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This is your brain on music: Researchers to create tunes written by body’s emotional responses

MONTREAL — If raw, unbridled emotion is behind some of the world’s best music, then researchers may be on to something with a musical performance drawn directly from nerve activity in the brain.

An artist at Montreal’s Concordia University and a neuroscientist in Australia have collaborated on a project that records emotional response in the body and turns it into music.

Vaughan Macefield, a professor at the University of Western Sydney, came up with a way to measure nerve activity through a single neuron, painting an electronic picture of the subject’s emotions.

His research team injects a very fine microelectrode needle into a peripheral nerve in the body that allows researchers to record electrical signals emitted from the brain. Blood flow, heart rate, sweat release and respiration levels are also recorded.

“Of course we are not the first to have thought of this, but this is the first attempt to use direct recordings of sympathetic nerve activity,” Macefield said in an email.

These signals are compiled as data — and sent by email to Montreal as a raw collection of numbers.

Our bodies possess intrinsic rhythms, each at different frequencies, that can be utilized to generate music

That’s where the art comes in.

Erin Gee, a master’s student in fine arts at Concordia, is creating a computerized system that uses experimental musical instruments to turn the numbers into music.

The software converts the data into a chorus of bells, producing music literally composed by feelings.

“What’s unique to this project is that it’s all about bodies,” Gee said in an interview.

“It takes these tiny bodily physical performances that happen when one is emotional and transfers these tiny beating hearts and fluctuations in breathing and nerve activity — and amplifies it through technology.”

Gee has already done a trial run using her own emotional measurements.

Played over the phone, it sounded like a choppy series of church bells. It wasn’t quite Mozart — there wasn’t even a clear melody to the rhythmic chiming — but it did successfully reflect the anxiety she felt from having a needle tapped into her nerve.

Gee’s end goal is more ambitious.

She wants to create a symphony of bells played by tiny robotic machines that reflects the emotions experienced by a group of performers in real time.

“The idea is that it’s going to be a live show, featuring live subjects,” she said.

A performance is planned for next fall in Montreal.

Method actors — trained to feel emotion on demand — will be attached to sensors that monitor their bodies’ reactions.

On stage, the actors will perform a score that will require them to summon a broad range of feelings.

It may be possible to use these amplified responses to train autistic children to recognize emotions

The project could eventually bring practical benefits.

Individuals with autism, for example, often struggle to understand the emotions of others. Gee’s robotic technology could be used to teach them how to identify feelings, Macefield said.

“We know that our emotions are the product of the physiological responses our bodies produce,” Macefield said.

“So… it may be possible to use these amplified responses to train autistic children to recognize emotions.”

More broadly, Macefield said the project hints at the profound connection between music, emotion, and the human body.

“It tells us that our emotional selves are the products of our physiological responses, and that our bodies possess intrinsic rhythms, each at different frequencies, that can be utilized to generate music,” he said.

“Perhaps some of our appreciation of music is related to the fact that some of the musical rhythms do fit our own physiological rhythms.”

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Nazi flags, furious protests greet Angela Merkel as German leader arrives in Greece

ATHENS — Greek riot police fired stun grenades, pepper spray and tear gas to push back protesters throwing stones and petrol bombs during rallies this morning against visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel arrived in Greece on her first visit since Europe’s debt crisis erupted here three years ago, braving protests to deliver a message of support — but no new money — to a nation hammered by recession and fighting to stay in the euro.

Thousands of Greeks defied a ban on protests, gathering in Syntagma square in central Athens as Merkel’s plane touched down. Two protesters dressed in German military uniforms waved a red-black-and-white swastika flag and held out their arms in the Nazi salute. Merkel was meeting Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras only a few hundred metre away from the clashes, where austerity-weary Greeks are taking to the streets in one of the biggest protests in months.

Many Greeks blame Merkel for forcing painful cuts on Greece in exchange for two EU-IMF bailout packages totaling over 200 billion euros.

Police have readied 6,000 officers, including anti-terrorist units and rooftop snipers, to provide security during the six-hour visit. German sites in the Greek capital, including the embassy and Goethe Institute, are under special protection.

Merkel was given the red carpet treatment and full military honors at Athens airport. Samaras greeted her with a handshake as she exited the German air force jet. A band played the German and Greek national anthems.

In the centre of Athens, the reception was less warm. On Syntagma square, banners read “Merkel out, Greece is not your colony” and “This is not a European Union, it’s slavery.”

“We don’t want her here. Merkel go home!,” said Maria Dimitriou, a 40-year-old unemployed woman who travelled to Athens from southern Greece to protest. “They’ve turned our lives into hell.”

REUTERS/Yannis BehrakisPeople hold a banner saying "Frau Merkel get out" ahead of a demonstration against the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in central Athens, October 9, 2012.

After steering clear of Greece for the past five years, Merkel decided to visit for several reasons.

She wants to show support for Samaras, a fellow conservative, as he struggles to impose more cuts on a society fraying at the edges after five years of recession.

At a joint appearance before the press in the afternoon, she is expected to confirm her desire to keep Greece in the euro zone, after members of her government flirted with the idea of an exit earlier this year.

With a year to go until Germany holds an election, Merkel also hopes to neutralize opposition criticism that she has neglected Greece and contributed to its woes by insisting on crushing budget cuts.

“Her visit to Athens is primarily about political positioning, and the opportunity to clarify her position on Greece,” said Alex White, an analyst at J.P. Morgan.

REUTERS/Yannis BehrakisDemonstrators, dressed as Nazis, wave a swastika flag as they ride in an open-top car in Syntagma Square in Athens as they protest against the visit of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, October 9, 2012.

RISK OF VIOLENCE

Teachers, doctors and other public employees stopped work on Tuesday in a gesture of protest, while trade unions and opposition political parties took to the streets, risking confrontation with police.

Demonstrations in Athens have a habit of turning violent, hijacked by radicals armed with petrol bombs and rocks ripped from the streets.

Greece is in talks with its “troika” of lenders — the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund — on the next tranche of a 130-billion-euro ($170-billion) loan package, its second bailout since 2010.

Without the 31.5-billion-euro tranche, Greece says it will run out of money by the end of November.

Many Greeks say they cannot take more of the wage cuts and tax hikes that have left a quarter of the workforce jobless and slashed the country’s economic output by a fifth.

SAKIS MITROLIDIS/AFP/Getty ImagesA man in chains and carrying a wooden cross marked "Greece wake up" walks during a protest against the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Thessaloniki on October 9, 2012.

Ties between the Germany and Greece run deep. Thousands of Greeks came to Germany after World War Two as “guest workers” to help rebuild the shattered country and more than 300,000 Greeks currently reside there.

But relations are also clouded by the atrocities Greeks suffered at the hands of the Nazis during World War Two.

Samaras’ own great grandmother committed suicide when she saw Nazi tanks rolling down the streets of Athens after Germany occupied Greece, flying the swastika flag from the Acropolis.

Greek President Karolos Papoulias, whom Merkel will also meet on Tuesday, fought against the German Wehrmacht as a teenager, before fleeing to Cologne to escape persecution by the Greek military dictatorship.

BOTTOMLESS PIT

The crisis has revived long-dormant animosities, with Greek protesters burning effigies of Merkel in Nazi gear and German media playing up images of lazy Greeks keen for German cash.

Relations hit a post-war low early this year when Merkel’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, likened Athens to a “bottomless pit” and proposed imposing a European “Sparkommissar” on Greece to control its finances.

In addition to her meetings with Samaras and Papoulias, Merkel is also due to meet with Greek business representatives.

The timing of the visit, showing Merkel very publicly with the new premier, suggests growing trust in the Greek leadership under Samaras, after a litany of broken promises and stalled reforms under the previous administration.

But she is not expected to offer him any concrete promises of aid or other concessions before the “troika” publishes its latest assessment of Greece’s reform progress by early November.

“The average German voter is irritated at the thought of dispatching more taxes or savings to feckless southerners, yet is desperate for the respect and goodwill to Germany that comes from public displays of magnanimity,” said David Marsh, chairman of think tank OMFIF. “When Merkel flies to Athens, she’s showing she’s in charge, and she cares.

REUTERS/Grigoris SiamidisDemonstrators gather in front of the Greek parliament in Syntagma Square during a demonstration against the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in central Athens, October 9, 2012.

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Israeli air force shoots down mysterious drone aircraft

JERUSALEM — The Israeli air force shot down a drone after it crossed into southern Israel on Saturday, the military said, but it remained unclear where the aircraft had come from.

The drone was first spotted above the Mediterranean in the area of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the west of Israel, said military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich.

It was kept under surveillance and followed by Israeli air force jets before it was shot down above a forest in an unpopulated area near the border with the occupied West Bank.

Leibovich said it was shot down at about 10 a.m. (0700 GMT), after it travelled east some 35 miles across Israel’s southern Negev desert.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak praised the interception as “sharp and effective”.

“We view with great severity the attempt to compromise Israeli air space and will consider our response in due course,” Barak said in a statement.

AP Photo/Israeli Defense Forces via AP videoThis image made from video released by the Israeli Defense Forces shows the downing of a drone that entered Israeli airspace in southern Israel, Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012. Israeli jets scrambled to intercept a drone that crossed into Israeli airspace Saturday from the Mediterranean Sea, bringing it down without incident in the south of the country, a military spokeswoman said.

Soldiers, assisted by helicopters, were searching the area for the remains of the drone, which security sources said most likely did not originate from the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s Army Radio reported the drone was not carrying any explosives.

Israeli parliament member Miri Regev, a former chief spokesman of the military, wrote on Twitter it was an “Iranian drone launched by Hezbollah”, referring to the Lebanese Shi’ite group that fought a war with Israel in 2006.

Defence officials would not confirm Hezbollah’s connection to the drone.

On at least one occasion, Iranian-backed Hezbollah has launched a drone into Israel. And in 2010, an Israeli warplane shot down an apparently unmanned balloon in the Negev near the country’s Dimona nuclear reactor.

The Israeli military released a 10-second video clip of what it said was Saturday’s mid-air interception. In the video, a small, unidentified aircraft is seen moments before being destroyed by a missile fired from a fighter jet.

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The State Department Agrees to relinquish your Free Speech Rights under UN edict.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/08/secretary-of-state-clinton-says-state-department-will-coordinate-with-oic-on-legal-ways-to-implement.html

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Chuck Norris Column: Make No Mistake, Gun Rights Are On the Line This Election
 by Chuck Norris

It's time to take stock of where we stand as a nation. The election of 2012 offers us a stark contrast, between candidates who are looking to protect our Second Amendment rights and those who seek to restrict those same freedoms. Over the past month, I've been alerting you to some dangers on the horizon. As we consider the path we are about to embark upon, it's good to recall what's at stake.

We need to prevent the next president from appointing a Supreme Court that would reverse the two landmark Second Amendment cases — Heller and McDonald. In those decisions, the Supreme Court ruled that all American citizens, no matter where they live, have the right to legally possess a firearm as a means of self-defense. These decisions were a tremendous accomplishment, and they finally ratified what our Founding Fathers envisioned when they drafted the Second Amendment.

As much as I wish this issue were solved once and for all, it is not. The Heller and McDonald cases were decided by the razor-thin majority of 5-4 in the Supreme Court. Those who want to overturn these decisions are betting on at least one of the five Supreme Court justices who voted for these laws to retire or otherwise leave service during the next four years. It's possible that the next president will have three vacancies to fill on the high court.

Every plan needs a backup, and this one is no different. We also need to make sure we have a U.S. Senate that is supportive of our fundamental freedoms, because the Senate votes to confirm new judges and justices alike. Several of the key 2012 Senate races are in highly competitive "battleground" states, which may tip the balance of power in this country. If you live in one of these states, it's important for you to make your voice heard.

Having the right president and Senate is also essential when we are dealing with the United Nations. This past summer, the U.N. debated a global arms trade treaty, and we came dangerously close to the treaty's actually passing. This would be disastrous for gun owners in the USA. The focus of the treaty would demand that governments regulate the sale and possession of firearms worldwide — all of them, including yours and mine.

The goal was to disgorge a treaty in time for the Obama administration to sign it before Election Day. The draft treaty would have required the United States to "maintain records of all imports and shipments of arms," register the identities of the "end users" of those firearms and then report the users' information to a U.N.-based gun registry. In several drafts, the treaty would have mandated that every round of ammunition be tracked globally. The treaty may have stalled this summer, but the negotiations are ongoing. We must ensure it never gets ratified by the Senate or signed by the president.

On Election Day, we must ensure that we have confidence in our leaders and their objectives. One issue that has troubled me for nearly two years now is Operation Fast and Furious. The Department of Justice's inspector general released a report last month about the bungled "gunwalking" operation, and most of the media accepted the findings without questions. For me, there are still lots of critical questions unanswered. Who on earth decided that facilitating the smuggling of guns to drug cartels was an appropriate law enforcement mission to begin with? Thousands of guns walked into Mexico are still on the loose. Where are they, and how many are out there? Does the U.S. government have a plan to recapture them, or will we simply spend years wondering how many more victims they are being used to kill? And who will make sure that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives admits it if and when these guns surface at crime scenes here in the U.S.? It is my dual hope that these questions will be answered soon and that we will elect a government that has the foresight never to let this happen again.

I have stood up for justice my entire life. This election is too important for you to sit home and not vote. I urge you to register to vote in this election, because you truly can make a difference. The deadline to register is fast approaching in most states.

 Visit http://www.TriggerTheVote.org today; all the information you need to register is there. Together we can build a brighter, safer future in which we know our fundamental constitutional rights are preserved by our national leaders — not threatened and undermined.

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BOMBSHELL: OBAMA.COM OWNED BY BUNDLER IN SHANGHAI WITH BUSINESS TIES TO CHINESE GOVERNMENT

by WYNTON HALL

In an explosive report set to send shockwaves through official Washington, the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) released a 108-page GAI investigation into the threat of foreign and fraudulent Internet campaign donations in U.S. federal elections(visit campaignfundingrisks.com to download the full report).

Breitbart News obtained an advance copy of the bombshell report which reveals that the Obama.com website is not owned by the president’s campaign but rather by Obamabundler Robert Roche, a U.S. citizen living in Shanghai, China. Roche is the chairman of a Chinese infomercial company, Acorn International, with ties to state-controlled banks that allow it to “gain revenue through credit card transactions with Chinese banks.”

There’s more.

The unusual Obama.com website redirects traffic directly to a donation page on the Obama campaign’s official website, my.barackobama.com, which does not require donors tob enter their credit card security code (known as the CVV code), thereby increasing the likelihood of foreign or fraudulent donations. The website is managed by a small web development firm, Wicked Global, in Maine. One of Wicked Global’s employees, Greg Dorr, lists on hisLinkedIn page his additional employment with Peace Action Maine and Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights. According to the GAI report, 68 percent of all Internet traffic to Obama.com comes from foreign visitors. 

And still more.

In 2011, Mr. Roche obtained one of the most sought-after pieces of real estate in Washington, DC: a seat at the head table for President Obama’s State Dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao. How Roche—a man whose infomercial company hawks fitness equipment, cell phones, and breast enhancement products—landed a seat alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, Sen. John Kerry, former President Jimmy Carter, and Chinese President Hu Jintao remains unclear.  

Since 2009, White House Visitor Logs list the name Robert Roche at least 19 times, despite the fact Mr. Roche’s primary residence is in China.  

Mr. Roche, who is originally from Chicago, is a co-chair of the Technology Initiative for the Obama campaign. 

According to Acorn International’s prospectus, the success of Mr. Roche’s company hinges on maintaining access to state-run media and “preferential tax treatments and subsidies” doled out by the People’s Republic of China (PRC):  

Our business depends on our access to TV media time to market our products and services in China….PRC law is vague and is subject to discretionary interpretation and enforcement by PRC authorities…Loss of these preferential tax treatments and subsidies could have material and adverse effects on our results of operations and financial conditions.

In addition to the Obama.com redirect revelation, the Government Accountability Institute report—America the Vulnerable: Are Foreign And Fraudulent Online Contributions Influencing U.S. Elections?—exposes myriad gaping online security holes that stand to threaten the integrity of House, Senate, and presidential elections.  

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Obama has 18 MILLION "OBAMAPHONE" Users according to the Government!

"Fully one six of American's qualify for these free phones."


)What does THAT say about Obama's failed economy and absent jobs plan?-ED)

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-311775A1.pdf

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Obama Timeline: Too Ma

ny 'Coincidences'

10/05/12

Don Fredrick, over at his Facts Not Fantasy blog, put together a great piece on Obama's timeline. Here is just a snippet:

In the four years I have been gathering information about—and evidence against—Barack Hussein Obama, I have encountered hundreds of coincidences that strike me as amazing. Taken as a whole it is almost impossible to believe they were all the result of chance.
Obama just happened to know 60s far-left radical revolutionary William Ayers, whose father just happened to be Thomas Ayers, who just happened to be a close friend of Obama’s communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, who just happened to work at the communist-sympathizing Chicago Defender with Vernon Jarrett, who just happened to later become the father-in-law of Iranian-born leftist Valerie Jarrett, who Obama just happened to choose as his closest White House advisor, and who just happened to have been CEO of Habitat Company, which just happened to manage public housing in Chicago, which just happened to get millions of dollars from the Illinois state legislature, and which just happened not to properly maintain the housing—which eventually just happened to require demolition.

Valerie Jarrett also just happened to work for the city of Chicago, and just happened to hire Michelle LaVaughan Robinson (later Obama), who just happened to have worked at the Sidley Austin law firm, where former fugitive from the FBI Bernardine Dohrn also just happened to work, and where Barack Obama just happened to get a summer job.

Bernardine Dohrn just happened to be married to William Ayers, with whom she just happened to have hidden from the FBI at a San Francisco marina, along with Donald Warden, who just happened to change his name to Khalid al-Mansour, and Warden/al-Mansour just happened to be a mentor of Black Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and a close associate of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and al-Mansour just happened to be financial adviser to a Saudi Prince, who just happened to donate cash to Harvard, for which Obama just happened to get a critical letter of recommendation fromPercy Sutton, who just happened to have been the attorney for Malcolm X, who just happened to know Kenyan politician Tom Mboya, who just happened to be a close friend of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.,who just happened to meet Malcolm X when he traveled to Kenya.

Obama, Sr. just happened to have his education at the University of Hawaii paid for by the Laubach Literacy Institute, which just happened to have been supported by Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, who just happened to be a friend of Malcolm X, who just happened to have been associated with the Nation of Islam, which was later headed by Louis Farrakhan, who just happens to live very close to Obama’s Chicago mansion, which also just happens to be located very close to the residence of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who just happen to have been occasional baby-sitters for Malia and Natasha Obama, whose parents just happen not to mind exposing their daughters to bomb-making communists.

He goes on but here is how he closes.

On election night in 2008 in Chicago’s Grant Park, Obama just happened to wear a black suit and a red tie, and his older daughter just happened to wear a red dress, and his younger daughter just happened to wear a stark black dress, and his wife Michelle just happened to wear an arguably unattractive black dress that appeared to have a giant red X design, which just happened to prompt some to wonder if their clothing just happened to denote black power, communism, and Malcolm X.

Read more at http://www.reagancoalition.com/articles/2012/20121005003-obama-coincidences.html#3Rk0guGqIaYg7Kj8.99 

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So now the Obamagate Libya murder cover-up  starts to unravel: The Letter from Congress to Hillary...

http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/10.2.12-Issa-Chaffetz-to-Clinton.pdf

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