

They never really had any effect on their own operations, and what they did "win" was mostly unimportant, to the Allies.

Argentina/Falklands - less a failure of Intelligence, than an opportunistic attack due to withdrawal of most Military Forces by Britain. Selling of the LAST Aircraft Carrier, and the Argentine belief the UK would be unable, or unwilling to respond to an invasion.

Using a little-known clause in the contract of the sale, UK recalled the carrier, and used it in defence.

Real-time satellite imagery and Intelligence provided secretly by the Americans, helped the UK forces, too. Even though they said the UK could never retake the islands

The warnings of a possible invasion weren't provided by any Intelligence asset, that I can recall, but by members of the Royal Navy - Captains and the like. More a tactical assessment, that was ignored.

It's good to see that Avery has been talking to witness, seeing evidence, etc, and come to the right conclusions... but people have been pointing to the facts for years, and I thought he interviewed witnesses?. I think the line of "...it's easy to come to that conclusion..." is a bit of a copout.

I do agree that the real cover-up needs to be investigated: who was responsible for the intelligence failures?

The US has a LONG history of intelligence failures. I believe it's endemic to their arrogance that "no one is stupid enough to attack us, because we're the biggest, badd-assest, powerfullest country on the planet".

Look at Pearl Harbor. They'd been getting warnings from their own people since 1925! (Billy Mitchell), that Japan would attack the Pacific Fleet, in harbour, on a Sunday and by surprise.

Let alone starting in January, 1941 by the Peruvian Ambassador to Japan and throughout the whole year.

1925. 1941. SIXTEEN years, they'd been told that something would happen. How much MORE warning do they need to take steps against something??

I don't see that changing any time soon, TBH. They'd either have to completely replace the whole intelligence sector, or the system itself....

Not to mention the THOUSANDS who saw it with their own eyes, right there, in the streets and local buildings.

Hoping for decency, from that subclass of humanity, is a long shot...at best. My guess is they'll come crawling out of the woodwork.

I suppose this is the best topic I can find for this link :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/08/september-11-audio-recordings-public

Newly released 9/11 audio recordings reveal chaos and confusion

Recordings of military and aviation responses to September 11 made public for first time – but two tapes remain classified

Karen McVeigh

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 September 2011 20.33 BST

The full audio recordings of the military and aviation responses to the unfolding events of September 11 have been made public for the first time.

The recordings, by nature dramatic as they unfold in real time, provide an insight into the disbelief and confusion that greeted officials as they struggled to obtain an accurate picture of what was happening.

"We have a problem here … We have a hijacked aircraft heading towards New York and we need to get … We need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there to help us out," air traffic controller Joseph Cooper, at the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Boston centre, said, according to the recordings, published by the Rutgers Law Review.

"Is this real world or exercise?" he is asked by an official from North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), at the other end of the phone.

"No, this is not an exercise, not a test," Cooper replies.

The call was made at 8.37am EST, before any planes had struck their targets.

While some of the recordings have emerged over the last decade, with some played during the 9/11 commission hearings in 2004, others are heard for the first time. Taken together, the document gives a searing aural picture of the attacks unfolding in the skies above the US on September 11. They run for over two hours, from the moment American Airlines Flight 11 dropped off the radar at 8.13am, to then vice-president Dick Cheney's order at 10.32am that civilian planes can be shot down.

At just after 8.19am, Betty Ong, a flight attendant from Flight 11, gives American Airlines agents the first indication that there has been a hijacking.

"The cockpit's not answering … Somebody's been stabbed in business class … I think there's Mace, we can't breathe … I think we're getting hijacked..." she said, according to the recordings.

At 9.01am, a manager from FAA's New York centre calls the FAA Command Centre in Herndon, Virginia, to find out if they can alert the military immediately.

"Check with your NOM [operations manager]. Do you know if anyone down there has done any co-ordination to scramble fighter-type airplanes?" he asks, before continuing: "We have several situations going on here. It is escalating big time."

By that stage, one plane had already crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, and another hijacked airline was seconds away from hitting the south tower. But not everyone at the FAA was aware of it.

"Why? What's going on?" says the voice at the end of the phone.

"Just get me somebody who has the authority to get the military in the air now," the FAA manager in New York says.

At 9.02am, a radio transmission comes into the New York air traffic control radar centre.

"Hey, can you look out your window right now?" the caller says.

"Yeah, I see him," comes the response.

"Do you see that guy? Look, is he descending into the building also?"

"He's descending really quick too, yeah," he says, adding: "Forty-five hundred right now, he just dropped 800ft in like, one … one sweep."

"What kind of airplane is that? Can you guys tell?"

"I don't know. I'll read it out in a minute."

They watch as the plane, United 75, plummets before hitting the south tower.

In the background, someone shouts: "Another one just hit the building. Wow. Another one just hit it hard. Another one hit the World Trade."

The manager says: "The whole building just came apart".

Most of the audio documents were completed in 2004, although not in time for a legal review before the commission closed in August that year. They were never completed or released until now.

The dean of the Rutgers Law school, John Farmer, a lawyer for the 9/11 commission, published many of the transcripts in his 2009 book The Ground Truth. Farmer and students from the law school helped finish reviewing and transcribing the final files.

The documents, which were first reported on by the New York Times, spell out the confusion and lack of co-ordination between military and civil authorities in the aftermath of the attacks.

They reveal in detail how the taped accounts contradict those given by senior officials for up to a year after the attacks that military pilots were pursuing the hijackers. According to accounts by Dick Cheney, the vice-president, the defense department and the FAA, the pilots were on the alert for orders from President George Bush to shoot down the hijacked airliners.

One military aviation official, according to the recordings, only learned that American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, had disappeared 30 minutes beforehand, when she contacted the FAA in Washington to discuss the unfolding events.

''The story of the day, of 9/11 itself, is best told in the voices of 9/11," Miles Kara, a retired army colonel and an investigator for the 9/11 commission who tracked down the original audio files, told the New York Times.

According to the newspaper, two tapes are missing and remain restricted or classified. One is the recording from the last half-hour in the cockpit of the United Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers tried to storm the cockpit as it flew towards Washington. Some of the families of those on board requested it not to be made public.

The second, still secret, recording, according to the newspaper, is of a high-level conference call in which Dick Cheney participated.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8746321/Phone-hacking-Operation-Weeting-officers-arrest-16th-suspect-in-scandal.html

By Andrew Hough

10:00AM BST 07 Sep 2011

The 35 year-old, who has not been named, became the 16th suspect to be held by police investigating the illegal practice at the now-defunct Sunday tabloid .

Scotland Yard said the man was held by officers from Scotland Yard's Operation Weeting at 5.55am on Wednesday during the swoop on his home. No other details were released about the suspect or where he was arrested.

He is the latest to be arrested on suspicion of phone hacking since the fresh investigation into the illegal interception of voicemails was launched in January. It was the second in a week.

He was taken to a north London police station for questioning on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages. Previous arrests have been been made by prior appointment making Wednesday's raid unusual.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Officers from Operation Weeting have this morning (7 September) arrested a man at his home address in connection with conspiring to intercept communications.

"At 05.55 hrs officers arrested the man on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages, contrary to Section1 (1) Criminal Law Act 1977.

"The man [35 ys] is now in custody at a north London police station."

A series of high-profile figures have been held for questioning, including former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and former Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson.

None of the suspects has been charged and one has been cleared.

The scandal has already led to the closure of the News of the World after 168 years and the resignation of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and Assistant Commissioner John Yates.

The latest arrest came hours after James Murdoch, the News International chairman came out fighting after two of his former executives accused him of misleading MPs about his knowledge of the scandal that brought down the News of the World.

Colin Myler, the newspaper’s last editor, and Tom Crone, its former legal chief, told the culture, media and sport select committee they had informed him three years ago of a “devastating” email proving phone hacking was not confined to a single “rogue reporter”.

Their evidence is at odds with Mr Murdoch’s claims in July that he was “not aware” of the email until recently, but Mr Murdoch is standing by his version of events.

Just a FWIW, here's a truck in Australia that was left behind when the big fires went through Victoria a couple of years ago. What you are looking at is the remains of all the aluminium parts in the truck after they have melted from the heat of the fires - The fires were just grass and other organic combustibles, yet it was hot enough and for long enough to melt substantial chunks of metal.

Just making a point that whilst seemingly simple things like having 'X' amount of combustible material (grass, kerosene, etc) may only seem to allow for a certain amount of heat to be passed on, it can sometimes be deceiving and here is proof that it can sometimes be far greater than what you would expect.

I've also seen a photo of melted steel from those grass fires, but I cannot find it again sorry.

I found a few :

http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2009/02/25/1111118/956053-truck-saves-trio-from-blaze.jpg

http://static.binscorner.com/f/forest-fire-in-victoria-australia/part-032.jpeg

http://images.smh.com.au/ftsmh/ffximage/2009/02/08/fire9__2__gallery__600x400.jpg < this one's not too clear on melted parts at the side - wrong Angle of View.

However, from the same series : http://images.smh.com.au/ftsmh/ffximage/2009/02/10/bushfire15_gallery__600x400.jpg

and http://images.smh.com.au/ftsmh/ffximage/2009/02/08/fire14_gallery__600x379.jpg

and http://www.smh.com.au/ftimages/2009/02/08/1234027840624.html

http://www.drjudywood.com/articles/DEW/dewpics/firetruck-3.jpg

Should be enough for you

I THINK this is a joke....but it's by an American....

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/08/15/watchmen-paul-krugman-alien-invasion

1) Nothing, or damned little, is impossible.

2) Given that we're "sat" in the arse-end of nowhere, in a spur/offshoot, 1/3rd of the way out along a spiral arm orbiting a particularly nondescript star in a nondescript galaxy....probably not for a LONG time, if ever.

People are stupid. Fact.

Crowds/groups/factions even more so.

Throughout history, they [read "we"] have been fed a steady diet of non-stop war, violence, and oppression. The last 150 years or so, we've had Sci-Fi stories with the same, and including "Aliens" in even that.

For the most part, people are unable [stupidity] or unwilling [fear, paranoia, whatever] to separate "what has happened", "What is happening" and "What will happen" from "What *MAY* happen"; from reality and fiction.

Hollywood aren't making it any easier - catering to the masses of idiots that eat their xxxx up with a spoon, then spread it as "ZOMG! That's really gonna happen!!!!/That's already happened!!!!"

What aliens are going to travel dozens or hundreds or thousands of light-years, then land troops on a planet to eradicate the inhabitants [read "humans"] then take over/stripmine resources/etc, when they can just sit outside orbit, and launch asteroids at us from long-range and have ZERO risk that some "hero" will find a weakness to exploit?

Does. Not. Compute. Let alone they have the technology to do that, [travel inter-galactically], but not weapons that are *that* much more advanced than our poxxy little pistols, and rifles, and SMGs, and bazookas?

Remember in the 1990s, Warner Bros had a little 5-year science-fiction show called "Babylon 5"? That show touched on a LOT of these points -

* Newtonian physics for ships - especially the Earth ships and fighters. Bigger ships having rotating sections to generate gravity. [well, centrifugal force to simulate such].

* Invasions using real-world tactics - including mass-drives (massive electromagnetic rail-guns to launch asteroids at planets ("Bombing them back to the stone age", etc).

* Battles/Wars between low-tech and high-tech civilisations, where the high-tech won unless SEVERELY outnumbered, or the low-tech had allies with similar tech levels to the opposition.

There's none (that I can remember) like that before, and damned little after it....people "demand" the "arcade" physics sci-fi, and unrealistic actions, and a "hero" that can defeat the aliens, so that's what Hollywood makes. Year-in. Year-out. Without fail. Summer Blockbusters only work because of the insane amounts of money Hollywood throw at marketing them, irrespective of actual merit.

People are stupid.

That's not going to change any time soon. Probably not before a real alien race visits us, anyway.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/02/idUS235193620110902

Murdoch receives $12m bonus.

Son of Murdoch "declines" $6m bonus.

The cynic in me says this is a ploy...