Bavaria: Experts Baffled by Mysterious Underground Chambers
July 30th, 2011Via: Der Spiegel:
There are more than 700 curious tunnel networks in Bavaria, but their purpose remains a mystery. Were they built as graves for the souls of the dead, as ritual spaces or as hideaways from marauding bandits? Archeologists are now exploring the subterranean vaults to unravel their secrets.
Research Credit: ottilie
Japan’s Largest Supermarket Chain Tests Beef for Radiation
July 30th, 2011Via: International Supermarket News:
Aeon, Japan’s largest supermarket chain, has carried out independent tests to ensure the safety of the beef products it sells.
The move comes as the Japanese government requested a ban on shipments of cattle from a second prefecture, after detecting caesium levels as high as twice government-set limits in beef from six cattle from three areas in Miyagi.
Naser Jason Abdo
July 29th, 2011Via: ABC News:
A U.S. serviceman is in custody after he allegedly admitted he was planning an attack on his fellow servicemen at the U.S. Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, the same base where 13 people were killed in a 2009 terror attack.
U.S. officials told ABC News an AWOL soldier, identified by the FBI as a Private First Class Naser Jason Abdo, was arrested Wednesday after making a purchase at Guns Galore in Killeen, Texas, the same ammunition store where Maj. Nidal Hasan purchased the weapons he allegedly used to gun down 13 people and wound 32 others on Nov. 5, 2009. According to one senior official, Abdo has also mentioned the name of high profile al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki — the same man investigators said inspired the previous Fort Hood attack along with other potentially deadly terror plots in the U.S. — though no direct link between Abdo and Awlaki has been found.
Abdo, 21, allegedly told law enforcement he wanted to “get even” and was targeting Ft. Hood because of the previous attack there, according to law enforcement documents obtained by ABC News. The documents say he did not plan to attack the base itself, but instead planned to plant two bombs at a nearby restaurant popular with Ft. Hood personnel.
He hoped to detonate both at the target location before using a pistol to shoot survivors, according to the documents. Abdo had gone AWOL over the July 4 weekend from Fort Campbell’s 101st Airborne Division in Kentucky over 800 miles away.
When he was arrested, Abdo was in possession of large quantities of ammunition, weapons and what appeared to be the makings of a bomb, according to early accounts from law enforcement. He had also apparently purchased an Army uniform with Fort Hood patches from a local surplus store.
Turkey’s Military Chiefs Quit
July 29th, 2011Via: Reuters:
Turkey said on Friday its top four military chiefs were all seeking retirement, in what appeared to reflect a deep rift between the secularist military and a government with roots in political Islam.
State-run Anatolian news agency said head of the armed forces General Isik Kosaner and the heads of the ground, naval and air forces were all stepping down, in what some Turkish media initially described as resignations.
Primary Bond Dealers Said to Meet With Treasury on Debt Ceiling
July 29th, 2011Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
I’m sticking with my initial guess on this: No default. The U.S. is dealing with a $14 trillion clusterfuck. No way that thing hits the wall. Not like this. There’s way too much potential for something to go super-critical.
I have no idea what’s going down at the meeting mentioned below, but it’s probably safe to assume that it has something to do with making sure that the death machine keeps grinding out the sausage by whatever means necessary.
Via: Bloomberg:
The U.S. Treasury Department is planning to meet with bond dealers at noon in New York today to discuss next month’s quarterly auctions of notes and bonds and the debt ceiling, according to people familiar with the meeting.
The Treasury has canceled its regularly scheduled individual meetings with bond dealers in favor of the group meeting, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the meeting hasn’t been publicly announced. All 20 primary dealers were invited.
The government is inching closer to running out of cash before an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. House Republican leaders scrapped a vote on the debt ceiling bill late yesterday, fueling concern a compromise by the two parties won’t be reached before the deadline and casting doubt on whether the Treasury can sell more debt.
Gold Breaks Higher Again, Another New Record High
July 29th, 2011Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
$1632.79, new high intraday.
House Panel Approves Broadened ISP Snooping Bill
July 29th, 2011Via: Cnet:
Internet providers would be forced to keep logs of their customers’ activities for one year–in case police want to review them in the future–under legislation that a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved today.
The 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall’s elections, and the Justice Department officials who have quietly lobbied for the sweeping new requirements, a development first reported by CNET.
A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, some committee members suggested. By a 7-16 vote, the panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored.
It represents “a data bank of every digital act by every American” that would “let us find out where every single American visited Web sites,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who led Democratic opposition to the bill.
Google Offers To Re-Write Your Webpages On The Fly
July 29th, 2011If you think that this is just about speed, I’d urge you to consider Beware Online “Filter Bubbles”:
As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a “filter bubble” and don’t get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.
My guess is that Google’s mega proxy service will eventually result in a “My Internet” option, which will censor material based on what Google thinks you want to see, even when you’re on sites that aren’t associated with Google. Like many creepy Google ‘features’, this might even be turned on by default.
If Google’s ascendency as a search provider, and the broad use of their other services (Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, and now Google+, among many others) weren’t disturbing enough, now Google wants to deliver content from other sites to you as well. Even if this was just about speed, which I’m sure it isn’t (long term), site operators are begging for trouble by placing Google in a position to re-write their content on the fly. It’s stark raving madness, if you ask me, and it will probably be very popular.
Via: TechCrunch:
Google has long been obsessed with speed. It’s paramount in pretty much everything they do. Which is why the launch of Google+ with some — gasp — attention paid to design is even more surprising. But a new service Google is launching this evening very much puts the focus back on speed — an obsessive amount of focus, one might say.
Page Speed Service is the latest tool in Google’s arsenal to help speed up the web. This service is also their most ambitious yet. When you sign up and point your site’s DNS entry to Google, they’ll enable the tool which will fetch your content from your servers, rewrite your webpages, and serve them up from Google’s own servers around the world. Yes, you read all of that correctly.
Related: U.S. Has Secret Tools to Force Internet on Dictators
Research Credit: HPLovecraft666
TSA Readying New Behavior Detection Plan for Airport Checkpoints
July 29th, 2011Via: Politico:
The federal government is planning to introduce new behavior detection techniques at airport checkpoints as soon as next month, Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole said Thursday.
TSA already has “behavior detection officers” at 161 airports nationwide looking for travelers exhibiting physiological or psychological signs that a traveler might be a terrorist. However, Pistole said TSA is preparing to move to an approach that employs more conversation with travelers—a method that has been employed with great success in Israel.
“I’m very much interested in expanding the behavior detection program, upgrading it if you will, in a way that allows us to….have more interaction with a passsenger just from a discussion which may be able to expedite the physical screening aspects,” Pistole said during an appearance at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. “So, we’ve looked at what works around the world, some outstanding examples and we are planning to do some new things in the near future here.”
Pistole declined to elaborate on the enhanced behavior detection program but said it would “probably” be announced in August. During an on-stage interview with CNN’s Jeanne Meserve, Pistole acknowledged that the Israeli techniques have been carefully examined.
“There’s a lot—under that Israeli model—a lot that is done that is obviously very effective,” he said. However, critics have said the Israeli program is too time consuming to use consistently at U.S. airports and may involve a degree of religious and racial profiling that would draw controversy in the U.S.
Malnourished American Children Face Long Term Learning and Developmental Problems
July 28th, 2011Via: Boston Herald:
Doctors at a major Boston hospital report they are seeing more hungry and dangerously thin young children in the emergency room than at any time in more than a decade of surveying families.
Many families are unable to afford enough healthy food to feed their children, say the Boston Medical Center doctors. The resulting chronic hunger threatens to leave scores of infants and toddlers with lasting learning and developmental problems.
Before the economy soured in 2007, 12 percent of youngsters age 3 and under whose families were randomly surveyed in the hospital’s emergency department were significantly underweight. In 2010, that percentage jumped to 18 percent, and the tide does not appear to be abating, said Dr. Megan Sandel, an associate professor of pediatrics and public health at BMC.
Research Credit: Matt
