Real Talk!

In July, the folks from CERN working on the Large Hadron Collider posted a rap video on YouTube. The video features anonymous, dancing, lab-coated and hard-hatted workers inside the facility. It’s easy to find on a YouTube search, “Hadron Collider” and you’re sure to tap your toe along to this quirky, light-hearted info insight…

Quark rap… hmmm… I really don’t know what to think. I’ve mentioned before, that, for me, this whole LHC thing has comic book overtones. Now, to discover a rap video… I’m really disturbed. You gotta see it to believe it. It’s a bit like calling upon the power of “anti-matter”… For me, it’s sort of on the same wavelength as toy store Ouija Boards.

Is it safe? Is it something we fear, simply because we don’t understand it? Jeepers, those CERN workers sure look happy and fear-free.

I’ve heard people that figure it must be okay, because it’s happening in Switzerland… HUH?

Switzerland has been considered “neutral” since about 1515 but it wasn’t formally recognized until 1815 (after the Napoleonic Wars & the last time they were at war) and the country we know today, really didn’t form until the mid 1800s.

Bordered by Germany, France, Italy, Liechtenstein and Austria, Switzerland is home of many international organizations (Red Cross, The U.N., the World Trade Organization). The country is multlingual with four national languages: German, French, Italian and Romash.

I learned a lot about Switzerland (particularly the Alps region) while researching my family tree.

Occupied, throughout the centuries by various of its neighbouring countries, the Alps region has a rich and colourful history. While there may have been some bitter carry-overs, it appears that the area has stabilized and unified. One of the five goals of Swiss foreign policy is to achieve the peaceful coexistence of all nations.

The Swiss foreign affairs website identifies the education, research, technology and space sectors as “essential cornerstones of prosperity and the efficient operation of a modern society.” http://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home/topics/scien.html

Sounds like a pretty safe place for some good, old atom-slamming fun…. Doesn’t it?

A lot of people aren’t so sure.

A 16-year-old girl from Madhya Pradesh, India killed herself, afraid of the repercussions from the atom smashing experiments CERN is conducting on the French-Swiss border. Her father said that she was certain the world was going to end on September 10th.

Wow.

I can remember being a little worried about headline predictions of the end, when I was a kid- but not enough to drink pesticide.

This morning I did a “google” on past predictions of end times… I particularly liked the stuff on http://www.bible.ca/pre-date-setters.htm , http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/rapture.html and http://www.abhota.info/end1.htm .

These websites chronicle some 200+ previous predictions of “the end”. None of these pages had rap tunes.

In the 70s, my gang spent a lot of time waiting for California to break away and sink into the ocean.

& some things never change…

Even today, popular thinking today is full of relentless "endism," forecasting the death of everything- the web, mass media, governments, health care, education… you name it. In essence: the end of the world as we know it.

The world as I know it needs to make some radical changes… so there are days that I look forward with much anticipation to that stuff…

Who’s in charge of this madhouse?

Who’s steering this barge?

Oh, there are theories. Like Bilderbergs and Banksters… but nobody knows all of the details of these networks… there are a lot of assumptions… and some, are sure to be incorrect.

In February ’08, the U.S. launched a missile from a location near Hawaii, off a Navy ship, engaging the 1000 pound fuel tank of a wayward satellite some 130 miles away, in space. They claim they did a better job than China- in January ’07, the Chinese used a land-based missile to break up a 2200 pound satellite, orbiting 528 miles out, above the Earth.

But that’s nothing! In 1989, a U.S. jet fighter took down an American satellite, firing a modified air-to-air missile into space, from an altitude of 80,000 feet.

Ya? My dad’s bigger than your dad.

The LHC is a circular tunnel 27 km around, bisected by the Franco-Swiss border. Over 100-billion protons will traverse its pathways at near-light speed, guided by some 9,300 superconducting magnets, each weighing several tons and chilled to temperatures colder than deep space. At four points in the tunnels, the counter-revolving protons are to smash into one another at a rate of nearly one billion per second.

This extraordinary feat of engineering will accelerate two streams of protons to within 0.999999991 per cent of the speed of light, so that they complete 11,125 27km laps in a single second. The two streams will collide, at four points, with the energy of two aircraft carriers sailing into each other at 11 knots.

Two beams about 2mm wide (small enough to pass through the 0 on a 20p piece) around the 27km loop at temperatures of 1.9 kelvin – just above absolute zero. These beams will then be accelerated in opposite directions almost to the speed of light, and made to collide head-on 600 million times a second.

The LHC’s detectors should be calibrated by the end of the year and the collisions will then be ramped up to their maximum energy of 14TeV, generating the conditions that prevailed fractions of a second after the Big Bang.

Can anybody translate for me??

The Large Halon Collider is said to be the most ambitious and expensive civilian science experiment in history. I’ve seen estimates that 20, 40, 60, 80 or 111 nations have been involved in designing, building and testing the equipment. It’s said that Britain has a leading role and the U.S. has invested about $531 million of their dollars, in construction of the European device.

I guess the civilian part means taxpayers.

& what’s it all about? Where does it lead?

CERN says there are advantages in playing a leading role in such a major international project. CERN says that building the LHC has created new expertise, knowledge and technology which will have near-term medical, industrial and consumer uses.

Ummm… am I going to have a home proton smasher anytime soon?

And there'll be longer-term benefits in the training of top-notch scientists and engineers.

Remember HAARP? Started in 1993, the project is proposed to last for a period of twenty years. The project is jointly funded by the United States Air Force, the Navy, the University of Alaska and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) was an investigation project to "understand, simulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems.

The objectives of the HAARP project became the subject of controversy in the mid-1990s, following claims that the technology could be expanded into use as a weapon.

I hear “HAARP” and have visions most angelic. A weapon, ya think? Just because its funding comes from the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Research Laboratory… no need to be cynical.

HMMMM… now, the handle “collider” just reeks of negativity.

The acronym "LHC" is so much lighter! & Thank goodness there's a happy, snappy, rap LHC video to watch- it straightens the whole thing out.

& if that isn't enough, visit:

http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/