Canada: Alleged ‘al-Qaeda-supported’ Plot Against Via Train Thwarted
April 23rd, 2013Via: CBC:
Police say they have arrested two men accused of conspiring to carry out an “al-Qaeda supported” attack targeting a Via passenger train in the Greater Toronto Area, following a cross-border investigation that involved Canadian and American law enforcement.
In a press conference that followed a report by CBC’s Greg Weston, police named the two accused as Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, from Toronto. They have been charged with conspiracy to carry out a terrorist attack and “conspiring to murder persons unknown for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.”
Viruses From Sewage Contaminate Deep Well Water
April 23rd, 2013Via: Chemical & Engineering News:
Scientists once thought that pathogens could not reach drinking water wells sunk into deep, protected groundwater aquifers. Nevertheless, over the past decade, researchers have identified diarrhea-causing viruses at a handful of deep bedrock well sites in the U.S. and Europe. Now, researchers in Madison, Wis., report where these pathogenic viruses may have originated. The viruses appear to seep from sewer pipes and then swiftly penetrate drinking water wells (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es400509b).
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate the presence of viruses in drinking water, so many public water systems do not routinely test for them. In a 2007 study, a team of researchers, including Mark Borchardt, a microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Kenneth Bradbury, a hydrogeologist at the University of Wisconsin-Extension, in Madison, investigated the integrity of aquifers confined beneath a thick layer of clay or shale (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es071110+). Groundwater models predicted that surface contaminants would require tens to hundreds of years to reach wells in these aquifers, which typically sit more than 700 feet underground. Even if pathogens did find their way to the groundwater, they should be dead after that amount of time. “But we were shocked to find human-specific viruses—some of which were still infectious—in every well we sampled in Madison,” Bradbury says.
Filmmaker Claims CIA Kept Innocent Man Jailed to Cover Up Drug Trafficking
April 23rd, 2013Via: Wired:
“This is a story about an extreme miscarriage of justice. It involves the CIA, the US Army and a shitload of cocaine.”
…
In 1980 the courts alleged that Elaine Tyree’s murder was financially motivated — Tyree, stationed at Fort Devens, had taken out life insurance policies in the months preceding his wife’s death. An affidavit allegedly penned a few months later by Colonel Edward Cutolo — in command at Fort Devens — recounts a far more sinister motive. It details his, Tyree’s, and CIA and Army personnel’s involvement in and knowledge of Special Forces missions enabling the transportation of cocaine from Colombia to Panama’s Albrook Army Airfield to help in the funding of, among other things, Manuel Noriega’s apparent fight against communism. It also recounts details of surveillance at Tyree’s home that would have exonerated the private.
Bloomberg Says Interpretation of Constitution Will ‘Have to Change’ After Boston Bombing
April 23rd, 2013Yeah, the President should have the power to order the assassination of any American without any due process.
Oh…
Via: Politicker:
In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks.
“The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. “But we live in a complex word where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”
Mr. Bloomberg, who has come under fire for the N.Y.P.D.’s monitoring of Muslim communities and other aggressive tactics, said the rest of the country needs to learn from the attacks.
“Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11,” he said.
“We have to understand that in the world going forward, we’re going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That’s good in some sense, but it’s different from what we are used to,” he said.
Boston: Video Clips of Martial Law
April 22nd, 2013All of this was over one suspect on the loose. What if the body count had been dozens or hundreds with multiple suspects at large? Or, what if the suspect hadn’t been taken into custody as quickly?
Anyway, this was just an appetizer. History is full of examples of what the main course will be like.
Research Credit: RP and conceptualdecay
Merkel: Euro Members Must be Prepared to Cede Sovereignty
April 22nd, 2013Via: Reuters:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that euro zone members must be prepared to cede control over certain policy domains to European institutions if the bloc is truly to overcome its debt crisis and win back foreign investors.
…
“We seem to find common solutions when we are staring over the abyss,” Merkel said. “But as soon as the pressure eases, people say they want to go their own way.
Ex-Bush Official Willing to Testify Bush, Cheney Knew Gitmo Prisoners Innocent
April 22nd, 2013Via: Truth Out:
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once declared that individuals captured by the US military in the aftermath of 9/11 and shipped off to the Guantanamo Bay prison facility represented the “worst of the worst.”
During a radio interview in June 2005, Rumsfeld said the detainees at Guantanamo, “all of whom were captured on a battlefield,” are “terrorists, trainers, bomb makers, recruiters, financiers, [Osama Bin Laden’s] body guards, would-be suicide bombers, probably the 20th hijacker, 9/11 hijacker.”
But Rumsfeld knowingly lied, according to a former top Bush administration official.
And so did then Vice President Dick Cheney when he said, also in 2002 and in dozens of public statements thereafter, that Guantanamo prisoners “are the worst of a very bad lot” and “dangerous” and “devoted to killing millions of Americans, innocent Americans, if they can, and they are perfectly prepared to die in the effort.”
Now, in a sworn declaration obtained exclusively by Truthout, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell during George W. Bush’s first term in office, said Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld knew the “vast majority” of prisoners captured in the so-called War on Terror were innocent and the administration refused to set them free once those facts were established because of the political repercussions that would have ensued.
Toddlers Becoming So Addicted to iPads They Require Therapy
April 22nd, 2013£16,000 for a 28-day “digital detox” program?!
That’s ridiculous! But in a world where toddlers are being zombified with smartphones and tablets, who’s to say what’s ridiculous and what isn’t anymore…
Anyway, here’s a alternative treatment plan.
1) Get candles, flashlights and books ready. If you normally cook with electricity, get a propane stove.
2) Flip that big, double or triple sized house fuse on your breaker panel to the OFF position.
3) When the sun goes down, use your candles and flashlights to help with getting the children fed/bathed/ready for bed.
4) Read them stories until they’re ready to fall asleep.
5) Once the children are asleep, turn the power back on.
Via: Telegraph:
Children as young as four are becoming so addicted to smartphones and iPads that they require psychological treatment.
…
Dr Graham said that young technology addicts experienced the same withdrawal symptoms as alcoholics or heroin addicts, when the devices were taken away.
He warned that the condition prevented young people from forming normal social relationships, leaving them drained by the constant interaction.
…
Parents who have found themselves unable to wean their children off computer games and mobile phones are paying up to £16,000 for a 28-day “digital detox” programme designed by Dr Graham at the Capio Nightingale clinic in London.
Shots Fired Overnight at Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant
April 21st, 2013[???]
Via: WBIR:
TVA Police along with other authorities are investigating after a shooting involving a TVA nuclear security officer at their Watts Bar plant.
Officials at the plant say the shooting happened early Sunday morning just after 2 a.m. on the Tennessee River side of the plant property.
The incident is being labeled as an “unusual event,” the lowest of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s four emergency classifications.
In a release Sunday morning, TVA stated the incident happened several hundred yards from the sites protected area, which houses the reactor and power production facilities.
World’s largest Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Power Plant Planned for China
April 20th, 2013Via: Gizmag:
Lockheed Martin has been getting its feet wet in the renewable energy game for some time. In the 1970s it helped build the world’s first successful floating Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) system that generated net power, and in 2009 it was awarded a contract to develop an OTEC pilot plant in Hawaii. That project has apparently been canceled but the company has now shifted its OTEC sights westward by teaming up with Hong Kong-based Reignwood Group to co-develop a pilot plant that will be built off the coast of southern China.
