Gazette.Net

Emergent BioSolutions this week reported solid earnings and acquired a new, developmental type of anthrax vaccine to complement its own version that it already sells to the federal government.

The Rockville company this week reported a first-quarter profit of $7.0 million, versus a net loss of $2.7 million a year ago. Revenues grew to $42.7 million from $26.4 million, mostly from higher sales of its lead product, BioThrax.

Emergent has a $448 million contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to supply 18.75 million doses of its BioThrax vaccine — the only one approved by the Food and Drug Administration — for the Strategic National Stockpile of biodefense measures. It has been administered to almost 2 million members of the U.S. military, according to company information.

Environmental Graffiti

We all know that smog is a problem in Southern California. Los Angeles is one of the worst places on earth for it. However, the problems posed by smog and the myriad of other bits of junk that we propel into the atmosphere aren’t diagnosed if we don’t know exactly what the toxins are and where they’re coming from. That’s where the Scripps Institute and their robot drones come in.

The robot aircraft, which are not operated or controlled from the time they take off until the time they land–take careful measurements of things like light intensity, temperature, and humidity.

Daily Times

* Patterson says money is transferred to Finance Ministry rather than to security forces

KARACHI: The United States has been providing almost a billion dollars annually to reimburse Pakistan for its fight against militancy since 2001, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W Patterson said on Thursday.

Talking to members of the Management Association of Pakistan (MAP), she said Pakistan was now the third largest recipient of the US assistance in the world.

Finance Ministry: “Contrary to what you may see in the press, this money does not go directly to security services, but is deposited in the central government’s account,” Patterson said, adding that in other words it was a direct cash transfer to the Ministry of Finance.

Wired

The Pentagon's masters of future research want to build a model of the internet, complete with replicant users uploading sneezing panda videos and downloading fake codecs that join their Windows ME boxes to zombie computer armies, THREAT LEVEL's sister blog Danger Room reports.

The idea of DARPA's National Cyber Range is to create a testing environment for cyber warfare research where military cyber-warriors can test new defenses, try new attacks and develop whole new protocols and network architectures. It's just one small part of the fed's new found, $30 billion interest in cyber security.

e-War Games, for short. With replicants.

Here's a short bit on the project's goals:

• The ability to replicate large-scale military and government network enclaves.
• The ability to replicate commercial and tactical wireless and control systems.
• The ability to connect to distributed, custom facilities and/or capabilities as necessary to incorporate specialized capabilities, effects, or infrastructures.
• Interactive test suites to design, configure, monitor, analyze, and release tests.
• The ability to rapidly generate and integrate replications of new machines.
• The ability to integrate new research protocols.
• A test toolkit/repository for reuse of recipes and architectures.
• Forensic quality data collection, analysis, and presentation.
• Realistically replicate human behavior and frailties.
• Realistic, sophisticated, nation-state quality offensive and defensive opposition forces.
• The ability to accelerate and decelerate relative test time.
• A malware repository.

Malware repository? Hmm, I can just imagine some teenager telnetting into the National Cyber Range. NCR asks him if he would like to play a game, and that teenager chooses Global Cybarmageddon! instead of chess.

FinalCall.com News

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com) - The few, the strong, the brave and some convicted felons could well describe today’s Marine Corps. In the Army, more convicted felons can be all they can be too, as all branches of the military relaxed their standards allowing 861 felons to join the ranks in 2007, according to data released April 21 by the Congressional Oversight Committee.

New York Times

The European Union authorities delayed decisions on Wednesday on whether to allow European farmers to grow types of genetically modified crops, heightening tensions with agro-science companies and risking further friction with trading partners like the United States.

The commission has come under pressure from industry and environmental groups over the products, which include a potato produced by the German chemicals giant BASF, and two strains of corn, one from DuPont and Dow AgroSciences of the United States, and another from the Swiss company Syngenta.

Rather than make a final decision on whether to approve or disallow them, the European Commission directed the European Food Safety Authority, an independent body that reports to the commission, to conduct additional safety tests on the products, saying that was the most effective way to reach a decision.

A commission spokesman, Johannes Laitenberger, did not say how long the review would take.

AINA

It is a country that needs to get its priorities straight - and soon.

Germany's leftists, never the biggest fans of America, are currently up in arms about a recent agreement between their country the United States that would benefit both nations in the War on Terror.

Signed March 11, the accord involves a data-sharing plan concerning people suspected of involvement in terrorist and/or criminal activities. Under the agreement, personal information, such as DNA samples, fingerprints, political views, ethnic or racial origin, and even a person's sexual orientation will now be made available to intelligence services in both countries.

Designed as part of a larger project to catch terrorist/criminal evil-doers when they cross international borders, US Secretary for Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, said in Berlin at the time of the deal's signing: "We are fighting a networked, international enemy therefore we have to respond with a global network of our own."

But while such a security proposal, if not long overdue, would at least be viewed as a common sense measure to most rational-minded people, since it is meant to protect and save lives, leftist German union leaders and politicians are condemning the deal as an attack on human rights and Germany's privacy laws.

Register

The FBI has withdrawn a secret order that used new anti-terrorism powers to demand information about a user of the Internet Archive without a court order after attorneys challenged it as an unconstitutional abuse of power.

The victory for the San Francisco-based digital library meant that its founder was able to speak publicly about the sweeping demand, known as an NSL or national security letter, for the first time on Wednesday. Up until now, the demand for personal information about an undisclosed Internet Archive patron was protected by a gag order that prevented all but a handful of people from knowing it even existed.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the use of NSLs has proved a popular tool for getting information in government investigations if it is deemed relevant to terrorism or espionage. More than 200,000 of them were issued between 2003 and 2006, and yet, because of the secrecy surrounding them, only three have been known to have been challenged in court. Remarkably, all three challenges have succeeded.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHILADELPHIA - Fifteen Philadelphia police officers have been taken off the street as authorities investigate a video showing three suspects being kicked and beaten by city police.

A spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter says the mayor stands behind the police department, but his first glance of the video does appear to show the officers overstepping their authority.

Provocateur Attacks WeAreCHANGE

Washington Post

Nearly two dozen federal agents yesterday raided the Washington headquarters of the agency that protects government whistle-blowers, as part of an intensifying criminal investigation of its leader, who is fighting allegations of improper political bias and obstruction of justice.

Agents fanned out yesterday morning in the agency's building on M Street, where they sequestered Office of Special Counsel chief Scott J. Bloch for questioning, served grand-jury subpoenas on 17 employees and shut down access to computer networks in a search lasting more than five hours.

Bloch, who was nominated to his post by President Bush in 2003, is the principal official responsible for protecting federal employees from reprisals for complaints about waste and fraud. He also polices violations of Hatch Act prohibitions on political activities in federal offices.

Bloch has long been a target of criticism, some of it by his agency's career officials, but the FBI's abrupt seizure of computers and records marked a substantial escalation of the executive branch's probe of his conduct. Retired FBI agents and former prosecutors called the raid an unusual, if not unprecedented, intrusion on the work of a federal agency.

TopNews

Berlin - The flames shot into the night sky when university students in Berlin and other German cities tossed thousands of books onto bonfires to purge Nazi Germany of un-German ideas.

The ceremonial burning of books written by Jews, communists and "degenerates" on May 10, 1933 took place less than four months after Adolf Hitler came to power.

This week, the country is hosting a series of lectures, exhibitions, discussions and readings to mark the 75th anniversary of the unsavoury event.

The Academy of Arts in Berlin is holding a commemoration ceremony on Friday during which German President Horst Koehler will be the keynote speaker.

Actors, authors and schoolchildren will read from the works of some of the around 130 authors whose works went up in flames, among them Bertolt Brecht, Sigmund Freund and Thomas Mann.

PR Newswire

TALON Production by QinetiQ North America Supports Detection and

Neutralization of Deadly IEDs and Saves Lives

MCLEAN, Va., May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- QinetiQ North America, a globaldeveloper of innovative technology solutions for national defense, todayannounced that the Foster-Miller subsidiary of its Technology Solutions Group has delivered the 2,000th TALON(R) robot to the U.S. military. More TALON robots are deployed with the U.S. military than any other robot.

TALON robots are deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, primarily to assist military personnel with the extremely dangerous job of detecting anddisabling roadside bombs -- the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) plantedby hostile forces to attack troops. The TALON robot is able to remotely disarm the IED without placing the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and combat engineers in harm's way. Many robots have been damaged in their mission, some multiple times, but today they are rapidly repaired by military personnel at Joint Robot Repair facilities located throughout the world, a type of robot hospital. TALON robots, on average, can be repaired after blast damage and returned to service more than 10 times, before complete replacement is necessary -- a testament to TALON's ruggedness and sustainability.

Kaiser network.org

Emergency departments in seven U.S. cities would be "overwhelmed" if a terrorist attack occurred, and their ability to handle such an event would be further affected if proposed Medicaid changes are implemented, according to a report presented Monday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Washington Post reports (Hsu/Sheridan, Washington Post, 5/6).

The report, as well as testimony from hospital officials, is part of a two-day hearing on hospital preparedness (Miller, Washington Times, 5/6). HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will testify on the issue on Wednesday.

The report examined the ability of 34 EDs to handle a sudden surge of patients injured in a terrorist attack in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City and Washington, D.C. Researchers conducted a survey of the hospitals on March 25 at 4:30 p.m. local time in each city. Five of the cities are considered to have the highest risk for a terrorist attack, and two of the cities are hosting the political conventions this summer (Hall, USA Today, 5/6). The survey was taken by telephone (Powell, AP/Houston Chronicle, 5/5).

Brownfield

Rival groups, one representing meat packers, one representing corn farmers, offered diametrically opposed testimony on the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality Tuesday. The American Meat Institute (AMI) testified strongly against government support for ethanol, while the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) vigorously defended the RFS, which mandates 15 billion gallons of ethanol use domestically by 2015.

J. Patrick Boyle, AMI President and CEO, noted high corn prices have been particularly hard on the nation's livestock producers. And he repeated previous claims that that increased production of corn-based ethanol is responsible for a recent increase in food price inflation.

"Valuing food for its energy content instead of nutrition is adding unnecessary inflationary pressure on the U.S. economy," Boyle said in remarks prepared for the Committee. "Congressional and Administration leaders should develop and implement a plan to decouple the increasing price correlation of food from fuel."

NCGA CEO Rick Tolman, in contrast, noted the positive impact the RFS has had on the overall rural economy. And he rejected Boyle's claims that increased corn costs due to ethanol production are the primary driver of higher food prices.

"A look at the facts surrounding food prices simply doesn’t support that logic,” Tolman said in his prepared testimony. "More so, the effects of $120 barrel oil have far reaching effects on the consumer price for food."
 

MSNBC

Mary Tillman is still waiting for someone to be held accountable for the initial cover-up of the friendly-fire death of her son, NFL-star-turned-soldier Pat Tillman, four years ago in Afghanistan.

“Someone started this deception, and it didn’t start at the three-star level,” Tillman told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Tuesday in New York.

Tillman has just published a book, "Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman," in which she reports that she believes that the cover-up after Pat Tillman’s death on April 22, 2004, reached to the highest levels of the Pentagon.

Trading Markets

May 06, 2008 (The News-Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- -- They're for Ron Paul because of what he's against.

The Texas representative and Republican presidential candidate reeled off what he opposes to some 1,500 enthusiastic supporters at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne on Monday night.

Colfax Record

Luminaries at the Trilateral Commission meeting in Washington expressed confidence that they own all three major presidential candidates, who, despite political posturing, will support sovereignty-surrendering measures such as NAFTA and the “North American Union.”

“John has always supported free trade, even while campaigning before union leaders,” said one. “Hil and Barack are pretending to be unhappy about some things, but that’s merely political posturing. They’re solidly in support.”

He was referring to Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Mrs. Clinton, they noted, held strategy sessions as first lady on how to get Congress to approve NAFTA “without changes.” As president, they agreed, she would do no more than “dot an i or cross a t.”

Candidate Obama has not denied news reports in Canada that his top economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, assured Canadian diplomats that the senator would keep NAFTA intact and his anti-trade talk is just “campaign rhetoric.”

Toronto Sun

It is always tempting to shoot the messenger, especially when that messenger comes across with all the subtleness and compassion of a loan shark's hired muscle.

But there is nothing to gain by yielding to such temptation when the figurative bullet would only take out some poor sap doing the dirty work for Imperial Oil who, at the end of yet another abusive day, probably downs a jug of vodka in order to black out the memory of it all.

If he doesn't, he should.

The mugging came in the form of a phone call from Esso's accounts payable department, inquiring how I intended to pay the $2,861.50 in furnace oil that my equal billing contract came up short in covering.

CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER - The mother of a mentally ill man stunned by a Taser pleaded for a moratorium on the weapon until more is known about it, while a police officer showed an inquiry dramatic video footage of why the Taser is needed.

The two dramatically different sides were presented to former B.C. Appeal Court justice Thomas Braidwood on Tuesday during a public inquiry into the weapon. Cathy Gallagher held up a red T-shirt her son Christopher had been wearing the day he was hit twice with a Taser by Vancouver police officers.

"Chris was in a panicked state, talking nonsense," she told the inquiry.

"He said 'Mom I thought I was going to die,"' Gallagher added as she stuck her finger through the hole in the cotton T-shirt created by a Taser jolt.

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A half-dozen police officers kicked and beat three men pulled from a car during a traffic stop as a TV helicopter taped the confrontation.

The video, shot by WTXF-TV, shows three police cars stopping a car Monday, two days after a city officer was shot to death responding to a bank robbery.

The tape shows about a dozen officers gathering around the vehicle. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground. Both are kicked repeatedly, while one is seen being punched; one also appears to be struck with a baton.

The third man is also kicked and ends up on the ground.

 Time Out Productions presents an interview with Genesis Communication Network host of Dead Line Live Jack Blood.
 

Michigan Live

GENESEE COUNTY, Michigan -- On its face, it would seem like farmers should be grinning.

After all, the price tags at the grocery store are growing. The cost of grain, eggs and other foods has skyrocketed.

Area farmers say they aren't reaping the benefits though: Their would-be profits are being eaten up by skyrocketing fuel and fertilizer prices, they said.

"When it's all said and done, we're still making what we did before," said George Zmitko, an Owosso farmer with about 8,000 acres spread across five counties.

CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - Instead of increasing crime in its neighbourhood, Vancouver's supervised drug-injection site has actually produced a "modest decline" in public drug use, says a criminologist who studied the situation.

Neil Boyd, who looked at the impact of Insite on public order between 2000 and 2006, said it hasn't had the "honey pot" effect some had feared - that is, it hasn't served to draw more crime to the area.

The concern was that "dealers throughout Vancouver and possibly beyond may be drawn to Insite, amplifying the kinds of disturbance that are typically associated with illicit drug use; drug dealing, property crime, prostitution and violent crime."

In fact, he said, his group's analysis of police crime reports in the area over four years found just the opposite.

"Our detailed maps confirmed the hypothesis of no impact, no significant changes in relation to criminal offences in the area could be traced to the establishment of Insite," he said.

International Herald Tribune

LONDON: Emotion-detecting robot cars will face off against eavesdropping flying saucers in the English countryside later this year, as scientists and school children compete with their designs for the next generation of military equipment.

It's the British Ministry of Defense's first ever "Grand Challenge" — aimed at encouraging scientists, inventors and academics to turn ideas into machines for army use in urban environments.

It gave six finalists funding to build prototypes of their mini-helicopters and disc-shaped flying robots fitted with heat and motion sensors that can be controlled remotely from a bunker. And the finalists, who each received 300,000 pounds (US$600,000 (€388,000), came to London this week to display their models.

"This project has really allowed us to broaden out our vision and look at what other work is being done out there in our field," said Norman Gregory, business manager for the Silicon Valley Group PLC, a small research company in southeast Britain.

His company teamed up with the Bruton School for Girls in Somerset to build an unmanned buggy that can analyze gunmen's movements to determine whether they are angry or nervous.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - A former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who wrote a now-repudiated memo allowing the harsh interrogation of terrorist suspects has reportedly agreed to testify to before Congress.

Congressional sources say John Yoo, now a law professor at University of California-Berkeley, will voluntarily testify before the House judiciary committee about the Bush administration's interrogation practices after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

WorldNetDaily

A rally has been set for tomorrow in front of the magistrate's office in Mt. Holly, Pa., in support of a Mennonite farmer who has brought the wrath of the government on himself for selling raw milk and other products – an act government prosecutors say violates a number of regulations.

That's when the next court hearing is scheduled for Mark Nolt, a Pennsylvania farmer who turned in his state permit to sell raw milk because it didn't allow for the sale of the other products he offered.

"They swooped in ... like a bunch of Vikings, handcuffed me and stole $30,000 worth of my milk, cheese and butter," he told the New York Daily News.

His case is just an example of what the government is trying to do to those who believe – based on medical results – that raw milk is better for them than the processed milk available in most grocery stores, according to Nolt's supporters.

Processed milk, many believe, leads to clogged arteries, strokes and heart attacks.

According to reports published by the Weston A. Price Foundation, results of a study by the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom revealed only one percent of the subjects in an ongoing lifestyle study of 5,000 men suffered heart attacks – if they drank full-fat milk and ate butter rather than margarine.

Gary From WeAreCHANGE owns Jeff Greenfield and gets Katie Couric to agree with the fact that the commission had problems and 50,000 are sick and dying because the EPA had knowingly lied about the air quality.