XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Giant Solar Blast Headed for Earth - the most powerful flare since December 2006 -

Giant Solar Blast Headed for Earth -  the most powerful flare since December 2006 -



The biggest solar blast in four years erupted late Monday, and it’s sending jets of charged particles right at Earth. The spray will spark bright auroras when it hits the magnetosphere in the next 24 to 48 hours.
A cluster of sunspots called Active Region 1158 unleashed the flare at 8:50 p.m. EST, Feb. 14 [1:50 a.m. UT, Feb. 15]. It was categorized as class X2.2, meaning it’s the most powerful flare since December 2006. The sunspots have continued to let loose smaller flares and may still be active now.
As Spaceweather.com notes, the sunspots didn’t even exist one week ago, and now cover a swatch of sun wider than Jupiter.
NOAA forecasters estimate a 45 percent chance of geomagnetic activity on Thursday, Feb. 17, when the bulk of the radiation hits Earth’s magnetic field. The December 2006 storm was powerful enough todisrupt GPS systems.
Should the new storm prove as powerful, it could be a preview of what’s expected this year and in 2012, as the sun reaches an expected maximum in its natural cycle of activity.
There is, however, a silver — and green, and yellow, and glowing — lining to the flares. In higher latitudes, where the sun’s ion spray is pulled by Earth’s magnetic poles, collisions between solar particles and atoms suspended in our magnetosphere produce photon sparks. Together these form the aurora borealis, or northern lights, and it looks like Earth is in for quite a show.
What’s more, though a full moon often outshines the auroras, this storm may be so powerful as to mix moonlight and northern lights in one spectacular swirl. So look up! And if you take pictures, send us your best shots. If we get enough, we’ll create a reader gallery.

Two TSA agents were busted today at Kennedy Airport for stealing $160,000 in cash from bags -

Two TSA agents were busted today at Kennedy Airport for stealing $160,000 in cash from bags -




Two TSA agents were busted today at Kennedy Airport for stealing $160,000 in cash from bags, authorities said.
Davon Webb, 30, and Couman Perad, who turned 36 today, were arrested after admitting they had regularly stolen from checked bags, sources said.
In one instance, Perad, who joined the Transportation Security Administration in 2002, and Webb, who has been an agent since 2004, stole $39,000 on Jan. 30 from a bag at Terminal 8, sources said.
The passenger whose money was stolen was on his way to Argentina, sources said.
The $39,000 was later found in their homes after TSA notified Port Authority police, sources said.


Perad and Webb would screen bags looking for loot, then swipe the cash once the luggage was opened in a private screening room, sources said.
The men will be charged with grand larceny, possession of stolen property and official misconduct.
In a statement, TSA said it has "a zero-tolerance policy on theft in the workplace" and called the incidents "a disgrace."
Also today, the TSA confirmed that a string of security lapses took place at Newark Airport within the past month, the Newark Star-Ledger reported.
A knife inside a carry-on made it past a checkpoint and two passengers were allowed to board flights despite issues with their full-body scans, TSA officials told the newspaper.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the two incidents were among a string of five security lapses at Newark within the last 30 days.
Another incident reported by the officials involved a dead dog that was brought to the airport by its owner and loaded onto a Continental Airlines jet without ever being screened.
TSA officials had reportedly ordered that the dog's carcass be screened, but it never happened.
Newark airport averages about one security breach every couple of months, according to the newspaper.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bags_tsa_agents_busted_checked_jfk_FRka1bq83wcuV1xwkEwUJK#ixzz1E9slHjf9

What Is Wrong With The U.S. Economy? Here Are 10 Economic Charts That Will Blow Your Mind -

What Is Wrong With The U.S. Economy? Here Are 10 Economic Charts That Will Blow Your Mind -


The 10 economic charts that you are about to see are completely and totally shocking.  If you know anyone that still does not believe that the United States is in the midst of a long-term economic decline, just show them these charts.  Sometimes you can quote economic statistics to people until you are blue in the face and it won't do any good, but when those same people see charts and pictures suddenly it all sinks in.  What is great about charts is that you can very easily demonstrate what has been happening to the economy over an extended period of time.  As you examine the economic charts below, pay special attention to what has been happening to the U.S. economy over the last 30 or 40 years.  The truth is that what is wrong with the U.S. economy is not a great mystery.  All of the economic problems that we are experiencing now have taken decades to develop.  Hopefully the charts in this article will help people realize just how nightmarish our economic problems have become, because until people start realizing how incredibly bad things have gotten they will never be willing to accept the dramatic solutions that are necessary to fix our financial system.
The sad fact of the matter is that we have been living in the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world over the last 40 years.  All of this debt has purchased a wonderful standard of living for the vast majority of us, but all of this debt has also destroyed the economic future of our children and our grandchildren.  Someday future generations will look back on what we have done in absolute horror.
The 10 economic charts posted below are meant to shock you.  Most Americans today need to be shocked before they will be motivated to take action.  Please share these charts with as many people as you can.  Hopefully we can wake enough people up that something will be done about all of these problems while there is still time.
1 - Government spending is expanding at an exponential rate.  As you can see from the chart below, federal spending is almost 18 times higher than it was back in 1970.  Now Barack Obama has proposed a budget that would increase U.S. government spending to 5.6 trillion dollars in 2021.  Just imagine what the following chart would look like if that happens....
2 - U.S. government debt is absolutely exploding.  The U.S. national debt is currently $14,081,561,324,681.83.  It is more than 14 times larger than it was back in 1980.  Unfortunately, the national debt continues to grow at breathtaking speed.  In fact, the Obama administration is projecting that the federal budget deficit for this year will be an all-time record 1.6 trillion dollars.  Can we afford to continue to accumulate debt at this rate?....
3 - Unless something changes right now, the outlook for U.S. government finances in future years is downright apocalyptic.  The chart posted below is from an official U.S. government report to Congress.  As you can see, it is projected that interest on our exploding national debt is absolutely going to spiral out of control if we continue on the path that we are currently on....
4 - Household debt has soared to almost unbelievable levels over the last 30 years.  The sad truth is that it is not just the U.S. government that has a massive debt problem.  U.S. households have also been accumulating debt at a staggering rate.  Total U.S. household debt did not pass the 2 trillion dollar mark until the mid-1980s, but now total U.S. household debt is well over 13 trillion dollars....
5 - The total of all debt (government, business and consumer) in the United States is now well over 50 trillion dollars.  For the past couple of years this figure has been hovering around a level that is equivalent to approximately 360 percent of GDP.  This is a debt bubble that is absolutely unprecedented in U.S. history....
6 - As tens of thousands of U.S. factories get shut down and as millions of our jobs get shipped overseas, the number of unemployed Americans continues to go up and up and up.  As you can see from the chart below, there has been a long-term trend of increasing unemployment in the United States.  In fact, there are about 3 and a half times as many unemployed workers in the United States today as there were when 1970 began.  These jobs losses are going to continue as long as we allow our corporations to pay slave labor wages to workers on the other side of the globe.  All of the major trends in global trade are very bad for the U.S. middle class.  For example, the U.S. trade deficit with China for 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.  How long will our politicians stand by as our nation bleeds jobs?....
7 - The median duration of unemployment in the United States is in unprecedented territory.  For most of the post-World War 2 era, when the median duration of unemployment in America reached 10 weeks that was considered a national crisis.  Well, today competition for jobs is so intensethat the median duration of unemployment is now well over 20 weeks....
8 - Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the value of the U.S. dollar has declined by over 95 percent.  One of the reasons given for the existence of the Federal Reserve is that the Fed helps control inflation.  But that is a huge lie.  The truth is that the United States never had consistently rampant inflation until the Federal Reserve took control.  In particular, once the U.S. totally went off the gold standard in the 1970s inflation really started escalating out of control....
9 - Now the Federal Reserve says that the solution to our current economic problems is to print even more money out of thin air.  The games that the Federal Reserve is playing with our money supply are simply inexcusable.  Just look at what the Federal Reserve has done to the monetary base since the beginning of the recession....
10 - All of this new money is creating tremendous inflation.  In particular, the price of oil is now ridiculously high.  A high price for oil is very, very bad for the U.S. economy.  Our entire economic system is based on being able to use massive quantities of very cheap oil.  Unfortunately, that paradigm is starting to break down and the consequences will be very bitter.  Back in mid-2008, the price of oil hit an all-time record of $147 a barrel and subsequently the world financial system imploded a few months later.  Well, the price of oil is on the march again and that is very bad news for the U.S. economy....
Needless to say, if the economic trends documented by the charts above continue the U.S. economy will be totally wiped out.  The U.S. economy as it currently exists is unsustainable by definition.  It is only a matter of time before we slam into an economic brick wall.
We have developed an economy that cannot function without debt, and at this point it seems like almost everyone is drowning in red ink.  The federal government is massively overextended, most of our state and local governments are massively overextended, most of our major corporations are massively overextended and the majority of U.S. consumers are massively overextended.
The only way that the game can continue is for the Federal Reserve to print increasingly larger amounts of paper money out of thin air and for everyone in the economic food chain to go into increasingly larger amounts of debt.
But no debt spiral can go on forever.  At some point this entire house of cards is going to collapse.
When that happens, there is going to be economic pain that is greater than anything that this country has ever seen before.
Someday we will all desperately wish that we could go back to the "good times" of 2011.  A great economic collapse is coming, and all of us had better get ready.

Letterman duped into fake Lohan booking - Top Ten ways it should be more careful booking its guests -

Letterman duped into fake Lohan booking - Top Ten ways it should be more careful booking its guests -



Maybe Late Show With David Letterman should present the Top Ten ways it should be more careful booking its guests.
Just hours after CBS announced on Tuesday that Lindsay Lohan would appear on Thursday’s show to present the Top Ten list, Lohan tweeted: “I am NOT going to be doing David Letterman, I’m not sure how this happened, but I am sorry for the confusion...”
Wednesday morning, a spokesman for Letterman’s production company acknowledged thatLate Show had been duped.
“We made a mistake,” said Worldwide Pants’ Tom Keaney in a statement. “Someone purporting to be a friend of Lindsay’s reached out to the show yesterday, allegedly on her behalf, and booked her to appear.
“Clearly, this person was not authorized to make commitments on her behalf,” the statement continued. “We wish Lindsay well, and look forward to having her on the show in the future.”
Lohan, who has been on the show four times in the past, now would seem to have more urgent matters to which to attend. Most recently, the troubled actress was arraigned on felony charges for the alleged theft of a $2,500 necklace from a jewelry store.
Meanwhile, her travails have been a source of humour for Letterman. Last week he read the Top Ten Signs that “Lohan is out of control.” They included: “Friends worry that her shoplifting is getting in the way of her drinking.”
But thanks to this week’s booking boo-boo, for once, the joke’s on Dave.

Justin Bieber never plans on becoming an American citizen - "You guys are evil" - you're broke because of medical bills -

Justin Bieber never plans on becoming an American citizen - "You guys are evil" - you're broke because of medical bills -


In the new issue of Rolling Stone - on stands and online in the digital archives on February 18th  (subscription required) - Justin Bieber takes Rolling Stonecontributing editor Vanessa Grigoriadis for a spin around Atlanta in his Range Rover. Along the way they discuss girls, politics, music, Will Ferrell movies – and sex.
"I don't think you should have sex with anyone unless you love them," Bieber says. When asked if he believes in abstinence until marriage, Bieber – who is reportedly dating fellow teen star Selena Gomez – seems wary: "I think you should just wait for the person you're...in love with."
Near the end of their time together Grigoriadis caught a glimpse of Bieber's desktop image on his laptop: It was him and Gomez against an orange sunset. Bieber quickly closed the computer when he noticed that Grigoriadis had seen the picture.
Other highlights from the story:
- The Canadian-born Bieber never plans on becoming an American citizen. "You guys are evil," he says with a laugh. "Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home."
- He isn't sure what political party he'd support if he was old enough to vote. "I'm not sure about the parties," Bieber says. "But whatever they have in Korea, that's bad." He does have a solid opinion on abortion. "I really don't believe in abortion," Bieber says. "It's like killing a baby?" How about in cases of rape? "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that."
- Bieber's voice began to change on his last tour. He's now working with a vocal couch, which involves doing 20 push-ups before before a session to warm up his chest. "He's got a nice tone tone to his voice now," says his vocal couch Jan Smith. "It's a good texture, but it doesn't sound like what his fans think he sounds like. He'll get four octaves eventually. He's still young."

Fox News Caught In Shocking Dirty Tricks Stunt Against Ron Paul -

Fox News Caught In Shocking Dirty Tricks Stunt Against Ron Paul -



In a shocking act of mass public deception, Fox News attempted to skew Ron Paul’s 2011 CPAC straw poll win by representing it with footage from the previous year’s CPAC event, at which Mitt Romney supporters had loudly booed the result, another example of the continuing dirty tricks campaign being waged against Paul by the establishment media.

Congressman Paul replicated his 2010 victory over Mitt Romney by defeating the former Governor of Massachusetts for a second consecutive year at the annual CPAC conference.
However, before anchor Bill Hemmer introduced a segment concerning the story, Fox News played a clip of the 2010 announcement of the poll results, during which Mitt Romney supporters had loudly booed Ron Paul’s victory, passing off last year’s footage as representative of this year’s event.
Hemmer then proceeded to state, “In the end he was the winner, probably not the reaction he was hoping for,” describing the reaction as “mixed applause and boos,” before directly asking Ron Paul if he knew who was booing him.
“Who was in the audience booing you, did you get a name, did you get an ID on those people?” asked Hemmer.
In reality, there were hardly any boos after Ron Paul was announced as the 2011 CPAC winner, the result was met with a massively positive reaction, only Fox News deemed it necessary to hide that fact from their viewers. The video clip above shows the real footage from the 2011 event, proving that Fox News had attempted to deceive Americans into thinking that Paul’s victory was unpopular, by deliberately using the wrong footage.
A separate We Are Change Oklahoma clip of the 2011 straw poll victory confirms that Paul’s win was met overwhelmingly by a loud chorus of cheers and applause.
This is the second time in the space of a week that Fox News has deliberately used dirty tricks to try and ostracize Ron Paul by discrediting the legitimacy of his potential candidacy for president.
Fox News poll released earlier this week which asked who would make the best president included many of the potential candidates that Ron Paul trounced in the CPAC straw poll, yet the Congressman’s name was not even included in the survey.
Exemplifying again how the establishment consistently tries to derail Paul’s momentum by ignoring his very existence, obscure names like John Thune and Jon Huntsman were included in the Fox poll and yet Paul was omitted entirely.
While Fox News continues to act as an accommodating platform for the pied pipers of the hijacked tea party movement, people like Tea Party Caucus leader Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, real conservatives like Ron Paul and his son Senator Rand Paul are subject to dirty tricks and underhanded ploys.
Given the energetic power of his grass roots base, the establishment is scared to death of Ron Paul building any kind of momentum as the 2012 campaign race nears, which is why they have to resort to pulling stunts like this to hoax the American people into thinking that the message of liberty and freedom is unpopular, when in reality it is spreading like wildfire and would completely overrun the status quo if Ron Paul was allowed to communicate on a level playing field.




Happy Anniversary Internet - Feb. 16, 1978: Bulletin Board Goes Electronic - launch of first public dialup bulletin board -

Happy Anniversary Internet - Feb. 16, 1978: Bulletin Board Goes Electronic -  launch of first public dialup bulletin board -
picture-8

1978: Ward Christensen and Randy Suess launch the first public dialup bulletin board system. The two unleash the kernel of what would eventually spawn the world wide web, countless online messaging systems and, arguably, Twitter.
It was several decades before the hardware or the network caught up to Christensen and Suess’ imaginations, but all the basic seeds of today’s online communities were in place when the two launched the first bulletin board, dubbed CBBS for computerized bulletin board system. The two developers announced their creation to the world in the November 1978 issue of Byte magazine.
The article created a stir among hobbyists and hackers, and it wasn’t long before others begin building clones of CBBS. By the mid-1980s, BBSs supported an active community with no less than three magazines devoted to covering the latest in the proto-online world.
Reportedly conceived when Christensen was trapped in his Chicago home during the Great Blizzard of 1978, BBS took its basic premise from the community bulletin boards that once adorned the entrance of public places like libraries, schools and supermarkets.
The notion of digital meeting place in mind, Christensen and Suess set out to create the software and managed to go from idea to working bulletin board in just a month. In fact, some evidence suggests it actually took them even less time — a mere two weeks — and that Christensen and Suess extended the time frame to make the results sound more impressive.
Whatever the case, the results were definitely impressive. The original home-brewed internet, BBS was primitive but quickly proved revolutionary.
Sure, connecting to someone on BBS meant dialing into a phone line through your Trash-80 PC, typing a message in your monochromatic terminal and waiting days — sometimes even weeks — before you repeated the process to (hopefully) find a reply, but holy cow, look! You’ve got digital friends.
Unlike today’s web, BBS used traditional phone lines to log in to remote computers, meaning that if you wanted to dial in to a BBS out of your area, you’d be looking at long-distance charges from the phone company. Consequently, early BBSs were very locally oriented systems, but before too long the limitations gave birth to phone phreaking and other hacks.
Because of the complexity, limitations and slowness of BBS, the early system was largely populated by computer enthusiasts willing to shell out big bucks for the fastest modems. Given the audience, it’s hardly surprising that — like the early web that came after it — early BBSs often consisted of very technical postings, software downloads and primitive online games.
But you can also thank the BBS for some of the world’s first flame wars, as enthusiasts traded barbs battling over the superiority of Ataris to Amigas.
Eventually, the early world wide web supplanted the bulletin boards, but even today the humble BBS isn’t completely gone. In fact, BBSs thrive in Taiwan, where it’s an extremely popular form of communication for young people.
Projects like Jason Scott’s textfiles.com — which seeks to preserve and chronicle those early BBSs — many of the remnants of the BBSs themselves are still available as well. Also worth seeing for an even more in-depth look at the history of the BBS is Scott’s film, BBS: The Documentary.

Man ordered to pay thief he caught red-handed - was charged with false imprisonment and ordered to pay the crook $1,350 -

Man ordered to pay thief he caught red-handed - was charged with false imprisonment and ordered to pay the crook $1,350 -
Peter Lawson/eastnews.co.uk


The owner of a flooring business who paraded a thieving employee through town with a placard proclaiming his crime was charged with false imprisonment and ordered to pay the crook compensation.
Simon Cremer frogmarched Mark Gilbert, 40, through the streets of Witham in Essex, eastern England, after he discovered the father-of-three had written out a cheque for £845 ($1,350) to himself. But Mr. Gilbert only received a police caution after the case collapsed. He then launched a civil suit, claiming for two years’ lost earnings and compensation for the “distress” he suffered as a result of the October 2008 incident.
The case was due to be heard this week. But after Mr. Cremer learned he would be on the hook for £25,000 ($40,000), he settled out of court, agreeing to pay his ex-employee £5,000 ($7,970). He still has incurred £8,000 ($12,760) in legal fees. “I think it’s absolutely disgusting that he was even able to sue me after he had stolen from me to be honest,” Mr. Cremer told The Daily Telegraph.
“I don’t want to give him a penny after what he did, so it really sticks in my throat.” In court papers, Mr. Gilbert, who was employed by Mr. Cremer as a fitter, claimed he had suffered trauma and distress and needed psychological help after the incident.
He also said he had suffered marks, bruises, a black eye and rope burns, and had been taunted since his photograph had appeared in local and national newspapers.
“I feel for the bloke, I respect the bloke but I want him to pay for what he’s done,” he said about the man he stole from. “I went in my local pub and felt a cold shoulder … I probably deserved it for what I did, fair enough, but I wasn’t stealing from him and I paid the money back.”


Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/02/16/man-ordered-to-pay-thief-he-caught-red-handed/#ixzz1E8Mg61ts

Tahir Square's spontaneous kindergarten - to care for the children who came with their families for the rallies -

Tahir Square's spontaneous kindergarten - to care for the children who came with their families for the rallies -


Mosa'ab Elshamy -- a photographer and pharmacy student who attended the Tahir Square rallies in Egypt -- describes the volunteer-run kindergartens that spontaneously popped up in the square to care for the children who came with their families for the rallies:

It's difficult to estimate numbers, but I think not less than 10 percent of those present in Tahrir were families. They added a special spirit to what we started calling Republic of Tahrir. Some of the kids would do their own marches around the square, with people applauding and smiling at them. They were quite an integral part of the place and everyone took care of them. When Tahrir would get crowded and a kid got lost from his parents for a while, we would quickly mention their name in the large microphones set in the square and the parents would easily find them.
I wouldn't say the kindergarten idea was set up by specialists. But there were people of all professions in Tahrir which obviously included teachers. But many of those working on the kindergarten were ordinary mothers who would take care of the kids and look over them while they were painting or reading. It was usually set in the safest area of the square, just in case anything would happen, and the kids were being kept at a distance from any possible tension. But obviously it wasn't professionally set up. I mean, it didn't have working hours or a fixed schedule, because the place was quickly developing and changes were taking place from day to day. Still, the main core was maintained and any kid could join, play with others for some time, and indulge in children's activities for a while. It was quite heartening to say the least.


NASA Releases Images Of Man-Made Crater On Comet - images showing scar resulting from the 2005 Deep Impact mission -

NASA Releases Images Of Man-Made Crater On Comet - images showing scar resulting from the 2005 Deep Impact mission -
 New Territory on Tempel 1

See full slide show - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/multimedia/gallery-index.html

NASA's Stardust spacecraft returned new images of a comet showing a scar resulting from the 2005 Deep Impact mission. The images also showed the comet has a fragile and weak nucleus. 

The spacecraft made its closest approach to comet Tempel 1 on Monday, Feb. 14, at 8:40 p.m. PST at a distance of approximately 111 miles. Stardust took 72 high-resolution images of the comet. It also accumulated 468 kilobytes of data about the dust in its coma, the cloud that is a comet's atmosphere. The craft is on its second mission of exploration called Stardust-NExT, having completed its prime mission collecting cometary particles and returning them to Earth in 2006. 

The Stardust-NExT mission met its goals which included observing surface features that changed in areas previously seen during the 2005 Deep Impact mission; imaging new terrain; and viewing the crater generated when the 2005 mission propelled an impactor at the comet. 

"This mission is 100 percent successful," said Joe Veverka, Stardust-NExT principal investigator of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "We saw a lot of new things that we didn't expect, and we'll be working hard to figure out what Tempel 1 is trying to tell us." 

Several of the images provide tantalizing clues to the result of the Deep Impact mission's collision with Tempel 1. 

"We see a crater with a small mound in the center, and it appears that some of the ejecta went up and came right back down," said Pete Schultz of Brown University, Providence, R.I. "This tells us this cometary nucleus is fragile and weak based on how subdued the crater is we see today." 

Engineering telemetry downlinked after closest approach indicates the spacecraft flew through waves of disintegrating cometary particles including a dozen impacts that penetrated more than one layer of its protective shielding. 

"The data indicate Stardust went through something similar to a B-17 bomber flying through flak in World War II," said Don Brownlee, Stardust-NExT co-investigator from the University of Washington in Seattle. "Instead of having a little stream of uniform particles coming out, they apparently came out in chunks and crumbled." 

While the Valentine's Day night encounter of Tempel 1 is complete, the spacecraft will continue to look at its latest cometary obsession from afar.                                              

"This spacecraft has logged over 3.5 billion miles since launch, and while its last close encounter is complete, its mission of discovery is not," said Tim Larson, Stardust-NExT project manager at JPL. "We'll continue imaging the comet as long as the science team can gain useful information, and then Stardust will get its well-deserved rest." 

Stardust-NExT is a low-cost mission that is expanding the investigation of comet Tempel 1 initiated by the Deep Impact spacecraft. The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft and manages day-to-day mission operations.