Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
One thing we need to do, to counter ALEC, the Koch brothers, etc., is for progressives (no matter what party they identify with) to go to the polls in 2012, in droves never seen before, and vote for true progressive candidates instead of doing what so many progressive voters did in 2010: sitting at home either overly confident, or sulking, or voting for the candidate they like the least, as a phony way of "sending a message" about their displeasure with the Democrats in Washington.
So when Obama, in the State of the Union, bragged about America using technology to squeeze gas out of the rocks I thought...gee, Obama, thanks a whole Fracking lot! What a wonderful technology that will let many people light their water for warmth in the winter. Can't drink it but who needs to drink water when you can drink Pabst Blue Ribbon. Aren't those technologically inclined gas companies wonderful? Of course my gas bill keeps going up..no matter how much Fracking Frackin they do. Time to go solar and import our water from China. Although if you have ever seen what floats in the Yangtze you may decide just to go without water period. I hear death by dehydration is all the rage among people who have had enough. Wait till the gas companies want to charge people for the gas they get in their water. If Monsanto can go after farmers whose fields have been planted with patented seed, even if accidentally by wind, and sue them then why couldn't the gas companies claim the freeloaders are getting free gas in their water?
Just to make it a little clearer how laser-guided munitions work: as I understand it, the bullet or bomb itself doesn't emit its own laser light--that would be pointless. Instead, they detect laser light reflecting from the target, which a nearby targeter "paints" onto the target to tell the munition "go here". In the past (and still maybe most of the time), the targeter has usually been a human, often flying in support aircraft nearby, but apparently the newish idea is to use automatic targeting sources of laser illumination, so that there isn't a soldier in the sky or on the ground who can be fired upon.
Wake up and smell ALEC. These characters are anti-democratic. They need to be eliminated by public outrage. The end game for these guys is a permanent plutocracy. I wonder what the Republicans will think if they get what they are working for. My Republican friends don't know about ALEC, they are unfamiliar with Grover Norquist, they do not know who the Koch brothers are. These are shadowy figures whose goals are to undermine democracy so that they can own everything.
What could help with outlawing ALEC would be tight conflict of interests so people could not go from industry to gov, often to reduce safety laws, and go back to industry. In Boston, as a mental health nurse mainly in state continuing care for 2 decades and have to abide by conflict of interest rules. I grew up along the Monongahela River flowing north from West Virginia to Pittsburgh to form the Ohio with the Allegheny. Fracking during a drought ended up causing the biggest threat thus far to the drinking water of nearly a million people as the immense quantity of waste water was discharged during the drought into old no longer worked coal mines restarting coal mine discharge into streams along 80 miles of the Monongahela destroying sewage treatment plants with heavy metal waste
But....there sure are a lot of left leaners who still think that voting for Obama is going to matter. Vote for Michelle...and show Barack who should wear the pants in that family. The President is wearing no clothes! He is quite transparent to those of us who can see through his facade. But, alas, it is not just Barack Obama...it is the corrupt system that needs to be corrected. I like RP's term limits proposal!
.
We need to fight fire with fire. There are just as many rich liberals on the left as there are conservatives on the right . It is time for the left to start educating the electorate by any means necessary . The new study out that shows low IQ and dumb equals more right leaning voters.This is not rocket science. it's a well informed, educated electorate. The only thing that will give America back to the working man.Learn from the phony right wing think tanks,Go out and educate and inform.
Term limits for all polliticians ,One in office and two in prison.
Title:
Guided bullet
United States Patent 5788178
Abstract:
A small caliber laser-guided bullet having a self-contained guidance system is disclosed including on-board laser sensors and navigational circuits capable of detecting a laser target signature, determining the deviation of the bullet from an optimum projectory along which the bullet would impact a hostile target, and generating an electrical signal to piezo electric steering control surfaces to effect a change in the course of the bullet. The guided bullet utilizes a plurality of symmetrically-arranged laser sensor elements which are positioned about a longitudinal axis of the bullet. The laser sensor elements function to transmit optical radiation from the laser target beam to photo detector elements housed within the bullet. The electrical signals from the photo detector elements are then amplified and processed by semiconductor logic circuits to produce the functions required by the steering control surfaces to translate the bullet to the optimum trajectory. Electrical power for the guidance system is provided by a miniature lithium-polymer battery which is interconnected with the navigational circuits to produce the functions of the system. The guided bullet is fired from a precision, smooth bore weapon using a conventional expanding gas cartridge and is effective at ranges up to 3,000 meters and beyond.
note: 3000 meters = 1.864 miles
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5788178.html
I wonder if an effective counter measure would be to have a device that would sense laser frequency from the bullet and then use a laser jamming device that would confuse or obscure the information that is returned to the bullet. Perhaps, if the counter measure was 31337 enough it could reprogram the bullet to return to sender. Wow! talk about a Ping of Death (POD for short ;-}) Now why didn't Harold think of that one?
The Department Homeland Security is developing a system designed to apprehend you before you commit a crime. The Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST, is designed to analyze whether a person is likely to commit a crime, using a long list of factors. Some are akin to lie detection, such as breathing and heart rate, but the system also measures body movements, voice pitch changes, blink rate, breathing patterns, eye movements, body heat changes and prosody (changes in speech rhythm and intonation). The "prototype screening facility" is built to "detect cues indicative of mal-intent" using these algorithms. The system also analyzes factors like ethnicity, gender, age and profession.
The DHS has already conducted a FAST field test at an undisclosed location in the northeast. "It is not an airport, but it is a large venue that is a suitable substitute for an operational setting," says DHS spokesman John Verrico.
The department views FAST as a tool for airport security, but it has other potential uses as well. A DHS document suggests a mobile version "could be used at security checkpoints such as border crossings or at large public events such as sporting events or conventions."
The development of FAST has raised some eyebrows, including those of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. EPIC has obtained multiple documents, including one detailing the field test (PDF).
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-10/new-homeland-security-t...
DR: Yes I saw the photo of that "magic" bullet trace. Amazing! Isn't micro-electronics fantastic?
"September 25, 2011: An American team has developed software that enables an armed UAV to seek out, identify and attack (with a missile) targets, without any human intervention."
"The air force and the aviation industry in general, has already developed highly complex, and reliable software for operating aircraft. For example, there has been automatic landing software in use for over a decade. Flight control software handles many more mundane functions, like dealing with common in-flight problems. This kind of software makes it possible for difficult (impossible, in the case of the F-117) to fly military aircraft to be controlled by a pilot. Weapons guidance systems have long used target recognition systems that work with a pattern recognition library that enables many different targets to be identified, and certain ones to be attacked."
Yeah, like WTC towers and the Pentagon for example?
I had read of the capabilities that existed back right after the hijacking planes to Cuba back in the 70s had been popular. I read that they developed a way to remove control from the on-board piloting to ground control in the event of another hijacking. And using a target recognition system to guide the planes to their targets has been around for many decades now.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/20110925.aspx
But it is not just ALEC that is doing this...it is also the fake Democrats (including Obama) that is doing this. Obama along with a number of other "Democrats" are owned by the ruling elite. Michelle Obama would be a better president than her husband. She was FOR a lot of comprehensive coverage on the health care bill, against Rahm Emmanuel's advice, but Obama just did not push for any of it...he just wanted to sell out the millions of Americans in favor of the HealthScare industry. Instead of fortifying himself against the enemy he brought them in to be his advisers. Rahm Emmanuel was leading Obama by the nose and eventually crossed wires with Michelle on the Health Care Bill.
There are a few things that can be done to curb corporate influence over our democracy. Where does the money go from political advetisement? Tax the corporate media at a higher rate with public tv exempt. Cororate lobbying is a business deduction. End the deduction. Enact a tax on net worth on the wealthy to pay for all wars. End the war on Americans who use cannabis. This is bankrupting our economy and crippling our society. Allow public funding for free speech,
Wasn't there an offshoot of ALEC in Europe and they threw them out or something of the sort? They need to be outed in a very big way. I'd contribute to the cost of running an ad. Anybody else?
Thom:
I know you have read George Lakoff - you defended using 'Obamacare' in place of The Affordable Care Act to a listener on your radio show today by arguing that many listening would not know the reference if you said 'The Affordable Care Act'. How are they going to learn (and maybe even read) the legislation if you continue to use the radical right's pejorative. If you use the other guy's frame, as Professor Lakoff says, you have already lost the argument. You are a brilliant person, so I know you can find another way to communicate to your listeners the benefits of this historic legislation (yes, and it has no public option --- yet!)
Yeah! OOPs (no, not Object Orient Programming)! How about those secret Obama Memos that got out? Anybody heard of them? Nothing quite as sinister as ALEC, of course. But the fact is we are being played by both parties to the tune of the uber rich. You should have gotten a hint of this when Obama appointed all of those Republican criminals to office.
Of course, I wouldn't want to sound "hyperbolic" but that is easy to do...depending on who is listening and who is judging. To some people, "hyperbole" is anything that challenges their "head in the sand" myopia. I'm sure there were many Jews who said "Oh, don't be so hyperbolic" when they heard about the death camps and continued to get on the trains believing they were just going to "relocation or work camps". All they had to do, they thought, was to wait out the war until Hitler was defeated. Some people just didn't want to listen...refused to think in such "hyperbolic" ways.
But there were some very brave Jews who knew, or suspected that it wasn't just "hyperbolic" rhetoric and did fight back. (And I cheered when "The Bear Jew" knocked off the head of that filthy piece of trash German Officer.) And aside from theatrics of a movie, I wasn't terribly upset when I read a book called "An Eye For An Eye" by John Sack (which tells of the Jewish revenge death camps they set up after the war to rape, torture, and kill Germans and suspected German sympathizers).... but found it most amusing that the "civilized world" never really knew anything about this very important history because it has been censored by many. Now why is that? Probably the same reason why they try to keep the atrocities that Israel commits against the Palestinians, and others, out of the news...except there are a lot of people who fight that kind of skewed manufacturing of history by powerful groups.
Just keep playing the same old game of going to the polls and voting for the "least odious" official...and "hope" for the best. Of course, we all know where "hope" gets us....at least some of us know....and especially the riggers of the game know...because they have designed the game to their liking....to what works for them....keep people, the superstitious and easily beguiled, "hopeful" so they don't take to the streets and really threaten the status quo. Give them the pretense that they have something to say about their lives through the fake democracy the wealthy powers have engineered. The tyranny of the two party system will continue to squeeze us dry.
Of course the Republicans believe that those who are for social programs are being "hyperbolic" when it is claimed that people are starving or dying from lack of nutrition or lack of shelter or lack of medical care. They believe that the liberals, or progressives, are "hyperbolic" for claiming that "global warming" or anything to do with taxes is being unfairly gamed by the rich or challenging their free hand at crony capitalism. And this could go on and on....
So we have a ruling elite with a gamed-system consisting of "owned" Republicans and Democrats who both fight each other for the pleasure of the ruling elite over who will rule the roost of clucking and voting chickens who are all brain-washed into believing that anyone who challenges that corrupt system uses "hyperbole" when they use such terms as "Fascism" which could easily be mistaken for "Nazism"....heaven forbid! We sure don't want to take away from the Jew's self-proclaimed exclusive right to exploit victim-hood do we? It might result in weakening their ability to hold psychological guilt and political control over our country. So, it seems, many of us are cowed into watching what we say.
There are a lot of victims in the world and a number of "holocausts". The US has murdered many, many people over the years and are still in the process of committing their modern-day holocaust and it could even be considered a kind of genocide.
I think the correlation between Nazi Germany and the US is not so far fetched. What is the difference from gassing and ovens on the ground to the mass destruction and millions of deaths rained down from high-tech weapons from above? And Israel has had, and has used, some of these high-tech weapons against the Palestinians. It is a lot less personal...isn't it?
In Vietnam, a pilot could run a sortie, kill hundreds or thousands of Vietnamese civilians, with napalm and other criminal death weapons, and be back for lunch...all without an iota of guilt or conscience.
In the Middle East...all they have to do is push a button in the US to murder innocent civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan, or other country in the region, and there is no more guilt than playing a computer game. Modern Holocaust weapons make it possible to kill easily, swiftly, and quietly without guilt by removing the attacker from the reality...the blood and guts...the smells..of what they have done. And armed, psychologically, with the myth of Jesus, as our troops are propagandized in, they can believe they are doing the work of God. Amen! Brainless automaton serial killers doing the work of God!
Wait till they perfect the death satellites...they won't even have to fly drones armed with missiles.
I can't shake the feeling that we are all screwed - with the Koch's and co pledging $100M to defeat Obama, Alec anti-worker, voter supression and other legislation permeating state legislatures - is the concept of representative government we all learned about in school just theatre of the absurd now? Having we progressives take over the democratic party like the teabaggers did the rethuglican party sounds good, but without the Koch brothers funding our candidates, what chance is there of getting progressives seated? I know despair is not an option, but I can't shake the feeling that the system has been so corrupted that handing back power to all the people, not just the 1% that bought the government, isn't very likely
It's been working since 1776, show me another system that has lasted this long.
BTW, I do tip my hat to what the Unions did in the early 1900's. Certainly what they did in those days needed to be done and we are all better off for it now.
I happened to watch a couple of videos just last night about Chernobyl. A couple of them were rather long but *very* interesting.
Ronald Regan had nothing to do with the collapse of the USSR. The disaster cost the USSR > 18 B $ (1986 dollars) and (according to Gorbachev) broke the back of country.
I also think that the event hastened Glasnost and the collapse of the country. Undoubtedly the fact that the USSR Gov't delayed notifying the world and their own people caused untenable distrust in said Gov't.
The Chairman (or whatever) of the Ukraine allowed the May Day parade in Kiev to happen even though he knew there were dangerous radiation levels there. He committed suicide two years later.
There is a growing concern that when the current structure collapses it will release hugh plumes of highly radioactive dust as well as Uranium and Plutonium particles which could destroy much of Europe. Right now they need 1 - 3 B $ to built another sarcophagus. Come on Sheldon Adelson, use some of your 22 B$ to help out. Bill Gates will probably match it.
Thorium fission essentially is uranium fission. The thorium absorbs neutrons, and decays into uranium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle
So it seems that a lone gunman traveled back in time to kill JFK.
Geeky Science?
Sounds like a assassination tool, kind of like a miniture drone.
Sandia Labs Engineers Create ‘Self-Guided’ Bullet
http://techland.time.com/2012/02/02/sandia-labs-engineers-create-self-gu...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Figuring out how to pack a processor and other sophisticated equipment into a machine gun bullet has been a challenge, but engineers at Sandia National Laboratories say the miniature guidance system they’ve developed is a breakthrough.
A bullet that directs itself like a tiny guided missile and can hit a target more than a mile away has the potential to change the battlefield for soldiers without costing too much, engineers said Wednesday.
Read more: http://techland.time.com/2012/02/02/sandia-labs-engineers-create-self-guided-bullet/#ixzz1lLF4tvNO
...now held hostage by the right-wingers.....
I just hope to get the house back! Basically this country is ruled by Congress and not by a president. We just need a strong Democratic Congress team. President Obama represents brilliantly.
A bathtub full of Drano....no incriminating evidence...
Yes, it's funny that it doesn't work.