Monday, August 4, 2014

Toledo Goes Dry

Sunday sip:

"Lake pollution fouls city’s water

TOLEDO — Toxins possibly from algae on Lake Erie fouled the water supply of the state’s fourth-largest city Saturday, forcing officials to issue warnings not to drink the water and the governor to declare a state of emergency as residents cleared store shelves of bottled water. About 400,000 residents of Toledo, most of its suburbs, and a few areas in southeastern Michigan were told not to brush their teeth with or boil the water because that would increase the toxin’s concentration. Officials said children should not shower or bathe in the water and that it shouldn’t be given to pets (AP)."

"For 2d day, Toledo lacks drinking water; Problems from farms, sewage go back a decade" by John Seewer | Associated Press   August 04, 2014

TOLEDO, Ohio — The toxins that contaminated the drinking water supply of 400,000 people in northwest Ohio did not suddenly appear.

Water plant operators along western Lake Erie have long been worried about this very outcome as a growing number of algae blooms have turned the water into a pea soup color in recent summers, leaving behind toxins that can sicken people and kill pets.

The problems on the shallowest of the five Great Lakes brought on by farm runoff and sludge from sewage treatment plants have been building for more than a decade.

And yet we have all levels of government screaming global warming, climate change, global warming, climate change, global warming, climate change, now pay up those carbon taxes -- while the REAL THREATS to the ENVIRONMENT (pollution of the land, sea, and air, Fukushima, oil spills, and the like) are minimized or ignored and remain UNADDRESSED!

While residents around Ohio’s fourth-largest city were being told to avoid drinking tap water for a second day on Sunday, discussion began to center around how to stop the pollutants fouling the lake that supplies drinking water for 11 million people.

‘‘People are finally waking up to the fact that this is not acceptable,’’ Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins said.

It's a worldwide awakening on so many levels. The globalist shit-kickers have lost control. Must have been all the looting and lies.

City and state officials were waiting for a new set of samples to be analyzed Sunday before determining whether the water was safe.

What about the West Virginia water poisoned by the coal spill? Whatever happened there, and why was there never a word about the Detroit water shut-off in my pos paper?

Have you noticed how AmeriKa is becoming like Gaza for most of its people?

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Drinking the water could cause vomiting, cramps, and rashes. Health officials advised children and those with weak immune systems to avoid showering or bathing in the water.

Oh, GREAT!

Told not to drink, brush their teeth, or wash dishes with the water, residents descended on truckloads of bottled water delivered from across the state as the governor declared a state of emergency.

Who is the governor and why does he remain nameless here? (It's asshole Kasich, fyi).

Some hospitals canceled elective surgeries and were sending surgical equipment that needed sterilization to facilities outside the water emergency, said Bryan Biggie, disaster coordinator for ProMedica hospitals in Toledo.

Yeah, there is a REAL RIPPLE EFFECT when there is NO WATER!

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Also seeNew EPA rules could lead to more beach closures

I never go to the beach. Sorry.

In fast streets of metro L.A., an unusual jaywalker

Aren't there more important things going on in California right now, like the Yosemite fire closing in on giant sequoias even as the fires are easing and that most were in remote areas not threatening homes, and many of them were quickly contained?

"Drone almost blocks California firefighting planes" Associated Press   July 29, 2014

PLYMOUTH, Calif. — A private drone trying to record footage of a Northern California wildfire nearly hindered efforts to attack the flames from the air, but firefighters made enough progress to allow some of the 1,200 people under evacuation orders to return home Monday.

An unmanned aircraft that aimed to get video of the blaze burning near vineyards in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Sacramento was sighted Sunday, two days after the fire broke out, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Lynne Tolmachoff said.

Authorities told the man controlling the drone to stop it from flying because of the potential danger to firefighting planes. The man, whom Tolmachoff did not identify, was not cited....

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You would think the FAA has enough to deal with what with the lightning and lasers than drones filming fires in national parks.

Of course, commercial use (made by Boeing) is approved and promoted even if there are some rocks to avoid in the amazing industry they are feeding you, even if they are dragging their feet with some others (film at 11):

"A Westbrook woman faces assault charges after confronting a teenager who was using a drone to film above Hammonasset Beach. Andrea Mears, 24, was charged with third-degree assault and breach of peace after an investigation into the May 12 encounter. A video posted on the website Photography is Not a Crime shows the woman calling 17-year-old Austin Haughwout a pervert, striking him and ripping his shirt. Haughwout, of Clinton, told reporters he had been using the remote-controlled drone to get footage of the landscape from about 50 feet above the beach when he was confronted by Mears (AP)."

Must have been sent in error

So what cracks and cleavages was he charting?

"The Federal Aviation Administration will authorize test sites for drone aircraft -- proponents prefer to call them “unmanned aerial systems” --  in upstate New York, New Jersey, and seven other states, the agency said Monday. Flights are supposed to begin within six months. The FAA did not give the exact locations where the tests would be carried out. The basic concept is that everything in the sky, manned or not, will use the Global Positioning System to determine its location in three dimensions and will radio that information to the ground, where a computer will develop an integrated picture and send that to pilots."

That photo looks like something that may have crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11, and about those pilots, yeah:

"UMass patch would spot stressed-out soldiers" by Naila Moreira | Globe Correspondent   August 04, 2014

James Watkins, a polymer scientist who is leading the UMass effort, and his colleagues are developing a Band-Aid sensor patch in collaboration with General Electric Co. and the Air Force that would gauge stress and fatigue among armed services personnel. The five-year, $450,000 project was announced in June and represents the first grant awarded by the Nano-Bio Manufacturing Consortium, an industry organization backed by the US Air Force Research Laboratory to turn nascent nanotechnologies into electronics that monitor human activities.

It's a total war economy.

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More than 30 percent of drone pilots experience symptoms related to high chronic stress, including difficulty sleeping, according to a survey of 1,084 pilots that Chappelle and colleagues wrote about in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders in May; nearly 15 percent of those pilots also had difficulty concentrating or had outbursts of irritability.

What?

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The patch would behave much like a tiny computer. After collecting sweat and extracting a chemical via microscopic gated channels, its electronics would measure and report the data. But unlike a computer chip, the patch won’t be made of silicon, which is expensive and time-consuming to work with. Instead, it will be constructed with minuscule plastic elements, using a technique called roll-to-roll printing. The technology, which is still under development, “prints” structures at a nanoscale or molecular level, and at a much lower cost.

“We want to be able to print these things for under a dollar,” Watkins said. In collaboration with the small company Carpe Diem in Franklin....

John Berg, chief executive.

Four separate efforts funded by the nano-bio consortium will come together to create the monitor. The UMass effort will focus on physically processing sweat at extremely small scales. Three other grants, which have yet to be announced, will fund separate efforts to create the device’s packaging, remotely relay the patch’s data, and link the measurements to physical conditions such as stress or fatigue.

The Air Force and GE collaborative will be spurred by a larger push at UMass to build new nanotechnology infrastructure.

Last year, Watkins and his collaborators received $46 million from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a state-run initiative, to build a laboratory dedicated to the creation of personalized health monitors.

Related: Patrick Pre$cribes a Pill

UMass has also received a 10-year, $36 million grant from the National Science Foundation to fund the Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing, a nanomanufacturing research center directed by Watkins.

Meanwhile, food stamps were cut and unemployment benefits allowed to lapse.

The center will be a testing ground for new equipment, including solar cells, energy-efficient batteries, and “smart paint” that helps control room lighting. Industry partners will be able to use the facility for development and demonstrations.

And the wearable health patch is not likely to be used solely by the military.

“The military market is just one small piece of the market that exists,” said Scott Miller, manager of the Nanostructures and Surfaces Laboratory at General Electric. “There’s the civilian market. It’s an extension of wearable electronics and fitness monitors.” 

That way the NSA can call the ambulance for you.

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UMass researcher Jeffrey Morse, managing director of the new UMass center, said, “The idea is to keep people out of the hospital and reduce medical costs.”

So there will be more money for us!

With the current crop of monitors, such as Fitbit, “we’re mostly talking about the personal athlete or the weekend warrior,” Morse said. “But I think the health side of this is going to be where the big impact comes in.”

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The startup program is for police only, but soon you will be blinded by the light once you face-up to who is flying those drones.

Those who can't fly:

"Illicit drone crashes outside S.C. prison"  Associated Press   July 31, 2014

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A drone carrying cellphones, marijuana, and other contraband into a South Carolina maximum-security prison never made it inside the 12-foot-high razor wire fence, and authorities said Wednesday they are looking for one of two people accused in connection with trying to sneak it in.

The search has been ongoing since April 21, when officials found a small, crashed drone in bushes outside the walls of Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, according to Corrections Department spokeswoman Stephanie Givens. At the site, Givens said, officers found materials inmates are not supposed to have, including the phones, tobacco products, marijuana, and synthetic marijuana. One person has been arrested.

Why am I just reading about it three f***ing months later?

Givens said officials are not sure exactly where the drone would have gone if it had made it over the wall. He said it was the first time officials know of that a drone was used to smuggle banned items into a South Carolina prison. Last fall, four people in Georgia were accused of using a remote-controlled drone to fly tobacco and cellphones into a state prison there.

It's all bu$ine$$!

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Can't anyone down the drones (other than the Iranians)?

"Amherst, Leverett ponder resolutions for drone restrictions

Town meetings in Amherst and Leverett will consider resolutions calling on the federal government to end the use of drones for assassinations and regulate the unmanned aircraft locally. The Daily Hampshire Gazette reported that Amherst Select Board member James Wald said he isn’t comfortable with the town having a foreign policy when the federal government doesn’t have one. Frank Gatti, a Town Meeting member and lead petitioner in Amherst, said the drone resolution would express concern about the US government killing people in Pakistan and Yemen. It would ask US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward J. Markey and Representative James McGovern to propose legislation to stop funding drone killings. A second restriction would keep drones at least 500 feet above private property unless otherwise authorized by town officials."

 That legislation is going nowhere. 

Related: 

The Drone Wars: Pakistan
The Drone Wars: Yemen 

That was the last I've seen about Yemen.

"2 N.H. lawmakers seek to limit use of drones" by Norma Love | Associated Press   January 19, 2014

CONCORD, N.H. — Two New Hampshire lawmakers have resurrected an effort to limit the use of drones to protect residents’ privacy, despite the failure of efforts last year.

New Hampshire was among 43 states last year to introduce bills and resolutions concerning the unmanned aircraft. But the legislation that would have prohibited drones from snapping pictures of people’s houses could not make it through the state House.

This year, Republican state Representatives Neal Kurk and Joe Duarte have sponsored separate bills to require police to get a warrant if they want to use evidence obtained by using drones as surveillance. Because of questions last year about possible conflicts with federal law, Kurk this time included a provision that his bill would only take effect if it is allowed under federal law.

The military and some law enforcement agencies already use the devices, but the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t allow commercial use of drones. By last month, 545 drones had FAA authorization to fly in domestic airspace, but Kurk didn’t think any in New Hampshire had been licensed. 

They don't?

Kensington Police Chief Mike Sielicki, president of the New Hampshire police chiefs association, opposes the bills because uses for the technology are still evolving. He envisions using a drone when intervening in a domestic dispute or apprehending a bank robber.

‘‘This could save lives,’’ he said. ‘‘It could save civilians. It could save officers.’’

And who could ever question such intentions?

Kirk Broders, an assistant professor of plant pathology at the University of New Hampshire, has been using a small hexicopter — a small drone that hovers — to photograph apple orchards to pinpoint problems. Under Kurk’s bill, Broders would have to get permission from property owners and anyone whose picture his research drone captured — a hurdle that could stifle his research.

Then I AGREE with the BILL, and the answer is NO!!

Mario Mairena of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, an international trade group that promotes drones, said unmanned aircraft should fall under the same warrant requirements as manned aircraft, such as helicopters and airplanes.

‘‘If we’re going to have an honest debate about surveillance, it should be technically neutral ,’’ he said. 

When you find an honest debate in AmeriKa let me know.

Congress has given the FAA until September 2015 to integrate the private and commercial use of drones into US airspace.

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Look at it this way: You will never even hear or see then up there, so what is there to worry about?

Next you thing you know they will be talking about drone ships and drone cars.