Aircraft experts and military aficionados have cause to rejoice now that Lockheed Martin has debuted the SR-72 unmanned spy plane, the long-awaited successor to the SR-71 Blackbird and potentially the first hypersonic craft to enter service. Plans for the SR-72 drone were first unveiled Friday in an Aviation Week article which revealed that Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced development program has drafted plans for a plane that could fly as fast as Mach 6 – twice the speed of the Blackbird.
Author: mediahitman
Internal documents from “war room” meetings convened on the roll-out of the new health insurance website indicate that early enrollment figures were significantly low, with unofficial figures noting just six enrollments on the first day. The notes, released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, indicate that six enrollments were completed in the morning following the website’s Tuesday launch.
Federal whistleblowers have alerted the White House to what they say is a “gross waste of government funds” by Department of Homeland Security agents, the likes of which has cost the United States approximately $8.7 million a year. The US Office of Special Counsel sent a report to President Barack Obama on Thursday, and in it are allegations of alleged overtime abuse being committed by federal workers and on the tax payers’ dime at no fewer than six DHS offices across the country.
After voting to legalize recreational marijuana use during the 2012 national election, Colorado voters are now gearing up to decide how to tax the drug. On Tuesday, November 4, voters will choose whether or not to adopt a 15 percent excise tax on marijuana, in addition to an extra 10 percent sales tax to fund pot enforcement throughout the state. Most polls indicate that voters will approve of the measure, though there are opponents who argue that marijuana should not be taxed any more than beer, which has a tax of eight cents for every gallon. “Our alcohol system is…
The secret behind Google’s strange mystery barges in the San Francisco Bay and Portland, ME has been revealed: They are promotional party boats. According to the local KPIX 5 CBS station, multiple sources have confirmed to the outlet that the vast majority of the barges will be composed of showrooms to promote the launch of Google Glass, the search giant’s upcoming entry into a burgeoning wearable computing field.
Swedish children may be suffering emotional harm because of their mobile phone-dependent parents, a study has found. One in five parents in Stockholm confessed to having lost sight of their child in a “dangerous place” while focusing on a mobile device. A new survey by YouGov revealed that one in five Swedish parents have been asked by their children to put their mobile phones down.
US President Barack Obama has called on the National Security Agency to halt spying on the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in conjunction with a review of surveillance activities, Reuters reported. A US official told the news agency that President Obama curbed the spying within the last few weeks, around the same time he told the NSA to stop eavesdropping on the United Nations headquarters.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden has met with a German MP in Moscow. He passed a letter addressed to the German government and federal public prosecutor where he allegedly said he is ready to testify over Washington’s probable wiretapping of Merkel’s phone. During the meeting, Snowden made it “clear that he knows a lot,” Greens lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele told ARD channel.
By Kathy Freston Nearly a decade of extra life — that’s what you get when you move away from eating animal foods and toward a plant-based diet. This is really exciting science for anyone seeking healthy longevity (and who isn’t?)! According to a recent report on the largest study of vegetarians and vegans to date, those eating plant-based diets appear to have a significantly longer life expectancy. Vegetarians live on average almost eight years longer than the general population, which is similar to the gap between smokers and nonsmokers.
Israeli warplanes struck a Syrian air defense base near the port city of Latakia on Thursday, US official have confirmed to media. An Obama administration official told AP that the attack happened overnight on Thursday, but provided no details. Another security official told the news agency that it took place in the Syrian port city of Latakia, and that the targets were Russian-made SA-125 missiles.
By Glenn Hodges One thousand years ago, on a floodplain of the Mississippi River near modern-day St. Louis, the massive Native American city known today as Cahokia sprang suddenly into existence. Three hundred years later it was virtually deserted.
Despite having front-door access to communications transmitted across the biggest Internet companies on Earth, the National Security Agency has been secretly tapping into the two largest online entities in the world, new leaked documents reveal. Those documents, supplied by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and obtained by the Washington Post, suggest that the US intelligence agency and its British counterpart have compromised data passed through the computers of Google and Yahoo, the two biggest companies in the world with regards to overall Internet traffic
The US intelligence services allegedly eavesdropped on cardinals before they elected the new pope at last March’s conclave, the Italian weekly magazine Panorama claims. The Holy See says they are not aware of such activities. In an exclusive report on Wednesday, the magazine published allegations that the US listened to phone calls to and from the Vatican and wiretapped the accommodation where Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, future Pope Francis, was staying at the time.
Poland has asked the European Court of Human Rights to bar media and public presence during an upcoming hearing on Poland’s complicity with the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program that delivered terror suspects to secret prisons around the world. The public hearing in Strasbourg, France, scheduled for Dec. 3, will be the first arguments testing allegations that the Polish government allowed the CIA to operate a jail for supposed Al-Qaeda fighters in Poland.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been ranked the most powerful person in the world by Forbes. He topped the list of the 72 world figures that “matter the most,” while US President Barack Obama was rated second. Putin’s Syria “chess match” that prevented the US strike, and his having the last word in the diplomatic row over the fugitive NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, didn’t go unnoticed with the editorial rating of the influential American business magazine, and were noted among the reasons for his top place.
A designer from Minnesota is suing the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security for attempting to take down his parody products. Earlier this year, 38-year-old Dan McCall, owner of the website LibertyManiacs.com, was selling T-shirts and other items featuring parodied logos of both the NSA and DHS on the online merchandising platform Zazzle.
The US government secretly acquired and tested Soviet war planes during the Cold War at the top secret air base Area 51, according to declassified documents released on Tuesday, which shed further light on the base deep in the Nevada desert. In August this year the CIA confirmed the base existed when it released declassified documents through a freedom of information act requested by the George Washington University National Security Archive. The documents confirm what many already suspected: that Area 51 was used to test numerous US air force and navy aerial programs.
By Steven H Ahle The Washington Times reports that contrary to what Barack Obama and Leon Panetta have said, there were 8 special forces commandos in Tripoli the night of the attack, just 400 miles away. They were made up of Delta Force, the country’s leading counterterrorism force and Green Berets. Two of the Delta Forces volunteered to go to Benghazi, along with 5 private contractors. Both have been quietly awarded medals for their bravery for turning back the attackers.