Usa Thread

[Flashermac]

I did. I still say they are dirt poor in that photo. They may have been wiped out by the war, but even so ... that house is something. I've seen photos of my gg grandfather's house, a simple but comfortable two-story home of the usual pattern, two rooms downstairs and two upstairs, stairwell in the middle .. separate kitchen (to prevent burning down the house).

 

The Shields' home is a dog-trot log cabin with clapboard over the logs. They no doubt had more money before the war, and old grandpa is the only man with decent clothes. Nobody has a tie. The home looks more like a sharecropper's cabin. Their money was gone.

 

 

 

 

[Bangkoktraveler]

A fair portion of SB1070 got shot down.

[Bangkoktraveler]

Looks like things running political party lines....

 

Colorado is burning under their Democrate Govenor

while Florida is drowning under their Republican Govenor.

[Bangkoktraveler]

Will Zimmerman get bail?

[kamui]

Looks like things running political party lines....

 

Colorado is burning under their Democrate Govenor

while Florida is drowning under their Republican Govenor.

 

This has nothing to do with climate change of course, neither do the upcoming water wars in the south of the USA...

[dean]

We will know in the next10-11 hours how the SC rules on Obamacare. I'm hoping for the best but expect the decision to go 5-4, either way. It should be interesting if just the individual mandate is thrown out, as there are ways to get around that. I really can't see the whole law thrown out.

[Flashermac]

I saw an interesting commentary that said no one really knows what to expect. The distinction between liberal and conservative judges was not holding true on the Court's most recent decisions. Some judges were actually ruling according to the Constitution, regardless of their own feelings!

 

 

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

Americans favor Obama to defend against space aliens: poll

 

 

Nearly two in three Americans think President Barack Obama is better suited than Republican rival Mitt Romney to deal with an alien invasion, according to a survey released Wednesday.

 

National Geographic Channel contacted 1,114 adults across the United States last month for its fanciful opinion poll ahead of its new cable television documentary series "Chasing UFOs."

 

Thirty-six percent of respondents said they were certain that unidentified flying objects exist. Eleven percent were confident they had spotted a UFO, and 20 percent said they knew someone who claimed to have seen one.

 

With Obama facing re-election in November, 65 percent said Obama would be more adept than Romney to respond to an alien invasion, with women and younger Americans more likely than men and over-65s to agree with that prospect.

 

National Geographic Channel said the results of the email and online "Aliens Among Us" survey dovetailed with the research underpinning "Chasing UFOs" which premieres Friday with Texas and Colorado residents describing their encounters with mysterious flying objects.

 

The poll had a margin of error of 2.9 percent.

 

Obama's secret victory plan ...

[Steve]

The law as it is has been so watered down I don't expect much change in how to dispense health care in this country. The industry powers still have the power.

 

There is all this talk about Bain and Obama has been running ads non stop. I don't hold Romney accountable for any work he did there that resulted in companies moving operations overseas. Its what he's paid to do. He wasn't there to save American jobs but to make money.

 

He wasn't breaking any laws and if his deals made him rich, then I would consider it more of an endorsement than a negative.

 

Both sides do it, but I'm tired of the BS that don't matter. The problem is it works. It works on the masses.

 

One of the millions of reasons I'd never consider Trump is because he's bankrupted a few of his companies and his ego. I can't see him checking that ego. Also, he's been a rich spoiled kid for a while. Nothing wrong with coming from money but his mannerism doesn't say "I feel your pain". JFK and RFK grew up wealthy but had the common touch to seem to empathize with common folks.

 

This election has become like the others. Tit for tag, name calling and nothing of substance being discussed.

[Flashermac]

Texas university hacks government drone

 

 

There are a lot of cool things you can do with $1,000, but scientists at an Austin, Texas uniersity have come across one that is often overlooked: for less than a grand, how’d you like to hijack a US government drone?

 

A group of researchers led by Professor Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas at Austin Radionavigation Laboratory recently succeeded in raising the eyebrows of the US government. With just around $1,000 in parts, Humphreys’ team took control of an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the US Department of Homeland Security.

 

After being challenged by his lab, the DHS dared Humphreys’ crew to hack into their drone and take command. Much to their chagrin, they did exactly that.

 

Humphrey tells Fox News that for a few hundreds dollar his team was able to “spoof†the GPS system on board the DHS drone, a technique that involves mimicking the actual signals sent to the global positioning device and then eventually tricking the target into following a new set of commands. And, for just $1,000, Humphreys says the spoofer his team assembled was the most advanced one ever built.

 

“Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV is just another way of hijacking a plane,†Humphreys tells Fox. The real danger here, however, is that the government is currently considering plans that will allow local law enforcement agencies and other organizations from coast-to-coast to control drones of their own in America’s airspace.

 

“In five or ten years you have 30,000 drones in the airspace,†he tells Fox News. “Each one of these could be a potential missile used against us.â€

 

Domestic drones are already being used by the DHS and other governmental agencies, and several small-time law enforcement groups have accumulated UAVs of their own as they await clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration. Indeed, by 2020 there expects to betens of thousands of drones diving and dipping through US airspace. With that futuristic reality only a few years away, Humphreys’ experiment suggests that the FAA may have their work cut out for them if they think it’s as easy as just approving domestic use anytime soon. After all, reports Newser, domestic drones are likely to use the same unencrypted GPS signals provided to civilians, allowing seemingly anyone with $1,000 and the right research to hack into the system and harness a UAV for their own personal use.

 

“What if you could take down one of these drones delivering FedEx packages and use that as your missile?†Humphreys asks. “That’s the same mentality the 9-11 attackers had.â€

 

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