Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Push to step up domestic use of drones
Via David Green
Eight Texas House members in the caucus received more than $746,000.
And five caucus members from New York got more than $400,000 from
companies connected to the business of unmanned vehicles. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said drone manufacturers contribute just as other interest groups do.
"We get contributions from media PACs, from teachers, from doctors and from a whole lot of companies that produce drones," Cuellar said.
The House "drone caucus" was established three years ago. Senate lawmakers followed suit this fall.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., co-chairman of the fledgling Senate "drone caucus," said the caucus would help frame future legislation because the use of drones "carries great potential - and great risk."
"We get contributions from media PACs, from teachers, from doctors and from a whole lot of companies that produce drones," Cuellar said.
The House "drone caucus" was established three years ago. Senate lawmakers followed suit this fall.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., co-chairman of the fledgling Senate "drone caucus," said the caucus would help frame future legislation because the use of drones "carries great potential - and great risk."
Purpose of 'drone caucus'
Cuellar also said the purpose of the House caucus is to educate other members on the need for and uses of drones for public safety, border enforcement, search-and-rescue and commercial uses. The global market for drones is expected to double in the next decade, from $6.6 billion to $11.4 billion, and could top $2.4 billion in the United States alone, said Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis with the Teal Group, an independent research group that studies the industry.
More @ SF Gate
Quad-copter toy could be the future of air combat
It will soon be time for a quad-copter to be ready to lift both humans and payload, he said. In Germany, a team built a human-powered 16-blade-copter that was a quad of quads with 2-foot blades. “They got it up in the air about six feet.”
The fun part is the quad-copter dog fighting using infra-red sensors, Pedersen said.
“They’ll have an IR trigger on them and you’re in the air doing IR dogfights,” he said
“The first hit, you’ll wobble a little bit, the second hit, you lose a little power, and the third hit, it forces you to the ground for a time out,” he said.
Pedersen said he met a senior official in the military’s Predator drone program, who told him that his quad-copters would be a welcome supplement to the Predator.
“He said what he’d really love it if a Predator sees something from, say 10,000 feet, such as an improvised explosive device, and if he could then launch a tube of these mini-quad-copters that he could fire out of the rear of the Predator, then fall down to about 1,000 feet and guide down to take a particular look and if it really was an IED, they could sit on it and with a small charge detonate the thing,” the QFO Labs CEO said.
Ten years ago, it was just a nifty idea, he said.
More @ Human Events
Black Friday: Treasury Borrowed $211.69 Per U.S. Household on Day After Thanksgiving
The U.S. Treasury increased the net debt of the United States
$24,327,048,384.38 on the day after Thanksgiving, which equals
approximately $211.69 for each of the nation’s 114,916,000 households.
More @ CNS
Small Business Owner Gives Obama a Piece of His Mind
Among the entrepreneurs invited to the discussion was Drew Greenblatt, president of Marlin Steel (www.MarlinWire.com
) -- a small business in Baltimore, Md.It was unclear at press time if President Obama attended the meeting.Ahead of the meeting, Greenblatt said he has one thing on his mind.
“We’ve got to increase job creation, fast,” he told FOX Business. “This recession has gone on too long, and now is the time for us to turn it around by creating certainty.”
As for those looming tax increases for those making above $250,000 annually, Greenblatt said he was going to deliver a message that the move would stunt economic growth and hiring. American factories, he said, are one example of a small business that pays taxes on a personal level of income. Increasing their tax rate will deter potential for economic gains.
More @ Fox
Philip Stanley, Johns Hopkins, the Navy, and Me A Question of Medical Malpractiee
Such a shame. After the VA took out my voice box, I awoke a few days later and almost coughed to death. Fortunately the gauze, that the 8 people in the operating room had missed seeing when they sewed me back up, popped out of the hole in my neck. A little bit longer, I would have died and it would have been covered up, guaranteed.
======================
This column may bore most readers. Bear with me. I offer it as a warning to the public.
On April 26, 2010, I went to see Dr. Philip Stanley, an eye surgeon at the Eye Clinic of Bethesda Naval Hospital of Bethesda, Maryland, for what he described as a routine removal of sutures following a corneal transplant at Johns Hopkins. In less than a half hour he ripped my eye wide open, inducing a massive choroidal hemorrhage and total detachment of the retina, leaving the eye blind. My attorney filed a malpractice suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act to Robert Thomas, of the Office of the Judge Advocate General in Norfolk, Va. The following are documents submitted under the FTCA. Stanley has since been at the Wilmer Eye Clinic of Johns Hopkins, which is aware of the malpractice suit. This sugests that despite good reputation--both Johns Hopkins and Bethesda Naval are thought to be of high quality--it is wise to research very, very carefully the physician who will attned you.
Robert Thomas of the Office of the Judge Advocate General's office simply didn't respond to the suit despite repeated requests.
On April 26, 2010, I went to see Dr. Philip Stanley, an eye surgeon at the Eye Clinic of Bethesda Naval Hospital of Bethesda, Maryland, for what he described as a routine removal of sutures following a corneal transplant at Johns Hopkins. In less than a half hour he ripped my eye wide open, inducing a massive choroidal hemorrhage and total detachment of the retina, leaving the eye blind. My attorney filed a malpractice suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act to Robert Thomas, of the Office of the Judge Advocate General in Norfolk, Va. The following are documents submitted under the FTCA. Stanley has since been at the Wilmer Eye Clinic of Johns Hopkins, which is aware of the malpractice suit. This sugests that despite good reputation--both Johns Hopkins and Bethesda Naval are thought to be of high quality--it is wise to research very, very carefully the physician who will attned you.
Robert Thomas of the Office of the Judge Advocate General's office simply didn't respond to the suit despite repeated requests.
What Happened: Statement of Fred Reed
More @ Fred On Everything
The CFR and Marxist Worldviews—is there any difference?
Via Billy
While I realize there may be some subtle differences, I feel that the worldviews of all these groups are pretty much in the same ballpark, although expressed differently. It’s somewhat like the rhetorical differences between the Republican and Democratic Parties. They both want to drive us off the same cliff but one is willing to do it a little slower than the other. However the ultimate drop after you go over the cliff is the same, whether you got there faster or slower.
Most know that Karl Marx was the author of The Communist Manifesto which outlined Marx’s view of how to take a country over. Interestingly enough, he had ten points listed in the Manifesto on how to do this. His reinterpretation of the Ten Commandments?
Marx was a boring writer and his work could be described, as one man said years ago, as “reams and reams of toilet paper.” What most folks don’t realize, though, is that although Marx was the author, the ideas he presented in the Manifesto were not totally his. In fact, Marx was a hack writer who was hired by an organization called “The League of the Just” to write the Manifesto. The first edition of that work did not even list him as the author. In later editions he was allowed to put his name on it and take credit for it—but not for the premier edition, which I have seen pictures of, and his name does not appear on it
More @ Revised History
Government Crushes Innovative Online Prediction Market Intrade.com
Via Oleg Volk
Today, Americans were told that they must close their Intrade.com accounts. That happened because the federal government agency known as the "Commodity Futures Trading Commission" (CFTC) today sued the prediction market, where people from all over the world bet about things like who will win elections.
Intrade decided all its U.S. customers must now close their accounts and withdraw their money from the site.
That's terrible news for all of us who want more input into what's going to happen in the future. Bettors on Intrade.com have made incredibly accurate predictions about elections - because they, unlike TV pundits, have real money on the line. This year, I watched on election night as TV pundits said "too close to call... too close to call..." while the bettors on Intrade knew that it was not a close call.
Intrade has also successfully predicted events like Saddam Hussein's capture and the winner of the Oscars. People with the best information trade about those events, and drive up the odds on Intrade.
Why did the American government sue Intrade? It was not for operating an online gambling operation, but for allegedly violating America's incomprehensible financial regulations -- specifically, these ones:
"Section 4c(b) and 9(a)(3) of the [Commodity Exchange] Act, §§6c(b) and 13(a)(3) (2006); Section 2(e) of the Act, as amended by the Dodd-Frank Act, to be codified at 7 U.S.C. § 2(e); and Regulation 32, as amended, to be codified at 17 C.F.R. § 32 (2011);"
In English: the government says that many of the things Intrade allows people to predict - everything from what the price of gold will be in the future to whether the U.S. will go to war soon - are legally considered "commodity options," and that Intrade broke the law because it isn't licensed to trade those. The penalty is $140,000 per violation.
In a press release, the CFTC's chief enforcer went out of his way to target "prediction markets":
"It is against the law to solicit U.S. persons to buy and sell commodity options, even if they are called ‘prediction' contracts, unless they are... traded on a CFTC-registered exchange... Today's action should make it clear that we will intervene in the ‘prediction' markets, wherever they may be based."
Why doesn't Intrade just obey the complicated law and become a licensed exchange? They tried, but the CFTC won't give them a license. When an established, licensed U.S. commodity exchange applied for permission to do what Intrade does, the CFTC turned them down, too.
Today, Americans were told that they must close their Intrade.com accounts. That happened because the federal government agency known as the "Commodity Futures Trading Commission" (CFTC) today sued the prediction market, where people from all over the world bet about things like who will win elections.
Intrade decided all its U.S. customers must now close their accounts and withdraw their money from the site.
That's terrible news for all of us who want more input into what's going to happen in the future. Bettors on Intrade.com have made incredibly accurate predictions about elections - because they, unlike TV pundits, have real money on the line. This year, I watched on election night as TV pundits said "too close to call... too close to call..." while the bettors on Intrade knew that it was not a close call.
Intrade has also successfully predicted events like Saddam Hussein's capture and the winner of the Oscars. People with the best information trade about those events, and drive up the odds on Intrade.
Why did the American government sue Intrade? It was not for operating an online gambling operation, but for allegedly violating America's incomprehensible financial regulations -- specifically, these ones:
"Section 4c(b) and 9(a)(3) of the [Commodity Exchange] Act, §§6c(b) and 13(a)(3) (2006); Section 2(e) of the Act, as amended by the Dodd-Frank Act, to be codified at 7 U.S.C. § 2(e); and Regulation 32, as amended, to be codified at 17 C.F.R. § 32 (2011);"
In English: the government says that many of the things Intrade allows people to predict - everything from what the price of gold will be in the future to whether the U.S. will go to war soon - are legally considered "commodity options," and that Intrade broke the law because it isn't licensed to trade those. The penalty is $140,000 per violation.
In a press release, the CFTC's chief enforcer went out of his way to target "prediction markets":
"It is against the law to solicit U.S. persons to buy and sell commodity options, even if they are called ‘prediction' contracts, unless they are... traded on a CFTC-registered exchange... Today's action should make it clear that we will intervene in the ‘prediction' markets, wherever they may be based."
Why doesn't Intrade just obey the complicated law and become a licensed exchange? They tried, but the CFTC won't give them a license. When an established, licensed U.S. commodity exchange applied for permission to do what Intrade does, the CFTC turned them down, too.
More @ Stossel
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