Al Vogel, a public affairs specialist for the installation, would only say that the lockdown began at 5:24 p.m. Employees were not allowed to leave, and those coming to work were not allowed in. Vogel said there were no injuries, no damage and no threats reported at the proving ground. There were about 1,200 to 1,400 people at Dugway when the lockdown occurred.

Dugway is used for chemical and biological weapon testing, and NBC response training. Roughly 3000 sheep died in the area in 1968 due to an atmospheric surplus of nerve agent. The Twitters are abuzz tonight, but nobody seems to know very much.

Zoom out on the map below to see how close you are to Dugway, and check your favorite weather site for the current jet stream map.

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Story found at Wonkette.

Two members of local group La Excelencia were murdered in a Guadalajara bar early Monday morning after refusing to play more songs past closing time, El Occidental of Mexico reported.

Can we send Phil Spector down there on a work release program?

“People have started to question whether the bird deaths en masse worldwide are indicators of some imminent disaster. I see a huge amount of groundless speculation about the deaths on the Internet. However, it isn’t right to discuss an issue without sound information. I suppose the Internet has become more dangerous this way. Rumors on the Internet can make an issue more serious than it is,” Aytuğ noted.

So please stop reading this and go buy something! Do it for your country, because the rich people in the USA can’t carry your cheap ass forever!

(Animal death tracking data via unrelenting machine)

Although I’d advise bolting down the pews first.

One of the doctors seeking a full inquest, former assistant coroner Michael Powers, told the Mail on Sunday he had seen a letter from the legal team of Oxfordshire County Council explaining the unusual restrictions placed by Lord Hutton on material relating to his inquiry.

The letter states: “Lord Hutton made a request for the records provided to the inquiry, not produced in evidence, to be closed for 30 years, and that medical (including post-mortem) reports and photographs be closed for 70 years.”

Dr Powers asked: “Supposedly all evidence relevant to the cause of death has been heard in public at the time of Lord Hutton’s inquiry. If these secret reports support the suicide finding, what could they contain that could be so sensitive?”

There’s also a scathing editorial by Norman Baker (MP) up at the Daily Mail. Lots of juicy tidbits about Lord Hutton, who led the inquiry and ruled the evidence should be classified:

Lord Hutton did not even inquire as to whose fingerprints were on the knife allegedly used to slit Dr Kelly’s wrist. That was left for me to establish through a Freedom of Information request, which revealed there were no fingerprints on the knife, and Dr Kelly was not wearing gloves.

Lord Hutton was to confess that he had not bothered looking into the death very deeply.

Writing in the Inner Temple Yearbook 2004, he unashamedly observed: ‘I thought that there would be little serious dispute as to the background facts [about Dr Kelly’s death].

‘I thought unnecessary time could be taken up by cross-examination on matters which were not directly relevant.’

So key questions went unasked, conflicting and contradictory evidence abounded, and no attempt was made to tie up the countless loose ends.

It remains to be seen whether this story will provoke enough outrage with the larger British public to force the release of all evidence. If you’re a loyal subject, maybe write your MP?

(Via Deus Ex Malcontent.)

The Boston Globe has an awesome gallery of hi-res Ares rocket pics, including lots of behind the scenes stuff leading up to the launch. Go look.

My prediction: this is some sort of viral promotion for a sequel to the 2012 movie coming out in a couple of weeks. The trailer for that one reminded me of the star studded disaster films of the 1970′s by way of and Jerry Bruckheimer’s ConAir, so I was very disappointed to see there is no Bruckheimer involvement. 2012 is directed by Roland Emmerich, who produced The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day. Think I’ll wait for this one on cable (if it even makes it there before the world ends).

Don’t know about Neil Armstrong, but I bet Buzz Aldrin would have been ok with this.

Rumor has it that all three Apollo 11 astronauts will make some sort of appearance with President Obama on Monday. Be interesting to see if Armstrong does any sort of speech, or leaves it to the others. Seems very quaint from our perspective 40 years on: a modern media plan would demand that Armstrong overexpose himself in perpetuity, or would have chosen a more media friendly astronaut (like Aldrin) to take the first steps on the moon instead.

Image via Comically Vintage

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The red supergiant star Betelgeuse, the bright reddish star in the constellation Orion, has steadily shrunk over the past 15 years, according to University of California, Berkeley, researchers.

Long-term monitoring by UC Berkeley’s Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) on the top of Mt. Wilson in Southern California shows that Betelgeuse (bet’ el juz), which is so big that in our solar system it would reach to the orbit of Jupiter, has shrunk in diameter by more than 15 percent since 1993.

Nobody’s 100% sure if this is a normal size variation, or the beginning of the end for Betelgeuse. Red supergiants are older stars, living out their retirement and telling comets to “stay the hell off my orbit!” Shrinkage could just be the next step on the way to the supernova grave. So raise a glass of Metamucil to Betelgeuse, in case this is the beginning of the end.

Goldwater: you know he's right!

That seemed to prove to me that UFOs were a fact, and do exist. But, are they all aliens? I highly suspect a majority are! Hell, they are no doubt far ahead of our level of intelligence. TheUnited States Air Foce knows the truth, but will they ever reveal it to this nation?

“The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time–it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine…” – Richard Nixon

Found at If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, home of an extensive Bohemian Grove gallery.

If anyone can identify the artist, please post a comment.