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INTERSTELLAR VISITOR MAY BE ONE OF RAREST OBJECTS IN UNIVERSE

Scientists say that ‘Oumuamua, the giant space object that came from outside our solar system, could actually be an extremely rare chunk of hydrogen ice.

It’s an out-there idea — Wired reports that there are only a few places in the universe capable of creating a hydrogen iceberg. But the Yale scientists behind the theory say that if the interstellar visitor were a giant iceberg, many of its more bizarre properties would suddenly make sense.

Unidentified Frozen Object

One of the hardest things to explain about ‘Oumuamua’s path through our solar system is how it accelerated as it traveled. Comets accelerate, but there was no indication that ‘Oumuamua relied on that mechanism.

But if ‘Oumuamua were a hydrogen iceberg, the gradually-sublimating ice would propel it forward, according to research accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

“Even though the hydrogen iceberg thing is a little exotic, it explains every single mysterious thing about ‘Oumuamua,” recent Yale Ph.D. graduate Darryl Seligman told Wired.

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Court rules NSA phone snooping illegal — after 7-year delay

The National Security Agency program that swept up details on billions of Americans’ phone calls was illegal and possibly unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

However, the unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the role the so-called telephone metadata program played in a criminal terror-fundraising case against four Somali immigrants was so minor that it did not undermine their convictions.

The long-awaited decision is a victory for prosecutors, but some language in the court’s opinion could be viewed as a rebuke of sorts to officials who defended the snooping by pointing to the case involving Basaaly Moalin and three other men found guilty by a San Diego jury in 2013 on charges of fundraising for Al-Shabaab.

Judge Marsha Berzon’s opinion, which contains a half-dozen references to the role of former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden in disclosing the NSA metadata program, concludes that the “bulk collection” of such data violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The call-tracking effort began without court authorization under President George W. Bush following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A similar program was approved by the secretive FISA Court beginning in 2006 and renewed numerous times, but the 9th Circuit panel said those rulings were legally flawed.

The appeals court stopped just short of saying that the snooping was definitely unconstitutional, but rejected the Justice Department’s arguments that collecting the metadata did not amount to a search under a 40-year-old legal precedent because customers voluntarily share such info with telephone providers.

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New Jersey Governor Okays Work Licenses for Illegal Migrants

New Jersey’s Democrat governor signed a bill on September 1 that allows illegal migrants to take well-paying licensed jobs from Americans and legal immigrants, even amid the dramatic recession that has pushed many Americans out of jobs.

NJ.com reported the recession win for illegal migrants and employers on September 1:

Previously, [people] were required to have a “lawful presence in the United States” to qualify for a license. This law (S2455) removes that barrier.
[Gov. Chris] Murphy’s office said the law — which takes effect immediately — will benefit about 500,000 undocumented residents in New Jersey.

The office also said the state will be the first on the East Coast to enact such a law. California, Nevada, and New Mexico are among the other states with similar statutes.

The law allows illegals — including DACA recipients — to get licenses for many blue-collar and white-collar jobs.

The license will allow illegals to work as electricians, plumbers, HVAC workers, lab technicians, nurses, doctors, architects, and many other careers.

The law passed with support from employers, many of whom are eager to cut their costs by staffing their companies with the state’s large population of illegals, which include many Latinos and a growing number of Indians.

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Business Owners Stunned To Learn Insurance Won’t Cover Demolition Costs Of Buildings Destroyed By BLM Rioters

For months, Black Lives Matter activists and their media supporters have said that business owners who saw their livelihoods destroyed during riots shouldn’t worry because insurance would cover their losses. It turns out that won’t be the case, at least for business owners in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Star Tribune reported that a construction crew hired by the city of St. Paul to tear down the Sports Dome retail complex, which was destroyed by rioters, charged $140,000 for the demolition. The city sent the bill to the owners, which was for nearly six times the amount insurance would pay for demolition. Jay Kim, who owns the property, told the Tribune his insurance policy only covers up to $25,000 in demolition costs.

Early Proof of UFOs and the government denial that followed

The late, fabulous, Fortean writer, John A. Keel stated several times in his intriguing books that UFO flaps were numerous sightings that could either concentrate in a particular region over a short period of time or could even occur on a national scale in massive numbers as in 1952 which saw record UFO witness reports across America. In 1948 the US was reeling from the events of the alleged Roswell UFO crash in the first week of July of 1947. In that year alone Kenneth Arnold’s compelling sighting which actually pre-dated Roswell, near Mt. Rainier of 9 silvery disks traveling at an estimated 1200 miles per hour had shocked the American public as well as a score of military agencies even the FBI.

We hear today of dramatic photos and film footage which more often than not seem to be in question. Many supposed UFO films have been explained away as photo shop editing, or even the mistaken shutter aperture image of cameras adjusted to the infinity setting and pointed skyward. With relatively cheap software one can just about fake anything on a film from a plane crash to the President’s birth certificate, but in 1948, the phenomenon was not only relatively new but much harder to fake on film with film trickery being relatively easy to identify.

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Satan, the FBI, the Mob—and the Forgotten Plot to Kill Ted Kennedy

The FBI and Secret Service agents made their way through the streets of San Francisco’s foggy Richmond District neighborhood, about two miles from the Golden Gate Bridge, toward a narrow Victorian house that looked like it had tumbled out of the shadows of Alfred Hitchcock’s imagination. The building rose two floors to a sharply pitched roof; nearly every inch of the exterior had been painted the color of midnight.

The agencies had spent the better part of two weeks in October 1980 pursuing a case that had all the ingredients of a potential media firestorm, one that could stir up the country’s most traumatic political memories. Now—on Halloween—their digging had led investigators here, to 6114 California Street.

It was called the Black House, and stories about what went on behind its walls had been the subject of curiosity and speculation for more than a decade. The agents climbed a brick staircase, and knocked on the jet-black front door.

They were soon met by a bald, middle-aged man with a goatee: Anton Szandor LaVey. No introductions were necessary. LaVey, the high priest of the Church of Satan, was once rumored to have played a mystical role in the death of a former Hollywood star. He’d been expecting these agents to pay him a visit.

A day earlier, Senator Ted Kennedy had left San Francisco after campaigning for President Jimmy Carter, whose general election showdown with Ronald Reagan was inching closer. It had been a long, tumultuous year for Kennedy, who was then in his late 40s. He’d tried to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Carter; when that bid failed, Kennedy resorted to playing the role of a good party soldier, summoning the remnants of his family’s old Camelot magic as he crisscrossed the country to win over voters for Carter.

Running for president had also awakened a fear that Kennedy had tried to hide even from his closest confidants: that he would be assassinated, just like his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Anonymous tormentors had been sending Ted Kennedy handwritten threats since the late 1960s. “Teddy has to die,” promised a note that was once mailed to his father. The death threats only multiplied when Kennedy was on the campaign trail in 1980. “He had to be conscious of it. There was always a danger,” Bob Shrum, Kennedy’s former press secretary and speechwriter, remembers. “There were always nuts out there, and that’s just the way it was.”

What Kennedy, Shrum and a handful of other staffers didn’t know was that one morning that October, teletype machines had clattered to life in FBI field offices across the country with a fresh transmission, seven pages’ worth of new intelligence information. The bottom of the first page contained a stark message: “SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY — VICTIM, CONGRESSIONAL ASSASSINATION STATUTE.”

An informant had contacted the FBI office in downtown Chicago and explained that a plot to murder Kennedy was being set in motion. It’s a story that has never been told until now, a bizarre piece of history that became public only when I discovered records of the investigation that the FBI quietly released in June in The Vault, the bureau’s online FOIA library. The files outlined a scheme that supposedly involved money, drugs and the mob. And according to the informant, the ringleader—the man who allegedly wanted Ted Kennedy dead—was none other than Anton LaVey.

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