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.

(Image via Jesus Is Love.)

(Via Miasma Protege.)

The panic has spread using social networking website, Twitter, which is almost unnecessary to the same degree as the Large Hadron Collider “destroying the Universe” back in September last year. Nevertheless, people have a right to be concerned and worried.

So remember kids, it’s ok to be concerned and worried, just keep it to yourself please.

Also weighing in is self-described Internet communications expert Evgeny Morozov with a piece titled Swine flu: Twitter’s power to misinform. It seems that everyone’s twittering about swine flu due to peer pressure:

Thus, Unlike basic internet search – which has been already been nicely used by Google to track emerging flu epidemics – Twitter seems to have introduced too much noise into the process: as opposed to search requests which are generally motivated only by a desire to learn more about a given subject, too many Twitter conversations about swine flu seem to be motivated by desires to fit in, do what one’s friends do (i.e. tweet about it) or simply gain more popularity.

So I guess twitter is like a giant global high school. Morozov’s suggestion? A real hard-ass vice principal:

In moments like this, one is tempted to lament the death of broadcasting, for it seems that the information from expert sources – government, doctors, and the like – should probably be prioritized over everything else and have a higher chance of being seen that the information from the rest of one’s Twitter-feed, full of speculation, misinformation, and gossip.

Morozov goes on to discuss the trend of corporations using Twitter to shape the conversation about their brands:

A recent New York Times piece highlighted how a growing number of corporations like Starbucks, Dell, and Whole Foods are turning to Twitter to monitor and partially shape conversation about particular brands or products. What the piece failed to mention was that conversations about more serious topics (like pandemics- and their tragic consequences) could be shaped as well.

He may be on the money there. Let’s try some searches on Twitter:

• Twitter search: Tamiflu
• Twitter search: Roche (the makers of Tamiflu)
• Twitter search: Relenza
• Twitter search: GlaxoSmithKline (the makers of Relenza)

A little explanation is in order. The CDC recommends two drugs for treatment and prevention of swine flu: oseltamivir or zanamivir. Tamiflu is the brand name of oseltamivir, an antiviral marketed by Roche Pharmaceuticals and created by Gilead Sciences. You may have heard of Gilead Sciences and Tamiflu during the bird flu pandemic a few years back. You’ve also probably heard of a couple of their shareholders and former board members: George Schultz and Donald Rumsfeld. They made out all right on avian flu, and I bet they’ll do ok this time around too.

All posts here.