Arizona to secede (without OFFICIALLY doing so)
E.J. Montini
Members of the state Legislature, including Arizona’s de facto governor, Senate President Russell Pearce, have introduced a bill that essentially would have Arizona secede from the union without having to do so officially.
Really.
It’s called SB1433, (See it here.) It creates a 12-member committee within the legislature that could “vote by simple majority to nullify in its entirety a specific federal law or regulation that is outside the scope of the powers delegated by the people to the federal government…”
Committee members themselves would decide this, then pass along their recommendation to the full Legislature. If, in turn, a majority of state lawmakers go along with the committee then, according to the bill, “this state and its citizens shall not recognize or be obligated to live under the statute, mandate or executive order.”
The nullification committee also would be permitted to Read more…
Mexico supplies electricity to wintry Texas
MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Mexico’s state electricity company on Wednesday started supplying electricity to the US state of Texas, where demand shot up amid unusually cold temperatures and caused power outages.
Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission “was determined to support Texas with electrical energy faced with the problems the state is suffering due to climatological conditions,” a statement said.
An energy transfer of 280 megawatts began at midday (1800 GMT) via the north Mexican border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Piedras Negras, it added.
Texas Governor Rick Perry said in a statement that power and emergency management experts were working with utility providers to ensure power was restored as quickly as possible.
“Until that happens, I urge businesses and residents to conserve electricity to minimize the impact of this event,” Perry added.
An epic winter storm Wednesday buried more than a third of the United States in drifting snow, sleet and ice that brought air and road travel to a halt.
Snowstorms also paralyzed air transport, blocked operations in factories and caused schools to shut in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
Ciudad Juarez mayor Hector Murgia said the temperatures of around minus 13 degrees centigrade (8.6 Fahrenheit) were the lowest recorded in almost 50 years.
Egypt’s economy draws parallels to US economy
A New World Order Reserve Currency
What do the riots in Egypt and a new world reserve currency have in common?
Perhaps more than we think.
Consider the following statements from George Soros in a recent interview:
Some statements of Soros (who happens to be a Fabian Socialist):
The efficient market hypothesis has failed.
Markets are not tending toward equilibrium.
There is imperfect knowledge of regulators and market participants.
He has an economic theory that is “more relevant” than the dominant one and is supporting an institute for new economic thinking….
Inflation (in the United States) is helpful because the burden of debt was getting too heavy.
The problem is you don’t have a Read more…
Texas Second Day of Power Outages May Be Avoided
A second day of controlled power outages by some utilities might not be needed in Texas in response to huge electric demand following a winter storm.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas early Thursday said “immediate concerns for the possibility of rotating outages this morning are reduced.” But ERCOT said the agency would continue to monitor the state’s electric grid for additional unexpected losses of generation, a day after the problem led to mandated outages across the ERCOT system.
Wednesday night, ERCOT said in a statement that electricity demand hit record highs and to be aware of the possibility of more rolling outages. See their original statement below.
Residents and businesses across Texas and in Brown County experienced rolling blackouts Wednesday due to the bitterly cold weather, and those blackouts could continue into Read more…
Germany deploys contactless national ID
Germany began issuing the new contactless national ID to citizens in November. The program is one of the first contactless-only electronic ID programs. It also employs a unique privacy scheme to protect cardholders.
National ID cards aren’t new in the European Union and many countries use smart card technology to power the credentials. But the contactless German ID is a bit of a departure from what other countries have done and thus necessitated a slightly different take on existing contactless smart cards.
The country expects to issue 60 million cards over the next 10 years to replace existing paper documents, says Rudy Stroh, executive vice president of the ID business and country manager for Germany at NXP Semiconductors. NXP is providing the chip–its 128-kilobyte SmartMX secure contactless microcontroller–for the German e-ID.
“The contactless technology used in the e-ID enables strong privacy protection,” Stroh says.
The first difference between the German ID card and other contactless smart cards is that is can only be read from four centimeters, whereas most other cards can be read from Read more…
Polar bear’s long swim illustrates ice melt
Searching for food, one female bear was tracked as she swam for 9 days across the Beaufort Sea before reaching an ice floe. Litigation continues over protection of bear habitat.
In one of the most dramatic signs ever documented of how shrinking Arctic sea ice impacts polar bears, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska have tracked a female bear that swam nine days across the deep, frigid Beaufort Sea before reaching an ice floe 426 miles offshore.
The marathon swim came at a cost: With little food likely available once she arrived, the bear lost 22% of her body weight and her year-old female cub, who set off on the journey but did not survive, the researchers said.
“Our activity data suggests that she swam constantly for nine days, without any rest. Which is pretty incredible,” said George M. Durner, a USGS zoologist and a lead author of the study, published last month in the journal Polar Biology.
“We have observed other long-distance swimming events. I don’t believe any of them have been Read more…
Huge coronal hole on Sun turning towards Earth
CORONAL HOLE: A dark croissant-shaped hole has opened up in the sun’s atmosphere, and it is spewing a stream of solar wind into space. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory took this picture of the vast opening during the early hours of Jan. 30th. Researchers call this a “coronal hole.” Solar rotation is turning the coronal hole toward Earth. The stream of solar wind pouring from it will swing around and hit our planet in early February, possibly sparking polar magnetic storms. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras between Feb. 2nd and 4th. The coronal blast from the Sun storm’s arrival on Earth will coincide with a massive snow storm that will sweep across North America. –Space Weather
Queensland counts Yasi’s huge cost
By Greg Ansley
Under leaden skies and sheets of torrential rain that obscured its ranges, north Queensland was last night counting both costs and blessings as Cyclone Yasi raged far into the west, losing potency as it went.
The massive category-five cyclone – raging on to the coast between Cairns and Townsville early yesterday and cutting a 1000km-wide swathe – was the largest storm in the state’s modern history.
But while it caused huge damage, it missed the region’s biggest population centres and, as far as authorities could judge last night, left no one dead or seriously injured. However, last night, two men were missing in Innisfail.
In Cairns, three babies were born at Yasi’s peak – one a girl in an evacuation centre, helped by a midwife also sheltering there.
There may yet be some tragic shocks: Read more…
68 New Earths and 288 New Super Earths: The New Kepler exoplanet data – NASA videos and pictures
NASA press release on the 1202 new Kepler telescope exoplanets.
Exoplanets classified by size which are:
- 68 Earth-size exoplanets with a radius (Rp) of less than 1.25 Earth radius (Re) - 288 super-Earth size exoplanets with 1.25 x Re < Rp ≤ 2.0 x Re - 662 Neptune-size exoplanets with 2.0 x Re < Rp ≤ 6.0 x Re - 165 Jupiter-size exoplanets with 6.0 x Re < Rp ≤ 15 x Re - 19 very-large-size with 15.0 x Re < Rp ≤ 22 x Re
“We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone – a region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Some candidates could even have moons with liquid water,” said William Borucki of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and the Kepler Mission’s science principal investigator. “Five of the planetary candidates are both near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their parent stars.”
Kepler will continue conducting science operations until at least November 2012, searching for planets as small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in a warm habitable zone where liquid water could exist on the surface of the planet. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is expected to Read more…
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