The Twilight Zone: Long Live Walter Jameson (1/3)
Original Air Date:18 March 1960 (Season 1, Episode 24)
A father forbids a history professor from marrying his daughter when he discovers that the captivating lecturer is actually an immortal who has lived for thousands of years.
Sting - Fields of Gold <-- better link
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in fields of gold
So she took her love for to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold
Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley?
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold
See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold
I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We'll walk in fields of gold
We'll walk in fields of gold
Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
The enemy will never attack you where you are strongest... He will attack where you are weakest. If you do not know your weakest point, be certain, your enemy will. -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
"Nine-eleven, Pearl Harbor, were like fleabites in comparison to this." -- Dan Hunt, college president in the novel, One Second After.
They were like something out of another age, some so obvious caught ill prepared, a man in a three-piece business suit, scuffed worn dress shoes, bandage around his head. Looked like a lawyer or upper-level corporate type... with no skills to sell here for a bowl of watery soup. -- William R. Forstchen, One Second After
This book should be required reading for all first responders and local government personnel - not because the information it contains can not be explained more succinctly, but because it can not be conveyed more humanely.
I can't emphasize the danger that an EMP attack poses better than Speaker Newt Gingrich does in the foreword, "The threat is real, and we as Americans must face that threat, prepare, and know what to do to prevent it. For it we do not, 'one second after,' the America we know, cherish and love, will be gone forever."
The Starfish Prime nuclear detonation, as seen from Honolulu, July 9, 1962, was not designed or intended as a generator of EMP. However, triggered at an altitude of about 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean, it had far-reaching effects. Some electronic and electrical systems in the Hawaiian Islands, 1400 kilometers distant, were affected, causing the failure of street-lighting systems, tripping of circuit breakers, triggering of burglar alarms, and damage to a telecommunications relay facility. via Executive Report: Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack [PDF]
In some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere, August 1 is Lammas Day (loaf-mass day), the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. It is marks the middle of Summer and the beginning of the harvest season. Canning goes into full swing and cabinets are stocked with herbs before the onset of fall. It is the first of three harvest festivals and is usually associated with ripening grain. So, what better way to celebrate that than by baking your own bread?
For once, I have a jump on the day... just long enough to get that bread starter ready.
Though at first glance it seems difficult, one of my favorite breads, sourdough, is actually one of the easiest to make. All you need is a medium potato and a few basic ingredients. Here's how:
Grated Raw Potato Starter
1 cup warm water
1 1/4 cups white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 grated raw potato, medium size
Mix the 1 cut warm water, 1 1/2 cups white flour and 1 teaspoon each salt and sugar in a 2-cup measure. Add enough grated potato to make 2 cups.
Place in a wide-mouth glass jar or small mixing bowl (do not use metal or plastic) which will hold about 1 quart. Cover with a single thickness of cheesecloth for 24 hours. (An old thread-bare t-shirt makes a good substitute for cheesecloth.) This will prevent wild yeast from the air to settle into your starter.
After day 1, stir well, cover tightly with a clinging transparent wrap which will cause the moisture to drip back and keep top of mixture from drying.
Stir several times a day. In two or three days it will become foamy and very light. The length of time depends on the temperature, 80-85F is ideal. It can go a little below 80F without harm, only slowing the procedure a little, but if it goes much higher than 85F it will be spoiled.
Then stir well, pour into glass jar with screw-top lit and store in refrigerator at about 38 degrees. As soon as 1/2 inch of clear liquid has risen to the top it has ripened enough to start using.
Do not be concerned if the mixture turns dark because of the raw potato during the fermentation period. It does not affect the bread made from it in any way and, as soon as the starter is mature, it will become a snowy white.
To renew starter
Add 1 1/2 cups of white flour and 1 1/2 cups water each time it is used so that there are always 2 cups to bake with and 2 full cups to return to refrigerator. If for some reason it cannot be used regularly about twice a week, add 1 teaspoon sugar and stir well every three or four days.
West Coast French Sourdough Bread
1 cup starter
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 teaspoons sugar
1 package dry yeast
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon soda
2 cups flour
About 9:00 in the evening, measure out 1 cup starter from the refrigerator storage jar into mixing bowl (do not use metal or plastic). Add 3/4 cup water and 3/4 cup flour and beat thoroughly. Cover bowl tightly with clinging transparent wrap and set in warm place (80 to 85F) overnight.
In the morning about 7:00 beat the starter thoroughly. Measure out 1 cup and return remaining starter to storage jar. In another bowl, pour 1 1/2 cups of just warm water, stir in 2 teaspoons sugar and sprinkle 1 package dry yeast on top. Let stand until yeast is dissolved. Add the 1 cup of reserved starter and 3 cups flour. Beat thoroughly, cover tightly and let stand in warm place until very light and foamy. This will take from 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Sift 2 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon soda with 1 cup flour and spread the remaining 1 cup on the pastry board. Stir the sifted flour mix into the sponge. Turn out on board and knead for several minutes using a little more flour if necessary to make a very stiff dough. Knead until completely smooth and non-sticky so that it can be worked on an unfloured portion of the board without sticking. Divide in halves and shape into either round or long narrow loaves. Place on flat baking sheet, preferably Teflon-coated but, if one is not available, lightly grease it or sprinkle corn meal over the surface. Slip into large plastic bag, supported so that it will not touch dough (drinking glasses placed at each end of the sheet are fine). Set in warm place for 1 1/2 hours to rise.
If the dough becomes too light the loaves will spread in baking but, this only makes a more delicious crust. When ready for the open, brush top of loaves with cold water. Make diagonal slashes across top of long loaves and five or six radiating from center of round ones with a sharp single-edge razor blade or scissors. Bake in oven preheated to 400 degrees with pan of hot water on the floor from 50 to 60 minutes and the crust is as dark as desired. About 10 minutes before the end of the baking period, brush tops with water again. Remove from pans and stand on edge to cool, propping them against a heavy glass jar or similar object.
For the most attractive slices, especially if the loves have spread a little too much in baking, cut with a very sharp knife diagonally across the long loaf and at the same time have the blade slanted from top to bottom away from the end. This makes the slices about twice as wide as when cut straight up and down. Cut slices from the round loaves on the slant also. When ready to serve, to preserve the utterly delicious taste and crisp, hard crust, re-heat quickly with wrapping open at one end so that the bread will not become steamy, or spread slices with butter and place under the broiler at high heat for a very short period, until the edges are beginning to brown nicely.
This recipe makes 2 long or 2 large round loaves which will just fit on a 12 x 15 inch baking sheet.
Bon Appétit!
Recipe from Breads and Coffee Cakes with Homemade Starters
~ ~ ~
That Lammas, traditionally, is a merry time, a time of Fairs, Handfastings, and Feasts is expressed in the following poem by Robert Burns.
It was on a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held away to Annie:
The time flew by, wi tentless heed,
Till 'tween the late and early;
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed
To see me thro' the barley.
The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down, wi' right good will,
Amang the rigs o'barley
I ken't her heart was a' my ain;
I lov'd her most sincerely;
I kissed her owre and owre again,
Among the rig o' barley.
I locked her in my fond embrace;
Her heart was beating rarely:
My blessings on that happy place,
Amang the rigs o'barley.
But by the moon and stars so bright,
That shone that hour so clearly!
She ay shall bless that happy night,
Amang the rigs o'barley.
I hae been blythe wi' Comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinking;
I hae been joyfu' gath'rin gear;
I hae been happy thinking:
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,
Tho three times doubl'd fairley
That happy night was worth then a'.
Among the rig's o' barley.
CHORUS
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Among the rigs wi' Annie.
Lammas - Original artwork by lilcatty.
"They did not make war. They were simply victims of war, in the honorable attempt to keep the peace." - The Beirut Memorial On Line - Remembering the 299 servicemen, including 220 U.S. Marines who lost their lives in the Beirut barracks bombing.
Before we go too far down the road cheering the forces of Iranian democracy, let's not forget that its public face, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, has American blood on his hands. He was Iran's Prime Minister during most of the 1980s, a time when the country was waging a terrorist campaign against the U.S.
Earlier [in June], I received an e-mail from a Lebanese who was present at the creation of the country's Iranian-backed, Shi'ite militia Hizballah in 1982 and on familiar terms with its most radical and violent members. He wrote: "Are you people crazy backing Mousavi, a patron of Hizballah's terrorist wing?"
Indeed, Mousavi, Prime Minister from 1981 to 1989, almost certainly had a hand in the planning of the Iranian-backed truck-bombing attacks on the U.S. embassy in April 1983 and the Marine barracks in October of that same year. Mousavi, as my Lebanese contact reminded me, dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah, the man largely held responsible for both attacks. (Mughniyah was assassinated in Damascus last year.) The Lebanese said Mughniyah had told him over and over that he, Mughniyah, got along well with Mousavi and trusted him completely.
Former Iranian Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi in Ankara, Turkey, in 1985. Photo: Reuters / Corbis.
When Mousavi was Prime Minister, he oversaw an office that ran operatives abroad, from Lebanon to Kuwait to Iraq. This was the heyday of Khomeini's theocratic vision, when Iran thought it really could export its revolution across the Middle East, providing money and arms to anyone who claimed he could upend the old order. Mousavi was not only swept up into this delusion but also actively pursued it.
It was Mousavi who appointed Iran's ambassador to Damascus, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, the Iranian caught red-handed planning the Marine-barracks bombing. Mohtashemi-pur also coordinated the hostage-taking in Lebanon. As a reward, Mousavi gave him the Interior Ministry, where Mohtashemi-pur went on to crack down on what was left of democracy in Iran.
And it is not as if Mousavi kept his support for Iran's secret war on the U.S. a secret. In a 1981 interview, he had this to say about the taking of American diplomats in Tehran in 1979: "It was the beginning of the second stage of our revolution. It was after that we discovered our true Islamic identity."
Rescue efforts continued for days at the Marine headquarters in Beirut. While the rescuers were at times hindered by sniper fire, some survivors were pulled from the rubble and airlifted to the RAF hospital in Cyprus or to U.S. and German hospitals in West Germany.
None of this is to exonerate the other candidates. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was an officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Iranian paramilitary force responsible for most of the terrorism against the U.S. Conservative Mohsen Rezaei was the Guards' commander. And Mehdi Karroubi, like Mousavi, was deeply involved in Lebanon in the '80s. According to my Hizballah contact, he too was a patron of Mughniyah's.
This may all be ancient history to Iran's fledgling democratic movement, and history the Op-Ed pages of our newspapers would prefer to forget. But at the very least, it should be a reminder that, when it comes to political leaders, there are no good choices in Iran. It is a promising sign that Mousavi has put his violent past behind him, as has Iran for the most part, but let's not completely forget his far-from-democratic roots. -- TIME
Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War Against Terrorism
“Attention should be given to the fiscal deficit,” said Xie Xuren, the Chinese finance minister. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner assured the Chinese that once the economy rebounded, the deficit would gradually come down from its current record levels.
For China, the rising American deficit is a concern because it could weaken the dollar and put at risk China’s vast holdings of Treasury securities and other dollar-based assets. China holds an estimated $1.5 trillion in such securities, making it the United States’ largest foreign creditor. -- New York Times
Pakistani Army soldiers guard nuclear-capable missiles. Photo by Rizwan Tabassum/AFP/Getty Images.
In a video posted on jihadist websites on July 25, 2009, senior Al-Qaeda commander Abu Yahya Al-Libi urged Pakistanis to take up arms against the Pakistani army and government. -- MEMRI
Expressing concerns over the expanding terror threat, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen has said Al-Qaeda is trying to get hold of nuclear weapons to wreak havoc across the world particularly in America.
“Terrorist organisations, al Qaeda in particular, have been very open and direct about their desire to get a nuclear device and continue to terrorise people in accordance with their strategic approach, killing as many Americans and westerners as they possibly can with a device like that,” Admiral Mullen said. -- source
In an essay in the National Interest, Bruce Riedel, the former CIA officer who led a review of strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan for President Barack Obama, lays out the implications of a worst case scenario. [His report is lengthy but, the best analysis on Pakistan that I've ever read.]
“A jihadist Pakistan would be the most serious threat to the United States since the end of the Cold War. Aligned with al-Qaeda and armed with nuclear weapons, the Islamic Emirate of Pakistan would be a nightmare. U.S. options for dealing with it would all be bad,” he writes.
Do read his essay in conjunction with this article in the CTC Sentinel (pdf), in which Shaun Gregory, a professor at Britain’s Bradford University, assesses the risk of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Islamist militants. The nuclear weapons, he argues, are well guarded by the Pakistan Army against the internal threat of a seizure by Islamist extremists. -- Reuters
Given Pakistan's reluctance to accept U.S. military operations within their country, we can only hope that he is correct.
Step aside Poseidon, there are new lords of the deep - little green men.
According to recent declassified reports from the Cold War era, Russian submariners talked of numerous encounters with unidentified objects technologically surpassing anything humanity ever built.
On one occasion a nuclear submarine, which was on a combat mission in the Pacific Ocean, detected six unknown objects. After the crew failed to leave behind their pursuers by maneuvering, the captain ordered to surface. The objects followed suit, took to the air, and flew away.
Russian Navy intelligence veteran, Captain 1st rank Igor Barklay comments:
“Ocean UFOs often show up wherever our or NATO’s fleets concentrate. Near Bahamas, Bermudas, Puerto Rico. They are most often seen in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the southern part of the Bermuda Triangle, and also in the Caribbean Sea.” -- more at Russia Today
Deep. /s
~ ~ ~
The Abyss - The World is Warned
When Bud risks his life to neutralise the nuke, he becomes the unwitting participant in a global crisis that takes place in the deepest part of the ocean.
By John Arquilla
When it comes to national security, our leaders are overly focused on nuclear weapons of mass destruction; more thought should be given to the looming threat of cyber "mass disruption."
Yes, Russia has lots of warheads, but so do we. The situation is stable. North Korea might have a few big weapons that work, but our retaliatory capability would wipe them out. The same would hold for the Iranians, should they ever get the bomb.
But in the virtual world of debilitating logic bombs, fast-spreading viruses and remotely controlled "botnets" of thousands of slave computers, a grave and growing capacity for crippling our tech-dependent society has risen unchecked. And all the warning signs have been evident for years.
A decade ago, one of our own military exercises - still classified, so little can be said openly - revealed serious vulnerabilities. This was soon followed by actual intrusions into our defense information systems, apparently emanating from a site in Russia, that were persistent and wide-ranging.
More exercises followed, to test new security standards, with names like Silent Horizon and Cyber Storm. They showed that we were still quite open to attacks against crucial infrastructures. And more real events came into play - this time apparently connected in some way to China: a swarm attack that nearly took down the power grid in Southern California several years ago and, more recently, another series of cyber raids on sensitive military data.
Beyond our own direct experiences - the latest being some relatively minor attacks on the Fourth of July that also hit South Korea - others also have started to feel the cyber heat. Estonia came under cyber attacks in April and May 2007, and so did Georgia in August 2008. Both apparently were staged from Russian and other servers, and the effects were so serious that Estonia had to reboot by cutting its cyber links to the outside world. The Georgians lost the ability to communicate with their own armed forces - in the middle of a Russian invasion.
And the Russians are hardly alone in waging this sort of cyber-war. Israeli ground forces dealt punishing blows to the Palestinians in Gaza in the January 2009 fighting, but a Muslim cyber-militia, apparently operating out of Iran, struck back effectively against a number of key Israeli sites - including one that provided civil defense instructions for what to do when under rocket attack.
These cyber attacks were on smaller countries, but if such actions were aimed at us, they would be exceptionally costly. That makes it most puzzling that so little has been done that actually improves our defenses.
Click image to enlarge.
To be sure, a whole business model based on selling firewalls and security updates has emerged. But, as one master hacker I know likes to say, "There are no firewalls. They only recognize what they already know to be threats and have great trouble when intrusion and attack tools are even slightly tweaked."
Or, as I like to tell my military masters, we are steeped in a Maginot Line mentality - our cyber defenses are as easy to outflank as the French fortifications were in 1940. Instead, we have to "imagine no lines" and accept that the bad guys will get into our systems. Against this threat, we must rely more on strong encryption - so intruders won't even know what they're looking at - and conceal our most important information by parceling it out in encoded portions in myriad hiding places in "the cloud" of cyberspace.
Commercial companies are just starting to take steps like these. But their pace of change is far too slow, and their intellectual property continues to be plundered by cyber raiders. Individuals are even more vulnerable - millions of Americans are unknowingly turned into zombies, their computers enslaved by virtual body snatchers. And our military, whose efficiency depends on secure connectivity, remains at risk.
In the face of all this, we must of course strive to reduce vulnerabilities. But there is one other thing we might do: engage in cyber arms control. Not the sort that seeks to prevent the spread of technology, because this cannot be done. All computers can be used as weapons, and they are everywhere. So instead of trying to control hardware, we have to strive to control our own behavior.
Perhaps this would take the form of a multilateral agreement to refrain from intruding into or attacking others' information systems except in response to acts or imminent threats of virtual or physical aggression. Ironically, it was the Russians - now so adept in cyberspace - who first floated this idea 13 years ago in a meeting with their American counterparts.
When the Russian position was communicated to higher-ups in the U.S. government, the response was negative. I know because I was part of the American team, and I urged acceptance of the Russian offer. But the prevailing view was that Moscow's offer was a sign that we were ahead - and should keep ahead, not give up an advantage. So a cyber arms race arose, like the nuclear arms race that ensued after the United States refused to join a global ban on nuclear weapons about 60 years ago.
All the evidence to date suggests that we are not ahead in this race. In fact, our open society provides the biggest and richest set of targets in the world. Yet we continue to oppose a behavior-based form of cyber arms control that might look something like the Chemical Weapons Convention - one of the world's great successes in renouncing the use of terrible weapons that almost anyone can easily produce.
Yet there is still time - just barely - to act. We must begin by moving away from cyber defense strategies that just don't work, and then we should embrace a behavior-based arms control effort. The alternative will be, inevitably, a cyber 9/11 that could have dire consequences for the economy or for our troops in the field if they are engaged in battle when the digital storm hits.
If such an attack does come, no commission will be able to conclude that it could not have been foreseen. The portents have been there for all to see. There can be no excuse for failure to take action now.-- San Francisco Chronicle
John Arquilla teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. His latest book is Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - transparent aluminum scene
Though in my heart I long for simpler times, I can't help but be excited by the pace of scientific discovery.
Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminium' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion. -- Read more at PhysOrg.com
Fascinating times indeed.
Has anyone else noticed this today? The U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program has drawn a big red line on it's map -- right through part of California. Now we all know that California is falling apart financially but, does the USGS soon expect it to fall apart literally? Why would they be highlighting the Pacific plate / San Andreas fault and no other faults across America?
The focus of this week's FEMA disaster drill is terrorism, so that can't be the reason. Perhaps a clue to the line lies in the USGS website segment "Today's Earthquake Fact":
The oldest rocks on Earth are found on land. Since the ocean floor is being continually regenerated as the continental plates move across the Earth's surface, the oldest rocks on the ocean floor are less than 300 million years. In contrast, the oldest continental rocks are 4,500 million years old.
Whatever the reason for the line, I'm personally very happy to have left California years ago. No more major earthquakes for me, thank you. I'll leave the rest of you Californians to chew on this:
The USGS predicts that California will experience a major earthquake — one equal to or greater than the 1994 Northridge earthquake that was responsible for collapsing parts of Los Angeles' freeways and causing $25 billion in damage — in the next 30 years. And it's more than just a possibility. According to USGS, it’s pretty much certain.
~
UPDATE: I couldn't let this question go unanswered so, I emailed the USGS Earthquake Hazards web team and asked, "Why the red line?" I quickly received the following reply [printed with permission]:
Hello-
We upgraded our US maps this morning to include plate boundaries (bold red lines) for the US map and 10-10 degree maps, and faults (thin red lines) on the 2x2 degree maps.
The text under the maps has been updated to identify the plate boundaries and faults.
The bold red line that runs through California and out into the ocean is the plate boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American plate (which we call the San Andreas Fault in California). The small area offshore of Oregon and Washington outlined by plate boundaries is the smallest plate in the world, called the Juan de Fuca plate.
There are no other plate boundaries in the US, and there are only a few other places in the world where the plate boundary crosses a continent or landmass (Iceland is one).
There was no significance to why the maps changed today. We've been working on these new maps for quite a while now, and they were finally ready to go public this morning.
- Lisa
--------------------------
Lisa Wald, Geophysicist
Web Team Manager
USGS Earthquake Hazards Program
Golden, CO
Mystery solved. Thank you Ms. Wald -- and thank you EHP team! Keep up the good work.
Click photo to enlarge.
[An actual post from Yahoo Answers - 9 months ago...]
Can my boss fire me for supporting Obama?
I work for a small business (~30 of us), and my boss told all of us that if and when (hopefully) Obama wins, he will be forced to let some of us go. He has this crazy notion that his taxes are going to go up if Obama wins.
He told us, that to be fair, he would be letting those who supported Obama go first. Now, I never told him I who I was voting for, but I do wear an Obama shirt quite often and I do have an Obama 08 bumper sticker on my car...do you think I will get the axe?
I really can't get fired! I just spent $1500 on a hydroponics set up and a brand new snowboard...I will be hosed. :(
[additional details -- added to first post]
Ok, assuming I do get fired, will it be easy to take him to court and prove it was because I supported Obama? Will the courts supply me with a free lawyer, or do I have to call them up myself and ask them to do it for free?
I don't exactly have the most marvelous track record at the office (been late a few times, printed out some articles from a political/adult magazine on the work computer, and put a fire extinguisher in the baler) ....so he may just be using this as an excuse to oppress me
I keep hearing about this bail out thing Obama passed to help people pay their credit cards and rent for their houses...Is there a form I have to fill out to get my money? How do I go about doing this?
I'm really struggling :(
[I can see him now... still hoping for change.]
Sound of Music | Central Station Antwerp (Belgium)
For my #1 fan in Belgium. - c
More than 200 dancers perform their version of "Do Re Mi" in the Central Station of Antwerp. With just two rehearsals the crowd created this amazing stunt as a promotion for a Belgian television program that was looking for someone to play the leading role in the musical "The Sound of Music".
Nurses Association Opposes Mandatory Flu Shots for Health Workers
State Hospital Council Passes Emergency Rule
The New York State Nurses Association strongly opposed a regulation that would require every healthcare worker in the state to be immunized for influenza, but the New York State Hospital Planning and Review Council passed the proposal anyway.
The emergency rule could go into effect before this winter's flu season. The rule affects all healthcare personnel, both paid and unpaid, who interact with patients in hospitals, diagnostic and treatment centers, certified home health agencies, long-term healthcare programs, AIDS home care programs, licensed home care services, and hospices.
In its testimony, the Nurses Association called the council's action a "scorched earth" approach. "While we encourage nurses to be immunized for the flu, we do not agree that nurses should be required to get immunizations as a condition of employment," said Eileen Avery, RN, associate director of the association's Education, Practice & Research Program.
The regulation's impact on the state's shortage of nurses could be significant. There is no exemption for individuals with religious or cultural preferences regarding immunization. "This rule effectively blocks these individuals from earning their livelihood as nurses," Avery said. "It's possible that nurses will leave the profession or choose another career because of this onerous mandate; a serious threat at a time when the shortage of nurses in New York State is expected to reach 20,000 within a decade."
Full text of the testimony: http://www.nysna.org/advocacy/testimonies/mandated_shots.htm
For more information contact: Nancy Webber, 518-782-9400, Ext. 223
The beach by Lake Ontario, Toronto, Canada. via DailyDoseOfImages
"Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him." -- John Locke
Oklahoma's First Post Office With Rifleman Standing Guard, April 22, 1889.
On this day in 1775, the U.S. postal system is established by the Second Continental Congress, with Benjamin Franklin as its first postmaster general. -- story & video at History.com
Captain William J. Tate, the Wright Brothers' first host in Kitty Hawk, and family on porch of their home, the Kitty Hawk, North Carolina post office.
Old postcard depicting the first post office in Linton, Indiana.
The Elba, Michigan post office was established in the east wing of the Root home.
Collins & Gray Successors of W.H. Dolman General Merchant was home to the Alsea, Oregon post office. The sign hanging adjacent (center) declares "Post Office".
A post card published in 1938 shows off Yellowknife, Alaska's first post office -- the large white building at center left -- the Yellowknife Supplies general store.
Old postcard depicting the first post office in Baltimore, Maryland.
Dayton, Tennessee’s first Post Office was located in Smith’s Crossroads.
This impressive home was built by Captain Moore around 1800. It was one of the first post offices in Yancey, North Carolina. The mail was brought in weekly and dumped out of the bag onto the floor and people came there and sorted through it to find letters addressed to them.
~ ~ ~
It is believed that the tradition from England of dropping mail off at coffee houses and taverns was adopted by the earliest Bostonians as an article in the April 8th, 1922, Boston Globe describes:
"The first post office in Boston--and probably in the first in America--was established in the home of Richard Fairbanks, on or very near the site of the [then] present Boston Globe building in 1639. On November 6 of that year, the Court voted:
'For preventing the miscarriage of letters; & it is ordered, that notice bee given that Richard Fairbanks his house in Boston is the place appointed for all letters which are brought from beyond the seas, or are to be sent thither, are to bee brought into; and hee is to take care that they bee delivered or sent according to their directions; and hee is allowed for every such letter 1 penny, & must answere all miscarriages through his owne neglect in this kind; provided, that no man shalbee compelled to bring his letters thither, except hee please.'" -- source
Happy Anniversary U.S. Postal Service
No amount of kitty treats can make up for doing this photo shoot.
Hold on to your tin foil hats folks because all this week (Monday through Friday) FEMA will be conducting a terrorism drill -- a fact not lost on conspiracy nuts who believe that the government had prior knowledge of 9/11 because FEMA had planned on 9/12 to conduct a biological-terrorism drill in a commercial warehouse on the Hudson and already had personnel in place on 9/10 in New York. Right. /s
Here's the gist of this week's operation from the FEMA press release:
FEMA's National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery.
The NLE 09 scenario will begin in the aftermath of a notional [theoretical] terrorist event outside of the United States, and exercise play will center on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists to enter the United States and carry out additional attacks. This scenario enables participating senior officials to focus on issues related to preventing terrorist events domestically and protecting U.S. critical infrastructure.
NLE 09 will be an operations-based exercise to include: activities taking place at command posts, emergency operation centers, intelligence centers and potential field locations to include federal headquarters facilities in the Washington D.C. area, and in federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector facilities in FEMA Region VI, which includes the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and California.
Now, the only thing that I find odd about this report is that FEMA Region VI does not include California. Unfortunate wording, but likely a fact not lost on the tin foil hat crowd either.
Other than that folks, nothing out of the ordinary. There will be no dirty bomb explosion happening in Mexico this week. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Of course, if you don't believe me, you can always contact the FEMA News Desk: 202-646-4600. I'm sure they're trained to handle all types of calls.
'Fly Guy' is latest (and greatest to date) cartoon from Simon Tofield. Following are the rest in the series, in ascending order of my favorites. If you have a cat, you're guaranteed to giggle while watching; if you don't, you're guaranteed to think twice before getting one. Enjoy!
A hungry cat resorts to increasingly desperate measures to catch a housefly.
A hungry cat resorts to increasingly desperate measures to gain its owner's attention.
A hungry cat resorts to increasingly desperate measures to get indoors.
A hungry cat resorts to increasingly desperate measures to wake its sleeping owner.
No, not Clint Eastwood... but, you just might think so.
Clint Smith, Director of Thunder Ranch, is part drill instructor and part stand-up comic. Here are a few of his observations on tactics, firearms, self defense and life:
"The handgun would not be my choice of weapon if I knew I was going to a fight. I'd choose a rifle, a shotgun, an RPG or an atomic bomb instead."
"The two most important rules in a gunfight are: always cheat and always win."
"Every time I teach a class, I discover I don't know something."
"Don't forget, incoming fire has the right of way."
"Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets. I may get killed with my own gun, but he's gonna have to beat me to death with it, 'cause it's going to be empty."
"If you're not shootin', you should be loadin'. If you're not loadin' you should be movin', if you're not movin', someone's gonna cut your head off and put it on a stick."
"When you reload in low light encounters, don't put your flashlight in your back pocket. If you light yourself up, you'll look like an angel or the tooth fairy... either way, you're gonna be one of 'em pretty soon."
"Do something. It may be wrong, but do something."
"Shoot what's available, as long as it's available, until something else becomes available."
"If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That's ridiculous. If I have a gun, what in the hell do I have to be paranoid for?"
"Don't shoot fast, shoot good."
"You can say 'stop' or 'alto' or use any other word you think will work, but I've found that a large bore muzzle pointed at someone's head is pretty much the universal language."
"You have the rest of your life to solve your problems. How long you live depends on how well you do it."
"You cannot save the planet. You may be able to save yourself and your family."
"Thunder Ranch will be here as long as you'll have us or until someone makes us go away - either way it will be exciting."
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." -- G. K. Chesterton
92 years ago today, a would-be kindergarten teacher from a small town in northern Holland was sentenced to die for spying on Germany's behalf during World War I. Her trial was said to have been riddled with bias and circumstantial evidence. Many believed the French authorities, as well as the press, trumped her up as "the greatest woman spy of the century" as a distraction for the huge losses the French army was suffering on the Western Front. The French needed to find a scapegoat. They gave the world Margueretha Gertruida Zelle. She gave us Mata Hari.
Some could argue that the shattering of her lavish early childhood - her wealthy father went bankrupt and divorced her mother who died shortly after - led her to the life she chose, but that would be omitting much.
Her studies to be a teacher were ended in disgrace due to the advances of her headmaster. She married a Dutch Colonial Army officer who had placed a newspaper ad seeking a wife - he turned out to be an abusive alcoholic. Neither of her two children survived to adulthood, possibly from complications relating to syphilis, contracted from their parents. The likely source? - her husband's affairs. Such tragedies filled her young life.
In 1903, at the age of 27, Margaretha moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider, using the name Lady MacLeod. Like many single women in today's economic downturn, she struggled to earn a living, turning eventually to her only asset, her body. She posed as an artist's model, but didn't begin to win fame until she fully cast aside her previous life, reinventing herself as the exotic dancer Mata Hari.
Promiscuous, flirtatious, and openly flaunting her body, she captivated her audiences and was an overnight success from the debut of her act at the Musée Guimet on 13 March, 1905.
Her exotic dances soon earned her fans all over Europe, where she packed dance halls from Moscow to Berlin to Madrid, largely because of her willingness to dance almost entirely naked in public.
She became a celebrated courtesan, and by the outbreak of World War I, her catalog of lovers included high-ranking military officers, politicians, and others in influential positions in many countries, including the German crown prince, who paid for her luxurious lifestyle.
As a Dutch subject, Mata Hari was able to cross national borders freely. Avoiding the battlefields, she travelled between France and the Netherlands via Spain and Britain - her movements inevitably attracting attention.
On one occasion, when interviewed by British intelligence officers, she admitted to working as an agent for French military intelligence, although the latter would not confirm her story. It is unclear if she lied on this occasion, believing the story made her sound more intriguing, or if French authorities were using her in such a way, but would not acknowledge her due to the embarrassment and international backlash it could cause.
Regardless, her new life began to crumble, when in January 1917, the German military attaché in Madrid transmitted radio messages to Berlin describing the helpful activities of a German spy, code-named H-21. French intelligence agents intercepted the messages and, from the information they contained, identified H-21 as Mata Hari. Unusually, the messages were in a code that German intelligence knew had already been broken by the French, leaving some historians to suspect that the messages were contrived.
On 13 February, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her room at the Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris. She was put on trial, accused of spying for Germany and consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. She was found guilty and was executed by firing squad on 15 October, 1917, at the age of 41.
The Execution of Mata Hari in 1917.
Her dying words were purported to be "Merci, monsieur," but another source claims that, in an attempt to distract her executioners, she flung open her coat and exposed her naked body. "Harlot, yes, but traitor, never," she is reported to have said.
Thus, fueled by the fires of popular imagination - the idea of an exotic dancer working as a lethal double agent, using her powers of seduction to extract military secrets from her many lovers - a legend was born, forever casting Mata Hari as the archetype of the female spy.
Sources: Wikipedia, History.com
Fictional CIA assassin Jason Bourne
via Today's Zaman
Back in 1960, the CIA hatched a plan to kill Patrice Lumumba by infecting his toothbrush with a deadly disease. The Congolese leader would brush his teeth and, presto, in a few days or weeks he would be gone.
Around the same time, the CIA's Health Alteration Committee -- who thought that name up? -- sent a monogrammed, poisoned handkerchief to Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, the leader of Iraq.
And the CIA's "executive action" unit plotted for years to murder Fidel Castro. It hired the Mafia to poison his food and tried to give him a diving suit contaminated with Madura foot, a rare tropical disease that starts in the foot and moves upward, slowly destroying the body. The CIA also considered offing the Cuban leader with an exploding cigar, a poison pen and a seashell that would blow up under water when he touched it.
Not one of the plots was successful. Lumumba and Kassem were executed by their foes, and Castro is still alive. But the plots make clear that the CIA has been licensed to kill for decades.
Congress -- especially congressional Democrats -- was outraged earlier this month when it was disclosed that, apparently on orders from Vice President Dick Cheney, the CIA for eight years concealed from Congress a program to assassinate the leaders of al-Qaeda, starting with Osama bin Laden. But they shouldn't have been surprised that such a plan was being hatched.
The CIA's involvement in planning assassinations goes back at least to 1954, when it prepared a manual for killings as part of a US-run coup against the leftist government of Guatemala. The 19-page manual, which was declassified in 1997, makes chilling reading. "The essential point of assassination is the death of the subject," it declares, noting that although it "is possible to kill a man with the bare hands … the simplest local tools are often much the most efficient means of assassination. A hammer, ax, wrench, screwdriver, fire poker, kitchen knife, lamp stand or anything hard, heavy and handy will suffice."
The agency's manual recommends "the contrived accident" as the best way to dispose of someone. "The most efficient accident … is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. Elevator shafts, stairwells, unscreened windows and bridges will serve." The manual suggests grabbing the victim by the ankles and "tipping the subject over the edge. … Falls before trains or subway cars are usually effective, but require exact timing."
The manual goes on to discuss "blunt weapons," noting that "a hammer can be picked up almost anywhere in the world" and that baseball bats are also excellent. The manual explains the best place in the body to stab people or how to bash their skulls in and the pros and cons of rifles, pistols, submachine guns and other weapons.
During the Cold War years, the CIA plotted against eight foreign leaders, five of whom died violently. The agency's role varied in each case.
After the plots were publicized by a Senate committee, President Gerald Ford issued an executive order in 1976 barring political assassination. President Ronald Reagan broadened the ban, dropping the word "political" and extending the prohibition to include contract killers as well as government employees.
Although the ban remains in effect, it largely has been ignored on the premise that it does not apply in a military setting. Consider the following:
In 1986, Reagan ordered the bombing of Libya in retaliation for a terrorist attack on a Berlin disco that killed three people, including two US servicemen, and wounded more than 200 others. In the air strike, Libya's leader, Moammar Gadhafi, a target of the raid, escaped unharmed, but his 2-year-old adopted daughter was killed.
During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, when the first Bush administration bombed Baghdad, Robert M. Gates, the former CIA director and current defense secretary, said White House officials hoped that "Saddam Hussein would be killed in a bunker." At an air base in Saudi Arabia that year, Cheney, then secretary of defense, and Gen. Colin L. Powell signed a 2,000-pound laser-guided bomb destined for Iraq. "To Saddam with affection," Cheney wrote.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile strike on al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan after the bombing of two US embassies in Africa. The White House was clearly disappointed when the strike failed to kill Bin Laden, who reportedly left one of the camps shortly before the attack.
A year later, again during the Clinton administration, NATO bombed Belgrade after Serbia forced ethnic Albanians to flee from Kosovo. A cruise missile was lobbed into the bedroom of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader and Yugoslav president, but he was not sleeping there and escaped injury.
In Yemen in 2002, a CIA Predator drone fired a Hellfire missile that destroyed a car in which a top al-Qaeda leader, Qaed Sinan Harithi, was riding.
The problem with assassination, morality aside, is that the US is not very good at it, as the CIA's farcical efforts to murder Castro demonstrate. It seems unlikely that the CIA will kill Bin Laden with a baseball bat. And there is the real possibility of retaliation for a state-sponsored assassination. President John Kennedy was quoted as saying, "We can't get into that kind of thing or we would all be targets."
Perhaps CIA Director Leon Panetta had that in mind when he canceled the assassination program. -- ###
By David Wise, the author of Nightmover: How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB for $4.6 Million
A woman in a hot air balloon realizes she is lost. She lowers her altitude and spots a man fishing from a boat below.
She shouts to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The fisherman consults his portable GPS and replies, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."
She rolls her eyes and says, "You must be a Republican!"
"I am," replies the fisherman. "How did you know?"
"Well," answers the balloonist, "everything you tell me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you're not much help to me."
The fisherman smiles and responds, "You must be a Democrat."
"I am," replies the balloonist. "How did you know?"
"Well," says the fisherman, "You don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and now you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault."
h/t: Teak
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Don't get me started...
Statement by Governor Charlie Crist regarding the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court
"As Governor, I have had the honor of appointing dozens of judges, in both the appellate and trial courts. Selecting a judge, particularly to a supreme court, is one of the weightiest and most important decisions any elected executive can make.
"While I have not had the opportunity to meet personally with Judge Sotomayor--a crucial step in the selection process--I have reviewed and reflected upon her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and come to the conclusion that I cannot support her appointment to the United States Supreme Court. Judge Sotomayor is worthy of respect for her many accomplishments and her remarkable story of success. However, I have strong concerns that Judge Sotomayor would not strictly and objectively construe the constitution and lacks respect for the fundamental right to keep and bear arms. For these reasons, I cannot support her appointment to the highest court in the land."
Charlie Crist, Governor of Florida
Wildfires rage in southern Europe and no one is talking "Forest Jihad."
Of course not. It was nearly two years ago that a terrorist website carried the message: "summer has begun so do not forget the Forest Jihad." People forget. Terrorists don't.
The posting, which quoted imprisoned Al Qaeda terrorist Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, said setting forest fires was legal under "eye-for-an-eye" Islamic law.
"Scholars have justified chopping down and burning the infidels' forests when they do the same to our lands," the posting read.
The author of the posting indicated that Nasar (then a resident of Guantanamo Bay - now believed to have been extradited to Syria) was urging terrorists to use sulfuric acid or gasoline to start the fires. -- FOX News
Meanwhile today, thousands of firefighters are battling to bring under control wildfires that are spreading across parts of southern Europe.
The fires, which have destroyed some 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) of forest and bush, are believed to have been started deliberately, the regional government said.
At least seven people have died in the blazes that have struck Spain, France, Greece and the Italian island of Sardinia including a shepherd who perished trying to rescue his flock. -- BBC News
The equation is simple: Senseless loss of life? Blame jihad.
It’s a cooker, a fridge and a generator in one — and it could have a huge impact on the lives of people in the world’s poorest communities.
The Score project is developing a bio-mass burning cooking stove which also converts heat into acoustic energy and then into electricity, all in one unit.
Researchers in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at The University of Nottingham are working on the generator’s Linear Alternator — the part which turns the sound energy into electricity. The system uses special configurations of magnets which generate electrical energy from sound.
The aim of the Score project is to make a low-cost, high efficiency generator that can be used in the world’s poorest countries. The generator has a cost target of £20 per household, based on the production of a million units. The generator will weigh between 10 and 20kg and produce 150 W of electricity. The target is to generate an hour’s use per kilogram of fuel — which could be wood, dung or any other locally-available biomass material. -- Press Release
Doc would be proud.
Pat Condell: Apologists for evil
The cultural treachery of the liberal left.
Explanation of the term "useful idiots."
Beach Run, 16"x20", watercolor by Heather King
SUNSHINE and weight loss could be the key to avoiding a severe bout of swine flu - and it all comes down to inflammation. -- The Sun
Vitamin D - which our bodies make from sunshine - protects against a number of inflammatory conditions including heart disease, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, and the latest discovery, inflammation of the lungs due to H1N1/A.
Obesity, on the other hand, increases the output of inflammatory body chemicals, doubling the risk of death from the new flu.
So, go outdoors and get active - but wash your hands as soon as you get home.
[Heads out to catch some rays.]
Hell hath no fury like American precision weaponry. Osama bin Laden's second-oldest son, Sa'ad bin Laden, has been reportedly killed by a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan.
It's believed he was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a U.S. Predator drone sometime this year, according to NPR.org.
Sa'ad continued in his father's bloody footsteps by maintaining a position within Al Qaeda, and is believed to have been heavily involved in the bombing of a Tunisian synagogue in 2002. -- Read the full story from the The Long War Journal.
Surviving after the attack of an electromagnetic pulse weapon has become the summer's hot topic with scores of beach goers and pool-side patrons devouring the recently released One Second After. [It was #11 on The New York Times Best Sellers List.] Paperback versions of other apocalyptic thrillers continue to thrill too. Here are two that come highly recommended both through friends and reader reviews (to read reviews, click on the covers.) I've just ordered my copies. Full book reports coming soon.
Bill Forstchen on his new bestseller, One Second After
Wikipedia: Electromagnetic pulse
Newt talks about the threat of a nuclear North Korea
covertress | EMP Attack: Critical National Infrastructures
BTW, a strong geomagnetic storm could cause damage similar to the effects of an EMP -- all at the whim of the sun.
By Dan McLaughlin for the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Photos from the NPR article, "A Mortgage Banker In Amish Country".
The Amish are interesting people. They make a conscious choice to live without most of the modern conveniences that Americans take for granted. Different communities have varying perspectives on what is allowable and what is not, but they all have a common belief that they must maintain a separation from the world and worldly things. They provide lessons to us that they may not intend, but are valuable nonetheless.
They generally don't use insurance, but they share risk in a different way. They have a strong sense of internal community, and in time of disaster, they are drawn together to help their neighbors. When someone's barn burns down, there is a barn raising, where the whole community gathers to build a new one. It is an amazing display of cooperation.
Many people view full employment as the primary purpose of society. It is a concept that animates much of the discussion in economics and politics. If full employment truly is the primary goal of our society, then we should follow the lead of the Amish. They have developed a social structure that provides full employment for every member. In fact, the problem is not too little employment, but too much employment. They have to have large families with many helping hands to absorb all of the employment that the lack of modern equipment affords them.
Because they do not use tractors, they need many hands to plow, cultivate, and harvest the fields. Milking cows by hand is time-consuming manual labor. Shoveling manure by hand provides employment for some of the less fortunate members of the family. Cutting, transporting, and stacking wood for heat and cooking provides more work that can keep someone busy and sweaty for a considerable period of time.
By being fairly self reliant, rather than maximizing the benefits of national and international divisions of labor, they choose to be less efficient and to perform activities that subtract from the time they can devote to what they do best. By shunning modern labor-saving devices and technologies — such as electricity, hay bailers, power equipment, and modern milking facilities — they choose to live with less of everything. Many fall within the modern definition of poverty. Nearly all use child labor. They would starve without it.
Living with less is not necessarily a bad thing. Most Amish do not regret the choices they made and find their lives quite rewarding. They are generally people of character who stand up for what they believe in, for the whole world to see.
"No dream comes true until you wake up and go to work" -- Amish Proverb
In Word War I Eddie Rickenbacker downed 26 enemy planes. In Word War II Richard Bong notched 40 while Francis Gabreski killed 34 across World War II and Korea. In contrast, when Cesar Rodriguez retired from the Air Force two years ago, his three-air-to-air kills (two over Iraq in 1991 and one over Kosovo) were the most of any American fighter pilot on active duty. The steep decline in these numbers is no accident. They are the residue of a purposeful strategy to avoid war through unquestioned strength. As Ronald Reagan told the Republican National Convention in Dallas in 1984: “There are some who’ve forgotten why we have a military. It’s not to promote war; it’s to be prepared for peace.”
Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the F-22, has estimated that work on the plane provides 25,000 jobs and indirectly supports about 70,000 others.
Yesterday the Obama administration significantly undercut our strength by killing production of the Air Force’s best fighter: the F-22. For Obama, the victory was purely symbolic. While he sends our nation spiraling into trillions of new debt, his $1.75 billion in savings by cutting the F-22 amounts to a third of one percent of the overall 2010 defense budget. So if killing the F-22 was not about savings, what was the motivation? The New York Times reports: “Senate aides said that some Democrats who otherwise might have voted for more planes sided with the President out of concern that a loss could have hurt him in the fight for health care reform.”
So at what cost to our national security did Obama trade political momentum for his domestic initiatives? Russia is expanding its fighter forces more than at any other time since the end of the Cold War. The Russians plan to field 300 Su-Fullback strike aircraft by 2022 and an additional 300 Sukhoi Pak fifth-generation fighters. Meanwhile, China has ordered an estimated 76 Su-30MKK Flanker-Gs and can produce an additional 250 under license, including at least 100 “knock-down kits” to be assembled in China. If China modernizes its 171 Su-27SK/UBs to the Su-27SKM standard and assembles another 105 Su-27SKMs under license, it will have roughly 626 multi-role fighters available for air superiority missions. This would place China in the same league as the U.S., which has 522 F-15A/B/C/Ds, 217 F-15Es, and a planned end strength of 186 F-22s.
The fighter gap is often considered to be far in the future, but the reality is that future short falls must be addressed today. The President’s fighter cuts would eliminate one of the two remaining fifth-generation fighter production lines. This would severely limit the options available to Congress if it wants to restart production at some later date. The cost to the taxpayer would also be much higher than if production continues.
Earlier this month, the Obama administration weakened our defenses on another front, agreeing to reduce the number of strategic launchers despite receiving no real concessions from the Russians on Missile Defense.
So what do Americans think of Obama's white flag diplomacy?
According to a new Associated Press poll, the majority (54%) now believes the country is headed in the wrong direction.
"Hurry up before the people realize that Obama's 'greater inefficiencies' quote wasn't a gaffe."
Muslim model Michelle Leslie before she converted under threat of death.
A Malaysian religious court sentenced the tearful 22-year-old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno to six strokes of the cane after she pleaded guilty to consuming alcohol, reported the New Straits Times.
She told the newspaper before the trial that “it was sheer bad luck” the lounge was raided. -- Al-Arabia
Beck, Bogert & Appice - Superstition (Live) 1974
"Superstition" isn't a cover according to Beck: Stevie Wonder wrote it specifically for Beck to do. The story develops further that Stevie recorded it and released it at nearly same time which angered Beck as the composition was considered barter for some session work Beck did for Stevie.
~ ~ ~
Very superstitious, writing's on the wall
Very superstitious, ladder's 'bout to fall
Thirteen month old baby, broke the lookin' glass
Seven years of bad luck, the good thing's in your past
When you believe in things that you don't understand
Then you suffer
Superstition ain't the way
Very superstitious, wash your face and hands
Rid me of the problem, do all that you can
Keep me in a daydream, keep me goin' strong
You don't wanna save me, sad is my song
Very superstitious, nothin' more to say
Very superstitious, the Devil's on his way
Thirteen month old baby, broke the lookin' glass
Seven years of bad luck, the good thing's in your past
~ ~ ~
Wouldn't this photo make a lovely album cover?
Click image to enlarge. - Photograph by Robert Quinn.
A thunderstorm strikes over the foothills of the Superstition Mountains in central Arizona. -- National Geographic Photo of the Day
Super Jihad, a character in the graphic novel The Infidel, by ex-Muslim Bosch Fawstin.
In early May, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi predicted Europe’s future: “We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe — without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.” And he is right, if present trends hold. Muslims will dominate Europe if Turkey, which contains 77 million Muslims, is allowed into the European Union, as is now proposed, and its citizens are allowed to live anywhere in the EU.
That is about the only conclusion one can draw from the growing Muslim population of the continent, which shows no signs of slowing. The demographics prove it. About 1.5 million Muslims live in Great Britain. Another 890,000 live in the Netherlands, with 380,000 in Belgium and 280,000 in Sweden. Nearly 200,000 live in Austria. France and Germany have more than 6 million and about 3 million respectively. In all, some 50 million Muslims have entered Europe since the 1950s, when virtually no Muslims lived there. They now compose 7 percent of the population.
As Muslim birth rates surge, native Europeans are aborting and contracepting themselves to death. The collapsing birth rates across Europe aren’t just low; they are below replacement levels, meaning that Europeans will soon go the way of the dodo bird. The bare minimum replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman (or 210 children per 100 women). Germany and Italy, at 80 births per 100 women and negative population growth, are headed for literal extinction. The German government predicts that the land of Goethe and Beethoven will be a Muslim country by 2050. France isn’t far behind with 125 births per 100. The Netherlands’ and Spain’s rate is about 100 births per 100 women. The European Union as a whole is 102.5 births per 100 women.
The concern is what Europe’s face will look like when Muslims are ascendant demographically, and how much that face will remotely resemble what used to be called Christendom.
Read the full story at The New American.
"No stronger retrograde force exists in the world." -- Winston Churchill on Islam
While much of the world has lined up with Manuel Zelaya, the ousted president of Honduras, time and truth do not seem to be his cause's friend. The latest shoe to drop is a shocking Catalan newspaper report [translated] stating that Honduran authorities have discovered 45 computers containing election results for an election that never took place.
No, this isn't the Twilight Zone — it's the Corruption Zone.
Election data in the computers in question showed, not surprisingly, an overwhelming victory for Zelaya in the proposed June 28 referendum.
As for the time-warp election in Honduras, certain questions remain unanswered. There is no word yet on whether Mayor Daley was a consultant, if dead people had cast ballots, or if Jimmy Carter was an observer. -- The New American
This image shows a large impact on Jupiter's south polar region captured on July 20, 2009, by NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Infrared Telescope Facility.
Scientists have found evidence that another object has bombarded Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the first impacts by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.
"It could be the impact of a comet, but we don't know for sure yet," said Glenn Orton, a scientist at JPL. -- FOX News
Just great. Something the size of Earth just hit Jupiter. No one knows what it was. No one saw it coming.
Why is no one asking how safe the Earth is from such a hazard?
In an April 2009 report, the 1st IAA Planetary Defense Conference stated:
By far the most important requirement of a successful [Earth strike] mitigation campaign is a warning time sufficient to carry out the mitigation mission. As a result, the most important aspect of mitigation is finding the hazardous objects many years in advance.
We can take some comfort from the knowledge that NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program tracks known objects for possibilities of future impact with Earth over the next 100 years.
But what about unknown objects?
The good news is that there are no fewer than ten NEO discovery teams either in full operation or in the planning stages and NASA's search program designed to discover 90% of the NEO population (1 km in diameter or larger) within 10 years is under way.
The blue area shows all near-Earth asteroids while the red area shows only large near-Earth asteroids (those with diameters roughly one kilometer and larger).
Currently, the best estimate of the total population of NEOs larger than one kilometer is about 1000.
When the discovery of a new NEO is announced by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), NASA's Sentry tracking system springs into action, automatically (usually within an hour or two) computing the impact risk.
So, given today's excellent tracking capabilities how dangerous are NEOs?
What has kept the Earth "safe" at least the past 65 million years, other than blind luck is the massive gravitational field of Jupiter, our cosmic guardian, with its stable circular orbit far from the sun, which assures a low number of impacts resulting in mass extinctions by sweeping up and scattering away most of the dangerous Earth-orbit-crossing comets and asteroids.
Still, the risk of missing the one is great. How great? Dr. Stephen Hawking believes that asteroid impacts are the biggest threat to intelligent life in the galaxy.
As of July 21, 2009, Sentry was tracking 247 Near Earth Asteroids, 4 of which were just discovered in June and July.
TARP -- which started as a $700 billion bailout -- has expanded well beyond that.
In a new report to Congress, Neil Barofsky, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, presents an ominous message.
"TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity. Moreover, TARP does not function in a vacuum but is rather part of the broader government efforts to stabilize the financial system," the report says.
"The total potential federal government support could reach up to $23.7 trillion," the report estimates, factoring in commitments from "dozens of programs" implemented throughout the federal government.
The estimate covers commitments that could come from programs at the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Federal Housing Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies.
"The potential financial commitment the American taxpayers could be responsible for is of a size and scope that isn't even imaginable," Rep. Darrell Issa, ranking Republican on the oversight committee, said in a written statement. "If you spent a million dollars a day going back to the birth of Christ, that wouldn't even come close to just $1 trillion -- $23.7 trillion is a staggering figure." -- FOX News
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What does one TRILLION dollars look like?
via PageTutor.com
We'll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slightly fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.
A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun.
Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.
While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet.
And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere.
Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we've been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros.
You ready for this?
It's pretty surprising.
Go ahead...
Scroll down...
Ladies and gentlemen... I give you $1 TRILLION dollars.
Notice those pallets are double stacked. Remember, those are $100 bills.
So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase "trillion dollars"... that's what they're talking about.
Now don't forget to multiply that TRILLION by 27 !...
We're so screwed.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner traveled last week to the Middle East and Europe to convince foreign investors to keep buying Treasury bills.
No? How about some tasty U.S. debt?
Timothy Geithner, architect of bank, auto and economic rescue plans, has another high-stakes job these days: traveling bond salesman.
If foreign demand for U.S. debt sags, that could drive up interest rates and spell big trouble for an economy hobbled by 9.5 percent unemployment. Higher rates would make it more expensive for consumers to buy homes and cars, and for businesses to finance their operations.
In the worst case scenario, a rush by foreigners to sell their U.S. debt could send the dollar crashing and inflation soaring.
Publicly traded U.S. debt — which excludes deficits the government owes to itself in Social Security and other trust funds — stood at 41 percent of the total economy in 2008. It is projected to climb to 82 percent of the entire economy by 2019.
"If these trends are not reversed, the world will stop buying our debt and the economy will break," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.
So how is our salesman doing?
When Geithner told a packed auditorium at Peking University that Chinese investments in the U.S. were safe, his comment was greeted by laughter. -- source
What the U.S. needs is a salesman with brass...
Glengarry GlenRoss sales meeting
[NSFW language]
Kim Jong-il's Yachts Impounded
Two luxury yachts ordered by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il have been confiscated by Italian police, Italian daily Libero-News reported Friday. It said financial police in the province of Lucca in Tuscany confiscated two yachts waiting for delivery to Kim in a shipyard in the city of Viareggio. The confiscation came under the international trade embargo against North Korea.
In Resolution 1718 in 2006, the UN Security Council banned UN members from exporting luxury goods to North Korea. The two yachts were worth 13 million euros (approximately W23.4 billion), the daily reported.
Italy's financial police are in charge of investigations into tax evasions or financial crimes. According to the daily, a businessman in Vienna, Austria paid cash to place an order for the yachts in the first place, but the title to the yachts and the responsibility for the balance were later transferred to a Chinese company.
Financial police in Lucca became suspicious and, in cooperation with the Austrian government, tracked the relevant bank accounts back to Kim. Libero-News said investigations are now focused on how Kim is getting supplies of luxury goods from Italy and other European regions. The confiscated yachts will be put up for auction and the money already paid for them has been frozen. -- Chosun Ilbo
Lash: A criminal gets a public flogging by two officials in Saudi Arabia.
In an article on the liberal website Minbar Al-Hiwar Wal-'Ibra, reformist Saudi journalist and human rights activist Wajeha Al-Huweidar described Saudi Arabia as "the world's largest women's prison." She added that unlike real prisoners, Saudi women have no prospect of ever being released, since throughout their life, they are under the control of a male guardian - their husband, father, grandfather, brother or son.
Huweidar and other women activists recently launched a campaign against the Saudi Mahram [1] Law, which forbids women to leave their home without a male guardian. She told the Kuwaiti daily Awan that the campaign, whose slogan is "treat us like adult citizens or we leave the country," was officially launched at the King Fahd Bridge, connecting Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where the women demanded to cross the border without a guardian. [2]
The following are excerpts from Al-Huweidar's article: [3]
Prisoners Can Be Released From Prison - But Saudi Women Can't
"The laws of imprisonment are known all over the world. People who commit a crime or an offense are placed in a prison cell... where they serve their sentence. [When they complete it], or get time off for good behavior, they are released... except in cases [where a person is sentenced] to life imprisonment or death. In Saudi Arabia, there are two additional ways to get out of prison early: by learning the Koran or parts of it by heart... or by getting a pardon from the king on the occasion of a holiday or a coronation - after which the prisoner finds himself free and can enjoy life among his family and loved ones.
"However, none of these options exist for Saudi women - neither for those who live behind bars [i.e. who are actually in prison] nor for those who live outside the prison walls. None are ever released, except with the permission of their male guardian. A Saudi woman who committed a crime may not leave her cell when she has finished serving her sentence unless her guardian arrives to collect her. As a consequence, many Saudi women remain in prison just because their guardians refuse to come and get them. The state pardons them, but their guardians insist on prolonging their punishment.
"At the same time, even 'free' women need the permission of their guardian to leave their home, their city or their country. So in either case, the woman's freedom is [in the hands of] her guardian."
Prison Inmates Are Stripped Of All Authority Over Their Lives - And So Are Saudi Women
"As is customary in prisons throughout the world, inmates are stripped of all authority and sponsorship over their own [lives]. All their movements are monitored and controlled by the jailor. The prison authorities decide their fate and see to their needs, until the day of their release. This is also the usual situation of the Saudi woman. She has no right to make decisions, and may not take a single step without the permission of her jailor, namely her guardian. But in her case the term [of imprisonment] is unlimited.
"The Saudi Mahram Law turns the women into prisoners from the day they are born until the day they die. They cannot leave their cells, namely their homes, or the larger prison, namely the state, without signed permission... Although Saudi women are deprived of freedom and dignity more than any other women [in the world], they suffer all these forms of oppression and injustice in bitter silence, [and with an air of] suppressed anger and death-like dejection. Saudi women are peaceful in the full sense of the word, but so far the Saudi state has not appreciated their [noble] souls, their patience, and their quiet resistance..."
"The Clerics, Whom the State Has Authorized to Oppress the Women, Regard Their Silence And Patience As [a Sign of] Mental Backwardness"
"The clerics, whom the state has authorized to oppress the women, regard their silence and patience as [a sign of] mental backwardness and emotional weakness... Thus they have [allowed themselves] to increase the 'slumber' of oppression over the decades... They suffocate [the women] in all areas of life by means of oppressive laws [enforced by] the religious police, who follow them everywhere as if they were fugitives from justice. The laws pertaining to women have turned them into objects on which sick men can release their violent and sexual [urges].
"These Saudi clerics deny the Saudi women every opportunity to find a job, get an education, travel, receive medical treatment, or [realize] any [other] right, no matter how trivial, without the permission of their jailor, that is, their guardian - [all] based on oppressive fatwas sanctioned by the male [leaders] of the state."
Our "Mothers and Grandmothers...Enjoyed Much Greater Freedom... Saudi Arabia Has Turned Itself Into the World's Largest Saudi Prison"
"[It is interesting to note that] the mothers and grandmothers [of today's Saudi women] had all these rights, and enjoyed much greater freedom [than today's women] - as did all Muslim women in past eras, such as the wives of the Prophet. [None of these women] were subjected to this oppressive Mahram Law, which is not based on the tenets of Islam and in fact has nothing to do with Islam.
"How blessed is Saudi Arabia, the humane kingdom, which has turned itself into the world's largest women's prison. [This is a land] which permits any man, without preconditions, to take the role of jailor, and which has turned its women into prisoners for life, when they have done nothing to deserve it." -- MEMRI
[1] Mahram, meaning "forbidden," refers to a male relative whom the woman may not legally marry and who can thus serve as her guardian.
[2] Awan (Kuwait), July 6, 2009. It should be noted that Sheikh 'Abd Al-Muhsin Al-'Obikan, advisor to the king and Shura Council member, recently issued a fatwa permitting women to travel abroad unaccompanied. www.islamonline.net, December 25, 2008.
[3] http://www.menber-alhewar1.info/news.php?action=view&id=4364, June 24, 2009.
The ranks of nonbelievers are on the rise, research suggests, and as they seek out each other online and in small groups, they are increasingly looking to do more than just vent.
Some are adopting rituals themselves, from de-baptisms to wedding ceremonies, as a way to cement ties among members. Others are organizing science-related outings or enrolling in community-service programs. Nationwide, atheists' groups are now treading, sometimes gingerly, into unfamiliar territory. -- Christian Science Monitor
About 2.3% of the world's population describes itself as atheist, while a further 11.9% is described as nontheist. Up to 65% of Japanese describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, or non-believers, and up to 48% in Russia. The percentage of such persons in European Union member states ranges between 6% (Italy) and 85% (Sweden). -- Wikipedia
Vaccine makers and federal officials will be immune from lawsuits that result from any new swine flu vaccine, under a document signed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, government health officials said Friday.
Fearing a swine flu pandemic in 1976, federal officials vaccinated 40 million Americans during a national inoculation campaign. A pandemic never materialized, but thousands who got the shots filed injury claims, saying they suffered a paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre Syndrome or other side effects.
The move to protect makers of a swine flu shot didn't go over well with Paul Pennock, a prominent New York plaintiffs attorney on medical liability cases. The government will likely call on millions of Americans to get the vaccinations to prevent the disease from spreading, he noted.
"If you're going to ask people to do this for the common good, then let's make sure for the common good that these people will be taken care of if something goes wrong," Pennock said. -- AP
Today's catch? One flounder.
[Just pretend the three fillets pictured cooking came from my one fish... ;)]
Sun-dried Tomato Panko-Crusted Flounder
3 fillets of flounder (or 1 per person)
2 eggs
2 cups of Sun-dried Tomato Panko flakes (mine were courtesy of Whole foods, but feel free to make your own with chopped parsley, minced sun-dried tomatoes, and fresh breadcrumbs)
Here’s a simple one – pat the fish fillets dry with paper towel.
Beat the eggs together in a shallow bowl or platter.
Dip the fish fillets, one by one, in the egg to coat. Let the excess egg drip back into the bowl, then drench the fillets in the breadcrumbs, turning to coat.
Over medium-high heat, melt a tablespoon of butter in a nonstick pan.
Lay the fillets in the pan and cook about 3 minutes on one side, then flip to cook the other side for about a minute and a half.
Check for doneness – the fish should be opaque, not translucent – then transfer to dinner plates.
Bon Appétit!
Recipe & photo FromMyTableToYours
An Arrow anti-ballistic missile is launched as part of the on going United States/Israel Arrow System Improvement Program (ASIP). U.S. Navy photo (RELEASED)
The Arrow Anti-Ballistic Missile System is the first missile defense system specifically designed and built to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles on a national level.
On July 29, 2004, Israel and the United States carried out a joint test at the Point Mugu Sea Range in California, in which the Arrow interceptor was launched against a real "Scud-B" missile.
The test was a success, with the interceptor destroying the "Scud" at an altitude of 40 km. This was the twelfth Arrow interceptor test and the seventh test of the complete system, the first interception of a real "Scud".
Following the July 2004 test, the Defense Minister of Israel, Shaul Mofaz, said:
"We are in an age of uncertainty. Countries in the 'third circle' [Iran] are continuing their efforts to acquire non-conventional capabilities along with long-range launch capabilities. The Arrow is the best missile system of its kind in the world, and represents a force multiplier for our future force".
Arrow Missile Defense System - Wikipedia
The 13th test from August 27, 2004 was less than encouraging:
This test was aimed at examining the Arrow's ability to detect a splitting warhead. It detected the true target, but a technical malfunction reportedly prevented it from maneuvering to strike it, leading to a suspension of testing.
Since then, tests of the Arrow have successfully intercepted "a target" at an unspecified but reported record low altitude, a "Black Sparrow" missile at high altitude, and the "Blue Sparrow" (a successor of the "Black Sparrow", capable of simulating a Scud-C/D).
The Arrow has yet to successfully defeat the Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile.
Californians, keep your eyes peeled for the fireworks of a final test off the coast any day now.
Mugu Rock in Ventura County, California.
22-July UPDATE: Arrow II fails takeoff in Pacific test - setback for Israel's missile race with Iran
Savage Garden - To The Moon & Back
She's taking her time making up
The reasons
To justify all the hurt inside
Guess she knows from the smile
And the look in their eyes
Everyone's got a theory about the
Bitter one
They're saying mamma never loved
Her much
And daddy never keeps in touch
That's why she shies away from
Human affection
But somewhere in a private place
She packs her bags for outer space
And now she's waiting for the right
Kind of pilot to come
And she'll say to him
She's saying
I would fly to the moon and back if
You'll be
If you'll be my baby
Got a ticket for a world where we
Belong
So would you be my baby?
She can't remember a time when she
Felt needed
If love was red then she was color
Blind
All her friends they've been tried for
Treason
And crimes that were never defined
She's saying love is like a barren
Place
And reaching out for human faith is
Is like a journey I just don't have a
Map for
So baby's gonna take a dive and
Push the shift to overdrive
Send a signal that she's hanging
All her hopes on the stars
What a pleasant dream
Just saying
Hold on hold on
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
~ ~ ~
Photos from NASA
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the 1969 Apollo 11 mission lunar module descent stage sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' location evident.
Click Apollo 11 photos to enlarge.
NASA | Lunar Flyover of the First Images from the LRO Camera
This video has no sound.
The owner of a Missouri dealership is giving away free AK-47s with the purchase of any truck.
It's entertaining to watch these two clinging to their positions: CNN's Carol Costello [48] make a fool of herself over guns and interviewee, Mark Muller, make a fool of himself over religion.
This off-beat comedy tells the story of a young man going to receive his priestly penitence, and some not-so-spiritual advice. "The Confession" is an official selection of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.
H1N1 Swine Flu Appears Similar to 1918 Pandemic Virus; WHO Recommends Vaccines Use Live (Attenuated) Influenza
Excerpt from article by Mike Adams, Editor, NaturalNews
Two shocking bits of news about the H1N1 swine flu virus emerged this week. The first is that the widely-circulating swine flu virus may be a lot more dangerous than people have so far been told: It appears to resemble the 1918 pandemic virus in the fact that it is capable of embedding itself deep in lung tissue and causing deadly infections. This is very different from the more common "seasonal flu" which does not replicate in the lungs.
Explaining this concept, lead researcher Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin wrote in the journal Nature: "When we conducted the experiments in ferrets and monkeys, the seasonal virus did not replicate in the lungs... The H1N1 virus replicates significantly better in the lungs."
Other news identifies an emerging factor for severe cases of H1N1 and its potential lethality: The 1918 influenza pandemic killed at least 40 million people globally (and probably many more) at a time when obesity was extremely rare. Today, obesity is alarmingly common among first-world nations, and obesity is now suspected of making a person highly susceptible to swine flu fatalities (http://www.naturalnews.com/026602_p...).
World Health Organization gets aggressive with vaccination recommendations
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization -- always a trusty friend of Big Pharma -- has announced that swine flu is "unstoppable" and is now directing all the nations of the world to vaccinate their citizens against the H1N1 influenza strain. This is essentially an order for global mandatory vaccinations.
And yet, at the same time the WHO is recommending mass global vaccinations against the swine flu, it also states on its own website that such vaccines have never been proven safe. In its own words (http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swin...):
[Emphasis added] "Since new technologies are involved in the production of some pandemic vaccines, which have not yet been extensively evaluated for their safety in certain population groups, it is very important to implement post-marketing surveillance of the highest possible quality. In addition, rapid sharing of the results of immunogenicity and post-marketing safety and effectiveness studies among the international community will be essential for allowing countries to make necessary adjustments to their vaccination policies."
It's not difficult to decode the WHO's language in this case. The vaccines aren't safe, so they're recommending that people given the vaccines be watched closely to see what happens (who dies).
The WHO is also recommending such vaccines use "live attenuated influenza."
As stated on the WHO's website:
"In view of the anticipated limited vaccine availability at global level and the potential need to protect against "drifted" strains of virus, SAGE recommended that promoting production and use of vaccines such as those that are formulated with oil-in-water adjuvants and live attenuated influenza vaccines was important."
Inject yourself with live attenuated influenza?!
What, exactly, is "live attenuated influenza?" It means live viruses that have been weakened, but may still pose a danger to human health.
Big Pharma, of course, is more than happy to comply with this order... they're getting paid billions to make the live influenza vaccines, after all. Notably, Baxter Pharmaceuticals has already been caught inserting live avian flu viruses in vaccine materials, and other drug companies are only too happy to follow suit. (http://www.naturalnews.com/025760.html)
But why, you ask, would governments want to inject their populations with live attenuated influenza DNA? And why would the World Health Organization aggressively promote such a measure, especially since the number of swine flu fatalities so far is exceedingly small?
Here are some of the theories being talked about:
The population control theory: The swine flu was engineered in a lab, then released in Mexico City precisely to cause a public reaction where people and lawmakers would demand global vaccinations. Those vaccines, in turn, would be intentionally laced with live virus samples designed to kill a large number of people and reduce the global population. All the deaths, of course, could be blamed on the virus; and the drug companies would get rich in the process!
The Big Pharma profit theory: Swine flu vaccines are being pushed globally in order to funnel more profits into the hands of the drug companies. And the more people get sick from the "live attenuated viruses" in the vaccines, the more repeat business the drug companies make from sick patients!
The chemtrail / vaccine binary poison theory: Chemtrails have exposed the populations in major world cities to the first half of a binary poison. The mandatory swine flu vaccines will complete the binary recipe, poisoning people with another seemingly innocent cocktail of chemicals that just happen to combine with the chemtrail poisons and result in widespread death. [incredulous]
The do-gooder theory: (This is a favorite theory of doctors, drug company reps and public health authorities.) All those conspiracy theories are bunk. These vaccines are being forced onto you for your own good by an industry that cares about people and only has your best interests in mind. Profits and power have nothing to do with it. Your government is trying to protect you, didn't you know?
Walking virus incubators
Ninety-nine percent of the U.S. population believes the do-gooder theory, and they will gladly allow themselves to be injected with anything the government recommends (especially if people start dropping dead this fall and the population can be scared into lining up for swine flu shots). The upshot of all this is that ninety-nine percent of the people will then be carrying live "attenuated" swine flu genetic materials in their blood, creating the perfect opportunity for H1N1/A to recombine with seasonal flu.
Sources:
World Health Organization: WHO recommendations on pandemic (H1N1) 2009 vaccines
Reuters: "New Flu Unstoppable"
Reuters: "New Flu Resembles 1918 Virus"
~ ~ ~
Madsen: 'Swine flu virus began life in lab'
~ ~ ~
I don't subscribe to the claim that H1N1/A is lab-made nor do I believe any of the conspiracy theories mentioned; my point in discussing them is that a lot of people do. - c
This is one of those "Internet gems" that no one should miss.
On September 18, 2007, Carnegie Mellon professor and alumnus Randy Pausch delivered a one-of-a-kind last lecture that made the world stop and pay attention. Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams became an Internet sensation viewed by millions, an international media story, and a best-selling book
Randy died July 25, 2008, at the age of 47.
For more, visit http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture
The 'Willis Tower' gives me the willies.
When Chicago residents go to bed Thursday night their beloved Sears Tower, one of the world's iconic skyscrapers and the tallest building in the U.S., will no longer be the Sears Tower. It will be Willis Tower.
Mayor Richard M. Daley and others will join the building's owners at a ceremony Thursday to officially rename the tower after Willis Group Holdings, a London-based financial services company that secured the naming rights as part an agreement to lease 140,000 square feet of space in the tower. -- FOX News
Drawing of HMS Victoria by William Frederick Mitchell
Sailors believe that it is unlucky to alter the name of the ship. Does the same folklore apply to buildings?
Many tales are told of vessels which were lost after such a change. The HMS Victoria which sank in a tragic accident in 1893 being one of the most notable of these.
But after scouring the Internet, I have found no mention of a building having "bad luck" after a change of name. It would seem that architects aren't superstitious types. Neither are pilots.
Symbol and motto of Spartan School of Aeronautics
"Knowledge and Skill Overcome Superstition and Luck"
... and not a moment too soon.
Israeli navy in Suez Canal prepares for potential attack on Iran
Two Israeli missile class warships have sailed through the Suez Canal ten days after a submarine capable of launching a nuclear missile strike, in preparation for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Pacific test will determine Arrow's ability to intercept Iranian missiles close to launch
The Israeli anti-missile Arrow system will face the first real test of its ability to knock out an Iranian Shehab-3 or Sejil II ballistic missile at the outset of its flight toward Israel.
The test will take place off central California's Pacific coast from a point between Point Mugu and Santa Barbara north-west of Los Angeles.
It will test the Arrow in uninterrupted flight against a target in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The closest land to the site is Japan.
Mr. Spock - Maiden Wine a.k.a. Bitter Dregs
Take care, young ladies, and value your wine
Be watchful of young men in their velvet prime
Deeply they'll swallow from your finest kegs
Then swiftly be gone, leaving bitter dregs
Ahh-ah-ah-ah, bitter dregs
With smiling words and tender touch
Man offers little and asks for so much
He loves in the breathless excitement of night
Then leaves with your treasure in cold morning light
Ahh-ah-ah-ah, in cold morning light
This song was written by Leonard Nimoy. The full version with musical arrangement appears on his 1969 DOT LP, The Touch Of Leonard Nimoy
The earliest hooks, which probably date to around 30,000BC, were in fact carved in wood. Others have been fashioned from horns, shells, thorns or even, in the case of the Easter Islands, the thigh bones of deceased fishermen.
Here is how they were made...
Making Primitive Fish Hooks - Part 1
Making Primitive Fish Hooks - Part 2
Related: Food Procurement 2 of 3: Traps, Snares, Killing & Fishing Devices
In France, yesterday was Bastille Day, and the heavens themselves joined the party. "As we celebrated the storming of the Bastille on July 14th, noctilucent clouds (NLCs) stormed the sky of Paris!" reports Olivier Lagrave who photographed the Eiffel Tower framed in electric blue.
"The display was so breathtaking (my first actually) that I almost forgot to watch the fireworks," he says.
Noctilucent clouds are seldom seen as far south as France -- not to mention seen through fireworks. But the display wasn't over when Bastille Day ended. By sunrise on July 15th, the mysterious clouds had invaded the United States. Mike Hollingshead sends this photo from Blair, Nebraska:
"I've never seen noctilucent clouds before, even though I am often out looking," he says. "These were wonderful." Similar reports have poured in from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, central California and possibly northern Nevada.
These sightings are significant because they come from places so far south. When noctilucent clouds first appeared in the late 19th century, they were confined to latitudes above 50o N (usually far above). The latitude of Blair, Nebraska, is only 41°30' N. No one knows why NLCs are expanding their range in this way; it's one of many unanswered questions about the mysterious clouds. -- SpaceWeather
Noctilucent clouds, are tenuous cloud-like phenomena that are the "ragged-edge" of a much brighter and pervasive polar cloud layer called polar mesospheric clouds in the upper atmosphere, visible in a deep twilight. They are made of crystals of water ice. The name means roughly night shining in Latin. They are most commonly observed in the summer months at latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the equator.
They are the highest clouds in the Earth's atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 76 to 85 kilometers (47 to 53 mi). They are normally too faint to be seen, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth's shadow. Noctilucent clouds are not fully understood and are a recently discovered meteorological phenomenon; there is no evidence that they were observed before 1885. -- Wikipedia
[Schoolhouse Rock for adults?]
Chinese Officials Put a Stop to Internet Shock Treatments
The Ministry of Health ordered a clinic in Shandong province to stop using electroshock in an effort to wean youngsters away from the Internet.
In what might be an indication of the clinic’s effectiveness, its practices came to light when former patients went online to complain. They described restrictive living conditions — including being forced to kneel in front of their parents in obedience.
Internet addiction is not classified as a mental illness in China, a country with nearly 300 million Internet users, many of whom are adolescents who willingly indulge in endless hours of online games per day.
Parents of some patients questioned whether electroshock therapy had ever been effective. -- source
Singapore's new digital camo. Almost feels like midway between cadpat and marpat. "To counter detection by night vision devices, the material used in the new SAF combat uniform was given Near Infra-red (NIR) treatment to ensure that every colour in the camouflage pattern reflected a different wavelength. This maintains the pixelised camouflage effect when viewed through night vision devices." -- source
~ ~ ~
France's FELIN helmet has a wide-angle day / night camera and an osteo-microphone fitted in the headband. -- source
Researchers create flexible lensless camera from web of light-detecting fibers
Imagine a soldier's uniform made of a special fabric that allows him to look in all directions and identify threats that are to his side or even behind him. In work that could turn such science fiction into reality, MIT researchers have developed light-detecting fibers that, when weaved into a web, act as a flexible camera. Fabric composed of these fibers could be joined to a computer that could provide information on a small display screen attached to a visor, providing the soldier greater awareness of his surroundings. -- Read Story
Which uniform would you want to wear into battle? Optical brighteners in many laundry detergents make the Airman battle Uniform more detectable by night vision equipment. At far right, the photo illustration demonstrates how a uniform washed in laundry detergent with optical brightener additives would look under an ultraviolet light, while the left side shows how it looks when washed without the optical brighteners. (photo by Senior Airman Stephen Cadette) -- source
Apocalytica - Nothing Else Matters
Apocalyptica is a Finnish rock band from Helsinki, formed in 1993. The band is composed of classically trained cellists, Eicca Toppinen, Paavo Lötjönen, Max Lilja, and Antero Manninens and, since 2005, a drummer, Mikko Sirén.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
By Ryan Mauro for Pajamas Media
The United States may have narrowly missed a repeat of the 9/11 attacks in June — and, apparently, even the FBI doesn’t realize it.
On June 4, a 24-year-old Muslim man named Raed Abdhul-Rahman Alsaif was arrested for trying to bring a seven-inch knife on board a U.S. Airways flight at Tampa International Airport, destined for Phoenix. The blade was seen by a screener and Alsaif was caught before he could get onto the airliner. Of course, he says he is innocent, as some forgetful friend gave him the luggage bag and failed to mention that a knife was embedded inside the material, which the criminal complaint states was “artfully” concealed in such a way as to allow for it to be retrieved once the flight took off.
Alsaif graduated from the Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia in 2003. For those that don’t remember, this school has been embroiled in a little bit of controversy the past two years. In October 2007, the U.S. Commission on International Religion Freedom requested that the State Department close the school, citing the use of textbooks filled with extremism. The commission again reported on the school’s radical curriculum in June 2008. One graduate has been convicted of working with al-Qaeda, while two former students were kicked out of Israel upon landing due to clear signs they were planning suicide bombings.
Private investigator Bill Warner notes that when Alsaif was booked and photographed by police in October on his second arrest on drug charges, he had a beard — a beard that was shaven off before he attempted to board the U.S. Airways flight. For those that think this is all attributable to coincidence, there’s another key element to consider.
On the same day, June 4, two other individuals, Roshid Milledge and Damien Young, were arrested in Philadelphia after sneaking a handgun onto a flight. The airline? U.S. Airways. The destination? Phoenix. The departing time? About 35 minutes from the flight Alsaif attempted to board, using the same airliner and with the same destination.
The FBI immediately cast doubt on questions that the two were part of a terrorist plot or even connected to Alsaif.
“This investigation represents an isolated incident, involving only these two individuals,” the FBI press release following their arrest states.
Alsaif’s father is a former diplomat from Saudi Arabia, the prosecutor said. Alsaif told agents he planned to call the consulate because his father knows the king. He also recently told a friend he planned to flee the country because he wanted to get away from requirements imposed on him by Hillsborough County courts relating to a drug charge. -- Bill Warner
I don’t know what’s more frightening: the fact that the FBI so readily dismissed the remarkably similar arrests as unconnected, or the fact that in the latter case, the handgun actually made it on board the aircraft and the suspects were only apprehended after another passenger reported them as engaging in suspicious behavior. The aircraft was then turned around and brought back to the gates.
Luckily, the FBI does appear to have common sense and the tone has changed. A spokesperson has said, “We don’t know if there is a connection, but we are checking it out.”
However, the fact remains that the FBI prematurely dismissed a possible connection, reflecting a desire to immediately squash speculation about a wider plot. Either the FBI was aware of the similarities in the arrests and deliberately misled the public, or they failed to look into other data indicating a wider conspiracy before making a conclusion. Either way, it does not reflect well upon the FBI.
The hit-or-miss Israeli website DebkaFile reported on July 7 that U.S. and German intelligence believes that 15-20 al-Qaeda terrorists have been trained in Pakistan and Algeria and are now hiding in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, and Egypt. Their mission, according to the report, is to hijack and bomb Western airliners headed to Israel and the United States.
Are we really to believe these three events are unrelated — the arrest of Milledge and Young, the arrest of Alsaif, and the reported warning about attacks on airliners?
The good news is that a 9/11 plot may have been thwarted. The bad news is that the public and possibly the FBI are unaware that they even have had a success, failing to connect obvious dots. If the coincidences of these cases are not addressed and if they are attributed to chance, then we’ve truly fallen out of the post-9/11 mindset and only a disaster will wake us up. -- ###
Ryan Mauro is the founder of WorldThreats.com and the director of intelligence at the Asymmetrical Warfare and Intelligence Center (AWIC). He’s also the national security researcher for the Christian Action Network and a published author. He can be contacted at TDCAnalyst@aol.com.
~ ~ ~
In Feb. 2009, Saudi Arabia released a list of 85 wanted militants whose world-wide whereabouts are unknown:
Singer, composer, and Sitar player Hamid Namjoo has been described as the 'Iranian Bob Dylan'.
Renowned Iranian singer and composer, Mohsen Namjoo, has been sentenced in absentia [he wisely moved to Vienna] to a five-year jail term for "ridiculing the Quran and dishonoring the holy book of the Muslims" in a song.
In September 2008, Namjoo apologized in a letter addressed to his mother, to clerics and the Iranian people, for having recorded the song and said he had never intended to release it.
Unlike his music, his apology fell on deaf ears. He was convicted and sentenced on June 9.
According to the Iranian Koran News Agency, the popular singer maintains he was the victim of an "unauthorized release" of his work on the Internet and planned to sue those who posted it. -- Al-Arabia
Cat catches bat out of the air
"My friends cat jumps straight up and juggles a bat to the ground. It ate every little piece of it." -- YouTube user lucidtv
Puter rates this video: Two Paws Up
This building is the old Post Office in Chicago. It is a monstrous building. The Eisenhower Expressway (I-290), which is 8 lanes across at this point, actually goes through the building. It has sat empty for over a decade, since the USPS built a new facility next door.
The Feds in Business: Look to the Post OfficeIf anybody needs a good reason to be skeptical of the government’s new found commitment to efficiency when it comes to the hundreds of billions of dollars of “stimulus” spending, the Chicago Main Post Office facility provides a very obvious example.
This massive, 14-story building spans several city blocks at 2.7 million square feet. Situated in an ultra-prime downtown location, the advertising potential alone is unparalleled: Tens of thousands of cars pass directly through it every day on the main highway heading into and out of town.
Yet this building has sat completely vacant since 1997 when the post office moved to a new facility across the street, meaning the USPS missed out on capitalizing on one of the biggest booms in commercial real estate in history. Worse off, it wasted a small fortune in the process — a 2006 report by the General Accountability Office found the facility costs the USPS $2 million a year simply to maintain.
Spending $2 million a year on an empty building? That sort of waste would never been tolerated in a profit-seeking firm. To believe somehow the new governmental bureaucracies being created will avoid such misuse is both hilarious and frightening.
Thankfully, the property is finally going up for auction. On Aug. 27, the building will be sold to the highest bidder, regardless of price. Suggested opening bid is $300,000, but given the unique structure has an estimated replacement cost of $300 million, you can expect aggressive bidding. -- SmartMoney
Sunsets at Coober Pedy
this photo by Barbara Meek
remaining photos via Rich2012's photostream
Opals of Andamooka
via Government of South Australia
via Buzberry
One fine day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops – a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.
At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!” and sat down at the back.
Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek? Well, he was. Naturally, he didn’t argue with Big John, but he wasn’t happy about it. The next day the same thing happened – Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the next.
This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him. Finally he could stand it no longer.
He signed up for body building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what’s more, he felt really good about himself.
So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!” the driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed, “AND WHY NOT?!”
With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, “Big John has a bus pass.”
Management Lesson:
“Be sure there is a problem in the first place before working hard to solve one.”
However, when in doubt, workout. ;)
China and India have been on opposite sides since the Cold War
A leading defense expert has projected that China will attack India by 2012 to divert the attention of its own people from "unprecedented" internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country.
The recession has "shut the Chinese exports shop", creating an "unprecedented internal social unrest" which in turn, was severely threatening the grip of the Communists over the society, Bharat Verma, Editor of the Indian Defence Review, has said.
Among other reasons for this assessment were rising unemployment, flight of capital worth billions of dollars, depletion of its foreign exchange reserves and growing internal dissent. -- Read Story
Some musical masterpieces transcend mere euphony to become a matter of life and death. Composed in 1950-51 by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), the 24 Preludes and Fugues, Opus 87 for piano represented a relief from the Russian composer’s life under the Stalinist yoke. -- Read Story
Excerpt from article by John F. McManus, The New American.
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
This exchange was recorded by Constitution signer James McHenry in a diary entry that was later reproduced in the 1906 American Historical Review. Yet in more recent years, Franklin has occasionally been misquoted as having said, "A democracy, if you can keep it." The NRA's Charleton Heston quoted Franklin this way, for example, in a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace that was aired on December 20, 1998.
This misquote is a serious one, since the difference between a democracy and a republic is not merely a question of semantics but is fundamental. The word "republic" comes from the Latin res publica — which means simply "the public thing(s)," or more simply "the law(s)." "Democracy," on the other hand, is derived from the Greek words demos and kratein, which translates to "the people to rule." Democracy, therefore, has always been synonymous with majority rule.
The Founding Fathers supported the view that (in the words of the Declaration of Independence) "Men ... are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." They recognized that such rights should not be violated by an unrestrained majority any more than they should be violated by an unrestrained king or monarch. In fact, they recognized that majority rule would quickly degenerate into mobocracy and then into tyranny. They had studied the history of both the Greek democracies and the Roman republic. They had a clear understanding of the relative freedom and stability that had characterized the latter, and of the strife and turmoil — quickly followed by despotism — that had characterized the former. In drafting the Constitution, they created a government of law and not of men, a republic and not a democracy.
But don't take our word for it! Consider the words of the Founding Fathers themselves, who — one after another — condemned democracy.
• Virginia's Edmund Randolph participated in the 1787 convention. Demonstrating a clear grasp of democracy's inherent dangers, he reminded his colleagues during the early weeks of the Constitutional Convention that the purpose for which they had gathered was "to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and trials of democracy...."
• Samuel Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, championed the new Constitution in his state precisely because it would not create a democracy. "Democracy never lasts long," he noted. "It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself." He insisted, "There was never a democracy that 'did not commit suicide.'"
• New York's Alexander Hamilton, in a June 21, 1788 speech urging ratification of the Constitution in his state, thundered: "It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." Earlier, at the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton stated: "We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy."
• James Madison, who is rightly known as the "Father of the Constitution," wrote in The Federalist, No. 10: "... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths." The Federalist Papers, recall, were written during the time of the ratification debate to encourage the citizens of New York to support the new Constitution.
• George Washington, who had presided over the Constitutional Convention and later accepted the honor of being chosen as the first President of the United States under its new Constitution, indicated during his inaugural address on April 30, 1789, that he would dedicate himself to "the preservation ... of the republican model of government."
• Fisher Ames served in the U.S. Congress during the eight years of George Washington's presidency. A prominent member of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the Constitution for that state, he termed democracy "a government by the passions of the multitude, or, no less correctly, according to the vices and ambitions of their leaders." On another occasion, he labeled democracy's majority rule one of "the intermediate stages towards ... tyranny." He later opined: "Democracy, in its best state, is but the politics of Bedlam; while kept chained, its thoughts are frantic, but when it breaks loose, it kills the keeper, fires the building, and perishes." And in an essay entitled The Mire of Democracy, he wrote that the framers of the Constitution "intended our government should be a republic, which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism."
In light of the Founders' view on the subject of republics and democracies, it is not surprising that the Constitution does not contain the word "democracy," but does mandate: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government."
On September 17 (Constitution Day), 1961, John Birch Society founder Robert Welch delivered an important speech, entitled "Republics and Democracies," in which he proclaimed: "This is a Republic, not a Democracy. Let's keep it that way!" The speech, which was later published and widely distributed in pamphlet form, amounted to a jolting wake-up call for many Americans. In his remarks, Welch not only presented the evidence to show that the Founding Fathers had established a republic and had condemned democracy, but he warned that the definitions had been distorted, and that powerful forces were at work to convert the American republic into a democracy, in order to bring about dictatorship.
As Welch explained in his 1961 speech:
... man has certain unalienable rights which do not derive from government at all.... And those ... rights cannot be abrogated by the vote of a majority any more than they can by the decree of a conqueror. The idea that the vote of a people, no matter how nearly unanimous, makes or creates or determines what is right or just becomes as absurd and unacceptable as the idea that right and justice are simply whatever a king says they are. Just as the early Greeks learned to try to have their rulers and themselves abide by the laws they had themselves established, so man has now been painfully learning that there are more permanent and lasting laws which cannot be changed by either sovereign kings or sovereign people, but which must be observed by both. And that government is merely a convenience, superimposed on Divine Commandments and on the natural laws that flow only from the Creator of man and man's universe.
Such is the noble purpose of the constitutional republic we inherited from our Founding Fathers.
The U.S. military has a SECRET WEAPON.
“Network-centric warfare” advocates believe U.S. forces can now dominate entire societies through ubiquitous surveillance, an always-on “situational awareness” maintained by cutting edge sensor arrays as well as by devastating aerial attacks by armed drones, warplanes and Special Forces robosoldiers.
I believe our forces have surveillance capabilities far beyond that definition.
Back in September 7, 2008, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward discussed his new book, The War Within
Woodward reported then that there was a secret behind the success of the surge: a sophisticated and lethal special operations program.
"This is very sensitive and very top secret, but there are secret operational capabilities that have been developed by the military to locate, target, and kill leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq, insurgent leaders, renegade militia leaders. That is one of the true breakthroughs," Woodward told Pelley.
"But what are we talking about here? It's some kind of surveillance? Some kind of targeted way of taking out just the people that you're looking for? The leadership of the enemy?" Pelley asked.
"I'd love to go through the details, but I'm not going to," Woodward replied.
The details, Woodward says, would compromise the program.
"For a reporter, you don’t allow much," Pelley remarked.
"Well no, it’s with reluctance. From what I know about it, it's one of those things that go back to any war, World War I, World War II, the role of the tank, and the airplane. And it is the stuff of which military novels are written," Woodward said.
"Do you mean to say that this special capability is such an advance in military technique and technology that it reminds you of the advent of the tank and the airplane?" Pelley asked.
"Yeah," Woodward said. "If you were an al Qaeda leader or part of the insurgency in Iraq, or one of these renegade militias, and you knew about what they were able to do, you'd get your ass outta town."
First a technology review, then I'll present my premise.
Radio-frequency identification tags are small computer chips connected to miniature antennae that can be fixed to or implanted within physical objects, including human beings. The chip itself contains an Electronic Product Code that can be read each time a reader emits a radio signal.
The chips are subdivided into two distinct categories, passive or active. A passive tag doesn’t contain a battery and its read range is variable, from less than an inch to twenty or thirty feet. An active tag on the other hand, is self-powered and has a much longer range. The data from an active tag can be sent directly to a computer system involved in inventory control–or weapons targeting.
5-Sept-2007 Tracking Technology. Full Unclassified Report; PDF 16 pages.
The RFID Journal reports that Queralt, a Wallingford, Connecticut-based start-up, received a Department of Homeland Security grant to design “an intelligent system that learns from data collected via RFID and sensors.”
Tellingly, the system under development builds on the firm’s “existing RFID technology, as well as an integrated behavioral learning engine that enables the system to, in effect, learn an individual’s or asset’s habits over time. The DHS grant was awarded based on the system’s ability to track and monitor individuals and assets for security purposes,” the Journal reveals.
And with a booming Homeland Security-Industrial-Complex as an adjunct to the defense industry’s monetary black hole, its no surprise that Michael Queralt, the firm’s cofounder and managing director told the publication, “The reason this development is interesting to us is it is very close to our heart in the way we are going with the business. We are developing a system that converges physical and logical, electronic security.”
"The core of Queralt’s system is the behavioral engine that includes a database, a rules engine and various algorithms. Information acquired by reading a tag on an asset or an individual, as well as those of other objects or individuals with which that asset or person may come into contact, and information from sensors (such as temperature) situated in the area being monitored, are fed into the engine. The engine then logs and processes the data to create baselines, or behavioral patterns. As baselines are created, rules can be programmed into the engine; if a tag read or sensor metric comes in that contradicts the baseline and/or rules, an alert can be issued. Development of the behavioral engine is approximately 85 percent done, Queralt reports, and a prototype should be ready in a few months. -- source
Now, bear with me for a moment. I'd like you to reach the same epiphany I have. Do you recall the scene from the movie, Hunt for Red October, where Alec Baldwin is analyzing how the Russian captain is going to get his crew off of the submarine? He says aloud to himself:
"We don't have to figure out how to get the crew off the sub. He's already done that, he would have had to. All we gotta do is figure out what he's gonna do. So how's he gonna get the crew off the sub? They have to want to get off. How do you get a crew to want to get off a submarine? How do you get a crew to want to get off a nuclear sub..."
Following that same style of thought:
What would terrify our enemy enough for him to want to "get [his] ass outta town," as Woodward said? What would scare him enough to want to get miles away from town, beyond the capabilities of a "listening" device? What if he's already been implanted with a device (through something he ate or drank or touched?) -- a device that could transmit voice via radio to a natural language-processing, tactical-decision-making computer?
Whatever our new secret weapon is, I hope it is the stuff of which military novels are written.
How about this for a title? -- Tag. You're dead.
En Garde! Sotheby’s Sells Picasso Musketeeer Painting for $11.5 Million
Estimated at $8.9 million to $11.8 million, this Picasso was one of few masterpieces sold at or above market value this summer. Of the 44 works for sale on Tuesday at Christie's, 14 failed to sell, including works by Matisse, Schiele and even another Picasso.
Christie’s Sells Monet For $10.3 Million
The appetite for Impressionist paintings never seems to wane with Monet's “At Parc Monceau” selling well above the $6.8 million high estimate.
Miro’s “Painting (Woman Powdering Herself)” Grosses $6.4 Million
This 1949 canvas of poured, splashed and dripped colors filled with the artist’s sticklike figures sold for well over the high estimate of $4.2 million.
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to each his own
One has a right to one's personal preferences, as in I'd never pick that color, but to each his own. Versions of this maxim appeared in the late 1500s but the modern wording was first recorded in 1713.
Fishing for Prawns with Grandpa Kubo
Prawn hooking or “prawning” is a delicate sport using a light pole with a 2-meter long line attached to a colorful float and a tiny curved hook. Chicken hearts that look as bad as they smell make great bait. Once the prawn bait is ready, lower it gently into the dark liquid below and wait patiently for the prawns to bite. -- source
Can't get enough of prawn fishing? Check out the Prawn Maniac.
Click image to enlarge.
Generalized life cycle of the prawn: Prawn are potandrous hermaphrodites, spending the early part of life cycle as males and the later part as females. Breeding occurs in the fall and is usually complete by the end of October. Females lay eggs which remain attached to abdominal appendages until hatching in March and April, usually between 70-90 m water depth. Free-swimming larvae or nauplii spend 2-3 months in plankton. Late and post-larvae remain in shallow water (less than 54 m) until winter months. Prawn reside in shallow water bays and inlets during first year because detritus from summer plankton and larger algae production supports amphipods and mysids which are preyed upon by young prawns. One year after hatching, at about 100 mm, prawns move to deeper (over 100 m) and by autumn males reach 150 mm. In fourth spring, at 200 mm, they change to females. Maximum life span is 5 years, but most live 4 years, and maximum length for males is 230 mm and 253 mm for females. -- source
Post Harvest Tips For Handling Freshwater Prawn
By Mike Frinsko, NCSU Cooperative Extension Service and Mack Fondren, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Mississippi State University
Every year at this time we hear a lot about proper handling of prawns and their storage. The following information is a guide to proper storage procedures to ensure your products are enjoyed as they should be: fresh tasting and wonderful!
-You can keep fresh prawn on ice or refrigerated (about 380F) for up to 24 hours.
-It’s very important that the prawns don’t sit in water. Place the prawn in a strainer with ice and have a pan underneath for catching the melt-water.
-If prawns are held fresh on ice or refrigerated for up to 2 days, we recommend they be deheaded as soon as possible and washed in cold water.
-For longer term storage, ice packed whole prawns should be processed (deheaded) and frozen at the end of a 1-day holding period.
-Frozen whole prawns store well for up to 12 months. Afterwards the tails appear to be softer than those of headless prawns frozen for the same period. Therefore, if you are not going to eat the head, it is best to dehead the prawn before freezing.
-When freezing prawns use a freezer bag (such as a ZipLock®). Add just enough water to cover the prawns. Squeeze the air out of the bag (caution not to puncture the bag) and seal. It is best to freeze prawns flat. Consider grouping prawns based on their size (i.e. freeze the small prawns in one bag and the larger prawns in another.)
Click image to enlarge.
Extremely fat swine flu sufferers may have a tendency to become severely ill, health officials in the U.S. and Europe said, after a report showed a “striking” prevalence of obesity among patients hospitalized in Michigan.
Nine of 10 patients with the pandemic flu strain admitted to an intensive care unit at Ann Arbor from late May to early June, were obese and seven were “extremely obese,” with a body mass index of at least 40, doctors said. Three of the 10 died and seven had no other known health problems.
Some patients are showing up at hospitals with viral pneumonia so severe they are suffocating. All 10 of the Michigan patients, ages 21 to 53, suffered acute respiratory distress and weren’t getting enough oxygen even when put on a conventional mechanical ventilator.
The patients, who represent “the most severely ill subset” of H1N1/A sufferers, were notable for several reasons, the CDC said. Nine were male, five developed dangerous clots in the lung and major organs became dysfunctional in nine of the patients. The body mass index of nine patients ranged from 34.2 to 58.9, according to the report. People with a BMI of 25 to 29.9 are considered “overweight” and those higher than 30 are “obese.” -- Bloomberg
[Puts on workout clothes and hits the home gym.]
Man it's a hot one
Like seven inches from the midday sun
I hear you whisper and the words melt everyone
But you stay so cool
My mu equita my Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa
You're my reason for reason
The step in my groove
And if you say this life ain't good enough
I would give my world to lift you up
I could change my life to better suit your mood
'Cause you're so smooth
And just like the ocean under the moon
Well that's the same emotion that I get from you
You got the kind of lovin' that can be so smooth
Gimme your heart make it real
Or else forget about it
I'll tell you one thing
If you would leave it would be a crying shame
In every breath and every word I hear your name calling me out
Out from the barrio you hear my rhythm from your radio
You feel the turning of the world so soft and slow
Turning you round and round
Featuring the vocals of Rob Thomas from Matchbox Twenty
Knowing - Official Trailer [HD]
I should say a lot more about Knowing. What I wrote after watching only the first half was, "Fantastic character development and story line progression. One of the best written screenplays I've encountered in an action/suspense film." But, now that I've seen the rest, I'm speechless.
Just see it.
Knowing - Official Trailer 2 [HD]
Thinking about pulling the plug on the stock market? If you haven't already, today might be the day to cash in.
Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS, believes the current stock rally will be short-lived. [So do I.]
But will the pullback be a minor dip — or a severe dive? He said it's too soon to tell definitively — but investors should keep a sharp eye on a 3-day period next week:
"[July] 15th to the 17th will tell us how meaningful the correction is going to be."
"We'll know the course clearly by the 17th," Cashin declared. -- CNBC Stock Blog
Disclaimer: covertress holds no positions.
~ ~ ~
Art Cashin's Comments: Lessons from 43 Years on Wall Street
Dot Com Bubble - (Make sure you have Real Player installed to listen.)
No ability to listen? Art recommends this book:
Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds by Charles Mackey. (read online or order from Amazon.
Why do otherwise intelligent individuals form seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action? Why do financially sensible people jump lemming-like into hare-brained speculative frenzies--only to jump broker-like out of windows when their fantasies dissolve? We may think that the Great Crash of 1929, junk bonds of the '80s, and over-valued high-tech stocks of the '90s are peculiarly 20th century aberrations, but Mackay's classic--first published in 1841--shows that the madness and confusion of crowds knows no limits, and has no temporal bounds. These are extraordinarily illuminating, and unfortunately, entertaining tales of chicanery, greed and naivete. Essential reading for any student of human nature or the transmission of ideas.
In fact, cases such as Tulipomania in 1624--when Tulip bulbs traded at a higher price than gold--suggest the existence of what I would dub "Mackay's Law of Mass Action:" when it comes to the effect of social behavior on the intelligence of individuals, 1+1 is often less than 2, and sometimes considerably less than 0.
