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#81
CONSPIRACY ZONE / Re: WHO WAS JACK THE RIPPER ?
Last post by THE FUGITIVE - March 28, 2018, 03:20:44 PM
I think from watching various reports and documentries that whoever he was he had a certain medical knowledge the way he cut his victims and later the Yorkshire ripper copied this method of killing and of course that does not prove a medical background as we know the Yorkshire ripper had no medical background but it probably means whoever it was studied books on organs inside the body and knew exactly where to cut
Sadly because so many years have passed i doubt the real truth will ever come out and remember DNA was not invented then so nothing could be pinned on suspects but one thing is for sure he sounds like a man that has either been hurt by prostitutes or a man that has been hurt by women in general that should be the main clue the other main clue is obviously his knowledge of the human body
#82
CONSPIRACY ZONE / WHO WAS JACK THE RIPPER ?
Last post by fobrien1 - March 27, 2018, 01:00:46 AM
many names have come up that could be jack the ripper . are they credible ? do you believe them ? .

ive personally watched many ripper documentaries and read about the ripper . so i know most if not all suspects .

the suspects vary from dr gull , to a polish emigrant called michael ostrog . the classic vision of the ripper is i guess a well dressed man with a deer stalker type hat and a gladstone bag . a fair argument has been made that if anyone saw such a man that they would have screamed the place down .

so then they argue it must have been someone that blended in to the poor east end . again this is a fair argument , after all such a person would look like everyone else .

i will use this thread to post multiple videos but ill start with two , these two for me offer what i feel are very plausible suspects . however we cant prove these people were guilty .

the first video is THE DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwN6VMjgw2Q

the above video centers on a man who was friends with an elderly gent , the elderly gent gave him a package an old diary , and said maybe he can earn some money out of it . the elderly man died soon after . it wasnt immediately evident whos diary it was and only at he very end was the name revealed .

the early criticisms of the diary by ripper authors etc were that the ink wasnt from 1888 , but the ink and diary were indeed from that era . another criticism was that the author used a term that was not used until years after 1888 , this also proved false , the term was A ONE OFF . the authors found that the term first appeared in dictionaries etc years after 1888 which was true . however words / terms are in use usually long before they get into dictionaries . and the term was indeed found to have been used as early as 1888 and prior to that .

information was in the diary about the victims , information that was kept from the public for about 100 years , that in itself begs the question why keep this information secret so long . this information was in regards items on or near the body that ONLY the police knew . things that were very ordinary and which would have had little significance to the police at the time . but the author of the diary was spot on and knew this information . this led the authors to one of two conclusions , the diary was a fake , faked after 1988 or most certainly genuine . all some had to state it was a fake was that they didnt want to accept it as genuine .

ill leave you guys view the video and decide for your self if you think the suspect in it JAMES MAYBRICK was a credible suspect .



the next suspect is maybe a bit of an unexpected suspect , but he must be viewed in the context of the story he was involved in .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae_ibP4J5dQ

the above video is JACK THE RIPPER : THE FINAL SOLUTION . there is a book also of the same name and the video is based on that book .

the author spoke to an old artist , the son of a famous artist walter sickert . and what the son told the author was stunning and may well be the answer to the puzzle and to all our questions .

the story is that the jack the ripper killings were the result of a 3 man team NOT one man . an east end cockey caoch driver , an acknowledged nasty piece of work . dr gull who was inside the coach . and a third man who was the subject of the video and the book . prince eddie (victorias grandson ) frequented an east end area and was friends with the third man .a few things happened that could embroil the royalty in a scandal that could destroy the monarchy . one was that eddie had a relationship with a commoner that bore him a daughter . the other ? well a documented scandal in that same area that involved known people at that time visiting a homosexual brothel for want of a better term .

and a blackmail attempt . this involved several prostitutes who knew eddie and his childs mother .

a combination of the above led to the three above mentioned men working together to remove the problems that could destroy the royals . one thing noted at the time was that despite the grissly nature of the public murders of the first 4 women was that despite them being badly stabbed and slashed , throat cut from ear to ear that there was very little blood . all most as tho they were killed elsewhere and the bodies dropped in the areas they were found . this story and the author posit that the first four were killed inside the coach . the author also posits that there was atleast one other kiling before the main five , and that there is reason to believe that there were a few others after .

most certainly scotland yard shut this case down very quickly . a few of the autopsies were controlled so as to keep information from coming out . i have read the book that the video is based on , i have to say it was engrossing and very hard to put down .

i welcome any comments and views on the above and on the videos above .
#83
HISTORY / MYSTERY / The Most Unbelievable True Fac...
Last post by THE FUGITIVE - March 26, 2018, 03:39:28 PM
Neil Armstrong Had to Go Through U.S. Customs after Returning from the Moon

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#84
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE / Re: TRY YOUR LUCK WITH GENERAL...
Last post by THE FUGITIVE - March 25, 2018, 03:42:29 PM
1. Which German dog was bred for digging out Badgers?

2. What weight is another name for the Snow Leopard?

3. What animal did the lions share of farmwork during the Middle Ages?

4. What is thr favourite food of the Death Watch Beetle?

5. What name is given to chicken under 1 year of age?

6. What is the lifespan of a Mayfly?

7. How many wings has a Bee ?

8. From which country does the Wombat come?

9. From which part of a cow does silverside come?

10. Why does a Glow Fly Glow?

11.   What colour is copper sulphate?

12.   Where was the first British nuclear power station?

13.   Which element is used to make the rod found inside an ordinary electric battery?

14.   Which two elements are alloyed to make brass?

15.   What instrument is used to detect radiation?

16.   Where is a bird's patella?

17.   Pulmonary refers to which part of the body?

18.   If a person has myopia what problem does he or she have?

19.   What is the chemical symbol of tin?

20.   .What did Jacques Cousteau invent? 

Answers

1. Dachshund

2. Ounce

3. The Ox

4. Wood

5. Pullet

6. 1 day

7. 4

8. Australia

9. Top of rear leg

10. To attract mates

11.   Blue

12.   Calder Hall

13.   Carbon

14.   Copper and tin

15.   Geiger counter

16.   Knee

17.   Lungs

18.   Short sighted

19.   Sn

20.   Aqualung

#85
HISTORY / MYSTERY / When was the most violent time...
Last post by THE FUGITIVE - March 25, 2018, 03:40:54 PM
The most violent time in history, measured by the number of people killed by collective violence as a proportion of a) total number of deaths and b) total number of people who lived, was the 1st half of the 20th Century. See this answer for details.

The 119,515,000 deaths caused by war and oppression between 1900 and 1945, according to my calculations based on Matthew White’s list of man-made calamities, make up 4.72 % of the (1,656,000,000 + 3,390,198, 215 " 2,516,000,000 =) 2,530,198,215 people who died between 1900 and 1950, and 2.37 % of the (1,656,000,000 + 3,390,198,215 =) 5,046,198,215 people who lived in that period according to the chart in Carl Haub, How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?.

The current era is comparatively very peaceful. From by blog article Germs vs. guns, or death from mass violence in perspective:

However, as the 21st Century is into its fifteenth year, and despite the horrors of local conflicts that make international press headlines (like the "Islamic State" insurgency in Iraq and Syria) or do not (like the ongoing armed conflict in my native Colombia), war ranks low " some say lower than ever " as a worldwide cause of mortality, According to the WHO’s World Health Report 2004, "Annex Table 2 Deaths by cause, sex and mortality stratum in WHO Regions, estimates for 2002", in 2002 war was responsible for a total of about 172,000 deaths representing 0.3 % of the ca. 57,029,000 deaths in that year (about 1 in 333 deaths), vs. violence other than war (ca. 559,000, 0.98% or about 1 in 102), self-inflicted deaths (873,000, 1.53 % or about 1 in 65), unintentional injuries (ca. 3,551,000, 6.23 % or about 1 in 16), communicable diseases, maternal and perinatal conditions and nutritional deficiencies (18,324,000, 32.1 % or about 1 in 3) and non-communicable conditions (33,537,000, 58.81 % or about 1 in 2). The WHO’s Global status report on violence prevention 2014 mentions war in the following context:

Since 2000, about 6 million people globally have been killed in acts of interpersonal violence, making homicide a more frequent cause of death than all wars combined during this period. Non-fatal interpersonal violence is more common than homicide and has serious and lifelong health and social consequences.

An online algorithm based on WHO data shows war ranking way after each of traffic accidents, falls, drowning, poisonings, fires, other accidents, suicide and non-war violence as a cause of death from injuries.
#86
HISTORY / MYSTERY / BERMUDA TRIANGLE
Last post by THE FUGITIVE - March 25, 2018, 03:37:11 PM
The Bermuda Triangle is a mythical section of the Atlantic Ocean roughly bounded by Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico where dozens of ships and airplanes have disappeared. Unexplained circumstances surround some of these accidents, including one in which the pilots of a squadron of U.S. Navy bombers became disoriented while flying over the area; the planes were never found. Other boats and planes have seemingly vanished from the area in good weather without even radioing distress messages. But although myriad fanciful theories have been proposed regarding the Bermuda Triangle, none of them prove that mysterious disappearances occur more frequently there than in other well-traveled sections of the ocean. In fact, people navigate the area every day without incident.

LEGEND OF THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
The area referred to as the Bermuda Triangle, or Devil’s Triangle, covers about 500,000 square miles of ocean off the southeastern tip of Florida. When Christopher Columbus sailed through the area on his first voyage to the New World, he reported that a great flame of fire (probably a meteor) crashed into the sea one night and that a strange light appeared in the distance a few weeks later. He also wrote about erratic compass readings, perhaps because at that time a sliver of the Bermuda Triangle was one of the few places on Earth where true north and magnetic north lined up.

Did You Know?
After gaining widespread fame as the first person to sail solo around the globe, Joshua Slocum disappeared on a 1909 voyage from Martha’s Vineyard to South America. Though it’s unclear exactly what happened, many sources later attributed his death to the Bermuda Triangle.

William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest,” which some scholars claim was based on a real-life Bermuda shipwreck, may have enhanced the area’s aura of mystery. Nonetheless, reports of unexplained disappearances did not really capture the public’s attention until the 20th century. An especially infamous tragedy occurred in March 1918 when the USS Cyclops, a 542-foot-long Navy cargo ship with over 300 men and 10,000 tons of manganese ore onboard, sank somewhere between Barbados and the Chesapeake Bay. The Cyclops never sent out an SOS distress call despite being equipped to do so, and an extensive search found no wreckage. “Only God and the sea know what happened to the great ship,” U.S. President Woodrow Wilson later said. In 1941 two of the Cyclops’ sister ships similarly vanished without a trace along nearly the same route.

A pattern allegedly began forming in which vessels traversing the Bermuda Triangle would either disappear or be found abandoned. Then, in December 1945, five Navy bombers carrying 14 men took off from a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airfield in order to conduct practice bombing runs over some nearby shoals. But with his compasses apparently malfunctioning, the leader of the mission, known as Flight 19, got severely lost. All five planes flew aimlessly until they ran low on fuel and were forced to ditch at sea. That same day, a rescue plane and its 13-man crew also disappeared. After a massive weeks-long search failed to turn up any evidence, the official Navy report declared that it was “as if they had flown to Mars.”

BERMUDA TRIANGLE THEORIES AND COUNTER-THEORIES
By the time author Vincent Gaddis coined the phrase “Bermuda Triangle” in a 1964 magazine article, additional mysterious accidents had occurred in the area, including three passenger planes that went down despite having just sent “all’s well” messages. Charles Berlitz, whose grandfather founded the Berlitz language schools, stoked the legend even further in 1974 with a sensational bestseller about the legend. Since then, scores of fellow paranormal writers have blamed the triangle’s supposed lethalness on everything from aliens, Atlantis and sea monsters to time warps and reverse gravity fields, whereas more scientifically minded theorists have pointed to magnetic anomalies, waterspouts or huge eruptions of methane gas from the ocean floor.

In all probability, however, there is no single theory that solves the mystery. As one skeptic put it, trying to find a common cause for every Bermuda Triangle disappearance is no more logical than trying to find a common cause for every automobile accident in Arizona. Moreover, although storms, reefs and the Gulf Stream can cause navigational challenges there, maritime insurance leader Lloyd’s of London does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle as an especially hazardous place. Neither does the U.S. Coast Guard, which says: “In a review of many aircraft and vessel losses in the area over the years, there has been nothing discovered that would indicate that casualties were the result of anything other than physical causes. No extraordinary factors have ever been identified.”
#87
HISTORY / MYSTERY / Could the Queen lose throne in...
Last post by THE FUGITIVE - March 25, 2018, 03:33:56 PM
HE Queen's right to the throne came under question today after scientists made a staggering genetic discovery surrounding King Richard III - which threatens to shake the foundations of the royal dynasty.

Experts are almost 100 per cent sure that the skeleton with a twisted spine found in a Leicester car park in 2012 is that of the last Plantagenet king.

Now new research has found a chink in the Tudor ancestry of Queen Elizabeth II whose right to the throne can be traced all the way back to King Henry VII, via James I and Mary Queen of Scots.

Previous DNA analysis had determined two female-line relatives of King Richard III still living and five other male-line relatives that have little royal significance.

But new evidence released today shows a break in the male 'Y chromosome' line - a newly discovered illegitimacy -  which brings into question the entire history of the British monarchy since the reign of Henry IV.

The research questions the historic legitimacy concerning the descent of Edward III to his son John of Gaunt and also his two grandsons, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset and Henry IV, the first Lancastrian King.

It centres around John of Gaunt, who was Tudor King Henry VII's great great grandfather and ancestor of the Queen.

Richard III was connected to these lineages through his great grandfather Edmund, Duke of York - John of Gaunt’s brother.

Prof Schurer, pro-vice chancellor of the University of Leicester, said: “We don’t know where the break is, but if there’s one particular link that has more significance than any other, it has to be the link between Edward III and his son John of Gaunt.

“John of Gaunt was the father of Henry IV, so if John of Gaunt was not actually the child of Edward III, arguably Henry IV had no legitimate right to the throne, and therefore neither did Henry V, Henry VI, and, indirectly, the Tudors.”

THE QUEEN IN PICTURES

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the scientists said the claim to the crown of the “entire Tudor dynasty” partly rested on its members’ descent from John of Gaunt.

They added: “The claim of the Tudor dynasty would also be brought into question if the false paternity occurred between John of Gaunt and his son, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset.”

Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, the last significant clash between the forces of the Houses of Lancaster and York in the War of the Roses.

According to historical records he was buried in Grey Friars Church, Leicester, which once stood on the site of the car park where his bones were found.

Examination of the skeleton showed that it had a twisted spine rather than the hunchback for which Richard III was famous. Although he would have walked with one shoulder higher than the other, his deformity could easily have been concealed beneath clothing and armour.

The genetic analysis showed a 96 per cent probability that Richard had blue eyes and a 77 per cent likelihood that he was blond, at least in childhood. It was possible that his hair colour may have darkened with age, said the scientists.

His appearance was probably similar to that depicted in an early portrait held by the Society of Antiquaries in London.

In their paper, the researchers compared the investigation to a missing person case that becomes more difficult over time - in this case, 527 years.

Geneticist Dr Turi King, from the University of Leicester, said: “What we have concluded is that there is, at its most conservative, a 99.999 per cent probability that these are indeed the remains of Richard III. The evidence is overwhelming.
#88
HISTORY / MYSTERY / Who invented time zones?
Last post by THE FUGITIVE - March 25, 2018, 03:26:08 PM
The first adoption of a standard time was on December 1, 1847, in Great Britain by railway companies using GMT kept by portable chronometers. The first of these companies to adopt standard time was the Great Western Railway (GWR) in November 1840. This quickly became known as Railway Time. About August 23, 1852, time signals were first transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Even though 98% of Great Britain's public clocks were using GMT by 1855, it was not made Britain's legal time until August 2, 1880. Some old British clocks from this period have two minute hands"one for the local time, one for GMT.

On November 2, 1868, the then-British colony of New Zealand officially adopted a standard time to be observed throughout the colony, and was perhaps the first country to do so. It was based on the longitude 172°30′ East of Greenwich, that is 11 hours 30 minutes ahead of GMT. This standard was known as New Zealand Mean Time.

Charles F. Dowd proposed a system of one-hour standard time zones for American railroads about 1863, although he published nothing on the matter at that time and did not consult railroad officials until 1869. In 1870 he proposed four ideal time zones (having north"south borders), the first centered on Washington, D.C., but by 1872 the first was centered on the meridian 75° W of Greenwich, with geographic borders (for example, sections of the Appalachian Mountains). Dowd's system was never accepted by American railroads. Instead, U.S. and Canadian railroads implemented a version proposed by William F. Allen, the editor of the Traveler's Official Railway Guide.

#89
AREA 51 / UFOs and Aliens Among Us
Last post by THE FUGITIVE - March 25, 2018, 03:23:15 PM
In the 1940s and 50s reports of "flying saucers" became an American cultural phenomena. Sightings of strange objects in the sky became the raw materials for Hollywood to present visions of potential threats. Posters for films, like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers from 1956 illustrate these fears.  Connected to ongoing ideas about life on the Moon, the canals on Mars, and ideas about Martian Civilizations, flying saucers have come to represent the hopes and fears of the modern world.

Are these alleged visitors from other worlds peaceful and benevolent or would they attack and destroy humanity? The destructive power of the Atomic bomb called into question the progressive potential of technology. Fear of the possibilities for destruction in the Cold War-era proved fertile ground for terrestrial anxieties to manifest visions of flying saucers and visitors from other worlds who might be hidden among us in plain sight.

Aliens Among us and Fears of the Other

If UFOs were visiting our world, where were these extraterrestrials? Could they be hidden among us? Comic books and television illustrates how the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors reflected anxieties of that era.

The 1962 comic There are Martians Among Us, from Amazing Fantasy #15, illustrates the way fear of extraterrestrials could reflect Cold War anxieties. In the comic, a search party gathers around a landed alien craft, but it can find no sign of alien beings. Radio announcers warn those nearby to stay indoors. The action shifts to a husband and wife as he prepares to leave their home despite a television announcer's warning to remain indoors. As he waves goodbye he reminds his wife to stay inside. The wife however decides to slip out to the store and is attacked and dragged off. The husband returns home and finding it empty runs towards the telephone in a panic. In a twist, the anxious husband reveals that he and his wife are the Martians.

The fear that there might be alien enemies in our midst resonates with fears of Soviets and communists from the McCarthy era. Ultimately, in this story, the humans are the ones who accost and capture the alien woman. The shift in perspective puts the humans in the position of the monsters.

UFOs as Contemporary Folklore

Aside from depictions of UFOs in media, UFOs are also part of American folk culture. Ideas of aliens and flying saucers are a part of the mythology of America. You can find documentation of these kinds of experiences in folk life collections. An interview with Howard Miller about hunting and hound dogs, collected as part of Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia collection, documents an individual's experience with a potential UFO sighting.

In A mysterious light, a segment of an ethnographic interview, Miller describes a strange light he saw once while hunting with his dogs in 1966 "All at once it was daylight, and I looked up to see what happened. There was a light about that big, going up, drifting up the hill. When I looked and seen it just faded out. I've been in the Marines, and know what airplane lights look like, and it was too big for that." When asked if he knew what it was he offered, "I don't know what it was" but went on to explain, "If there is any such thing as a UFO that's what that was." This unexplained light on a walk in the woods is typical of many stories of these kinds of encounters. It's not only the media that tells stories and represents these kinds of ideas, documentation of the experiences and stories Americans tell each other is similarly important for understanding and interpreting what UFOs meant to 20th century America.

Skepticism of UFOs and Alien Encounters

Scientists and astronomers express varying degrees of enthusiasm for the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. However, scientists generally dismiss the idea that there are aliens visiting Earth. In Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Carl Sagan reviews the possibilities of alien visitors to Earth, and suggests that there is good reason to be skeptical of them. Much of Sagan's work focuses on debunking folk stories and beliefs and tries to encourage more rigorous and skeptical thought. He similarly discussed criticism of beliefs in alien visitors in his earlier book, Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

This zealous criticism of belief in UFOs from Sagan, who was well known for his speculative ideas about the likelihood of alien civilizations, might seem to be a contradiction. Sagan himself had even speculated on the possibilities of visits by ancient aliens in his essay from the early 60s Direct Contact among Galactic Civilizations by Relativistic Interstellar Spaceflight.

How do we reconcile Sagan the skeptic with the imaginative Sagan? Far from a contradiction, these two parts of Sagan's perspective offer a framework for understanding him and the interchange between science and myth about life on other worlds. Skepticism and speculative imagination come together as two halves of the whole. It's essential to entertain and explore new ideas, however strange, while at the same time testing and evaluating the validity of those ideas.
#90
RANT ROOM / Why persuading the rich to giv...
Last post by THE FUGITIVE - March 25, 2018, 03:19:30 PM
We face years of austerity and as incomes and tax revenues are declining, charitable giving is either falling or stalling. Inequality in Britain is increasing faster than most rich nations " it is no coincidence that the most unequal societies are also the most dysfunctional. More tax cannot be the solution without international agreement and while we continue to vote for parties who are against increasing tax and for maintaining non-dom status for UK citizens.

What has this got to do with charitable giving and why should we be bothered if it is falling? We have been giving since the beginning of time. We are programmed to be altruistic as well as competitive; just as the need to eat and procreate is rewarded by feeling good, the same applies to giving. Philanthropy helped us to establish the civil society we enjoy today and enabled law, education, hospitals, welfare and culture to flourish long before the industrial revolution required the state to address growing poverty. Today, perhaps because of the unprecedented material prosperity and massive debt created in the past 60 years, we are losing the plot. Just over half of us give to charities regularly but we seem to be giving less; the poor give proportionately more than the rich and only a small minority of the very rich are being philanthropic.

As austerity bites and some become even more selfish, we risk compromising our humanity as well as civil society. Tax cannot pay for everything; we need a strong voluntary sector. The challenge then is this: while the richest increase their wealth and the remainder grow poorer, how do we reverse the decline in charitable giving and persuade the rich to commit to civil society, both by paying tax and giving? What should the government do to encourage more philanthropy? How do we create a better society if not a big one, while the state is in retreat?

As research for my book Giving Is Good For You, I put these questions to 80 people who give or receive. Many believe that all UK passport holders should pay British taxes wherever they live; national honours should not be given to those who do not pay tax; business leaders should not be given honours unless they can prove they are charitable; there should be more honours for those who volunteer and give. Tax relief should be extended and simplified to motivate more donors, underpinning the principle that tax is not paid on money that is donated. However, to justify spending more public money to stimulate private giving, tax relief should be limited by a much stricter definition of public benefit.

The government and voluntary sector must learn what motivates donors, who are free to choose whether to spend their money on private pleasure or for public gain, although there should not be the expectation that philanthropy can
compensate for reduced public expenditure. A national philanthropy strategy for the voluntary sector should have all party backing to ensure long-term planning by charities and commitment by donors.

Both the private and public sectors have hit the buffers and this gives us the opportunity to create a new social contract if politicians are up to the challenge. Philanthropists believe we should teach our children empathy as well as the virtues of a civil society and the role we should all play in sustaining it. There should be a national diploma for those at school who show commitment to the needs of others, an award that is valued by higher education and employers.

The "big society" may be a fantasy, made toxic by being politicised, but we can create a "better society", in which all should pay tax and everyone, whether giving time or money, can be a philanthropist.

Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall " we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters " because it might well be your perspective, too.

I appreciate there not being a paywall: it is more democratic for the media to be available for all and not a commodity to be purchased by a few. I’m happy to make a contribution so others with less means still have access to information.
Thomasine, Sweden