Govt to Borrow More Money, Buy More Bombs

Congress votes to end shutdown, raise debt ceiling

U.S. Congress has approved a bill to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling until February 7, 2013, and Mr Obama has promised to sign the legislation immediately…

The Senate voted 81 to 18 to send the 35-page bill to the House of Representatives, where it was approved 285-144 about two hours later. All 198 Democrats present in the House and 87 Republicans voted for the bill; 144 Republicans voted against.

$1 Trillion On Defense

U.S. will have spent an astonishing $931 billion on DEFENSE in 2013, and that’s a conservative figure, according to The American Conservative .

“And this will turn out to be a conservative figure. We won’t spend less than that, but among other things, it doesn’t include the interest we’re paying on money we borrowed to fund past military operations; nor does it include portions of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that are dedicated to national security. And we don’t know if this number captures the entire intelligence budget or not, because parts of intelligence funding are classified.”

U.S. Debt clock screen dump at 04:00UTC on October 17, 2013. Source: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The following are Key Points from National Priorities Military Spending Fact Sheet

• Total Security Spending: The U.S. has spent more than $8 trillion on national security since Sept. 11, 2001. That includes funding for the Department of Defense, the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and homeland security.

• War Costs: President Obama proposes spending $79.4 billion in fiscal 2014 to fund war operations in Afghanistan and Iraq; by way of comparison, the president’s 2014 budget allocates a total of $65 billion for all federal education programs. Through fiscal 2013, an inflation-adjusted $1.65 trillion has been spent on the two wars.

• U.S. and the World: In 2012, the U.S. accounted for 39 percent [the figure was closer to 43 percent according to FIRE-EARTH estimates] of global military spending, while Iran, North Korea and Syria accounted for less than 1 percent, according to SIPRI, a Swedish research institute that tracks global military spending.

• What’s Happening Now: Committees in both the House and Senate voted to increase military funding in fiscal 2014, a move that could necessitate additional cuts to domestic programs in order to keep overall spending within mandated spending caps. The House proposed offsetting a 5 percent increase in military spending with an 18.6 percent cut to Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

Here’s U.S. Budget Breakdown for 2014, according to War Resisters League

Military Spending in the 2014 Budget

• Total Outlays (Federal Funds) $2,890 BILLION
• Military: 47% and $1,334 Billion

Source: War Resisters League

Related Links

• U.S. Government Shuts Down  October 1, 2013
• U.S. Public Debt Defies Gravity for 68 Days July 26, 2013
• Global Disasters/ Significant Events – September 19, 2013 September 19, 2013
• Most Unethical Nations in 2011 [and Probably 2012] December 31, 2011

Super Gremlins Destroying NSA Spy Center?

Meltdowns Plague NSA Data Center

NSA’s massive new data-storage facility in Utah has been plagued by electrical surges—dubbed arc fault failures—described as “a flash of lightning inside a 2-foot box.” These failures reportedly cause explosions, melt metal and cause circuit failures, said officials.

At least 10 meltdowns in the past 13 months have prevented NSA from using their supercomputers at the center located in Bluffdale, south of Salt Lake City.

The meltdowns have “destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machinery and delayed the center’s opening for a year, according to project documents and current and former officials,” according to project documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

The new NSA data center located near Bluffdale, south of Salt Lake City, Utah. (Image credit: George Frey/AFP) Image may be subject to copyright.

“The Utah facility, one of the Pentagon’s biggest U.S. construction projects, has become a symbol of the spy agency’s surveillance prowess, which gained broad attention in the wake of leaks from NSA contractor Edward Snowden. It spans more than one-million square feet, with construction costs pegged at $1.4 billion—not counting the Cray supercomputers that will reside there,” said the report.

Experts believe the center’s storage capacity is in the order of  exabytes (1,000^6) or even zettabytes (1,000^7) of data. An exabyte is about 100,000 times the size of all the printed material in the Library of Congress.

“Utah is the largest of several new NSA data centers, including a nearly $900 million facility at its Fort Meade, Md., headquarters and a smaller one in San Antonio. The first of four data facilities at the Utah center was originally scheduled to open in October 2012, according to project documents.” WSJ reported.

The Bluffdale facility will require 65 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 20,000 homes, costing $1million per month even at Utah’s preferential electricity rates.

The causes of eight of the failures haven’t been determined. “We did not find any indication that the proposed equipment modification measures [suggested by the Army Corps of Engineers] will be effective in preventing future incidents,” said a report last week by special investigators from the Army Corps of Engineers known as a Tiger Team.

Why is NSA Spying on EVERYONE?

It’s still unclear how the NSA will attempt to justify the collection of such an obscene amount of data on hundreds of millions of ordinary people.

“There is no question there is going to be increased scrutiny of these kinds of practices,” said Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, “because Americans understand this is a dangerous time, but the government, if it’s going to collect [this amount of information], ought to have to say here’s how it contributes to security of the American people. They have not made that case.”

Related Links

• “National Shame of America” August 2, 2013
• 9 Utah Counties Declare State of Emergency due to “Economic Disruption”  October 8, 2013