Spinners and Winners

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., became the most powerful woman in American history when she was sworn in as Speaker of the House in 2007. She lost that power four years later and is now hell-bent on winning it back. Spinners and Winners caught up with Pelosi on her early morning power walk by the Potomac River.

The 72-year-old grandmother shows no signs of slowing down as she briskly walks along the paved paths of Georgetown’s waterfront park and sums up her goal for the year with these words: “Just win, baby.”

“They have endless money, secret, undisclosed, special interest money that they pour into elections,” a slightly out-of-breath Pelosi said of Republican opponents. “But I think we can offset it. We have out-raised them, out-redistricted them, out-recruited them.”

Pelosi has been a veritable fundraising machine, raising more than $43 million for Democrats in this election cycle and attending nearly 500 fundraisers. The Democratic leader has put her heart and soul into winning back the house for Democrats, but she insists she is motivated by more than winning back the Speaker’s gavel.

“It isn’t about me, it is about what is at stake in this election and quite frankly I wish that so much were not at stake in this election.”

Pelosi also had some harsh words for fellow progressive Russ Feingold, who recently accused her of not doing enough to protect Social Security and Medicare. Check it out on this week’s Spinners and Winners.

Source: Yahoo News. Video at link.

China likely provided the mobile long-range missile launcher that North Korea displayed in a military parade over the weekend, which would put Beijing in violation of U.N. sanctions, analysts say.

The 16-wheeled vehicle, known as a transporter-erector-launcher (TEL), is apparently based on a Chinese design, said Ted Parsons of IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly.

The Chinese and North Korean versions of the TEL “have the same windscreen design, the same four windscreen wiper configuration, the same door and handle design, a very similar grill area, almost the same front bumper lighting configuration, and the same design for the cabin steps,” Mr. Parsonsnoted.

North Korea’s TEL was featured in a massive parade in Pyongyang over the weekend, one of a series of events held to commemorate the centenary of the communist regime’s founder, Kim Il-sung.

“If confirmed, China’s involvement in providing this erector-launcher toNorth Korea would put it in breach of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874,” said James Hardy, the Asia Pacific editor for Jane’s Defense Weekly.

CONTINUED at the Washington Times.

Asian airlines said they will divert planes from the intended flight path of North Korea’s rocket as shipping in the area was warned on Tuesday to beware of falling debris.

Japan’s two largest carriers, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways said they will alter the route of flights between Tokyo and Southeast Asian cities including Manila, Jakarta and Singapore during the planned rocket launch window.

Philippine Airlines said it “plans to reroute some of its flights in view of the possible effects on a portion of Philippine territory of the satellite launch of North Korea within the month.”

The moves came as Philippine air control authorities declared a no fly zone in airspace where North Korea’s rocket was projected to pass, a Japanese transport ministry official told AFP.

“The Japanese side are also preparing to issue a ‘notice to airmen’ that warns them not to enter a no fly zone set by the Philippine authorities,” he said.

“These no fly zone-related notices should apply to all international carriers,” he added.

CONTINUED at News 24.

Russia, still bitter about the whole Cold War thing, has been secretly developing a microwave‘zombie gun’, designed to scramble people’s brains and potentially provide mind control. This…is not going to end well, but would make a pretty bitchin’ movie. “In Soviet Russia, gun zombies you.” Jesus, of course you went there.

Precise details have not been revealed but previous research has shown that low-frequency waves or beams can affect brain cells, alter psychological states and make it possible to transmit suggestions and commands directly into someone’s thoughts.

Mr Putin said the technology is comparable in effect to nuclear weapons but ‘more acceptable in terms of political and military ideology.’

Well folks, looks like it’s time to break out the tin-foil hats. Me? I lined my regular baseball cap with foil on the inside so I still look fashionable. I like to think of it as chic apocalypse. “You really do think about the dumbest shit.” Man, you ever wondered if like, the whole world used to be pyramids but most of them just eroded away?

Source: Geekologie.

American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.

The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government’s principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time “from days to months” while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.

“It’s pretty terrifying prospect,” said Chris Coles of Drone Wars UK, which campaigns against the increasing use of drones for both military and civilian purposes. “Drones are much less safe than other aircraft and tend to crash a lot. There is a major push by this industry to increase the use of drones and both the public and government are struggling to keep up with the implications.”

The highly sensitive research into what is termed “ultra-persistence technologies” set out to solve three problems associated with drones: insufficient “hang time” over a potential target; lack of power for running sophisticated surveillance and weapons systems; and lack of communications capacity.

The Sandia-Northrop Grumman team looked at numerous different power systems for large- and medium-sized drones before settling on a nuclear solution. Northrop Grumman is known to have patented a drone equipped with a helium-cooled nuclear reactor as long ago as 1986, and has previously worked on nuclear projects with the US air force research laboratory. Designs for nuclear-powered aircraft are known to go back as far as the 1950s.

CONTINUED at The Guardian.

Yesterday afternoon, Barack Obama who is currently in South Korea, briefly was within bullet range (if behind bulletproof glass) of North Korea when he stood on the edge of the DMZ separating the two feuding countries. A few minutes later he left and told the world that “Bad behaviour will not be rewarded” referring to the imminent launch of North Korea’s Unha-3 rocket scheduled for a test launch in April. He added that “I will also note that every time North Korea has violated an international resolution, the Security Council resolution, it has resulted in further isolation, tightening of sanctions, stronger enforcement. I suspect that will happen this time as well.” Alas, we doubt that Obama’s warnings will have much of an impact and that in a few weeks NK will go ahead and hit the launch button undeterred, in the process forcing Japan to scramble its Aegis destroyers and take other countermeasures as discussed last week, in case the missile “veers of course.” But just what is the trajectory? Courtesy of North Korea Tech, we now know the secret path the North Korean rocket is expected to take. All we can say is there better not be strong Westerly winds.

More from North Korea tech:

North Korea’s Unha-3 rocket, scheduled for launch next month, will drop to earth in two stages off the western coast of South Korea and to the east of Luzon Island in the Philippines, according to documents submitted by the country to the International Maritime Organization.

The documents, obtained by NorthKoreaTech.org, were sent to the IMO’s London headquarters from the DPRK’s embassy in the U.K. They carried the name of “Ko Nung Do,” who is identified as director general of the DPRK’s Maritime Administration.

CONTINUED at Zero Hedge.

One moment it’s a chilly afternoon. But as I learned, in the very next moment, and without warning, your chest and neck feel like they’ve gotten a blast of unbearable steam heat.

That’s because of an imposing device the U.S. military calls the Active Denial System. It’s an energy weapon, commonly known as the “Pain Ray,” that turns electricity into millimeter wave radio frequency. And heat. Lots of heat.

The military wants it to burn suspicious people who might pose a threat to a base. Yet the Active Denial System has never fired a millimeter wave in anger, despite 15 years in development. On a crisp Friday afternoon, however, the military wants the Active Denial System to burn a different target. Me.

A field-grade officer on a grassy, calm field on the Marine base here beckons me to stand between four cones, on a spray-painted orange X. I am advised to jump sideways when the heat becomes unbearable. Whatever, I think, this isn’t really going to burn me.

Especially because I can’t see the Pain Ray, even though it’s mounted on two big, goofy looking trucks. One model is a tricked-out green Humvee topped with a huge, flat backboard and a gun barrel; the other is much bigger, mounted on an eight-wheeled flatbed truck. Their handlers call the smaller one Ralph and the bigger one Pete. But since Ralph and Pete are seven football fields away – far beyond the reach of every other non-lethal weapon – they don’t seem threatening.

This turns out to be pure journalistic arrogance.

CONTINUED at Gizmodo.

A self-guiding bullet that can steer itself towards its target is being developed for use by the US military.

The bullet uses tiny fins to correct the course of its flight allowing it to hit laser-illuminated targets.

It is designed to be capable of hitting objects at distances of about 2km (1.24 miles). Work on a prototype suggests that accuracy is best at longer ranges.

A think tank says the tech is well-suited to snipers, but worries about it being marketed to the public.

Work on the project is being carried out by an Albuquerque-based subsidiary of defence contractor Lockheed Martin on behalf of the US government.

The current prototype involves a 4in (10cm) bullet which includes an optical sensor in its nose to detect the laser. This information is then processed and used to move motors within the bullet which steer tiny fins, altering the ammunition’s path.

“We can make corrections 30 times per second,” said researcher Red Jones.

“That means we can over-correct, so we don’t have to be as precise each time.” …

CONTINUED at BBC News.

The US government has asked the scientific journals Nature and Science to censor data on a laboratory-made version of bird flu that could spread more easily to humans, fearing it could be used as a potential weapon.

The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity asked the two journals to publish redacted versions of studies by two research groups that created forms of the H5N1 avian flu that could easily jump between ferrets – typically considered a sign the virus could spread quickly among humans.

The journals are objecting to the request, saying it would restrict access to information that might advance the cause of public health.

The request was a first for the expert panel, formed after a series of anthrax attacks on US targets in 2001. It advises the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies about “dual use” research that could serve public health but also be a potential bioterror threat.

“NSABB has never before recommended to restrict communications on research that NSABB has reviewed that has potential dual use implications,” Dr Amy Patterson, director of the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Biotechnology Activities, said in a statement.

The bird flu virus is extremely deadly in people who are directly exposed to infected birds but so far it has not mutated into a form that can pass easily from person to person.

The National Institutes of Health funded the two research labs’ work to see how the virus could become more transmissible in humans, with the aim of getting early insight to contain threats to public health.

The NSABB wants to keep this information from falling into the wrong hands.

The articles involved work done by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist, and Dr Ron Fouchier and colleagues from the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam.

The National Institutes of Health said the health department agreed with the panel’s assessment and gave the journals non-binding recommendations to withhold key elements of the studies.

But the NIH said the government was working out how to allow secure access to the information to those with a legitimate need to see it.

“It is essential for public health that the full details of any scientific analysis of flu viruses be available to researchers,” the editor in chief of Nature, Dr Philip Campbell, said in a statement.

“We are discussing with interested parties how, within the scenario recommended by NSABB, appropriate access to the scientific methods and data could be enabled.”

Dr Bruce Alberts, editor in chief of Science, said the advisory board asked the journal to delete details on the scientific methods and specific mutations of the virus before publishing an article by Fouchier and colleagues.

“The NSABB has emphasised the need to prevent the details of the research from falling into the wrong hands,” Alberts said in a statement.

He said scientists who study influenza have a need to know the details of the research to protect the public. He said Science was evaluating how best to proceed.

“Our response will be heavily dependent upon the further steps taken by the US government to set forth a written, transparent plan to ensure that any information that is omitted from the publication will be provided to all those responsible scientists who request it, as part of their legitimate efforts to improve public health and safety,” Alberts said.

Other researchers voiced concern over government censorship of science.

“It is a very worrying idea that information from this type of work may be restricted to those that ‘qualify’ in some way to be allowed to share it,” Professor Wendy Barclay, chair of influenza virology at Imperial College London, said.

“Who will qualify? How will this be decided? In the end is the likelihood of misuse outweighed by the danger of beginning a Big Brother society?”

Source: The Guardian.