Clearer Images of Classified Aircraft Over Wichita
April 18th, 2014Via: KSN:
Jeff Templin is a amateur photographer. He says he’s seen it all until now. While taking pictures of wildlife back in February, something caught his eye. He said it looked like an unusual contrail.
“Right over the city, clear as a bell,” said Templin. “Anyone that was looking up would have seen it. You don’t usually see military or even civilian aircraft’s jets that leave contrails making those kind of severe departures off of the given route.”
Templin says the aircraft made several; severe 180 degree turns in the sky in the shape of an “S”, even more unusual.
“Absolutely silent, no sound,” he said.
So he snapped a few photos and took it home.
“When I put it on my computer and processed them, I was surprised to see this triangular shape that is not like anything you typically see,” he said.
Documentary Film Will Expose Hollywood Pedophile Rings
April 18th, 2014Via: Daily Mail:
The man accusing X Men director Bryan Singer of sex abuse has teamed up with an Oscar-nominated filmmaker for a bombshell documentary that threatens to expose the sordid underbelly of Hollywood.
Michael Egan, who claims he was raped by Singer at a string of Hollywood pool parties as a teenager, has been working with Amy Berg, MailOnline can reveal.
Miss Berg runs Disarming Films and yesterday confirmed to MailOnline she had been working on the project for the past two years.
The New Cop on the Beat May Be a Bot
April 18th, 2014Via: Time:
A Silicon Valley company called Knightscope is currently testing a prototype robot designed to detect and monitor criminal activity, much the way a police officer or a security guard would.
The Knightscope K5 is a five-foot-tall autonomous robot (one presumes that its resemblance to a Dalek is merely coincidental) that roams around your neighborhood, observing and gathering data and trying to predict where and when criminal activity will occur.
It carries no weaponry, but it has a pretty complete sensor package that includes thermal imaging, license plate reading and facial recognition.
Medicated to Death: SSRIs and Mass Killings
April 18th, 2014Via: The Corbett Report:
The Killer Klansman’s Missing Years as a Federal Informant
April 18th, 2014Via: Daily Beast:
White supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller, arrested in three killings Sunday, turned white opportunist when facing decades in prison, testifying against his fellow haters in two trials.
A quarter-century before he was charged with Sunday’s three hate murders outside Kansas City, Frazier Glenn Miller figured prominently in a triple hate homicide in North Carolina.
People intimately familiar with the earlier case say Miller, founder of a Ku Klux Klan chapter and a white political party, should have been a prime suspect in those killings, as well.
Instead Miller became a star witness in both that murder trial and in a sedition case against 13 fellow white supremacists.
Miller had proved himself to be not so much a white supremacist as a white opportunist when he found himself facing decades in prison on weapons charges in 1987. He has said that a lead prosecutor threatened to pile on individual sentences on various charges until they totaled 200 years.
Miller made a deal for just five years.
And he would only have to serve three.
The Silent Hybrid Motorcycles the Pentagon Will Use for Stealth Raids
April 18th, 2014Via: Wired:
Special Forces teams are all about silently penetrating remote areas and executing complex, lightning-fast raids. Now DARPA is developing a new vehicle to soundlessly race commandoes to their missions: stealthy, hybrid-powered motorcycles.
The idea is to develop a hybrid power system that relies on both electric and gas power, allowing special ops to go off-road and zip past enemy forces with the silence of an electric engine, while also being able to handle extended missions and higher speeds with a supplemental gas tank.
In February, DARPA awarded Logos Technologies a $100,000, six-month Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract for a preliminary design to see just how viable the project is.
Reid: Bundy Supporters Are “Domestic Terrorists”
April 18th, 2014Via: CBS:
Supporters of Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy have been called domestic terrorists by Senator Harry Reid.
He made the comments during an appearance at a Review-Journal event, and repeated them, saying “what happened there was domestic terrorism’
The government says Bundy owes more than a million dollars in grazing fees and fines stemming from a 20-year dispute over trespass cattle. After obtaining court orders and beginning a roundup of cattle more than a week ago, BLM backed down, called off the roundup, and returned the cattle, after armed supporters of Bundy converged on the area.
Plant Breeders Release First ‘Open Source Seeds’
April 17th, 2014Via: NPR:
A group of scientists and food activists is launching a Thursday to change the rules that govern seeds. They’re releasing 29 new varieties of crops under a new “open source pledge” that’s intended to safeguard the ability of farmers, gardeners and plant breeders to share those seeds freely.
It’s inspired by the example of open source software, which is freely available for anyone to use but cannot legally be converted into anyone’s proprietary product.
At an event on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, backers of the new Open Source Seed Initiative will pass out 29 new varieties of 14 different crops, including carrots, kale, broccoli and quinoa. Anyone receiving the seeds must pledge not to restrict their use by means of patents, licenses or any other kind of intellectual property. In fact, any future plant that’s derived from these open source seeds also has to remain freely available as well.
Irwin Goldman, a vegetable breeder at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, helped organize the campaign. It’s an attempt to restore the practice of open sharing that was the rule among plant breeders when he entered the profession more than 20 years ago.
Heroin a Growing Threat Across USA, Police Say
April 17th, 2014In other news, Afghanistan Opium Harvest at Record High:
Afghan opium cultivation has reached a record level, with more than 200,000 hectares planted with the poppy for the first time, the United Nations says.
The UNODC report said the harvest was 36% up on last year, and if fully realised would outstrip global demand.
Most of the rise was in Helmand province, where British troops are preparing to withdraw.
One of the main reasons the UK sent troops to Helmand was to cut opium production.
Via: USA Today:
“This kind of sneaked up on us,” Holder said, referring to heroin’s resurgence after its former popularity in the ’50s and ’60s.
Blackwater Guards Finally to be Tried for Killing 14 Iraqi Civilians
April 16th, 2014Via: AllGov:
One of the darkest episodes during the U.S. occupation of Iraq last decade is finally resulting in the prosecution of private American security guards who killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in a single incident.
The name Blackwater became famous after the 2007 event in which guards from the security firm’s Raven 23 unit opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square on September 16. The shootings, which the Iraqi government said were unprovoked, killed 14 people and wounded 20 others.
The guards claimed they came under attack from insurgents while carrying out their duties for the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), which had hired the firm that has since undergone multiple name changes (Blackwater Worldwide, then Xe Services, now Academi).
Following the incident, DSS officials forced the Blackwater specialists to provide written statements of the shootings in exchange for full immunity from criminal prosecution. That decision by the State Department derailed the U.S. Department of Justice’s first attempt to prosecute the guards once they returned to the U.S.
A federal appeals court then reinstated the charges, saying the lower court had erred in dismissing the case.
The Justice Department last October filed new charges against four of the guards: Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, and Nicholas Slatten. The men face multiple counts of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and firearms violations.
The presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, DC, announced that the new trial will begin on June 11.
