Dvorak News Blog

Air Traffic Controller Asleep at the Wheel… Again

By McCullough Thursday April 7, 2011

A second air-traffic controller has been found sleeping on the job at night — this time intentionally. And the government said Wednesday he’s being fired for it. The Federal Aviation Administration said the unnamed controller slept for five hours intentionally during the midnight shift on Feb. 19 in Knoxville, Tenn.

It’s the second incident in as many months that an FAA controller fell asleep during a midnight shift. A supervisor working alone at Washington’s Reagan National Airport fell asleep for at least 24 minutes shortly after midnight on March 23. In the incident at McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville, a controller working in a radar room responsible for guiding planes in a roughly 50-mile radius around the airport was unresponsive for five hours, the FAA said.

Another controller working at the airport’s tower was able to monitor the seven aircraft that flew into the airspace during that time, the agency said in a statement. All of the aircraft landed safely. “The FAA will not tolerate this type of unprofessional and inappropriate behavior,” the statement said. The agency is conducting a nationwide review of staffing at air-traffic facilities during midnight shifts as a result of the recent incidents.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association union is representing the unnamed controller in disciplinary proceedings, spokesman Doug Church said. The FAA said it is “taking steps to fire” the controller, but has not done so yet.

Can we get these guys a stronger coffee FFS?

Brothers Arrested for Necro-Cannibalism

By Eideard Thursday April 7, 2011

24 Comments

A court in eastern Pakistan has extended the police custody of two brothers charged with cannibalism, officials say.

Arif Ali and Farman Ali were arrested earlier in the week. Police say they caught them making a meal of a corpse they had recently stolen from a grave.

The brothers’ alleged cannibalism was discovered after the body of a newly deceased woman was found to be missing from her grave in the city of Sargodha. Her family then alerted the police.

“We have charged them under the anti-terrorism act,” Inspector Abdur Rahman of Darya Khan police told the BBC…

After digging to check the body was still there, they found it to be missing. A police complaint was lodged – and the subsequent investigation led to the house of the brothers.

“They had cut a part of the corpse and were cooking it when we appeared on the scene,” a police official said.

The other remains of the 24-year-old, who died of cancer, were recovered from the brothers’ residence…

They say the pair appear to be in sound physical and mental condition and were living in seclusion with their sister, whose mental condition is said to be unstable.

Neighbours have expressed shock at the discovery, saying they never suspected that the two men could be involved in such acts.

I had to include that last sentence to remind you of the trite things people say when they discover a friend, neighbor or family member is a ghoul.

Mad Max Keiser and The SLA — Is the Plan Working?

By McCullough Wednesday April 6, 2011

21 Comments

The Silver Liberation Army Has Launched Our Official Website!
http://silverliberationarmy.com/

Where the people that function within the “system” will no longer tolerate the corruption that surrounds our every day lives as it is! We the people are starting to take peaceful action against the corporate banking occupation that stands to hold us down and suppress our well being. This is no longer acceptable when banksters can take millions of dollars in bonuses while taking away our homes, the food from our families mouths, our assets, our savings and our dignity…because of a system they designed to destruct!

These banking elite took these bonuses immediately after they took bailouts from our government’s tax dollars that we worked hard to earn and contribute into! They took these bonuses without concern or regret. And Yet They Boast They Are Too Big To Fail…

WRONG AGAIN!

No longer can we stand to allow a banking system that is trying to create a, Criminal New World Order and One World Currency, under their control without any say from us… the People. No More!!!

“FIAT MONEY SUCKS!”

We the people will no longer tolerate rapid inflation due to printing of your worthless fiat currencies without protecting ourselves from your global tyranny! The Silver Liberation is Strong and We Stand United on a Global front…We Will Beat You at Your Own Game by Purchasing the One Weakness You Have Left Exposed!!! We will not be stopped! We will not coward to your suppressed prices and we will continue buying this precious, hedge against your inflation until we have…WON!

The PLAN explained December post.

3cheesus Pizza

By Eideard Wednesday April 6, 2011

44 Comments

The face of Jesus has been spotted – in a three cheese pizza. Restaurant staff at the Posh Pizza shop in Brisbane, Australia, noticed the manifestation after taking the pizza from the oven. Maree Phelan says: “Some people are already calling it the Cheesus Pizza…

After attracting 26 bids on eBay, the pizza sold for a tasty £98.

Har.

The Devil’s Interwebitubes

By Uncle Dave Tuesday April 5, 2011

45 Comments

And you thought the Internet was only good for pr0n.

The web has made it easier than ever before to access information on Devil-worshiping and the occult, experts said.

Exorcism is the subject of a six-day conference being held this week at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome, which is under the Vatican’s authority.

“The internet makes it much easier than in the past to find information about Satanism,” said Carlo Climati, a member of the university who specialises in the dangers posed to young people by Satanism.

“In just a few minutes you can contact Satanist groups and research occultism.”
[…]
Organisers say the rise of Satanism has been dangerously underestimated in recent years.

“There’s been a revival,” said Gabriele Nanni, a former exorcist and another speaker at the course.

And so it begins…..

By McCullough Tuesday April 5, 2011

124 Comments

Buckle up folks, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Experimental Direct Solar Steam Generation Power Plant Opens in Spain

By hhopper Tuesday April 5, 2011

67 Comments

gizmag

When most of us think of sunlight being used to generate power, we likely picture photovoltaic cells. Concentrated solar power plants however, use lenses or mirrors to heat fluid – such as synthetic oil – which in turn is used to generate high-pressure steam to drive a conventional turbine. A new experimental solar steam generation power plant that opened last week in southern Spain is aiming to improve on the efficiency of existing systems by using water as the direct working fluid and incorporating novel methods for storing the energy, so it can be dispensed even on cloudy days or at night.

Discussing Global Warming, er Climate Change…Whatever

By McCullough Monday April 4, 2011

26 Comments

Fast Forward 20 years…….

Apparently they have joined rival gangs.

X3: The Color Conundrum

By hhopper Monday April 4, 2011

7 Comments

Blocking The Sun To Save Us From Climate Change

By Uncle Dave Monday April 4, 2011

55 Comments

Interesting problems if the blocking sunlight idea isn’t done just right. And even if they do…

The unknown risks of “geoengineering” — in this case, tweaking Earth’s climate by dimming the skies — left many uneasy.

“If we could experiment with the atmosphere and literally play God, it’s very tempting to a scientist,” said Kenyan earth scientist Richard Odingo. “But I worry.”

Arrayed against that worry is the worry that global warming — in 20 years? 50 years? — may abruptly upend the world we know, by melting much of Greenland into the sea, by shifting India’s life-giving monsoon, by killing off marine life. If climate engineering research isn’t done now, climatologists say, the world will face grim choices in an emergency.
[…]
Engineers from the University of Bristol, England, plan to test the feasibility of feeding sulfates into the atmosphere via a kilometers-long (miles-long) hose attached to a tethered balloon.

Shepherd and others stressed that any sun-blocking “SRM” technique — for solar radiation management — would have to be accompanied by sharp reductions in carbon dioxide emissions on the ground and some form of carbon dioxide removal, preferably via a chemical-mechanical process not yet perfected, to suck the gas out of the air and neutralize it.

“US Cyber Security” Is An Oxymoran

By Uncle Dave Monday April 4, 2011

20 Comments

In February, when the military released its budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the Air Force said it planned to spend $4.6 billion on cyber security. Which was a little bit odd, since the Pentagon said it only planned to spend $2.3 billion for the entire Defense Department — the Air Force, the Navy, the Army, everyone.

And so begins a look by Nextgov into the migraine-inducing, Borges-esque world of dot-mil defense spending. The Air Force asking for twice the money as the armed forces overall? Just one of the many head-scratchers uncovered in the Pentagon’s network defense ledgers. At this point, the services can’t even agree on what’s “cyber security,” what’s plain ol’ IT infrastructure, and what’s… something else. (Thus the giant discrepancy between the Air Force’s figures and the Pentagon’s.)

“When people can’t even agree about the most basic terminology, you know there is going to be a lot of confusion,” quips one Brookings Institution non-resident fellow. “The chances there aren’t billions of dollars in redundancies are slim to none, and slim is out of town.”

Oxymoran — the military version of the moran.

No Agenda Podcast
Obama Needs Water

By John C Dvorak Monday April 4, 2011

10 Comments

Executive Producer: Steven van der Have
Executive Producer: David Dolson
Executive Producer: David Horbeck III
Exutive Producers and 300 Club members: Adam Burkepile, Bill Hertha, Sir Dwayne Melancon, Sean McGrath
This Episode’s Associate Executive Producer and 292 Club Member: Dale Thorton
Associate Executive Producer: Philip Photenhauer
Art By: Anthony Patrizi

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Airbus Engineers to Print Out an Entire Aircraft Wing

By KD Martin Sunday April 3, 2011

35 Comments

Courtesy Airliners

Next: the whole plane

Rapid prototyping, or 3-D printing, has been used to create all kinds of amazing objects in a variety of media, but a team working under EADS in the UK wants to print something heretofore unheard of: the entire wing of an airliner. Working at the same facility where Concordes were once built, researchers there are already printing landing gear brackets and other aircraft components in hopes that one day they’ll be able to print out many of the critical parts for an entire aircraft.

This is chiefly due to developments that allow modern 3-D printers to turn out finished objects in media ranging from the high-grade titanium alloys necessary for aircraft construction to glass, plastics, concrete, and even frosting.

It’s also within the realm of possibility that the company could build an entire aircraft–piece by piece–in one place, sidestepping some of the supply-chain problems that have delayed the Airbus A380.

Experts in the field now say 20 percent of the output of the world’s 3-D printers is final products, and that’s expected to rise to 50 percent by 2020. In other words, people are prototyping and manufacturing on the same machines.

If you could print an airline wing that can stand up to wind-tunnel tests, you could print just about anything. 3-D printing lowers the cost of entry into manufacturing for any number of enterprises.

If EADS is already printing aircraft components, the automakers are likely to get on board. New for 2035, the printed Corvette.

Transocean Execs Get Bonus For “Best Year” For Safety

By Uncle Dave Sunday April 3, 2011

58 Comments

If this was their best year, what the hell would a bad year look like?

The offshore drilling firm responsible for running the Deepwater Horizon rig has given its top executives bonuses for its “best year” for safety.

Transocean was blamed along with BP and Halliburton after last year’s massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven workers, nine of whom worked for Transocean, died when the Deepwater Horizon exploded almost a year ago. But Transocean said there had been a drop in the rate of recorded incidents and also in their potential severity.