An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us—energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future. This map shows you the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the US.
The wind map is a personal art project, not associated with any company. We've done our best to make this as accurate as possible, but can't make any guarantees about the correctness of the data or our software. Please do not use the map or its data to fly a plane, sail a boat, or fight wildfires 🙂
After much controversy surrounding the european project “Clean IT”, the Pirate Party Switzerland (“PPS”) and the Pirate Party Luxembourg (“Piraten”) were able to make an exclusive arrangement with the involved parties and will publish the current draft of the project on the website www.openclean.itstarting 18h00 on October 28 (today).
The aim of the Pirate Parties, in cooperation with the project organizers, is to increase the transparency of the process and enable the possiblity for citizens to influence the project. In order to allow every citizen to participate in the discussions the Pirate Parties from Switzerland and Luxembourg managed to create an exclusive platform where critics and supporters alike can comment on the current draft of the Clean IT Project.
“This openness and possibility to participate in the discussions is a milestone in transparency for security related projects.” says Pascal Gloor, Vice-President of the Pirate Party Switzerland and member of the Clean IT project group. “The project coordinators learned from the mistakes made during the ACTA negotiations and were surprised by the violent reactions concerning the leak of the outdated draft. They decided therefore to follow the recommendations of the Pirate Parties and agreed to the creation of the discussion platform www.openclean.it”
The text was made available to the Pirate Parties for publication on the platform www.openclean.it to encourage a broad public discussion and european-wide participation. “On the one hand participation and transparency in the decision-making process creates trust in the resulting acts and on the other hand the feedback from european citizens increases the quality of the proposal – it's a win-win situation for all involved parties!” says Sven Clement, President of the Pirate Party Luxembourg.
Both parties salute this attempt to implement new ways for citizen feedback and are convinced that the success of the CleanIT platform will encourage other project organizers to use open and transparent processes starting from the early stages of the discussions.
Phi Beta Iota: Who would have thought that open source software and an open source mind-set would prove more effective at cleansing the Internet of vile users?
The Admiral was not near enough to Benghazi for this to be related (near Guam on the day). It may be related to public statements critical of the President as Commander in Chief.
NEW YORK (WLS) – In an unusual move, the Navy has replaced an admiral commanding an aircraft carrier strike group while it is deployed to the Middle East. The replacement was prompted by an Inspector General’s investigation of allegations of inappropriate leadership judgment.
Phi Beta Iota: Another flag officer appears to have been relieved also, General Carter Ham at AFRICOM, with unconfirmed reports that he was disobeying orders to stand down and instead sending aid to the US personnel in Benghazi. According to Wikipedia, on 11 September 2012 Carrier Strike Group Three entered the U.S. Seventh Fleet‘s area of responsibility and subsequently participated in the U.S. joint military training exercise Valiant Shield 2012 off Guam. The closest US forces to Benghazi were probably those in Aviano Italy. The distance from Benghazi to Aviano is 1680 km or 1044 miles. A typical flight between Benghazi to Aviano would have a flying time of about 2 hours 6 mins. This assumes an average flight speed for a commercial airliner of 500 mph, which is equivalent to 805 km/hr or 434 knots. The principal delay factor appears to have been the Secretary of Defense who lacked adequate intelligence from the US secret intelligence world ($80 billion a year), and may have had orders from the White House to avoid increasing US force presence in Benghazi whatever the consequences. Nobody looks good on this — the hidden agendas remain to be disclosed.
TRIPOLI, Libya — It began around nightfall on Sept. 11 with around 150 bearded gunmen, some wearing the Afghan-style tunics favored by Islamic militants, sealing off the streets leading to the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. They set up roadblocks with pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns, according to witnesses.
The trucks bore the logo of Ansar al-Shariah, a powerful local group of Islamist militants who worked with the municipal government to manage security in Benghazi, the main city in eastern Libya and birthplace of the uprising last year that ousted Moammar Gadhafi after a 42-year dictatorship.
There was no sign of a spontaneous protest against an American-made movie denigrating Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. But a lawyer passing by the scene said he saw the militants gathering around 20 youths from nearby to chant against the film. Within an hour or so, the assault began, guns blazing as the militants blasted into the compound.
. . . . . . .
Yasser el-Sirri, a former Egyptian militant who runs the Islamic Observation Center in London closely tracking jihadi groups, said the attack “had nothing to do with the film but it was a coincidence that served the (militants’) purpose.”
While many of you criticize WaPo, believe this is a real and growing problem within Army. I have read both Ward and O'Reilly DoDIG reports — shocking. IMHO, if 5 percent of what's in those reports is 10 percent true, those two generals should be going to Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth. Yet both cases have been at route step for months. O'Reilly is a West Pointer, Ward is not. At least in Sinclair case, a court martial process is gearing up. Even worse, we have field grade officers throughout Army mimicking this kind of behavior, particularly the O'Reilly variant. Toxic leadership gets a great deal of lip service but almost zero action in Army. Center for Army Leadership and Association of the United States Army have both written on topic, but nothing seems to happen. For those of you familiar with Anton Myrer's classic historical novel on military leadership, “Once an Eagle,” Courtney Massengales seem to be proliferating in Army. At least that's what I'm perceiving.
Leadership screening is scrutinized; Complaints about senior officers are growing
By Ernesto Londono
The accusations leveled against three Army generals over the past six months are as varied as they are striking, the highest-profile of a growing number of allegations of wrongdoing by senior military officials.
Phi Beta Iota: Three months prior to the 2000 elections in the USA, Greg Palast broke the story on Florida disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters in predominantly Democratic precincts. Now his new book and the underlying investigations have focused on Bain Capital buying and managing the voting machines in several state, and how the “vanishing votes” in Iowa was a dry run and also blew Rick Santorum out of the race and made Mitt Romney the finalist. Palast also discusses the Koch Brothers and the focus on Senate races — system is not necessarily going to assure a Romney victory, but will focus also on specific races that will further gains in the House and secure the Senate. Film includes fascinating account of discussion with Hugo Chavez on why he supports electoral reform in the USA. Concludes that the billionaires do not care who is in office as long as they are obligated to them. Billionaires do not manipulate the vote to steal elections, but rather to steal billions — they want to manipulate the financial environment to their continuing benefit. Exceelent comments on Goldman Sachs driving US economic policy under Bill Clinton — Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Two major trends billionaires are focusing on are taxes and international trade flows. Passing comments on how Romney moves jobs to China and profits to tax havens. Banks backing Obama, hedge fund vultures backing Romney, banks concerned about vultures collapsing the world economy and not realizing how close they are to a non-recoverable collapse. Argentina is a target now — vultures contemplating how to literally explode the country, harvest profits, and leave the carcass. Nevada, Missouri, Arizona tight Senate races, massive vote anticipated. Next look at Chinese money in US elections. Because of Citizens United, with $20, incorporate in Delaware, and you can funnel as much money into US elections as you want.
