"PayPal says that it does not allow the use of its service for activities that promote hatred, violence or racial intolerance, but its action against my account was spurred by a hate campaign by gay activists wanting to shut down my account," Severo told WND. "I am very worried, because PayPal caved in to gay militants and their hate campaign to have me excluded from PayPal."

Amplify’d from www.wnd.com

FAITH UNDER FIRE

PayPal blacklists Christian writer

Online activist told friends must find another way to support his ministry

By Bob Unruh

"Relax," says a PayPal website. "Pay friends & family in seconds with PayPal." After all, it's the "easy way to send money in seconds." No checks, no ATMs, no envelopes and stamps, just click the button on your computer.

That is, of course, unless you and your friends teach the biblical perspective that homosexuality is not acceptable for Christians and is a sin.

Then you get a note from the money-transfer giant that you are being investigated. Another note follows shortly later that your account is being closed and PayPal will hold the money for 180 days, and then return it to you. But you don't have any access to it any longer.

Those are the circumstances that have developed with Christian activist Julio Severo, who posts writings online on his international Last Days Watchman blog, teaching Christian values and alerting readers to anti-Christian influences worldwide.

Why is American culture like it is? Find out in "The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom"

In his case, PayPal, on the heels of an online campaign by homosexuals demanding that Christians such as Severo be denied the use of the PayPal system, sent an email announcing an "investigation."

Then PayPal executives dispatched an email explaining that because of "legal and regulatory constraints," the company is "unable to process donation payments for non-registered charities and non-profit organizations; political party/organizations; religious institutions; personal/organizational fundraisers, etc. …"

"This is not a decision we make lightly, and we deeply regret any inconvenience or frustration this matter may cause you," wrote "Sugar" from the PayPal Compliance Department.

"Your remaining account balance will be held in your PayPal account for 180 days from the date your account was limited. After 180 days, you will be notified via e-mail with information on how to receive your remaining funds."

The message included a link to the company's user agreement that explained transactions couldn't involve any violation of the law, sales of narcotics or "items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance," obscenity, ponzi schemes, fraud, illegal tobacco or gambling.

It said charity donations need "pre-approval."

But it said nothing, however, about stopping friends from sending money to friends.

"PayPal says that it does not allow the use of its service for activities that promote hatred, violence or racial intolerance, but its action against my account was spurred by a hate campaign by gay activists wanting to shut down my account," Severo told WND. "I am very worried, because PayPal caved in to gay militants and their hate campaign to have me excluded from PayPal."

He explained, "I use PayPal to pay essential services to me and my family. And we are in a very limited situation, because we are away from Brazil because of gay and government persecution. Our resources are limited. And now under pressure of my persecutors, PayPal is making sure that my ways to receive donations may be even more limited and hard.

"Millions of individuals use PayPal to receive money. Why cannot I receive too?"

He said he is a pro-family leader who is a Christian.

"I am not a charity. I am only a Christian individual with a wife and four little children," he said. "I wonder if PayPal will shut down the accounts of the homosexual militants who launched the hate campaign."

PayPal refused to respond to email and telephone message requests from WND for comment on the closure of Severo's account. A PayPal employee who instructed WND that he be identified only as "spokesman" told WND earlier that the company will crack down on anyone it decides has "incited hatred, violence or intolerance because of a person's sexual orientation."

The spokesman, who insisted the company recognizes free-speech rights the rights of free speech, said he wouldn't comment on "any specific accounts."

But others weren't hesitant to express their opinion. Don Hank, who runs the Laigle's Forum website, said, "This is war. … PayPal is now official the enemy of traditional Christianity."

"Look folks," he continued, "this business of being registered … is bogus. Registered? With whom? Julio is not in the U.S. and may not need to register in the country in which he is located."

"Julio really needs your help now. If you want to donate, let me know and I can work out details of how to send him donations. (Moneygram and Western Union are probably good options, until they decide to join the Anti-Christ too!."

He said there are Christians to say, "Pray but do nothing to help."

"That's not me. Can't do it. Won't do it. Believe it is contrary to the Word of God. It's like that parable: if a son asks his father to give him a fish, will he give him a stone? … My method is: Pray as hard as you can, fight as hard as you can, give as much as you can," he said.

It took only minutes after Severo's confirmation of the PayPal action that his supporters were circulating one of many discussions on alternative payment processes to PayPal.

And an attorney from Europe said it was an outrageous display of discrimination based on beliefs.

In a terse memo to PayPal, Austrian lawyer Inge Boening told the company, "I am deeply shocked by the thoughtless and over-hasty decision to bow to heterophobic hate groups, which is utterly insensitive to, and therefore has to be considered a continuation of, the history of persecution of religious people in general and, together with Jews, Christians in particular.

"In such a situation of vicious mobbing conducted by hate groups against religious people your guiding light should have been a clear and unmistakable stance against persecution," Boening wrote.

"This could have been PayPal's great chance to show the world that, as a global provider of payments in a diverse world, you maintain neutrality as regards content of the expressions of free speech exercised by whoever be your customers, setting a precedent that political action should focus on fact-based debate rather than bullying and attempts to destroy one's political opponent economically.

"However, by kow-towing before the lobby against free speech, you have missed this opportunity to emphasize neutrality. From now on you must be considered primarily an instrument of suppression of freedom rather than merely a payment services provider."

Boening wrote that his course is clear; if he does not get confirmation that PayPal has reversed itself, he will cancel his account "and will encourage others to do the same."

When WND reported just days ago on the "investigation" that resulted from an online campaign of "hate" against a list of Christian organizations, it was noted that Peter LaBarbera's "Americans for Truth" also got a notice of investigation from PayPal. His ministry, like Severo's, is unabashedly Christian, and both deal directly with the biblical perspective of homosexuality.

At the time, a campaign by the AllOut.org website was actively stirring up intolerance toward the Christians and was demanding that PayPal stop allowing them access to its services.

The online campaign criticized "anti-LGBT extremists" who are using PayPal to raise money for "their dangerous cause."

It put bull's-eyes on Severo and LaBarbera as well as Abiding Truth Ministries, New Generation Ministries, Noua Dreapta of Romania, Truth in Action Ministries, Dove World Outreach, Faith Word Baptist Church, Family Research Institute and American Society for the Defense of Tradition[al Family.

At least one of those organizations, Truth in Action, said the AllOut campaign was seriously flawed from the beginning, because it never has had any business relationship with PayPal.

AllOut alleges those groups promote "hate."

But Severo contended at the time that the opposite is true.

"I want you to know that we Christians love homosexuals, but we disagree with their immoral lifestyles," he told PayPal.

Severo said AllOut also is working on Facebook, Twitter and through emails to pressure PayPal to censor his religious beliefs.

LaBarbera told WND his organization has not received subsequent notifications from PayPal yet. But he said he was well aware of the "hate-Christians" campaign that was being assembled online to apply pressure to PayPal.

The issue seems to contradict some of PayPal's own policy statements, which encourage people to offer donations for benevolent ventures:

"Use PayPal on microplace to empower people to start a business and work their way out of poverty. Your investment will make a difference in the lives of the world's working poor. It's the smart way to do good in the world. And with PayPal, you can also make a gift to your favorite non-profit organization by donating money using your PayPal account."

The company also says PayPal "is the faster way to send money to friends and family. And if you use just your bank or PayPal balance, it's free."

Further, PayPal claims it "isn't just for shopping."

"Use PayPal to send money via e-mail (or even cell phone) to almost anyone in 190 markets and 24 currencies – all you need is their email address. It's perfect for splitting the check, paying the babysitter, or sending money as a gift."

The company even offers various tools to "readily create fundraising marketplaces that tap into the wisdom of the crowd to identify worthy projects. … PayPal handles the money flow behind the scenes."

A PayPal user who contacted the company about its denial of service to Severo was rebuffed.

"Niamh" at PayPal wrote, "Thank you for contacting PayPal regarding PayPal preventing a customer for (sic) using our service. I have reviewed your account and email and can confirm that due to Data Protection I am unable to comment on a third party account."

LifeSiteNews.com already has created an online petition in support of the Christian websites and ministries that says, "I protest the attack by homosexual organizations on Christian activists Julio Severo, Americans for Truth About Homosexualty (AFTAH), and Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP). I encourage PayPal to affirm the right of pro-family organizations to use its service and to reject attacks on the Christian faith and other religions that uphold sexual morality and defend family values."

According to LaBarbera, the issue is that homosexual activists no longer are content to merely live their lifestyle; they now are demanding that people with biblical perspectives with which they disagree be shut down.

"They want dominance even if it means smearing pro-family people as 'haters' and destroying our cherished religious freedoms," he said.

WND reported earlier when Severo confirmed his website had been under surveillance by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, even though the government declined to respond to questions about the situation.

WND also reported when a similar series of attacks were generated against online ministries and groups that discuss the danger of Islam.

PayPal reportedly cut off several accounts because of concerns about their message of truth about Islam, then restored them a short time later.

Popular activist, author and blogger Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, who has also been involved in founding the Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop Islamization of America, reported getting intimidating letters from PayPal that claimed the websites "promote hate" and "racial intolerance."

According to Geller, PayPal sent her letters explaining the websites had violated the company's policy, which bans use of PayPal for items that "promote hate, violence, racial intolerance or the financial exploitation of a crime."

To comply, Geller reports, she was required to remove PayPal as a payment option from her websites, as well as all references to the company, its logo and shopping-cart features.

She later reported an executive with the company called and explained the decision was in error and that financial services to the websites could resume.

WND also reported when the Charitable Give Back Group, formerly known as the Christian Values Network, reported activists were working online to gather signatures and scare customers away because of the Christian message. Read more at www.wnd.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1da04

Challenges requirement for biometrics to get driver's license

Amplify’d from www.wnd.com

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER

Woman sues state over mandatory 'mark of the beast'

Challenges requirement for biometrics to get driver's license

By Bob Unruh

Michael Thompson

An Oklahoma requirement that driver's license applicants submit to "biometric" digital photographs – which are "stored and shared" without the applicant's knowledge – is a violation of religious rights, charges a lawsuit filed against the state's Department of Public Safety and several individuals.

The suit names Public Safety Commissioner Michael C. Thompson.

The state has told the plaintiff, Kaye Beach, that she must submit to the biometric requirement to obtain a license in the state, and there is no exemption based on religious beliefs.

The lawsuit contends the requirement, however, violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it "substantially" burdens Beach's free exercise of religion and does not accommodate her sincerely held religious beliefs.

The case seeks a ruling that "in order to comply with the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act, the state must provide an accommodation to Ms. Beach … which allows her to submit a low-resolution non-biometric facial photograph in order to obtain a driver's license."

"Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws"

"Whether a biometric ID card in the form of a driver's license or other government-issued form of identification is the mark of the Beast or merely the long arm of Big Brother, the outcome remains the same – ultimate control by the government," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, which is handling the case.

"As Kaye Beach's case makes clear, failing to have a biometric card can render you a non-person for all intents and purposes, with your ability to work, travel, buy, sell, access health care, and so on jeopardized," he said.

In March, Beach applied to renew her driver's license with the Department of Public Safety, the organization reported. Upon learning that the biometric photographs used by DPS are stored in a database that is managed and accessed by international organizations, Beach repeatedly voiced her religious objection to the practice and asked to be allowed to use a low-resolution photograph for her license. Beach subscribes to the Christian belief, detailed in the Bible's book of Revelation, that Christians must not participate in a global numbering identification system.

Rev. 13:16-18 and 14:9-11 "explicitly commands believers to not participate in a global numbering identification system using the number of man, and eternally condemns participation in that system," the lawsuit contends.

Officials with the state agency declined to respond to a WND request for comment.

The institute's report said Beach met all of the other requirements for a license and was deprived of that opportunity – "including the ability to acquire prescription medications, use her debit card, rent a hotel room or obtain a post office box" – only because of the state's refusal to provide a religious accommodation.

The case was brought in district court of Cleveland County. Rutherford Institute attorneys point out that the state's requirement for a biometric photograph does not serve a compelling state interest and that the state has other means for furthering any such state interest.

It notes that Beach was told "the interoperability and open architecture format for the high-resolution biometric facial photograph used by motor license agents as required by DPS to take the photographs for driver's licenses in an internationally set format determined by the United Nation's International Civil Aviation Organization …. and that the database into which her facial biometric data is placed is managed and accessed by a self-described international organization called the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators."

The case also alleges the rule violates her privacy and is an unreasonable warrantless search. Read more at www.wnd.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1d9zv

Arabs Throw Rocks at 20 Month Old Baby

Amplify’d from www.washingtonpost.com

A future for drones: Automated killing

By Peter Finn

One afternoon last fall at Fort Benning, Ga., two model-size planes took off, climbed to 800 and 1,000 feet, and began criss-crossing the military base in search of an orange, green and blue tarp.

The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on any control.

After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed images from an onboard camera, zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object. Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look.

Target confirmed.

This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. Imagine aerial “Terminators,” minus beefcake and time travel.

The Fort Benning tarp “is a rather simple target, but think of it as a surrogate,” said Charles E. Pippin, a scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, which developed the software to run the demonstration. “You can imagine real-time scenarios where you have 10 of these things up in the air and something is happening on the ground and you don’t have time for a human to say, ‘I need you to do these tasks.’ It needs to happen faster than that.”

The demonstration laid the groundwork for scientific advances that would allow drones to search for a human target and then make an identification based on facial-recognition or other software. Once a match was made, a drone could launch a missile to kill the target.

Military systems with some degree of autonomy — such as robotic, weaponized sentries — have been deployed in the demilitarized zone between South and North Korea and other potential battle areas. Researchers are uncertain how soon machines capable of collaborating and adapting intelligently in battlefield conditions will come online. It could take one or two decades, or longer. The U.S. military is funding numerous research projects on autonomy to develop machines that will perform some dull or dangerous tasks and to maintain its advantage over potential adversaries who are also working on such systems.

The killing of terrorism suspects and insurgents by armed drones, controlled by pilots sitting in bases thousands of miles away in the western United States, has prompted criticism that the technology makes war too antiseptic. Questions also have been raised about the legality of drone strikes when employed in places such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, which are not at war with the United States. This debate will only intensify as technological advances enable what experts call lethal autonomy.

The prospect of machines able to perceive, reason and act in unscripted environments presents a challenge to the current understanding of international humanitarian law. The Geneva Conventions require belligerents to use discrimination and proportionality, standards that would demand that machines distinguish among enemy combatants, surrendering troops and civilians.

“The deployment of such systems would reflect a paradigm shift and a major qualitative change in the conduct of hostilities,” Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said at a conference in Italy this month. “It would also raise a range of fundamental legal, ethical and societal issues, which need to be considered before such systems are developed or deployed.”

Drones flying over Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen can already move automatically from point to point, and it is unclear what surveillance or other tasks, if any, they perform while in autonomous mode. Even when directly linked to human operators, these machines are producing so much data that processors are sifting the material to suggest targets, or at least objects of interest. That trend toward greater autonomy will only increase as the U.S. military shifts from one pilot remotely flying a drone to one pilot remotely managing several drones at once.

But humans still make the decision to fire, and in the case of CIA strikes in Pakistan, that call rests with the director of the agency. In future operations, if drones are deployed against a sophisticated enemy, there may be much less time for deliberation and a greater need for machines that can function on their own.

The U.S. military has begun to grapple with the implications of emerging technologies.

“Authorizing a machine to make lethal combat decisions is contingent upon political and military leaders resolving legal and ethical questions,” according to an Air Force treatise called Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047. “These include the appropriateness of machines having this ability, under what circumstances it should be employed, where responsibility for mistakes lies and what limitations should be placed upon the autonomy of such systems.”

In the future, micro-drones will reconnoiter tunnels and buildings, robotic mules will haul equipment and mobile systems will retrieve the wounded while under fire. Technology will save lives. But the trajectory of military research has led to calls for an arms-control regime to forestall any possibility that autonomous systems could target humans.

In Berlin last year, a group of robotic engineers, philosophers and human rights activists formed the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) and said such technologies might tempt policymakers to think war can be less bloody.

Some experts also worry that hostile states or terrorist organizations could hack robotic systems and redirect them. Malfunctions also are a problem: In South Africa in 2007, a semiautonomous cannon fatally shot nine friendly soldiers.

The ICRAC would like to see an international treaty, such as the one banning antipersonnel mines, that would outlaw some autonomous lethal machines. Such an agreement could still allow automated antimissile systems.

“The question is whether systems are capable of discrimination,” said Peter Asaro, a founder of the ICRAC and a professor at the New School in New York who teaches a course on digital war. “The good technology is far off, but technology that doesn’t work well is already out there. The worry is that these systems are going to be pushed out too soon, and they make a lot of mistakes, and those mistakes are going to be atrocities.”

Research into autonomy, some of it classified, is racing ahead at universities and research centers in the United States, and that effort is beginning to be replicated in other countries, particularly China.

“Lethal autonomy is inevitable,” said Ronald C. Arkin, the author of “Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots,” a study that was funded by the Army Research Office.

Arkin believes it is possible to build ethical military drones and robots, capable of using deadly force while programmed to adhere to international humanitarian law and the rules of engagement. He said software can be created that would lead machines to return fire with proportionality, minimize collateral damage, recognize surrender, and, in the case of uncertainty, maneuver to reassess or wait for a human assessment.

In other words, rules as understood by humans can be converted into algorithms followed by machines for all kinds of actions on the battlefield.

“How a war-fighting unit may think — we are trying to make our systems behave like that,” said Lora G. Weiss, chief scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Others, however, remain skeptical that humans can be taken out of the loop.

“Autonomy is really the Achilles’ heel of robotics,” said Johann Borenstein, head of the Mobile Robotics Lab at the University of Michigan. “There is a lot of work being done, and still we haven’t gotten to a point where the smallest amount of autonomy is being used in the military field. All robots in the military are remote-controlled. How does that sit with the fact that autonomy has been worked on at universities and companies for well over 20 years?”

Borenstein said human skills will remain critical in battle far into the future.

“The foremost of all skills is common sense,” he said. “Robots don’t have common sense and won’t have common sense in the next 50 years, or however long one might want to guess.” Read more at www.washingtonpost.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1d9to

Amplify’d from news.yahoo.com

Thousands of white bass turn up dead in Arkansas River

By Suzi Parker | Reuters

LITTLE ROCK, Ark (Reuters) - Wildlife officials have discovered thousands of dead fish along the Arkansas River in Little Rock and were still counting carcasses on Tuesday, a day after an angler reported seeing dozens of dead white bass.

"We are on the river trying to determine the extent of the fish kill," said Keith Stephens, public information coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Wildlife investigators said the dead fish were mainly white bass, which are common in the river, and were between 5 and 8 inches long. Most were found near the foot of the Two Rivers Bridge, an 80-foot pedestrian bridge that opened in July.

An Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology official said toxins had not been eliminated as a potential cause and that oxygen levels had tested normal so far. Other test results for disease and parasites could take a month to conclude.

In late December, thousands of freshwater drum and yellow bass died in the Arkansas River. A month later, 500 more drum died. Officials later determined that the fish kills were likely caused by increases in atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen in the water after spillway gates were opened.

The massive winter fish kill had appeared especially alarming because it occurred around the same time thousands of red-winged blackbirds dropped dead from the sky on New Year's Eve near Beebe, Arkansas.

Studies later concluded that the birds died from blunt force trauma possibly caused by unusually loud noises.

Fish kills are not uncommon, according to the game and fish officials, and are often caused by reduced oxygen in the water, algae bloom or overpopulation. Infectious disease, parasites and toxicity can also cause fish kills.

Stephens said that because Monday's discovery was in a different location from the fish kills last winter, the white bass deaths were unlikely to be caused by gas bubble trauma.

Seasonal changes in water temperature can also cause such deaths, officials said.

(Edited by Karen Brooks and Cynthia Johnston) Read more at news.yahoo.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1d9t7

Amplify’d from news.yahoo.com

Visible Only From Above, Mystifying 'Nazca Lines' Discovered in Mideast

By Owen Jarus | LiveScience.com

The giant stone structures form wheel shapes with spokes often radiating inside. Here a cluster of wheels in the Azraq Oasis. CREDIT: David D. Boyer

They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public.

They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines — ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru — and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands.

Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of designs, with a common one being a circle with spokes radiating inside. Researchers believe that they date back to antiquity, at least 2,000 years ago. They are often found on lava fields and range from 82 feet to 230 feet (25 meters to 70 meters) across. [See gallery of wheel structures]

"In Jordan alone we've got stone-built structures that are far more numerous than (the) Nazca Lines, far more extensive in the area that they cover, and far older," said David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia.

Kennedy's new research, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, reveals that these wheels form part of a variety of stone landscapes. These include kites (stone structures used for funnelling and killing animals); pendants (lines of stone cairns that run from burials); and walls, mysterious structures that meander across the landscape for up to several hundred feet and have no apparent practical use.

His team's studies are part of a long-term aerial reconnaissance project that is looking at archaeological sites across Jordan. As of now, Kennedy and his colleagues are puzzled as to what the structures may have been used for or what meaning they held. [History's Most Overlooked Mysteries]

Fascinating structures

Kennedy's main area of expertise is in Roman archaeology, but he became fascinated by these structures when, as a student, he read accounts of Royal Air Force pilots flying over them in the 1920s on airmail routes across Jordan. "You can't not be fascinated by these things," Kennedy said.

Indeed, in 1927 RAF Flight Lt. Percy Maitland published an account of the ruins in the journal Antiquity. He reported encountering them over "lava country" and said that they, along with the other stone structures, are known to the Bedouin as the "works of the old men."

Kennedy and his team have been studying the structures using aerial photography and Google Earth, as the wheels are hard to pick up from the ground, Kennedy said.

"Sometimes when you're actually there on the site you can make out something of a pattern but not very easily," he said. "Whereas if you go up just a hundred feet or so it, for me, comes sharply into focus what the shape is."

The designs must have been clearer when they were originally built. "People have probably walked over them, walked past them, for centuries, millennia, without having any clear idea what the shape was."

(The team has created an archive of images of the wheels from various sites in the Middle East.)

What were they used for?

So far, none of the wheels appears to have been excavated, something that makes dating them, and finding out their purpose, more difficult. Archaeologists studying them in the pre-Google Earth era speculated that they could be the remains of houses or cemeteries. Kennedy said that neither of these explanations seems to work out well.

"There seems to be some overarching cultural continuum in this area in which people felt there was a need to build structures that were circular."

Some of the wheels are found in isolation while others are clustered together. At one location, near the Azraq Oasis, hundreds of them can be found clustered into a dozen groups. "Some of these collections around Azraq are really quite remarkable," Kennedy said.

In Saudi Arabia, Kennedy's team has found wheel styles that are quite different: Some are rectangular and are not wheels at all; others are circular but contain two spokes forming a bar often aligned in the same direction that the sun rises and sets in the Middle East.

The ones in Jordan and Syria, on the other hand, have numerous spokes and do not seem to be aligned with any astronomical phenomena. "On looking at large numbers of these, over a number of years, I wasn't struck by any pattern in the way in which the spokes were laid out," Kennedy said.

Cairns are often found associated with the wheels. Sometimes they circle the perimeter of the wheel, other times they are in among the spokes. In Saudi Arabia some of the cairns look, from the air, like they are associated with ancient burials.

Dating the wheels is difficult, since they appear to be prehistoric, but could date to as recently as 2,000 years ago. The researchers have noted that the wheels are often found on top of kites, which date as far back as 9,000 years, but never vice versa. "That suggests that wheels are more recent than the kites," Kennedy said.

Amelia Sparavigna, a physics professor at Politecnico di Torino in Italy, told Live Science in an email that she agrees these structures can be referred to as geoglyphs in the same way as the Nazca Lines are. "If we define a 'geoglyph' as a wide sign on the ground of artificial origin, the stone circles are geoglyphs," Sparavignawrote in her email.

The function of the wheels may also have been similar to the enigmatic drawings in the Nazca desert. [Science as Art: A Gallery]

"If we consider, more generally, the stone circles as worship places of ancestors, or places for rituals connected with astronomical events or with seasons, they could have the same function of [the] geoglyphs of South America, the Nazca Lines for instance. The design is different, but the function could be the same," she wrote in her email.

Kennedy said that for now the meaning of the wheels remains a mystery. "The question is what was the purpose?"

Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries

After Death: 8 Burial Alternatives That Are Going Mainstream

Top 10 Weird Ways We Deal With the Dead Read more at news.yahoo.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1d9t2

Amplify’d from www.space.com

FEMA Prepared for Dead NASA Satellite's Plunge to Earth This Week

by Leonard David, SPACE.com’s Space Insider Columnist

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite hangs in the grasp of the Remote Manipulator System during deployment from Space Shuttle Discovery, September 1991. CREDIT: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center View full size image

With a massive dead NASA satellite due to plunge back to Earth this week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is laying the groundwork for a fast response in case the 6 1/2-ton spacecraft falls over American soil. The defunct spacecraft, called the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), is projected to make and uncontrolled, fiery fall on Sept. 23, plus or minus a day, according to NASA. Odds are that nobody will be beaned by any remaining chunks of the nearly $750 million spacecraft, with NASA experts forecasting a remote 1-in-3,200 chance of a possible injury from the satellite's debris.

But re-entry specialists do expect about 26 different components from UARS to survive the plunge — a total leftover mass of 1,170 pounds (532 kilograms) – components made of titanium, aluminum, steel and beryllium.

It is impossible to pinpoint just where UARS satellite debris will fall. With Earth being three-fourths oceans, the odds of a harmless splashdown are good. But NASA estimates the debris footprint will be about 500 miles (804 kilometers) long.

The word from NASA is direct: "If you find something you think may be a piece of UARS, do not touch it. Contact a local law enforcement official for assistance."  [Photos: Space Debris & Cleanup Concepts]

That's where FEMA comes in.

Consequence planning

Be it satellite re-entry, terrorist act, or natural disaster, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its daughter agency FEMA would bring to bear the expertise and authorities of agencies across the federal government to support state and local governments.

These roles are outlined in the National Response Framework, a guide to how the nation conducts all-hazards response — from the smallest incident to the largest catastrophe.

FEMA's "consequence planning" stems from lessons learned after the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster over Texas, an incident that provided that agency with critical insight towards planning, preparing and responding.

FEMA also revved up a satellite re-entry action plan in early 2008. The worry then focused on the out-of-control spy satellite USA-193 (also known as NROL-21) owned by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

The classified USA-193 satellite tipped the scales at roughly 5,000 pounds (about 2,268 kg), and about 50 percent of it was predicted to survive re-entry. Of key concern was a tank that held about a half-ton of toxic hydrazine, a fuel source thought likely to survive re-entry and be intact when it struck the Earth, rupturing and releasing the hazardous material.

The U.S. military planned to shoot the spy satellite down.

"Please keep in mind that the probability that it will fall upon the United States is low, yet we must be ready," explained a FEMA communiqué to a network of first responders in 2008. "We will have six Federal Joint Interagency Task Forces located around the country ready to deploy the moment we know the impact area, responding to assist you in your role of immediate consequence management."

FEMA's on-call duties became moot when the errant NRO satellite was shattered by an interceptor missile on Feb. 21, 2008, rocketed spaceward from the USS Lake Erie, a U.S. Navy Aegis cruiser stationed west of Hawaii. Contents of the spacecraft's propellant tank were dispersed high above the Earth by the shootdown.

Get a snapshot view of NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), which will fall to Earth in 2011, in this SPACE.com infographic. CREDIT: Karl Tate, SPACE.com Contributor View full size image

Chain of command

The UARS satellite due to fall from the sky this week does not have any fuel remaining onboard. NASA commanded the satellite to use it all in 2005, when it was decommissioned, to put it on its years-long disposal course. [Infographic: NASA's Falling UARS Satellite Explained]

Since the spacecraft isn't carrying any hazardous materials, there's little need to try and shoot it down, officials said.

"There doesn't appear to be a reason to do those same measures," confirmed U.S. Air Force Major Michael Duncan, deputy chief of space situational awareness for U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Duncan told SPACE.com during a Sept. 9 teleconference that his organization will notify FEMA "as part of our chain of command notifications for re-entries over North America."

On the actual day of the UARS re-entry, Duncan said, they will be providing 24-hour, 12-hour, 6-hour, and 2-hour predictions as estimated for the actual re-entry time are improved.

"Obviously FEMA is always prepared to assist … should any of these components land in the United States," said Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist for NASA's Orbital Debris Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.  "It's, again, very, very unlikely when you look at the ratio of the land mass of the United States to the land mass of the world. We have had intergovernmental meetings on this issue and I feel very confident that they will rise to the occasion should the occasion arise."

An artist's concept of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) satellite in space. The 6 1/2-ton satellite was deployed from space shuttle Discovery in 1991 and decommissioned in December 2005. CREDIT: NASA View full size image

Numerically speaking

UARS will re-enter the atmosphere somewhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south. That means the nearly 6-ton craft will hit the Earth’s atmosphere anywhere from northern Canada to southern South America.

"And once you get 57 degrees plus or minus, you've pretty much encompassed all seven billion people of the planet," Johnson said.

Numerically speaking it comes out to a chance of 1 in 3,200 that one person anywhere in the world might be struck by a piece of debris. "So those are actually, obviously, very, very low odds that anything — anybody is going to be impacted by this debris," Johnson added.

According to Harro Zimmer, a devoted satellite tracker in Berlin, Germany, timing of the UARS nose-dive is being affected by a relatively high-level of solar activity lately.

Zimmer has been in the prediction business for more than 45 years. He's also authorized by USSSTRATCOM to use their data and issue the results of his independent analysis as an open source. He predicts the end of UARS on Sept. 23, give or take 8 hours.

"The earlier decay of UARS seems very realistic," Zimmer told SPACE.com.

Future fall

Another uncontrolled re-entry of a NASA satellite is on the distant horizon, but that plunge is several years away. The spacecraft, a joint project of NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is the still-operational Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). It is expected to continue its mission for up to another three years before plummeting back to Earth.

TRMM was launched in 1997 for what was intended to be a three-year mission. Moved into extended mission status, it consumed the onboard fuel needed to execute a controlled re-entry.

When TRMM gradually falls back to Earth in an uncontrolled manner, the risk of its debris to people on Earth, however, will be less than UARS, according to orbital debris experts.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

Worst Space Debris Events of All Time Fear of Ozone Loss Launched UARS Satellite Falling Space Junk: The Facts About NASA's Doomed UARS Satellite Read more at www.space.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1d9sx