Breaking News Thread

[Flynbyu]

I agree with Aaron and Randy.

Education deserves it's own legislation. Look what education has done for countries like China and India.

~Brian

[Colorado700R]

I agree with Aaron and Randy.

Education deserves it's own legislation. Look what education has done for countries like China and India.

~Brian

Holy Sh@t!!! 


I got a democrat to agree with me!!

[Peelz]

  Aaron, go burn some fossil fuels and dump some chemicals into the river. That better?

j/k

I agree too. ERMAHGERD!  This one needs everybody on the same page, no "forcefeeding"

[Colorado700R]

One major thing I will say that I support in that bill is the $$$ for Army, Marines, Navy, an AF military building construction.  As long as it goes for the troops, not some new fancy Confrence room/sports bar  

I was just on Ft. Carson awhile back becuase I bought a bunkbed off of Craigslist.  The Soldier i got it from was an E-3 and was married with one kid, and another on the way.  Saying this housing was like the Projects would be a massive understatement.

I lived in those 10 years ago, and they were shit then.  Our guys and girls deserve better from us IMO.

[FoundArealQuad]

I agree, but most post have really stepped it up in the last 5 yrs. FT Lewis, Benning, and Scholfield BRKS have I know

[Colorado700R]

Russian, U.S. satellites collide in space from CNN.com 

Two satellites, one Russian and one American, have collided some 800 kilometers (500 miles) above Siberia, the Russian and U.S. space agencies, said Thursday.


Debris from the collision poses no threat to the International Space Station.

The collision on Tuesday produced two large debris clouds, NASA said. The satellites collided at 10 kilometers (6 miles) per second, producing 500-600 new pieces of space debris, the U.S. Strategic Command said.

That debris is not believed to pose a threat to the International Space Station as long as the clouds continue moving in a lower orbit, according to NASA and the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos.

"There is some elevated risk, but it is considered to be very small to the ISS and to the other satellites that NASA has in orbit," NASA spokeswoman Beth Dickey told CNN. She said experts were still assessing the effects of the debris.

Mikhail Martirosov, from Russian mission control center, told Interfax news agency that the real threat from the debris will become obvious next week, once experts can calculate the trajectory of the fragments' descent.

"We have not received a warning of the possible danger to the ISS. The fragments may descend to the ISS orbit in several years, although I do not rule out that some fragments may go down within several days," Martirosov said.

The Russian satellite was launched in 1993 and had been out of service at the time of the collision, Roscosmos said.

The U.S. satellite was part of the Iridium global mobile communications system and is owned by a consortium headed by Motorola, the space agency said. It was launched in 1997.

CNN is "one of the larger non-government users" of Iridium, said Arnie Christianson, operations manager for CNN Satellites and Transmission.

"We do rely on it for communication in high-risk areas like Iraq, Afghanistan, and other remote locations," he said.

"Because of this collision, there may be a slightly longer hole in the coverage from one satellite to the next, but only in a very small area and for a very small amount of time. This is a collision, not an internal failure of the satellite or the system."

He questioned how U.S. government, which tracks all space junk larger than a football, didn't see this coming. But he said the system will continue to work without any noticeable problems.

A representative of Iridium could not immediately be reached for comment.

NASA's Dickey said a collision like this one is very rare.

"This is the first impact between two intact satellites traveling at hypervelocity," she said. "There have been some other occasions when things have accidentally collided in space, but they have been parts of rockets or parts of satellites and (produced) a very small cloud."

Major Regina Winchester, of the U.S. Strategic Command, said: "Space is getting pretty crowded. The fact that this hasn't happened before -- maybe we were getting a little bit lucky."

Winchester said Strategic Command tracks more than 18,000 pieces of manmade objects in space every day.

"Any time there's an event that creates more debris, it's a concern," she said. "All countries who have assets in space are going to be concerned simply because when there's more debris, there's a higher chance it's going to hit something."

[BRAD]

Wow.  whats the odds of that happening?

[Colorado700R]

not as tuff as you think.  when you have geo syncronis satelittes, versus Highly ellipical orbits versus low ellipitcal orbits, plus decaying orbits. it gets nasty fast (like 10 KM per second)

[FoundArealQuad]

You are the smartest guy I know

[Colorado700R]

now that my friend is a very scary concept.

[FoundArealQuad]

now that my friend is a very scary concept.

I know 

[Colorado700R]

now that my friend is a very scary concept.

I know 

We need to get you out of AL before you start think Jerry Reid was an excellent singer 

[FoundArealQuad]

 

[Flynbyu]

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Methamphetamine "cooks" are secretly converting hundreds of motel and hotel rooms into covert drug labs — leaving behind a toxic mess for unsuspecting customers and housekeeping crews.

They are places where drug-makers can go unnoticed, mixing the chemicals needed for the highly addictive stimulant in a matter of hours before slipping out the next morning. The dangerous contaminants can lurk on countertops, carpets and bathtubs, and chemical odors that might be a warning clue to those who follow can be masked by tobacco smoke and other scents.

Motels can be an attractive alternative for drug makers seeking to avoid a police raid on their own homes.

"They can seize the trailer or seize your house but they can't seize a motel room," said Dr. Sullivan Smith, director of emergency services at Cookeville Regional Medical Center in north-central Tennessee.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration records obtained by The Associated Press show that states reported finding evidence of drug-making in 1,789 motel and hotel rooms in the past five years — and that's just those the authorities found.

Some cleanup professionals hired to make the travelers' havens livable again say most of their work is done on properties where a meth lab was discovered long after the fact.

The number of clandestine labs that are never found is difficult to pin down. There was a slight uptick in hotel and motel lab busts reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2008 from the previous year, with 149 in 2006, 87 in 2007 and 127 in 2008. The tally was 461 in 2005 and 965 in 2004, before there were restrictions on purchasing over-the-counter decongestants often used as ingredients. The DEA count is based on states that reported labs.

The toxins can linger for days if meth lab hygienists wearing hazmat suits don't clean living areas.

The cleanups cost anywhere from $2,000 to $20,000. Even short-term exposure to vapors and residue where the drug is smoked or cooked can cause eye and skin irritation, vomiting, rashes, asthma problems and other respiratory issues.

"It probably happens all the time," said John Martyny, a National Jewish Medical and Research Center associate professor who is also an industrial hygienist and meth researcher. "The difficulty is, how do you make that attribution? You might think it is from cigarette smoking."

Martyny said health effects from long-term exposure to the drug making are not known because the clandestine labs did not become widespread until the 1990s.

The volatile labs can be set up in less than four hours inside a hotel or motel room, according to The American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Methods vary for making the drug, but the equipment can be simple enough to fit in a single backpack: A large soft drink bottle with some rubber tubing, duct tape, batteries, refrigerant packs and a decongestant that contains ephedrine or pseudoephedrine.

Regardless of the complexity, "You are going to leave behind meth and caustic or potentially hazardous chemicals," said Tommy Farmer, director of Tennessee's Methamphetamine Task Force.

"The smart ones come in about 10 o'clock at night and they make it all night and are out of there by 8 a.m," said Joseph McInerney, president and CEO of the association.

Environmental services specialist John Nale of Chattanooga, who is licensed to clean up meth labs, said tests he has conducted for buyers of motel properties have shown chemicals from clandestine labs that were never previously discovered and reported.

Joe Mazzuca, operations manager at Meth Lab Cleanup Co. in Post Falls, Idaho, said he has tested pricey hotel rooms in Idaho and Utah and discovered contaminants where no one previously suspected a meth lab had been.

"Seventy percent of the work the company does are properties that were never busted," Mazzuca said.

Mazzuca said meth chemicals often leave purplish stains, and cooks often leave behind products such as cat litter used to absorb foul odors. Maids at one Utah hotel found absorbent material left hidden between mattresses and box springs.

"It is very toxic stuff and they don't want to carry it around," Mazzuca said.

Nale said motel and hotel customers may be reluctant to speak up if something is suspicious. He's also careful not to use coffee pots and other items provided in guest rooms.

"It could be chemicals or you just don't know what has been done with those," he said.

McInerney, the hotel and lodging association president, said few meth labs are set up in hotels compared with the industry renting about 3 million rooms a day. He said operators typically are vigilant about monitoring for any meth problems.

In East Ridge, on Interstate 75 a few miles from Chattanooga, police last month uncovered one lab in the Cascade Motel. They posted a quarantine sign on the door of the room until the owner pays for a cleanup and the affected area is cleared for use.

Police investigator Josh Creel said he and other officers located the chemicals, tubing and glassware that were being used when they made the arrests at the Cascade Motel. He advised the manager to leave the door and window open for several days in preparation for the cleanup, which involved replacing many of the furnishings.

The motel manager, Pradip Patel, declined comment other than, "Our bad luck."

Story via the AP.

~Brian

[Krandall]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090223/ap_on_fe_st/odd50_jobs_50_states;_ylt=AjC3UD4o_6dGBHJ1HpaQQ77tiBIF
THERESA, Wis. – At a time when some people are having trouble finding one job, Daniel Seddiqui is lining up 50 — one in every state. Each job symbolizes the state's most famous industry, and each lasts one week — just long enough for the 26-year-old to appreciate the labor and explore the region.

He's been a park ranger in Wyoming, a corn farmer in Nebraska and a wedding coordinator in Las Vegas.

Last week, in Week 23 of his yearlong saga, he was a cheesemaker in southeast Wisconsin. He mixed ingredients, hoisted slabs of cheddar — and tasted plenty of his work.

"I would say this was as hard as logging," he said Friday, referring to his stint as a logger in Oregon three months ago. "Everything here is done by hand so there's a lot of heavy lifting."

Seddiqui, who grew up in Los Altos, Calif., insists his job-hopping isn't a gimmick. It's a legitimate effort to travel the U.S., learning about cultures across the country and developing a respect for what other people do, he said.

For example, at his Nebraska job he was surprised that every farmer he met had a college degree