[bassetman]

And to look at all the whinny wingers who think they don't have enough!

[ekim68]

Costly Lesson on How Not to Build a Navy Ship

With the crack of a Champagne bottle against its bow, the newly minted Navy warship, bedecked with bunting, slid sideways into the Menominee River in Wisconsin with a splash.

Moments before the launching on Sept. 23, 2006, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chief of naval operations, told the festive crowd of shipbuilders, politicians and Navy brass assembled at the Marinette Marine shipyard, “Just a little more than three years ago, she was just an idea; now Freedom stands before us.”

Not quite. The ship — the first of a new class of versatile, high-speed combat vessels designed to operate in coastal waters — was indeed bobbing in the river, just four months after the promised launching date. But it was far from finished. In fact, the ship floats there still, work continuing day and night.

A project heralded as the dawning of an innovative, low-cost era in Navy shipbuilding has turned into a case study of how not to build a combat ship. The bill for the ship, being built by Lockheed Martin, has soared to $531 million, more than double the original, and by some calculations could be $100 million more. With an alternate General Dynamics prototype similarly struggling at an Alabama shipyard, the Navy last year temporarily suspended the entire program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us...hp&oref=slogin

[ekim68]

Wheat Crop Failures Could be Total, Experts Warn

On top of record-breaking rice prices and corn through the roof on ethanol demand, wheat is now rusting in the fields across Africa.

Officials fear near total crop losses, and the fungus, known as Ug99, is spreading.

Wheat prices have been soaring this week on top of already high prices, and futures contracts spiked, too, on panic buying.

Experts fear the cost of bread could soon follow the path of rice, the price of which has triggered riots in some countries and prompted countries to cut off exports.

David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors, said the deadly fungus, Puccinia graminis, is now spreading through some areas of the globe where "crop losses are expected to reach 100 percent.”

Losses in Africa are already at 70 percent of the crop, Kotok said.

"The economic losses expected from this fungus are now in the many billions and growing. Worse, there is an intensifying fear of exacerbated food shortages in poor and emerging countries of the world,” Kotok told investors in a research note.

"The ramifications are serious. Food rioting continues to expand around the world. We saw the most recent in Johannesburg.

"So far this unrest has been directed at rising prices. Actual shortages are still to come.”

http://moneynews.com/money/archives/...00454.cfm?s=st

[ekim68]

For a Pinball Survivor, the Game Isn’t Over

MELROSE PARK, Ill. — Being inside a pinball machine factory sounds exactly as you think it would. Across a 40,000-square-foot warehouse here, a cheery cacophony of flippers flip, bells ding, bumpers bump and balls click in an endless, echoing loop. The quarter never runs out.

But this place, Stern Pinball Inc., is the last of its kind in the world. A range of companies once mass produced pinball machines, especially in the Chicago area, the one-time capital of the business. Now there is only Stern. And even the dinging and flipping here has slowed: Stern, which used to crank out 27,000 pinball machines each year, is down to around 10,000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us...in&oref=slogin

[bassetman]

Originally Posted by ekim68

For a Pinball Survivor, the Game Isn’t Over

MELROSE PARK, Ill. — Being inside a pinball machine factory sounds exactly as you think it would. Across a 40,000-square-foot warehouse here, a cheery cacophony of flippers flip, bells ding, bumpers bump and balls click in an endless, echoing loop. The quarter never runs out.

But this place, Stern Pinball Inc., is the last of its kind in the world. A range of companies once mass produced pinball machines, especially in the Chicago area, the one-time capital of the business. Now there is only Stern. And even the dinging and flipping here has slowed: Stern, which used to crank out 27,000 pinball machines each year, is down to around 10,000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us...in&oref=slogin

Weird, I know a guy who worked as a supervisor in a plant like that for awhile. He said he could tell error by tone changes!

[xico]

Originally Posted by ekim68

For a Pinball Survivor, the Game Isn’t Over

MELROSE PARK, Ill. — Being inside a pinball machine factory sounds exactly as you think it would. Across a 40,000-square-foot warehouse here, a cheery cacophony of flippers flip, bells ding, bumpers bump and balls click in an endless, echoing loop. The quarter never runs out.

But this place, Stern Pinball Inc., is the last of its kind in the world. A range of companies once mass produced pinball machines, especially in the Chicago area, the one-time capital of the business. Now there is only Stern. And even the dinging and flipping here has slowed: Stern, which used to crank out 27,000 pinball machines each year, is down to around 10,000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us...in&oref=slogin

Have the companies gone out of business, or were they outsourced?

Similar thing happened to the breweries in Chicago. One by one they went out of business.

[ekim68]

(Any doubts about what Ike said of the Military Industrial Complex?)

U.S. Weighing Readiness for Military Action Against Iran

The nation's top military officer said yesterday that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" as one of several options against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be "extremely stressing" but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.

"It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," he said at a Pentagon news conference. Speaking of Iran's intentions, Mullen said: "They prefer to see a weak Iraq neighbor. . . . They have expressed long-term goals to be the regional power."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

[BlackSpike]

Originally Posted by ekim68

For a Pinball Survivor, the Game Isn’t Over

MELROSE PARK, Ill. — Being inside a pinball machine factory sounds exactly as you think it would. Across a 40,000-square-foot warehouse here, a cheery cacophony of flippers flip, bells ding, bumpers bump and balls click in an endless, echoing loop. The quarter never runs out.

But this place, Stern Pinball Inc., is the last of its kind in the world. A range of companies once mass produced pinball machines, especially in the Chicago area, the one-time capital of the business. Now there is only Stern. And even the dinging and flipping here has slowed: Stern, which used to crank out 27,000 pinball machines each year, is down to around 10,000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us...in&oref=slogin

Pinball sales worldwide have been dropping for a while now.
Part must be attributed to Computer Games.
In my town, all the gaming arcades have got rid of their Video Machines (Pac-Man, Space-Invaders and their modern versions) and are now purely gambling arcades, full of one-armed-bandits, where they used to only be 1/2 of the machines.
People are staying home and playing WoW or Wii.
Pubs often used to have a pinball table, but here too it seems to be more one-armed-bandits



Anyone got an old "Earthshaker" table going spare?

[ekim68]

The United States of Stupidity

We, the people, didn't used to be this dumb

OK, I'm bitter. I lost my American flag lapel pin while I was rolling gutter balls at the bowling alley. And afterwards they were out of orange juice at the blue-collar diner where I go for my photo opps with "Cup of Joe" Lieberman. Also, I don't own any guns so I can't bitterly cling to them or vent my anger on the few remaining critters within driving distance of the one tank of gas I can afford for my Hummer. And my flag lapel pin ... honey, have you seen my flag lapel pin?! I can't go out in public without the flag lapel pin! That's like streaking!

Have you noticed we live in a stupid nation now? It's little wonder. We've had eight years of pure stupid in the White House. And during that time, we the people have been massaged by a stupid media, hectored by stupid hypocrites and stupid moralists, terrified by stupid extremists, pandered to by stupid politicians, lied to by military experts on the TV (see last Sunday's New York Times for details). It's the natural law of Stupid in/Stupid out. Welcome to the United States of Stupidity.

It used to be that just the so-called "Red States" (come to think of it, the Red-Blue thing was pretty stupid) were allergic to facts. But now it's all of us. We just sit here and take it all in, complain about gas prices when oil companies run the White House, wonder why the airlines are collapsing and there is no transportation alternative: It's the stupidity, stupid! While we were sidetracked by John Edwards' haircuts, the oil companies got Congress to destroy Amtrak for them — Bangladesh now has a more efficient passenger rail system than we do. While we sat transfixed by the magnificence of Angelina Jolie's lips and Britney Spears' shaven crotch, Croatia, Latvia and Albania moved ahead of the United States on the global Environmental Sustainability Index. While we munched freedom fries and stockpiled duct tape, our national treasury was looted. And so on.

http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/arti...t.cfm?aid=7441

[poochee]

Originally Posted by ekim68

The United States of Stupidity

We, the people, didn't used to be this dumb

http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/arti...t.cfm?aid=7441

Good one!

[ekim68]

U.S. angry as Pakistan seeks peace deal with Islamists

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's new government is negotiating a peace deal with militants in the Taliban-controlled Waziristan region, the rugged mountainous area that's thought to be Osama bin Laden's refuge.

The move reflects the changing approach of America's longtime ally in the war on terror, and news of the talks set off alarm bells in Washington Wednesday.

"We are concerned about it, and what we encourage them to do is to continue to fight against the terrorists and to not disrupt any security or military operations that are ongoing in order to help prevent a safe haven for terrorists there," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "We have been concerned about these types of approaches because we don't think that they work."

However, details emerged Wednesday of talks under way between the Pakistani government and leaders of the dominant Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan on an agreement in which the Pakistani army would pull out of the area and the government would release some militants from custody.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/34748.html

[ekim68]

Greenpeace founder now backs nuclear power

Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore says there is no proof global warming is caused by humans, but it is likely enough that the world should turn to nuclear power - a concept tied closely to the underground nuclear testing his former environmental group formed to oppose.

The chemistry of the atmosphere is changing, and there is a high-enough risk that "true believers" like Al Gore are right that world economies need to wean themselves off fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gases, he said.

"It's like buying fire insurance," Moore said. "We all own fire insurance even though there is a low risk we are going to get into an accident."

The only viable solution is to build hundreds of nuclear power plants over the next century, Moore told the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. There isn't enough potential for wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal or other renewable energy sources, he said.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsup...ry/360625.html

[poochee]

updated 7:59 p.m. EDT, Sat April 26, 2008
Reno urged to prepare for more quakes
The Associated Press

Story Highlights
NEW: More than 100 aftershocks rattle western edge of Reno, Nevada
NEW: Scientists say an even bigger event may be coming
A magnitude-4.7 quake hit at 11:40 p.m. Friday
The area was rattled by a swarm of more than 100 quakes the day before

RENO, Nevada (AP) -- Scientists urged residents of northern Nevada's largest city to prepare for a bigger event as the area continued rumbling Saturday after the largest earthquake in a two-month-long series of temblors.

Excerpt from: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/26/ren....ap/index.html

[poochee]

Popular with tourists in Brazil, Recife is deadly for residents
Soaring homicide rate among the Brazilian city's poor gets little notice. But a team of journalists is trying to change that.
From the Associated Press
April 27, 2008

RECIFE, BRAZIL -- Ines Maria da Silva stares blankly outside her shack as she tells how she lost all five of her sons to the violence that makes Recife the deadliest major city in Brazil.

"What's going on here is effectively social cleansing," said Eduardo Machado, one of the group's founders. "The vast majority of victims share the same profile: poor, black men between 15 and 30 living in the outskirts and killed by a .38 revolver."

More than 40% of the homicides are committed by death squads, clandestine groups of off-duty and former police officers who are dedicated to executing undesirable elements, said Jose Luiz Ratton, a sociologist who advises the governor on violence.

Excerpts from: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...track=ntothtml

[ekim68]

Hiring for war is alarming

When it comes to recruiting troops, just how badly are things going? Well, that depends on how you define "bad."

If having a military sprinkled with felons sounds good to you, then things are going just fine.

But if the thought of sending folks who were convicted of crimes such as theft, drug offenses (other than ones involving marijuana) as well as those who have committed sex crimes, manslaughter and aggravated assault -- some with weapons -- to represent us in Iraq alarms you, brace yourself. You are living in alarming times.

Never mind that the military has also been granting waivers to recruits who haven't graduated from high school. According to The Associated Press, "the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006." While there's something to be said for a sentence served and the grace of redemption, violent ex-convicts (especially for sexual assault, given the high rate of rape and sexual harassment already suffered by female troops) shouldn't be armed and sent overseas.

Add those guys to the thugs employed by some of the security contractors representing the U.S. in Iraq and it's clear that we've given up even the appearance of military honor. And what a blow this is to the top-notch men and women who have dedicated their lives to serving their country. If recruiting felons is our only alternative to a mandatory draft, it's obvious that this war isn't seen as worth fighting by most -- hence the lack of quality recruits.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinio..._felonsed.html