Hopefully I filed this in the right place.
Many animal lovers find it hard to part with their pets when they die.
So when cat Orville, named after the famous aviator Orville Wright, was run over by a car, his artist owner decided to turn him into a permanent piece of artwork as the ultimate tribute by transforming him into a flying helicopter. That's not weird, is it?
Dutch artist Bart Jansen first stuffed Orville before teaming up with radio control helicopter flyer Arjen Beltman to build a specially-designed flying mechanism to attach to the cat.
The end result, named the Orvillecopter, is now on show at the Kunstrai art festival in Amsterdam where visitors can watch Orville flying for themselves.
Jansen said the Orvillecopter is 'half cat, half machine', and part of a visual art project to pay tribute to his cat Orville. Hmm, I wonder how it would go over with the Taliban.
Jansen, part of the art cooperative Generaal Pardon, said: 'After a period of mourning he received his propellers posthumously.'
He added that Orville will soon be 'flying with the birds' stating: 'Oh how he loved birds. He will receive more powerful engines and larger props for his birthday. So this hopping will soon change into steady flight.' Pics at the link. Go ahead, you know you want to ....
#2
For our younger, cloistered or foreign readers - they got a thing called a "sail cat", as descried by the late Jonathan Winters. You see when a cat is run over on the highway it just lays there for days. More cars and trucks keep runnin' over the dang thing. It gets flatter and flatter and dryer and dryer. Finally, some kid will go out there and peel this flat, dead, carcass off the highway, then fling it, like a Frisbee, across a corn field, just to see how far it will go. You know, a "sail cat"!
#7
Should have made a pitbulcopter. Send that at the Jihadi's in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Charles ||
06/05/2012 14:03 Comments ||
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#8
Watching the flight it is unbalanced. That's where a good micro-controller should be on-board to fudge the power to each blade to compensate for the imbalance.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
06/05/2012 17:07 Comments ||
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#9
I've seen vids of quadcopters doing synchronized precision flight. Maybe his control algorithms suck. Or need some time to learn, depending on the approach.
If you are going jihadi-hunting, you want one made from a pig. You could make heads explode - literally.
#4
I was hoping to catch + visually observe the transit vee the Guam area, but as things stand I'll prolly have to read about it on the MSM-Net News or TV.
#6
I kept my eye on the western horizon & had my car's GPS programmed for a local astronomy club's viewing site. About 1930 the sun came out from under the cloud deck & I made my way to the site, along with several hundred other people who had the same thing in mind. Got some great viewing from several of the telescopes.
[Tolo News] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... has ordered the Ministry of Interior to arrest and disarm a police local unit accused of raping an 18-year-old girl, New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... wrote quoting government front man Aimal Faizi.
A shepherd girl was in jug of the Afghan local police for days and was reportedly raped several times by the members of the unit.
Afghan local police is considered to be an effective element in securing the country and their roles have been called effective in many provinces.
"We believe existence of local police is effective in securing in several parts of the country, but for a long term base, their presence will not be as effective," Aimal Faizi has told New York Times.
Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy had come up with a new idea... Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, a front man to Kunduz provincial police chief dismissed reports about the rape case and said the presidential palace never referred to them for details.
"We have sent our information to Interior Ministry, but the decision makers at the presidential palace never got back to us."
It comes as Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has strongly condemned the incident.
"We strongly condemn the incident and express our concern in this regard, no criminal should be forgiven by the government," Musa Mahmoodi, CEO of Human Rights Commission said.
This is believed to be the first group rape case reflected in the Afghan media.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2012 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] South Sudanese officials have "stolen" an estimated $4 billion of public money and should return it to salvage the young nation's reputation and help lift its people out of poverty, the president said in a letter seen on Monday.
The request came as the central African country, which seceded from Sudan less than a year ago, is scrambling for cash to make up for the loss of almost all state revenues with the shutdown of its oil output in January.
Critics have accused the government of President Salva Kiir doing little to clamp down on widespread corruption that has hampered efforts to build the war-torn state from scratch and jumpstart development.
In a letter to 75 current and former officials dated 3 May, Kiir offered amnesty for officials and individuals with government ties who returned the money.
"An estimated $4 billion are unaccounted for or, simply put, stolen by former and current officials, as well as corrupt individuals with close ties to government officials," Kiir said in the letter obtained by Rooters.
Reliable figures are hard to come by in South Sudan, but the figure could amount to around one third of the estimated total oil receipts allotted to the South between the 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war and independence last year.
"Most of these funds have been taken out of the country and deposited in foreign accounts. Some have purchased properties, often paid in cash," the letter said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
So Prosecute, unless there's no chance of conviction, then Kill'em.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/05/2012 8:52 Comments ||
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Saudi Arabias religious police arrested an American university professor for having an illicit meeting with an Arab company driver in the Gulf Kingdom.
Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice had suspected a car parked just behind a shopping mall in Riyadh.
When they knocked on the window, an Arab man stepped out of the back seat and look confused, the Arabic language daily Sabq said.
When they looked at the back seat, they found an American woman who works as a professor at a university in Riyadh, it said.
Both were arrested and referred to the competent authorities for investigation, the paper said without identifying the two.
Saudi Arabia, which strictly enforces Islamic law, bans gender-mixing in public places unless they are close relatives
A statement Sunday by former Mexican president Vicente Fox essentially endorsing Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) candidate Enrique Pena Nieto has thrown the other two major campaigns into an uproar, according to Mexican news reports.
Fox was president of the republic from 2000 to 2006, and the first president from Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) to win the presidency. His successor, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa won election in 2006 by less than one percentage point over Partido Revolucion Democratica (PRD) candidate Andres Manuel Lopoz Obrador. Lopez Obrador is running again for president, his fourth attempt as the candidate of the left since the formation of the PRD in 1994.
Fox held the press conference in San Cristobal, Guanajuato where he urged Mexicans to rally around the front running Pena Nieto, who has maintained double digit leads over his rivals consistently since the start in March.
According to a news account on the website of Milenio news daily, Fox said, "...a winner is emerging and we must support him, so we can resolve the problems." Fox also said voters should not be afraid of a return to authoritarianism, adding that political reforms since PAN took over would prevent the excesses committed by PRI governments in the past.
Fox's statement has not surprisingly touched off heated reactions from political camps of the left and the right, including from PAN president Gustavo Madero Munoz who tweeted earlier Monday: "I do not know what bug bit him." Madero's tweet was a reference to Fox's endorsement and photo op earlier last month, in which Fox partially repudiated an earlier statement that PRI would win the presidency.
Madero could not forebear to make a swipe against Lopez Obrador by adding in his tweet, "I am deeply offended with all the support was to be for the one democrat!"
Fox has in the past been given to astonishingly dumb statements which wound up hurting his own party. In 2011, he made a statement in the press criticizing President Calderon and his war on the cartels, and then recommended legalization of drugs in Mexico.
But Fox's media event was a deliberate announcement of support of Pena Nieto, not an unfortunate off the cuff statement by an elder, albeit former statesman. His latest antic has calls coming for his expulsion from PAN.
Pena Nieto for his part has been calling for economic reforms centering around free markets, much like his distant predecessor Miguel de la Madrid, who died earlier in the year. He has also called to continue the war on the cartels except with a different strategy, one he has to date failed to enunciate.
This co-optation has not moved the polls further in his direction, but they have not hurt him either. His most recent statements seem to indicate he is now relishing his status as frontrunner. Instead of attacking his rivals, he is talking reforms.
Pena is also facing a potential problem of his own as undecided voters are the second largest block after his own supporters. A presidential debate is coming next Sunday. Even though last month's debate failed to move any of the candidates, the next debate is an unknown factor in the race.
Lopez Obrador has characterised Fox's statement as "immoral", and Fox himself as "despicable", saying Fox's endorsement is a "dirty trick".
Lopz Obrador himself is facing an enquiry by the Instituto Federal Electoral into his campaign's finances announced last week.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and natonal political news for Rantburg.com
If it's 'jump stories' he enjoys telling, let's put his knees in the breeze on a solo mission over Pyongyang and let him escape and evade (E&E) his way south. That should give him quite a lot to bloviate about.
Occupy DC's base camp in McPherson Square morphed over the past nine months from a few dozen protesters in sleeping bags to a virtual tent city. But over the past few weeks, one of the most enduring encampments of the national anti-Wall Street movement has all but disappeared.
A library tent and a few tarps are all that remain of the ongoing vigil, and Occupiers who once spent their days in McPherson Square at the corner of 15th and K streets are mostly gone. Many of those who remain now meet in the offices that a labor union, the Service Employees International Union, rented for them a few blocks away.
"There's a lot more drunks that hang out there," said protester Travis Schoff. "We don't really go there, especially at night." McPherson Park or the SEIU union hall?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/05/2012 10:47 ||
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#1
McPherson Park or the SEIU union hall?
Yes
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/05/2012 11:39 Comments ||
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#2
When the OWS morons have outlived their usefulness, the SEIU will disavow them and boot their butts to the curb (very shortly after the first Tuesday in November, I presume).
What a shock to the unwashed masses that'll be.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/05/2012 11:45 Comments ||
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#5
...well, not the senior union officers who are raking in the mandatory deductions from the workers paychecks. I'm sure they don't think its a bug, but a feature.
[Dawn] Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa on Monday assumed charge as the front man for the armed forces, taking over from the outgoing DG ISPR Major General Athar Abbas. ... who is The Very Model of a Modern Major General... Bajwa was appointed as the Director General Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) earlier in April to take over the position from Abbas after he retires in June.
Bajwa was posted in Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... as a general officer commanding for the past two years. Under Bajwa's leadership, the army conducted military operations against hard boyz in the South Wazoo tribal region.
Prior to that, he served as the deputy military secretary under Former President General (retd) Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... . It is believed that Bajwa, who has also commanded the 111 Brigade, played an active role in the publication of the Urdu edition of Musharraf's controversial autobiography 'In the Line of Fire'.
He holds a Masters degree in Defence Studies from Kings College London UK & MSc War Studies from NDU, Islamabad. He is also the recipient of Tamgha-e-Basalat.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2012 00:00 ||
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The United States' spy satellite agency is giving NASA two spare space telescopes free of charge, each potentially more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA officials announced.
Both NRO space telescopes have a main mirror nearly 8 feet wide (2.4 meters), rivaling the Hubble Space Telescope, and also carry a secondary mirror to enhance image sharpness, according to press reports.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
06/05/2012 18:00 ||
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#1
Hopefully that means they (NRO) have something better.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/05/2012 18:45 Comments ||
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#2
Yea Rich, it's the General Dynamics G8V99 Deep Earch Penetrator (DEP) which was successfully tested recently on 1-3 mile deep tunnels in North Korea. US and Korean paratroopers performed the on-site, ground validation testing.
#3
More on the gift
âThis is going to be top-quality hardware,â said the analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic. âTheyâre not state-of-the-art spy satellites, but they are probably still state-of-the-art optics.â
DeSio, the NRO spokeswoman, said the telescopes were built in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The spy telescopes have a feature that civilian space telescopes lack: a maneuverable secondary mirror that makes it possible to obtain more-focused images, said David Spergel, a Princeton University astrophysicist and a co-chair of the National Academies of Science committee on astronomy and astrophysics.
The new telescopes are âactually better than the Hubble. Theyâre the same size, but the optical design is such that you can put a broader set of instruments on the back,â he said.
BUT THE KEY PHRASE: âNASA does not have in its current budget the funding necessary to develop a space telescope mission using these new telescopes,â
Posted by: Water Modem ||
06/05/2012 19:13 Comments ||
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#4
Best guess by many on NASA forum is Block-4 KH-11 mod. Optics are there but the NRO pulled the cameras and image sensors.
quote from one of the forum comments:
f1.2 primary!!! F!1!.!2! That's less than 3 meters long! f8 system leads to a 19,200mm focal length (~5x the focal length of the KH-8!) Though to be fair, CCD pixels are much larger than film grain, so it may be a wash. Thermal Barrel and Radiator system included. Mass of only 1700kg! Of course that does not include the sensors, solar panels, batteries, spacecraft bus, and the million other parts I forgot. But still, how much would the rest of the package weigh? Could this fit and be sent to GEO on a large Atlas? Then we get into the geeky stuff of 60nm rms... that better than 1/10 wave. The fancy materials, etc...
Posted by: Water Modem ||
06/05/2012 20:06 Comments ||
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#5
Money for spying but n0t for science!?
This is getting ridiculous when NSA has better space telescopes than NASA. NASA gets their junk out of the recycle bin?
#6
NSA doesn't usually have to deal with expansive Congressional interference in who buys, who sales, who constructs, where it all gets paid, and who ultimately gets campaign donations. Usually that's all restricted to those on the double super secret panels who won't talk/deal with their buds in the hallway or restroom in the Capital.
A federal department ruled last week that the Forest Service violated a Spanish-speaking woman's civil rights by calling the Border Patrol to help translate during a routine stop, saying it was "humiliating" to Hispanics and an illicit backdoor way to capture more illegal immigrants.
The ruling by the Agriculture Department's assistant secretary for civil rights could change policies nationwide as law enforcement agencies grapple with how far they can go in trying to help the Border Patrol while not running afoul of racial profiling standards. How about these people are fucking illegal and by thus definition they are BREAKING THE FUCKING LAW!!! We don't give a goddamn about their race!
Assistant Secretary Joe Leonard Jr. said calling the Border Patrol automatically "escalates" encounters between Hispanics and law enforcement. He ruled that the Forest Service cannot routinely summon the Border Patrol for assistance and said the agency now must document suspected racial profiling nationwide.
"Given the increased risk of being questioned about immigration status during an interaction with [Border Patrol], the policy of using BP for interpretation assistance is problematic in all situations because it places a burden on [limited English proficient] individuals that non-LEP individuals do not experience," Mr. Leonard ruled.
The case stems from a 2011 incident in Olympic National Forest in Washington in which a Forest Service officer encountered a Hispanic couple who he said appeared to be illegally harvesting plants on the federal lands.
The couple didn't speak English and he didn't speak fluent Spanish and, anticipating that situation, he called the Border Patrol for backup and translating.
But when a Border Patrol agent arrived, the couple fled. The woman was apprehended, but the man jumped into a river to try to escape and drowned. The Border Patrol took the woman into custody but released her several days later, reportedly on humanitarian grounds.
The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project complained to the Agriculture Department, which oversees the Forest Service, and last week's ruling was the result. This type of inter agency fights remind me of nazi germany. Plus, when the government starts going after honest citizens following its own laws to placate some outside force, it has gone beyond needing a good tar and feathering.
#1
were they illegal? They certainly acted like it. Joe Leonard Jr. needs to lose his job. Make him a "This administration is sooo screwed up" story in a Presidential debate
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/05/2012 21:04 Comments ||
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#2
The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project complained to the Agriculture Department
Sounds like the AgrDept should outsource the work to the Aurora CO police. Oh, wait, that only applies to actual citizens. Never mind.
#2
Damn! The site won't let me access it from New Delhi. Is it what I think it is? Same sex, alternative lifestyle ring knockers celebrating graduation?
Posted by: Secret Asian Man (assignment New Delhi) ||
06/05/2012 3:56 Comments ||
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#3
Yes, Secret Asian Man. And very handsome they look, too.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Wazoo
A federal department ruled last week that the Forest Service violated a Spanish-speaking woman's civil rights by calling the Border Patrol to help translate during a routine stop, saying it was "humiliating" to Hispanics and an illicit backdoor way to capture more illegal immigrants.
