The Anschluss

Yet the Obama administration's special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, Princeton Lyman, generally a smart and hard-working diplomat, said in a December newspaper interview: "We do not want to see the ouster of the regime, nor regime change." Huh? This is a regime whose leader has been charged with genocide, has destabilized the region, has sponsored brutal proxy warlords like Joseph Kony, has presided over the deaths of more than 2.5 million people in southern Sudan, in Darfur and in the Nuba Mountains - and the Obama administration doesn't want him overthrown? In addition, the administration has consistently tried to restrain the rebel force here, led by Abdel Aziz Al-Hilu, a successful commander who has lived in America and projects moderation. The rebels are itching to seize the South Kordofan state capital, Kadugli, but say that Washington is discouraging them. In an interview in his mountain hide-out, Abdel Aziz noted that his forces have repeatedly been victorious over Sudan's recently. "Their army is very weak," he said. "They have no motivation to fight." He seemed mystified that American officials try to shield a genocidal government whose army is, he thinks, crumbling. Likewise, in Syria, the United States has not only refused to arm the opposition but has, I believe, discouraged other countries from doing so. Yes, there's an underlying logic: the Syrian opposition includes extreme elements, and the violence is embedded in a regional sectarian conflict. Nonetheless, the failure to arm the opposition allows the conflict to drag on and the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to massacre more people. The upshot is that the violence spills over into Lebanon, and sectarian poisons make Syria less and less governable. In both Syria and Sudan, the Obama administration seems stuck behind the curve.

Crew: 0 Length: 44-ft-5-in (13.54-m) Wingspan: 116-ft-2-in (35.41-m) Height: 15-ft-2-in (4.62-m) Empty weight: 8,490-lb (3,851-kg) Gross weight: 22,900-lb (10,387-kg) Powerplant: 1 × Allison Rolls-Royce AE3007H turbofan engine, 7,050-lbf (31.4-kN) thrust Performance Maximum speed: 497.1-mph (800-km/h; 432-kn) Cruise speed: 404-mph (351-kn; 650-km/h) Range: 15,525-mi (13,491-nmi; 24,985 km) Endurance: 36 hours Service ceiling: 65,000-ft (19,812-m)

The Homeland Security Department ordered so many drones it can't keep them all flying and doesn't have a good plan for how to use them, according to a new audit the department's inspector general released Monday. In a blunt assessment, investigators said Customs and Border Protection's Office of Air and Marine has a fleet of nine "unmanned aircraft systems" and is awaiting a 10th -- though it doesn't have enough ground support and doesn't have a good plan for prioritizing missions. "CBP procured unmanned aircraft before implementing adequate plans," the investigators said.

Investigators also said CBP, at the behest of the State Department, has held Òdiscussions with another country on the use of unmanned aircraft.Ó

Because the studio audience needs to know when to clap, the Democratic Hub, a forum for the "Advanced Liberal Political Community," keeps a running tab of President Obama's accomplishments. Half the list, as Charles Davis-points out, is dead people:

In the early hours of Wednesday, airstrikes destroyed a car parked near a house in the town of Azzan, an al-Qaida stronghold in the province of Shabwa, leaving nine al-Qaida militants dead, military officials said. They said the missile was believed to have been fired by a drone. The officials said some militants who fled Jaar have taken refuge in Azzan.

Despite having been a Fifa-accredited referee for the past 10 years, Jonas Eriksson travels to Poland and Ukraine this summer to officiate in his first major international tournament. The 38-year-old is not like any other referee; after selling his 15 per cent stake in Swedish media rights business IEC over five years ago, he became a multi-millionaire. However, despite his vast wealth, the Swede continues to officiate in his homeland as well as across the continent, insisting that he is spurred on by his love of the game and his favourite hobby.

Due to the extreme volatility some market analysts foresee could result in the coming days, OANDA fxTrade will not accept any trading activity from 6:00 AM EST until approximately 3:00 PM EST, on Sunday, June 17, 2012. OANDA believes the convergence of a major market event during off-market hours represents a potential trading risk and has taken this rare step to protect traders from excessive rate fluctuations.

European finance officials have discussed as a worst-case scenario limiting the size of withdrawals from ATM machines, imposing border checks and introducing capital controls in at least Greece should Athens decide to leave the euro. EU officials have told Reuters the ideas are part of a range of contingency plans. They emphasized that the discussions were merely about being prepared for any eventuality rather than planning for something they expect to happen -- no one Reuters has spoken to expects Greece to leave the single currency area. Belgium's finance minister, Steve Vanackere, said at the end of May that it was a basic function of each euro zone member state to be prepared for problems. These discussions appear to be in that vein.

Moody's Investors Service cut its rating on Spanish government debt by three notches on Wednesday From A-3 to to Baa-3, saying the newly approved euro zone plan to help the country's banks will increase the country's debt burden. Moody's, which said it could lower Spain's rating further, also cited the Spanish government's "very limited'' access to international debt markets and the weakness of the country's economy. The rating is on review for possible further downgrades, which could come within the next three months. A spokeswoman at Spain's Economy Ministry in Madrid declined to comment. "The Spanish economy's continued weakness makes the government's weakening financial strength and its increased vulnerability to a sudden stop in funding a much more serious concern than would be the case if there was a reasonable expectation of vigorous economic growth within the next few years,'' Moody's said in a statement. Euro zone finance ministers agreed on Saturday to lend Spain up to 100 billion euros to shore up its teetering banks, and Madrid said it would specify precisely how much it needs once independent audits report in just over a week. Moody's rating puts it one notch above junk status. Standard & Poor's rates Spain two notches higher at BBB-plus with a negative outlook.

They can't influence Ron -- but they can influence his organization. Gardner reports that after Ron's son, Rand, won the Kentucky primary against an Establishment opponent, "Then, quite strangely, the establishment and the Pauls came together":- "At [Sen. Mitch] McConnell's request, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent an adviser to Kentucky to watch over Rand Paul's general-election campaign -- 'to be the grown-up in the room,' according to one Washington Republican who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly.- "The adviser, Trygve Olson, developed a friendship with Rand Paul, and the two realized that they could teach each other a lot -- to the benefit of both candidate and party. Olson showed Paul and his campaign establishment tactics: working with the news media, fine-tuning its message. And Paul showed Olson -- and by extension, McConnell -- how many people were drawn to the GOP by his message of fiscal responsibility.... And at Rand Paul's suggestion, Olson joined his father's presidential campaign this year, basically to do what he did for Rand: help bring the Paul constituency into the Republican coalition without threatening the party. It's probably no small coincidence that the partnership helps Rand's burgeoning political career, too."- Who is-Trygve Olson? A former official of the International Republican Institute (IRI), a tax-funded "regime-change" operation under the rubric of the National Endowment for Democracy, Olson was involved in several of the "color revolutions" that swept Eastern Europe and the central Asian former Soviet republics during the Bush years.-This-New York Times article reports on his activities in Belarus meddling in their internal politics and plotting to overthrow its thuggish President, Alexander Lukashenko: he also played a part in stirring up similar trouble on Washington's behalf in Serbia and Poland.-- At a meeting-of the New Atlantic Initiative, another semi-official interventionist outfit, in 2004, Olson appeared on the same podium as various government apparatchiks of the old Cold Warrior/Radio Free Europe type, who gave seminars on the ins-and-outs of successful "regime change." While others gave talks on Lukashenko's "links" to Saddam Hussein and Israel's other enemies in the region, Olson gave a presentation on polling results in the country. A particular area of concern was the possibility of an economic or political union with Russia, which was seen by the participants as the main threat to "democracy" and Europeanization in Belarus. And while meddling in Eastern Europe appears to be his specialty -- his wife, Erika Veberyte, served as chief foreign policy advisor to the Speaker of the Lithuanian parliament -- this biography on the web site of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University says:- "Mr. Olson has helped advise political parties and candidates in numerous countries throughout the world including nearly all of Central and Eastern Europe, Indonesia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Serbia."- The "color revolutions" of the Bush era were brazen attempts to overthrow regimes deemed unfriendly to the US, and absorb the scattered pieces of the former Soviet Union into the Western sphere of influence. Of course, these efforts all backfired: in Georgia, for one example, our chosen candidate set up a veritable dictatorship, jailed his opponents for "treason," and launched a disastrous war against Russia. In Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, too, our sock puppets set themselves up for a backlash: both US-installed regimes have since been ousted, either by being unceremoniously voted out of office or by force. In Venezuela, the US government has long sought to overthrow the blustering caudillo, Hugo Chavez, and our meddling has only played into his hands, enabling him to muster nationalist resentment against the democratic opposition. The same is generally true elsewhere. These "strategic" deployments of "soft power" never work, and wind up hurting our interests rather than advancing them.- Another aspect of these "soft power" deployments is the inevitable involvement of the American intelligence community in some form or other, engaging in covert operations with no real congressional oversight and without the knowledge or consent of the American people. This can lead to all kinds of abuses that inevitably impact on our domestic politics -- an area where the CIA is supposedly forbidden from entering, although that has never been the case.- In the-New York Times-piece on the Belarussian operation, the reporter describes a meeting attended by Olson and Belarussian dissidents as "a meeting of the freedom industry," a telling description because that's exactly what it is: an industry, one in which Olson is a player. It's the "regime change" industry that has flourished in this country ever since the start of the cold war. The necons played a key role in staffing the organizations and semi-official front groups into which billions of our tax dollar flowed: Reagan gave the National Endowment for Democracy to them as a sort of playground, where they were out of the way and free to think they had some real influence on the administration. In the post-cold war world, the NED took on added importance -- and more tax dollars -- as the US tried to cash in on the Soviet collapse by sponsoring "color revolutions" throughout the former Soviet bloc. It didn't matter that the very reason for launching these cold war institutions was no longer in existence: as one needn't explain to a Ron Paul supporter, government programs have a life of their own, and killing them is akin to driving a stake through the heart of a vampire -- a difficult and often impossible feat.- So we have a major player in the "regime change" industry as a "senior advisor" to the Paul campaign: and not only that but a pedagogical relationship between Olson and Rand Paul. The latter has presumably learned from the former why draconian sanctions on Iran -- deemed an "act of war" by his father -- are a good idea and ought to be supported. Paul recently joined ninety-nine other similarly-clueless US Senators in voting "aye" on what is in effect an economic blockade against Iran.-- The Establishment's strategy is clear: get to the father through the son, whose political career can be imperiled by the GOP elders, like McConnell (although that didn't stop Paul from getting elected over McConnel's opposition). If the Paul campaign is "infiltrating" the GOP, as Gardner puts it, then the GOP Establishment is intent on infiltrating the Paul campaign at the highest levels.--

Ron Paul Adviser - Senior Adviser

Ron Paul Campaign Welcomes Trygve Olson to 2012 Campaign-|-Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign CommitteeRon Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

Worked for RAND Paul in 2010 campaign

E-POLITICAL DIRECTOR at John McCain 2008

AdvancingFreedom.org

U.S.-Financed Groups Had Supporting Role in Arab Uprisings - NYTimes.com

COUNTRY DIRECTOR at International Republican Institute-Belarus

Democracy Promotion and the Presidential Elections in Belarus - FSI Stanford

Dr Mousab Azzawi, who runs the Syrian Network for Human Rights from London but had treated some of the Shabiha in Latakia, said recently: 'They were like monsters. 'They had huge muscles, and big bellies and beards. They took steroids to pump up their bodies. I had to talk to them like children as they like people with low intelligence. 'SYRIA COULD TRAIN ITS CHEMICAL WEAPONS ON ISRAEL' Syria's large chemical weapons stocks could be trained on Israel, the latter's deputy military chief has warned. According to Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, Syria has the largest arsenal of chemical weapons in the world. If the Syrians had the chance, he said, they would 'treat us the same way they treat their own people'. Syria has not declared its chemical weapons stocks so their exact size is not known. Among other things, Israel is worried that such weapons could fall into the hands of anti-Israel militants should the Syrian regime crumble. Israeli radio stations and newspapers carried Naveh's remarks today. He delivered them Sunday night at a ceremony in Jerusalem commemorating fallen soldiers. Syrian activists estimate more than 13,000 people have died since an uprising against the Syrian regime erupted 15 months ago, drawing a bloody crackdown. Israel has been watching the carnage in neighboring Syria with increasing concern. The two countries have fought major wars and multiple attempts to reach a peace deal failed. Syria has strong ties to Iran, Israel's most fearsome enemy, and to Palestinian and Lebanese militants that have warred with Israel. 'That is what makes them so terrifying -- the combination of strength and blind allegiance to the regime.' Emergence of the death squad pictures comes after William Hague said yesterday he may have to send troops to Syria if the country spirals into a- Bosnian-style civil war. The Foreign Secretary said Britain would have to 'greatly increase our support for the opposition' if the current United Nations plan for a ceasefire fails, as his office now fears. Mr Hague repeatedly refused to rule out military action yesterday if Syria descends into 'terrible' sectarian violence.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon's annual report on children and armed conflict during 2011 included Syrian government forces and the allied shabiha for the first time on a list of 52 governments and armed groups that recruit, kill or sexually attack children in armed conflicts. "In almost all recorded cases, children were among the victims of military operations by government forces, including the Syrian armed forces, the intelligence forces and the shabiha militia, in their ongoing conflict with the opposition, including the Free Syrian Army," the report says. The report quotes a witness to an attack on the village of Ayn l'Arouz in Idlib province on 9 March 2012 in which several dozen boys and girls between the ages of eight and 13 were forcibly taken from their homes and "used by soldiers and militia members as human shields, placing them in front of the windows of buses carrying military personnel into the raid on the village". The UN said it had collected dozens of witness accounts from children as young as 14 who were tortured in detention, as well as from former members of the Syrian military who were forced to witness or carry out acts of torture, the report says. Most child victims of torture described being beaten, blindfolded, subjected to stress positions, whipped with heavy electrical cables, scarred by cigarette burns and in one case subjected to electrical shock to the genitals, the report says. One witness reported seeing a boy about 15 years old die as a result of repeated beatings.

The Pentagon on Tuesday defended plans to buy attack helicopters from a Russian arms firm for the Afghan government even though the same company has supplied weapons to Syria's regime. US senators have voiced dismay at the deal with Rosoboronexport, but defense officials said the contract with the firm was the only way to bolster Afghanistan's fleet of Russian-made choppers. "We're not buying helicopters for the Syrian regime. We're buying helicopters in support of the Afghan Air Force," press secretary George Little told reporters.

Although the USA has resolutely maintained that the bombing was an unfortunate accident resulting from outdated and inaccurate mapping, this story was very quickly picked apart by investigations by media organisations such as the Danish publication Politiken which claimed that NATO was fully aware of the location of the Chinese embassy, having placed its coordinates on a "strictly forbidden" list of targets at the start of military operations.1 The London Observer and Yoichi Shimatsu of Asia Weekly also published anecdotal evidence from within NATO's signals-intelligence node in Vincenza, Italy and the CIA, which confirmed that not only had the five precision guided munitions dropped by the US Air Force B-2 bomber hit their aim point, but that the coordinates of the embassy were identified correctly on NATO and American maps.

You have to hand it to Mr. Schweizer. He is on a heck of a roll. His book Throw Them All Out is largely the reason the STOCK Act (which banned legal insider trading by members of Congress) was passed into law earlier this year. Now he's taking on the Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder for his ties to the big banks. Holder's former (and likely future) law firm, Covington and Burling, counts Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, ING, Morgan Stanley,-UBS, and MF Global as clients. What does Covington do for these banks? Financial crime defense work.

The marketing agency that worked on first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign to combat childhood obesity is now pushing a sugary drink on teens. SS+K, boasts on its website that "we worked with Michelle Obama and her childhood obesity initiative, helping guide the research, shape the initiative and we gave it its name and identity." In late May, Kraft announced that it had partnered with SS+K to promote its new, sugary "Capri Sun Big Pouch."

The New York City Board of Health showed support for limiting sizes of sugary drinks at a Tuesday meeting in Queens.- They agreed to start the process to formalize the large-drink ban by agreeing to start a six-week public comment period. At the meeting, some of the members of board said they should be considering other limits on high-calorie foods. One member, Bruce Vladeck, thinks limiting the sizes for movie theater popcorn should be considered. "The popcorn isn't a whole lot better than the soda,"-Vladeck said. Another board member thinks milk drinks should fall under the size limits. "There are certainly milkshakes and milk-coffee beverages that have monstrous amounts of calories," said board member Dr. Joel Forman.

In the middle of the night of June 5, an Israeli airstrike hit a poultry farm in the southern Gaza Strip, ending the lives of dozens of cackling chickens and destroying the farm owner's sole source of income. In response to this attack, Twitter users were quick to come up with a humorous hashtag, #JihadiChickenBrigade, which soon trended worldwide.

Just weeks before it was revealed JP Morgan Chase lost billions in "hedge" trading and speculation, it was announced that the bank has a new deal with Connecticut, Louisiana and other states to financialize their tax returns. Instead of residents receiving a tax refund check directly from the government, they will be required to accept payment via Chase debit cards. Not only will JP Morgan now have access to residents' refunds (which they will be able to treat like any deposit, lending it out and creating leverage) but they will also be able to collect some fees on those deposits.

Leading cyber experts warned of a shortage of talented computer security experts in the United States, making it difficult to protect corporate and government networks at a time when attacks are on the rise. Symantec Corp Chief Executive Enrique Salem told the Reuters Media and Technology Summit in New York that his company was working with the U.S. military, other government agencies and universities to help develop new programs to train security professionals. "We don't have enough security professionals and that's a big issue. What I would tell you is it's going to be a bigger issue from a national security perspective than people realize," he said on Tuesday. Jeff Moss, a prominent hacking expert who sits on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council, said that it was difficult to persuade talented people with technical skills to enter the field because it can be a thankless task. "If you really look at security, it's like trying to prove a negative. If you do security well, nobody comes and says 'good job.' You only get called when things go wrong."

Girls as young as 11 'expect' to have to perform sex acts on rows of boys for up to two hours at a time in parts of London, a shocking report has warned. Child abuse is rife across Britain with many of the depraved sex attacks being carried out by youngsters who have had their minds warped by online porn, a government expert said yesterday. Deputy Children's Commissioner Sue Berelowitz said there 'isn't a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited'. And she said easy access to 'extreme' internet porn was to blame as it 'affected children's thresholds of what they think is normal'.

There's also the issue of security. Nuclear reactors become prime targets during military conflicts and have been repeatedly attacked during military air strikes, occupations, invasions and campaigns -- the most notable incidents occurring in Iraq, Israel, and Syria. Americans in particular don't need to be reminded of this threat; the 9/11 terror attacks were a grim reminder of this possibility. In fact, back in 1972 three hijackers took control of a domestic passenger flight along the east coast of the U.S. and threatened to crash the plane into a U.S. nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The plane got as close as 8,000 feet above the site before the hijackers' demands were met.

George P. Dvorsky (born on May 11, 1970) is a bioethicist, transhumanist, futurist, and producer of the Sentient Developments blog and podcast. Dvorsky is a co-founder and president of the Toronto Transhumanist Association, and currently serves as Chair of the Board for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET).[1][2] He is the founder and chair of the IEET's Rights of Non-Human Persons Program, a group that is working to secure human-equivalent rights and protections for highly sapient animals

Indeed, the United Nations body has said for the first time that exhaust from diesel engines causes lung cancer. It came to that conclusion after reviewing many scientific studies, finding that there was "sufficient evidence" that diesel exhaust is a cause of lung cancer, and a positive association ("limited evidence") with an increased risk of bladder cancer.

The U.N. is funneling millions of dollars worth of tradable carbon credits to corrupt nations worldwide, including Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Uzbekistan in an attempt to encourage clean energy projects in the developing world. The U.N. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is defined in Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol. Western European countries fund energy projects in the developing world in order to obtain Certified Emission Reduction credits (CERs), tradable credits that enable Europeans to count foreign emission reductions towards their own domestic emission reduction targets. "The CDM started from a page and a half in the Kyoto Protocol," said David Abbass, a spokesperson for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. "In the beginning they thought there would be maybe 600 projects, but now there are over 4,000 projects."

Europeans therefore Òbuy phony reductionsÓ through the CDM, said Horner.

ÒEuropeans basically say to the developing world, ÔIÕll pay you not to treat this byproduct as a waste product,ÕÓ said Horner, referring to numerous CDM projects that focus on reducing perceived waste in the developing world, from natural gas flaring to the release of methane from farm animals.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) said it will contribute $50 billion over the next 10 years to address climate change, the latest company to boost its investments toward environmental goals. The new set of goals will be effective on Jan. 1, following the anticipated completion of the bank's current 10-year pledge of $20 billion, which it said is four years ahead of schedule. "Environmental business delivers value to our clients, return for our shareholders, and helps strengthen the economy," said Chief Executive Brian Moynihan. "We met our prior goal in about half the time we set for ourselves, so more than doubling our target is ambitious but achievable." The bank's new initiative includes lending, equipment finance, capital markets and advisory activity and carbon finance, as well as advice and investment help. Bank of America will focus on promoting energy efficiency; renewable energy, including wind, solar and hydropower; lower-carbon transportation like electric and hybrid vehicles; and water and waste treatment and disposal initiatives.

It's the black hole in the kitchen: huge, obvious, and silent. And boy does it suck. As Climate Depot points out, Bank of America got a $45 billion bailout from the government during the global financial crisis. Now it's promising $50 billion to "address Climate Change". How Green is your Bankster?

All of those troops leaving Afghanistan during the next two years will have to go somewhere, right? The US Army will deploy thousands of soldiers across the continent of Africa during 2013. The Army Times confirms that the US military gave the go-ahead for the mass deployment last month and that roughly 3,000 soldiers will soon be sent overseas, with more troops expected to be dispatched during the duration of the program. Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, head of US Army Africa, says the initiative is part of a "regionally aligned force concept" that will allow American troops to forge relationships across Africa, where the US has not concentrated its soldiers among civilians to the same degree as other continents.

A grand jury in Chicago has returned a new indictment against three men arrested on terrorism charges ahead of last month's NATO summit in the city, prosecutors said on Tuesday. But the public, the suspects and their defense attorneys won't get to see the indictment until it is unsealed next month, prosecutors said, so it's unclear whether any new charges have been added or any previous charges dropped.

Ref: Operation ÒPurple ChariotÓ

Here is a list of the assets that are being deployed at the Olympics.

HMS York Class 42 Destroyer

HMS Ocean L12 Aircraft Carrier

4 x Reaper and 5 x Predator UAVS

6 x Rapier missile systems

9 x (Lrad) Sonic weapon platforms

27,000 Military personnel

2,000 under cover police officers

All this information was given to my family member after a very high level meeting involving Government, Military, MI5 and strangely US FBI and Academi representatives on Nov 4th 2011. He was told that HMS Ocean will be command and control centre during the Olympics under the call sign ÒCabaretÓ.

I'm trying to get more information from my family member and will forward this asap, also will send you information about UK shopping centres when I confirm.

===================================================================

I have just been given the reason for what's happening, according to my family member the UK was placed on a Level 1 (Critical) Alert, on the 15th September 2011 after intelligence received.

In reference to the Shopping Complexes, they have all received letters from the Government informing them that they will have to take fingerprints of all staff and install fingerprints scanners at all Staff entrances and full body scanners are to be installed at all public entrances by the end of 2013.

I have found out the the first one to have this equipment installed is MeadowHall shopping Complex, Sheffield, South Yorkshire UK.

One concert-goer called Denise wrote: "My Xyloband woke me up in the middle of the night and it's still glowing." Another added: "Really weird, my dad's white Xyloband just started flashing again." A Belgian fan added: "Mine is alive! It started flickering about an hour ago." It is believed the only way to stop the glowing is to jamming a pencil clip into the band. The Xylobands use ultra-low-power microcontrollers to receive and process wireless signals that trigger the wristband's LEDs to light up in sync with Coldplay's music and stage lights show. Clive Banks, who is the co-founder of RB Concepts (the company behind the bands), told The Independent that the "afterglow" is no cause for concern. "There's no mind control or tracking, they are just for fun," he said. The devices may be activated by their proximity to a Coldplay concert. "Our record transmission is 2km," Mr Banks said. "It depends on buildings but they have quite a range in a straight line. There might be some faulty units going off."

In the 'you-can't-make-up-this-stuff' category, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending about $1.1 million to develop a way to physiologically measure how engaged students are by their teachers' lessons. This involves "galvanic skin response" bracelets that kids would wear so their engagement levels could be measured. If this tells us anything, it is that the obsession with measurement and data in school reform has reached new nutty heights. Here's the description of the $498,055 grant to Clemson University that was awarded in November (but that just recently became widely known by Susan Ohanian and Diane Ravitch): Purpose: to work with members of the Measuring Effective Teachers (MET) team to measure engagement physiologically with Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) bracelets which will determine the feasibility and utility of using such devices regularly in schools with students and teachers.

The new treatment, which is presented in Lancet Neurology, involves active immunisation, using a type of vaccine designed to trigger the body's immune defence against beta-amyloid. In this second clinical trial on humans, the vaccine was modified to affect only the harmful beta-amyloid. The researchers found that 80 per cent of the patients involved in the trials developed their own protective antibodies against beta-amyloid without suffering any side-effects over the three years of the study. The researchers believe that this suggests that the CAD106 vaccine is a tolerable treatment for patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. Larger trials must now be conducted to confirm the CAD106 vaccine's efficacy.

The McLean freezer, one of 24 in the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, was protected by two separate alarm systems, and staff checked an external thermostat twice a day to ensure that the tissue samples were maintained at about minus-80 degrees Celsius. But on May 31, center Assistant Director George Tejada opened so-called Freezer U and wasn't greeted by the expected blast of cold air. Though the alarms had not been triggered and the external thermostat read minus-79, the actual temperature was 7 degrees, roughly equivalent to a refrigerator. Based on the condition of the brains, Benes estimates the freezer had turned off three days earlier. Benes said the situation is so unusual - the perfect storm of alarm and thermostat failure and the concentration of samples - that she cannot rule out foul play. She said she has not spoken to law enforcement officials, pending the completion of the internal investigation. In the interim, she said, McLean will upgrade security in the freezer room, which is under lock and key and watched by a surveillance camera. The freezer contained about 150 brain samples from people who had died with a neurological condition such as autism, Parkinson's disease, or Alzheimer's disease, or a psychiatric one like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. More than 50 of those brains made up one-third of Autism Speaks' Autism Tissue Program, a repository of postmortem brain tissue from children and young adults with the condition. The next largest autism brain bank, at the University of Maryland, has about 60 autism brains, according to its website.