Short Sharp Science: The neutrino catcher that's rocking physics:
'via Blog this'
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
[Congressional Record: July 5, 2011 (Senate)] [Page S4327-S4328] From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:cr05jy11-37]
DEMOCRACY AT RISK IN HUNGARY
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, this week in Budapest there are two events of particular interest to Americans. First, Hungary has unveiled a statue of President Ronald Reagan in front of the U.S. Embassy in honor of his contribution to the goal of ending communist repression and commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth. Second, Hungary dedicated the Lantos Institute, named after Tom Lantos, our former colleague from the House of Representatives who worked tirelessly to promote democracy and human rights in the country of his birth. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Clinton have represented the United States at these respective events. These gestures shine a light on Hungary's historic transformation as well as the close bonds between our two countries. Unfortunately, other developments in Hungary have cast a dark shadow over what should otherwise be happy occasions. Last year, Hungary held elections in which a right-of-center party, FIDESZ, won a landslide, sweeping out eight years of socialist government rejected by many voters as scandal ridden and inept. With FIDESZ winning 52 percent of the vote, Hungary has the distinction of being the only country in Central Europe since the 1989 transformations where a single party has won an outright majority--not necessarily a bad thing, especially in a region where many governments are periodically hobbled by factionalism. Those elections were also notable because more than 850,000 Hungarians--16 percent of the vote--cast their ballots for Jobbik, an anti-Semitic, anti-Roma, irredentist party. While Jobbik is an opposition party, it has clearly and negatively influenced public policy discourse. Under Hungary's electoral system, FIDESZ's 52 percent of the vote has translated into a two-thirds majority of the seats in parliament. The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used that supermajority to push through one controversial initiative after another. One initiative that has generated particularly sharp criticism is Hungary's new media law. The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media warned it could be used to silence critical media and public debate, it overly concentrates power in regulatory authorities, and it harms media freedom. In Ukraine, where democracy has put down only shallow roots, the Kyiv Post editorialized that ``Hungary's media law should not come here.'' Another area of concern stems from the government's fixation on ethnic Hungarian identity and lost empire in ways that can only be seen as unfriendly by other countries in the region. One of the government's first acts was to amend Hungary's citizenship law to facilitate the acquisition of Hungarian citizenship by ethnic Hungarians in other countries--primarily Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. This expansion of citizenship was pushed through even though, in a 2001 statement submitted to the Council of Europe, the Hungarian Government firmly renounced all aspirations for dual citizenship for ethnic Hungarians. In a further escalation of provocative posturing, a few weeks ago Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament Laszlo Kovar said that military force to change the borders with Slovakia--a NATO ally--would have been justified and, in any case, he added, the ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia are ``ours.'' If one side of the nationalism coin is an excessive fixation on Hungarian ethnic identity beyond the borders, the other side is intolerance toward minorities at home. For example, one increasingly hears the argument, including from government officials, that while the Holocaust was a 20th-century tragedy for Jews, the worst tragedy for Hungarians was the 1920 Treaty of Trianon--the treaty that established the borders for the countries emerging from the defeated Austro- Hungarian Empire. This comparison is offensive and disturbing. Ethnic Hungarians were never targeted for extermination or subjected to mass murder by Trianon. Moreover, this line of argument presents Hungarians and Jews as mutually exclusive. But more than 400,000 Jews were sent from Hungary to Auschwitz, and more than 10,000 Jews were shot along the banks of the Danube--were they not also Hungarian? How could this not be a tragedy for Hungary? The government has also used its supermajority to adopt a completely new Constitution which has been reviewed by the Council of Europe's Venice Commission on Democracy through Law, a body of judicial experts. The Venice Commission expressed particular concern with the requirement that numerous issues can now only be addressed through supermajority or so-called cardinal laws. In other words, ``The more policy issues are transferred beyond the powers of simple majority, the less significance will future elections have and the more possibilities does a two-thirds majority have of cementing its political preferences and the country's legal order.'' In short, the Commission concluded, ``the principle of democracy itself is at risk.'' This combines, by the way, with a court-packing scheme--the expansion of the size of the Constitutional Court from 11 to 15--and a reduction of the retirement age for ordinary judges from 70 to 62, which will reportedly mean 10 percent of all judges will be replaced. To make exactly clear what he has intended with these reforms, Prime Minister Orban declared that he wants to tie the hands not only of the next government, but of the next 10 governments--that is, future Hungarian governments for the next 40 years. It is no wonder then that in Freedom House's latest ``Nations in Transit'' survey, released this week, Hungary had declined in ratings for civil society, independent media, national democratic governance, and judicial framework and independence. Ironically, just as attention shifts to the tantalizing possibility of democratic reform in the Middle East, the red flags in Budapest keep multiplying: Transparency International has warned that transferring the power to appoint the Ombudsman from the parliament to the president means that he or she will not be independent of the executive. NGOs have warned that a new draft religion law may result in a number of religions losing their registration. Restrictions by Hungarian authorities on pro-Tibet demonstrations during last week's visit to Budapest of the Chinese Premier were seen as an unnecessary and heavyhanded limitation of a fundamental liberty. Plans to recall soldiers and police from retirement so that they may oversee Romani work battalions have predictably caused alarm. In 1989, Hungary stood as an inspiration for democracy and human rights advocates around the globe. Today, I am deeply troubled by the trends there. I understand that it sometimes takes new governments time to find their bearings, and I hope that we will see some adjustments in Budapest. But in the meantime, I hope that other countries looking for transformative examples will steer clear of this Hungarian model. ____________________
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Weird Pioneer Space Anomaly May Just Be Trick of Light
New Scientist article on the latest on the Pioneer Anomaly
The actual article: Modelling the reflective thermal contribution to the acceleration of the Pioneer spacecraft
Layman's explanation from technologyreview.com
Monday, June 13, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Snapped
Seattle attorney charged with keying badly parked cars
By LEVI PULKKINEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Published 10:37 a.m., Wednesday, June 1, 2011
A Seattle attorney accused of keying and leaving threatening notes on improperly parked cars at a downtown parking garage has been charged with malicious mischief.
King County prosecutors claim Ronald Clarke Mattson vandalized at least three cars at Columbia Center, including one parked askew by building security as part of a sting operation.
On March 9, a woman returned to her Ford SUV to find an angry note, written on Washington Athletic Club stationery, left on her windshield. The note’s author – identified by prosecutors as Mattson – suggested the woman “take some parking lessons” and called her an idiot.
Having returned home, the woman realized someone had dragged a key across her car doors, leaving deep scratches, according to charging documents. She contacted Columbia Center security officers, who photographed her car and took custody of the note.
Two days later on March 11, another woman returned to her car in the Columbia Center parking garage to find an angry note on her Volvo station wagon. As in the earlier case, the woman had parked over the stall line.
“Where did you learn how to park, Dweeb!!” the note read, according to charging documents. That note was also penned on Washington Athletic Club stationery.
Seeing that her Volvo had also been keyed, the woman contacted security.
According to charging documents, building security officers hoping to identify the vandal set up a sting operation on March 15. Security officers parked a Pontiac sedan improperly in the area of the garage where the other cars had been keyed.
As surveillance officers looked on, Mattson drove his silver Porsche past the “bait” car, stopped and reversed back by the Pontiac, Seattle Detective John Crumb told the court. Mattson then parked and approached the car.
Security officers later told police Mattson was seen scratching the Pontiac, according to the detective’s statement. A security officer then followed Mattson to the elevator, where they rode to his 45th floor office.
After a series of interactions with security and police officers, Mattson and his attorney met with investigators to discuss the incidents, Crumb said in court documents. The detective claimed Mattson admitted to the vandalism, which prompted about $6,150 worth of repairs.
“Mattson accepted full responsibility for his actions, expressed great remorse and vowed to make amends with his victims,” the detective told the court.
Mattson has been charged with second-degree malicious mischief, a felony punishable by up to 60 days in jail. He has not yet entered a plea to the charge.
Check the Seattle 911 crime blog for more Seattle crime news. Visit seattlepi.com's home page for more Seattle news.
Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
China military admits cyberwarfare unit exists - Technology & science - Security - msnbc.com
China military admits cyberwarfare unit exists - Technology & science - Security - msnbc.com
China military admits cyberwarfare unit exists
The government says it exists to protect Chinese networks from attacks
5/26/2011
The Chinese military has established a cyberwarfare unit to protect Chinese networks from
external attacks, a military spokesperson admitted in a news conference Wednesday.
The elite cyberwarfare unit of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is called the "Online Blue Army," the
People's Daily Online reported. It is tasked with enhancing Chinese troops' military training and network
security, Ministry of National Defense spokesman Senior Colonel Geng Yansheng said.
"Currently, China's network protection is comparatively weak," Geng said. "Enhancing the informationization level and strengthening network security protection are important components of military training for an army."
China's suspected participation in recent high-profile cyberattacks against, among others, Google, Morgan Stanley and DuPont, however, have security experts doubting the intentions of the PLA's "Blue Army."
George Smith, senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, told SecurityNewsDaily the creation of the
elite military unit "offers a resource" for more Chinese-borne cyberattacks. Establishing a
cyberwarfare military unit, Smith added, "provides a piece of convenient rationalization" for other
nations to create similar teams.
Although yesterday's announcement was the first official acknowledgement of the unit, the PLA
Daily revealed that a military "Internet operation team" had conducted exercises in China's Guangzhou
Military Region in late April, Focus Taiwan reported.
During these drills, the teams "launched multiple attacks on imaginary enemies by releasing huge
amounts of useless documents and viruses to try to paralyze the enemies' computer systems and to
steal information from them," according to Focus Taiwan.
China military admits cyberwarfare unit exists
The government says it exists to protect Chinese networks from attacks
5/26/2011
The Chinese military has established a cyberwarfare unit to protect Chinese networks from
external attacks, a military spokesperson admitted in a news conference Wednesday.
The elite cyberwarfare unit of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is called the "Online Blue Army," the
People's Daily Online reported. It is tasked with enhancing Chinese troops' military training and network
security, Ministry of National Defense spokesman Senior Colonel Geng Yansheng said.
"Currently, China's network protection is comparatively weak," Geng said. "Enhancing the informationization level and strengthening network security protection are important components of military training for an army."
China's suspected participation in recent high-profile cyberattacks against, among others, Google, Morgan Stanley and DuPont, however, have security experts doubting the intentions of the PLA's "Blue Army."
George Smith, senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, told SecurityNewsDaily the creation of the
elite military unit "offers a resource" for more Chinese-borne cyberattacks. Establishing a
cyberwarfare military unit, Smith added, "provides a piece of convenient rationalization" for other
nations to create similar teams.
Although yesterday's announcement was the first official acknowledgement of the unit, the PLA
Daily revealed that a military "Internet operation team" had conducted exercises in China's Guangzhou
Military Region in late April, Focus Taiwan reported.
During these drills, the teams "launched multiple attacks on imaginary enemies by releasing huge
amounts of useless documents and viruses to try to paralyze the enemies' computer systems and to
steal information from them," according to Focus Taiwan.
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