Dewayne-Net Technology Weblog

[Note: This item comes from reader Randall. DLH]

From: Randall Webmail <rvh40@insightbb.com>
Date: May 13, 2008 5:07:39 PM PDT
To: dewayne@warpspeed.com, dave@farber.net, johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Why don’t they even PRETEND to be on our side?

Government asks court to block wider testing for mad cow

By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press WriterFri May 9, 11:50 AM ET

The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.

The government seeks to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to conduct more comprehensive testing to satisfy demand from overseas customers in Japan and elsewhere.

Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers.

“They want to create false assurances,” Justice Department attorney Eric Flesig-Greene told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

But Creekstone attorney Russell Frye contended the Agriculture Department’s regulations covering the treatment of domestic animals contain no prohibition against an individual company testing for mad cow disease, since the test is conducted only after a cow is slaughtered. He said the agency has no authority to prevent companies from using the test to reassure customers.

“This is the government telling the consumers, `You’re not entitled to this information,’” Frye said.

Chief Judge David B. Sentelle seemed to agree with Creekstone’s contention that the additional testing would not interfere with agency regulations governing the treatment of animals.

“All they want to do is create information,” Sentelle said, noting that it’s up to consumers to decide how to interpret the information.

Larger meatpackers have opposed Creekstone’s push to allow wider testing out of fear that consumer pressure would force them to begin testing all animals too. Increased testing would raise the price of meat by a few cents per pound.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. Three cases of mad cow disease have been discovered in the U.S. since 2003.

The district court’s ruling last year in favor of Creekstone was supposed to take effect June 1, 2007, but the Agriculture Department’s appeal has delayed the testing so far.

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080509/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/mad_cow>

[Note: This item comes from Bill St. Arnaud's list. DLH]

From: “Bill St.Arnaud” <bill.st.arnaud@canarie.ca>
Date: May 14, 2008 2:30:46 PM PDT
Subject: [CAnet - news] Join the hunt to feed the world’s hungry through broadband Internet

For more information on this item please visit my blog at
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com
——————————————-

[Another good example of citizen science. Excerpts from NY Times article --
BSA]

<http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/join-the-hunt-for-super-rice/?ref=technology>

Join the Hunt for Super-Rice

There is no quick fix to the world food crisis, but a project getting
underway Wednesday could make a difference in the long run.
Rice

A team of researchers at the University of Washington are putting a genomics
project on the World Community Grid in the computational search for strains
of rice that have traits like higher yields, disease resistance and a wider
range of nutrients.

The purpose is to hasten the pace of modern rice genetics, which since the
1960s has delivered a series of new strains, starting with higher-yielding
semidwarf varieties, a breakthrough that was hailed as the Green Revolution.

But the demand - all those mouths to feed - keeps rising. Rice is the main
staple food for more than half the world’s population. In Asia alone, more
than two billion people get up to 70 percent of their dietary energy from
rice.

The World Community Grid, begun in 2004, gives selected humanitarian
scientific projects access to massive computing resources. It taps the
unused computing cycles of nearly one million computers around the world -
much like SETI@home, the best-known distributed computing effort, which
claims it has harnessed more than 3 million PCs in the search for
extraterrestrial life.

The World Community Grid places a small piece of software on your PC that
taps your unused computing cycles and combines them with others to create a
virtual supercomputer. Its equivalent computing power would make it the
world’s third-largest supercomputer, according to I.B.M., which has donated
the hardware, software and technical expertise for the project.

The grid will run a three-dimensional modeling program created by the
computational biologists at the University of Washington to study the
structures of the proteins that make up the building blocks of rice.
Understanding the structures provides clues to their functions, interactions
between the molecular parts and how certain desired traits are expressed.

[Note: This item comes from friend John McMullen. DLH]

From: “John F. McMullen” <observer@westnet.com>
Date: May 15, 2008 5:11:35 AM PDT
To: “johnmac’s living room” <johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: CardinalFarley List <CardinalFarley@yahoogroups.com>, Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>, All Hallows Class of 1956 <ah56@yahoogroups.com>, Commonweal Mailing List <commonweal@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: WNBC/Marist Poll: Retirement Worries

———- Forwarded message ———-
Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 15:04:21 -0400
From: MaristPoll <MaristPoll@marist.edu>
To: Marist Poll Email 1A <Marist.Poll.Email.1A@marist.edu>
Subject: WNBC/Marist Poll: Retirement Worries - EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE:
WEDNESDAY 6:30 PM MAY 14, 2008

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: WEDNESDAY 6:30 PM MAY 14, 2008
ALL REFERENCES MUST BE SOURCED WNBC/MARIST POLL

RETIREMENT WORRIES
SURVEY OF THE NEW YORK METROPOLITAN AREA INCLUDING CONNECTICUT AND NEW
JERSEY

Contact:
Dr. Lee M. Miringoff
Dr. Barbara L. Carvalho
Marist College, 845.575.5050
This WNBC/Marist Poll reports:

MOST PEOPLE IN OUR AREA THINK A COMFORTABLE RETIREMENT IS OUT OF REACH AND
PLAN TO DELAY THEIR RETIREMENT TO MAINTAIN THEIR STANDARD OF LIVING:
As residents in the New York metropolitan area face rising costs and tough
economic times, many are not optimistic about their ability to maintain
even their current economic standing when they retire. 59% believe their
standard of living will decline at retirement. 27% are hopeful they will
be able to maintain the lifestyle they now have, and only 8% believe their
economic situation will improve after retirement. In addition, most
residents believe they will need to delay their retirement to a later age
than they expected in order to maintain their standard of living. Although
this opinion is shared across all age groups, more people under 35 hold
this view than those 35 and older.

ABOUT FOUR IN TEN RESIDENTS HAVE NOT PUT ASIDE ANY MONEY FOR THEIR
RETIREMENT:
39% of people in our area have yet to begin saving for their retirement.
Not surprisingly, more residents with lower income do not have a
retirement nest egg than those with higher income. 62% of people in our
area with income of less than $50,000 a year do not have any retirement
savings compared with only 4% of those with an annual income of $100,000
or more. A majority of adults under 35 years of age also struggle with
saving for their retirement.

WHAT WILL PEOPLE’S MAIN SOURCE OF RETIREMENT INCOME BE…WELL, IT DEPENDS:
People in our area expect to have one of three main sources of retirement
income. 31% of residents believe their employer pension will be the main
source of their retirement income followed by 26% who expect to depend on
their own retirement savings account, and 22% who think Social Security
will be their primary income. But, how much money they make and how old
they are shape their view of the importance of each one. More people with
an income of less than $50,000 expect to depend on Social Security. Middle
income residents are looking for their employer pensions to carry the
load. And, those with an income of $100,000 or more plan to use their own
retirement savings accounts. Age also plays a role. More people under 35
are counting on a retirement savings account as their top source of
retirement income compared with an employer pension plan for people
between 35 and 54, and Social Security for those 55 and older.

THREE IN TEN RESIDENTS HAVE DIPPED INTO THEIR RETIREMENT SAVINGS ACCOUNT
TO MEET THEIR EXPENSES OR PAY FOR A MAJOR PURCHASE:
To add to the uncertainty of retirement, 30% of people in our area have
already cashed in their future by tapping into their retirement savings
accounts to help them through current tough times or to make a major
purchase.

NATURE OF THE SAMPLE: 406 RESIDENTS OF THE NEW YORK METROPOLITAN AREA
This survey was conducted May 12th, 2008. 406 adults 18 years of age or
older within the New York metropolitan area were interviewed by telephone
using a standardized voice system. Telephone numbers were selected based
upon a list of telephone exchanges from throughout the area including New
York City, the New York suburbs surrounding New York City, northern New
Jersey, and southern Connecticut. The exchanges were selected to ensure
that each region was represented in proportion to its population. The
results of the entire survey are statistically significant at +/-5%. The
error margin increases for cross-tabulations.

[Note: This item comes from friend John McMullen. DLH]

From: “John F. McMullen” <observer@westnet.com>
Date: May 15, 2008 5:36:47 AM PDT
To: “johnmac’s living room” <johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>
Subject: WikiOnAStick — A Self Contained Notebook

From TiddlyWiki — <http://www.tiddlywiki.com/> (there are links throughout the page)

HelloThere
JeremyRuston, 9 May 2008 (created 20 September 2005)

Welcome to TiddlyWiki, a popular free MicroContent WikiWikiWeb created by JeremyRuston and a busy Community of independent developers. It’s written in HTML, CSS and JavaScript to run on any modern browser without needing any ServerSide logic. It allows anyone to create personal SelfContained hypertext documents that can be posted to a WebServer, sent by email or kept on a USB thumb drive to make a WikiOnAStick. Because it doesn’t need to be installed and configured it makes a great GuerillaWiki. This is revision 2.4.0 of TiddlyWiki (see recent changes), and is published under an OpenSourceLicense.

WikiOnAStick
Putting TiddlyWiki on a USB thumb drive lets you carry around a SelfContained notebook that you can update wherever there’s a reasonably modern computer, whether it’s a Mac, Linux or a PC. (To be even more independent you can [[install FireFox on the drive |http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips#oth_usb]] as well).

GettingStarted
JeremyRuston, 7 May 2008 (created 18 August 2005)

The easiest way to learn about TiddlyWiki is to use it! Try clicking on various links and see what happens - you cannot damage tiddlywiki.com or your browser. (Use the close all button over on the right to clear all the displayed tiddlers and start again).

(johnmac — There are links throughout this area)
There is an extensive Community documentation wiki, including an invaluable FAQ. Other useful guides include:

* Jeremy Wagstaff’s The Power of Tiddly
* Dave Gifford’s TiddlyWiki for the Rest of Us and his slideshow introduction
* Morris Gray’s TW Help - TiddlyWiki help file for beginners
* Dmitri Popov’s TiddlyWiki quick reference card
* Screencasts from JimVentola and LeonKilat.

When you’re ready to create your own TiddlyWiki on your computer, follow the instructions in DownloadSoftware and SaveChanges. There is also a free hosted service athttp://tiddlyspot.com/ that makes it easier to share your TiddlyWiki with others (for more demanding applications there are several other ServerSide solutions available).

[Note: This item comes from friend Janos Gereben. DLH]

From: janosG <janosg@gmail.com>
Date: May 15, 2008 8:45:20 AM PDT
Subject: Every dog has his day, this is LaSalle’s, about Narnia II

[Interesting that the strict studio prohibition against publishing before release date doesn't apply to larger newspapers studios don't dare calling to task...]

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/15/DDIS10M921.DTL>

Movie review: ‘Narnia’ sequel lacks magic

Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic

Thursday, May 15, 2008
It hardly seems possible. The same people who made “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” into one of the best films of 2005 have turned around and made one of this year’s biggest disappointments. The second installment of C.S. Lewis’ “Narnia” saga, subtitled “Prince Caspian,” is exactly one minute longer than its predecessor, but it’s a dragged-out exercise, with no epic scale and no spirit worth talking about.

The filmmakers fall into the same trap that the makers of “The Golden Compass” did. They take a fantasy story and simplify it to the point that it’s just a war movie - about a war that never happened, featuring a side that can’t lose. The stakes aren’t particularly high, either. It’s not a battle between absolute evil versus absolute good. Rather it’s a battle between ruthless pragmatism versus ineffectual idealism.

<snip>

[Note: This item comes from friend John McMullen. DLH]

From: “John F. McMullen” <johnmac13@gmail.com>
Date: May 15, 2008 9:29:20 AM PDT
To: “johnmac’s living room” <johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: “Dewayne Hendricks” <dewayne@warpspeed.com>
Subject: Chumby. a Must Have Appliance: — A Bean Bag That Delivers Web Widgets

(johnmac — Another example of job / business opportunities in new
area — here it is in the Widget area — widgets as in OpenSocial.
iPhone, Facebook, etc.)

From the New York Times –
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/technology/personaltech/15pogue.html>

State of the Art
A Bean Bag That Delivers Web Widgets
by David Pogue

O.K., first of all, what’s up with the name Chumby?

It seems deliberately calculated to make this $180 appliance sound
endearing, as though it’s the spiritual descendant of the Gumby and
the Furby.

The Chumby looks endearing, too: it’s small, cute and — to use the
technical term — squishy. Except for the 3.5-inch touch screen on the
front, the Chumby’s vinyl skin (in black, gray or tan) is padded like
a bean bag.

Next questions: What is the Chumby? What’s it for? That’s harder to
answer, because this weird little invention is amorphous, flexible and
freaky.

But here’s the basic idea. The Chumby sits on your desk, bedside table
or kitchen counter, connected to a power outlet and to your wireless
home network. Every 30 seconds or so, its screen changes to reveal
another widget.

Widgets on the Chumby are precisely the same thing as widgets on the
Mac, in Windows Vista or on the iPhone: small, simple, single-purpose
on-screen programs. Inevitably, the starter widgets include local
weather, stock statistics, sports scores and news headlines (in this
case, from The New York Times; tap a headline to read the whole
article).

Because Chumby widgets are relatively easy for programmers to create,
they’re proliferating like rabbits. So far, there are 700 of them;
about 25 new ones sprout up on Chumby.com each week. They vary in
sophistication and polish, as you’d expect, but there are flashes of
brilliance.

There’s a YouTube widget that lets you kill time by paging through the
most popular videos at the moment. (Video looks especially good on
this 320-by-240-pixel color screen, and the sound is clear and loud
enough from the stereo speakers on the back. You can also connect the
Chumby to bigger speakers.) Another widget offers you the video of
each day’s David Letterman Top 10 List.

The Email Viewer widget lists your incoming e-mail or Gmail; tap a
subject line to read the full message. No, you can’t reply on the
Chumby. Still, it’s kind of cool, as you sit there eating your
breakfast, to gird yourself for the day ahead by reading about the
incoming crises before you get to work (and may well be more
interesting than reading the cereal box).

You can also install the Dailio widget, which provides your Chumby
with its own e-mail address. Any photo you send to it appears in the
widget rotation, turning your Chumby into the world’s most convenient
digital frame.

Other widgets show you the pictures from your favorite Flickr,
Facebook or MySpace pages, or the status of eBay auctions you’re
tracking, news parodies from the Onion, or your Netflix movie-rental
queue.

Some widgets let you draw right on the screen with your fingernail,
either as a Note to Self (”pick up Dad”) or just to doodle. There’s a
Word-of-the-Day widget, a piano-teaching widget, 89 different clocks,
53 Webcams, 50 games, 25 sports-stat widgets and on and on. Browse for
yourself at chumby.com.

[snip]

[Note: This item comes from reader Randall. DLH]

From: Randall Webmail <rvh40@insightbb.com>
Date: May 15, 2008 11:40:14 AM PDT
To: dewayne@warpspeed.com, dave@farber.net, johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: All Your Base Are Belong to Us

Air Force Aims for ‘Full Control’ of ‘Any and All’ Computers
By Noah Shachtman EmailMay 13, 2008
| 3:54:00 PMCategories: Info War

The Air Force wants a suite of hacker tools, to give it “access” to — and “full control” of — any kind of computer there is. And once the info warriors are in, the Air Force wants them to keep tabs on their “adversaries’ information infrastructure completely undetected.”

The government is growing increasingly interested in waging war online. The Air Force recently put together a “Cyberspace Command,” with a charter to rule networks the way its fighter jets rule the skies. The Department of Homeland Security, Darpa, and other agencies are teaming up for a five-year, $30 billion “national cybersecurity initiative.” That includes an electronic test range, where federally-funded hackers can test out the latest electronic attacks. “You used to need an army to wage a war,” a recent Air Force commercial notes. “Now, all you need is an Internet connection.”

On Monday, the Air Force Research Laboratory introduced a two-year, $11 million effort to put together hardware and software tools for “Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement.” “Of interest are any and all techniques to enable user and/or root level access,” a request for proposals notes, “to both fixed (PC) or mobile computing platforms… any and all operating systems, patch levels, applications and hardware.” This isn’t just some computer science study, mind you; “research efforts under this program are expected to result in complete functional capabilities.”

Unlike an Air Force colonel’s proposal, to knock down enemy websites with military botnets, the Research Lab is encouraging a sneaky, “low and slow” approach. The preferred attack consists of lying quiet, and then “stealthily exfiltrat[ing] information” from adversaries’ networks.

But, in the end, the Air Force wants to see all kinds of “techniques and technologies” to “Deceive, Deny, Disrupt, Degrade, [or] Destroy” hostile systems. And “in addition to these main concepts,” the Research Lab would like to see studies into “Proactive Botnet Defense Technology Development,” the “reinvent[ion of] the network protocol stack” and new antennas, based on carbon nanotubes.

raditionally, the military has been extremely reluctant to talk much about offensive operations online. Instead, the focus has normally been on protecting against electronic attacks. But in the last year or so, the tone has changed — and become more bellicose. “Cyber, as a warfighting domain . . . like air, favors the offense,” said Lani Kass, a special assistant to the Air Force Chief of Staff who previously headed up the service’s Cyberspace Task Force. “If you’re defending in cyber, you’re already too late.”

“We want to go in and knock them out in the first round,” added Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, commander of the 8th Air Force, which focuses on network issues.

“An adversary needs to know that the U.S. possesses powerful hard and soft-kill (cyberwarfare) means for attacking adversary information and command and support systems at all levels,” a recent Defense Department report notes. “Every potential adversary, from nation states to rogue individuals… should be compelled to consider… an attack on U.S. systems resulting in highly undesireable consequences to their own security.”

<http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/air-force-mater.html> (Lotsolinks)

[Note: This item comes from Bill St. Arnaud's list. DLH]

From: “Bill St.Arnaud” <bill.st.arnaud@canarie.ca>
Date: May 15, 2008 4:32:06 PM PDT
Subject: [CAnet - news] Glasnost Internet: The threat of Transparency and Privacy to the Internet

For more information on this item please visit my blog at
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com
——————————————-

[Around the world there is growing alarm at attempts by carriers, ostensibly
for traffic management reasons, to install deep packet inspection equipment,
but now being used for local web ad insertion and other activities. Network
neutrality is increasingly also an issue about network privacy. As such
various organizations like the prestigious Max Planck institute and others
are developing tools so that consumers can discover whether their carrier is
doing deep packet inspection and hopefully thwart these serious potential
threats to consumer privacy. To my mind this issue will never disappear
because the fundamental issue is the current business model of limited
competition and a presupposition that the carrier "owns" the last mile and
is therefore free to do what they wish with "their" network. I have long
argued that to free ourselves of these threats to Internet privacy and
freedom we need a new business model where the consumer "owns" the last mile
and free to connect to any service provider they wish at neighbourhood
carrier neutral interconnect facility. Next generation Fiber to the Home
architectures like CityNet and Burlington Vermont enable this type of
capability. For more details see my blog on free fiber to the home
http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/. Some pointers from NNSquad
list, Slashdot and Gordon Cooks Arch-econ- BSA]

<http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/>

“The goal of our Glasnost project is to make access networks, such as
residential cable, DSL, and cellular broadband networks, more
transparent to their customers.”

Comcast, Cox Slow BitTorrent Traffic All Day
<http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/05/15/2028243.shtml>

“A study by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems found that Comcast
and Cox Communications are slowing BitTorrent traffic at all times of day,
not just peak hours. Comcast was found to be interrupting at least 30% of
BitTorrent upload attempts around the clock. At noon, Comcast was
interfering with more than 80% of BitTorrent traffic, but it was also
slowing more than 60% of BitTorrent traffic at other times, including
midnight, 3 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern Time in the U.S., the time zone where
Comcast is based. Cox was interfering with 100% of the BitTorrent traffic at
1 a.m., 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Eastern Time. Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice
downplayed the results saying, ‘P-to-p traffic doesn’t necessarily follow
normal traffic flows.’”

<http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/05/14/2227200.shtml>

<http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;409444582;pp;1;fp;16;fpid;1>

Elude Your ISP’s BitTorrent Blockade
“More and more ISPs are blocking or throttling traffic to the peer-to-peer
file-sharing service, even if you are downloading copyright free content.
Have you been targeted? How can you get around the restrictions? This PC
World report shows you a number of tips and tools can help you determine
whether you’re facing a BitTorrent blockade and, if so, help you get around
it.”

Deep packet inspection under assault over privacy concerns

<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080512-deep-packet-inspection-under-a
ssault-from-canadian-critics.html>

Add the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) to the
list of groups concerned about the privacy implications of widespread deep
packet inspection (DPI) by ISPs. CIPPIC has filed an official complaint with
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, asking her office to
investigate Bell Canada’s use of DPI (and we’re flattered to be quoted as an
expert source in the complaint). In addition, the group would welcome a
wider investigation into possible DPI use at cable operators Rogers and
Shaw, as well.

Charter to monitor surfing, insert its own targeted ads

<http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20461817-HSI-Charter-to-monitor-
surfing-insert-its-own-targeted-ads>

[Note: This item comes from reader Randall. DLH]

From: Randall Webmail <rvh40@insightbb.com>
Date: May 7, 2008 9:44:34 AM PDT
To: dewayne@warpspeed.com, dave@farber.net, johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Media misses major scandal involving Pentagon. What else is new?

Pentagon’s Propaganda Documents Go Online, but Will the TV Networks Ever Report this Scandal?
Submitted by John Stauber on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 13:53.

Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon’s illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.

The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers — most of them with financial ties to war contractors — into the TV networks as “message surrogates” for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

News of the Pentagon’s online posting of the documents came from Joe Trento of the National Security News Service, who notes that NSNS provided the New York Times “limited information about a military office early in the reporting process.”

Here is the official Pentagon website with the 8,000 pages of documents, the most interesting and revealing of them previously secret and only available to the Pentagon and the New York Times:

<http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/>

More than two weeks after the New York Times reported on the Penatgon’s military analyst program to sell controversial policies such as the invasion of Iraq, the broadcast television news outlets implicated in the program are hoping to tough out the scandal by refusing to report it. Recently Media Matters of America (MMA) reported that, according to a search of the Nexis database, “the three major broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — have still not mentioned the report at all.”

The Pew Excellence in Journalism project has a chart showing that ” there was virtually no mainstream media follow up to The Times’ expose” with the only national TV coverage being the introduction segment and live debate featuring CMD’s John Stauber on the PBS NewsHour.

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro and three dozen colleagues have sent a letter to the Department of Defense Inspector General calling for an investigation of this “propaganda campaign aimed at deliberately misleading the American public.”

<http://www.prwatch.org/node/7299> [LOTS o links @ the site]

[Note: This item comes from reader Randall. DLH]

From: Randall Webmail <rvh40@insightbb.com>
Date: May 14, 2008 6:49:26 PM PDT
To: dewayne@warpspeed.com, dave@farber.net, johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: 140 years ago …

RELEASE: 08-126

DISCOVERY OF MOST RECENT SUPERNOVA IN OUR GALAXY

WASHINGTON — The most recent supernova in our galaxy has been
discovered by tracking the rapid expansion of its remains. This
result, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory’s Very Large Array, will help improve our
understanding of how often supernovae explode in the Milky Way
galaxy.

The supernova explosion occurred about 140 years ago, making it the
most recent in the Milky Way. Previously, the last known supernova in
our galaxy occurred around 1680, an estimate based on the expansion
of its remnant, Cassiopeia A.

Finding such a recent, obscured supernova is a first step in making a
better estimate of how often the stellar explosions occur. This is
important because supernovae heat and redistribute large amounts of
gas, and pump heavy elements out into their surroundings. They can
trigger the formation of new stars as part of a cycle of stellar
death and rebirth. The explosion also can leave behind, in addition
to the expanding remnant, a central neutron star or black hole.

The recent supernova explosion was not seen with optical telescopes
because it occurred close to the center of the galaxy and is embedded
in a dense field of gas and dust. This made the object about a
trillion times fainter, in optical light, than an unobscured
supernova. However, the remnant it caused can be seen by X-ray and
radio telescopes.

“We can see some supernova explosions with optical telescopes across
half of the universe, but when they’re in this murk we can miss them
in our own cosmic backyard,” said Stephen Reynolds of North Carolina
State University in Raleigh, who led the Chandra study. “Fortunately,
the expanding gas cloud from the explosion shines brightly in radio
waves and X-rays for thousands of years. X-ray and radio telescopes
can see through all that obscuration and show us what we’ve been
missing.”

Astronomers regularly observe supernovae in other galaxies like ours.
Based on those observations, researchers estimate about three explode
every century in the Milky Way.

“If the supernova rate estimates are correct, there should be the
remnants of about 10 supernova explosions that are younger than
Cassiopeia A,” said David Green of the University of Cambridge in the
United Kingdom, who led the Very Large Array study. “It’s great to
finally track one of them down.”

The tracking of this object began in 1985, when astronomers, led by
Green, used the Very Large Array to identify the remnant of a
supernova explosion near the center of our galaxy. Based on its small
size, it was thought to have resulted from a supernova that exploded
about 400 to 1000 years ago.

Twenty-two years later, Chandra observations revealed the remnant had
expanded by a surprisingly large amount, about 16 percent, since
1985. This indicates the supernova remnant is much younger than
previously thought.

That young age was confirmed in recent weeks when the Very Large Array
made new radio observations. This comparison of data pinpoints the
age of the remnant at 140 years - possibly less if it has been
slowing down - making it the youngest on record in the Milky Way.

Besides being the record holder for youngest supernova, the object is
of considerable interest for other reasons. The high expansion
velocities and extreme particle energies that have been generated are
unprecedented and should stimulate deeper studies of the object with
Chandra and the Very Large Array.

“No other object in the galaxy has properties like this,” Reynolds
said. “This find is extremely important for learning more about how
some stars explode and what happens in the aftermath.”

These results are scheduled to appear in The Astrophysical Journal
Letters. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.,
manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls
Chandra’s science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center
in Cambridge, Mass.

Additional information and images about this discovery is available on
the Web at:

<http://www.nasa.gov/chandra>

and

<http://chandra.harvard.edu>