THE 222ND CENTURY

"The Diamond Age" comes early...

2012-03-25T16:26:00.002-07:00

I imagine Neal Stephenson grinning widely as he reads this article on Wired, High-Powered Plasma Turns Garbage Into Gas. Smiling that his phenomenal fiction The Diamond Age, a 1995 metawork that tells of a next century technology, the Feed, may come to humanity's aid a lot sooner. The Feed is the source of molecular nanotech building blocks that can be turned into items by Matter Compilers. Useful things, such as space blankets to sleep on the beach, which can then be recompiled the following morning. It also flows with energy, such as our grids.

Plasma arc is favored as a means to destroy medical and hazardous waste. Plasma processing of waste is an ecologically clean process. The lack of oxygen and high temperature in a reactor prevent the main elements of gas from forming toxic compounds, such as furans, dioxins, NOX, or sulfur dioxide. Extensive filtration removes inorganic residue (ash) and gaseous pollutants (NO, HCl, H2S, etc) and allows the production of ecologically clean synthetic gas. The gaseous compounds do not contain any phenols or complex hydrocarbons. The circulating water in these filtering systems has removed the hazardous substances and must be cleaned.

As fully as I want to swoon ecstatic for the current realization of such boundless human ingenuity, we are not quite there yet. The question is of course will Plasma gasification be allowed to flourish with tremendous backing?

Nowhere in the article about the 700-acre Columbia Ridge Landfill in Arlington, Oregon, talk about the price point. In another Wired piece from 2006, has its own price...

The $425 million facility expected to be built in St. Lucie County, Florida. Using a 100,000-square-foot plant, slated to be operational in two years, is expected to vaporize 3,000 tons of garbage a day. County officials estimate their entire landfill -- 4.3 million tons of trash collected since 1978 -- will be gone in 18 years.
"We've found projects similar to this being misrepresented all over the country," said Monica Wilson of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. She also said other companies have tried to produce such results and failed. She cited two similar facilities run by different companies in Australia and Germany that closed after failing to meet emissions standards.

Americans generated 236 million tons of garbage in 2003, about 4.5 pounds per person, per day, according to the latest figures from the EPA. Roughly 130 million tons went to landfills -- enough to cover a football field 703 miles high with garbage. … if large plasma facilities were put to use nationwide to vaporize trash, they could theoretically generate electricity equivalent to about 25 nuclear power plants.

But in a more recent article about Microwave Gasification, the St. Lucie facility is mentioned but at a third of the cost...

"To kick this technology off in the region, Geoplasma, part of real estate developer Jacoby Group, has secured a permit from Florida's Department of Environmental Protection to build the St. Lucie Plasma Gasification Facility in St. Lucie County, worth an investment of $140-150 million. The facility is set to produce 24 MW (gross) of power from nearly 600 tonnes of waste and tyres per day.
Speaking to Waste Management World magazine (WMW), Geoplasma president Hilburn Hillestad says the firm intends to break ground on the project in January 2012, with an 18-month construction period meaning the project will be ready by mid 2013. Technology will be provided by Westinghouse Plasma Corporation, subsidiary of Alter NRG.
But, with claims that microwave plasma gasification is 60% more efficient than existing processes, and the ability to produce 70% diesel as a by-product; the ABA process really could be game-changer on the WtE landscape."

So even at the substantially cheaper cost using Microwaves, the hundreds of Million$ price tag will probably not see even 50 facilities, one for each state any time soon.

Were this future waste tech actually to blanket this consumption machine called a nation, I see further uses of the technology could include fitting all Plasma Gas facilites with an Algae snorkel to harvest any Carbon Dioxide emissions, also later coupled with burning the "fabled Clean Coal". (The whole Mining Industry seems ripe for robots; this filthy work should have precedence before Warehouses.)

That said even though there is a short list of concerns, that slightly dulls the glimmer of such wondrous science.

Requires large electrical energy input if the waste stream does not contains a large fraction of unoxidized hydrocarbons;
The highly corrosive plasma flame may lead to frequent maintenance and component replacement with associated facility down time;
The filters and gas treatment systems are themselves sources of toxic waste, some of which (e.g. acidified water) are poor candidates for plasma processing.

Some would also argue that PlasGas money could be spent on many more a $12 million anaerobic digester with estimates of "eating" 50,000 tons of waste per annum. And as awesome as those sound as well, that does not factor in that the leftover effluent must be heavily monitored for toxic contamination.

Others would let ignorance and apathy take hold, mumbling that dumping garbage into the earth is cheaper. This is elucidated well over at Earthanet.

"Landfills charge municipalities an average of $35 per ton of trash; according to a recent study in Hamilton, Ont., dropping off a ton of garbage at a plasma gasification plant would run $172 per ton …Burying garbage in the ground is primitive technology with numerous harmful effects that aren’t taken into consideration when figuring cost per ton. No matter how miraculous the liner material in today’s modern landfills, they all eventually leak and dump a nasty toxic stew into the groundwater below."

And the scale it could work on. Ideally one "Mr. Reactor" in every town with electrically or liquid syngas powered Garbage Trucks to service an area. A Hybrid world should see our civilization a longer distance with a cleaner conscience. I think Neal Stephenson (judging by his 2011 essay) would heartily agree, that humans must get Back on track to the Future.

Almost a Billion $s to Freedom

2012-03-23T16:44:00.001-07:00

Or the Robots are taking all the sweet forklift jobs and leaving the go-bot zombie crap behind, shallow tasks for our superior Parallel processing brains to cope with. Stunted abolition in the form of fatigue inducement that is the sucking quagmire of Monotonous. Welcome to the stunning "Revolution". Oh! How the Division of Labor shines in the 21st Century.

The Deskill movement worries me the most. I personally have dreaded the tasks at many a cavernous, dead-eyed warehouse. But the work is honest to a point. It is dishonest that most Management iron clad adheres to Lean Manufacturing.

"Lean," is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination.

Waste reduction is a sane enough principle. But I have seen from the inside of the Machine, that the first "waste" to go is pride in a multifaceted job done well. Because time spent cross training is money lost, large brained mammals are reduced to one-button automatons.

Do nothing but hammer out these engine mounts the whole graveyard shift. Swiftly put miles of plastic casing on streaming glop to make thousands of hotdogs for three 12 hour days. Run like a hamster in a ball, sort out photos every minute of the hour until they tell you your done. Socialize on your own time, Frankenstein's monster.

What ignited this industrial diatribe is an article i just read on Venture Beat, Amazon buys Kiva Systems for $775M — prepare for even smarter warehouses.

And the Crimelords said," 2012 shall be 2008 all over again. This is the Doomsday Deja vu as prophesied."

2012-03-21T14:47:00.001-07:00

FDIC To Cover Losses On $75 Trillion Bank of America Derivative Bets

"Regulators have fought to rein in risky trading in derivatives by banks under the Volcker Rule, but the banks have fiercely resisted and, so far, have been winning the battle. Derivatives contributed to the financial meltdown in 2008 when the government was forced to bail out giant insurance company AIG whose huge derivative bets exploded, putting the entire financial system at risk. Part of the problem is that due to the immense complexity of derivatives, regulators are unable to formulate rules that would effectively regulate them or reduce risks."

It is immensely frightening that a Superpower Democracy would let its voice fall by the wayside. That hundreds of milions in unison have not shouted never again to these scoundrel tactics. A mere 4 years later, and the Notorious 2BIG2FAIL banks continue their under-handed seismic mathemagic. Then 2 years on from when Pres. Obama signed The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform, is when the Volcker Rule supposed to take effect and bring our Capitalist society back to the lessons learned after the Great Depression. That's right, a scant 80 years ago the Glass-Steagall Act was put in place for a Reason. But then insane greed took hold in the 1990's, namely 1999, where even Pres. Clinton later apologizes for his negligence in accepting The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act as good as gold. The true grounds for impeachment was hiding in the stuffy old deregulating staid protection of millions' Hard-earned currency. But Sexgate sells the attention better than Bilkgate.

“On derivatives, yeah I think they were wrong and I think I was wrong to take [their advice] because the argument on derivatives was that these things are expensive and sophisticated and only a handful of investors will buy them and they don’t need any extra protection, and any extra transparency. The money they’re putting up guarantees them transparency,” Clinton told me.
“And the flaw in that argument,” Clinton added, “was that first of all sometimes people with a lot of money make stupid decisions and make it without transparency.”
The former President also said he was also wrong about understanding the consequences if the derivatives market tanked. “The most important flaw was even if less than 1 percent of the total investment community is involved in derivative exchanges, so much money was involved that if they went bad, they could affect a 100 percent of the investments, and indeed a 100 percent of the citizens in countries, not investors, and I was wrong about that.”
Clinton also blamed the Bush administration for scaling back on policing the financial industry. “I think what happened was the SEC and the whole regulatory apparatus after I left office was just let go.”

It leads one to start believe that all this mainstream dominated by the strident battle of Church and State is the smokescreen for the True Separation that must always be addressed. Separation of Investments & Speculations from Savings & Loans. If Banks want to do so, it should be solely with their own money. No Glass-Steagall, then NO Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Both should have stayed hand in hand since passed into law as The Banking Act of 1933.
"TOO BIG TO BAIL OUT" seems to be a very sane rallying cry indeed.

7 scifi weapons of tomorrow

2011-08-11T17:12:00.001-07:00

http://www.technewsdaily.com/seven-sci-fi-weapons-from-tomorrow-are-here-today-0694/2

the Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS), is a robot that can open doors and set explosives or remove objects with a gripper claw. Its turret is fitted with an M24b machine gun, which gives it major firepower, and it has a gunshot detection capability, so it can determine where shots are coming from and return the fire. It also has 360-degree vision, two-way communications, night and thermo vision and lasers

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT." ( Albert Einstein

MACH 20 Drone and Nano Aerial Vehicles

2011-08-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0811/Will-crash-of-hypersonic-Falcon-HTV-2-set-back-Pentagon-s-ambitious-plans

The latest prototype in the Pentagon’s attempts to develop what is, in essence, a Mach 20 drone that can strike any target on earth within an hour, lasted no more than about 30 minutes before losing contact with ground stations Thursday.

Assuming the technology for hypersonic flight can be perfected, "and that's a big if, this plan is less bad than some of the other ones rolled out," says Noah Shachtman, a fellow with the Brooking Institution in Washington who focuses on security issues and 21st-weapons systems.

It certainly beats another idea the Pentagon proffered – putting conventional warheads on submarine-launched Trident missiles. Because these missiles are currently nuclear-tipped, launching one – with any warhead – on the familiar up-and-down trajectory would very likely invite a nuclear response.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0706/Pentagon-working-on-hummingbird-sized-spy-drones

A new project partly funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) called the Nano Aerial Vehicle (NAV) program aims to develop an extremely small, ultra-lightweight aerial vehicle for urban military missions that can fly both indoors and outdoors and that is capable of climbing and descending vertically as well as flying sideways left and right.

The design the agency green lighted for further development actually will look and fly much like a hummingbird. The winning concept, developed by AeroVironment, is called Nano Scout (Nano Sensor Covert Observer in Urban Terrain). It is a remote-controlled, battery powered NAV with two flapping wings that weighs about two grams (about as heavy as two nickels) and is just slightly longer than three inches.

Lots of competition

The Scout is designed to fly forward at speeds of up to 20 mph, slow down to one mph for precision navigation inside buildings, withstand five mph wind gusts, operate inside buildings and have a range of over one-half mile.

The Nano Scout was selected over competing concepts submitted by Lockheed Martin,MicroPropulsion Inc., and Draper Laboratory at the end of the program’s first phase last year.

An early prototype tested by the company has already reached a technical milestone by achieving a hovering flight equal to that of a two-wing flapping wing aircraft while carrying its own energy source and using only the flapping wings for propulsion. A working prototype, scheduled for demonstration to DARPA when the second phase of the NAV program ends this summer, will have a flight endurance of 11 to 20 minutes.

But DARPA and AeroVironment aren’t the only players with a wing in the NAV game. Though its monocoptor design that is shaped like a maple leaf was passed over for the second phase of the DARPA program, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works’ Advanced Development Programs is continuing its exploration of NAVs on its own dime with the Samurai program.

The company has built two larger mono-wing vehicles as part of the program, a 30-inch flyer and a 12-inch version that is small enough to fit into a backpack and fly through an open window to enter a building. The Samurai design, says Kingsley Fregene, principal investigator for the program, is inherently stable and has few moving parts, which makes it a robust, aerodynamically clean airframe. Unlike more conventional designs, the entire aircraft rotates.

"A lot of structures in insects are multifunctional," he said. "Biologically, they’re multitasking."

The research is still in its early stages. "A lot of seminal research needs to be done," Adams said, adding that the missionization of NAVs, though, is not that far away.

"Within 10 to 15 years, autonomous microsystems will be on the battlefield."

Privacy n1t3mar3s

2011-04-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41995926/ns/technology_and_science/

The usual way to do grab attention to the topic is to trot out privacy nightmares, such as the secret dossiers that hundreds of companies keep on you (they do), the man who was accused of arson because his grocery store records showed he purchased fire starters (he was), or the idea that a potential employer may one day pass on you because your musical tastes suggest you will be late to work three time per week (they could). But privacy nightmares are beginning to feel a bit like the boy who cried wolf. Cyber experts have warned about both a Digital Pearl Harbor and an information Three Mile Island for more than a decade now; doesn't the absence of that kind of disaster show that perhaps privacy is no big deal?

"I think it's partly because people are part of a large herd, they take a 'the lion is not going to attack antelope' mentality," said Ponemon, who runs the privacy consulting firm The Ponemon Institute. "And people are more scared of physical dangers that privacy risks. When that whole issue about groping and scanning at the airport came up, we did a study and found that people were more worried about getting cancer from the machines, and weren't overly concerned about privacy. It shows me that people feel they can't live without social networking, and they have to go on flights. So they just surrender."

Gary LosHuertos parked himself in a New York City cafe last fall and fired up a new tool for snooping on people as they use free wireless. Within minutes, he had managed to spy on more than a dozen people as they used Facebook. It was just an experiment by the Web software expert, but he wanted to make a point — so he used the victims' own Facebook accounts to send them each an unnerving warning message. He told them he'd hacked their accounts, and he knew where they were.

He expected cursing, anger, perhaps some furious typing. Instead, many of his recipients just went right on surfing. So he prodded them a second time.
"Really wasn't kidding about the insecurity thing," he wrote. "I won't send another message after this — it's up to you to take your security seriously. You're at the [XYZ Street] Starbucks on an insecure connection, and absolutely anyone here can access your account with the right (free) tool."

60 percent —claim they care about privacy but will barely lift a finger in an effort to preserve it. They don't alter Facebook privacy settings, they don't complain when supermarkets demand their phone numbers and they certainly don't insist on encrypted e-mail.

HACKS - trigger card

2011-02-07T05:10:00.000-08:00

Trigger cards n. pl. Magnetic cards used by hackers to access malware embedded in the operating systems of corrupted ATMs. When a trigger card is inserted, the machine spits out a receipt detailing customer account numbers and PINs.

http://www.motherboard.tv/2011/2/5/the-12-technology-predictions-of-2011

http://www.watchguard.com/predictions/

Ethical governor n. Software that controls the moral behavior of a military robot. Drones would be programmed to follow international law, enabling them to make life-and-death decisions autonomously.

http://www.wired.com/wired/

buy Wired mag FEB? & Pop Sci Feb??

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartlist

SHREDDED BY WAR : UK in IRAQ & Afghanistan

2011-02-07T04:07:00.000-08:00

IN THE MAGAZINE

British Soldiers Are Coming Home in Pieces

Published October, 2007

PHOTOS AND TEXT BY STUART GRIFFITHS

Read the rest at Vice Magazine: SHREDDED BY WAR - British Soldiers Are Coming Home in Pieces - Vice Magazine

“When I joined the British Army I respected the Ministry of Defense. I thought that it was their duty to support you through thick and thin. But when you’re at the parade they have for graduation from training and they say, ‘Not only is your son part of our family, you’re all part of our family now,’ it’s bollocks—total shit. As soon as something like what happened to me occurs, they toss you aside like a number.

Now here’s the really hilarious part: Andy’s tank had come under fire from allied troops. This incident was caused by what was described in the inquiry as a “catalog of errors.” The laws of combat immunity protect the identities of those responsible for the attack, so nobody will be charged. In fact, Andy has heard rumors that since the incident, crew members of the tank that fired on him have been promoted.

“There was a little girl about eight or nine. Her family had died. We were trying to do a nice thing by giving her water and bits of chocolate. One day we spotted a militia hanging her in an alleyway and we had to make the decision whether to go in and save her—which would have led to a riot and many more deaths—or just allow one person to die.” In the end, she was hanged.

At the time Selly Oak were not prepared for as many casualties as it was getting. One of my main problems there was being on the same ward as civilians. Civvies are the last people you want to see after something like what happened to me.”

Read the rest at Vice Magazine: SHREDDED BY WAR - British Soldiers Are Coming Home in Pieces - Vice Magazine

Psychomania Fantomas

2011-02-07T03:19:00.000-08:00

http://twitchfilm.com/news/2010/07/the-undead-bikers-return-severin-giving-psychomania-the-remaster-treatment.php

ipso facto

http://www.viceland.com/int/v14n10/htdocs/horror_show.php?source=db

The fun thing about having a twin sister who is also a 10 is you can see how a totally different outfit would have worked on the same night. Then you can say, “Wow, even if I dressed like I was going to a sleepover at a mouse’s house I’d look great.”
Read the rest at Vice Magazine: DOs & DON'Ts - Vice Magazine

Nuke Propulsion / VASIMR

2011-01-24T18:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/nuclear-propulsion-in-space/

Between 1955 and 1972, the United States spent more than $1.4 billion in then-year dollars on developing nuclear rockets and related technologies. At the end of that period, when the Nixon administration cut NASA’s budget generally and NERVA’s specifically, the United States was well on its way to developing nuclear power for spacefaring and space purposes.

One major reason is that NASA picks its propulsion systems based on its targets — and true exploration of the solar system and beyond hasn’t really been a serious goal, the Constellation plans for a return to the moon aside.
McDaniel agreed that the targets drive things, citing the general decline of pure technology development research at NASA.
“Until we commit to going back to Mars, we’re not going to have a nuclear rocket,” McDaniel said.
Or perhaps a new nuclear-powered Russian spacecraft could get anxious minds at the Pentagon and NASA worrying about the need to keep pace with the Ivanovs.

http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-rocket-vasimr-nasa.html

"In the early days... NASA support for the project was rather minimal because the agency did not emphasize advanced technologies as much as it's doing now," Chang-Diaz told AFP.

Movies to watch

2011-01-23T03:09:00.000-08:00

http://twitchfilm.com/reviews/2010/10/pusan-2010-noise-review.php

Bombay has become Mumbai. With this and many other changes in the past two decades the population has grown to around 13 million. The directorial duo Krishna DK and Raj Nidimoru use the city as their canvas to present the viewer three layers of a modern society in the city of Mumbai. Three intertwined stories from the wealthy upper class, middle class, and poor lower class. We follow them through the bustling metropolis as one by one they inevitably get lost in the noise.

director Mark Hartley set out to take audiences on a guided tour of the wild world of Australian exploitation film in Not Quite Hollywood. The result was not just a wildly good time. Also made Machete Maidens Unleashed about Phillipine explotation movies.

An asian movie called Starfish Hotel with a giant evil dirty rabbit amidst a bustling queue.
GANTZ live action 2 parter (and anime series), Ghost in the Shell _Solid State Society (and 2 seasons of SAC), Storm WArriors (2010 sequel) and Storm Riders animated movie & tv show,

Opium prices Soar

2011-01-14T08:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/13/AR2011011306738_2.html?tid=wp_featuredstories&sid=ST2011011400552

"Most of the trafficking we see is in Kandahar, and we have no control there," Ahmadi said. "We have a lot of security checks at the airports, with special scanners and equipment, but the VIPs and the organized crime people know how to avoid them."

While the use of hashish and opium is a traditional part of Afghan society, experts say the introduction of heroin - especially by exiles returning from Iran - has brought crime, homelessness, disease and mental illness to the drug culture.

"When we started here in 2002, it was hard to find a single drug user on the streets of Kabul. Now there are close to 1 million all over the country," said Tariq

"The price of opium is now seven times higher than wheat, and there is a $58 billion demand for narcotics, so our farmers have no disincentive to cultivate poppy," said Mohammed Azhar, deputy minister for counternarcotics. "We have gotten a lot of help, but it is not enough. Afghanistan is still producing 85 percent of the opium in the world, and it is still a dark stain on our name."

the value of Afghan opium skyrocketed from $29 per pound in 2009 to $77 per pound in 2010, fueling fears that production levels will soon follow upward.

MONGOLIA

2011-01-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

Alcoholism, domestic abuse and homelessness are some of the many problems the country faces. Here, an inmate peers through his cell at the boy's prison in Ulaanbaatar on June 28, 2010.

Independent miners, aka "ninjas," play pool on a worksite near Uyanga on June 17, 2010. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_images/101228_Mongolia_fadek_088.jpg

Splintering off states

2011-01-14T08:09:00.000-08:00

This instability is the cartographic expression of an underlying geopolitical phenomenon afflicting much of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia: post-colonial entropy. Except for a few, rare cases, many of the colonies that gained their independence a half-century ago have since experienced unmanageable population growth, predatory and corrupt dictatorship, crumbling infrastructure and institutions, and ethnic or sectarian polarization.

Such a legitimate process has given cover to China to reorient its policy as well, balancing its staunch support for the regime of Omar Hassan al-Bashir in Khartoum with upgraded relations with the Southern government in Juba, which has in return promised to honor the China National Petroleum Corp.'s contracts. (Sixty percent of Sudan's oil exports currently go to China.)

A Palestinian woman holds aloft her national flag as she walks past Israeli soldiers during a protest against Israel's controversial separation barrier in the village of Bilin, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Dec. 31, 2010. Palestinian leaders have said they will seek U.N. recognition of their country within its 1967 borders, despite Israel's disputed claim to some of that territory.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/13/breaking_away?page=0,6

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/13/breaking_up_is_good_to_do

Japan's Harsh Colonial Rule of Korea

2010-12-05T02:11:00.000-08:00

   Japan's offer to return the royal Korean texts also represents progress that overturns Tokyo's previous position that all issues regarding the colonial rule were settled in a 1965 package compensation deal between the two countries, Yun said. Under that agreement, Seoul received hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and low-interest loans from Tokyo.

   Japan's harsh colonial rule left deep scars on the hearts of Koreans. During that period Koreans were banned from using their own language at schools and forced to adopt Japanese names. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were also mobilized as forced laborers and sex slaves.

   South Korea and Japan are key trade partners and cooperate closely in efforts to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. But issues related to the colonial rule have often badly strained their relations, with tensions flaring up whenever Japan attempted to gloss over its wartime past or lay claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo in school textbooks or government documents.

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2010/08/10/24/0301000000AEN20100810004800315F.HTML

Ian Fleming's Operation:Mincemeat

2010-12-05T02:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11887115

And so the homeless Welsh alcoholic came to be buried with full military honours in a sunlit Spanish cemetery, under a headstone bearing the name William Martin, RM - for Royal Marines.

The best way to fake a top secret letter was to get a real general to write it

Michael/Martin was but a prop in Operation Mincemeat, brainchild of Ian Fleming, and put into action by Cholmondeley and Montagu, Churchill's "corkscrew thinkers" in the War Office.

Fittingly for a deception dreamed up by a novelist, the true story of the fictional officer was turned into a Hollywood film, The Man Who Never Was, in the 1950s, after Montagu wrote a book about the plot.

Prior to Mincemeat, they had created a network of fictitious double agents to feed misinformation to the Nazis. These imaginary spies were, like Michael/Martin, given jobs, hobbies, family, lovers and bank managers. The Germans thought they had an established spy network in the UK - in reality, they had none.

After a tense week or so - it took the Germans several attempts to get sight of the briefcase's contents - photographs of the falsified documents made it to Hitler's desk. He was fooled, and moved an entire panzer division - 90,000 soldiers - to Greece.

Ewan Montagu spent months fleshing out the fake officer

Montagu and his team fired off a telegram to Churchill: "Mincemeat swallowed rod, line and sinker."

And so in early July, the Allies attacked Sicily. The island fell with but a fraction of the feared casualties and ship losses Britain had feared.

"Mussolini was soon toppled from power," says Macintyre. "Forced to confront this Allied invasion from the south, Hitler called off a huge offensive against the Soviets. The Germans were now on the back foot. The Red Army did not stop until it reached Berlin."

The tide of the war turned - thanks, in part, to the body of a tramp set adrift in the Atlantic.

(rememeber: possible comic adaptation of the Irregulars
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/books/review/Heilbrunn-t.html)

{The word is a blend of "gene" and the Greek word μιμητισμός (mimetismos, [mɪmetɪsmos]) for "something imitated".)
Historically, the notion of a unit of social evolution, and a similar term (from Greek mneme, “memory”), first appeared in 1904 in a work by the German Lamarckist biologist Richard Semon titled Die Mnemischen Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Originalempfindungen (loosely translatable as “Memory-feelings in relation to original feelings”). According to the OED, the word mneme appears in English in 1921 in L. Simon's translation of Semon's book: The Mneme.[
The word meme originated with Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. To emphasize commonality with genes, Dawkins coined the term "meme" by shortening "mimeme", which derives from the Greek word mimema ("something imitated").
...

Khmer Rouge Aftermath

2010-12-05T01:59:00.000-08:00

The psychologist talks methodically for about 15 minutes and everything slows as he paints a picture of a country of small villages in which an entire society is distorted by the tragedies and atrocities of the past.
Where everybody knows things that cannot be said, where one businessman does not deal with another businessman because he was a killer.
Where victims killed too, sometimes simply for survival.
Today, children who lost both parents live among their parents' killers.
Secrets are everywhere: knowledge of where bodies were buried, who buried them, who did what to who.

Later, I discover the reason the psychologist speaks in English is because the authorities do not really censor what is said in English. That's because, as the editor of the English language version of the Phnom Penh Post says to me, somewhat ruefully, they know hardly any Cambodians will read or hear it.
Time and again I am told: "We don't have a culture of reading in this country," which actually means, "we killed everyone who could read". This is old news.
Information about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge is in the open. Comrade Duch who ran the S-21 prison has been found guilty, there are four more Khmer leaders in prison just down the road from here.

here are foreign investors, NGO workers, diplomats, as well as backpackers and young travellers lured by holiday brochures describing Cambodia as an "enthralling destination" and eulogising the "warm, enigmatic people".
There are tours, temples, mountains, wonderful beaches. But all of this just seems to skate over the top of the enigmatic Cambodians who walk their own invisible paths.
Older people just do not talk about the past and their mantra to the young is that staying silent is always a solution if there is a problem.
What used to be a survival strategy for them as children, in a time of unimaginable brutality, has become almost a national characteristic a generation or two on.

China - N Korea ties

2010-12-05T01:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11876831

Wang could not detect any scars on [Kim Jong-il's] head after his widely reported surgery after suffering a stroke," read the despatch.
With a failing economy, North Korea seems keen to attract as much Chinese aid as possible.
One report says Kim Jong-il - described by one Chinese official as a man who likes a drink - visited China earlier this year to get more economic assistance.
The country also wants as much Chinese investment as possible.

Another document, sent from the US consulate in Shenyang earlier this year, says some North Korean officials are selling mining and fishing rights to Chinese businesses in exchange for funds for construction projects.
It goes on to say that this arrangement sometimes allows the children of high-ranking officials in both countries to "hijack the most favourable investment and aid deals for their own enrichment".

n that despatch Mr Chun reportedly says some Chinese officials were willing to "face the new reality" that North Korea was of little value to China as a buffer state. ( i hardly think they would not want it as a buffer)

Drone Attacks Afghanistan

2010-12-05T01:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10648909

While more than 700 people have died in these attacks, positive identification of the victims, either by Pakistani or US authorities, has been made in fewer than a dozen instances.

Pakistan has consistently argued that drone attacks are hindering rather than helping with the battle against extremism, saying they fuel public anger against the government and the US and boost support for militants.

More than 700 people have been killed in such attacks under Mr Obama, compared with slightly fewer than 200 from under his predecessor, George W Bush.
The militant backlash over the same period has been even more violent. Extremists have struck more than 140 times in various Pakistani locations, killing more than 1,700 people and injuring hundreds more, the BBC research shows.

Places such as Swat and South Waziristan which have seen offensives by the Pakistani military are virtually closed to independent media and other groups.

Iran Covert War

2010-12-05T01:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/iran-nuclear-experts-killings

Tehran's streets at the height of the morning rush hour resemble a vast, sprawling car park. Bumper-to-bumper traffic, much of it stationary, the acrid steam of a thousand exhausts hanging in the cold winter air. If you wanted to kill someone, this would be the moment to do it: when they are stuck in their cars – sitting targets.
At 7.40am last Monday, in north Tehran's Aghdasieh district, a motorcycle threaded its way through the long lines of cars on Artesh Boulevard. It edged up to a silver Peugeot 405, hesitating alongside for moment, before moving off into the maze of vehicles. A few seconds later there was a bang from the side of the Peugeot, as a small bomb stuck on to the window detonated, killing one of the men inside. The driver and a woman passenger were wounded.

It is certainly true that, while the discovery of any involvement in the killings of civilian scientists would be career-endingly embarrassing for the CIA or MI6, the Mossad is known for such exploits. It is widely believed to have killed scientists working on Iraq's nuclear programme in the 1980s.

The outgoing Mossad director, Meir Dagan, has stepped up the use of assassinations against Israel's enemies, and has won plaudits for doing so. The Israel Hayom news website remarked on the occasion of Dagan's retirement: "[He] will be leaving an organisation that is far sharper and more operational than the organisation he received, and all of the accusations from Tehran yesterday are a good indication of that. Iran will be the focal point for the next Mossad director, too."

One of the US cables made public by WikiLeaks describes a meeting of a US-Israeli joint political military group in November last year. It said: "The GOI [Government of Israel] described 2010 as a critical year – if the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them. Both sides then discussed the upcoming delivery of bunker-busting bombs to Israel, noting that the transfer should be handled quietly to avoid any allegations that the US is helping Israel prepare for a strike against Iran."
The bombs duly arrived a few months later. The WikiLeaks cables also underpin a prediction made by western military officials earlier this year, that if Israel flew above Saudi Arabia to reach Iranian targets Saudi radar operators would somehow "fail to see them".

n September last year, Barack Obama announced the discovery of a secret enrichment plant burrowed into a mountain near the city of Qom.

But the US, Israel and other western spy agencies have also spent years slipping faulty parts into black market consignments of equipment heading to Iran – each designed to wreak havoc inside the delicate machinery requirement for enrichment. Iran has now accumulated 3,000kg of low-enriched uranium – enough for two weapons, if further enriched. And this year Iranian scientists have stepped up the level of enrichment they are working on to 20%, which in terms of the technical obstacles that need to be overcome, is well on the way to 90% weapons-grade purity.

Russia "Mafia State"

2010-12-03T18:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-03/russia-called-mafia-state-regrets-u-s-cynicism-.html

Putin, a former KGB spy, served as president for eight years before becoming prime minister in 2008, when legal limits prevented him from running for a third consecutive term. His successor, Medvedev, worked for Putin in the St. Petersburg mayor’s office before joining his presidential administration

eard from Russian opposition contacts that Putin didn’t install a strong successor because he feared “law enforcement investigations.” Putin’s aim was to protect “alleged illicit proceeds,” according to the cables published by the Guardian.

he prosecutor considers Russia a “virtual mafia state,” according to the cable. There are “unanswered questions regarding the extent to which Russian PM Putin is implicated in the Russian mafia and whether he controls the mafia’s actions,” the cable cited Gonzalez as saying.

Putin has accumulated “illicit wealth” through ties to secretive energy traders, including Gunvor International BV, according to oil industry experts cited in a Nov. 24, 2008, cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow and published by the Guardian.

Gunvor, whose main trading office is in Geneva, dismissed the memo as based on “old, completely unsubstantiated rumors.”

The company has two founders, Gennady Timchenko and Torbjorn Tornqvist, who are joint majority owners, Leasor said. An employee benefit trust for senior Gunvor managers owns a minority stake, he said. Timchenko was a founding member of a St. Petersburg judo club where Putin was once honorary head,

Gonzalez said he agreed with a thesis put forward by ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko that intelligence and security services “control organized crime in Russia,
Litvinenko, a Putin critic who received political asylum in the U.K., died from radiation poisoning in November 2006. U.K. investigators say former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi poisoned Litvinenko during a meeting in London. Lugovoi denies any involvement in Litvinenko’s death.
Litvinenko blamed Putin for his own murder in a deathbed statement,

Spanish prosecutor Jose Gonzalez as telling U.S. officials that he “cannot differentiate between the activities of the government and organized crime groups.”

Futur bikes

2010-12-01T19:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.beautifullife.info/automotive-design/unique-carbon-fiber-bike-hmk-561/
Unlike of many other concepts electric bicycle concept HMK 561 from Ralf Kittmann took home an iF Design Award for some seriously forward thinking. Cyclists HMK 561 is made of conductive carbon fiber, which is not only an excellent conductor of electricity, but also acts as a capacitor that can store energy. This energy is obtained by converting the mechanical energy into electrical energy in each mobile connection of mechanism. The resulting energy fed to the engine and lights. And there is already a working prototype!

http://www.beautifullife.info/automotive-design/compact-eco-concept-ver2/

Hunger in America: 50mn people too poor to buy adequate food

2010-11-29T21:06:00.000-08:00

The Obama administration and the Republicans are currently negotiating the terms for the Democratic Party’s surrender to right-wing demands for an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. This will cost $700 billion over the next decade, or $70 billion a year, more than the cost of all federal nutrition programs combined.

Meanwhile, Obama has praised the proposal from the chairmen of his deficit reduction commission to impose drastic cuts in social programs for the elderly and the poor along with lower taxes for the rich and for corporations and higher taxes for the working class. The mantra of the White House, the political establishment and the media is that the American people have been living beyond their means and must accept a reduction in their consumption.

An enzyme leads the dance of immortality and death

2010-11-29T21:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/rethinking-healthcare/an-enzyme-leads-the-dance-of-immortality-and-death/2196/

Now Harvard scientists have opened this door, using telomerase to reverse the aging process in mice. Writing in the journal Nature, a group under Ronald DePinho (above, from Harvard) say they “engineered a knock-in allele” that turned the cap-making process back on, making old mice young again.

Massive garbage patch discovered in Atlantic Ocean; 1,000 miles long

2010-11-29T20:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.smartplanet.com/business/blog/smart-takes/massive-garbage-patch-discovered-in-atlantic-ocean-1000-miles-long/4804/?tag=content;col1

Billions of pieces of plastic trash are accumulating in a massive garbage patch in the Atlantic Ocean, mirroring the Texas-sized one in the Pacific, scientists have found.

(This could be utilized by a mad scientist make disposable islands