Houston Food Not Bombs Under Immediate Threat

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Houston Food Not Bombs Under Immediate Threat (Food Not Bombs) 04 Mar 2012 Houston Food Not Bombs has been sharing healthy vegetarian food with hundreds of hungry people… Well funded Houston homeless service organizations, developers, and city officials are promoting new regulations for dozens of groups like ours that provide food for the homeless in Houston every week. Wednesday March 7, at the 9am session, Houston City Council will consider amending chapter 20 of the code of ordinances, imposing five new regulatory and licensing requirements for those who feed hungry people in Houston. These regulations would bring the work of non-professionals who do homeless service work under city and police purview. [See action list.]

Citizens for Legitimate Government

Pentagon: Future of Homemade Bombs Is High-Tech

By Spencer Ackerman, Wired.com

Most improvised bombs used by insurgents are decidedly low-tech, jury-rigged affairs. A couple of command wires, some fertilizer chemicals and wooden pressure plates in Afghanistan; in Iraq, leftover mines or plastic explosives often detonated remotely by cellphone. But the Pentagon’s bomb squad sees “ever more sophisticated” bombs on the way.

The next generations of homemade bombs, known as Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs, will feature “hydrogen-based explosives; nanotechnology and flexible electronics,” says the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, JIEDDO.

That’s for starters. “Future bomb makers” will use new energy sources for the bombs, like “microbial fuel cells, non-metallic and solar,” JIEDDO writes in a strategy document released late Tuesday for its operations over the next four years. Also on deck for the bombs: “advanced communications (Bluetooth, 4G, Wi-Fi, broadband); optical initiators (using laser or telemetry more than infrared); and highly energetic and molecular materials.” Sounds expensive, undercutting one of the bombs’ major advantages.

JIEDDO expects the bombs to go off inside the U.S. — as the Times Square would-be-bomber attempted in May 2010 — and may occur “with concurrent cyber attacks.” But while the bomb squad has lots of ideas about what the next generation of insurgent bombs contain, it offers few specifics about how to combat them.

JIEDDO has spent over $ 20 billion since 2004 on a variety of tech to stop the bombs, from sensors mounted on aircraft to find scampering teams of bomb-placers to “Wolfhound” devices to hunt their communications. But bomb attacks are at an all-time high in Afghanistan. And U.S. troops imperiled by the bombs still don’t have a bomb detector that outperforms a dog’s nose.

Whatever tech it’s funded in the past to stop the bombs or find the bombmakers, JIEDDO isn’t explaining what it plans on funding in the future. Instead, its strategy document lays out vagaries about what it’ll emphasize between now and 2016: “research funding, collaborative development, policy direction, developmental contracts, information sharing, and venture capital investment.”

To read more, visit:  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/02/jieddo-high-tech-bombs/

RE Tea Party » Technology

Pentagon: Future of Homemade Bombs Is High-Tech

By Spencer Ackerman, Wired.com

Most improvised bombs used by insurgents are decidedly low-tech, jury-rigged affairs. A couple of command wires, some fertilizer chemicals and wooden pressure plates in Afghanistan; in Iraq, leftover mines or plastic explosives often detonated remotely by cellphone. But the Pentagon’s bomb squad sees “ever more sophisticated” bombs on the way.

The next generations of homemade bombs, known as Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs, will feature “hydrogen-based explosives; nanotechnology and flexible electronics,” says the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, JIEDDO.

That’s for starters. “Future bomb makers” will use new energy sources for the bombs, like “microbial fuel cells, non-metallic and solar,” JIEDDO writes in a strategy document released late Tuesday for its operations over the next four years. Also on deck for the bombs: “advanced communications (Bluetooth, 4G, Wi-Fi, broadband); optical initiators (using laser or telemetry more than infrared); and highly energetic and molecular materials.” Sounds expensive, undercutting one of the bombs’ major advantages.

JIEDDO expects the bombs to go off inside the U.S. — as the Times Square would-be-bomber attempted in May 2010 — and may occur “with concurrent cyber attacks.” But while the bomb squad has lots of ideas about what the next generation of insurgent bombs contain, it offers few specifics about how to combat them.

JIEDDO has spent over $ 20 billion since 2004 on a variety of tech to stop the bombs, from sensors mounted on aircraft to find scampering teams of bomb-placers to “Wolfhound” devices to hunt their communications. But bomb attacks are at an all-time high in Afghanistan. And U.S. troops imperiled by the bombs still don’t have a bomb detector that outperforms a dog’s nose.

Whatever tech it’s funded in the past to stop the bombs or find the bombmakers, JIEDDO isn’t explaining what it plans on funding in the future. Instead, its strategy document lays out vagaries about what it’ll emphasize between now and 2016: “research funding, collaborative development, policy direction, developmental contracts, information sharing, and venture capital investment.”

To read more, visit:  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/02/jieddo-high-tech-bombs/

RE Tea Party » Technology

Newest Army Weapon to Thwart Bombs: Paintball Guns

By Adam Rawnsley, Wired

You’re a soldier on patrol in Afghanistan. Walking down the road, you spot a strange object far away, sticking out off to the side. Is it a bomb? How should you even check? If the Army’s latest research project pans out, you might just whip out your paintball gun.

On Wednesday, the Army announced that it’s in the market for a paintball system that can detect the presence and type of different explosives. The system would work by loading up projectiles with materials that advertise the presence of explosives — sort of like a litmus test for bombs — and firing them at the suspected bombs. Picture paintballing, but with a target that might really kill you.

It’s another foray into the field of bomb-hunting technology. Over the past few years, scientists have developed a range of weird and wonderful ways to sniff out the things that go boom, from explosives-sensitive plants to dynamite-detecting bee venom. But for maximum safety, it’s always nice to figure out if that package or object is a bomb when you’re not close enough to be blown apart by it.

That’s standoff explosive detection, a field the Defense Department has shown great interest in as terrorists and insurgents have become better and more frequent users of improvised explosive devices. The Pentagon has put cash into a number of different approaches, using lasers and terahertz radiation to find traces of explosive material.

The paintball idea is comparatively low-tech. The Army notes that the technology to detect explosives with paints and powders is already a commercial reality. They point to Raptor Detection Technology’s SAFE-T Spray, which turns orange on contact with certain explosives, as an example.

To read more, visit:  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/army-bombs-paintball/

RE Tea Party » Technology

Bombs rip through sprawling market in central Baghdad, killing 8

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Bombs rip through sprawling market in central Baghdad, killing 8 06 Nov 2011 Three bombs ripped through a sprawling Baghdad market Sunday, killing eight people at the beginning of a Muslim religious holiday… Police said the bombs were planted in different parts of the Shorja market in downtown Baghdad, striking as shoppers were preparing for this week’s Eid al-Adha feast. City health officials confirmed the death toll released by the police and said 19 people were also injured.

Citizens for Legitimate Government

Obama Sold Israel Bunker-Buster Bombs

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Obama Sold Israel Bunker-Buster Bombs 23 Sep 2011 While publicly pressuring Israel to make deeper concessions to the Palestinians, President Obama has secretly authorized significant new aid to the Israeli military that includes the sale of 55 deep-penetrating bombs known as bunker busters, Newsweek has learned. U.S. and Israeli officials tell Newsweek that the GBU-28 Hard Target Penetrators–potentially useful in any future military strike against Iranian nuclear sites–were delivered to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama took office. The military sale was arranged behind the scenes as Obama’s demands for Israel to stop building settlements in disputed territories were fraying political relations between the two countries in public.

Citizens for Legitimate Government

Companies ejected from London arms fair for ‘promoting cluster bombs’

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Companies ejected from London arms fair for ‘promoting cluster bombs’ –Violation of Oslo accord discovered by MP who calls for action to investigate ‘what other breaches are occurring’ at the fair 16 Sep 2011 The world’s largest arms fair has thrown out two exhibitors after they were found to be promoting cluster munitions that have been banned by the UK and condemned by more than 100 other countries. Campaigners rounded on the Defence and Security Equipment International fair, saying it was “unbelievable” that more thorough checks had not been undertaken.

Citizens for Legitimate Government

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