Archive for August, 2010

Epocrates Moble Medical App

Epocrates Updates

I have the free version of this on my iPhone.  An EMT I know uses it to I.D. mystery pills found on or around unresponsive patients.

Epocrates Clinical Updates:
August 2010

Updates Summary:

9 new drug monographs
331 drug monographs edited
849 drug-drug interaction edits

more

, ,

No Comments

They Tried To Ban Your Ammo!

The EPA within a matter of hours today went from taking requests about banning lead ammo to completely rejecting the idea.

U.S. News:

The EPA had planned to solicit public responses to the petition for two months, but this afternoon issued a statement rejecting a 100-page request from the Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, and three other groups for a ban on lead bullets, shot, and fishing sinkers. The agency is still considering what to do about sinkers.

Vigilance is required if we are to maintain our liberties.

, , , , , ,

No Comments

The rise of “xenophobia” in France?

When a nations becomes convinced that a group has become a security threat, is it within their right as a nation to say, “You are no longer welcome here, we require you to go back to your home country”?

How is that “xenophobia”? A phobia, by definition, is irrational, not grounded in reason. What if there are genuine reasons for concern? What if illegal immigrants are creating a very real negative impact on a country? Why should a country not be able to make a decision on behalf of its citizens to not allow illegal immigrants?

A nation expects its citizens to respect and abide by its laws. Why should an outside group be allowed to ignore, disregard and trample on those laws – and still expect the host nation to provide for them?

Why is it that some people seem to think that the moral obligation of a country to provide care for illegal immigrants who have broken the law somehow trumps or is more important than the moral obligation of a country to look out for and protect the interests of its citizens?

What business does the UN have inserting itself into that process?

This story, regarding France deporting the Roma, or Gypsies:

A UN Watchdog Group is urging France to stop the collective deportation of Roma, also known as Gypsies.  The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination calls collective expulsions a violation under international law.  The Committee monitors States’ implementation of the 1969 International Convention on the elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.

“We understand that a State has a right and a responsibility to deal with security issues and issues of immigration and illegal immigration,” said Prosper.  “But, our view is when you are doing so, as we said, it should not be on a collective basis.  It should not be targeting a group as a whole.  Individual assessments need to be conducted and look at each particular circumstance of each individual and decide does he or she merit a return or should be allowed to stay.”

Prosper says the concerns of a state have to be balanced against human rights obligations, and protection and asylum needs.

France recently sent hundreds of Roma back to Romania and Bulgaria and dismantled more than 100 illegal camps.  The French government justifies its expulsion of the Roma on grounds of security.”

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/europe/UN-Urges-France-to-Stop-Collective-Deportation-of-Roma-101663143.html

First of all, why on earth is a person-by-person basis of deportation necessary if an entire group has flaunted a nation’s immigration laws and has become a drain on the nation’s resources?

Question: if the UN is so deeply concerned about “the elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination” why does it not speak out against the clear, blatant racial discrimination practiced – and taught – by Islam? Where are the calls for a dramatic change within Islam and it’s views of people who are not Muslim?

Where are the accusations of “xenophobia” for not only the practices of Islam, but what it teaches?

Selective tolerance is not tolerance. Unilateral tolerance is not tolerance. If Islam wishes to be shown more tolerance it must take the first step by showing tolerance itself – true tolerance and acceptance, not treating non-Muslims as second-class citizens or worse (dhimmis) and calling that tolerance.

We have been waiting over 600 years to see that. Still waiting.

But who am I? Let’s hear from someone who was born and raised in Islam: Salman Rushide.

He says, “One of the things that Liberal opinion in the West sometimes, I think, doesn’t understand is that there actually is an enemy. There actually is an enemy that means us harm, and is not just going to go away if you are nice to them. You don’t have to be a right-winger to believe this.”

I’m sure he’s just being xenophobic and racist and that the death threat that’s been hanging over him for years is mostly imagined.

,

No Comments

Trial For USS Cole Bomber Delayed

From the Washinton Post:

The Obama administration has shelved the planned prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged coordinator of the Oct. 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, according to a court filing.

We can’t prosecute an obvious act of war against a United States warship, it’s no wonder we can’t rebuild the World Trade Center.

, , ,

No Comments

Dragon Skin armor (from Future Weapons)

, ,

No Comments

Boeing’s Phantom Ray unmanned airborne system (UAS)

Boeing’s Phantom Ray unmanned airborne system (UAS) is an in-house “one off” technology demonstrator that will serve as a flying test bed for multiple, new, advanced technologies including:

— intel / surveil / recon
— locate / neutralize enemy air defenses
— hunter / killer missions
— electronic warfare
— autonomous aerial refueling

Boeing in-house project:
— designed and developed by Boeing’s Phantom Works division
— uses technologies Boeing pioneered in prototype for Joint-Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS)
— funded and built by Boeing Defense, Space & Security in St. Louis
— no tax dollars used

Length …………………. 36 ft ……….. 10.9 m
Wingspan …………….. 50 ft ……….. 15.2 m
Gross Weight ……….. 36,500 lbs .. 16,556 kg
Operating Altitude …. 40,000 ft ……12,192 m
Cruise Mach … 0.8 … 614 mph ….. 988 km/h
Engine …………………. F404-GE-102D

Project started in 2008
– taxi tests (est): Summer 2010
– first flight (est): December 2010

, , ,

No Comments

Texas Ranger Recon Teams battling Drug Cartels in Texas

AP – FILE - In this Sept. 10, 2009 file photo, Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks about border security

The governor hammered the White House this month for not sending enough National Guard troops and Border Patrol agents to Texas. When President Barack Obama signed $600 million in funding for more agents, unmanned drones and customs officers this month, Perry said, “It’s a good step in the right direction. Is it enough? I don’t think so.”

Perry announced the Ranger Recon program in the midst of his re-election primary campaign last September, two months after the program launched. The legislature had allocated about $230 million for border security during its last two sessions, he said.

“Landowners all along our border are finding their farms and ranches overrun by smuggling operations, often by armed individuals with no respect for property, the law or human life,” Perry said during a speech in Houston. “By introducing Ranger Recon teams that can stay on the move, we can stay one jump ahead of the cartels and beat them at their own game.”

, , , ,

No Comments

Baghdad, Iraq: 64 people were killed and 274 others wounded in a series of bomb attacks

BAGHDAD, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) — All together 64 people were killed and 274 others wounded in a series of bomb attacks, including suicide car bombings, targeting Iraqi police across the country on Wednesday, a day after the U.S. military announced its troops would drop to below 50,000 ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline for them to end combat operations.

In Baghdad, up to 15 people were killed and 58 wounded when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into the entrance of a police station in Qahira neighborhood in north the capital, an Interior Ministry source said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/26/c_13462584.htm

, ,

No Comments

Bullets shot in Mexico reach el Paso, TX

Juárez police are engaged in a gun battle with unknown people near the U.S. border in an area near Paisano Drive on the West Side, said Border Patrol spokesman Ramiro Cordero.

He said the incident is just across the Rio Grande from the old La Hacienda Restaurant at 1720 W. Paisano.

“The Police Department is blocking off Paisano and we’re prepared and we’re going to continue being prepared, and we are going to prevent this from spilling over,” Cordero said.

Residents in the area said they heard the shots being fired from nearby, though it was unclear whether any bullets had crossed the border into El Paso.

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/08/bullets-from-ciudad-juarez-reaching-el.html

, , ,

No Comments

Maybe we should be focusing our attentioin closer to home?

Debusmann was shot twice in the course of his work -- once covering a night battle in the center of Beirut and once in an assassination attempt prompted by his reporting.

The United States is spending around $6.5 billion a month on the war in faraway Afghanistan, where a large part of its effort is meant to help the government assert its authority, fight corruption and set up functioning institutions.

Closer to home, the U.S. has allotted $44 million a month to help the governments of its closest neighbours – Mexico and Central America – assert their authority, fight corruption and set up functioning institutions.

The two cases raise questions about American priorities. If money were the only gauge, one might draw the conclusion that it is 147 times more important for Washington to bring security and good governance to Afghanistan than to America’s violence-plagued next-door neighbours — Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2010/07/30/afghanistan-and-americas-troubled-backyard/

, , , ,

No Comments

Partial list of some of the worst attacks in Mexico

MONTERREY Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican marines found 72 bodies at a remote ranch near the U.S. border, the navy said Wednesday, the biggest single haul of bodies in an increasingly violent drug war.

Below are some of the worst attacks since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and declared war on powerful drug cartels. Some 28,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since then.

* Sept 15, 2008 – Suspected members of the Zetas drug gang tossed grenades into a crowd celebrating Mexico’s independence day in the western city of Morelia, killing eight people and wounding more than 100.

* Jan 31, 2010 – Suspected cartel hitmen killed 13 high school students and two adults at a party in Ciudad Juarez.

* March 13 – Hitmen killed three people linked to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez in March, provoking “outrage” from U.S. President Barack Obama.

Read the rest of this entry »

, ,

No Comments

Bodies of 58 men and 14 women found on ranch 90 miles from the Texas border

A ranch is seen in San Fernando in Tamaulipas state, August 24, 2010, where according to a Mexican navy statement 72 bodies have been found, in this handout photo released by the Mexican Navy August 25, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Mexican Navy/Handout CAMPAIGNS

Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican marines found 72 corpses at a remote ranch near the U.S. border, the Mexican navy said on Wednesday, the biggest single discovery of its kind in Mexico’s increasingly bloody drug war.

The marines came across the bodies of 58 men and 14 women, thought to be migrant workers, on Tuesday at the ranch in Tamaulipas state, 90 miles from the Texas border, after a series of firefights with drug gang members.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67O2NF20100826

, , , ,

No Comments

Afghan Elemetary Education: For Soldiers

From Wired’s Danger Room

Right now, only 18 percent of those 243,000 cops and grunts have more than a Kindergarten-level ability to read. Which means they’ve got major trouble doing everything from keeping track of their gear to following a battle plan to getting paid, the general in charge of the NATO training effort says.

“We’re talking about giving them anywhere from between a first grade-level education to about a third grade-level education. For many back in America, that’s really hard to comprehend. And I understand that. It was for me, too.”

Why do we have to find this information on a technology website? Why can’t the news networks do this kind of reporting? Why can’t the president explain that this is why it is taking so long for that backward country to pull itself out of the 3rd century?

, ,

No Comments

At Least 30 Killed in Somalia Hotel Attack

Abdirashid Abdulle Abikar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The body of a Somali lawmaker was removed form a hotel in Mogadishu on Tuesday after an attack by insurgents. Six lawmakers were among the dead.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Somali insurgents disguised in government military uniforms stormed a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday and killed at least 30 people, including 6 lawmakers, laying bare how vulnerable Somalia’s government is, even in an area it claims to control.

The insurgents methodically moved room to room, killing hotel guests who tried to bolt their doors shut, Somali officials said. When government forces finally cornered the insurgents, two blew themselves up with suicide vests.

Read the rest of this entry »

,

No Comments

Defense Talk Website

Defence Talk is a self proclaimed global defense and military portal.

, ,

No Comments