Will BP rebrand?
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Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
China Oil Spill Far Bigger Than Stated
US expert: China Oil Spill Far Bigger Than Stated
Despite reports that the oil spill has been cleaned and is under control, one U.S. expert suggests the toll was much larger and more damaging. From the Associated Press:
China’s worst known oil spill is dozens of times larger than the government has reported – bigger than the famous Exxon Valdez spill two decades ago – and some of the oil was dumped deliberately to avoid further disaster, an American expert said Friday.
China’s government has said 1,500 tons (461,790 gallons) of oil spilled after a pipeline exploded two weeks ago near the northeastern city of Dalian, sending 100-foot- (30-meter-) high flames raging for hours near one of the country’s key strategic oil reserves. Such public estimates stopped within a few days of the spill.
But Rick Steiner, a former University of Alaska marine conservation specialist, estimated 60,000 tons (18.47 million gallons) to 90,000 tons (27.70 million gallons) of oil actually spilled into the Yellow Sea.
“It’s enormous. That’s at least as large as the official estimate of the Exxon Valdez disaster” in Alaska, he told The Associated Press. The size of the offshore area affected by the spill is likely more than 400 square miles (1,000 square kilometers), he added.
Few people know that it is not only the US that has a big Oil spill disaster at the moment
WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File
In the wake of strong U.S. government statements condemning WikiLeaks’ recent publishing of 77,000 Afghan War documents, the secret-spilling site has posted a mysterious encrypted file labeled “insurance.”
The huge file, posted on the Afghan War page at the WikiLeaks site, is 1.4 GB and is encrypted with AES256. The file’s size dwarfs the size of all the other files on the page combined. The file has also been posted on a torrent download site as well.
WikiLeaks, on Sunday, posted several files containing the 77,000 Afghan war documents in a single “dump” file and in several other files containing versions of the documents in various searchable formats.
Cryptome, a separate secret-spilling site, has speculated that the file may have been posted as insurance in case something happens to the WikiLeaks website or to the organization’s founder, Julian Assange. In either scenario, WikiLeaks volunteers, under a prearranged agreement with Assange, could send out a password or passphrase to allow anyone who has downloaded the file to open it.
It’s not known what the file contains but it could include the balance of data that U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning claimed to have leaked to Assange before he was arrested in May.
In chats with former hacker Adrian Lamo, Manning disclosed that he had provided Assange with a different war log cache than the one that WikiLeaks already published. This one was said to contain 500,000 events from the Iraq War between 2004 and 2009. WikiLeaks has never commented on whether it received that cache.
Additionally, Manning said he sent Assange video showing a deadly 2009 U.S. firefight near Garani in Afghanistan that local authorities say killed 100 civilians, most of them children, as well as 260,000 U.S. State Department cables.
Manning never mentioned leaking the Afghan War log to WikiLeaks in his chats with Lamo, but Defense Department officials told The Wall Street Journal that investigators had found evidence on Manning’s Army computer that tied him to that leak.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen strongly condemned WikiLeaks’ publication of the Afghan War log at a Pentagon press briefing on Thursday.
Gates said the leak had “potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and our Afghan partners” and said that “tactics, techniques and procedures will become known to our adversaries” as a result.
Mullen was even more direct and said that WikiLeaks “might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier” or an Afghan informant who aided the United States.
Several media outlets have found the names of Afghan informants in the documents WikiLeaks published, as well as information identifying their location in some instances. A Taliban spokesman told Britain’s Channel 4 news that the group was sifting through the WikiLeaks documents to get the names of suspected informants and would punish anyone found to have collaborated with the United States and its allies.
Wired.com has sent a message to WikiLeaks inquiring about the file.
See also
- WikiLeaks Suspect’s YouTube Videos Raised ‘Red Flag’ in 2008
- Pentagon Says Bradley Manning a Possible Suspect in Afghan Leak
- Wikileaks Releases Stunning Afghan War Logs — Is Iraq Next?
- Wikileaks Cash Flows In, Drips Out
- Suspected Wikileaks Source Described Crisis of Conscience Leading to Leaks
- Army Intelligence Analyst Charged With Leaking Classified Information
- U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe
- U.S. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw
via wired.com
Sounds like a great epsiode from the X-files!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The 20 Craziest Party Hostels Around the World
"Everyone wants to party on the road but with a million hostels in the world, where should you go?
Someone searched high and low, drank with the best of them, and endured sleepless nights by the toilet to find the best party hostels out there.
Here are twenty that will keep you drinking, dancing, flirting, and hugging the porcelain goddess until the sun comes up"
Check it out
Idea #22: Make any amount of money you desire in less than 10 minutes; Ideas Exist | a blog of ideas
via ideasexist.com
This is by far the best, quickest and also funniest way to make yourself a fortune in just a couple of minutes!!!
Kickstand Brooklyn
Kickstand is committed to providing the best possible cup of coffee to community events in NYC with the smallest environmental impact possible. We achieve this goal by using bikes not only for all of our transportation needs, but also for a portion of the power we use in brewing the coffee we serve. At Kickstand getting people outdoors and bringing them together over coffee is our primary goal. The power of sync
The power of sync
100 people doing something at the same time has far more power than 300 people doing it over time.
We unconsciously amplify the power of coordination when we consider the impact of actions. If there's a thousand people waiting outside of a store, we instantly believe we're seeing a phenomenon.
While the internet makes it easier than ever to spread ideas, it makes it far more compelling to coordinate actions.
If everyone in your weekly meeting drops a pencil at precisely 12:03, you'll notice.
green, innovation
What about this green-design idea: "design cars that harvest rainwater to fill the screen wash reservoir, mixing it automatically with highly concentrated screen wash fluid."
At least a green idea with a smile!
At least a green idea with a smile!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Eddy would go
I stumbled upon one of my favorite sports books the other day. Was looking for a nice book for my injured brother and then found 'Eddie would go'. It is a book that describes a lot of the big wave surfing in its early years. Great Hawaiian cultural insights as well. Absolutely loved it.
I bought this book in a youth hostel in Borneo a couple of years ago. It is a great book to read on the beach because it has such a beachy feel to it.
Just go with the flow!
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