Iapetus, a fascinating moon of Saturn - updated

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is returning awesome photos of Saturn, its rings, and its moons, many of them assembled at Boston.com's Big Picture.

I was especially interested to see a closeup of Iapetus, the eighth moon, which has a circumferential ridge around its equator. The top photo is from NASA in 2007. The photo below that comes from what I'm sure everyone would consider a "wacko" website that suggests that Iapetus is an artificial (i.e. manufactured) moon. Certainly the comparison with a Deathstar is striking.

Whether or not the Iapetus stuff interests you, the rest of the photos from Cassini are truly impressive.

Update: When I originally posted this is May of 2009, that equatorial ridge around Iapetus was unexplained.  A new hypothesis suggests that this ridge comes not from deformational stresses within the moon, as previously postulated, but rather that it is the remnant of a collapsed ring of debris:

...we propose intact capture or accretion from a debris disk of a "sub-satellite" (possibly more than one) around Iapetus... Such a sub-satellite would be tidally drawn towards Iapetus, once Iapetus is sufficiently despun by tidal interaction with Saturn... Once deep inside the Roche limit, tides would then tear the sub-satellite apart. The resulting debris would collisionally evolve to the equatorial plane, dissipating orbital energy and ultimately raining down on the equator (deorbiting) at subsonic speeds... Assuming the density of ice and a high porosity, rubble-pile structure, all the mass in the ridge can be supplied by a sub-satellite ~100 km in radius, a size relative to Iapetus far smaller than the relative sizes of the Moon to the Earth or Charon to Pluto...

That's from the abstract at the American Geophysical Union meeting.  A BBC summary is here.

Here's the "conspiracy theory" view of Wikileaks

The 250,000 pages end up at the desk of Julian Assange, the 39-year-old Australian founder of a supposedly anti-establishment website with the cute name Wikileaks. Assange decides to selectively choose several of the world’s most ultra-establishment news media to exclusively handle the leaking job for him... Indeed a strange choice of media for a person who claims to be anti-establishment. But then Assange also says he believes the US Government version of 9/11 and calls the Bilderberg Group a normal meeting of people, a very establishment view...

Most important, the 250,000 cables are not "top secret" as we might have thought. Between two and three million US Government employees are cleared to see this level of "secret" document, and some 500,000 people around the world have access to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRnet) where the cables were stored. Siprnet is not recommended for distribution of top-secret information. Only 6% or 15,000 pages of the documents have been classified as even secret, a level below top-secret. Another 40% were the lowest level, "confidential", while the rest were unclassified. In brief, it was not all that secret...

But for anyone who has studied the craft of intelligence and of disinformation, a clear pattern emerges in the Wikileaks drama. The focus is put on select US geopolitical targets, appearing as Hillary Clinton put it “to justify US sanctions against Iran.”

...What is emerging from all the sound and Wikileaks fury in Washington is that the entire scandal is serving to advance a long-standing Obama and Bush agenda of policing the until-now free Internet. Already the US Government has shut the Wikileaks server in the United States though no identifiable US law has been broken...

...the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (S.773). It would give the President unlimited power to disconnect private-sector computers from the internet. The bill "would allow the president to 'declare a cyber-security emergency' relating to 'non-governmental' computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat." We can expect that now this controversial piece of legislation will get top priority when a new Republican House and the Senate convene in January.

A followup on the death and exhumation of Tycho Brahe

It was almost a year ago that I wrote a post entitled "Was Tycho Brahe murdered?  Many people have doubted that uremia secondary to urinary retention could have killed him, and have speculated that he was poisoned with mercury.

The following week, in More thoughts re Tycho Brahe and ... Hamlet, I reviewed the connection between the Danish astronomer and the famous (fictional) Danish prince, with a comment that Tycho's supernova of 1572 melds nicely with the theory that Edward deVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the real author of the plays attributed to Shakespeare.

In February of this year, the Copenhagen Post noted that Tycho Brahe was to be exhumed for a forensic study.

A group of Danish and Czech experts will therefore soon be able to carry out detailed analyses of the astronomer’s bone, hair and clothing remains to find the answer to a centuries-old mystery as to whether he was murdered.

The leader of the Danish research team comes from the  University of Aarhus’ wonderfully-named Department of Medieval and Renaissance Archaeology (!).

In May the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark  and the Prague Post announced that the exhumation would be conducted in November.  This month the preliminary results of the exhumation were made public.

It's a bit complicated.  From the Prague Post last week:

"We expected we would find the remains of Tycho Brahe and his wife in the grave. But after we opened it, we found remains of several other persons as well, which meant the team's archeologists had to keep working until last night to find out more about the identity of those bodies," said Petr Velemínský, head of the National Museum's anthropological depository. "We found remains of eight other individuals, five of whom were children, and that was certainly a surprise."

Conspiracy theorists claim a jealous Kepler poisoned Brahe before buying the astronomer's research from his unsuspecting widow and using it for his own ends. The story goes that Kepler used mercury to kill his former collaborator, but more skeptical voices say the tale is unlikely, calling the traces of mercury previously found in Brahe's corpse during an earlier exhumation a sign of nothing more than his penchant for alchemy, a common hobby of scientists at the time who sought to convert various elements into gold.

"When we examine the hair samples in Sweden and in Prague, and we have about 8 centimeters of his beard, we will be able to find information on what substances he administered in the last three months of his life," Vellev said. "And the bone samples will give us even further-reaching information on the last 15 years of his life."

These excerpts from the New York Times:

Brahe, who sported a distinctive gold and silver prosthetic nose — having lost the bridge of his real nose in a duel — was long thought to have died after his bladder burst. Legend has it that 11 days before his death he attended the banquet of a nobleman and was too polite to leave the table to go to the toilet.

Medical experts have exploded this theory, noting that bladder ruptures are highly unusual and that Brahe probably died from kidney failure. But even today, when Czechs excuse themselves from the table to go to the bathroom, they have been known to say, “Pardon me, I don’t want to end up like Tycho Brahe.”

Others contend that Brahe was killed by his cousin Eric Brahe on the orders of the Danish king, Christian IV, enraged over rumors that Brahe, a father of eight, was having an affair with the king’s mother. The cousin supposedly slipped some mercury into Brahe’s glass, causing him to die in delirious pain...

Legend has it that, at age 20, he damaged his nose in a duel with a fellow member of the Danish gentry, Manderup Parsbjerg, not over a woman, but over some fine point of mathematics...

A second NYT article focuses more on the Kepler-Tycho connection, with a reference to a scholarly book on the subject:

Those findings inspired “Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History’s Greatest Scientific Discoveries,” a 2004 book by a pair of married journalists, Joshua Gilder and Anne-Lee Gilder. They argue that the evidence from the hairs [from a previous, incomplete exhumation and autopsy] points to two incidents of mercury poisoning, one at the time of the banquet and the other just before death, and that Kepler is the prime suspect because he had the means, the motive and the opportunity...

A devoutly religious scholar may not sound like a good candidate for murderer, but the Gilders argue that Kepler was an unhappy, temperamental zealot. In an astrological self-analysis, he described his “eagerness for trickery” and his plots against his “enemies,” and said he was under the influence of Mars's “rage-provoking force.”

Kepler resented Tycho’s higher status and, above all, his refusal to allow access to the full log of observations, including the records of Mars’s movements that Kepler considered essential to demonstrate the validity of his own model of the universe. Kepler tried several schemes to see Tycho’s data — to sneakily “wrest his riches away,” as Kepler put it — but Tycho resisted and forced Kepler to keep working on calculations aimed at supporting the Tychonic cosmology...

The results of the forensic studies will not be available until later this year.  In the meantime, I've requested the Heavenly Intrigue book from our library.  Stay tuned.

Photo by Jacob Christensen Ravn/Aarhus University, via European Pressphoto Agency

U.S. nukes reportedly compromised by aliens

Aliens from outer space, to be more precise.  I first saw the story at Reuters last week, in a piece dated September 15:

Witness testimony from more than 120 former or retired military personnel points to an ongoing and alarming intervention by unidentified aerial objects at nuclear weapons sites, as recently as 2003. In some cases, several nuclear missiles simultaneously and inexplicably malfunctioned while a disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby.  Six former U.S. Air Force officers and one former enlisted man will break their silence about these events at the National Press Club and urge the government to publicly confirm their reality.

One of them, ICBM launch officer Captain Robert Salas, was on duty during one missile disruption incident at  Malmstrom Air Force Base and was ordered to never discuss it. Another participant, retired Col. Charles Halt, observed a disc-shaped object directing beams of light down into the RAF Bentwaters airbase in England and heard on the radio that they landed in the nuclear weapons storage area. Both men will provide stunning details about these events, and reveal how the U.S. military responded. 

More at the link.  I didn't know what to think of it.  Today the story was picked up by the Telegraph - re British nuclear weapons sites:

Col Charles Halt said he saw a UFO at the former military base RAF Bentwaters, near Ipswich, 30 years ago, during which he saw beams of light fired into the base then heard on the military radio that aliens had landed inside the nuclear storage area.

He said: "I believe that the security services of both the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted - both then and now - to subvert the significance of what occurred at RAF Bentwaters by the use of well-practised methods of disinformation." 

The testimony was supposed to take place today.  I'll defer any commentary, except to say I'd be delighted if it's true.

About that number on the back of the Social Security card...

In a post last week I quoted a Republican conservative about a meeting he had with some irrational Tea Party enthusiasts:

I sat down, and they said on the back of your Social Security card, there's a number. That number indicates the bank that bought you when you were born based on a projection of your life's earnings, and you are collateral. We are all collateral for the banks...

More at the link. I didn't understand what they were talking about re the number on the back of the card. Today I found the explanation at Mother Jones.  After citing some nonsensical and paranoid comments from online discussion threads, this explanation is provided by Donald Walton, a U.S. bankruptcy trustee, on eight "key signs that can identify a subject social security card as either legitimate or fraudulent." Here's #7:

7. Sequential Control Number. On the rear of a legitimate card there is a sequential control number. The control number is a combination of alpha and numeric that bears no relation to the actual social security number on the card. However, the computer records of the Social Security Administration should show a correlation between the control number and the social security number and name on the card.

"Worst Case Scenario" for the Gulf oil blowout

About two months ago I posted a "worst case scenario" which postulated a total loss of the wellhead resulting from erosion of the pipe by sand.  Some recent postulates are considerably more gloomy:

Furthermore, geologists believe there are another 4-5 cracks or fissions in the well. Upon using a GPS and Depth finder system, experts have discovered a large gas bubble, 15-20 miles across and tens of feet high, under the ocean floor.

These bubbles are common. Many believe they have caused the sinking of ships and planes in the Bermuda Triangle.

That said, a bubble this large — if able to escape from under the ocean floor through a crack — would cause a gas explosion that Mr. Hoagland likens to Mt. St. Helens… only under water.

The BP well is 50 miles from Louisiana. Its release would send a toxic cloud over populated areas. The explosion would also sink any ships and oil structures in the vicinity and create a tsunami which would head toward Florida at 600 mph.

An audio of the complete interview has been posted at YouTube.  I know nothing about "Richard A. Hoaglund" or the "Coast to Coast AM" radio program.  It sounds like the usual late-night-radio sensationalist fearmongering...

People as "sheeple"

This 13-minute video has such a bleak worldview that I've sandwiched it between some lighter fare in a "unicorn maneuver" (if I'm using the right term there).   But I do think it's worth offering for your consideration.

The tone and content present a sort of Orwellian view of the mass of humankind being subject to the controls and whims of powerful rulers.  It was apparently created by Stefan Molyneux at Freedomain Radio, who writes in his YouTube blurb: "We can only be kept in the cages we do not see. A brief history of human enslavement - up to and including your own."

Found at Operator Speaking.

The Polish President's plane crash

This is how fake conspiracy theory is generated and propagated.

Several days after the plane carrying the president of Poland crashed, the video above was posted at YouTube; it shows people arriving at the crash scene and supposedly seeing strangers shooting the survivors of the crash.  The superimposed translations "explain" what is going on.

The video is then propagated at sites like this, where hundreds of comments are lodged re how the president was assassinated after the plane was sabotaged.

Now, cut to Reddit, where comments in the thread clarify that the subtitles on the video are totally inaccurate:

Ok, I think I'm starting to understand what they say. The part "give me a gun" is actually "get the fuck out of here". The part "don't kill me" I think is "you got not right to do that". My scenario is: the rescue team/ military arrive at the crash sight and see these guys walking around, possibly making a mess. Some guy says that we should get out of here, but other hesitate and the cameraman actually keeps walking forward. The military shout at them that they get the fuck out. One guy replies: you have no right to tell us that. The cameraman retreats. But others possibly hesitate. The military shoot in the air to show they are serious and the cameraman is like what the fuck. Hope that helps.

And yet, with this video "out there," it will continue to convince some gullible people that an assassination was successfully carried out.

The tragic death of Neda

For my final post tonight, I'm going to wade into territory that I'm only marginally familiar with, because of an item which will certainly be controversial.

Neda Agha-Soltan died during the protests against the Iranian government last summer.  She has subsequently become an icon in the ongoing opposition to President Ahmadinejad.  The circumstances and details surrounding her death are summarized relatively objectively on her Wikipedia entry and at the Los Angeles Times.

Iranian state television has issued a documentary report suggesting that Neda's apparent death on the street was faked.  Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty summarizes the report as follows:

The state-television documentary suggests the video of Neda's dying moments merely depicted her pouring blood on her own face from a special bottle she was carrying. Later, the documentary alleges that 27-year-old Neda was shot dead in the car that was taking her to a hospital...

Neda is portrayed in the documentary as a foreign agent who became the victim of a plot orchestrated by foreigners and opposition supporters...

The documentary alleges that Arash Hejazi, the writer and physician who treated Neda as she lay bleeding on a Tehran street, as well as her music teacher who was with her at the protest, were members of a team that carried out the plot...

On January 6, Iran's ambassador to Bahrain, Hossein Amir Abdullahyan, told "The Nation" that groups from Britain and the United States infiltrated the opposition movement and carried out assassinations among its ranks.

The video above was posted this past week at Milwaukee's Examiner, where it is accompanied by a rather vehement diatribe.  PressTV is Iran's English language television network, so I assume this video segment comes from the documentary referred to by Radio Free Europe.

I've watched the video many times, and I'll admit it does look like she pours blood onto her face.  I don't agree that the bystander saying "squeeze it" is suspicious - he's probably telling the rescuers to compress the presumptive chest wound.  But I find the image of the left hand holding the ?bottle to be unusual because the position of the fingers suggest that the bottle is pointing from the bottom of the hand, which would be a most unusual orientation.  The photo of her bloody face is a little atypical for a penetrating chest wound in that blood exiting from the lungs would typically be foamy;  this seems to be "welling up" as an esophageal bleed would do.

I'm not taking a position; just posting the video for information and because "conspiracy theory" is always interesting.

Addendum:  I haven't been able to get this video out of my mind ever since I posted it, and I've suddenly realized what is inconsistent.  This screencap -

supposedly shows the blood after she poured it on her face.  But you can't pour blood like that - to have it IN the nosrils and NOT on the lips, nasal septum or outer edges of the nostrils.  That blood HAS to be issuing from inside the nose.  And from where the rescuers were applying pressure to her chest, I would guess the entrance wound was in the central sternum/mediastinal region, so she probably has a major vessel now communicating with her esophagus.  The "bottle" in her hand may have been 'shopped by authorities, or they are misinterpreting some other item.

Medieval mindset in Nigeria - Cui bono?

Details are beginning to emerge from attacks Sunday on four villages in central Nigeria, where witnesses say members of the predominantly ---- ---- ethnic group targeted villages that were home to members of the mostly ---- ---- ethnic group. On Monday, local officials counted 378 bodies...

The weekend's attack appeared to be a reprisal for violence that claimed at least 300 lives in January, when ---- villagers targeted ---- in a separate, nearby village...

At a mass burial... angry residents talked of revenge as they gathered around a large pit and scattered dirt on several dozen charred and bloodied bodies...

An elderly woman prayed at the edge of the burial pit, chanting. "By God's grace we will enter their villages and kill their women and children," she repeated.

"We will do much worse to them," one man said.

I would assume the hatred goes well beyond religion per se to involve economics, land, food and other basic needs stretching back for generations.  I've redacted the identities of the religious/ethnic groups involved in this specific incident, because it really doesn't matter who started what first.

One has to wonder who ultimately benefits from violence such as this.  It's probably no coincidence that it's occurring in one of the countries blessed (?cursed) with abundant oil reserves.  Someone behind the scenes is stirring the pot for their own monetary/strategic benefit.

Cui bono?

David Kelly's autopsy results to be kept secret

Kelly, of course, was the biological weapons expert whose unexpected death was ruled a suicide.

Broucher had asked Kelly what would happen if Iraq were invaded, and Kelly had replied, "I will probably be found dead in the woods."

Doubts have been raised as to whether the cutting of the ulnar artery, outdoors on a cold night, could have lead to his death, especially since there was little blood at the scene, and the knife found by his body had no fingerprints on it.

Now the results of his postmortem examination are to be kept secret:

In a draconian – and highly unusual – order, Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the Dr Kelly scandal, has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem, and unpublished evidence...

The normal rules on post-mortems allow close relatives and ‘properly interested persons’ to apply to see a copy of the report and to ‘inspect’ other documents.  Lord Hutton’s measure has overridden these rules, so the files will not be opened until all such people are likely to be dead.

Last night, the Ministry of Justice was unable to explain the legal basis for Lord Hutton’s order.

Smells fishy.  Anyone who thinks it is the victim's family that is being "protected" is, I think, highly gullible.

(p.s. - did you know the word "gullible" is not in any standard or online dictionary?)