The Shalimar Treaty

[Spoo]

AngleWyrm_2 said:
Here is a paper on Experimental Evidence of Near-field Superluminally Propagating Electromagnetic Fields
http://xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/physics/papers/0009/0009023.pdf

An interesting read, however the conclusions that the author draws are incorrect. Basically, the observed phenomenon is a superposition of waves that each travel at the speed of light. Within a quarter wavelength, the superposition itself appears to move at superluminal speed, however, no information travels superluminally. This paper explains it better than I can: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/pdf/Mojahedi-JPC.pdf
The main point being that special relativity remains valid.

And here is an article on a light pulse that was seen leaving a gas-filled chamber before it even entered
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/13/09/3.

...Nowhere in this article does it say that relativity is wrong. The fact that relativity survives testing by this type of experiment only bolsters its correctness. Now, that's not to say that there won't be any corrections (or even replacements) to the theory sometime in the future. Believe me, if a physicist could disprove relativity, they'd be set for life. Nonetheless, if you believe the majority of scientists, relativity is essentially correct.

It's pretty funny watching the media squirm, redefining words and making exceptions and calling doesn't count.

Yes, the media often does this when reporting about science. This is bound to happen when simplifications are made to make the story easy to read. Take the second source you posted for example. Reading this, you might get the impression that scientists are "calling doesn't count" with regards to phase velocity being able to travel faster than the speed of light. The thing is, this was known all along. The article you posted even gives an example:

Nevertheless, velocities greater than c can be observed. Suppose a lighthouse illuminates a distant shore. The rotating lamp moves quite slowly, but the spot on the opposite shore travels at a far greater velocity. If the shore were far enough away, the spot could even move faster than light. However, this moving spot is not a single "thing". Each point along the coastline receives its own spot of light from the lighthouse, and any information travels from the lighthouse at c, rather than along the path of the moving spot. Such phenomena are described as the "motion of effects", and are not forbidden by relativity.