The One Gigawatt Wind Turbine
July 28th, 2007Via: Treehugger:
It’s a vision of a magnetically levitated wind turbine that can generate one gigawatt of energy (enough to power 750,000 homes). This is the device proposed by a new Arizona-based company, MagLev Wind Turbine Technologies. The company claims that it can deliver clean power for less than cent per kilowatt hour using this wind turbine.
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Magnetic levitation is a very efficient method of capturing wind energy. The blades of the turbine are suspended on a cushion of air, and the energy is directed to linear generators with minimal fiction losses. But the big advantage with maglev is that it reduces maintenance costs, and increases the lifespan of the generator.
NASA: Space Computer ‘Sabotage’ Probed
July 27th, 2007This is pretty weird.
Via: BBC:
Nasa is investigating the apparent sabotage of a computer due to be flown to the International Space Station.
The US space agency said the damage to wiring in a network box was intentional and obvious, but said it could be repaired before take-off on 7 August.
Nasa stressed that the lives of its astronauts had not been put at risk.
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Nasa’s Associate Administrator for Space Operations, William Gerstenmaier, said the apparent sabotage of a non-essential computer had been discovered earlier this month.
“The damage is very obvious, easy to detect,” he told reporters. “It’s not a mystery to us.”
Mr Gerstenmaier said wires had been found cut inside the unit before it had been loaded onto the shuttle.
The computer is designed to collect and relay data from sensors which detect vibrations and forces on the space station’s external trusses.
“It’s currently being investigated by the [Nasa] inspector general’s office,” he added.
The equipment had been supplied by a sub-contractor, he added.
Mr Gerstenmaier said engineers would try to repair the hardware before take-off in two weeks’ time, but that the mission would not be delayed.
The damage is believed to be the first act of sabotage of flight equipment Nasa has discovered.
Tillman: Shot in the Head Three Times from Ten Yards; Army Attorneys Congratulated Themselves for Thwarting Criminal Investigation
July 27th, 2007Why was Pat Tillman assassinated?
Via: Washington Post:
Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
“The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,” a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.
The doctors _ whose names were blacked out _ said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman’s comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman’s death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.
The medical examiners’ suspicions were outlined in 2,300 pages of testimony released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Among other information contained in the documents:
_ In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop “sniveling.”
_ Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.
_ The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman’s death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn’t recall details of his actions.
_ No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene _ no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.
The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been criticized in recent months for lying about the circumstances of Tillman’s death. The military initially told the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by enemy fire. Only weeks later did the Pentagon acknowledge he was gunned down by fellow Rangers.
With questions lingering about how high in the Bush administration the deception reached, Congress is preparing for yet another hearing next week.
Related: Was Potential Dissenter Pat Tillman Silenced by Assassination?
Sensitive Government Documents Exposed by LimeWire
July 27th, 2007Via: BetaNews:
In testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, Gen. Wesley Clark – the former supreme commander of NATO forces and US presidential candidate, speaking as a board member of and advisor to security software company Tiversa – cited a study by his company revealing that in a period of two hours’ search time on the P2P file-sharing system LimeWire, over 200 classified US Government documents were discovered.
“If you saw the scope of the risk,” Gen. Clark testified, “I think you’d agree that it’s just totally unacceptable. The American people would be outraged if they were aware of what’s inadvertently shared by government agencies on P2P networks. They would demand solutions.”
Later, Clark stated, Tiversa engineers located the entire Pentagon backbone network security infrastructure diagram, which apparently came as part of a package that included a letter from the US Office of Management and Budget warning of the dangers of using LimeWire and other P2P file sharing programs on computers where sensitive or secret documents are stored. The material, it was discovered, was copied from the computer of a single Pentagon contractor, who happened to be a LimeWire user. She didn’t share those files intentionally; instead, her local file system was exposed through LimeWire.
“As I was preparing for the testimony,” Clark continued, “I asked [Tiversa CEO] Bob Boback to search for anything marked ‘Classified: Secret’ or ‘Secret: NOFORN’ [No Foreign Nationals]. He pulled up over 200 classified documents in a few hours running his search engine. These documents were everything from INSUMs [intelligence summaries] of what’s going on in Iraq, to contractor data on radio frequency manipulation to defeat improvised explosive devices. This material was all secret, it was all legitimate. I called the chairman of the National Intelligence Advisory Board, who works for [NSA Chairman] Adm. [Mike] McConnell, and shipped the information to him. He looked at it, he called NSA, NSA has it, they’re now seized with the problem, I think.”
NSA Surveillance: FBI Director Contradicts Gonzales’ Testimony
July 27th, 2007Via: CNN:
FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress Thursday that the confrontation between then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in Ashcroft’s hospital room in 2004 concerned a controversial surveillance program — an apparent contradiction of Senate testimony given Tuesday by Gonzales.
Mueller said he spoke with Ashcroft soon after Gonzales left the hospital and was told the meeting dealt with “an NSA [National Security Agency] program that has been much discussed, yes.”
Mueller made the comment as he testified before the House Judiciary Committee.
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Gonzales, now attorney general, said he had visited the ailing Ashcroft in the hospital to discuss “other intelligence activities,” not the surveillance program.
Womb-on-a-Chip May Boost IVF Successes
July 27th, 2007Via: New Scientist:
Can conception, the most intimate of human experiences, be automated?
Teruo Fujii of the University of Tokyo in Japan and his colleagues are building a microfluidic chip to nurture the first stages of pregnancy. They hope, eventually, to create a fully automated artificial uterus in which egg and sperm are fed in at one end and an early embryo comes out the other, ready for implanting in a real mother. They say using such a device could improve the success rate of IVF.
NYSE Imposes Trading Curbs as Stocks Tumble
July 26th, 2007Plunge Protection Team, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
Via: Reuters:
The New York Stock Exchange said on Tuesday it instituted downside trading curbs at 11:06 a.m. (1506 GMT) as U.S. stocks fell sharply on concerns about deterioration in the credit markets.
The New York Stock Exchange Composite Index (.NYA: Quote, Profile, Research), which is used to determine when to begin trading curbs, was down 205.45 points, or 2.07 percent, at 9,724.47.
The trading curbs require that all program selling of S&P 500 stocks must be on an up-tick.
It’s the Old Sell-Gold-to-Cover-Stock-Losses Play
July 26th, 2007WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Some of you will understand this:
Story #1: Dow Leads Global Selloff on Credit Woes:
Wall Street suffered its second-biggest plunge of the year Thursday, leading global markets lower as investors fled stocks amid increasing uneasiness about the mortgage and corporate lending markets. The Dow Jones industrials fell more than 350 points, while Treasury yields plunged as investors moved money into bonds.
Investors who had been able to shrug off discomfort about subprime mortgage problems and a more difficult environment for corporate borrowing appeared to finally succumb to those concerns. The Dow’s drop is the biggest since it plummeted 416 points on Feb. 27 after a nearly 10 percent decline in Chinese stock markets.
Feeding the selling were concerns that higher corporate borrowing costs will curb the rapid pace of takeovers that have driven major indexes this year. Investors also feared the sluggish environment for home sales and continued defaults in subprime loans would spur debt defaults and weigh on corporate earnings.
Story #2: NY Gold, Silver Fall Sharply On Liquidation:
Recent long liquidation continued in gold and silver futures Thursday, withtechnically oriented selling accelerating the declines, analysts said.
They cited profit-taking in connection with the sharp loss in U.S. equities, plus an unwinding of so-called carry trades. Market watchers also cited general risk aversion. One added that Comex gold and silver options expiration appeared to add to the selling pressure.
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Genocide: The Hidden Agenda Behind the Bush Adminstration’s Bio-Fuel Plan
July 26th, 2007Via: Global Research:
In the mid-1970’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a protégé of the Rockefeller family and of its institutions stated, “Control the oil and you control entire nations; control the food and you control the people.” The same cast of characters who brought the world the Iraq war, the global scramble to control oil, who brought us patented genetically manipulated seeds and now Terminator suicide seeds, and who cry about the “problem of world over-population,” are now backing conversion of global grain production to burn as fuel at a time of declining global grain reserves. That alone should give pause for thought. As the popular saying goes, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”
Related: Rising Food Prices Curb Aid To Global Poor
Former U.S. Soldiers Receiving Bills for Equipment Damaged During War
July 26th, 2007In other news, announced by Rumsfeld on September 10, 2001, the Department of Defense is missing $2.3 trillion. I wonder if the people responsible for looting that inconceivable sum of money are getting collection notices in the mail.
Fascist regimes always eat their own. People who serve these governments are almost always ignorant of this basic characteristic of fascism. Anyone who works for the U.S. Government, or its contractors/mercenaries/etc. must read the classic, Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (used copies starting at 1 cent).
Via: CBS:
Former Army Specialist Rodriguez started getting bills for $700 for lost or damaged government property this summer. Although he was discharged some four years ago, bills recently arrived demanding payment, but giving no details on what or why — nor do they offer a way to dispute the charges.
“For doing my job you’re going to bill me?” Rodriguez said.
And he’s not alone. A 2006 government report found more than 1,000 soldiers being billed a total of $1.5 million. And while fighting overseas put their lives on the line, this battle on paper could cost them their future by ruining their credit. Rodriguez will be reported to credit agencies next month.
