This is PressTV, the Iranian goverment’s English language TV channel, and the author is Gordon Duff, who his controversial to say the least, but his allegation that the recent relieving of a significant number of military officers was because of a coup plot:

The Obama administration has had American military, both on domestic and foreign bases on high alert since October 1. However, there has been no known terrorist enemy threatening the US. The enemy is called “domestic” but its origins are far from American.

Today, Rear Admiral Charles M. Gaouette was “fired” from his command of one of the three carrier battle groups back to Bremerton, Washington to face an investigation.

It is impossible to adequately state how unusual this is and how serious.

The Navy was clear that the charges had nothing to do with his personal conduct, no rape or sexual misconduct, no stolen money, no drug use, the things that usually bring down careers in the Navy, that and crashing ships into each other.

Gaouette was sent back because the Secretary of Defense found him unfit for command, sent him across the world in the middle of one of the largest combat exercises in history, one both timed prior to an election and one at a critical location, near the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

Gaouette commanded nearly one third of the Naval and air combat forces in the region.

The decision was made based on a conversation with the Secretary of Defense who, at the end of the talk, believed Gaouette was part of a group of military officers who have been under suspicion for planning a “Seven Days in May” type overthrow of the US government if President Obama is re-elected.

Official sources list this as allegations of inappropriate judgement.

I don’t know what sort of “inappropriate judgement” would have the admiral in charge of the 2 carrier task force relieved and flown off his ship while at sea in the Persian Gulf.

I would note that the right wing “black helicopter” theory, that he was fired because he was forbidden to conduct an air strike in Libya.  But at the time his ship, the Stennis, was not in the Gulf, it was in the Western Pacific, well outside of any carrier based aircraft’s range.

Additionally, we have, “Cmdr. Joseph E. Darlak and top officers of the San Diego-based Navy frigate USS Vandegrift” been relieved for “alcohol issues” during a port call in Vladivostok.

You mean that sailors on leave in Vladivostok would drink on liberty in Russia?

This is weird.

Bloomberg is reporting that Mitt Romney rented the Mormon Church’s nonprofit status to avoid taxes, meaning that he probably paid next to no taxes for the decade ending in 2009:

In 1997, Congress cracked down on a popular tax shelter that allowed rich people to take advantage of the exempt status of charities without actually giving away much money.

Individuals who had already set up these vehicles were allowed to keep them. That included Mitt Romney, then the chief executive officer of Bain Capital, who had just established such an arrangement in June 1996.

The charitable remainder unitrust, as it is known, is one of several strategies Romney has adopted over his career to reduce his tax bill. While Romney’s tax avoidance is legal and common among high-net-worth individuals, it has become an issue in the campaign. President Barack Obama attacked him in their second debate for paying “lower tax rates than somebody who makes a lot less.”

In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity — the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing — to defer taxes for more than 15 years. At the same time he is benefiting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires, according to tax returns obtained by Bloomberg this month through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In general, charities don’t owe capital gains taxes when they sell assets for a profit. Trusts like Romney’s permit funders to benefit from that tax-free treatment, said Jonathan Blattmachr, a trusts and estates lawyer who set up hundreds of such vehicles in the 1990s.

Near Zero

“The main benefit from a charitable remainder trust is the renting from your favorite charity of its exemption from taxation,” Blattmachr said. Despite the name, giving a gift or getting a charitable deduction “is just a throwaway,” he said. “I used to structure them so the value dedicated to charity was as close to zero as possible without being zero.”

It would have been nice if the press had gotten this earlier, but it sure looks like Rmoney’s tax returns have been kept under wraps because he lied when he claimed that he was paying a reasonable amount of taxes.

The thrust is very similar to that of ion, in the millinewton range, but if this works, the ISP (seconds of thrust per pound of propellant) for such a system is literally infinite (paid subscription required):

Chinese scientists appear to have validated a propellentless space propulsion technology previously branded as impossible. Based on earlier British research, it is averred that the EmDrive concept provides sustained thrust at low cost and weight, but this has yet to be accepted even as a workable theory by the wider propulsion community.

The EmDrive story started in 2001 when engineer Roger Shawyer set up Satellite Propulsion Research (SPR) to exploit his new concept in electrical propulsion. He was helped by a modest grant from the U.K.’s now defunct Trade and Industry Department.

Space propulsion relies on Newton’s laws of motion: propellant is ejected backward at high velocity, and the craft is pushed forward with equal and opposite momentum. Even with high exhaust velocity, such as ion drives ejecting particles at 30 km per second (more than 62,000 mph), the mass of propellant is a limiting factor.

Shawyer’s EmDrive does not have any exhaust. It consists of a tuned cavity shaped like a truncated cone into which resonating microwaves are channeled. Like other radiation, these exert a tiny pressure when reflected off a surface. According to Shawyer, the pressure exerted on the large end of the cavity is greater than the pressure on the small end, producing a net thrust.

………

The result , 720 mN, is just 2.5 oz. of thrust, but satellites often work with less. Boeing’s advanced XIPS thruster , which fires out Xenon ions at high speed, achieves 165 mN of thrust from 4.5 lb. It weighs 35 lb., more than an equivalent EmDrive, and the propellant for prolonged operation can weigh much more.

XIPS and EmDrive can both run off solar electricity, but the EmDrive never runs out of propellant. Propellant to maintain satellite position is a major weight contribution; Shawyer suggests that the EmDrive could halve the cost of geostationary satellites .

Either this is a massive fraud, or it will have major impact on satellite launches.

For interplanetary probes, it could be revolutionary, cutting times and costs by something like an order of magnitude.

I’d wait for more independent verification though. The Chinese seem to be playing their results pretty close to the vest, which in and of itself is suspicious.

This is a real Family Circus cartoon.

If someone like Gary Larson, or Jim Meddick did this, I could understand, but this is freaky in a very bizarre way.

I’m beginning to think that if Bill Keane had taken a slightly different course in his life, he would be the heir to H.P. Lovecraft’s legacy.

H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

To repeat myself:

It actually turns out to be mostly video of me standing in line, and my phone ran out of juice before I got the the ballot box.

But here it is, and I insult Greens, Ron Paul Supporters, William Donald Schaefer, Paris Glendenning, and Rosanne Barr:

Well, not so much:

Looking to cut down on homeless services in Costa Mesa, [Republican] Mayor Eric Bever has asked the city to investigate some of the city’s most prominent and long-running charities.

Bever singled out Share Our Selves and Someone Cares Soup Kitchen, two decades-old nonprofits that dispense food and medical care to the poor and homeless.

The mayor compared the charities to nightclubs that have become neighborhood nuisances.

It would go a long way to solving the problem of homeless people coming to Costa Mesa, the mayor said, “if we managed to put the soup kitchen out of business.”

The homeless population in Costa Mesa has been a stubborn political issue over the years, with some residents complaining that vagrants take over public facilities like Lions Park and the library in the heart of the city’s downtown.

But the assertion that the soup kitchen and outreach center are magnets strictly to homeless people is off base, said Shannon Santos, the executive director of Someone Cares.

Santos said a survey the soup kitchen conducted in 2011 found that 86% of its patrons said they were from Costa Mesa, and about 40% were low-income seniors, many from the nearby Bethel Towers apartments, which serves seniors with modest incomes

BTW, this joker is (thankfully) being termed out of office, and he’s running for a seat on the water board so that he can keep his health insurance for his bad back:

Eric Bever is termed out and running for a seat on the Mesa Consolidated Water Board. He is running against the current incumbent President Fred Bockmiller. Bockmiller is the Facilities director at UCI and has overseen water and drainage projects that have resulted in billions of infrastructure upgrades. His knowledge and experience are unparalleled. Insiders from the Costa Mesa political machine have basically made a stand to have Bever take the place of Bockmiller on the Water board. Bever is an antique dealer. The reason stated in whispers is that Eric NEEDS the medical for a bad back and if he is termed out he will lose his medical insurance. The justification is that Bockmiller can get insurance through the College so he is expendable. Ironic, isn’t? The Mayor is running for another elected position for the government provided health insurance but before he leaves he attacks charities that provide health insurance for those that need it. Costa Mesa needs to drain this swamp…….

Seriously, C=MI.^*

I am sure that there are some Republican politicians who aren’t sociopaths, I just haven’t seen them yet.

^*Conservatism equals Mental Illness.

Link

Case in point, Christine Lagarde sent a list of Swiss bank accounts held by Greek politicians totaling billions of Euros.

Kostas Vaxevanis, editor and publisher of Hot Doc magazine, managed to get a copy of the list, and published it. The Greek authorities promptly arrested him:

The Greek police arrested and then quickly released the owner and editor of a respected investigative magazine on Sunday morning hours after he published a list of more than 2,000 Greeks who were said to have accounts at a bank in Switzerland, throwing new controversy into a scandal over whether the government is actively pursuing suspected tax cheats.

The dramatic moves, which tens of thousands of Greeks were following on the Internet, came days before Greece’s European partners were to meet to decide whether to grant tens of billions of euros in new aid to the financially struggling nation. Greece’s lenders have long said that the government must crack down on tax evasion to be eligible for more aid.

The police said they had been ordered to take the editor, Kostas Vaxevanis, who runs Hot Doc magazine and who is one of the nation’s most famous investigative journalists, into custody on misdemeanor charges. The Greek news media reported that the charges concerned the violation of the privacy of those on the list.

Mr. Vaxevanis posted a message to his Twitter account early Sunday saying that 15 officers had surrounded the home of a friend with whom he had been staying “like Greek storm troopers in German uniforms.”

Mr. Vaxevanis soon followed up with another Twitter message: “They’re entering my house with the prosecutor right now. They are arresting me. Spread the word.”

Hours later, he was released from Athens police headquarters to loud cheers from a crowd outside. He is to face a magistrate at noon on Monday, when his trial date is to be set.

………

George Papaconstantinou, the ex-finance minister who received the list from Ms. Lagarde, told a parliamentary panel last week that he had been advised that he could not use it because a former HSBC employee obtained the names illegally. Mr. Papaconstantinou said that after receiving the names, he had passed them on a memory stick to the chief of Greece’s financial crimes unit, Ioannis Diotis, who later gave it to Mr. Papaconstantinou’s successor, Evangelos Venizelos, the current leader of the Socialists. Mr. Diotis said that Mr. Venizelos had not instructed him to investigate it.

The Greek elites in general, and their ruling classes in particular, are deeply corrupt and dysfunctional.

The EU and the IMF would have been far better served by starting with the exposure of the corrupt elites and the confiscation of their ill gotten gains.

Passing along a list, with the knowledge that it would almost certainly be ignored, is an inadequate response. It ill serves the Greek people, the EU, and world economy.

Matt Stoller has a very well thought argument given the progressive case against Obama:

So why oppose Obama? Simply, it is the shape of the society Obama is crafting that I oppose, and I intend to hold him responsible, such as I can, for his actions in creating it. Many Democrats are disappointed in Obama. Some feel he’s a good president with a bad Congress. Some feel he’s a good man, trying to do the right thing, but not bold enough. Others think it’s just the system, that anyone would do what he did. I will get to each of these sentiments, and pragmatic questions around the election, but I think it’s important to be grounded in policy outcomes. Not, what did Obama try to do, in his heart of hearts? But what kind of America has he actually delivered?

Obama had a number of things that he could do without the Consent of congress, holding torturers accountable, prosecuting corrupt bankers, etc.  In every case, his decisions have served to further empower, and to further immunize, powerful wrongdoers in our society.

I recommend that you read the whole article.

A counter argument by Joss Weadon(see vid) involves Zombies

Finland, which is not in crisis, does not appear to have any immediate plans to leave the Euro, but they are seriously considering establishing a local parallel currency so that they will have the option of pulling the plug on the Euro if it becomes necessary:

In the past couple of years, as the eurozone woes have unfolded, international investors have been transfixed by one small country on the edge of the region: Greece.

They would do well to keep watching another tiddler: Finland. For while Finland has not created much drama, precisely because it is one of the strongest eurozone members, some fascinating discussions are under way. Most notably, as the eurozone crisis rumbles on, some Finnish business and government officials are quietly mulling the logistics of leaving the currency union.

Nobody in Finland expects this to happen soon, if ever; indeed, most policy makers are strongly opposed to the idea. Particularly since many also hope the crisis is dying down, but as Heikki Neimelaeinen, chief executive of the Municipal Guarantee Board says: “We have started openly discussing the mechanism of euro exiting, without indicating that we will initiate such a process.” And this, in turn, is sparking some curious economic debates.

Take a look, for example, at a recent research paper from Nordea, the Nordic bank. This paper looks at the question of what might happen if Finland ever decided to run a so-called “parallel currency” system. The idea behind this, as Nordea explains, is that at times of stress it can sometimes seem beneficial for countries to maintain more than one currency unit. Most notably, if a country is trying to leave one currency, keeping that as legal tender alongside a second currency for a period can ensure a country honours its old contracts – and thus avoids a technical default.

Finland is a net creditor in the EU, and it is highly unlikely that they would be forced out, so they have be planning to get out of Dodge if the sh%$ hits the fan.

This is significant, because it’s showing a lack of confidence from one of the net beneficiaries of the Euro zone.

The British just turned down a request of the US to use their bases for a strike on Iran:

Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law.

The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories.

The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly. They have pointed US officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general’s office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

This makes clear that Iran, which has consistently denied it has plans to develop a nuclear weapon, does not currently represent “a clear and present threat”. Providing assistance to forces that could be involved in a pre-emptive strike would be a clear breach of international law, it states.

If Tony Blur Blair were still PM, the only question that would have been asked would have been if they wanted their parking validated.

Credit where credit is due.  The Tories, probably because they were afraid of losing their Lib-Dem coalition partners, have made a remarkably sensible decision.

If there is anything that can add a few decades of the reign of the mullahs in Iran, it’s another war.

Cryogenic Machining:

As contractors make greater use of composites and high-strength metals in aircraft structures, attention is focusing on ways of improving manufacturing productivity and reducing per-part cost. One technique to emerge for the machining of parts is cryogenic cooling, which can increase machining speed, reduce cutting force, extend cutting tool life, and lower the time and cost required to finish components.

Cryogenic cooling uses liquid nitrogen (LN2), an inert substance that is usually processed at -321F (-196C), in place of conventional liquid coolants, which are generally applied at ambient temperature. The idea is to apply LN2 to the interface of a cutting tool and workpiece, where it reduces heat generated by cutting, thus allowing a tool to run faster and—with less thermal degradation and other heat-related damage—last longer.

The heat can be extreme. The cutting temperature of carbon steel, for example, can easily reach 800F during machining.

Cryogenic cooling has been around for a while, but recent developments in system design make it more of an option for contractors working with advanced materials. One company in particular, MAG IAS of Erlanger, Ky., has engineered a line of 3-, 4- and 5-axis cryogenic machining centers and retrofit packages with patented technology that was developed in partnership with the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, Lockheed Martin and Bell Helicopter Textron, and others. Among its applications, the technology has been approved for use in roughing titanium components for the Lockheed F-35 . MAG is working with the original equipment manufacturer on finished-machining certification of the process.

I would also note that another benefit of cryogenic machining is shorter chips, which also makes machining easier, so machining stringy alloys, like titanium, and some aluminum alloys and stainless steels (13-8 shown) can be a royal PITA.

And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

47. NOVA Bank, Berwyn, PA

Just 1 this week.

Full FDIC list

So, here is the graph pr0n with last years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):

Silvio Berlusconi has been convicted of tax fraud and sentenced to 4 years:

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to four years in jail on Friday for tax fraud in connection with the purchase of broadcasting rights by his Mediaset television company.

The 76-year-old billionaire media magnate, who was convicted three times during the 1990s in the first degree before being cleared by higher courts, has the right to appeal the ruling two more times before the sentence becomes definitive.

That process is likely to be lengthy and he will not be jailed unless he loses the final appeal. Even then, because the crime was committed when an amnesty to prevent prison overcrowding was in place, the maximum possible jail time would be one year.

The ruling comes two days after Berlusconi confirmed he would not run in next year’s elections as the leader of his People of Freedom (PDL) party, ending almost 19 years as the dominant politician of the centre-right.

I would suggest that as a part of this, authorities should break up his media empire.

His political power derived directly from his control of almost all the TV in Italy.

Once he packed the staff of Italian state run TV, there were no opposing voices voices

It’s a reference to the Movie After Hours, and this link points to the McGuffin of that film.

Pay no attention, I’m checking out a new Google ad type, affiliate ads.

It appears that Mitt made a secret promise to sign the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to the Log Cabin Republicans:

Romney’s greatest asset as a politician is his total lack of integrity, honesty or consistency. He is perfectly willing to go before the religious right one day and pledge fealty to them, and the Log Cabin Republicans the next day to do the same. And, apparently, that is what he has done, in private. [ Log Cabin Republican executive director, R. Clarke] Cooper asserted repeatedly that, “With a President Romney we’re confident we can work with him [on ENDA].” But when asked why, Cooper offered only reasons that Romney should work with them: that discrimination is a form of economic inefficiency and impediment to job growth. But you could make the same argument to any president. The question is what Romney has said that gives them such confidence. Cooper says, “Romney been clear in his opposition to workplace discrimination.” He also seemed to conflate private conversations with LCR representatives and his public pronouncements, saying such things as, “[Romney] is acutely aware of the problem of the patchwork of discrimination,” meaning that it creates problems for businesses that some states ban anti-gay discrimination and others do not. Later, clearly referencing private communications with the campaign, Cooper said, “Based on our work with the campaign and Gov. Romney, I’m confident [that he will support anti-discrimination legislation].” Cooper was coy and vague about what exactly Romney said to inspire such confidence; he says Romney “has been adamant” in opposition to discrimination. Romney is clearly quite a salesman.

Mr. Cooper is either deluded or a complete idiot.

Shamiur Rahman, a 19 year old of Bangladeshi extraction, was hired by the police as an informant with specific instructions to bait people to get them to make intemperate statements:

A paid informant for the New York Police Department’s intelligence unit was under orders to “bait” Muslims into saying inflammatory things as he lived a double life, snapping pictures inside mosques and collecting the names of innocent people attending study groups on Islam, he told The Associated Press.

Shamiur Rahman, a 19-year-old American of Bangladeshi descent who has now denounced his work as an informant, said police told him to embrace a strategy called “create and capture.” He said it involved creating a conversation about jihad or terrorism, then capturing the response to send to the NYPD. For his work, he earned as much as $1,000 a month and goodwill from the police after a string of minor marijuana arrests.

………

Rahman said he now believes his work as an informant against Muslims in New York was “detrimental to the Constitution.” After he disclosed to friends details about his work for the police — and after he told the police that he had been contacted by the AP — he stopped receiving text messages from his NYPD handler, “Steve,” and his handler’s NYPD phone number was disconnected.

………

The programs were built with unprecedented help from the CIA.

Two thoughts:

• The US Attorneys whose jurisdiction covers the greater New York City area won’t do a thing to look into this. 
• Shamiur Rachman has announced his intention to move to the Caribbean.  He’d better move now, because he’s going to get 12 years for jaywalking if he stays in the United States.

And this time, it’s to ensure that absolutely no one will ever reveal who amongst us are the torturers:

Bmaz just wrote a long post talking about the dilemma John Kiriakou faces as the government and his defense lawyers attempt to get him to accept a plea deal rather than go to trial for leaking the names of people–Thomas Donahue Fletcher and Deuce Martinez–associated with the torture program.

I’d like to look at four more aspects of this case:

• The timing of this plea deal–reflecting a realization on the part of DOJ that their efforts to shield Fletcher would fail
• CIA’s demand for a head
• The improper cession of a special counsel investigation to the US Attorney for Eastern Virginia
• The ongoing efforts to cover-up torture

………

The CIA panicked because the subjects of CIA torture were learning the identities of their torturers. DOJ did an investigation to see whether any crime had been committed, and determined it hadn’t. CIA then started politicizing that decision, which led to Fitzgerald’s appointment.

Fitzgerald confirmed what DOJ originally determined: the defense attorneys committed no crime by researching who their clients’ torturers were.

But along the way Fitzgerald gave the CIA a head–John Kiriakou’s–based partly on old investigations of him. And, surprise surprise, that head happens to belong to the only CIA officer who publicly broke the omerta about the torture program.

This entire case was an attempt to punish someone to restore the omerta on CIA’s illegal activities.

For a bigger picture, I would recommend Dan Froomkin’s analysis of the Obama administration’s war on whistle blower.

Our country desperately needs to enshrine the Swedish concept of Offentlighetsprincipen (openness) into our constitution, and soon, or our representative democracy is going to quickly turn into a sham.

He died today, at age 90.  (George McGovern died, not my dad)

He was a better man on every level than Richard Nixon, and would have made a better President.

As depressing as it sounds, I think that Nixon might very well have been a better President than all of those that proceeded him.

He was certainly better than the overwhelming majority of them.

That is a scary thought.

It’s Darrell Issa, the gift that keeps on giving, who just released documents on Libya without redacting source names, putting them at risk:

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) compromised the identities of several Libyans working with the U.S. government and placed their lives in danger when he released reams of State Department communications Friday, according to Obama administration officials.

Issa posted 166 pages of sensitive but unclassified State Department communications related to Libya on the committee’s website afternoon as part of his effort to investigate security failures and expose contradictions in the administration’s statements regarding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Amb. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

“The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration. Americans also deserve a complete explanation about your administration’s decision to accelerate a normalized presence in Libya at what now appears to be at the cost of endangering American lives,” Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) wrote today in a letter to President Barack Obama.

It appears that the entire Valarie Plame thing was not an aberration. Republicans are confronted with a conflict between politics and national security, they will go with politics, even if it only delays a document release by a couple of days.

Issa is a f%$#ing piece of work, but any examination of his life story would show that.