Conficker Virus, AKA Downadup Worm

In traditional warfare, as General George S. Patton (wiki) put it “The object of war is not to die for your country; but to get the other /guy/ die for his.”

In this new age of cyber-warfare we lose food, sleep,  time and money.  Personally, I’d rather lose a few night’s sleep, a weekend, and some cash than an arm, a leg, my sanity, my life, or one of my kids.

I’m inclined to think that “conficker,” aka “downadup” will bad. I know of four law firms in NewYork City that have been hit by viruses in the past week. Two were the conficker virus. The third was not. I don’t know the details on the fourth. Microsoft has offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the people responsible for conficker. Microsoft wouldn’t offer a $250,000 reward for chopped liver.

Here are the details:

Advice – if you’re using Windows, Mac, or Linux:

  1. Change your passwords. The best passwords are comprised of at least 8 symbols, consisting of a mix of  letters, numbers or punctuation marks.  To make it easy to remember, use “3” for “e” and “1 for ‘I’.  Use composite words, then mix ’em up. For example “baseball” could become “Bas3ba11.” And punctuation in the middle always helps. “Bas3-ba11!” Don’t use the same password for your banking that you use for Amazon, Facebook, Flicker, etc. Continue reading →

Nuclear Fusion in 10 or 20 Years

Thomas Friedman is right in “The Next Really Cool Thing” in The New York Times, March 15, 2009, when he concludes:

At the pace we’re going with the technologies we have, without some game-changers, climate change is going to have its way with us. Yes, we’ll still need coal for some time. But let’s make sure that we aren’t just chasing the fantasy that we can “clean up” coal, when our real future depends on birthing new technologies that can replace it.

Note that he pointed out ‘the fantasy that we can “clean up” coal.

Friedman also said:

“I don’t know if they can pull this off; some scientists are skeptical. Laboratory-scale nuclear fusion and energy gain is really hard…. we need to keep working on all forms of solar, geothermal and wind power. They work. And the more they get deployed, the more their costs will go down.”

Fusion may be the game changer. “Energy Gain” means we get more energy out than we put in. The prototype will cost $10 Billion – enough for 5 GW of wind capacity, and 1.53 GW of PV Solar. And fusion is at least 10 years away, maybe 20, maybe 50. We know how to build wind and solar. (On the other hand it takes 10 years to build a nuclear fission reactor.)

But pushing carbon below 350 ppm is a problem that can’t wait 10 years.  According to the World Watch Institute’s Vital Signs, 2007-2008, the 6.5 billion humans on the earth are using the natural resources of 1.25 earths.  This can’t go on.

Plastics in Paradise

Bird Foraging on The Beach

This shows a bird foraging on the beach in Zihuatenejo, Mexico. Note the pretty blue bottle cap at 1:00, the yellow ball at 8:45, and the white foam tray at 11:30. This is good stuff – it will last 1000 years.  No matter how many birds, dolphins, turtles,  eat it, and consequently die, it will still be a blue bottle cap, a yellow ball, and white foam.

Greenwashing Coal at the Center for American Progress

The Center for American Progress, which claims its mission to be “Progressive Ideas for a Strong, Just, and Free America,” has published “Carbon Capture and Sequestration 101.”  This is on the heels of the 2005  “Global Warming and the Future of Coal.”

In “Global Warming and the Future of Coal” they begin with a discussion of some of the problems of coal, then say:

“Fortunately, there is a potential pathway that would allow continued use of coal as an energy source without magnifying the risk of global warming. Technology currently exists to capture CO2 emissions from coal-fired plants before they are released into the environment and to sequester that CO2 in underground geologic formations.”

This implies that we WANT to use coal. I would prefer to power my house with solar and wind and eat tuna and not worry about mercury poisoning.

Continue reading →

Breakthrough In Methane Research

Dr Graeme Attwood is leading a team of scientists in New Zealand’s Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium are looking at ways of reducing the amount of methane farm animals produce – which in New Zealand accounts for 32 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions.

The scientists are looking at Methanobrevibacter Ruminantium, a member of a major group of rumen methanogens, which use hydrogen and carbon dioxide to form methane. The existence of these methanogens, bacteria which synthesize methane from carbon dioxide, CO2, and hydrogen, H2, means that these bacteria “eat” carbon dioxide, and hydrogen, turning them into methane, CH4 , and oxygen, O2.

CO2 + 2 H2, -> CH4 + O2

Continue reading →

Violence in Northern Ireland

Violence in Northern Ireland resulted in the deaths of two British soldiers, and the shooting injuries of two additional soldiers and two pizza deliverymen, shot on the rationale that delivering pizza to the British barracks was an act of political “collaboration.” Details and background via Wikipedia News.

7 March 2009, two British soldiers from 38 Engineer Regiment were shot dead outside Massereene Barracks in Antrim town, Northern Ireland. Two other soldiers and two civilian deliverymen were also shot and wounded during the attack. The Irish republican paramilitary group, the Real IRA, issued a statement claiming responsibility.[internal citations omitted]

Second Anniversary of Bob Levinson’s disappearance

Today marks the second anniversary of Bob Levinson’s disappearance. Tomorrow will be his 61st birthday.

From his wife Christine’s statement to the Sun-Sentinel Newspapers:

Today marks two years that my husband, Robert “Bob” Levinson, has been missing in Iran. Two years since our seven children and I last heard his voice, saw his warm, loving smile, and since we last hugged him hello or kissed him goodbye. After two years of constantly praying for his return, we continue to anxiously await word of his whereabouts. Bob disappeared on March 9, 2007, while on a business trip to Kish Island, Iran.Since that day, our family has been living a nightmare.

This has brought much darkness to our lives.

Our children and I have done everything possible to find out what happened to Bob and bring him home, but we still have no information.

The people and government of Iran have the power to help us find Bob and bring him home, and once again I ask, in the name of our seven children, son-in-law and two grandchildren, for their help.

Despite the lack of any information, we still believe Bob is alive and will someday be home with us. We will never stop looking for him, and we will continue to reach out to anyone who may be able to help us.

Tomorrow, March 10th, is Bob’s 61st birthday.

Today we are releasing a computer enhanced photograph showing what we think Bob may look like now, two years after he disappeared.

We hope that the media will publish this image of Bob, so people who have come into contact with Bob or seen him will recognize him and contact us.

We ask anyone who recognizes Bob or has any information to e-mail our website, info@helpboblevinson.com, or contact any U.S. Embassy or Swiss Embassy anywhere in the world.

In the past two years, our family’s grief has grown to despair. Bob has diabetes and a number of other ailments, including high blood pressure, hypertension, and gout, all of which require daily medication.

We greatly worry for his health and hope he is getting the proper care for his medical conditions, wherever he is.

Please remember Bob Levinson.

For more information – and what you can do to help, go to HelpBobLevinson.com

NPR Reporter arrested in Iran

Agence France Press reports that NPR Reporter Roxana Saberi – an American Citizen (and former Miss North Dakota) has been arrested on flimsy charges (purchasing alcohol) in Iran.

NPR, as of this writing (1040 Monday morning), doesn’t feature her arrest on its front page. Here’s a link to their Saturday coverage, including Scott Simon’s interview with her father.

From the Agence-France Press piece:

The journalist, a former Miss North Dakota, is a US national who also holds an Iranian passport because her father was born in Iran.

Saberi, who has reported for NPR, BBC and Fox News, has been living in Iran for six years, both working as a journalist and pursuing a master’s degree in Iranian studies and international relations.

She was also writing a book about Iran, NPR reported, adding that her father said she was planning to move back to the United States later this year.

Iran, which does not recognise dual nationality, has detained several US-Iranians in recent years.

In May 2007, US-Iranian academicians Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh along with California-based peace activist Ali Shakeri were arrested and held for more than 100 days, on suspicion of causing harm to national security.

US-Iranian journalist Parnaz Azima had her passport confiscated in January 2007 for eight months after she arrived in Iran on a private visit. She avoided jail by paying bail of around 550,000 dollars after which she left the country.

Azima worked for the Persian-language service of Radio-Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is considered a “counter-revolutionary radio” by the Iranian authorities.

She was later sentenced in absentia to one year in prison for “propaganda against the regime.”

American former FBI agent Robert Levinson has been missing for nearly two years since vanishing on the Iranian island of Kish in the Gulf.

The judiciary has denied holding Levinson, whose disappearance is a further strain in relations between arch-foes the United States and Iran.

Further:

New York Times coverage here.

Kelly Smith –  coverage at InForum (North Dakota)

MIT unveils 90 MPH solar car

Via the Autopia blog on Wired.com – “MIT Unveils 90 MPH Solar Race Car“, by Chuck Squatriglia:

MIT’s latest solar race car might look like a funky Ikea table with a hump, but don’t laugh. It’ll do 90 mph and is packed with technology that may end up in the hybrids and EVs the rest of us will soon be driving.

MIT Solar Team with "Eleanor"

MIT Solar Team with “Eleanor”

The university’s Solar Electric Vehicle Team, the oldest such team in the country, unveiled the $243,000 carbon-fiber racer dubbed Eleanor on Friday and is shaking the car down to prepare for its inaugural race later this year. “It drives beautifully,” said George Hansel, a freshman physics major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the team. “It’s fun to drive and quite a spectacle.”

Eleanor is slated to compete in the tenth World Solar Challenge, a seven-day race across nearly 2,000 miles of Australian outback.

See also Mr. Squatriglia’s 10 Best Songs About Cars.

Obama and Gore v Inertia

Popular Logistics is not a political blog. We focus on Policy – Energy Policy, Health Care Policy, Emergency Management Policy. We heard a lot of good ideas in President Obama’s speech Tuesday night – Sustained Growth; Shared Prosperity. We agree on Solar and Wind – we need to substantially increase our clean energy infrastructure.  However, we respectfully disagree on coal. It is not clean. The technology does not yet exist to economically sequester carbon, and Moore’s Law will not apply. We know we can meet Gore’s Challenge – Clean and Green by 2018, and we know that would be good for America and the world.  And we believe that Rush Limbaugh, who said “I hope Obama fails” is unpatriotic, and in fact, guilty of treason.

  • 225 GW of Wind Capacity – $2,43 per watt – $546.75 billion
  • 75 gw Solar $6.5 per watt = $487.50 billion
  • 300 GW of capacity = $1.03 trillion

This is good for the economy, and good for the planet.

Secretary Clinton asked about Bob Levinson's whereabouts, status

Got this [link to post] via the blog of Bill Warner, a private investigator based in Sarasota. Apparently Senator Bill Nelson (there’s also a Ben Nelson, from Nebraska, of Florida, asked Secretary Clinton about the Levinson case during her confirmation hearings, and said that he believed Levinson was being held in a secret prison in Iran. Whatever the basis for this information, no one in government had seen fit to share it with Bobby’s wife, Christine.

Here’s the Fox News reporting. While I’m not normally a big fan of Fox, on this story they deserve credit for not forgetting about Bobby Levinson.

Likewise Senator Nelson and Bill Warner.

Further references:

Bill Warner’s blog here – and his investigative business here.

Senator Nelson’s campaign site here; and his official site here.

We plan to make a donation and send him a letter of thanks and encouragement; we urge our readers to do the same.