06 December 2011

Kepler 22b renamed: "Keptoo-toobe"




The recent discovery by astronomers of an extra-solar planet designated Kepler 22b comes just one year after a treasure trove of stars was unveiled by the space telescope Kepler at NASA.

“This is the biggest release of candidate planets that has ever happened,” said scientist William Borucki at that time.

NASA expected only 50% of these so-called alien candidates to actually turn out to be real planets.

Kepler 22b, almost two and a half times the size of the Earth, has not only been confirmed as a real planet after moving through its third rotation around its parent star, it is also the most interesting, the crown jewel of planet hunting.

”Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet," declared NASA scientist Dr Borucki. "The first transit was captured just three days after we declared the spacecraft operationally ready. We witnessed the defining third transit over the 2010 holiday season.”

But why was this the most ‘phenomenal discovery in the course of human history’ - ever - kept from the world for 18 months? 

Did the Vatican have something to do with it?

Will world religions fall?

After all the newly discovered Earth has been around long before God uttered the words that his chosen species would record in a book and pass down through the millenia: 'Let There Be Light.’

So that would have the Church in a right flap, right? 


The Kepler team came under fire by others in the science community last year for keeping 400 candidate exoplanets to themselves for later confirmation by other telescopes used by the same team. To confirm a ‘candidate’ three transit observations were required of the target star.

But if this was the ‘defining’ third transit, why was its discovery only mentioned… now?

Could the “2010” third transit be a reporting error? Or could there be another reason why NASA was slow to reveal to the world that this new world had been discovered?

That said, it would be very interesting to see a maths wiz work out the date of the first sighting, and the date of the second, which would give us the exact date of the ‘third event’.

So what has NASA been doing since that date?

NASA was stumped for a new name having tried a number of them - ’Earth Two‘ - nah. ’Vulcan’ - forget it! 'Borucki?' -  y’know the way it goes at NASA it's all up in the air…
And that is the reason why we have rushed to name the planet Keptoo-toobe.

Get it?'

 

 



05 December 2011

People Before Profit

George Hallam, an economist at Greenwich University, has been nominated as the London People Before Profit candidate in the forthcoming bye-election in Feltham and Heston. But can he do it?

The challenge by Mr Hallam follows the death of MP Alan Keen (Labour), who passed away this November aged seventy-three. Mr Keen had been ill with cancer for some time.

The London People Before Profit movement grew out of what was the former Lewisham People Before Profit (LPBP).

People Before Profit was set up, not by politicians, but by community campaigners in South London who were angry about Government and political leaders who simply put the interests of Big Business before community need.

The London People Before Profit Party brings together a broad group of people of varying political backgrounds who are united under one banner, the People‘s banner: Community Need Before Private Greed.

Such was the rush to meet the qualifying deadline for the bye-election that the London People Before Profit emblem was overlooked and so will not appear on the ballot paper.

However, as London People Before Profit spreads its message across the London boroughs, the choice of Hallam as its candidate looks set to cause election upset.

At Feltham and Heston, George Hallam will represent the only political party to support the 2 million public-sector workers on strike this week.

Simply known as ‘the candidate from nowhere’ Hallam is now gaining much ground, aided with the backing of local union branches and, due to a lack of coverage by the national media, via public engagement on blogs, Twitter and Email, together with Facebook. The message is clear: Hallam is the people’s choice.

But can George do it?

The bold move by Lewisham People Before Profit gives some Hounslow voters the chance to choose a candidate for London who may soon answer that question.

28 October 2011

Vincent Tabak: pornographic films featured women being choked.

Vincent Tabak may have graduated from 'observer to perpetrator' after watching pornographic films, before going on to strangle Jo Yeates, 'for his own sexual gratification' detectives have claimed.

The six-man and six-women jury in Joanna Yeates murder trial had been deliberating for thirteen hours and 36 minutes, before returning to Court One at Bristol Crown Court and finding the defendant, Vincent Tabak, guilty of murder.

As the verdict was delivered, Tabak immediately sat down and put his head in his hands.

Mr Justice Field began sentencing by telling the jury: "I think there was a sexual element to this killing."

Tabak is said to have held a collection of pornographic films featuring women being choked.

Contrary to his image as a devoted boyfriend, it can also be revealed that he sought out the company of prostitutes while on business trips to Newcastle and Los Angeles.

The judge lifted an order banning publication after the 10-2 guilty verdict.



Members of the Yeates family were in court to hear the verdict but showed little emotion.

Yeates's boyfriend, Greg Reardon, maintained his composure.

















19 October 2011

Linda Ann Weston: Abductor escaped prison

TheBigRetort: ringleader of a gang who kept mentally disabled people in cellar escaped jail term.

Linda Ann Weston, 51, was convicted in 1983 for keeping a man in a closet and starving him to death.

Although found guilty in the 1983 abduction and murder, Weston did not serve time in prison.

Venus Weston, younger sister of Linda, was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison. Linda the elder was ruled ‘incompetent to stand’. Even though the plot was originally hers.


A fact not picked up by the American media who continue to report: 'It is not known how long she served in prison.'

TheBigRetort exclusive....




18 October 2011

Linda Ann Weston shock: escaped prison first time round

Police in Philadelphia recently discovered four abused and vulnerable adults shackled together in a dank cellar where they were being held captive, with dogs for cell mates. Officers also discovered a teenage girl. Three people have been arrested. It has been widely claimed that one of the captors, Linda Ann Weston, 51, served time in prison for a similar crime. TheBigRetort… but she didn’t.

In November 1981, Bernado Ramos was reported missing by his mother.

His body was found in a closet two weeks later.

Linda Weston, 23, and Venus Weston, 21 his lover, were later charged and convicted with his captivity and murder.

Apparently Bernado had been the father of Venus’s child but refused to support it. It was his last mistake.

The Weston sisters had beat him with a broomstick and eventually starved him to death in the cupboard.

A remarkably similar modus operandi when compared with the current charges.

However, Linda Weston, now charged with abduction and enslavement in the more recent case, is said to have done time in 1983 for murder and imprisonment.

In fact, in one paper it was stated, “Before Philadelphia police found Linda Ann Weston with four disabled adults chained in her apartment cellar, before those same adults lived with her at a home in West Palm Beach, the 51-year-old woman had already done time for another horror in her closet: the death-by-starvation of her sister's lover.”

But Linda Weston did not ‘do time’ for the murder of Bernado Ramos: her sister did.

Venus Weston, the younger sister of Linda, was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison. Linda the elder was ruled ‘incompetent to stand’. Even though the plot was originally hers.

(See Herald Journal, October 18, 1983 for further reading.)



13 October 2011

Edgington: Mental health unit linked to previous double slaying

Edgington knife attack linked to previous double slaying at New Cross. TheBigRetort… exclusive.

An urgent probe by the NHS may wish to focus on the mental health unit where a knife attacker sought refuge, prior to going on a rampage that left one woman dead and another seriously injured.

The patient, Nicola Edgington, 31, was from the same mental health unit where a previous patient also went on to commit a frenzied knife attack that left two foreign students dead.

TheBigRetort previously revealed that Edgington had been ordered by a judge to be detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act after stabbing her mother to death in 2005 - but was conditionally discharged in 2009.

The 31-year-old recently admitted herself into Oxleas House in Woolwich, and fled the unit prior to her second and third attacks. Although a warning was put out by the unit to police, Edgington went on to stab one person to death and seriously injure another.

The probe might scrutinse the treatment offered to patients by the Oxleas unit and the conduct of its doctors because... it has happened before.

In 2008, Nigel Farmer appeared at the Old Bailey and was convicted, along with associate Dano Sonnex, of murdering students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez at a flat in Sterling Gardens, New Cross.

Farmer was a patient at the Oxleas Foundation Trust. He signed himself out of the unit a few weeks prior to committing his frenzied knife attack on Bonomo and Ferez. Mr Bonomo was stabbed 196 times, including almost 100 times in the back after he was already dead. Close friend Gabriel Ferez, also 23, suffered 47 stab wounds and "bore the burnt of the fire".

A spokesman for Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust confirmed that Edgington was a patient and that British health officials were conducting an investigation.

TheBigRetort can reveal that Oxleas Trust has failed to confirm if a link may have also existed between either patient. Or if any other related cases exist following admittance to the unit.













12 October 2011

Sally Hodkin: who is responsible, patient or state?

Sally Hodkin was on her way to work on Monday morning when she was murdered in a busy shopping street in south east London. Her assailant (pictured) is unable to appear in court due to "extreme" mental health problems. So who is really responsible for the death of Sally Hodkin?

TheBigRetort...

Sally Hodkin's assailant is Nicola Edgington, 31, of Ambedkar House, Flavell Mews, Greenwich, south east London. Edgington also attempted to murder 23-year-old Kerry Clark, who was attacked with a knife as she waited at a bus stop. However TheBigRetort can reveal that Nicola Edgington is unlikely to stand in a courtroom charged with the murder - ever. Because she has already been deemed in the past not guilty of murder due to diminished responsibility.

The recent attacks by Nicola Edgington were forewarned - and could have been prevented. In 2006, Edgington, then aged 26, admitted stabbing her mother to death in a frenzied attack. She struck on the eve of what was supposed to be a happy family reunion.
.
At her 60-year-old mother's home Marion had lived in fear of her own daughte. She had cut her out of her will. She was worried about her mental state.  A regular churchgoer, Marion chillingly predicted her own death - at the hands of her "wayward" daughter. Just days before being killed by Nicola  her mother wrote to social services stating: "She is the most unstable I have ever known her to be and for the longest period too."

Nicola Edgington was apparently angry at having a child taken into care. On the night of the killing she had been to a pub with her brother but had been thrown out because of her bizarre behaviour; which included doing karate chops and punches. Her brother noticed she had a notebook in which she had scribbled the names Bin Laden, George Bush and Reggie Kray. The court also heard that she had an obsession with a cousin who had also stabbed someone to death.

Once inside her mother's cottage in rural Forest Row, East Sussex, she attacked her with a knife. She stabbed Mrs Edgington nine times and left her body on the fold-up bed she slept in, with the bloodied knife lying on her chest.

Edgington, a schizophrenic, admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at Lewes Crown Court. She was ordered to be detained ‘indefinitely‘.

She was not... Yet again we see another person in need of care... in the community... one of a growing band of 'crazed' individuals who emerge on the streets - usually in the south east London region - and who  now looks set to be taken off the streets and out of the courts 'indefinitely': which is convenient for social services.

Nicola Edgington may have wielded the knife: but it is the state that is the real assassin.

24 September 2011

Are neutrinos faster than light? No, is the answer


Scientists have made the recent ‘discovery’ that neutrinos may travel faster than the speed of light. A short trip back in time may spread light on the findings. TheBigRetort…

Scientists at the Opera (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) experiment in Gran Sasso, Italy, found that beams of neutrinos sent to its detectors from Cern, 730km away in Geneva, arrived earlier than they should have. But TheBigRetort can report that the claim is not ‘evidence’ that the speed of light barrier has been broken, and with it the genius that was Albert Einstein, but a manifestation of events that link back in the stellar pages of time… here on Earth

Twenty-four years ago detectors in the US, Japan and Russia observed a burst of 24 neutrinos which originated from a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

About 2 hours later, an experienced New Zealand amateur astronomer observed the area of the supernova, but noted nothing unusual.

About 3 hours after the neutrino burst however, the first visible sign of a supernova was captured on a photograph taken at a telescope in Australia. It is known as Supernova 1987A.

What was then seen as curious is that the neutrinos arrived two to three hours earlier than the light from the star. Did this mean that the neutrinos had travelled faster than light?

No: it simply meant that the neutrinos had a head start.

The core of a massive star has enough gravity to squeeze the matter in it so tightly that protons and electrons combine to form neutrons. This transformation also produces an enormous number of neutrinos. The neutrinos are able to pass through the star’s outer layers and escape into space before the star shows any outward sign of trouble.

As far back as 1987, astronomers predicted that neutrinos from a supernova would arrive before its light.

Could this be why neutrinos appeared to travel faster than the speed of light in the earthbound experiment at CERN?

If so, Einstein can rest in a steady state.

[For further reading see Robert Bigelow. http://www.clarkplanetarium.org/blog/neutrinos-and-supernova-1987a]

25 August 2011

New Dutch film spells big opportunity for girl with English connection. TheBigRetort profiles rising star Pippa Allen.

Originally titled "Patatje Oorlog“ - “Patatje Wars” [War Fries] is based on the acclaimed book "A Little Chance" by Marjolijn Hof, and traces the lonely life of nine-year old Harriers (Pippa Allen) who constantly worries about her father, a doctor who has left home to work in a war zone. What if he gets a disease? What if he stands in the way of stray bullets? What if? Just a few of the fears that beset young Harriers on her angst-ridden journey towards an inevitable conclusion.

In order to reduce the risk that something bad may happen to her father Harriers journeys into the strangest corners of her mind.

Her fantasies are portrayed in stop-motion animation combined with live action; extraordinary for a Dutch film. It is due for later release with English subtitles - hence the title “War Fries“.

But what of that English connection?

Pippa, who is bilingual, was chosen for the role amidst thousands of Dutch hopefuls. Her grandparents live in Brockley, southeast London.

Rising starlet “Pip” is a regular visitor to their Manor Avenue house with father Paul and her equally talented brother Tommy, a gifted little comedian and break dancer.

War Fries is directed by Nicole van Kilsdonk (How do I survive Saddle Pain ).

In the roles of Harriers parents are Johnny de Mol and Rifka Lodeizen .

War Fries will premiere at the Cine Kids Festival in Amsterdam from the 12th-20th October, and is then intended for wider general release.



13 August 2011

London riots: Alcohol to blame?

A curious incident is said to have occurred during the Lewisham riots that may keep Government experts pondering for quite some time... the sale of alcohol. TheBigRetort exclusive...

The place: Brockley Cross, London SE4
The time: Just the other day actually

Durng the riots, a shopkeeper was unsurprised when he saw a young guy saunter in, lean down, and then pick up a four-pack of beer.

However, it  was what his 'usually friendly' and 'long time' customer then went on to say that left him totally 'stunned'.

"I'm taking these!"

"Oh," the shopkeeper responded with a smile as the guy headed for the door without paying, "do you want to open a tab?"

The young man looked back, paused for a minute, and then delivered his anarchic coup de guerre: "No. I'm taking them!  And there's nothing you can do about it!"

And with that he was gone.

 "The silly thing is he's been coming into my shop for years! And he'll be back!" the bemused shopkeeper opined.

10 August 2011

London Riots: More Smash-N-Grab

The riots in London and which also sporadically erupted around the country we now know had little if anything to do with politics or poverty. They were pre-Christmas smash-and-grab raids. 

Wondering into Lewisham shopping centre yesterday to offer our services towards the clean-up campaign we were surprised however to discover little in the way of the apocalyptic damage that was transmitted around the world over the previous evening’s news. The images that were recorded of Lewisham, usually from helicopters overhead, offered a zoom-lens view of the ‘riots’ as they happened - and a distorted one if ever.

In what were actually endless loop shots of the same events--buildings in flames, cars, and streets, ablaze-- this was (apparently) “Lewisham Burning“, and with it the end of life as we knew it.

Presented by this distant media the whole fabric of society had come apart like the seams on a badly fitting tuxedo. An apt description, the mobs seemed intent on bagging either a new pair of trainers, a tracksuit, or a mobile phone - and only the tuxedos were left on the racks. People were rightly cowering in fear... And the future Sarah Connor was set.

Be that as it may…

Remember that scene in Die Hard 4.0 where Bruce Willis is watching television in the streets showing the destruction of the Capitol building - only later to discover that it is really still standing? So too was Lewisham town centre…

We wandered the shopping area intent on searching out the 'aftermath' - and found very little sign of it. Blackheath Furniture & Electrical, Game, McDonalds, and a few more businesses with broken windows were the 'few' that greeted us. Other shops had been boarded up, but if this was due to the ’riot’ or to protect them from further damage is anyone's guess.

One thing was apparent… the mob had been somewhat selective...

The buildings chosen were not always 'establishment chains’ - as in the case of Blackheath Furniture - but the common factor was that they did sell electronic goods. Only McDonalds and Boots stood out as oddities. Perhaps the pre-and-teenage mob (the P&Ts) was hungry after its shopping spree and in need of medication to continue to the next beleaguered town centre and so could not finish its work. Perhaps it was due to police intervention.  

According to online forum and neighbourhood blog Brockley Central, (brockleycentral.blogspot.com) the lack of devastation was due to the council and its teams working through the night to turn the damage visited by this zombie tribe away from Lewisham town centre and towards others,  a policy apparently commenced by the police service itself which stood shoulder-to-shoulder to defend the walls of the citadel.

But on closer examination are things quite as they seem?

It was the aftermath of what was essentially a pre-Christmas shopping spree by a generation of feral youths. the ages of the perpetrators for the most part are said to reach from the nines into the teens. Is it any wonder that it is this age group that has very little to fear from the strong arm of the law that 'failed' to defend the streets?

This zombie army is usually (and has been for some time now, say two generations) untouched by the law and the regulatory parenting on which much of society is thankfully formed. Instead, revealing a liberal view on parenting gone awry, shops, nurseries, water sports centres (Southwark), libraries - everything but the mosques and Turkish restaurants--were closed down. This action followed the advice of a police service handcuffed and harangued by the present government on many levels and  largely employed to ensure that honest citizens may go about their day-to-day business 'freely'. It was not to be.

In fact, ironically, the only persons making 'honest' money that day were the police - and an overtime bill that will pay off many police  mortgages was due to (unstoppable) crime. And on 9/8 - a day that will go down in infamy.

The uncivil liberties taken by the few outweigh those of the many. Now, a few feral children, who should have been 'cuffed' a long time ago if not that night, have awoken our society - and for the better. But for the honest men and women who were so bowed by these events that they reacted by shutting up shop and bolting themselves into homes and buildings that had been turned into their prisons it would be mistaken for a sick joke.

But: close up shop at 1pm - why, we hear you ask.

UK Plc is in enough trouble and nearly on its knees.  Apparently it seems to have been the residents in Eltham who stood alongside each other in white T-shirts seeing off the braying babes and thereby displaying the might of the Big Society. That's the right to bare your arms in the streets, Prime Minister.

Back in Lewisham most of the shops had followed police “advice” and at 1pm exactly had closed up and boarded their windows against the oncoming ‘zombie yoof’.

The fishmonger in Lewisham was very annoyed. He was going to lose most of the day’s trade. He confided that he could not take many knocks like that in the current economic climate. However, police job done, it must be said, the oxygen of the economy had been cut off from the infected Zombie Yoof and it returned to its dark pit awaiting the full shelves of another day rather than a new moon under which to croon.

As we wondered home to the leafy conservation area of Brockley, towing a bag of fish and muscles for the evening meal and for which we paid plenty, it was not a sign of devastation that greeted us that day: but total capitulation.

Londoners, having fought off the air raids of a Nazi enemy some seventy years earlier--on the advice of what was once a mighty police ‘force’-- had given in to a marauding and rabid bunch of foetuses. Forget a virus insidiously turning ordinary folk into raving lunatics, the virus is amongst us and we are already infected. It's called government; and it has turned the streets over to the hooded zombies. But it should be noted that this capitulation of our streets and shops was not itself a total eclipse.

At Brockley Cross a few die-hards, those who felt they were beyond approach (or threat perhaps?) stayed open; Tickle Me Take-away; Nats Bake, the Brockley Barge pub, Costcutter, and, thankfully--in our case at least--the Orchard Bar & Kitchen in Harefield Road.

The latter had a surreal air about it as we sauntered past later with the dog. It was as if it was one of few buildings left standing (open) in post apocalyptic Lewisham. Almost like the last chance saloon, people sat inside-and-out oblivious to the police sirens, which are quite usual for an area with the largest police station in Europe, and the helicopters, which are not. The patrons, Guardianistas perhaps, were sipping beers and wines and seemingly enjoying themselves as they tucked into the cuisine - without a care in the world.

It was of course both a welcome and illusory sight...

This was after all Lewisham post 9/8. The Night of the Foetuses was their Dunkirk and the patrons we understand were meeting this young anarchic enemy at the beer pump, if not the beaches.

Police warning aside, this courageous stand was much to do with the owner Edmund. ”Ed“ who obviously listened to police advice, promptly ignored it. It was after all only the “opinion“ of a police service that was once a "force" and would itself earn quite a crust that day, whilst keeping its long arms quietly folded. An action for which Ed and many a taxpayer will surely meet the cost. And yet Ed, with a remarkable resemblance to Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds, made his stand that day; together with a few other stalwarts. This is a courage that will be recognised long after the little enemy has retired to its cot nappy sopping wet after a day at the windows. Where were you they may one day ask each other.

This “scum”, as they were repeatedly labelled on southeast London online forum Brockley Central, would eventually get its just 'rewards'. Most of the BC participants, a few them regulars, had little doubt what should be done with the feral perpetrators. One Lou Baker said., “Let the dogs on these pathetic little chavs.” Whilst Anonymous one of many) said, “Scum of thee (sic) earth!” Ken said, “Lewisham High street is a complete no go area - AVOID AT ALL COSTS - cars are on fire and the place looks like a zombie apocalypse.” More to the point, Elsa said, “The youth of the Middle East rose up for democracy. The youth of London rise up for Nike trainers, flat screen TVs and mobile phones.”

Lou Baker, who apparently lives on a nearby mount displayed an apparent and customary lack of diplomacy and added later: “These chavs must be stopped. Let's shoot them.” It was not meant as a joke. The “chavs” and “scum”, captured in the stocks of a southeast London online forum, will, when captured, be summarily executed. [Founded by Nick Barron of Edelman, Brockley Central claimed 16,000 hits that day, some from overseas parents concerned about their children at Goldsmiths College.]

Only… in the civilised world this will not happen and the process of asking what went wrong will take place. The past of course will be dug up and previous governments will be blamed. However, the warning signs have long been buried… and in classrooms around the nation old canes might just be taken out of teachers’ closets, dusted down, and make a familiar swishing sound known only to a few.

"Shame," we hear someone in nearby Telegraph Hill say, “Just shoot them!” But that’s just one of a growing band of Lous out there.




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