Ch-Ch-Ch-CHANGES...

Thanks Julie! I did a quick google but didn’t find the incident you mention but did find these: It seems that over the years many strange things have fallen from the sky. Besides storms of frogs and fish it has rained toads and flaked venison, showered 16th century coins and dropped golf balls and in California in 1976 it rained blackbirds and pigeons for two days! In March last year :- “Hundreds of spangled perch bombarded the 650 residents of Lajamanu, shocking local Christine Balmer, who was walking home when the strange 'weather' started. She said: 'These fish fell in their hundreds and hundreds all over the place.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1254812/Hundreds-fish-... In Great Yarmouth "silvery sprats - dead but still fresh - carpeted the gardens of a row of houses after falling from the sky near the seafront." "British Weather Services (BWS) lists such improbable places as Great Yarmouth, east Manchester and Southampton among the places most likely to experience strange objects falling from the heavens as a result of a collision of atmospheric instability." "The main theory about their arrival is that the objects are drawn into a whirlwind, or waterspout - spiralling, rising air which builds up under thunderclouds before being deposited elsewhere. Falling fish are common when the waterspout has formed over the sea, sucking up its contents. Frogs, toads, tomatoes, periwinkles, straw and even lumps of coal have also been known to fall after the waterspouts form." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/and-the-weather-itll-b... A Very Happy New Year to you too, and all at ABC!

As you say Kahdai - disappearing bees is serious! It has been going on for at least the last 5 years. Poet Jude wrote a very interesting piece in mid July 2008 that manages to both tell a tale and yet point out the facts too and so fits well with the purpose of this thread… well worth a read. http://www.abctales.com/story/poetjude/silence-bees As for the bird deaths - obviously not only in America as Sweden was mentioned too. However, there are more and more species suffering from climate change and whatever explaination we give to the death of these birds... they are only the tip of one of a growing number of iceburgs!

The recent ‘Chinese Triple Sun’ was explained as the astronomical phenomenon sometimes called the “ice halo” or “phantom sun” but in fact these suns appeared in a triangular configuration and, it seems, cannot be explained by the aforementioned phenomenon. http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/49049/ It looked like a giant eye to me... maybe somebody wants to keep an eye on us :O)

It’s more likely to be the spirit of the Tian Tan Big Buddha... located at Ngong Ping, Lantau Island, in Hong Kong ;O) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian_Tan_Buddha

“Fireworks were blamed for the deaths of thousands of red-winged blackbirds in Arkansas, while in Sweden officials believe almost 100 jackdaws found dead in the centre of a town had simply been run over.” MEANWHILE “Birds that were thought to have died from avian flu in Romania instead apparently drank themselves to death.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/12170571 Well, I think we have the truth now. Birds of several species decided to have a New Year binge... each in their own respective country. In Arkansas thousands were killed playing with fireworks while in Sweden many were so drunk that they were run over and killed. Meanwhile those in Rumania simply drank themselves to death. A good job Christmas comes but once a year!

“An online news service sponsored by the world’s premier scientific association unwittingly promoted a study making the false claim that catastrophic global warming would occur within nine years, the Guardian has learned.” http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/eurekalert-retracts-pres... News of yet another faulty scientific study relating to Global Warming isn’t really a surprise because the people who do these studies must realise, more than most, that some drastic changes have to be made to deal with Climate Change and that the most important change, a Global change of attitude, should be fostered immediately… so they tip the scales. Albert Einstein might have been wrong when he famously said “God does not play dice with the Universe.” but if he was wrong then God no doubt adjusts the odds to ensure a favourable outcome. It is not really within the scope of science to tell governments what to do, nor to predict the future. Science is very good at finding laws, rules and statistical models that can predict the behaviour of particles or planets but they have never had much success with the weather. Why? Well, I expect they would say it is because it is too complex and it is essentially unpredictable. However, many of us have noticed that certain people have had more success at predicting the weather by observing nature, the plants and animals etc., that the meteorologists with their extremely expensive computers. Yes, they can display some lovely graphics that can show us what the weather was like all around the world - a short time ago - but their forecast accuracy is inversely proportional to the length of the period from the time they make their prediction to the time their prediction is for. So, if science can’t accurately predict the weather can it at least predict the probabilities of where extreme weather is most likely to be felt and how extreme it might be? I don’t think it can. Science depends on lots of data and of course it has been recording weather data for long enough to make fair probability predictions if things remain the same but of course they are changing! I’m not convinced that Global Warming is the cause of Climate Change or even that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is a major factor. It could well be that rising CO2 levels and Global Warming are symptoms of something seriously wrong with the planet and might actually be the planets way of trying to compensate. So, does anyone really understand the mechanism behind Climate Change? Well, science cannot because it hasn’t had enough time to analyse sufficient data to pinpoint which are the fundamentally important variables of the different known functions that interact to produce the variations of temperature, pressure, sunshine and cloud that somehow dance around the planet… the spin and twirl of the weather as it waltzes to the music of the butterflies. I argue that science will always be behind because it likes to work with statistics and they only work well if the model is static or is well enough understood that any dynamic elements can be well mapped. In other words a working model might be ready eventually but it would require a better understanding of what is causing the ‘extremes’ and even then it would probably always be yesterday’s model when what we need is today’s or better tomorrow‘s! This leaves us with the question ‘If not science then what?’ What about good old-fashioned ‘Common sense’? We don’t need to predict the exact location or scale of an extreme weather event to be ready! It’s obvious which general areas are most at risk from the various extremes so let’s build local ‘depots’ where the necessary equipment and provisions can be stored. Let’s stop arguing about who or what is to blame and concentrate on what can be done. Instead of business as usual we have to unite as a species and find some way to work together rather than competing because while each nation fears that it will lose its competitive edge then all are bound into a circle of fear in which those who could do the most are also those with the most to lose! Governments don’t care about Climate Change or how extreme the weather gets because, if worse comes to worst, then they will always have a warm and cosy bolthole - but how many of their people will fit in?

‘Queenslanders are being told to brace for the most catastrophic storm ever to hit their shores. State Premier Anna Bligh said she did not think Australia had ever seen a storm of this intensity in an area as thickly populated. Meteorologists have upgraded Cyclone Yasi to a category five storm. With winds of almost 300km/h (185mph), they are warning it poses an extremely serious threat to life and property, especially around the cities of Cairns and Townsville.’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12342031 Meanwhile - ‘A bitter winter storm stretching 2,000 miles (3,200km) is crippling swathes of the US and Canada with heavy snow, rain and high winds.’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12339494

“The heaviest snowfall in more than a century on South Korea's east coast is causing widespread chaos. Hundreds of houses have collapsed under the weight of the snow. One newspaper described it as a snow bomb.“ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12445509

Just watched footage of the terrible destruction in Christ Church... It looked like a war zone! Many people were still running around - probably looking for somewhere that they felt safe. Terrible, I'm sure it must leave a deep emotional scar and many will feel like moving somewhere else after being hit twice in six months! “New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said "at least" 65 people had been killed in the earthquake, which hit Christchurch at 12.51pm today. Rescuers frantically searched for survivors after the quake destroyed much of the city. Thousands of panicked and tearful residents thronged the city's streets after the quake struck, just six months after a 7.0-magnitude tremor shattered buildings but did not claim any lives.” http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/a-63-magnitude-earthquake-has-rocke...

A million dead fish foul California marina. The fish, sardines, apparently depleted the water of oxygen and suffocated after getting lost in the marina… an official of Sea Lab said that testing of some of the water showed oxygen levels near zero. http://news.uk.msn.com/world/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=156402279

Yes, in a way it is, Highhat. For some people the lack of sunshine makes them SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder is similar to depression and it is said that it can be minimised by increasing the daily duration and intensity of sunlight by using an appropriate artificial substitute.

Several more earthquakes recently including China and Japan. In fact the US Geological Survey has just upgraded the intensity of the earthquake that hit Japan today from 7.9. to a magnitude of 8.8. Reports are coming in of a 10 meter high Tsunami...

At the time I had not realised just how bad the Japanese quake had been - it seems it was the worst Japanese earthquake on record. The Tsunami which hit the coast fairly soon after was very destructive... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kc-KvQ-XUQ&feature=player_embedded

“A massive explosion has rocked a Japanese nuclear power plant after Friday's devastating earthquake. A huge pall of smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima and several workers were injured. Japanese officials say the container housing the reactor was not damaged and that radiation levels have now fallen.” “Officials ordered the evacuation zone around the plant expanded from a 10km radius to 20km. BBC correspondent Nick Ravenscroft said police stopped him 60km from the Fukushima-Daiichi plant.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219 I don’t know what it is but I get the feeling that the Japanese government is hiding something... Perhaps it was “the detection of caesium isotopes outside the power station buildings could imply that the core has been exposed to the air.” Or maybe it was “Walt Patterson, of the London research institute Chatham House, said "this is starting to look a lot like Chernobyl"." This latest news of missing people is a bit worrying! "Around 10,000 people are unaccounted for in the Japanese port town of Minamisanriku in quake-hit Miyagi prefecture, public broadcaster NHK said." http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/13/3162576.htm?section=world

As usual, Highhat, Peaceful is right. In a way, that's the whole point of Wikileaks.

You don’t get to hear about it much, because it is not well understood, but as the Earth orbit’s the Sun so the Sun orbit’s the centre of the Milky Way. Now the Earth orbit’s the Sun in a year but the sun’s orbit takes a little longer - about two hundred and twenty, million times longer. What’s not well understood is why the orbiting rules do not conform to Newton’s Laws, or at least it doesn’t look like they do. I say ‘doesn’t look like’ because in an effort to make Newton’s Laws fit scientists have cleverly realised that it ‘doesn’t look like’ Newton’s Laws fit because most of the mass is invisible. This invisible mass is provided by Dark Matter and Dark Energy which are too Dark to see. Where would we be without scientists who can see in the dark? Well, to be honest they have not actually seen any yet - but they have inferred it (no, not infra red it) so there is no direct evidence of it but they tell us that there are several reasons to believe that they are not just NOT seeing things. Anyway, since 220,000,000 years is such a long time few people can remember being here - in this particular place, which we have reached along the sun’s orbit - the last time the Earth was here and so we will have to rely on the self same clever scientists to see, or not see, whether the galactic conditions here might be a contributing factor in the changes which have been happening to the Sun's bubble (the Heliosphere) recently. To see, or not to see : that is the question Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the stink of barrows of outrageous bullshit Or to take arms against a sea of darkness And by opposing it enlighten. To speak, to take a stand against the Dark and cry "Enough!".

I’m very rushed but I caught a bit of the news and it made me think how on Earth have we come to live in a world worse than Big Brother’s 1984? If I remember rightly in 1984 Winston gets his head pushed into a cage of rats which is truly horrific but the news today seems to be that torturing people is okay so long as you were ordered to do it… So people who were arrested and thrown in jail without charge in ‘Gitmo’ and tortured day and night were treated legally it seems. What’s worse than 1984, at least to me, is that at least in Orwell's book the ‘people’ were not aware of the torturing. Big Brother didn’t appear on TV and say “Hell yes I authorised water boarding!” His side kick didn’t say “Oh, I thought it was alright to torture people as long as we didn’t do it in America.” Surely if you use the tools of the Devil then you become a Devil too! Excuses, are simply that, excuses. The fact that over half the American people seemed to support prolonged torture of people who had never been charged or allowed to state their case in a court is a terrifying indictment of a country which pretends to be the land of the free! Worse still, now that the IMF has a new chief it seems that the US is ready to admit it was all a mistake. The Dominique Strauss-Kahn case is the 'on verge of collapse' according to The New York Times which suggests that the maid has lied about the encounter with Strauss-Kahn, has links to organised crime and received strange payments into her bank account. It seems that the organised crime relates to drug dealing and not directly to Wall Street although I suspect a lot of ‘product’ still graces the nostrils of the high rollers who ‘work’ there. The nail in the coffin was that the US has expanded its use of drone missiles to more countries and they have successfully blown up terrorists in Sudan… mind you the Israelis ’ have been using drone missiles there for several years. “The Predator Drones to stop ‘genocide’ narrative is a psychological operation. First, there’s the false narrative about genocide — who is committing it, and who isn’t. Second there’s the false narrative about the United States, Israel, and its allies being the “peacekeeping” policeman who, out of our moral necessity, cannot allow ‘genocide’ or ‘war crimes‘ on ‘our watch’. Yet, in Rwanda, Uganda, Congo and Sudan, the U.S. and its allies are the occupiers. We’re involved in covert wars, we’re responsible for creating genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in these places. These drones will contribute to war crimes committed with the backing of ordinary American citizens! Of course, they will be used, for example, to protect oil installations, to protect AFRICOM bases, to protect Coca Cola and Ben & Jerry’s gum Arabic plantations in Darfur, and they’ll be used to support covert military operations that are happening everywhere.” Keith Harmon Snow, independent journalist, human rights investigator and war correspondent. I hear Timothy Geithner the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has signalled to White House officials that he’s considering leaving the administration after President Obama reaches an agreement with Congress to raise the national debt limit… Perhaps Obama should resign too rather than be seen to support so many things he promised to oppose!

I came across a piece about Nietzsche on here which I decided to reply to which inspired this rant :O) I though about using it as a forum topic but I decided too few would be interested... “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” - Nietzsche I’ve always thought that, like most great men, Nietzsche was misunderstood. “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” This isn’t sarcasm, it isn’t hyperbole it’s an accurate description of exactly what had happened - God had been murdered right before the eyes of his children and they were so brainwashed that few even blinked an eye. After all, they were sheep and the job of sheep is to follow shepherds not to judge them! Let’s face it we’ve all fallen into the same trap of allowing ‘experts’, popes and politicians, to run our lives knowing that they were only in it for the power or the money but too lazy to think for ourselves. Nietzsche had simply realised that religions had, for the most part, killed the very spirit of the god they pretended to worship and that science was already composing the spells that would prevent any reincarnation. As usual the real god, the god almighty dollar, that trusts in itself, had started to triumph over morality and as god died the reasons for virtue began to wither. That same science that ate away at faith has since gone on to promise that its technology will raise us up - well, those few who can afford it - transform us into transistorised Iron Men who will walk amongst the stars performing miracles as yet undreamt of… if we survive the next global recession, figure out what to do about Extreme Weather and Climate Change and don’t all die off from some new deadly strain of experimental virus that escaped from a germ warfare lab while the gods of biology were playing Russian Roulette with ‘which mutant strain is the deadliest’.

Hi Highhat :O) Regarding your earlier post about the decline in migrant birds. I checked at the time to find out if there was any news of a marked decline in the UK but I couldn't find anything concrete - however, today I noticed an article (linked below) which confirms that the UK is suffering a similar decline in bird numbers... "The UK is in danger of losing some of the most distinctive sounds of summer, including the cuckoo's call, as migrant bird numbers plummet, a wildlife trust has warned." http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/warning-on-migrant-bird-numbers-15

Having had an Irish girl-friend I knew that the Irish could be very fiery but I had no idea just how hot the Irish can get... Coroner, Dr Kieran McLoughlin agreed with the police and Chief Fire Officer that Mr Michael Fahery got a bit too fiery for his own good. Dr McLoughlin said: "This fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation." So Mr Faherty, who died last December, was the first Irishman officially found to have spontaneously combusted. Could it have been too much Xmas spirit? http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/irishman-dies-from-spontaneous-human-combustion

When you're talking through your hat. Your fame is fading like the Cheshire cat. Invisible help is what you need So your pet Theory can win best of breed. It's hypothetical so it can't be seen Don't know where it comes from - Don't knows where its been. It's damned elusive It can't be tracked Why can't we find it? Well, it's too Dark in fact. So it's a form of energy you know nothing about You're sure it's there... without a doubt? Three quarters of the Universe is made of this? Come on now you're taking the p...! "The Esa delegates, who were meeting in Paris, also selected a mission to investigate two of the great mysteries of modern cosmology - dark matter and dark energy. Scientists are convinced that these phenomena dominate and shape the Universe but their nature has so far eluded any satisfactory explanation. The DISCOVERY in the late 1990s of DARK ENERGY and its influence on cosmic expansion was recognised with a Nobel Prize earlier in the day for three scientists." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15146082 DARK ENERGY - Not to be confused with dark matter, dark fluid, or dark flow. "In physical cosmology, astronomy and celestial mechanics, dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the rate of expansion of the universe. Dark energy is the most accepted theory to explain recent observations that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate. In the standard model of cosmology, dark energy currently accounts for 73% of the total mass-energy of the universe." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy THREE SCIENTISTS GET NOBEL PRIZES FOR THEIR HYPOTHETICAL DISCOVERY???

What would we do without scientists revealing the wonders of the Universe… even in these times of austerity it is worth every penny to get a deeper understanding of our planet. Take this amazing new research that concludes that it could have been comets that cooled the Earth by bringing it water. Who knew that the Earth was waterless for a few million years? Wasn’t it kind of those nice comets to bring us all that water. Now if each one could carry an amount of water that would fill a cube with sides the length of one kilometre - must be heavy (a kilometre long, a kilometre high and a kilometre wide) - then you would only need a mere 1,300 million of such comets to carry the water. Makes you wonder where they got all that water though doesn’t it? “Just a few million years after its formation, the early Earth was rocky and dry; most likely, something brought the water that covers most of the planet today.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15181123 “The area of the World Ocean is 361 million square kilometres (139 million square miles) Its volume is approximately 1.3 billion cubic kilometres (310 million cu mi). This can be thought of as a cube of water with an edge length of 1,111 kilometres (690 mi). Its average depth is 3,790 metres (12,430 ft), and its maximum depth is 10,923 metres (6.787 mi). Nearly half of the world's marine waters are over 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) deep.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean I love this quote from the news article... "This new view changes at least the semantics of the question on the orgin of the Earth's water. The question becomes more technical: 'from which region of the disc and by which dynamical mechanism came the (objects) that delivered the water to the Earth?'" "Herschel has some time left to address the question, but what all the researchers agree is that the Atacama Large Millimeter Array of telescopes in Chile - which has just shown off its first results - will soon be able to resolve these questions with never-before-seen sensitivity." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "How's it going Scotty?" "Ock, it's nae going well Captain. I can only refill the comets when that ALMA canna see and that means only when Chile is facing away... If we could adapt that Romulan invisibility shield I could get it done ten times faster..." "There is no point in wishing for the impossible Mr Scott. The Romulan technology could not be induced to cloak such a large area..." "Ock, I know that Mr Spock, but there's nae harm in hoping for miracles now is there?" "In that case Mr Scott I hope you'll stop talking and finish filling the container." Kirk smiled and said "Missing the Doctor, Spock?" "I do believe I am Jim. I do believe I am."

Well, well, well. New findings released today suggest that neutrinos can travel faster through 730km of rock than light can travel the same distance through a vacuum… in other words neutrinos can travel faster than the constant C which Einstein’s theory of Relativity specifically prohibits. It is not the first time the experiment has been run but the initial bunch length was 10 millionths of a second - almost 170 times longer than the 60 billionths of a second discrepancy the team initially reported between the neutrinos' travel time and that of light - and so the experiment has been repeated with CERN producing nutrino bunch lengths of just 3 billionths of a second... with identical results! Maybe they simply got the speed of light wrong after all it must be difficult to take into account the gravitational effect if it is not perfectly constant ;O)

Doctor Who programs transmitted almost 50 years into the future – really! “While searching deep space for extra-terrestrial signals, scientists at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have stumbled across signals broadcast from Earth nearly half a century ago.” http://www.rimmell.com/bbc/news.htm A VERY MERRY CHISTMAS to one and ALL!

I didn't realise that 65% of all US corn is a variety of a genetically modified, hybrid... "One of the nation's most widely planted crops — a genetically engineered corn plant that makes its own insecticide — may be losing its effectiveness because a major pest appears to be developing resistance more quickly than scientists expected." "When it was introduced in 2003, so-called Bt corn seemed like the answer to farmers' dreams: It would allow growers to bring in bountiful harvests using fewer chemicals because the corn naturally produces a toxin that poisons western corn rootworms. The hybrid was such a swift success that it and similar varieties now account for 65 percent of all U.S. corn acres — grain that ends up in thousands of everyday foods such as cereal, sweeteners and cooking oil." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45807933/ns/business-retail/ I've also read that there is now a 'Southern rust' that attacks GM corn with the once rust-resistant Rpp 9 gene. Now where did I hear those words "Resistance is futile!"?... I can't remember whether it was Star Trek NG or Hitch Hiker's Guide.