h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What intrigues me about this engine is, if it contravenes the laws of physics, why did led Roger Shawyer to initially work on something thats supposed to be imposible?

The future has to contain surprises.

(That ought to be somebody's law.)

Everyone's except Cassandra.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/cia-admits-it-improperly-hacking-senate-computers-20140731

"In a sharp and sudden reversal, the CIA is acknowledging it improperly tapped into the computers of Senate staffers who were reviewing the intelligence agency’s Bush-era torture practices."


This could be a pivotal moment. In an ideal world this will lead congress to bipartisan action, putting away the petty but absolute political divide that has paralyzed it so long. In an ideal world this will lead to convictions and significant sentences for those involved, in the CIA and in the Bush administration, responsible for the illegal and repugnant policies of torture and rendition.

While they're at it they should prosecute Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper who admitted he lied to Congress.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/06/fire_dni_james_clapper_he_lied_to_congress_about_nsa_surveillance.html


But this isn't an ideal world. This is a world with an inordinate number of ideological ass-clowns in congress and a public hypnotized by a complicit media feeding it 24 hour news feeds of speculation, sensationalism, pontification, fear-mongering, partisan punditry and mind numbingly innocuous blather.

I fully expect that in a week this will not be newsworthy. The public will forget about it, especially as this news breaks amid the latest and greatest Gaza crisis, the MH17 downing into the Northern Ukrainian war zone, the greatest ebola outbreak in history and the flood of Central American child refugees crossing the Texas border to be greeted by the National Guard led by (p)Rick Perry armed with a .50 cal fully automatic machine gun.

Nope. Brennan timed this admission well.

This will be well below the fold by this time next week.

>> This is a world with an inordinate number of ideological ass-clowns in congress and a public hypnotized by a complicit media feeding it 24 hour news feeds of speculation, sensationalism, pontification, fear-mongering, partisan punditry and mind numbingly innocuous blather. <<

For what it's worth the whirled is slightly bigger than the USA
and you 'Mericans aren't the only ones suffering from this new
style of non-functional government and a media mix of Numbspeak
and crowd-sourced speculative terrors.

~jwf~

Oh yeah... AAAAND just as congress takes a 5 week campaign/fund whoring break.

...creeping rot after the manner of the corrupt 19th century media power based secret police establishments that contributed so strongly to the ruin of the the pre WW I Austrio-Hungarian Empire, the Czarist monarchy in Russia, the Ottoman Empire, founded in the 1979 restructuring of the domestic surveillance communities under programs like the NSA and CIA 'hire the media' (dirtbags) programs promoted by people like Inman of the NSA and Casey of the CIA, against a backdrop of period controversies with people like Robert A. Heinlein and Hugh Hefner speaking out vehemently against those programs, producing overall an effect reminiscent of the concluding two or three pages of Fyodr Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"- One doesn't need to read the whole book to get the point of this, those last two or three pages convey it well enough...

Take a deep breath, count to ten and try again ITIWBS. Remember, fullstops and sentences are your friends.

Lusus, you must mean my stream of consciousness syntax in post 16167, immediately above.

Probably I should have made reference to paragraph 4, after the second link, in Baron Grim's post 16164 and the quote from that in the 1st paragraph of jwf's post 16165.

The stream of consciousness affect is one I frequently indulge in as an alternative to being excessively pedantic, preferring to reserve pedantry for occasions and issues for which it is really necessary.

With respect to the complaints voiced in the references above, I've entertained theories for those fundings I alluded to including a 'hush money' model, clandestine agencies buying silence from the journalistic community and a 'job security' model, clandestine agencies in the context of those times (1979), threatened with funding cutbacks, seizing on the notion of hiring all the worst counter-culturals left over from the "days of rage" to manufacture pretext for continued funding.

I've never been at all happy about the constitutional issues raised by those programs.

Peace be upon you ITIWBS.

You have quite properly ventilated much wrath in your
revelations of the true nature of Truth in media. It is an
effective style punching home the ugliness of our modern
whirled. It needs to be known and you are brave to say it
out loud. May the United Fruit Company of Boston (latterly
the CIA) pass you by in Peace.
I thank you.

~jwf~

Who remembers this loverly ditty:
"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts."

http://youtu.be/n7qM_uEwYH8

The line that's been haunting me news-wise lately, goes:
"There stands me wife, the idol of my life,
singing ebola, ebola, ebola, a penny a pinch..."


~jwf~

That quantum vacuum drive thingy is probably not what they claim.

http://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts/C7vx2G85kr4

This is what I expected, but the article I linked to above was scarce on details. This post is from someone who took a close look at the original paper and found it questionable.

Key is this wasn't tested in a vacuum, but just in a vacuum chamber at ambient pressure and they tested a null device that wasn't supposed to produce any thrust and it apparently did as well. This really suggests some error in the measurement or possibly thrust due to air currents or some other outside influence.

Man accused of bribery bribes court - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28656050

As it happens, exactly the same thought went through my head when I heard this on the wireless.

PP.

Definitely sounds like it.

"Ere's a Monkey Guv now lose those papers in the shredder." only on a more grand scale.

Now, now... as the article clearly states, "Prosecutors said Mr Ecclestone's advanced age and other mitigating circumstances gave grounds to accept the $100m offer."

Yes, it was those 100 million mitigating circumstances.

It's one thing having a corrupt judiciary, it's quite another thing to be so breathtakingly open about it.

What sort of society lets the rich and famous get away with murder....

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=o+j+simpson&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=0zfhU_aRJuvKsQSGvoDAAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=673#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=Nsf6dk5WTDzP2M%253A%3BAN2zCk68vV5BNM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.trbimg.com%252Fimg-5214e94b%252Fturbine%252Fos-famous-court-case-costs-pictures-004%252F418%252F350x418%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.orlandosentinel.com%252Fnews%252Ftrayvon-martin-george-zimmerman%252Fos-famous-court-case-costs-pictures-004%252C0%252C7967501.photo%3B350%3B418

That is probably the longest link ever posted here.

PP.

This URL should suffice. http://www.trbimg.com/img-5214e94b/turbine/os-famous-court-case-costs-pictures-004/418/350x418