Afghanistan: CIA’s “Cobalt” Black Site
October 3rd, 2016Via: Reuters:
Two Tunisian men who spent 12 years in U.S. custody in Afghanistan said CIA interrogators tortured them using previously unreported techniques that included threatening them with a makeshift electric chair and beating them with batons so brutally that they suffered broken bones, Human Rights Watch reported on Monday.
The accounts, which could not be independently confirmed, raised new questions about how prisoners were treated in a former CIA prison in Afghanistan that remains shrouded in secrecy.
Ryan Trapani, a CIA spokesman, said the “CIA reviewed its records and found nothing to support these new claims.”
But Daniel Jones, who led a Senate investigation into the CIA detention program, said the accounts given by the two men, Ridha al-Najjar, 51, and Lotfi al-Arabi El Gherissi, 52, were important because so little is known about the “Cobalt” black site, where an Afghan detainee froze to death in 2002.
“The committee found that the COBALT detention site kept so few written records that it was impossible for the Senate, or the CIA, to determine how many individuals were detained there,” Jones said. “And what exactly was done to those detained.”
The two men had not publicly described their treatment before, Human Rights Watch said. Interrogators accused Najjar of being a bodyguard of Osama bin Laden and Gherissi of being an al Qaeda member, but both were returned to Tunisia in 2015 and released.
Gherissi said his guards put him in the makeshift electric chair, which he said had plugs for prisoners’ fingers with wires attached and a metal cap for a prisoner’s head. The former detainees said they were not electrocuted and the chair was attached to a wall pipe.
An independent medical expert hired by Human Rights Watch said that X-rays of Najjar showed his ankle had been broken and had not healed properly. Gherissi was missing two teeth.
A September 2002 CIA cable described Najjar as a “clearly broken man” when he was held at Cobalt who was “on the verge of a complete breakdown.”
Despite that assessment, the CIA continued to torture Najjar, according to Laura Pitter, the Human Rights Watch investigator who interviewed the former detainees earlier this year in Tunisia.
Sabotage Speculation Gathers Around SpaceX Explosion
October 3rd, 2016Via: CNBC:
Rumors of potential sabotage are gathering around the investigation of the explosion during a recent SpaceX launch test.
SpaceX has been investigating the early September failure of a Falcon 9 rocket that caught fire and exploded on a Cape Canaveral launch pad just days before it was scheduled to launch.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the inquiry has taken a “bizarre twist,” suggesting SpaceX is considering sabotage a possible cause of the explosion. According to the Post, a SpaceX employee sought access to facilities belonging to SpaceX competitor United Launch Alliance — a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
SpaceX investigators came across something suspicious when reviewing video of the failure—”an odd shadow and then a white spot” on the roof of a ULA building, according to the Post. A SpaceX employee seeking access to the building was turned away, but Air Force investigators later dispatched to the facility did not find anything on the roof.
SpaceX sent a statement CNBC saying that a “preliminary review of the data and debris suggests a breach in the second stage’s helium system” on the Falcon 9, “but the cause of the breach is still unknown.”
Not The Onion: ‘A Robot Baby Intended to Make Lonely People More Happy’
October 3rd, 2016Via: Independent:
Toyota has created a tiny robot baby that it hopes can make lonely people more happy.
The company’s Kirobo Mini is meant to help provide a companion. It looks like a baby – and could even serve that purpose for people in Japan, where it will be sold and where falling birth rates mean there are fewer and fewer children.
The little robot is four inches tall, speaks like a baby and will cost £300 when it goes on sale. It is a small version of the original Kirobo robot – which had a lot more capabilities and was sent into space in 2013.
Pentagon Paid for Fake ‘Al Qaeda’ Videos
October 2nd, 2016I wonder if there was a package deal to make ISIS videos as well…
Via: Daily Beast:
The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda program in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal.
Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according to a former employee.
The agency’s staff worked alongside high-ranking U.S. military officers in their Baghdad Camp Victory headquarters as the insurgency raged outside.
Bell Pottinger’s former chairman Lord Tim Bell confirmed to the Sunday Times, which has worked with the Bureau on this story, that his firm had worked on a “covert” military operation “covered by various secrecy documents.”
Bell Pottinger reported to the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Council on its work in Iraq, he said.
Bell, one of Britain’s most successful public relations executives, is credited with honing Margaret Thatcher’s steely image and helping the Conservative party win three elections. The agency he co-founded has had a roster of clients including repressive regimes and Asma al-Assad, the wife of the Syrian president.
Don’t Talk to Cops
October 2nd, 2016Book: You Have the Right to Remain Innocent by James Duane
Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition
October 1st, 2016Via: Space:
In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft that would venture far out into deep space, each carrying a golden record with a message from Earth for any aliens the vessels might encounter. Now, for the first time ever, that record will be available to people on Earth.
A new Kickstarter campaign is making copies of that golden record available to the public. Other than the two copies on NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft, only 10 copies exist, most of which are on display in NASA facilities. Even Carl Sagan, who led the golden record project, could not get his hands on a copy.
But now, David Pescovitz from the website Boing Boing and Institute for the Future, Timothy Daly of Amoeba Music, and designer Lawrence Azerrad have come together to create near-exact replicas of the gold-plated phonograph records to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Voyager launches. Reserving a copy of the golden record costs $98, but the campaign also offers smaller, Voyager-themed gifts for smaller donations of $10 and up.
Related: Kickstarter: Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition
California: Governor Authorizes Fully Autonomous Vehicle Testing Without Human Driver Backup
September 30th, 2016Via: Mercury News:
California Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed a bill that for the first time allows testing on public roads of self-driving vehicles with no steering wheels, brake pedals or accelerators. A human driver as backup is not required, but the vehicles will be limited to speeds of less than 35 mph.
The legislation applies only to a pilot project by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority at an autonomous-vehicle testing facility at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station, and at a San Ramon business park containing public roads.
At the “GoMentum Station” in the former naval facility, Honda has been testing self-driving cars, and the firm Otto Motors, a division of a Canadian robotics company, has been working on autonomous trucks. The Transportation Authority has said Google and Apple have expressed interest in using the facility.
Related: Driverless, Electric Shuttles Now Operating in Lyon, France
First Evidence of Deep-Sea Animals Ingesting Microplastics
September 30th, 2016Via: Science Bulletin:
Scientists working in the mid-Atlantic and south-west Indian Ocean have found evidence of microfibers ingested by deep sea animals including hermit crabs, squat lobsters and sea cucumbers, revealing for the first time the environmental fallout of microplastic pollution.
The UK government recently announced that it is to ban plastic microbeads, commonly found in cosmetics and cleaning materials, by the end of 2017. This followed reports by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee about the environmental damage caused microbeads. The Committee found that a single shower can result in 100,000 plastic particles entering the ocean.
Researchers from the universities of Bristol and Oxford, working on the Royal Research Ship (RRS) James Cook at two sites, have now found evidence of microbeads inside creatures at depths of between 300m and 1800m. This is the first time microplastics — which can enter the sea via the washing of clothes made from synthetic fabrics or from fishing line nets — have been shown to have been ingested by animals at such depth.
The results are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Microsoft: 5000 Staff to AI Division
September 30th, 2016Via: Microsoft:
Microsoft Corp. announced on Thursday it has formed the Microsoft AI and Research Group, bringing together Microsoft’s world-class research organization with more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers focused on the company’s AI product efforts. The new group will be led by computer vision luminary Harry Shum, a 20-year Microsoft veteran whose career has spanned leadership roles across Microsoft Research and Bing engineering.
My First Solar Customer to Ditch the Grid
September 29th, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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I just sold my first off grid system to a customer with grid power available at his house. He’s going pretty small (2 kW array, 4x 230AH 12V AGM batteries, 4kW/48V pure sine wave inverter), but he said he’s fed up with dealing with electricity retailers here. His loads are a high efficiency fridge, two laptops, Internet/wi-fi router, LED lights, water kettle, water pressure pump. House hot water will be via on-demand/tankless gas system. He’s going to wait to eventually add an evacuated tube direct solar water heater, and then use the gas heater to boost the temp when necessary. 2kW petrol generator backup.
In a decade or so, when his AGM batteries are on their way out, future iterations of Aquion’s 48v stacks (usable depth of discharge: 100%!) will probably/finally be cheap here and he’ll be able to drop those right into his rig without any modifications.
Anyway, I tried to talk this guy down. I really did.
I offered much cheaper grid tie alternatives that wouldn’t restrict his load size or duration of use, etc.
Not interested.
Are you paying attention, NZ electricity retailers? Your high prices and hostility toward solar power just lost you 100% of this family’s money forever.
Have a nice day.
