Beau’s Blog

Russian Sub Rescue
Priz AS-28, a miniature submarine of the Russian Navy, becomes entangled in sunken fishing nets at a depth of 190 m in Berezovaya Bay off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The submarine was freed with the aid of a British remotely operated vehicle.

Apollo 13
An explosion aboard Apollo 13 in space resulted in the lunar mission being aborted and a subsequent emergency landing.

Moscow Theater Siege
40 armed members of the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment took 850 theatre goers hostage at the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow, culminating in a rescue operation that resulted in the deaths of many of the hostages.

SAS Jungle Rescue
This episode documented what happened after twelve soldiers carrying out a patrol through a jungle in Sierra Leone were taken hostage by a group of rebels. The hostages were eventually rescued.

Taliban Uprising
This episode documented what happened when hundreds of inmates tried to shoot their way out of a makeshift prison for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, with television reporters trapped in the crossfire.

Nightmare on Mt. Hood
The subject of this episode was a sequence of accidents that befell seven climbers trying to scale the slopes of Mount Hood. The events resulted in the deaths of three climbers and the crash of a rescue helicopter.

Quecreek Mine Disaster
This episode documented what happened at the Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after coal miners accidentally dug into the poorly documented Saxman Mine, causing 500 million tonnes of underground water to flood the Quecreek mine.

In 2004 the Iranian authorities executed a 16 year old girl for crimes against chastity. This is her story.

The War on Drugs has become the longest and most costly war in American history, the question has become, how much more can the country endure? Inspired by the death of four family members from “legal drugs” Texas filmmaker Kevin Booth sets out to discover why the Drug War has become such a big failure. Three and a half years in the making the film follows gang members, former DEA agents, CIA officers, narcotics officers, judges, politicians, prisoners and celebrities. Most notably the film befriends Freeway Ricky Ross; the man many accuse for starting the Crack epidemic, who after being arrested realized his cocaine source was working for the CIA. AMERICAN DRUG WAR “the last white hope” shows how money, power and greed have corrupted not just dope fiends but an entire government. More importantly, it shows what can be done about it. This is not some ‘pro-drug’ stoner film, but a collection of expert testimonials from the ground troops on the front lines of the drug war, the ones who are fighting it and the ones who are living it.

Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream

Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness.

Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.

But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary.

The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream? Are today’s suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of Suburbia?

Does life exist on other planets? Astrobiology is a visionary new science that searches for life in space by combining the disciplines of astronomy, biology and geology. How did life evolve on Earth? What will life look like on other planets? These and other pertinent questions will be answered by a diverse group of scientists.

Viewers will visit the Pilbara region of West Australia where the oldest evidence of life on Earth has been discovered. Travel to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn to test a theory that life could exist in the clouds of Venus.

Finally, watch as experiments are done to see if life exists on exoplanets, earth-like planets beyond our solar system.

From www.presstv.ir:

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries plans to discuss a proposal by Iran and Venezuela to price oil in non-dollar currencies.

Finance minister of the group, which supplies 40 percent of the global crude demand, will meet to study the proposal, the organization’s President Chakib Khelil said.

Khalil, however, did not say when the ministers are scheduled to discuss the proposal amid the ongoing depreciation of the dollar.

The idea floated by Tehran and Caracas since the dwindling dollar fallen 16.2 percent against a basket of major currencies since two years ago.

Iran, the OPEC’s second largest exporter, has already cut all of its ties with the greenback with respect to oil transactions.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani had also said earlier that amid concerns about the weakness of the US dollar in recent months, the oil-rich Persian Gulf littoral state would shift Qatari riyal from the US currency over the next six months.

“The dollar lost a lot of value and energy worldwide is priced in the dollar, so all the producers are affected by the development on the dollar. This is a cycle so we have to live with it,” Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah said.

The UAE is also likely to follow the lead, as Kuwait did last May.

From www.connietalk.com:

Surprise, surprise - we know you’re shocked to find out that former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is now backing Senator John McCain. Not. Do they really think we’re that slow? So, today Mitt Romney held a little news conference hoopla and announced that he is officially honored to fully support John McCain for the next President of the United States.

The press and cable media are presenting this like some sort of dramatic turn of events: “One of the bitterest feuds of the 2008 presidential race ended,” the New York Times announced yesterday. They were not in a bitter feud! It’s just appeared to be that way because CNN and MSNBC gave them all the talking time in the GOP debates, so they had nothing else to do but pick on each other over superficial hearsay (and from day one, presented those two as the only two faces in the GOP race, so what else would they write about?).

Romney and McCain have consistently praised each other and mentioned respect for each other, even in between little typically-campaign digs. There was no feud - there was never a feud.

Next you’re going to tell us that John McCain on the cover of Newsweek Magazine (owned by The Washington Post) in the heat of the primaries was a coincidence, too.

Or did you think that Romney - who talks out of both sides of his mouth to try and be a people pleaser - would actually endorse Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul, the other two remaining candidates? Why, when they’re even mentioned in the media at all (which is rarely), they’re essentially laughed at as being some underdogs with ideas too novel for America. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who seemed to like Mick Huckabee, backed McCain instead.

The press chuckled when Chuck Norris endorsed Mike Huckabee. The ones that backed Ron Paul were ignored.

Mitt Romney certainly doesn’t want to be shunned or ignored; especially since it’s rumored he may run again at some point in the future. Plus he’s vain.

It seems like everyone is terrified to be ripped to shreds by the media…who has done an excellent job of covering only four faces since day one (if you need to ask who, just stop and think about it). Either that, or they truly don’t see what a significant change we need - fast.

Oh God bless it. Do you think if we got a bunch of horses and went riding around America like Paul Revere screaming “MEDIA BLACKOUT” that it might get people to look up from their TV’s and newspapers?

Hey, that might not be such a bad idea.

How smart are we as a civilization?

Smart enough to control our destiny and avoid the cataclysms that may end life as we know it?

For thousands of years, different religions have warned Earth about Armageddon and the final days.

We are now living in an age where scientists are adding their voices and their evidence in support of end-of-the-world possibilities

From www.fas.org:

Public access to the Reimer Digital Library, which is the largest online collection of U.S. Army doctrinal publications, has been blocked by the Army, which last week moved the collection behind a password-protected firewall.

But today the Federation of American Scientists filed a Freedom of Information Act request (pdf) asking the Army to provide a copy of the entire unclassified Library so that it could be posted on the FAS web site.

The Army move on February 6 marks the latest step in an ongoing withdrawal of government records from the public domain.

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In a public display of arrogance, Senator John McCain, Republican candidate for President of the United States, was one of 68 Senators who yesterday violated their oaths of office. He voted to pass S. 2248, a new law designed to replace the so-called “Protect America Act.”

S. 2248 violates the Bill of Rights by:

• Permitting the President to spy on Americans without a warrant.
• Granting retroactive immunity to tele-communications companies that collaborated with the Bush administration in previous warrantless spying.

This unconstitutional legislation is described in greater detail in this article from DownsizeDC. The provisions of the bill that excuse Telecom companies from prosecution for breaking the law are a form of “ex-post facto law“, clearly prohibited by Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution of the United States. Here is information about an example case against AT&T for helping the government break the law.

What kind of unmitigated gall does it take for a sitting Senator, candidate for the highest office in the land, to vote for this unconstitutional bill? Senator McCain has as much as said “In your face, America!” It could not be more clear that John McCain is unfit to be our president.

Had the many who have already voted for him simply read his presidential platform, they could have easily seen that McCain has promised in advance to also violate the presidential oath. Despite his statements about “strict construction” of the Constitution, McCain’s plans for Education, Economics, Health Care, and other important issues are patently unconstitutional. Yesterday’s violation of his Senate oath just proves his intent to disregard the constitution.

As American voters, we must scrutinize the candidates and what they stand for. A vote for John McCain is a vote for unchecked presidential power and corporate favoritism.

Vote instead for a man of integrity, a man who has faithfully kept his oath of office for more than 20 years, Dr. Ron Paul.

TAMPA, Fla. - Four sheriff’s deputies have been suspended after purposely tipping a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair onto a jailhouse floor, authorities said.
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Surveillance footage from Jan. 29 shows Hillsborough County deputy Charlette Marshall-Jones, 44, dumping Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair and searching him on the floor after he was brought in on a warrant after a traffic violation.

Sterner, 32, said when he was taken into a booking room and told to stand up, Jones grew agitated when he told her that he could not.

“She was irked that I wasn’t complying to what she was telling me to do,” he told The Tampa Tribune in Tuesday’s edition. “It didn’t register with her that she was asking me to do something I can’t do.”

Jones has been suspended without pay, and Sgt. Gary Hinson, 51, Cpl. Steven Dickey, 45 and Cpl. Decondra Williams, 36 have also been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, sheriff’s spokeswoman Debbie Carter said.

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From www.kutv.com:

A new bill proposed at the legislature would allow for police to withhold misconduct reports from the public. Supporters of the bill believe that police misconduct should be kept secret from the public so to not discredit police testimony. Others say that a forthright police unit is essential to the community.

In September, Jared Massey was zapped with a taser by Trooper John Gardner. A video of the incident was recorded from Gardner’s patrol car. Gardner can be seen shocking Massey until he hits the ground while Massey’s wife screams from the side of their SUV.

More than a million people watched the video on “YouTube.” Massey was shocked to see his new found fame. The footage may have never been seen had Massey not made a records request to obtain the tape.

Currently, misconduct reports are available in Utah with an official records request. Under the bill SB260, sponsored by Senator Chris Buttars, the video and investigation report from Massey’s tazering might have been kept secret from the public and journalists.

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In the last in the series Professor Jim Al-Khalili explores how studying the atom forced us to rethink the nature of reality itself.

He discovers that there might be parallel universes in which different versions of us exist, finds out that empty space isn’t empty at all, and investigates the differences in our perception of the world in the universe and the reality.

The Transatlantic Policy Network seeks EU-style integration for the European Union and the USA by 2015.

Follow this link to the original source: “Creating a Transatlantic Common Market”

Even with all of the recent attention given to the North American Union (NAU) and its deep integration of trade markets in Canada, Mexico and the USA, it seems another effort at trade integration is underway. This time the plan is for greater integration of the European Union and the United States, and much like the Security and Prosperity Partnership of the NAU, the Transatlantic Union (TAU) is being quietly created.

According to an exclusive at TheNewAmerican.com, a little known NGO (non governmental organization) called the Transatlantic Policy Network, has been working behind the scenes to advance plans to merge the United States with Europe. The article states, “Working carefully, if quietly, since the early 1990s, the organization has moved quickly to gain the agreement of leaders on both sides of the ocean that further integration is necessary and desirable. Now, the organization is much closer to achieving its goals than anyone would suspect.”

A paper published early last year by the organization entitled, “Completing the Transatlantic Market,” states: “It is time for a complementary, top down approach to transatlantic cooperation through a joint commitment by the European Union and the United States to a roadmap for achieving a Transatlantic Market by 2015 and creation of an overarching framework for dialogue and action to achieve that goal.”

Two employees of Pakistan’s atomic energy agency have been abducted in the country’s restive north-western region abutting the Afghan border, police say.

The technicians went missing on the same day as Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, was reportedly abducted in the same region.

Mr Azizuddin had been going overland from the city of Peshawar to Kabul.

Pakistan’s north-west has witnessed fierce fighting between Islamist militants and government troops.

The pro-Taleban guerrillas declared a unilateral ceasefire last week after months of clashes with troops garrisoned there.

The workers from Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission were on a mission to map mineral deposits in the mountains when they were kidnapped, police say.

The technicians were going for some geological survey in the area when they were kidnapped at gunpoint along with their driver,” Romail Akram, a senior police official, told Reuters news agency.

Their vehicle was intercepted by masked gunmen in the Dera Ismail Khan district, a stronghold of local militants.

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