Gas pipeline firm Nord Stream will hold an information meeting on the Baltic island of Gotland on Monday to introduce a proposal to extend its controversial gas pipeline project. … Read More
Defiant Pirate Bay to continue hosting banned 3D printer gun designs
Designed by radical US libertarian Cody Wilson, the Liberator is the world’s first fully 3D printed firearm. When it was unveiled on Wilson’s DEFCAD website earlier this week, it was immediately downloaded by hundreds of thousands of people, with millions more getting the design off file-sharing websites.The US State Department then asked Wilson to take down his blueprints, citing a possible violation of arms export regulations pending review, which he has done.But The Pirate Bay (TPB), the Swedish-founded torrent website, which is currently operating through a domain name registered on the Caribbean island of Saint Maarten, does not plan to follow suit.“TPB has for close to 10 years been operating without taking down one single torrent due to pressure from the outside. And it will never start doing that,” a senior insider told TorrentFreak news portal.As well, as free speech, in justifying its decision TPB invoked a defense that echoed the National Rifle Association’s unofficial slogan (‘Guns don’t kill people. People kill people’).“The problem is not the object but what you do with it. Just as with a cooking knife.”Although Wilson has posted a video of himself successfully using the one-shot pistol that has garnered more than 3 million views on YouTube, it is not clear how practical or safe it would be to re-create the blueprints. Wilson used an $8,000 second-hand Stratasys Dimension SST printer, which makes three-dimensional objects by ‘printing’ a series of layers on top of each other with polymers.Similarly to Wilson himself, Pirate Bay believes the blueprints are not to be taken at face value (“We laugh at their gun love since it’s so obviously the wrong way to go.”) but are a starting point for a public debate on personal freedoms and state authority.“We think that the good thing about the discussion about 3D printers and their gun laws might bring more focus on the double standards that the US is having and hopefully – people will start printing signs to protest against the guns, the corruption and the threats against freedom of speech that the US is pushing on us,” said the Pirate Bay insider.Regardless of the file-sharing portal’s stance, and edicts from the US State Department, it is almost impossible to remove files from the internet once they have been shared, as long as there is demand. At the time of writing, the blueprints remain a popular download on most file-sharing websites based across the world, and even if they were all shut down simultaneously, the files could easily be re-uploaded from the millions of hard disks on which they are already stored. … Read More
‘Brazilian Atlantis’: Scientists discover traces of sunken continent under Atlantic Ocean
A Japanese-manned submersible discovered a large mass of granite and a large amount of quartz sand 900 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, according to the announcement made by The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and the Geology Service of Brazil (CPRM).These materials, normally found on dry land, suggest that a continent once existed in the region and then sank.“It is unusual because it is granite rock,” CPRM geology director Roberto Ventura Santos as quoted by ‘The Telegraph’. “And you don’t find granite on the seabed. It is more usual to find it on the mainland.”The granite was discovered in a seabed that was estimated to have disappeared under the ocean waters tens of millions of years ago.“South America and Africa used to be a huge, unified continent. The area in question may have been left in water as the continent was separated in line with the movements of plates,” said Shinichi Kawakami, a professor at Gifu University, Japan Times reports.The material was reportedly found more than 8,000 feet beneath the sea in a region known as the Rio Grande Elevation.“This is the region that has been least explored worldwide,” added Kawakami. “So, we believe it is very important to research it.””From an analysis, we began to see that the area could be a piece of the continent that disappeared into the sea millions of years ago,” Santos said as quoted by AFP.“This could be Brazil’s Atlantis. We are almost certain, but we need to strengthen this hypothesis.”The fabled island was first mentioned by Greek philosopher Plato in his dialogues ‘Timaeus’ and ‘Critias’, written about 360 BC. According to Plato, Atlantis was situated in front of the Pillars of Hercules, the phrase that was applied in Antiquity to the promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The civilization of Atlantis conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa approximately 9600 BC. But the continent is believed to have sunk during a catastrophic natural disaster.Scientists plan to drill for more samples later this year, as further conformation is needed. Experts still remain cautious about jumping to conclusions.“We speak of Atlantis more in terms of symbolism,” Santos noted. “Obviously, we don’t expect to find a lost city in the middle of the Atlantic.”Though the researchers are still hopeful that the discovery may clarify many questions.“If it is the case that we find a continent in the middle of the ocean, it will be a very big discovery that could have various implications in relation to the extension of the continental shelf,” Santos said. … Read More
Chinese media challenges Japanese ownership of Okinawa
The People’s Daily, which serves as the mouthpiece for the ruling Communist party, ran the lengthy commentary questioning the historical status of Japan’s southernmost Ryukyu island chain, which includes Okinawa. The researchers, hailing from a prominent state-run think tank, argue ownership of the Ryukyus should be considered in light of post-World War II declarations which require Japan to return Chinese territory. The academics claim the Ryukyus were once a “vassal state of China” before they were absorbed by Japan in the late 1800s during the twilight of the Qing Dynasty. The researchers also reiterated Chinese government claims over a tiny group of islands in the East China Sea known as the Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. The islands have been a potential flashpoint between the two states over the past several months, with Chinese maritime surveillance vessels sporadically entering Japanese territorial waters following Tokyo’s decision to effectively nationalize the islets last September. The most recent claims regarding Okinawa’s sovereignty are likely meant to pressure Tokyo over the East China Sea dispute, Willy Lam, an expert on Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told AFP.”I think this is psychological warfare,” he said, adding: “The major point is to put pressure on Japan so that the Japanese administration will be forced to make concessions over the Senkaku islands.” While the daily is often used a barometer on issues both domestic and international for China’s ruling class, the Chinese government has not explicitly endorsed the claims. When asked about Japanese ownership of Okinawa, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said scholars had long researched the history of the island chain. However, she was equivocal about the “Diaoyu islands”, claiming they “are China’s inherent territory, and have never been part of the Ryukyus or Okinawa.” The Japanese government was dismissive of the commentary, saying the views expressed were “completely out of the question.”“There’s no doubt that [Okinawa] belongs to Japan historically and internationally,” the Wall Street Journal cites Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga as saying.Okinawa Island, the largest island in the Ryukyu island chain, currently hosts 32 US military bases including Kadena Air Base – the focal point of US airpower in the Pacific – and the longstanding Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.With up to 85 percent of Okinawans opposing the US military presence and heightened tensions in the East China Sea, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday said it was time to consider taking the nation’s security into its own hands.Speaking before the Japanese Parliament, Abe questioned whether Japan should always have to ask the United States to “attack someone who is threatening to attack us,” before calling on a debate on whether Japan should form its own force which would be modelled on the US Marines, Bloomberg News reports. Abe has previously vowed to “expel by force” any Chinese landing on the Senkaku Islands. … Read More
3 fake nuns caught smuggling cocaine in Colombia
Three women dressed up as nuns were caught at a Colombian airport trying to smuggle cocaine taped to their bodies, police said Tuesday. The women were caught Saturday after arriving on Colombia’s Caribbean island of San Andres on a flight from Bogota. They thought the disguise would spare…
Treasure Island: In the Director’s Chair
http://www.youtube.com/v/_lIxbUCevrU?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Original post: Treasure Island: In the Director’s Chair
Archbishop of San Francisco calls Rhode Island marriage equality ‘a serious injustice’
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco on Friday lashed out at the state of Rhode Island over a newly signed law that allows same-sex couples to legally marry. Cordileone, the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of…
