For lighting for a short time, flashlights, candles and battery powered lanterns would be the best and easiest solution.
The best flashlights to get in my opinion are LED type. They use less power and help your batteries last long. Another good flashlight is a PAL light, they use 9 volt batteries. One of the good things about 9 volt, it is usually the last battery to sell out in the store, also if you change out your smoke alarm batteries regularly, you have some 9 volts that have not been used up yet. http://www.buckshotscamp.com/Flashlight-PALight-Sales.htm
Here is an article that friend wrote about candles
CandlesThe Roman Empire was the first to provide evidence of a candle that resembles the candle today. They melted the tallow until it was a liquid and poured it over fibers of flax, hemp, and/or cotton, which were used as a wick. The braided wick was also invented in the 19th century. Wicks before this time were made simply of twisted strands of cotton, which burned very poorly and needed constant maintenance. The braided wick was tightly plaited and a portion of the wick curled over and enabled it to be completely consumed. There are three main methods of making candles by hand: rolling sheets of beeswax around a wick, dipping the wick in hot wax, and pouring hot wax into a mould.
WICKS Wick’s, the “souls” of the candles, are manufactured from bleached cotton yearn in various thicknesses. The thicker the candle, the thicker the wick for it. Also the addition of beeswax plays a role when selecting a wick for it’s strength. For paraffin you would require the thinnest kind of wick, for stearin medium-strong ones and the thickest wicks are reserved for beeswax candles. In other words, the circumference of the candle and the wax required for making it determine the thickness of the wick. Finished wicks are obtainable in candle stores; all you have to do is to mention the thickness of the candle and it’s components. For “swaddled”, or roll up candles. And for thin, dip candles you might try to prepare your own wicks. Take some fine, bleached, not-to-course cotton yarn and twirl it into a cord consisting of four threads. You can also crochet a chain stitch, or braid a finely-honed “pigtail” of three threads. To guarantee the right degree of flammability, dip the wick into a caustic made up of 2 per cent boric acid diluted in distilled water. When the wick is dry you proceed to dip it into the wax and manipulate it from there. 1. for wicks meant for use with lard or tallow (which is much poorer candle material than wax) a. Soak wick in a solution of 1oz saltpeter + 4 oz Quick Lime + 2 Qt water and dry toughly b. Soak wick in turpentine and toughly dry. 2. for wicks meant for use with wax a. Soak wick in melted bee’s wax or low temperature wax, remove and let cool The wicks you buy in stores are mostly spun wicks. These have a “bottom” and a “top”. The top of the wick is parallel with the top of the candle. Waxchandlers indicate it with a knot because a layman would have difficulty seeing the difference between the unmarked top and bottom of wicks
Cotton Cored Wicks Cotton core wicking is for applications such as votives, pillars and containers. Cotton core wicks produce the hottest flame of all the cored wicks and will help minimize carbon buildup. These wicks are constructed of 100% natural fibers. These wicks are effective in paraffin-based waxes and natural/renewable waxes Square Braided Wicks (Pillar, Taper, and Large Container Candles) Square braided wicks were originally designed for beeswax candles but can be used in all types of waxes. Their open construction and special treatment make them a good selection for viscous material (beeswax and vegetable waxes). Square wick is designed to give you a curl when it is burned to minimize carbon buildup. This wick is constructed of 100% natural fibers with a special treatment. This wick is very effective in large containers or as custom wick assemblies Flat Braided Wicks (Pillar and Taper Candles) This wick is designed for use in pillars and tapers. This wick gives a slight curl when burning which reduces carbon buildup and makes the wicks self-trimming. This wick is ideal for hand dipping and extruding and dipping machines. This wick is constructed of 100% natural fibers with a chemical treatment to improve the burn performance. These wicks are effective in paraffin-based waxes
BEESWAX Beeswax, which has always played a large role in liturgical functions of the Catholic Church, is a fatty substance which can be obtained through rendering (extraction by melting) of the honeycombs. This kind of wax melts at temperatures of about 145 degrees F. It is soft and supple and pliant, it becomes sticky when heated and has the unmistakable fragrance of honey. To obtain about two pounds of wax, bees would have to consume about fourteen times this weight in honey. Part of the bee’s honey and pollen, when converted into wax inside the bees body, is secreted in minuscule amounts under it’s rear-segment, and is stripped off with its hind legs to be utilized for the construction of the combs. Initially the wax is white and is referred to as pure wax. Once formed into a beehive, the white honeycomb wax soon turns yellowish. The older the combs, the darker the color becomes. This explains why genuine wax candles in stores frequently show a variation in color. Since honey is more valuable than wax, it pays to save the bees as part of their work by hanging wooden-framed sheets of pure bees wax inside the hive. In this way the bees can immediately start stocking the cells with winter supplies and build them up for their larvae. The artificial honeycombs of beeswax are used for the rolling of candles or you can roll out your own sheets from warned bee’s wax.
OTHER WAXES Paraffin is a white, translucent, glasslike way substance distilled from petroleum. It has a low melting point. A candle made entirely of paraffin will drip considerably. Hard paraffin melts at temperatures ranging from 125-158 degrees F. and its chief purpose is to serve as a supplementary addition to stearin and beeswax in the manufacture of candles. Soft paraffin wax can be melted at temperatures as low as 86 degrees F. It can be added to the wax mixture when the latter is supposed to be poured or pressed. The malleable wax becomes even more elastic and flexible. There are other waxes, such as earth wax or ceresin (melting point 170 degrees F.) or carnuba (melting point 196 degrees F.) which when added to paraffin tends to harden the mixture. Tallow is made up of fatty animal tissue found in ox kidneys suet, mutton drippings or goat fat, and it was used long ago for the manufacture of candles. Even today you can still find tallow candles in parts of Spain and other remote villages where farmers frequently make their own candles after the slaughter of cattle. Lime (calcium oxide) is added to the melted or rendered-down tallow and the lime absorbs all the impurities; next the tallow is carefully poured into a pot and cooked for about 3 to 4 hours with vinegar. Candles made with tallow do have a greasy touch and rather unpleasant, rancid odor. These disagreeable characteristics can be removed by a process of refinement. Stearin (ester of glycerol and stearic acid) is a soft, opaquely white, odorless solid made of natural and plant fats (palmitin). The melting point is between 122 and 156 degrees F.; the stage where it becomes malleable is about 120 degrees F. Adding paraffin to stearin will help in the casting of candles. Stearin candles burn well and do not bend as a result of the flame’s heat. Molding wax is a combination of paraffin, stearin, with possibly a small amount of beeswax, and coloring and dyeing matter. You will need it in a hot, fluid, melted stage for dipping of candles to imbue it with an even coating of color. Molding was is a mixture of bleached beeswax and an equal amount of paraffin with dyes added to it. Drop was consists of collected remnants of wax, and leftovers of candles and candle-drippings. You can collect this kind of wax all year or get it at a low price from candle makers. Melt the leftovers in water, in process of which all impurities (soot, wicks, ect.) sink to the bottom of the hot water. They are left behind when the melted wax is carefully poured into another receptacle. To color or dye the wax, you can buy dye that is soluble in fat in art supply shops. Obviously the more dye you add to the wax the deeper the color. These dyes are rich in color and are added to the fluid (melting) wax (or the paraffin-stearin composite). Since it is not always easy to obtain such dyes you can also use colored wax crayons for this purpose, melting them in with the wax.
Battery Lanterns are the safest to illuminate a room, but batteries are the problem. They are good for the short term.
But what happens if the electric is out a week or more? A better long term lighting solution i will discuss that is the kerosene lantern, here is another short article, written by some in a forum
The one piece of equipment that seems to do it all. Providing light equal to a 60 watt light bulb, enough heat output to heat a medium sized area, the ability to cook and bake, and it sips fuel like a miser. The Aladdin lamp does not get much mention but, in my opinion, it is a must have. I would not trade the two I have for anything if I could not replace them. They have been priceless during the many power outages experienced, even rivaling my generators in their importance. Those of you who have one will most likely agree. The Aladdin lamp is far superior to the standard hurricane lamp. The light output is intense. They say that it is equal to a 60W light bulb but it sure seems brighter when you are relying on it during a power outage. Thanks to the Thorium mantle, the light produced far exceeds that of candles or hurricane lights.Aladdin lamps burn HOT. A piece of paper held over the chimney will burst into flame immediately. The heat pours out the top to such a degree that it will heat quite a large area. If you live in an apartment or in an area that you cannot have a generator or wood stove, the Aladdin lamp will keep you warm. The heat from these lamps rivals that of the wood stove I use during power outages. Many times it starts to get uncomfortably warm in the rooms that the lamps are being used in even though it is in the teens outside.Because of the high heat output, it also can be used to cook. Using scrap metal, I fabricated a high cooking tripod that will hold standard pots and pans. You can cook on it by removing the Thorium mantle and just use the wick but I have found it works much better leaving the mantle in place. Also, by using heat ducting, an oven can be easily fabricated. My first prototype used 8" stovepipe. When I found that this crude oven worked so well, I constructed a better model using rectangular, galvanized ducting available at any home improvement center. Fabrication of an oven is simple. Put together the two halves of the square duct. Then seal both ends with sheet metal, in effect forming a box. One end must be hinged to act as a door, the other end can be permanently fixed. Cut a 3 or 4 inch hole towards the end of one side of the duct and cut the same size hole on the other side of the duct, near the other end. One hole is for the end of the Aladdin lamp chimney top to feed heat into the oven, the other hole is to allow excess heat to escape. I used steel shelving legs (scrap) to support the oven at the height necessary to allow the chimney to come within an inch or so of the heat collection hole. Once into place, a small piece of sheet metal is just laid over the hole cut to allow excess heat to escape. All you have to do is slide it around to reduce or increase the amount of heat that escapes, thus controlling the heat level in the oven. Bread bakes very well using this oven. The bread pan must be supported to allow heat under it, of course. I also wrapped a thin layer of insulation over parts of it. Works great. Not a great cook here but I see no reason why anything can't be baked in it. The high heat of the Aladdin lamp makes its use in this manner possible.Aladdin lamps burn much cleaner than hurricane lamps and they require little fuel to keep them going. I keep some old dish detergent (squeeze type) plastic bottles filled with standard kerosene for efficient filling. Better than using funnels because you can see when to stop fueling. No, the kerosene won't dissolve the plastic. Have been using the same ones for years.When using Aladdin lamps, do not leave them unattended. In addition to the high heat hazard, if you burn them at maximum they may start to form carbon on the mantle. If you get carbon formation on the mantle, simply turn the lamp down and it will burn off gradually. Like any mantle, it will break if abused. The spare parts to be stored include wicks, mantles, a spare chimney, and a wick trimmer. Extra mantles are most important. I have never had to replace a wick or chimney but you never know!I purchased mine 30+ years ago from NitroPack. I do not know if they still carry them. They are definitely worth looking for. Perhaps others know who still sells them. The technology has been around 100 years. There are Aladdin lamps in antique shops although I have found these to be less desirable than the newer ones. The new ones are sold as fancy ones with expensive glass shades or simple ones with aluminum bodies and simple chimneys. I use the simple ones since I am only interested in utility. The fancy ones are beautiful, worthy of a show piece in any home.After one severe power outage in the the 1980's. I bought 2 dozen of them and sold them where I was working at the time (in a city), making a small profit , of course. Everyone loved them even though they weren't into preparedness as we are. The same lamps were still on the job when I retired. In my opinion, you will not be disappointed if you decide to get one. I also store 60 gallons of kerosene just for these lamp. The lamps work fine with 30 year old, untreated kerosene. They use so little fuel that these 60 gallons will see me through any uncertain future. For your consideration.
Ok lets talk about cooking, if you have a propane stove your fine. But if it is electric it will be useless to you. So with our rule of three in thought, how would you cook? If it just a short emergency you could get by with just eating out of the can or off the shelf. But anything longer then that i would opt for an option. I guess you could always go out in the yard and dig a pit, line it with rocks and cook over a fire. Very romantic but not practical unless you are prepared for it. A camping stove that either uses propane or Coleman fuel would be a good option. They are relatively cheap and good insurance. You grill either charcoal, wood or propane, it it has a plate on the top or side burner good for in a pinch. As i said in future weeks we will (i plan to) go more in depth into each subject.
31,000 scientists reject 'global warming' agenda'Mr. Gore's movie has claims no informed expert endorses'
Posted: May 19, 20088:51 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh© 2008 WorldNetDaily
More than 31,000 scientists across the U.S. – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting "global warming," the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth's climate.
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
The Petition Project actually was launched nearly 10 years ago, when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign.
But now, a new effort has been conducted because of an "escalation of the claims of 'consensus,' release of the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Mr. Al Gore, and related events," according to officials with the project.
"Mr. Gore's movie, asserting a 'consensus' and 'settled science' in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary movie goers and to public school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse," said project spokesman and founder Art Robinson. Robinson, a research professor of chemistry, co-founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine with Linus Pauling in 1973, and later co-founded the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. He also publishes the Access to Energy newsletter.
WND submitted a request to Gore's office for comment but did not get a response.
Robinson said the dire warnings about "global warming" have gone far beyond semantics or scientific discussion now to the point they are actually endangering people.
"The campaign to severely ration hydrocarbon energy technology has now been markedly expanded," he said. "In the course of this campaign, many scientifically invalid claims about impending climate emergencies are being made. Simultaneously, proposed political actions to severely reduce hydrocarbon use now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries," he said.
In just the past few weeks, there have been various allegations that both shark attacks and typhoons have been sparked by "global warming."
The late Professor Frederick Seitz, the past president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and winner of the National Medal of Science, wrote in a letter promoting the petition, "The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds."
"This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful," he wrote.
Accompanying the letter sent to scientists was a 12-page summary and review of research on "global warming," officials said.
"The proposed agreement would have very negative effects upon the technology of nations throughout the world, especially those that are currently attempting to lift from poverty and provide opportunities to the over 4 billion people in technologically underdeveloped countries," Seitz wrote.
Robinson said the project targets scientists because, "It is especially important for America to hear from its citizens who have the training necessary to evaluate the relevant data and offer sound advice."
He said the "global warming agreement," written in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, and other plans "would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind."
"Yet," he said, "the United Nations and other vocal political interests say the U.S. must enact new laws that will sharply reduce domestic energy production and raise energy prices even higher.
"The inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness include the right of access to life-giving and life-enhancing technology. This is especially true of access to the most basic of all technologies: energy. These human rights have been extensively and wrongly abridged," he continued. "During the past two generations in the U.S., a system of high taxation, extensive regulation, and ubiquitous litigation has arisen that prevents the accumulation of sufficient capital and the exercise of sufficient freedom to build and preserve needed modern technology.
"These unfavorable political trends have severely damaged our energy production, where lack of industrial progress has left our country dependent upon foreign sources for 30 percent of the energy required to maintain our current level of prosperity," he said. "Moreover, the transfer of other U.S. industries abroad as a result of these same trends has left U.S. citizens with too few goods and services to trade for the energy that they do not produce. A huge and unsustainable trade deficit and rapidly rising energy prices have been the result.
"The necessary hydrocarbon and nuclear energy production technologies have been available to U.S. engineers for many decades. We can develop these resources without harm to people or the environment. There is absolutely no technical, resource, or environmental reason for the U.S. to be a net importer of energy. The U.S. should, in fact, be a net exporter of energy," he said.
He told WND he believes the issue has nothing to do with energy itself, but everything to do with power, control and money, which the United Nations is seeking. He accused the U.N. of violating human rights in its campaign to ban much energy research, exploration and development.
"In order to alleviate the current energy emergency and prevent future emergencies, we need to remove the governmental restrictions that have caused this problem. Fundamental human rights require that U.S. citizens and their industries be free to produce and use the low cost, abundant energy that they need. As the 31,000 signatories of this petition emphasize, environmental science supports this freedom," he said.
The Petition Project website today said there are 31,072 scientists who have signed up, and Robinson said more names continue to come in.
In terms of Ph.D. scientists alone, it already has 15 times more scientists than are seriously involved in the U.N.'s campaign to "vilify hydrocarbons," officials told WND.
"The very large number of petition signers demonstrates that, if there is a consensus among American scientists, it is in opposition to the human-caused global warming hypothesis rather than in favor of it," the organization noted.
The project was set up by a team of physicists and physical chemists who do research at several American institutions and collects signatures when donations provide the resources to mail out more letters.
"In a group of more than 30,000 people, there are many individuals with names similar or identical to other signatories, or to non-signatories – real or fictional. Opponents of the petition project sometimes use this statistical fact in efforts to discredit the project. For examples, Perry Mason and Michael Fox are scientists who have signed the petition – who happen also to have names identical to fictional or real non-scientists," the website said.
The petition is needed, supporters said, simply because Gore and others "have claimed that the 'science is settled' – that an overwhelming 'consensus' of scientists agrees with the hypothesis of human-caused global warming, with only a handful of skeptical scientists in disagreement."
The list of scientists includes 9,021 Ph.D.s, 6,961 at the master's level, 2,240 medical doctors and 12,850 carrying a bachelor of science or equivalent academic degree.
The Petition Project's website includes both a list of scientists by name as well as a list of scientists by state.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64734
Animal Rights Terrorists Strike Again
8/11/2008The animal rights terrorists have struck again. This time, they firebombed the home and car of two researchers at UC-Santa Cruz in California. According to Inside Higher Ed, one researcher (who works with mice) had to help his children climb down a ladder from the second story of their home to escape after the firebomb exploded. And the site notes that back in February, masked animal rights terrorists broke into a professor's home during a birthday party for the teacher's daughter. This is terrorism, pure and simple. And they aren't just targeting medical researchers. They've gone after hunters before, and I'm sure they'll target us again. The FBI's now investigating the attacks at UC-Santa Cruz. I hope they catch these animal rights terrorists, and when they do, I hope they throw the book at them. Any criminal willing to take a human life for a lab rat ought to be treated like one- in prison for life.
http://www.nranews.com/blogarticle.aspx?blogPostId=430
Our Electrical delievery service has not improved at all in five years. We are actually worse, because we have fallen another five years behind the curve of getting it fixed. A new definition of "if you don't learn from history you are doomed to repeat it."
5 Years After Blackout, Power Grid Still in 'Dire Straits' By Jason Leopold The Public Record Thursday, August 07, 2008 Five years ago this month, a devastating blackout rippled through the Northeastern United States. The blackout plunged more than 50 million people into darkness for nearly three days and left a gaping $10 billion hole in the nation’s economy. The power outage, however, wasn't an isolated incident. Three years later, in July 2006, Queens, New York lost power for nine days, which resulted from the deterioration of decades old electrical cables responsible for sending power to the city’s 100,000 residents. The US power grid - three interconnected grids made up of 3,500 utilities serving 283 million people - still hangs together by a thread, and its dilapidated state is perhaps one of the greatest threats to homeland security, according to Bruce deGrazia, the president of Global Homeland Security Advisors and a former assistant deputy undersecretary for the Department of Defense, who spoke at an electricity industry conference in Shepherdstown, Va. The slightest glitch on the transmission superhighway could upset the smooth distribution of electricity over thousands of miles of transmission lines and darken states from Ohio to New York in a matter of seconds, bringing hospitals and airports to a standstill. “The U.S. electrical grid—the system that carries electricity from producers to consumers—is in dire straits,” the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, said in a report last year. “Electricity generation and consumption have steadily risen, placing an increased burden on a transmission system that was not designed to carry such a large load.” President George W. Bush made grand promises in the aftermath of the August 2003 blackout, vowing to modernize the nation’s dilapidated electricity grid, and to work with Congress on a comprehensive energy bill that encouraged investment in the country’s energy infrastructure. Yet, in the five years that have passed since the worst blackout in US history blanketed the Northeast, nothing substantial has been done to overhaul the power grid and Bush has failed to follow through on his pledge. Now, severe power shortages and rolling blackouts have become a daily occurrence around the country as the antiquated power grid is continuously stretched beyond its means - mainly a result of electricity deregulation - whereby power is sent hundreds of miles across the grid to consumers by out-of-state power companies instead of being sent directly to consumers by their local utilities, which is what the grid was designed for. Although tackling energy issues have taken center stage in the presidential campaigns of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, neither candidate has outlined a comprehensive plan for dealing with the country’s electricity woes. Instead, both campaigns have focused primarily on skyrocketing gasoline prices and ways in which the country can tap additional oil resources. But the power problems, which are likely to persist, will have a direct impact on the oil markets if grid reliability continues to be ignored. In an article in the May 7, 2008 issue of Energy Bulletin, Gail E. Tverberg wrote “in the years ahead, we in the United States will have more and more problems with our electric grid. This is likely to result in electrical outages of greater and greater durations.” "Quite a few people believe that if there is a decline in oil production, we can make up much of the difference by increasing our use of electricity--more nuclear, wind, solar voltaic, geothermal or even coal. The problem with this model is that it assumes that our electric grid will be working well enough for this to happen. It seems to me that there is substantial doubt that this will be the case. "If frequent electrical outages become common, these problems are likely to spill over into the oil and natural gas sectors. One reason this may happen is because electricity is used to move oil and natural gas through the pipelines. In addition, gas stations use electricity when pumping gasoline, and homeowners often have natural gas water heaters and furnaces with electric ignition. These too are likely to be disrupted by electrical power outages," Tverberg wrote. In 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the power grid a ‘D’ rating in its report card on the state of domestic infrastructure. The group issues “report cards” every four years. “The U.S. power transmission system is in urgent need of modernization,” a summary of ASCE’s report says. “Growth in electricity demand and investment in new power plants has not been matched by investment in new transmission facilities. Maintenance expenditures have decreased 1% per year since 1992. Existing transmission facilities were not designed for the current level of demand, resulting in an increased number of "bottlenecks," which increase costs to consumers and elevate the risk of blackouts.” A study conducted earlier this year by the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center concluded “Despite efforts to mitigate blackout risk, the data available from the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) for 1984-2006 indicate that the frequency of large blackouts in the United States is not decreasing.” According to George Gross, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor of electrical and computer engineering who specializes in utility policy, a serious lack of investment in the power grid continues to put reliability at risk and is the "Achilles heel" of the country's electric system. "The August 2003 blackout was a wake-up call for the country to upgrade its transmission grid system," Gross said. "But the truth is that very few major transmission projects have been constructed and, as a result, transmission capacity has failed to keep pace with the expansion of power demand." Power companies maintain grid reliability by following voluntary guidelines designed by the power industry, just like the voluntary emissions limits that the fossil-fuel industry says it upholds. The US-Canadian task force that investigated the August 2003 blackout found numerous violations of the voluntary standards, and concluded that utilities botched routine monitoring of transmission lines and failed to trim trees along transmission passageways. Since July, all seven of the country's regional grid operators that monitor power flow throughout the nation reported record electricity consumption as temperatures increased. Blackouts struck many parts of the country during the month of July, not because of a shortage of supply, but because the dilapidated power grid could not handle the amount of electricity that was sent back and forth across the transmission lines. Demand for electricity is expected to increase by 45 percent by 2025, according to the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), a power industry-funded organization in charge of overseeing the rules for operating the nation's power grid. “In some cases, demand has reached levels that were not expected for another three or four years," said Jone-Lin Wang, most recently the managing director of the Global Power Group at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Very hot weather tends to cause more incidents of equipment failure in the distribution systems. Although the bulk power system provided adequate supply, extreme heat and surging demand put the distribution systems through extreme stress, leading to some equipment failures and localized power outages." But neither the Bush administration nor federal lawmakers have developed a comprehensive plan to handle, at the very least, the annual increase in demand. Blackouts will likely become more frequent in areas like New York and New England, Wang said. “We are concerned about New England because there is nothing in the pipeline, but some small renewable projects and wind," Wang said. "New England is in trouble." The 2003 blackout led to calls for spending of up to $100 billion to reduce severe transmission bottlenecks and increase capacity so the transmission lines can carry additional electricity from power plants to homes and businesses. But investment in the grid has lagged, and progress has been slow. "Transmission capacity is still below 5 percent," Gross said. "The need to strengthen the existing transmission infrastructure, to expand it and to effectively harness advances in technology constitutes the single most pressing challenge for the country's electricity system."
http://www.pubrecord.org/component/content/239.html?task=view
Police turn to secret weapon: GPS device
Privacy advocates say electronic tracking violates Fourth Amendment rights
Someone was attacking women in Fairfax County and Alexandria, grabbing them from behind and sometimes punching and molesting them before running away. After logging 11 cases in six months, police finally identified a suspect.
David Lee Foltz Jr., who had served 17 years in prison for rape, lived near the crime scenes. To figure out if Foltz was the assailant, police pulled out their secret weapon: They put a Global Positioning System device on Foltz's van, which allowed them to track his movements.
Police said they soon caught Foltz dragging a woman into a wooded area in Falls Church. After his arrest on Feb. 6, the string of assaults suddenly stopped. The break in the case relied largely on a crime-fighting tool they would rather not discuss.
"We don't really want to give any info on how we use it as an investigative tool to help the bad guys," said Officer Shelley Broderick, a Fairfax police spokeswoman. "It is an investigative tool for us, and it is a very new investigative tool."
Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers, often without a warrant or court order. Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell's Big Brother society. Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case, judges have sided with police.
With the courts' blessing, and the ever-declining cost of the technology, many analysts believe that police will increasingly rely on GPS as an effective tool in investigations and that the public will hear little about it. Last year, FBI agents used a GPS device while investigating an embezzlement scheme to steal from District taxpayers, attaching one to a suspect's Jaguar.
"I've seen them in cases from New York City to small towns -- whoever can afford to get the equipment and plant it on a car," said John Wesley Hall, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "And of course, it's easy to do. You can sneak up on a car and plant it at any time."
Most police departments in the Washington region resist disclosing whether they use GPS to track suspects. D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said D.C. police do not use the technique. Police departments in Arlington, Fairfax and Montgomery counties and Alexandria declined to discuss the issue.
Cpl. Clinton Copeland, a Prince George's County police spokesman, said his department does use the technique. "But I don't think that's something [detectives] would be too happy to put out there like that," Copeland said. "They do have different techniques they like to use on suspects, but they don't really want people to know."
Details on how police use GPS usually become public when the use of the device is challenged in court. Such cases have revealed how police in Washington state arrested a man for killing his 9-year-old daughter: the GPS device attached to his truck led them to where he had buried her.
Cases have shown how detectives in New York caught a drug-runner after monitoring his car as he bought and sold methamphetamine. In Wisconsin, police tracked two suspected burglars by attaching a GPS device to their car and apprehending them after burglarizing a house.
The Foltz case offers a rare glimpse into how a Washington area police department uses GPS. Foltz's attorney, Chris Leibig, challenged police in court last week and tried to have the GPS evidence thrown out. He argued at a hearing at Arlington County General District Court that police needed a warrant since the device tracked Foltz's vehicle on private and public land. The judge disagreed, and the evidence will be used at Foltz's trial, which will begin Oct. 6. Foltz was charged in the Feb. 6 attack, but not in the others.
Without obtaining a warrant, Jack Kirk, a detective from the Fairfax police department's electronic-surveillance section, placed a GPS device on Foltz's van while it was parked in front of his house, Kirk testified. He said it took three seconds. Another vehicle was not targeted because it was on private property, he said.
Detectives began actively monitoring the van four days later, when it appeared to be moving slowly through neighborhoods, Kirk said. Foltz was caught the next day.
In preparing to defend Foltz, Leibig filed Freedom of Information Act requests with every police department in Virginia, asking about their use of unwarranted GPS tracking. Most departments said they had never used the device. About two dozen refused to respond, including Loudoun and Prince William counties, Alexandria and the Virginia State Police.
Arlington police said they have used GPS devices 70 times in the last three years, mostly to catch car thieves, but also in homicide, robbery and narcotics investigations.
Fairfax police used the technology as early as 2003 and have used it many times since, according to year-end reports Leibig received. Police used GPS devices 61 times in 2005, 52 times in 2006 and 46 times in 2007.
Five other Virginia departments reported using GPS once for specific investigations.
GPS advocates said police do not need a warrant to track suspects electronically on public streets because the device provides the same information as physical tracking.
"A police officer could do the same thing with his or her own eyes," said Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney Richard E. Trodden. "It helps to cut down on the number of police officers who would have to be out tracking particular cars."
Leibig said GPS should be held to a different standard because it provides greater detail. "While it may be true that police can conduct surveillance of people on a public street without violating their rights, tracking a person everywhere they go and keeping a computer record of it for days and days without that person knowing is a completely different type of intrusion," he said.
GPS devices receive signals from a network of satellites, then use the information to calculate their precise location. By taking readings at different times, they can also calculate speed and direction.
The Defense Department operates the system, which was made available for civilian use in 1996. The technology's price has dropped since then, with new dashboard models available for less than $200. Some cellphone models are equipped with GPS, and many companies and local governments rely on GPS to track vehicle fleets.
Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program, considers GPS monitoring, along with license plate readers, toll transponders and video cameras with face-recognition technology, part of the same trend toward "an always-on, surveillance society."
"Things that would have seemed fantastic 15 years ago are now routine," he said. "We have to rethink what is a reasonable expectation of privacy."
So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has not weighed in on unwarranted GPS tracking, but supporters point to a 1983 case that said police do not need a warrant to track a car on a public street with a beeper, which relays the car's location to police.
Lower courts that have addressed the issue have not all agreed. The Washington state Supreme Court has ruled that police must obtain a warrant to use the device in that manner, but courts in New York, Wisconsin and Maryland, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago, have held that a warrant is not necessary.
Craig Fraser, director of management services for the Police Executive Research Forum, said tracking technology's new capabilities might eventually require legal adjustments.
"The issue is whether the more sophisticated tools are doing the same things we used to do or are creating a different set of legal circumstances," he said.
Paul Marcus, a law professor at Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, said the debate will only grow stronger as more departments substitute old-fashioned manpower for better and cheaper electronics.
"It is going to happen more and more," he said. "No question about it."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26167805/
Makes me want to move to Minneasota, how about you?
Planet’s been saved already, Bachmann says August 12th, 2008 – 4:24 PM
by Emily Kaiser
Continuing her push for a comprehensive energy plan that includes increased oil drilling, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., reminded Americans that the Democrats message to save the planet doesn’t add up. The world has been saved already, she says.
Responding to Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s comment about creating an energy policy to help save the planet, Bachmann added religion to the energy crisis during her interview with OneNewsNow, a Web site run by Christian American Family News Network.
“[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she’s just trying to save the planet,” Bachmann said. “We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet — we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that.”
Bachmann said Democratic leaders are committed to stopping bills that allow drilling. Bachmann plans to join other Republicans in the House chamber on Friday to continue their protest during the congressional recess to bring members back for a vote on an energy bill.
The Minnesota DFL released a statement Tuesday denouncing the protest at the Capitol, calling it an “Olympics of meaningless rhetoric.
According to the statement, Republicans “would rather grandstand in a meaningless charade in Washington that will do nothing to reduce the cost of gas or the overall economic squeeze on Minnesota’s working families.”
Bachmann’s recent comments are reminiscent of her earlier religious comments in 2006 at the Living Word Church in Brooklyn Park when she said she was “hot” for Jesus.
“What does God say when he looks at you or looks at me? He wants to say, ‘she’s hot, he’s hot,’ because we are hot for him on the inside,” Bachmann said. “When you are hot for Jesus Christ, nothing is like that life.”
http://politicalblogs.startribune.com/bigquestionblog/?p=1119
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