French Workers Hold CEO Hostage

For eighteen hours, the CEO of Sony's Division in France understood what its like to not be in control of the business and cut off to the outside world. In modern times, most French workers suffered continuous massive unemployment rather than layoffs. The current worldwide pandemic of economic meltdowns is being felt from the tiniest hamlets to the most gilded ivory towers. In France, strikes and shutdowns are the most common civil disobediences showing displeasure with the government and the captains of industry. This is a new twist boss knapping, kidnapping the ultimate bad news bearing boss, that is happening with greater frequency.

CEO, Serge Foucher, floats in from plush corporate Headquarters in Paris to give very bad news of a full plant shutdown in a month, bid them all a fond adieu with expectations to blithely float back out leading his flock of executives, except this time the doors were barred by 311 irate workers, who in a communal Howard Beal moment, were not going to take it anymore. The terms and conditions of their unilateral surrender of their jobs were unacceptable and Foucher and Roland Bents, the head Human Resources genius, were staying during the negotiations on severances no matter what!

"We hope that this time our voices will be heard," unionist Patrick Achaguer told Reuters news agency.

Mr Foucher's visit to the plant on Thursday was to be his last before its closure, the AFP news agency reports.

Workers, unhappy that their pay-off is less generous than for staff at other closed French Sony plants, decided to strike and barricaded the site to stop the company executives from leaving.

Cheap payouts that decrease benefits and without equality to similar circumstances have sparked protests in the United States at an Illinois window factory. Those workers barricaded themselves in for days. The French workers gave them food and drink, but the dapper management brigade had wrinkles in those suits from sleeping on the floor the next morning. No five star accomodations for the heartless. Trucks were used to block the entrances. The real problem began with a public pronouncement to the Sony workforce from some executive theoretical bubble that they would convert to a green facility making solar panels, except then it was deemed impractical and the plan shelved for the Pontonx-sur-L'Adour plant going from job to no job. Oops.

"Local officials persuaded us to release our bosses and continue with supervisednegotiations at a council building.

"This time we hope they listen to our concerns properly."

The move is the latest clash between unions and management in France, which is being hit by a wave of factory closures and big lay-offs because of the global economic downturn.

Workers at a Continental tyre plant in northern France hurled eggs at managers yesterday to protest against the loss of 1,200 jobs with the closure of the factory by the German car parts group.

Insult to injury was the lack of consideration of those who worked past age of 55. The final decision to be made by Sony management is whether to press charges for thier captivity. Hmmm, could get ugly. After 18 hours, the best the CEO gave was they would reconsider their exit packages for the workers. Hmmm, corporate speak for no comment of what I really think until I am safely ensconced back in my Parisian rarefied arrondisment.




Well, there certainly is a choice - buy less of Sony's products, thereby forcing them to reduce staff more or buy more to ensure those with a job keep it. Except nobody is dicussing the matter civilly in these times. To that end, a wonderful book, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking About Broken Promises, Violated Expectations and Bad Behavior, from expert Kerry Patterson may perform the right rescues.

Thieves Nabbed Trying to Sell Masterpieces

When Mom helps out on the conspiracy, the thieving and then cutting a deal with the insurers of the priceless art, it is clear that the genetic material is not made of strong moral fiber or intelligence genes. Twenty two years after Renoir, Pissarro, as well as notable 17th and 19th century painters, a German man domiciled in Dubai, his dear old mum and another rather elderly gent from Walem approached the insurance company to fence the stolen goods and collect millions of euros.  The insurance company had already paid 2.9 million US after the theft and these folks obviously did not have a television, newspaper or the world wide web to see that the world economy is collapsing and insurance companies are feeling downright penny pinched. 

The detective, Ben Zuidema, said that he was contacted out of the blue by a man wanting to sell the paintings back to the insurers for €5million (£4.5 million). Included in the offer was €1 million for Mr Zuidema to facilitate the deal.

“Immediately I passed information to the investigators,” said the private detective. “Since then I have co-operated with them to find the paintings.” A sting was arranged with the police for the canvases to be handed over for €1 million, according to reports in the Dutch media.

The Dutch National Prosecutor’s Office said that this led to the recovery of the paintings by David Teniers, Willem van de Velde, Jan Brueghel the Younger, Eva Gonzalès, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Paul-Desiré Trouillebert.(Ruben Schipper photo)

Add to that the thieves were brutes and badly damaged some of the paintings by folding the revered collection of Europen artists in half, as if they were the best of a kid's schools competition for glorious refrigerator art.  But the coupe de grâce, is the 60 year old gallery owner who died a couple of years ago under suspicion from the Dutch police after buying and fully insuring right before the spectacular heist.  Turns out Mr. Noortman has a room named after him in London's National Gallery that is dedicated to the Dutch masters.  Paging Hollywood....

(Photo courtesy Ruben Shipper/EPA of Jan Brueghel's painting)

The original theft took place in Maastricht, a Dutch city, near the German and Belgian borders, known for its well preserved historical sites and disputes as to whether it is Netherlands oldest
city while in today's cultural climate is quite filled with European urban chic.  In the time since the 22 pieces art disappered into thieving hands from the Noortman gallery in 1987, The Maastrict Treaty was negotiated and signed on 9 February, 1992 formalizing the European Union and the monetray unit of echange the euro, not art.  In an interesting aside, the selling of cannabis and other drugs in cofee shops and the like prompt tourism and controversy too as the mayor tries to congregate the shops and the customers all in one spot.  Its only right that the Dutch police multi-task on different front.  Today, recovering stolen art and nabbing the thieves and tomorrow....

'The suspects were apparently trying to sell the artworks to the insurance company that had paid out 2.27 million euros (S$4.43 million) after they went missing,' the statement said.

The modern-day value of the paintings had yet to be determined.

The paintings did not all reside together during their captivity nor were they treated as priceless cultural artifacts.  Six were found in a quaint southern town, Valkenburg and two more in cough, Walem, where the oldest member of the trio resides.  It is stongly hinted that a ninth painting was somehow destroyed by the gallery owner who is unable to defend himself.  Pierre-August Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Paul Desire Trouillebert now await the fate of their work in the hands of art historians, curators and the rooms of restoration.



One restoration that shall live in infamy was a painting that was found in an Italian village full of spiders, dust and knick knacks.  It was a famed Italian Baroque painting by Caravaggio, a murdiring evil genius art fiend who was a poet with a paintbrush.  Jonathon Harr writes the story of the lost masterpiece and then once the provenance was secured all manner of burecratic bungling ensued in its restoration.  The Lost Painting is a great read for just about $10USD.

Romanovs Rehabilitated by Russian Supreme Court

Russia gave the literate world creative and human tales of woe that are art and parcel of the classics. The angst embedded in some of the heart shredding tales of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina or War and Peace, Federov Dostoevsky . Three centuries of the royal house of Romanov ruling Russia until the final R's did them in, Rasuptin & revolution. Now, history is being rewritten showing the family of Tsar Nicholas II did not get shot full of bullet holes and their remains placed in vats of acid for merely political showmanship on eradicating Russia of ruinous royalty. They were a royal family with vassals and serfs that received approbation under the new Russian historical standards removing any Russian Who's Who listing them as state criminals.

Bolsheviks lead the execution of the family with jewels of renown the world over. Coronations were lavish affairs. For ninety years Russia denied it was a Bolshevik operation at Impatiev House as just a few minions were involved. The 2008 Russian Supreme Court validated evidence of innocence of the crimes the family was accused of because while under house arrest, their benevolent servants left their posts with the family stashed in the basement on July 17, 1918, allowing the slaughter to take place. The children did not die at first because of the density and plentifulness of the jewels sewn into their garb. During his lifetime Nicholas II gave exquisite bejeweled Fabergé eggs to his wife and the family coffers contained a fair cache of other mint condition precious stones. The jewels allowed the kids to first withstand bullets then knives making some of the assassins get the heebie jeebies as it occurred to them some sort of Divine intervention was happening. After all, the family was directly descended from Ivan the Terrible who went rampaging bonkers when the Tsarina of his dreams died under suspicious circumstances making him suspect them of her poisoning.

The move does not presage any attempt by the Romanov family to reclaim their palaces or regain a foothold in the constitutional order of Russia. But they were delighted nonetheless.

“The protracted rehabilitation process has come to a successful conclusion,” German Lukyanov, the Romanov family lawyer, told the Interfax news agency. “Justice has triumphed.” The case has been fought largely by Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, a senior member of the royal house.

The ruling may not change the lives of the family, but it does represent a milestone: it is the closest that any post-Soviet government has come to accepting the criminal nature of Bolshevik rule.

Westerners may see that as a truism. But present-day Russia is still in the thrall of the iconography of Lenin. His image is emblazoned on schools and underground stations; his embalmed body is still visited in Red Square, even if not by the thousands of Socialist pilgrims who turned up in the Soviet days.

The conspiracy theories surrounding this family are legendary. Church of the Blood is the structure built upon the killing place where the assassinations took place. For years, two bodies were missing leading to many claims they were the long lost prince or princess or their descendants. Another grave was found leading to DNA results aligning with the rest of the now St. Petersburg interred family. Current descendants wanted the stain on the family's reputation removed and the Court obliged. Little Prince Alexei was the great grandson of Queen Victoria reemphasizing the blood ties from all the crown heads of Europe due to all the intermarrying. The books on the Romanovs are fascinating and where Lenin plays in all of this will keep the playwrights, novelists and historians at it for centuries. To have died in a basement after living in the magnificence of the Winter Palace as serfs died in more menial conditions are what fills Russian literature with irony and angst of the human spirit.

To keep up with all the plot twists and their layers of intricacies, including the healing through prayer and mysticism of Alexei by Rasputin who later had horrible incantations against the Romanovs as other royal nobles attempted to murder him, takes a worthwhile book that covers the indelicacies. Author Lindsey Hughes does that quite well in the biographical The Romanovs: Ruling Russia 1613 - 1917.

England Claims Giving Birth to Champagne

England & France have needed European marriage counseling since the Dark Ages. France famously touts its epicurean delights while thumbing their noses at the oxymoron of an Escoffier English chef. Bangers and mash or fish and chips versus haute cuisine croissants and flambéed Crêpes Suzette. The crux of the latest battle du jour is the birthplace of sparkling wine, champagne. Dom Pèrignon is effervescing in friarly indignation in his grave right now after being asked to come up with a way to make the wine bottles stop exploding in the abbey wine 'cellar'.

Champagne merits special stemware for events that warrant hors d'oeuvres as it is a regal drink of bubbly celebration or splashing the side of a newly launched cruiseliner. France has whole regions of the countryside named Champagne from the medieval period or large swaths of land dedicated to maintaining its pure-blood/wine grape lineage. The most famous names of Champagne began in the 18th century, Taittinger (1734), Moët et Chandon (1743) and Vueve Clicquot (1772). Out of a late summer rain cloud comes this cider-making English bloke from Somerset with a differing provenance of a 1632 Royal Society wine enthusiast who preceded Dom whose cuvée pedigree lasts. En garde.

Mr Crowden, from Chard in Somerset, researched Merret for his book on the history of cider called Ciderland.

He believes that the popularity of sparkling wines began when British cider-makers added sugar to acidic French white wine and then learnt how to control the resulting secondary fermentation. The sugar caused secondary fermentation in the bottle, which created sparkling wines.

Merrett also invented the thick green bottle strong enough to contain the pressure of secondary fermentation. French wine-makers had been plagued by the problem of unintended fermentation, which could cause whole cellars of their fragile bottles to explode. By learning to control it they were able to create sparkling wine by design rather than accident.

Heavens to murgatroy and exploding bottles and French minds everywhere. The plot thickens because the premise is based on a book release occurring with the week along with a presentation to today's English Royal Society citing the glass to contain the rowdy bubbly was also Merret's invention. This peer review could turn itself into another over the channel blood feud between the Saxons and the Normans. The French do not have a sense of humour about champagne - at all. There are laws and no, I am not kidding.

In 1941, the Comite Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) was founded to protect the champagne market. Yep, right in the middle of WWII, champagne interests superseded Panzer divisions breaking into the country. In 1891, the Treaty of Madrid, made it clear that only sparkling wine produced in certain areas meeting specific standards could use the name champagne. World War I participants affirmed that ruling in the Treaty of Versailles. these words were legend in France and not usable elsewhere: méthode champenoise or champagne method. That's why this new theory is going to come under a cultural assault or a walk of roses from vintners and other interested parties the world over. Switzerland had a town named Champagne and they agreed to lose the name in 2004. I'd say get your popcorn, but that is so plebian to wash down with champagne from Champagne.

The new enfant terrible of champagne books, Ciderland is from the Somerset chap, James Crowden. For those seeking a tour de fource in the sparkling beverage's royal lineage need look no further than the well researched 4000 Champagnes from neutral Swedish expert author , Richard Juhlin.

Enjoy your French bubbly, oui?

French Horrified by Pop Art at Versailles

Balloon Dog 1999-2000
(Photos by Ed Alcock of NYT)

Michael Jackson & Bubbles (1998)

An invasion by an American pop art retrospective at the Palace of Versailles has the French clutching their pearls and hurling furious words of lament. I lose track of the various Louis' , but each in their own was left an architectural imprint. Since Louis XIII built the original Château at Versailles for his hunting excursions, it was not at all posh at the time of his early death when XIV was five years old. The Sun King, Louis XIV, cut a deal to build a city Versailles where the big real estate lots were free except for the need to build the exact house designed by his palace architect ensuring the neighborhood was a seventeenth century planned community. Great idea because he moved the entire kingdom apparatus to Versailles and needed it to look kingly royal surrounded by a great city. The French know city planning and landscaping. In The United States, Lafayette's work is on display in the capital's layout and its architecture thanks to George Washington. That's why new age art hanging amongst some of France's proudest treasures has the National Union of Writers of France both agape and aghast at the effrontery. France has the contemporary exhibit until 14 December.

Versailles is also a World Heritage Site, one of under a thousand in the entire world that wait years to gain the prestigious cultural honor. Now its got 21st century pop art littered throughout its auspicious gilt-filled rooms and the multitude of mirrors reflect the horror. Louis no. 14 has a room with a portrait of him and one of his grandson which are considered masterpieces. Artist Jeff Koons, cheekily placed his self portrait in that room which frankly unless you have heard French curses, one may not appreciate how much that rankled. Not sure which a tourist would see first, but the various vacuum cleaners in a clear cubed tier, New Hoover Convertibles (1981-1987) in the Queen's (think Marie Antoinette) sitting room outside her chamber may have set off the furious imprecations as Koons described it as womb-like. The juxtapositions are part of the grand palace show. Michael Jackson and his monkey, Bubbles, (1998) are done in a rococo style with over the top golden bling and a metaphoric plaster white face for both encased in a clear plastic cube that just makes one's mouth form a perfect O. I guess that was the full intent until one enters the sunny room full of french doors and Louis XV signing a Peace treaty and partakes of the topless Paris Hilton-styled bombshell with an artfully placed flamingo pink boa, then your jaw just unhinges as one figures out what to look at first, world history or globe trotting hotties in a piece nicknamed Pink Panther (1988).

Koons' sculpted rabbits and dogs "don't belong at the palace of Versailles, they belong at Disneyland," said journalist and radio host Anne Brassie.

Arnaud-Aaron Upinsky, the president of a writers' union, agreed. "This exhibit is sacrilegious and insulting to the symbols of the Republic and its art," he said, wearing a velvet-and-gold-colored crown at the protest.

Koons said he has no intention of mocking the palace that Louis XIV transformed from a hunting lodge into a symbol of royal power in the 17th century.

"I'm so grateful for the opportunity to show in Versailles. I have complete respect for Versailles and I have complete respect for each individual that's coming to Versailles," Koons told reporters.

Pink Panther(1988) & Split Rocker (2000)

There are 17 pieces of pop art to see placed throughout the sumptuous palais and on the manicured grounds with its own private lake. Tens of thousands of flower pots gave their all to make up the behemoth entitled Split Rocker. The lobster hanging by a red string amidst some world class art is not to be missed. This is not the first time it's been done by Koons. Ballon Dog also made a splash at the Palazzo in Venice's Grand Canal. Seems continental Europe can't get enough of the art of auspicious staging. Seven million people a year visit Versailles in its regular state, this will pull in a few more Looky Lou's for sure.

Versailles, in its natural state of elegantly named Salons and Grand Apartments fit for royal politics can be appreciated in person or for a good deal less. Available is the October release of Versailles: A Biography of A Place at 20.00 or the must have coffee table art book from Jean-Marie Perouse De Montclos for $60 in simply titled, Versailles.

Barack Obama In America's Story - Part 1

This past week was really hard for me to write about Barack Hussein Obama, Junior. As a student of history it hurts and heals to write about the events as they rolled down like Justice from all the Good and Evil that came before. The Obama Family will stride into the pages of world history forevermore, with possibilities as the American First Family. Their pictures will be so different than all those on the walls of the White House, on official Holiday cards, or upon entering any federal building and seeing Barack Obama's likeness there. Context requires a stinging trip down memory lane's gutters reviewing some of the racial practices and policies describing how it began. It is a small attempt to put context in understanding the truly historical significance of what happened since Jamestown.

One place to begin is with a map made by two ambitious brothers to the New World for travel by sea, rather than overland to acquire bulk Asian goods more easily after the 1453 fall of the Ottoman Empire. Christopher Columbus received the 1492 patronage of Spain's King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Castilian warrior Queen, Isabella, to go forth and conquer as it were with the Santa Maria, La Niña & La Pinta. The Spanish treasury was depleted from the latest round of European Wars. Imperial Empire. Fateful decisions. Columbus forcibly imported Haitian people specimens to show off in Seville upon his 1493 return. His second trip was brutal with killing and the practice of bringing back human chattel for Europeans to purchase for their own amusements.

America's First People called Indians or Native Americans endured many attempts by Europeans to establish a foothold on their land and to convert them to Christianity. The 1607 attempt that made America, started in founding Jamestown. Thanksgiving sprouted as a concept. As a tobacco farm prospered, Matoaka - renamed Pocahontas, was made to marry John Rolfe who issued her the new name, Lady Rebecca. Battles continued between the developers/plantation owners and the Powhatan, ending with the murder of Pocahontas's brother, the Chief, while in custody. No one truly knows her interpretation of events, though many Europeans mythologized her, especially after she died in England.

Slaves became fashionable and necessary to farm huge plantations, especially as indigenous peoples died from disease and famine brought by the usurpers. The Europeans also brought the idea of commerce, representative governments for the aristocratic white men and the horrors of the Middle Passage. America embraced the land grab and purchased a Louisiana package, ratcheting up the need for people and those that would be made to serve the richest of many of them. Slavery, America's original sin and permanent stain.

Our Constitution was written without a resolution to slavery, with the sweat, blood and tears of each slave and slaveholder mixed in all that follows. Thomas Jefferson wrote, he trembled to fear that God was Just. Yet, economic politics held sway. Incorporated by the Founding Fathers, each black man was counted for census purposes as

3/5ths of a person

A potato famine saw an influx of Irish immigrants to the eastern shores of the United States. The only saving grace for them integrating into the American fold was that they were white. Those of Chinese descent working on the American railroads and mining for gold in California suffered other indignities. Mexico suffered a grievous defeat at the hands of Americans in 1848. The loss of land crystallized on this content a harsher vision of eminent domain. Texas considered itself a nation in its own right until the US annexed it in 1845. Harriet Tubman suffered a horrible head injury from an enraged slave master, yet still managed to use the legal system and found the Underground Railroad. White abolitionists took to visceral arguments stirring strong resentment in southern states.

The 16th president, ambivalent, sometimes hostile to the cause of Negroes, issued the sweeping Executive Order to free slaves during the Civil War in one fell swoop pertaining to statuses resulting from war. Abraham Lincoln had no power to free all in every state as the Emancipation Proclamation makes clear. Lincoln sustained a reputation for hard nosed pragmatism, bucked up by his friend Frederick Douglass, The Lion of Anacostia, a free bi-racial ex-slave, inspiring millions of modern Americans with his bicentennial looming as a celebration in 2009. How many will know that Victoria Woodhull was the presidential candidate with Frederick Douglass, her running mate on the Equal Rights Party Ticket?

Huddled masses yearning to be free greeted millions of immigrants as they processed through Ellis Island, overlooked by France's gift of The Statue of Liberty, having their names anglicized, but moving into culturally similar neighborhoods. years prior, ethnic groups of Dutch, Irish, Polish, German and Scandinavians among indentured servants and others, moved en mass to take advantage of the Homestead Act which displaced many Native Americans from lands they farmed or held for buffalo for centuries. Indians were placed on supposedly sovereign reservations. Immigration became a hot button after the 14th Amendment was interpreted by an 1898 Supreme Court decision to conclude people born on American soil were citizens. At the turn of the century, restrictive laws targeting Asians escalated with the Geary Act. Not repealed until after segregating Japanese in the 48 states in internment camps during the middle of World War II. Japanese immigration to Hawaii

Jim Crow laws took effect following the abysmal reconstruction era presidency of Andrew Johnson. The Ku Klux Klan tried to impose the will of a white superiority mimicked by Europe's Hitler with for an Aryan world. Americans tried to turn inward and isolate itself from the world. The assassination of an Archduke by a Bosnian Serb triggered a terrible war that ended with the 1918 Treaty of Versailles orchestrated by one of the most racist presidents ever, Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, who previewed the racist tripe of Birth of a Nation in the White House. Hitler garnered power seeking to impose his white, exclude any one of semitic origin, will on the world, even after Jesse Owens won a gold medal in Germany.

Japanese imperialism made their presence known by bombing the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, a base placed on a multi-cultural US territory after the US triggered the overthrow of Hawaii's Queen. Millions of Americans of all colors and creeds joined to fight for the cause of freedom because the day that lived in infamy inspired all to sacrifice for the war effort. Barack Obama's grandmother riveted and his grandfather marched. They were not alone. Japanese surrender came after Harry S Truman ordered the Enola Gay to drop The Thin Man and Fat Man atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the Negro community, culture prospered while injustices propagated wantonly. Quality of life issues stayed separate and supposedly equal as outlined in the Dredd Scott case before the Civil War. After WWII, the US military was integrated by presidential action. A young civil rights lawyer took civilian cases for the NAACP involving education. In 1953, Brown versus the Board of Education became the law of the land per the Warren Court. A picture of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall hangs in Senator Obama's office on capital Hill.

A young seamstress and Alabama NAACP secretary was tired when she got on a bus and sat where there was an open seat. The white driver told her to get up. She refused. Rosa parks emboldened a 27 year old preacher to lead a year long boycott of a bus company that went darn near broke trying to keep black folks in their place at the back of bus. Separate drinking fountains, lunch counters infuriated young people both black and white and they embarked on Freedom Rides as part of the Children's Crusade. The unifying factor was the call for nonviolence no matter the provocation of fire hoses, snarling German Shepard dogs and the beatings, oh the beatings. Firebombs and Molotov cocktails were launched, Edgar Medgars was shot in his driveway in Mississippi, yet the Civil Rights movement would not stop.

A bundle of joy arrived in Hawai'i. His parents were of Kenyan and Irish American stock. Their baby was born in the the brand new state of Hawaii in 1961. His name was Barack Obama. Two years later, while he was learning to walk and run, that young preacher gave a seminal speech on the steps Of the Lincoln Memorial on while a young President looked on with his brother Bobby. Some how many of the threads in this nation's history wind into an American flag made from the trials and tribulations of so many.

Out of all this, peoples' Hopes, no matter how thin the string, held to believe that the next day would be better than the last in America. Part II coming.

Narrative of the Life of a Slave from Frederick Douglass retains its power. Now in Paperback for less than $5 US.

Coming Soon: Mystery of the Black Hole

Dire predictions, nails bitten to the quick and nerd joy at the prospect of finding and proving some of physics deepest secrets will play out in on computers in a science red carpet moment. In a monster opening box office, September 10th looms large for Doomsday prognosticators, science watchers and CERN citizens will watch with bated breath as the curtain pulls back and a shaky finger pushes the go live button on the world's largest particle physics lab. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) fires up to smash atoms faster and harder in a cool horror flick kind of way while the search for making Earthly black holes climbs to a new level. There are some nervous nellies freaking out that the world will be instantly sucked into the vortex of a man-made black hole beyond the event horizon to save ourselves from becoming a tossed space particle salad. Somebody wanted to hold the nuts...

Battle of the Colliders

Much larger CERN versus the older Femilab - may the best atom slayer win....

But near Chicago, Illinois, the US Department of Energy's Fermilab is saying, look at us, we have the capacity with Tevatron's 170 giga electron-volts to find the God Particle too, if it exists, except, the European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN is is the almost $4 billion USD Godzilla of the particle collider realm. Sequels already. It will be a notable international event about who and where the origins of life are found as atom guts are examined ad nauseum. Dark Matter will star as studies and dissertations do mortal combat to prove the existence of other dimensions tearing asunder current belief systems. The Higgs boson has captivated one man for nearly forty years and is one of the remaining theories that the atomic colliders are focused upon. CERN's LHC is brand new.

“We don’t know what we’ll find,” said Abra­ham Sei­den, di­rec­tor of the San­ta Cruz In­sti­tute for Par­t­i­cle Phys­ics at the Uni­ver­s­ity of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Cruz, a U.S. par­ti­ci­pant in the proj­ect. About half the U.S. ex­pe­ri­men­tal par­t­i­cle-phys­ics com­mun­ity has fo­cused its en­er­gy on the col­lider’s two larg­est par­t­i­cle de­tec­tors, called AT­LAS and CMS, ac­cord­ing to Sei­den.

LHC is huge in eve­ry way—its size, the en­er­gies to which it can ac­cel­er­ate par­t­i­cles, the amount of da­ta it would gener­ate, and the size of the in­terna­t­ional col­la­bora­t­ion in­volved in it. The pow­er­ful beams of par­ti­cles are to cir­cu­late around the 27-km (16.8-mile) un­der­ground tube at CERN, the Eu­ropean par­t­i­cle phys­ics lab based in Ge­ne­va. Af­ter some test­ing, the beams are to cross paths in­side the de­tec­tors to make the first col­li­sions.

Sci­en­tists say the de­bris from those crash­es—show­ers of sub­a­tom­ic par­t­i­cles—will rev­o­lu­tion­ize our un­der­stand­ing of na­ture. A key hoped-for mile­stone is disco­very of the Higgs bos­on, a hy­po­thet­i­cal par­t­i­cle that would fill a gap in the “s­tan­dard mod­el” of par­t­i­cle phys­ics by en­dow­ing fun­da­men­tal par­t­i­cles with mass. This should oc­cur by 2010, Sei­den said, if the Higgs ex­ists at all; na­ture may have found an­oth­er way to cre­ate mass. “I’m ac­tu­ally hop­ing we find some­thing un­ex­pect­ed,” he said.

Black holes are delicious Hollywood diva stories waiting for their closeup. The flying spaghetti monster is what nonbelievers called believer's God or Higher Power in the Universe and science is seeing what makes the noodles flop about in space. Touched by his noodly appendage What happens when one or an entire star like the sun is sucked into the stuff of cosmos conflict - only black holes are theorized at the creation/destruction of particle levels.

Dr. Hawkings, the as-yet non Nobel winning brilliant physicist has some strong feelings on the subject. In an interesting newly released book from Stanford professor Leonard Susskind, The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World safe for Quantum Mechanics details the intricacies of the arguments between the generalists and the string theory practitioners over the years culminating in verbal fisticuffs over what happens inside a black hole. Buy & Read the book first, the movies always screw it up.

Happiest of Birthday's CJ - the world of science will make many great things probable, but your Faith shall make all things possible!