IBM Patent Application Describes "Intelligent" Stop Lights That Turn Off Cars
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - May 26, 2010 10:13 AM

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(Source: Damjan Stankovic via Relogik.com)

IBM patent goes Big Brother

Running red lights and failure to stop leads to untold numbers of traffic accidents around the world. Sitting at a red light with cars idling also burns fuel that really isn’t needed.

IBM has filed a patent application that outlines a system that would turn the motors of a car off at a traffic light to conserve fuel. Few will take issue with green technology that conserves fuel, saves them money, and reduces pollution. However, there is a dark side to the patent application that privacy advocates will not like.

The system IBM is proposing has to have access to the engine of the vehicles at the light to stop the engine. With access to the engine, the traffic lights can not only stop the engine of a driver's car, but it can also determine the duration that the engine is stopped and then when the light is over it can start the motors of the cars up in sequential order so the first cars at the light get to go first. The system would use GPS data to know where vehicles were located at the light.

The patent application reads:

Vehicle fuel consumption is a major component of global energy consumption. With increasing vehicle usage, there may be more traffic and longer wait times at traffic signals (e.g., at a traffic intersection or a railway crossing). Fuel may be wasted when drivers keep their vehicles running while waiting for the traffic signal to turn "green" or waiting for a train to pass at a railway crossing. Most drivers may not switch off their engines in these situations. Drivers who do switch off their engines may do so inefficiently. For example, a driver may switch off the engine, only to start it up a short time later. In such cases, more fuel may be consumed in restarting the engine. Some traffic signals may have clocks that indicate remaining durations before the signals change. However, drivers in vehicles waiting at the back of the queue may not be able to view the clock.

There are other aspects of this technology that the patent application doesn't spell out. For instance, this system would make it impossible for a driver to run a red light. There could also be safety issues to a system such as this. For instance, what if a driver had a medical emergency and the light turned off the car making it impossible to reach a hospital. The system would require software and hardware be installed on vehicles at an unknown cost.

In the red, mortgage burden soars to $1 trillion

Tim Colebatch
February 27, 2010 - 3:00AM

Australians now owe financial institutions more than $1 trillion in housing mortgages, almost 15 times as much as 20 years ago, new Reserve Bank figures show.

The Reserve revealed that people paying off their own homes now owe banks and other lenders $763 billion - almost 12 times more than the $65 billion owed in January 1990, when figures were first compiled.

Rental investors have increased their mortgage debt even more spectacularly. In January 1990, landlords owed banks $10.5 billion, but by January this year, the figure had swollen more than 30 times over, to $324 billion.

Household disposable income also rose in that period, but it only trebled. In January 1990, home mortgages ate up just 28 per cent of our disposable income. By January 2000, that had ballooned to 66 per cent, and by January this year, it doubled again to 134 per cent.

Even in the past year, despite the global financial crisis, the debt we owe on home mortgages climbed relentlessly, up $83.5 billion to $1087 billion.

Households' willingness to take on greater debt powered much of Australia's economic growth from 1990-2010 but with our households now as indebted as any in the Western world, economists say that will not be repeated.

The Reserve Bank was alarmed at the 13.6 per cent rise in house prices in 2009. Some observers believe it helped prompt the Reserve's decision to raise interest rates three times in a row in the December quarter.

A Reuters survey yesterday found most market economists believe the Reserve will raise rates a fourth time on Tuesday - and they expect a total of four or five rate rises in 2010.

The Reserve has been talking up the economy's prospects in recent days, with governor Glenn Stevens telling MPs last week that Australia's economy will be dominated over the medium term by a resurgence of the resources boom.

The Reuters survey found economists expect the first evidence of this to emerge next week, with GDP expected to jump 0.9 per cent in the December quarter - lifting annual growth to 2.4 per cent.

The Reserve yesterday reported that credit growth in January was the strongest for a year. Seasonally adjusted credit to the private sector rose by $6 billion, or 0.4 per cent, while governments borrowed another $2.6 billion.

Over the past year, private sector credit grew just $14 billion or 0.7 per cent, as business paid back more than it borrowed.

But government debt to financial institutions more than doubled, from $32 billion to $73 billion, as the federal government took on the job of keeping the Australian economy going through the crisis.

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/business/in-the-red-mortgage-burden-soars-to-1-trillion-20100226-p9bs.html

EVIL McDONALD'S UNREASONABLY PUSHES MULTINATIONAL CORPORATISM INTO FRENCH CULTURAL ICON

Visit False Flag American's Youtube Page for heaps of important videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/FalseFlagAmerican
Herman Blount's Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1002575757&ref=name
Sign the "Stop Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccination (Aust - Federal)" petition now!

IS McDONALD'S TRYING TO ATTAIN CULTURE BY ASSOCIATION?

SPECIAL REPORT by Tetractys Merkaba, Editor-in-Chief

GIGANTIC MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATION, McDonalds, is going to open another unhealthy outlet at the historic Lourve Art Mueseum, in Paris, France.

People who do not wish to participate in the plasticised, cheap, unhealthy values of multi-national-read, AMERICAN-corporate empires, will have had their ability to live outside this desolate, cold, loveless, profit driven, so-called corporate "culture", diminished.

These type of business', spearheaded by corporations such as Nike, McDonald's, Starbucks, Walmart & Disney are only interested in making money, and do not care about community sentiment one little bit, if it inhibits its ability to make more money.

How much is enough?

Of course, we, as a community, have to accept our share of the blame because we have not stood up to these empires. We have to spend our dollars with other companies, companies with better attitudes towards their employees, both in the so-called first, as well as in the so-called third worlds, companies that employ higher community standards, companies that respect the fact that some people wish to live their lives independent of these companies.

The Lourve need to accept their fair share of responsibility too. Is money so important to them that they will sell-out their cultural responsibilities to both the mueseum, and the community for the proverbial fistfull of dollars?

Whilst there was debate, and in some quarters, outrage, over the pyramidical extension, at least, there was both a logical, as well as, an aesthetic methodology behind their decision that could be argued with merit.

This, on the other hand, is pure greed.

As a community, we expect McDonald's to participate in nefarious, self-interested activities that show little, or no regard for the community.

However, we do not expect those charged with managing our cultural institutions like The Lourve, will make such hamfisted decisions for the sake of a few francs.



Fries with your Mona Lisa? Big Macs move on Louvre

Henry Samuel Paris
October 6, 2009 - 12:00AM

FRANCE'S art lovers and gastronomes are united in Gallic outrage.

The American burger chain McDonald's is to open a restaurant and McCafe in the Louvre museum next month.

The fast food giant is celebrating its 30th anniversary in the home of haute cuisine. This coup - the opening of its 1142nd outlet - cements France's reputation as the biggest fan of McDonald's outside America.

Staff at the Louvre, many of whom are already unhappy that the museum is lending its name and works to a multimillion-dollar project in the Arabian emirate of Abu Dhabi, are criticising the proposal.

''This is the last straw,'' said one art historian at the Louvre. ''This is the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odours in the context of a museum.''

Didier Rykner, the head of The Art Tribune website, said the plan was ''shocking''.

''I'm not against eating in a museum,'' he said. ''But McDonald's is hardly the height of gastronomy.

''Today McDonald's, tomorrow low-cost clothes shops,'' he said. A museum spokesman said it had agreed to a ''quality'' McCafe and a McDonald's ''in line with the museum's image'' to open by the end of the year.

The two outlets would represent the American segment of a new food court, and would be situated ''among [other] world cuisines and coffee shops''.

The website Louvre Pour Tous, which aims to ''defend'' museum visitors, said: ''Henri Loyrette, president of the Louvre museum, just had to say one word to stop the whiff of French fries from wafting past the Mona Lisa's nose.

''He chose otherwise.''

A similar protest was unleashed last year when the American coffee chain Starbucks opened a cafe close to the museum's entrance.

Employees and art lovers sent a protest petition to the managers. The cafe opened regardless but was asked to provide a cultural corner of brochures and catalogues.

''Starbucks was bad enough but McDonald's is worse,'' said the unnamed historian.

However, even if there were a last-minute reversal at the Louvre, statistics suggest the battle of Les Big Macs has already been lost.

The French seem to love McDonald's. While business in brasseries and bistros is in free fall, the fast food group opened 30 outlets last year in France and welcomed 450 million customers.

TELEGRAPH

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/travel/fries-with-your-mona-lisa-big-macs-move-on-louvre-20091005-gjdo.html