Some items that I think are neat or news and which will perhaps impact us a lot in the near future.

Do you know that today Russia withdrew from a major military arms treaty that was reached in 1990 at the end of the Cold War. Why? Because of our US work to violate the anti-missile treaty and place missiles in Europe next to Russia. Another sad result from the Bush foreign policy mess. Our US corporate media tends to not tell us of these sad events that continue.

In high tech, there is a new video camera called the ComVu which we can expect to see before long at some public meeting. It is a phone with the power of a TV camera for direct relay to live TV. These will change how many events are covered. Why? Because as meetings get better coverage, the politicians change how they act at the meetings. It is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in action. By observing something you change how it behaves. A politician scanning a room for TV cameras can very easily miss this baby. Ergo, they will assume there is one somewhere and be cautious.

And - the nugget of news you will probably get only here today is last but perhaps most important. Today we think the sun started into its solar cycle 24. To translate, we think the next 11 year cycle of sunspots may be beginning today. For the past two years, the sun has been in the minimum of the 11 year cycle 23 - with few sunspots. Whether the next cycle would even start was not certain. The prediction is for a very strong cycle 24 with a peak in 2012. And - gentle reader here is the point - the sunspots strongly impact our weather on earth. In the late 1600s there were few sunspots for about 70 years and we had what is called the 'little ice age' with very cold weather. Sunspots are good. And over the next 6 or 7 years you will see more about them in the news media.

That's it for today, friends.