The Wow Signal explored

Somewhere in the cosmos a tiny blue planet receives an alien signal. A researcher writes "Wow!" Nearly forty years lapse. It quickly passes into legend and UFO lore. TheBigRetort investigates a mix of signals.

(Picture. The View at Hilly Fields. Copyright (c) TheBigRetort.)

In August 1977, a researcher with SETI - Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence - claims to have noted an unusual signal that is said (by some) to have emanated from a far-flung civilisation somewhere in the cosmos. The "Wow Signal" has entered the global lexicon but it was never authenticated and there is still to this day much debate about its alien credentials. Be that as it may...

TheBigRetort notes an infinite number of details that have expunged the down-to-earth facts in the telling and retelling of this interstellar tale, which makes it all really - rather - curiously... human.

'Curious' in that the computer printout contains a handwritten date; 'rather' in that it may have been inserted at a later date; and, 'human' in so many down-to-earth ways that the gravity of it all weighed so heavily that it caused us to pause and turn our telescope into a microscope. Why we wondered is there a lack of contemporaneous reporting of the discovery.

At that time, August 1977, the national press in the United States and the worldwide press appear to have been kept in the dark about the Wow Signal. Press recordings following the alleged discovery are absent, or even dismissive, too. Ohio State University publicly stated (twenty-nine days later?): “So far, several years of detection, have recorded no such listening, have detected no such identifiable signal, according to Dr Dixon’s latest report on his results.” (The Morning Record and Journal, Sep, 13, 1977.)

It appeared that 'Dr Dixon', the head of SETI, didn’t know what the ears were hearing. (Yes, technically it was the eyes that were doing the hearing.)

But why did Jerry Ehman, the researcher who wrote "Wow" on the computer printout, or SETI head Dixon, and other ‘listeners‘, consider the discovery not then worthy of any public notification?

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SETI [http://history.nasa.gov/SP-419/sp419.htm.] edited by Philip Morrison, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, John Billingham and John Wolfe, NASA Ames Research Center, is worth scrutiny. Under the heading “NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Scientific and Technical Information Office, (1977), it states: [Para 8] “The first authentic signals will attract intense headline attention.”

Clearly, as the signal as curiously grown in strength anyway - we use 'in strength' as a metaphor - we ask why this would be so if it has not been authenticated - ever.

Perhaps because it has been stylishly promoted by SETI as a 'possible' signal from outer space.

Which of course leads one to ask a number of questions: at which date was the Wow Signal publicly reported? in which publication? and by whom?

One would have thought, following this statement and publication (presumably before Ehman’s Wow Signal discovery of August of that same year?) that the report would have been updated to include the Wow Signal. Why was it not included in an update?

Could the answer be that the Wow ‘discovery’ was never accepted in the first instance as authentic by anyone at SETI?

If so, why has it been apparently inserted into the history books at a much later date than the discovery was made?

[The report also goes on to state: “In addition to on-going radioastronomical observations, there have been several deliberate attempts to detect signals of extraterrestrial intelligent origin, all with negative results." [185] COMPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT 8 RADIO FREQUENCY INTERFERENCE. SP-419 SETI: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence [229] COMPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT 12 SEARCHES TO DATE. [231]. ]

America likes to dream. It is the dream that led it into a nation of can-do-ers. It is that dream that moved it towards a United states and on towards building the mightiest nation on the planet. It is the same dream that put American boots on a planet we call the moon, a seemingly impossible task, then and now. It was also that dream that moved Americans to attempt what President Kennedy termed ‘all the other things’.

Did SETI foster belief in an alien dream in order that it could do the 'all the other things'? To do these other things did it need a signal from outer space? Did it attempt this by passing off the possibility of first contact? Did it know that the signal was of the earth, or near it?

The Saratogo Herald Tribune (23 Oct 1977) confirms the following: “ALTHOUGH their requirements for the initial program [a]re modest, the SETI scientists do have one priority - protection for the band of frequencies at which they want to observe. There is beginning to be completion for this band by planners of advanced navigation satellites, above others. Such satellites would broadcast so much noise they would ruin any search for extra-terrestrial signals, the SETI report warns. The band runs from 1400 to 1727 mega hertz.” The newspaper report also noted that it would ‘take international agreement to protect this band‘. An agreement that could not be sought until 1979 - at the earliest. [http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=tC0eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Sb4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=1249,1022864&dq=seti&hl=en]

Perhaps the reports authors’ realised that the search up to that point and slightly beyond had been compromised. Therefore, SETI was, despite what its proponents now say - prior to any international agreement being in place - severely compromised by infringements into its bandwidth; certainly at the date of the Wow‘ Signal’s recording and (later?) discovery. Presumably the reason why its scientists were desperate to protect the galactic watering hole - apparently 1400 to 1727 mega hertz - around which all technological interstellar civilisations are said to gather (but have so far failed to do so). It should be further noted that the newspaper was published over two months after the alleged discovery of the Wow Signal - which itself remained unreported.

Unreported until much later… Not many SETI disciples realise it but there have been two Wow signals. It all began when, in 1956, a 26-year-old scientist named Frank Drake pointed a 25ft radio telescope at the Pleiades star cluster, 440 light years from Earth. He saw two spikes on the read-out that shouldn’t have been there. “It was a wow moment,” Drake, now a large, grandfatherly, pleasantly ironic individual, tells me. “I remember feeling a very strange emotion… it was the feeling, ‘Wow, this looks like an intelligent signal, there’s the evidence.’ The whole world is going to change.” [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7050554.ece]

In fact, whilst the date the Wow was reported is a bit of a mystery - do you know? - did the Times reporter name the wrong discoverer, and date? Did he mean Jerry Ehman, and 1977? Why were two potential alien signals - decades apart - coincidentally carrying the preface “Wow!”? (Why not Gosh or Golly?) Coincidence, or what?

Lack of ‘same time’ verification and coincidences apart, and news of the greatest discovery of all time to one side, even if the Wow Signal had been reported at that time in some obscure publication somewhere on planet-E, SETI itself was severely compromised by the lack of an international (or national for that matter) agreement to protect its bandwidth.

Additionally, if we accept Jerry Ehman’s August 1977 discovery date at face value we still cannot possibly accept it being contemporaneous - it isn‘t. In fact, recorded on the 15th August 1977, noticed (at some point later) by Ehman, handwritten date (?) from the computer of the unmanned telescope written on it, ignored by the press (or kept from the press?), how extra special, extra terrestrial, extra whatever, did that make the SETI Wow?

Coming soon in TheBigRetort… The Wow Signal: Not that extra?

New planet discovered

A science paper predicts that a nearby red-star system known as Gliese 581 is the likely candidate for an extrasolar habitable world. Two years on, the alien world is indeed discovered. TheBigRetort

The recent discovery of another pale-blue spot in space, which is currently circling a 'nearby' star system known as Gliese 581, has created a bit of a stir on planet Earth. But the real value is in how it was actually 'encountered'.

In fact as far back as two years ago physicists Rhett Zollinger and John Armstrong addressed the ‘possible’ existence of an undetected lower mass planet inside the Gliese 581 star’s Habitable Zone; due to what the two termed ‘the dynamical stability evolution of the system‘.

The pair compared studies of the three known planets in the Gliese 581 system.

Of these two of the three known planets 'C 'and 'D’ were located at the edges of what is euphemistically called the Goldilocks Zone. That's the zone where water is likely to be found - and therefore a habitable 'Goldilocks' - zone.

However, and what is even more interesting, Zollinger and Armstrong penned their paper two years before the planet was discovered - and in that same Goldilocks Zone. “Thus, Gliese 581 remains a good candidate for future detection of habitable Earth-mass planets," they wrote.

So, possible names? Zollarm. Zollstron.

The Apprentice: Sir Alan knuckles under

Sir Alan Sugar may feel even he has gone a bit too far if he hires former Marine Christopher Farrell. TheBigRetort lifts the lid on the Knuckleduster Sniper.

Styling himself as ‘a former marine’, Christopher Farrell pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing an offensive weapon when he appeared at Plymouth Crown Court some years back.

When arrested Farrell was found to possess an extendable baton and a knuckleduster in his car - and was later branded a liar by the Judge.

Prosecutor Paul Frost said that around 6.30pm on February 3, police acting on a phone call visited Farrell's home and waited for him to arrive. His wife claimed he had hit her with the knuckleduster, drawing blood.

They searched Farrell's blue Mercedes for weapons. They found an extendable baton and a knucklesduster.

Farrell, then 28, told police they were there "trinkets" from his days in the force.

The former Marine had bought the baton in the USA and the knuckleduster in 2001 in Afghanistan, but claimed he had never used either. (Come on, in Afghanistan!)

Judge Francis Gilbert QC made it clear that he did not accept Farrell's explanation.

The beating of his wife with a knuckleduster brought no official complaint, and Farrell was not prosecuted.

In mitigation the court heard he was an ex-Royal Marine who had been bought out of his partnership as a financial services adviser and was about to start a new job. (Probably on the telly!)

Judge Gilbert said: "I don't believe your explanation that this was a convenient place to store trinkets, or that you never used them. Your wife complained that you hit her when you lost your temper." He ordered him to pay full prosecution costs and conditionally discharged Farrell for two years, warning him that he risked jail in future.

Sir Allan: You son are a muppit! You're---
Director: --Watch out, Srallan, what's that in his hand!--
Sir Allan: --Err, you're...hired...?

Kepler: The truth is out there

Many scientists in the United States and worldwide are furious that the space agency NASA has apparently allowed a small body of Kepler scientists to sit on data that may confirm if another Earth-like planet lies within 'lens' reach of our solar system. (That's anywhere light years away.) But could the leaking of the discovery made by the Kepler scientists be due to a simple glitch in the machine?

It has been argued that more time was needed for Kepler scientists to confirm the discovery of over 140 Earth-like exoplanets. Apparently the 'yearly' transits of these planets needed to be confirmed by additional research, an investigation that would, under Earth-like circumstances, take three years.

Apparently it takes our planet one whole year to go around the sun and back again.

It takes three such years then to confirm the findings?

Not so. Dimitar Sasselov, an investigator with the Kepler group itself - accidentally on purpose? - released some of the findings to a special audience at Oxford, England. It was Sassilov that suggested that over 140 Earth-like 'candidates' had been detected by the Kepler Telescope - which even before all the science is done is pretty Earth shattering.

And so the scientific community went supernova.

Sasselov and his team estimate that there are over 100 million planets that are 'Earth-like'.

We are not alone.

We are not so special after all.

But could the 'Sasselov gaff' really conceal a hidden agenda on a tiny pale dot?

The Kepler mission's ultimate goal is (i) to find Earth-size planets, (ii) at the right distances from their parent stars - which does not mean the same distance as Earth is from its star by the way - and, iii) at a distance where liquid water makes them a potential abode for life as Jim knows it.

But does that mean that we will have to wait three years to confirm the three transits of a planet in order for it to be considered Earth-like?

Well no...

'Earth-like planets' simply lie inside the habitable zones of their parent star. The habitable zone is the area where liquid water will be present - which just happens to be the distance where we are in relation to our sun. Please note though that other worlds do not have to be the same distance from their suns as planet Earth is from its sun. Most, if not all of these planets, will probably circle their stars in months and not years... and so the reason for the wait is that damned glitch.

The task of confirming these 'candidates' has been made extremely difficult due to faulty light detectors on the telescope. The problem was made known prior to the launch. And that's the real reason why the Kepler announcement on the planets' discovery was pushed back to February 2011. Not to give scientists a chance to study and publish: but to tweak. And the real reason why Dr Sasselov was allowed to speak about some of the discoveries is that the Kepler Team will be best placed to pip other scientists to the post by drip-feeding news of each batch of Earth-like 'candidates' as and when each glitch in the telescope is fixed. QED.

Professor Joan Ginther: Do the numbers add up?

A Texan aged 63 has won at scratch-off card games every two years since 2006. In 1993 she also won a lottery bringing her total winnings to over $20m. Which is amazingly coincidental. But what if a seemingly ordinary person somehow managed to narrow the odds and beat the system, goddamnit? An American newspaper might say slim pickin's. TheBigRetort says...

Joan Rae Ginther’s luck began in 1993, when she won $5.4 million dollars on a game known as “Lotto Texas“.

Another win thirteen years later in 2006 netted her $2m.

Curiously, every two years since that date, she has won at scratch off games, two cards having been bought at her local store.

In 1993 she won $5.4 million; the odds: 1 in 15.8 million; in 2006 she won $2 million in a scratch off game; the odds: 1 in 1,028,338; in 2008 she won $3 million in a scratch off; odds: 1 in 909,000.

Her latest win in 2010, also a scratch off, was for $10 million; odds of winning: 1 in 1,200,000.

In fact experts contend that the odds of winning four lottery jackpots are about 200 million to one.

Only, what if she was a person good with numbers? What if a person good with numbers targeted a specific store to purchase a scratch card? What if... an investigation by TheBigRetort revealed that Joan "Rae" Ginther was a professor of maths - a former job she has not declared.

Ginther, a maths professor (something she has kept unduly quiet about) visited the store that sold an average of 1,000 tickets a day...

What would a math's professor visiting a store (in another state where her dad had died) want to know? How many tickets had been purchased? How many winning tickets? How big were the wins? What were the winning numbers over the, err, past 22 months say? Once the professor had all of the answers, which may take two years of doing the maths, then it's scratch off time. And another big win for Joan.

TheBigRetort pips Associated Press to the post on this one. [View link above, and compare the dates.]

Venables Prejudged: A government cover-up

Could Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, be involved in a gigantic cover-up? If so, he's going down... and not just in the eyes of the voter.

TheBigRetort has uncovered evidence which may suggest that the recent furore over the new identity of Jon Venables may be designed solely to conceal the possibility that he has ALREADY been convicted. of a serious offence involving children long before it was announced.

Just think it through for a minute....

Venables is amongst one of four people in Britain protected by what are termed ‘Mary Bell’ injunctions.

Bell was convicted of the manslaughter of two boys in 1968 and given anonymity after her release.

The recipients receive lifetime protection of their real identities.

It was recently reported in the Daily Mail that a ‘tight-knit group alone knows the new identity of Jon Venables. It operates in a culture of ‘extreme secrecy’, so even the arresting officers may not have known who they had in their cells. However, theBigRetort believes that fears that the recall could see Venables’ new identity being discovered and his life threatened because of fellow prisoners' suspicions about special treatment, is purely a smokescreen – designed to assist the Government in a gigantic cover-up.

What if Jon Venables has in fact ALREADY been tried and convicted under his new alias? What if he was ALREADY languishing inside a British prison when he was in fact ‘recalled under licence’ by a Justice Minister eager to catch up with a forgotten man?

Thought police aside, as our old mother would say, if true... it is quite an elaborate charade.

Could it be that Justice Minister Jack Straw, along with the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, hopes that a smokescreen of excessive secrecy surrounding the ‘recent arrest’ will buy the Labour government time?

Once it discovered Venables conviction (not arrest) it must have quickly moved to close down the ever watchful media.

If the serious allegations against Mr Venables can be dealt with AFTER a General Election it is highly likely that a voter backlash can be avoided, and Labour may be left to increase the secrecy once more.

Be that as it may (or may not) be...

It is likely that, if an arrest and conviction did take place - long before the Government announcement - the Government itself may not have known until after the new conviction was sealed: due to the excessive secrecy the Government imposed on Venables' new identity in the first place.

Confused?... you should be.

This would indicate serious failings within the probation service itself and with the government’s obsession in doling out new identities to violent offenders in search of a new life.

But, is it an obsession which allows Government to hoodwink the British public and justice too?

The questions that must be answered before a General Election...

Venables was already in prison LONG before he was recalled under licence… but why?

Why?

Coming soon in theBigRetort... secrets, lies, and spin.

Deslandes: The Police and Black-on-Black Crime

The Sun newspaper and Operation Trident. TheBigRetort discovers the (black) gangland shootout that never was.

On the 1st January 2010, at approximately 5am, following a New Year’s celebration at a family owned pub, Darren Deslandes, a 34-year old housing officer, was shot dead by a black assailant. (His younger brother “junior” still lays critically injured in hospital fighting for life.) "Wild West-style shootout,” the Sun proclaimed in bold writing, with the usual nodding unspoken emphasis to the scum involved. [Sun report, since removed, http://tinyurl.com/yjb82y4.] Or so a lazy staff reporter intimated…

Far from being gun-wielding, drug dealing black street thugs, Darren Deslandes and his brother Junior were only armed with a good education and a loving family, one that had provided foster care for nine children. In fact Darren and Junior were (if anything) plucked out of the air by one piece of prima fascia 'evidence' that stands out on a three-pronged fork: they were black. And as a result guilty in the eyes of the law.

Apparently, hours into a new decade, the armed officers from the Met Police’s black-on-black gun crime task force Operation Trident were quickly on the scene. (Trident’s involvement may be found to be the root – should that be ‘route’? - of the later erroneous newspaper copy.) But the officers must have had their views coloured by what greeted them that night... A black assailant had fled the crime scene leaving Darren and Junior Deslandes dying from a hail of bullets. However, curiously, the two victims were immediately treated as “suspects” - a view supported by the Sun. But with one gun, and one single ‘assailant’, how could this be?

Surrounded by armed police, death and coma quickly stalked the Deslandes pair – along with that lazy journalist. The Sun informed its readership that one brother was dead and the other critical following the ‘gun battle’. [Emphasis added.] But with only one gun - and one perpetrator, who had fled the scene according to witnesses, how could there have been a 'gun battle'? The Sun also had “witnesses” (unnamed) who claimed they had actually seen the “two men” who "simply drew guns" (plural) and who “started firing at each other after a heated row”.

"These two guys just appeared in the street and started shooting at each other,” the Sun's witnesses negatively enthused. "God knows what it was about but it must have been serious if they thought the only way it could be settled was to shoot each other." [Emphasis to underline that no one knew what it was about or why they should shoot ‘each other’? And neither did the Sun.]

The Deslandes brothers had done no such thing. Darren died, Junior slipped into a coma, reputations tarnished, guilt etched on their black, bloodied bodies - and across the Sun newspaper too. How could this be was a question rightly asked.

However, the anger of the family and friends of the Deslandes brothers does not solely focus on the Sun’s reporting. It is rightly seeking both an apology and a correction for that. Remarkably however, it is claimed that the Operation Trident officers did not intervene to save the brothers due to what were termed, ‘health and safety issues’. They were denied medical attention for half an hour. Officers apparently blocked the ambulance crew from attending in case the pair was armed. One 13 year-old brother was taken into custody and questioned at length. According to a family friend, “They seemed eager to establish a drug or gangster link.”

But there was none.

In the Deslandes pub however the Sun newspaper was read and Operation Trident’s consent to police the streets - it polices London with what it terms ‘the consent of the black community’- was one that the family endorsed. But would the Deslandes brothers have been treated differently if Trident took a less three-pronged fork-tongued approach to what is a black-and-white certainty? Gone are the days when the police may investigate themselves.

David Cameron injects Botox: Official

In a remarkable hush-hush scoop TheBigRetort has discovered that David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, regularly injects Botox in his forehead. (Chuckle.)

The hope is that voters at the forthcoming general election will be hooked...?

In which case the Old Etonian Toff has ironed out the wrinkles on an otherwise furrowed brow and transformed 'hisself into the Peter Pan of British no-policy politics. (Or is that the Peter Pan of English Botox?)

Gordon Brown stop smiling on the way to the polls.

Immortality: secret uncorked

The secret to living a longer life, or just a load of plonk? TheBigRetort pulls the cork...

Scientists claim that sirtuins, proteins, become increasingly important as people age. It is these proteins that ensure which genes should be “off” - and thereby remain silent as the ageing process continues.

Paradoxically it is these same proteins that are believed to repair DNA damage as we age. The critical protein controls which genes are off and on as well as overseeing DNA repair - and there’s the rub. As we age, chromosomes get damaged and the SIR1 proteins are finally overwhelmed. It is this activity that leads to the process of aging, not time itself which moves on inexorably, unconcerned by birthdays and mankind his or herself.

But can the aging process itself be slowed?

Scientists are beginning to suspect so; mice with more SIRT1 proteins have the improved ability to repair their DNA and prevent the unwanted changes in genes.

Resveratrol extended the lifespan in mice by 24 to 46 percent.

Remarkably previous studies have shown that Resveratrol, a chemical found primarily in red wine, helps activate the SIRT1 protein. The chemical reduces the degenerative diseases associated with the aging process (such as Alzheimer’s), and certain cancers could also be treated.

Unfortunately researchers claim that it is too early for people to start taking Resveratrol, but a glass of red wine at dinner is recommended. The question is, will we get old drinking it?

The Large Hadron Collider: Is it safe?

A controversial experiment is planned to take place tomorrow that may signal THE END of the Earth. But could experiments like the controversial Large Hadron Collider (LHC) already have taken place? TheBigRetort investigates...and discovers that someone may have got the 'maths' wrong.

The LHC Safety Study Group studied the safety of the forthcoming experiment in 2003. It concluded that the planned experiments—there are a number of them--presented no danger.

The group focused on two phenomena, namely the possible production of microscopic black holes, the sort that suck you in and blow you out and create additional dimensions of space, which way is up?- and also postulated other exotic phenomena - the possible production of ‘strangelets', hypothetical pieces of matter. The LHC will reproduce, in the laboratory and under controlled conditions, collisions at centre-of-mass energies less than those reached in the atmosphere by some of the cosmic rays that have been bombarding the Earth for billions of years.

The ‘stability’ of these astronomical bodies indicates that such collisions cannot be dangerous.

The study also considered other hypothetical objects, vacuum bubbles, magnetic monopoles, and found ‘no associated risks’. Indeed, if anything like a microscopic black hole is produced at the LHC then it is expected to decay before it reaches the detector walls.

In the case of strangelets, their production in heavy-ion collisions will also present no danger.

In fact the LHC experiment is nothing new as far as nature is itself concerned. The energy created inside the accelerator is still far below those created in the Universe.

High-energy cosmic rays have bombarded the earth since its creation.

The LHC accelerator is designed to collide pairs of protons and pairs of lead nuclei. But their combined energies will still be far below those of the highest-energy cosmic-ray collisions that are observed regularly on Earth.

The LHC is designed to collide two counter-rotating beams of protons or heavy ions. When the LHC attains its design collision rate, it will produce about a billion proton-proton collisions per second in each of the major detectors. It will produce the equivalent of 116 days of collisions. So if the experiment where to run in this time frame, and they have got their sums wrong, life as we know it could all be over - in four months.

Fortunately nature has already conducted the equivalent of about a hundred thousand LHC experimental programmes on Earth already – and the planet still exists.

It has also conducted the same experiment on the Sun about one billion times – and the Sun still exists. Moreover, our Milky Way galaxy contains countless stars with sizes similar to our Sun, and there are countless similar galaxies in the visible Universe. Cosmic rays have been hitting all these stars at rates similar to collisions with our own Sun. This means that Nature has already completed what the LHC sets out to do tomorrow - only more cheaply. But there is one slight fly in the ointment that the safety experts seemed to have missed, and it's cosmic. i

What we see of our solar system and the Milky Way Galaxy, plus the galaxies beyond is already history.In other words, if Nature,or some 'thing' else, has created a similar experiment, then we may not yet see the catastrophic results painted on to the backdrop of our night skies. In fact,the nearest star system at Alpha Centauri lies some 4. 2 light years away. In other words, if a black hole sucked it up yesterday we would not witness its disappearance until after the 2012 Olympics. A sobering thought.

Michael's Ashes: The response

Recently we delivered a startling account of the major failings of Eastbourne District General Hospital and its 'aftercare' treatment... of a dead man. Michael Morgan, 51, died in December last and was swiftly cremated on the instruction of hospital officials at 'EDGH': but without the family's knowledge. Following which, they asked for the ashes. Not much to ask given the circumstances one might think, however... it was a request that met with silence. Now, finally, the family has received a response, and it looks as if someone may have removed one of the branches of its family tree. An exclusive from TheBigRetort

In "Michael's Ashes" we highlighted the failings of East Sussex NHS Trust and its 'dead patient aftercare'... which was found to be a bit wanting.

When Michael Morgan died and his family discovered the death and cremation (nearly three months later and only via a chance encounter) Kim Hodgson, chief executive of East Sussex Trust, immediately went into emergency mode. She 'disowned' the family from the former patient claiming that it was not entitled to any further information about his treatment.

Kim Hodgson came to the job as chief executive amidst some controversy. We also saw huge parallels between the treatment of Michael's grieving family at the hands of seemingly uncaring bureaucrats to Ms Hodgson's own loss some time back of a pet dog called Blue.

The dog was stolen and (also) held to ransom and never returned. (We do not want to see that happen with Michael... Or his ashes at least.)

Various newspapers picked up on the piece which not only presented the family's plight but shone a light on East Sussex Trust itself. Following a series of catastrophic and sloppy blunders it failed to demonstrate its attempts to inform Michael's family of his death and later cremation.

Ms Hodgson is also responsible for the overall performance of the executive functions at East Sussex NHS Trust. The 'Accountable Officer', it is her job is to ensure that the Trust discharges its obligations such as patient care and aftercare -or so one might hope.

Instead, Ms Hodgson, presumably advised by expensive lawyers - at a considerable cost to the NHS - has previously ignored repeated requests by the family to hand over the ashes. So why the Dibben statement now?

Could it be the Healthcare Commission investigation? Or MP Joan Ruddock who has also taken an interest? Or the publicity? Whatever the reason, and the plot thickens day by day, if Michael's family had hoped to get a sympathetic ear - along with the answers in this sordid tale - it has now been quashed with Irene Dibben's response.

But Dibben's inability to follow her remit through 'effective communication' and also to 'appraise' her chief executive's actions should be noted.

In what must rank as a great understatement and salt-rubbing of wounds statement, Dibben wrote in her letter that she was aware that the response may cause the family 'further distress'.

Hello all brain cells! If it was a comedy they would be rolling in the aisles. But it's not, it's a tragedy.

So, cover up or cock up? You choose.

Coming soon in TheBigRetort.... We 'Deep Clean' East Sussex NHS Trust.

Barack Obama: Why he should be president

As the child of a black man and white woman Barack Obama is often (simply) referred to as 'black'. A description that will one day serve to display a time of ignorance - because Barack Obama is much much more.

"There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America," Obama once wrote.

However, note in the above paragraph from his book The Audacity of Hope that there is no capital letter on black and white. In fact, neither is a nation, and neither is a culture. Obama, born between the two, has already made the journey and knows this. And, although many in the US have leaned heavily on 'skin' difference for quite some time this presidential candidate - if elected - would help a young nation recognise that any 'difference' between them is countered by that which unites: America.

Meanwhile, in 2008, a fledgling nation stands at the crossroads. A presidential candidate, born in the racial melting pot of Hawaii, with a half Indonesian sister, a brother in-law and niece of Chinese descent, with blood relatives who resemble Margaret Thatcher, and others who could pass for Bernie Mac?

America: you decide.

But before you do: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

GoDaddy: the Odd Bob or two, and the Clickfraud Scandal

Around the globe the words 'domain' and 'cash parking' are synonymous with GoDaddy. So why are 70% of the reviews on the first page of Google so negative? TheBigRetort investigates... and finds the odd Bob or two. (Pictured left, Bob Parsnips, founder GoDaddy.)

Google GoDaddy along with Cashparking and it quickly becomes evident that all is not well in Elsinore. (That's Denmark for all our American readers.) Indeed... the praise once heaped on the largest domain name registrar in the world has now turned to opprobrium. There is a pestilence in the land and many a brave knight quickly stirs abroad, to other domains. (Oops. We quote a writer of plays born over here.) What we mean is, here's just one of many critiques...

"I like GoDaddy.com and I admire Bob Parsons, his 'bigger than life' personality and panache reflecting on GoDaddy, so it’s not personal, it’s business," one disgruntled critic wrote. He had invested in the GoDaddy Cashparking scheme but when he saw the cash disappear he realised something was not quite right. He was concerned by the lack of 'plain words' in GoDaddy's terms of service, such as the 'other similar methods' in relation to what type of traffic GoDaddy 'allowed'. A definition that could accommodate virtually anything; and was meant to.

GoDaddy's pays out in three monthly cycles and this can lead to abuse of the cashparking system - by the registrar itself. In the above case several thousand dollars had accumulated but was destined to remain in GoDaddy's deep pockets. The advertising revenue was invalidated by GoDaddy - 'siezed'. Or so he alleged. His advice: avoid Godaddy Cash Parking.

But can uncertainty be part of a Bob Parsons masterplan to even greater wealth?

After all, Parsons can recall his war service years with such startling clarity - thirty years on - that such an accusation must fail to impress. Here's just a few snippets of what the founder of GoDaddy has posted about his 'days' in Vietnam.

"I can remember arriving on that hill in the middle of nowhere. The night prior, the squad I was newly assigned to had been ambushed and most of them were killed. It wasn’t that moment I got afraid. Later that night I sat on this wall of an old French fort and looked into this valley and thought – this is it…I’m going to die here and I accepted that and from then on I was OK.... From the next day on, my only goal and I mean my only goal, was to simply make it to mail call. I figured that I would take small steps, tie them together, and it would get me to the finish line and that thought is what I use today to make GODADDY successful – simply get to the next day."

So that's it, in a nutshell... Or is it?

Bob Parsons enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 1968. He arrived in Vietnam, in his words, 'by late February 1969'. However, Delta Company rosters record that "Parsons, Bob, R" commenced his tour of duty at the 1st January 1969 - seven weeks before the date he claims. 

On February 22, four Delta Co marines were indeed killed and six more wounded.

If the rosters are correct then the 5-week stint followed a rather inactive period for Delta Company: and for Bob.

The events are said to have influenced Bob's life forever. He was apparently later medically evacuated from Hill 190 after being wounded at Quang Nam - in the buttocks - five weeks after arriving there.  Or should that be five weeks after he claims he arrived there?

Bob Parsons is unlikely to screw up his dates so there is probably another explanation for the discrepancy. The Delta Co. Marines killed in the vicinity of Hill 190 that day were, Woodrow W. Adams; LCpl. Michael Cruse; Cpl. Edward Gum and Cpl. Robert W. Topham, Jr. See "History of Delta 1/26" by Tom Howard at delta126.org for a full account. The Command Chronologies of 1st Battalion 26th Marines date from August 1966 to March 1970. [They are not available for the month that Parsons claims he was there.]

But TheBigRetort ventures too far into the enemy's paddy fields, on what is essentially a dark night, so back to domain basics.

TheBigRetort's first article in the GoDaddy Series was last seen comfortably sitting on the second page of Google, which is not too bad for a tiny English blog more accustomed to rocking the boat in Dear Old Blighty than across the Pond in the Americas (where it is also read).

But now, according to a recent Google search, it is almost rubbing shoulders with GoDaddy itself.

No mean feat...

In the words of SEO guru David Viney in his book Get to the top on Google:

"84% of searchers never make it past the bottom of page two of search engine results. Just think about this for a moment. Imagine the web is one giant city, with stores scattered through it. Having your site in the top 10 is like having your store right on Main Street or near the entrance of the largest shopping mall in human history. Being outside the top 20 is like having a corner store on the outskirts of town."

But first, a gentle reminder from our sponsor...

Our previous expose revealed that GoDaddy founder B-O-B  P-A-R-S-O-N-S (the marine with the ring) pocketed $1.6 million in advertising revenue from parked pages - it beats working for a living - and many of the domains belonged to people who had purchased them from the Baltimore Bully himself. 

GoDaddy offered the opportunity for one and all to share in its revenue success via its new CashParking scheme - at a price, naturally.  TheBigRetort snook a little look at what Daddy was up to: and was not that impressed.

"Earn up to 80% of ad revenue" boasted its CashParking Plan. GoDaddy keeps the other 20%. Oh, and don't forget... you must also pay for the right to use the CashParking plan too.  Does the phrase MONEY FOR OLD DOMAINS spring to mind?

When TheBigRetort invested in the scheme the revenue generated from its rather sizeable portfolio remained no more than a trickle. And what cash did come our way suddenly - and inexplicably - disappeared. The domains had done a Houdini. Alongside approximately $20 that also vanished from the CashParking account. We decided to find out what had happened.

It usually takes GoDaddy's Sales & Support team 24 hours to respond to queries - even though the company boasts a '24/7' 'support, getting anwers from its media office and the 'Office of the President' were equally problematic, and 'vague'. We wondered if the PR department at GoDaddy was working overtime to 'bury' a certain story that had been hovering on Google's page two... until it moved up the Google ranks. (It's now in the top ten.)

To recap... GoDaddy previously accrued $1.6 million in advertising revenue from 'parked' domains: for itself.  It did not share this revenue with its customers. TheBigRetort wanted a few nuggets of wisdom from Bob Parsons himself. We wanted to know if any other customers were as lucky as he.

We also wanted to know what had happened to two domains and $20; GoDaddy initially claimed that the two domains were 'both correctly pointing' at its cash parking nameservers; only to add later 'But the domain names are set up to forward to external URLs. In order for these domains to properly resolve to the cash parking account, the forwarding will need to be removed.'

Double-Dutch. However, when GoDaddy then responded (eventually) that this was not in fact the real problem we wondered if we could smell 'vagueness'.

The two domains it transpired had been completely removed. GoDaddy was suddenly threatening to close down 'the entire' Cash Parking account. It explained why: "These determinations are not made based on the amount of traffic that comes to your domains. The amount of impressions to your domain(s) is not a determining factor by GoDaddy or Google. It is not permitted for you to routinely click on your own links in the Cash Parking system."

'Routinely click'? 'On our own links'? Apparently CashParking is designed to share the revenue generated on domains based on (i) Accidental Traffic; mistypes, etc., or, (ii) Residual Traffic; domains that have undergone a change of ownership. This usually happens when a registrant forgets to renew, and then the person who lifts the domain steals his traffic; which is a rather astonishing and immoral concept.

GoDaddy was confidently stating that it was okay to earn money out of other people making typing errors - accidental traffic - or by 'passing off' as the longstanding owner of a previous site.

Although many punters believe that the 'residual' traffic becomes theirs by default this is not always the case. Some purchasers suddenly encounter empty space with no old links to the domain name.

Surprisingly, with the above lofty ideal, GoDaddy Cash Parking does not allow the intentional generation of traffic to any of your domains via a link for instance (even with a warning) - so there appears to be very little way of gaining any income from the cash parking scheme. Something GoDaddy does not immediately point out at the point of purchase. (It's buried somewhere in its terms and conditions; the small print.)

Indeed TheBigRetort has so far concluded that much of GoDaddy's cashparking 'revenue' is based on the naivety of the purchaser (its customers), and is also  one-sided.

Conveniently allegations of clickfraud, often unsubstantiated, lead to expulsion; with retention by GODADDY of the revenue raised.

But what domains had been 'routinely clicked' in our portfolio and by whom?

"The most common problem leading to a determination such as this is the Click Through Rate (CTR), or the percentage of clicks vs. total impressions to your domain. This is a fairly accurate way to determine if the behavior of the impressions to your domain is consistent with what Google would determine as "natural behavior". We find that natural human traffic will result in Click Through Rates (CTR) of no more than 40% on sites with more than 1 or 2 visitors. CTR's significantly or consistently higher than that are usually indicative of incentivized clicks, click groups, or software programs designed to simulate click traffic."

What 'click groups'? Could we see a report?

"We are unable to provide full reports on the statistics that caused these traffic patterns. Unnatural traffic is defined as traffic that any given domain may see when not advertised, or targeted. Normal traffic does not generally cause the amounts of traffic we see on your domain name, thus is considered to be unnatural and provoked. Residual Traffic tends to taper off after a period of time where as incidental traffic traditionally does not have high click through rates. In this instance the domain does not fit into either category as the traffic appears to be steady and excessively high."

Twenty dollars...?

According to GoDaddy rival competitors can also click on a competitors ads in order to undermine his or her campaign and exhaust their budget.

In addition, you may not generate traffic to your website or Go Daddy's links by any 'listings on newsgroups, bulk e-mailing, icq postings, chatroom postings, iframes, zero pixel frames, hitbots, clickbots, spiders, cgi-scripts, JavaScript, click farms or any other similar method'.

So, no advertising at all - which means no BIG bucks.

"This includes clicking on your own links. As a result, your Cash Parking service has been permanently suspended. Our regulations are in line with those of Google. As Google will not be providing revenue to us for what has been deemed to be unnatural traffic, we will not have any revenue to share with you."

But hadn't Google already paid GoDaddy a bundle of cash?

We attempted to open a dialogue with Bob Parsons, ex-marine, founder of Godaddy and its chairman. We wanted to know how he managed to make $1.6 million from cashparking... and we also wanted a copy of the report in order that we could conduct our own investigation into the 'click fraud scandal'. But it wasn't that easy. GODADDY responded:

"Please be aware that our founder and CEO, Mr. Parsons, is extremely busy with his vast array of duties and thus is not able to personally reply to emails sent to our office given the amount of correspondence. As you may already know our President and COO is Mr. Adelman. Mr. Adelman reviews all messages delivered to this address; due to the volume he is unable to reply personally. However, at his discretion he may opt to do so or add to the comments of our office." It added, "Unfortunately for security purposes we cannot discuss the methods used to monitor this traffic, and this includes the information found on the domain names in question."

Sent to Guantanamo; without trial. Beaten by the 'evidence'. The GoDaddy jury had finally reached its verdict; however vague. Meanwhile, in the Cashparking pages themselves, the message could not have been more clear: "Domains not allowed due to fraudulent activity".

 

 

Coming soon... TheBigRetort.com