.

The Obama administration is touting a provocative proposal to give a medical advisory council the power to help decide the scope of coverage that would be eligible for reimbursement under Medicare.
Administration officials say the proposed council would improve health care quality and control costs. But some health care industry groups object to the proposal, saying such a council would not be qualified to make those judgments.

This council would consist of doctors and health care experts who make recommendations based on extensive data and analysis of best health care practices, according to administration officials.

Proponents believe the approach would improve care and eliminate some wasteful spending by doctors who are now paid separately for each visit and procedure they authorize. Instead, this council could recommend, for example, a comprehensive approach to treat a patient with chronic heart condition or high cholesterol.

The administration says that by encouraging doctors to follow this type of plan, the government will save money by cutting unnecessary treatments and procedures. The council's recommendations would then go to the commission overseeing Medicare to determine the specific procedures and the actual reimbursement amount.

"It is not an exercise in just cutting reimbursement rates. In fact, in some cases, we may need higher reimbursement rates for certain aspects," President Obama said at a town hall meeting in Shaker Heights, Ohio, on Thursday.

The members of the proposed Independent Medicare Advisory Council would study different procedures and make recommendations.

Administration officials though say this council will not make decisions about what coverage a patient gets.

Still, opponents view this proposal as "big brother" dictating medical treatment.

The conservative Heritage Foundation describes the initiative as being "the equivalent of a federal health board determining how health care was rationed for all seniors."
The administration counters that doctors still will have flexibility to decide the best course of treatment depending on the individual patient but would be guided to a preferred course of action.

Doctors would have a set amount of money, or "bundle," to deal with each patient's problem instead of receiving money for each visit, test and procedure performed. Patients still would have the option of paying for more expensive procedures but would have to pick up the costs above what is deemed reimbursable by Medicare.

"Right now, if a hospital is reimbursed for the number of tests that it does, then that may not give them much of an incentive to make their system more efficient so that, once you take that first test and you've gone in the hospital, then you end up having that test sent around to everybody so you don't have to take five more tests," Obama told the Ohio audience.

Kevin Bohn and Jessica Yellin
CNN
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The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has just signed a decree granting vaccine makers total legal immunity from any lawsuits that result from any new “Swine Flu” vaccine. Moreover, the $7 billion US Government fast-track program to rush vaccines onto the market in time for the Autumn flu season is being done without even normal safety testing. Is there another agenda at work in the official WHO hysteria campaign to declare so-called H1N1 virus—which has yet to be rigorously scientifically isolated, characterized and photographed with an electron microscope—the scientifically accepted procedure—a global “pandemic” threat?
The current official panic campaign over alleged Swine Flu danger is rapidly taking on the dimensions of a George Orwell science fiction novel. The document signed by Sebelius grants immunity to those making a swine flu vaccine, under the provisions of a 2006 law for public health emergencies.

Not so sage SAGE

That is once the WHO in Geneva, on recommendation of the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group on Immunizations, declared H1N1 to be Phase 6 or Pandemic, automatic emergency health response programs could be activated even in countries such as Germany where reported outbreaks of even “suspected” H1N1 can be counted to date on the fingers of slightly more than one hand.

The WHO’s SAGE is also worth scrutiny. Its Chairman since 2005 has been the UK Director of Immunization at the British Department of Health, Dr David Salisbury. In the 1980’s Salisbury reportedly drew major fire for backing a massive vaccination of children with a multiple MMR vaccine manufactured by the predecessor company of GlaxoSmithKline. That vaccine was pulled off the market in Japan after significant numbers of children developed adverse reactions to the vaccine and the Japanese government was forced to pay significant compensation to the victims. In Sweden the MMR vaccine of GlaxoSmithKline was removed after scientists linked it to outbreaks of Crohn’s disease. Apparently that had little impact on WHO SAGE chairman Salisbury.

According to one independent UK investigator, Alan Golding, who obtained Freedom of Information documents on the case, in “1986 Trivirix, an MMR compound containing the Mumps Urabe strain AM-9, was introduced in Canada to replace MMR I. Concerns regarding the introduction of MMR in the UK are recorded in the minutes of the Joint Working Party of the British Paediatric Association and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) Liaison Group on June 26th of that year. Such concerns were soon to prove well grounded, as reports began to come in of an increased incidence of aseptic meningitis in vaccinated individuals. Ultimately, all MMR vaccines containing the Urabe strain of mumps were withdrawn in Canada in early 1988. This was before Urabe containing vaccines were licenced by the Department of Health for use in the UK…”

The report adds, “Smith-Kline—French, the pharmaceutical company who became Smith-Kline-Beecham and were involved in UK manufacture at that time, were concerned about these safety issues and were reluctant to obtain a UK license for their Urabe-containing vaccines. As a result of their ‘concern’ that children might be seriously damaged by one of their products, they requested that the UK government indemnify them against possible legal action that might be taken as a result of ‘losses’ associated with the vaccine, which by then was known to carry significant risk to health. The UK government, advised by Professor Salisbury and representatives from the Department of Health, in it’s enthusiasm to get a cheap MMR onto the market, agreed to this request.”

Today the same Dr Salisbury is advocating global proliferation of untested H1N1 vaccines, also manufactured by the same firm, now called GlaxoSmithKline.

The last phoney Swine Flu Disaster

The last time the US Government faced a new swine flu virus was in 1976. Thousands filed claims contending they suffered side effects from the shots. This time, the government has taken steps to prevent any possible legal remedy should thousands of US citizens suffer severe complications as a result of being given untested vaccines.

In 1976 President Gerald Ford, facing a difficult re-election campaign, was advised by the head of the CDC, David Sencer, to launch a mass national vaccination. As today with H1N1 Swine Flu, Sencer also used the scare of the alleged 1918 flu pandemic. Notably, some scientific researchers maintain that the deaths during the flu wave of 1918-1919, in the aftermath of the ghastly First World War, came not from any virus but from the governmental campaigns of mass vaccination against “Spanish Flu.” Interestingly, the Rockefeller University and Foundation was in the middle of that event as well.

Cases of what was then called swine flu were found in soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J. in 1976, including one death. That death, whose true cause is in dispute as the soldier, sick with influenza was put on a forced march despite and fell dead, was used by Sencer to convince Ford to launch one of the most infamous public health fiascos in US history, forcing Sencer’s resignation as CDC head. Federal officials vaccinated 40 million Americans during a national campaign. A pandemic never materialized, but thousands who got the shots filed injury claims, as they contracted a paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre Syndrome or other side effects. At least 25 people died after receiving the vaccine died and 500 developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, an inflammation of the nervous system which can cause paralysis and be fatal. The US Government was forced to pay damages after vaccination victims made it a national scandal. In the end the 1976 Swine Flu vaccine proved far worse than the disease.

Sencer was fired in 1977 for the fiasco but by then the damage had already been done.

No Safety Test? Don’t worry, be happy…

The story gets worse. Now that the Obama Administration has signed a document of immunity from legal prosecution, the FDA in the United States and UK health authorities have decided to let Big Pharma put vaccine products onto the market before any tests of the possible harmful side effects of the vaccines are even known.

The first doses of swine flu vaccine will be given to the public before full data on its safety and effectiveness become available. The untested “pandemic” vaccines will be spread over two doses in a higher quantity, and one brand reportedly will contain a chemical additive, an adjuvant, to make it “go further,” dramatically potentially increasing the risk of side-effects.

Children will be among those first in line for the shots and may get the vaccine more than a month before trial results are received.

In the UK the government’s National Health Service, NHS, has been ordered to plan for a worst-case scenario in which swine flu might cause 65,000 deaths over the coming winter, including several thousand deaths among children.

The British Government has placed advance orders for 132 million doses of vaccine with two manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline and Baxter, who have licensed “in advance” three “core” vaccines in preparation for a pandemic, conveniently enough even though we are told by WHO and epidemiologists that we cannot prepare in advance for what could be a more ominous mutation of the currently very mild H1N1 problem.

Curiously enough, a full year before any reported case of the current alleged H1N1, the major pharmaceutical company, Baxter, filed for a patent for H1N1 vaccine: Baxter Vaccine Patent Application US 2009/0060950 A1. Their application states, “the composition or vaccine comprises more than one antigen…..such as influenza A and influenza B in particular selected from of one or more of the human H1N1, H2N2, H3N2, H5N1, H7N7, H1N2, H9N2, H7N2, H7N3, H10N7 subtypes, of the pig flu H1N1, H1N2, H3N1 and H3N2 subtypes, of the dog or horse flu H7N7, H3N8 subtypes or of the avian H5N1, H7N2, H1N7, H7N3, H13N6, H5N9, H11N6, H3N8, H9N2, H5N2, H4N8, H10N7, H2N2, H8N4, H14N5, H6N5, H12N5 subtypes.”

The application further states, “Suitable adjuvants can be selected from mineral gels, aluminium hydroxide, surface active substances, lysolecithin, pluronic polyols, polyanions or oil emulsions such as water in oil or oil in water, or a combination thereof. Of course the selection of the adjuvant depends on the intended use. E.g. toxicity may depend on the destined subject organism and can vary from no toxicity to high toxicity.”

With no legal liability, could it be that Baxter is preparing to sell hundreds of millions of doses containing highly toxic aluminium hydroxide as adjuvant? Perhaps it is time to demand that all leading officials of WHO, SAGE and CDC, the US Obama Administration, Cabinet officials and members of Congress w, the US Obama Administration, Cabinet officials and members of Congress who voted the $7 billion H1N1 emergency funds and who have gone along with the declaration of pharmaceutical company immunity from subsequent prosecution for damage from their products. The same should apply as well for other national health bodies demanding its citizens take the H1N1 vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline or Baxter to see if it is really safe.

And WHO stopped even tracking H1N1

Another indication that the world is being taken for colossal suckers in the entire WHO Swine Flu scare scenario, the WHO itself, the world body entrusted to monitor outbreaks of so-called pandemics or even epidemics worldwide, has just decided to stop tracking Swine Flu or H1N1 Influenza A as they prefer to name it now, so as not to offend Smithfield Foods and other industrialized pig CAFO producers.

The World Health Organization in a “briefing note” posted on their Web site posted the baffling notice that they would no longer track outbreaks of H1N1. The last WHO update, issued July 6, showed 94,512 confirmed cases in 122 countries, with 429 deaths. The WHO apparently claims that the numbers of laboratory-confirmed cases were actually meaningless.

The briefing note said countries would still be asked to report their first few confirmed cases. It also said countries should watch for clusters of fatalities, which could indicate the virus had mutated to a more lethal form. Other “signals to be vigilant for,” it said, were spikes in school absenteeism and surges in hospital visits. The Atlanta CDC has also agreed to the WHO count drop. Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, admits that the existing tests to confirm H1N1 Influenza A are not even certain, but rather hit-or-miss. “Bad measures can be worse than no measures at all,” he stated. So the WHO has decided to drop tests that anyway did not give a scientific picture of who had H1N1 or not, and as well they have decided to drop counting any test results or cases of H1n1 around the world with the comment that “we can assume almost all cases are H1N1 Swine Flu. This is science on which basis we are told to vaccinate our young? Whoah there…Not with our children.

F. William Engdahl
Global Research

A 1973 document has emerged called Mass Media, Family Planning and Development: Country Case Studies on Media Strategy, wherein we learn something about the strategies to be implemented in the eugenics-based family planning project of the future. Based on case studies in third world countries, the document proposes the creation of a ‘family planning communication resource unit’ for every nation concerned. The reason being, so the report states, that “culturally, there is an emphasis on fertility, and the birth of children to the family is celebrated, as a symbol of prosperity and for status for women.” Because the Unesco-chieftains can’t have that, the reduction of a population should be accomplished through an elaborate media campaign, utilizing all possible avenues. Ancient tribal instincts, revolving around procreation and creativity, become suspect- as does religion and tribal mythology.

The writers however, mean not to destroy these human tendencies, they mean to use them to their own advantage and that of their masters instead. “The religion”, they say, “supports the idea that children are ‘God’s Greatest Blessing’ but can also be used to encourage the idea that every child should be given the best opportunities parents can offer. There is also a favourable attitude to economic development, a desire to raise living standards, and a desire for education. These factors are helpful in the development of a Preliminary Media Strategy.”

“A Communication Resource Unit”, the document continues, “is responsible for the implementation of media policy for one, or more than one field.” The document proceeds with outlining the functions of such a unit in regards to family planning messages: “The integration of messages is a matter which concerns the Communication Resource Unit, in that an integrated approach to family planning needs to be worked out. (…) These (messages) may be ‘family planning for maternal health’, ‘family planning for family prosperity’, ‘family planning for your figure’, ‘family planning for national prosperity’, family planning for child development.’ These messages will be pretested to find those which seem to appeal most to the eligible age groups.”

One of the many case studies (country case study nr.1) involves an unnamed “small island”, total population 3,000,000. Describing the current situation, the report states: “Mass media approaches to family planning are wholly financed by the Government and, since 1968, radio, television and the press have been used to give information about family planning and to create an awareness of the need for population control.” One of the chief objectives for the ‘resource unit’, will be to “extend(ing) the family planning coverage to 90% of the eligible population. The aim at this point is to bring the number of children per family nearer to three rather than four, and to gradually reduce this to two children per family at a later stage.”

As one of the first proposed ‘phases’ of the programme, the document describes several messages to be embedded within television commercials. “A couple are shown over one of the new Government flats. They are unable to take it, because the accommodation provided is for families with two or three children. Preference is given to smaller families. They (the large family) will have to wait longer.” Another example: “The picture shows a married woman with one child. She is stopped by a voice saying “Do you know about family planning?” “Your local clinic has all the information.”" Or: “(Picture changes to a smiling woman with clinic appearing) “Family planning is free in all clinics (…)”". How about this one: “Don’t put off family planning. Tomorrow may be too late. See your clinic today.” You gotta also love this one: “A picture on the screen could show a woman talking to a consultant about family planning. She turns to the viewers and says: “I’m glad I made up my mind about family planning.””

Jurriaan Maessen
Infowars
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Around 12,000 U.S. children will be used as guinea pigs for an experimental swine flu vaccine known to contain the dangerous ingredient squalene, which has been directly linked with cases of Gulf War Syndrome and a host of other debilitating diseases.

According to a report in the Oklahoman, 12,000 children nationwide will partake in “fast-tracked studies” to test the side-effects of the untested swine flu vaccine in trials set to begin next month.

“The trials will test the vaccine’s effectiveness and whether or not it has negative side effects in patients,” states the report.

Since less than 100 children in the U.S. die from regular seasonal flu each year, a reasonable estimate would be that around 100 children will die from swine flu over the course of the next year.

So in effect, the authorities will vaccinate millions of children in order to try and prevent 100 deaths. If the mass vaccination program mirrors the previous swine flu outbreak of 1976 then the vaccine is likely to kill more people than the actual virus.

Furthermore, since the swine flu vaccine includes squalene, a dangerous adjuvant that contributed to Gulf War Syndrome cases, there’s little doubt that it will lead to debilitating lifelong diseases far more deadly than the swine flu virus itself for thousands of children if a mass vaccination campaign is conducted.

According to Meryl Nass, M.D., “A novel feature of the two H1N1 vaccines being developed by companies Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline is the addition of squalene-containing adjuvants to boost immunogenicity and dramatically reduce the amount of viral antigen needed. This translates to much faster production of desired vaccine quantities.”

“Research shows that squalene is the experimental anthrax vaccine ingredient that caused devastating autoimmune diseases and deaths for many Gulf War veterans from the US, UK, and Australia, yet it continues in use today and for new vaccines development in labs,” writes Stephen Lendman.

According to award-winning investigative journalist Gary Matsumoto, there’s a “close match between the squalene-induced diseases in animals and those observed in humans injected with this oil: rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus.”

“There are now data in more than two dozen peer-reviewed scientific papers, from ten different laboratories in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia, documenting that squalene-based adjuvants can induce autoimmune diseases in animals…observed in mice, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. Sweden’s Karolinska Institute has demonstrated that squalene alone can induce the animal version of rheumatoid arthritis. The Polish Academy of Sciences has shown that in animals, squalene alone can produce catastrophic injury to the nervous system and the brain. The University of Florida Medical School has shown that in animals, squalene alone can induce production of antibodies specifically associated with systemic lupus erythematosus,” writes Matsumoto.

Micropaleontologist Dr. Viera Scheibner, who conducted research into the adverse effects of adjuvants in vaccines, wrote the following about squalene.

Squalene “contributed to the cascade of reactions called “Gulf War syndrome. (GIs developed) arthritis, fibromyalgia, lymphadenopathy, rashes, photosensitive rashes, malar rashes, chronic fatigue, chronic headaches, abnormal body hair loss, non-healing skin lesions, aphthous ulcers, dizziness, weakness, memory loss, seizures, mood changes, neuropsychiatric problems, anti-thyroid effects, anaemia, elevated ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate), systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, ALS, Raynaud’s phenomenon, Sjorgren’s syndrome, chronic diarrhea, night sweats and low-grade fever.”

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars
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Internet service provider (ISP) Karoo, based in Hull, has changed its policy of suspending the service of users suspected of copyright violations.

The about face was made following a BBC story outlining the firm's practice.

Karoo issued a statement on Friday, saying that it has been "exceeding the expectations of copyright owners".

The firm will now adopt a "three strikes" rule, in which suspected file-sharers will receive three written warnings before action is taken.

"We have always taken a firm line on the alleged abuse of our internet connections," said Nick Thompson, director of consumer and publishing services, in the statement.

"However, we continually review our policies and procedures to reflect own customers' changing needs and evolving use of the internet.

"It is evident that we have been exceeding the expectations of copyright owners, the media and internet users. So, we have changed our policy to move in more line with the industry standard approach."

'Totally unfair'

Karoo - the only ISP in the area, which has no BT lines - long held a policy of suspending service of suspected file-sharers. In order to get their service restored, customers had to sign a document promising not to repeat the offence.

The firm's approach is more aligned with many other ISPs' approaches to suspected file sharers, mirroring the "three strikes" rule that the music industry itself has called for.

Andrea Robinson, a Karoo customer from Willerby, told the BBC that a day after her service was cut off, she received a letter from the firm claiming that she had been using the peer-to-peer file-sharing service BitTorrent to download the film Terminator Salvation.
BBC
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H1N1 swine flu attacks the respiratory system in a more sustained way than the standard seasonal virus, research in animals shows.

Tests showed swine flu multiplies in greater numbers across the respiratory system, and causes more damage.

And instead of staying in the head like seasonal flu, it penetrates deeper into the respiratory tissues - making it more likely to cause pneumonia.

The University of Wisconsin study appears in the journal Nature.

It also suggests that swine flu may mimic the flu virus which caused the great pandemic of 1918, in which millions died.

The 1918 virus also had a greater ability than standard flu to cause damage to the respiratory system.

The researchers carried out their work on ferrets, monkeys and mice.

They also analysed samples taken from people who survived the 1918 pandemic and found that they seem to have extra immune protection against the current virus - again suggesting similarities.

However, the Wisconsin team stressed that swine flu produced, in the vast majority of cases, only mild symptoms, and is still sensitive to anti-viral drugs.

Complete analysis

Professor Ian Jones, a flu expert at the University of Reading, said the latest study provided the complete analysis of the swine flu that researchers had been waiting for.

He said: "For a number of measures it shows that the new virus is more serious than seasonal H1N1 but that, nonetheless, the major outcome to infection is recovery.

"For the few cases of severe infection the data should help in the clinical management of hospitalised patients.

Professor Wendy Barclay, an expert in virology at Imperial College London, said: "It must be borne in mind that typical circulating human strains of H1N1 have been associated with rather mild illness in recent years, and that the swine origin H1N1 may be behaving in these animal models more alike the type of H3N2 viruses that caused a pandemic in 1968."

Swine flu is estimated to have infected more than a million people worldwide, and to have killed at least 500.

BBC

Alongside John P. Holdrens advocacy for a global planetary regime to enforce forced abortion, government `seizure of children born out of wedlock, and mandatory bodily implants designed to prevent pregnancy, Obamas top advisor also called for, “Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods.”

It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — and a 20th-century horror movie.

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.

EATR will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.

The advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.

Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship.

In press materials, Robotic Technology presents EATR as an essentially benign artificial creature that fills its belly through "foraging," despite the obvious military purpose.

Fox News

The federal government is committing more than $800 million to buy more of the two key ingredients to make the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The money will be used to place additional orders on existing contracts with vaccine manufacturers including GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis. The former Chiron Corp. facility in Emeryville is now owned by Novartis, which makes vaccines there.

The government is placing orders for antigen and adjuvant. Antigen is the active ingredient in a vaccine that triggers the immune system to develop antibodies to fight the H1N1 virus. Adjuvant is added to boost the immune system and reduce the amount of antigen needed for the vaccine. The vaccine ingredients will become a part of the pandemic stockpile, for use if a vaccination campaign is necessary.

The denial-of-service attacks launched on Web sites in South Korea and the United States earlier this month appear to have come from a master server in the United Kingdom, according to security researchers in Vietnam.

The master server controls all of the eight command and control servers involved in the series of distributed denial-of-service attacks that started on the July 4 weekend, security firm Bkis said in a blog posting on its Web site on Monday. Bkis said it gained control of two of the servers.

The Vietnamese firm estimated the number of compromised PCs involved in the attacks to be around 167,000 in 74 countries.

Botnet expert Joe Stewart of SecureWorks told CNET News that that number sounded high. Security experts had been estimating that there were 50,000 infected PCs in the botnet.

The attacks targeted dozens of government and commercial sites in the U.S. and South Korea, causing temporary outages at many of them.

Code on the compromised PCs was set to erase or overwrite data late last week but researchers in the U.S. were not aware of any reports of that happening.

Power sockets can be used to eavesdrop on what people type on a computer.
Security researchers found that poor shielding on some keyboard cables means useful data can be leaked about each character typed.

By analysing the information leaking onto power circuits, the researchers could see what a target was typing.

The attack has been demonstrated to work at a distance of up to 15m, but refinement may mean it could work over much longer distances.

Hotel attack

"Our goal is to show that information leaks in the most unexpected ways and can be retrieved," wrote Andrea Barisani and Daniele Bianco, of security firm Inverse Path, in a paper describing their work.

The research focused on the cables used to connect PS/2 keyboards to desktop PCs.

Usefully, said the pair, the six wires inside a PS/2 cable are typically "close to each other and poorly shielded". This means that information travelling along the data wire, when a key is pressed, leaks onto the earth (ground in the US) wire in the same cable.

The earth wire, via the PC's power unit, ultimately connects to the plug in the power socket, and from there information leaks out onto the circuit supplying electricity to a room.

Even better, said the researchers, data travels along PS/2 cables one bit at a time and uses a clock speed far lower than any other PC component. Both these qualities make it easy to pick out voltage changes caused by key presses.

A digital oscilloscope was used to gather data about voltage changes on a power line and filters were used to remove those caused by anything other than the keyboard.

"The PS/2 signal square wave is preserved with good quality... and can be decoded back to the original keystroke information," wrote the pair in a paper describing their work.

They demonstrated it working over distances of 1, 5, 10 and 15m from a target, far enough to suggest it could work in a hotel or office.

"The test performed in the laboratory represent a worst case scenario for this type of measurement, which along with acceptable results emphasizes the feasibility of the attack on normal conditions," they added.

The pair said their research was "work in progress" and expect the equipment to get more sensitive as it is refined.

The attack is due to be demonstrated at the Black Hat conference that takes place in Las Vegas from 25-30 July.

BBC

All Britons could be vaccinated against the A/H1N1 flu as the number of confirmed cases in Britain is moving closer toward 10,000, health authorities said Sunday.
The first doses of A/H1N1 vaccine are set to arrive in Britain in September and could be fast-tracked through regulatory approval in less than a week.

Health officials have put forward plans to build a nationwide immunity to the disease, the biggest vaccination program of the past 50 years.

Health experts have already provided a priority list of patients, and the fast-tracking system has been established since the first British patient without underlying health problems died of the disease.

Lead negotiator on A/H1N1 of the British Medical Association Peter Holden told the Sunday Times the high risk groups will be done at the local clinics.

He added that if the virus does mutate, the idea is to give people immunity, but he also admitted that the sheer logistics of dealing with 60 million people can’t be underestimated.

It is reported on Friday that a patient at an Essex hospital has become the first person in Britain without underlying health problems to die of the infection, bringing the death toll in the country to 15.

It is expected to surge in the winter months when flu is more prevalent.

There are 9,718 confirmed cases of A/H1N1 in Britain, according to the latest figures from the Health Protection Agency.

Xinhua News Agency

An effort on the scale of the Apollo mission that sent men to the Moon is needed if humanity is to have a fighting chance of surviving the ravages of climate change. The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, “billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse”.

This is the stark warning from the biggest single report to look at the future of the planet – obtained by The Independent on Sunday ahead of its official publication next month. Backed by a diverse range of leading organisations such as Unesco, the World Bank, the US army and the Rockefeller Foundation, the 2009 State of the Future report runs to 6,700 pages and draws on contributions from 2,700 experts around the globe. Its findings are described by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN, as providing “invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its member states, and civil society”.

The impact of the global recession is a key theme, with researchers warning that global clean energy, food availability, poverty and the growth of democracy around the world are at “risk of getting worse due to the recession”. The report adds: “Too many greedy and deceitful decisions led to a world recession and demonstrated the international interdependence of economics and ethics.”

Although the future has been looking better for most of the world over the past 20 years, the global recession has lowered the State of the Future Index for the next 10 years. Half the world could face violence and unrest due to severe unemployment combined with scarce water, food and energy supplies and the cumulative effects of climate change.

And the authors of the report, produced by the Millennium Project – a think-tank formerly part of the World Federation of the United Nations Associations – set out a number of emerging environmental security issues. "The scope and scale of the future effects of climate change – ranging from changes in weather patterns to loss of livelihoods and disappearing states – has unprecedented implications for political and social stability."

The Independent
Jonathan Owen
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Crazed US military boffins, their plans for the eradication of humanity in a machine-rebellion bloodbath at a stand, have adopted an alternative strategy. They plan now to develop a “plant-based production system”, ostensibly for the harvest of valuable products beneficial to humanity – but which seems certain to unleash a terrifying unforeseen Triffid-like vegetable horror upon suffering humanity.

The crazed boffins in question, it seems needless to say, are those of DARPA, the famous Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. It’s important to remember that very few of DARPA’s ambitious plans – which often involve a significant risk of wiping out the human race – ever come to anything. But they only have to be (un)lucky once.

In this case, the federal warboffins appear to be motivated by the ongoing swine flu outbreak. They say (Word doc):

The 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic has highlighted the national need for larger scale vaccine manufacturing capabilities … Recent advances funded by DARPA and others have demonstrated the viability of plant-based protein expression technologies for the production and purification of cGMP-compliant medical countermeasures …Requested are approaches that demonstrate a proof-of-concept facility capable of growing adequate plant biomass for the production of protein … Emphasis should be placed on infrastructure requirements and design, as well as equipment needed for the growth, processing, purification and validation of products …

It won’t have escaped readers of John Wyndham’s dystopian classic The Day of the Triffids that there are some parallels here. The eponymous shuffling vegetable assassins of the book were theorised to have arisen as “the outcome of a series of ingenious biological meddlings – and very likely accidental, at that”, most probably by secret government labs in Russia. In the book, large-scale cultivation and processing of Triffids began because “the extracts they give were very valuable in the circumstances”.

Just as rapidly-produced vaccines could be in an age of global pandemics, in fact. Open and shut case.

Hackers who commandeer your computer are bad enough. Now scientists worry that someday, they'll try to take over your brain.
the past year, researchers have developed technology that makes it possible to use thoughts to operate a computer, maneuver a wheelchair or even use Twitter -- all without lifting a finger. But as neural devices become more complicated, and go wireless, some scientists say the risks of "brain hacking" should be taken seriously.

"Neural devices are innovating at an extremely rapid rate and hold tremendous promise for the future," said computer security expert Tadayoshi Kohno of the University of Washington.

"But if we don't start paying attention to security, we're worried that we might find ourselves in five or 10 years saying we've made a big mistake."

Hackers tap into personal computers all the time. But what would happen if they focused their nefarious energy on neural devices, such as the deep-brain stimulators used to treat Parkinson's and depression, or electrode systems for controlling prosthetic limbs?

According to Kohno and his colleagues, who published their concerns July 1 in Neurosurgical Focus, most devices carry few security risks. But as neural engineering becomes more complex and more widespread, the potential for security breaches will mushroom.
"It's very hard to design complex systems that don't have bugs," Kohno said. "As these medical devices start to become more and more complicated, it gets easier and easier for people to overlook a bug that could become a very serious risk. It might border on science fiction today, but so did going to the moon 50 years ago."

Some might question why anyone would want to hack into someone else's brain, but the researchers say there's a precedent for using computers to cause neurological harm. In November 2007 and March 2008, malicious programmers vandalized epilepsy support Web sites by putting up flashing animations, which caused seizures in some photo-sensitive patients.

"It happened on two separate occasions," said computer science graduate student Tamara Denning, a co-author on the paper. "It's evidence that people will be malicious and try to compromise peoples' health using computers, especially if neural devices become more widespread."
In some cases, patients might even want to hack into their own neural device. Unlike devices to control prosthetic limbs, which still use wires, many deep brain stimulators already rely on wireless signals. Hacking into these devices could enable patients to "self-prescribe" elevated moods or pain relief by increasing the activity of the brain's reward centers.

Despite the risks, Kohno said, most new devices aren't created with security in mind. Neural engineers carefully consider the safety and reliability of new equipment, and neuroethicists focus on whether a new device fits ethical guidelines. But until now, few groups have considered how neural devices might be hijacked to perform unintended actions. This is the first time an academic paper has addressed the topic of "neurosecurity," a term the group coined to describe their field.

Wired
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Twenty milligrams; that's the average amount of carbon emissions generated from the time it took you to read the first two words of this article.
Now, depending on how quickly you read, around 80, perhaps even 100 milligrams of C02 have been released. And in the several minutes it will take you to get to the end of this story, the number of milligrams of greenhouse gas emitted could be several thousand, if not more.

This may not seem like a lot: "But in aggregate, if you consider all the people visiting a web site and then all the seconds that each of them spends on it, it turns out to be a large number," says Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross, an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University who studies the environmental impact of computing.

Wissner-Gross estimates every second someone spends browsing a simple web site generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one.

As millions more go online each year some researchers say the need to create a green Internet ecosystem is not only imperative but also urgent.

"It is part of the whole sustainability picture," Chris Large, head of research and development at UK-based Climate Action Group, told CNN.

"Scientists are saying to us that we have 10 years to take some serious action to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change so taking some sort of initiative is absolutely vital."

A number of studies have highlighted the growing energy demands of computers. A 2007 report from research firm Gartner, for example, estimates the manufacturing, use and disposal of information and communications technology generates about two percent of the world's greenhouse gases -- similar to the level produced by the entire aviation industry.

Anti-virus software firm McAfee reports that the electricity needed just to transmit the trillions of spam emails sent annually equals the amount required to power over two million homes in the United States while producing the same level of greenhouse gas emissions as more than three million cars.

"Most people don't appreciate that the computer on your desk is contributing to global warming and that if its electricity comes from a coal power plant it produces as much C02 as a sports utility vehicle," said Bill St. Arnaud of Canarie, a Canada-based internet development organization.

"Some studies estimate the internet will be producing 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gases in a decade. That is clearly the wrong direction. That is clearly unsustainable," added St. Arnaud.

What do you include when working out IT's carbon footprint?

Calculating the carbon footprint of the entire web however is not as easy as measuring the greenhouse gas emissions of a car.

Data centers -- massive buildings housing hundreds, if not thousands, of power hungry servers storing everything from Facebook photos and YouTube videos to company web sites and personal emails -- are often labeled as the worst offenders when it comes to harming the environment.

In 2002, global data center emissions amounted to 76 million tons of carbon dioxide -- a figure that is likely to more than triple over the next decade, according to a 2008 study by the Climate Group and Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI).

Lara Farrar
CNN
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The highly controversial no-warrant surveillance program initiated after the September 11 terrorist attacks relied on a "factually flawed" legal analysis inappropriately provided by a single Justice Department official, according to a report to Congress on Friday.

The report was compiled by the inspectors general of the nation's top intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and the Justice Department.

The report, mandated by Congress, provides fresh context to information previously leaked in press accounts and buttressed by both congressional testimony and books written by former officials involved in the surveillance effort.

The 38-page unclassified version of the document reaches a cautious conclusion, stating that any use of the information collected under the surveillance program "should be carefully monitored."

The program, launched by President Bush in the weeks after the September 11 attacks, allowed for -- without court approval -- the interception of communications into and out of the United States if there was a "reasonable basis" that one of the parties was a terrorist.

The report, though not critical of the program's objectives, sharply criticizes the legal advice provided to the White House by the Justice Department.

Among other things, the report cites a Justice Department conclusion that "it was extraordinary and inappropriate that a single DOJ attorney, John Yoo, was relied upon to conduct the initial legal assessment" of the surveillance program.

"The lack of oversight and review of Yoo's work ... contributed to a legal analysis of the [program] that at a minimum was factually flawed," it says.

The report says Yoo largely circumvented both his boss, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Yoo, described by Bybee in the report as "the White House's guy" on national security, also provided the legal justification for the CIA's controversial harsh interrogation program. Yoo's legal rationale was later repudiated by the Justice Department.

The bitter debate within the Justice Department over the legal basis for the warrantless surveillance and related intelligence efforts is highlighted in references to the much-documented dramatic account of a March 2004 confrontation in Ashcroft's hospital room. Deputy Attorney General James Comey defied then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales by refusing to sign off on the reauthorization of the program.

The report notes that several members of Congress -- including then-House Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Nancy Pelosi -- were briefed on the program on October 25, 2001, and a total of 17 times before the program became public in 2005.

The document repeats the public assertion by former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden that no member of Congress had urged that the program be stopped.

The new report makes clear that the President's Surveillance Program was only a small part of the counterterrorism intelligence efforts in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and its impact even today remains unclear.

Most of the intelligence officials interviewed by the inspectors general had, according to the report, "difficulty citing specific instances where PSP reporting had directly contributed to counterterrorism successes."

The report was compiled by inspectors general of five agencies despite the apparent refusal by key figures -- including Yoo, former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former CIA Director George Tenet -- to be interviewed by investigators.

Governments and companies should limit the snooping they do on web users.

So said Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, who said that growing oversight of browsing could have a pernicious effect.

A greater part of the value of the web lay in the lack of constraints on what people could do with it.

He also warned that attempts to censor what people could say or what they could do online were ultimately doomed to failure.

Open triumph

"When you use the internet it is important that the medium should not be set up with constraints," he said.

The internet, said Sir Tim, should be like a blank piece of paper. Just as governments and companies cannot police what people write or draw on that sheet of paper so they should not be restricted from putting the web to their own uses.

"The canvas should be blank," he said

While governments do need some powers to police unacceptable uses of the web; limits should be placed on these powers, he said.

A Japanese rail firm has introduced a system to check that staff are smiling enough at all times.

Computerised scanners around 15 Tokyo stations will measure the smile's curvature to ensure it is broad enough.

Those failing to measure up - literally - will be advised to look less serious and more cheerful.

The system will also be introduced at a hospital in Osaka to check staff friendliness and at a truck stop to measure the tiredness of drivers.

The BBC's Roland Buerk, in Tokyo, says that the Japanese highly value customer service.
It is standard practice, our correspondent explains, for smartly-dressed train conductors to bow as customers enter and leave train carriages.

The software has been developed by Japanese firm Omron.

They suggests that future applications may include shops - where they could be positioned to measure the reaction of customers to products on display.

BBC