2014-11-28
2014-11-27
2014-11-26
Bob Lonsberry
What Ferguson Means to Cops
It could have been him or her, instead of Darren Wilson, who pulled that trigger on Michael Brown. Or some such similar young man. Every cop in ..
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Fwd: China
Fwd: National Guard
'Did Holder Cause the National Guard to be Kept From Ferguson?
http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2014/11/25/holder-national-guard-ferguson/
Fwd: Wilson
With tensions running high in Ferguson over the lack of an indictment for Wilson's killing of Michael Brown, the paper has published the officer's approximate address -- the street and town where he lives with his new wife, who also is named.
Given the racial animosity unleashed by Brown's death, given the rioting and the looting and the stores that were set afire, how can a news organization make it easier for some crazy zealot to track down Wilson?
But there it is in the paper:
"Officer Wilson and [blank] own a home together on [blank] Lane in [blank], Mo., a St. Louis suburb about a half-hour drive from Ferguson."
I mean, why not add a locator map?'
Fwd: Steffen in the news again
2014-11-25
Fwd: Russia
Fwd: Small Engine
Adams Capital Management and Northwater Capital gave Nick Shkolnik $1.25 M and two years to try to revinvent the internal combustion engine. Shkolnik thinks his engine will be 2.5 times more fuel efficient than current ICEs. His company, LiquidPiston, is basing the engine on the High Efficiency Hybrid Cycle (HEHC) thermodynamic cycle, which is totally like the Otto, Diesel and Atkinson cycles.
Fuel is compressed like the Diesel cycle, combusted like the Otto cycle and allowed to expanded like the Atkinson cycle.
http://green.autoblog.com/2007/09/04/liquidpiston-might-improve-ice-efficiency-250-percent/
Fwd: Iran
The deputy speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Hassan Abutorabi-Fard, said that Iran had learned from the nuclear negotiations that it had a strong hand to play. "Today, we can speak to the U.S. and its allies with the tone of power," he said in remarks quoted by the Fars news agency. "A lesson can be taken from the recent nuclear talks that, for various reasons, the U.S. is not reliable."..
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Tuesday…"In the nuclear issue, America and colonial European countries got together and did their best to bring the Islamic Republic to its knees, but they could not do so — and they will not be able to do so," Mr. Khamenei's personal website quoted him as saying.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/26/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-talks-extension.html
Fwd: Misery
"I know that there's at least a dozen buildings that have been set on fire," St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said at a press conference today. "Most of those are total losses. I know that I have two St. Louis County police cars that are basically melted on Florissant Road, just to the north of Suburban [Avenue]."'
http://abcnews.go.com/US/tour-destruction-ferguson-riots/story?id=27163962
Fwd: National Guard
But no National Guard troops were deployed to Ferguson.
Fwd: biocircuits
Fwd: cool
Fwd: Ukraine
Fwd: Power
Back in 2007 Google commanded star-spangled headlines with its new high-tech venture to go all in on the next big thing in technology: green renewable energy.
...
Well, today those power plants don't exist, and Weihl is gone from Google. CEO Larry Page has decided that the grandiose program called Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) can't make renewable energy cheaper than coal.
Fwd: Power
"Enough is enough," Senator Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, declared.
She said she was furious that the president would nominate someone from Wall Street. "It's time for the Obama administration to loosen the hold that Wall Street banks have over economic policy-making," she wrote on The Huffington Post'
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/sen-warrens-misplaced-ire-at-nominee/?_r=0
Fwd: Wilson
The next thing he noticed were Brown's bright yellow socks with green marijuana leaves on them, he said. He pulled up in front of Johnson with his window down and said "why don't you guys walk on the sidewalk." Wilson said Johnson replied "we are almost to our destination" and kept going.
He testified that he asked Brown: "What's wrong with the sidewalk?" Brown replied "---- what you have to say."
Wilson said he noticed that his right hand was full of Cigarillos, items that had been reported stolen in a robbery a few minutes earlier.
"That's when it clicked for me," he said. He said he checked his mirror again to confirm that Johnson was wearing a black shirt as was described in the previous robbery. Both men continued walking; "they never once stopped, never got on the sidewalk."
He said he backed up and angled his car to get in front of them. He said he told Brown: "Hey, come here for a minute."
"As I'm opening the door, he turns, faces me, looks at me, and says 'what the ---- are you going to do about it,' and shuts my door, slammed it shut." Wilson said he told Brown to get back, but Brown "was just staring at me, almost like to intimidate or overpower me."
Wilson said he opened his door to push Brown backward, and told him to "get the ---- back."
Wilson said he saw Brown duck down and start pushing into his car. He said Brown hit him in the side of his face with a fist. "I think it was a full-on swing, but not a full shot." Wilson said he shielded himself with his arm.
Brown had a handful of Cigarillos in his left hand. Wilson said he heard Brown say "hey man hold these," presumably to Johnson…
"When I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding Hulk Hogan." Brown is described as 6-foot-4 and weighing well over 250 pounds…
Wilson said he was trying to open the door but couldn't. Then Wilson said Brown hit him again, with a "full swing."
"After he did that, next thing I remember is how do I get this guy away from me. What do I do not to get beaten inside my car," Wilson testified.
He said he considered using mace, but didn't want to reach with his left hand, which was shielding his face. Also, Brown's hands were in front of his own face, likely blocking the mace even if he could reach it. Wilson said he wears contacts; if any splashed back on him, he'd be unable to see. He said he considered grabbing his flashlight, but didn't think he could reach to the passenger side to get it.
"So the only other option I thought I had was my gun," he said. He drew it, he said, and told Brown to "get back or I'm going to shoot you."
Wilson said Brown immediately grabbed the gun and said, "you are too much of a ----- to shoot me." He said Brown grabbed the gun with his right hand and twisted it, pushing it down into Wilson's hip.
Wilson said he had already been punched in the face twice at that point and he feared "another one of those punches could knock me out or worse. … The third one could be fatal if he hit me right."
He said that when the gun went down to his hip he thought he was going to be shot. "I can feel his finger trying to get inside the trigger guard with my finger." "I distinctly remember envisioning a bullet going through my leg. I thought that was the next step."
Wilson said he managed to raise the gun. He pulled the trigger once "and nothing happens. It just clicks." He pulled it again and it clicked again. "At this point I'm like why isn't this working, this guy is going to kill me if he gets ahold of this gun. I pulled it a third time, it goes off." He said the bullet went through his door panel, "I think that kind of startled him and me at the same time."
After that, he said, Brown looked up at him with "the most intense aggressive face. The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon." He came back again, and Wilson said he pulled the trigger again and nothing happened. Brown hit him again and Wilson shielded his face, he said. He pulled the trigger again and it clicked. He racked his gun and pulled again; it fired.
After that, he said, Brown ran. "I see a cloud of dust behind him." He said he chased. Quickly, Brown stopped and so did Wilson, he said. "And then he starts to turn around. I tell him to get on the ground." Wilson said Brown looked at him and "made like a grunting, like aggravated sound." He said Brown made a fist with one hand and reached the other into his waistband and started running toward him.
"I shoot a series of shots," he said. He did not recall how many.
"I remember having tunnel vision on his right hand, that's all."
After the shots, Wilson said Brown was still coming at him. "He hadn't slowed down." He fired another round of shots. He saw Brown flinch but doesn't know how many rounds hit him or where. "The face that he had was looking straight through me, like I wasn't even there." He said that he was backing up, but that Brown closed to within eight or 10 feet. "He started to lean forward as he got that close, like he was going to just tackle me, just go right through me."
Wilson said he fired again, aiming for Brown's head. "All I see is his head and that's what I shot."'
2014-11-20
Fwd: Thailand
On Wednesday, police arrested five university students in the northeastern region of Khon Kaen after they flashed the symbol of rebellion against tyranny during a speech by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the former military chief of staff who deposed elected government leaders in May and suspended democracy.'
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82025431/
A major Thai cinema chain in Bangkok, Apex, was forced to cancel Thursday's premiere of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1," to prevent the latest film in the series based on author Suzanne Collins' dystopian trilogy from becoming a venue for expression of anti-coup sentiments.
The Apex Group, which operates two cinemas in Bangkok's Siam Square district, said it had stopped screening the film…Apex said that its decision was not directly connected to the student arrests. The chain said that it had been asked to sell 200 tickets to the film at its Scala theatre and later discovered that 160 of them were being offered for free on Facebook, by an anti-coup group. The League of Liberal Thammasat for Democracy on Sunday said it would give out 160 tickets for the premiere at Scala, calling its efforts "Raise Three Fingers, Bring Popcorn and Go to Theatre." Apex said that it halted the film because its screens were "being used for political activism."'
2014-11-19
Nevada
'Nevada has a small population, but a high percentage of undocumented immigrants. According to Pew Research data, in 2012 it had the highest percentage of such residents in the United States: 7.6 percent.
It also has the highest percentage of illegal immigrants in its labor force, at 10.2 percent. And crucially for the White House, it has in its schools many, many children of these workers. In Nevada, 17.7 percent of students in K-12 schools have at least one undocumented parent.'
2014-11-18
Fwd: Rosetta
'The probe that landed on the surface of a comet has discovered organic molecules, the most rudimentary building blocks of life, according to the German agency involved in the mission.
An instrument aboard the Philae lander detected the molecules after "sniffing" the comet's atmosphere. An organic compound is one whose molecules contain the carbon atom, the basis of life on earth.
Scientists are analyzing the data to see whether the organic compounds detected by Philae are simple ones—such as methane and methanol—or a more complex species such as amino acids, the building blocks for proteins. A drill on Philae also obtained some material from the comet's hard surface, but data about organic molecules from that experiment have yet to be fully analyzed.'
2014-11-17
Fwd: Outlook
Fwd: HPC
Fwd: Ebola
"High-risk" travellers who have been in any of the three worst-affected countries — Guinea, Sierra Leone or Liberia — during the previous three weeks will be ordered to self-isolate at home or at "a facility," preferably near a provincially designated treatment centre, for 21 days, the incubation period of the disease.
The Public Health Agency of Canada statement released Monday says high-risk travellers are those who have had direct contact with Ebola patients, such as funeral attendants and family members. It does not specify whether the designation would apply to returning health-care workers.
If travellers to the Ebola-affected countries have had no known exposure to the virus they will be expected to self-monitor for 21 days, including two temperature checks a day.
Quarantine officers will tell people when and how to contact public health authorities, and will give travellers an information kit that includes a thermometer.
Travellers with Ebola-like symptoms will be immediately isolated and sent to a hospital for examination. If they are released by the hospital, they will still be required to self-monitor.'
'Canada will stop issuing visas to people from the three West African nations where Ebola is widespread, the government said on Friday.
The federal citizenship ministry, explaining the move, said in an official document that "the introduction or spread of the disease would pose an imminent and severe risk to public health"…
Under the new regulations, which come into force immediately, Canada will not process visa applications from foreign nationals who have been in an Ebola-affected country within the previous three months.'
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/31/us-health-ebola-canada-idUSKBN0IK27T20141031
'When Martin Salia's Ebola test came back negative, his friends and colleagues threw their arms around him. They shook his hand. They patted him on the back. They removed their protective gear and cried.
But when his symptoms remained nearly a week later, Salia took another test, on Nov. 10. This one came back positive, sending the Sierra Leonean doctor with ties to Maryland on a desperate, belated quest for treatment and forcing the colleagues who had embraced him into quarantine.
"We were celebrating. If the test says you are Ebola-free, we assume you are Ebola-free," said Komba Songu M'Briwa, who cared for Salia at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center in Freetown. "Then everything fell apart."
Fwd: 1 year
According to the poll, 37 percent of Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act, which is one percentage point less than the previous low. That was in January of 2014, following a rollout plagued with issues. Fifty-five percent of Americans now say they disapprove of the law.'
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-17/obamacare-approval-at-alltime-low-poll-shows
Fwd: Science
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141113142006.htm
'Physicists have engineered a spiral laser beam and used it to create a whirlpool of hybrid light-matter particles called polaritons, hybrid particles that have properties of both matter and light and could link electronics with photonics.'
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141117093336.htm
'Engineers have successfully printed complex electronic circuits using a common t-shirt printer. The electronic circuits are printed using unique materials in layers on top of everyday flexible materials such as plastic, aluminum foil and even paper. Resistors, transistors and capacitors, the key components of a complex electronic circuit, are printed using non-toxic organic materials like silver nanoparticles, carbon and plastics.'
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141117084623.htm
2014-11-14
2014-11-13
2014-11-12
‘Wheel of Fortune’ Host Pat Sajak Walks Off Set, Flips Out After Contestants’ Horseplay (Video)
Was Pat Sajak just horsing around on Monday's episode of "Wheel of Fortune," or was he genuinely peeved at the game's contestants? "Wheel of Fortune" host Sajak had a minor meltdown on his game show after enduring consecutive puzzle-guessing fails on the part of his contestants.
China Shows Off New Stealth Fighter
China's new stealth jet fighter rocketed skywards Wednesday as Beijing puts on an unprecedented display of openness -- and military force -- at the country's premier airshow. China's air force said the display of military might at the airshow showed the intention to build a strong country.
Verizon Wireless will hand out freebies on November 26 - CNET
http://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-wireless-will-hand-out-freebies-on-november-26/
2014-11-10
Re: Fusion
2014-11-05
2014-11-04
Fwd: Oil
'Oil accelerated a months-long slump after Saudi Arabia cut its prices for U.S. buyers in an effort to counter the shale boom.
The move coincided with an increase in prices for Asia and Europe, signaling Saudi Arabia's intention to grab a bigger share of the American oil market. It also suggests Saudi Arabia may be looking to squeeze U.S. oil producers, who are already under mounting pressure from falling oil prices.
Foreign producers like Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter of crude, have lost some influence in the U.S., where a surge in shale oil output is reducing the need for imports.
"I think it's a moral equivalent of war on the U.S. oil producer. That's exactly what it is, and Saudi Arabia is not trying to hide it," Phil Flynn, a senior energy analyst at Price Futures Group, said on "Opening Bell with Maria Bartiromo."
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/11/04/oil-slump-continues-as-saudi-arabia-targets-us/
Fwd: Court
'we could be in uncharted territory. Indeed, 1895 was the last time a Democratic president nominated a justice facing a Republican Senate (44 Republicans joined 40 Democrats and six senators of other parties to approve Grover Cleveland's nomination of Rufus Peckham). Since then, every other Democratic president with a Supreme Court vacancy faced a friendly Senate.
There are, of course, several examples of the reverse dynamic, where Republican presidents faced Democratic Senates: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush. As we know, the nominees weren't all successful (Robert Bork) but the presidents eventually found nominees that Senate Democrats considered acceptable (Justice Anthony Kennedy).'
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120102/republican-senate-2014-could-stall-supreme-court-vacancies
Fwd: IRS
'Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was looped in on a plan with Lois Lerner and President Barack Obama's political appointee at the IRS to lead a program of harassment against conservative nonprofit groups during the 2012 election, according to letters exclusively obtained by The Daily Caller.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) did not want to publicly release 2012 correspondences exchanged between the IRS and Jeanne Shaheen at her personal Washington office: the agency delayed releasing the information to a major conservative super PAC multiple times, even threatening to see the super PAC in court, according to emails.
But the letter in question comes out now, on the eve of Jeanne Shaheen's bid for re-election to the United States Senate.
"The IRS is aware of the current public interest in this issue," IRS chief counsel William J. Wilkins, a White House visitor described by insiders as "The President's Man at the IRS," personally wrote in a hand-stamped memo to "Senator Shaheen" on official Department of the Treasury letterhead on April 25, 2012.
The memo, obtained by TheDC, briefed the Democratic senator about a coordinated IRS-Treasury Department plot to target political activity by nonprofit 501(c)(4) groups. The plot was operating out of Lois Lerner's Tax Exempt Government Entities Division…
Shaheen got the inside info from the IRS, making it clear she was the point person in a group composed of six close Democratic colleagues including Chuck Schumer and Al Franken, who joined with Shaheen in quietly writing a letter to then-IRS commissioner Doug Shulman expressing their concern about new nonprofit groups engaging in political activity in 2012.
The Democratic senators' publicly available March 9, 2012 letter asked the IRS to "immediately change the administrative framework for enforcement of the tax code as it applies to groups designated as 'social welfare' organizations" by introducing a new "bright line test" for how much a tax-exempt group can invest in political activity and by setting a new rule that at least 51 percent of a group's activity must non-political. The senators called for more elaborate disclosures about finances and "undertakings" in groups' form 990 submissions and sought new rules about how much donors could write off as business expenses'
2014-11-01
The 10 Highest IQs in History - TheRichest
... I think that some of the "10 highest" numbers are questionable. There are plenty of people with 160+ IQ's.