U.S. May Have Let ‘Dozens’ of Terrorists Into Country As Refugees
November 20th, 2013Via: ABC News:
Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky — who later admitted in court that they’d attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq — prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists’ fingerprints.
Liquid Metal Printer Lays Electronic Circuits on Paper, Plastic and Even Cotton
November 20th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review:
Today, Jing Liu and pals at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry in Beijing say they’ve worked out how to print electronic circuits on a wide range of materials using an inkjet printer filled with liquid metal. And they’ve demonstrated the technique on paper, plastic, glass, rubber, cotton cloth and even an ordinary leaf.
The new technique is straightforward. The magic sauce is a liquid metal: an alloy of gallium and indium which is liquid at room temperature. They simply pump it through an inkjet printer to create a fine spray of liquid metal droplets that settle onto the substrate.
The droplets rapidly oxidise as they travel through the air and this oxide forms a surface layer on each drop that prevents further oxidisation. That’s handy because the liquid metal itself does not easily adhere to the substrates. But the metal oxides do and this is the reason, say Jing and co, that the circuits adhere so well to a wide range of surfaces.
Behind the Pentagon’s Doctored Ledgers, a Running Tally of Epic Waste
November 20th, 2013Never forget: Trillions:
I would argue that Chalmers Johnson’s estimate was corroborated on September 10, 2001, on the eve of the worst terrorist attack in US history, when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged during a press conference that the Department of Defense (DoD) could not account for $2.3 trillion of the massive Pentagon budget, a number so large as to be incomprehensible. Any remaining hope that the US military might still get its budgetary house in order were dashed at 9:38 am the next morning, when the west wing of the Pentagon exploded in flames and smoke, the target of a terrorist strike. Incredibly, the exact point of impact was the DoD’s accounting offices on the first floor. The surgical destruction of its records and staff, nearly all of whom died in the attack, raises important questions about who benefited from 9/11.
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Reader JP notes the original source [mirror] of the $2.3 trillion figure; Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, The Pentagon, Monday, September 10, 2001:
According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.
Via: Reuters:
For two decades, the U.S. military has been unable to submit to an audit, flouting federal law and concealing waste and fraud totaling billions of dollars.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
The City Addicted to Crystal Meth: The Methamphetamine Zombie Apocalypse in Fresno
November 20th, 2013This is a documentary from 2009. I think that YouTube recommended it to me because I was looking at videos about Breaking Bad.
Via: BBC:
U.S. Troops to Remain in Afghanistan, “Perhaps Indefinitely”
November 20th, 2013Via: NBC:
While many Americans have been led to believe the war in Afghanistan will soon be over, a draft of a key U.S.-Afghan security deal obtained by NBC News shows the United States is prepared to maintain military outposts in Afghanistan for many years to come, and pay to support hundreds of thousands of Afghan security forces.
The wide-ranging document, still unsigned by the United States and Afghanistan, has the potential to commit thousands of American troops to Afghanistan and spend billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
The document outlines what appears to be the start of a new, open-ended military commitment in Afghanistan in the name of training and continuing to fight al-Qaeda. The war in Afghanistan doesn’t seem to be ending, but renewed under new, scaled-down U.S.-Afghan terms.
Rep. Trey Radel Busted in Cocaine Sting
November 19th, 2013Hmm.
Via: USA Today:
Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla., was caught buying drugs as part of a federal investigation into a Washington, D.C., drug ring last month and is being charged with cocaine possession, according to a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said several federal agencies working as part of a task force arrested a dealer who told them one of his cocaine customers was a congressman. The dealer, working with federal agents, set up a buy on Oct. 29, and Radel, a freshman congressman first elected last year, purchased the cocaine, the official said.
FBI agents later went to Radel’s apartment, where they detained him, the official said. Radel hired a defense attorney who negotiated charges with a prosecutor, the official said. Law enforcement agents never handcuffed Radel or took him to jail, the official said.
Radel will appear Wednesday in District of Columbia Superior Court to face the misdemeanor cocaine possession charge. Charging documents from the U.S. attorney’s office say Radel “unlawfully, knowingly and intentionally” possessed “a quantity of cocaine.”
Bernankecare
November 19th, 2013Via: Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rate turns five years old next month, the longest period without an increase in history. Coupled with more than $3 trillion of asset purchases, it adds up to “Bernankecare,” said Joshua Brown, chief executive officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management in New York. And it’s causing parts of the market to behave strangely. Stocks of companies with weak balance sheets are rising twice as fast as stronger ones; junk borrowers get rates lower than their investment-grade counterparts did before the credit crisis; and initial public offerings are doubling on their first day of trading.
While in the minority, some investors say prices have climbed so high it’s possible to look ahead and see an ugly end. Laurence Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., the biggest U.S. money manager, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Nov. 12 that he feared a bubble and the Fed ought to quit buying so many securities.
Private Firms Selling Mass Surveillance Systems Around World
November 19th, 2013Via: Guardian:
Private firms are selling spying tools and mass surveillance technologies to developing countries with promises that “off the shelf” equipment will allow them to snoop on millions of emails, text messages and phone calls, according to a cache of documents published on Monday.
The papers show how firms, including dozens from Britain, tout the capabilities at private trade fairs aimed at offering nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East the kind of powerful capabilities that are usually associated with government agencies such as GCHQ and its US counterpart, the National Security Agency.
Catapult-Launched Bat Drone Wages Electronic War
November 18th, 2013Via: Wired:
Small, tactical drones may have a new role in military strikes after Northrop Grumman’s catapult-launched Bat demonstrated an electronic attack capability for the first time in new tests.
With its 12-foot wingspan, the low-flying Bat, which maxes out at 70 miles per hour, was able to jam radar during tests. That means the Pentagon will soon have the option of deploying a flexible, largely undetectable drone with radar-jamming capability to protect manned aircraft against radar and surface-to-air missile guidance systems.
The Doctor Isn’t In: Hospitals Using Telepresence Robots
November 18th, 2013Just give it a few years: IBM’s Watson Goes to Medical School.
Via: AP:
The doctor isn’t in, but he can still see you now.
Remote presence robots are allowing physicians to “beam” themselves into hospitals to diagnose patients and offer medical advice during emergencies.
A growing number of hospitals in California and other states are using telepresence robots to expand access to medical specialists, especially in rural areas where there’s a shortage of doctors.
