Obama steps up the drones: Breaking news

Pakistani leaders have protested that the country's sovereignty has been violated by the US following a series of drone strikes that have left 17 militants killed in the country's northwest tribal region.


All of Monday's strikes were in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border.
The attacks display to militants and the Pakistani government that President Barak Obama will not hold back when it comes to tracking down the enemy in a capture or kill policy that is more about the killing.

'Wanted dead, that's the policy at the Whitehouse now,' a Washington insider informed TheBigRetort.

Strauss-Kahn CASE: Breaking news

The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Khan, is due to appear in a New York court for his arraignment, and has insisted he is innocent of the charges

Defence team member claims evidence undermines procecution.

William W Taylor, on behalf of Mr Straus-Kahn, has written that there is evidence to "gravely undermine the credibility of the complainant in this case".


Mr Strauss-Kahn faces charges of sexual assault and attempting to rape a hotel maid last month.


It will be his first appearance in court since he was released on bail set at $6m (£3.65m).

Al-Qaida, antimatter weapons and the positron bomb

An international team at the CERN institute in Switzerland has managed to create 300 atoms of "anti-hydrogen" and stop them from collapsing into oblivion for a grand total of almost 17 minutes. Five thousand times longer than they had previously achieved. The research, published in the journal Nature Physics, represents a landmark in one of the most potentially profound areas of science. However, it also awakens  the spectre of an antimatter weapon so destructive that it may herald the end of every living creature on the planet. Be that as it may… TheBigRetort

Is an antimatter weapon a giant leap closer for humanity? Antimatter was created in the laboratory for the first time last November. Long the preserve of science fiction writers, in Dan Brown’s bestseller Angels & Demons a tiny device with the destructive power of a nuclear warhead hinges on a plot to blow up the Vatican, it has often been dismissed as alarmist by the scientific community.  That was until we happened to take a look at the 'What Ifs' out there.

The antimatter bomb of science fiction brings with it hysterical concerns that the long-term potentials of such a weapon are being downplayed in order to preserve a devastating and deadly secret: that scientists can now build a positron bomb.

CERN scientists claimed today that it is feasible to maintain the atoms for as long as a couple of hours in suspension. The atoms are the opposite of normal atoms, consisting of negatively-charged protons and positively-charged electrons. If they come into contact with normal atoms they are mutually annihilated.

Howver, the technology needed to contain antimatter in sufficient quantities for it to be a useful weapon has always stood in the way of a such a device being used as a powerful weapon and is deemed unlikely in the lifetime of our soalr system. However, in theory, the advantage of such a weapon is that antimatter and matter collisions would convert a larger fraction of the weapon's mass into explosive energy than that of a fusion reaction in a hydrogen bomb say.

I am become death the destroyer.

“A positron weapon would leave behind no nuclear residue, and would be devastating if it fell into the hands of terrorists,“ one particle physicist informed us. He asked not to be named. “The problem has always been the ability to store positrons for long periods of time, a significant technical and scientific difficulty."

But that was then... What now?”

Apparently, with the recent news that CERN has managed to contain antimatter for 16 minutes, having previously claimed that there was ‘no possibility’ to manufacture antimatter bombs due to not being able to accumulate enough of it at high enough density, concerns are being raised.

Should science continue further? 

It is believed by some that scientists, not just at CERN, are secretly working to find a more efficient means of storing the antimatter and releasing its energy - thereby creating an antimatter weapon of devastating force.

Or so it is claimed in conspiracy circles...

Scientists at CERN scoff at such allegations. All the antimatter made at CERN, if annihilated with matter, would only have enough energy to light a single electric light bulb for a few minutes they claim.

But what if scientists at CERN, like those scientists who worked on the atomic bomb, wanted to keep a devestating secret? 

What we think we know…

The only ‘known’ technologies for producing antimatter currently is the particle accelerator which are considered to be highly inefficient and expensive. In fact, it is publicly claimed that it will take two billions of years to make an equivalent of the current typical hydrogen bomb at the current production rate of antimatter. But now that CERN scientists have upped the ‘anti’ what then?

Unfortunately the additional problem is the containment of antimatter. Antimatter annihilates with regular matter on contact, so it would be necessary to prevent contact, for example by producing antimatter in the form of solid charged or magnetized particles, and suspending them in a near perfect vacuum. Enter CERN and its super collider where particles are regularly smashed together at enormous speeds. The process is very slow and enormously time-consuming making the production of a weapon that could tear the earth apart - could it?- as extremely unlikely.

But what of space ‘out there’ our 'deepthroat' physicist asks. “Outer space is a gigantic super-conducting super-collider, a near-perfect- vacuum, that has been working for billions of years with all sorts of exotic materials.” 

Perhaps though al-Qaida may not have to wait such a very long to time or go so far before it gets its hands on such a weapon. TheBigRetort can reveal that a recent Patent that we uncovered suggests that the clock is ticking on the creation of  antimatter bomb. It follows research into the production of thermal antineutrons and antiprotons.

Because we believe it should be classified, and has slipped through the security net, we have removed the author' details. The patent is for a method for obtaining free thermal antineutrons by ‘trapping the neutrons' and producing 'antiprotons‘. The background of the invention claims priority to previous applications dating back to 2004, and to which we have also declined to publish further detail. The invention disclosure relates to ‘a new method for the direct production of thermal antineutrons and thermal antiprotons from thermal neutrons‘.

In terrorists' hands?

The theory predicts that a neutron that is cold enough to be contained by the interior walls of a suitable vessel may oscillate into an antineutron ‘without violating any quantum conservation laws‘. The applicants demonstrate that the art in this disclosure represents the first reduction of neutron-antineutron oscillation theory into practice. And if it fell into terrorists' hands it would spell the end for us all.

In the previous disclosure, the applicants referenced neutron-antineutron oscillation only as ‘a theoretical possibility‘.  In other words, once the a population of neutrinos is trapped, approximately 50% exists in the antineutron state at any subsequent time.

But what if the theory became fact?

The patent goes on to state... The resultant beta decay radiation has a characteristic half-life of 10.25 minutes as the previous patent disclosure demonstrates. The trapped antineutrons decay by positron decay. Positrons are electrons with a positive electrical charge; in other words anti-electrons.

Positrons are distinguishable from beta particles because they will annihilate with electrons. In fact, the applicants' research demonstrates that these annihilation energy emissions exhibit a 10.25-minute decay half-life. This is the same half-life as the trapped neutrons demonstrated in the previous disclosure. The accepted half-life of a free neutron is 10.25 minutes. Antineutrons, presumably, also have a 10.25-minute half-life. In words put simple… one manifestation of this invention is a process that easily and economically converts free thermal neutrons into free thermal antineutrons. These antineutrons may decay to positrons, antiprotons, and neutrinos. The antiprotons thus produced have low thermal energy. A method that is described as ’new art‘ by the inventors. They add, “The ability of neutrons to undergo this conversion is a heretofore-undemonstrated prediction of theoretical physics. “

If the trapping of the antineutrons is ‘new art‘ then the ‘current art‘ permits collection and storage of thermal neutrons but not the trapping and storage of antineutrons. Now this has suddenlly changed...

Another manifestation of the invention is what the scientists describe as ‘fullerene containing a trapped antiproton‘. The possibility that neutrons may oscillate into antineutrons is a prediction of grand unification models in gauge field theories. As long as the electrostatic charge of a neutron is identically zero, this oscillation violates no quantum conservation law. It does violate one experimental "law," the conservation of baryon number. However there is no theoretical basis for this "law." And no published peer-reviewed observations violate it.

The deep energy well

The scientific paper goes on to reveal that a ‘deep energy well’ exists at the centre of this  fullerene molecule. Following a complicated process, to our thinking at least, the patent applicants' believe this same mechanism traps simple hydrogen, and tritium in the centre of fullerene molecules. Like neutrons, they are all electro-statically neutral and they all have magnetic fields. “The applicants are unaware of any other art that can produce a uniform beam of high-energy neutrons and antineutrons.”

A ’deep energy well‘… what can this mean?

Is it actually now possible to form a beam of fullerene molecules containing trapped neutrons and antineutrons in a particle accelerator, such as that used at CERN? Once the accelerator forms the beam, it can ‘direct the beam ‘- into a cataclysmic power.

Antiprotons provide a variety of propulsion options for vehicles as diverse as submarines, aircraft, and spacecraft and so have positive contributions to make beyond weaponry. The potential power or thrust per pound is literally many orders of magnitude greater than current art chemical propellants and even current art nuclear propulsion technology can deliver. But, and this should not be understated, a uniform beam of neutrons and antineutrons at energies above those available in natural nuclear reactions can now be turned into a weapon of true ‘mass’ destruction.

TheBigRetort, having uncovered this shocking paper, hopes that the patent is removed - immediately.

[Editor nore. Due to the sensitive nature of this information we have not provided full details in this article.]

Germany Sprouts Ecoli: Nein not Sicks

German diners may be both relieved and concerned that the recent E.coli outbreak may have been narrowed down to a single suspect - sprouts. TheBigRetort asks, were the warning bells ringing a decade prior to the recent outbreak?

If German sprouts do turn out to be the culprit responsible for 22 deaths (and climbing) German health watchdogs, may find it prudent to further examine a scientific paper that presaged such an event - over a decade ago.

The paper, which was published in January 1998 and was researched by a number of Japanese scientists, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases amongst them.

The group, using cultivation, immunofluorescence microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy, demonstrated the presence of viable enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 not only on the outer surfaces but also in the inner tissues and stomata of cotyledons of radish sprouts grown from seeds experimentally and contaminated with the bacterium.

HgCl2 treatment of the outer surface of the hypocotyl did not kill the contaminating bacteria. Recommendation emphasized the importance of either using seeds free from E. coli O157:H7 in the production of radish sprouts 'or heating the sprouts before they are eaten'.

In other words... cook it hot.  Or, in the German vernacular, 'nein' not 'sicks'.

Cheryl Cole: American X Factor

Have we been subjected to the S-factor? With reports in the Daily Mail that Cheryl Cole has been invited back on board X-Factor USA one wonders if the whole thingy was a complete set-up - masterminded by non other than that Svengali of the Tabs Lord Cowall of Hollywood.

One can but wonder how the sheeple out there fall for Simon Cowell's shenanigins.

But my how that angst-ridden look that Cheryl Cole seems to have perfected this week really hacks us off.

Is this the same woman who subjected wannabe hopefuls in Britain to her ‘professional’ judgement on that dreadful show that deserves no further mention?  We mean... the X Factor. (Break that one down like this, X-F-Actor, and add the seven missing  letters accordingly to the "F".)

There is nothing worse than a young woman, now a multimillionaire, beautiful yes, and spoon-fed success too, collapsing at the first signs of personal failure.

Don’t have her back Simon!

TheBigRetort: Failure is good. Success sucks.

Gaddafi welcomed UN Terror Council Intervention... in 2009

My how the sands of time 'flies' for dictators. It was after all only two years ago that Muammar Gaddafi, marking the 40th anniversary of the revolution which brought him to power, three weeks later addressed the 64th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York. TheBigRetort...

Since the world body was founded in 1945, the Libyan dictator opined, it had ‘failed’ to prevent or intervene in dozens of wars around the world. "It should not be called the Security Council, it should be called the "terror council," he said.

He claimed that sixty-five ‘aggressive wars’ had taken place without any collective action by the United Nations to prevent them...

Now, with the writing on the walls of his Bedouin tent, and intervention in his own internecine war growing daily, he must rue those words.

Failure this time around the UN terror council tells him, is not an option.

Strauss-Kahn: Who he really?

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is he?

It has been claimed that Dominique Strauss-Kahn (note the hyphenated surname) is the well-to-do son of Gilbert and Jacqueline Strauss-Kahn...?

Be that as it may, TheBigRetort can reveal in a recent genealogical trawl of birth records... no such named individuals can be found. It is almost as Mr Strauss-Kahn is sans verifiable famille. 

No reports appear in a Google press search with regards to this nobodies' boy prior to 1991. Could there be a glitch in the Google time machinery? Is it because his real name is actually Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt?

TheBigRetort can reveal that he may be neither a Strauss-Kahn nor a Casonova, just simply a "Kahn" - or some other? - in which case the American authorities should be equally interested.

An inconsistency in the defendant's  pedigree may prove embarrassing to his defence team, and to the French electorate.

Watch this space....  

Union Leader's Phone Hacked: Transcript

A transcript of a message left on the mobile phone of Bob Crow reveals for the first time that the Union leader has been hacked... by the News of the World.

Forwarded to us by the Metropolitan Police, it reads:

CROW: "Nobby here. Leave a message." [Beep.]

THE BIG RETORT: "Hello, Mr Crow. Is it true that you are England's number one striker?"

Christopher Jefferies? Vincent Tabak? YES, IT COULD BE YOU!

Will there, one wonders, be any quarry stone left unturned with the public‘s right to know - in a dwindling band of countries abbreviated to the first letter - the surname of a person suspected of a crime?

‘Landlord, Dutchman, presumed innocent - until such time as a jury has fully deliberated - we hereby sentence you…err, with just one sentence.’

If there were ever any ethical rules in journalism then the Joanna Yeates murder suspects’ show trial suggests they may need a little spit and polish.

The recent grotesque phenomenon of national newspapers falling over themselves to name names does not have its beginnings in the McCarthy era, no sir. It is a new brand of ‘netfluenced’ journalism, the kind where the guilt or innocence of a suspect - or even the near bystander for that matter - are now so often deliberated on internet crime forums that democracies the world over no longer have control over what was once fondly termed a fair trial by peers. And national newspapers are tripping over dead bodies to beat them too, M‘lud!

In many of these armchair crime sites (where one’s peers’ sit in judgement of the privacy and rights of the citizen reduced to suspect) ‘presumed‘ innocent in the eyes of the law is one legal sentence that caves under the weight of a very common gossip.

Now, in the 21st Century, it is ‘online‘ inside unseen walls that the rights of the individual are hung, drawn and quartered in the stocks of cyberspace for all just men (and women) to mock, and they do so salaciously and with impunity.

One of the more bookish of such sites is websleuths.com. Here, internet detectives - some may call them ghouls - ponder over the likely guilt of an array of citizenry; whose only crime - in many instances it must be said - is to be unfortunate enough to be in close proximity to an equally unfortunate cadaver. Dirty fingernails? Blue rinse? Sinister smile? Yer guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

In fact these web-based anonymous finger pointers, whose postings are usually over the verge of libellous, indicate a need for a new breed of lawyer, one employed solely to defend the accused who stands in a cyber courtroom of innuendo: Rumpole of the old global computing network be upstanding in court!

In fact, if this does not happen soon the job will be left to web-based sleuths whose ‘brief’ seems to be to argue, not the beyond a shadow of a doubt guilt, but the hunch. And so anyone found guilty may be executed. But only in cyberspace, Your Honour!

We have all entered a digital age when a suspect will forever be held in penury in the gossipy walls of prison internet. We must all beware. We may all be upstanding in court.

The statin fad: F-forget A-anger and D-depression

When TheBigRetort conducted an investigation into the increased use of statins in its office diet, it came up with a forgetful medical profession, and one possibly - how shall we put this? - in denial.

Having heard that the use of statins may bring possible side effects in some users we asked a number of doctors if the drug was all it was cracked out to be.  Here, for the first time, is our explosive retort. And it is not for the faint hearted.

Me: Doctor, I keep forgetting things. I wonder... could it have anything to do with... these statins you've had me on?

Doctor: (smirking): I've never heard that before. What utter nonsense!

Me: Really?

Doctor: (laughing) Complete!

Me: (Pause) How about these bloody aches and pains I've been getting!!

Doctor: No need to be so aggressive.

Me: Sorry, it's the Statins.

Doctor: (smirking): Never heard such a silly suggestion since I started medicine last week. Statins making you aggressive - won't wash with the judge.

Me: I am a bit depressed of late too. I wonder, could it be...?

Doctor: Surely you're not blaming the Statins for your glass being half full, man! (Rolling about laughing.) I've never heard such rubbish! Stop being miserable, pull yourself together, and keep taking the stats! You'll live forever. Methuselah took 'em!

Me: What's the use of living forever if you don't remember who you are?

Doctor:  Surely you're not blaming the Statins for your memory loss too! Next you'll be telling me that the Statin advice leaflet actually says that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 100 patients  may get the following possible side effects: headache, stomach pain, constipation, feeling sick, muscle pain,  feeling weak, and or dizziness?

Me: Err... it does.

Doctor: Rubbish! Neither is there an additional 'rare' side effect that may affect between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10,0000 patients!  Muscle damage! Severe allergic reaction! Inflamed Pancreas! Increase in liver enzymes in the blood! All tosh!. Next you'll be claiming that Statins also have very rare - possible - side effects in one in 10,000 patients.

(There's a thought... He has ten thousand patients which is probably why I have to book an appointment three years in advance.)

Me: But it says so in the, err, leaflet?

Doctor: What leaflet?

Me: The leaflet you have to read before taking the drug...?

Doctor: I haven't read the leaflet. Too busy. But others come here complaining of jaundice, hepatitis, numbness - tosh I say to that! I've no time for reading leaflets. I'm too busy being invited to seminars, in hot countries, with lovely sandy beaches, and five star hotels, drinks on tap, all paid for by the Statin manufacturers.

Me: Err, doctor..?

Doctor: Yes?

Me: Why am I here?

Jo Yeates: Dutch suspect's new life in England

VINCENT TABAK

The new suspect arrested following the murder of Joanna Yeates wrote of starting a new life in England.

Thirty-two year-old Vincent Tabak was born to the son of Gerald and Sonja Tabak in 1978 in Veghel in the neighborhood of Eindhoven.

In 1996 he studied at the faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

He graduated in 2003 from the group Design Systems obtaining the degree of Master of Science.

He worked as a people flow analyst for Buro Happold, a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy in Bath.

The five-year thesis he completed in 2008 was dedicated to his friends, his extended family (via his sisters), girlfriend, and his father who died following an 'ongoing struggle with illness'. His son wrote in acknowledgement of his passing: ‘I miss you and regret that you are not able to see the end result of my PhD.’

After completing his PhD, in 2008, Vincent started what he termed his 'new life in England'.