Donald Trump Is Being Foisted Upon Us by the Media Because of "Premature Ecalculation" (Meaningless Poll Data), says Jon Stewart.

Stewart took on the media obsession with Donald Trump last night ('America's favorite Styrofoam-haired landlord') and his completely un-serious presidential aspirations. The Daily Show host wondered aloud why "they have to put Trump on every show, spewing the craziest stuff he can think of". The answer, according to the mainstream media, is that Trump has relatively decent poll numbers- but only because news shows keep giving him a platform for his bizarre views. And then, of course, there's the fact that polls conducted at this point in the election cycle are totally meaningless. As Stewart puts it, Trump is being foisted upon us because of "premature ecalculation."

Mass hysteria- Latin for you?

Science world buzzing over rumours of the elusive 'God particle' having finally been found.

The world's largest atom smasher is rumoured to have found the Higgs boson, the subatomic particle otherwise known as the 'God particle'.

The speculation is based on a leaked internal note, said to be from physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 17 mile-long particle accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland.

The rumours started when an anonymous post disclosed part of the note on Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit's blog, Not Even Wrong.

Awestruck: An amateur photographer takes a picture during an open day at the 7 mile-long LHC atom smasher in Switzerland

While some physicists are dismissing the note as a hoax, others say the find could be a huge particle physics breakthrough in understanding the workings of the universe.

Physicist Sheldon Stone of Syracuse University said: 'If it were to be real, it would be really exciting.'

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The Higgs boson is predicted to exist by the particle physics theory known as the Standard Model. The Higgs boson, physicists believe, bestows mass on all the other particles and was crucial to forming the cosmos after the Big Bang. It has long eluded physicists who believe it could explain why objects have mass.

Breakthrough: An LHC image of a Higgs boson decaying into two jets of hadrons and two electrons

Discovery: The Collider Detector at Fermi lab is currently home to particle accelerator Tevatron

Huge atom smashers — like the LHC and the Tevatron, at Fermilab in Illinois — have long been searching for the Higgs and other subatomic matter.

These accelerators slam particles together at enormous speeds, generating a shower of other particles.

The leaked note suggests that the LHC's ATLAS particle-detection experiment may have picked up a signature of the elusive Higgs.

The signal is consistent, in mass and other characteristics, with what the Higgs is expected to produce, according to the note.

Pictured: The accelerator tunnel of the Tevatron. Scientists have been analysing a 'bump' in the smasher's data that could reveal a new force of nature

Some other aspects of the signal, however, don't match predictions.

Mr Stone said: 'Its production rate is much higher than that expected for the Higgs boson in the Standard Model.'

The signal may be evidence of some other particle, Mr Stone said, adding: 'Which in some sense would be even more interesting, or it could be the result of new physics beyond the Standard Model.'

He pointed out that the note is not an official result of the ATLAS research team, so speculation about its validity or implications, therefore, may be a little premature.

Mr Stone said: 'It is actually quite illegitimate and unscientific to talk publicly about internal collaboration material before it is approved.

'So this "result" is not a result until the collaboration officially releases it.'

Nerve centre: Scientists have been analysing the bump data for more than a year at the main Tevatron control room

Other researchers joined Mr Stone in urging patience and caution before getting too excited about the possible discovery, Fox News reports.

Caltech physicist Sean Carroll said: 'Don't worry, Higgs boson! I would never spread scurrilous rumours about you. Unlike some people.'

Some researchers have already been casting doubt on the possible detection.

Tommaso Dorigo, a particle physicist at Fermilab and CERN, which operates the LHC thinks the signal is false and will fade upon closer inspection.

Mr Dorigo points out, for example, that scientists at Fermilab didn't see the Higgs signal in their Tevatron data, which covered similar ground as the ATLAS experiment.

He feels strongly enough to put his money where his mouth is.

Vast: The actual Tevatron is buried underground at the site in Illinois

Mr Dorigo said: 'I bet $1,000 with whomever has a name and a reputation in particle physics (this is a necessary specification, because I need to be sure that the person taking the bet will honour it) that the signal is not due to Higgs boson decays.

'I am willing to bet that this is no new particle. Clear enough?'

The rumours follow the buzz earlier this month from Tevatron over the discovery of a new elementary particle that caused a stir within the physics community.

Nigel Lockyer, director of Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, TRIUMF, said: 'My personal judgement is that this excitement is adding fuel to the fire for the next generation of results and discoveries that will be made at the LHC (in Europe) and elsewhere.

'We are so close to learning something profound.'

LHC TO BE WORLD'S ONLY ACCELERATOR PROBING 'BUILDING BLOCKS OF LIFE'

The Tevatron accelerator in Fermilab in Illinois in the U.S. will shut down in September, leaving just the LHC running, although their physicists will continue to gather data over the next nine months.

The Tevatron was the world's largest particle accelerator until the recent completion of the 17-mile Large Hadron Collider on the French-Swiss border.

Particle accelerators are used by physicists to study the smallest known particles - the fundamental building blocks of all things.

Such discoveries will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.

These include the existence of anti-matter and the Higgs boson - a hypothetical particle that scientists think gives mass to other particles and therefore all objects in the universe.

At the LHC, two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' - either protons or lead ions - travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap.

Physicists at Tevatron and the LHC recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy.

Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

The Tevatron was once the most powerful machine in the world for atom smashing until 2008 when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) became operational at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, known by the acronym CERN.

The U.S. machine began its work in the mid-1980s, and is scheduled for shutdown later this year when its funding runs dry.

Whether some parts will be used in other experiments or whether it will end up as part of a science exhibition is currently being decided by a committee, according to sources.

The structure of the atom was discovered early in the 20th Century. Scientists found that the atom was made of smaller pieces called subatomic particles -- most notably the proton, neutron, and electron.

However, experiments conducted in the second half of the 20th Century with atom smashers revealed that the subatomic structure of the atom was much more complex.

Particle accelerators can take a particle, such as an electron, speed it up to near the speed of light, collide it with an atom and thereby discover its internal parts.

Unconscious civilizations become totalitarian wastelands.

A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of a totalitarian state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and party workers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of masters and serfs.

Teachers are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at fast food restaurants. We spurn real teachers- those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential- and replace them with instructors who teach narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is my point. Education has become a fraud in itself. It works no better than a deregulated financial system.

Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don't want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare them for clerical jobs. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts- those who march to the beat of their own drum- are weeded out.

Up until very recently, the principal of a college was something like the conductor of an orchestra: a person who had deep experience and knowledge of the part and place of every member and every instrument. But now we have learnt to produce instant principals who model themselves after CEOs. How is this kind of thing even legal? What quality of leader needs a 'leadership academy' which these ignorant principals now attend? What kind of society would allow such people to run their children's colleges? The high-stakes tests may be worthless as pedagogy but they are a brilliant mechanism for undermining the education system and to instill fear. There is something grotesque about the fact the education reform is being led not by educators but by financers and speculators and religious blockheads."

Good teachers, under assault from every direction, are fleeing the profession. How does the country expect to retain dignified, trained professionals under the hostility of current conditions? I suspect that the hedge fund managers behind our new education system- whose primary concern is certainly not education- are delighted to replace real teachers with poorly trained instructors. To truly teach is to instill the values and knowledge which promote the common good and protect a society from the folly of historical amnesia. The utilitarian, corporate ideology embraced by the system of standardized tests and leadership academies has no time for the nuances and moral ambiguities inherent in a liberal arts education. It advocates personal enrichment and profit as the sole aim of human existence. And those who do not conform are pushed aside.

"It is extremely dispiriting to realize that you are in effect lying to these kids by insinuating that this diet of reading programs and standardized tests are preparing them for anything," said a teacher, who fears reprisal from administrators if they knew he was speaking out. "It is even more dispiriting to know that your livelihood depends increasingly on maintaining this lie. You have to ask yourself why the hedge fund managers got suddenly so interested in the education of the state? The main purpose of the testing craze is not to grade the students but to grade the teacher."

"I cannot say for certain, but more and more I suspect that a major goal of the reform campaign is to make the work of a teacher so degrading and insulting that the dignified and the truly educated teachers will simply leave while they still retain a modicum of self-respect," he added. "Within a few years, we've been stripped of autonomy and are increasingly micromanaged. Students have been given the power to fire us by failing their tests. New teachers cost less. They know nothing. They are malleable and they are vulnerable to termination."

They try to divide teachers against themselves as they scramble for the brighter and more motivated students and to further institutionalize the idiotic notion of standardized tests. There is a certain diabolical intelligence at work in both of these. They have succeeded in turning colleges into stress factories where teachers are running around wondering if it's possible to please their principals and if their school will be open a year from now, if their union will still be there to offer some kind of protection, if they will still have jobs next year. This is not how you run the education system. It's how you destroy one.

The truly educated are self-conscious. They become self-aware. They do not lie to themselves. They have self-esteem. They do not pretend that fraud is moral or that corporate greed is good. They do not claim that the demands of the marketplace can morally justify the hunger of children or denial of medical care to the sick. Thought is a dialogue with one's inner self. Those who think ask questions, questions those in authority, who do not want to be asked. They remember who they are, where they come from and where they should go. They remain eternally skeptical and distrustful of power. And they know that this moral independence is the only protection from the radical evil that results from collective unconsciousness. The capacity to think is the only bulwark against any centralized authority that seeks to impose mindless obedience. There is a huge difference, as Socrates understood, between teaching people what to think and teaching them how to think. Those who are endowed with a moral conscience refuse to commit crimes, even those sanctioned by the corporate state, because they do not want to live with criminals within themselves in the end.

"It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself," Socrates said.

Those who can ask the right questions are armed with the capacity to make a moral choice, to defend the good in the face of outside pressure. And this is why Philosopher Immanuel Kant puts the duties we have to ourselves before the duties we have to others. The standard for Kant is not the biblical idea of self-love; love thy neighbor as thyself; or

do unto others as you would have them do unto yo, but respect for the self. What brings us meaning and worth as human beings is our ability to stand up and pit ourselves against injustice and the vast, moral indifference of the universe. Once justice perishes as Kant knew, life loses all meaning. Those who meekly obey laws and rules imposed from the above or outside- including religious laws- are not moral human beings. The fulfillment of an imposed law is morally neutral. The truly educated make their own wills serve the higher call of justice, empathy and reason. Socrates made the same argument when he said it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.

"The greatest evil perpetrated," Hannah Arendt wrote, "is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons."

And as Arendt pointed out, we must trust only those who have this self-awareness. This self-awareness comes only through consciousness. It comes with the ability to look at a crime being committed and say "I can't." We must fear, Arendt warned, those whose moral system is built around the flimsy structure of blind obedience. You must fear those who cannot think and there are many such around you.

"The greatest evildoers are those who don't remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back," Arendt writes. "For human beings, thinking of past matters means moving in the dimension of depth, striking roots and thus stabilizing themselves, so as not to be swept away by whatever may occur- the zeitgeist or history or simple temptation. The greatest evil is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world."

Why do I pen this? To quote Wordsworth, " I wish either to be considered as a teacher, or as nothing."

Thank you and enjoy the rest of your week,

Love,

Prof. Dr. Alex Abraham Odikandathil

Radiation from Japan's nuclear fall-out finds its way into California's milk supply.

Experts say the government isn't telling the public the whole story about the risks of radioactive milk as analyses indicate radiation from Japan's nuclear meltdown finds its way into California's milk supply.

Last week, samples taken from a farm in San Luis Obispo and Spokane, Washington showed contamination with low levels of the radioactive isotope, iodine 131.

Not surprisingly, there was instant speculation about whether that milk posed a threat to human health. Government officials were quick to say the levels were low and posed no risk.

“Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a miniscule amount compared to what people experience every day,” wrote Patricia Hansen, a Food and Drug Administration scientist, in response to the milk findings.

“For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round-trip cross-country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials,” she wrote.

There was an almost immediate backlash to her statement.

A coalition of scientists and environmentalists insisted ingesting radiation is not the same as background exposures from airplane flights.

“The FDA spokesperson should have informed the public that radioiodine provides a unique form of exposure in that it concentrates rapidly in dairy products and in the human thyroid,” wrote Robert Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser to President Clinton’s U.S. Secretary of Energy.

“The dose received, based on official measurements, may be quite small, and pose an equally small risk," Alvarez said in a statement. "However, making a conclusion on the basis of one measurement is fragmentary at best and unscientific at worst. As the accident in Fukushima continues to unfold, the public should be provided with all measurements made of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima reactors to allow for independent analyses.”

Indeed, just how radioactive particles – particularly iodine 131 and the more dangerous cesium 137 – move through the food chain remains unclear.

Here's what we do know:

Iodine 131 has a fairly short "half-life" of eight days, which means that in about 80 days, the isotope is cleared from the body. Scientists also know that it targets the thyroid.

Cesium 137, on the other hand, has a half-life of 80 years, and goes straight for the bones.

But knowing those details doesn’t address questions regarding the effects of chronic or cumulative intake of these substances. For instance, how are people affected when they drink contaminated milk, water or vegetables on a daily basis?

According to a fact sheet I found from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the half-life of the chemical doesn't matter when chronic exposure occurs, “because new releases occur continuously.”

Therefore, a contaminated milk supply represents a continuous and chronic exposure.

So, what does that mean? Do the isotopes biomagnify – or concentrate – as they move up the food chain, as dioxins and some other toxins do? And will fatty milk, or cream, have more radioactive nucleotides than skim milk?

Getting concrete answers for these questions was difficult.

Here's what I found: Cows, sheep and other grazing animals ingest radiation when radioactive particles drift and drop onto grass and feed. If rainwater is contaminated, that can increase the concentration of radioactive particles an animal is exposed to.

Once the animal has ingested the contaminated particles, some is released into its milk. And according to the Agency for Toxic Substances, different animals have different concentration levels of radioactive particles. For instance, goat and sheep’s milk have higher levels of iodine 131 than cow’s milk. Whether that is due to their size, or the fat concentrations in the milk, I was not able to determine.

However, it should be noted that radioactive concentrations in food drop with time. So the longer a gallon of milk sits on the store or refrigerator shelf, the less the amount of radiation – specifically iodine 131. That’s because of iodine 131’s eight-day half-life.

What about mothers who are breast-feeding? Presumably, if cows, sheep and goats can pass radiation along in their milk, so can humans.

It was this concern that enraged Michael Mariotte, the executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, when the federal government released its statement downplaying the milk situation.

“No mother should ever have to wonder if the milk she feeds her child might be harmful,” he wrote in a statement. “Having worked on nuclear issues for 25 years, I know the difference between internal exposures and background radiation. But lots of people don’t. As the father of an 11-month old daughter, I’m personally furious at the government for this misleading information.”

However, because humans aren’t grazing irradiated grass and feed, their concentration is presumably less than a cow or sheep's.

But, what does this all mean?

Paul Carroll, a nuclear expert with Ploughshares Fund, a San-Francisco-based international nuclear security foundation, said the information on long-term chronic exposure and food chain effects is murky.

Scientists learned a lot from the bombs that dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, and from Chernobyl. But a lot of the questions we ask now about radiation exposure we didn't know to ask back then. And long-term epidemiological studies on people can't always give definitive answers to questions such as, "How much radiation causes cancer?" or "How long do you have to be exposed?"

The bottom line, he said, is that “any additional exposure to radiation will increase your risk of developing cancer.” A frightening situation, indeed!

Thank you and enjoy the rest of your week,

Love,

Prof. Dr. Alex Abraham Odikandathil

Double-Standards

To present the facts in a case is not to excuse a crime or defend the offender or blame its victims.

In a New York Time's write-up last Oct, Paul Vitello revealed the shocking extent of child sex abuse cases in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. He also details the 'cover-ups' that have long been aided and abetted by law enforcement.

With Jewish Rabbis abusing kids, people are prevented from reporting child abuse cases- even during persecution- to secular authorities because they are threatened with ostracism (from the jewish community) as well as with death threats. Rabbis are frequently citing an ancient doctrine that justifies the killing of someone who informs on a fellow Jew.

Where have all the church and state advocates been all these years when Orthodox Rabbis were allowed by the D.A's office to settle these cases 'internally'? What prevented all the professional victims' groups in staging protests outside synagogues? Where have all the sue-happy-lawyers been hiding from making the orthodox rabbis answerable to the allegations? Where have all the comedians and late-night entertainers been in cracking jokes about rabbis raping kids ?

It’s not just Orthodox Jews who have been given a pass: no group has gotten away easier than 'public school' employees. Consider this: because public school students have only 90 days to file a suit, it is always too late to prosecute a teacher- in virtually every state in US- who molested a minor as recently as three months ago. Not only that, abusive teachers are shuffled from one school district to another: it’s called 'passing the trash'.

Orthodox Jews try cases of child rape in rabbinical courts. Imagine if any christian church decided to institute its own ecclesiastical courts? An article published last October quotes a Jewish attorney urging law enforcement to recognize 'religious sensitivity' for the guilty by seeking alternatives to prison.

It’s not just Roman Polanski who can rape and vanish with impunity these days. The 'politics' of child rape is sickening.

Thank you and enjoy the rest of your week-end,

Love,

Prof. Dr. Alex Abraham Odikandathil

Time is of essence

Take time to think;
It is the source of strength from where power emanates.
Take time to read;
It is the foundation of wisdom from where knowledge springs.
Take time to play;
It is the secret of staying young in body, mind and soul.
Take time to reminiscent;
It enables you to help others who are less fortunate.
Take time to love and be loved;
It's the greatest gift that man has been bequeathed with.
Take time to laugh;
It is the music of the soul; no strings attached, whatsoever.
Take time to be friendly;
It builds the royal road to cheer that leads to happiness.
Take time to dream;
It is the stuff with which our tomorrows are made of.
Take time to pray;
It is the greatest power on earth...
As we, the weak are 'such stuff as dreams are made of'.

So, enjoy the rest of your week-end,

Love,

Prof. Dr. Alex Abraham Odikandathil

Amid Continuing Crisis...

This is the first time Tokyo Electric Power Company - the utility company has said it will decommission the four damaged reactors at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which were damaged by the tsunami unleashed in the magnitude of 9.0 earthquake on March 11th.

"I would like to offer my sincerest apology for causing grave concern," Katsumata, the power company chairman said in a news conference at the company's headquarters in Tokyo, the first he has given since March 13, two days after the nuclear power plant was damaged.

Katsumata said when and how the decommission process will start is "still under discussion," but "radiation shields will be set up in the end."

He said officials are looking at the containment of radiation by covering the reactors with a concrete sarcophagus, as was done for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which exploded and caught fire in 1986, spreading radiation across much of Europe.

Authorities are also considering covering the damaged reactors with special fabric sheets to limit radiation.

Today, radiation leaking into the Pacific Ocean near the power plant reached its highest level yet: 3,355 times the usual amount of radioactive iodine, raising fears of contaminated seafood. On Friday, the radioactive element plutonium was found in soil at the plant.

Cooling systems failed at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant's Unit 1, 2, 3, and 4 reactors, as the tsunami destroyed outside power sources and emergency backup generators designed to pump water through the cooling systems. Fuel rods have been damaged as a result, releasing radioactive contaminants.

TEPCO is working to cool the reactors and control highly radioactive water leaking from them into air, sea and soil. "It will take time" to stabilize them," said Katsumata.

He said a large volume of highly radioactive water beneath the power plant is hindering efforts to cool the reactors. Radioactive iodine and cesium have been found in water from a tunnel outside the Unit 1 reactor and in the basement of the turbine buildings of reactors 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Salt residue from sea water pumped in to cool the reactors must be removed to prevent corrosion, said Katsumata. Fresh water is now being supplied to cool the reactors through the efforts of Japan's Self Defense Forces working with the U.S. Navy.

Residents forced to evacuate their homes within a 20 kilometer radius of the plant will not be able to return for several weeks, Katsumata said.

The chairman has taken control of Tepco's operations after President Masataka Shimizu was hospitalized for extreme fatigue and high blood pressure on Tuesday.

Katsumata has taken Shimizu's position as deputy chief of a TEPCO-government joint task force on the nuclear accident.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Tuesday that TEPCO was not adequately prepared for the magnitude of the tsunami that shut down the plant's cooling systems.

Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, on Friday said the company was too slow in using sea water to cool the unstable reactors.

"There wasn't any hesitation in using sea water," Katsumata said at a news conference today. The company did "the best possible" to deal with the accident, he said.

Immediate safety upgrades will be put into place at nuclear plants throughout Japan, the Japanese government said Wednesday.

The goal of the regulations is to make nuclear plant operators capable of preventing damage to reactor cores and spent fuel rods, prevent the emission of radioactivity and recover cooling mechanisms in a situation where a tsunami compromises a plant's cooling systems, said Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda.

Nuclear power plant operators will be required to inspect their equipment and test their ability to withstand a tsunami, the government said.

In addition, plant operators will be required to make emergency plans and run an emergency drill, acting as if cooling systems have been compromised, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said in a statement.

Nuclear power plant operators also will have to ensure they have access to an alternative power source if emergency power fails and they must plan to implement emergency water cooling solutions.

Enjoy the rest of your week,

Love,

Prof. Dr. Alex Abraham Odikandathil

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Bonhomie, Luv Ya, Peace!