Russia Is Sending Syria Attack Helicopters
June 12th, 2012Here it is, in black and white: The Real Reason to Intervene in Syria:
Cutting Iran’s link to the Mediterranean Sea is a strategic prize worth the risk.
We’re not done with the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran. Given that the current round of negotiations with the world’s major powers will not fundamentally change Iran’s nuclear program, the question of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is likely to return to center stage later this year. In addition to hard-headed diplomacy and economic sanctions, there is an important step the United States can take to change Israel’s calculations — helping the people of Syria in their battle against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
…
A second step worth serious consideration is to secure international support for a coalition air operation. Russia will never support such a mission, so there is no point operating through the U.N. Security Council. And given the reluctance of some European states, NATO may be difficult as well. Therefore, this operation will have to be a unique combination of Western and Middle East countries. Given Syria’s extreme isolation within the Arab League, it should be possible to gain strong support from most Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. U.S. leadership is indispensable, since most of the key countries will follow only if Washington leads.
Some worry that U.S. involvement risks a confrontation with Russia. However, the Kosovo example — where NATO went to war against another Russian ally, while Moscow did little more than complain — shows otherwise. In that case, Russia had genuine ethnic and political ties to the Serbs, which don’t exist between Russia and Syria. Managing Russia’s reaction to outside intervention will be difficult but should not be exaggerated.
Ok, so go for it, and just let the Russians complain about it.
Is that about right, James?
And now…
Via: AP:
The Obama administration said Tuesday that Russia is sending attack helicopters to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime and is warning about a dramatic escalation in the Arab country’s 15-month conflict.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the delivery represents the “latest information.” She said the U.S. is concerned as the helicopters “will escalate the conflict quite dramatically.”
Gamer Plays Civilization II for Almost 10 Years, Turns World Into ‘Hellish Nightmare of Suffering and Devastation’
June 12th, 2012Via: Reddit:
I’ve been playing the same game of Civ II for 10 years. Though long outdated, I grew fascinated with this particular game because by the time Civ III was released, I was already well into the distant future. I then thought that it might be interesting to see just how far into the future I could get and see what the ramifications would be. Naturally I play other games and have a life, but I often return to this game when I’m not doing anything and carry on. The results are as follows.
The world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation.
There are 3 remaining super nations in the year 3991 A.D, each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands.
Related: r/theeternalwar
The Uncanny Valley – First English Translation Authorized and Reviewed by Mori
June 12th, 2012Slashdot posts a lot of garbage, but this reminds me of why I still persevere with that site.
Via: IEEE:
More than 40 years ago, Masahiro Mori, then a robotics professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, wrote an essay on how he envisioned people’s reactions to robots that looked and acted almost human. In particular, he hypothesized that a person’s response to a humanlike robot would abruptly shift from empathy to revulsion as it approached, but failed to attain, a lifelike appearance. This descent into eeriness is known as the uncanny valley. The essay appeared in an obscure Japanese journal called Energy in 1970, and in subsequent years it received almost no attention. More recently, however, the concept of the uncanny valley has rapidly attracted interest in robotics and other scientific circles as well as in popular culture. Some researchers have explored its implications for human-robot interaction and computer-graphics animation, while others have investigated its biological and social roots. Now interest in the uncanny valley should only intensify, as technology evolves and researchers build robots that look increasingly human. Though copies of Mori’s essay have circulated among researchers, a complete version hasn’t been widely available. This is the first publication of an English translation that has been authorized and reviewed by Mori.
Related: An Uncanny Mind: Masahiro Mori on the Uncanny Valley and Beyond
In-Q-Tel
June 12th, 2012I haven’t posted any stories about in-Q-Tel in a while.
Via: Mercury News:
Silicon Valley in years past has supplied surveillance satellites, missiles and electronic warfare gadgets to the government. But more recently, a dazzling array of other innovations has grabbed the interest of the country’s covert operatives. Nearly a third of the 87 companies listed in the portfolio of In-Q-Tel, an investment fund for the CIA and other secretive branches of the federal government, are based here.
…
In-Q-Tel doesn’t reveal how much money it gives companies, though Darby said of the more than 180 firms it has financed since its inception in 1999, most typically receive $1 million to $3 million. While the websites for companies financed by the group suggest that many have technology that can be used to analyze personal data — an issue of concern to privacy rights advocates — Darby declined to discuss which technologies the intelligence community has adopted from Silicon Valley.
Executives with several of the Bay Area companies it has financed also were hesitant to talk. Some declined to be interviewed. Others said they either didn’t know how their innovations were being used or were prohibited from commenting.
But a few gave tantalizing hints.
Research Credit: noncompliant
Water Grab in Kansas Oil Boom
June 12th, 2012Via: CNN:
In the farm country of southern Kansas, water is a precious commodity. And not just for farming — for fracking.
In hydraulic fracturing, water is injected into the ground at a high pressure to help crack shale rock and bring oil to the surface. The industry says it takes as much as 2 million gallons of water to drill a single horizontal well in Kansas.
Most drillers use groundwater or surface water from ponds and rivers. But first they must receive permission from whoever has rights to it and get a permit. Water permits have soared to the highest level in 30 years.
At the same time, many of the Kansas oil boomtown counties are already under “drought watch,” and last month was the second driest May on record.
Gates Grants: Galvanic Bracelets that Measure Student Engagement
June 12th, 2012Ok, kids, time for school. Don’t forget your GPS trackers, breakfast sticks, RFID cards and…
Via: Washington Post:
In the ‘you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff’ category, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending about $1.1 million to develop a way to physiologically measure how engaged students are by their teachers’ lessons. This involves “galvanic skin response” bracelets that kids would wear so their engagement levels could be measured.
The Macroeconomics of Chinese Kleptocracy
June 12th, 2012This otherwise good Bronte Capital piece doesn’t mention that China is home to a lot of serious gold bugs.
Look at this recent article from Bloomberg:
China will topple India this year as the largest bullion market as rising incomes bolster demand, the World Gold Council forecasts. Gold may gain for a 12th year in 2012 as European policy makers strive to avoid a breakup of the euro zone and the U.S. Federal Reserve weighs more stimulus to aid the recovery. Investors in China, facing lackluster equity markets and property curbs, are looking more to the metal, Zheng said June 6.
“It’s necessary for individual, institutional or even government investors to hold gold when the value of money is decreasing at a time of possible quantitative easing or excessive money-printing practices,” said Zheng.
Investment demand in China was a record 98.6 metric tons in the first quarter, 13 percent higher the same period in 2011, according to figures from the producer-funded council. Last year, it climbed 38 percent to 258.9 tons compared with 2010, as overall demand gained 20 percent to 769.8 tons. China’s total gold demand may reach 1,000 tons this year, the WGC has said.
Why not mention the shiny?
Via: Bronte Capital:
China is a kleptocracy of a scale never seen before in human history. This post aims to explain how this wave of theft is financed, what makes it sustainable and what will make it fail.
EU CONSIDERING TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS
June 12th, 2012Via: AP:
Olivier Bailly spokesman said Tuesday that, legally, limits could be imposed on movement of people and money across national borders within the EU if it’s necessary to protect public order or public security.
“Some people are working on scenarios,” he said, adding that the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, was giving legal advice to those who requested it.
Flame and Stuxnet Share Common Origin
June 12th, 2012Via: Threat Post:
Researchers digging through the code of the recently discovered Flame worm say they have come across a wealth of evidence that suggests Flame and the now-famous Stuxnet worm share a common origin.
Researchers from Kaspersky Lab say that a critical module that the Flame worm used to spread is identical to a module used by Stuxnet.a, an early variant of the Stuxnet worm that began circulating in 2009, more than a year before a later variant of the worm was discovered by antivirus researchers at the Belarussian firm VirusBlokAda. The claims are the most direct, to date, that link the Flame malware, which attacked Iranian oil facilities, with Stuxnet, which is believed to have targeted Iran’s uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz. If true, they suggest a widespread and multi-year campaign of offensive cyber attacks against multiple targets within that country.
According to the Kaspersky researchers, early versions of Stuxnet were, in fact, created out of components that were part of what they refer to as the “Flame platform”. But they believe development of the two malicious programs diverged after 2009, suggesting that two different development teams may have been working independently for a single entity to create malware with specific objectives, according to Kaspersky researchers, writing on the company’s blog, Securelist.
EURO ZONE CAPITAL CONTROLS AS WORST-CASE SCENARIO SHOULD ATHENS DECIDE TO LEAVE EURO
June 11th, 2012Via: Reuters:
European finance officials have discussed limiting the size of withdrawals from ATM machines, imposing border checks and introducing euro zone capital controls as a worst-case scenario should Athens decide to leave the euro.
EU officials have told Reuters the ideas are part of a range of contingency plans. They emphasized that the discussions were merely about being prepared for any eventuality rather than planning for something they expect to happen – no one Reuters has spoken to expects Greece to leave the single currency area.
But with increased political uncertainty in Greece following the inconclusive election on May 6 and ahead of a second election on June 17, there is now an increased need to have contingencies in place, the EU sources said.
Research Credit: GP
