Senator Schumer Advocates Hancock Field as National Test Site for Unmanned Drone Flights

I just want to point out that these drones flights will depart where civilian flights will depart, because the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base is co-located with Syracuse-Hancock International Airport. I was pretty shocked when I when I read this article about Senator Schumer pushing for drone flights in Central New York at Hancock Field in Mattydale, New York. For what purpose will these particular drone flights (see video above) be used for? According to Schumer, he feels that it will be beneficial to Central New York and to others.

He [Sen. Schumer] said that “making Hancock a test site for this technology would be a boon for Central New York, creating jobs and bringing new investments to our defense contractors that provide thousands of good paying jobs.”

I want to know what type of tests the military will be operating with these drones, especially in civilian airspace. I don't have a problem if the military wants to play with its hardware and toys on the bases, but I cannot imagine many military bases (especially ones on the East Coast) being large enough to allow a drone to operate at its full capacity. If the military brass starts flying flights in New York, they will be in every other State soon enough and then it is just a matter of time before a plane has a mid-air collision with one of these drones.

I wonder if Senator Schumer will be receiving any campaign donations from the various defense contractors who will eventually get the aforementioned investments as per the National Defense Authorization Act.

Source: Syracuse.com

Texas Department of State Health Services to Aerial Drop 1.8 Million Doses of Rabies Vaccine This Month

I have to thank a Facebook friend for posting a news story today that caused me to research this matter about the aerial vaccination program in Texas. Texas says that the annual aerial vaccine program has been effective in controlling rabies, but I wouldn't expect the State to say anything else. 1.8 million doses of a vaccine is a WHOLE lot of doses, so what happens to the vaccines that aren't consumed by animals? Could these vaccines somehow get into the food and water tables? And what ingredients are in this rabies vaccine?

I guess I should do a little bit more research on this vaccine to get answers to these questions, but until then, the brochure for RABORAL V-RG® can be viewed here.

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DSHS Combats Rabies With Aerial Vaccine Drop
News Release
Jan. 2, 2012

The Texas Department of State Health Services this week begins its annual airdrop of rabies vaccine baits over portions of southern and western Texas in the continuing effort to protect people and livestock from rabies. Planes will take off from airports in Zapata and Alpine around dawn Wednesday, Jan. 4 and from Del Rio on Thursday, Jan. 12. They will drop about 1.8 million doses of rabies vaccine over the next month as part of the DSHS Oral Rabies Vaccination Program.

“This approach has been a huge success,” said veterinarian Ernest Oertli, the vaccination program’s director. “We haven’t seen a single human case of rabies in the areas covered by the program since it started in 1995, and the number of animal cases has dropped dramatically.”

Animal cases of the canine strain of rabies in southern Texas fell from 122 in 1994 to zero in 2000. There have since been single cases in 2001 and 2004. The fox strain, prevalent in western Texas, dropped from 244 animal cases in 1995, the year before the project expanded to that area, to zero in 2010 and 2011.

“We have effectively eliminated these two strains of rabies from Texas,” said Oertli. “Now our goal is prevent them from being reintroduced as animals move in and out of the state.”

The vaccine dose is enclosed in a small packet dipped in fish oil and coated with fish meal crumbles. The baits don’t pose any risk to humans, but people should avoid handling them since human contact makes it less likely a wild animal will eat the baits.

Rabies is a deadly virus spread through the saliva of infected animals, usually by a bite. Preventing rabies is critical because once a person or animal displays symptoms, the disease is almost always fatal.

DSHS urges everyone to have their pets vaccinated against rabies, as required by law. Vaccinating domestic animals is essential to stopping the spread of rabies.

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(News Media Contact: Chris Van Deusen, DSHS Assistant Press Officer, 512-776-7753)

DSHS Press Office on Twitter

Last updated January 02, 2012

FLASHBACK: U.S. Government Allegedly Spies on Protesters with Insect-Sized Spy Drones (2007)

I have read about these "insect" drones in the past being used to spy on protesters, but aside from a U.S. Air Force post some time back I have not written much about them. I don't know why I decided to finally blog about it tonight, but if the government had these types of drones in 2007, I wonder what it has five (5) years later. Check out what some people in the crowd had to say about these drones.

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month...

...I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.

"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "

Source: Washington Post

One Hundred (100) Years of World History in Ten (10) Minutes (1911-2011)(Video Mix)

I am a big fan of history. I would highly recommend the above video to anyone with an interest in history. The video summarizes the last 100 years of world history through video clips. In case the video is not displaying above, click here for a different link.