You may have heard about an invention created by a 63-year-old named John Kanzius that claims to create an alternative fuel out of salt water. Through sheer serendipity, Kanzius, a former broadcast engineer, found out something incredible — under the right conditions, salt water can burn at high temperatures.

Image courtesy WPBF-TV Yes, you’re seeing water burn.

Kanzius’ journey toward surprise inspiration began with a leukemia diagnosis in 2003. Faced with the prospect of debilitating chemotherapy, he decided he would try to invent a better alternative for destroying cancerous cells. What he came up with is his radio frequency generator (RFG), a machine that generates radio waves and focuses them into a concentrated area. Kanzius used the RFG to heat small metallic particles inserted into tumors, destroying the tumors without harming normal cells.

But what does cancer treatment have to do with burning salt water?

During a demonstration of the RFG, an observer noticed that it was causing water in a nearby test tube to condense. If the RFG could make water condense, it could theoretically separate salt out of seawater. Perhaps, then, it could be used to desalinize water, an issue of global proportions. The old seaman’s adage “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink” applies inland as well: Some nations are drying up and their populations suffering from thirst, yet the world is 70 percent ocean water. An effective means of removing salt from salt water could save countless lives. So it’s no surprise that Kanzius trained his RFG on the goal of salt water desalinization.

During his first test, however, he noticed a surprising side effect. When he aimed the RFG at a test tube filled with seawater, it sparked. This is not a normal reaction by water.

Kanzius tried the test again, this time lighting a paper towel and touching it to the water while the water was in the path of the RFG. He got an even bigger surprise — the test tube ignited and stayed alight while the RFG was turned on.

News of the experiment was generally met with allegations of it being a hoax, but after Penn State University chemists got their hands on the RFG and tried their own experiments, they found it was indeed true. The RFG could ignite and burn salt water. The flame could reach temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit and burn as long as the RFG was on and aimed at it.

But how could salt water possibly ignite? Why don’t careless litterbugs who flick lit cigarette butts into the sea set the whole planet aflame? It all has to do with hydrogen. In its normal state, salt water has a stable composition of sodium chloride (the salt) and hydrogen and oxygen (the water). But the radio waves from Kanzius’ RFG disrupt that stability, degrading the bonds that hold the chemicals in salt water together. This releases the volatile hydrogen molecules, and the heat output from the RFG ignites them and burns them indefinitely.

So will our cars soon run on salt water instead of gasoline? Read the next page for some of the hurdles that would have to be overcome for salt water to fuel cars.

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Still speaking about the crisis in economy? Don’t worry, nothing in the USA is that bad yet! In Zimbabwe you can buy tomatoes on the market for 5 million dollars. Zimbabwe introduced a 100-billion-dollar banknote because of the extremely high inflation and the official inflation has gone over 2,200,000% a year, while some economists believe that real growth is even higher.  Zimbabwe is in a desperate situation now with 80% unemployment and constantly rising inflation. At the beginning of March the exchange rate 20m for 1 US dollar, now it’s already 40m.

Well, apparently the Government is expecting a half million people to die relatively soon, and the Atlanta Airport is a major airline traffic hub, probably the biggest in the country, which means Georgia is a prime base to conduct military operations and coordination.

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Bottom line on the FISA vote today: the Democratic leadership and a minority of Democratic members in both the House and the Senate aligned with the Republicans have, by their votes on the FISA Bill, declared that the telecom companies and the Executive Office are above the law. The Bill also makes legal wiretapping of any and all Americans who communicate with friends or family overseas without being required to prove suspicion or just cause, without a warrant. Big brother is now sanctified and codified in the passage of this Bill.  

These people can’t even pay their bills, nevermind FDIC!  We are close to going back to a barter system!

Euro vs. the dollar:

3month

OK, I’m not being critical of their culture.  I respect it.  As a parent, my reaction is  : Holy crap, this is scary!

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/05/01/india.baby.toss.cnn

Rice in short supply at Costco, Sam’s Club

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Global food shortages: a ’silent tsunami’ 

Due to skyrocketing rice prices, Liberians are switching to pasta and learning how to twirl spaghetti on a fork. In India, the government has restricted rice exports, and moms are choosing between eating and paying for their children’s schooling. Meanwhile in the United States, Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club warehouse stores are limiting the sale of 20-pound (9 kg) bags of jasmine, basmati, and long-grain white rice to four per customer.

In the developed world, food shortages might be overhyped. The head of the California Rice Commission told Reuters, “Bottom line, there is no rice shortage in the United States. We have supplies.” Plus, how many Americans buy 80 pounds of rice per shopping trip? (Apparently, it’s restaurant owners and small-business owners who typically buy in bulk.)

But for people in developing countries, outrageous food prices and shortages are a serious reality. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, which provides food aid to the needy, told FP in this week’s Seven Questions, “This is a silent tsunami.” Video, audio, and prepared remarks from her recent talk on global food insecurity at the Center for Strategic and International Studies is also available here.

By the way, if you want to help hungry people get rice, play the Free Rice vocabulary game.

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SAINI SUNPURA, India (AP) — A baby with two faces was born in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday.

The baby, Lali, apparently has an extremely rare condition known as craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces. Except for her ears, all of Lali’s facial features are duplicated — she has two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes.

“My daughter is fine — like any other child,” said Vinod Singh, 23, a poor farm worker.

Lali has caused a sensation in the dusty village of Saini Sunpura, 25 miles east of New Delhi. When she left the hospital, eight hours after a normal delivery on March 11, she was swarmed by villagers, said Sabir Ali, the director of Saifi Hospital.

“She drinks milk from her two mouths and opens and shuts all the four eyes at one time,” Ali said.

Rural India is deeply superstitious and the little girl is being hailed as a return of the Hindu goddess of valor, Durga, a fiery deity traditionally depicted with three eyes and many arms.

Up to 100 people have been visiting Lali at her home every day to touch her feet out of respect, offer money and receive blessings, Singh told AP.

“Lali is God’s gift to us,” said Jaipal Singh, a member of the local village council. “She has brought fame to our village.”

Village chief Daulat Ram said he planned to build a temple to Durga in the village.

“I am writing to the state government to provide money to build the temple and help the parents look after their daughter,” Ram said.

Lali’s condition is often linked to serious health complications, but the doctor said she was doing well.

“She is leading a normal life with no breathing difficulties,” said Ali, adding that he saw no need for surgery.

Lali’s parents were married in February 2007. Lali is their first child.

Singh said he took his daughter to a hospital in New Delhi where doctors suggested a CT scan to determine whether her internal organs were normal, but Singh said he felt it was unnecessary.

“I don’t feel the need of that at this stage as my daughter is behaving like a normal child, posing no problems,” he said

I find this an amazing thing.  Pooping on Vista!!   It’s perfect!!  I can wipe my ass with vista.  I figure it’s payback for microsoft shitting on me!

[ gizmodo.com ]

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WASHINGTON (CNN) – The U.S. military’s first and only study looking into ties between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaeda showed no connection between the two, according to a military report released by the Pentagon.

The report released by the Joint Forces Command five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq said it found no “smoking gun” after reviewing about 600,000 Iraqi documents captured in the invasion and looking at interviews of key Iraqi leadership held by the United States, Pentagon officials said.

The assessment of the al Qaeda connection and the insistence that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction were two primary elements in the Bush administration’s arguments in favor of going to war with Iraq.

The Pentagon’s report also contradicts then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who said in September 2002 that the CIA provided “bulletproof” evidence demonstrating “that there are, in fact, al Qaeda in Iraq.”

Although other groups, like the September 11 commission, have concluded that there was no link between Hussein and al Qaeda, the Pentagon was able to analyze much more information.

The documents cited in the report do reveal that Hussein supported a number of terrorists and terrorist activities inside and outside Iraq.

“The Iraqi regime was involved in regional and international terrorist operations prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. The predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq,” according to the report.

Most of the terrorism was aimed at keeping Hussein and his Baath party in power, according to Pentagon officials.

“State sponsorship of terrorism became such a routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability in the recruiting, training and resourcing of terrorists,” according to the report.

The report cited such examples as training for car bombs and suicide bombings in 1999 and 2000, both of which U.S. and Iraqi forces have struggled to contain since the rise of the insurgency in summer 2003.

Baggy pants crackdown goes national

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RIVIERA BEACH — Pull’em up or pay up! That’s the order voters gave tonight by overwhelmingly approving Mayor Thomas Masters “saggy pants” law.

“I am thankful to the people who came out and voted their conscience and defined what is indecent in our city,” said Masters after hearing the measure won 72 percent of the vote.

Earlier in the day, Masters feared the saggy pants law was going down in defeat based upon an informal exit poll. But that changed as more voters went to the polls, he said.

Masters believes Riviera Beach is the first large city to pass a saggy pants law through an election. Others have been approved by ordinance through a board vote.

Riviera Beach joins the city of Opa-Locka, the Atlanta school district and several small southern towns with “pull up your pants” laws.

Under the new law, anyone with droopy pants that show skin or underwear faces legal action. The first offense carries a $150 fine or community service. A second infraction carries a $300 fine or more community service.

Habitual violators could face up to 60 days in jail. The jail provision produced a last-minute backlash to the ordinance. But the law was popular among elderly voters who apparently turned out at the polls.

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WELCOME TO THE POLICE STATE! This was featured today on the CBS Morning Show. The former NYPD officer who is a police consultant on that show said that this was a GANG RAPE and should be prosecuted as such. He said it was obvious that this was regular procedure in this department since they were so cold and calculating about it. He also said that these police should be looking at facing MAJOR FELONIES for violating bodily rights over these acts. He said that resisting arrest would be no escuse for the police doing this.

Large swathes of Asia, the Middle East and north Africa had their high-technology services crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.

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via: http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=991&org_name=NTUF

• The eight candidates proposed a combined total of 189 items that would increase federal spending, 24 items that would decrease it, and 238 items whose budgetary impacts are unknown — in addition to dozens of sub-items further detailing program components. The four respective frontrunners in the two parties (John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama), proposed overall fiscal policy agendas whose net effect would raise annual federal outlays between $6.9 billion and $287.0 billion.
• The top-tier GOP candidates often portrayed as “conservative” (Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee) actually called for significantly larger spending hikes ($19.5 billion and $54.2 billion, respectively), than the so-called “moderate conservative” (John McCain, $6.9 billion).
• Among Democrats, Barack Obama, often described as ideologically more “moderate” than Hillary Clinton, actually has the larger agenda of the two ($287.0 billion vs. $218.2 billion).
• Defense-related spending items received the highest proposed spending increases among Republican candidates. Huckabee and Romney, for example, offered $67.2 billion and $40.6 billion, respectively. Among Democrats, Clinton’s biggest boost goes toward health care ($113.6 billion) and Obama’s for economy, transportation, and infrastructure ($105.0 billion).
• Two of the eight candidates proposed sufficient spending cuts that more than offset their new spending plans: Rudy Giuliani (-$1.4 billion) and Ron Paul (-$150.1 billion).

The comprehensive economic revitalization plan is available online at: http://www.RonPaul2008.com/Prosperity.

The four areas that the plan covers are:

1. Tax Reform: Reduce the tax burden and eliminate taxes that punish investment and savings, including job-killing corporate taxes.

2. Spending Reform: Eliminate wasteful spending. Reduce overseas commitments. Freeze all non-defense, non-entitlement spending at current levels.

3. Monetary Policy Reform: Expand openness with the Federal Reserve and require the Fed to televise its meetings. Return value to our money.

4. Regulatory Reform: Repeal Sarbanes/Oxley regulations that push companies to seek capital outside of US markets. Stop restricting community banks from fostering local economic growth.digg | via