Anyone ever see a Boeing 767 that looks like this?

Freeze video @0:24 Click Full Screen for better view.
That bulge is not landing gear. So what is it?

New hydrogen fuel bus is coming to Hawaii

25 June 2014 Hydrogenfuelnews.com

U.S. Hybrid wins contract from Hawaii’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies

The Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies has announced that it has awarded a contract to U.S. Hydbrid. The $707,550 contract involves the development of a hybrid fuel cell, battery-powered bus that will operate on the Big Island. The bus is meant to hold 25 passengers and is expected to begin operation in 2015. It will be the first bus powered by hydrogen fuel to operate in Hawaii. The state is currently home to several clean transportation projects, but none of these projects have yet produced a vehicle that is available for public use.

New bus to be powered by fuel cell and battery system

The fuel cell and battery used for the bus will power the vehicle’s power train, air conditioner, and auxiliary electrical systems. The battery itself will receive electrical charge from the vehicle’s brakes, while the fuel cell will generate electrical power through the consumption of hydrogen. The bus already has strong support from the Big Island’s Mayor, Billy Kenoi, whom notes that the bus represents the county’s first major step toward making use of its renewable energy resources and embracing clean transportation.

Hydrogen continues to win favor in the transportation realm

Hydrogen fuel cells have become quite attractive in the transportation sector, especially when it comes to public transit. These energy systems are capable of producing large amounts of electrical power, but they are also notoriously expensive. Typical fuel cells make use of platinum, which comprises their catalyst and allows them to operate as intended. The high cost of fuel cells has limited their appeal in terms of public transportation, as most governments are unwilling to pay exorbitant amounts of money on singular fuel cell systems...MORE
http://www.hydrogenfuelnews.com/new-hydrogen-fuel-bus-coming-hawaii/8518409/

Solar Hydrogen: Fuel of the Future

by Mario Pagliaro and Athanasios G Konstandopoulos

Here's the technical case presented by experts

Renewable hydrogen produced using solar energy to split water is the energy fuel of the future. Accelerated innovation in both major domains of solar energy (photovoltaics and concentrated solar power) has resulted in the rapid fall of the solar electricity price, opening the route to a number of practical applications using solar H2.

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Price: $121.60 new (Amazon)[/center]

New thermochemical water splitting using concentrated solar power (CSP) as well as CSP coupled to electrolysis has the potential to convert and store solar energy into clean hydrogen using a tiny fraction of the world's desert area to meet our present and future global energy needs. Photovoltaics, in turn, has the versatility required for supporting the creation of a distributed energy generation infrastructure in developing countries especially now that the price of PV solar electricity has fallen to unprecedented low levels.

In all these cases, solar H2 will be used to store energy and release it on demand either for fuel cells (to power homes and boats) or internal combustion engines and turbines (for powering cars, trucks and in thermoelectric power units). This book on solar hydrogen is unique in its field and is a timely treatment of a hot topic in industry, academic, political and environmental circles. With reference to many examples as well as to new technologies, this accessible book provides insight into a crucial technology for our common future and numerous colour pictures contribute to the book's readability.

Written by experts in the field who are engaged at the forefront of research, the book supplies readers with last minute insight from the frontiers of research. The book will be of interest to Politicians, solar PV companies, hydrogen and sustainability researchers, environmentalists, managers in the automotive and nautical industries, undergraduate and graduate students in physics, chemistry, energy and materials science.
http://www.amazon.com/Solar-Hydrogen-Future-Mario-Pagliaro/dp/1849731950/

The Anatomy of a Great Deception - Excerpts Released 6/11/14

Published on Jun 11, 2014

This video is a series of excerpts from the upcoming film, "The Anatomy of a Great Deception."

The following clips are for the film's crowdfunding campaign, which can be found at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-anatomy-of-a-great-deception

U.S. files on Bin Laden raid purged from Pentagon computers for secrecy: report

Navy Vice Adm. William McRaven has ordered military files about the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout to be purged from Defense Department computers and sent to the CIA.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Monday, July 8, 2013

President Obama talks with Navy Vice Admiral William H. McRaven, commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), at Campbell Army Airfield in Fort Campbell, Ky., days after McRaven led operational control of Navy SEAL Team Six's successful mission to get Osama bin Laden. Charles Dharapak/AP

WASHINGTON -- The nation's top special operations commander ordered military files about the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout to be purged from Defense Department computers and sent to the CIA, where they could be more easily shielded from ever being made public.

The secret move, described briefly in a draft report by the Pentagon's inspector general, set off no alarms within the Obama administration even though it appears to have sidestepped federal rules and perhaps also the Freedom of Information Act.

An acknowledgement by Adm. William McRaven of his actions was quietly removed from the final version of an inspector general's report published weeks ago. A spokesman for the admiral declined to comment. The CIA, noting that the bin Laden mission was overseen by then-CIA Director Leon Panetta before he became defense secretary, said that the SEALs were effectively assigned to work temporarily for the CIA, which has presidential authority to conduct covert operations.

"Documents related to the raid were handled in a manner consistent with the fact that the operation was conducted under the direction of the CIA director," agency spokesman Preston Golson said in an emailed statement. "Records of a CIA operation such as the (bin Laden) raid, which were created during the conduct of the operation by persons acting under the authority of the CIA Director, are CIA records." Golson said it is "absolutely false" that records were moved to the CIA to avoid the legal requirements of the Freedom of Information Act...snip
more
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-files-bin-laden-raid-purged-pentagon-computers-secrecy-report-article-1.1392728

Several rounds of identification were used to confirm Osama bin Laden’s death — the photo of Osama’s battered face below wasn’t one of them.

First, Osama was “visually identified” at the compound by U.S. Special Operations Forces. Next, one of his wives, who survived the raid, identified him by name. The Special Operations Forces also compared the corpse to photographs of bin Laden, and were “95 percent” certain that the body was his. On Monday morning, U.S. officials completed tests that showed a “virtually 100 percent match of the body,” with DNA collected from other bin Laden family members...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/post/osama-bin-laden-dna-confirms-death-but-photos-are-fake-should-white-house-release-actual-photos/2011/05/02/AFez6naF_blog.html

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Osama bin Laden corpse photo is fake
Amelia Hill theguardian.com 2 May 2011

An image apparently showing a dead Osama bin Laden broadcast on Pakistani television and picked up by British newspaper websites is a fake.

The bloodied image of a man with matted hair and a blank, half-opened eye has been circulating on the internet for the past two years. It was used on the front pages of the Mail, Times, Telegraph, Sun and Mirror websites, though swiftly removed after the fake was exposed on Twitter....more>
Warning- - picture NSFW
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/02/osama-bin-laden-photo-fake

WikiLeaks Reveals Global Trade Deal Kept More Secret Than the Trans-Pacific Partnership

By Mike Ludwig, Truthout 19 June 2014


Labor leaders, environmentalists, health professionals, food advocates and defenders of our democracy joined together at Westlake Center in Seattle, Washington to protest the highly secretive global trade agreement, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Friday, January 31, 2014. (Photo: Alex Garland / Flickr)

Embattled WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange announced Wednesday from London the publication of a secret draft text of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), a controversial global trade agreement said to make it easier for corporations to make profits and operate with impunity across borders.

The whistleblower and transparency website WikiLeaks published on Thursday the secret draft text of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) Financial Services Annex, a controversial global trade agreement promoted by the United States and European Union that covers 50 countries and is opposed by global trade unions and anti-globalization activists.

Activists expect the TISA deal to promote privatization of public services in countries across the globe, and WikiLeaks said the secrecy surrounding the trade negotiations exceeds that of even the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) that has made headlines in the past year.

Demonstrations erupted in Geneva in April as diplomats met in secret for the sixth round of negotiations over TISA, which would cover international trade in a wide range of service industries ranging from finance and telecommunications to transportation and even local utilities such as water. Protesters demanded that the draft text be released, but it has remained secret until now...
More: http://truth-out.org/news/item/24486-wikileaks-tisa-global-trade-deal-kept-more-secret-than-the-trans-pacific-partnership

Greenwald from 2008--> 9/11 Commission: Our investigation was “obstructed”

The bipartisan co-chairmen all but accuse the White House of committing serious felonies in destroying the CIA videos.

Glenn Greenwald Salon.com Jan 2, 2008

(*** Updated below – Outside prosecutor appointed
Update II – Update III – Update IV – Update V)

The bi-partisan co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, jointly published an Op-Ed in today’s New York Times which contains some extremely emphatic and serious accusations against the CIA and the White House. The essence:

The recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

More strikingly still, they explicitly include the White House at the top of their list of guilty parties:

There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations.

To underscore the seriousness of their accusations, Keane and Hamilton end with this:

What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the (sic) greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.

It’s hard to imagine a more serious scandal than this. As I noted the other day, it is a confirmed fact that Alberto Gonzales and David Addingtion — the top legal representatives of George Bush and Dick Cheney, respectively — participated in discussions as to whether those videotapes should be destroyed. The White House refuses to disclose what these top officials said in those meetings. Did they instruct that the videos should be destroyed or fail to oppose their destruction? The NYT previously quoted one “senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter (who) said there had been ‘vigorous sentiment’ among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes.”...

...What possible justification is there for the White House to refuse to say what the role of Addington, Gonzales, Bush and Cheney was in all of this? Having been ordered by Bush’s new Attorney General not to investigate, are the Senate and House Intelligence Committees (led by the meek Silvestre Reyes and the even meeker Jay Rockefeller) going to compel answers to these questions? In light of this Op-Ed, do Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee think the White House should publicly disclose to the country the role Bush and Cheney played in the destruction of this evidence? If there are any reporters left who aren’t traipsing around together in Iowa, it seems pretty clear that this story ought to be dominating the news...

MORE: http://www.salon.com/2008/01/02/obstruction/

Germany sells guidebooks on renewable energy sites

Guidebooks detailing nearly 200 green projects around the country proves to be a hit with tourists as first edition is sold out

Komila Nabiyeva for Climate News Network, part of the Guardian Environment Network theguardian.com, Wednesday 11 June 2014

Visitors enjoy a ride at the 'Wunderland Kalkar' amusement park, in Kalkar, Germany. It was once the 'Schneller Brueter' nuclear power plant, which was never used, and turned into a hotel and leisure centre. Photograph: Victoria Bonn-Meuser/Corbis

Wind turbines and solar panels: do you love them or hate them? Do you think of renewable energy as the way to a greener future, or an awful blight on the present?

Either way, growing numbers of German communities think they have found a silver lining: they’re touting renewables as tourist attractions. A guidebook is now available, listing about 200 green projects around the country which it thinks are, in the travel writer’s time-hallowed phrase, “worth the detour”. The publication, which has already run to a second edition after the first sold out, was supported by Germany’s Renewable Energies Agency.

Nuclear power stations are not top of every tourist’s must-see list. But the book’s author, Martin Frey, says a nuclear plant in Kalkar, a town on Germany’s border with the Netherlands, is the world’s safest. It pulls in more than half a million visitors annually.

Safe? It should be, because local protests – driven partly by the 1986 Chernobyl accident – meant it never started operation. Now it’s an amusement park offering hotels with all-inclusive holidays, restaurants and merry-go-rounds. Its most popular attraction is a gigantic cooling tower with a climbing wall outside and a carousel inside....
more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/11/germany-sells-guidebooks-on-renewable-energy-sites

Solar Parking Lot in Schwabach, Germany

Hydrogen energy storage: power ramp-up at the MYRTE test platform.

The Greenergy Box, an energy storage and management system developed by AREVA, has been installed at the MYRTE test platform at the University of Corsica's Vignola site in Ajaccio Corsica. It enhances the existing installation, which has been in operation since early 2013, and increases the grid output from the energy stored in hydrogen to 150 kW, strengthening the quality and reliability of grid operations...

..."Since 1/2012, this platform has connected photovoltaic solar panels to a hydrogen-based storage system. By joining the power grid, this provides a solution to the problem of intermittency & makes it one of the rare installations in the world with this type of coupling."



Composed of an electrolyzer and a fuel cell, the Greenergy Box increases the potential storage of the electricity produced. The new system also offers greater flexibility for grid operations and gives the research teams at the University of Corsica, in association with the CNRS and the CEA, the opportunity to plan and test various energy management scenarios...more
http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2014/05/hydrogen-energy-storage-power-ramp-up-at-the-myrte-test-platform.html

Guardian: Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown

Social science is being militarised to develop 'operational tools' to target peaceful activists and protest movements

Nafeez Ahmed Guardian.co.uk Thursday 12 June 2014

The Pentagon is funding social science research to model risks of "social contagions" that could damage US strategic interests. Photograph: Jason Reed/REUTERS

A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million dollar programme is designed to develop immediate and long-term "warfighter-relevant insights" for senior officials and decision makers in "the defense policy community," and to inform policy implemented by "combatant commands."

Launched in 2008 – the year of the global banking crisis – the DoD 'Minerva Research Initiative' partners with universities "to improve DoD's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the US."

Among the projects awarded for the period 2014-2017 is a Cornell University-led study managed by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research which aims to develop an empirical model "of the dynamics of social movement mobilisation and contagions." The project will determine "the critical mass (tipping point)" of social contagians by studying their "digital traces" in the cases of "the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in Turkey."

Twitter posts and conversations will be examined "to identify individuals mobilised in a social contagion and when they become mobilised."...

full article: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jun/12/pentagon-mass-civil-breakdown