As the debate surrounding America’s use

As the debate surrounding America’s use of targeted drone killings rages on, a friendlier side of the technology is zooming to center stage. From a bakery in Shanghai to a sushi restaurant in London, companies across the globe are experimenting with unmanned aircraft to deliver—well, just about anything. Back in the U.S., however, early adopters will likely find themselves grounded in legal limbo as Congress sits on legislation regulating civilian use.

In South Africa, for example, the first known beer drone drop received ecstatic reviews two weeks ago. “Each time the drone dropped a beer into the crowd, the entire camp erupted in a fantastic roar,” says Carel Hoffman, who masterminded the event as part of Johannesburg’s Oppikoppi Music Festival. “The entire thing was supposed to be a gimmick ... just a small gimmick in the corner of the festival,” he says. But the feat was risky, and the Oppikoppi founders admit it. “We were worried that someone would stop us and say, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’” Hoffman says. No one did.

The beer drone, nicknamed “manna” after the Old Testament story in which bread falls from the sky, was built locally using borrowed parts from Hong Kong. The only thing festivalgoers had to do was download a Beer Drone app on their smartphones to request a fresh brew. If they were lucky enough to make it into “the queue,” a free beer would float through the air, parachute included, and land at their feet. Hoffman says thousands of beers were successfully flown in, turning the Oppikoppi staff into something like national heroes: “South Africa is very proud of us for the drone,” he says.

The words “proud” and “drone” sound odd in the same sentence, and Hoffman catches himself immediately. “It’s different than how they’re used in America,” he says. “I saw a headline a few days ago here that read, ‘The U.S.A. Drops Bombs on Afghanistan; We Drop Beer.’”

The origin of the food and drink delivery drone is debatable. A well-known Japanese restaurant in London, YO! Sushi, claims it deserves the credit. “YO! Sushi considers itself the first to utilize unmanned aircraft ... as a way to serve customers,” one of the company’s PR directors, James Lynch, writes in an email. YO! employs an “iTray,” essentially a drone that carries a tray of food to patrons. It was built in-house and has earned the nickname “flying waiter.” Lynch says the concept was well received, but needs work. “Customers loved the initial test phase of the iTray but we are still perfecting the technology.”


Another contender for the title of pioneer is a bakery in Shanghai called InCake. Its “treat-delivery program”—which employs three 3 1/2-foot-wide, 22-pound unmanned aircrafts to deliver cake—was suspended by Chinese authorities on July 25. Speaking to a Shanghai news station, the bakery’s general manager, Wang Pingshi, explained that he was going to “improve the safety factors” of the drones in order to get the civil aviation authority’s approval.

In America, the fun has yet to completely begin. Until Congress passes the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012—which includes a section on integrating civil drones into national airspace—the only way to legally get down with drone delivery is by using one small enough to be classified as a “toy drone.” The FAA also prohibits the use of unmanned aircraft when they are used for profit (and has reportedly sent letters to individuals who are doing so demanding they stop), but there is no legislation on the books to make the offense punishable by law.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, admitted recently that the issue has Congress stumped for the time being. “This question has to be addressed, and we need rules of operation on the border, by police, by commercial use, and also by military and intelligence use,” Feinstein told Hardball’s Chris Matthews in March. “So this is now a work in progress. We are taking a look at it on the intelligence committee, trying to draft some legislation. The administration is looking at a rules playbook as to how these won’t be used and how they will be used. So it’s a very complicated subject of new technology, and I think we have to take a pause and get it right.”

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Joy as wind turbine plans near Bridgnorth

It follows a two-year battle over the plans to put up the turbine at the Old Hall Barn in Kenley, between Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth.

Residents who campaigned against the plans today hailed the decision as a victory for people power after they successfully challenged a decision to give the proposals the go-ahead in the High Court last year.

Gavin Lloyd had wanted to build the turbine to provide energy at his home and farm, while it was also intended the equipment would power holiday let accommodation at the property.

The application was first made in June 2011 and was refused by Shropshire Council in September that year.

Mr Lloyd appealed and in March 2012 was given the go-ahead for the scheme by a planning inspector.

But that decision was then quashed in the High Court last December, resulting in a new inspection being ordered.

The findings of the second inspector David Rose were today published by The Planning Inspectorate.

Mr Rose said the three-blade turbine would have been able to generate 25,000kWh of energy in a year. But he said its benefits were outweighed by the harmful effects of the turbine on the look and character of the local area.

“Such benefits would only be achieved by causing a very serious loss to the overall character of the landscape and comparable visual harm to the appearance of the landscape from nearby public vantages,” he said.

“Whilst the landscape does not have special status or protection, the combination of these elements, which could not be mitigated, would be of sufficient magnitude to convincingly tip the balance away from granting planning permission.”

Resident Paul Jarrett was delighted with the decision. He said the decision to fight the case in the High Court could have personally cost him $40,000 if the original inspector’s ruling had been upheld.

“The bottom line is that it is unsuitable for the surroundings. That is what we have been saying for years,” he said.

Mr Lloyd could not be reached for comment today.

Nakamura explained that 80 to 90 percent of the power generated would come from the large wind-catching turbine floating over the sea, with another underwater turbine expected to produce the rest.

At first, the turbine units will be tethered to shore by cables which also transport the energy produced onto land storage facilities. The technology to effectively store it on the turbines at sea doesn't exist, yet.

"We can start the operations and we will learn from that one, and in the future, the battery cost will be less. Maybe 10 years later we will be in a very good shape for the business," he told CBS' Seth Doane.

He admits that he's dedicated his career to creating technology which, at least for the next decade, isn't going to bear its full economic fruit.

But Nakamura wasn't always a renewable energy guy. In fact, recently he'd worked to develop a way to produce liquefied natural gas at sea.

When the powerful earthquake rocked northeast Japan in March of 2011, triggering a tsunami that destroyed parts of the Fukushima Dai-Itchi nuclear power plant, Nakamura took it as a wake-up call.

"After the earthquake, it was a very big shock for the people like us in Japan," he explained to Doane, adding that his nation -- and its energy infrastructure -- had been inadequately prepared for a disaster of such a magnitude.

His company allowed him to transition into a department to work on dreaming up the next generation of power generation.

With 70 percent of the Earth covered by ocean, ever increasing demand and decreasing space on land to produce power, Nakamura believes that, just as the oil business looked offshore for opportunities, the renewable energy side will also look to the sea.

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Emptying of Brainerd shelter forces look ahead

Clutching clear plastic bags that contained all the possessions they could carry, the residents of Patten Towers waited in clusters under a hastily erected Red Cross tent. It was time to evacuate.

They were careful not to lose the wristbands that identified them as actual residents of Patten Towers, rather than any one of an unknowable number of hangers-on and transients who loitered among the refugees from a Tuesday night electrical fire.

"Everyone must have a form of ID to be assessed," shouted a PK Management official above the din of residents left behind in the Brainerd Recreational Complex.

For the sick, disabled and elderly evacuees outside, the square scrap of paper with a letter written on it entitled them to board the bus that would take them away.

Away from standing in line for lunch from a truck. Away from sleeping on a military-style cot in a Brainerd basketball gym with 100 other people. Away from the nagging uncertainty of not knowing what tomorrow holds, how to get medicine or when this nightmare will end.

The residents weren't told where they'd be going. They couldn't immediately tell friends, family and others where to reach them. Those who weren't on the list were turned away. Some of the girlfriends, grandmothers and drifters who form part of the larger Patten Towers community but don't pay rent got into cars to follow the buses. The convoys drafted the buses through red lights and down Interstate 24, tracking them all the way to the downtown hotels that will serve as temporary homes for the next few days.

Initially, 241 residents fled the Tuesday night fire. Many found a couch or an extra bed in the home of a friend or family member for what they thought would be just a few days. Just over 100 remained stuck at the Brainerd Recreational Complex overnight on Sunday, including a group that was moved there from the East Brainerd Church of Christ.

But the news that residents would receive vouchers for hotels brought dozens streaming back into the shelter for a chance at a golden ticket, creating a logistical nightmare.

Contradictory and confusing lists of names left many residents frustrated, waiting in lines that went nowhere as workers from PK Management struggled to understand who would be allowed to board a CARTA bus to the La Quinta Inn or the Staybridge Suites.

Some residents' ID cards remained behind in Patten Towers. Those residents waited while workers figured out how to identify them.

Dotsay Poole pumped her fist when her name was called and leapt to her feet to grab the piece of paper that represented a seven-day vacation from the noise and smell of an emergency shelter. As the gym slowly emptied, Red Cross workers pulled the cots out a rear door, brushed off the crumbs and lined them up in the grass out back. The cots will need to be disinfected before they can be used again. Workers will throw away the piles of emergency towels and blankets that were scattered across the building. It costs more to wash them than it does to simply replace them.

At a cost of more than $80,000 in donated funds, workers from the Salvation Army and Red Cross served more than 12,000 meals during the week, supplied 11,000 blankets and towels, conducted more than 600 medical checkups and treated two cats. More information about the program is available on the web site at www.aulaundry.com.

A team from Oak Street Baptist Church brought a trailer filled with laundry machines to wash clothes. Goodwill Chattanooga distributed two outfits of clothes to each resident. Hamilton County and Chattanooga police officers split up security duties.

Keep your lawn green while saving water with simple steps

Against a backdrop of tighter water restrictions and lake levels that seem to fall by the day, the Texas Water Smart coalition wants residents to know that limiting sprinkler use won’t leave their yards a desert wasteland, but will actually create stronger, healthier landscapes.

“People still really want to have a nice outdoor environment, but they want to plant things they feel will be hardy and good for them,” said Johnette Taylor of Roundtree Landscaping in Dallas, who is state landscape director for the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association. “It’s a big switch from a few years ago. Now, they want a nice yard, but they want to be water-conscious, too.”

Still, it’s easy enough to find someone in almost any neighborhood around Dallas who runs their sprinklers three, four, even seven days a week, dousing streets and sidewalks along with their lawns. And when water utilities have to impose tough limits on landscape irrigation, those lush landscapes take the biggest hit.

“But since most of us are watering twice a week, even going back to once a week shouldn’t hurt the plants too badly,” said Taylor, a member of the Water Smart coalition.

“Watch your irrigation system run, and see how long it takes for the water to puddle up on you or run off onto the sidewalks or driveway,” she said. “That’s usually about three, four, five, six minutes. You want to set the sprinklers to run to that point and then let that area sit for an hour or two.

“If you have six or seven [sprinkler] zones in your yard, let it run through, then let it sit for half an hour before you start the next cycle,” Taylor said. “If you do that cycle-and-soak two or even three times, you’ll be pushing water deeper and deeper to the roots, which is really ideal.”

And for best results, she said, water in the early morning, when temperatures are lower and less water is lost to evaporation.

That’s just one of the simple tips from Texas Water Smart that can sharply reduce water use. And this year, they might be especially timely.

Another goal is to reduce water usage by 10 percent, “an uphill battle,” according to water district spokeswoman Denise Hickey, “so we’ve got to raise awareness.”

But it’s doable, said Mike Rickman, deputy director of the North Texas district. In June 2012, water customers cut consumption by exactly 10 percent in the face of dry weather and tighter water supplies.

“And this goes back a ways, back to ’05 and ’06, when we were going through the same things [with drought] and we were able to reduce usage by 100 to 150 million gallons a day,” Rickman said.

On its busiest day, he said, the district pumped a total of 582 million gallons.

Nurseries and big-box stores such as Home Depot play a key role in conservation, Hickey said, “encouraging consumers to be more water-efficient and to be more conscious of how they use water.”

Joey Constantino, manager of the Home Depot store at Forest and Josey lanes in Dallas, said that once customers understand how easy it can be to cut water use — and how that can reduce their bills — it’s easy to change old habits.

During the warmest months, outdoor watering is a major contributor to overall water use, Constantino said, so adjusting sprinkler use, making sure hoses and faucets don’t leak and applying mulch to plant beds can make a big difference.

But indoor water use is always with us, with showers, industrial washing machine and toilets making up about 70 percent of residential consumption each year, Constantino said.

“A leaky toilet can waste 200 gallons of water a day, and some old toilets use up to 7 gallons a flush,” he said. “And a high-efficiency washing machine will pay for itself in water savings.”

Yom Hashoah in Sydney

More than 900 guests packed Sydney’s Moriah College as the NSW Jewish community commemorated Yom Hashoah and the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Following the screening of a video on the history of the Warsaw Ghetto, the combined choirs of the Emanuel School and Mount Sinai College sang Eli Eli before Michael Jaku the Chair of the Shoah Remembrance Committee welcomed the guests.

Lena Goldstein who witnessed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was one of the main speakers . Here is her story…

“I remember the Germans announcing to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto that each of us would be given a loaf of bread and a portion of jam when we presented ourselves at the Umschlagplatz for transfer to the East. Many Jews volunteered for this transfer as they were hungry —-they believed, or they wanted to believe that the Nazis were telling the truth. Whole families presented themselves hoping to escape the cruel reality of starvation in the Ghetto.

But over time fewer and fewer Jews volunteered for transfer and forced deportations began. With forced deportation came Selektion. To the right meant to stay and work, to the left to be deported. Each person was allowed only one suitcase, except that in some suitcases there was no clothing. There were in fact

little children whose parents were trying desperately to prevent separation by sedating them and concealing them inside the suitcases.

We also believed that if we worked for the German war machine we could avoid deportation. German factories, or rather conglomerates, employed Jews as slave labour. There were tailoring factories, shoe factories, fur and leather workshops and a laundry.

The biggest conglomerates were Schulz and Tobbens. My parents managed to get a job in the Schulz laundry washing German uniforms. But working for the Germans did not prevent deportation. This was a deception. My parents were deported after two separate selections and I managed to hide myself under a pile of bloody uniforms when my mother was taken away. Then, in order to exist, I managed to take over my mother’s job.

While I was working in the factory, a few escapees from Treblinka managed to come back to the Ghetto. That opened our eyes to the real purpose of the deportations. We discovered that there were no labour camps in the East; just gas chambers. Once you got on the train there was no return.

One of the escapees knew my father and he looked me up in the ghetto. He had met my father in Treblinka when all the men were lined up naked waiting to enter the gas chambers. My father led the Kaddish for the women and children who had already gone in before them. Somehow this man escaped. My father told this man that he worried about me. My father, waiting to die, was worried about his daughter having no money and no-one to care for her. I never saw this young man again. Succeeding in escaping death once did not bring an assurance of survival.

The Polish National Army declined to help us, and the Polish People’s Army that said it would support Jewish fighters demanded exorbitant prices for each revolver and each round of ammunition. To pay for the guns and ammunition, the resistance fighters decided to collect money – a tax – from the wealthy ones who were still in the ghetto.

The money was collected during the night after curfew, moving between the buildings through holes in walls, attics and cellars. As my building did not have a common wall on one side, sometimes fighters spent the night at my home until morning when the curfew was lifted.