Not on my watch.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150922/eu--germany-volkswagen-0aa4969653.html

excite news


VW CEO: 'I am endlessly sorry' brand is tarnished

Sep 22, 6:26 PM (ET) [ Tuesday 22 September 2015 ]

By DEE-ANN DURBIN and GEIR MOULSON

DETROIT (AP) — Volkswagen AG's smog-test scandal escalated Tuesday as the company acknowledged putting stealth software in millions of vehicles worldwide. The crisis has already cost VW more than 24 billion euros ($26 billion) in market value.

The world's top-selling carmaker now admits that 11 million of its diesel vehicles contain software that evades emissions controls, far more than the 482,000 cars identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as violating clean air laws.

Volkswagen set aside an initial 6.5 billion euros ($7.3 billion) to cover the fallout and "win back the trust" of customers. It also said this year's profit projections will change, and warned that future costs remain undetermined.

CEO Martin Winterkorn apologized for the deception under his leadership and pledged a fast and thorough investigation, but gave no indication that he might resign. Meanwhile, Volkswagen's ordinary shares fell another 20 percent Tuesday, to close at 111.20 euros.

"Millions of people across the world trust our brands, our cars and our technologies," Winterkorn said Tuesday in a video message. "I am endlessly sorry that we have disappointed this trust. I apologize in every way to our customers, to authorities and the whole public for the wrongdoing."

"We are asking, I am asking for your trust on our way forward," he said.

That may be a tall order for people who bought "clean diesel" VWs believing they could get peppy rides but still be environmentally friendly.

"I thought I was doing something good and not something bad," said Zandy Hartig, an actress in Los Angeles who bought a diesel-powered Jetta Sportswagen in 2013.

She plans to get it repaired, but says she'll never buy a Volkswagen again. "It's not a design flaw. It's deliberately manipulating the system, and it's quite evil," Hartig said.










http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/71211/Clancy_-_Rainbow_Six.html


Tom Clancy

Rainbow Six


CHAPTER 11

INFRASTRUCTURE


"Carol, I want you to walk across the street, go into the Oval Office, and tell him what has to be done."

"Kevin, it's not that easy."

"Why the hell not? He's not that much of a dunce, is he?"

"He occasionally has a different point of view, and the oil companies are being very clever about this. Look at their proposal," she said, tapping the report on the table. "They promise to indemnify the entire operation, to put up a billion dollar bond in case something goes wrong for God's sake, Kevin, they even offer to let the Sierra Club be on the council to oversee their environmental protection programs!"

"And be outnumbered there by their own cronies! Be damned if they'll co-opt us that way!" Mayflower snarled. "I won't let anyone from my office be a part of this rape, and that's final!"

"And if you say that out loud, the oil companies will call you an extremist, and marginalize the whole environmental movement-and you can't afford to let that happen, Kevin!"

"The hell I can't. You have to stand and fight for something, Carol. Here is where we stand and fight. We let those polluting bastards drill oil in Prudhoe Bay, but that's it!"

"What will the rest of your board say about this?" Dr. Brightling asked.

"They'll goddamned well say what I goddamned tell them to say!"

"No, Kevin, they won't." Carol leaned back and rubbed her eyes. She'd read the entire report the previous night, and the sad truth was that the oil companies had gotten pretty damned smart about dealing with environmental issues. It was plain business sense. The Exxon Valdez had cost them a ton of money, in addition to the bad public relations. Three pages had been devoted to the changes in tanker safety procedures. Now, ships leaving the huge oil terminal at Valdez, Alaska, were escorted by tugs all the way to the open sea. A total of twenty pollution-control vessels were on constant standby, with a further number in reserve. The navigation systems on every tanker had been upgraded to beyond what nuclear submarines carried; the navigation officers were compelled to test their skills on simulators every six months. It was all hugely expensive, but far less so than another serious spill. A series of commercials proclaimed all of these facts on television-worst of all, the high-end intellectual cable/satellite channels, History, Learning, Discovery, and A amp;E, for whom the oil companies were also sponsoring new shows on wildlife in the Arctic, never touched upon what the companies did, but there were plenty of pictures of caribou and other animals traversing under the elevated portions of the pipeline. They were getting their message out very skillfully indeed, even to members of the Sierra Club's board, Brightling thought.

What they didn't say, and what both she and Mayflower knew, was that once the oil was safely out of the ground, safely transported through the monster pipeline, safely conveyed over the sea by the newly double hulled supertankers, then it just became more air pollution, out the tailpipes of cars and trucks and the smokestacks of electric power stations. So it really was all a joke, and that joke included Kevin's bitching about hurting the permafrost. At most, what would be seriously damaged? Ten or twenty acres, probably, and the oil companies would make more commercials about how they cleaned that up, as though the polluting end-use of the oil was not an issue at all!

Because to the ignorant Joe Six-pack, sitting there in front of his TV, watching football games, it wasn't an issue, was it? There were a hundred or so million motor vehicles in the United States, and a larger number across the world, and they all polluted the air, and that was the real issue.










http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s1/transcripts/101.shtml

GateWorld


STARGATE ATLANTIS

RISING, PART 1

EPISODE NUMBER - 101

DVD DISC - Season 1, Disc 1

ORIGINAL U.S. AIR DATE - 07.16.04


SHORTLY AFTERWARDS. Daniel leads the other two into a lab.

JACKSON: We've gotten closer and closer to finding the location of the Lost City but it turns out we've been looking in the wrong place all along. (He walks over to a whiteboard on which are drawn six Stargate coordinates with the numbers 1-6 above them.) Now, we thought we had a Stargate address -- six symbols representing coordinates in space that determine the location of the planet the Ancients went to after they left Antarctica. Now, recently we determined a seventh symbol. (He picks up a pen and draws the symbol representing Earth on the board to the right of the other symbols.)

WEIR: The point of origin, Earth.

JACKSON: That's not it.

McKAY: Then your address must be incorrect.

JACKSON: Not incorrect… incomplete.

(He draws another symbol in between the sixth symbol and the Earth symbol.)

WEIR: What are you saying, Doctor Jackson?

(Daniel numbers the newest symbol 7 and the Earth symbol 8.)

JACKSON: It's an eight symbol address. What we're looking for may be further away than we ever imagined, but it's not out of reach.

McKAY: Atlantis!

JACKSON: Atlantis. I think we can go there.










https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring


Silent Spring

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Silent Spring is an environmental science book written by Rachel Carson


Content

The overriding theme of Silent Spring is the powerful—and often negative—effect humans have on the natural world.










http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28525

The American Presidency Project

Lyndon B. Johnson

XXXVI President of the United States: 1963-1969

468 - Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill Prohibiting Obstruction of Criminal Investigations.

November 4, 1967

ORGANIZED CRIME is the shame of a modern nation.

It mocks every concept of an ordered and just society.

It is a disgrace that hobbles our progress, as its influence spreads into businesses and threatens the home of private citizens.

The files of our Federal law enforcement agencies document a series of incidents which should shock all Americans:

--Citizens brutally beaten with baseball bats.

--Men and women burned and maimed by blowtorches.

--Families terrorized, homes invaded, and lives threatened. Why?

Because these citizens gave Federal officials information to expose suspected criminals.

These outrages obstruct our system of Federal criminal justice.

They frustrate our efforts to root out the underworld.

But because the Federal Government did not have the necessary Federal law, the Government has been powerless to act.

Today there are strict Federal penalties for those who coerce, intimidate, harass, or attack a witness once court action has begun.

But it is not a Federal crime to commit these same brutal acts during the investigation preceding trial.

Last February, in my message on crime in America, I urged the Congress to promptly correct this omission in our laws.

The bill I signed last night--S. 676--corrects this omission and closes that loophole.

Now, for the first time, it will be a serious crime to obstruct a Federal criminal investigation through bribery, intimidation, force, or threats of force.

This measure will impose strict sanctions against all who hamper the work of Federal law enforcement.

But its chief impact will fall on organized crime--those corporations of greed and corruption that infect our society.



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 6:47 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Tuesday 22 September 2015