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Intelligent, unbiased commentary on this development may be found here and here.

Hunh. Maybe he was right on something - to the Beeb, I now go...

--
Evan

Art Bell

and his sidekick


Whitley Strieber

You even have to pay to listen to their lame
streaming audio.

6/13/01 - Wed/Thu
Guest: Linda M. Howe
Topic: The Sunken City off Cuba

An aside: I never thought I'd see the day when this link would be on topic for Slashdot...

Heard these folks on Art Bell's radio show a couple weeks ago when Art had a guest host filling in. They sounded like real kooks, you know, the kind that dress up as Spock and go to Star Trek conventions. It's a husband/wife outfit.

I can just see the cubicle now!

But why Egg trays? why not just cover the walls with a simple layer of tine foil?

For some reason I am reminded of the infamous aluminum foil man.

;-)

I wonder what Art Bell will make of this?

Some of you may be familiar with Art Bell, he and Whitley Streiber wrote a book called "The Coming Global Superstorm." I just finished this book and was fascinated by it. They discuss hard evidence that shows that early human civilization could have been wiped out by climate change. Earth has a natural cycle to help it deal with global warming. There are currents in the ocean that exchange warm salt water with cold fresh water. This exchange is vital to the stability of the climate and when the ice caps melt the oceans are flooded with cold fresh water and the exchange comes to a grinding halt. It's predicted that when this happens the mother of all storms will develop and bring with it a new ice age in order to restore the polar caps. There is already evidence of this weather change. Most people have noticed the rapid increase in the instability of weather patterns in the world. Floods, heavy hurricanes and droughts. Global warming is not the part that we should really fear. It's Gia's revenge! Our CO2 based culture is accelerating the inevitable storm that has the capability of killing millions and displacing millions more.

There is a long article by Penn Jillette (the talking half of Penn and Teller) here. More than just an article on the technology, it talks about how it really feels far better than anything I've seen before.

Besides, it involves fat guys and pneumatic blondes stripping in zero-g along with Billy from ZZ top and a $250,000 guitar - if that doesn't appeal to nerds, I don't know what does.

Check out Pen (from Pen and Teller) and a dude from ZZTop they were the first to try the new commercial version of the Vomit Comet!

You get fifteen 30 second zero-G dives as well as 15 1.8g climbs! They even start you off with a 2/3g dive (Mars) and 1/3g dive (Moon)...plus it's in a freakin' cavernous jet!

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010514/lf/cuba_t reasure_dc_1.html

A good read.

Art Bell had discussion about it as well.

To listeners of the Art Bell show and to readers of Aliens, Aliens, Aliens, reports of artificial constructs on Mars is old hat. Richard Hoagland has been arguing the case for Mars for years. What's sort of interesting are remarks made by Arthur C. Clarke about those "crystal tubes". Add that to former government workers coming forward en masse claiming that the US government has a lot more information on extraterrial life that old videos of "Close Encounters", things are getting pretty interesting for UFOlogists.

There is this very legit product from ShieldWorks. Check out their catalog

And there is the world famous Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie

It of course depends on what is the most important body part to protect as far as you are concerned. These mostly focus on protecting the brain. (Not that is is being overused by some folks)

Other people may want to investigate protection for other body parts.

There is a business plan in here someplace folks.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

Had I been moderating your comment, I would have given you a +1, insightful. Anywho, I agree with your post. I am currently studying to get a HAM license some time in the future, as I know that if the sh*t hit the proverbial fan, which is indeed possible looking at the writing on the wall of the world today, amateur radio would indeed keep a line of communications open in communities hard-hit with a natural disaster or a war. They don't talk much in the media about how helpful amateur radio has been in the past, in places like Croatia, or other places where a natural disaster or war has hit and amateur radio was able to get the real stories out. Art Bell, a radio talk show host on the nighttime airwaves has spoken about amateur radio a bit, but only because he is also a ham himself. Cheers.

I think that the law was written that way so that space tourism wouldn't be restricted in the future. I'm not sure as to the actual wording of the law because I heard about it on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell when Art was interviewing they guy from Space Island Group (see the link above) talking about plans to make a space station that could be a hotel in the short term.

--Josh

Are you the REAL Art Bell?

It should be quite entertaining to check out the audio archive of this the March 22 broadcast of the Art Bell show! ;-)

James Oberg is generally reliable so it is rather strange he would blow off so much of his bread-and-butter credibility as a major wire service's science reporter.

It should be quite entertaining to check out the audio archive of this the March 22 broadcast of the Art Bell show! ;-)

James Oberg is generally reliable so it is rather strange he would blow off so much of his bread-and-butter credibility as a major wire service's science reporter.

De Palma is suffering from a degenerative neurological disorder. (We guessed 70% odds.)

De Palma has joined some religious cult. (We guessed 20% odds.)

Something unimaginable.(The remaining 10% odds.)

Upon further investigation of The Phenomenon, I discovered a promotional trailer for the movie which stated:

"For 25 years, the government has concealed evidence of a life-like formation on Mars..."

This raises the odds of a religious cult as the source of The Phenomenon, IMHO.

However, upon further reflection, I see we may have been a bit narrow in our thinking. What if Brian De Palma is bucking for Dan Goldin's job as NASA Administrator? Please hear me out -- it can't be any worse than paying $8.50 and 3 hours to experience The Phenomenon:

This being an election year, everyone seems to be jockying for some sort of appointment with one of the major candidates. What if Brian De Palma noticed that the primary product of NASA these days is a series of bad computer-generated animations of Things Doing Stuff In Space that have less and less to do with reality? Take "The International Space Station" as an example. We actually had a space station called "Skylab" back in the 1970's but as soon as NASA started putting together animations of space stations, it seemed increasingly interested in developing advanced ray tracing algorithms with texture mapping as spin-offs to the game industry and decreasingly interested in any sort of real, up and operating "Space Station". Hell, in the mid 80s they shit-canned the privately financed Commercially Developed Space Facility rather than do anything along these lines. Indeed, the only real International Space Station thus far has been the Russian Mir. Did NASA pitch in and contribute modules to it? On the contrary! NASA has been hell-bent on getting the Russians to ditch it! The reason? Simple, NASA doesn't want any physical realities impinging on their increasingly virtual realities. So if we take this policy trend to its logical conclusion, what do we get as NASA's future?

Brian De Palma directing bad ray traced animations of stupifying space operas on the NASA channel so we will all think April 15 is good for something even if it is only cheezy space opera on late night cable.

--Josh

Though seeing the responses, may I add my 2c... after seeing the video in question...

1. The video reeks "home made" - a lot of home/movie-like phrases. Had this video been made, I am certain that there would be phrases that are NOT known by the public. (Not to mention that this is FAR from organized enough to be proper briefing)
2. I can see that, given the obvious fakeness of the material, the video can have three obvious side-effects:
   1. Generate yet another Y2K scare (probably the intention)
   2. Push the paranoid over the limit, inviting MORE trigger happy guns into the NYC new year celebration, ready to start shooting at anything suspicious.
   3. Inspire people who understand that the video is a hoax, to actually go do it! (Keep in mind the "inspiration factor" after Columbine)
   Thus, I can see why, for the public saftey, the FBI would ask the artist to shut it down. Sometimes, nay, OFTEN, art like this fits the bill, but IMHO, this is NOT one of those occasions and the video is likely to cause more damage than anything else.
3. Given the obvious fakeness of the video, I would also not be surprised if the so called FBI intervension is also a hoax. After all, THE way to get exposure on the Internet is to cry "First Amendment!" Well, that, or appealing to Art Bell's audience with the keyword government oppression. These guys cry "censorship" every time Art has technical problems. So much that even Art gets irritated about it!
4. The contents of the video is a conspiracy to a crime.

The NBC movie? Piece of cake compared to this. The NBC movie had the message "Things might not work, and people will panic". This home video had the message "You have reason to panic, because we're out to get you". Big difference.

Speaking of understanding the reactions from your audience... I understand that I will now be flamed by "first amendment at all cost" advocates. Which is ok. They have their right of opinion. They have the right to express that opinion. However, they do not have the right to make a video, say that it came from me, detailing how I would crush free speech. Because at this point, it is no longer just freedom of expression, it is also impersonation. (Mmmm... another thing to add to the list above)

Seriously, though, "ghost photo's" have got to be one of the easiest things in the world to fake, even more then UFO's. I bet I could whip up some spectacular specimens right now, and I've only got Photoshop 5.02 on this rig. Certainly better then what's on the Art Bell ghost page, at any rate.

You still may be able to find links to the Hell recording at Art Bell's web site.

Actually, last night on his radio show Art Bell took some credit for it. Maybe it was very similiar to the /. effect.