South Dakota: Early Blizzard Killed 75,000 Cattle
October 10th, 2013Via: NBC:
An unusually early and enormous snowstorm over the weekend caught South Dakota ranchers and farmers unprepared, killing tens of thousands of cattle and ravaging the state’s $7 billion industry — an industry left without assistance because of the federal government shutdown.
As many as 75,000 cattle have perished since the storm slammed the western part of the state Thursday through Saturday with snowfall that set records for the entire month of October in just three days, state and industry officials said.
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October 9th, 2013Thanks to blacklistednews.com for sending $100 in October, and for all of their support over the years.
Japan Finally Seeks International Help with Fukushima Crisis
October 9th, 2013Via: CBS:
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan is open to receiving overseas help to contain widening radioactive water leaks at the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima, with leaks and mishaps reported almost daily.
Abe made the comments Sunday in a speech at an international science forum in Kyoto in western Japan.
“We are wide open to receive the most advanced knowledge from overseas to contain the problem,” Abe said in his English speech to open the conference on energy and environment.
“My country needs your knowledge and expertise,” he said.
Despite Abe’s reassurances to the International Olympic Committee last month that the leaks were “under control,” many Japanese believe he was glossing over problems at the plant.
Abe did not say whether he still thinks the leaks are under control, or give any specifics about foreign participation.
His comments come just days after the plant’s operator acknowledged that highly contaminated water spilled from a storage tank as workers tried to fill it to the top.
Officials have acknowledged that the groundwater contaminated with radioactive leaks has been seeping into the Pacific since soon after meltdowns following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Recent leaks from storage tanks have added to public concerns.
Japan has been criticized for its perceived reluctance in accepting foreign assistance to fight the problems at the plant, where the ongoing water leaks are hampering decommissioning work that is expected to last decades.
GE and AT&T Partner to Make Engines, Trains and Turbines Cellular-Capable
October 9th, 2013What could possibly go wrong?
Via: All Things D:
General Electric is announcing a partnership with AT&T on Wednesday to add wireless capabilities to a wide range of the company’s industrial machines.
The deal — an expansion of the existing partnership between the two companies — is designed to equip millions of jet engines, locomotives, turbines and medical devices with wireless capabilities.
“Imagine a world where an airline, for example, can remotely monitor, diagnose and resolve issues with its fleet engines virtually anywhere in the world,” AT&T Business Solutions unit chief Andy Geisse said in a statement.
With nearly everyone in the world having a cellphone these days, equipping cars, appliances and other machines with cellular connections is seen as a key growth area for wireless carriers in the coming years. AT&T said it has seen a 38 percent increase in the number of machine-to-machine customers in the last year, with more than 15.2 million such devices already on its network.
Report: Foxconn Using Forced Student Labor to Build Sony’s PS4
October 9th, 2013Via: Games in Asia:
If reports in the Chinese press are to be believed, Sony’s next-gen games console may be being assembled using some very outdated labor practices. According to Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily, thousands of students from an IT engineering program at the Xi’an Institute of Technology are being forced to work at Foxconn’s Yantai plant assembling the Sony Playstation 4. Students have been told if they refuse to participate, they lose six course credits, which effectively means they will not be able to graduate.
Officially, the program is considered an “internship” and it is publicly recognized and promoted by the school. But students have said that once they got to Foxconn, they were assigned to jobs that had no relation whatsoever to their fields of study, including grunt work like distribution and shipping. One student, for example, majored in finance and accounting but has been assigned to a job that entails glueing together parts of Sony’s Playstation 4. Another was assigned to a job that entails peeling of the PS4?s protective plastic and putting stickers on it. Still another, a computer science major, puts the PS4?s various cords and the instruction manual into the console’s box. Moreover, students say that their working hours are exactly the same as regular workers. The only difference is that unlike the workers, the students aren’t being paid.
U.S. Treasury Bill Interest Rates Skyrocketing
October 9th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
Normally, the interest rate the government pays on bills is around the same as the short-term interest rates in other money markets (for example, the interest rates banks charge each other for overnight cash, or the interest rate that the Federal Reserve targets). Both of those are near zero right now, which is why on Sept. 30, eight days ago, the interest rate on Treasury bills maturing Oct. 17 was a mere 0.03 percent. Nothing, in other words.
But since then, the possibility that the Treasury might have trouble paying or might not be able to pay its bills over the next few weeks has grown — and the interest rate has skyrocketed. It was at 0.16 percent at Monday’s close. On Tuesday the rate so far has been almost double that, as high as 0.297 percent.
There are reports, including this one from Reuters, indicating that some of the biggest money managers in the world are starting to avoid U.S. government debt that matures in the near future out of fear they will not be repaid promptly. Bond investors seem to be confident that the U.S. government will make good on its obligations in the longer term –securities that mature a year or more from now are actually seeing their rates fall. But they are becoming less confident that these short-term securities will pay on time.
Britain: Blackpool Considering Adding Fluoride to Milk for School Children
October 9th, 2013Via: Blackpool Gazette:
Special plans to introduce fluoridised milk into Blackpool’s primary schools moved one step closer after the scheme was backed by health chiefs.
At a meeting of Blackpool Council’s Health and Wellbeing board yesterday it was resoundingly agreed to push forward plans to provide milk to 77 primary schools in the town.
Dr Arif Rajpura, Blackpool’s director of public health said: “Ideally we would like fluoridised water to be provided so that everyone has access to it, but that seems to be off the cards at the moment, with cost being an issue.
“The next best thing is milk fluoridisation.
“Fluoride is found in toothpaste and works to a degree on the teeth, but is soon washed off.
“But fluoride which is ingested can be continually secreted in the mouth through saliva.
“Some people have raised concerns about fluorosis, which leads to a mottling of the teeth, but the fluoridisation of milk is very safe.
“This is a no brainer from my perspective.
“We have an opportunity to give kids the best chance in life, through the free breakfasts, free milk and now fluoridised milk.”
Related: Ten Other Areas of the UK Have Already Introduced Fluoridated Milk to Its Students
$2 Billion NSA Spy Center is Going Up in Flames
October 9th, 2013Via: The Fiscal Times:
The National Security Agency’s $2 billion mega spy center is going up in flames.
Technical glitches have sparked fiery explosions within the NSA’s newest and largest data storage facility in Utah, destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and delaying the facility’s opening by one year.
And no one seems to know how to fix it.
For a country that prides itself on being a technology leader, not knowing the electrical capacity requirements for a system as large as this is quite questionable.
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Within the last 13 months, at least 10 electric surges have each cost about $100,000 in damages, according to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal. Experts agree that the system, which requires about 64 megawatts of electricity—that’s about a $1 million a month energy bill–isn’t able to run all of its computers and servers while keeping them cool, which is likely triggering the meltdowns.
Ameridumb
October 8th, 2013Via: AP:
It’s long been known that America’s school kids haven’t measured well compared with international peers. Now, there’s a new twist: Adults don’t either.
In math, reading and problem-solving using technology – all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength – American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.
Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting email and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.
Not only did Americans score poorly compared to many international competitors, the findings reinforced just how large the gap is between the nation’s high- and low-skilled workers and how hard it is to move ahead when your parents haven’t.
In both reading and math, for example, those with college-educated parents did better than those whose parents did not complete high school.
The study, called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, found that it was easier on average to overcome this and other barriers to literacy overseas than in the United States.
Researchers tested about 166,000 people ages 16 to 65 in more than 20 countries and subnational regions. The test was developed and released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is made up of mostly industrialized member countries. The Education Department’s Center for Education Statistics participated.
The findings were equally grim for many European countries – Italy and Spain, among the hardest hit by the recession and debt crisis, ranked at the bottom across generations. Unemployment is well over 25 percent in Spain and over 12 percent in Italy. Spain has drastically cut education spending, drawing student street protests.
Microsoft and Lockheed Martin Team Up for Government Cloud Platform
October 8th, 2013Via: Information Week:
Microsoft will soon launch a dedicated multi-tenant cloud environment that meets the distinct requirements of U.S. government agencies.
The Windows Azure U.S. Government Cloud will be an exclusive community cloud available for U.S. state, local and federal government agencies. It will be hosted in Microsoft data centers located in the U.S. and managed by U.S. citizens. Cloud facilities that share content with non-governmental organizations or fail to meet data residency and oversight requirements have generally been out of the running for most federal agencies due to security concerns.
The difference between this government-only cloud and Microsoft’s public Windows Azure cloud computing environment is “we can guarantee government tenants are physically and logically separated from other tenants — and we’ll meet the more stringent security controls required by Department of Defense,” said Susie Adams, CTO for Microsoft’s federal government business, in an interview with InformationWeek.
…
According to details in a blog post by Adams, Microsoft is working with Lockheed Martin and others to meet government-mandated requirements. The dedicated government cloud will be hosted in two specially constructed data centers collocated in Boydton, Va., and Des Moines, Iowa, with logical, physical and network isolation from Microsoft’s Azure Public Cloud. Data will reside on servers that contain only data from other U.S. federal, state and local government customers. All operating personnel will be U.S. citizens screened for PPT-Moderate clearance.
