Anders Behring Breivik has been arrested: image Daily Mail
The Norwegian Dagbladetreports that Anders Behring Breivik is apparently a Freemason and one of the loony right.
The alleged offender is a member of the John lodge St. Olaus TD Three pillars of the Norwegian Masonic Order. He has the status of the 3rd degree, where the highest order is the 10th degree. “We have no way to express an opinion on individuals or incidents related to any members”, Helge Qvigstad, spokesman of the Norwegian Freemasons order told Dagbladet. On a Facebook profile he appears to be 32-year-old Christian and politically conservative. His favorite books showing the man behind the profile include George Orwell’s “1984″ and Kafka’s “process”.
The gunman was dressed as a police officer and gunned down young people as they ran for their lives at a youth camp. Police said Friday evening that they’ve linked the youth camp shooting and Oslo bombing. Breivik is believed to have acted alone.
Norwegian TV2 reports that Breivik belongs to “ring-wing circles” in Oslo. ….
A Director of Breivik Geofarm with qualifications in micro and macro finance and holding Conservative political views, he lists political analysis as one of his interests and his favourite books are 1984, On Liberty and The Trial. He also lists hunting as a pastime. …
Another Freemason involved with a mass shooting (in case we forget) – Thomas Hamilton, who commited the Dunblaine massacre in Scotland.
India has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear power program and expects to have 20,000 MWe nuclear capacity on line by 2020 and 63,000 MWe by 2032. The target is to supply 25% of electricity from nuclear power by 2050.
But uranium ores in India are largely low-grade ores which are not usually economic for power generation (and are therefore mainly used for weapons programs). Because India is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty due to its weapons program, it was for 34 years largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant or materials, which has hampered its development of civil nuclear energy until 2009.
The civil nuclear program is heavily dependent upon the continued import of nuclear fuels. Nevertheless new finds of uranium ore in India provide comfort for the continuing nuclear program in the wake of Fukushima.
Uranium mining in Andhra Pradesh, which has been held up for years by environmental and other activists, has finally begun. Andhra Pradesh’s uranium ore is five times richer than in India’s old mines at Jaduguda. But this does not solve India’s uranium shortage for nuclear power plants. Jaduguda ore has just 0.06% uranium, and AP will yield maybe 0.3%.
But internationally, commercial ores have up to 15% uranium and India will need imported fuel for the foreseeable future
Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh could have one of the largest uranium reserves in the world. Recent studies have indicated that it could have a reserve of 1.5 lakh (150,000) tonnes of the scarce material.
Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Srikumar Banerjee said: “Studies have already shown that the area had a confirmed reserve of 49,000 tonnes and recent surveys indicated that this figure could go up even three folds.”
He said uranium deposits in Tummalapalle appeared to be spread over 35 km. Exploratory works are under way. At present, the country is estimated to have a total reserve of about 1,75,000 tonnes of uranium, apart from this.
Terming the new findings a major development, Dr. Banerjee, however, pointed out that the indigenous reserves would still not be sufficient to meet the entire demand of the country’s nuclear programme. “The new findings would only augment the indigenous supply of uranium. There would still be a significant gap. We would still have to import.”
The spreading tentacles of the UK phone hacking spectacle are reaching the highest levels of government and media and police.
Where else will it reach?
The particularly “chummy” relationships between media and police seem exactly like those between members of an exclusive club where all members are charged with providing succour and assistance to each other,
It has all the ingredients necessary for a conspiracy theory.
And few organisations are better suited for conspiracy theories than the Freemasons!!
3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by laying down successive layers of material. 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use than other additive manufacturing technologies. 3D printers offer product developers the ability to print parts and assemblies made of several materials with different mechanical and physical properties in a single build process. Advanced 3D printing technologies yield models that can serve as product prototypes.
The University of East London has parted company with a researcher following revelations that he was found guilty of research misconduct at two previous universities.
Jatinder Ahluwalia was found guilty last November by a University College London investigation of committing research misconduct while he was a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Anthony Segal, Charles Dent professor of medicine, during the mid-2000s. The investigation found it was beyond reasonable doubt that Dr Ahluwalia had “misrepresented” his experiments by altering the numbering of computer files. It also found, on the balance of probability, that he had attempted to cover his tracks by contaminating colleagues’ experiments. The case led to the retraction from the journal Nature of a paper of which Dr Ahluwalia was the first author.
It subsequently emerged that Dr Ahluwalia had been dismissed from the University of Cambridge biochemistry PhD programme in 1997 after his supervisor suspected him of faking results.
After leaving UCL, Dr Ahluwalia obtained a position as a senior lecturer in pharmacology at UEL. Following the revelations about Dr Ahluwalia’s past, an academic in his department wrote to colleagues in February about the “uproar” caused by the university’s perceived failure to respond to the allegations. UEL responded by saying it had opened a “formal investigation involving external independent peer review” in December. That investigation has now concluded. The university declined to give any details about its conclusions, but confirmed that it had parted company with Dr Ahluwalia.
A spokeswoman said: “The university conducted a full investigation concerning the matters that were raised and, as a consequence, the individual concerned is no longer employed by the university.”
Dr Ahluwalia’s faculty page has been deleted and Times Higher Education was unable to contact him for comment.
Imperial College London, where Dr Ahluwalia eventually obtained his PhD, is also carrying out an investigation of his work while he was there. …
I like this practical (rather than philosophic) formulation:
A scientist observes and describes what is but which has not been observed before, or causal relationships between existing or new observations or – when necessary – creates the language to make such descriptions possible.
An engineer uses what is together with known causal relationships to create artefacts.
Where such artefacts are created for the first time he is also an inventor.
The threat of an eruption of Mount Lokon has been increasing since June 9th. The alert level was raised 4 days ago that an eruption was imminent and more than 4,000 people have left or have been evacuated. The volcano finally erupted in the early hours of Friday morning with 55 separate eruptions over 6 hours but with the advance warnings and orderly evacuations there is no significant threat to human life. Mount Lokon last erupted in 1991.
“In general people are not afraid as the volcano which follows a more or less regular ash burst interval of 10 to 15 minutes. Some of them are living as close as 2 km from the crater which could be very dangerous if a strong explosive eruption would send a pyroclastic flow along the slopes of the volcano. People should have learned lessons from the eruption of Merapi volcano which killed hundreds of people last year.”
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) announced that Mountain Lokon in Tomohon, North Sulawesi erupted on Thursday.
The eruption spewed ash, sand and other volcanic material as high as 1500 meters above the ground, causing forest fires around the volcano. “There was a big eruption around 10:31pm local time (1531 GMT), which saw ash, sand and rocks thrown 1,500 meters into the air,” government volcanologist Kristianto told AFP.
Another eruption took place at 12.30 a.m. Fifty-five eruptions took place in the six hours following the first eruption. More than 2,500 people were evacuated to four shelters. There were no reported deaths or injuries from the eruption.
There has been a significant rise in volcanic activity at Mount Lokon on Sulawesi island since June 9, prompting hundreds of people to evacuate the area. The volcano’s status was raised to its highest red alert level after it spewed ash 500 meters into the air over the weekend, leading to a 3.5-km evacuation zone being established in case of a bigger eruption.
“There is no mass panic because the community has already been warned of the situation and we are continuing to evacuate people,” added Kristianto, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.
Around 28,000 people live within the evacuation zone.
The 1,580-meter Mount Lokon is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia. It erupted in 1991, killing a Swiss tourist.
The latest case of bribery and corruption in defence contracts where the numbers have been revealed suggests that the going rate for commissions is around 3% of the contract value for simple component contracts.
Armor Holdings Inc., the military- truck maker now a subsidiary of BAE Systems Plc, agreed to pay $16 million to resolve U.S. claims it bribed a United Nations official to win contracts connected to peacekeeping missions.
The company will pay $10.3 million to resolve criminal allegations and $5.7 million to settle related civil claims, the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission said in separate statements today. The violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which began as early as 2001, took place before BAE bought the company in 2007, prosecutors said. …..
The criminal probe by the Justice Department was settled with a non-prosecution agreement that cited the company’s cooperation and internal investigation in the case. In settling the SEC claims, Armor didn’t admit or deny the allegations.
The Justice Department said Richard Bistrong, who worked in Armor’s international sales unit, and another unidentified executive arranged for the UN agent to receive more than $200,000 in commissions for the 2001 and 2003 contracts. Bistrong pleaded guilty last year to bribing UN and Dutch officials to win body armor and pepper-spray contracts.
It seems this particular contract for the UN was for $6 million, with a declared profit of about $1 million and with the value of the bribe (commission) at about $200,000. Of course the commissions would have been put down as a cost so the real margin would have been well over 20%. A $16 million penalty might appear to be reasonably and sufficiently painful, but I am quite sure that it is small relative to the profits on all the other contracts which could not be penetrated. The amount is probably considered good value by Armor and their new owners considering the immunity they have gained from further sanctions which would also presumably prevent all other prior contracts from being scrutinised very closely .
The story has all the ingredients of a new TV mini-series – a media tycoon, spineless politicians, amoral journalists, a red-headed siren, a multi-billion take-over bid, some corrupt policemen, some Clouseau-like investigators and a bunch of small-time criminals.
Closing down News of the World may have been James Murdoch’s second attempt at putting this problem “in a box”, but the allegations of phone hacking and criminal activity are now bleeding beyond the besmirched masthead, as British parliament calls for Rupert and James Murdoch and News International CEO Rebekah Brooks to front up to answer questions.
As News International continues to try to staunch the blood, now upgraded to a full blown haemorrhage, here’s a guide to the allegations thus far — where they’ve come from, and the subsequent response …
Of course since he has tenure (based it would seem on rather dodgy results) it seems he cannot be fired. The Harvard President made a vague suggestion last year that scientific misconduct could even lead to loss of tenure. An opinion piece in the Harvard Crimson called for his sacking earlier this year. In fact it may well be that getting tenure was one of the reasons that he apparently just made up some of his results. But now the Harvard Magazine reports that he will be returning to Harvard this fall after his year long sabbatical but will not be allowed to teach.
Presumably he will be continuing with his “research”!
It might have been more appropriate to rescind his tenure, put him on probation and bar him from any unsupervised research.
PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY Marc Hauserwill be returning to Harvard this fall—but not to teaching. At a psychology department meeting this spring, “a large majority” of the faculty voted against allowing him to teach courses in the coming academic year, according to Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) spokesman Jeff Neal.
Hauser, who studies animal cognition as a window into the evolution of the human mind, has been on a yearlong leave of absence after a faculty investigating committee found him “solely responsible” for eight instances of scientific misconduct. The University has never said whether Hauser’s leave was related to the questions about his research.
