A cocktail of three flu viruses are reported to have mutated into a single pneumonic plague, which it is believed may be far more dangerous than swine flu. The death toll has reached 189 and more than 1 million people have been infected, most of them in the nine regions of Western Ukraine.

***

Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Romania, countries that border Ukraine, have already launched health checks on Ukrainians entering their territory.

Slovakia has closed two of five border crossings.

A doctor in Western Ukraine who did not want to be named, said:” We have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are as black as charcoal.

“They look like they have been burned. It’s terrifying.”

This is a few days old by now, but I’m still catching up.  Busy week.

Chinese scientists artificially induced the second major snowstorm to wreak havoc in Beijing this season, state media said, reigniting debate over the practice of tinkering with Mother Nature.

After the earliest snow to hit the capital in 22 years fell on November 1, the capital was again shrouded in white Tuesday with more snow expected in the coming three days, the National Meteorological Centre said.

So, the Chinese claim they can control the weather.  Useful propaganda for them, I suppose.  If you control the weather, then you have one more tool in the toolbox to control the people.

Color me skeptical, to say the least.

The idea of cloud seeding has been around for quite some time, and is a Voodoo science at best.  Perhaps China figured out a new way to seed clouds.  Perhaps not.

But the real question is: should we be messing with the weather?  Shouldn’t there be limits on what we mess with?

I’ve watched enough Sci-Fi (or is it SyFy?) to know that this only ends in Apocalypse.

In the meantime, there are at least some in China who disagree with the government’s plan:

“No one can tell how much weather manipulation will change the sky,” Xiao Gang, a professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the paper.

“We should not depend too much on artificial measures to get rain or snow, because there are too many uncertainties up in the sky.”

And in Future News, Xiao Gang, former professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has graduated from re-education camp.  He will now head the government’s cloud seeding research.  “There is nothing the Chinese people cannot accomplish,” a newly thin Gang said.

h/t CW

Smart Power!

Russia is weighing changes to its military doctrine that would allow for a “preventive” nuclear strike against its enemies — even those armed only with conventional weapons. The news comes just as American diplomats are trying to get Russia to cut down its nuclear stockpile, and put the squeeze on Iran’s suspect nuclear program.

Or, in other words, Russia sees our pathetic and feckless foreign policy and knows that we’re to pussy to do anything about stopping them.

Pity the former Soviet territories that step out of line…

What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to repel conventionally armed attackers, “not only in large-scale, but also in a regional and even a local war.”

Hey Georgia!  Got that?  If you don’t shut up we’ll nuke you.  And all that will happen to us is we’ll be the subject of a few meaningless UN resolutions.

Good thing we canceled that missile defense shield.

You have presented me with a highly undesirable option. I am troubled.

A RADICAL Muslim group sparked outrage last night as it launched a massive campaign to impose sharia law on Britain.

I haven’t been able to fake surprise yet, but I’m still trying, so bare with me.

The group declared: “We hereby request all Muslims in the United Kingdom, in Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow and all other places to join us and collectively declare that as submitters to Almighty Allah, we have had enough of democracy and man-made law and the depravity of the British culture.

“On this day we will call for a complete upheaval of the British ruling system its members and legislature, and demand the full implementation of Shari’ah in Britain.”

Last quote, my personal fav…

Mr Choudary has said that under sharia law in Britain people who commit adultery would be stoned to death, adding that “anyone who becomes intoxicated by alcohol would be given 40 lashes in public”.

He has also mocked the deaths of British soldiers, and branded an Army homecoming parade a “vile parade of brutal murderers”.

The Islam4UK website is currently down. I’ll try to get in for an update later on.

30 astronomers think this 2007 picture (that they just finished compiling) shows us 2 colliding galaxies.

Hit the original article for a cool explanation that involves black holes and star-life-cycles.

My best guess as to why these galaxies started fighting?
They’re crabby.




–

Afterthought:

These star clusters may have formed as part of a loop of stretched material associated with the northern tail, or they may have formed from debris falling back onto the nucleus.

We use cardinal directions in space? That seems odd. Do we then add “up” and “down” to describe the 3rd dimension? This may require a follow-up post after reading, if someone can’t answer in the comments.

As promised, a roundup of the latest on the buzz surrounding Hollywood’s favorite rapist.

From the Horse’s Ass… er, Mouth:
We’ll start with the man himself. This gem of a quote from 1979 (right after he fled the country) resurfaced today. You see, he’s not a bad guy. Everyone likes little girls.

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

Uh, speak for yourself you sick bastard.

The Petition:
Z already covered the list of the morally challenged who signed this ridiculous petition. The only thing I’ll note is that child rape advocate Wes Anderson has a kids movie, The Adventures of the Fantastic Mr. Fox and his Quaaludes, coming out soon. So, probably avoid that.

Oh, Whoopi:
Whoopi Goldberg, T-Mobile Spokesman, tries to explain that Polanski didn’t really commit “Rape Rape” (no really, she did!) leading Jim Geraghty to suggest a new slogan, of sorts:

“Because in a head-to-head matchup against other phones, your product rapes the competition, but it doesn’t rape-rape the competition.

What if?
Over at ABC, a Jesuit priest reminds you that if it were Father Polanski that we were discussing, things would be different:

“Imagine if the Knights of Columbus decided to give an award to a pedophile priest who had fled the country to avoid prison,” Father Tom Reese, S.J., points out. “The outcry would be universal.”

A Rare Moment of Sanity:
Kirstie Alley wants to make sure that we know that not everyone is Hollywood is morally bankrupt. Noted.

R.I.P. Anne Applebaum’s Career:
Despicable Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum has apparently decided that career suicide is the way to go. Start here (or here) and follow the links for a round up of her reprehensible behavior.

The 3 second version: Her husband works for the Polish government and has lobbied on behalf of Polanski. She failed to disclose this conflict of interest, and instead of apologizing and moving on, she traded her spade for a steam shovel and just kept on digging.

Credit Where Credit is Due:
The commenters over at The Huffington Post aren’t buying it.

And… (is the world ending?) I agree with an editorial in the New York Times!

That’s as much as I can stomach for now.

OK, I admit, I knew that part before today. The part I did not know was that he pled guilty to said offense before fleeing the US.

Roman Polanski, for the blissfully uninformed, is a douchebag Hollywood director that has not been allowed in Hollywood since 1977, when he fled the country.

He was arrested in Switzerland the other day, and if there is any justice in the world will be extradited to the US ASAP. Predictably, the “Roman Polanski is a victim”, “Roman Polanski is a misunderstood genius”, and “Roman Polanski should not be held to account for raping a child because he is famous/talented” crowds have been out in full force since then.

If you are interested in the details of the story, Salon has them. But all you really need to know is the simple fact that Roman Polanski raped, drugged, and sodomized a 13 year old girl.

And the fact that we can’t get unanimous agreement that this worthless pile of shit should be rotting in prison instead of receiving lifetime achievement awards is a sad commentary on how far off track our society has become.

I guess this can happen:

It’s a half-red / half-green Golden Delicious off a farm in England.

Scientists and Fruit Experts are calling it a “million to one” “genetic mutation”.

I prefer to think it’s an apocalyptic sign, or a conspiracy of some type.

A freak dust storm turned the sky in Australia red this morning.

It faded to light orange as the day progressed.

Source Here