Month: July 2007

Russia To Locate Missiles In Baltic Coast In Response to US Missile Defense Plans

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Let’s see. We locate a “Missile Shield” against Iran somewhere that leaves much of NATO naked, but is along the Russian border, and we are surprised when they get huffy?

This is Condi Rice trying to recreate the “Evil Empire” because her profession has vanished with its fall.

Someone should tell her that Diplomat means more than, “An extremely unwise thing to call Guido “Knuckles” Lomat“.

FWIW, missiles fired from Kaliningrad could take a depressed trajectory, and strike NATO targets with little or no warning, and said “missile shield”, which is exclusively exo-atmospheric, won’t be able to touch it.

Russia threatens European rocket deployment
MOSCOW (AFP): Russia issued a veiled threat on Wednesday to deploy rockets in its Kaliningrad region bordering the European Union if the United States built a missile defence shield in central Europe.

Moscow and Washington are locked in a standoff over the US plans for a radar station in the Czech Republic and interceptor rockets in Poland.

Russia says the plans threaten its security.

The threat to put missiles in Kaliningrad was made by the influential First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov only two days after President Vladimir Putin again raised the missile shield dispute with US President George W. Bush.

Putin has suggested to Bush that the United States use a Russian-controlled radar in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, near the Iranian border, instead of having a shield in central Europe.

Putin has also offered the use of another radar under construction at Armavir in southern Russia.

“If our offers are accepted, Russia will not consider it necessary to deploy new rocket units in the European part of the country, including Kaliningrad, to counter the threat” from the United States, Ivanov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

Ivanov, who was on a visit to Uzbekistan, said Russia had “found an asymmetrical and effective response” to the US project for a European shield.

“We know what we’re doing…. If our proposals are not accepted, we will take adequate measures,” Ivanov said.

Washington insists that its proposed missile shield is intended to guard against possible attack from “rogue states” such as Iran. Moscow believes the systems are directed against Russia.

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They believe that it is targeted against Russia because it is targeted against Russia.

NKorea’s Kim indicates it will disarm nuclear weapons : Nuclear Weapons : Defense News Air Force Army Navy News

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Funny that. Once the US stopped calling the DPRK c***s*ck*rs, and stopped calling for regime change, and stopped reneging on deals, they are willing to talk.

These people really do believe that the US is planning to take over the country, and doing things like cutting an agreement one day, and reneging on it the next, as with the frozen money, only reinforces this paranoia.

Go figure.

NKorea’s Kim indicates it will disarm nuclear weapons

BEIJING (AFP): North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il indicated on Tuesday that he was ready to begin dismantling his country’s nuclear weapons, China’s official news agency reported.

In rare conciliatory remarks the leader of the communist state raised hopes that a stalled nuclear pact will finally be realised.

“Recently some signs of easing on the Korean peninsula have appeared,” Kim was quoted by the Xinhua news agency as saying.

“All sides should implement the initial actions (of a six-nation pact on eradicating North Korea’s nuclear capabilities)”, he said.

The comments, made during a meeting with visiting Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi, will strengthen hopes that the North will disarm.

Under the agreement struck in February, Pyongyang pledged to scrap its nuclear programmes in exchange for energy aid and various diplomatic incentives.

But implementation has been stalled by a financial dispute over millions of dollars of North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank due to US sanctions.

That obstacle was removed last week when the last of the funds were returned to Pyongyang.

In another hopeful sign, diplomatic sources in Berlin said on Tuesday that North Korea has agreed to broad cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog to close its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, the first step in the deal.

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Adventures in Amateur Rocketry

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Last night, we went to the local school playground with Charlie’s brand spanking new Estes® rocket.

We had tried to launch a few days earlier, and had gotten only fizzles, because the batteries were dubious.

This time it launched, and the parachute deployed. Charlie was very happy about this.

Unfortunately, I got the winds aloft wrong, and it drifted across the playground, over the school, and got hung up in a tree about 80 feet in the air.

It was my fault, I chose the location, so I’ll be replacing the rocket for Charlie (he spent his hard earned allowance on the first one), and Charlie was a very good sport about all of this.

Next time, I think we go to Hannah Moore Mark, which has a lot more space, and I check the winds better.

Hydrocarbons on Saturn’s Moon Hyperion

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Straight from the NASA Pages. The more we study the solar system, the more we find of “the stuff of life”.

I think that there are a lot of planets out there supporting life currently, though not in our solar system. (Mars might have at one time)

NASA Finds Hydrocarbons on Saturn’s Moon Hyperion

PASADENA , Calif. – NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has revealed for the first time surface details of Saturn’s moon Hyperion, including cup-like craters filled with hydrocarbons that may indicate more widespread presence in our solar system of basic chemicals necessary for life.

Hyperion yielded some of its secrets to the battery of instruments aboard Cassini as the spacecraft flew close by in September 2005. Water and carbon dioxide ices were found, as well as dark material that fits the spectral profile of hydrocarbons.

Organics Sprinkled on Hyperion Image right:This map shows the composition of a portion of Hyperion’s surface. Blue shows the maximum exposure of frozen water, red denotes carbon dioxide ice (“dry ice”), magenta indicates regions of water plus carbon dioxide, yellow is a mix of carbon dioxide and an unidentified material. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/Ames/Space Science Institute
+ Full image and caption
Related images: + Hyperion’s Kaleidoscope of Color
+ Hyperion’s Icy Surface
+ Related story

A paper appearing in the July 5 issue of Nature reports details of Hyperion’s surface craters and composition observed during this flyby, including keys to understanding the moon’s origin and evolution over 4.5 billion years. This is the first time scientists were able to map the surface material on Hyperion.

“Of special interest is the presence on Hyperion of hydrocarbons–combinations of carbon and hydrogen atoms that are found in comets, meteorites, and the dust in our galaxy,” said Dale Cruikshank, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and the paper’s lead author. “These molecules, when embedded in ice and exposed to ultraviolet light, form new molecules of biological significance. This doesn’t mean that we have found life, but it is a further indication that the basic chemistry needed for life is widespread in the universe.”

Cassini’s ultraviolet imaging spectrograph and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer captured compositional variations in Hyperion’s surface. These instruments, capable of mapping mineral and chemical features of the moon, sent back data confirming the presence of frozen water found by earlier ground-based observations, but also discovered solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) mixed in unexpected ways with the ordinary ice. Images of the brightest regions of Hyperion’s surface show frozen water that is crystalline in form, like that found on Earth.

“Most of Hyperion’s surface ice is a mix of frozen water and organic dust, but carbon dioxide ice is also prominent. The carbon dioxide is not pure, but is somehow chemically attached to other molecules,” explained Cruikshank.

Prior spacecraft data from other moons of Saturn, as well as Jupiter’s moons Ganymede and Callisto, suggest that the carbon dioxide molecule is “complexed,” or attached with other surface material in multiple ways. “We think that ordinary carbon dioxide will evaporate from Saturn’s moons over long periods of time,” said Cruikshank, “but it appears to be much more stable when it is attached to other molecules.”

“The Hyperion flyby was a fine example of Cassini’s multi-wavelength capabilities. In this first-ever ultraviolet observation of Hyperion, the detection of water ice tells us about compositional differences of this bizarre body,” said Amanda Hendrix, Cassini scientist on the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Hyperion, Saturn’s eighth largest moon, has a chaotic spin and orbits Saturn every 21 days. The July 5 issue of Nature also includes new findings from the imaging team about Hyperion’s strange, spongy-looking appearance. Details are online at: http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=3303 .

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

More information on the Cassini mission is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .


Media contact: Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Ruth Dasso Marlaire 650-604-4709
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

Taliban Learns from Iraq Insurgents

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You this whole “fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here”, bulls$%@ is going swimmingly.

We have created a petri dish for terrorists, and proving and training grounds for tactics ant technology to be used against us.

If this is safer, I’m going to have start taking up French Kissing Cobras as a hobby.

Taliban adopt deadly Iraqi tactics
6 Canadian soldiers and interpreter die as insurgents use powerful bomb against Canada’s strongest troop carrier

GRAEME SMITH

July 5, 2007

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Six Canadian soldiers and their interpreter died yesterday as the Taliban continued to launch bold attacks inside zones considered mostly pacified, shifting their tactics toward the kind of bombings that have proved devastating in Iraq.

About a dozen military vehicles, Canadian and Afghan, were driving west along a gravel road after finishing a search of a village about 20 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city, when a powerful bomb detonated at 11 a.m. local time.

The explosion engulfed an RG-31 Nyala troop carrier, a vehicle manufactured in South Africa and specifically designed with a boat-like hull to withstand mine blasts. It’s the Canadians’ strongest vehicle against roadside bombs, but the insurgents have recently been wiring up bigger caches of ordnance and more sophisticated-shaped charges into their so-called improvised explosive devices, breaking through even the best armour.

“We’re not perfect and we do miss some, as we have seen today,” said Brigadier-General Tim Grant, the top Canadian commander in Afghanistan. “But the battle against the Taliban and the battle against their choice of weapons, IED, is successful.”

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SiliconValley.com – Court upholds ruling vs. publisher

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This was actually a VERY important decision. If it had gone the other way, you would have seen much of the internet based credit card activity simply stop.

It’s nice that someone has FINALLY found a limitation to “compensatory infringement.

Court upholds ruling vs. publisher

FIRM SOUGHT TO PUNISH CREDIT CARD ISSUERS OVER PIRACY OF ADULT IMAGES
By Dawn C. Chmielewski
Los Angeles Times
San Jose Mercury News

Credit card companies that process payments for Internet pirates are not liable for copyright infringement, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco decided that a judge in San Jose was right in dismissing a lawsuit brought by a publisher in Beverly Hills against Visa International, MasterCard and other financial companies.

The 2-1 decision found that Perfect 10, a publisher of adult magazines and Web sites, failed to prove that credit card providers were liable because the financial companies played no role in helping people find or download the infringing images.

The decision dealt a setback to Perfect 10’s efforts to cripple Web sites that sell access to its erotic photographs without permission. The company said it would request a new hearing by a larger panel of appeals court judges.

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Some Things Never Change

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One of these things is that you will never find a more useless, self-centered, inbred, addle brained royal family than the House of Habsburg.

That being said, why the hell did this guy, get this back in the first place? Its a national treasure, not a plaything for the idle wealthy.

The estate is a duty to those who choose to serve their land in word and deed as nobility, not a toy to be discarded when bored.

Heir puts ‘Dracula’s Castle’ for sale

By ALEXANDRU ALEXE, Associated Press WriterMon Jul 2, 2:18 PM ET

A Habsburg heir is hoping someone will take a bite of his offer Monday to sell “Dracula’s Castle” in Transylvania.

The medieval Bran Castle, perched on a cliff near Brasov in mountainous central Romania, is a top tourist attraction because of its ties to Prince Vlad the Impaler, the warlord whose cruelty inspired Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, “Dracula.”

Legend has it that the ruthless Vlad — who earned his nickname because of the way he tortured his enemies — spent one night in the 1400s at the castle.

The Habsburgs formally put the Bran Castle on the market Monday, a U.S.-based investment company said. No selling price was announced.

Bran Castle was built in the 14th century to serve as a fortress to protect against the invading Ottoman Turks. The royal family moved into the castle in the 1920s, living there until the communist regime confiscated it from Princess Ileana in 1948.

After being restored in the late 1980s and following the end of communist rule in Romania, it gained popularity as a tourist attraction known as “Dracula’s Castle.”

In May 2006, the castle was returned to Princess Ileana’s son, New York architect Archduke Dominic Habsburg. He pledged to keep it open as a museum until 2009.

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Opposition lawmakers have claimed the government’s decision to return the castle to Habsburg was illegal because of procedural errors.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

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I read this, and that’s what popped into my head.

Talking Trojan taunts victims
Malware authors have developed a talking Trojan capable of taunting its victims even as it goes about its work trashing their PCs.

The BotVoice-A Trojan (http://www.pandasoftware.com/com/virus_info/encyclopedia/overview.aspx?idvirus=166596&sitepanda=empresas) informs victims that their Windows PCs have been infected as it deletes files. The malware uses Windows text reader to play the following message:

You has been infected I repeat You has been infected and your system files has been deletes. Sorry. Have a Nice Day and bye bye.

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Developers Moving Away from Windows?

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One of the major draws of Windows is that everyone in the development community feels that they have to do Windows.

This advantage is decreasing.

Developers diss Windows client
By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco
Going niche

The Windows client hegemony is breaking down with developers targeting different operating systems and multiple client devices.

The latest Evans Data Corp poll of North American developers found 12 per cent fewer building applications for Windows than a year ago.

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Democracy Taken to Stupid Extremes

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Ummm…This has fiasco written all over it.

On the other hand, Shatner and Nimoy are sure to get Knighthoods.

Brown calls for e-petitions to get debated in Parliament
By Chris Williams
Published Wednesday 4th July 2007 15:22 GMT

Gordon Brown has thrown caution to the web, and called for a new e-petitions system which would force Parliament to debate issues popular with internet users.

Buried in a wide-ranging parliamentary statement on constitutional reform yesterday, he said: “I also encourage this House to agree a new process for ensuring consideration of petitions from members of the public.”

In a later briefing with journalists, the Prime Minister’s spokesman explained that a consultation would be held on setting the threshold figure at which a parliamentary debate would be triggered by petitions.

As evidence for the consultation, we’d submit the fact that according to the 2001 census, 390,000 Britons claim to belong to the Jedi religion. Perhaps quite a high threshold would be best, then.

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Ummmm….I Got Nothing Here.

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This is too weird for me to comment on. I’m left speechless.

Chinese women crave Bill Gates’ spermGive me a baby, big fella
By Lester Haines → More by this author
Published Wednesday 4th July 2007 08:50 GMT
Mobile computing: Opportunities and risk – Free whitepaper

There’s some good news this morning for Bill Gates: if he ever finds himself fallen on hard times he can always make a few quid offloading his sperm on eager Chinese female recipients.

That’s if China’s Self magazine is to be believed, because the IT potentate secured second spot in a poll which asked 1,000 women from 15 cities whose precious bodily fluid they’d most like to accommodate for some hot baby-making action.

Indeed, so sought-after is Bill’s magic water that he beat Becks and Brad Pitt into fifth and tenth places, respectively. The ideal sperm donor was not, however, George Clooney or Larry Ellison, but Hong Kong entertainer Andy Lau.

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Rich People Are the Only Ones Still Buying Houses in NY.

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Condos in New York are seven figure, and sometimes eight figure purchases.

The very well off, as opposed to the hyper-rich, cannot afford this, and they buy into co-ops.

The housing market is losing ground everywhere except with the at the very, very, very, top.

Co-ops Slip, but Condos Lead Rise in Manhattan Apartment Prices
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

While housing prices are falling in many parts of the country, the cost of a Manhattan apartment is continuing to rise over all. But a stark divide is emerging between the prices of co-ops and condominiums. More buyers are choosing condominiums over co-ops and are paying far more for them, according to studies being released today.

The average price of a condo in Manhattan rose by as much as 28 percent in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, according to data tracked by four large real estate brokerages. In the same period, the average co-op price dropped by as much as 10 percent. Buyers paid an average of $1.49 million for a condominium, compared with $1.13 million for a co-op, according to figures from Brown Harris Stevens.

Brooklyn did not share Manhattan’s price rise. There were more deals, but the average apartment price dropped by 4 percent, to $629,000, compared with last year, according to data from the Corcoran Group.

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Fred Thompson Leaked Congressional Investigation Details to Nixon

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Fred Thompson leaking information to the Nixon White House?

Not all would put a heroic sheen on Thompson’s Watergate role

The Senate Watergate Committee chief counsel, Samuel Dash, crouched to confer with Fred Thompson (left) minority counsel, and Senator Howard Baker during a July 1973 hearing. (James Atherton/ Washington Post/ File)

BTW, what the is up with that hair? Looks like the 1970s were not a great time for hair (my picture on my profial there is circa 1979)

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | July 4, 2007

WASHINGTON — The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight — asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system — he telephoned Nixon’s lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, “At That Point in Time,” Thompson said he acted with “no authority” in divulging the committee’s knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon’s resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson’s actions.

“Thompson was a mole for the White House,” Armstrong said in an interview. “Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was.”

Asked about the matter this week, Thompson — who is preparing to run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination — responded via e-mail without addressing the specific charge of being a Nixon mole: “I’m glad all of this has finally caused someone to read my Watergate book, even though it’s taken them over thirty years.”

The view of Thompson as a Nixon mole is strikingly at odds with the former Tennessee senator’s longtime image as an independent-minded prosecutor who helped bring down the president he admired. Indeed, the website of Thompson’s presidential exploratory committee boasts that he “gained national attention for leading the line of inquiry that revealed the audio-taping system in the White House Oval Office.” It is an image that has been solidified by Thompson’s portrayal of a tough-talking prosecutor in the television series “Law and Order.”

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People that I Hate To Agree With

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There are times when I find myself agreeing with people or organizations that I find abhorent.
This is one of those times.
First, Andrew Sullivan, Proud Endorser of the Racist and Sloppy Bell Curve:

The bottom line for Americans is this: George Bush’s friends do not go to jail. Your friends do.

This is a very simple matter. Either Libby is subject to the rule of law or not. Bush’s action is constitutionally solid but morally and politically indefensible – an act of arrogance born of permanent privilege that still, somehow, even after all these years, manages to shock.

And if that didn’t make me feel queasy, there is The Moonie Washington Times, whose sole purpose seems to be giving the New York Sun a run for its money regarding the hackticular nature of it’s news and editorial sections:

But none of this exonerates the commutation. Perjury is a serious crime. This newspaper argued on behalf of its seriousness in the 1990s, during the Clinton perjury controversy, and today is no different. We’d have hoped that more conservatives would agree. The integrity of the judicial process depends on fact-finding and truth-telling. A jury found Libby guilty of not only perjury but also obstruction justice and lying to a grand jury. It handed down a very supportable verdict.

Morons Who Get Elected:EU Edition

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Well, it looks like the US hasn’t cornered the market on stupid.

EC wants to suppress internet bomb-making guides
By Lewis Page
Published Wednesday 4th July 2007 13:49 GMT

The European Commission (EC) has announced plans to frustrate terrorism by suppressing online guides on bomb-making.

“It should simply not be possible to leave people free to instruct other people on the internet on how to make a bomb – that has nothing to do with freedom of expression,” EC vice president Franco Frattini said yesterday.
Mr Frattini is “responsible for Freedom, Security and Justice.”

If this guy were responsible for generating electricity from George Orwell spinning in his grave, he’d be doing his job well.

His current job? …. Not so much.

When asked how the EC planned to suppress web bomb manufacture instructions hosted outside EU borders, it appeared that officials planned to act at the level of ISPs in Europe.

The Times quoted a commission spokesman as saying: “You always need a provider here that gives you access to websites. They can decide technically which websites to allow. Otherwise, how would China block internet sites? There are no technological obstacles, only legal ones.”
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Holding up China as a model of internet access????? Puhleeze.

FTC abandons net neutrality

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This should surprise no one, the Bush admin will always make the wrong choice, particularly when it.

Contact your congresscritters about this, and help get a network neutrality bill passed.

FTC abandons net neutrality
End of the internet as we know it
Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 02 Jul 2007
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to abandon net neutrality and allow telecoms companies to charge websites for access.

The FTC said in a report that, despite popular support for net neutrality, it was minded to let the market sort out the issue.

This means that the organisation will not stand in the way of companies using differential pricing to make sure that some websites can be viewed more quickly than others. The report also counsels against net neutrality legislation.

“This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving dynamic industry of broadband internet access, which is generally moving towards more, not less, competition,” FTC chairman Deborah Platt Majoras wrote.

“In the absence of significant market failure, or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area.”

The report has caused outrage in the online community. Many are worried that any abandonment of net neutrality will harm competition, since it will allow big companies to outspend start-ups.
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Sony PlayStation 3 is Done. Put a fork in it.

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They are so crushed by the Wii (what a stupid f$#@ing name) that they are going to pimp their already meager fan base.

Product placement won’t bother the fans, but the privacy issues of reselling gamer data will.

Look at Real. People hate them more than Microflaccid now, and there are multiple open source Real players because of this.

Sony PlayStation to sell user data to advertisers
There’s already plenty of product placement in video games, but Sony (SNE) appears to have plans to take the nascent industry — in which advertisers only spent $80 million last year — to a much more sophisticated level. The company has agreed to let Nielsen track the behavior of PlayStation gamers to let advertisers better understand gamers’ demographics, how much time they spend on a given game, and how closely they pay attention to the product placement. Sony and Nielsen aren’t being totally clear yet on how they’re going to acquire the information, but it could be a combination of self-reported data and stats gleaned directly from the consoles themselves somehow.

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