Looks like the asteroid missed

Asteroid 2012 DA14 has safely passed by Earth, according to NASA. The closest approach was 17,500 miles above Indonesia.

"It has passed closest approach and this asteroid is going away," said Paul Chodus of the Near Earth Object team.

The asteroid is estimated to be about 150 feet (45 meters) across with an estimated mass of 130,000 metric tons. Its flyby was the closest ever for an object this large, according to NASA.

Looks like I was wrong...

IF asteroid 2012 DA14 was going to hit the Earth would they tell us?

Asteroid 2012 DA14 is going to pass very close to the Earth, coming within the Moon's orbit indeed.

We are assured that there is no chance of asteroid 2012 DA14 hitting either the Earth or the Moon, its track has been calculated very accurately.

This is almost certainly true, but ask yourself this: if asteroid 2012 DA14 was going to hit the Earth would they tell us?

Imagine the panic, the rioting, the destruction. Would world governments accept that or would world leaders just disappear into their nuclear war bunkers and sit and wait it out?

If you are worried about the veracity of the assurances we are being given, then just keep an eye on where world leaders are from around 19:00 GMT today...

The Obama Diary shows Barack Obama on Central Time (six hours behind GMT) with free time during the asteroid's near miss:

1:10: Arrives Chicago

2:45: Delivers remarks at Hyde Park Academy

Anybody know where the nearest nuclear bunker to Chicago is?

Interesting; and maybe worrying?

More on the Barack Obama birth-certificate

Obama Release Your Records has a fascinating piece on the Barack Obama birth-certificate story, a story that just won't disappear...
Do read the whole article but here's a taster:

'The investigation's technical analysis relied on the work of Mara Zebest, an author and tech editor, who was enlisted by the Cold Case Posse to look at the documents. She concluded in a report that: “Obama’s PDF file can no longer be referred to as a ‘document,’ since that term implies it existed and started in paper form. Obama’s PDF must be referred to as a ‘digital file’ because that is all it has ever been. …”

Ms. Zebest says Obama’s long-form birth certificate is not even a good forgery. “Poor is an understatement. It’s horrific,” she said. “When it was released, I still expected a file that would be difficult to determine as fraudulent, but when I opened it up, within seconds it was clear it was an obvious fake.” In order to make sure she wasn’t seeing things, she says she called a friend who was also familiar with computer programming. He downloaded if from the White House website and had the same reaction. “Oh my God, somebody has been very sloppy here,” he said, according to Zebest.

For Ms. Zebest, the foremost sign that the document has been tampered with is the existence of layers. “Layers are a very damning part of why this is a forgery,” she said. Layers appear when a document is opened in a graphics program, like Adobe Illustrator. These layers contain elements from the document, but not the whole document. One layer may contain the background color. Another layer may contain only black text. The information that appears on each layer depends on how the document was originally created.

For those more familiar with a non-digital era, think of layers as transparencies used with a slide projector. Multiple transparencies may make up a single image. In this case, the transparencies are stacked one on top of the other to create a composite of Mr. Obama’s long-form birth certificate.

Ms. Zebest says there should be no layers in Mr. Obama’s birth certificate. “If you take a birth certificate and scan it into a computer, you’re going to end up with a flat document. You're not going to have anything with layers. The fact that it has multiple layers in itself means manipulation,” she said.

Obama’s long-form birth certificate contains nine layers.'

The story of Barack Obama's birth certificate interests me because I find it so unlikely that he was not born in Hawaii. However I think that there are many other questions that do need to be asked  about his history, questions that are easily evaded by the Obama camp by denigrating anybody who asks such questions with the insult 'birther'. Why have Barack Obama's educational records not been released? BIRTHER  So is it beyond the realm of possibility that the birth certificate released by the Barack Obama camp was deliberately made to look like a forgery?

Paranoid, Moi?

As I predicted/feared? Is a no-fly zone over Gaza a possibility?

The BBC report that:

'In the Egyptian capital Cairo, the Arab League called for a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the crisis and to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza.'

Do you remember my recent prediction?

'There seems to be a confluence of events that I fear may not be entirely coincidental. On the one hand we have an increase in attacks on Israel by Palestinian terrorists; there was the horrific murder of the Fogel family last week, as hardly reported by the BBC, then there was the bomb set off in Jerusalem and meanwhile the firing of rockets from Gaza has increased both in quantity and sophistication. On the latter point I note that the BBC have decided not to inform the British public that the rockets being fired at Israel are no longer the 'homemade' Katyusha type but the far more sophisticated Grad type.

On the other hand we have the imposition of the No fly Zone on Libya. How does that affect Israel you may wonder; as a precedent I believe. Imagine this scenario, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and/or Hamas unilaterally declare independence and seek a UN Security Council resolution to recognise this. The resolution is supported by the Obama lead USA as well as China, Russia, France and almost certainly the UK. None of the permanent members use their veto and so the Palestinian declaration is deemed to have the support of the 'international community.' The PA and Hamas declare that Israeli citizens are now on Palestinian territory and in line with prestated sentiments that they must leave. Israel refuses to abandon its 'settlements' and PA/Hamas go to the United Nations, maybe via the Arab League, to ask for protection from Israeli aggression. The United Nations with its built in Muslim bloc votes that Israel either vacates Palestinian land or else..... Then what?

Am I paranoid, or is this all possible?'

It looks as though my paranoia may not be totally unwarranted!

Is Big Brother tracking your every move?

Zeit online (in English) explains how:

'Green party politician Malte Spitz sued to have German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom hand over six months of his phone data that he then made available to ZEIT ONLINE. We combined this geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites, all of which is all freely available on the internet.

By pushing the play button, you will set off on a trip through Malte Spitz's life. The speed controller allows you to adjust how fast you travel, the pause button will let you stop at interesting points. In addition, a calendar at the bottom shows when he was in a particular location and can be used to jump to a specific time period. Each column corresponds to one day.'

Fascinating stuff and it does make you wonder about the position in the UK where all network operators store their customers' historical locations for a year. The police aren't allowed to ask for the kind of data Malte Spitz obtained in Germany, they are supposedly restricted to asking specific questions such as where a phone was at a specific time. However the data is available for interrogation should the law be changed... Please note therefore that it would take only a minor change in the law and a reasonable increase in processing power for all of our telephone's movements to be tracked in real time 24/7.

The fallout from the first Leaders' debate (part 1)

So as I predicted Nick Clegg gained hugely from the first leaders' debate and from the way that Gordon Brown was cosying up to Nick Clegg during the debate and the way that Peter Mandelson was 'bigging up' Nick Clegg in interviews afterwards it would seem that the Lib-Lab pact is up and running already.

It would seem that the Labour leadership have done their calculations and realised that the guff about narrowing polls was just guff and that the larger swing in the marginals would be enough to give the Conservatives a working majority. So 'plan B' it had to be; 'plan B' being boosting the Lib Dems to ensure that Labour and the Lib Dems could form a government, change the voting system and so ensure a perpetual left of centre government in the UK. First readings seem to show that the Lib Dems have indeed been boosted but what if they are boosted too much?

Will the Lib Dems gain as much as the initial polls record? If the Lib Dems do gain will it be at the expense of the Conservatives in the south and west or Labour in the north?
The Labour calculation must be that disenchanted Labour voters would rather move to the Lib Dems than the Conservatives, are they right?
What if the Lib Dem voters who voted Labour in 1997, 2001 & 2005 so as to keep the Conservatives out as the Lib Dems couldn't win, now decide to vote Lib Dem; what might that do to the number of Labour MPs returned to Parliament?
I wonder what Labour MPs in Labour/Lib Dem marginals think of this tactic; do they like being thought of as expendable in the great war against the Tories?

Lots of questions there, but tomorrow an alternative theory from the more paranoid side of NotaSheep's brain...





Political Betting speculate that: 'Reports are buzzing about that the Lib Dems have moved into second place in a poll due out tonight. I assume it is YouGov - no doubt we will find out soon.'

Nick Robinson - an interesting choice of words

The BBC's Nick Robinson has an interesting choice of words in his latest piece entitled "Back-slapping". The article begins:

"There will be much back-slapping in David Cameron's office this afternoon.

The Tory leader has struggled to get much attention for his call for a general election to elect a new Parliament to go along with a new Speaker. This, despite the fact that he is working in partnership with the Sun. "

"Working in partnership with the Sun"? I Assume he means "The Sun" newspaper rather than the Sun (the star at the centre of our solar system) but if so that is an interesting accusation to make - "in partnership". Why does Nick Robinson think this? Who has told him this is the case? Is it true or is it another case of Number 10 paranoia?

The new John Prescott

Last week we were told by the BBC that:

"Gordon Brown will be in charge of the government this summer even while he is away on holiday...

When his predecessor Tony Blair jetted off for sunnier climes, his deputy John Prescott famously took the reins.

But this is not the case for Mr Brown. His spokesman said: "The prime minister is the prime minister and remains in charge whether he's on holiday or not.""

Today we are told that:

"Harriet Harman has sought to end the questions over who is in charge while Gordon Brown is on holiday by saying: "I'm minding the shop this week."

Downing Street had earlier said that Ms Harman was one of "a number of senior ministers in London to deal with the day to day business of government".

The spokesman said "the prime minister remains in charge while on holiday".

But, after her comments, he said "she is the minister who is co-ordinating government business this week".

When Tony Blair used to holiday abroad it became an annual tradition that John Prescott would act as stand-in prime minister during August.

But the prime minister's official spokesman had declined to say that Ms Harman was in charge when he was asked repeatedly about it at Monday morning briefing for lobby journalists.

He said she was one of the senior ministers seeing through the daily business of government - and stressed that Mr Brown was still in charge during his bucket-and-spade English beach holiday.

He did admit that Ms Harman, who appeared on BBC1's Andrew Marr programme on Sunday and GMTV on Monday, "has held meetings in Downing Street this morning".

Later on Monday Ms Harman was asked what her role was by the BBC's Carole Walker, which is when she said she was "minding the shop while the proprietor is on holiday".

After this, No 10 agreed that she was the person co-ordinating the government's work "this week".

Different senior ministers are due to take on the coordination role in the next two weeks - expected to be Chancellor Alistair Darling next week, followed by Justice Secretary Jack Straw."

Just feel that confusion as to who is in charge and when. Of course the real problem is that Gordon Brown cannot bear to have anyone in charge except himself and fears a challenge to his remaining authority coming from any and all angles. As the paranoia kicks in, his actions do seem less and less rational; I wonder how long he has left as Prime Minister.

So do you feel safer with Harriet Harman in charge rather than Gordon Brown? Will you feel safer with Alistair Darling in charge? How about Jack Straw? Don't tell me that you long for the days when John Prescott was left minding the shop!

and I thought I was paranoid

This is a comment on Guido Fawkes today - "Anonymous said...
One thing to think about at least is this.

Lets imagine that Gordon Brown is really an UNREFORMED Neo Marxist on a serious long term mission.

Is it possible he has long engineered this crisis as an excuse to 'very radically change' the banking system?

Think about it how else can he possible get out of the hole he has long since been digging?

Why else dig the hole in the first place if there was no planned punch line when the spade busts?

The BBC will not blame Gordon Brown they will blame the Free market system, long enough to make this smallish crisis into an almost complete national financial collapse followed by a massive devaluation of the "pound in your pocket."

Gordon Brown will then at this point come up with the only solution that will by then make any sense to the otherwise soon to be homeless and or bankrupt large section of the British electorate.

A government of national unity with Gordo the terrible at its dictatorial head.

This country will by this time be effectively a one party state with a central government power base to die for, and a government owned banking system to hold it all up.

Perfect time to then turn his head to Europe for more of the same.

Now that could all just be a load of crap, but there again is any one completely sure these days that it is not?

4:13 AM, September 19, 2007"

Hmm now I am in great fear of what Gordon Brown might be up to but even I had not considered this theory, I shall mull it over today...