Ex-L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca Sentenced to Three Years in Prison in Jail Corruption Scandal
May 12th, 2017Via: Los Angeles Times:
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, once a towering, respected figure in policing, was sentenced Friday to three years in federal prison for his role in a scheme to obstruct an FBI investigation of abuses in county jails, marking an end to a corruption scandal that has roiled the Sheriff’s Department for several years.
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Excoriating Baca’s refusal to accept responsibility for having overseen and condoned the obstruction ploy carried out by subordinates, the judge portrayed him as a man driven by his desire to protect his own reputation and maintain control over the Sheriff’s Department.
“Your actions embarrass the thousands of men and women [in the department] who put their lives on the line every day,” Anderson said to Baca. “They were a gross abuse of the trust the public placed in you.”
New Zealand Population Surges Most Since World Turmoil of 1974
May 12th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
The last time New Zealand’s population grew this much, the world was reeling from an oil crisis and Richard Nixon’s resignation from the White House.
The small nation at the bottom of the South Pacific saw its population surge by 100,300 people in the year to March 31, the biggest nominal increase since European colonization began in the 1840s, according to Statistics New Zealand. In percentage terms, the 2.1 percent gain is the largest since 1974, the year the price of oil quadrupled and U.S. President Nixon was forced to resign by the Watergate scandal.
The Boring Company: Tunnel Boring Machine Assembly Underway in Los Angeles
May 12th, 2017Even now, even as the machine is being assembled, I still keep asking myself, “Is this really going to happen?”
Via: Electrek:
Even though Elon Musk described his new Boring Company as “a few engineers and interns”, it seems to be moving incredibly fast.
They took delivery of their first boring machine last month and Musk now unveils new pictures of the entry hole, staging area for the machine, and the start of his network of tunnels under Los Angeles.
DIY EV and Powerwall/ESS: Insane Deal on New LG Lithium Ion Packs
May 11th, 2017Heads up for people doing DIY EV and ESS projects—and no need to hear from the Nervous Nellies.
Jehu Garcia grew up in Tijuana with a dirt floor in his house and a hole for a toilet. All day, the Nervous Nellies tell him that he’s going to blow himself up after poking his eye out. Unlike the Nervous Nellies, though, Jehu has been driving around his own electric VW microbus that he converted to electric by himself with ZERO formal education in electronics.
Go, Jehu, go!
Anyway, here’s the deal he found:
I’d personally wait for some of these packs to get into the hands of the DIY community to verify capacity and discharge rate before ordering. A big unknown is the included BMS, but even if you have the scrap the BMS, we’ve never seen a deal like this on new, high discharge rate cells. Even as good as this is, Jehu is in contact with other large liquidators who say the situation gets even better from here. More and larger modules are on the way.
Unfortunately, this is U.S. only.
If you know of anyone in Europe and/or Australia who is looking to distribute these in quantities ranging from pallets to containers: Contact Jehu.
Note: I have no relationship with Jehu or anyone else related to these cells. It’s all just FYI.
Via: Jehu Garcia:
Roundup in Vaccines
May 11th, 2017Via: Moms Across America:
Glyphosate, a chemical ingredient found in Monsanto’s Roundup and hundreds of other herbicides, has been found in vaccines. Moms Across America received preliminary screening results from Microbe Inotech Laboratories Inc. of St. Louis, Missouri which show the DTap Adacel (Sanofi Pasteur) vaccine had 0.123 ppb, Influenza Fluvirin (Novaris) 0.331 ppb and HepB Energix-B (Glaxo Smith Kline) 0.325 and Pneumonoccal Vax Polyvalent Pneumovax 23, (Merck) had 0.107 ppb of glyphosate.The MMR II (Merck) vaccine, which CDC whistle blower Dr.William Thompson has linked to autism, had levels up to 25 times higher than the other vaccines, at 2.671ppb. Subsequently, multiple rounds of additional independent tests have confirmed these findings at or above the same levels.
Tunnel Collapse at Hanford Nuclear Waste Site
May 11th, 2017Via: CBC:
When workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeastern Washington state suddenly found a hole in the ground on Tuesday morning, there was cause for concern.
Nowhere in the United States is there more nuclear waste and radioactive contamination than at Hanford, which has been the focus of a massive, complex cleanup effort by the U.S. Department of Energy since 1989. The site was used for decades to produce weapons-grade nuclear fuel, beginning with the Manhattan Project and the Second World War.
It just so happened that this hole — a “subsidence of soil” according to the Energy Department — had appeared above a concrete tunnel with radioactive equipment stored inside. The concern was that if the roof of the tunnel collapsed it could release long-trapped contaminated material into the air.
While a portion of the tunnel roof did collapse, officials said “there is still no indication of a release of contamination from the hole.” But that’s not to say the site — which was never designed to hold this much waste for as long as it has — doesn’t pose other environmental risks.
Tesla Solar Roof Up for Preorder
May 10th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Lifetime physical warranty, 30 year solar output warranty.
Via: Electrek:
The value of Tesla’s solar roof is closely linked to its durability and its ability to generate electricity over decades.
Musk previously discussed the possibility of making the warranty last for the lifetime of the house on which it is installed and they actually did it:
“Made with tempered glass, Solar Roof tiles are more than three times stronger than standard roofing tiles. That’s why we offer the best warranty in the industry – the lifetime of your house, or infinity, whichever comes first.”
That’s for the tiles themselves. The solar power generation is guaranteed for 30 years, which is on the higher end in the solar panel industry…
Trump Meets with Kissinger [???]
May 10th, 2017I shit you not.
Via: NPR:
After the Lavrov session had concluded, members of the U.S. media were allowed into the Oval Office, where they found the president sitting with Henry Kissinger, who served as President Richard Nixon’s secretary of state. The meeting hadn’t been listed on the president’s official schedule.
Trump said he and Kissinger had met to talk “about Russia and various other matters,” according to the pool report.
Storm
May 10th, 2017The power isn’t out for us yet, but it will be. See you on the other side.
Mexico Was Second Deadliest Country in 2016
May 10th, 2017Via: CNN:
It was the second deadliest conflict in the world last year, but it hardly registered in the international headlines.
As Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan dominated the news agenda, Mexico’s drug wars claimed 23,000 lives during 2016 — second only to Syria, where 50,000 people died as a result of the civil war.
