Archive for November, 2010
Cost to Insure Spanish and Portuguese Government Debt Still Rising
November 29th, 2010Via: Guardian: The cost of insuring Spanish and Portuguese government debt hit record levels this morning as the €85bn Irish bailout failed to calm the financial markets. An early share rally also quickly ran out of steam, amid fears that the eurozone crisis will spread. Credit default swaps (CDS) – the contracts used to insure […]
Boeing to Mass-Produce Record-Breaking 39.2 Percent Efficiency Solar Cell
November 29th, 2010“Mass-produce” in this context probably means for use in utility scale concentrator-type applications. Via: Gizmag: When it comes to solar cells, everyone is chasing the highest conversion efficiency. Although we’ve seen conversion efficiencies of over 40 percent achieved with multi-junction solar cells in lab environments, Boeing subsidiary Spectrolab is bringing this kind of efficiency to […]
Federal Magistrate Orders CIA to Produce MKULTRA Records
November 29th, 2010Via: Washington Post: The CIA is notorious for its Cold War-era experiments with LSD and other chemicals on unwitting citizens and soldiers. Details have emerged in books and articles beginning more than 30 years ago. But if military veterans have their way in a California law suit, the spy agency’s quest to turn humans into […]
Iran: Nuclear Physicist Killed in Bomb Blast
November 29th, 2010Via: Reuters: A university teacher was killed in a car bomb blast in Tehran and three people were wounded in another explosion on Monday, Iran’s al Alam Arabic language television reported. Al Alam said the dead person and one of the wounded were nuclear physics teachers. State radio said the attackers planted a bomb on […]
‘Walk-In Guidance for 2009: Handling Foreign National Walk-Ins, Defectors, and Asylum Seekers’
November 29th, 2010Notice to Readers with U.S. Government Security Clearances: The terms of your agreements with the U.S. Government may prohibit you from viewing the following SECRET//NOFORN document. This isn’t Covert Operations per se, but rather an example of the types of standard operating procedures that ALL governments run out of their embassies and consulates for developing […]
WikiLeaks Diplomatic Documents Release
November 29th, 2010For whatever it’s worth: cablegate.wikileaks.org Via: Guardian: Among scores of disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail: * Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists […]
Review of the TSA X-Ray Backscatter Body Scanner Safety Report: Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Wife
November 29th, 2010Via: My Helical Tryst: I am a biochemist working in the field of biophysics. … According to the TSA safety documents, AIT uses an 50 keV source that emits a broad spectra (see adjacent graph from here). Essentially, this means that the X-ray source used in the Rapiscan system is the same as those used […]
Recruiting Robots for Combat
November 28th, 2010Via: New York Times: The Maars robots first attracted the military’s interest as a defensive system during an Army Ranger exercise here in 2008. Used as a nighttime sentry against infiltrators equipped with thermal imaging vision systems, the battery-powered Maars unit remained invisible — it did not have the heat signature of a human being […]
The Christmas Tree Bomber
November 28th, 2010Here’s another one for your already bulging Oh for F*ck’s Sake file folder. Via: AP: The teenager accused of attempting to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., was acting on his own initiative and not at the direction of any foreign terrorist organization, a law enforcement official said Saturday. Mohamed Osman Mohamud […]
North Korea Deploys SA-2 Surface-to-Air Missiles Near Yellow Sea Border
November 28th, 2010Well, this thing appears to be cocked and locked now. The article doesn’t mention the joint American and South Korean war games happening in the area. Via: Yonhap: North Korea has deployed SA-2 surface-to-air missiles to its west coast near the Yellow Sea border with South Korea as U.S.-led naval drills got underway in a […]
