Who Owns the Moon ? / The Case For Lunar Property Rights

The moon has been in plain view for all of human history, but it's only within the past few decades that it's been possible to travel there. And for just about as long as the moon has been within reach, people have been arguing about lunar property rights: Can astronauts claim the moon for king and country, as in the Age of Discovery? Are corporations allowed to expropriate its natural resources, and individuals to own its real estate?

The first article on the subject, "High Altitude Flight and National Sovereignty," was written by Princeton legal scholar John Cobb Cooper in 1951. Various theoretical discussions followed, with some scholars arguing that the moon had to be treated differently than earthbound properties and others claiming that property laws in space shouldn't differ from those on Earth.

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The Lucifer Policy / Destroy Mankind Through Law

Regardless if you truly believe there is a shadow organization hell-bent on taking over the entire planet and forcing people into a totalitarian slave state, one thing is for certain: policy is the means to the destructive end. I don’t care who you are—when coming face to face with a government or organizational policy, you feel absolutely helpless, since those who are enforcing it are put into those enforcement positions and paid because they are somehow able to mindlessly meet the requirements and regurgitating the words of the policy to others. This is what we are taught in schools as the way to succeed—shutup and do as your told. Enforce policy like no other! Look at you meteoric rise! No no no, don’t look at who is hurt from your actions or what is the end result—just keep your eyes on that which is important! Policy.

Policy is the law. Policy is the program. And as a result, policy is the devil incarnate, structure itself, and what better structure is there than the one which keeps the policy makers at the top? I don’t care if you believe in the devil or not but policy removes human consciousness from all equations in life and turns the populace who are carrying out its creeds into soulless entities, and if that is not demonic, then I don’t know what is. Through the creation of policy, people are able to say such things as, “Well, I apologize you have lost your home and all of your belongings in a flood, but we have a policy that states you must include all building materials in your submissions form, and you did not include anything about balsa wood in your bathroom.”

Or, “We have a policy to charge 3 times the rental rate of that video if it is overdue by a week, and even though you weren’t aware that your son did not deliver it to us after being involved in a car accident, you still owe us 400 dollars, despite the fact the video is only worth ten dollars and you won’t be able to buy food for the next 30 days.” What should you do? How do you fight it? You can’t, because it is a spiritless policy.

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Ancient Olympics / ‘Like Vince Lombardi On The PGA Circuit’

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2008) — The modern Olympic ideals differ dramatically from the way the games were actually played in ancient Greece, says a University of Maryland classicist who has heavily researched the Olympic past. The ancient games featured professionals with a “winning is everything” philosophy.



“Ancient Olympiads were more like the modern PGA golf circuit than the amateur ideal advanced for most of the 20th century,” says Hugh Ming Lee, a professor of classics at the University of Maryland. “The Greeks and Romans awarded honors to the most accomplished athletes and paid them for their efforts. These professionals traveled a competitive circuit. The Vince Lombardi notion of winning is much closer to the original Olympic spirit.”

Ancient athletes resorted to various “potions” to gain a competitive edge. “The dung of a wild boar was honored for the powers it conferred on charioteers,” Lee points out. “Even the emperor Nero tried it''.

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Cadaver Tissue Fails Nearly 25% Of The Time In Young ACL Reconstructions

ScienceDaily (July 12, 2008) — With an estimated 80,000 Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) tears happening each year in the United States*, including recently to famed golfer, Tiger Woods, choosing the best replacement ligament for surgery is one key to success. A study released July 10 at the 2008 American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting, found that with a failure rate of almost 24 percent, the use of cadaver replacement ligaments may not be the best choice for young, athletic patients.




"Choosing a replacement ligament, whether it comes from a cadaver or the patient's own tissue is a decision that must be made by the surgeon and patient," said co-author Kurre Luber, MD, orthopedic surgery fellow at Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center. "This study found a very high failure rate in patients 40 years and younger with high activity levels in ACL-dependent sports like tennis, basketball, soccer and downhill skiing. Certainly, it would be naïve to think that only the graft selection led to these failures, we also need to look at surgical technique (single versus double bundle). Better outcome measures also need to be developed. However, this study definitely raises questions about the validity of using cadaver tissue in this patient subgroup."

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Vinyl Music & The Turntable Makes Comeback

Music Lovers Rediscover The Timbre Of The Turntable
July 11, 2008, 8:29 AM EST


Travis Dryden spent his childhood listening to his parent's records. And then he left them behind with the other detritus of his pre-college years to be sold for pennies at a yard sale.

Lured by the portability of cassette tapes, the iridescent gleam of compact discs, then the miniaturized wonder of MP3 players — who needed the fragile, antiquated technology of an LP?

As it turns out, Dryden did.

Now, like thousands of other reborn vinyl addicts, he scours record stores around the country, trying to get those lost records back.

"I abandoned a lot of my collection, unfortunately," Dryden said. "I started at record stores, thrift stores, garage sales and estate sales. When I travel for business I seek out record stores and thrift stores at the cities I visit."

Right now, Dryden said, his collection is small with only about 500 albums. But it might as well be 50,000 — as co-founder of the Vinyl Preservation Society of Idaho, a rapidly growing group in Boise, Dryden gets the opportunity to listen to selections from thousands of records at the organization's monthly meetings.

The group started last year with a handful of people. They brought CDs, MP3s and records, meeting in each their homes to talk and listen to music. Again and again, Dryden said, the group found themselves choosing the warm hum of the turntable over the cold precision of digital formats.

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Early Warning System For Earthquakes: Seismic 'Stress Meter' Warned Of Earthquake 10 Hours In Advance

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2008) — Using remarkably sensitive new instruments, seismologists have detected minute geological changes that preceded small earthquakes along California's famed San Andreas Fault by as much as 10 hours. If follow-up tests show that the preseismic signal is pervasive, researchers say the method could form the basis of a robust early warning system for impending quakes.

"We're working with colleagues in China and Japan on follow-up studies to determine whether this physical response can be measured in other seismically active regions," said Rice University seismologist Fenglin Niu, the study's lead author. "Provided the effect is pervasive, we still need to learn more about the timing of the signals if we are to reliably use them to warn of impending quakes."

Today's state-of-the-art earthquake warning systems give only a few seconds' warning before a quake strikes. These systems detect P-waves, the fastest moving seismic waves released during a quake. Like a flash of lightning that arrives before a clap of thunder, the fast-moving P-waves precede slower moving but more destructive waves.

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Artifacts Of George Washington Discovered At Childhood Home

Foundations Of George Washington's Childhood House Have Been Found At Ferry Farm In Virginia, The Setting Of The Legendary Cherry Tree Story.

Wig curlers, a carnelian bead and a half million other artifacts were also part of the discovery, which will help scholars fill in large gaps in the story of the first U.S. president's early life.

"When you look at the normal biographies of Washington, they start when he's 23," said David Muraca, who oversaw the excavation as director of archaeology at the George Washington Foundation, which owns Ferry Farm.

"This piece of the story is very difficult for historians to get their hands around," he said. "This dig will let us start our stories much earlier."

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Confessed Serial Killer Sobhraj To Marry

KATMANDU, Nepal - Confessed French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Nepal, is engaged and plans to marry a woman 44 years younger than he is.

Both Sobhraj, 64, and his 20-year-old Nepalese fiancée, Nihita Biswas, said they are planning to get married if he is freed by Nepal's Supreme Court.

Sobhraj was convicted by a Katmandu district court in 2004 on charges of killing a Canadian tourist in Katmandu in 1975. He was arrested at a luxury Katmandu casino when he returned to Nepal in 2003.


He has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court and a decision is expected in the next few days.

"We are planning a future after his release. We know he is going to be released soon. We are going to be married under French law in France," Biswas told reporters in Katmandu on Saturday.

She said their large age gap did not matter.

"I am mature enough to decide for myself," she said. "Age does not make a difference."

The two met 2 1/2 months ago when she went to apply for a job as interpreter for his French lawyer, she said.

Biswas said she was certain the Supreme Court would free Sobhraj because of a lack of evidence against him.

Sobhraj's lawyers and jail officials said they only found out about the engagement after reading about it in local newspapers.

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