Still Gitmo Questions Abound

What happens if you are left alone in the dark in solitary confinement for days on end? The result is called sensory deprivation and the human mind struggles to cope with it.

Six volunteers who agreed to be shut inside a cell in a nuclear bunker, all alone and in the dark. Within half an hour of lock up, at the start of the experiment, all of the subjects lie down and go to sleep. But the real mind games begin when they wake up and find they have no idea what time it is.
As the hours pass, seeing and hearing nothing, they become increasingly disoriented, subjects have been encouraged to describe how they are feeling after 24 hours, but know that while their words may be heard, no one will respond.

"This behaviour of pacing up and down is something we see in animals as well as people when they are kept in confinement," says Prof Ian Robbins, a clinical psychologist at St George's Hospital who is supervising the experiment. "It could be just seen as something you can do without thinking about it, it may be in part attempting to exercise, but I think it is reaction to the lack of input and you provide the input physically."

Subject Brian Keenan is all too familiar with some of what they are experiencing: "The nothingness, that was extremely hard. Because the question in your head is how am I going to get through the next 10 minutes? Or months later, how am I going to get through the next day? Is there enough left in my head?"adding, "I remember one occasion waking up and having to squeeze my face and my chest and thinking to myself 'Am I still alive?'

Subject Adam Bloom, experienced, after just 30 hours, he is in trouble. "I'm hallucinating! I thought I could see a pile of oyster shells, five thousand oyster shells, empty, to represent all the nice food I could have eaten while I was inside here."

Prof Ian Robbins an insight into "what can happen to people kept in solitary confinement over possibly many months and even years". "Evidence that has accumulated in those places must be considered very unreliable because people will after a while start to take on board the views of their interrogators," he says. "Our volunteers were in a sensory deprivation environment for 48 hours and being treated humanely."

After just 48 hours, Adam wanted to kiss the man who opened the door to let him out. "I was let outside and saw the sun and the sky, for the first time in 48 hours. My senses were overwhelmed totally and utterly by the sights, sounds and smells.

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St. Helens is Disturbing the Locals Again

MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Wash. - Mount St. Helens blew another cloud of steam skyward Thursday shortly after scientists said its crater floor had risen 50 to 100 feet since Tuesday, indicating that molten magma was moving upward without encountering much resistance.

A news helicopter hovering over the crater captured the latest venting, which sent gray and white clouds of steam billowing upward beginning about noon (3 p.m. ET).

I lived in the area when she first blew, it was dramatic!

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Frigid Conditions take toll Despite American Allies Presence in the Country.

The number of people who have died due a cold snap in Afghanistan has risen to 200, government officials say. Four large provinces in the western part of the country have been especially badly hit. Tens of thousands of livestock have also perished.

Local people are saying the winter conditions have been the most severe in decades. The cold spell is also affecting neighboring countries despite the presence of the American presence in the area.People seem to have been unprepared for the heavy snow and low temperatures.

Most of the 200 dead are herdsmen - but women and children have also died.

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Looks like the Whalers and the Protesters have Mutually Stood Down

The pair, from the radical Sea Shepherd group, boarded the vessel on Tuesday. The ICR then branded the activists as terrorists, while Sea Shepherd accused the ICR of illegal hunting. Earlier, Australian PM Kevin Rudd had urged both sides to exercise restraint.

"It became very clear yesterday that Sea Shepherd had no intention of retrieving their two intruders, who boarded the Yushin Maru with backpacks carrying a change of clothes, toiletries and other sundry items.

"The Australian government accepted Japan's request to assist and remove the men from our research vessel to allow us to continue our work."


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Intervention Asea offered by the Aussies

Australia says it will send a ship to collect two activists from a Japanese whaling vessel, in a bid to end a two-day Antarctic stand-off. Her Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said a ship monitoring the whalers would retrieve the men as soon as possible. Mr Smith said that the patrol boat, the Oceanic Viking, would retrieve the men from the Yushin Maru 2 and transfer them to Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin vessel.

The whalers say the men tried to damage their propeller and threw acid before illegally boarding. They offered to return them if Sea Shepherd agreed not to confront the whaling vessel during the handover. Sea Shepherd said the men were roughed up when they boarded the vessel and ruled out any kind of conditional handover.



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this is very strange shutting down the new accounts without the new post transferred. Let me know what you think leave me a comment: