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Ack! Post 666!
Appropos!
Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin Speak out Against Putin’s Reforms
mosnews.com ^ | 9/16/2004 | Staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1218131/posts
_________________________________________________________
Survival At Your Fingertips: RAND Issues Pocket-Edition Terrorism Survival Guides
Downloadable for PDAs, Home Printers
Wednesday September 15, 8:30 am ET
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sept. 15, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Responding to a heightened public concern about the threat of terrorism, the RAND Corporation announced today it is making available two pocket guides designed to arm individuals with the knowledge to identify and survive various types of unconventional terrorist attacks. The guides are based on strategies RAND first outlined in a report last year and include a single-sheet, foldable reference card and a downloadable personal digital assistant (PDA) program. The guides and the RAND report are available for free at RAND's Web site: http://www.rand.org/research_areas/terrorism/.
``We developed these survival guides to help quell widely-held misconceptions about unconventional terrorist attacks and provide the public with practical guidance at a time of heightened terrorism fears and uncertainty,'' said Lynn E. Davis, the principal author of ``Individual Preparedness and Response to Chemical, Radiological, Nuclear and Biological Terrorist Attacks,'' the report on which the guides are based. ``Our goal is to make this guidance accessible to more people and give them convenient, effective tools to protect themselves and their families in the event of an attack.''
The guides focus on simple steps individuals can take to prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks with chemical, biological, radiological (``dirty bomb'') and nuclear weapons. The guides contain both preparatory steps and specific response guidance. This includes what individuals will experience, what their goals should be, and what they should do during each type of attack.
Users will need Adobe's free Acrobat reader software to access the printable reference card and a Palm-based PDA to use the downloadable software.
The RAND report is available at better bookstores, from the National Book Network (800 462-6420), or directly from RAND (877 584-8642) or email orders@rand.org.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. To sign up for RAND e-mail alerts: http://www.rand.org/publications/email.html
Contact:
The RAND Corporation
Melkon Khosrovian
(213) 949-3569
mkhosrovian@satellitepr.com
www.rand.org
Source: http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/040915/63867.html
Great summary, as always. Thank you.
Photos of Iranian ‘N-site’ released
VIENNA: The Institute for Science and International Security think tank on Wednesday released seven satellite photographs of an Iranian military complex suspected of doing illicit nuclear weapons work.
The satellite images showed the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran may be a site for research, testing and production of nuclear weapons. The pictures show a large industrial complex hidden in a warren of valleys and crevices created by a mountainous plateau in northern Iran. A paved road snaking in between barren hills connects warehouse-like buildings and smaller installations. (snipped)
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_17-9-2004_pg7_5
Satellite pictures in links at:
Parchin: Possible Nuclear Weapons-Related Site in Iran
By David Albright and Corey Hinderstein
September 15, 2004
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/parchin.html
About 800 planes were in the air at time of breakdown
Thursday, September 16, 2004 Posted: 0304 GMT (1104 HKT)
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A routine maintenance check wasn't performed on an air traffic control radio system serving much of the West, causing the system to shut down for five hours Tuesday, the FAA reported Wednesday.
The FAA has launched an investigation into why the maintenance wasn't performed.
Hundreds of planes were in the air at the time. Travel to and from multiple airports, primarily Los Angeles and San Diego, California, was disrupted.
The FAA said several planes came dangerously close.
Under FAA guidelines, planes are to be five miles apart horizontally and 2,000 feet vertically.
Pilots reported no near-misses, the agency said.
"The FAA is aggressively investigating Tuesday evening's radio communication outage," the FAA said in a statement. "Although FAA air traffic control systems have nearly perfect reliability, any system failure -- no matter how rare -- is unacceptable."
The FAA said radio contact was lost because routine maintenance was not performed on the primary and radio and voice communications with planes. When a check is not performed, it results in the system turning off.
A backup system that is to take over in such situations did not turn on because it was improperly configured.
"Our preliminary findings indicate that the outage was not the result of system reliability, but rather an event that should've been avoided," the FAA said.
The outage resulted in hundreds of flights being canceled, delayed or diverted, with the FAA imposing a ground stop for several hours at multiple airports, including Los Angeles International.
The center where the outage occurred controls air traffic for California, Arizona, Nevada and parts of Utah.
The FAA emphasized that only radio communications were lost to the planes and that radar coverage remained fully operational during the five-hour outage.
CNN's Mike Ahlers and Cary Bodenheimer contributed to this report.
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/09/15/lax.outage/index.html
_________________________________________________________
Controllers: Chaos, Near-Misses During NORDO Incident
"We Couldn't Do Anything"
Pandemonium reigned in towers, dispatch offices and ATC centers
throughout the West Tuesday when a computer goof caused radar and
radio failure at the Los Angeles ARTCC. Controllers said they
immediately tried to bring the back-up system online -- but it,
too, failed.
We couldn't do anything," said Hamid Ghaffari, local president
of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. He said
controllers watched helplessly as aircraft closed in on each other,
without knowing there was no controller helping maintain
separation.
"We can't do our job unless there is communication. If there are
no communications, you are helpless," Ghaffari said.
The breakdown stranded thousands of passengers on hundreds of
flights across the country. LAX was shut down for the night not
long after the 1640 PDT outage.
"When you have a failure of this magnitude, you are bound to
have a chaotic situation, because you have no ability to talk to
aircraft under your control," Ghaffari told the LA Times. "You have
to use an actual phone and call another facility outside of ours
and have them switched over to other air traffic facilities."
He said the Voice Switching and Communications System has been a
stalwart of ATC operations. "It's been one of the great assets of
the FAA," he said. "Up until today."
Ghaffari said, without ARTCC to guide aircraft into and out of
the LA area, flight crews had to depend on their own collision
avoidance systems. "That was the hero of the night," he said.
Not Again
It was, according to the LA Times,
the latest in a series of problems to plague the ARTCC, based in
the California desert near Palmdale.
1) In 1986, 38 controllers there were ordered to stand down during
an investigation into allegations of drug use.
2) In 1991, flights at LAX, Burbank, Long Beach and Orange County
were delayed because of a computer failure.
3) A 1996 radar failure delayed hundreds of flights throughout the
region.
4) In September, 1998, according to NATCA leaders, two aircraft
barely avoided a mid-air after a cable cut silenced all
communications between controllers and pilots.
5) An August, 1999 failure of a new computer system delayed
flights in both California and Nevada for up to 90 minutes.
6) A year later, hundreds of flights across the country were
affected by a huge problem in new software being installed at the
facility.
7) Then, in 2001, yet another computer problem caused regional
flight delays of up to an hour.
The nation's air traffic was reportedly back at full capacity by
0800 PDT Wednesday morning.
FMI: www.laartcc.org/index.php
Source: ANN http://www.aero-news.net/news/genav.cfm?ContentBlockID=31bc65b1-0e82-4081-9884-bdb234553dbb&Dynamic=1
___________________________________________________________
Sky Harbor hit by California air traffic center shutdown
A communications problem forced cancellations and delays at various airports across the West on Tuesday night, including Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
"One of the communication centers in Southern California went down, so some aircraft out of Sky Harbor were not able to depart for California or Nevada Tuesday night," Deborah Ostreicher, Sky Harbor media relations, told Newsradio 620 KTAR's Jim Sharpe Wednesday. The Palmdale FAA center controls airspace in California and parts of Nevada.
Some passengers headed for Southern California and Nevada cities spent the night at the airport, while others made hotel reservations, or, if they were from the Valley, simply went home.
All airlines were affected by the system shutdown, forcing the cancellation of more than 100 flights.
Ostreicher said air traffic at Sky Harbor is recovering this morning, but encouraged passengers to contact the airlines for flight status.
And more advice from Ostreicher: "Give yourself extra time and you'll have a great day."
For more: www.phxskyharbor.com.
____________________________________________________________
Air controllers report chaos, near misses in West
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Airplanes passed dangerously close to each
other in at least five instances after a computer failure knocked out radio
contact between pilots and air traffic controllers across the West, a union
official said Wednesday.
Two flights during the outage Tuesday "were almost near-mid-air collisions,"
said Hamid Ghaffari, local president of the National Air Traffic Controllers
Association.
Three workers filed injury claims, saying they were traumatized by seeing
flights veer toward one another on radar without being able to do anything,
he said.
Federal Aviation Administration representatives did not immediately respond
to repeated calls for comment on Ghaffari's remarks.
Airport operations were back to normal Wednesday following the radio failure
at an FAA center at Palmdale, north of Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, hundreds of flights were grounded for up to about three hours at
airports in the Los Angeles region, Northern California and Nevada, the FAA
said.
During the outage, air traffic controllers could monitor planes on radar but
were unable to communicate with them. Pilots had to switch to another radio
frequency to communicate with other control centers that took over flights
in the region.
"We couldn't do anything," Ghaffari said. "We can't do our job unless there
is communication. If there are no communications, you are helpless."
Under FAA rules, planes must remain at least five miles apart horizontally
and 1,000 feet vertically. In at least five cases, that safety bubble was
violated, and in two cases planes came within about two miles of each other,
Ghaffari said.
On-board safety equipment that includes a collision-avoidance system helped
avert disaster, Ghaffari said.
"That was the hero of the night," he said.
Ghaffari said a backup computer system was activated, but it failed too.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/09/15/faa.outage.ap
________________________________________________________
Study questions nuclear monitoring
Plants feared vulnerable to terrorism
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission cannot independently verify that every nuclear power plant is taking required safeguards to protect itself against terrorism, congressional investigators said Tuesday.
Senior commission officials strongly challenged that assessment and said the agency, through on-site inspectors and other activities, is aggressively monitoring security compliance at the nation's 103 reactors at 65 sites.
The Government Accountability Office told a House subcommittee that the regulatory agency's monitoring of reactor security has been largely "a paper review" that falls short of assuring that industry security plans are meeting current, more-stringent requirements.
At the same time, the GAO, the auditing arm of Congress, said critical "force-on-force" mock attacks to physically test security at the plants will not be completed at all facilities until late 2007.
"It will take several more years for NRC to make an independent determination that each plant has taken reasonable and appropriate steps to protect against the threat presented," GAO investigator Jim Well told a House Government Reform security subcommittee.
NRC officials, who also testified before the panel, disputed the assessment and said the agency has increased inspection hours at the power plants fivefold, and has physically reviewed 80 percent of the security items that plant operators must address.
"We have inspectors [at the plants] all the time," said Luis Reyes, NRC executive director for operations. "We are there where the rubber meets the road when it comes to inspections."
The report also criticized the agency for "not following up to verify that all violations of security requirements have been corrected" and for not filing official reports on all such incidents.
At least two NRC inspectors are assigned to each of the 65 commercial nuclear power plant sites in 31 states. Reyes acknowledged they have broad responsibilities and do not file written reports on all security shortcomings, only "the more significant ones." Those viewed as of "low level" importance are evaluated on a sample basis, he said. "It's a matter of resources."
In separate testimony, nuclear industry representatives said utilities have spent more than $1 billion on security improvements and increased security forces by 60 percent, hiring 3,000 additional officers, since Sept. 11, 2001.
"Nuclear power plants are the most secure commercially owned facilities in the country," said Marvin Fertel, senior vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade group.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the subcommittee, said there still "is no reasonable assurance plants are adequately protected."
Source: http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1637549p-7858576c.html
________________________________________________________
Please add this to booklist:
'Mega Fix': The dazzling political deceit that led to 9/11
Stunning new DVD documents Clinton-Kerry disinformation campaign
In a stunning and surprisingly entertaining new 90-minute DVD video documentary – titled "Mega Fix" – Emmy-award-winning filmmaker Jack Cashill traces the roots of September 11 to the perfect storm of disinformation that surrounded the Clintons' desperate drive for the White House in the years 1995-1996.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40436
You are missed AD ;(
Pssstt where are you?
LI man arrested in air rage case
By Alfonso A. Castillo
Staff Writer
September 16, 2004
A spirited debate on presidential politics aboard an Alaska-bound airplane has turned into an international incident, and left a Huntington Station retiree locked up in a Canadian jail on criminal charges, authorities said yesterday.
Michael Husar, 58, was arrested Friday after allegedly having an alcohol-induced bout of air rage aboard a Northwest Airlines flight to Anchorage, which was diverted to Winnipeg, Manitoba, because of the incident.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-liplan163973154sep16,0,4859089,print.story?coll=ny-topstories-headlines
Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards (news - web sites) made a brief stop at the airport as he concluded his two-day bus tour to locations in West Virginia and Ohio
We also have been knowing it was just a matter of time before lainstream media is O-U-T! Here that CBS, NBC, ABC?!
Read this too, I unsubbed from NYTimes and MSNBC because you guys are getting just as bad!
We've been getting the "Truth" here at FR for many years and as CBS etal all now know, we also uncover it when you are unwilling!!!
NEW MOVEON.ORG AD SHOWS DEFEATED U.S. SOLDIER
http://www.drudgereport.com/moveon.htm
Woman wearing 'President Bush You Killed My Son' T-Shirt disrupts first lady's rally
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/09/16/politics1409EDT0616.DTL&type=printable
Hi ~waving~ Bell!!!
Oh, I'm here JP,doing a lot of work lately. Lurk for the news but not posting much but I do read all your pings.
More about the religion of peace.
The Sun Newspaper Online - UK
A TEACHER is reported to have cut the ears of seventeen students in his class with a pair of scissors in a bid to discipline them.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004431126,00.html
MoveOn.org, George Soros, the ACLU, etc. are known more for their actions; than their words. OPINION: I wouldn't call them pro-America, would you?
As for the poor lady who's son was apparently killed in Iraq; to say that President Bush killed her son is absurd. Evidently, she needs time to heal and some help.
Holy Site Redesign, Batman!
http://www.globalislamicmedia.com/
Do you have a link for this bit of news? Un-effin-beleivable!!!!
Laughing...Hawk has been busy.
Thank you Layoutguru2.
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040916/capt.wvrs10309162250.edwards_wvrs103.jpg
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040916/480/wvrs10309162250
Thu Sep 16, 6:52 PM ET
CAPTION: "Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards (news - web sites) made a brief stop at the airport as he concluded his two-day bus tour to locations in West Virginia and Ohio. (AP Photo/Randy Snyder) "
Thanks, I found three threads on that story by searching here at FR. Couldn't find anything through a Yahoo! or Google search, go figure.
I guess the poor little girl learned early in life how nasty Democrats are.
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