Posts Tagged ‘ice’
ICE agent killed in shootout — with other ICE agents!
Streets closed around the federal building after the shootout
A dispute between federal immigration agents that left one of them dead and another injured in southern California prompted the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to travel to the scene on Friday.
Federal officials said the incident occurred during a counseling session regarding performance…
“The situation began … as an incidence of workplace violence involving two federal agents in their office space,” said Steven Martinez, assistant director of the FBI office in Los Angeles. “When the incident escalated, one agent fired several rounds at the other agent, wounding him.”
A third colleague intervened and fired at the shooter, killing him, Martinez said.
Kevin Kozak, 51, a deputy special agent in the Los Angeles area, suffered multiple injuries and is undergoing treatment at a hospital. He is in stable condition.
Federal agent Ezequiel Garcia, 45, was killed during the incident…
Must have been a helluva counseling session. Job evaluations can be a trying time.
Oops! of the Day
Daylife/AP PHoto used by permission
In this photo provided by Minnesota State Patrol, a semi truck is submerged in an icy pond in Monticello, Minn. on Friday, Jan. 6, 2012. The Minnesota State Patrol says the driver was taken to a local hospital, treated and released. Patrol Lt. Eric Roeske says the driver was pulling a Target trailer, left eastbound I-94, crossed over lanes of oncoming traffic and skidded onto the pond. Roeske says the semi skidded 100 to 200 yards across the ice before breaking through.
Looking at videos of the accident, the ice appears thick enough that the driver almost – that’s almost – made it across the pond.
Scientists oppose junk climate science – even when supportive!
The Times Atlas of the World exaggerated the rate of Greenland’s ice loss in its thirteenth edition last week, scientists said. The atlas, published by HarperCollins, showed that Greenland lost 15 percent of its ice cover over the past 12 years, based on information from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado in the United States…
However, a number of scientists disputed the claim.
“We believe that the figure of a 15 percent decrease in permanent ice cover since the publication of the previous atlas 12 years (ago) is both incorrect and misleading,” said Poul Christoffersen, glaciologist at the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge. “We concluded that a sizable portion of the area mapped as ice-free in the Atlas is clearly still ice-covered.”
Other scientists agreed.
“These new maps are ridiculously off base, way exaggerated relative to the reality of rapid change in Greenland,” said Jeffrey S. Kargel, senior research scientist at the University of Arizona…
Professional pundits and ideologues – pretending to be science-based skeptics – rarely understand the function of peer review includes every conceivable aspect of evaluation and judgement.
Scientists exposing what they perceive to be an unscientific exaggeration – even if it supports a portion of a widely-held thesis like climate change – is unacceptable because it’s bad science. Not that any flavor of lying makes a difference to the know-nothings.
Huge chunk of a Greenland glacier set to break off – again
In August 2010, a section of ice about four times the size of Manhattan broke off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland. This was the largest glacial calving event ever seen in Greenland, according to polar researcher Jason Box of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University.
Now, Box and other researchers are warning that another massive chunk of ice is close to breaking off from the same glacier, speeding the Petermann’s already rapid slide into the sea. Ice is melting all over the planet, but it’s what happens to land ice, such as the vast Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, that will largely determine how high sea levels rise during the coming decades.
In recent years, that fate has started to look increasingly dire: new research shows that glacial melting has sped up lately, a development that Box calls a telltale sign of global warming.
Box and his colleague Allun Hubbard of Aberystwyth University in Wales have released high resolution before-and-after images that reveal the scale of the ice loss at Petermann, with open water interspersed among scattered pieces of ice where solid ice used to be.
Even though they knew about the breakup event, Hubbard said it was nevertheless a shock to see firsthand. “I was still unprepared for the impact I felt of the scale of the breakup which rendered me speechless,” Hubbard said…
Box recently coauthored a study in the journal Annals of Glaciology that found that 39 of Greenland’s widest glaciers collectively lost an area of nearly 593 square miles between 2000 and 2010, with the greatest loss recorded at Petermann. The study found that the vast majority of the losses in area have occurred in northern Greenland, which matches with climate data that shows the climate is warming more significantly in that region…
Although the Arctic seems far-removed from everyday developments in the United States, Box notes that what happens there will eventually affect those in lower latitudes. “People should care because climate change in the Far North is occurring faster than down where we live… and what happens in the Far North affects us via sea level.” He noted that Hurricane Irene may have caused more damage via coastal flooding since sea levels have already risen by about a foot along the East Coast during the past century.
“Ice is nature’s thermometer, and if it melts away, we know that something has occurred. Ice doesn’t pay attention to politics, it reacts to temperature and that’s it.”
Way too rational for partisan politics.
The interesting thing for those of you who follow the research in current climate studies is that they aren’t anymore uniform than any other series of events in natural sciences. While the overwhelming body of evidence confirms climate change the process of in-depth studies is revealing many directions of change, new avenues of investigation not directly related to the processes which have been agreed on.
Fascinating – if you’re not one of the stuffed shirts stuck into the ideology of so-called climate skepticism.
Detroit airport Delta baggage handlers drug ring busted
Federal agents toppled two separate drug rings today run by baggage handlers who allegedly imported marijuana and cocaine from Jamaica and Houston while working at Detroit Metro Airport.
Twelve people — including 10 baggage handlers — were arrested early today in an investigation dubbed “Operation Excess Baggage” and accused of exploiting weaknesses at several airports to run drug-smuggling pipelines since at least 2009.
Complaints filed in federal court in Detroit — where nine defendants were ordered held behind bars until at least Friday — describe intricate drug-smuggling rings that used crude tactics, an exotic locale and employee access to bypass security and transport hundreds of pounds of illegal drugs to Detroit’s streets…
The Jamaica case dates to January 2010 when a federal agent in Jamaica contacted another agent locally about the seizure of about 53 pounds of marijuana discovered inside a suitcase that was about to be placed on Northwest Airlines flight No. 2321 bound for Detroit.
The suitcase had a seemingly legitimate baggage tag bearing the name of an unidentified person who was an unwitting participant in the smuggling attempt, according to court records.
Federal agents let the plane depart for Detroit.
While in the air, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and the Homeland Security Department decided to intercept all baggage once the plane landed in Detroit before baggage handlers could touch them.
Investigators focused on five suitcases. Inside, agents found approximately 35 pounds of cocaine and almost 284 pounds of marijuana, according to court records…
The Jamaica case relied on several handlers in Detroit who were born in Jamaica.
The Houston pipeline used similar methods and operated separately, but simultaneously, according to prosecutors…[It] relied on two baggage handlers who transferred from Detroit to Texas so they could arrange the drug shipments, according to court records.
Not the toughest bit of analytics in the world. What was required was the staff and motivation. The opportunity to catch crooks like this ain’t going away anytime soon.
Take a look at the size of this storm…
Click on the picture for the really large image -
- then, wander over to the nasa.gov site for the details. Impressive work.
Software design leaves trains unable to operate in snow and ice
Steam locomotive, number 45212, built in 1934
Rail companies have admitted that a fault in the the computer software on their modern electric trains leaves them unable to operate in snowy and icy conditions.
When the temperature plummets and the snows start to fall which do you turn to – a traditional steam train or its multi-million pound modern replacement?
Yesterday the steam locomotive, No: 45212, built in 1934, barrelled through the North Yorkshire countryside between Grosmont and Pickering, while hundreds of services on the country’s modern electric network fell victim to the weather.
Some train operating companies last night admitted that the computer software on their modern electric trains was not able to cope with the snowy and icy conditions…
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that a safety feature found in some modern computerised trains causes them to shut down in freezing conditions.
Network Rail has admitted that the software contributed to the chaos which left thousands stranded in freezing conditions last week.
Experts said the problem affects a number of trains, including the Bombardier Electrostar, which operates on the “third rail” electric railway lines common in the south east.
The Electrostar, which comprises the bulk of southern and Southeastern’s rolling stock, includes a safety system which can shut down the train when there is ice on the third rail to protect the train against surges.
Last week, hundreds of commuters had to sleep on trains overnight as drivers made several attempts to reboot the trains’ systems…
Roger Ford, the technology editor of Modern Railways magazine, said: “Some people will find it a little ironic that over the past week older trains seem to have coped better with the extreme conditions.
“The fact that older trains are less clever and complicated than these modern sophisticated trains has definitely worked in their favour as it makes them less sensitive.”
Garbage in = garbage out.
Feds seize sites linked to copyright infringement
Visitors to dozens of Web sites purportedly linked to illegal file sharing and counterfeit goods were greeted by this message.
The U.S. government has launched a major crackdown on online copyright infringement, seizing dozens of sites linked to illegal file sharing and counterfeit goods.
Torrent sites that link to illegal copies of music and movie files and sites that sell counterfeit goods were seized this week by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security. Visitors to such sites as Torrent-finder.com, 2009jerseys.com, and Dvdcollects.com found that their usual sites had been replaced by a message that said, “This domain name has been seized by ICE–Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court…”
The seizures came after a Senate committee unanimously approved a controversial proposal earlier this month that would allow the government to pull the plug on Web sites accused of aiding piracy. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) allows a Web site’s domain to be seized if it “has no demonstrable, commercially significant purpose or use other than” offering or providing access to unauthorized copies of copyrighted works.
The bill hasn’t been voted into law, however.
The proposal has garnered support from dozens of the largest content companies, including video game maker Activision, media firms NBC Universal and Viacom, and the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America lobbying groups. However, critics such as…civil liberties groups say the COICA could balkanize the Internet, jeopardize free speech rights, and endanger legitimate Web sites.
Slimeballs like the MPAA aren’t deserving of anymore support than their forerunners in the RIAA. But, geeks who go out of their way to break archaic laws in the name of freedom are more than likely to get busted – in this land of liberty. It’s Congress and the courts who get to define what is liberty and what isn’t.
Fingerprinting program expanded in all 25 U.S. border counties
Immigration officials now have access to the fingerprints of every inmate booked into jail in all 25 U.S. counties along the Mexican border, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced, touting the program as a way of identifying and deporting “criminal aliens.”
Napolitano’s announcement came as immigrant rights activists criticized the fingerprinting program, known as Secure Communities, after obtaining documents showing that more than a quarter of those deported under its auspices had no criminal records…
That charge is baseless, DHS officials said. Secure Communities gives Immigration and Customs Enforcement the ability to check the fingerprints of those arrested against a database that will show whether they have ever been deported or otherwise had contact with immigration agents…
By some estimates, as many as a million illegal immigrants now living in the U.S. have committed crimes, Morton has said. ICE often is unaware of them, even when they are in jail or prison…
Secure Communities makes such notifications automatic. ICE says the program has identified more than 262,900 illegal immigrants in jails and prisons who have been charged with or convicted of criminal offenses, including more than 39,000 charged with or convicted of violent offenses or major drug crimes says…
In the first 10 months of fiscal year 2010, 142,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records were deported, ICE says, one-third more than in the same period of the prior year. About 50,000 non-criminals were removed.
I live in a county where the best guesstimate is that 15% of the population is undocumentados.
Reading the morning paper and finding that the latest armed robbery and/or murder involved an illegal is about as common as noticing that someone killed in an automobile accident wasn’t using their seatbelt. Both violations – at root – of federal law. Both ignored as common practice.
The way Secure Communities is implemented in the largest city in New Mexico – is that the only fingerprints regularly checked by ICE are of folks under arrest, booked into jail.
Texas police seize Mexico-bound weapons cache
Laredo police say they made one of their largest weapons seizures in years after pulling over a truck laden with brand new assault rifles, bayonets and ammunition that they believe was headed to Mexico.
The seizure…came less then two weeks after Mexican President Felipe Calderon asked Congress to help stem the flow of guns from the U.S. into Mexico.
Acting on a tip from the Webb County Sheriff’s Office, Laredo police stopped a vehicle containing 147 new, boxed assault rifles, 200 high-capacity magazines, 53 bayonets and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. One of the two men in the vehicle tried to flee, but was apprehended, said Laredo Police Investigator Joe Baeza.
Baeza said…it was the largest weapons seizure in a decade in the area around Laredo, which is 145 miles south of San Antonio along the U.S. border with Mexico.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating the seizure, but Baeza said the presumption is the vehicle was heading to Mexico.
“Two Joe Blows aren’t going to buy a bunch of weapons and it stops there,” Baeza said. “We’re pretty positive it was headed to Mexico.”
Are you certain? They may just have been a couple of law-abiding NRA members on their way to target practice.
