Benghazi, I.R.S. And Now For Your Viewing Pleasure, Scandal # 3: The A.P.

well it seems our justice dept. run by none other THAN that rock star eric holder had decided to hijack about 20 phone lines belonging to ap. in April and may of 2012.      kind of funny now that ap has been the target the media is up in arms. For years while justice and the admin have abused the american public it seemed they could care less, Well anyway if this is what it takes to shine the light on the vermin so be it. Benghazi, i.r.s., a.p.               seems like 3 strikes YOU’RE out in the ole ball game.

Politicians versus press: Attorney General Eric Holder held a press conference on Tuesday to address the story that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months worth of journalists phone records

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Eric Holder points finger at his DEPUTY who secretly obtained journalist’s phone records as Obama is forced to say he has ‘confidence’ in the Attorney General

• Justice Department obtained records listing incoming and outgoing calls and duration of calls for more than 20 telephone lines used by journalists
• Lines included the main number used by reporters in the House of Reps press gallery and general AP numbers in Washington and New York
• Stems from AP article talking reporting a thwarted terror attack
• Attorney General Eric Holder said he had recused himself from the investigation into the leak to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest
• Said that his deputy made the decision to obtain the records

By ASSOCIATED PRESS and DAILY MAIL REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 13:40 EST, 14 May 2013 | UPDATED: 17:55 EST, 14 May 2013

Attorney General Eric Holder went on the defensive on Tuesday explaining why the Justice Department secretly obtained two months worth of reporters’ telephone records in an ‘unprecedented’ search for a confidential source.

‘This was a very serious leak and a very, very serious leak,’ Holder said at a press conference explaining the department’s actions which have been criticized for going against the constitutional right to a free press.

Holder said that he recused himself from the making the controversial decision to subpoena the phone records of Associated Press journalists, saying that it was made by Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

He said that he was ‘confident that the people involved in this … followed all applicable Department of Justice regulations’ even though he claimed not to actually know the details of the decision-making process as a result of his recusal.

President Obama was forced to follow Holder’s press conference with the release of a statement saying that the incident does not shake his faith in his close friend and the country’s top legal adviser.    (Whoopsie)

‘The president has confidence in the attorney general,’ press secretary Jay Carney said.

The controversy came when the Associated Press reported that two months worth of reporters’ telephone records without their knowledge, obtaining a wide breadth of records that had nothing to do with the leak of information that they were concerned about. 

The Justice Department has spoken in the past about how they were upset over the leak of information about a foiled al Qaeda plot where the terrorist group planned to detonate a bomb on a plane bound for the United States.

‘I’ve been a prosecutor since 1976 and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, it is within the top two or three most serious leaks I’ve ever seen,’ Holder said.

It put the American people at risk. That’s not hyperbole. It put the American people at risk.’

That isn’t enough to satisfy critics, as top Republicans are already calling for Holder’s resignation over the incident.

‘Because Attorney General Holder has so egregiously violated the public trust, the president should ask for his immediate resignation,’ Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said. 

‘If President Obama does not, the message will be unmistakable: The President of the United States believes his administration is above the Constitution and does not respect the role of a free press.’

The records listed journalists’ incoming and outgoing calls, as well as the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Connecticut, and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

In all, the government seized records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012.

News of the probe into one of the largest news organizations in the world immediately sparked outrage among Republicans on Capitol Hill.

‘The First Amendment is first for a reason,’ Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, told MailOnline. 

‘If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation.’

A spokesman for Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the move is representative of a broader ‘pattern of intimidation.’

‘Whether it is secretly targeting patriotic Americans participating in the electoral progress or reporters exercising their First Amendment rights, these new revelations suggest a pattern of intimidation by the Obama Administration,’ Doug Heye said.

The American Civil Liberties Union was equally critical. 

( You Know you screwed up if even the ACLU is on your butt.)

‘Obtaining a broad range of telephone records in order to ferret out a government leaker is an unacceptable abuse of power,’ said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. ‘Freedom of the press is a pillar of our democracy, and that freedom often depends on confidential communications between reporters and their sources.’

AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation.

He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

‘There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,’ Pruitt wrote in a letter of protest to  Holder. 

‘These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s news gathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.’

The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot.

The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al Qaeda plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP’s source, which he denied. 

He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an ‘unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information.’

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual and largely unprecedented.

In the letter notifying the AP received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt’s letter and attorneys for the AP.

The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

~Steve~

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324501/Attorney-General-Eric-Holder-defends-deputys-decision-secretly-obtain-journalists-phone-records-saying-searching-leak.html#ixzz2TMlgvGVJ

Immigration reform bill will create a national biometric database

The so-called Gang of 8* immigration reform amnesty bill, Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, is bad enough, given that:

• Its total costs are estimated to be $6.3 trillion (!).

• Two amendments acknowledging same-sex marriage were recently added to the bill by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

* Gang of 8 refers to the four Republicans and four Democrats who are sponsors of the bill. They are Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)

But there is something even worse, something downright sinister, hidden in the 844-page bill: a national biometric database of every adult in the United States.

Biometrics refers to the identification of humans by distinctive measurable characteristics, such as iris scan, DNA or fingerprint.

David Kravets reports for Wired, May 10, 2013:

The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (pdf)  is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”

For now, the legislation allows the database to be used solely for employment purposes. But historically such limitations don’t last. The Social Security card, for example, was created to track your government retirement benefits. Now you need it to purchase health insurance.

“The Social Security number itself, it’s pretty ubiquitous in your life,” Calabrese said.

David Bier, an analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, agrees with the ACLU’s fears.

“The most worrying aspect is that this creates a principle of permission basically to do certain activities and it can be used to restrict activities,” he said. “It’s like a national ID system without the card.”

For the moment, the debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee is focused on the parameters of legalization for unauthorized immigrants, a border fence and legal immigration in the future.

The committee is scheduled to resume debate on the package next Tuesday.

~Eowyn

A Little Techie Stuff. How To Recover Lost Pics And Vids

You may just be a goof like me and hit the wrong button.   Hey it was an accident. Know what? I froze, I googled, and I found a program and got files back. Now if you read this there could be other reasons you want/need them back. Good luck                          ~ Steve~

WANT TO KNOW HOW TO RECOVER DELETED PHOTOS AND VIDEO FROM YOUR DEVICES?

May. 9, 2013 10:44am Liz Klimas   www.theblaze.com

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Last week, the story of parents who had their baby seized by police went viral. Video shows Sacramento Police Department officers entering the home of Anna and Alex Nikolayev without a warrant and saying they were going to “grab” the baby and advising the parents not to resist or fight. The Russian couple’s lawyer though believes law enforcement and child protective services overstepped their bounds.

Now imagine how difficult this portion of the case could be without video evidence. Image if the video and pictures of police taking the baby away were deleted.

Carlos Miller, who runs the Photography Is Not a Crime blog, has had content on his recording equipment deleted a couple times by law enforcement, he believes. And he has a message for those who have had pictures or video deleted by cops or accidentally by themselves: “It doesn’t completely disappear.”

In fact, Miller last year was acquitted from all charges after he was able to recover deleted video showing he was not resisting arrest or breaking any other laws. He is now trying to obtain enough evidence to bring a case against the Miami police department and the individual he believes wrongfully took his camera and deleted its content.

Everything Miller learned about recovering deleted images and video was self-taught from the Web and help from a tech friend. The most important thing to know, he said, is to not take any more photos or video if you believe your content has been deleted.

“Once you realize that video has been deleted, put your camera aside and figure out a way to recover it,” he said.

There are programs that can help you recover such content. Pictures are easier to get back than video due to the size.

For photos stored on Millers Sandisk memory card, the program recommended that he used is RescuePro. Video was a bit tricker because it took longer to sift through all the recovered content to find the portions he was looking for, but he used the program PhotoRec.

Just recently Alex Heid with Federal Jack and HackMiami went through this process when his own video, which deleted allegedly by Miami police upon his arrest. He details in this video how he recovered his footage:

Even better than going through any of this process though is to not put yourself in a situation where your footage could be deleted in the first place. The easiest way to protect against this is by password protecting your phone, which is the device Miller said the average citizen

would likely be using to film or take pictures these days.

Another recommendation Miller had was to consider using an app that would automatically begin transferring pictures and video into cloud storage. On a PINAC forum is a discussion on just these types of programs.

One user with an Android phone suggests Bambuser and Dropbox.

“Dropbox will automatically upload video (or pictures) when off button is pushed or recording stopped. Just make sure the app is running in the background. Not live streaming, will only upload after recording stopped,” rick wrote. “Bambuser is live streaming and will continue to record and upload even after off button is pushed. Unsent data is saved to phone and can be uploaded later to complete video record. As always, test these apps under different situations and know their ins and outs.”

Dropbox, another user cautions though, won’t upload video on iOS devices unless the user is connected to WiFi, but it will do so through a data package on Android.

So, whether you accidentally hit the trash button or if your photos and video were purposefully deleted, these are methods you can recover or preserve your data.

Miller’s ultimate goal is to change a mentality he thinks some officers have when it comes to “creating their own truth.”

“Cops have to rethink that they can’t just create their own truth anymore,” Miller said.

Related: HERE

 

Take this Science & Technology quiz!

How well do you know basic science and technology?

The Pew Research Center (with the Smithsonian Institution) has a quick 13-question quiz that tests your knowledge.

You don’t have to be a scientist or a science major in college to do well in the quiz. Even an informed intelligent layman can score well, long as you’re not a LIV (low information voter).

Click here to take the quiz.

Take the quiz, then report back here on your score!

~Eowyn

P.S. I’m 12/13.

Military has a robot that’s creepily human

DARPA or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technologies for use by the military. DARPA has been responsible for funding the development of many technologies which have had a major effect on the world, including computer networking (note: Al Gore did not invent the Internet. LOL).

DARPA has been at work designing sophisticated military robots. Here’s the creepy-looking PETMAN, a robot developed to test the performance of protective clothing designed for hazardous environments. The Daily Bail aptly puts it: “Imagine this guy knocking at your door to conduct a police manhunt for a suspected terrorist. Say hello to the future.”

The PETMAN robot was developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from the Dept of Defense’s Chemical and Biological Defense program. It is the first anthropomorphic robot that moves dynamically like a real person. The video shows initial testing in a chemical protection suit and gas mask. PETMAN has sensors embedded in its skin that detect any chemicals leaking through the suit. The skin also maintains a micro-climate inside the clothing by sweating and regulating temperature. Partners in developing PETMAN were MRIGlobal, Measurement Technology Northwest, Smith Carter, SRD, CUH2A, and HHI.

On the other hand, this pack mule robot, LS3 (Legged Squad), is kinda cute:

Working with the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL), DARPA developed the Legged Squad Support System (LS3) program — robotic “pack mules” that one day would carry gear for a squad of Marines or Army soldiers. The robots are able to get back up from a fall by itself, interpret verbal and visual commands, and autonomously follow people (i.e., independently make “Follow the Leader” decisions) through rugged terrain.

~Eowyn

Aborted baby tissue sold for $25,000 a shot

Hitler and the Nazis are reviled for murdering 6 million Jews — a horrific page in human history which we call The Holocaust.

But there is an ongoing even bigger Holocaust that bestirs not our conscience, and instead is applauded and championed.

In the 40 years since the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States, there have been more than 1.72 billion abortionsworldwide, or an average of 43.25 million abortions each year.

Among the 17.52 billion are more than 54.5 million American babies who were murdered through abortion since 1973. That’s 19.5 million more than the total population of Canada.

It is not enough that we murder our unborn. Their aborted remains are sold and ingested by perverse and deluded people in their quest for health and youth.

In May 2012, I posted about customs officials in South Korea having intercepted some 17,000 Chinese-made “medicinal” pills filled with powdered human baby flesh, which were being smuggled into the country. The capsules are marketed as being a medicinal “cure-all”. The San Francisco Times reported that tests carried out on the pills confirmed they were made up of 99.7% human remains. The tests were even able to establish the genders of the babies used. There is a huge demand for the “baby pills” because they are thought to enhance sexual stamina. Microwave-dried placenta is also sought after for its alleged “medicinal” benefits. In reality, however, the human flesh capsules contain super-bacteria and other harmful ingredients.

Now comes news that some people are paying as much as $25,000 for “a shot” of tissue and stem cells from aborted babies, in their sick fantasy that being injected with the aborted tissue would regain lost vigor, mental acuity, and a youthful appearance.

How is this other than sickening and Satanic?

Imre Téglásy, Ph.D., the director of Human Life International, writes for Zenit.org, Apr 17, 2013, that nine defendants faced criminal charges before a Hungarian Court for collaborating in a venture to provide “treatments” promising to help them regain lost vigor, mental acuity, even youthful appearance. The grisly enterprise came to an abrupt end with a raid by a Hungarian government agency in July 2007.

According to the charges on file, the defendants’ wealthy customers paid five million Hungarian forints, about $25,000 US, for a single shot of an as-yet-undetermined concoction of tissue and stem cells taken from aborted children.

Initially an alliance between Ukrainian abortionists and “aesthetic physicians” in Barbados, the operation moved to Hungary after it was shut down following an expose on the BBC in 2006. The famous story that led to the Institute for Regenerative Medicine (IRM) in Barbados being shuttered appalled many, but resulted in no criminal charges being brought, despite harrowing tales of newborn children being stolen from young mothers in Ukraine and dissected for organs believed to contain the most valuable stem cells for “therapeutic” use. Once exposed, several of the perpetrators simply moved to Hungary and restarted their high-price service for those who have enough money to roll the dice and subject themselves to medically-unproven treatments of unknown origin.

In July 2007, three of the defendants currently under trial were arrested at a Budapest hospital that had contracted with the clinic. István Seffer, the owner of Seffer and Renner clinic in Kaposvár, Hungary was also arrested while consulting with plastic surgery clients at a nearby facility. At the front end, the Seffer and Renner clinic provided plastic surgery and OB-GYN services, while offering the expensive and untested “treatments” out of the back end.

Performing the “treatments” was a proctologist (!) named Yuliy V. Baltaytis, a Ukrainian professor who self-published two massive “studies” on the subject that are neither peer-reviewed nor considered accepted among the European or international medical communities. Baltaytis injected the embryonic cocktail into wealthy patients solicited by art collector Imre Pákh and gastronomy expert Ádám Fásy, both of whom apparently have dual Hungarian and U.S. citizenship. The material for the treatments was prepared by Ukranian biologist Natalia Karnikova, who also worked out of IRM.

The Seffer and Renner clinic is still in operation. The owner’s brother, Tibor Seffer, apparently still performs abortions and other procedures at the clinic. The IRM obtained official approval for collecting and storing stemcells and entered into contracts with four Hungarian hospitals where abortions were performed. It is unclear how many of the aborted children’s remains used by Baltaytis came from Seffer-Renner’s own clinic, or other hospitals, and how many were obtained and used by Baltaytis.

The charges faced by the defendants have nothing to do with abortions legally or illegally performed, or with the destruction and manipulation of human embryos, since IRM apparently had all permits necessary to perform this work. What Baltayis and his colleagues stand accused of is using human cells for treatments in a for-profit venture. If found guilty, they face between three and eight years imprisonment.

Among the clients of this ethically-bankrupt enterprise was 2007 Miss Hungary and Catholic University of Budapest student Krisztina Bodri, who is described in the media as Baltaytis’ “partner”. The IRM also enjoyed high-level political support – present at the opening of the clinic in 2007 was the then-Hungarian Minister of Labor and current Socialist Party MP, Mónika Lamperth.

All of this unfolds as the European Union considers a massive investment in biomedical research, seeking to keep its research institutions at the forefront of developments in biotechnology. Entitled “Horizon 2020,” the proposal as it is currently written does not exclude obtaining research material from aborted human beings, and would create an EU fund of 90 billion Euros to fund the research.

Standing opposed to stem cell research that would destroy and utilize unborn human beings is a European Citizens’ initiative entitled “One of Us.” This movement has proposed a change to Article 16 of Horizon 2020, which deals with “ethics and principles,” that would completely preclude the use of embryonic stem cells for research, or fund any research that presupposes the destruction of human embryos. The One of Us campaign, launched by European MP Carlo Casini in 2012, must obtain at least one million signatures from at least seven EU member states before November 1stof this year. Any citizen of a Member State of the EU which is of voting age can support the initiative online on www.oneofus.eu.

H/t LifeSiteNews

~Eowyn

CIA report on Noah’s Ark

Science and faith do not have to be contentious.

On the contrary, since science is about the empirical world, and Christians believe God created the Universe, then if the Bible is His Word, the events chronicled in the Bible should leave traces that can be discovered by science. As examples, recent archeological discoveries are lending substance to the biblical accounts of the parting of the Red Sea and of the catastrophic destruction-by-fire of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The search for physical remains of Noah’s Ark has held a fascination for many people since at least the third century. Despite many expeditions, no material evidence of the ark has been found. (Go here for a list of modern post-1949 searches.)

Speculations about the location of the remains of Noah’s Ark center on Mount Ararat in contemporary Turkey (elevation 16,854 ft) because, according to the book of Genesis, the ark came to rest in the “Mountains of Ararat“.

Little Ararat (l) and Mount Ararat (r)

The following report, compiled for the now-defunct National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), a unit of the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T), details the history of official requests to the CIA for aerial photographs of Noah’s Ark taken by U-2 and satellites, which some suspect the agency was holding in secret. (This report confirms material in the State Department Noah’s Ark cables.)

According to the report, the CIA insists it has no photos of the ark and that they have found no evidence of Noah’s Ark in aerial images of Mount Ararat. Redacted portions of the NPIC report are indicated with X’s.

Whether you believe the CIA is another matter entirely. LOL

~Eowyn

Central Intelligence Agency
January 1, 1992 (est.)

Noah’s Ark 1974 – 1982. On 13 May 1974, DCI Colby sent a letter to the DS&T, Sayre Stevens, asking if the Agency had any evidence of Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat. Mr. Colby said that Lieutenant Colonel Walter Brown of the US Air Force Academy had asked “whether it would be appropriate or possible to exploit satellite photography to examine the glacier systems there to see whether any evidence of the Ark could be found.” On 21 May, the Center responded that no evidence of the Ark could be discerned on U-2 photography acquired on 10 September 1957 or on any satellite imagery available at the Center.

On 6 August 1974, Congressman Bob Wilson asked the Agency whether any aerial photos of Mt. Ararat could be released to a friend of his, Dr. John Morris, son of Dr. Henry M. Morris, the head of the Institution of Creation Research of San Diego, California. Mr. Hicks stated in a letter to the Agency legislative liaison staff that several U-2 photos dated 1957 were available but were still classified “Confidential.” The younger Dr. Morris wrote to the Agency later requesting the photos. His request was denied by Angus Theurmer, the Agency’s press spokesman who stated “We have looked into this matter in some detail and we regret that we are unable to provide any information”.

In September/October 1974, Admiral Showers of the Intelligence Community Staff, in response to a query from Lieutenant Commander Lonnie McClung, asked about the availability of intelligence information concerning the location of Noah’s Ark. He was told that a search had been made of aerial photography with negative results.

On 30 January 1975, Dr. John Morris again wrote Congressman Bob Wilson noting that aerial photos “were taken in August 1974, as a result of my request. They were not to be classified, but have been classified since and are not available.” Congressman Wilson again contacted the Agency with the request. On 27 February 1975, Mr. Hicks again denied the request. On 11 March 1975, Dr. Morris was notified that the photography of Mt. Ararat was classified and, therefore, could not be provided. An additional request made through Dr. Charles Willis of Fresno, California to Mr. Arthur C. Lundahl, retired Director NPIC on 5 March 1975 was also denied on 31 March 1975.

On 3 April 1975, NPIC Section Chief XXXXXXXX sent a memo to the Chief, IEG, detailing the efforts of Messrs. XXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXX who had searched unsuccessfully all available U-2 and satellite imagery for possible evidence of Noah’s Ark. This search had been prompted by the visit to the Center, on 14 March 1975, of Captain Howard Schue of the IC Staff with a ground photo “showing a long range view of the purported Ark.” The XXXXXXX Division of NPIC was tasked to determine if the Ark’s features in the photo had been altered; tests failed to identify any manipulation. Attempts to compare the ground photo with satellite imagery for identification and location purposes also proved negative.

From 27 March to 5 April 1975, a French archeological explorer, Fernand Navarra was at Iverson Mall in Washington, D.C. publicizing his book Noah’s Ark I Touched It. As part of the sales pitch for the book, there was a display which included a supposed wood fragment of the Ark. Several NPIC analysts concerned with the Ark problem visited the display but found nothing that would help their search efforts.

On 10 April 1975, Colonel Paul Tanota and Captain Howard Schue, of the IC Staff visited NPIC to discuss Mt. Ararat and to see the August 1974 aerial photography of the mountain. At the request of Captain Schue, a print of Mt. Ararat showing the 13,000 and 14,000 foot elevations was provided.

On 5 July, 1975 a book entitled The Ark of Ararat by Thomas Nelson was released. Mr. Nelson maintained that the CIA had photos of Ararat and that they had been analyzed in the search for the Ark.

On 12 October 1975, Tom Crotser from a group known as The Holy Ground Mission of Frankston; Texas showed a ground photo supposedly of the Ark taken during their 1974 expedition to Mt. Ararat.

Sometime in 1977, Bill Chaney Speed of Search Foundation, Inc. requested the aerial photos of Mt. Ararat. His request also was denied.

Senator Barry Goldwater wrote DCI Turner on 1 September 1978, “You may think this is a screwball request and it may be, but I would like to know if you can do anything about it.” The letter went on to ask if satellite photography could be searched “to determine whether or not something in the way of an archeological find might be located near or on top of the Mount.” Goldwater explained that a letter he had received had come “from a man in whom I have great confidence, who certainly is no nut, who knows Turkey rather well but who feels that there is reason to believe the Ark may be resting at or near the top of the mount. I assure that I will keep this at any classification you want it kept and if you desire me to go to the devil, I know the way.” DCI Turner replied “we have been requested on several occasions if we could determine whether there was remains of the Ark on Mt. Ararat. We have, as a result, carefully reviewed the photography of the area but have not found any evidence of the Ark.”

On 27 May 1981, XXXXXXXX of the Center received a telephone call from Air Force Talent  Control Officer, Major Ray Abel, requesting information on Noah’s Ark. Major Abel said he had received a request from General Lew Allen, Air Force Chief of Stall, who, in turn, was answering a, requirement from Congressman Bill Archer of Texas. Congressman Archer had indicated that some of his constituents from Houston, Texas were going on an expedition to Mt. Ararat and would like to have as much information as possible. XXXXXXX told Major Abel that NPIC had conducted a study of Mt. Ararat in the 1970s and had found no evidence of the Ark.

In February 1982, former Astronaut James B. Irwin of the High Flight Foundation, a Christian group in Colorado Springs, Colorado, called former NPIC official Dino A. Brugioni, at his home and asked about the aerial photos of Mount Ararat. Irwin was informed that no evidence of the Ark had ever been seen on aerial photography.

What a 14-year-old McDonald’s hamburger looks like

This is what a McDonald’s hamburger, bought in 1999, looks like after 14 years!

Ashley Lutz reports for Business Insider, Apr. 23, 2013, that in an appearance on the television show The Doctors, David Whipple of Utah said he bought a McDonald’s hamburger in 1999 and decided to do an at-home experiment.

He saved the burger for two weeks to show his friends, but then completely forgot about it.

Two years later, he found the burger in a coat pocket, along with the original receipt. Despite two years spent in a closet, the sandwich showed no signs of rotting or mold.

So Whipple decided to keep the burger to see how long it would take for it to disintegrate.

Another 12 years passed. The hamburger looks exactly the same; only the pickle has disappeared.

Whipple told The Doctors that he uses the burger to encourage his grandchildren to eat healthy: “It’s great for my grandkids to see. To see what happens with fast food.”

The durability of its burgers is not new, and McDonald’s has explained this phenomenon before on its website. The fast food chain asked Dr. Keith Warriner, the program director at the University of Guelph’s Department of Food Science and Quality Assurance. Warriner explained that the burgers and buns don’t rot because they become very dry in the cooking and toasting process:

“In the example of a McDonald’s hamburger, the patty loses water in the form of steam during the cooking process. The bun, of course, is made out of bread. Toasting it reduces the amount of moisture. This means that after preparation, the hamburger is fairly dry. When left out open in the room, there is further water loss as the humidity within most buildings is around 40%. So in the absence of moisture or high humidity, the hamburger simply dries out, rather than rot. [...] the microbes that cause rotting are a lot like ourselves, in that they need water, nutrients, warmth and time to grow. If we take one or more of these elements away, then microbes cannot grow or spoil food.”

For that matter, the phenomenon of undecayed hamburgers isn’t unique to McDonald’s. Food blog A Hamburger Today did some rigorous experiments a while back confirming this:

“Turns out that not only did the regular McDonald’s burgers not rot, but the home-ground burgers did not rot either. Samples one through five had shrunk a bit (especially the beef patties), but they showed no signs of decomposition.”

To which, my response is “Eww” and “Yikes!”

H/t FOTM’s Igor

~Eowyn

This Is Brilliant! North Korean Army Can Be Easily Defeated With A Giant Magnet!

ok – Here’s The idea.  We pick a day.  We pick a time.  We go out into  our yards and streets and we point giant magnets in N. Korea‘s direction.

When they fall from the sky, they’ll probably be already dead.  The west coast will probably get them first.  They could fall into the Pacific, hit the mountains, squash in the desert.  Worth a try.

You have a better idea?

At The very least they’d sink when hitting water.

~Steve~                                        H/T   Miss May

Creation: Horsehead Nebula

Psalm 147:1-4

How good to celebrate our God in song;
how sweet to give fitting praise.
The Lord . . . heals the brokenhearted,
binds up their wounds,
Numbers all the stars,
calls each of them by name.

The Horsehead Nebula is a dark nebula in the constellation Orion.

A nebula (from Latin: “cloud”) is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases. A dark nebula is a type of interstellar cloud that is so dense that it obscures the light from the background emission or background stars.

First recorded in 1888 by Williamina Fleming at the Harvard College Observatory, the Horsehead Nebula is approximately 1500 light years from Earth. It is one of the most identifiable nebulae because of the shape of its swirling cloud of dark dust and gases, which is similar to that of a horse’s head when viewed from Earth.

~Eowyn