By James Schultz
Special to SPACE.composted: 07:00 am ET
11 January 2001
With antimatter in the tank, taking the family rocket out for a spin to the nearest M-class planet would be a relative breeze. Miniaturized antimatter fuel might consist of a thumb-sized canister with an energy source no bigger than an aspirin and no need of replenishment for hundreds of light-years -- or, locally, tens of millions of intra-solar-system miles.
[inset]Ever since the 1930s, scientists have known of the existence of a twin to ordinary matter. Antimatter has the same mass but opposite spin and charge. Put matter and antimatter together and its like Einstein said, E=mc2 -- 100-percent energy conversion. Luckily for normal-matter humanity, there doesnt seem to be too much antimatter left over from the Big Bang to cause random ultra-explosions.
Cosmic paucity, however, hasnt stopped human manufacture. More antimatter is now being produced artificially than at any previous time in human history. So where are the next-generation, Star Trek-like antimatter rocket engines? Only in the imaginations of futurists, and definitely not on the drawing boards, retort researchers.
[quote]
"The power we use now to make antimatter is close to a billion times more than we can produce [with antimatter]," said Dave McGinnis, an antiproton expert and department head of the Antiproton Source at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. Fermilab is one of the worlds leading makers of antimatter for scientific study. "Its remarkably inefficient and just not economical. Thats the bottom line and the reason we dont yet have an antimatter rocket."
Friday, May 28, 2010
This is why the Federal Government needs to enforce illegal immigraiton laws!
KING5.com
Posted on May 27, 2010 at 2:22 PM
Updated yesterday at 5:22 PM
BELLINGHAM, Wash. - An illegal Mexican immigrant will be sentenced in Whatcom County for the rape of a homeless woman. But what makes this case even more troubling is that this man has a history of crime in the U.S. and has been deported multiple times.
"This is very frustrating," says Whatcom County Deputy Prosecutor Dona Bracke.
Frustrating because, according to court documents, Hector Salinas, 38, has been deported at least five times. He has been convicted of robbery, theft, carrying a weapon and selling narcotics in Washington state and California.
The crimes date back to 1994. In almost all cases, he was sentenced to time in prison.
"All of these crimes, yet he continues to cross back over the border and hurt more people," says Bracke.
Bracke was the prosecutor against Salinas during the rape trial which ended with a guilty verdict in March. He will be sentenced June 8 in Whatcom County under the state's 3 strikes law. That means Salinas may spend the rest of his life behind bars with no chance for parole.
This news comes just days after the KING 5 Investigators revealed that the suspect in a rape last weekend in Edmonds, Wash. has been deported to Mexico nine times.
Our great historic icon of Thurston County, Up in Smoke?
The Olympian
JEREMY PAWLOSKI; Staff writer |
TUMWATER - An intentionally set fire at the historic riverfront brewhouse built by the Olympia Brewing Co. in 1906 sent a huge plume of dark smoke into the sky, attracting attention from onlookers and local fire departments Thursday.
About 5:30 p.m., Tumwater police had a “person of interest” in custody, but he had not been arrested, Tumwater Police Detective Charles Liska said. He added that witnesses had reported seeing a person leave the area where the fire had started – a smaller black building outside the brewery complex.
Later, Liska said the person in custody had issues with the state Department of Corrections, but there was no evidence he had anything to do with the fire.
“As of right now, we don’t have anybody in custody related to the fire, and it remains under investigation,” Liska said about 7 p.m. “We’re doing an arson investigation.”
The fire was small, confined to a warehouse building separate from the tall brick structures of the brewhouse, Tumwater Assistant Fire Chief Jim McGarva said.
“There was a lot of smoke generated, and it had to do with the (fact that the) underside of the roof was lined with some tar material,” he said outside the fire Thursday afternoon.
Someone used wood pallets and old paperwork and marketing materials that had been left at the old brewery to start the fire, McGarva said. The fire was started by a human; whether it was arson will be up to police and prosecutors to decide, he added.
“Maybe his intent was to keep warm; I don’t know,” McGarva said.
The fire caused about $20,000 in damage, he said. The old brewhouse, once owned by Leopold Schmidt, has historical significance in Tumwater, McGarva said.
“A lot of the architecture in Tumwater is patterned after this building,” he said.
JEREMY PAWLOSKI; Staff writer |
TUMWATER - An intentionally set fire at the historic riverfront brewhouse built by the Olympia Brewing Co. in 1906 sent a huge plume of dark smoke into the sky, attracting attention from onlookers and local fire departments Thursday.
Later, Liska said the person in custody had issues with the state Department of Corrections, but there was no evidence he had anything to do with the fire.
“As of right now, we don’t have anybody in custody related to the fire, and it remains under investigation,” Liska said about 7 p.m. “We’re doing an arson investigation.”
The fire was small, confined to a warehouse building separate from the tall brick structures of the brewhouse, Tumwater Assistant Fire Chief Jim McGarva said.
“There was a lot of smoke generated, and it had to do with the (fact that the) underside of the roof was lined with some tar material,” he said outside the fire Thursday afternoon.
Someone used wood pallets and old paperwork and marketing materials that had been left at the old brewery to start the fire, McGarva said. The fire was started by a human; whether it was arson will be up to police and prosecutors to decide, he added.
“Maybe his intent was to keep warm; I don’t know,” McGarva said.
The fire caused about $20,000 in damage, he said. The old brewhouse, once owned by Leopold Schmidt, has historical significance in Tumwater, McGarva said.
“A lot of the architecture in Tumwater is patterned after this building,” he said.
And this is how greedy homeoweners associations treat our heros!
Huffington Post/Mother Jones
Fri May. 28, 2010 3:00 AM PDT
.
Michael went on active duty in February 2008 and was sent to Iraq. After he shipped out, his wife May slipped into a deep depression, according to court documents. "A lot of people say that the deployment is more stressful on the spouse than the actual person who's being deployed," Michael, 37, says in an interview with Mother Jones. May Clauer had two kids to take care of—a ten-year-old and a one-year-old with a serious seizure-related disorder. In addition, she was worried sick about her husband. Michael's company was doing convoy security in Iraq—an extremely dangerous job. "It was a pretty tough year for the whole company," he says. "We had IEDs, rocket attacks and mortar attacks, and a few soldiers that were hurt pretty bad and had to be airlifted back to the States."
Is China coming around?
BY EVAN RAMSTAD
SEOUL – Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered the first hint that Beijing might be willing to budge from weeks of fence-sitting over the sinking of a South Korean warship, telling South Korea's leader that China won't prevent penalties for whoever is responsible for the deadly incident.Mr. Wen's comments Friday, related by South Korean officials, stopped well short of conceding the involvement of China's longtime ally North Korea. Seoul has concluded that Pyongyang sank its patrol boat Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 South Korean sailors, and Beijing's failure to accept that finding has angered South Korean officials and the ...
More Chicago Politics!
Published May 28, 2010
| FOXNews.com
The White House asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Rep. Joe Sestak about the possibility of obtaining a senior position in the Obama administration if he would drop out of the Democratic primary race against establishment-backed Sen. Arlen Specter, the Obama administration will say in a report to be released Friday morning, Fox News has confirmed.
The report, by the White House Counsel's office, will describe the Clinton conversations as informal and unhinged from any precise job offer since, as a former president, Clinton could not guarantee Sestak anything.
The conversations with Sestak were initiated by Clinton at the behest of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel was Clinton's political director when he was president. Clinton promoted Sestak to vice admiral and made his director of defense policy. Sestak was a loyal and tireless supporter of Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency in 2008.
The report will be released one day after President Obama said the White House would issue a formal explanation that should answer questions about Sestak's allegation and insisted "nothing improper" happened. On the same day, Clinton had lunch with Obama.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has also said nothing improper happened, but refused to elaborate when asked repeatedly about the charge at Thursday's briefing.
Why did the Earth give us horses again?
On the Gulf of Mexico (CNN) -- Ten miles off the coast of Louisiana, where the air tastes like gasoline and the ocean looks like brownie batter, Louisiana State University professor Ed Overton leans out of a fishing boat and dunks a small jar beneath the surface of the oil-covered water.
"God, what a mess," he says under his breath, scooping up a canister of the oil that's been spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.
Even though Overton has been studying oil spills for 30 years, he's not sure what he'll find in that sample. That's because, just below the surface, the scope and impact of one of the biggest environmental disasters in the history of the U.S. remains a mystery.
And that terrifies some scientists.
It's been five weeks since an oil rig exploded and sank, rupturing a pipeline 5,000 feet beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Some clues about what so much oil -- perhaps 22 million gallons of it -- will do to the environment have become obvious:
Dolphins have washed up dead. Endangered sea turtles have been found with oil stuck on their corneas. Lifeless brown pelicans, classified as endangered until recently, have been carried away in plastic bags. Beaches in Grand Isle, Louisiana, are spattered with gobs of sticky crude. And when the moon rises over the coast there, the oil-soaked ocean sparkles like cellophane under a spotlight.
But what's really going on in the depths of the ocean and in the all-important root systems of coastal marshes may prove to have more impact in the long term, and scientists know much less about what's happening in these invisible reaches of the Gulf ecosystem.
"God, what a mess," he says under his breath, scooping up a canister of the oil that's been spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.
Even though Overton has been studying oil spills for 30 years, he's not sure what he'll find in that sample. That's because, just below the surface, the scope and impact of one of the biggest environmental disasters in the history of the U.S. remains a mystery.
And that terrifies some scientists.
It's been five weeks since an oil rig exploded and sank, rupturing a pipeline 5,000 feet beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Some clues about what so much oil -- perhaps 22 million gallons of it -- will do to the environment have become obvious:
Dolphins have washed up dead. Endangered sea turtles have been found with oil stuck on their corneas. Lifeless brown pelicans, classified as endangered until recently, have been carried away in plastic bags. Beaches in Grand Isle, Louisiana, are spattered with gobs of sticky crude. And when the moon rises over the coast there, the oil-soaked ocean sparkles like cellophane under a spotlight.
Ed Overton takes a simple oil sample about 10 miles off the coast of Louisiana.
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