Jihad Report Oct 08, 2016 -Oct 14, 2016Attacks 62Killed 326Injured 543Suicide Blasts 11Countries 17

Business Bankruptcies up 38%

Bankruptcy filings by U.S. businesses soared 38 percent in September from a year earlier in an ominous sign of a weakening economy, says Wolf Richter, editor of the Wolf Street blog.

Last month’s bankruptcies reached 3,072 to bring the year-to-date total to 28,789 and marked the eleventh straight month of increases from 2015, according to data from the American Bankruptcy Institute.

“Rising bankruptcies are an indicator that the ‘credit cycle’ has ended,” Richter says in a commentary about the limits of the Federal Reserve’s ability to help an economic recovery. “The Fed’s policy of easy credit has encouraged businesses to borrow – those that could. But by now, this six-year debt binge has created an ominous debt overhang that is suffocating these businesses as they find themselves, against all promises, mired in an economy that’s nothing like the escape-velocity hype that had emanated from Wall Street, the Fed and the government.”

The financial crisis of 2008, when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for the biggest bankruptcy of all time, triggered the worst recession in 80 years and a major jump in bankruptcy filings. Bankruptcies peaked at 9,004 in March 2010 and proceeded to fall until November 2015, Richter says.

“Nine restaurant companies representing 14 chains have filed for bankruptcy since December: Garden Fresh Restaurant, Restaurants Acquisitions, Cosi, Logan’s Roadhouse, Fox & Hound, Champps, Bailey’s, Old Country Buffet, HomeTown Buffet, Ryan’s, Johnny Carino’s, Quaker Steak & Lube, and Zio’s Italian Kitchen,” Richter says.

Trump vs the Globalist RegimeAmerica did not suddenly wake up and find out she had terminal cancer. She was a strong and growing, vibrant experiment in democracy when her constitution was not quite 150 years old. The nation was so strong and getting stronger that it looked like the founding fathers had established the perfect growth engine with a government that served at the behest of the people. They weren’t so much governed as they were managed.

This was acceptable to the American people. We liked it. But it was not acceptable to a much larger, much older, much darker power that had dominated the world for thousands of years. This power had been here for millennia, establishing religions, teaching men how to hate and how to kill, and dedicated to the proposition that this world belonged to them, and so did the human souls upon it.

For thousands of years, they kept mankind at war. Tyrants, lords, gods, and deviant magicians controlled the world by using powers they had learned in secret combinations and oaths of darkness. But the founding fathers knew these dark beings and would not comply. They escaped to a frontier and established a new land based on ancient principles of freedom and liberty. Then, in 1929, they collapsed its money supply and plunged its cities into poverty. They plagued it with disease and war and more poverty. They planted deep in its government management agencies, departments, bureaus and administrations that grew like a cancer, feeding off the wealth of the people, and making dark and nefarious oaths with the ancient powers of subjugation and slavery. Now, it has been 83 years since the first tentacle of greed and lust for power was thrust into the bowels of government. It has grown and metastasized to replace the Republic. And now, at last we have a chance to set it back on its heels. It has come out of the hole in our national soul and claimed to be lord over the whole earth. It has commanded us to bow down and worship it, just like it always does.. And it looks like the more part of the nation is ready to do just that.

Why did we not know before this time. How could it have reached this point without being plucked out and burned in the light? What men could have stood up and told us what was coming? Well, America, they did. They did tell us. They shouted it loud and clear. They named the disease and they told us the cure, but we would not have any of it.

PLAY ROBERT WELCHIN SPEECH

Only a Sweet Olive Tree In Summer

By James Gary McGregor

In the summer of ‘43and every summer before,a sweet olive treeblossomed in our garden.Soft bouquet waftingthrough the houselike the collective perfumeof a dozen Southern belles.

Radios played the laughsof Fibber McGee and Molly,Amos and Andy, the sombernews of war in between.

Ten miles south of townin the piney woods

men rehearsed to kill other menand upholstered our streetswith uniforms on weekends.

We weeded “Victory” gardenslike patriotic puppets,tore stamps from ration booksfor meat and gasolinewhile Europe’s cities burned,her people scattered in the ashes

Small flags were hungin windows by wives and mothers,a star for each son or fatherwho went to war,a telegram their greatest fear.

Is it so unreasonablethat my best memoryof those grievous yearsis only a sweet olive tree in summer.

The Real October Surprise: War

I would like to be talking about the swelling revolution that is occurring around us in the United States to take back the Republic from the death grip of the Clinton Crime Syndicate. I would like to be talking about the grassroots effort we began in 2012 with the writing of Alienated Nation to convince 38 States to conduct a Convention of the States to amend the Constitution. It was a brilliant movement to address three areas of disease that have gone untreated in our country for more than 80 years. But about two years ago, I started noticing some of the Cold War antics we pulled when the Soviet Union was the biggest threat to the world. They were truly a threat. They were aggressive and on the offense in so many places in the world with an intent to conquer the whole of it. The free nations of the world outlasted them. We broke them by making them chase wild animals all over Earth and space and sea.

When that wall came down, and those Soviet States began the race for free markets, I thought the Cold War was over. I actually thought I might now grow old, and my kids would grow old with some semblance of world peace. But, I think we learned another dangerous lesson. Peace doesn’t earn as much money for the bankers as war.

So the bankers created ISIS. Yes, Hillary and Obama funded them, armed them, gave them tens of thousands of new trucks, rifles, canons, and so much intelligence and marketing help that they didn’t even need an Air Force or a Navy to put 33 countries into flames and too scared to go to the mall. This little high-tech army is constantly testing the perimeter with glitches here and there. The stock market. The airlines. The power grid. The phone systems. The banking systems. And now, they think they are ready.

Well, much to their chagrin, some truth warriors revealed the truth. Our Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Julian Assange, was able to find the secret communications of the Clinton Crime Syndicate by following some of her generals and lieutenants. They made these communications public. You would think that public disclosure of their dark and twisted criminal activities would topple their empire. After all, they are allergic to the light. But no. This is not how they reacted. Instead, White House Correspondent Alexis Simendinger stated that Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “is making herself a victim of Russian interference, and kind of sidestepping around what she did as a political candidate” in her response to the Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks. Their ridiculous claim is that all of these emails are forgeries and fictitious creations of the Russians. But just to make sure Donald Trump does not win, or that the election does not demonstrate whether the polls are wrong or not, Obummer has an October surprise that may haunt us and our children for many many Octobers.

The Obooboo administration is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News. And when I say alleged, I mean it in the loosest sense possible. Julian Assange has been publishing the Democrat Party’s crimes. He didn’t commit them. He didn’t do anything, except what our own press should have been doing. He pulled up the curtain and let the world see the Democrats for who they are. They are cheaters. They are liars. They take bribes and sell influence. They sell fat business contracts to their friends, so that they can donate more to their campaigns.

They hire actors and actresses to play the role of victims, jilted whores, and even contractors who never got paid by Republican businessmen. They hire hitmen to assassinate their political enemies. They kill young campaign workers who know too much. They kill lawyers who file lawsuits against them. They kill news reporters who go after them. And if they can’t kill them, they send the IRS to attack them, or the EPA, or they get swatted by the military police. They sue them for years, and then suddenly drop the charges before their victim conducts discovery on them. They facilitate, fund and command terrorist acts, leak salacious sex tapes, and even illegally publish their opponent’s private tax records in a major newspaper to defeat their enemies. Did I mention that they are liars?

Now, the Administration is in trouble of having Obama’s entire legacy thrown in the trash, where it belongs. He doesn’t want that. So he needs an October surprise, he needs one that will work. After all, nothing else has stopped millions of people showing up to Trump rallies and totally dominating the cyber world with support for him. No. This October surprise was announced yesterday. Get ready for war. Real war? Well, Obama thinks he can keep this war on the screen of Strike Force. To him it is a video game that will distract the press from the American revolution swelling behind Trump to turn over the money changer’s tables in Washington.

Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging "clandestine" cyber operation designed to harass and "embarrass" the Kremlin leadership. Yeah. It’s clandestine. That means the government announces it “secretly” to the general public so they can be afraid of electing Trump.

The official sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an operation. Former intelligence officers told NBC News that the agency had gathered reams of documents that could expose unsavory tactics by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The folks down at Wars R Us are licking their cyber chops over this one. Virtual men and virtual tanks, and virtual, bombers, and virtual submarines are going to attack Russia.

Vice President Joe Biden told "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd on Friday that "we're sending a message" to Putin and that "it will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact."

When asked if the American public will know a message was sent, the vice president replied, "Hope not." As though to say, “Chuck, this is just between you and me, off the record. Right? But this monologue tonight on X-Squared Radio proves that that we the people do know. And they are telling the story every day at work, at church, at the soccer fields, and in school. Everyone knows, Obummer. Everyone in the world knows what you are doing, because you like to be on the stage twirling your cyber baton while you dance and sing on your virtual throne.

Retired Admiral James Stavridis told NBC News' Cynthia McFadden that the U.S. should attack Russia's ability to censor its internal internet traffic and expose the financial dealings of Putin and his associates.

"Probe with bayonets. When you hit mush, proceed. When you hit steel withdraw." That’s a quote, Earth explorers. What happens to the soul of the man behind that bayonet? The same thing that happens to the heart of the man in front of it.

"It's well known that there's great deal of offshore money moved outside of Russia from oligarchs," he said. "It would be very embarrassing if that was revealed, and that would be a proportional response to what we've seen" in Russia's alleged hacks and leaks targeting U.S. public opinion. But what about the thousands of American Oligarchs who have moved trillions outside the American economy? What about the insider trading that made 535 millionaires out of our Congress and Senate? What about a president who enters the Oval office unable to own a car, with a revoked law license, a subsidized college degree, and no assets to speak of, but less than 7 years later his net worth is over $20 million, and he has a $1 billion foundation to pay for his every need for the rest of his life? Do you not think that these records become fair game as well?

"If you publicly accuse someone," he said, "and don't follow it up with a responsive action, that may weaken the credible threat of your response capability." Response capability? This is Cold War talk. Oh, sure we can survive a direct hit from an ICBM. No, we cannot.

President Obama will ultimately have to decide whether he will authorize a CIA operation. Officials told NBC News that for now there are divisions at the top of the administration about whether to proceed. It all depends on whether it looks like Trump will win or not. If Trump wins, the Obama legacy will be scrubbed from the driveway like a pet that has been run over. No one will remember it in 6 months. They will be ready to go to work. The people are tired of

Obummer’s cyber presidency, where the stock market sets records every day, and the unemployment numbers are great, and the auto industry is back. America is about to be awakened from the dream of hope and change, and they are not going to like where they have been moved in their sleep.

Two former CIA officers who worked on Russia told NBC News that there is a long history of the White House asking the CIA to come up with options for covert action against Russia, including cyber options — only to abandon the idea.

"We've always hesitated to use a lot of stuff we've had, but that's a political decision," one former officer said. "If someone has decided, `We've had enough of the Russians,' there is a lot we can do. Step one is to remind them that two can play at this game and we have a lot of stuff. Step two, if you are looking to mess with their networks, we can do that, but then the issue becomes, they can do worse things to us in other places."

A second former officer, who helped run intelligence operations against Russia, said he was asked several times in recent years to work on covert action plans, but "none of the options were particularly good, nor did we think that any of them would be particularly effective," he said.

Putin is almost beyond embarrassing, he said, and anything the U.S. can do against, for example, Russian bank accounts, the Russians can do in response.

"Do you want to have Barack Obama bouncing checks?" he asked, suggesting that the Russians could somehow rob the federal bank account. Hello? It already has been robbed, you dumbass.

Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell expressed skepticism that the U.S. would go so far as to attack Russian networks.

"Physical attacks on networks is not something the U.S. wants to do because we don't want to set a precedent for other countries to do it as well, including against us," he said. "My own view is that our response shouldn't be covert -- it should be overt, for everybody to see." I quoted Mr. Morell, because I wanted you to see just how ignorant and childish these grown men have become.

The Obama administration is debating just that question, officials say — whether to respond to Russia via cyber means, or with traditional measures such as sanctions. One of the reasons that they hesitate, is because the attacks from Russia never took place. They just told the American press that they took place. It is actually our own banks, the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the World Bank, that have been testing the perimeter. Russia has zero to gain from such activity. Nothing.

The CIA's cyber operation is being prepared by a team within the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence, documents indicate. According to officials, the team has a staff of hundreds and a budget in the hundreds of millions, they say. My opinion is pretty strong when I say that they spent $1 billion and created Obamacare’s virtual health care plan. It crashed if more than 50 people signed in. Yeah, I am really afraid. If they had a half dozen teenagers with alienware laptops, then I would be afraid.

The covert action plan is designed to protect the U.S. election system and insure that Russian hackers can't interfere with the November vote, officials say. Another goal is to send a message to Russia that it has crossed a line, officials say. What a bunch of crap. What line? It doesn’t exist, you dweeb. Just unplug your hard drive. Hello? Those little ones and zeroes can’t jump even one inch through thin air.

While the National Security Agency is the center for American digital spying, the CIA is the lead agency for covert action and has its own cyber capabilities. It sometimes brings in the NSA and the Pentagon to help, officials say. After all, it is clear that spying has gone too far when the criminal activities of the Democrats becomes public knowledge.

In earlier days, the CIA was behind efforts to use the internet to put pressure on Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in 1999, and to pressure Iraqi leadership in 2003 to split off from Saddam Hussein. He not only weathered the cyber-attack, he also weathered the best America could throw at him for 90 days. And then, he had a parade with his shiny troops and tanks and jeeps and canons and missile launchers all intact. He proved to the world just how weak and ineffective the US was on national TV. Then, he was arrested and taken to the Hague where he was tried. I watched the trial, and he was absolutely brilliant. He gave medals to the men who shot down an F-117 stealth bomber. He proudly stated his defense of his country against Muslim invaders. He built a fence, a wall, and kept them out. The Muslims sat there, outside that fence, and starved. Someone took a picture. And if you will recall, although I doubt that she will, it was First Lady Hillary Clinton that demanded we go to war with Serbia to “free the Muslims” held in captivity. What captivity? They were outside the fence. Well, Hillary spun it to claim they were inside the fence. Why? Because her serial rapist husband was being impeached, and she wanted the little blue dress to disappear off the headlines, and she needed it fast. She called up the folks down as Wars R Us, and ordered up a war.

According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the CIA requested $685.4 million for computer network operations in 2013, compared to $1 billion by the NSA.

Retired Gen. Mike Hayden, who ran the CIA after leading the NSA, wrote this year: "We even had our own cyber force, the Information Operations Center (IOC), that former CIA director George Tenet launched and which had grown steadily under the next spy chief, Porter Goss, and me. The CIA didn't try to replicate or try to compete with NSA… the IOC was a lot like Marine Corps aviation while NSA was an awful lot like America's Air Force." The sad part was, they were all players in the same video game. Get it? It is a very expensive, very expensive video game. It isn’t real. By the way. Do you know where these supposed cyber warriors are sitting on the other side? You guessed it. Serbia.

By the way, where will NATO tell the people to go when Wars R Us comes to bomb the terrorists? Podgorica? The Kosovo War was one of the two times that NATO bombed the safe building in Podgoric after telling the people on the radio to gather to a safe place. That safe place they were to gather was the very place that was bombed. The first time it was during WW2. It looks like Obummer is about to hit steel. Russian television has been airing state-sponsored infomercials encouraging civilians on how to prepare for an attack amid heightened tension between Moscow and the West.

In addition, state-controlled news operations have carried reports urging residents to locate nearest bomb shelters and identifying which government agencies would be in command should war occur, The Sunday Express reports.

Moscow continues to face increasing criticism from the West for its involvement in the Syrian civil war, including condemnation for the bombings in rebel-held eastern Aleppo.President Vladimir Putin has pulled warships from a dozen ports and assembled a naval armada and it is sailing to the English Channel as we speak to join other forces in support of the Syrian effort, according to news reports.

The move has put the British Royal Navy on high alert.

Putin also this week canceled a state visit to France, accusing President Francois Hollande of trying to humiliate him. The Russian president last week transferred nuclear-capable Iskander ballistic missiles into one of its strategic Baltic regions. Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz told the Express that Poland considered the move of "highest concern" and was monitoring the situation. Listen up, planet Earth. Obummer is bringing the entire world to the precipice of global war all to keep Trump from undoing his corrupt government and letting the massively powerful Clinton Crime Syndicate from seizing control of the richest, most powerful and free nation in world history. If the people fail to stop him, the very race of mankind is lost. Early voting starts on Tuesday. I implore you, Americans, form a line of support for liberty and freedom that does not end until the polls close on November 8th. Your life depends on it.

The Quantum Internet

Quantum physics is a field that appears to give scientists superpowers. Those who understand the world of extremely small or cold particles can perform amazing feats with them -- including teleportation -- that appear to bend reality.

The science behind these feats is complicated, and until recently, didn't exist outside of lab settings. But that's changing: researchers have begun to implement quantum teleportation in real-world contexts. Being able to do so just might revolutionize modern phone and Internet communications, leading to highly secure, encrypted messaging.

A paper published in Nature Photonics and co-authored by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, details the first experiments with quantum teleportation in a metropolitan fiber cable network. For the first time, the phenomenon has been witnessed over long distances in actual city infrastructure. In Canada, University of Calgary researchers teleported the quantum state of a photon more than 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) in "dark" (unused) cables under the city of Calgary. That's a new record for the longest distance of quantum teleportation in an actual metropolitan network.

While longer distances had been recorded in the past, those were conducted in lab settings, where photons were fired through spools of cable to simulate the loss of signal caused by long

distances. This latest series of experiments in Calgary tested quantum teleportation in actual infrastructure, representing a major step forward for the technology.

"Demonstrating quantum effects such as teleportation outside of a lab environment involves a whole new set of challenges. This experiment shows how these challenges can all be overcome and hence it marks an important milestone towards the future quantum Internet," said Francesco Marsili, one of the JPL co-authors. "Quantum communication unlocks some of the unique properties of quantum mechanics to, for example, exchange information with ultimate security or link together quantum computers."

Photon sensors for the experiment were developed by Marsili and Matt Shaw of JPL's Microdevices Laboratory, along with colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado. Their expertise was critical to the experiments: quantum networking is done with photons, and requires some of the most sensitive sensors in the world in order to know exactly what's happening to the particle.

"The superconducting detector platform, which has been pioneered by JPL and NIST researchers, makes it possible to detect single photons at telecommunications wavelengths with nearly perfect efficiency and almost no noise. This was simply not possible with earlier detector types, and so experiments such as ours, using existing fiber-infrastructure, would have been close to impossible without JPL's detectors," said Daniel Oblak of the University of Calgary's Institute for Quantum Science and Technology.

Safer emails using quantum physics

Shrink down to the level of a photon, and physics starts to play by bizarre rules. Scientists who understand those rules can "entangle" two particles so that their properties are linked. Entanglement is a mind-boggling concept in which particles with different characteristics, or states, can be bound together across space. That means whatever affects one particle's state will affect the other, even if they're located miles apart from one another.

This is where teleportation comes in. Imagine you have two entangled particles -- let's call them Photon 1 and Photon 2 -- and Photon 2 is sent to a distant location. There, it meets with Photon 3, and the two interact with each other. Photon 3's state can be transferred to Photon 2, and automatically "teleported" to the entangled twin, Photon 1. This disembodied transfer happens despite the fact that Photons 1 and 3 never interact.

This property can be used to securely exchange secret messages. If two people share an entangled pair of photons, quantum information can be transmitted in a disembodied fashion, leaving an eavesdropper with nothing to intercept and so unable to read the secret message.

Teleportation Means Going the Distance

This system of highly secure communications is being tested in a number of fields, Marsili said, including financial industries and agencies like NASA that want to protect their space data signals. The superconducting single photon detectors developed by Marsili, Shaw and their NIST

colleagues are a key tool in doing this, because sending photons over long distances will inevitably lead to "loss" of the signal. Even when using a laser in space, light diffuses over distance, weakening the power of the signal being transmitted.

The next step is building repeaters that can further teleport the state of a photon from one location to the next. Just as repeaters are used to carry other telecommunication signals across long distances, they could be used to teleport entangled photons. Super-sensitive photon detectors would allow repeaters to send entangled photons across the country. For space-related communications, repeaters wouldn't even be necessary; photons could eventually be fired into space using lasers, and photon states could be teleported from Earth.

No repeaters were used in the Calgary experiments, which were mainly meant to establish how quantum teleportation can be performed outside the lab. Researchers used the city's dark fiber -- a single optical cable with no electronics or network equipment flowing through them.

"By using advanced superconducting detectors, we can use individual photons to efficiently communicate both classical and quantum information from space to the ground," Shaw said. "We are planning to use more advanced versions of these detectors for demonstrations of optical communication from deep space and of quantum teleportation from the International Space Station."

The Battery: Space Exploration and AI Robotics

No extension cord is long enough to reach another planet, and there's no spacecraft charging station along the way. That's why researchers are hard at work on ways to make spacecraft power systems more efficient, resilient and long-lasting.

"NASA needs reliable long-term power systems to advance exploration of the solar system," said Jean-Pierre Fleurial, supervisor for the thermal energy conversion research and advancement group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "This is particularly important for the outer planets, where the intensity of sunlight is only a few percent as strong as it is in Earth orbit."

A cutting-edge development in spacecraft power systems is a class of materials with an unfamiliar name: skutterudites (skut-ta-RU-dites). Researchers are studying the use of these advanced materials in a proposed next-generation power system called an eMMRTG, which stands for Enhanced Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator.

What is an RTG?

Radioactive substances naturally generate heat as they spontaneously transform into other elements. Radioisotope power systems make use of this heat as fuel to produce useful electricity for use in a spacecraft. The radioisotope power systems on NASA spacecraft today harness heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium-238 oxide.

The United States first launched a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) into space on a satellite in 1961. RTGs have powered NASA's twin Voyager probes since their launch in 1977; more than 10 billion miles (16 billion kilometers) away, the Voyagers are the most distant spacecraft from Earth and are still going. RTGs have enabled many other missions that have sent back a wealth of science results, including NASA's Mars Curiosity rover and the New Horizons mission, which flew by Pluto in 2015.

The new eMMRTG would provide 25 percent more power than Curiosity's generator at the start of a mission, according to current analyses. Additionally, since skutterudites naturally degrade more slowly that the current materials in the MMRTG, a spacecraft outfitted with an eMMRTG would have at least 50 percent more power at the end of a 17-year design life than it does today.

"Having a more efficient thermoelectric system means we'd need to use less plutonium. We could go farther, for longer and do more," Bux said.

What are skutterudites?

The defining new ingredients in the proposed eMMRTG are materials called skutterudites, which have unique properties that make them especially useful for power systems. These materials conduct electricity like metal, but heat up like glass, and can generate sizable electrical voltages.

Materials with all of these characteristics are hard to come by. A copper pot, for example, is an excellent conductor of electricity, but gets very hot quickly. Glass, on the other hand, insulates against heat well, but it can't conduct electricity. Neither of these properties are appropriate in a thermoelectric material, which converts heat into electricity.

"We needed to design high temperature compounds with the best mix of electrical and heat transfer properties," said Sabah Bux, a technologist at JPL who works on thermoelectric materials. "Skutterudites, with their complex structures composed of heavy atoms like antimony, allow us to do that."

Antimony has two stable isotopes: 121Sb with a natural abundance of 57.36% and 123Sb with a natural abundance of 42.64%. It also has 35 radioisotopes, of which the longest-lived is 125Sb with a half-life of 2.75 years. In addition, 29 metastable states have been characterized. The most stable of these is 120m1Sb with a half-life of 5.76 days. Isotopes that are lighter than the stable 123Sb tend to decay by β + decay , and those that are heavier tend to decay by β − decay , with some exceptions.

It was discovered in 3,000 b.c. in China and was used as a igniter for explosives. Four allotropes of antimony are known: a stable metallic form and three metastable forms (explosive, black and yellow). Elemental antimony is a brittle, silver-white shiny metalloid. When slowly cooled, molten antimony crystallizes in a trigonal cell, isomorphic with the gray allotrope of arsenic. A rare explosive form of antimony can be formed from the electrolysis of antimony trichloride. When scratched with a sharp implement, an exothermic reaction occurs and white fumes are given off as metallic antimony forms; when rubbed with a pestle in a mortar, a strong detonation occurs. Black antimony is formed upon rapid cooling of antimony vapor. It has the same crystal

structure as red phosphorus and black arsenic, it oxidizes in air and may ignite spontaneously. At 100 °C, it gradually transforms into the stable form. The yellow allotrope of antimony is the most unstable. It has only been generated by oxidation of stibine (SbH3) at −90 °C. Above this temperature and in ambient light, this metastable allotrope transforms into the more stable black allotrope.[6][7][8]

Elemental antimony adopts a layered structure (space group R3m No. 166) in which layers consist of fused, ruffled, six-membered rings. The nearest and next-nearest neighbors form an irregular octahedral complex, with the three atoms in each double layer slightly closer than the three atoms in the next. This relatively close packing leads to a high density of 6.697 g/cm3, but the weak bonding between the layers leads to the low hardness and brittleness of antimony.

It is in this very dense form, that it may be used as a source of thermal energy, which when layered with multiple metals that shed electrons when heated, can be turned into a power source that can last for up to 20 years. Not full power for 20 years, but half power every three years. With enough layers, it could keep putting out power with no input at all until the decay stops. The issue has always been gamma or Alpha decay, as they are very hazardous to humans and a launch mistake could be disastrous. This is a Beta decay, which is energetic and easy to shield. Remember, we are talking about a very small amount of power in the millivolts.

RTGs in space

A team at JPL is working on turning skutterudites into thermocouples. A thermocouple is a device that generates an electrical voltage from the temperature difference in its components. Compared to other materials, thermocouples made of skutterudites need a smaller temperature difference to produce the same amount of useful power, making them more efficient.

THERMOCOUPLES What is a thermoelectric material?

Thermoelectric materials are materials that can convert a temperature difference into electricity, or vice versa.

What is a thermocouple?

A conventional thermocouple is made of two different thermoelectric materials joined together at one "shoe," or end, where its temperature is measured. When you heat up a thermocouple, the difference in the conductivity of the materials results in one metal becoming hotter than the other, and causes the temperature of the joined end to change. This temperature difference creates a voltage (the force with which electrons flow through the material), and converts a portion of the transferred heat into electricity.

How do thermocouples work?

Thermocouples are in every home: They measure the temperature in your oven and control your water heater. Most household thermocouples are inefficient: they produce a voltage so small, it produces almost no electrical current. By contrast skutterudites are a lot more efficient: They require a smaller temperature difference to produce useful electricity.

NASA is studying thermocouples made out of skutterudites that have a flat top and two "legs," somewhat like the iconic Stonehenge stone monuments. Heat transfers across the thermocouple from a high-temperature heat source to a suitable heat 'sink' (such as cold water). An electrical current is produced between the hot end (the flat top) and the cold end (the legs) of the thermocouple.

"It's as though there are a lot of people in a room where one side is hot and one side is cold," said JPL's Sabah Bux. "The people, which represent the electrical charges, will move from the hot side to the cold side. That movement is electricity."

The thermocouples are joined end-to-end in one long circuit - the electrical current goes up, over and down each thermocouple, producing useful power. Devices outfitted in this way can take advantage of a variety of heat sources, ranging in temperature from 392 to more than 1832 degrees Fahrenheit (200 to more than 1000 degrees Celsius).

In Curiosity's power system, the Multi Mission RTG (MMRTG), 768 thermocouples encircle a central can-like structure, all facing the same direction towards the heat source, at the center of the generator. The enhanced MMRTG (eMMRTG) would have the same number of thermocouples, but all would be made from skutterudite material instead of the alloys of telluride currently used.

"Only minimal changes to the existing MMRTG design are needed to get these results," Fleurial said. A group of about two dozen people at JPL is dedicated to working on these advanced materials and testing the resulting thermocouple prototypes.

The new skutterudite-based thermocouples passed their first major NASA review in late 2015. If they pass further reviews in 2017 and 2018, the first eMMRTG using them could fly aboard NASA's next New Frontiers-class mission.

Earth-based applications of skutterudite

There are many potential applications for these advanced thermoelectric materials here on Earth.

"In situations where waste heat is emitted, skutterudite materials could be used to improve efficiency and convert that heat into useful electricity," said Thierry Caillat, project leader for the technology maturation project at JPL.

For example, exhaust heat from a car could be converted into electricity and fed back into the vehicle, which could be used to charge batteries and reduce fuel use. Industrial processes that require high temperatures, such as ceramic and glass processing, could also use skutterudite

materials to make use of waste heat. In 2015, JPL licensed patents on these high-temperature thermoelectric materials to a company called Evident Technologies, Troy, New York.

By the way, when I attempted to find out more about Evident technologies I got this message:

evidentthermo.com uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate is not trusted because it is self-signed. The certificate is only valid for the following names: www.evidenttech.com, www.evidentthermo.com

So, I went to the first address to see what it brought up. Same message. They have entered into a licensing agreement with Samsung.

"Over the last 20 years, the field of thermoelectrics has come into being and blossomed, especially at JPL," said Fleurial. "There's a lot of great science happening in this area. We're excited to explore the idea of taking these materials to space, and benefitting U.S. industry along the way."

Incidentally, the only thing holding back industries like electric vehicles or stand-alone robots, is a power storage or generation device that doesn’t have to be plugged in. Once they master this, autonomous AI robots are suddenly a reality. Right now, their usefulness goes as far as the extension cord.

JPL's work to develop higher-efficiency thermoelectric materials is carried out in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Teledyne Energy Systems and Aerojet Rocketdyne, and is funded by NASA's Radioisotope Power System program, which is managed by NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The spaceflight hardware is produced by Teledyne Energy Systems and Aerojet Rocketdyne under a contract held by the DOE, which fuels, completes final assembly and owns the end item.

Why is Trump Still Winning? It’s the Russians.

We have gone from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON 3. Bombers ready to take off in 15 minutes, missiles on launch warning. And the American people are going to vote for this …. again. Have we sunk so low and  been rendered so stupid?

Remember the sweet, safer days of George W. After smashing and bashing him, the left has delivered us here. Everyday it’s some new horror. And what is every news network reporting on? Trump’s libido, of course.

US nuclear attack warning ‘upgraded to level 3’ as Russian threat goes ‘beyond Cold War’ Daily Star, October 13, 2016:

AMERICA is edging closer to nuclear armageddon after upgrading its attack “defence readiness”, it has been claimed.

The defense readiness condition, dubbed DEFCON, is an alert system used by the US military to indicate the risk of nuclear war. The system has five levels of readiness, or states of alert, increasing in severity from DEFCON 5 – the least severe – to DEFCON 1 – the most severe. The current DEFCON level is understood to be 5 – the lowest state of readiness. The Obama administration is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

If its covert, why are they telling us?

Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging “clandestine” cyber operation designed to harass and “embarrass” the Kremlin leadership.

The sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an operation. Former intelligence officers told NBC News that the agency had gathered reams of documents that could expose unsavory tactics by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

With tensions between Russia and the United States at their highest since the Cold War, there have been alarming signs coming out of Moscow that suggest the country is ready for war.

There are some unsettling things Russia has done, however, to give the impression that war is looming:

Beware the ‘Nuclear Dimensions’

As the confrontation between the United and Russia has worsened over Syria, and amid speculation Washington might launch airstrikes against Syrian government forces, Russian state-controlled media has gone into high gear, asking Russians whether they are prepared for nuclear war.

“If that should one day happen, each of you must know where the nearest bomb shelter is,” a report on the state-controlled network, NTV, noted, before taking viewers on a tour of a nuclear bunker in Moscow.

State outlets, already solidly anti-American in their coverage, have unleashed themselves further, indulging in bitter denunciations of America duplicity, bombastic promises of merciless defenses and freely bandying the nuclear card. Russia’s main current affairs show, hosted by a man known by critics as the country’s “propagandist-in-chief,” warned American “impudence” could take on “nuclear dimensions,” then spending 40 minutes taking viewers through a panoply of potential nuclear options Russia possesses if the United States were to intervene too strongly in Syria. The host, Evgeny Kiselyov, described how three Russian missile frigates this week had sailed toward Syria to head off potential U.S. airstrikes against Syrian military targets.

“Incidentally,” Kiselyov told his audience, the ships missiles “also [come] in a nuclear version. Which version is aboard our missile frigates right now isn’t known.”

Check Your Gas Masks

This month Russia held a large-scale civil defense drill across the country, meant to prepare people for disasters, among them nuclear catastrophe. The drill, which Russian authorities claimed affected 40 million people, and particularly the way it was presented on state television, resembled Soviet-era exercises, with scenes of schoolchildren flooding out in evacuations and being taught to hurriedly pull on gas masks.

Who’s in Charge Here?

Russia’s defense ministry has announced how the country would function in time of war, clarifying which government bodies would take command. The answer was largely it would, taking control of governor’s offices, local administrations and the police. The military simulated that scenario during a huge exercise in southern Russia.

The Sound of Saber-Rattling

The maneuvers took on harder forms as well. This week, Russia deployed nuclear-capable missiles to Kaliningrad, its northern European enclave between Poland and Lithuania that put the weapons within striking distance of Western capitals. Moscow has threatened before to deploy the Iskander-M missiles to Kaliningrad, in response, it says, to the establishment of the U.S. anti-missile shield being erected in Eastern Europe. But this week’s deployment came sooner than expected, with analysts suggesting that indicated the Kremlin wanted to play it as part of the broader saber-rattling display in the confrontation around Syria.

The Bottom Line

The Democrats are in very serious trouble in this election and they know it. They see the polls, but they also see 30 thousand people at the rally, and another 10 thousand people at the airport just to see Trumps’ plane land and to wave flags at him through the fence. They see that 90% of Twitter and Facebook action is pro-Trump. They see that despite a 100% media blackout on the Wikileaks files, that 75% of the people know about them anyway. At the same time they never have had any no intention of relinquishing power via an election or otherwise - this is why the corruption continues and is still growing even in the FBI, the IRS, the EPA, the Dept of Education, the DOJ, and on and on.

The current State of Tension between America and Russia is a complete and utter fabrication by the DEMS and in no small way directly related to how Obama is handling things to deliberately heighten those tensions.Remember only Russia via legitimate treaty obligations with the democratically elected Syrian government has a right to be on the ground in Syria! Curiously the US has no legitimate right to be there at all. (Unless you call U.S. sponsoring of the Islamic Brotherhood and ISIS in Syria to

over throw the democratic government legitimate.) The “no fly zone,” pertains to NATO and US aircraft, not Russian aircraft.

Apparently the Dems Plan B was and is clearly to put America on a War footing as an excuse to declare that America is at war with Trump and the Russians.WAKE UP. America is being played by its own President

State, Local Gov’ts Unable to Meet $5,600,000,000,000 Pension Fund CommitmentBy Rachel Greszler | October 14, 2016 | 4:00 PM EDT

Alaska tops the list in unfunded liability per capita for pensions at $42,950. (Wikimedia Commons Photo)

$5.6 trillion.

That’s how much a recent report from the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, estimates state and local governments across the U.S. have promised to their employees, but can’t afford to pay, because they have misappropriated the money.

Pensions are deferred wages. Instead of paying it to the employee today, the company puts it away for that employee in a bond that matures when that employee is 62 or older. The problem occurs when the Company, or in this case the municipality, treats that fund like their own asset and robs it. Oh, not to buy stuff or pay bills, but to provide massive bonuses to the leadership and shareholders. They kick the can down the street and never buy the bonds. When it comes time for the pension to pay out, the money is missing. Normally, if an employer promises its worker more than it can pay, its workers lose out, but that’s unlikely to be the case here.

Since most state and local pension promises represent legal obligations, it will be state and local taxpayers who bear the burden of their governments’ unfunded promises.

According to the report, state and local governments as a whole have set aside only 35 cents for every dollar of pension promises.  That is usually more than enough to buy the bonds if they

have 10 or more years to mature. Their $5.6 trillion of unfunded pension liabilities works out to $17,427 for every man, woman, and child in America (or about $70,000 for a family of four).

Since 2009, 89 cents of every new dollar for education in Illinois has gone to teachers’ retirement costs, leaving only 11 cents for actual education. Think about that again. Out of every dollar in tax revenue that comes in to pay for schools, and this includes lottery cash for many states, 89 cents of it goes right back out the door for people who no longer work there. Only 11 cents actually pays for current operations.

Alaska tops the list in unfunded liability per capita with $42,950 while Tennessee has the lowest at $7,246.  Overall, only five states have per capita unfunded liabilities under $10,000 while 15 states exceed $20,000 per capita. That’s a high price to pay for state and local government’s failure to properly administer their employees’ pension funds!

Why is this? Two reasons. First, the State never bought the bonds it was supposed to buy with the money. They spent it. Second, people are living past the age of 62 to the age of about 75-95 years old. This means a woman may teach for 30 years, retiring at 55. She starts drawing her pension at 62 and lives to be 92. That means she draws a pension for as long as she worked.

Not only do state and local pensions have massive unfunded liabilities, but those unfunded liabilities are growing at breakneck speed. Most school districts never purchased the bonds to offset the pension costs. Since ALEC’s last report two years ago, state and local pensions’ unfunded liabilities increased by $900 billion.  That’s equivalent to a nine percent annual growth rate, or an additional $1,400 per year for every man, woman and child in America.

When the pension bills come due depends on the status of the particular plan.  Some plans, such as the city of Chicago’s Teachers Pension, are already taking a toll on taxpayers and citizens. Since 2009, 89 cents of every new dollar for education has gone to teachers’ retirement costs, leaving only 11 cents for actual education. And nearly 90 percent of Illinois’ recent $32 billion tax hike went towards public employee pensions.

That should be a warning to other cities and states that fail to address their growing unfunded pension liabilities.

How did state and local governments accumulate such massive unfunded pension liabilities?  It was pretty easy, actually.  They employed what the ALEC report’s authors called “Enron-style” accounting to downplay their necessary contributions and then often failed to make those contributions.

Unlike private pension plans that are required to use certain interest rate assumptions, state and local pensions can use whatever interest rate assumptions they want (as can union-run private pension plans).  A simple jump in interest rate assumptions can reduce plans’ required contributions by half.

Unfortunately, overly optimistic assumptions don’t translate to reality.  Since pension plans, not surprisingly, have failed to consistently produce the 7.5 percent annual returns they assume, they now face massive shortfalls.

In addition to downplaying their required contributions, states often fail to contribute as much as they are “required” to, or even skip pension contributions altogether.  In 2013, only 21 states made their required contributions.

Despite the fact that pensions are part of employees’ compensation, and legal obligations, many state and local governments have effectively treated them as slush funds, available for tapping whenever other spending takes political precedence.  Shorting pension contributions is no different than issuing new debt, except that it’s less apparent and doesn’t violate many states’ constitutional balanced budget requirements.

The nature of defined benefit pensions in the hands of politicians will never change – there will always be pressure to short-change pensions and pass the buck to future taxpayers.

State and local governments need to transition out of pensions and into defined-benefit retirement contributions.  This would put cash, instead of unfunded promises, in workers accounts, and would shield taxpayers from bearing the burden of public employees’ unfunded retirement costs while also trying to save for their own retirement.

In the meantime, state and local governments need some self-imposed restraint to prevent them from continuing to shortchange pensions. Since public pensions represent riskless guarantees, states should use riskless rates of return to establish their required contributions.  Moreover, states should make required contributions mandatory, instead treating them as discretionary.

Where did all the Jobs go?

American tech worker Mike Emmons detailed the untold story of his personal experience with the office of then-Senator Hillary Clinton and revealed how she abandoned American workers in favor of fulfilling the desires of corporate donors and foreign special interests.

A Hillary Clinton administration “would not be government of, or for, the people, but would, instead, be government against the people,” Emmons warned.

Emmons, who was one of the nation’s first whistleblowers to expose the displacement of American workers by foreign nationals brought in on guest worker visas, is one of thousands of American workers to have lost his job as a result of the cheap labor practices of the India-based outsourcing firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)–a Clinton Foundation donor whose anti-American worker business model has been “enabled” and endorsed by Hillary Clinton.

Emmons said that his interactions with Clinton in 2003 opened his eyes to the cynical and corrupt pay-for-play tactics of a career politician, guided and consumed by her desire for self-advancement and personal enrichment.

As Emmons watched Clinton’s office rebuff his “desperate” pleas for help–choosing, instead, to stand with a foreign corporation at the direct expense of the American workers she was elected to represent–that was the moment, “my naïveté was over,” Emmons said. “That was when I realized exactly what this was: I realized it’s the government against the people.”

“As naïve as I was then, I now know that politicians like Hillary are not out to do what’s right for the people of America; they’re out to do what’s right for the people who donate money to them,” Emmons said.

“Hillary Clinton does not care about American working families. I don’t believe she cares for any American,” Emmons added. “Even with all the issues regarding Trump’s personal life, his stance on American workers is a thousand-fold better than Clinton’s. … Without a doubt, Donald Trump is the first presidential candidate that made me feel heard–that paid attention to working people.”

“Working Americans are the ones that should really care [about this election],” Emmons said. “If you’re a working American, Trump is the only person who is going to work for us.”

The story of citizens like Mike Emmons and his colleagues has become an all-too-familiar one: American tech workers are gathered together for a meeting with their executives—in this case, by Siemens in Lake Mary, Florida, in 2002. The unsuspecting workers are then informed that, despite their stellar performance record and years of service to the company, they’re all being fired and replaced by predominantly foreign-born Indian workers. However, before they are to be officially let go, they’ll be forced to train their foreign replacements. If they refuse, the American workers will not receive their severance. Companies like Siemens, Disney, Southern California Edison, Xerox, Northeast Utilities, and countless others are able to do this through forming contracts with India-based outsourcing firms like Tata that import thousands of foreign workers into the country on L-1 and H-1B visas and use them to supplant American workers who had been working there previously.

By all accounts from the workers who have dared to risk their future in the tech industry by speaking out, the experience of training their foreign replacement is nothing short of traumatic.

One American worker, who wrote an op-ed for Breitbart News on the condition of anonymity, said he felt “betrayed.” He spoke of the alienation he felt as he endured the “humiliat[ing]” and “disgraceful” experience of having no choice but “to watch a foreign worker completely take over my job.”

“Workers tell me that they feel physically sick as they’re forced to train their replacements,” said attorney Sara Blackwell, who runs an organization that represents high-skilled American workers replaced by low-wage foreign workers. “They go home and vomit; they cry every single night;

they go into counseling; they’re admitted to hospitals; there are divorces; we’ve seen two suicides as a result of these cheap labor practices.”

This business model, Blackwell said, “has single-handedly destroyed American families by the thousands.”

Emmons had a front row seat to the devastation.

Although Emmons, as a contractor, was not formally displaced and was eventually able to land on his feet, he watched as some of his friends–unable to find new employment–were forced into early retirement. Others, far too young to retire, were forced to abandon their trade and leave the tech industry altogether–even though that meant letting years of specialized schooling and experience in the high-skilled sector go to waste. For many of those workers, their last opportunity to use the specialized skills they had spent decades cultivating was when they had to “transfer” that career’s worth of knowledge to their lesser-skilled foreign replacements, who would work for a fraction of the cost.

Emmons recalled one coworker, who after twenty years in the IT industry, was forced to go into landscaping to make ends meet.

“The more I learned, the more upset I got,” Emmons said. “As a contractor, Siemens never trained me. They didn’t pay me to train myself. I learned it all myself. And it upset me that I’m having to give away my hard-earned knowledge–an education and training, which I had paid for out of my own pocket so I could then train my replacements who were much less qualified.”

Emmons’ job was to be filled by–not one, but–three foreign workers, each of whom made a fraction of Emmons’ salary and each of whom he had to train to “learn a different facet of [his] job.” While Emmons made roughly $90,000 a year, he said the foreign workers’ contract salary ultimately came out to roughly $1,000 a month.

“It was the most demoralizing time of my life,” Emmons said, who was concerned about how losing his job would affect his ability to care for his young daughter, who had been born with a serious medical disability. “All I could think about is: how am I going to keep her insurance? It was about $930 a month at the time, which was almost the equivalent of [the foreign workers’] salary.”

Emmons knew he couldn’t sit by and watch. Instead, he launched what has been described as “a ferocious one-man campaign against the practice of offshore outsourcing and supplanting American workers with foreigners on temporary work visas.”

While still at Siemens, Emmons copied Tata’s 800 documents on the Siemens shared drive and set up an encrypted tunnel between Siemens’ server and his home server, so that he could communicate important information to the news media and expose what Tata was doing to American workers. Emmons’ tireless efforts to bring attention to what was happening resulted in a local Orlando WKMG CBS exposé and Emmy-nominated series, titled, Where Did the Jobs Go?

I sent her office reports, CDs, data. We had spoken over telephone and in written correspondence. We had emails going back and forth. I told her specifically about what Tata had done and how we had to train our replacements,” Emmons said.

“We Americans, just the normal Americans that work for a living need the help of Senator Clinton,” Emmons wrote in a 2003 letter to Clinton congressional staffer, Erin Ashwell, an exclusive copy of which Breitbart News has obtained. “She needs to realize what this company and many [Tata]-like companies from India are doing. They are just taking jobs from Americans. … We desperately need help,” Emmons wrote.

Emmons told Clinton’s office of his fears about how he would be unable to provide for his seven-year-old handicapped daughter, whose disability required expensive medical care. “What are we supposed to do?” Emmons wrote in his letter to Clinton’s staffer. “As a parent of a handicapped child, Hanna, born with spina bifida L4-5, all I wanted to do was pay my $930/month medical insurance premiums. Hanna is 7 years old and has had 8 surgeries.”

“Please help stop these American Worker Replacement Programs,” Emmons begged.

Ultimately, however, “Hillary didn’t care,” Emmons said. “Hillary only cares about Hillary.”

Emmons said Clinton not only ignored his repeated pleas, but she joined forces with Tata to help open a data systems office in Upstate New York.

“About a month after I spoke to her office, Hillary went to Buffalo to get her pockets lined by Tata at their grand opening,” Emmons explained.

Indeed, as the Los Angeles Times reported at the time, Clinton’s deal with Tata “signaled that Clinton, who portrays herself as a fighter for American workers, had aligned herself with Indian American business leaders and Indian companies feared by the labor movement.”

Making matters worse in Emmons’ view, a press release issued by Tata announcing the opening revealed that the deal was, in fact, “the brainchild of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

In public, Clinton became a vocal champion of the Indian corporation, repeatedly defending the company’s anti-American worker business model.

Howard University Professor Ron Hira observed that during the ten-year period FY2005-2014, Tata imported an incredible 27,193 H-1B guest workers and likely more than 10,000 L-1 workers. That is tens of thousands of “jobs that American workers should have been hired for or in many cases were already doing … and got replaced” by lower-wage foreign labor, Hira told Breitbart News.

Interestingly, Tata has given tens of thousands of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. The Clintons also have financial ties to the India-based consulting firm responsible for the replacement of scores of American workers at Disney in Orlando, Florida.

Yet Clinton’s questionable financial and political ties to powerful Indian outsourcing corporations have received little media attention this election cycle. Emmons said he firmly believes that is because “the mainstream media is totally in bed to get Clinton into office. The media are afraid of what Trump might do because he’s not one of them,” Emmons explained.

Indeed, in 2007, Clinton’s extensive ties to Indian donors, who support the outsourcing of American jobs and the insourcing of foreign labor to replace American workers, were thrust into national media spotlight following a hard-hitting memo issued by then-Senator Barack Obama’s campaign.

“It’s all about the money,” the Obama campaign wrote about Clinton’s ties to India.

In the memo, the Obama campaign labeled his opponent, “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)”–implying that Clinton represents foreign nations and foreign citizens, rather than her own American constituents. The dig was a reference to a joke Clinton had previously made in which she told a group of Indian Americans that she saw herself as the elected representative of foreign citizens in the Indian region of Punjab. “I am delighted to be the Senator from Punjab as well as from New York,” Clinton said.

“Hillary doesn’t care about America,” Emmons told Breitbart. “She doesn’t even really want us to be America. … She wants a one-world government. That’s all I can say. I can’t comprehend why she takes all this money from foreign governments, or why she’d joke that she’s ‘the Senator of Punjab.’”

The Clintons have repeatedly articulated their support for globalist policies, including “open borders”–which Bernie Sanders has described as a radical position supported by wealthy donors that “says essentially there is no United States” by “doing away with the concept of a nation state.” Sanders warned that open borders would allow wealthy corporations to “bring in all kinds of people [who] work for $2 or $3 an hour” and “would make everybody in America poorer.”

A recent WikiLeaks release revealed that in a private speech to foreign bankers, Hillary Clinton said, “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.”

As the Los Angeles Times observed in 2007, the Clintons’ praise for “open borders” frequently comes when they are speaking before foreign audiences and wealthy donors. The Los Angeles Times noted that, in particular, the Clintons have often sought to “telegraph” their support for open borders and a globalized world to “wo[o] wealthy Indian American” donors who have “close ties to their native country and an interest in protecting outsourcing laws and expanding access to worker visas.”

Emmons explained that in contrast to Clinton’s allegiances to foreign nations and donors, Donald Trump will represent the interests of America and her citizens. “This election is all about jobs, the economy, eradicating ISIS, the borders, and most importantly, loving America. … Donald Trump will be on our team–the American team,” Emmons said. “When he becomes president, he’s going to do what’s best for Americans.”

Asgardia: The First Orbiting City

A proposed space nation called Asgardia is now accepting applications for future citizens.

Leaders of the Asgardia project discussed the prospective space nation at a news conference in Paris Wednesday (Oct. 12). The leaders aim to launch Asgardia's first satellite in 2017 and say they would like to eventually have a space station where some, but not all, of its planned 150 million (mostly Earth-dwelling) nationals would live and work.

Asgardia, named after the Norse gods' home of Asgard, will be a democracy with an emphasis on the freedom of the individual to develop space technologies, according to Igor Ashurbeyli, Asgardia project team leader and founder. People can now apply to be selected as one of the first 100,000 citizens through the nation’s website, asgardia.space. At the time of publication, the number of applicants has reached more than 84,000, according to the website. While Asgardia is not officially a nation (yet), prospective citizens must fulfil the legal requirements for Asgardia's United Nations application — for example, they must be from nations that allow multiple citizenships. [Incredible Technology: How to Build a Space Station Colony]

Asgardia would be a nation in space, in low-Earth orbit, or beyond, the project leaders said. The Asgardia project team said they think they need at least tens of thousands of citizens before they formally apply to the U.N. for recognition (although there are 14 countries in the world with fewer than 100,000 citizens).

But, not all Asgardians need to live in space, just as citizens of an Earth-bound nation may live outside that country's borders. And Asgardians could claim to be citizens of the new state for the time being, even if Asgardia is not formally recognized by the U.N., Ashurbeiyli told Space.com, through an interpreter following the Oct. 12 news conference. The team said they also want to crowdsource Asgardia's flag design and insignia.

The prospective nation is being established to "serve humanity" and for "peace in space," according to Ashurbeyli. A scientist by training, Ashurbeyli founded what is now a holding company, Socium Holding, which, according to the Asgardia website, has "more than 10,000 employees across 30 companies worldwide." According to his own website, the companies under Scoium Holding are "operating in many diverse sectors within the fields of science, technology and the social sphere."

"If you look at a nation’s population, statistically, 2 percent of the population are creative and productive and progressive, so we hope that looking at the population of Earth, 7.5 billion, we are hoping that 150 million would be those creative progressive people [who become Asgardians]," Ashurbeyli told Space.com.

He said that during citizenship selection, preference will be given to those applicants who develop and invest in space technologies. Ashurbeyli described Asgardia as a state not distracted by things like infrastructure, such as roads and hospitals. He called Asgardia "… a mirror reflection of Earth in space, but without the borders, boundaries, religious constraints and without the state lines; a digital mirror reflection without all those drawbacks. We prefer dialogue with people and companies, not states…[Asgardia] facilitates and inside that envelope they can create.”

Ram Jakhu,  the director of McGill University’s Institute of Air and Space Law in Montreal, is the Asgardia project team legal expert. Jakhu told Space.com via Skype on Oct.12 that with the selected citizens, a government and an inhabited spacecraft to call territory, Asgardia would eventually fulfill three of the four elements the U.N. needs to consider a nation as a state. The fourth is recognition by U.N. member states.

During the same Skype call, Jakhu told Space.com that "if [Asgardia] does good things," then he doesn't think gaining recognition by existing U.N. member states will be a problem.

"The [Asgardia] vision is very, very clear: This nation will do things to help protect the Earth and, secondly, it will be for exclusively peaceful purposes and also allowing access to developing countries that don't have that [space access]. So, if that is done, recognition will not be a major problem. If these four elements [territory, people, government and recognition] are achieved it become a state and can apply for its membership of the United Nations."

No fees are required for the citizenship applications and new citizens will not be expected to contribute to the cost of the first satellite, to be called Asgardia, which the program team plans to

launch in late 2017. Ashurbeyli would not provide any details about the satellite or what its function will be, but said it was "100 percent funded."

Ashurbeyli said Asgardia's first satellite would be launched from one of the spacefaring nations, but the launching state (the country that will pay for the launch) would be a country with an emerging economy that is not a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty. The project team views partnering with a developing country as a way to get countries involved that have not previously had access to space.

The Outer Space Treaty (OST) is an international agreement made during the Cold War in 1967, and assumes all activity in space will be led by a nation-state. Ashurbeiylj said he views the OST as restrictive, with its state actors-led approach. Ashurbeyli wants private individuals and companies to be able to act in space without direct government involvement. The OST also says that no nation-state can own territory in outer space and signatories are obliged to follow this. Partnering with a non-signatory nation would avoid such legal complications with regard to exploiting space resources, he said. Non-OST signatory African countries ─ Ethiopia and Kenya, in particular ─ are seen as potential candidates for the satellite's launching state.

The Asgardia project team also has plans for satellites that would protect the Earth from asteroids and space debris. Asgardia project team member, Joseph Pelton, who is the director emeritus of the Space & Advanced Communications Research Institute at George Washington University, told Space.com after the news conference that the defense of the Earth would require different spacecraft.

For asteroid defense, Pelton envisages a flotilla of spacecraft that would be launched to meet the huge space rock years before it reached Earth and would fire lasers at the object’s surface. The laser fire would vaporize parts of the surface and the resulting jets of vapor would create enough force to slowly push the asteroid in another direction, avoiding Earth. Pelton expects Asgardia to work with Earth-based nation states to fund such a defense system.

For a defense against coronal mass ejections (powerful bursts of charged particles from the sun that can damage satellites or power grids), Pelton told Space.com: "I am working with Jim Green who is head of planetary sciences at NASA and we think it might be possible to deploy a system at L1, a million and a half kilometers [930,000 miles] out, that would have one to two Tesla magnetic fields that would be like an artificial Van Allen belt." Tesla is the unit of measurement for the strength of a magnetic field (not only the name of a car company), and the L1 orbit lies between the Earth and the moon. The Van Allen belts are a collection of charged particles, gathered in place by Earth’s magnetic field, which deflect harmful particles from the sun.

Pelton went on to describe a Bigelow Aerospace inflatable space station positioned at L1, that uses solar power to create the magnetic force field to mitigate the impact of the coronal mass ejections. For these defense projects and other space technology developments, Ashurbeyli said he foresees crowdfunding as one potential source of investment capital.

Potatoes and cereals are health risk, while dairy is good for you, says new study

POTATOES and cereals increase the risk of heart disease while high fat dairy products cut the risk, according to a new study which rejects accepted wisdom on a healthy diet.

The research, which looked at dietary habits in 42 European countries over 16 years, conflicts with current government nutrition guidance and has led to calls for new advice to be issued.

The work, published in the journal of Food and Nutrition Research, examined food consumption, heart disease and cholesterol levels in the most up-to-date international statistics and raised questions about the reliability of traditional data, much of which was carried out decades ago.

Dr Pavel Grasgruber, a sports scientist and lead author of the study, from Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, called for current dietary advice to be overturned.

He said: “Current heart disease risk is based on flawed data. This study flies in the face of accepted wisdom on diet. It is quite clear consumption of dairy products and meat is not linked with heart disease risk, as was traditionally believed.

The biggest problem are cereals, wheat and potatoes, which increase the risk of heart disease

Dr Pavel Grasgruber

“The biggest problem are cereals, wheat and potatoes, which increase the risk of heart disease.

"I can responsibly recommend people change their diets and to lower their carbohydrate load.”

Dr Grasgruber said red meat appeared to have no direct effect on heart disease risk.

However, high fat dairy products such as cheese seem to have a protective effect, which is also supported by recent evidence.

He recommended high consumption of citrus fruit, walnuts, olives, fish, vegetables and dairy for low heart disease risk and longevity.

Current UK dietary guidelines introduced in 1983 advised people to eat more carbohydrates including pasta, potatoes and cereals and less fat, particularly saturated fat.

However, in recent years some experts have challenged this notion linking the epidemic of type 2 diabetes and obesity to a diet rich in carbohydrates.

Leading cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra said: “This modern day study supports the growing view that the real dietary factors driving heart disease are the consumption of excess carbohydrate in the form of rice, wheat and potato.”

Dr Malcolm Kendrick, who has studied heart health and is the author of The Great Cholesterol Con, said: “The rate of heart disease goes down with a high cholesterol diet which suggests any link between fat, cholesterol and heart disease can now be refuted.”

Dr Trudi Deakin, a leading nutritionist, said: “The 1983 dietary guidelines came in the absence of any rigorous trial data to show saturated fat caused cardiovascular disease and were based on flawed science from the 1950s and 1960s.”

Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Other studies, however, show diets high in saturated fat are linked to raised cholesterol levels, which is a risk factor for heart disease.”

He urged a balanced Mediterranean diet.

The Coming Space Wars

Killer satellites, blinding lasers, sophisticated jammers: the world's military powers are quietly readying for a war in outer space -- at the risk of fueling a dangerous new arms race.

US military officials have in recent years sounded growing alarm about the potential vulnerabilities of their satellites, which underpin US military power.

Initially, the reserve of the United States and the Soviet Union, space has now become accessible to an ever-expanding multitude of nations and private firms.

And Moscow and Beijing are keen to show off their space-attack capabilities, a deep worry for US strategists.

"We are changing the culture in our space enterprise because we need to get our heads around... what happens if a conflict on Earth extends to space. How will we defend our assets?" Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said at an event last month.

In 2015, the mysterious behavior of a Russian satellite fueled speculation about Moscow developing possible attack satellites, capable of maneuvering through space and approaching a target.

Without warning or explanation, the craft positioned itself for several months between two Intelsat satellites in geostationary orbit, coming to within six miles (10 kilometers) of one, before eventually moving away again.

"Our satellites are crucial for our national security infrastructure," said Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation, which works to develop the safe and sustainable use of space.

"The fact that another entity can come close to them and interfere with their work is very unsettling to US national security," she added.

- A 'militarized' space -

China, too, has demonstrated its ability to send a small, low-orbit satellite capable of maneuvering toward another craft.

Teresa Hitchens, senior research scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, said that China in 2013 launched three small satellites into orbit, one of which had a robotic grappling arm.

For the Pentagon and many US experts, it is clear America should speed up military efforts in space, and prevent its communications network from becoming the armed forces' Achilles heel.

"The Department of Defense has aggressively moved out to develop responses that we see coming from China and Russia. I believe it's essential that we go faster in our responses," General John Hyten, head of the Air Force's Space Command, told lawmakers in September.

Elbridge Colby, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security said the United States must develop the ability to defend its own space assets.

"As human beings and more states are able to operate in space, it will just become a reality that it will become more militarized," he told AFP.

"The United States should develop effective but limitable forms of space attack, particularly non-kinetic ones that do not result in space debris."

But other experts say the United States should show restraint, noting the Pentagon may already have some of the offensive capabilities that China and Russia are hoping to acquire.

"I think it's being hyped somewhat by those in the US national security community that have never felt comfortable with the US losing its role as the dominant space power," Samson said.

The United States has since 2004 possessed a mobile jamming station which, from the ground, can block satellite communications.

America has already tested using a missile to blow up a satellite, and has recently acquired four satellites that can maneuver in orbit and inspect or monitor other space objects.

- International code of conduct -

Hitchens, the Maryland researcher, said Russia and China are quickly catching up to where the Americans are.

"What you have is a brewing," she said.

It's a lead up "to a potential arms race in space, where people start developing things for real."

Space war could be devastating for humans, as a single exploded satellite would leave a trail of debris that in turn could damage other satellites in a chain reaction of destruction.

"We are at a very dangerous place right now: if we actually ever fought a war that would involve anti-satellite weapon, we would damage the space environment to such an extent that it would make it very difficult to have the benefits that satellites provide to society," Hitchens said.