Roboy/University of ZurichYikes.
Plenty of robots have bodies that are meant to look like ours, but what about what’s going on inside those metal frames? This is where the likeness between humans and robots ends—unless you are part of the Roboy project.
Roboy comes via researchers at the University of Zurich’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, who aim to not only make a robot seem human on the outside, but also have a similar tendon-based internal structure.
The 15 partners and 40 engineers looked at human biology in order to get Roboy moving just like a person would, which, as you might expect, requires a frame that resembles a human skeleton. This will allow Roboy to walk more elegantly, so it avoids the clunky “robot dance” movement robots have (which is due to the limitation of joint motors). Even the skin material used will be as soft as a human’s.
The researchers hope that Roboy will improve communication between robots and humans. Roboy is a service robot too, so it'll eventually be able to perform tasks without any human input—and that’s jobs, not just the household chores.
North Korea now has an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the United States, as demonstrated by their successful launch and orbiting of a satellite on Dec. 12.
Certain poorly informed pundits among the chattering classes reassure us that North Korea is still years away from being able to miniaturize warheads for missile delivery, and from developing sufficiently accurate missiles to pose a serious nuclear threat to the United States.
Philip Yun, director of San Francisco’s Ploughshares Fund, a nuclear disarmament group, reportedly said, “The real threat from the launch was an overreaction that would lead to more defense spending on unnecessary systems. The sky is not falling. We shouldn’t be panicked.”
In fact, North Korea is a mortal nuclear threat to the United States - right now.
North Korea has already successfully tested and developed nuclear weapons. It has also already miniaturized nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery and has armed missiles with nuclear warheads.
In 2011, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. General Ronald Burgess, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea has weaponized its nuclear devices into warheads for ballistic missiles.
North Korea has labored for years and starved its people so it could develop an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the United States. Why? Because they have a special kind of nuclear weapon that could destroy the United States with a single blow.
In summer 2004, a delegation of Russian generals warned the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Commission that secrets had leaked to North Korea for a decisive new nuclear weapon - a Super-EMP warhead.
Any nuclear weapon detonated above an altitude of 30 kilometers will generate an electromagnetic pulse that will destroy electronics and could collapse the electric power grid and other critical infrastructures - communications, transportation, banking and finance, food and water - that sustain modern civilization and the lives of 300 million Americans. All could be destroyed by a single nuclear weapon making an EMP attack.
A Super-EMP attack on the United States would cause much more and much deeper damage than a primitive nuclear weapon, and so would increase confidence that the catastrophic consequences will be irreversible. Such an attack would inflict maximum damage and be optimum for realizing a world without America.
Both North Korean nuclear tests look suspiciously like a Super-EMP weapon. A Super-EMP warhead would have a low yield, like the North Korean device, because it is not designed to create a big explosion, but to convert its energy into gamma rays, that generate the EMP effect.
Reportedly South Korean military intelligence concluded, independent of the EMP Commission, that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop a Super-EMP warhead. In 2012, a military commentator for the People’s Republic of China stated that North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear warheads.
A Super-EMP warhead would not weigh much, and could probably be delivered by North Korea’s ICBM. The missile does not have to be accurate, as the EMP field is so large that detonating anywhere over the United States would have catastrophic consequences. The warhead does not even need a re-entry vehicle, as an EMP attack entails detonating the warhead at high-altitude, above the atmosphere.
So, as of Dec. 12, North Korea’s successful orbit of a satellite demonstrates its ability to make an EMP attack against the United States - right now.
The Congressional EMP Commission estimates that, given the nation’s current unpreparedness, within one year of an EMP attack, two-thirds of the U.S. population - 200 million Americans - would probably perish from starvation, disease and societal collapse.
Thus, North Korea now has an Assured Destruction capability against the United States. The consequences of this development are so extremely grave that U.S. and global security have, in effect, gone over the “strategic cliff” into free-fall. Where we will land, into what kind of future, is as yet unknown.
Nevertheless, some very bad developments are foreseeable. Iran will certainly be inspired by North Korea’s example to persist in the development of its own nuclear weapon and ICBM programs to pose a mortal threat to the United States. Indeed, North Korea and Iran have been collaborating all along.
If North Korea and Iran both acquire the capability to threaten America with EMP genocide, this will destroy the foundations of the existing world order, which has since 1945 halted the cycle of world wars and sustained the global advancement of freedom.
North Korea and Iran being armed with Assured Destruction capability changes the whole strategic calculus of risk for the United States in upholding its superpower role, and will erode the confidence of U.S. allies — perhaps to the point where they will need to develop their own nuclear weapons.
Most alarming, we are fast moving to a place where, for the first time in history, failed little states like North Korea and Iran, that cannot even feed their own people, will have power in their hands to blackmail or destroy the largest and most successful societies on Earth.
North Korea and Iran perceive themselves to be at war with the United States, and are desperate, highly unpredictable characters. When the mob is at the gates of their dictators, will they want to take America with them down into darkness?
What is to be done?
The president should immediately issue an Executive Order, drafted for the White House earlier by the Congressional EMP Commission, to protect the national electric grid and other critical infrastructures from an EMP attack.
The Congress should pass the SHIELD Act (HR 668) now to provide the legal authorities and financial mechanisms for protecting the electric grid from EMP. The Congress should enhance Defense Department programs for National Missile Defense and Department of Homeland Security programs for protecting critical infrastructures.
The administration and the Congress owe the American people security from an EMP Apocalypse.
That raises some obvious questions about democracy and the Two State Solution.
Hamas won the last round of legislative elections and its Prime Minister represents the legal government of the Palestinian Authority, not Fayyad, who was appointed by Abbas’ Western backers. Abbas’ rule has been based on an illegal emergency decree that has gone on for six years now.
But at some point the Palestinian Authority will need to hold elections. It has held very few of them so far because Fatah is afraid of Hamas. But if Palestinian statehood is approved and legal elections are held, then the Islamists will beat the Arab Socialists just like they did in Egypt. And what then?
Negotiating with Abbas and the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority is a sham, not only because they’re dishonest liars, but because they are not the actual government of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is. And in an election, Hamas will win.
A Two State Solution can only be built with an undemocratic Palestinian Authority. It cannot work with a Palestinian Authority that holds open elections.
So the question for Two State Solutionists is do they support Hamas or do they support an undemocratic Palestinian Authority? Because those are the only two possible outcomes.
Let the Headlines Speak
Dec 29th, 2012
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues
Assad's forces seize Homs district from rebels - activists
Syrian government forces have pushed rebels from a district in Homs after several days of fierce fighting in the strategically important city, opposition activists said on Saturday. The army moved into Deir Ba'alba, a neighbourhood on the north-eastern edge of Homs, they said, leaving the rebels controlling just the central neighbourhoods around the old city and the district of Khalidiyah, immediately to the north.
Activists voice dismay as Senate renews government surveillance measure
Civil rights campaigners voiced dismay...over the US Senate's re-authorization of the government's warrantless surveillance program, and the defeat of...amendments that would have provided for basic oversight of the eavesdropping. The Senate voted 73-23 to extend the law, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act, for five years.
Egypt to pursue relationship with Hezbollah
In a dramatic policy shift, Egypt will seek to forge "tight" relations with Hezbollah, Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon Ashraf Hamdy revealed in a candid interview published Saturday in Lebanon's Daily Star. “You cannot discuss politics in Lebanon without having a relationship with Hezbollah," Hamdy was quoting as saying, before describing the terror group as a "real force on the ground" with "big political and military influence."
$1 Trillion Obamacare Tax Hike Hitting on Jan. 1
On January 1, regardless of the outcome of fiscal cliff negotiations, Americans will be hit with a $1 trillion Obamacare tax hike. Obamacare contains twenty new or higher taxes. Five of the taxes hit for the first time on January 1. In total, for the years 2013-2022, Americans face a net $1 trillion tax hike for the years 2013-2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
French 75% income tax struck down by constitutional council
France's constitutional council has overturned a top income tax rate of 75% introduced by Socialist President Francois Hollande. Raising taxes for those earning more than 1m euros (£817,400) has been a flagship policy for Mr Hollande, who was elected in May.
Taliban Pakistani Taliban call for ceasefire in video statement
The Taliban in Pakistan have said they want to negotiate a ceasefire in a video statement by their leader, Hakemullah Mehsud. The video, delivered to the Reuters news agency in Pakistan on Friday, is the latest in a series of statements in recent days stating that the group wants a peace deal – though they refuse to disarm.
Iran: Navy Begins War Games Near Vital Waterway
Iran’s naval forces began six days of war games on Friday in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway considered vital to international oil tanker traffic.
China Toughens Its Restrictions on Use of the Internet
The Chinese government issued new rules on Friday requiring Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for deleting forbidden postings and reporting them to the authorities.
Same-sex couples marry in Maine for first time
The first gay and lesbian couples to wed under Maine’s new same-sex marriage law exchanged vows early on Saturday in a series of spare but joyous civil ceremonies held shortly after midnight in the only state to welcome such nuptials solely by popular vote.
India gang-rape victim dies in Singapore
Doctors have announced that a young Indian woman who was gang-raped and severely beaten on a bus in India's capital, New Delhi, has died at their Singapore hospital. A statement by Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital where the 23-year-old victim was being treated said she "died peacefully" early on Saturday.
Governor signs new law for abortion clinics in Michigan
Michigan's Republican governor on Friday signed into law new rules for abortion providers that supporters say will protect the health of pregnant women but critics say will shutter clinics and restrict access. The law signed by Governor Rick Snyder increases state oversight of abortion clinics and establishes a screening protocol to make sure women are not being forced to get an abortion.
French and Israeli intelligence sources affirmed Saturday, Dec. 29, that, contrary to reports appearing in the United States Friday, Iran has accelerated rather than slowed down its 20-percent grade enrichment of uranium and is racing toward a nuclear weapons capacity. Furthermore, for the moment, there is not the slightest indication that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has any intention of accepting the Obama administration’s latest plan for a nuclear deal.
As debkafile has revealed, this plan would require Iran to discontinue production of 20-percent enriched uranium (which can be quickly converted to weapons grade material), and confine itself to producing low 5 percent uranium in agreed amounts. Tehran would also have to accept the removal from the country of its entire stock of 20-percent refined uranium.
The same sources point to the first appearance this week of Iran-made Fateh A-110 high-precision, short-range missiles in the use of the Syrian army against rebel fighters, under the guidance of Iranian officers and instructors, as underscoring the inter-dependence Tehran draws between the Syrian and nuclear issues.
Khamenei now links an acceptable solution for the Syrian dilemma to his possible nuclear flexibility.
debkafile: When Iranians talks about an inter-power solution for ending the Syrian war, they mean a deal between Washington, Moscow and Tehran on both issues.
The Fateh missiles are being fired quite openly by Iranian military personnel in command of Syrian missile units as Tehran’s answer for the deployment of US, German and Dutch NATO Patriots on the Turkish side of the Syrian border. They also carry a message in response to Israel’s threat of offensive action against Syria if it becomes necessary to thwart its use of chemical weapons. According to our French and military sources, Tehran is using the Fateh missiles and the Iranian military presence in Syria to warn that there is no bar to their use against Turkey, Jordan and Israel as well, in the event of a US or Israel attack on Syria’s chemical stores.
On no account, will Iran permit the overthrow of Bashar Assad’s regime in Damascus. At most, Tehran conceives of his departure in stages and handover to an emergency government led by the military or an armed forces faction to which certain opposition elements may be co-opted. Elections, in the Iranian view, must be deferred until hostilities end and the security situation is stable.
American and French sources agree that Tehran and Moscow have attained full coordination in their strategies for Syria and also on Iran’s nuclear program. They note that it was not by chance that the Russian Navy Wednesday, Dec. 26, launched its largest sea maneuver ever in the Mediterranean and the approaches to the Persian Gulf, just two days before Iranian warships, submarines and aircraft embarked on their week-long Velayat 91 sea exercise in the Straits of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman, and northern parts of the Indian Ocean.
The command centers of the Russian and Iranian war games are under orders from Moscow and Tehran to jointly exhibit naval muscle in order to bolster the Assad regime against collapse.
Parallel to the influx of Fateh missiles from Iran to Syria, Moscow is rapidly expanding the deployment of its highly-sophisticated S-400 air and missile interceptors in Russia’s southern military region near the Turkish border.
The Syrian crisis unbelievably took another turn for the worse Saturday, Dec. 29: After making no headway with Bashar Assad in Damascus, the UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was told in no uncertain terms by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow: “There is no possibility of persuading Syrian ruler Bashar Assad to leave Syria.” As they spoke, a record 400 people died in hostilities in the country. The burnt remains of hundreds of people slaughtered by the army were discovered in a Homs district. And Syrian opposition leaders have repeatedly preconditioned their acceptance of the Russian invitation to talks on Assad’s prior exit.
This stalemate is compounded by escalation in the use of two extreme weapons of war. Since Dec. 12, the Syrian army has been firing home-made Scud missiles at rebel centers. The US and NATO have responded by stationing six Patriot batteries manned by 1,000 American, German and Dutch servicemen, on the Turkish-Syrian border to protect Turkey from Syrian attack. The inference here is that so long as the Scuds are confined to targets inside Syria, Western intervention will stop at the border.
Then on Dec. 26, The Syrian army, under the command of Iranian officers, began shooting Fateh A-110 high-precision, short-range surface missiles made in Iran. They were sent to Syria at top speed by an Iranian airlift flying over Iraq. Syria in fact manufactures a local version of the Fateh A-110, called M600. But Tehran decided to deliver the originals to show the world that Assad is not fighting alone and that Iran’s military support for his regime is solid – not just against the uprising, but also against NATO, its missiles and the units which have taken up position in Turkey.
In effect, both sides to the conflict appear to have resorted to a form of chemical warfare. Western and Middle East military sources report that, last week, Syrian forces loyal to Assad are thought to have used in the Homs battle of Dec. 23 grenades containing a gas that paralyzes lungs and causes extreme infirmity, or even death.
Those sources were careful to point out that the gas was most likely “a concentrated irritant,” but not one of the deadly chemical weapons stockpiled by the Assad regime. They were equally careful to avoid indentifying its origin. debkafile’s intelligence sources disclose that these gas grenades were especially developed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps for use against the masses which demonstrated against the 2009 presidential elections. The grenades have now been distributed to pro-Assad Shabiha militias, the Syrian equivalent of Iran’s brutal al Qods Brigades.
The gas grenades were brought out on Dec. 22, the day after the Syrian Presidential Guard reported that seven of its number had died in battle near Damascus as a result of a weapon used by the rebels which “produced a yellow toxic gas.”
This allegation may have been trumped up to justify the pro-Assad forces’ use of toxic gas grenades in Homs. Be that as may, both sides appear to be preparing the ground for chemical warfare. Yet no Western, or any other external power, including Russia, appears ready to intervene to put a stop to the latest horror raising its head in the Syrian conflict, the escalation to chemical warfare - any more than they prevented its descent to the bombardment of civilians by missiles.
In Amman, the Jordanian information minister Sameeh Maaytah, said Sunday, Dec. 30, that his government is prepared for any chemical threat on the kingdom but will not enter into “any alliance” to protect itself.
Several media attributed the minister’s comment to the visit Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu paid to Amman last week for talks with King Abdullah, purportedly about the Syrian chemical weapons threat they share.
debkafile’s military sources point out that only the first half of the Jordanian statement is correct. The other half is as unreal as most of the comments on the chemical weapons peril heard from Western powers, Russia, Israel or Arab spokesmen. It is a fact that Jordan has after all entered into close alliance with NATO, not to mention the US, for protecting the kingdom. This alliance goes forward on six tracks:
1. Learning how to treat victims of a potential Syrian chemical attack;
2. Setting up an American-Jordanian headquarters in Amman for coordinated operations against this threat, similar to the joint outfits the US has established in Israel and Turkey. The Americans have imported to Jordan a military field hospital specializing in the treatment of chemical warfare victims;
3. Since last summer, US Army Green Berets, which specialize in chemical warfare, have been training Jordanian troops;
4. Czech and Polish military units, expert in chemical and biological warfare, are also in the Hashemite kingdom. They are not only teaching Jordanian units how to combat chemical warfare, but also Syrian rebels;
5. US and Jordanian special units are standing ready for orders to enter Syria and attack the sites of the chemical weapons positioned for shooting into Jordan and Israel;
6. The Jordanian army units deployed between the areas around Amman and close to the northern Jordanian border with Syria were issued last week with anti-contamination masks and suits.
All in all, the United States and NATO have prepared Jordan exhaustively for a possible Syrian chemical weapons attack. If this happens, some intelligence sources estimate Israel or Turkey may be targeted next. Given the Syrian conflict’s sequential plunge into unspeakable atrocities, Israel cannot count on being exempt from a poison weapons attack - even before its Jan. 22 general election.
The Arab League Secretary Nabil al-Araby and Egyptian Foreign Minister Muhammed Amer arrived in Ramallah Saturday for talks with Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. They are discussing the League’s pledge of $100 million to bridge the Palestinian budget’s shortfall, which is partly accounted for by Israel withholding tax receipts in reprisal for Abbas’ unilateral application to the UN. DEBKAfile: The bulk of the deficit comes from the failure of Arab and European donor-governments to meet their pledges of financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority.
The Palestinians also claimed the two visitors arrived aboard a Jordanian helicopter from Amman to avoid going through an Israeli border station. DEBKAfile: Anyway, the Jordanian helicopter would have had to obtain clearance from the Israel Air Force and submitted a list of passengers before being allowed to land in Ramallah under the guidance of Israeli air controllers.
