Britain: Army Facing War Crimes Lawsuit Over Role in Fallujah Attacks
May 4th, 2010Via: Independent:
Allegations that Britain was complicit in the use of chemical weapons linked to an upsurge in child deformity cases in Iraq, are being investigated by the Ministry of Defence.
The case raises serious questions about the UK’s role in the American-led offensive against the city of Fallujah in the autumn of 2004 where hundreds of Iraqis died. After the battle, in which it is alleged that a range of illegal weaponry was used, evidence has emerged of large numbers of children being born with severe birth defects.
Iraqi families who believe their children’s deformities are caused by the deployment of the weapons have now begun legal proceedings against the UK Government. They accuse the UK Government of breaching international law, war crimes and failing to intervene to prevent a war crime.
Lawyers for the Iraqis have sent a letter before action to the MoD asking the Government to disclose what it knows about the Army’s role in the offensive, the presence of prohibited weapons and the legal advice given to Tony Blair, Prime Minister at the time.
Legal actions against America are blocked by US federal immunity laws and the US government’s boycott of the International Criminal Court.
The offensive against Fallujah, codenamed Phantom Fury, in 2004 was described as the most bitter fighting experienced by American soldiers since the war in Vietnam. But US forces were assisted by British units.
Faber: China May ‘Crash’ in Next 9 to 12 Months
May 4th, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
Investor Marc Faber said China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as declines in stock and commodity prices signal the nation’s property bubble is set to burst.
The Shanghai Composite Index has failed to regain its 2009 high while industrial commodities and shares of Australian resource exporters are acting “heavy,” Faber said. The opening of the World Expo in Shanghai last week is “not a particularly good omen,” he said, citing a property bust and depression that followed the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna.
“The market is telling you that something is not quite right,” Faber, the publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report, said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Hong Kong today. “The Chinese economy is going to slow down regardless. It is more likely that we will even have a crash sometime in the next nine to 12 months.”
An index tracking Chinese stocks traded in Hong Kong dropped 1.8 percent today, the most in two weeks, after the central bank raised reserve requirements for the third time this year. The Shanghai Composite has slumped 12 percent this year, Asia’s worst performer, as policy makers seek to rein in a lending boom that’s spurred record gains in property prices. China’s markets are shut for a holiday today.
Copper touched a seven-week low and BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, fell the most since February on concern spending in the world’s third-largest economy will slow and after Australia boosted taxes on commodities producers. Rio Tinto Ltd., the third-largest, slid as much as 6 percent.
Faber joins hedge fund manager Jim Chanos and Harvard University’s Kenneth Rogoff in warning of a crash in China.
China is “on a treadmill to hell” because it’s hooked on property development for driving growth, Chanos said in an interview last month. As much as 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product relies on construction, he said. Rogoff said in February a debt-fueled bubble in China may trigger a regional recession within a decade.
Toddler TV Linked to Low Math Scores
May 4th, 2010Via: CBC:
Too much time in front of the tube as a two-year-old can predict some negative consequences at the age of 10, a new study suggests.
Researchers studied more than 1,300 children in Quebec and found that higher TV exposure as toddlers corresponded to less achievement in math, an increase in being victimized by classmates and less physical activity at age 10.
The children also had a higher likelihood of consuming more junk food and soft drinks and of having a higher body mass index, according to the study published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Parents reported their kids’ viewing habits at age 29 months and at 53 months as part of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. Teachers were asked to evaluate the students’ academic, psychosocial and health habits, and body mass index was measured at 10 years old.
Researcher Linda Pagani, a psychosocial professor at the University of Montreal, says the bottom line is that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV from birth to age two, and no more than two hours a day after that.
If parents aren’t following these guidelines, then their kids are missing out on other opportunities, she said.
“There’s only 24 hours in the day, and the early childhood period is a period of brain expansion,” said Pagani, who also works at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Centre.
“But that brain expansion occurs in the context of a lot of interaction with one’s environment — playing, talking, interacting, making intellectual effort — because your brain is like a muscle, and if you don’t use it, it’s less fit for more muscular activity later on.”
Gulf Oil Spill: The Halliburton Connection
May 4th, 2010Halliburton Acquired Boots & Coots On 9 April 2010
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Investigators delving into the possible cause of the massive gulf oil spill are focusing on the role of Houston-based Halliburton Co., the giant energy services company, which was responsible for cementing the drill into place below the water. The company acknowledged Friday that it had completed the final cementing of the oil well and pipe just 20 hours before the blowout last week.
Obama Jokes About Predator Drones; Hundreds of Pakistani Civilians Murdered by Predator Drone Strikes in 2009 Alone
May 4th, 2010You’re killing us, Mr. President, tell us another one.
The following is from, US Killed 700 Civilians in Pakistan Drone Strikes in 2009:
On June 22, the US struck at a house officials called a “suspected militant hideout,” burying a few locals inside. When others rushed to the scene to rescue them, they launched another missile, killing 13 apparently innocent Pakistanis. When they held a funeral procession on June 23, the US hit that too, ostensibly on the belief that Baitullah Mehsud might be among the mourners. He wasn’t, but the attack killed at least 80 more people.
Go on, Barry, tell us another one.
Via: Washington Post:
Everyone agrees that President Obama was funnier than Jay Leno at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday night. But this joke is inspiring some backlash:
“Jonas Brothers are here, they’re out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys, don’t get any ideas. Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming. You think I’m joking?”
Top Ten Reasons to Quit Facebook
May 4th, 2010And another reason, not mentioned in the list below: Facebook Steps Up Lobbying, Deepens Ties with Intelligence Agencies, FTC.
Via: Gizmodo:
After some reflection, I’ve decided to delete my account on Facebook. I’d like to encourage you to do the same. This is part altruism and part selfish. The altruism part is that I think Facebook, as a company, is unethical. The selfish part is that I’d like my own social network to migrate away from Facebook so that I’m not missing anything. In any event, here’s my “Top Ten” reasons for why you should join me and many others and delete your account.
U.S. Reveals Size of Nuclear Stockpile
May 4th, 2010As with just about everything that the rotten to the core Obama regime does, this apparently straightforward story requires heavy context fitting.
1. The Obama regime’s most recent nuclear weapons budget request, “A complete surrender to Senate Republicans,” represents the biggest increase in nuclear weapons related activities since the, “Early years of Ronald Reagan.”
2. Strategic nuclear weapons are seen as less useful now, that’s why the treaties are mentioned at press conferences about the reduction of nuclear weapons. However, there are no treaty obligations for thousands of tactical nuclear weapons. The U.S. is thought to have fewer tactical nuclear weapons deployed than Russia, and a likely reason why brings us to the next point…
3. Prompt Global Strike: Provides the range and time-to-target characteristics of an ICBM, the blast equivalent of a tactical nuclear weapon, but uses conventional explosives. How do states tell the difference between a strategic ICBM launch and a tactical Prompt Global Strike launch?
They can’t!
In terms of launch detection systems, both events are identical. All sides acknowledge that Prompt Global Strike increases the likelihood of the release of strategic nuclear weapons.
Keep smilin', Barry
So, while Obama is grinning like the Cheshire Cat and his zombies continue to roll along the floor in fits of Hope and Change glossolalia, expect the minute hand to move closer to midnight in the years to come.
Via: Washington Post:
Shattering a taboo dating from the Cold War, the Obama administration revealed Monday the size of the American nuclear arsenal — 5,113 weapons — as it embarked on a campaign for tougher measures against countries with hidden nuclear programs.
The figure was in line with previous estimates by arms-control groups. But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton emphasized that it was the very disclosure of the long-held secret that was important.
“We think it is in our national security interest to be as transparent as we can about the nuclear program of the United States,” she told reporters at a high-level nuclear conference in New York, where she announced the change in policy. “We think that builds confidence.”
…
The disclosure comes less than a month after President Barack Obama unveiled a new policy restricting the U.S. use of nuclear weapons and signed a landmark arms reduction accord with Russia.
Obama, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in part for his vision of a nuclear free world, has also renounced the development of new atomic weapons.
Germans Are Paid to Use Excess Power Generated from Wind Turbines
May 3rd, 2010Wind is an intermittent power source, so feast or famine situations are possible. There are several options for capturing excess energy for later release into the grid, but high-energy flywheels probably make the most sense:
Flywheel energy storage works by accelerating a cylindrical assembly called a rotor (flywheel) to a very high speed and maintaining the energy in the system as rotational energy. The energy is converted back by slowing down the flywheel. The flywheel system itself is a kinetic, or mechanical battery, spinning at very high speeds to store energy that is instantly available when needed.Flywheel
At the core of Beacon’s flywheel is a carbon-fiber composite rim, supported by a metal hub and shaft and with a motor/generator mounted on the shaft. Together the rim, hub, shaft and motor/generator assembly form the rotor. When charging (or absorbing) energy, the flywheel’s motor acts like a load and draws power from the grid to accelerate the rotor to a higher speed. When discharging, the motor is switched into generator mode, and the inertial energy of the rotor drives the generator which, in turn, creates electricity that is then injected back into the grid. Multiple flywheels may be connected together to provide various megawatt-level power capacities. Performance is measured in energy units – kilowatt-hours (kWh) or megawatt-hours (MwH), indicating the amount of power available over a given period of time.
Beacon’s Smart Energy 25 flywheel has a high-performance rotor assembly that is sealed in a vacuum chamber and spins between 8,000 and 16,000 rpm. At 16,000 rpm the flywheel can store and deliver 25 kWh of extractable energy. At 16,000 rpm, the surface speed of the rim would be approximately Mach 2 – or about 1500 mph – if it were operated in normal atmosphere. At that speed the rim must be enclosed in a high vacuum to reduce friction and energy losses. To reduce losses even further, the rotor is levitated with a combination of permanent magnets and an electromagnetic bearing.
Via: Bloomberg:
On windy nights in northern Germany, consumers are paid to keep the lights on.
Twice this year, the nation’s 21,000 wind turbines pumped out so much power that utilities reduced customer bills for using the surplus electricity. Since the first rebate came with little fanfare at 5 a.m. one October day in 2008, payments have risen as high as 500.02 euros ($665) a megawatt-hour, about as much as a small factory or 1,000 homes use in 60 minutes.
The wind-energy boom in Europe and parts of Texas has begun to reduce bills for consumers. Electricity-network managers have even ordered windmills offline at times to trim supplies. That hurts profit for wind-farm operators, said Christian Kjaer, head of the European Wind Energy Association, which represents RWE AG of Germany, Spain’s Iberdrola SA and Dong Energy A/S of Denmark.
“We’re seeing that wind energy lowers prices, which is great for the consumers,” Kjaer said at his group’s conference in Warsaw this week. “We as producers have to acknowledge that this means operating the existing plant fewer hours a year, and this has an effect on investors” and profit.
After years of getting government incentives to install windmills, operators in Europe may have become their own worst enemy, reducing the total price paid for electricity in Germany, Europe’s biggest power market, by as much as 5 billion euros some years, according to a study this week by Poeyry, a Helsinki-based industry consultant.
Oil Slickonomics
May 3rd, 2010Via: The Big Picture:
Three scenarios lie ahead. They rank as bad, worse, and ugliest (the latter being catastrophic and unprecedented). There is no “good” here.
The Bad.
Containment chambers are put in place and they catch the outflow from the three ruptures that are currently pouring 200,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf every day. If this works, it will take until June to complete. The chambers are 30-foot-high steel configurations that must be placed on the ocean floor at a depth of one mile. This has never been done before. If early containment is successful, the damages from this accident will be in the tens of billions. The cleanup will take years. The economic impact will be in the five states that have frontal coastline on the Gulf of Mexico: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
The Worse.
The containment attempts fail and oil spews for months, until a new well can successfully be drilled to a depth of 13000 feet below the 5000-foot-deep ocean floor, and then concrete and mud are injected into the existing ruptured well until it is successfully closed and sealed. Work on this approach is already commencing. Timeframe for success is at least three months. Note the new well will have to come within about 20 feet of the existing point where the original well enters the reservoir at a distance of 3.5 miles from the surface drilling rig. Damages by this time may be measured in the hundreds of billions. Cleanup will take many, many years. Tourism, fishing, all related industries may be fundamentally changed for as much as a generation. Spread to Mexico and other Gulf geography is possible.
The Ugliest.
This spew stoppage takes longer to reach a full closure; the subsequent cleanup may take a decade. The Gulf becomes a damaged sea for a generation. The oil slick leaks beyond the western Florida coast, enters the Gulfstream and reaches the eastern coast of the United States and beyond. Use your imagination for the rest of the damage. Monetary cost is now measured in the many hundreds of billions of dollars.
DynCorp Running “Counter-Narcotics” Missions Along Pakistan/Afghanistan Border
May 3rd, 2010Counter-Narcotics. *wink*
Via: Wired:
The airspace along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border is pretty crowded these days: Along with U.S., Afghan and Pakistani military missions, the CIA is running its own covert drone ops. Less well known, but perhaps equally controversial, is the State Department’s counter-narcotics air force, staffed by mercenaries.
A recently released State Department Inspector General report, however, gave an unusually detailed look at the size and scope of these operations. The report fills in more details about America’s growing and undeclared war in Pakistan.
The State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (known by the abbreviation INL) operates an air wing of around 14 aircraft in Afghanistan and another 17 in Pakistan. The aircraft help monitor the border, fly crop-eradication and interdiction missions, and move equipment and personnel around the region.
These kinds of missions aren’t new: The State Department has similar Air Wing programs in Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, and Peru. Perhaps more importantly, the State Department has outsourced much of this mission. The INL’s air wing in Afghanistan and Pakistan is operated by private military company DynCorp, and the presence of U.S. contractors in Pakistan has proven extremely controversial (the released IG report, not surprisingly, was originally marked “sensitive but unclassified”).
