SEA BATTLE FEAR AS IRAN SENDS FLOTILLA TO GAZA

WARNING: Iran's president Ahmadinejad

By Kirsty Buchanan

IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed to breach Israel's blockade of Gaza, as two aid ships and a military escort prepare to set sail.

In a provocative move the ­Iranian Red Crescent was this weekend due to send two vessels packed with food and medical aid and 70 relief workers.

A third ship, carrying an operating theatre, could follow.

President Ahmadinejad raised the spectre of a sea battle as he warned the ships would be carrying an escort of "volunteer marines" ready to "teach Israelis a lesson".

Ali Shirazi, the Revolutionary Guard's spokesman for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said it was "Iran's duty to defend the innocent people of Gaza". Foreign Secretary William Hague described the intervention as "unhelpful".

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/180605/Sea-battle-fear-as-Iran-sends-flotilla-to-Gaza

1,200 offshore drilling rigs

B.P, Halliburton and Transocean have unleashed Armageddon and now there is no stopping it.

By Chris Landau

B.P, Halliburton and Transocean have unleashed Armageddon and now there is no stopping it. Senator Bill Nelson has told us how bad it is.

This is our worst nightmare. The oil industry has killed the Gulf of Mexico.

My worst fears have been realized. If this link is true and the oil is coming through the sea floor, they have either blown out the formation or blown out the cement (which we know they did anyway to get the blowout to occur). I am beginning to realize why they have not wanted to close the valves on the cap. The more they close it, the more oil is going to come up through the sea floor, next to the well casing. I listed 12 points in my attached article. The really big concern here is that their directional wells are now pointless. They are GUARANTEED to fail because you can not pump mud or cement into a blown out well. It just does not set with oil and gas roaring past.

The next biggest concern is that they have to get 8 new wells in immediately to relieve the background oil and gas pressure. The oil is going to start coming up at an ever increasing rate along the casing and the blowout preventer.The oil and gas is going to act as a high pressure washer and erode away all the sandstone and mudstone.There is nothing they can do about it.

This is also the end of B.P. The claims will go on forever.

What these guys do not understand is that it is much worse than they think. Here is the reason why.

They need to date the oil to find out how old the oil is. The rock formation might be 30 to 200 million years old here. I do not know and have not looked at under sea maps.

The oil is either old oil, say almost as old as the formation, or they have drilled into a massive active fault zone that is reducing carbon dioxide to methane. If it is high in hydrogen sulfide, it is reducing calcareous sediments to oil and more natural gas in the presence of salt solutions. Now they are providing more saltwater, so via the Wurtz Synthesis more oil is going to be created than natural gas. The methane is going to be converted to ethane, propane, butane, pentane and other long chain organic compounds.You see if oil is being made now, at a very rapid rate in this area, the pressure is never, ever going to drop off along the casing and the oil is going to flow into the gulf forever.The only hope to reduce the pressure will be by sinking more new wells into this area and try and drain off the oil and gas as quickly as it is being made.

You see oil is basically inorganic. It is not made from dead squashed plankton. It is not a fossil fuel. It is an inorganic chemical compound reduced from calcareous sediments and carbon dioxide and methane gas. My peer reviewed published papers using chemical and thermodynamic equations show how this occurs. The link to the papers is available below. Of course although I was published by The American Institute of Professional Geologists in 2009 and the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists in 2008, it does not mean that my theories are accepted by the majority of geologists. It will probably take 50 years, as with the theory of Continental Drift to get accepted by geologists in general. Maybe this disaster will shave off 20 years. Things evolve slowly in geology!

We can only hope it is old oil. We can only date oil back 100 000 years by carbon dating, but that is fine. We need to know if this oil is 10 to 100 years old and if its age is changing as it escapes. Is the escaping oil getting older or younger? So we need to start dating the oil on a weekly basis to see what is happening.

I volunteer for the job.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/B-P-Halliburton-and-Trans-by-Chris-Landau-100611-452.html

Joyce’s Ulysses Banned Again—by Apple, Not the Government

 

By Kevin Kelleher

 

Somewhere, James Joyce must be laughing at Steve Jobs.

As everyone who took a modern lit class in college knows, Ulysses was banned from publication in the United States because of a scene in which Leopold Bloom masturbates on a beach while fireworks burst nearby. The courts eventually decided the episode wasn't obscene because it didn't promote lust.

History is repeating itself again as Bloomsday approaches, this time in Apple's (AAPL) App Store. Sarah Weinman at the Daily Finance says that a Webcomic adaptation of the book, Rob Berry and Josh Levitas' Ulysses Seen, has been banned from iPads and iPhones because of cartoon nudity. Here is a picture of an offending panel (courtesy of Robot 6), in which stately, plump Buck Mulligan dives nude into the sea.

Shocking, isn't it?

Now, I understand Apple's arguments against sexual content on the iPhone and iPad. For every developer who objects to the censorship, there are a number of parents who welcome it. The First Amendment doesn't bar a company from banning porn from its products, just as they can ban it from the workplace. And besides, you can still see the uncensored comic on the Web, even through an iPhone browser.

But, honestly. This isn't porn, or even sexual. It certainly doesn't promote lust. The drawing of Mr. Mulligan's genitals is too abstract to titillate. Why, we can't even tell if they are stately or plump. I've seen stick-figure graffiti on the walls of public bathrooms that is more explicit.

http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/app-economy/2010/06/09/joyce-s-ulysses-banned-again-apple-not-government?page=full

Michael Pollan and others on Medical Marijuana Botany

Adobe Photo Shop

Military-Grade Augmented Reality Could Redefine Modern Warfare

Written by Chris Cameron

 

When explaining the concept of augmented reality to someone who has never heard of it, I find myself going through a series of common real-life and pop-culture examples to help them understand. Aside from explaining that the "1st and Ten Line" in football games and the computer vision of the Terminator are indeed forms of augmented reality, I often use examples from the military – the fighter pilot heads-up-display, for example – as well. In fact, the military has played a significant role in the early development of AR, and one company is attempting to make sure it is a large factor in the future of the technology as well.

A Chicago-based company called Tanagram Partners is currently developing military-grade augmented reality technology that – if developed to the full potential of its prototypes – would completely change the face of military combat as we know it. Tanagram CEO Joseph Juhnke presented the technology last week at the Augmented Reality Event in Santa Clara, California, and wowed the audience with his presentation.

Illustrations from Juhnke's presentation tell the company's story of how its technology could give American troops the upper-hand in hostile situations. First of all, the company is developing a system of lightweight sensors and displays that collect and provide data from and to each individual soldier in the field. This includes a computer, a 360-degree camera, UV and infrared sensors, stereoscopic cameras and OLED translucent display goggles.

With this technology – all housed within the helmet – soldiers will be able to communicate with a massive "home base" server that collects and renders 3D information onto the wearer's goggles in real time. With the company's "painting" technology, various objects and people will be outlined in a specific color to warn soldiers of things like friendly forces, potential danger spots, impending air-raid locations, rendez-vous points and much more.

In the above image, a spotter on a roof paints an area near his squad-mates in a red color, marking the area as a danger spot. The ability to virtually communicate the location of hostile forces to fellow soldiers is an invaluable technology to troops fighting in unfamiliar urban environments. The local fighters have a home field advantage because they are fighting in their back yards, in a way. Tanagram hopes to level the playing field – and then some – in an effort to help troops better understand their surroundings.

http://waronyou.com/topics/military-grade-augmented-reality-could-redefine-modern-warfare/

Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites

by Hugh Tomlinson

 

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran's nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom's air defences will return to full alert.

 

"The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way," said a US defence source in the area. "They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren't scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7148555.ece

U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan

A bleak Ghazni Province seems to offer little, but a Pentagon study says it may have among the world's largest deposits of lithium.

By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium," a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?emc=na

How a web design goes straight to hell

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell