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NEWS ... GLOBAL NEWS ... hundred nucleotides occurs without physical CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM AS AN INSTRUMENT OF contact or presence of proteins. Double US MILITARY DOCTRINE helixes of DNA can recognise matching by Khody Akhavi © 2008 molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules or chemical signals. "Amazingly, the forces responsible for the sequence recognition can reach across more than one nanometre of water separating the surfaces of the nearest neighbour DNA," said the authors Geoff S. Baldwin, Sergey Leikin, John M. Seddon, Alexei A. Kornyshev and colleagues. lhe US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs recently came under heavy criticism from Muslim and religious freedom advocacy groups after it invited to a conference three self-professed "former terrorists" with strong links to the Christian right. Collectively known as the "3-X Terrorists", Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are frontline soldiers in the US "culture wars", a discursive battle over "values" and hot-button issues ranging from abortion to radical Islam. The men collected US$13,000 for their appearance at the 50th annual Academy Assembly, a four-day conference attended by 200 international students and Air Force cadets and organised under the auspices of the school's political science department. ; To supporters, the 3-X represent "moderate" voices; they are self-professed Muslim (Source: DailyGalaxy.com, 6 February extremists who converted to evangelical Christianity and are now "exposing Islam for 2008, http:/tinyurl.com/2enjtk) what it really is". To critics, they are frauds, accused of fabricating much of their past exploits as mass murderers in order to peddle their Islamophobia on the lecture circuit MYSTERY "HORIZONTAL" HUM and on cable news networks, including Fox News and CNN. : PUZZLES GEOLOGISTS But it is their relationship with political leaders and organisations across the right- isten closely, and you Il hear the Earth | wing Christian spectrum that seems to have elicited the greatest concern from critics. humming—in not just one note but "These men are frauds, but that is not the point. They are part of a dark and two. The source of this second signal is a__| frightening war by the Christian right against tolerance that, in the moment of another mystery. For around a decade we've catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would make it acceptable to target and known about Earth's quiet "vertical" hum, persecute all Muslims," wrote former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges in a probably caused by the steady thumping of | widely circulated online essay. "They offer a window into a worldview that is deep waves on the ocean floor. Nowa destroying the United States. It has corrupted the Republican Party. It has colored the team in Germany has discovered a_ | news media. It has entered into the everyday clichés we use to explain ourselves to "horizontal" note, and nobody knows ourselves. It is ignorant and racist, but it is also deadly," he said. what's causing this new signal. The relationship between the evangelical Christian right and 3-X runs deep, with Dieter Kurrle and Rudolf Widmer- connections to Reverend John Hagee's Christian—Zionist Christians United For Israel Schnidrig of the University of Stuttgart in | (CUFT) as well as Focus on the Family, part of the para-church organisations that Germany studied 11 years of data from promote social conservative public policy in the US and which have maintained close seismometers at four isolated locations in _ | relations with the George W. Bush administration. Germany, Japan and China. The Walid Shoebat claims to be a former Palestinian Liberation Organization operative seismometers were designed to detect who attacked Jews, planted bombs in Israel, and in 1993 converted to Christianity. He minute horizontal motion in parallel to the | released a book in 2007 entitled Why We Want to Kill You, and appeared in a purported Earth's surface. documentary film called Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West. They found evidence of a "horizontal" The film was marketed in part by self-described "pro-Israel" groups, and featured signal at all four stations. The signal interviews with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, dubious "investigative migrates by around one micrometre one _ | journalist" Steve Emerson, Itamar Marcus of the Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch, way or the other every three minutes or so, and Daniel Pipes, a controversial scholar of mediaeval Islamic history. and its horizontal orientation distinguishes Kamal Saleem, who runs an organisation called Koome Ministries, said he was it from Earth's "vertical" oscillation. indoctrinated by the PLO as a child and ran weapons into Israel via underground tunnels underneath the Golan Heights. But analysts argue there are no accounts of such incidents. Saleem also claimed to be descended from the "grand wazir of Islam"—a nonsensical term that Saleem has rebutted on his website. source is a mystery. The Koome Ministries website is quite clear on its purpose: first, to wake up, "Something entirely new to us is causing educate and train the Christian and Jewish communities on the impending dangers of this hum," says Spahr Webb of th radical Islam; second, to reach Muslims with the redemptive message of Christ; and aoe ays oe een © third, to teach the Church "relationship evangelism" in order to reach Muslims with the Truth. The site asks visitors to pray for specific Muslim nations and provides videos of indigenous groups that are "ripe for the gospel”. Zachariah Anani claimed to have killed at least 223 people as a Lebanese militant during the early 1970s and was "almost beheaded" for converting to Christianity. A 2007 report in the Canadian Windsor Star cast doubts on his jihadi past. According to Tom Quiggin, a Canadian court-qualified expert of global jihadism, some of Anani's accounts did not correspond with actual historical events. "Mr Anani is not an . . we : ' individual who rates the slightest degree of credibility, based on the stories that he has synchronised with variations in the Sun's " Gat «ein a cant . P sa f atiann arity 4 magnetic field told," said Quiggin, a senior fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security in : Te a Singapore. (ours. Scents com 23 February (Source: by Khody Akhavi, Inter Press Service News Agency, 21 February 2008, , http: (tinyurl.com/2ojs86) http://www. ipsnews.netnews.asp idnews=41299) Though certain events such as earthquakes, volcanoes and large storms seem to amplify this constant signal, the Lamont—Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, who studied the original hum. At the American Geophysical Union annual meeting last December, David Thomson of Queens University in Canada and Frank Vernon of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California, told researchers that the new hum is hundred nucleotides occurs without physical contact or presence of proteins. Double helixes of DNA can recognise matching molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules or chemical signals. "Amazingly, the forces responsible for the sequence recognition can reach across more than one nanometre of water separating the surfaces of the nearest neighbour DNA," said the authors Geoff S. Baldwin, Sergey Leikin, John M. Seddon, Alexei A. Kornyshev and colleagues. (Source: DailyGalaxy.com, 6 February 2008, http://tinyurl.com/2enjtk) MYSTERY "HORIZONTAL" HUM PUZZLES GEOLOGISTS isten closely, and you'll hear the Earth fhumming—in not just one note but two. The source of this second signal is a mystery. For around a decade we've known about Earth's quiet "vertical" hum, probably caused by the steady thumping of deep waves on the ocean floor. Now a team in Germany has discovered a "horizontal" note, and nobody knows what's causing this new signal. Dieter Kurrle and Rudolf Widmer- Schnidrig of the University of Stuttgart in Germany studied 11 years of data from seismometers at four isolated locations in Germany, Japan and China. The seismometers were designed to detect minute horizontal motion in parallel to the Earth's surface. They found evidence of a "horizontal" signal at all four stations. The signal migrates by around one micrometre one way or the other every three minutes or so, and its horizontal orientation distinguishes it from Earth's "vertical" oscillation. Though certain events such as earthquakes, volcanoes and large storms seem to amplify this constant signal, the source is a mystery. "Something entirely new to us is causing this hum," says Spahr Webb of the Lamont—Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, who studied the original hum. At the American Geophysical Union annual meeting last December, David Thomson of Queens University in Canada and Frank Vernon of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California, told researchers that the new hum is synchronised with variations in the Sun's magnetic field. (Source: NewScientist.com, 23 February 2008, http://tinyurl.com/2o0js86) APRIL — MAY 2008 NEXUS +9 www.nexusmagazine.com