A suitable water filter is already growing in most forests.
Dirty, contaminated water is a problem for many developing nations. But water filters are relatively expensive and not something easily assembled in the shed, garage or backyard — unless, of course, the water filter is already assembled and growing in the backyard.New research by scientists at MIT proves that a water filter made out of a small piece of sapwood from a white pine tree can rid contaminated water of 99 percent of the bacteria E. coli, producing up to four liters of clean, potable water a day.
They say the small pores of a sapwood branch or section of trunk — tissue that's designed to transport sap throughout the tree — works to trap and block most types of bacteria as water filters through.
With the Ukraine now spinning out of control, we expected that Putin would not sit by on his hands.
The various uncontrollable and now armed nationalists and rightist groups will turn on the new interim government in a heartbeat if they do not get everything they want…and have said as much.
These groups have ‘outside sponsors', old ones like NATO and the US, dating all the way back to the Gladio days, that is if Gladio ever ended…or was just transformed and redirected.
And then there are new protagonists like the EU and Saudi Arabia looking to create mayhem on Russia's border and compete for a southern gas supply through Northern Syria to the European markets and cut Iran and Iraq off from those future revenues.
As we have long editorialized here, the security ‘threats' hyped on the Western public are just a smokescreen for what is obviously a new Commercial Cold War strategy, where destabilization, wide scale terrorism and even conventional military power are deemed tools to be used to control economic zones. This little item is conveniently left out of the oaths they take when entering the service. It might cause some confusion.
And with both trickle down economics and communism standing naked before the world in their failures, we know the economic interests being fought over will not be ours.
We are seeing the emergence of Northern non-Muslim nationalist Jihadis added to the mix of proxy hoodlums to be unleashed upon millions of new victims to make their lives miserable. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have not had one political leader or business mogul tried and executed for treason, terrorism, or financial crimes on a scale to rank with the crimes against humanity.
The combination of international criminal enterprises enjoying a marriage of mutual benefit with political powers that protect them with immunity is one of the major undiscussed threats of our time.
No one in corporate media will say a word about it as they know these folks kill people when they feel it necessary, and their corrupt government partners can squash any serious investigations. These are more dangerous times than even those following them closely can imagine…
The U.S. Army is facing both ongoing and projected austere economic times with deep troop and budget cuts. As a result, a concomitant rise in soul searching over the Army’s “strategic Landpower” contribution to national defense is increasingly evident. This is a natural and expected occurrence for a Service that has been in the spotlight for over a decade in ground campaigns—albeit very much anti-insurgent focused—in Iraq and Afghanistan that, respectively, has and is coming to an end. This is taking place at the same time as two other major events. The first event is the continuing U.S. congressional disagreements associated with the federal budget, debt levels, sequestration, and sporadic governmental closures. The second event is that of the United States ramping up its engagement and containment posture in its relations with China, with the other Services now in the forefront. China will hopefully be a cooperative, rather than intransigent, power in this bilateral relationship, but it is an authoritarian great power rising nonetheless.
Still other globalization outcomes are in play and are of great strategic importance to both U.S. national security and the Army’s relationship to it. These outcomes, derived from the rise of globalized capitalism, the migration of humanity to cyberspace, and related 21st-century advances and changes in the post-Cold War world are challenging not only our perceptions of the separation of crime and war, but of insurgency itself. Quite possibly, while it now finds itself in a reflective mood, the corporate Army will be more receptive to some of the insights provided herein, concerning the new forms of insurgencies. But first, before delving into how new insurgency forms are “new,” we must ask the question what insurgencies were like in your grandfather’s day.
I came across “Why Is Atom Closed Source?” The thread had a very interesting statement from mojombo. I quote:
Atom won’t be closed source, but it won’t be open source either. It will be somewhere inbetween, making it easy for us to charge for Atom while still making the source available under a restrictive license so you can see how everything works. We haven’t finalized exactly how this will work yet. We will have full details ready for the official launch.
Several years ago I gave a talk and used this diagram to illustrate the spectrum of open source search software:
Some of my information explaining the diagram turned up in an azure chip consulting firm report. Well, that’s how the semi straight consulting firms work.
We have 17 million kids who aren't getting proper nutrition, because we have no money to feed them — so we are told — but we have enough money to give the richest most profitable corporations in the country $63 billion in subsidies. Our Congress is immoral down to its roots. This story should outrage you. Fortune 500 Companies Receive $63 Billion in Subsidies
DAVID SIROTA – Pandodaily
Remember when President Obama was lambasted for saying ‘you didn’t build that”? Turns out he was right, at least when it comes to lots of stuff built by world’s wealthiest corporate behemoths. That’s the takeaway from a new study of 25,000 major taxpayer subsidy deals over the last two decades.
Entitled ‘Subsidizing the Corporate One Percent,” the report from the taxpayer watchdog group Good Jobs First shows that the largest corporations in the world aren’t models of self-sufficiency and unbridled capitalism. To the contrary, they continue to receive tens of billions of dollars in government handouts. Such subsidies might be a bit more defensible if they were being doled out in a way that promoted upstart entrepreneurialism. But as the study also shows, a full ‘three-quarters of all the economic development dollars awarded and disclosed by state and local governments have gone to just 965 large corporations” – not to the small businesses and startups that politicians so often pretend to care about.
Only Thing Missing from Kiev Revolt was the Sound Track of Rolling Stones' “Street Fighting Man”
The tactics used by protesters and riot police described in this remarkable article about the Kiev revolt are old, going back to Roman times. However, crude modern weapons, such as the Molotov Cocktail, are highly effective, as can be seen what they did very quickly to an armored carrier in one of videos shown here. That such can all be successful against a more powerful force, as is seen in Kiev, must give the 1% pause in the US, where such tactics can be duplicated when the tipping is reached for revolting against America's kleptocrats. What remains to be seen, however, is what will the good citizens of Kiev do when they find out they swapped Russian kleptocrats for American/European kleptocrats (IMF, World Bank), who will be even more efficient and ruthless at robbing and enslaving them?
“Protesters shot fireworks with makeshift launchers. In combination with throwing stones and using slingshots, they overwhelmed disoriented Berkut special forces units, who were pelted with flying objects as fireworks exploded around them. Protesters wore military helmets and carried makeshift—or captured—shields. Wooden boards were used to protect their lower legs from shrapnel the police taped to exploding stun grenades. Among the array of homemade weapons, some were perhaps a little too ambitious. A crude trebuchet—a type of medieval catapult which uses a counterweight to fling objects—was overrun and dismantled. To shield themselves from the onslaught, the police special forces units known as Berkut adopted distinct testudo formations. This packed shield formation was used by the Roman Empire, developed to shield infantry units from arrows. The first line holds its shields forward, with each preceding line holding their shields towards the sky.”
Four of 715 newly discovered planets may support Earth-like life
It's the biggest single discovery of planets in history
All were found in the first two years of the Kepler telescope's voyage
NASA expects next batch of data to reveal more habitable planet
(CNN) — Our galactic neighborhood just got a lot bigger. NASA on Wednesday announced the discovery of 715 new planets, by far the biggest batch of planets ever unveiled at once.
By way of comparison, about 1,000 planets total had been identified in our galaxy before Wednesday.
Four of those planets are in what NASA calls the “habitable zone,” meaning they have the makeup to potentially support life.
The planets, which orbit 305 different stars, were discovered by the Kepler space telescope and were verified using a new technique that scientists expect to make new planetary discoveries more frequent and more detailed.
