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Found under: Apple, iPhone OS, iAd, multitasking, ,

Apple has gone ahead and unveiled its new mobile platform iPhone OS 4.0. Just as rumored in the days before the announcement Apple has gone ahead and introduced quite a few important new features which are going to be available to iPhone iPod touch and iPad owners later this summer.Basically Apple introduced third-party apps multitasking which will be easily done thanks to 7 brand new APIs which will be made available to developers. Following that major breakthrough we discovered a

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Great news guys, Activision and Infinity Ward has finally revealed the release date of the Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package for the PS3 and PC.
 

This development from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is a major breakthrough toward commercializing graphene. The link goes to a news release on this development, but it also serves as a very nice quick-hit primer on graphene as a material.

The release:

Graphene Films Clear Major Fabrication Hurdle

APRIL 08, 2010

Lynn Yarris

Graphene, the two-dimensional crystalline form of carbon, is a potential superstar for the electronics industry. With freakishly mobile electrons that can blaze through the material at nearly the speed of light – 100 times faster than electrons can move through silicon – graphene could be used to make superfast transistors or computer memory chips. Graphene’s unique “chicken wire” atomic structure exhibits incredible flexibility and mechanical strength, as well as unusual optical properties that could open a number of promising doors in both the electronics and the photonics industries. However, among the hurdles preventing graphite from joining the pantheon of star high-tech materials, perhaps none looms larger than just learning to make the stuff in high quality and usable quantities.

“Before we can fully utilize the superior electronic properties of graphene in devices, we must first develop a method of forming uniform single-layer graphene films on nonconducting substrates on a large scale,” says Yuegang Zhang, a materials scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Current fabrication methods based on mechanical cleavage or ultrahigh vacuum annealing, he says, are ill-suited for commercial-scale production. Graphene films made via solution-based deposition and chemical reduction have suffered from poor or uneven quality.

Zhang and colleagues at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) center for nanoscience, have taken a significant step at clearing this major hurdle. They have successfully used direct chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to synthesize single-layer films of graphene on a dielectric substrate. Zhang and his colleagues made their graphene films by catalytically decomposing hydrocarbon precursors over thin films of copper that had been pre-deposited on the dielectric substrate. The copper films subsequently dewetted (separated into puddles or droplets) and were evaporated. The final product was a single-layer graphene film on a bare dielectric.

“This is exciting news for electronic applications because chemical vapor deposition is a technique already widely used in the semiconductor industry,” Zhang says.

“Also, we can learn more about the growth of graphene on metal catalyst surfaces by observing the evolution of the films after the evaporation of the copper. This should lay an important foundation for further control of the process and enable us to tailor the properties of these films or produce desired morphologies, such as graphene nanoribbons.”

Zhang and his colleagues have reported their findings in the journal Nano Letters in a paper titled, “Direct Chemical Vapor Deposition of Graphene on Dielectric Surfaces.” Other co-authors of this paper were Ariel Ismach, Clara Druzgalski, Samuel Penwell, Maxwell Zheng, Ali Javey and Jeffrey Bokor, all with Berkeley Lab.

In their study, Zhang and his colleagues used electron-beam evaporation to deposit copper films ranging in thickness from 100 to 450 nanometers. Copper was chosen because as a low carbon solubility metal catalyst it was expected to allow better control over the number of graphene layers produced. Several different dielectric substrates were evaluated including single-crystal quartz, sapphire, fused silica and silicon oxide wafers. CVD of the graphene was carried out at 1,000 degrees Celsius in durations that ranged from 15 minutes up to seven hours.

“This was done to allow us to study the effect of film thickness, substrate type and CVD growth time on the graphene formation,” Zhang says.

A combination of scanning Raman mapping and spectroscopy, plus scanning electron and atomic force microscopy confirmed the presence of continuous single-layer graphene films coating metal-free areas of dielectric substrate measuring tens of square micrometers.

“Further improvement on the control of the dewetting and evaporation process could lead  to the direct deposition of patterned graphene for large-scale electronic device fabrication, Zhang says. “This method could also be generalized and used to deposit other two-dimensional materials, such as boron-nitride.”

Even the appearance of wrinkles in the graphene films that followed along the lines of the dewetting shape of the copper could prove to be beneficial in the long-run. Although previous studies have indicated that wrinkles in a graphene film have a negative impact on electronic properties by introducing strains that reduce electron mobility, Zhang believes the wrinkles can be turned to an advantage.

“If we can learn to control the formation of wrinkles in our films, we should be able to modulate the resulting strain and thereby tailor electronic properties,” he says.

“Further study of the wrinkle formation could also give us important new clues for the formation of graphene nanoribbons.”

This work was primarily supported by the DOE Office of Science.

The Molecular Foundry is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs), premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale.  Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.  The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge and Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California. Visit our website at www.lbl.gov.

Additional Information

A copy of the Nano Letters paper “Direct Chemical Vapor Deposition of Graphene on Dielectric Surfaces” can be viewed here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl9037714

For more about Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry visit http://foundry.lbl.gov/

For more about the DOE NSRCs visit http://nano.energy.gov

(a) Optical image of a CVD graphene film on a copper layer showing the finger morphology of the metal; (b) Raman 2D band map of the graphene film between the copper fingers over the area marked by the red square on left. (image from Yuegang Zhang)

To make a graphene thin film, Berkeley researchers (a) evaporated a thin layer of copper on a dielectric surface; (b) then used CVD to lay down a graphene film over the copper. (c) The copper dewets and evaporates leaving (d) the graphene film directly on the dielectric substrate.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich brought the crowd to its feet before even opening his mouth at the 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC) in New Orleans

As the Hilton exhibition hall speakers blared Survivors’ “Eye of the Tiger,” 2000 activists from 14 southern states clapped in unison.

Even before the ovation ended, Gingrich’s first words were a wry and direct shot at President Obama’s honesty and authenticity, “when you speak from the heart you don’t need a teleprompter.”

Leading off a string of speeches from 2012 GOP White House wannabes he pulled no punches.  “This is the most radical president in American history” Gingrich said, “historians will some day write that the more Obama talked, the less people believed him.”

The mastermind of the 1994 republican revolution described opposition to the Obama agenda in the 2010 mid-terms in sweeping historical terms: “I believe this is the most serious conflict since the 1850’s.”

He cast Obama as a picking a fight with Americans, “the most radical American President has thrown down the gauntlet . . . .  He (Obama) has said I run the machine and there is nothing you can do about it.”

Gingrich says there is a simple three step solution to right the nation.

Gingrich says stage one is to simply win the fall mid term elections.

Stage two is refusing to fund any objectionable Obama programs in 2011 and 2012.

Stage three is “make sure that Obama joins Jimmy Carter as a one term president.”

In that context he asked republicans to commit that a republican president and congress will repeal every radical bill passed by the Obama administration.

Gingrich said republicans have rightly been the party of NO against bad policy but that republicans should also emphasize their good ideas.

Republicans, Gingrich proclaimed, should loudly say yes to: a balanced budget, more jobs through tax cuts, stopping medicare and medicaid fraud, better equipping soldiers, an American energy plan, and the right kind of health care reform.

After his prepared remarks the former college professor took questions and inevitable the White House question came up: “What are your personal plans for 2012?”

Without hesitation he postponed his answer and left the door wide open, “in 2011 (my wife) Calista and I will probably have to make a decision on whether or not to run.”

In the hallway before his speech, Newt said he would soon be visiting the lead off caucus and primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

If there is any doubt left that he is seriously testing the waters..later this year Gingrich also has a book coming out – an absolute must in the modern presidential campaign.

Just before Thursday evening’s tip off in Denver, we learned that Lakers guard Kobe Bryant would not play against the Nuggets.

He will officially be listed as out with “right knee swelling,” according to the Lakers’ PR staff.

Phil Jackson had suggested before the game that certain players might be rested at various points of the team’s final five games, but did not reveal that he’d keep Bryant on the shelf. Jackson did, however, suggest that he’d like to get Bryant some additional rest for his legs heading into the playoffs.

The Lakers essentially have the Western Conference locked up with a 4.5-game lead over both Denver and Dallas (basically need one win or one loss from DEN/DAL) and hold a 0.5-game lead over Orlando for the No. 2 overall seed behind Orlando.

Starting in Bryant’s place was Sasha Vujacic.

We were confused a few weeks ago when the USTR started promoting letters from lobbyists in support of ACTA. After all, of course the lobbyists want ACTA. They’re the ones who wrote much of it in the first place. In the meantime, thousands have been writing the USTR to express their concerns about ACTA… but the USTR doesn’t bother mentioning them at all. It’s as if the USTR is flat-out admitting that it’s controlled by the lobbyists.

So it should come as no surprise that the USTR is gleefully hyping up two more letters from lobbying groups in favor of ACTA. But why won’t it put forth the letters against ACTA or worried about the process? And, of course, as Jamie Love points out, isn’t it weird that these lobbyists are proudly supporting an agreement when, technically, they’re not even supposed to know what’s in the agreement?

What’s even stranger is that all of this comes on the same day that the USTR has released its plan on being more open. How about, for a start, you open up ACTA, stop hiding behind lobbyists, and allow for a real open discussion involving the real stakeholders? Or is that too much to ask? Well, included in the openness plan is the following:

During the building of this plan, recommendations centered around two issues: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations and all other trade-related meetings. There was a desire to make all advisory committee, negotiating, and policy development meetings, and texts available to the public in “real time.”

And yet, rather than any sort of real time release of information, we get the USTR still hiding the documents behind a bogus claim of “national security” and then showing off the fact that it’s in the pocket of lobbyists who aren’t even supposed to know what’s in the document.

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You’ve heard of a “life list” — the vacation spots you want to see before you die. This is a little different. These are top U.S. destinations you might want to see before they die. “They” being the destinations themselves. Each of these vacation ideas is located in a landscape that is threatened in some way by an environmental hazard.

While inclusion on this list isn’t an indication that these sites are in imminent danger of disappearing, the fact that this list seems plausible is a distinctly 21st-century phenomenon. After all, destinations are supposed to be permanent, even though our lives are not — that’s what makes the Wonders of the World so mysterious and attractive. It’s not just their beauty and scale, but their endurance.

This summer is the perfect time to take to the road and see one of these endangered U.S. destinations. You may have another chance, but your kids or their kids may not.

 

Paddling the Florida Everglades

Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States — a vast and slow-moving river channeled through tufts of dry land. It’s teeming with wildlife, from the abundant and ferocious (alligators and crocodiles) to the scarce and ferocious (the panther) and every creature on down the food chain. Paddling a canoe through the Everglades is a rare experience.

But, the Everglades face a Goldilocks-type question: Will there be too little water, too much … or just the right amount? Too little and the Everglades dry up. Too much and it gets swallowed by the sea. Either way, it won’t offer the same wilderness canoe experience it does today.

For more than a century, too little water has been the problem, as agriculture and suburban sprawl have eaten into the swamp, draining and diverting the natural water flow. With the water has gone 90% of some populations of wading birds.

Water levels are rising, thanks to a 35-year preservation plan. Ironically, though, global warming is expected to cause sea-levels to rise and potentially cover the low-lying land. The Everglades could be swallowed by the sea. Bottom line: Better not put off that once-in-a-lifetime trip to this one-of-a-kind destination. 

Photographing Glaciers in Glacier National Park (and elsewhere)

What would the Grand Canyon be without a canyon? Something like Glacier National Park would be without its glaciers. But by 2030, that’s exactly the landscape that might greet visitors. In fact, two more glaciers disappeared this year. 

Already, some of the most famous glaciers in the Montana park have shrunk by more than half, and only 17% of the glaciers found there in 1850 remain today (25 of 150).

Glaciers are things of beauty and awe: The imprint of time and the Earth’s physical processes represented in massive hulk of ice on the landscape. The loss of glaciers worldwide is one of the most visual signs of global warming. Sure, the melting of a glacier is still slow in human years, but the change in Glacier National Park is real, and any children born today should see the park before they hit 20 — because the glaciers might well be gone by then.

 

A scenic drive through Appalachia

A vast swath of Appalachia is vulnerable to the high altitude scarring and stream-choking waste disposal associated with mountaintop removal mines.

Scenic byways crisscross the region, from Pennsylvania, through its heart in West Virginia, to Georgia. Not all will remain so scenic, however, as the landscape is scoured to remove rich coal seams, the debris left to fill mountain stream valleys. The rafting, kayaking, trout fishing and hiking will suffer in some places, too.

Already, 470 mines have obliterated Appalachian peaks, according to iLoveMountains.org, and more are on the way. Get in the car now, and see this majestic, wild region while you still can.

 

Salmon fishing on the Snake River

From its origins in Yellowstone National Park, the 1,040-mile Snake River once produced half the wild Chinook salmon found in the mighty Columbia River. In fact, the upper Snake River has the most extensive freshwater salmon habitat in the lower 48 states.

The four dams on the lower Snake River, however, have so choked the once-prolific salmon runs that the group American Rivers named it one of the most endangered rivers in America. This spring, a federal judge said federal officials had to at least consider breaching dams to save salmon.

If the dams aren’t breached, or another solution found, some experts worry that the remaining salmon runs will go extinct, as several have already. The threat of global warming, which makes water warmer and less hospitable to salmon, and many other sensitive freshwater species, only adds urgency to the issue. It could be that a generation from now, 2 million Steelhead and Chinook salmon will spawn in the Snake River, as they once did — but it’s probably a good idea to do your fishing now, just in case.

 

Whatever it is that happens in Vegas

What could possibly happen to Vegas (that hasn’t already happened in Vegas)? This one might be a little overly apocalyptic for some, but step back for a minute and you’ll remember that Las Vegas is built smack in the middle of the desert.

It exists because the Colorado River has been dammed, diverted, and directed to flow into Lake Mead and other reservoirs, so that the dry Southwest can bloom beyond its natural limits.

But for how long? The flow of the Colorado River is already strained, the remnants of its abundant water flow disputed across the western U.S. Add a sprawling population, demanding drinking water and green lawns and farm-fresh produce, and the dwindling snowpack that feeds the river — thanks to global warming — and Las Vegas could face serious strains soon. Lake Mead, which supplies 90% of the city’s drinking water, could be dry by 2021 according to one study.

Vegas being what it is, the loss of water might not be a death knell. There is, after all, alcohol. Might be better to plan your visit before 2021 all the same.

More from The Daily Green

• 10 Must-See National Parks
• 5 Free (or Almost Free) Vacations
• 10 Unforgettable Ecotourism Destinations
• Amazing Wildlife Photos
• Stunning Photos of Antarctica

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter and Facebook.

Found under: HTC, Incredible, Verizon, Desire, Google, Nexus One,

One of the most important Android smartphones we are going to see this year is the HTC Incredible a CDMA device coming from Verizon really soon. In fact today we have discovered a brand new HTC Incredible manual which has been conveniently leaked by Verizon on the same day Apple hosted its iPhone OS 4.0 media event.The phone is expected to be unveiled on April 29 not that we have any official confirmation from Verizon on the matter. Now we know that the Incredible is basically the HT

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Filed under: Advice, Healthy Eating, How to Be Happy

In The Art of Overeating, psychologist Leslie Landis employs a humorous tone of reverse psychology to draw attention to some of the bad habits chronic overeaters develop. (For example: “Never share. OPPOSITE ADVICE: Always share. Whenever … Read more

 

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Found under: Palm, Lenovo, Apple, Nokia, Google, Pre, Pixi, ,

Its not clear yet who will save Palm but were more and more confident that a mergerbuyout is the solution the company is heading too. Lets face it Palm Pre fans Palm cant get out of this one alone and we definitely dont want to see it die anytime soon. So who is going to purchase it Nokia or Google Maybe AppleThe right answer at least for now seems to be Lenovo. We have no confirmation for now but it looks like Lenovo is basically interested in getting Palm and thus expand

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by Kevin Jon Heller

The Obama administration has been savagely criticized for authorizing the CIA to use lethal force against Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen who is allegedly a member of al-Qaeda in Yemen.  Glenn Greewald, for example, has described the decision — justifiably — as “unbelievably Orwellian and tyrannical.”  To this point, however, critics have ignored what I think is perhaps the most important point: An American who kills an American outside of the United States is guilty of murder.  Not political murder.  Not figurative murder.  Legal murder.

18 USC 1119:

(a) Definition.— In this section, “national of the United States” has the meaning stated in section 101(a)(22) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 (a)(22)).

(b) Offense.— A person who, being a national of the United States, kills or attempts to kill a national of the United States while such national is outside the United States but within the jurisdiction of another country shall be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113.

The foreign-murder statute has to be the starting point of any analysis of the Obama adminstration’s decision to authorize the CIA to kill al-Awlaki.  If the CIA does kill him — and even if it doesn’t; see below — any CIA operative involved in the killing who is American is presumptively a murderer.  The only questions would be (1) whether for some reason 18 USC 1119 would not apply, or (2) whether the CIA operative would have a plausible defense if he was charged with murder in federal court.

1. Does 18 USC 1119 Apply?

There are three possible arguments as to why the foreign-murder statute would not apply.  The first is that, if al-Awlaki were killed on the battlefield — i.e., during an armed conflict — US criminal law, including 18 USC 1119, would be displaced by international humanitarian law (IHL).  That might be the case, for example, if an American CIA operative killed al-Awlaki in Afghanistan, which qualifies as an international armed conflict.  Even in such a situation, however, IHL would displace US criminal law only insofar as the CIA operative qualifed as a lawful combatant.  If he qualified as a lawful combatant, he would possess a combatant’s privilege to kill.  But if he did not qualify as a lawful combatant, he would not be privileged to kill and killing al-Awlaki could be prosecuted in federal court under US criminal law — under 18 USC 1119 in particular.

Whether an American CIA operative would qualify as a lawful combatant in Afghanistan is a complex question.  I take it as a given that an operative who directly killed al-Awlaki, such as a CIA sniper, would not qualify as a lawful combatant.  I don’t know how many CIA field operatives who carry their arms openly and distinguish themselves from the civilian population.  The more difficult situation would be one in which a CIA operative killed al-Awlaki remotely, using a drone.  Personally, I don’t believe the issue of whether someone qualifies as a lawful combatant depends upon the weapon they use in combat. If the person who uses the weapon does not qualify as a lawful combatant, it should make no difference how high-tech his weapon is.  But I could be convinced otherwise.

This argument, of course, depends upon the assumption that al-Awlaki would be killed in the context of an international armed conflict.  If he was killed outside of an international conflict — in Yemen, for example — IHL would not apply and thus would not displace US criminal law.  Which leads us to the second possible explanation of why 18 USC 1119 does not apply: because Obama has authorized the CIA to kill al-Awlaki.  That explanation seems implicit in much of the media’s coverage of the Obama administration’s decision; I have yet to see any reporter ask why Obama believes he has the legal authority to order Americans killed, given that 18 USC 1119 specifically criminalizes such killings.  The argument, however, is deeply problematic — and eerily reminiscent of debates over the Bush administration’s authorization of torture. The Bush administration argued that Bush had the authority as Commander-in-Chief to ignore the federal torture statute, 18 USC 2340; the Obama administration seems to now be arguing, albeit implicitly, that Obama has the authority as Commander-in-Chief to ignore the foreign-murder statute.  As Glenn constantly and rightly points out, progressives can’t have it both ways: if Bush could ignore the torture statute, Obama can ignore the foreign-murder statute; if Bush could not, Obama cannot.

There is, finally, a third possible argument, one that was recently made by the Center for American Progress: namely, that the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) permits the CIA to kill al-Awlaki wherever he is found.  But that argument is no more convincing than the second argument: although Congress could repeal or amend 18 USC 1119, it cannot simply authorize the President to ignore the statute or authorize the CIA to violate it.  Again the torture analogy is apposite.  If the AUMF permits the President and the CIA to violate the foreign-murder statute, why did it not authorize the President and the CIA to violate the torture statute?  I don’t recall any progressive endorsing the latter argument, so why is a progressive organization like the Center for American progress endorsing the same argument now?

2. Would a CIA Operative Have a Defense?

The bottom line is that there is only one situation in which an American CIA operative who used lethal force against al-Awlaki would not violate 18 USC 1119 — on the battlefield while qualifying as a lawful combatant. (And note that Obama’s authorization means nothing in this situation; lawful battefield killings cannot be prosecuted under US criminal law regardless of whether they are “authorized.”  Combatant’s privilege is an inherent and essential part of IHL.)  In every other situation, the CIA operative would be guilty of murder under the foreign-murder statute.  The only question would be whether he would have a defense to that crime.

There are, I think, three possibilities: self-defense, necessity, and mistake of law.  In terms of the first, we need to be careful not to elide the difference between “self-defense” as a justification for the use of force and “self-defense” as a criminal defense.   The former might permit the US to violate the sovereignty of the state in which al-Awlaki was killed by the CIA, which would otherwise be an act of aggression in violation of the UN Charter.  But it would not provide a CIA operative with a defense to murder in a criminal prosecution, just as “self-defense” does not provide a CIA interrogator — contra Yoo’s notorious 14 March 2003 torture memo — with a defense to torture.

To be clear, that does not mean a CIA operative could not argue self-defense in a murder prosecution.  The defense would apply — but it would be governed by the normal requirements, most relevantly that the operative must have reasonably believed that lethal force was necessary to prevent the imminent use of deadly force.  The CIA operative would thus likely be entitled to the defense of self-defense only if he killed al-Awlaki to prevent an imminent attack by al-Qaeda; the defense would not justify the operative killing al-Awlaki at any other time.

For similar reasons, it is unlikely that the CIA operative who killed al-Awlaki would be entitled to argue that the killing was necessary. To begin with, the Supreme Court has said that it is “an open question whether federal courts ever have authority to recognize a necessity defense not provided by statute.”  US v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Coop, 532 U.S. 483, 490 (2001).  Moreover, even if they do, the necessity defense — like self-defense — requires a “clear and imminent danger,” which means that the CIA operative could only argue necessity if an attack by al-Qaeda was imminent.

Finally, it is possible that the CIA operative could argue mistake of law.  Federal courts recognize a mistake of law defense when a government official “misleads a party as to the state of the law and that party proceeds to act on the misrepresentation,” as long as the party’s reliance on the misrepresentation is reasonable.  United States v. Nichols, 21 F.3d 1016, 1018 (10th Cir. 1994).  The reasonableness requirement would be critical if a CIA operative argued in a murder prosection that he had relied on Obama’s misrepresentation that it was lawful for him use lethal force against al-Awlaki.  A jury may well buy that argument that his reliance was reasonable, but I do not think they should.  Given the plain language of 18 USC 1119 and the fact that none of the recent (post-1998) terrorism-based relaxations of Executive Order 12333 contemplated the assassination of US citizens, I do not think it is reasonable to believe that the President of the United States can order the execution of an American citizen abroad simply because he has unilaterally decided that the citizen is a terrorist.

Note also that those who authorized the CIA to kill al-Awlaki would be even less likely to have a legitimate mistake of law defense.  It is not simply criminal for an American to murder an American abroad.  It is equally criminal to solicit an American to murder an American abroad, to aid-and-abet an American to murder an American abroad, or to conspire with an American to murder an American abroad.  Obama and other high-ranking members of the administration involved in the decision to authorize al-Awlaki’s murder are thus potentially guilty of murder, as well.  Could Obama argue reasonable reliance on the OLC, which I presume has told him that he has legal right to authorize the CIA to kill al-Awlaki?  Perhaps, but I think the argument is much weaker for him than for the CIA operative who acts on Obama’s authorization.  And the OLC lawyers obviously could not rely on their own legal advice.

Finally, although I think it’s clear that a CIA operative who uses lethal force against al-Awlaki is guilty of legal murder, it is important to acknowledge that there is — at least now — an insuperable procedural hurdle to prosecuting that operative under the foreign-murder statute.  Here is 18 USC 1119(c)(1):

No prosecution may be instituted against any person under this section except upon the written approval of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, or an Assistant Attorney General, which function of approving prosecutions may not be delegated. No prosecution shall be approved if prosecution has been previously undertaken by a foreign country for the same conduct.

The Obama administration would never authorize the prosecution of a CIA operative who murdered al-Awlaki, much less one of its own lawyers or officials.  But who knows what the future will hold?  There is no statute of limitations for murder, so perhaps one day a genuine progressive will be elected President, someone who takes seriously the need to hold government officials accountable for their crimes — even those committed in the name of “fighting terrorism.”  In the interim, we need to constantly remind people that the criminal law is not optional, not something that can be cast aside every time the government decides it is too limiting.  And the best way to do that is to call the (potential) killing of al-Awlaki what it is — murder.

Filed under: Advice, Happiness, Fit Yoga

Even though I’m a yoga teacher, I still find it’s easy to fall prey to negative thinking. Having negative thoughts play out like a movie can only bring you upset, something that I’ve experienced many times throughout my life.

Negative thoughts … Read more

 

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Filed under: Advice, Health, Healthy Eating, How I Stay Fit

Psychologist Dr. Susan Albers, author of Eating Mindfully and 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food, has been advising patients to stop eating to bury their emotions and instead develop healthy, deliberate habits. Here, she explains how she stays … Read more

 

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Found under: HTC EVO 4G, WiMAX, 4G, Hotspot, ,

We have all seen the HTC EVO 4G arrive at CTIA 2010 and surprise everyone with its hot specs and features. But what neither Sprint nor HTC mentioned was the release date and pricing details for this WiMAX-enabled smartphone.Recent rumors suggest that the device is coming at some point in early June 2010. Some sources say June 6 is the official launch date while other point to a June 13 release. We dont have pricing details just yet but we did hear some troubling news regarding future

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Using a Ferrari F430, Turkish pop-singer Metin Senturk became the world’s fastest unaccompanied blind driver hitting a top speed of 182 mph. Senturk broke the previous record of 176 mph held by a British banker.

Senturk, who has been blind since the age of 3, wept tears of happiness as he came out of the F430 at Urfa airport in eastern Turkey to learn from Guinness World Records officials that he broke the record.

“I don’t think there are any words to describe this feeling. I am really happy. It was really hard, like a dance with death,” said Senturk.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Reuters

The disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine in Coalmont, West Virginia has justifiably brought a lot of attention to the issue of worker safety and the need for strong regulation to protect America’s workers. But as Chris Bowers points out, this is the kind of story you can write every day in America. Worker safety didn’t become a problem because of one mine explosion in West Virginia. Indeed, 16 American workers die every single day, on average, at the workplace, and the federal agencies tasked with making sure that doesn’t happen need more resources and more tools to combat such tragedies.

Why, just days before the Massey Energy mine accident, another energy plant saw a deadly workplace disaster:

The death toll from Friday’s fire at Tesoro’s Anacortes refinery in Washington state grew to five, according to news reports.

Three refinery workers were earlier reported to have died following the fire, and a fourth and fifth died of their injuries after being taken to a hospital in Seattle, according to news media reports.

Two other injured workers remained in critical condition at the Seattle hospital.

Sources indicated to Reuters that the fire was caused by a failed heat exchanger, which alternately heats and cools hydrocarbons at the plant. Workers were replacing a separate heat exchanger when this one failed, causing an explosion.

The Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency which oversees refineries like this, was already investigating a flash fire at a separate Tesoro refinery in Utah from last October, as well as multiple other fires across the country. A similar blast killed 15 workers at a BP refinery in Texas in 2005. This is becoming an epidemic.

CSB (Chemical Safety Board) Chairman and CEO John Bresland said, “The CSB has 18 ongoing investigations. Of those, seven of these accidents occurred at refineries across the country. This is a significant and disturbing trend that the refining industry needs to address immediately.”

And yet, the Chemical Safety Board cannot issue citations or fines, only safety recommendations. They can request that a refinery shut down because of safety concerns, but they cannot mandate it.

This is just an example of where government lacks the tools and resources necessary to keep American workers safe at their jobs. There are worker’s memorials all over the country which are a living reminder that we have not succeeded in creating safe and secure workplaces. Every April, Worker’s Memorial Day serves to deliver that reminder.

That’s where the Protecting America’s Workers Act (PAWA) comes in. The Obama Administration under the leadership of Hilda Solis is actually doing a great job of restoring the gutted agencies under the Labor Department’s purview, which have been ravaged by 30 years of deregulation and industry capture. But the regulations themselves need to be beefed up, in addition to having better regulators and better tactics. David Michaels and Jordan Barab are leading the Occupational Health and Safety Administration into a new era. They actually slapped the largest fine in history on BP for their failure to fix safety violations even AFTER their 2005 refinery explosion. OSHA is reconfiguring their inspections to target severe violators.

All of this is good. But now they need to be given the ability to succeed. PAWA would do that, by extending OSHA coverage to 8 million more workers, by updating civil and criminal penalties for violations, and by providing an effective deterrent to employers to maintain unsafe workplaces.

We need to eliminate the kinds of headlines we see in West Virginia or Washington or Texas. We need employers to live up to their responsibilities. We need to protect America’s workers.

I’m a blogger fellow with Brave New Films on their 16 Deaths Per Day campaign for worker safety. Join us on Facebook.

 

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