Is Barack Obama Going To Unilaterally Slash The Size Of The U.S. Nuclear Arsenal By Another 80 Percent?
Barack Obama wants to disarm America. There simply is no other way to explain his reckless behavior. On Tuesday it came out that the Obama administration is considering plans to unilaterally slash the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal by up to 80 percent. From a military standpoint, this is utter insanity. Early in his presidency, Barack Obama signed a treaty with Russia that restricts both nations to a maximum of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. But now Obama wants to cut the size of the U.S. arsenal down to as low as 300, without requiring the Russians to do anything. In addition, we don’t even have a treaty with Full article here
The strange haze of the Milky Way galaxy
New images from the European Space Agency’s Planck mission have revealed previously undiscovered islands of star formation, along with a mysterious haze of microwave emissions in our Milky Way galaxy.
“The images reveal two exciting aspects of the galaxy in which we live,” explained Planck scientist Krzysztof M. Gorski from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Warsaw University Observatory in Poland.
”They show a haze around the center of the galaxy, and cold gas where we never saw it before.”
To be sure, the new images depict the entire sky, which is dominated by the murky band of our Milky Way galaxy.
One of them shows the unexplained haze of microwave light – which was previously hinted at in measurements by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
“The haze [originates] from the region surrounding the center of our galaxy and looks like Read more…
Strong 6.0 earthquake strikes off Oregon coast
Feb 14 (Reuters) – A strong 6.0 magnitude earthquake
struck on Tuesday roughly 160 miles off the coast of Oregon, the
U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake struck at 7:31 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 6.2
miles in the Pacific Ocean 159 miles west of Coos Bay, Oregon.
It was felt as far away as San Francisco, California, according
to the USGS.
A spokesman for the Portland police said he did not feel the
quake. There were immediate reports of damage or injuries.
No tsunami warning was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning
Center.
California Earthquake: Officials Warn Of Aftershocks After 5.6 Magnitude Quake Rocks Northern Coast
A 5.6 magnitude earthquake rocked the Northern California coast Monday afternoon, yielding no immediate injuries or damage but prompting warnings of several aftershocks throughout the week.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake struck around 1:07 p.m. about 18 miles inland in Humboldt County.
A 5.6 magnitude earthquake rocked the Northern California coast Monday afternoon, yielding no immediate injuries or damage but prompting warnings of several aftershocks throughout the week. The quake, which struck around 1:07 p.m., had its epicenter in a rural area near Weitchpec on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation.
Its epicenter was a rural area near Weitchpec on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation. The reservation is about 240 miles north of San Francisco, and 60 miles south of the Oregon-California border.
The Northern California quake was widely felt within a 100-mile radius, according to the USGS web site. The depth of the earthquake was roughly 20.4 miles.
‘You have no control of these things.’
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department and Eureka Police Department sent officials to check on residents, but dispatchers said there were Full article here
Security Slackers Risk Internet Blackout on March 8
Companies and home users whose computers or routers are infected by the DNSChanger Trojan risk being unable to access the Web come March 8, 2012. That could represent a substantial number of users, too, as half of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies are infected with the malware, according to a new report.
Back in November, the feds famously took down the DNSChanger botnet network, which a cyber criminal gang was using to redirect Internet traffic to phony websites that existed simply to serve up ads. The feds replaced the criminals’ servers with legitimate ones that would push along traffic to its intended destination.
That surrogate network was supposed to be temporary — in operation just long enough for companies and home users to remove DNSChanger malware from their machines. Said network is slated to be unplugged on March 8. Once the surrogate server network is unplugged, computers infected with DNSChanger will not be able to access the Internet: The malware will send requests to servers that will no longer be online.
Unfortunately, the cleanup process has Full article here
Bill Would Allow Total Surveillance of all Canadians
JASON MAGDER
THE MONTREAL GAZETTE
February 14, 2012
Police will get much easier access to the web-surfing habits and personal information of all Canadians if a new law – expected to be introduced in the House of Commons next week – passes.
Privacy watchdogs caution if the so-called Lawful Access law is passed, it would give police access to webbrowsing history and sensitive personal information, and would grant greater permission to track the cellular phones of suspects – much of it without the requirement of a warrant.
The bill, which is on the order paper for this week, would require Internet service providers and cellular phone companies to install equipment that would monitor users’ activities so that the information could be turned over to police when requested.
It would also grant greater permission to law enforcement authorities to activate tracking mechanisms within cellphones so they can follow the whereabouts of suspected criminals. If there is a suspicion of terrorist activity, the law would allow such tracking to go on for a year, rather than the current 60-day limit.
This isn’t the first time this law has been introduced. The most recent incarnation of the Lawful Access bill died on the order paper when the federal election was called last year.
Will America follow Greece?
Our opinion: Congress could take a lesson from Greece, which waited far too long to do something about spending and revenue. But the early signs are not encouraging.
On two things liberals, conservatives and just about everyone in between should be able to agree: First, a nation that keeps spending more than it takes in is headed the way of Greece. Second, nobody wants to be Greece.
So as Congress now considers President Obama’s budget, it needs to ask whether the plan at least starts to put the U.S. government on a sustainable course, without going so far overboard that it threatens a fragile recovery. At first blush, Mr. Obama’s budget appears to be a serious start.
But first, let’s look at Greece, and not just for the sake of schadenfreude.
Greece’s crisis is the result of a nation refusing for years to accept that sometimes leadership means making hard, unpopular choices. So many Greeks enjoyed things the country really couldn’t afford: wondrously early retirement — 50 for some workers — culturally accepted tax evasion, and, particularly for those in public service, generous salaries and benefits. To fund it all, the government plunged hopelessly into debt.
Now Greece is resorting to a View full article
Snow damages Colosseum, mediaeval churches in Italy: report
Two girls from the Philippines take a self-timer photo in front of the Colosseum on Saturday. (Andrew Medichini/Associated Press)Heavy snow has caused extensive damage to the mediaeval walled town of Urbino and further deteriorated the Colosseum in Rome, already badly in need of repair, Italian newspapers reported on Tuesday.
Partial collapses have been reported at the convents of San Francesco and San Bernardino in Urbino and the roof of the Church of the Capuchins outside the town centre has completely caved in, La Repubblica reported. There is also water damage in the town’s 12th-century Duomo cathedral.
The roof at the Church of Read more…
China’s Military Spending to Double by 2015
- Associated Press
- Chinese Air Force J-10 fighter jets take off during training in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
China’s defense budget will double by 2015, making it more than the rest of the Asia Pacific region’s combined, according to a report from IHS Jane’s, a global think tank specializing in security issues.
Beijing’s military spending will reach $238.2 billion in 2015, compared with $232.5 billion for rest of the region, according to the report. That would also be almost four times the expected defense budget of Japan, the next biggest in the region, in 2015, the report said.
The new report was released as China’s Vice President, Xi Jinping, arrived in Washington at the start of a four-day visit to the U.S. that is seen as a prelude to his expected promotion to Communist Party chief in a once-a-decade leadership change in the fall.
Mr Xi, who is also Vice Chairman of the Party’s Central Military Commission, is due to visit the Pentagon on Tuesday after meeting his counterpart, Joe Biden, and Presdent Obama at the White House earlier in the day.
Ahead of the visit, he and other Chinese officials had expressed concern about Link to article
Russian superlaser to be as good as H-bomb
The design of the Luch laser device is to be used for the future Russian superlaser (image from vniief.ru)
Russia has launched a $1.5 billion project to create a high-energy superlaser site which designers pledge will be the best in the world. Capable of igniting nuclear fusion, the facility will be used both for thermonuclear weapon and civil purposes.
The new laser device will be used for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) studies. The field aims to recreate in the lab the processes which happen inside a star or in a hydrogen bomb explosion. ICF is similar to what scientists are trying to do with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, but takes an alternative approach to how nuclear fusion is started.
The laser facility will be developed by the Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFNC-VNIIEF), a leading Russian nuclear laboratory. In its six decades of history, it was involved in the development of both the military and civilian nuclear programs in Russia.
The site will have the size of a 360 Full article here
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