X-47B Killer Drone: Navy Wants Autonomous, Carrier Take Offs and Landings
April 12th, 2011Via: Wired:
Take the X-47B experimental killer drone made by Northrop Grumman, the first drone intended to fly off an aircraft carrier. At the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space convention outside Washington, Northrop and the Navy and unveiled new details about the tailless, triangular plane and their schedule to get it flying off a carrier. Rule number one of the X-47B: it’s not “remotely piloted.”
Put the phrase “remotely piloted” out of your mind, says Janis Pamiljans, a Northrop vice president who handles the company’s Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) portfolio. When it gets on board an aircraft carrier, it’s going to be controlled by a “mouse click,” Pamiljans says. The click of a mouse will turn on the engines. Another will get it to taxi. Keep clicking, and the plane will “take off and come home.”
…
Both Engdahl or Pamiljans accordingly ducked a question about how the plane’s boasted autonomy will handle any weapons releases. Everyone who fears Skynet generally blanches at the idea of robots firing weapons on their own. But the X-47B will be “on autopilot 100 percent of the time,” Engdahl says. Nothing left to do but welcome our robot overlords.
Japan Raises Nuke Accident Severity Level to 7; Highest
April 11th, 2011Update: Officially Level 7
Via: Kyodo:
Japan raised the severity level of the ongoing emergency at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Tuesday from level 5 to the maximum 7 on an international scale, recognizing that the tsunami-caused accident matches the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe in 1986 at Chernobyl.
The government’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency upgraded its provisional evaluation based on an estimate that radioactive materials far exceeding the criteria for level 7 have so far been released into the external environment, but added the release from the Fukushima plant is about 10 percent of that from the former Soviet nuclear plant.
The nuclear regulatory agency under the industry ministry and the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, a government panel, said that between 370,000 and 630,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials have been emitted into the air from the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors of the plant.
—End Update—
Captain Obvious checking in.
Via: Kyodo:
The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan released a preliminary calculation Monday saying that the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had been releasing up to 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials per hour at some point after a massive quake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan on March 11.
The disclosure prompted the government to consider raising the accident’s severity level to 7, the worst on an international scale, from the current 5, government sources said. The level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale has only been applied to the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.
The current provisional evaluation of 5 is at the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979.
According to an evaluation by the INES, level 7 accidents correspond with a release into the external environment radioactive materials equal to more than tens of thousands terabecquerels of radioactive iodine 131. One terabecquerel equals 1 trillion becquerels.
Chicago School Bans Lunches Brought from Home; Students Must Eat Cafeteria Food; Exceptions Made for Medical Reasons
April 11th, 2011Napoleon Dynamite from dazedcracker on Vimeo.
Via: WREG:
At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago’s West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.
Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.
“Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school,” Carmona said. “It’s about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It’s milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception.”
Research Credit: Matt
Egypt: Blogger Gets 3 Years for Criticising Military
April 11th, 2011The U.S. is the master of meet the new boss, same as the old boss, so watch as “democracy” goes on to be basically Mubarak by other means.
—Egypt Protests: America’s Secret Backing for Rebel Leaders Behind Uprising?
It’s the new, NEW freedom.
Via: AFP:
A military court has jailed a blogger for three years for criticising the armed forces that have ruled Egypt since president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February, in a decision slammed by rights groups on Monday.
“Regrettably, the Nasr City military court sentenced Maikel Nabil to three years in prison,” the blogger’s lawyer Gamal Eid told AFP.
“The lawyers were not present, the verdict was handed out almost in secret.”
The decision had initially been set for Wednesday and was postponed to Sunday. The lawyers went on Sunday but were told to leave because there would be no verdict, Eid said.
“We were then very surprised to hear that he (Nabil) was sentenced to three years,” said Eid, who heads the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI).
The verdict is likely to cause concern among Egypt’s large network of bloggers who had hoped Mubarak’s overthrow in a popular uprising would usher in a new era of freedom of expression.
Reporters Without Borders condemned the ruling, saying Nabil had become “the new government’s first prisoner of conscience.”
“The methods used by the Egyptian military do not seem to have evolved since Hosni Mubarak’s fall,” the group’s secretary general Jean-Francois Julliard said.
“They show the degree to which the military still cannot be criticised and are still a taboo subject. A civilian should not be tried by a military court,” he said.
“Egypt has begun a process of democratisation and it should now be possible to criticise the armed forces like any other component of the state,” Julliard said.
Fallout Risks in Europe No Longer ‘Negligible’
April 11th, 2011The concern is with pregnant women and infants.
For whatever it’s worth, here is Google’s French to English translation of the document, Contamination de la France par les rejets de la centrale de Fukushima Daiichi: QUELS SONT LES RISQUES?
Via: EurActiv:
The risks associated with iodine-131 contamination in Europe are no longer “negligible,” according to CRIIRAD, a French research body on radioactivity. The NGO is advising pregnant women and infants against “risky behaviour,” such as consuming fresh milk or vegetables with large leaves.
In response to thousands of inquiries from citizens concerned about fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Europe, CRIIRAD has compiled an information package on the risks of radioactive iodine-131 contamination in Europe.
The document, published on 7 April, advises against consuming rainwater and says vulnerable groups such as children and pregnant or breastfeeding women should avoid consuming vegetables with large leaves, fresh milk and creamy cheese.
The risks related to prolonged contamination among vulnerable groups of the population can no longer be considered “negligible” and it is now necessary to avoid “risky behaviour,” CRIIRAD claimed.
However, the institute underlines that there is absolutely no need to lock oneself indoors or take iodine tablets.
CRIIRAD says its information note is not limited to the situation in France and is applicable to other European countries, as the level of air contamination is currently the same in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, for instance.
Data for the west coast of the United States, which received the Fukushima radioactive fallout 6-10 days before France, reveals that levels of radioactive iodine-131 concentration are 8-10 times higher there, the institute says.
GMOs Linked to Organ Disruption in 19 Studies
April 11th, 2011Via: Institute for Responsible Technology:
A new paper shows that consuming genetically modified (GM) corn or soybeans leads to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice, particularly in livers and kidneys. By reviewing data from 19 animal studies, Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and others reveal that 9% of the measured parameters, including blood and urine biochemistry, organ weights, and microscopic analyses (histopathology), were significantly disrupted in the GM-fed animals. The kidneys of males fared the worst, with 43.5% of all the changes. The liver of females followed, with 30.8%. The report, published in Environmental Sciences Europe on March 1, 2011, confirms that “several convergent data appear to indicate liver and kidney problems as end points of GMO diet effects.” The authors point out that livers and kidneys “are the major reactive organs” in cases of chronic food toxicity.
“Other organs may be affected too, such as the heart and spleen, or blood cells,” stated the paper. In fact some of the animals fed genetically modified organisms had altered body weights in at least one gender, which is “a very good predictor of side effects in various organs.”
The GM soybean and corn varieties used in the feeding trials “constitute 83% of the commercialized GMOs” that are currently consumed by billions of people. While the findings may have serious ramifications for the human population, the authors demonstrate how a multitude of GMO-related health problems could easily pass undetected through the superficial and largely incompetent safety assessments that are used around the world.
Research Credit: jfreon
The Hidden Job Crisis for American Men
April 11th, 2011Recovery.
Via: Business Week:
The March jobs report released on Apr. 1 seemed like the best in years. Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis released a statement noting that the four-month drop in the jobless rate, to 8.8 percent from 9.8 percent, was “its largest decline since 1984.”
Behind the headlines, though, statistics on jobs are far less encouraging. Yes, job growth has picked up somewhat. Yet an equally important reason for the lower jobless rate is that many people, men in particular, have simply given up looking for work and are no longer counted among the unemployed. Some sit at home. Some have become homeless. Rather than paying taxes on labor income, they are drawing government benefits, or relying on family and friends for support.
Iceland: Voters Reject Icesave Payback Referendum
April 11th, 2011I’m sure this situation isn’t going unnoticed in Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
Via: CityWire:
Britain and the Netherlands plan to sue Iceland for €4 billion (£3.5 billion) paid to Icesave depositors after the country voted against the payment of the money for a second time in a referendum.
Almost 60% of Icelanders voted against a plan to pay the British and Dutch governments money owed for bailing out savers of the Landsbanki online savings arm in 2008, Britain is owed £2.3 billion of the total amount. The ‘no’ vote comes despite a revision of the original repayment plan to allow a longer period in which to pay and a reduced interest rate.
The Icelandic people do not believe the taxpayer should pay for the failure of a private institution.
Britain and the Netherlands have now said there is no more room for negotiation and will now turn to the international courts to decide who is liable to pay.
Japan: 7.1 Magnitude Earthquake in Fukushima
April 11th, 2011Via: BBC:
A powerful earthquake has hit north-east Japan, exactly one month after the devastating earthquake and tsunami.
The 7.1-magnitude tremor triggered a brief tsunami warning, and forced workers to evacuate the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
The epicentre of the quake was in Fukushima prefecture, and struck at a depth of just 10km (six miles).
It came as Japan said it was extending the evacuation zone around the nuclear plant because of radiation concerns.
The cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were damaged in last month’s disaster. Workers have been struggling to prevent several reactors from overheating, and avert a large-scale release of radiation.
The plant’s operator, Tepco, said power used to pump water to cool three damaged reactors had been cut briefly but early indications suggested the plant had not sustained any further damage.
Bill Gross: Skunked
April 11th, 2011Via: Pimco:
…the true but unrecorded debt of the U.S. Treasury is not $9.1 trillion or even $11-12 trillion when Agency and Student Loan liabilities are thrown in, but $65 trillion more! This country appears to have an off-balance-sheet, unrecorded debt burden of close to 500% of GDP!
…
…the only way out of the dilemma, absent very large entitlement cuts, is to default in one (or a combination) of four ways: 1) outright via contractual abrogation – surely unthinkable, 2) surreptitiously via accelerating and unexpectedly higher inflation – likely but not significant in its impact, 3) deceptively via a declining dollar– currently taking place right in front of our noses, and 4) stealthily via policy rates and Treasury yields far below historical levels – paying savers less on their money and hoping they won’t complain.
—
Related: PIMCO Goes Short U.S. Government Debt
Via: Reuters:
PIMCO has shifted to a short position in U.S. government-related debt in the world’s largest bond fund, while also raising cash holdings in a sign of the asset manager’s serious concerns about the U.S. fiscal outlook.
The portion of PIMCO’s $236 billion Total Return Fund held in U.S. government debt, including U.S. Treasuries, was -3 percent of total assets in the fund as of March, down from zero in February, the firm’s website showed.
Cash equivalents, securities with maturities of less than a year, rose to 31 percent of the fund’s assets compared with 24 percent in February.
PIMCO and its outspoken co-chief investment officer Bill Gross have been raising alarm this year about who will support Treasuries once the Federal Reserve ends its bond purchase program as scheduled in June.
The Newport, California-based fund manager shed all its U.S. government-related debt holdings earlier this year and has begun to wager against the asset class.
