LIVE VIDEO STREAMING from GREECE: end June 2011. - Democrazia reale ora: DIRETTA VIDEO dalla GRECIA .

See our live streaming from WWW.NEWS247.GR what is happening in Syntagma Square in Athens, during the two days (28/06/2011 & 29/06/2011) General Strike of GSEE and ADEDY.

Guardiamo grazie lo streaming in diretta dal WWW.NEWS247.GR quello che sta succedendo in piazza Syntagma ad Atene, durante i due giorni (28/06 e 29/06) sciopero generale del GSEE e ADEDY.

RECORDED STREAM of Assange, Žižek & Goodman Conversation July 2, 11am EDT.

WikiLeaks tweeted the Legal Complaint against Visa & MasterCard for political censorship; Forbes dot com presents a summary by Andy Greenberg: The complaint argues that the three payment firms have violated Articles 101 and 102 of the E.U. Treaty, which deal with competition among businesses and forbid the creation of anti-competitive cartels. Article 101 prevents firms from creating partnerships for the purposes of price fixing, and Article 102 forbids firms in a “dominant position” from abusing that position. Both Visa and MasterCard have claimed that payments to WikiLeaks and DataCell were suspended because they potentially violate the companies’ terms of service. MasterCard has gone as far explaining that it prohibits “customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal.” Visa has stated that it is investigating “the nature of [WikiLeaks] business and whether it contravenes Visa operating rules.”

Today, at 11 am EDT, Amy Goodman To Host Discussion With WikiLeaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange and Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Žižek

Democracy Now anchor Amy Goodman will host a Discussion With WikiLeaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange and Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Žižek at 11 am EDT. Full information here.

Simultaneously (at 11am EST; 4pm GMT; 8pm AEST), Frontline Club will host a special "in conversation" event about this same Democracy Now broadcasting, according to their Twitter account.

Source: WLcentral.org

On July 6, 2010, Private Bradley Manning, a 22 year old intelligence analyst with the United States Army in Baghdad, was charged with disclosing this video (after allegedly speaking to an unfaithful journalist). The whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a 'hero'. He is currently imprisoned in Kuwait. The Apache crew and those behind the cover up depicted in the video have yet to be charged. To assist Private Manning, please see bradleymanning.org.

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

Short version

Full version

WikiLeaks' Collateral Murder: U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord's Eyewitness Story

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.

WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.

Source: collateralmurder.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- NASA fueled space shuttle Atlantis for liftoff Friday on the final flight of the 30-year program, even though stormy weather threatened to delay the launch.

Forecasters stuck to their original 70 percent chance of thunderstorms or rain, as fuel filled Atlantis' tank in the pre-dawn hours.

Mission managers acknowledged it might seem foolish to proceed with fueling, given the dismal forecast, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said. They said they would take another look at the forecast and decide whether it makes sense to keep counting down.

STS-135: LIVE video COVERAGE

The four shuttle astronauts suited up after sunrise despite the still-iffy launch prospects.

"Have you done your rain dance for the day?" joked Aly Mendoza, the tank and booster rocket vehicle manager.

Atlantis holds a year's worth of supplies – more than 8,000 pounds – for the International Space Station.

An estimated 750,000 people are expected to jam Cape Canaveral and surrounding towns for this final shuttle launch, reminiscent of the crowds that gathered for the Apollo moon shots.

Among the expected VIPs: 14 members of Congress, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, four members of the Kennedy family, two former NASA administrators, singers Jimmy Buffett and Gloria Estefan, and the first shuttle pilot of them all, Robert Crippen.

By 6 a.m., cars and RV were packed into almost every available space along U.S. 1 in Titusville, with cameras already trained on the launch pad in the hazy clouds across the Indian River. Many had planted chairs and staked out viewing locations just feet from the water. Some were still cocooned in sleeping bags as the sun rose.

Kenneth Cox, 25, an airport employee from Danville, Ind., joined three friends at the riverside. Hauling Lucky Charms, fixings for s'mores and a bottle of champagne to celebrate the launch, they slept off and on as the sun rose.

"It's the closing chapter of 30 years," said Cox, who went to Space Camp when he was in the fifth grade and has been enamored with the shuttle program as long as he could remember.

"I definitely think it's a somber attitude out here, because it's the last one," said Cox's friend, Simon Lin, 26, who works at Walt Disney World in Orlando. "It's brought so much to the tourist industry in Florida, and that's what we are. Closing it down, it's going to be sad."

Cherie Cabrera, 23, a Disney World employee, tried to explain the attraction.

"It's just powerful," she said. "There are so few people who have the ability to go to space, and for all of us to be here on the river, watching it launch and feeling it rise and feeling the wind, you feel like you're a part of it. You feel connected."

John and Jennifer Cardwell came from Fairhope, Ala., for their third attempt to see the shuttle launch. Twice before they made the trip only to have a flight canceled and they weren't able to stay. They brought their sons, Isaac, 6, and 3-year-old Eli.

"This is our last-ditch chance to see one," said 38-year-old Jennifer Cardwell, cradling a sleepy Eli in her arms just after dawn. "This is the end of an era, and I wanted to be able to experience it. My son is interested in space and science, and I wanted to encourage that.

"It's that last frontier, that last place left for us to explore," she said. "We've gone all over the world, and this is what's left."

NASA must launch Atlantis by Sunday or Monday or it will have to wait until at least July 16 because of an unmanned rocket launch scheduled for next week.

The 12-day mission will close out the space shuttle program, which began with the launch of Columbia in 1981. Atlantis will join Discovery and Endeavour in retirement, so NASA can focus on sending astronauts to asteroids and Mars. Private companies will take over the business of getting space station cargo and crews to orbit.

Once Atlantis soars, it will be another three years – possibly five or more – before astronauts blast off again from U.S. soil.

This will be the 33rd flight for Atlantis and the 135th shuttle mission overall.

"Everybody should be really proud how we've ended and just finishing strong," Mendoza said.

___

Associated Press Writer Mitch Stacy contributed from Titusville, Fla.

"Imagine what would be said about the political process if nobody showed up to vote, if nobody participated in this delusion that we can control the ruling classes who hold us at gun point, ... the illusion that we can control the ruling classes by choosing wich farmer gets to farm us; farmers chosen by the farmers. Stay home!"

Author: Stefan Molyneux - Source: Freedomain Radio 

Powerful ideas for all lovers of the logic of personal and political freedom - Freedomain Radio was a Top 10 Finalist in the 2007-2010 Podcast Awards, and has been named one of the 'Top 100 Most Inspiring and Innovative Blogs for Educators.' Topics range from politics to philosophy to self-knowledge to economics to relationships to religion - and how to achieve real freedom in your life. Passionate, articulate, funny and irreverent, Freedomain Radio is a philosophy conversation that shines a bold light on old topics, and invents a few new ones to boot!

Imagine you're driving your own new car - or a rental car - and you need to park in a commercial garage. Maybe you're going to work, visiting a mall or attending an event at a sports stadium, and you're in a rush. Limited and small available spots and concrete pillars make parking a challenge. And it happens that day: you slightly misjudge a corner and you can hear the squeal as you scratch the side of your car--small scratches, but large anticipated repair costs.

Now imagine that that you can repair these unsightly scratches yourself--quickly, easily and inexpensively... or that you can go through a car wash that can detect these and other more minor scratches and fix them as the car goes through the washing garage. Fantasy? Not exactly. Not anymore. Not according to a new discovery detailed in the April 21 issue of the journal Nature, and depicted in a short video interview and simulation:

A team of researchers in the United States and Switzerland have developed a polymer-based material that can heal itself with the help of a widely used type of lighting. Called "metallo-supramolecular polymers," the material is capable of becoming a supple liquid that fills crevasses and gaps left by scrapes and scuffs when placed under ultraviolet light for less than a minute and then resolidifying.

"This is ingenious and transformative materials research," said Andrew Lovinger, polymers program director in NSF's Division of Materials Research. "It demonstrates the versatility and power of novel polymeric materials to address technological issues and serve society while creating broadly applicable scientific concepts."

The team involves researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, led by Stuart J. Rowan; the Adolphe Merkle Institute of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, led by Christoph Weder; and the Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, led by Rick Beyer.

The scientists envision widespread uses in the not-so-distant future for re-healable materials like theirs, primarily as coatings for consumer goods such as automobiles, floors and furniture. While their polymers are not yet ready for commercial use, they acknowledge, they now have proved that the concept works. And with that, what happens next is up to the market place. Necessity, the mother of invention, will expand the possibilities for commercial applications.

"These polymers have a Napoleon Complex," explains lead author Stuart Rowan, a professor of macromolecular engineering and science and director of the Institute for Advanced Materials at Case Western Reserve University. "In reality they're pretty small but are designed to behave like they're big by taking advantage of specific weak molecular interactions."

"Our study is really a fundamental research study," said Christoph Weder, a professor of polymer chemistry and materials and the director of the Adolphe Merkle Institute. "We tried to create materials that have a unique property matrix, that have unique functionality and that in principle could be very useful."

Specifically, the new materials were created by a mechanism known as supramolecular assembly. Unlike conventional polymers, which consist of long, chain-like molecules with thousands of atoms, these materials are composed of smaller molecules, which were assembled into longer, polymer-like chains using metal ions as "molecular glue" to create the metallo-supramolecular polymers.

While these metallo-supramolecular polymers behave in many ways like normal polymers, when irradiated with intense ultraviolet light the assembled structures become temporarily unglued. This transforms the originally solid material into a liquid that flows easily. When the light is switched off, the material re-assembles and solidifies again; its original properties are restored.

Using lamps such as those dentists use to cure fillings, the researchers repaired scratches in their polymers. Wherever they waved the light beam, the scratches filled up and disappeared, much like a cut that heals and leaves no trace on skin. While skin's healing process can be represented by time-lapse photography that spans several days or weeks, self-healing polymers heal in just seconds.

In addition, unlike the human body, durability of the material does not seem to be compromised by repeated injuries. Tests showed the researchers could repeatedly scratch and heal their materials in the same location.

Further, while heat has provided a means to heal materials for a long time, the use of light provides distinct advantages, says Mark Burnworth, a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University. "By using light, we have more control as it allows us to target only the defect and leave the rest of the material untouched."

The researchers systematically investigated several new polymers to find an optimal combination of mechanical properties and healing ability. They found that metal ions that drive the assembly process via weaker chemical interactions serve best as the light-switchable molecular glue.

Schematic of optically healing polymers. The specially designed polymer molecules that make up the solid item can be disassembled by the UV light so that they flow and fill in the cracks. When the light is turned off, the molecules reassemble themselves and the filled cracks become rigid again. (Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation, after Burnworth et al., Nature, April 21, 2011)

They also found the materials that assembled in the most orderly microstructures had the best mechanical properties. But, healing efficiency improved as structural order decreased.

"Understanding these relationships is critical for allowing us improve the lifetime of coatings tailored to specific applications, like windows in abrasive environments" Beyer said.

And what's next? According to Rowan, "One of our next steps is to use the concepts we have shown here to design a coating that would be more applicable in an industrial setting."

Film director and art curator Aaron Rose was at least partially right when he said, "In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary." Self-healing polymers certainly are extraordinary.

The research was funded by the Army Research Office of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Adolphe Merkle Foundation.

Source: Science Daily

Researchers at Miami University have created an augmented reality app that makes all those books easier to organize. ShelvAR instantly analyzes an entire shelf, spots any misplaced books, and shows librarians the quickest way to put the books back in order.

ShelvAR consists of an Android app and a set of coded tags, representing call numbers, that are placed on books' spines. When a librarian holds a smartphone or tablet camera up to a shelf, the app reads all the tags at once, thanks to a new algorithm that can decipher multiple patterns even though they're small when viewed at a distance. Then the app uses a simple sorting method—at least for computers, which aren't fazed by complex letter-digit combos like Q164 .G72 2009--to figure out the correct order and the shortest number of moves needed to achieve it. The phone's screen displays red X's over any misfiled books, along with arrows that show where they really belong.

The prototype app, built by computer science professor Bo Brinkman and research assistant Matt Hodges, has successfully analyzed a dozen books with half-inch tags. The team is now working on scaling up to 75 to 150 quarter-inch-thin books, so that they can scan a full shelf in one shot, and in December, they'll test the app in part of the university library. Adding ShelvAR tags could save libraries time and money in the long run, since workers now do frequent shelf checks by hand.

If all goes well, a beta version of ShelvAR will be released next spring. Librarians are already envisioning other uses for the technology, Brinkmann tells us, such as displaying a star rating over recommended books or helping lost students find the book they're looking for.

Source: PopSci

Become a member and join us as we initiate a movement for real change.

"The Plan" 1 year. 3 phases. A world of change.
Share this message with everyone you can.

PHASE 1: Better yourself. Spread the message. Be the message.

*Educate yourself on the depths of the system, the functions put it place to inhibit true freedom as well as the mechanisms within the system that motivate the masses to subconsciously accept giving up those freedoms. The structures within the system that promote division within the people of the countries of this world and the injustices that are placed upon the people.

*Spread the message. Share this video and the website with everyone you can. Make your own videos, songs, art, graffiti etc... spreading the word that we are here, the movement is taking hold. Expect us.

*Learn ways that will allow you to break free from the system. Start small and implement them in your daily lives. This will be implemented as a focus of Phase 2 as well, escalating what you have learned.

*ANON hackers - begin supporting the movement. This is a calling to all of you for the aid of this movement. Low-priority targets are your engagement. Assist with the movement and spread the message of "The Plan".

The resistance is here.
Expect us.

http://www.whatis-theplan.org

However, researchers at Michigan State University have built a prototype gasoline engine that requires no transmission, crankshaft, pistons, valves, fuel compression, cooling systems or fluids. Their so-called Wave Disk Generator could greatly improve the efficiency of gas-electric hybrid automobiles and potentially decrease auto emissions up to 90 percent when compared with conventional combustion engines.

The engine has a rotor that's equipped with wave-like channels that trap and mix oxygen and fuel as the rotor spins. These central inlets are blocked off, building pressure within the chamber, causing a shock wave that ignites the compressed air and fuel to transmit energy.

The Wave Disk Generator uses 60 percent of its fuel for propulsion; standard car engines use just 15 percent. As a result, the generator is 3.5 times more fuel efficient than typical combustion engines.

Researchers estimate the new model could shave almost 1,000 pounds off a car's weight currently taken up by conventional engine systems.

Michigan State University associate professor of mechanical engineering Norbert Mueller describes his Wave Disk Generator, for which he has received a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a prototype new engine and generator technology that can dramatically improve efficiencies and reduce costs of electric hybrid vehicles.

Last week, the prototype was presented to the energy division of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is backing the Michigan State University Engine Research Laboratory with $2.5 million in funding.

Michigan State's team of engineers hope to have a car-sized 25-kilowatt version of the prototype ready by the end of the year

Source: DiscoveryNews

Nearly five months after the earthquake and tsunami - Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant is still spewing radiation.

Yesterday (August 2nd 2011 TA note) - Tokyo Electric Power Company said it detected the highest radiation levels to date at the crippled nuclear facility - recording ten thousand milliSieverts an hour - the maximum level the devices can even measure.

The measures were taken just outside ventilation stacks in reactors one and two - reactors we saw explode in the weeks after the quake and tsunami.

In the photo, a real Chernobyl "victim".

So what's going on here? Could the nuclear crisis in Japan ACTUALLY be worsening after 5 months? Here to shed some light on this issue is Kevin Kamps - Nuclear Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear.