January 19, 2013

Germany: Politician Calls for Nationalization of Electricity Grid

from Der Spiegel:



Germany urgently needs to expand and update its power grid to meet its goal of phasing out nuclear energy and going green, but development appears to have short circuited. A member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet is calling for a radical change: the partial nationalization of the grid.

A member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet is calling for a radical solution to the desperately needed expansion of high-voltage power lines across the country, a critical infrastructure project that has stalled in recent months. Ilse Aigner would like to see the partial nationalization of the country's electricity grid in order to ensure that massive power lines required to transport green energy from offshore windfarms and other sources to the industry-heavy regions of southern Germany are finally built.

The consumer protection minister, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), seems to have struck a chord with the call, too. Many experts in business and politics believe that Germany would be better off with a national power grid that is partially or even fully owned by the government -- especially at a time when the German electricity market will have to be completely revamped because of the Energiewende , Berlin's policy of phasing out all nuclear power plants by 2022 and ensuring that 80 percent of the country's electricity supply comes from clean energy by 2050.

It would also constitute the correction of what many consider to have been a historic mistake: the sale in recent years of power grids owned by the major energy companies in Germany like RWE, Vattenfall and E.On. Those divestitures have contributed to an atmosphere that has made it extremely difficult to create the national grid needed to implement the government's new policy, passed in the wake of the Fukushima catastrophe. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/member-of-merkel-cabinet-calls-for-nationalization-of-german-power-grid-a-877576.html

January 19, 2013

Kim Dotcom: the internet cult hero spoiling for a fight with US authorities

Kim Dotcom: the internet cult hero spoiling for a fight with US authorities
German-born former hacker says his eyes have been opened to US tactics after his Megaupload site was shut down last year

Toby Manhire in Auckland
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 January 2013


In massive, swaggering capital letters, "Mega" stretches across the grassy slope in front of Dotcom Mansion. A huddle of electricians and carpenters are removing the wooden stencils and wiring in the fluorescent tubes. They are up to G. All around the vast grounds of Kim Dotcom's luxury home just north of Auckland, New Zealand, gardeners and technicians are busy, like Oompa-Loompas at the Chocolate Factory, setting up for the big night, overlooked by life-size inflatable giraffes and hippos.

On Sunday, almost a year after the internet entrepreneur and several of his associates were arrested in a spectacular dawn raid on the mansion, about 200 invited guests will gather at the opulent estate for the launch of Mega. The new cyberlocker service is a simplified, super-encrypted successor to Megaupload, the file-sharing site that once reputedly accounted for 4% of all internet traffic, and which US prosecutors had taken offline moments before the helicopters descended in New Zealand a year ago.

After spending almost a month in prison in early 2012, Dotcom and his co-accused were awarded bail – the first of a series of court victories that have left the prosecution case looking increasingly wobbly. With any hearing for extradition to the US to face criminal copyright charges having been pushed back, it is hard not to see the extravagant unveiling of the new site as a two-finger gesture aimed at US authorities.

"I don't see it like that," says Dotcom, sitting at the head of a 20-metre-long table out the back of the house, flanked by two of his lawyers and his co-accused colleague Finn Batao – all glued to iPads and laptops. The German-born tycoon is clearly more than willing to be cast as the courageous leader of a crusade against the dinosaurs of Hollywood and the politicians who enable their obsolete ways of doing business. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/18/kim-dotcom-fight-internet-freedom

January 19, 2013

Why Are the Batteries in Boeing's 787 Burning?

(Bloomberg Businessweek) Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner has not had a charmed birth. While some of its problems—a windshield crack, minor fuel leaks—can easily be dealt with, the issues that have arisen with the plane’s batteries are much more serious.

In two incidents in recent weeks, lithium-ion batteries malfunctioned—the battery in a 787 on the tarmac in Boston caught fire, and a second 787 was forced to make an emergency landing Wednesday morning in Japan, when smoke from the battery made its way into the cockpit. That led to a worldwide grounding of Dreamliners while authorities investigate the batteries and other 787 systems.

It isn’t the first time this type of battery has shown itself to be combustible. Recent years have seen reports of lithium-ion batteries catching fire or exploding in smartphones and laptop computers. What is it about these batteries that makes them so prone to blowing up?

The first thing to know about lithium-ion batteries (li-ion batteries, for short) is that lithium is extremely flammable. The other thing to know is that li-ion batteries carry much more energy per weight than any other battery; in technical parlance, they have a higher energy density. That’s why they’re the battery of choice in everything from iPhones to laptops to electric cars, whose designers want to get the greatest potential power out of the smallest, lightest power source. In the Dreamliner, the use of li-ion batteries was part of what made the plane so much lighter—and therefore more fuel-efficient than its predecessors. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-18/why-the-batteries-in-boeings-787-are-burning#r=rss

January 18, 2013

Shameless Repug Hypocrisy

(Bloomberg) The Colorado Republicans who voted unanimously this week against superstorm Sandy recovery funding did so in part because their state didn’t get an opportunity to win some of its own disaster relief money.

Their opposition to $50.5 billion in aid to New York, Connecticut and New Jersey prompted Northeast colleagues to label them and other Republicans who’d sought or gained similar money in past the “hypocritical caucus.”

Among the 66 House Republicans who opposed the package on Jan. 15 and a $9.7 billion flood insurance measure on Jan. 4, at least 36 had sought aid after disasters in their states, according to a compilation by ThinkProgress, an arm of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a Democrat-allied Washington research group.

While the no votes drew the ire of Northeastern lawmakers, the affirmative votes infuriated Republican organizations that are pressing Congress to make deep cuts in federal spending to reduce the deficit. The Senate is set to vote on it next week. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-18/republicans-called-hypocrites-asking-own-aid-not-sandy-s.html

January 18, 2013

Immigration Poll: Majority Of Voters Support Pathway To Citizenship

WASHINGTON -- A majority of voters support immigration reform that would give a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants, bolstering the idea that such a bill could be viable politically, according to a poll released Friday by bipartisan polling groups.

As the White House and Congress begin to work on a bipartisan immigration reform plan, the issue of citizenship is likely to become a major sticking point, and reform advocates are hopeful that polling such as this -- conducted by the Democratic-leaning Hart Research Associates and Republican-leaning Public Opinion Strategies -- could help in the effort. America’s Voice Education Fund, SEIU and the National Immigration Forum sponsored the poll.

The firms found that more than half of the 1,003 people they surveyed supported such a pathway, and a majority also said they wouldn't consider such a thing "amnesty" -- a word that has been used in the past to derail any effort toward dealing with the estimated 11 million people currently living in the United States without status.

Many Republicans argue that undocumented immigrants could be given legal status as part of reform but without a special avenue to become citizens, meaning many would either be unable to or be forced to wait for long periods. Most Democrats advocate for a long road to citizenship as well, likely with requirements such as fines and wait times, but say that policies specific to undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. need to be part of a final package. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/18/immigration-poll-citizenship_n_2504930.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

January 18, 2013

Detroit: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood brings $25 million in federal aid for M-1 rail project

from the Detroit Free Press:



After decades of failure to move anywhere on a modernized public transit system, metro Detroit this morning won federal backing -- and crucial cash -- for a streetcar system on Woodward Avenue that supporters say will boost the rebirth of downtown and Midtown and lay groundwork for even more rail options in the coming years.

Today’s announcement by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that the federal government is awarding $25 million to the $140-million M-1 rail project -- a 3-mile streetcar line between downtown and New Center -- culminates a 40-year effort to bring Detroit on par with other big and medium-sized cities that are building light rail and streetcar systems for economic growth and to create transportation options other than the automobile for walkable, vital neighborhoods and downtown cores.

The largely private-sector M-1 Rail plan had backing from some of Detroit’s wealthiest corporate leaders and its civic and philanthropic sectors; they raised $100 million for the project. LaHood said that support was crucial to the Obama administration’s decision to back the project.

"What I have seen happen in Detroit is a transformation," LaHood told a gathering of top civic and political officials this morning at Wayne State University, which is on the streetcar line’s route and a financial backer of the project. “This is a day of celebration for this city.” ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20130118/NEWS01/130118021/Ray-LaHood-brings-25M-in-federal-aid-for-M-1-rail-project?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

January 18, 2013

Why is this not at all surprising?

Gun Appreciation Day Sponsored By American Third Position, White Supremacist Group
The Huffington Post | By Nick Wing


Firearms enthusiasts around the country are being encouraged to head down to their local gun shops on Saturday, constitutions and American flags in hand, to send a message to President Barack Obama about Second Amendment rights -- and, of course, to buy more guns.

The event is being billed as Gun Appreciation Day and has backing from white supremacist group American Third Position (A3P), Media Matters reported on Friday.

A3P, which is listed on the Gun Appreciation Day website as a sponsor, does little through its own content to veil the fact that the political movement is dedicated to white supremacy.

In its mission statement, A3P writes that it "believes that government policy in the United States discriminates against white Americans, the majority population, and that white Americans need their own political party to fight this discrimination." ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/18/gun-appreciation-day-_n_2502568.html?1358526455&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

January 18, 2013

Der Spiegel: Conflating Critique of Israel with Anti-Semitism

In recent years, Israeli Jews have often confused anti-Israel rhetoric with anti-Semitism, argues journalist Ronen Bergman, who has himself been subjected to verbal attacks for his reporting in SPIEGEL.

"You are part of the anti-Semitic propaganda yourself, and you don't even know it. You don't speak German and you don't understand the nuances of the text, yet you sign it as one of the authors."

This allegation was hurled at me by Melody Sucharewicz, a communications and strategy consultant in Israel and Germany. I myself am the son of two Holocaust survivors who lost their entire families in the war, and I tried to defend myself against what I thought was a false accusation, but to no avail.

The attack had been triggered by an investigative report published by SPIEGEL last June addressing the German-Israeli cooperation in the building of submarines for the Israeli navy and compiled over several months by a team of journalists that included me. The report revealed that these submarines can carry nuclear missiles that would serve as Israel's second-strike capability in the event of a nuclear confrontation. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/ronen-bergman-on-the-conflation-of-criticism-of-israel-with-antisemitism-a-877479.html

January 18, 2013

Is PTSD Contagious?

from Mother Jones:



Brannan Vines has never been to war. But she's got a warrior's skills: hyperawareness, hypervigilance, adrenaline-sharp quick-scanning for danger, for triggers. Super stimuli-sensitive. Skills on the battlefield, crazy-person behavior in a drug store, where she was recently standing behind a sweet old lady counting out change when she suddenly became so furious her ears literally started ringing. Being too cognizant of every sound—every coin dropping an echo—she explodes inwardly, fury flash-incinerating any normal tolerance for a fellow patron with a couple of dollars in quarters and dimes. Her nose starts running she's so pissed, and there she is standing in a CVS, snotty and deaf with rage, like some kind of maniac, because a tiny elderly woman needs an extra minute to pay for her dish soap or whatever.

Brannan Vines has never been to war, but her husband, Caleb, was sent to Iraq twice, where he served in the infantry as a designated marksman. He's one of 103,200, or 228,875, or 336,000 Americans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and came back with PTSD, depending on whom you ask, and one of 115,000 to 456,000 with traumatic brain injury. It's hard to say, with the lack of definitive tests for the former, undertesting for the latter, underreporting, under or over-misdiagnosing of both. And as slippery as all that is, even less understood is the collateral damage, to families, to schools, to society—emotional and fiscal costs borne long after the war is over.

Like Brannan's symptoms. Hypervigilance sounds innocuous, but it is in fact exhaustingly distressing, a conditioned response to life-threatening situations. Imagine there's a murderer in your house. And it is dark outside, and the electricity is out. Imagine your nervous system spiking, readying you as you feel your way along the walls, the sensitivity of your hearing, the tautness in your muscles, the alertness shooting around inside your skull. And then imagine feeling like that all the time. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/ptsd-epidemic-military-vets-families

January 18, 2013

Sydney heat soars beyond forecast as bushfires continue

SYDNEY has smashed previous records, marking its hottest day ever, as regional areas increase bushfire warnings to 'extreme'.

The Bureau of Meteorology said the southerly change is now due to hit Sydney about 8pm, and because of the extreme heat it has warned the change could come with strong winds.

Thunderstorms unconnected to the southerly change have already hit some parts of Sydney, bringing rain, and in one cause, gale force winds.

At Terrey Hills about 5.30pm a short but intense thunderstorm generated winds gusting up to 103kmh, the bureau said. The storm brought down trees and caused some damage to homes. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/another-scorcher-stoking-fire-fears/story-e6frg6n6-1226556150157