‘NEOShield’ project gains support with asteroid flyby

The State Column
Sunday, January 29, 2012
        

Movies such as Deep Impact and Armageddon have perpetuated the fear of giant asteroids striking Earth and wiping out the entire human race. Asteroids, or near-Earth objects, have impacted Earth in the past. In order to combat the risk of massive asteroids in the near and distant future, the European Commission is funding a “NEOShield” project.

In a paper entitled “A Global Approach to Near-Earth Object Impact Threat Mitigation,” researchers from Russia, Germany, the United States, France, Britain and Spain discuss the “NEOShield” project.
   

“There is currently no concerted international plan addressing the impact threat and how to organize, prepare and implement mitigation measures,” the researchers write. The “NEOShield” projects draws on the expertise of 13 different research institutes, universities, and industrial organizations.

The primary objective of the “NEOShield” project is to examine the three most-likely techniques to be deployed in the event that a massive asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. According to the paper, the following three “mitigation” techniques will be studied: the kinetic impactor, blast deflection and the gravity tractor. The “NEOShield” project will also look into the best way to implement a global strategy in the event that an asteroid actually threatens Earth.

“The scientific side of this will include the analysis of observational data on NEOs and laboratory experiments in which projectiles are fired at asteroid surface analog materials with different compositions, densities, porosities and structures,” Alan Harris, a “NEOShield” project leader at the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Planetary Research, said in an interview with SPACE.com. “We need to understand how the momentum transfer from a kinetic impactor to an asteroid depends on the physical characteristics of the asteroid,” Mr. Harris added.

The paper also discusses the challenges of selecting an asteroid for a “demo-mission.” The “NEOShield” project will eventually include a list of the required “dynamical and physical characteristics” for a demo-mission target, the most suitable demo-mission targets within the known asteroid population and any adjustments that need to be made in order to select specific asteroids for demo-missions.

The European Commission will contribute 4 million Euro to the “NEOShield” project.


Without a doubt stopping large asteroid impacts to earth is THEE MOST IMPORTANT Technological advance our species can make or any intelligent species evolving on a planet in solar system where planetary debris is whizzing around where it can and will destroy life forms on planets evolving life. We can be smarter than super computers but it won't mean a thing if we get hit by one of those large asteroids flying around our solar system. With all the billions of potential planets with life on them, passing this test of planetary protection must be the mark of any evolving intelligent species.

Israel jails Palestinian parliament speaker without trial

Guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 January 2012 14.09 ES  

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem

 

Aziz Dweik's six-month imprisonment is an attempt by Israel to thwart reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, says his office

Palestinian parliament speaker Aziz Dweik gestures as he attends a hearing at an Israeli military court near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

 

An Israeli military court has ordered the speaker of the Palestinian legislative body to be jailed for six months without trial after he was arrested at a checkpoint last week.
Aziz Dweik, a member of Hamas and a senior elected politician, was imprisoned "without charge or legal justification", a statement from his office said. It claimed Israel was attempting to thwart moves towards reconciliation between the rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas.
Dweik was arrested at a checkpoint near Ramallah last Thursday. According to reports, he was handcuffed and blindfolded by Israeli soldiers, who said he was being detained for "involvement in terrorist activities".
Dweik has been the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council since elections six years ago. However the PLC has not sat since the summer of 2007, when Hamas – which had won elections the previous year – took control of Gaza in a bloody battle with Fatah.
The order to imprison Dweik was made the day after two Hamas politicians were arrested by Israeli police inside the east Jerusalem compound of the Red Cross, where they had sought refuge 18 months ago after being threatened with expulsion from the city.
Police said they arrested Mohammed Totah, a member of the PLC, and Khaled Abu Arafeh, a former Palestinian minister for Jerusalem affairs, on Monday for "Hamas activity in Jerusalem". Hamas is banned by Israel in the city.
The men had lived in a protest tent on Red Cross premises since July 2010, receiving visitors but not leaving the compound. The international body has no diplomatic immunity, unlike embassies.
Another Hamas PLC member, Abdel Jaber Fukaha, was arrested at his home in Ramallah this week, bringing the total number of council members in Israeli jails to 27. Nineteen have been detained without trial or charge.
The recent arrests are seen as part of an Israeli crackdown on the movement and activity of senior Palestinian figures, which is thought to be connected to moves towards reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Israel strongly opposes Palestinian reconciliation, believing it will give Hamas greater influence.
A statement from the Palestinian cabinet on Tuesday condemned "the continued detention campaign against [PLC] members" and demanded their immediate release.
Hanan Ashwari, a veteran Palestinian politician, said Israel was "flagrantly violating international conventions and practices" with regard to the immunity of elected officials, and was using "calculated means of coercion and power politics to interfere in Palestinian domestic affairs and to undermine democratic institutions in Palestine".
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said the arrests were a continuation of the targeting of elected politicians affiliated to Hamas, which it viewed as "a retaliatory act and a form of collective punishment" in breach of the Geneva conventions.
More than 300 Palestinians are held in "administrative detention" under the Israeli military system, without charge or trial, on security grounds.

Iran to UN: Condemn nuclear scientist killing
By REUTERS
01/11/2012 23:43

Tehran's UN envoy appeals to Ban Ki-moon, UNSC "to condemn, in the strongest terms, these inhumane terrorist acts."


UNITED NATIONS - Iran urged the UN Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday to condemn the latest in a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, which it said were "cruel, inhumane and criminal acts of terrorism."

Iran's UN Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee appealed to Ban and the 15-nation council "to condemn, in the strongest term, these inhumane terrorist acts and to take effective steps towards elimination of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations."

"Any kind of political and economic pressures or terrorist attacks targeting the Iranian nuclear scientists, could not prevent our nation in exercising this right" to pursue its nuclear program, Khazaee said in a letter, obtained by Reuters.

The United Nations has not heeded previous Iranian calls for UN condemnations of similar assassinations.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters earlier on Wednesday that the United Nations was aware of the reports out of Tehran but had no immediate comment.

The United States, its European allies and Israel suspect that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at developing atomic weapons, an allegations Tehran denies.

Several Western officials have told Reuters that Tehran may be right and the hits on Iranian nuclear technicians could be part of a plan by US or Israeli intelligence services - or both - to sabotage Iran's nuclear program.

"Based on the existing evidence collected by the relevant Iranian security authorities, similar to previous incidents, perpetrators used the same terrorist method in assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists," Khazaee said.

He said the assassins used "a sticky magnetic bomb to the car carrying the scientists and detonating it."

"Furthermore, there is firm evidence that certain foreign quarters are behind such assassinations," Khazaee said.

His letter did not explicitly blame the United States or Israel.

'CIA, MI6 operations helped kill Iranian nuclear scientist'

By JPOST.COM STAFF
01/14/2012 12:39

Tehran sends letter to Swiss embassy over CIA activity and support for terrorist groups against Iran, IRNA reports; Iran says MI6 is carrying out intelligence operations against Iran.


Iran protested the United States and United Kingdom for their roles in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Wednesday, implicating the two nations in the attack, the official Iranian Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Saturday.

Iran sent a letter to the Swiss embassy in Tehran - the only official diplomatic channel between Iran and the United States in Tehran - saying that CIA-led operations in the Islamic Republic are known, and blaming the US for supporting "terrorist groups against Iran."

Tehran also sent a letter to the British Foreign Ministry, claiming British intelligence operations aided in the killing of the 32-year-old Roshan in a car bomb.

The letter cited a quote by Foreign Intelligence Service Head (MI6) John Sawers, who said that the UK was beginning intelligence operations against Iran, according to IRNA.

Iran demanded a response from both governments.

The Islamic Republic has blamed the violent death of Roshan on the CIA, Israel and now MI6. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton summarily denied the charges and Israeli President Shimon Peres said that Israel had no role in the attack, to the best of his knowledge.

Roshan is the fourth Iranian scientist to be killed since 2007.

IDF Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz said Tuesday that 2012 would be a critical year regarding Iran and that there may be more "unnatural" events that happen to them.

"2012 will be a critical year in the connection between Iran gaining nuclear power, changes in leadership, continuing pressure from the international community and events that happen unnaturally," he said.


Israelis ratting out the U.S. and Britain? Or the three of them setting us all up for more war provocation, so many winners in business and politics in these Middle East wars, its hard not to continue a winning strategy merely for peace.

Israel upholds citizenship bar for Palestinian spouses

BBC News
12 January 2012
Last updated at 07:58 ET


Israel's Supreme Court has upheld a law banning Palestinians who marry Israelis from gaining Israeli citizenship.

Civil rights groups had petitioned the court to overturn the law, saying it was unconstitutional.

"Human rights do not prescribe national suicide," Judge Asher Grunis wrote in the judgement.

The law was introduced in 2003, with its backers citing security concerns and the need to ensure Israel remains a Jewish-majority state.

Human rights activists and Arab politicians condemned the court's decision.

The court "had failed the test of justice", said Arab-Israeli MP Jamal Zahalka of the Balad party.

"It is a dark day for the protection of human rights and for the Israeli High Court," lawyers from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel told AFP.

"The ruling proves how much the situation regarding the civil rights of the Arab minority in Israel is declining into a highly dangerous and unprecedented situation", Arab-Israeli civil rights group Adalah, one of those that brought the petition, said in a statement.

The Citizenship and Entry Law was passed in 2003, during the second Palestinian intifada (uprising), as waves of suicide bombings targeted Israel.

Many were launched from the West Bank, some with the help of Israeli Arabs.

Initially, the law was emergency legislation which has since been extended periodically.

It was amended in 2005, allowing women over 25 and men over 35 to apply for temporary permits to live in Israel, but still ruling out citizenship for all but a handful of cases.

In 2007, it was expanded to apply to citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Marijuana doesn't appear to harm lung function, study finds

Associated Press
Published January 11, 2012

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/01/11/marijuana-doesnt-appear-to-harm-lung-function-study-finds/#ixzz1j9P06SYz

Smoking a joint once a week or a bit more apparently doesn't harm the lungs, suggests a 20-year study that bolsters evidence that marijuana doesn't do the kind of damage tobacco does.

The results, from one of the largest and longest studies on the health effects of marijuana, are hazier for heavy users - those who smoke two or more joints daily for several years. The data suggest that using marijuana that often might cause a decline in lung function, but there weren't enough heavy users among the 5,000 young adults in the study to draw firm conclusions.  Still, the authors recommended "caution and moderation when marijuana use is considered."

The study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham was released Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The findings echo results in some smaller studies that showed while marijuana contains some of the same toxic chemicals as tobacco, it does not carry the same risks for lung disease.

It's not clear why that is so, but it's possible that the main active ingredient in marijuana, a chemical known as THC, makes the difference. THC causes the "high" that users feel. It also helps fight inflammation and may counteract the effects of more irritating chemicals in the drug, said Dr. Donald Tashkin, a marijuana researcher and an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Tashkin was not involved in the new study.

Study co-author Dr. Stefan Kertesz said there are other aspects of marijuana that may help explain the results.

Unlike cigarette smokers, marijuana users tend to breathe in deeply when they inhale a joint, which some researchers think might strengthen lung tissue. But the common lung function tests used in the study require the same kind of deep breathing that marijuana smokers are used to, so their good test results might partly reflect lots of practice, said Kertesz, a drug abuse researcher and preventive medicine specialist at the Alabama university.

The study authors analyzed data from participants in a 20-year federally funded health study in young adults that began in 1985. Their analysis was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The study randomly enrolled 5,115 men and women aged 18 through 30 in four cities: Birmingham, Chicago, Oakland, Calif., and Minneapolis. Roughly equal numbers of blacks and whites took part, but no other minorities. Participants were periodically asked about recent marijuana or cigarette use and had several lung function tests during the study.

Overall, about 37 percent reported at least occasional marijuana use, and most users also reported having smoked cigarettes; 17 percent of participants said they'd smoked cigarettes but not marijuana. Those results are similar to national estimates.

On average, cigarette users smoked about 9 cigarettes daily, while average marijuana use was only a joint or two a few times a month - typical for U.S. marijuana users, Kertesz said.

The authors calculated the effects of tobacco and marijuana separately, both in people who used only one or the other, and in people who used both. They also considered other factors that could influence lung function, including air pollution in cities studied.

The analyses showed pot didn't appear to harm lung function, but cigarettes did. Cigarette smokers' test scores worsened steadily during the study. Smoking marijuana as often as one joint daily for seven years, or one joint weekly for 20 years was not linked with worse scores. Very few study participants smoked more often than that.

Like cigarette smokers, marijuana users can develop throat irritation and coughs, but the study didn't focus on those. It also didn't examine lung cancer, but other studies haven't found any definitive link between marijuana use and cancer.

Iran nuclear scientist killed in Tehran explosion

Los Angeles Times


January 11, 2012 |  6:16 am

REPORTING FROM TEHRAN AND BEIRUT -- An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed Wednesday morning when a bomb ripped through his car in a northern Tehran neighborhood, Iranian media reports said.

It was the fifth attack targeting an Iranian nuclear scientist in two years and will likely add to the tension between Iran and the West over the Islamic Republic's contested nuclear enrichment program.

The head of Tehran's Security Council, Safarali Baratlu, blamed the attack on Israel, calling it "an act of the Zionists," according to the semi-official Fars news agency. There was no immediate response from Israel.

Witnesses said a motorcyclist planted a bomb under the vehicle of the 32-year-old scientist, who was identified in media reports as Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan.

"This bomb was a magnetic bomb and similar to those that they have used to assassinate scientists in the past," Baratlu was quoted as saying.

At least one other person was killed in the blast, and a third person was wounded, Fars said.

Roshan was a professor at Sanati Sharif University, also known as Tehran's technical university, and deputy director for commercial affairs at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in the northern Isfahan province, Fars said.

Iranian media outlets carried photos of what they said was Roshan's damaged gray Peugeot car. Other images appeared to show blood stains and car parts in the street and cleaners sweeping the area with broomsticks.

Police and plainclothes security officers cordoned off a large area around the scene of the explosion, not far from Kitabi Square and the social science faculty of Allameh Tabatabai University. Passersby had their bags searched and motorcyclists were stopped and asked to present identification. Some people were body searched.

Wednesday's bombing happened the day before the second anniversary of the death of Iranian physics professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi, who was killed when a booby-trapped motorbike parked near his car exploded as he was leaving his home in northern Tehran.

Tehran has accused the United States, Israel and other Western interests of targeting its scientists in a bid to slow its nuclear research program, charges denied by the United States in the past.

Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said the country's nuclear program would continue despite Wednesday's "heinous act." "Our path is irreversible," the organization said in a statement quoted by Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam television channel.

Tension has been mounting between Iran and the West since U.N. nuclear inspectors released a report last fall asserting that Iran was conducting research that may be aimed at developing an atomic bomb.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday condemned Iran's decision to begin uranium enrichment at a covertly built underground facility near Qom, saying it brought Tehran "a significant step closer" to gaining the ability to produce weapons-grade nuclear material.

Iran, which maintains that its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, said this week that centrifuges in the Fordo bunker will be used to enrich uranium to 20% purity to create isotopes for medical research. About 90% purity is normally required for bomb making.

Iranian officials recently threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic channel through which 20% of the world's crude oil is shipped, if the United States and its allies continue to punish Iran with new economic sanctions.

Local Politics: Political Blog censorship still going on

Periodically, I have to post news of local political censorship that comes and goes with the political tides. There is a popular local blogster who is prominent in local Progressive politics. This person is Eric Kirk who has the blog SoHum Parlance II and runs a Progressive point of view of current political events which keeps local Progs interested in his blog. Political discussions go on all the time on his blog. However, if you're a Christian activist like me and criticize Eric's religious beliefs, he's a confused Zionist atheist, or his conflict of interest role as Buck Mountain Corp advocate sitting on the Board of the SoHum Community Park, he won't let that information be posted where commenters are talking about it on his blog. He will, however, let blog comments defaming his critics post with no trouble, even highly libelous ones. The same thing happens to critics on Eric's mentor's blog, Heraldo, and when it happens to me I feel duty bound to the community to report it. Local political fascist repression of information by pols claiming to represent the "liberal" political p.o.v. here in Humboldt County.  Rose, could you start another thread on Prog Blog censorship? I know it's not exactly Occupy topic but it is local Prog corrupt politics in action and besides, it makes me mad and want to vent somewhere, so where else but my blog and friend's blogs and my Facebook, and Twitter and Cheeper and Bleeper accounts as well as the Goodyear Blimp moving sign I've got on order..

Recent posts censored from Eric's blog:

Talking about Norman Solomon's campaign which Eric is supporting:

 No, Eric, I'm trying to save lives, Solomon's included. Zionists in America with Evangelical Christian support are pulling another Saddam/WMD war mongering effort to start another war in the Middle East to defeat Israel's political and military rivals for control of the whole Middle East region. Because this is something that benefits Europe, America, and all countries dependent on Middle East Muslim controlled oil reserves to function, they most often support Israel even though Israel holds the world's record for U.N. violations, many more than Iran and refuses to let U.N. atomic energy regulators into Israeli nuclear facilities. Israelis have no regard for human rights or human life when it comes to acting exactly like Mafia bosses protecting their turf enterprises by assassinating rivals and anyone deemed a serious threat to Israeli national security which includes anyone who prominently is anti-Zionist. I've read some of Solomon's stuff now and think if he were to reach Congress with his stated anti-Zionist agenda and acted on this in Congress, he would become a target for Israel as I am not aware of any elected Jewish U.S. congressman or Senator prominently anti-Zionist. It wouldn't be allowed and in our Republican-rightwing dominated political climate would make most Jewish politicians unelectable  He can play the anti-Zionist advocate here to local Prog audiences to some extent and in the Bay Area but most everywhere else? He'll downplay any criticism of Israel if he wants to be elected and not alienate most of his constituents and Congressional collegues right off the bat. Muslims watching U.S. elections and Congress will not be able to distinguish Solomon from other Jewish elected officials and Presidential advisers unless Solomon right away identifies himself as anti-Zionist and again if he did that, he'd be dead politically in Congress right away and if he was really serious he might be really dead. So, I'm protecting him, Eric. You don't run a black man for President in 1950's America if you want to save that black man's life and we've got a 1950's America ideology going on now that has traded racial prejudice against blacks for racial prejudice against Muslims and hatred of Communism for hatred of Islam.

Comment posted today responding to Eric's latest slamming of me without letting me post in defense on his blog:

In other words, Eric can post huge long comments, his regulars he likes can do so as well, remember Andy whatshisname's Zionist Israel supporting attacks on Islam and Muslims? Then there's this fact in my life that remains one of the big reasons I hate seeing a local political manager at work censoring political opponents: Eric's blog is the ONLY PLACE I have ever encountered such extreme hatred allowed to be posted against me. Nowhere else on any Internet discussion forum, blog, Facebook, face-to-face discussions, have I ever been wished my death from cancer that took place several times on this very blog. Eric let this type of hideous personal attack get posted on his blog just like he will let critics of me post their comments while censoring mine. This is such dirty pool that I will protest Eric's continuing slide into fascist repression whenever it comes up which is every time now that I post anything critical on Eric's blog.

That you toadies here fail to see the censorship problem is only to your own myopia about freedom of speech and how important it is to keep community communication free of political bias distortion and repression. Censorship is the first step towards more drastic means of killing off political rivals. My criticisms of Eric's behavior are based on my real experiences with his actions dealing with my comments, ED Voice's comments, i.e. serious critics of Eric's mindset and acts that wants to win at all costs, even the cost of truth.



Two more posts deleted by Eric, one showing how Marx stole his basic slogan directly from the New Testament and how he borrowed from 1800's religious intentional communities ideology, even pointed out there was a Communist one complete with totalitarian rules and ideological despotism. The other censored post responding to:
Anon: Well isn’t that special comrade

January 16, 2012 at 9:23 pm

Eric Kirk

Comrade? Because like, Karl Marx was a communist. And so I am because I mentioned him in a post?

Or something.

Me: Because you censor the flow of community information just like Communists do when they can block political opponents as you yourself admit to doing. At least you're not shooting or bombing your political opponents but then Progs like you don't have that power yet. You're scary, Eric, because you don't even see what you're doing as fascist baby steps.