Florida professor defends theory that Newtown shootings never happened
A communications professor from Florida Atlantic University isn’t backing down from his theory that the mass killing of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut may have never happened.
Writing on his Memory Hole blog last month, Professor James Tracy asserted that it was “not unreasonable to suggest the Obama administration [had] complicity or direct oversight of an incident that has in very short order sparked a national debate” on gun control.
“While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place—at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described,” he declared, noting that no surveillance video of photos of bodies had been released by authorities. (Read more…)
“Moreover, to suggest that [President Barack] Obama is not capable of deploying such techniques to achieve political ends is to similarly place ones faith in image and interpretation above substance and established fact, the exact inclination that in sum has brought America to such an impasse.”
On Tuesday, WPTV caught up with Tracy, who also doubts the official versions President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks and the mass shooting at a theater in Aurora, Colorado last year.
“In terms of saying that Sandy Hook — the Newtown massacre — did not take place, is really an oversimplification of what I actually said,” he explained. “I said that I think that there may very well be elements of that event that are synthetic to some degree, that are somewhat contrived. I think that, overall, the media really did drop the ball. I don’t think that they got to the bottom of some of the things that may have taken place there.”
As for the deaths of 20 elementary children, the professor said, “I think that most likely that took place.”
A spokesperson for Florida Atlantic University on Monday tried to distance the school from Tracy’s views.
“James Tracy does not speak for the university,” media director Lisa Metcalf told the Sun Sentinel. “The website on which his post appeared is not affiliated with FAU in any way.” - Video - NWO Truth
Conspiracies and Secret Societies: The Complete Dossier
The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups: The 100 Most Terrifying Conspiracies of All Time
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Cannibals with cutlery: The macabre nineteenth century Fijian forks used by tribesmen to eat the bodies of rival warriors
For such a revolting act, these cannibals were quite dainty when it came to eating their enemies.
Fijian tribesmen used this macabre set of forks to eat the bodies of rival warriors.
But despite their grisly background, these seven instruments have been sold for £30,000 at auction.
The pronged antiques date from the 19th century when tribal chiefs devoured their enemies after they had been killed.
Their bodies were brought back to the victors' village by members of the tribe and served to the community and chiefs.
Tribal attendants would hand-feed sections of the meat to their leaders with the forks, which were only used on special occasions.
The wooden implements are between 6ins to 17ins long and each have four lethal spokes which were sharpened to create a deadly point
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They were purchased 20 years ago by a collector of medieval weapons and tribal art.
As a collection, the forks were only estimated to fetch £1,600, but demand soared for the gruesome items and they sold to individual collectors for a total of £29,440.
James Bridges, director of auctioneers Martel Maides in Guernsey, said: 'The forks came in from a local collector who collects tribal art and medieval weapons.
'He purchased them from another collector in the Midlands 20 years ago and we don't know where they came from before that.
'They were used in the 19th century and you can see they have significant age from the patina and colour where they have been handled and used.
'It's an extraordinary thing to be able to see so many at once for a collector. Some only see three or four in their lifetime but we had seven in our collection.
'The tribal chiefs and elders were not allowed to feed, they had to be fed by attendants and that's what these forks would have been used for, including cannibalism.
'Part of the tradition was that when they had fights or wars with rival tribes the resulting people who were killed would have been brought back and they would have been eaten.
'I believe it wasn't just the tribal elders who would have taken part in the cannibalism, the whole village would have.
'The forks were kept in smoky huts and seen as sacred objects. They would have represented the power of the tribal chief.
'It was very exciting in the saleroom, there were sharp intakes of breath as the prices rose and at one point it seemed like everyone's hands were up.
'The vendor was completely over the moon and was absolutely speechless with the result.' - Daily Mail
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Bobcat mauls man / teen in Massachusetts
A man and his nephew have been attacked by a bobcat after startling the wild animal in their own garage.
Roger Mundell Jr said all he heard was a hiss before the wild cat pounced on him, sinking its teeth into his face and its claws in his back.
The bobcat then ran out of the garage in Brookfield, Massachusetts, and bit Mr Mundell's 15-year-old nephew on the arms and back.
"It only took a split second for him to be on me," Mr Mundell told Boston's WHDH-TV. "I didn't have time to process it."
Mr Mundell and his wife eventually pinned the cat to the ground with a walking stick and shot it dead with a handgun.
All three of those involved are being treated for rabies. His wife was not bitten but she came into contact with the animal's blood.
State environmental police took the bobcat to have it tested for rabies, which they think is likely given its unusual behaviour.
Bobcats are generally twice the size of an average domestic house cat.
They can grow to more than a metre in length and can weigh up to 14kg (30lb). - Sky
NOTE: For anyone who questions the attack ability of a bobcat, here you go. I witnessed the results of a rabid bobcat maul a German Shephard who had it pinned in a barn. Needless to say, the dog didn't make it...Lon
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
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Pentagon working on UFO-style airship for stealthy cargo missions
The sci-fi TV show Fringe often shows us an alternate, more technologically advanced version of Earth where airships are, for some reason, the norm. Now reality is mirroring fiction as a new project being developed in conjunction with the Pentagon is looking to bring airships back from their spotty past and into the future.
Developed by Aeroscraft, the 230-foot-long prototype airship called the Pelican is designed to lift up to 10 tons of cargo across long distances, using a fraction of the fuel needed by an airplane. The airship, which, interestingly, looks a lot like a flying saucer, has been in the works for several years under the guidance of the Pentagon's Rapid Reaction Technology Office. In addition to cargo missions, the Pentagon also envisions the airship as a potential tool for surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
The current prototype is much smaller than the final version of the airship the company plans to build which will be 450-feet long and have the ability to carry up to 66 tons of cargo. - Dvice
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Why do our fingers wrinkle when wet?
Science may be getting closer to explaining those prune-like fingers and toes we all get when we sit in a hot bath too long.
UK researchers from Newcastle University have confirmed wet objects are easier to handle with wrinkled fingers than with dry, smooth ones.
They suggest our ancestors may have evolved the creases as they moved and foraged for food in wet conditions.
Their experiments are reported in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
These involved asking volunteers to pick up marbles immersed in a bucket of water with one hand and then passing them through a small slot to be deposited by the other hand in a second container.
Volunteers with wrinkled fingers routinely completed the task faster than their smooth-skinned counterparts.
The team found there was no advantage from ridged fingers when moving dry objects. This suggests that the wrinkles serve the specific function of improving our grip on objects under water or when dealing with wet surfaces in general.
For a long time, it was assumed that the wrinkles were simply the result of the skin swelling in water, but recent investigations have actually shown the furrows to be caused by the blood vessels constricting in reaction to the water, which in turn is a response controlled by the body's sympathetic nervous system.
That an active system of regulation is at work led scientists into thinking there must be some deeper evolutionary justification for the ridges.
"If wrinkled fingers were just the result of the skin swelling as it took up water, it could still have a function but it wouldn't need to," said Dr Tom Smulders, from Newcastle's Centre for Behaviour and Evolution.
The tests involved handling wet objects with wrinkled and un-wrinkled fingers
"Whereas, if the nervous system is actively controlling this behaviour under some circumstances and not others, it seems less of a leap to assume there must be a function for it, and that evolution has selected it. And evolution wouldn't have selected it unless it conferred some sort of advantage," he told BBC News.
US-based researchers were the first to propose that the wrinkles might act like the tread on tyres, and even demonstrated how the patterns in the skin resembled those of run-off channels seen on the sides of hills.
What the Newcastle team has now done is confirm that prune-like fingers are indeed better at gripping wet objects.
"We have tested the first prediction of the hypothesis - that handling should be improved," Dr Smulders said.
"What we haven't done yet is show why - to see if the wrinkles remove the water, or whether it's some other feature of those wrinkles such as a change in their stickiness or plasticity, or something else. The next thing will be to measure precisely what's happening at that interface between the objects and the fingers."
Our ancestors might not have played with wet marbles, but having better gripping fingers and feet would certainly have been advantageous as they clambered about and foraged for food along lake-shores and by rivers.
It would be interesting to see, observed Dr Smulders, just how many other animals displayed this trait - in particular, in primates.
"If it's in many, many primates then my guess is that the original function might have been locomotion through wet vegetation or wet trees. Whereas, if it's just in humans that we see this then we might consider something much more specific, such as foraging in and along rivers and the like." - BBC
