Posts
Not long ago I heard a "heavy?" cover of 'Land of Confusion' by Phil Collins and I thought 'What the...and why?' I actually like Genesis and Phil Collins has his solo moments, plus he helps me to relax when they're buffing my incisors. But, Land of Confusion wasn't the strongest song he ever made and in combination with the bizarre political puppets from Spitting Image I prefer to wash it from my memory along with Don Johnson's pink linen jacket. I'll just stick to Paperlate.
But no, here comes Land of Confusion once again, only this time I have to hear it unconvincingly shrieked by a band called 'Disturbed'. Hmmm...how about a band who imitates Metallica covering Phil Collins? That not just necrophilia, surely that must be inbred necrofilial cannibalism. Hey, maybe that's the name of the next album by 'Disturbed'.
I must admit, I liked Van Halen's version of 'Pretty Woman' and later learned about Roy Orbison, so perhaps I was just as much of an oblivious and eager consumer.
Regardless, last week I was flipping through the radio while driving down 316 and, I shit you not, along comes the new fangled version of 'Careless Whisper' by a band called Seether.
George Michael, you sure as hell DID dance again, only this time in a much more butch fashion by these douche bags who know that they can rip it off and then sell it to kids who don't know any better. If I may digress for just a moment, this is gayer than gay. At least George made his own music and had the balls to sing it in his own way.
Since the youtube clip for Seether's version is just a place holder graphic, I had to look at another Seether video just to see what these people look like. It's the same flawed rationale as leering to see the face of a bad driver when someone does something dumb or annoying in traffic, hoping that the face and the actions match. And, no disappointments here. Seether, it looks like the teacher kept you in detention for about twenty years too long. These are the bands who make the music for our recruiting ads, seriously. Same target market.
Visit the infamous "Hall of Douchebags" at rockandrollconfidential.com
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
ObaMao
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cityguide/2009-09/23/content_8725909.htm
Liu Mingjie created a computer-aided design that superimposed US President Barack Obama's face over that of China's late Chairman Mao.
So it's now Obama's face sporting that famous green Communist Party cap with a red star on T-shirts, bags and coin purses sold at Liu's shop, Stefan, located in the trendy, touristy lakeside shops of Houhai in central Beijing.
"American people who come in say, 'Omigosh. That's fantastic,' Liu said, perfectly mimicking a Southern California accent.
"Chinese people see Obama's face where Mao's should be, and they laugh," said Liu, 39, a native of Beijing.
Liu, who also goes by Stefan, the English-language name he adopted for his store, has sold more than 300 T-shirts and more than 1,000 ObaMao coin purses since he introduced the design two months ago at his store at No 20 Yandai Xiejie in the neighborhood near China's famed Bell and Drum towers. The cotton T-shirts, with white or black backgrounds, come with the re-engineered image on the front and the word ObaMao on the back.
Liu learned that what many of his local and foreign customers have in common is that they think Obama is a good-looking politician, he said.
So Liu added a new item: a small sticker designed to resemble the cover of US-based Time magazine with the ObaMao figure on the cover. The Chinese words on the mock magazine cover translate to: "Chairman Mao says I'm very handsome."
US tourist Santiago Nomen of Orange County, California, and his family walked into Liu's shop one day this week after seeing an ObaMao canvas bag hanging in Liu's shop window.
"It's amazing," Nomen said, laughing as he and family members examined the T-shirts.
Liu said he's had US customers who like or dislike Obama, but both kinds buy his T-shirts. "It's a win-win," he said.
German tourist Alice Steinert, 19, of Berlin, started laughing, too, when she walked into Liu's shop with her parents.
"They're really funny," she said, choosing an ObaMao T-shirt with a white background.
Steinert said she and her fellow Germans are fans of the new US president.
"In general, they're very glad Obama is president. We were happy when he got elected," she said.
Liu is a fan, too, "He talks about his family, which is important to Chinese people. And he's very friendly with African people and Asian people," he said.
Older Chinese people know very little about Obama, "but young people - students and those in their 30s and 40s - know him. They see Obama on CCTV," Liu said.
Liu said it was an easy Eureka to design a likeness of Obama wearing Mao's uniform.
"On the streets in Beijing, they like the Mao hats and green T-shirts. The foreigner wants to show he loves Chinese culture," Liu said.
Friends recently convinced him to send a complimentary T-shirt to Obama, so Liu shipped one to an acquaintance in the United States to deliver to the White House. He hasn't heard back yet, he said.
Before engineering the ObaMao T-shirts, Liu was a design engineer for the Beijing operations of Germany's Siemens AG and US-based Cisco Systems.
Then Liu decided to become an entrepreneur, opening up his Stefan shop three years ago, he said.
His first T-shirt designs focused on Beijing cultural scenes, including Beijing Opera images, he said, and they still are popular sellers at his store.
Now that his ObaMao line is proving a hit, Liu said he's working on a new product to introduce before the Christmas shopping season - ObaMao underwear.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Jet Fighter Laser Cannon
More info on laser weapons:
(MATRIX), a laser that is mounted on a truck, can shoot down small aircraft:
http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=941
YAL-1 AirBorne Laser is a 747 that shoots a laser from its nose that is powerful enough to bring down an ICBM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1
Video: Airborne laser test
http://blogs.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/2009/10/02/video-airborne-laser-defeats-target/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/17/hellads_phase_iv_contracts/
DARPA fridge laser. Advantage: Shark
By Lewis Page • Get more from this author
Posted in Science, 17th November 2009 17:15 GMT
Free whitepaper – Dell IT infrastructure services brochure
US military boffinry chiefs have stated that they will shortly issue a brace of contracts for "refrigerator sized" laser blaster cannons. One of the deals will see a full-power ground prototype built which will be the final stage prior to America's first raygun-equipped jet fighter.
The news comes in a pair of notices issued by renowned Pentagon propellerhead bureau DARPA, under the agency's High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defence System (HELLADS) programme. The notices, required by federal acquisition rules, reveal DARPA's intention to award two sole-source contracts to Textron Defence Systems and famous tech firm General Atomics.
The idea of HELLADS is to make a battle-strength 150 kilowatt laser light enough to be carried in a "tactical" aircraft, ie a fighter or similar rather than a massive lumbering transport plane. Current combat rayguns require at the very least a Hercules hauler to lift them, or even a jumbo jet in the case of the biggest. Such monster systems are of questionable usefulness in normal warfare - they are only seen as having a niche in unusual tasks such as shooting down nuclear missiles or unattributably burning holes in truck bonnets.
But a smaller HELL-beam mounted on a fighter that one could send out above the battlefield could be a lot handier. At height, allowing the line-of-sight laser beams to dominate a broad horizon, it could sweep the skies of such things as artillery or mortar shells, bombardment rockets etc - hence the "area defence" bit. If any pitiful fool tried to tackle the HELL-fighter with outmoded trash such as anti-aircraft missiles, these too would be beamed out of existence.
According to DARPA, the maximum feasible size for a tactical jet HELL-ray is "refrigerator sized", and the maximum weight is 750kg.
The two DARPA deals foreshadowed today will see the HELLADS Demonstrator Laser Weapon System (DLWS) assembled. According to DARPA this is the penultimate stage, a ground unit intended to prove that a fighter blaster-cannon pod can indeed be built:
This unit cell demonstration will validate the ability to produce output power and beam quality required to meet the full scale 150kW performance within the weight and volume goals through integration of replicated unit cells.
Quite apart from the raygun fighter plan, one should note that the competing HELL-beams offered by GA and Textron are to be assembled from many lesser laser "cells". Overall the technology is intended to produce blaster weaponry of "<5 kg/kW" weight-to-power ratio, scalable up and down in size.
If it scales down far enough, this would seem to put handheld HELL-guns within an order of magnitude of the striking power offered by conventional small-arms. A 9mm pistol bullet has about 750 joules muzzle energy: a 5kg portable HELL-ray weapon would put out this much energy in a blast less than a second long.
HELL-beam carbines and possible battlefield-dominating raygun fighters are all very well, of course, but by now our apparently large readership of evil billionaires will be impatiently skipping ahead to find out the consequences in terms of home/lair defence applications. Specifically, defence against tiresome government agents and/or their scantily-clad feminine assistants, black-clad SWAT-commando frogman allies etc, implemented by execution-pool sharks employing head-mounted energy weapons.
Well, a dolphin can carry a human being weighing up to 100kg along for a ride. A thoroughbred shark in good training can surely match this. Thus, we seem to be looking at practicable head-lazor output in the 20-kilowatt range, roughly equating to a submachinegun with a cyclic rate well over 1500 rounds per minute. This is more than double that offered by the Heckler & Koch MP5 favoured by government SWAT operatives worldwide.
(MATRIX), a laser that is mounted on a truck, can shoot down small aircraft:
http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=941
YAL-1 AirBorne Laser is a 747 that shoots a laser from its nose that is powerful enough to bring down an ICBM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1
Video: Airborne laser test
http://blogs.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/2009/10/02/video-airborne-laser-defeats-target/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/17/hellads_phase_iv_contracts/
DARPA fridge laser. Advantage: Shark
By Lewis Page • Get more from this author
Posted in Science, 17th November 2009 17:15 GMT
Free whitepaper – Dell IT infrastructure services brochure
US military boffinry chiefs have stated that they will shortly issue a brace of contracts for "refrigerator sized" laser blaster cannons. One of the deals will see a full-power ground prototype built which will be the final stage prior to America's first raygun-equipped jet fighter.
The news comes in a pair of notices issued by renowned Pentagon propellerhead bureau DARPA, under the agency's High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defence System (HELLADS) programme. The notices, required by federal acquisition rules, reveal DARPA's intention to award two sole-source contracts to Textron Defence Systems and famous tech firm General Atomics.
The idea of HELLADS is to make a battle-strength 150 kilowatt laser light enough to be carried in a "tactical" aircraft, ie a fighter or similar rather than a massive lumbering transport plane. Current combat rayguns require at the very least a Hercules hauler to lift them, or even a jumbo jet in the case of the biggest. Such monster systems are of questionable usefulness in normal warfare - they are only seen as having a niche in unusual tasks such as shooting down nuclear missiles or unattributably burning holes in truck bonnets.
But a smaller HELL-beam mounted on a fighter that one could send out above the battlefield could be a lot handier. At height, allowing the line-of-sight laser beams to dominate a broad horizon, it could sweep the skies of such things as artillery or mortar shells, bombardment rockets etc - hence the "area defence" bit. If any pitiful fool tried to tackle the HELL-fighter with outmoded trash such as anti-aircraft missiles, these too would be beamed out of existence.
According to DARPA, the maximum feasible size for a tactical jet HELL-ray is "refrigerator sized", and the maximum weight is 750kg.
The two DARPA deals foreshadowed today will see the HELLADS Demonstrator Laser Weapon System (DLWS) assembled. According to DARPA this is the penultimate stage, a ground unit intended to prove that a fighter blaster-cannon pod can indeed be built:
This unit cell demonstration will validate the ability to produce output power and beam quality required to meet the full scale 150kW performance within the weight and volume goals through integration of replicated unit cells.
Quite apart from the raygun fighter plan, one should note that the competing HELL-beams offered by GA and Textron are to be assembled from many lesser laser "cells". Overall the technology is intended to produce blaster weaponry of "<5 kg/kW" weight-to-power ratio, scalable up and down in size.
If it scales down far enough, this would seem to put handheld HELL-guns within an order of magnitude of the striking power offered by conventional small-arms. A 9mm pistol bullet has about 750 joules muzzle energy: a 5kg portable HELL-ray weapon would put out this much energy in a blast less than a second long.
HELL-beam carbines and possible battlefield-dominating raygun fighters are all very well, of course, but by now our apparently large readership of evil billionaires will be impatiently skipping ahead to find out the consequences in terms of home/lair defence applications. Specifically, defence against tiresome government agents and/or their scantily-clad feminine assistants, black-clad SWAT-commando frogman allies etc, implemented by execution-pool sharks employing head-mounted energy weapons.
Well, a dolphin can carry a human being weighing up to 100kg along for a ride. A thoroughbred shark in good training can surely match this. Thus, we seem to be looking at practicable head-lazor output in the 20-kilowatt range, roughly equating to a submachinegun with a cyclic rate well over 1500 rounds per minute. This is more than double that offered by the Heckler & Koch MP5 favoured by government SWAT operatives worldwide.
Israeli settlement plan denounced
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8364815.stm
The US and UN have criticised Israel's approval of 900 extra housing units at a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the move would hamper Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Their remarks came after Israel's interior ministry approved planning applications for the new units.
The planning and construction committee authorised the expansion of Gilo, which is built on land captured in 1967.
The land was later annexed to the Jerusalem municipality.
US 'dismay'
With the project yet to be reviewed, the public can still make objections.
Settlements on occupied territory are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
Jerusalem is Israel's capital and will remain as such
Mark Regev
Israeli premier's spokesman
Mr Gibbs said: "We are dismayed at the Jerusalem Planning Committee's decision to move forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem.
"Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations."
It is the second time in two months that the Obama administration has spoken out on settlements.
In September the White House said it regretted reports that Israel planned to approve new construction in the West Bank.
The BBC's Paul Adams in Washington says the conventional wisdom in the US is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has successfully thwarted Barack Obama's first foray into the stalled Middle East peace process, rebuffing American calls for a complete settlements freeze.
State department spokesman Ian Kelly said the planning decision was dismaying
But some Washington observers say it's too early to write off the president's efforts, he says.
They believe Mr Obama is playing a long game and that the frosty relations between Mr Netanyahu and the White House could cause problems for the Israeli leader in the future, our correspondent adds.
Mr Ban's spokeswoman said the UN chief believed the Israeli action would "undermine efforts for peace and cast doubt on the viability of the two-state solution".
'Envoy's request'
Israeli media reported earlier that the government had rejected a request from Washington to freeze the construction work at Gilo.
Mr Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, is said to have made the request to Mr Netanyahu at a meeting in London on Monday.
Mr Netanyahu replied that the project did not require government approval and that Gilo was "an integral part of Jerusalem", according to Israel Army Radio.
His spokesman, Mark Regev, declined to comment on the reports, but repeated Israel's refusal to include areas annexed to Jerusalem as part of any accommodation of Mr Obama's call for "restraint" in settlement construction.
Map showing Gilo
"Prime Minister Netanyahu... is willing to adopt the policy of the greatest possible restraint concerning growth in the West Bank, but this applies to the West Bank," he told the Reuters news agency. "Jerusalem is Israel's capital and will remain as such."
The Palestinian Authority has demanded a halt to all settlement construction before it will attend new peace talks, which were suspended last year.
The BBC's Tim Franks in Jerusalem says Tuesday's announcement represents by far the largest batch of planning approvals for building on occupied territory since Mr Netanyahu became prime minister.
The 900 housing units, which will be built in the form of four-to-five-bedroom apartments, will account for a significant expansion of Gilo.
The interior ministry said construction work would be unlikely to start for another three or four years.
A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the planning approval was "yet another step that shows and proves Israel is not ready for peace".
Nearly 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built on occupied territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
--
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD9C23HQ80
Israel brushes off Obama criticism over Jerusalem
By BEN HUBBARD (AP) – 21 hours ago
JERUSALEM — Israel broke ground on a new housing complex for Jews in east Jerusalem on Wednesday, brushing off President Barack Obama's criticism that construction in the disputed part of the holy city undermines efforts to relaunch Mideast peace talks.
The groundbreaking came a day after Israel defied American, European and Palestinian demands to stop settlement activity by announcing it will press forward with construction of 900 apartments in another Jewish area in east Jerusalem.
Speaking to Fox News in Beijing on Wednesday, Obama criticized the plan to build hundreds of homes in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, saying such moves make it harder to achieve peace in the region and embitter the Palestinians in a way he said could be dangerous.
The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — for their hoped-for state and have refused negotiations until Israel stops settlement construction in these areas. The Palestinians say the continued growth of settlements on land they claim will make it impossible for them to establish a viable country of their own.
The Israeli government declined to respond to Obama's comments. But earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel had no intention of stopping the Gilo construction. He called the neighborhood "an integral part of Israel, an integral part of Jerusalem."
The future of east Jerusalem is the most intractable issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The area includes Jerusalem's walled Old City — home to sensitive Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites. Israel annexed east Jerusalem immediately after the 1967 war and claims all of the city as its eternal capital. The annexation was never recognized by other countries.
Speaking in parliament Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not address the tensions with the U.S. and ignored an Arab lawmaker who asked why he was allowing the new construction in Gilo.
Instead, Netanyahu reiterated his call for an immediate resumption of peace talks and criticized the Palestinians for refusing to return to the table.
"I hope the Palestinians answer our calls for negotiations," he said. "The Palestinians have groomed themselves with unrealistic expectations."
As he spoke, however, Israel faced a growing torrent of international criticism. The European Union expressed "dismay" over the Gilo project. It said that settlement activity, demolition of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem and evictions of Palestinian families from contested properties undermine negotiations and "threaten the viability of a two-state solution."
In the West Bank, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat welcomed the international criticism.
He said the Gilo project "provides 900 more reasons why hopes for salvaging the two-state solution and restarting genuine negotiations are rapidly fading, and why Israel is not a partner for peace."
Obama has made restarting the peace talks a top foreign policy goal. To that end, he has demanded that Israel cease building or expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. But so far, the U.S. has not backed up its criticism with threats against Israel, a close ally.
Some 300,000 Israelis now live in West Bank settlements, while an additional 180,000 Israelis live in Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem.
Israel has offered to restrain construction in the West Bank, but it says it will build homes anywhere it wants in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem municipality on Thursday issued a statement detailing plans to build 5,000 new housing units for Palestinians in three neighborhoods in the eastern sector. Jerusalem's Israeli mayor, Nir Barkat, rejected U.S. criticism of the building projects for Jews.
"The city is working to respond to the needs of its Jewish and Arab residents equally," Barkat was quoted as saying.
Underscoring Israel's claim to the city, a member of the Israeli parliament and American Jewish visitors held a groundbreaking ceremony for another construction project in east Jerusalem on Wednesday.
The lawmaker, from Netanyahu's Likud Party, accused Obama of making a "racist demand" by ordering Israel to halt settlement activity.
"President Obama should not interfere with the rights of the Jewish people to live in Jerusalem," said lawmaker Danny Danon. "This ... is a racist demand, saying that Jews cannot live in Jerusalem, only Arabs."
The ceremony kicked off construction of 124 new apartments in a Jewish housing complex called Nof Zion, or "View of Zion," near the Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber.
Six salmon-colored condo buildings and a playground already stand on the hillside, with a commanding view of a number of Arab neighborhoods and Jerusalem's Old City. A number of Arab homes and shops lie nearby.
The entire complex, expected to be complete in 2015, will contain a synagogue, a community center, a luxury hotel and 400 apartments, priced at between $371,000 to $690,000, said Rinat Sylvester, head of marketing for the complex.
At the ceremony, New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Obama's call to stop Jewish settlement amounted to "segregation."
Critics call settlements discriminatory since they provide roads, housing and infrastructure for Jewish residents, while they are off limits for Arabs living nearby.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The US and UN have criticised Israel's approval of 900 extra housing units at a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the move would hamper Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Their remarks came after Israel's interior ministry approved planning applications for the new units.
The planning and construction committee authorised the expansion of Gilo, which is built on land captured in 1967.
The land was later annexed to the Jerusalem municipality.
US 'dismay'
With the project yet to be reviewed, the public can still make objections.
Settlements on occupied territory are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
Jerusalem is Israel's capital and will remain as such
Mark Regev
Israeli premier's spokesman
Mr Gibbs said: "We are dismayed at the Jerusalem Planning Committee's decision to move forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem.
"Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations."
It is the second time in two months that the Obama administration has spoken out on settlements.
In September the White House said it regretted reports that Israel planned to approve new construction in the West Bank.
The BBC's Paul Adams in Washington says the conventional wisdom in the US is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has successfully thwarted Barack Obama's first foray into the stalled Middle East peace process, rebuffing American calls for a complete settlements freeze.
State department spokesman Ian Kelly said the planning decision was dismaying
But some Washington observers say it's too early to write off the president's efforts, he says.
They believe Mr Obama is playing a long game and that the frosty relations between Mr Netanyahu and the White House could cause problems for the Israeli leader in the future, our correspondent adds.
Mr Ban's spokeswoman said the UN chief believed the Israeli action would "undermine efforts for peace and cast doubt on the viability of the two-state solution".
'Envoy's request'
Israeli media reported earlier that the government had rejected a request from Washington to freeze the construction work at Gilo.
Mr Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, is said to have made the request to Mr Netanyahu at a meeting in London on Monday.
Mr Netanyahu replied that the project did not require government approval and that Gilo was "an integral part of Jerusalem", according to Israel Army Radio.
His spokesman, Mark Regev, declined to comment on the reports, but repeated Israel's refusal to include areas annexed to Jerusalem as part of any accommodation of Mr Obama's call for "restraint" in settlement construction.
Map showing Gilo
"Prime Minister Netanyahu... is willing to adopt the policy of the greatest possible restraint concerning growth in the West Bank, but this applies to the West Bank," he told the Reuters news agency. "Jerusalem is Israel's capital and will remain as such."
The Palestinian Authority has demanded a halt to all settlement construction before it will attend new peace talks, which were suspended last year.
The BBC's Tim Franks in Jerusalem says Tuesday's announcement represents by far the largest batch of planning approvals for building on occupied territory since Mr Netanyahu became prime minister.
The 900 housing units, which will be built in the form of four-to-five-bedroom apartments, will account for a significant expansion of Gilo.
The interior ministry said construction work would be unlikely to start for another three or four years.
A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the planning approval was "yet another step that shows and proves Israel is not ready for peace".
Nearly 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built on occupied territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
--
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD9C23HQ80
Israel brushes off Obama criticism over Jerusalem
By BEN HUBBARD (AP) – 21 hours ago
JERUSALEM — Israel broke ground on a new housing complex for Jews in east Jerusalem on Wednesday, brushing off President Barack Obama's criticism that construction in the disputed part of the holy city undermines efforts to relaunch Mideast peace talks.
The groundbreaking came a day after Israel defied American, European and Palestinian demands to stop settlement activity by announcing it will press forward with construction of 900 apartments in another Jewish area in east Jerusalem.
Speaking to Fox News in Beijing on Wednesday, Obama criticized the plan to build hundreds of homes in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, saying such moves make it harder to achieve peace in the region and embitter the Palestinians in a way he said could be dangerous.
The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — for their hoped-for state and have refused negotiations until Israel stops settlement construction in these areas. The Palestinians say the continued growth of settlements on land they claim will make it impossible for them to establish a viable country of their own.
The Israeli government declined to respond to Obama's comments. But earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel had no intention of stopping the Gilo construction. He called the neighborhood "an integral part of Israel, an integral part of Jerusalem."
The future of east Jerusalem is the most intractable issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The area includes Jerusalem's walled Old City — home to sensitive Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites. Israel annexed east Jerusalem immediately after the 1967 war and claims all of the city as its eternal capital. The annexation was never recognized by other countries.
Speaking in parliament Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not address the tensions with the U.S. and ignored an Arab lawmaker who asked why he was allowing the new construction in Gilo.
Instead, Netanyahu reiterated his call for an immediate resumption of peace talks and criticized the Palestinians for refusing to return to the table.
"I hope the Palestinians answer our calls for negotiations," he said. "The Palestinians have groomed themselves with unrealistic expectations."
As he spoke, however, Israel faced a growing torrent of international criticism. The European Union expressed "dismay" over the Gilo project. It said that settlement activity, demolition of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem and evictions of Palestinian families from contested properties undermine negotiations and "threaten the viability of a two-state solution."
In the West Bank, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat welcomed the international criticism.
He said the Gilo project "provides 900 more reasons why hopes for salvaging the two-state solution and restarting genuine negotiations are rapidly fading, and why Israel is not a partner for peace."
Obama has made restarting the peace talks a top foreign policy goal. To that end, he has demanded that Israel cease building or expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. But so far, the U.S. has not backed up its criticism with threats against Israel, a close ally.
Some 300,000 Israelis now live in West Bank settlements, while an additional 180,000 Israelis live in Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem.
Israel has offered to restrain construction in the West Bank, but it says it will build homes anywhere it wants in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem municipality on Thursday issued a statement detailing plans to build 5,000 new housing units for Palestinians in three neighborhoods in the eastern sector. Jerusalem's Israeli mayor, Nir Barkat, rejected U.S. criticism of the building projects for Jews.
"The city is working to respond to the needs of its Jewish and Arab residents equally," Barkat was quoted as saying.
Underscoring Israel's claim to the city, a member of the Israeli parliament and American Jewish visitors held a groundbreaking ceremony for another construction project in east Jerusalem on Wednesday.
The lawmaker, from Netanyahu's Likud Party, accused Obama of making a "racist demand" by ordering Israel to halt settlement activity.
"President Obama should not interfere with the rights of the Jewish people to live in Jerusalem," said lawmaker Danny Danon. "This ... is a racist demand, saying that Jews cannot live in Jerusalem, only Arabs."
The ceremony kicked off construction of 124 new apartments in a Jewish housing complex called Nof Zion, or "View of Zion," near the Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber.
Six salmon-colored condo buildings and a playground already stand on the hillside, with a commanding view of a number of Arab neighborhoods and Jerusalem's Old City. A number of Arab homes and shops lie nearby.
The entire complex, expected to be complete in 2015, will contain a synagogue, a community center, a luxury hotel and 400 apartments, priced at between $371,000 to $690,000, said Rinat Sylvester, head of marketing for the complex.
At the ceremony, New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Obama's call to stop Jewish settlement amounted to "segregation."
Critics call settlements discriminatory since they provide roads, housing and infrastructure for Jewish residents, while they are off limits for Arabs living nearby.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Super Computing
Pictured, left. What of my old pipe dreams of evil supercomputers who will one day network the minds of humans to satisfy their thirst for memory and processing power, the spinal cords buckling at capacity.
Likely such configurations will be surpassed by quantum computers and the humans will merely serve as data storage. Or more simply, the DNA will be employed for the computing and the humans will be obsolete.
China Joins Supercomputer Elite
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8362825.stm
China has become one of a handful of nations to own one of the top five supercomputers in the world.
Its Tianhe-1 computer, housed at the National Super Computer Center in Tianjin was ranked fifth on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list.
The machine packs more than 70,000 chips and can compute 563 trillion calculations per second (teraflops).
It is used for petroleum exploration and engineering tasks such as simulating aircraft designs.
However, the fastest machine is the US-owned Jaguar supercomputer, which now boasts a speed of 1.759 petaflops.
One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
I also read about the Sequoia, only slightly slower, which puts usage into context:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/IBM-Sequoia-Supercomputer,6955.html
"...the Sequoia will not arrive at the government facility until sometime in 2012. The 20 Teraflops speedster will have 1.6 Petabytes (note: 1 Petabyte = over one million gigabytes), connected to its 1.6 million cores. Beyond that, the details are scarce.
So what will the Sequoia be doing? Plotting world domination? Tracking down alien life forms? Its primary purpose will be to calculate nuclear explosions, along with analyzing the entire U.S. nuclear stockpile. The Sequoia was one of four bids considered by the National Nuclear Security Administration and the U.S. Dept. of Energy. "These powerful machines will provide NNSA with the capabilities needed to resolve time-urgent and complex scientific problems, ensuring the viability of the nation's nuclear deterrent into the future," said NNSA administrator Thomas D'Agostino. "This endeavor will also help maintain U.S. leadership in high performance computing and promote scientific discovery."
The Petaflop barrier was originally broken in June of 2008, when IBM announced that its Roadrunner supercomputer would be able to consistently calculate at such a high level. With the Sequoia topping out at around 20Tflops, the bar has been raised tremendously in the span of only seven months.
Analyzing nuclear weapons is all well and good, but we're hoping the scientists in Livermore try running Crysis on this bad boy during their downtime."
So, I wanted to brush up on my prefixes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix
10008 1024 yotta Y 1991 Septillion Quadrillion 1000000000000000000000000
10007 1021 zetta Z 1991 Sextillion Trilliard 1000000000000000000000
10006 1018 exa E 1975 Quintillion Trillion 1000000000000000000
10005 1015 peta P 1975 Quadrillion Billiard 1000000000000000
10004 1012 tera T 1960 Trillion Billion 1000000000000
10003 109 giga G 1960 Billion Milliard 1000000000
10002 106 mega M 1960 Million 1 000 000
...and I then found an eccentric post which ventures beyond and on into speculative naming conventions:
http://www.110mb.com/forum/where-do-we-go-to-after-megabytes-giga-tera-peta-exa-zetta-yotta-xona-weka-vunda-t31718.0.html
Giga Tera Peta Exa Zetta Yotta Xona Weka Vunda Uda Treda Sorta Rinta Quexa Pepta Ocha Nena Minga Luma 10 To The Power Of 63 Because I Went As Far As 10 To The Power Of 105
And Named It Alexa Then I Thought This Is Not The End Just The Start So I Carried On And Went To 10 To The Power Of 108 And Named It Venta Then To 10 To The Power Of 111 And Named It Dutra And Then I Realized That Going To Infinity Can Never Be Possible!
What Is My Mind Thinking And Is Anyone Else Out There On This Planet Or Beyond That Is Enquiring Their Mind!
This Is Just The Beginning...
Thanks For Your Input No Matter What!
Arturo
ZR1URO
Cape Town
Republic Of South Africa
South Of The Equator
Close To The Antarctic Ocean And South Pole
Visible From Venus Sometimes
And What Happened To Pluto
Arrivederla A Presto
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Obama seeks to ease Japan tension
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8357561.stm
US President Barack Obama arrives in Haneda Airport in Tokyo, 13 November
Mr Obama is to spend 24 hours in Japan and three days in China
US President Barack Obama has arrived in Japan at a time of uncertainty in relations with America's old ally over foreign policy and US military bases.
Japan's new Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has signalled he wants closer ties with Asia and that he opposes plans to relocate a US base on Okinawa.
Mr Obama's first Asian tour as US leader is aimed at boosting economic growth and reassuring key allies.
He called for a growth strategy "that is both balanced and broadly shared".
His eight-day tour will take him to Singapore, China and South Korea and includes an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit.
OBAMA IN ASIA
Friday 13 November: Arrives in Japan
Saturday 14: Leaves Tokyo for Apec summit in Singapore
Sunday 15: Has talks with Russia's President Medvedev among others at the summit before leaving for China
Tuesday 17: Summit in Beijing with Chinese President Hu Jintao
Wednesday 18: Ends tour with visit to South Korea
He told Reuters news agency China was a "partner" as well as rival but warned of "enormous strains" in relations between the world's two most powerful nations if economic imbalances between them were not corrected.
Climate change and the North Korean and Iranian nuclear disputes are also likely to be on the agenda for his talks with Asian leaders.
Jonathan Marcus, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent, says that while Mr Obama will push for increased Chinese co-operation in containing the two countries, his real challenge will be to allay the concerns of his non-Chinese hosts about the rise of Beijing's power in the region.
His message will be that the US is back as a player on the region's diplomatic chess board, our correspondent adds.
Friction with Tokyo
Mr Obama was due to hold a summit with Mr Hatoyama on Friday before delivering a keynote speech on Saturday in which he is expected to reaffirm the strength of Washington's alliance with Japan.
OKINAWA DISPUTE
A view of planes at Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, February 2007
Most of the 47,000 US soldiers in Japan are based on the island
The US military favours Okinawa as it is closer to China and Taiwan
The US governed the island directly for nearly 30 years after World War II
The US wants to move its airbase at Futenma away from residential areas to another location on the island
Pollution from the US bases has angered local people
A number of sexual assaults by US servicemen on Japanese civilians and accidents involving military hardware have fuelled opposition to the bases
Japan's new PM has suggested moving Futenma off the island completely
Mr Hatoyama has promised to end Japan's Indian Ocean refuelling mission that supports US-led forces in Afghanistan.
He also promised to review the Okinawa base agreement that Washington thought was settled three years ago.
However, correspondents say the issue is likely to be downplayed during their talks.
Mr Hatoyama stressed on Friday that the Japanese-US alliance was a "cornerstone of Japan's diplomacy".
"There's no question about the need to maintain that," he added, speaking just before the US leader's arrival.
Japanese peace activists demonstrated near the US embassy in Tokyo on Thursday against plans to move the Okinawa base to another part of the island and also criticised Mr Obama for not taking time to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Mr Obama said he would visit the sites of the first atomic bomb attacks on another occasion.
During his visit, he is also due to meet Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, who have just celebrated 20 years on the throne.
Afghan pledge
China's growing economic and military power and its effect on relations with Washington are also concerns for some Japanese.
Obama flasks on sale in Shanghai, 12 November
Obama souvenirs are on sale in the countries he is visiting
Three days of the tour are being devoted to the Chinese leg during which Mr Obama hopes to discuss a revaluation of the Chinese currency.
He is also set to discuss opening Chinese markets further to US goods and encouraging Chinese consumers to spend more.
China signalled on Wednesday that it might allow an appreciation of the yuan.
Mr Obama spent several years in Indonesia as a child and is seen as the first president with an "Asia-Pacific orientation", the BBC's Kim Ghattas reports from Washington.
He will try to capitalise on this as he seeks to build on and improve crucial relationships with allies and rivals across the Pacific, our correspondent adds.
Mr Obama stopped off in Alaska on his way, touching down at Elmendorf Air Force Base where he spoke to a military audience about his strategy in Afghanistan.
"I will not risk your lives unless it is necessary to America's vital interests," he told troops.
The US administration has been locked in an intense debate over a request from the American commander in Afghanistan for thousands of extra troops amid doubts over the competence and integrity of the Afghan government.
No decision on the surge request is expected during Mr Obama's visit to Asia, said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
US President Barack Obama arrives in Haneda Airport in Tokyo, 13 November
Mr Obama is to spend 24 hours in Japan and three days in China
US President Barack Obama has arrived in Japan at a time of uncertainty in relations with America's old ally over foreign policy and US military bases.
Japan's new Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has signalled he wants closer ties with Asia and that he opposes plans to relocate a US base on Okinawa.
Mr Obama's first Asian tour as US leader is aimed at boosting economic growth and reassuring key allies.
He called for a growth strategy "that is both balanced and broadly shared".
His eight-day tour will take him to Singapore, China and South Korea and includes an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit.
OBAMA IN ASIA
Friday 13 November: Arrives in Japan
Saturday 14: Leaves Tokyo for Apec summit in Singapore
Sunday 15: Has talks with Russia's President Medvedev among others at the summit before leaving for China
Tuesday 17: Summit in Beijing with Chinese President Hu Jintao
Wednesday 18: Ends tour with visit to South Korea
He told Reuters news agency China was a "partner" as well as rival but warned of "enormous strains" in relations between the world's two most powerful nations if economic imbalances between them were not corrected.
Climate change and the North Korean and Iranian nuclear disputes are also likely to be on the agenda for his talks with Asian leaders.
Jonathan Marcus, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent, says that while Mr Obama will push for increased Chinese co-operation in containing the two countries, his real challenge will be to allay the concerns of his non-Chinese hosts about the rise of Beijing's power in the region.
His message will be that the US is back as a player on the region's diplomatic chess board, our correspondent adds.
Friction with Tokyo
Mr Obama was due to hold a summit with Mr Hatoyama on Friday before delivering a keynote speech on Saturday in which he is expected to reaffirm the strength of Washington's alliance with Japan.
OKINAWA DISPUTE
A view of planes at Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, February 2007
Most of the 47,000 US soldiers in Japan are based on the island
The US military favours Okinawa as it is closer to China and Taiwan
The US governed the island directly for nearly 30 years after World War II
The US wants to move its airbase at Futenma away from residential areas to another location on the island
Pollution from the US bases has angered local people
A number of sexual assaults by US servicemen on Japanese civilians and accidents involving military hardware have fuelled opposition to the bases
Japan's new PM has suggested moving Futenma off the island completely
Mr Hatoyama has promised to end Japan's Indian Ocean refuelling mission that supports US-led forces in Afghanistan.
He also promised to review the Okinawa base agreement that Washington thought was settled three years ago.
However, correspondents say the issue is likely to be downplayed during their talks.
Mr Hatoyama stressed on Friday that the Japanese-US alliance was a "cornerstone of Japan's diplomacy".
"There's no question about the need to maintain that," he added, speaking just before the US leader's arrival.
Japanese peace activists demonstrated near the US embassy in Tokyo on Thursday against plans to move the Okinawa base to another part of the island and also criticised Mr Obama for not taking time to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Mr Obama said he would visit the sites of the first atomic bomb attacks on another occasion.
During his visit, he is also due to meet Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, who have just celebrated 20 years on the throne.
Afghan pledge
China's growing economic and military power and its effect on relations with Washington are also concerns for some Japanese.
Obama flasks on sale in Shanghai, 12 November
Obama souvenirs are on sale in the countries he is visiting
Three days of the tour are being devoted to the Chinese leg during which Mr Obama hopes to discuss a revaluation of the Chinese currency.
He is also set to discuss opening Chinese markets further to US goods and encouraging Chinese consumers to spend more.
China signalled on Wednesday that it might allow an appreciation of the yuan.
Mr Obama spent several years in Indonesia as a child and is seen as the first president with an "Asia-Pacific orientation", the BBC's Kim Ghattas reports from Washington.
He will try to capitalise on this as he seeks to build on and improve crucial relationships with allies and rivals across the Pacific, our correspondent adds.
Mr Obama stopped off in Alaska on his way, touching down at Elmendorf Air Force Base where he spoke to a military audience about his strategy in Afghanistan.
"I will not risk your lives unless it is necessary to America's vital interests," he told troops.
The US administration has been locked in an intense debate over a request from the American commander in Afghanistan for thousands of extra troops amid doubts over the competence and integrity of the Afghan government.
No decision on the surge request is expected during Mr Obama's visit to Asia, said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
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