Tomorrow with Tom Snyder and John Lennon, April 28, 1975

On April 28, 1975, television would present an important celebrity for the very last time. The late night talk show program called Tomorrow aired what would become one of its most famous moments: presumably the last television interview with music legend John Lennon. Tomorrow host Tom Snyder had a number of interesting guests on the show over the years, which included the famous John Lennon interview. The interview went rather well and showed a personable side of Lennon that was rarely seen by the public.

Fast forward five years into the future, Snyder played the interview again, in honor of Lennon after the assassination. The tape was showed the night after Lennon’s murder. John Lennon was now in his prime and after a five year hiatus from his successful musical career he was ready to resurface with his latest solo album, Double Fantasy. The album was released on November 17, 1980, and would also feature material from his wife, Yoko Ono.

In 1984 the first posthumous album was released, Milk and Honey, which was produced while recording the Double Fantasy album.

Snyder later referred to the interview as “not terrific, not terribly entertaining or enlightening, containing no historical information or anything new, but having little bits of stuff and substance of a man who was part of change, a revolution if you will, in popular music during the 1960′s.”

Looking at it from a totally different perspective 38 years later, the interview had a great deal of integrity about it that is not matched in today’s world of glib entertainment, where there is very little insight or forethought that remains in the industry. This is a rare glimpse of preserved history that solidifies the void that can be felt in the music industry today. Nobody Told Me there’d be days like these. Strange days indeed…

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Full solar eclipse in Northern Australia (UTC)

On May 9-10 UTC, 2013, there will be an Annular solar eclipse that can be viewed from northern Australia and the southern Pacific Ocean, with 6 minutes of visibility from the Pacific Ocean east of the French Polynesia. Viewers in these areas will see the full effect of the eclipse. For more interaction, click on Google map , which is part of the NASA Eclipse Web site.

TIMES UTC

(P1) Partial begin — 21:25:10
(U1) Total begin — 22:30:34
Greatest eclipse — 0:26:20
(U4) Total end — 2:19:58
(P4) Partial end — 3:25:23

* The NEXT solar eclipse, falling on November 3, 2013, will be a hybrid eclipse, and totality will be visible from the northern Atlantic Ocean east of Florida to Gabon and Africa.

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The Wullenweber Array (CDDA): An Era Of Intelligence Gathering

The Wullenweber was a monster sized antenna invented by Dr. Hans Rindfleisch, which was informally called the elephant cage. The elephant cage or Circularly Disposed Dipole Array (CDDA), was circular and was used for spying. Was the elephant cage antenna the predecessor of HAARP?

The elephant cage was used by the US military for intelligence, but was originally developed by the German Navy. It was very large, expensive, and impractical for the average amateur radio operator.

“Professor Edgar Hayden, then a young engineer in the University of Illinois Radio Direction Finding Research Group, led the design and development of a large Wullenweber array at the university’s Bondville Road Field Station, a few miles southwest of Bondville, IL. The array consisted of a ring 120 vertical monopoles covering 2-20 MHz. Tall wood poles supported a 1,000-foot-diameter circular screen of vertical wires located within the ring of monopoles. Due to their immense size, the location of the array (40.0494°N 88.3807°W) and the other post-war arrays are clearly visible on the internet.”

Edward C. Jordan participated in nine books and published numerous articles. His popular textbook, Electromagnetic Waves and Radiating Systems, was first published in 1950.

Jordan’s follow-up book was Electromagnetic Waves and Radiating Systems Second Edition.

Wullenweber research lasted for more than 25 years and the US Navy constructed systems around the world.

“The ring of poles is an elaborate radio antenna system that was developed for the US Navy in the 1950’s and 60’s by the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Illinois in the farmland a few miles southwest of Bondville, about five miles west of Champaign, Illinois. Following the completion of the University’s development work, the Bondville installation, known as the Bondville Road Field Station (BRFS), was abandoned in approximately 1980, partially dismantled in the 1990′s, and in 2003, was completely dismantled.”

The Elephant Cage Timeline

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Climbing the pole At Elvis Presley Boulevard on Monday!

Oops! A Memphis police cruiser ended up on the side of a pole after an officer lost control of the vehicle. No other cars were involved in the accident and the officer made it out without any injuries.

“I can certainly say that it was a little shocking to me to see one of my squad cars half way up a pole,” said Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong, via WREG.

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The POW/MIA issue won’t go away. There’s also an Opacity Problem in Journalism. Some Journalists are Dining in the Dark with Members of the United States Congress.

Vietnam is not a very popular topic in America these days. It has become another problem in the political arena to be sure, in more ways than you could imagine. Sydney Schanberg has written much about the Vietnam conflict and is considered to be an expert in his field. In 2010 he wrote a very sobering piece that turned conventional journalism upside down. Schanberg suggested that there is massive evidence of wrongdoing—McCain and the POW Cover-Up—and 1,205 Vietnam soldiers were left behind. To make matters even worse, these concerns could prove to be accurate.

Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Sydney Schanberg is best known for his coverage of the war in Cambodia. He has also been the recipient of many other awards, and he was played by Sam Waterston in the 1984 The Killing Fields film. A more recent work is entitled Beyond the Killing Fields: War Writings, which is drawn from more than four decades of reporting at home and abroad for the New York Times.

Schanberg gives us 10 Key Pieces of Evidence That Men Were Left Behind; he lists ten critical arguments that are crucial to the POW/MIA issue. Manipulation in higher layers of government and media is quite obvious, if we just stand back and look at the big picture in a rational manner.

What we have witnessed with the media has been a gross distortion of reality, nothing near a true dimension of reality. Facts can and will be twisted into a state of manner which obfuscates the targeted issue. Journalism is by essence a craft of opacity.

The mainstream has intentionally hidden important details in the Post-Vietnam Era. John McCain was held captive in Vietnam himself, and there may be some very embarrassing moments that he doesn’t wish to share with the public. Moments like him breaking under pressure and submitting to the enemy, which was not apropos for a war hero at the time, or thereafter for that matter. McCain didn’t want his father to know of his deep humiliation, especially when father John “Jack” McCain was a United States Navy admiral, who served in conflicts from the 1940′s through the 1970′s.

“McCain died of a heart attack on a military aircraft en route from Europe on March 22, 1981. McCain was written about extensively in his son John’s 1999 memoir — Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir.”

Senator Bob Smith, a member of a certain committee, suggested that 10 members were trying to cover up evidence about Americans missing in Vietnam, including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator John McCain of Arizona. From the New York Times:

After a July trip to Vietnam, Mr. Smith said at a news conference here that there now was “very compelling” evidence of live prisoners. “I can’t go into more detail,” he said, “but after the conversations I had with the Vietnamese, I can say again it’s compelling evidence.”

In the letter to Ms. Reno, he listed “potential Federal criminal violations” in four areas: “false testimony and statements” (which, he has said, means perjury), mail fraud, destruction of classified documents and improper classification procedures.

If we look at the US Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, we will observe the prominent 12 members on the roster:

The 12 Senate Select Members

John Kerry, chairman and Vietnam veteran
Bob Smith, vice-chairman and Vietnam veteran
John McCain, seriously wounded Vietnam veteran and POW in North Vietnam
Bob Kerrey, seriously wounded Vietnam veteran and Medal of Honor recipient
Chuck Robb, Vietnam veteran
Hank Brown, Vietnam veteran
Chuck Grassley
Nancy Landon Kassebaum
Herb Kohl
Tom Daschle
Harry Reid
Jesse Helms

“Kohl replaced Dennis DeConcini, who was initially selected but then asked to be removed over the Keating Five scandal. Al Gore was the only Vietnam-era veteran who declined to participate.”

For those interested in more resources, An Enormous Crime: The Definitive Account of American POWs Abandoned in Southeast Asia is a great option to choose from.

And while we don’t have enough time to cover it in this post, the Keating Five affair was another scandal in which John McCain (Republican of Arizona) was involved in. Enough said.

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Flapping Wing MAV Could Be A Trend Of The Very Near Future

A micro air vehicle (MAV), or micro aerial vehicle, is a class of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that has a size restriction and may be autonomous. Flight of the Bumblebee Bot may be spotted in a neighborhood near you.

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We are enjoying a technological revolution, 21st century Anno Domini and beyond. Our forefathers could only dream of technology such as computers, handheld devices, digital cameras, smartphones, tech gadgets, and electric cars. No, wait a second…Electric cars in 1896? So you thought that electric cars were the new kids on the invention block? Think again.

“On September 7, 1896, an electric car built by the Riker Electric Motor Company wins the first auto race in the United States, at the Narragansett Trotting Park—a mile-long dirt oval at the state fairgrounds that was normally used for horse racing—in Cranston, Rhode Island,” and this is another famous day in history.

The first installation of an electric motor in a vehicle would develop around 1890 or 1891;  a six-passenger wagon capable of reaching a speed of 14 miles per hour.

By 1897, electric vehicles were used as New York taxis.

In 1911, we get the first gasoline-electric hybrid car, so even the hybrid is not new as we thought.

Believe it or not, the 20 miles-per-hour electric car was a better deal than other alternatives on the market at the time. No steam, no gears to bother with, no cold starts, no vibration, no smell of gas, and no manual cranking of engines gave the electric car an edge.

By 1912, electric cars had outrivaled the competition and there were 33,842 registered electric cars in the United States. Yes, this is almost hard to imagine!

For the massive price of $1000 you could drive around in your fine electric carriage, yet there were limitations due to infrastructure.

By 1916, the price dropped to $360 for the basic gasoline car and sales peaked at 472,000. The gas automobile was king and it was here to stay.

By 1920, gasoline automobiles had completely dominated the market. Gas powered motors obviously gained the advantage because they were more flexible by design and the availability of gas was most convenient. Henry Ford and the mass production of automobiles changed America forever.

The electric car for the most part remained an urban phenomenon, and while it would never totally die into total obscurity, it had almost but disappeared into the sunset. There were a number of industrial applications where electric fit nicely. There were electric forklifts in 1923, electric golf carts in 1954, and in 1971 the electric car would be driven on the Moon. Now that’s quite an honor for the electric powered moon buggy.

It seemed that the electric car finally achieved status in the 21st century, especially with brands like Tesla. Petrol-too-expensive became a recurring theme that reigned in significantly with motorists. And besides, the Tesla is a status symbol itself. How far can you go in a Tesla? “The Model S has three battery options. The largest battery supplies 300 MILES OF RANGE at 55 MPH.”

The electric car has come a long way baby!

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Sometimes technology just doesn’t fit the description that is advertised on the box. Frustration provokes our very essence to the core and confusion can sometimes lead to destruction. If we do find ourselves giving pause and reflecting on the mission, then so be it. Satisfaction is the desired objective, and the law of physics can be altered to meet our very demands. Technological devices must be examined from every perspective. When technology fails…

Don’t complain. This one does not work. Unrepairable. Slimline.

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We’re all adults here, so let’s say it like it is: America is for sale. The commodity markets are rigged and have been since the 1990′s. Speculation can hurt a lot of people (some may die or lose a house) and you can bet another economic bubble (errr, Ponzi scheme) is ready to burst at some point. Some are predicting that the big bubbles are getting ready to diffuse again, including commodities. When will the next engineered crash be and what is the Grifter Class? How did the Grifter Class get in the Catbird seat? Taibbi explains Griftopia, a true crime story.

Shall we have a nice cup of tea while we talk about secret money? Americans are paying unnecessary amounts of money for food and energy due to excessive speculation. These exemptions (handed out in secrecy since 1991) have allowed speculators to distort futures markets.

The stock market is at an all-time high and speculation is wilder than ever. Energy markets are up and down and gas prices have bounced like a yo-yo. Yet even oil prices are falling at the moment (it isn’t vacation time yet, guys). Some are forecasting that the commodities market is not doing so hot; now only talk, but it could lead to a major bubble burst.

It’s still hard to comprehend such strange circumstances though. Oil supplies are up this year, oil demand is down… so gas prices should be going down, right? But instead they are going up. What’s up with that?

Once upon a time, there was a land where speculators didn’t buy up all the goods and then turn around and jack up the prices. The Commodity Exchange Act was enacted on June 15, 1936, and constructed the way the system was going to operate, under heavy regulations. There were restrictions and only a few percent could be speculators. Please take us back to this moment!

Markets were tightly regulated until the early 1990′s. Then, a Wall Street company named Goldman Sachs asked for special exemptions through its subsidiary, J. Aron, and wanted to be treated as a physical hedger, not a speculator. (Errr, they wanted to rig the markets.) And the company got its wish.

“J. Aron was a player in the coffee and gold markets, and CEO of Goldman, Lloyd Blankfein, joined the firm as a result of this merger. In accordance with the beginning of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the firm also became involved in facilitating the global privatization movement by advising companies that were spinning off from their parent governments.”

Over the course of the following 10 or 15 years or so, more and more exemptions were handed over to other investment banks.

In 2003, there was only $13 billion of speculative money in the markets. By 2007 there was over $300 billion of speculative money in the commodities market! Goldman Sachs found itself in the Catbird seat and other banks soon followed suit. In 2007 and beyond we begin to see a financial meltdown and things start to get really complicated. (Remember the bailout scandal?)

There was an explosion of speculative money into the commodities market and we have a situation where gas prices go through the roof, oil reaches $147 a barrel, and 100 million people around the world join the ranks of the hungry.

Matt Taibbi, author and journalist reporting for the Rolling Stone Magazine, tries to simplify the ensuing catastrophe in his informative book, Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History.

Down on Main Street there are numerous foreclosures happening at blazing speeds. This is a phenomenon that is being grossly underrepresented in the mainstream media. People are affected by this concentration of wealth and are being forced to get educated about the problems they are faced with.

The wealth and power has been transferred to a super-rich crowd called a Grifter Class.

The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The grifter class—made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power, and this is Griftopia, folks.

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Police Scanner Audio 2013 Boston Marathon bombings

Listen to police scanner traffic after the Boston Marathon bombings. Emergency dispatch audio from Boston Marathon attack can be heard on the recording.

The 2013 Boston Marathon bombings occurred on April 15, 2013, when two bombs were detonated during the Boston Marathon at approximately 2:50 p.m. EDT (18:50 UTC) on Boylston Street near Copley Square, just before the finish line, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. Two bombs went off within 550 feet of each other.

Local hospitals reported that they were treating numerous injuries, some of them grievous. Eight hospitals report that they have treated or are treating at least 124 people. Of those, at least 15 are in critical condition. Some witnesses have described victims with injuries from shrapnel such as ball bearings. Over 100 were being treated at various facilities.

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