Dish (Nasdaq: DISH) experienced several technical glitches with its satellites during the first quarter, including “solar array anomalies” that hit three of its satellites, according to an SEC filing it filed Monday.
Image source: Dish Network
The company, which picked up 104,000 net subscribers during the first quarter, said that its EchoStar XI, EchoStar XIV and EchoStar VI satellites experienced solar array anomalies, and that EchoStar I, the first satellite that it launched in 1995, suffered a “communications receiver anomaly.” Dish said that the solar array glitches experienced by EchoStar XI and EchoStar XIV “reduced the total power available for use by the spacecraft,” and that EchoStar VI experienced the loss of two traveling wave tube amplifiers. The amplifiers are used to boost the strength of the signals that deliver programming from satellite transponders. EchoStar warned that EchoStar VI has experienced solar array anomalies that have previously impacted its commercial operation, and that future anomalies could hurt the satellite.
Hundreds of birds and dolphins have been washing up dead along the Peru coast, and this has government officials looking for causes.
The mass deaths have taken place against the backdrop of oceanic warming in the region.
At least 1,200 birds, mostly pelicans, have been found dead in recent weeks along a stretch of Pacific coast in northern Peru, the Reuters website said on Sunday.
Recent months have also seen an estimated 800 dolphins die in the same area, Reuters said.
Anomalously warm sea-surface temperatures are shown over the eastern Pacific Ocean on May 7, 2012. (image credit: NOAA)Officials have recommended that people keep away from the beaches.
According to the agricultural ministry, preliminary tests on some dead pelicans indicate malnourishment may be a factor.
“We’re starting from the hypothesis that it’s because the birds are young and unable to find enough food for themselves, and also because the sea temperature has risen and anchovies have moved elsewhere,” Reuters quoted Deputy Agriculture Minister Juan Rheineck as saying.
A mass die off of pelicans happened along the northern Peru coast in 1997 at a time when the “El Nino” warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean was under way. This mass death was attributed to the lack of anchovies, a key link in the region’s marine food chain.
Although “El Nino” has not happened officially since early 2010, significant changes to sea-surface temperatures have been happening since the start of 2012.
Who exactly is : XKUNX Entertainment?
I’m the guy that did the full debunk Documentary on the KONY 2012 Scam
We are in the struggle against tyranny and the 1% Ruling Elite’s quest for a New World Order, (Global government), watch and share our activism movies with your friends and family. The most powerful tool you have against the elite is being informed and doing your own research. Their greatest tool is your ignorance, television, and the mainstream media.
The New World Order is not a “Conspiracy Theory” – Watch This for the FACTS
Why Vote Ron Paul? See Here
We Live in a Police State. See why:
Why The Occupy Movement Exists?
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH:
Research -
The Bilderberg Group
Trilateral Commission
Council on Foreign Relations
Federal Reserve and Ben Bernanke
Rockefeller
Henry Kissinger
New World Order
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a video released Sunday by al-Qaida, American hostage Warren Weinstein said he will be killed unless President Barack Obama agrees to the militant group’s demands.
“My life is in your hands, Mr. President,” Weinstein said in the video. “If you accept the demands, I live; if you don’t accept the demands, then I die.”
Weinstein was abducted last August in Lahore, Pakistan, after gunmen tricked his guards and broke into his home. The 70-year-old from Rockville, Md., is the country director in Pakistan for J.E. Austin Associates, a Virginia-based firm that advises a range of Pakistani business and government sectors.
In a video message posted on militant websites in December, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri said Weinstein would be released if the United States stopped airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. He also demanded the release of all al-Qaida and Taliban suspects around the world.
The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant messages, said Al-Sahab, al-Qaida’s media arm, posted the Weinstein video on jihadist forums Sunday.
“It’s important you accept the demands and act quickly and don’t delay,” Weinstein said in the video, addressing Obama. “There’ll be no benefit in delaying, it will just make things more difficult for me.”
He also appealed to Obama as a father. If the president responds to the militants’ demands, Weinstein said, “then I will live and hopefully rejoin my family and also enjoy my children, my two daughters, like you enjoy your two daughters.”
After his kidnapping, Weinstein’s company said he was in poor health and provided a detailed list of medications, many of them for heart problems, that it implored the kidnappers to give him.
In the video released Sunday, Weinstein said he would like his wife, Elaine, to know “I’m fine, I’m well, I’m getting all my medications, I’m being taken care of.”
South Korea and the U.S. launched their largest joint air defense exercise against North Korean attacks on Monday amid tension over its possible nuclear test.
Based on the U.S.-led multinational air exercise Red Flag, the Max Thunder exercise was introduced in 2008 as a biannual event.
The first Max Thunder exercise of this year, which will continue until May 18, is being conducted at the largest scale yet with 60 military aircraft taking part.
South Korean Air Force will participate with 38 aircrafts including F-15K, KF-16 fighter jets, while U.S. forces will include F-16 and A-10 attack aircraft, early warning aircraft and the KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft.
According to the Air Force, South Korean and U.S. units will form the Blue Air team representing the allies, which will combat the Red Air team. The Red Air team will comprise personnel and aircraft from the Korean Air Force’s training wing.
The 12-day exercise will be conducted under the leadership of Korea’s Air Force Operations Command at the 1st Fighter Wing in Gwangju.
During the period, units from the South Korean Air Force and the U.S.’ 7th Air Force will engage in exercises designed to improve the allies’ ability to attack enemy forces and for protecting friendly air space.
The exercise will also include aerial refueling drills for the first time, the Air Force said. Pilots who complete the aerial refueling training successfully will be given aerial refueling instructor status.
This year’s Max Thunder exercise will also see the participation of Special Forces operatives and a Navy destroyer as part of the efforts to improve the different branches of the armed forces to operate together, the Air Force said.
The Special Forces personnel will participate in air strike targeting drills, while the destroyer will simulate ship-to-air threats.
“The drill will display our readiness and joint air firepower with the U.S. that can immediately retaliate in case of an emergency on the Korean Peninsula,” the Air Force said in a statement.
North Korea, which carried out a long-range rocket launch despite warnings from the international community in April, has warned that it will carry out a third nuclear test, and on April 23 threatened South Korean targets including President Lee Myung-bak of “special action” that will annihilate the targets within minutes.
Saturday’s “super Moon” was just a warm-up for the May 20 solar eclipse – that’s the first in two decades – to be seen in the western part of the U.S.
From a scientific standpoint, it’s fantastic to view the first solar eclipse in more than two decades; with this rare eclipse set to appear over Western states of the U.S. May 20. In the meantime, Saturday’s “gloriously full” Moon was considered by astronomers as “one of the most dramatic celestial events yet to come” in a crazy 2012 that’s already awash with Mayan prophecy hysteria. At the same time, a recent USA Today report states how this May 20 “ring of fire” will be seen by viewers “in a swath from the Pacific coast to Texas.” In turn, astronomers told USA Today that “some of the best places to see the annular eclipse – one in which all but the outermost rim of the sun is blocked by the moon, leaving a ‘bull’s eye’ ring of sunlight – are in the wide open spaces of national parks.” In turn, park rangers and astronomers will offer special programs for those wishing to view this most unusual solar eclipse May 20 out West.
May 20 solar eclipse already “sold out” in some parks
The forthcoming solar eclipse is so popular that USA Today reported May 4 that “reservations-required viewing programs at Albuquerque’s Petroglyph are already full, but telescopes will be available on both the South and North rims of Grand Canyon National Park.”
In addition, the park bookstores “will sell solar viewing cards for $1 while supplies last.”
Weather permitting, astronomers told USA Today and other media that “visitors at 33 national parks along the eclipse path will see the disc of the moon within the disco of the sun, with six parks at the center of the eclipse path: Redwoods and Lassen Volcanic in California; Zion in Utah; Grand Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona and the Canyon De Chelly National Monument and Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico.”
For more details on solar eclipse viewing options, go to the park service’s new website, nature.nps.gov/features/eclipse/.
The FBI wants to create backdoor access to social networks, websites, and Web mail. Its goal is to make the Web accessible to FBI surveillance: the digital equivalent of wiretapping. The issue pits the post-9-11 security state against online privacy concerns. At one time, the FBI could almost always expect Washington to grant its wishes. And that is still a likely outcome. But the fate of the SOPA bill shows that privacy advocates can have influence if they mobilize.
For IT managers at midsize firms, the FBI request raises practical concerns. If it become law, what technical complications may be involved in providing a surveillance backdoor. And how secure will it be against hackers?
Wiretaps for the 21st Century
As reported by Declan McCullagh at CNET, the FBI is “quietly” seeking a law requiring social networks, websites, and Internet phone services to provide it with backdoor access to communications. The access would give FBI surveillance teams the same ability to monitor these channels that it now has with telephone conversations.
FBI communications intercepts are currently governed by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). The act was passed in 1994, effectively at the dawn of the Internet era. It provides for surveillance of telecommunications and was extended to cover broadband in 2004. But it does not cover Internet services. These now account for a large share of communications between US citizens that the FBI might want to eavesdrop on.
Residents in Dakota, Goodhue and Pierce counties should not be alarmed by a first responders whizzing toward the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant on Tuesday, May 8.
It’s just a drill.
The Minnesota Department of Safety and other state and county agencies will test their ability to respond to an emergency incident at the plant. Teams from about 25 state agencies will use the state emergency operations center to coordinate a simulated response that will include field teams, first responders and other emergency workers. Around 400 people will be involved in the simulation.
“We just don’t want people to be alarmed by an unusual level of activity around there,” Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesman Doug Neville said.
The plant, near Red Wing, Minn., is operated by Xcel Energy.
GRENOBLE, France, May 7, 2012 — For the first time, gamma rays were bent like ordinary light in an experiment that overturns decades of theoretical predictions and opens the door to a new field of research called nuclear photonics.
Gamma rays are essentially a highly energetic form of light. Able to penetrate almost any material, they now have the ability to bend and focus, which could lead to powerful new medical applications, including imaging techniques and targeted cancer treatments.
Scientists from the Laue-Langevin Institute (ILL) and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich achieved this feat using a version of a common classroom experiment with glass prisms. They refracted the rays at the highest energies ever recorded.
In the same way that light beams can be bent and split with glass prisms, the researchers used a silicon prism to bend gamma rays. They analyzed the gamma rays produced using ILL’s PN-3 facility through two silicon crystals, the first pre-selecting them as they came out of the reactor and directing them into a very narrow and parallel beam. Further along the instrument, a silicon prism was placed at a height where it refracted half of the gamma ray beam. The refraction of this half-beam was then detected by a second silicon crystal and compared with the half consisting of unrefracted gamma rays.
Fukushima, Japan: More than 20 schools in Koriyama city in Fukushima Prefecture, home to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, have ‘hot spots’ with high radiation levels on their premises, a civil group said.
The finding was based on municipal education board documents it obtained through an information disclosure request, it said.
The education board instructed elementary and junior high schools as well as nursery schools, in January, to check air radiation levels in side ditches, hedges and drains on their premises. Schoolyards and classrooms were excluded as the levels there have been regularly examined.
Reports submitted by each school in April showed at least 14 elementary and seven junior high as well as five nursery schools have hot spots where the cumulative annual radiation dose could reach 20 millisieverts, or more than 3.8 microsieverts per hour.
At the start of the new academic year in April, the education board lifted a restriction that had limited students to playing in schoolyards for less than three hours per day in the wake of the nuclear disaster last year.
Tokiko Noguchi, head of the civil group, told a press conference yesterday, “there are many spots in schools where radiation levels still remain high,” calling on the education board to restore the restriction.
The British house of lords EU committee has called on the EU to improve its defence capabilities and ensure it can deploy a greater proportion of its armed forces when needed.
In a new report the committee stresses that given the America’s stated declaration that its defence priority is now the Asia-Pacific region and not Europe “it is urgent that the EU gets its own house in order” on defence capabilities.
The committee call this ‘America’s wake-up call to Europe’ and calls on the EU to act.
The report calls on member states to “show a willingness and capability” to organise themselves militarily and the political will to deploy troops if necessary.
The committee says member states should set out a strategic plan outlining what they are willing to do collectively and in what circumstances.
They also say that the European Defence Agency should play a role in enabling the experiences of smaller alliances, such as the UK-French treaties, to be shared.
QUOTE SSE:Ofgem fine means we have to redouble our efforts to build the trust of our Energy Supply customers & we're committed to doing that 37 minutes ago
