What Adam Curry is reading

Is the Meaning of Your Life to Make Babies?
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  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:54
  What can '-- and cannot '-- be learned from evolution
  From an evolutionary gene's-eye perspective, the genes are immortal, and our role, the meaning of life, is to perpetuate the genes. In a few centuries, all traces of our existence as human individuals '-- memories of us, all our accomplishments ''will likely be gone and forgotten, except for genes that survive from those of us who successfully reproduced through the generations.
  But, of course, we don't experience the world from a gene's eye evolutionary perspective. One experiences the world as an individual person, not as a gene dispenser (fun as that may be). The joy we get from parenting comes not from some abstract generic idea of gene propagation, but from specific love and interaction with our own children '-- making your own baby son giggle uncontrollably when you make ridiculous animal noises, the bittersweet emotional rush you feel as you watch your daughter walk down the aisle. We care about ourselves and others as persons, not as a gene menagerie. Humans create our own meanings.
  But '-- reproduction as the answer to life's meaning cannot be dismissed quite so easily. Genetic evolution is the meaning of biologic life, in that it is the why and how of it, as well as the stock of future biological existence. The genes that survive '-- and in turn the organisms they make '-- are the winners in the existence game. Can we just dismiss this when considering the meaning of our own individual human lives? Sure, evolution itself does not have a specific direction or teleology, and genes themselves are not conscious, so there is not meaning in that sense. But evolution cannot just be shrugged off as something apart from us, take it or leave it. It is the biological explanation of who we are, how we got here, and the diversity of life. Over billions of years, life left the oceans, stretched limbs to cover the earth, raised wings to fly. Underlying it all are the replicating molecules that continue to copy themselves even now. We owe our existence to this process, and our future depends on it. Perhaps the meaning of your life as a biological creature is to make babies and help ensure the survival of life. In discussing the children she had with Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan put it like this: ''When we come closest to each other we can create new life forms that carry on that continuity that stretches back all those billions of years, and in them are the generations of human beings who have struggled. That is magnificent.''
  By making babies, we continue life's pageant. In children, we cheat death.
  Yet something seems fundamentally very wrong, or incomplete, with this idea that making babies is the meaning of life. I wouldn't be jumping with jubilation if my teenage son announced today that he was going to be a father. Do we laud the parents of extremely large Mormon, Hasid, Catholic, and Muslim families as public exemplars of a meaningful life? Do we honor the most popular sperm donor as humankind's greatest philanthropist?
  Even if our genes get perpetuated, our genes are not us. After a few generations of genetic mixing and shuffling, there's unlikely to be anything unique or identifying about us in our offspring. If your great-great-grandchild has your brown eyes and your blood type, but no other personality or physical traits uniquely identifiable to you, how much of ''you'' has really lived on? Further, if the idea is to perpetuate our genetic lineage, what if we have children, but no grandchildren?
  Fundamentally, as humans, the problem with identifying the meaning of life with having children is this '-- to link meaningfulness only with child production seems an affront to human dignity, individual differences, and personal choice. Millions of homosexuals throughout the world do not have children biologically. Millions of heterosexual adults are unable to have children biologically. For many adults, not having children is the right choice, for themselves, the world, the economy, or for their would-be children. Socrates, Julius Caesar, Leonardo da Vinci, George Washington, Jane Austen, Florence Nightingale, John Keats, Vincent van Gogh, Vladimir Lenin, and Steven Pinker as far as we know did not have biological children. Would we deny the meaningfulness of their impact or existence? The meaning of life for childless adults '-- roughly 20% of the population in the U.S. and U.K. '' has nothing to do with fame, but everything to do with what makes life meaningful for everyone: experiencing pleasure, personal relationships, and engagement in positive activities and accomplishments.
  From a moral perspective if you are giving of your life for an adopted child, a parent, creative production, teaching, volunteer work, or anything that helps others, adds to happiness, and makes the world a better place '-- then an evolutionary genetic perspective seems irrelevant. It is from such bedrocks that human meaning springs. Human meanings are worthwhile regardless of long-term, universal, final consequences, because they are meaningful now.
  Also, it's not just the seed alone that produces bountiful produce, it's the entire garden and all it takes to nurture it. The environment is a critical part of the equation. Evolution by natural selection occurs by differential survival and reproduction of genes in a population as a consequence of interactions with the environment. There is also the danger of overpopulation, which could result in famine, disease, and environmental catastrophe, perhaps jeopardizing the future evolutionary success of the entire species. So, ironically, perhaps not having children is the best way to ensure longevity of the human genome. Unlike other animals, we can be conscious stewards of the future.
  So is making babies '-- and having genes survive through the generations '-- the meaning of life? The answer is yes '-- from an evolutionary gene's eye view. Making babies, and also other actions and social structures that result in the survival and reproduction of one's gene, such as protecting one's relatives. Differential reproduction is a process which, in conjunction with environmental interactions, has led to all life as we know it, with all its diversity and grandeur, including conscious experience itself. This is modern knowledge that is not to be taken lightly, and has impact on how we view our own meaning.
  But from almost every other perspective '-- individual, group, moral, environmental, or concern for life as a whole '-- the answer to the question is no. Meaning from these perspectives '-- from life as it is actually experienced '-- is up to us. Reproduction and genetic survival may be the meaning of Life, but it is not inescapably the meaning of your life.
  So, in the end, the full answer is no '-- we do not bestow having babies as the sole guardians of life's meaning. But we do need to respect and grapple with the view. Differential genetic success, as a result of reproduction and environmental conditions will '-- for better or worse '-- provide the template for what humans will become in the future. It is to evolutionary genetic success that we '-- and all life '-- owe our existence, and to which the future of all life on Earth depends. Including creatures that create our own meaning. We perform our solos with passion, but we are playing in nature's grand symphony.
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Africa's trade ties with China in spotlight as President Xi visits
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  Source: Reuters: World News
  Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:53
  Chinese President Xi Jinping adjusts his earphones during his visit to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in Moscow March 23, 2013.
  Credit: Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin
  By George Obulutsa and Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala
  DAR ES SALAAM | Sun Mar 24, 2013 8:10am EDT
  DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping faces growing calls from policymakers and economists in Africa for a more balanced trade relationship between the continent and China as he arrives in Tanzania at the beginning of an African tour on Sunday.
  China's ties with the continent dates back to the 1950s, when Beijing backed African liberation movements fighting to throw off Western colonial rule. It has built roads, railways, stadiums and pipelines to win access to Africa's oil and minerals like copper and uranium to feed its booming economy.
  Many across Africa see China as a valuable counterbalance to the West's influence. But as the relationship matures there is mounting discomfort in Africa that the continent is exporting raw materials while spending heavily to import finished consumer goods from the Asian economic powerhouse.
  "He will be looking to tone down the feeling that China is just here to exploit resources. I think that is going to be his main job," James Shikwati, director of the Nairobi-based Inter Regional Economic Network think tank, told Reuters.
  China's new leader is due to land in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, on Sunday for a state banquet before delivering his first policy speech on Africa in a Chinese-funded conference hall on Monday.
  Xi will go on from Tanzania to South Africa where leaders of the world's major emerging economies, known as the BRICS, will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday and could endorse plans to create a joint foreign exchange reserves pool and an infrastructure bank at a summit.
  The proposal underscores frustrations among emerging markets at having to rely on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which are seen as reflecting the interests of the United States and other industrialized nations.
  Xi's visit to Africa - which ends in the Republic of Congo - on his first trip abroad is seen as a demonstration of Africa's strategic importance to China, driven by Beijing's hunger for resources and African demand for cheap Chinese imports.
  ENERGY
  The east African seaboard is hot property after huge gas discoveries boosted Tanzania and Mozambique's combined gas reserves to more than 180 trillion cubic feet.
  Mozambique accounts for the bulk of this, with enough to supply world number one importer Japan for 35 years. There have also been oil strikes in neighboring Kenya and Uganda.
  Xi will criss-cross a region where China's economic growth and injections of aid offer both hope and cause for anxiety.
  Nigeria's central bank chief, Lamido Sanusi, said Africans should wake up to the realities of their "romance with China."
  "So China takes our primary goods and sells us manufactured ones. This was also the essence of colonialism," Sanusi wrote in the Financial Times this month. "Africa is now willingly opening itself up to a new form of imperialism."
  "We must see China for what it is: a competitor."
  In Dar es Salaam, where Tanzanian and Chinese flags fluttered in the coastal breeze, businessman Hamisi Mwalimu said China was flooding local markets with counterfeit goods while stripping the continent of its natural resources.
  "We need a smart partnership where both Tanzania and China benefit. Right now, they're getting a much better deal than us," Mwalimu said.
  EQUAL PARTNERS?
  Beijing has kept under wraps details of new investments or aid Xi will announce, a typical feature of overseas trips by Chinese leaders. Last year, Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao offered $20 billion in loans to African countries over the coming three years.
  At that summit, China pledged to help Africa export manufactured products, not just raw materials, and to import from the continent.
  But rights groups and some Western governments say China supports African governments with dubious human rights records to get access to resources. Often cited is Beijing's relationship with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir who faces international war crimes charges.
  The European Union rejects what it labels China's "check book" approach to doing business with Africa and demands reforms and the transparent use of aid.
  Such criticism draws rebukes from China that the West treats Africa as though it were a colony.
  "Africa wants to be treated as an equal, and this is what many Western countries do not understand, or are at least are not willing to do," Zhong Jianhua, China's special envoy to Africa, told Reuters in an interview this month.
  "China at least knows that we have to treat people in Africa as equals."
  China is criticized for using Chinese workers on infrastructure and mining projects in Africa. Beijing estimates almost 1 million Chinese are working in Africa.
  Zhong acknowledged Chinese companies faced criticism for flooding Africa with Chinese workers.
  "We have told Chinese companies that they cannot just use Chinese workers," Zhong said. "I think most Chinese firms now realize this."
  Yet not all African governments appear that worried with the use of Chinese workers, especially for infrastructure projects.
  "China isn't coming to Congo to create jobs," Republic of Congo Ambassador to China, Daniel Owassa, told Reuters.
  (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Pravin Char)
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Police probe sexual assault claims of girl at Stanbridge Earls special school, Hants
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  Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:41
  23 Mar 2013 21:00Sex abuse probe at £39,000-a-year Stanbridge Earls School in rural Hampshire which specialises in teaching pupils with learning difficulties
  An independent special school where Ministry of Defence families send their children is at the ­centre of a sex abuse probe, the Sunday People has revealed.
  Grade II listed Stanbridge Earls School in rural Hampshire has been a favourite of the ­military for decades and takes boarders aged ten to 19.
  The school specialises in teaching pupils with learning difficulties like dyslexia and dyscalculia and charges between £27,000 and £39,000 a year.
  It lies in idyllic countryside, with Tudor buildings, lakes, and acres of land But the tranquil setting has been shattered by allegations that staff covered up sexual assault among pupils.
  The school was taken off the MOD's approved list in January, following a devasting tribunal report documenting serious sexual assault.
  The Sunday People can reveal that Hampshire Police have now set up an investigation called Operation Flamborough to probe the allegations.
  Detectives are understood to be investigating at least two incidents of alleged sexual abuse by pupils on two girls. Schools watchdog OFSTED, the General Medical Council and the Crown Prosecution Service are also conducting inquiries.
  The Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal found serious flaws in ­management and procedures at the school in January.
  Staff were aware of this but failed to report it or follow ­proper procedures. A girl who claimed she was sexually abused was represented at the tribunal by solicitor Melinda Nettleton. Mrs Nettleton said: ''There has been a systematic problem at the school and staff have failed to recognise that. There appears to have been no understanding of the ­seriousness of what has happened.''
  The tribunal awarded costs of £85,000 to the girl's family.
  Its damning report found the school had failed to protect one of its most vulnerable pupils and she had been discriminated against after she was excluded following the allegation.
  The school claimed she had breached rules prohibiting ­engagement in sexual activity.
  But the tribunal found ­systems put in place to make sure pupils were looked after had been ''unsystematic, unprofessional, ad hoc and completely ­inadequate'' It said senior staff, including the head, deputy head, head of care, nurse and doctor, failed to properly respond to the girl's accusations.
  Head Peter Trythall was accused of conduct ''bordering on contempt for statutory duties''. The report said he claimed he was ''unaware'' that non-consensual sex was rape. He later claimed his comments were taken out of context.
  The girl, 15 at the time and now 17, suffers from autism and has the social skills of a seven-year-old. She was said to have been groomed with sexually explicit texts before being abused by an older boy.
  She complained to staff of ''pain down below''. They ­discovered a genital injury and the girl told them she had had a sexual encounter. No one from the school told her mother and father.
  The allegations came to light in July 2011, when the girl returned from school at the end of term and told her mother she had been raped. Solicitors for the parents obtained the girl's medical records from the school. They confirmed she had shown sexual injuries during a medical examination.
  Caroline Nokes, MP for Romsey and Southampton North, raised the matter in Parliament and demanded talks on measures to improve the situation at the school.
  Labour MP Tom Watson vowed to raise the safety of ­pupils at the school with Education Secretary Michael Gove. He said: ''I am calling on Michael Gove to ­urgently ­examine the ­safeguarding issues that ­surround the school.
  ''The investigation needs to be thorough and should be given all the resources it needs. It is clear from the tribunal ­report there have been a number of ­serious failures by ­individuals and agencies - and they must be urgently ­addressed. Everything possible needs to be done to make sure what happened to this young girl can never happen again.''
  The school expressed ''deep regret'' for failing the pupil. It said staff had been working to improve safety and had put a plan in place, with an external expert overseeing changes.
  ''It added: ''The case that gave rise to the tribunal was ­distressing, complicated and unusual. It was in no way ­illustrative of the way the school normally meets the needs of its pupils. The school has ­consistently been rated outstanding.''
  A police spokesman said: ''We are conducting a ­comprehensive review into previous allegations involving Stanbridge Earls School in Romsey.
  ''We are in contact with the families of the two girls who previously made allegations of abuse and are updating them with the progress of the review. The review is ongoing.''
As experts say 'the lights could go out in Britain', what has caused UK's looming gas crisis?
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  Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:38
  As energy experts claim that Britain faces a very real chance of 'the lights going out' due to an apparent energy shortage, homeowners have been left wondering how the UK ended up on the verge of a looming gas crisis.
  The head of energy giant SSE, Ian Marchant, warned that the government was significantly underestimating the scale of the capacity crunch facing the country.
  Ofgem's chief executive Alistair Buchanan, meanwhile, claimed Britain "would be very tight on power station capacity in three to five years' time".
  Although the government hit back by insisting it was not being complacent and that they were confident of a 'comfortable amount of spare power'.
  Energy minister John Hayes denied the government was being complacent, saying he was confident that its approach, combined with the responsiveness of the market, would provide secure supplies.
  He said: "We're alive to the challenge facing us. The Bill before Parliament will set the conditions for the investment needed to keep Britain's lights on in the long term."
  Analysts believe, however, that there is still a considerable risk that UK gas supplies could run perilously low.
  'The coldest March weekend in 50 years'
  During the 'Big Freeze' in 2010, the National Grid issued a warning to energy suppliers for only the second time ever.
  They warned that gas demand was outstripping supply as the UK shivered in one of the coldest winters ever.
  The sub-zero blasts saw a 30 per cent rise on normal seasonal demand and gas prices jumping significantly.
  This year an unseasonably cold March has seen a spike in gas demand - with forecasters predicting this weekend could be the coldest in March for half a century.Temperatures could drop to -3C in parts of the country, and the Met Office has already issued several severe weather warnings.
  A study by Reuters claimed that if the current cold snap continues as forecast, Britain could run out of gas by April 8.
  Should this happen some of the big industrial customers may be cut, meaning inevitable gas shortages.
  The Met Office warned of "cold or very cold" weather into next week, while northern Britain "may possibly experience colder than average conditions during April with a risk of overnight frosts and perhaps further snowfall".
  Lack of storage
  It is thought that Britain currently has just two days worth of spare gas reserves.
  The UK only ever holds 15 days of gas in reserve because of lack of storage space, compared to 100 days worth in France and Germany.
  Roderick Bruce, analyst at IHS Global Insight, told Reuters: "The lack of incentives for storage investment appears indicative of the UK's wider gas sector, where investors currently see regulatory risk as an insurmountable hurdle."
  The rapid depletion of gas storage sites has prompted operator Centrica, Britain's biggest power and gas provider, to restrict withdrawals owing to falling reservoir pressure, in a sign of the growing strain on the system.
  Gas storage sites have been depleted by 90 percent, with the equivalent of less than two days' consumption remaining, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe shows.
  Power stations winding down
  SSE boss Ian Marchant said his firm plan to cut back on power generation at five sites.
  Ofgem has also warned that power station closures could mean a 10% fall in capacity by April alone.SSE say Ofgem didn't take into account its own plans to cut back, meaning the warnings are even more stark.
  There has been a shortage in investment in power generation, and ageing British coal plants that have exhausted their operating lives are being closed, further constraining energy supply.
  Scottish Power's 1,200 megawatt (MW) Cockenzie power station near Edinburgh stopped operating after 45 years of service this month.
  The British subsidiary of Germany's RWE will shut its 2,000-MW Didcot facility for good this month as well.
  Unplanned outages
  British gas prices rose more than 50 percent earlier this month after unplanned outages at North Sea facilities left the UK gas market severely undersupplied, pushing prices to a five-year high.
  Norway's Nyhamna gas plant connected to Shell's giant Ormen Lange field in the North Sea, which primarily exports gas to Britain, had an outage on Saturday after stormy weather.
  In addition to the Norwegian outage, flows through Britain's St. Fergus terminal were reduced by around 7 mcm/d on March 4, creating an extremely tight supply situation.
  Serge Mozadila, energy market analyst at LG Energy group, said earlier this month: "With storage levels extremely low and supply from Norway falling from 70 mcm to 50 mcm, the system has become even more strained in the face of rising demand and more long positions as we struggle to meet demand with Rough outflows."
Judge Tosses Law Requiring Subway Passengers To Give Police Their ID
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  Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:37
  The entrance to the D, F, N, and Q trains. (Credit 1010 WINS reporter Gary Baumgarten.
  Related tagsarrest, ID, identification, Michael Burkhart, New York City Transit, New York Civil Liberties Union, police, Steve Barry, Tickets, U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak, Unauthorized PhotosNEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) '-- A federal judge this week threw out a New York City transit system rule that allowed police officers to demand identification documents from anyone riding the subway.
  The ruling came following a lawsuit filed by two vintage train aficionados, who were stopped by police while taking photographs at the Broad Channel subway station in Queens.
  In the Aug. 21, 2010 incident, Steve Barry, the editor of Railfan & Railroad Magazine, and his friend Michael Burkhart, were told by police that taking photographs in the subway system is forbidden '' which is not true, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.
  Barry asked the officer to cite the city statute the men were violating, but instead, the officer demanded identification from both men, the NYCLU said. Barry gave his name and address, but did not give the officer any ID.
  Judge Tosses Law Requiring Subway Passengers To Give Police Their ID1010 WINS' Gary Baumgarten ...The officer then arrested both Barry and Burkhart, and held them in the subway station waiting area for about half an hour, the NYCLU said. Both men were handcuffed and searched.
  Ultimately, the men received tickets for unauthorized photos, even though photography is actually permitted in the subway system, the NYCLU reported. The tickets were ultimately dismissed.
  Barry was also ticketed for failing to comply with a Transit Authority rule to carry ID. That ticket was also later thrown out, but Barry and Burkhart were so upset about the situation that they quit coming to New York City to photograph the subway system, the NYCLU said.
  U.S. Magistrate Cheryl Pollak ruled Friday that a rule requiring riders to provide any documents requested by police was ''unconstitutionally vague'' and encouraged ''arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.''
  The NYCLU characterized the ruling as a triumph.
  ''This decision is a victory for the freedom of people to walk around free from showing their papers, a core American right,'' NYCLU Staff Attorney Mariko Hirose said in a news release. ''It's past time for the NYPD to learn about the Constitution and stop harassing and even arresting people for exercising their basic rights.''
  A spokesman for New York City Transit said the agency was still reviewing the ruling late Friday.
  Do you think the judge made the right decision? Please leave your comments below'...
  (TM and (C) Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
Russia and China in Major Natural Gas Supply Pact
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  Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:18
  BY JAMES MARSONMOSCOW'--After more than a decade of talks, Russia has agreed to supply China with natural gas, a deal that could see China surpass Germany as the largest importer of Russian gas.
  Officials Friday signed a raft of other energy agreements, including one to double Russian oil supplies and hand China's state oil company a stake in Russian oil fields, tightening the nexus between Russia, the world's largest energy producer, and China, the hungriest consumer.
  Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Moscow on his first foreign trip as leader, called the accords a ''breakthrough'' at a signing ceremony in the Kremlin Friday. '...
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Concern Mounts Over Bloomberg's Remark That Security Drones Are Likely Coming
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  Sun, 24 Mar 2013 00:54
  Predator Drone (credit: General Atomics/Getty Images)
  NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) '-- Some New Yorkers have expressed serious concern after Mayor Michael Bloomberg's remark that more security cameras, and even spy drones, will soon be chipping away at our personal space.
  As CBS 2's Alice Gainer reported, if it feels like you are constantly being watched, that is because you probably are '' at least if you step outside onto city streets.
  As it is, cameras are attached to light poles around city streets, in a constant reminder that someone is always watching.
  Speaking on his weekly radio program, Bloomberg responded to a question about the possible domestic use of drones by the NYPD or another entity, calling it ''scary.''
  ''Everybody wants their privacy, but I don't know how you're going to maintain it,'' Bloomberg said. ''It's just we're going into a different world, uncharted, and, like it or not, what people can do, what governments can do, is different. And you can to some extent control, but you can't keep the tides from coming in.''
  And what the tide may be bringing in is drones '' unmanned aircraft that can shoot live video.
  ''What's the difference whether the drones up in the air or in the building?'' Bloomberg said. ''I mean intellectually, I have trouble making a distinction.''
  Drones are already in use by law enforcement in other cities. In Poland, a drone was spotted hovering a huge protest recently.
  The drones can capture details such as faces and license plate numbers.
  Back in Manhattan, the New York Civil Liberties Union has documented nearly 2,400 surveillance cameras, and said the idea of drones is a huge concern.
  ''It's disappointing that the mayor shows such disdain for the legitimate concern of New Yorkers about their privacy. None of us expects that we'll go unseen when we're out on the street, but we also have the right to expect that the government isn't making a permanent record,'' said Donna Lieberman of the NYCLU.
  People around New York are conflicted, with some voicing concern while others saying it was inevitable.
  ''What can you do? When you go online, Facebook, everybody's watching you. So what you gonna do, you have no choice,'' one man told 1010 WINS' Carol D'Auria.
  ''It's terrible, there's no privacy,'' said one woman.
  ''I don't want somebody watching me all the time and that's very big brother. But at the same time, the way the world is now, it's a safety issue,'' said Gary Timmons, of the West Side.
  ''There's a need for them. The world is changing and you have to change with it and protect your citizens,'' said Maria Costa of New Jersey.
  As it is, the NYPD has integrated its cameras with many private businesses in a program known as the ''ring of steel.'' So for now, it looks like the only way to stay out of Big Brother's view is to stay inside.
  What do you think about the possibility of security drones over New York City? Please leave your comments below'...
'We're going to have more visibility and less privacy': Mayor Bloomberg admits soon NYPD surveillance cameras will be on nearly every corner and in the air
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  Sun, 24 Mar 2013 00:52
  Marcus Santos/for the New York Daily NewsPolice surveillance camera at 59th St. and Fifth Ave. Mayor Bloomberg said he envisions a day when it will be nearly impossible for New Yorkers to escape the eye of Big Brother in the Big Apple.
  Big Brother is watching. Now get used to it!
  Envisioning a future where privacy is a thing of the past, Mayor Bloomberg said Friday it will soon be impossible to escape the watchful eyes of surveillance cameras and even drones in the city.
  He acknowledged privacy concerns, but said ''you can't keep the tides from coming in.''
  ''You wait, in five years, the technology is getting better, they'll be cameras everyplace . . . whether you like it or not,'' Bloomberg said.
  The security measures have drawn scorn from some civil libertarians '-- but Bloomberg scoffed at privacy concerns on his Friday morning program on WOR-AM.
  ''The argument against using automation is just this craziness that 'Oh, it's Big Brother,''' Bloomberg said. ''Get used to it!''
  RELATED: DRONES SOON PART OF REPORTER'S ARSENAL
  The New York Civil Liberties Union has documented nearly 2,400 surveillance cameras fixed on public spaces in Manhattan alone. Many are operated by the police, others by poroperty owners.
  In Lower Manhattan, an initiative developed after 9/11 known as the ''Ring of Steel'' integrates the NYPD's cameras with those of banks and other institutions.
  But in the future, the cameras won't just be planted on buildings and utility poles. Some of them will be able to fly, the mayor pointed out.
  ''It's scary,'' Bloomberg said. ''But what's the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building? I mean intellectually I have trouble making a distinction. And you know you're gonna have face recognition software. People are working on that.''
  Bloomberg warned that drones would be able to peep into private residences - but that Peeping Tom legislation could help maintain some privacy.
  ''It's just we're going into a different world, unchartered,'' he said.
  ''We're going to have more visibility and less privacy. I don't see how you stop that. And it's not a question of whether I think it's good or bad. I just don't see how you could stop that because we're going to have them.''
  tmoore@nydailynews.com
NYC Drones, get used to it
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  Source: newsweeds.com
  Sun, 24 Mar 2013 00:51
  March 23, 2013 News Get used to it.
  On Friday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the people of his city to get over their rapidly dwindling privacy, the Daily News reports:
  He acknowledged privacy concerns, but said ''you can't keep the tides from coming in.''
  ''You wait, in five years, the technology is getting better,
  More'...
  Read the original article here onDarkGovernment
Weekly Address: Helping Protect Our Kids by Reducing Gun Violence
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:00
  Three months after the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama says that the Senate has taken important steps forward to help protect our kids by reducing gun violence. The American people made their voices heard, and the Senate made progress to make it harder for criminals and people with serious mental illnesses to get guns, to crack down on anyone trying to funnel guns to criminals, and to reinstate and strengthen a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons. Each of these ideas deserves a vote. The President urges Congress to pass these commonsense measures while affirming our nation's tradition of responsible gun ownership.
  Transcript | Download mp4 | Download mp3
  Learn more about the plan to reduce gun violence in this country
Christian church destroyed by Muslims in 'moderate' Indonesia
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:21
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CNN Promotes Scag's Bigoted FEAR & HATE MUSLIMS Ad Campaign
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:18
U.S. Applies New Money Laundering Rules to Bitcoin, Defeating Its Purpose
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 22:40
  What's This?
  Glen Tickle
  for Geekosystem 2013-03-23 10:50:11 -0500Using Bitcoin to launder all the cash from your illegal dealings just got a little harder. The United States Treasury Department just enacted new rules to regulate Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, making it subject to the same level of scrutiny as other forms of currency. That's bad news for anyone looking to launder money using Bitcoin, but it could be good news for proponents of virtual currency for legitimate purposes.
  The new rules will see Bitcoin regulated like Western Union.
  The new rules will see Bitcoin regulated like Western Union. Little is expected to change for individuals trading in Bitcoins, but businesses will be required to keep more detailed records of the transactions. There will also now be a rule that any transactions over $10,000 must be reported.
  The measures are aimed at stopping illegal activity like money laundering done with virtual currency. But as Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik points out, "I think it's inevitable that just like you have U.S. dollars used by thieves and criminals, it's sadly inevitable you will have criminals use a virtual currency. We want to work with authorities."
  Just because some criminals use Bitcoin, does not mean it's a criminal empire. Although the new rules should make it harder to use things like Bitcoin for illicit activity, having the Treasury department regulating it should make supporters of virtual currency happy to see that it's getting a level legitimacy it didn't have before.
  From all indications, what the real supporters of Bitcoin want more than anything is for the currency to be taken seriously.
  [via The Wall Street Journal; image via Flickr, zcopley]
  This article originally published at Geekosystem here
  Topics: Bitcoin, U.S. government, U.S., US & World, virtual currency, WorldGeekosystem is a Mashable publishing partner that aims to unite all the tribes of geekdom under one common banner. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.
Get Ready To Drone-Proof Your House : Discovery News
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 22:29
  Tim Faucett, who owns APlus Mobile which makes mobile computer units that manage robots and unmanned aircraft vehicles for the U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin, believes we'll need to protect ourselves from drones, and not just the ones being piloted by the military and government.
  ''There are going to be private drones, there's going to be commercial drones,'' he told Co.Exist's Zak Stone. ''Everybody's going to have access to a drone. And people are going to have good intentions with them, and people are going to have bad intentions with them.''
  PHOTOS: Stealth Clothing Averts Government Snoopers
  Don't think Faucett is some kind paranoid conspiracy theorist '-- his claims are credible. Drones are being employed domestically for surveillance and law enforcement.
  However, Faucett thinks we should be concerned about those with ''bad intentions.'' That's why his startup Domestic Drone Countermeasures recently filed the first of nine patents for, as Stone put it, ''a system that will detect and disable drones before they have the chance to film their targets.''
  Faucett was hesitant to reveal too many details about the system, but he did say it would be able to identify UAVs by their electromagnetic signature, alert the system owner and ''neutralize the drone's capability to see you with its camera.''
  To debunk chatter circulating on the Internet that his system is some sort of weapon, Faucett was blunt.
  BLOG: Eagle-Claw Drone Grabs Objects In Mid-Flight
  ''We don't interfere with the drones navigation in any way. We don't jam anything. We don't intercept anything'... . This is non-combative. That's really important,'' he said. ''We've taken great pains to design systems that aren't going to get shut down or be outlawed or become illegal.''
  In fact, he even has a sense of humor about his system's video interference capabilities. ''The camera just won't be able to look at you. Actually, at some point, we can show the operator at the other end a little movie or something,'' he said, according to Stone, with a laugh.
  NEWS: Drone Pilots May Need Distractions
  Assuming the system operator would be able to choose the video, the possibilities are endless and beg the questions: What video would you choose to show intrusive drone pilots? Though it doesn't have to be a music video, I might go En Vogue's ''My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It). Or maybe a video of the NBA's All-Time Greatest blocked shots.
  Faucett says his team may be able to get the system on the market in a matter months. Until then, keep your eyes peeled.
  via Fast Company, Co. Exist
Outliner Howto
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:50
  An outliner is a text editor that organizes information in a hierarchy, allowing users to control the level of detail and to reorganize according to structure. Your notes can have full detail, yet be organized so a casual reader can get a quick overview. Outlining is a great way for teams to organize work.
  Paul Ford, an early reviewer of our software, said: "What Google Maps does for geography, outliners do for ideas." Map software lets you zoom in at any level of detail. Same with outliners.
  Practice outline
  The box below contains a live outline. You can expand and collapse headlines, move things around with the mouse or keyboard. All the operations described on this page work. You can't do any harm. If you mess up the outline, just refresh the page.
  Intro
  My name is Dave Winer.
  In December 2012, along with my programming partner, Kyle Shank, I started a new company, Small Picture. Our goal was to bring outlining software to the browser environment, in JavaScript, through the power of HTML 5.
  Because the outlines are on the network, and can themselves be networked, your ideas are available anywhere you have a net connection. They can be viewed by others without transferring files between computers.
  Over the next few months, we hope to bring you lots of examples of new things you can do with networks of outlines, with co-workers and friends, that were never possible before.
  Here's the first step. We define what we mean by outlining, and illustrate it with an example, and a real-live outliner right here on the page (in the previous section).
  Outline
  An outline can contain many headlines that are organized in a hierarchy.
  A top level headline is called a summit. An outline can have many summits.
  Underneath a summit are more headlines, which in turn contain headlines, many levels deep.
  Headlines can also have attributes such as a creation date or a serial number. Headlines are often called nodes in this context.
  The whole thing, a hierarchy of headlines with attributes, is the outline.
  Outliner
  In an outliner are two kinds of cursors, a bar cursor, which is black, and covers a whole headline, and a text cursor, which is a vertical line, also called a caret. The text cursor flashes slowly.
  Each headline has a wedge, displayed to the left of the text, a small triangle that's either gray or black. If it's black that means there's unexpanded text below the headline.
  There are two modes, structure mode and text mode. To go from text to structure mode, click once on a wedge. To go from structure to text mode, click on any character inside the headline.
  To expand a headline, double-click on the black wedge. To collapse, double-click on the wedge of an expanded headline.
  The headline the bar cursor points to is called the bar cursor headline. You'll see that term used in the docs below, because many commands apply to the bar cursor headline. In the screen shot at the top of this section, the bar cursor headline is the United States.
  Cmd or Control?
  On Windows Cmd means Control.
  Entering text
  To create a new headline, put the cursor on the headline above where you want the headline to appear and press Return.
  Type as you would into a text editor. When you want to create another headline, press Return.
  If you want to move the headline in by one level press Tab. To move it out by one level, press Shift-Tab.
  You can bolden the selected text with Cmd-B, and italicize with Cmd-I. To un-bolden or un-italicize, just repeat the Cmd key.
  See the section below on Reorganizing for more tips on how to place the text where you want it to go.
  Expanding and collapsing
  The arrow keys
  When you're in structure mode...
  moves to the previous headline at the same level.
  moves to the next headline at the same level.
  moves flatdown -- to the next headline, regardless of level.
  moves flatup, to the previous headline, regardless of level.
  When you're in text mode...
  and move to the previous and next character.
  and move to the next and previous headline, regardless of level.
  Delete
  You can delete a headline and all its subs by placing the bar cursor on the headline, and press the Delete key.
  Undo
  Now's a good time to mention Undo. ;-)
  If you do something that you want undone, press Cmd-Z to Undo.
  Reorganizing
  Suppose we decide to reclassify Arizona as a Far West state (it's currently in the Southwest).
  To move it using the mouse, first expand Southwest by double-clicking on its wedge. Then click on the wedge, and hold the mouse button down, and move the mouse pointer to the wedge in front of Far West, and while continuing to hold the button down, nudge the mouse to the right until the arrow points down and to the right. Let up the mouse. Far West expands and Arizona becomes the first item under Far West.
  To move it using the keyboard, expand Southwest and click the wedge in front of Arizona. Press Cmd-L, then Cmd-U repeated until it's just below Far West. Then Cmd-R to move it under Far West.
  The keystrokes for moving are Cmd-U for up, Cmd-D for down, Cmd-L for left, and Cmd-R for right.
  Tab does the same thing as Cmd-R and Shift-tab is the same as Cmd-L.
  Either method works as well as the other, it's just a matter of preference or what's convenient.
  Shift-click and Cmd-A
  Reorganizing usually applies only to the bar cursor headline.
  But you can select a group of headlines using shift-click and then use dragging move or the Cmd keystrokes to reorganize.
  To select all the items at a level, Select All or Cmd-A.
  Return vs Enter
  If you have a keyboard that distinguishes between Return and Enter (as the full Macintosh keyboard does), then the Return key will work as described above, and Enter toggles between text and structure mode.
  Promote and demote
  Cut, Copy, Paste
  The normal clipboard operations apply. To Cut, press Cmd-X, to Copy press Cmd-C and to paste press Cmd-V.
  Wedges and attributes
  Earlier in this document we talked about wedges, as gray or black triangles. But you'll see other wedges from time to time. They usually indicate that there are attributes attached to the headline. Attributes themselves are usually not visible.
  When you're moving headlines by dragging with the mouse, the wedges on the target headline will change to an arrow, to indicate where the headline being dragged will be deposited when you let up.
  Render mode
  Sometimes your outline text will be published on web pages. You can enter HTML markup in your text, and it will correctly flow out to the OPML file.
  A limited set of markup -- boldface text, italic text and links -- will be rendered if the outliner is in render mode.
  When the outliner starts up, it is in this mode. If you want to see the markup and possibly edit it, you can go into non-render mode by pressing Cmd-` and return to render mode by pressing it again. It's a toggle.
  One-line JavaScript code
  If you enter a snippet of JavaScript code into a headline in the outliner, you can run the code by pressing Cmd-/.
  The result is entered as a sub-head of the headline containing the script code.
  For example, if you enter 12 + 12 in a headline and press Cmd-/, its sub-head will contain 24.
  You can enter code as complex as you like, you can even call functions implemented by the outliner itself.
  It can be useful, if you're a programmer, to keep a library of one-liners in a section of your outline, ready for you to Cmd-/ them.
  Commenting
  Thanks
  Support
  If you have questions about the outliner, or would like to report a problem, please use the smallpicture-user mail list.
  (C) 2013 Small Picture, Inc.
Ghassan Hitto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:48
  Ghassan Hitto (Arabic: ØºØ"Ø§Ù† Ù‡ÙŠØªÙ'Ž; born 1963) is the Prime Minister of an interim government established by the Syrian oppositionNational Coalition.[1] Born in Damascus into a Kurdish family, he left Syria to the U.S. in 1980, became a naturalized American citizen and worked as an information technology executive and lived in Texas until recently. In late 2012, he relocated in Turkey[2] He was elected prime minister on 18 March 2013 by a narrow margin over former Syrian Arab Republic agricultural minister Assad Mustafa.[3]
  [edit]EducationHitto graduated from Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis in 1989 with degrees in mathematics and computer science.[4][5] He also received an M.B.A. at Indiana Wesleyan University in 1994.[2][4]
  [edit]CareerHitto is a former businessman who has lived in the United States for decades, most recently in Murphy, Texas.[1][6] Before joining the opposition, he worked with Inovar, an electronics firm, from 2001 to 2012.[4]
  Hitto is married to Suzanne Hitto, a American schoolteacher; they have four children, all born in the United States.[3] He has worked in the technology sector and supported the private school Brighter Horizons Academy[7] founded in 1989 by the Islamic Services Foundation (ISF).[8] He is also a founding member of the Muslim Legal Fund of America[9] created after the 11 September 2001 to give legal aid to Muslims .
  Hitto received 39 of 45 votes cast for the premiership. However, the BBC states that he received 35 of 48 votes.[10] Following his election, at least 12 key members of the SNC have suspended their membership partly as a result of Hitto's election on a majority vote instead of a consensus vote.[11]
  [edit]ReferencesPersondataNameHitto, GhassanAlternative namesShort descriptionSyrian businessman, politicianDate of birth1963Place of birthDamascus, SyriaDate of deathPlace of death
Only legitimate leader of the Syrian people lived in Texas last 30 years
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: The View From Falling Downs
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:47
  The so-called Syrian opposition took another step into irrelevance this week by electing as its leader a US citizen who left Syria thirty years ago.Ghassan Hitto has no track record of anti-Assad activism and is a total unknown inside Syria. The Syrian National Coalition elected him for one reason; he has the CIA stamp of approval.
  That the SNC is fundamentally a CIA creation should be more than obvious by now. The interesting story that will play out in the months ahead is how this US puppet will manage relations with the Jabhat al Nusra elements who are actually doing the fighting in the country.
  Not that the al-Qaeda affiliated radicals are any more a legitimate "Syrian" opposition than the SNC. Most of their fighters hail from outside the country too. And they have the backing of US allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
  That fact too raises some interesting questions. How is it possible that the US spends hundreds of billions fighting al-Qaeda around the world, but her supposed allies are busy arming and funding al-Qaeda in Syria?
Twitter sued for $50 million for refusing to reveal anti-semites
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:44
  In January, a French court ruled that Twitter must hand over the details of people who had tweeted racist and anti-semitic remarks, and set up a system that would alert the police to any further such posts as they happen. Twitter has ignored that ruling, and now the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) is suing it for '‚¬38.5 million ($49.96 million) for its failure.
  The case revolves around a hashtag'--#unbonjuif ("a good Jew")'--which became the third-most popular on the site in October 2012. The UEJF took Twitter to court, demanding that those who had tweeted anti-semitic remarks using the hashtag be named by Twitter so the police could prosecute them for hate speech.
  Twitter refused, arguing it was based in the United States and thus protected by the First Amendment's freedom of speech guarantees. A Parisian circuit court ruled against the social network, giving it two weeks to comply or face a fine of up to '‚¬1,000 ($1,298) for each day it doesn't. The UEJF want considerably more than that, says its president, Jonathan Hayoun, because the site "is making itself an accomplice and offering a highway for racists and anti-Semites".
  "Twitter is playing the indifference card in not respecting the decision of 24 January," he added, when speaking to AFP. If the UEFJ wins its case, it plans to donate the money to the Shoah Memorial Fund. Twitter has said it will appeal the decision. It deleted many of the offensive tweets in January after the earlier court ruling, but has so far held back on using its country withheld content feature to pre-filter potentially offensive content, as it does with neo-Nazi posts in Germany.
  This post originally appeared on Wired UK.
"A Brief History Of Money In Cyprus" As Gasoline "Runs" Are About To Be Unleashed
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Zero Hedge
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:02
  With money, or the lack thereof, a popular topic of discussion in Cyprus currently, we go straight to the source, the Central Bank of Cyprus, where in prose that can only be described as the definition of unintentionally prophetic irony, we read the following:
  The historical development of money in Cyprus has followed the sometimes stormy and turbulent course of the island's political history. The various conquerors that ruled Cyprus throughout its history introduced their own monetary unit to the island. Hence, among other monetary units, the stater, the obol, Roman and Byzantine coins, the gross, the dinar, the cartzi, the para, the piastre and the pound have been used as the island's currency.
  And now the Euro, although perhaps for not much longer.
  One thing is certain: the Cypriot "conquerors" are not going down without a fight. First: the gasoline is about to be taken away from the people who dared to make Angela Merxes angry. Let's see how everyone likes walking for a change. From CyprusMail:
  SOME petrol stations may have to close down as they do not have enough cash to pay for fuel shipments, the head of the stations' owners said yesterday.
  ''We may have to temporarily close some petrol stations because they have run out of cash. This creates great concerns to those in this profession,'' said the head of the petrol station owners' association, Stefanos Stefanou.
  ''Petrol stations pay for their fuel shipment only with cash and cash is running out,'' Stefanou added.
  ''There are some petrol stations that are still accepting credit cards today, but tomorrow no petrol station will do so,'' he said, asking consumers to take cash with them to carry out transactions.
  Small shopkeepers' union, POVEK, issued an announcement yesterday saying that because fuel companies only supplied petrol stations on cash payments, customers also needed to pay with cash at their end.
  ''Unfortunately there is no other solution for petrol station owners,'' POVEK said.
  And just to assure there is not only a bank run (when/if the banks reopen) but a gas station run too, we get the following carefully coded line:
  ''There is no reason for people to rush to petrol stations to fill their tanks,'' POVEK said asking consumers to ''show understanding so we can all get through this hard time together''.
  Naturally, there is nothing that will make a near-hysterical, cashless population scramble to the nearest gas station than being told "there is no reason to rush to fill their tanks."
  Gasoline, of course, is just the beginning. Because if that fails to be the required incentive, the malevolent Cypriot "conquerors" will "turn off" the heat, electricity, food, and finally water, until the Cypriot slaves come begging the Troika to take their deposits just to put everything back as it was, no matter if it only lasts for a few more weeks or months before everything comes tumbling down.
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 4.7(15 votes)
Finale for Now on Google's Self-Inflicted Trust Problem - James Fallows
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:57
  Let's hope this is a rough patch rather than the beginning of a trend.
  Early yesterday I mentioned that while Google's new Keep application, a nascent all-purpose notetaker, looked very interesting, I wasn't going to waste time getting used to it. That is because of the company's now-established track record of killing off products that prove to have niche rather than sufficiently mass appeal.
  This could be a sane business strategy for Google -- network TV, for instance, is also in the mass rather than niche business. But since my own software tastes often lead in the early-adopter niche direction, I've decided I should stick with companies whose business model is aimed at users like me. When it comes to TV, this means that I watch a lot more things on cable than on the main networks (except sports). When it comes to note-taking software, it means sticking with Evernote, rather than risking that what Google did to Reader, Notebook, Desktop, Health, and other services I used and liked it would eventually do to Keep.
  I raise the point again because, since the time I wrote that item (and after I spent all day today in transit), I have seen a quite surprising critical mass of comments in a similar vein. For instance:
  Ezra Klein in the Washington Post, on the dawning awareness that niche enthusiasts like him (and me) have tastes that really don't match Google's business model, as we're now coming to understand it. Eg, "Together, the Gmail experience, the death of Google Reader, and the closure of Picnik all have me questioning whether I want to keep investing time and energy in 'free' Google products or whether I need to start looking for paid services that are explicitly making money off the thing I am paying them to do."Kevin Drum, in Mother Jones, on why the inability to rely on Google services is more disruptive than the familiar pre-cloud experience of having favorite programs get orphaned. My example is Lotus Agenda: it has officially been dead for nearly 20 years, but I can still use it (if I want, in a DOS session under the VMware Fusion Windows emulator on my Macs. Talk about layered legacy systems!). When a cloud program goes away, as Google Reader has done, it's gone. There is no way you can keep using your own "legacy" copy, as you could with previous orphaned software.An Economist item that offers an even harsher judgment. Eg, "Translated into economese, Google has failed to consider the Lucas Critique: adoption behaviour for newly offered services will change in response to Google's observed penchant for cancelling beloved products.... If a particular Google experiment isn't cutting it in that category, then Google may feel justified in axing it."But that makes it increasingly difficult for Google to have success with new services. Why commit to using and coming to rely on something new if it might be yanked away at some future date? This is especially problematic for 'social' apps that rely on network effects."
  A note from Brian Glucroft, a veteran of UX (user experience) work at Microsoft and elsewhere:"I've been pondering about broader UX implications and whether Google has hurt its reputation as 'organizer of all the worlds information.' The latter is part of what I have found so appealing about Google. But, I think the shutdown of Google Reader changes it to 'organizer of all the world's information, if it can be sufficiently profitable"."Of course Google is a business, but I think people expected it to 'error' in terms of being the best organizer even if it might make a tiny cut in profits. If nothing else, that rep of being the ultimate organizer has a value. And it's been hurt.
  "I feel bad for the folks on the Google Keep team. That's life and all, but geez, I'd be banging my head against the wall."
  A statistical analysis from the Guardian, estimating (half-seriously) that based on past performance we can expect Google Keep to survive until 2017.I am about as pro-Google a person as you're going to find in the media. I've had friends at all levels of the company since its founding, and still do now. I've admired what Google has done in China; I live my info-life within the Gmail / Google Drive universe; and I am predisposed to take Google's side in most controversies, whether against Microsoft or the French. Including when it comes to its influence on the battered journalistic business model it has helped to overturn! But even I think it has done something brand-damaging.
  Now, two notes on the positive side -- each of which is a reminder of what we have liked about Google.
  1) Google has often orphaned services, but it has never "disappeared" data. (I am using "to disappear" in the transitive-verb sense familiar from Latin American politics.) It has been a leader in making sure you could make your own copies, or extract, any of your info that was in its part of the cloud. A reader writes:
  One bit of the risk analysis of using Keep or any other new Google product is their commitment to letting you get back your data. As you know, the Google Data Liberation Front is dedicated to helping people get their data out of Google in a standard format. Over time, it's been clear that this is an initiative Google takes seriously.
  So while it's a bummer that Reader is closing down, I can export my list of feeds in a standard format and use any of a hundred other RSS products. The same is true of all the other Google products I use.
  Like you, I'm cautiously evaluating Keep. Whether I continue using it will depend on what the Drive integration looks like, specifically how easily I can export my Keep notes. [JF note: Also, whether there would be an iOS version, so I could sync it to my iPad. A plus of Evernote is that you can use it on just about any device or system.]
  This is a key component of trusting cloud services, Google gets it at a ever deep level, and it's worth a mention.
  2) I have relentlessly beat the drum for Google's "two-step" authentication systems for Gmail and other services, which radically reduce the likelihood that your account can be hacked from afar. Apple is only now playing catch-up with this feature.
  To wrap this up: I am intrigued by Keep but unfortunately am not going to risk trying it. I admire and rely on Google and hope this recent stretch ultimately proves to have been a chastening rough patch rather than what we look back on as the beginning of a trend.
CIA Buys $600,000,000 Dollar Cloud From Amazon For Data Storage
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:52
"Senate Took Steps To Reinstate & Strengthen A Ban On The Sale Of Military-Style Assault Weapons"
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:52
Leno Strikes Back at NBC Executives
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:52
  MRC TV is an online platform for people to share and view videos, articles and opinions on topics that are important to them -- from news to political issues and rip-roaring humor.
  MRC TV is brought to you by the Media Research Center, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit research and education organization. The MRC is located at: 325 South Patrick Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. For information about the MRC, please visit www.MRC.org.
  Copyright (C) 2013, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
Statement by the President on the Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:51
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  March 23, 2013
  THE WHITE HOUSE
  Office of the Press Secretary
  _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
  March 23, 2013
  Statement by the President on the Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act
  Three years ago today, I signed into law the principle that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one should go broke just because they get sick. The Affordable Care Act will give hard-working, middle class families the health care security they deserve and protect every American from the worst insurance company abuses. Already, millions of seniors are saving $600 a year on their prescription drugs. Millions of young people have been able to stay on their family's health plan until age 26. Preventive care, like mammograms for women and wellness visits for seniors, is covered free of charge. Most importantly, for the sake of our fiscal future, the growth of health care costs is beginning to slow. In fact, last year, Medicaid costs fell for the first time in decades.
  Because of the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies will no longer have unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women more than men. And soon, no American will ever again be denied care or charged more due to a pre-existing condition, like cancer or even asthma. Later this year, millions of Americans will finally have the opportunity to buy the same kind of health care Members of Congress give themselves. Beginning in October, you'll be able to sign up for new private health care plans through a new health insurance marketplace where private plans will compete to save middle class families money. Through these marketplaces, Americans and small business owners will be able to choose from a menu of health plans that fit their budget and provide quality coverage they can count on when they need it most. If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you cannot afford a plan, you or your small business may get financial assistance to make it affordable.
  There's more work to do to implement this law, and I look forward to working with leaders of both parties to help Americans save money on health care and extend the security of coverage to every family.
Maher Calls Americans 'Morons' Moments Before Blaming Senate Weapons Ban Failure on Gerrymandering
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:50
  MRC TV is an online platform for people to share and view videos, articles and opinions on topics that are important to them -- from news to political issues and rip-roaring humor.
  MRC TV is brought to you by the Media Research Center, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit research and education organization. The MRC is located at: 325 South Patrick Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. For information about the MRC, please visit www.MRC.org.
  Copyright (C) 2013, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
Federal Register | Additional Designation of Three North Korean Individuals Pursuant to Executive Order 13382
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 11:30
  Designation Of Pak To Chun, Chu Kyu Chang, And O Kuk Ryol Pursuant To E.O. 13382.
  Pursuant to the authority in section 1(ii) of Executive Order 13382, ''Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators and Their Supporters'', the State Department, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General, has determined that Pak To-Chun, Chu Kyu-Chang, and O Kuk-Ryol have engaged, or attempted to engage, in activities or transactions that have materially contributed to, or pose a risk of materially contributing to, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or their means of delivery (including missiles capable of delivering such weapons), including any efforts to manufacture, acquire, possess, develop, transport, transfer or use such items, by any person or foreign country of proliferation concern.
  The designation by the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security of the individuals identified in this notice pursuant to Executive Order 13382 is effective on March 11, 2013.
  Director, Office of Counterproliferation Initiatives, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, Department of State, Washington, DC 20520, tel.: 202-647-5193.
  On June 28, 2005, the President, invoking the authority, inter alia, of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) (''IEEPA''), issued Executive Order 13382 (70 FR 38567, July 1, 2005) (the ''Order''), effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on June 30, 2005. In the Order the President took additional steps with respect to the national emergency described and declared in Executive Order 12938 of November 14, 1994, regarding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.
  Section 1 of the Order blocks, with certain exceptions, all property and interests in property that are in the United States, or that hereafter come within the United States or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, of: (1) The persons listed in the Annex to the Order; (2) any foreign person determined by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, and other relevant agencies, to have engaged, or attempted to engage, in activities or transactions that have materially contributed to, or pose a risk of materially contributing to, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or their means of delivery (including missiles capable of delivering such weapons), including any efforts to manufacture, acquire, possess, develop, transport, transfer or use such items, by any person or foreign country of proliferation concern; (3) any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and other relevant agencies, to have provided, or attempted to provide, financial, material, technological or other support for, or goods or services in support of, any activity or transaction described in clause (2) above or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order; and (4) any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and other relevant agencies, to be owned or controlled by, or acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order.
  Information on the additional designees is as follows:
  A.K.A.: Pak To'-Ch'un
  A.K.A.: Pak Do Chun
  D.O.B.: March 9, 1944; P.O.B.
  P.O.B.: Nangim County, Chagang Province, DPRK
  A.K.A.: Chu Kyu-Ch'ang
  A.K.A.: Ju Kyu-Chang
  D.O.B.: November 25, 1928
  P.O.B.: Hamju County, South Hamgyong Province, DPRK
  A.K.A.: O Ku'k-ryo'l
  D.O.B.: 7 January 1930
  P.O.B.: Onso'ng County, North Hamgyo'ng Province, DPRK
  Dated: March 11, 2013.
  Rose Gottemoeller,
  Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Department of State, Acting.
  [FR Doc. 2013-06752 Filed 3-22-13; 8:45 am]
  BILLING CODE 4710-27-P
Biden & Bloomberg Team Up To Use Sandy Hook Parents As Props In Their Push For More Gun Control
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  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:48
Google Prepping Own Newsstand for Android, Evidence Suggests
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  Archived Version
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:32
  What's This?
  Lauren Indvik2013-03-18 16:45:54 UTCIt looks like Google is planning to establish a section in its Google Play Store for newspapers and other subscription-based news providers, la Apple's Newsstand.
  The blog Android Police uncovered a bit of Javascript on the Google Play Store website, which references "Google Play News." The code suggests users will be able to subscribe to newspapers, and purchase and download individual issues, which we've highlighted below:
  Please sign in to get this News edition.Please sign in to purchase this News Edition Subscription.Subscribing you to this news edition...This news issue is now available on your device.Please sign in to purchase this News Issue.Please sign in to get this News issue.To read Google Play News, you must have a supported Android phone or tablet.Please sign in to get this News edition.Please sign in to purchase this News Edition Subscription.Subscribing you to this news edition...You have subscribed to this news edition. It is now available on your device.
  Google Play, which celebrates its one-year anniversary this month, already has sections for Magazines, as well as for Music, Books, Movies and TV, and Apps. Newspapers are a logical '-- and frankly belated '-- addition. At publishers' behest, Apple launched a subscription-capable Newsstand section, which includes both newspapers and magazines, in October 2011.
  The code indicates that the News section will function just like the Magazine section, which allows users to subscribe to an array of titles and purchase single-copy issues. Those with magazine subscriptions can adjust their settings so that new issues automatically download to their Android devices as soon as they become available. Presumably that capability will be extended to newspaper subscriptions, as well.
  A spokesperson for Google wrote Mashable, "We have no comment here."
  Topics: Android, Apps and Software, Google, google play store, Media, newspapers, Tech
The Economics of Evil Google
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  Archived Version
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:30
  Google's decision to shut down Google Reader has upset a number of people I know, and provoked a lot of discussion about the future of web-based services. The most interesting discussion, I think, comes from Ryan Avent, who argues that Google has been providing crucial public infrastructure '-- but doesn't seem to have an interest in maintaining that infrastructure.
  I've been trying to think this through in terms of more or less standard microeconomics, and here's what I've come up with:
  First, it's a well-understood though not often mentioned point that even in a plain-vanilla market, a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to price-discriminate may not be able to make a profit supplying a good even when the potential consumer gains from that good exceed the costs of production. Basically, if the monopolist tries to charge a price corresponding to the value intense users place on the good, it won't attract enough low-intensity users to cover its fixed costs; if it charges a low price to bring in the low-intensity user, it fails to capture enough of the surplus of high-intensity users, and again can't cover its fixed costs.
  What Avent adds is network externalities, in which the value of the good to each individual user depends on how many others are using it. To some extent the monopolist can capture these externalities, since they add to the price people are willing to pay, so I'm not sure they change the logic of provision or non-provision. But they mean that if the monopolist still doesn't find it worthwhile to provide the good, the consumer losses are substantially larger than in a conventional monopoly-pricing analysis.
  So what's the answer? As Avent says, historical examples with these characteristics '-- like urban transport networks '-- have been resolved through public provision. It seems hard at this point to envision search and related functions as public utilities, but that's arguably where the logic will eventually lead us.
DARPA: Skynet has become self aware
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  Archived Version
  Source: What Mel Cooley is saying.
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:24
  Machine learning is how a computer (yellow) carries out a new task (red). The program adds its prior training (green), makes predictions, and completes the task. The result: the machine gets smarter. Illustration: Darpa
  The Pentagon's blue-sky research agency is readying a nearly four-year project to boost artificial intelligence systems by building machines that can teach themselves '-- while making it easier for ordinary schlubs like us to build them, too.
  When Darpa talks about artificial intelligence, it's not talking about modeling computers after the human brain. That path fell out of favor among computer scientists years ago as a means of creating artificial intelligence; we'd have to understand our own brains first before building a working artificial version of one. But the agency thinks we can build machines that learn and evolve, using algorithms '-- ''probabilistic programming'' '-- to parse through vast amounts of data and select the best of it. After that, the machine learns to repeat the process and do it better.
  But building such machines remains really, really hard: The agency calls it ''Herculean.'' There are scarce development tools, which means ''even a team of specially-trained machine learning experts makes only painfully slow progress.'' So on April 10, Darpa is inviting scientists to a Virginia conference to brainstorm. What will follow are 46 months of development, along with annual ''Summer Schools,'' bringing in the scientists together with ''potential customers'' from the private sector and the government.
  Called ''Probabilistic Programming for Advanced Machine Learning,'' or PPAML, scientists will be asked to figure out how to ''enable new applications that are impossible to conceive of using today's technology,'' while making experts in the field ''radically more effective,'' according to a recent agency announcement. At the same time, Darpa wants to make the machines simpler and easier for non-experts to build machine-learning applications too.
  It's no surprise the mad scientists are interested. Machine learning can be used to make better systems for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, a core military necessity. The technology can be used to make better speech-recognition applications and self-driving cars. It keeps pace with the ever-enlarging war against internet spam filling our search engines and e-mail inboxes.
  ''Our goal is that future machine learning projects won't require people to know everything about both the domain of interest and machine learning to build useful machine learning applications,'' Darpa program manager Kathleen Fisher in an announcement. ''Through new probabilistic programming languages specifically tailored to probabilistic inference, we hope to decisively reduce the current barriers to machine learning and foster a boom in innovation, productivity and effectiveness.''
  Once that gets going, the scientists will first have to improve the ''front end'' and ''back end'' of the machines. Respectively, those are the parts of a computer learning system that developers see, and the parts responsible for figuring out a predictive model that helps the computer become smarter.
  For developers at the front end, the machines can't be too complicated, and the code should ''balance the expressive power of the language with the corresponding difficulty of producing an efficient solver.'' To make developing the machines more accessible to non-experts, debuggers and testing tools need to be understandable enough as well, so testers can figure out when there's a bug or if the computer is spitting out inaccurate results.
  The other question involves how to make computer-learning machines more predictable. Darpa believes it's likely that the algorithms used in the systems will have to become much more sophisticated to find ''the most appropriate solver or set of solvers given a particular model, query or set of prior data.'' That could be ''by incorporating data from the compiler optimization community.'' Finally, the solvers need to work with a large number of different computers and do so efficiently: ''including multi-core machines, GPUs, cloud infrastructures, and potentially custom hardware.''
  If it works, then it means more advanced intelligence-gathering systems, less spam, and Minority Report-style self-driving cars of the future. Sounds like a pretty good deal. But to produce a machine-learning system that's ''effective,'' the agency states: ''Improvements on the order of two to four magnitude over the state of the art are likely necessary.'' No pressure.
The Cyprus Bank Battle: The Long-planned Deposit Confiscation Scheme
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  Archived Version
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:20
  ''If these worries become really serious, . . . [s]mall savers will take their money out of banks and resort to household safes and a shotgun.'' '--Martin Hutchinson on the attempted EU raid on private deposits in Cyprus banks
  The deposit confiscation scheme has long been in the making. US depositors could be next '...
  On Tuesday, March 19, the national legislature of Cyprus overwhelmingly rejected a proposed levy on bank deposits as a condition for a European bailout. Reuters called it ''a stunning setback for the 17-nation currency bloc,'' but it was a stunning victory for democracy. As Reuters quoted one 65-year-old pensioner, ''The voice of the people was heard.''
  The EU had warned that it would withhold '‚¬10 billion in bailout loans, and the European Central Bank (ECB) had threatened to end emergency lending assistance for distressed Cypriot banks, unless depositors '' including small savers '' shared the cost of the rescue. In the deal rejected by the legislature, a one-time levy on depositors would be required in return for a bailout of the banking system. Deposits below '‚¬100,000 would be subject to a 6.75% levy or ''haircut'', while those over '‚¬100,000 would have been subject to a 9.99% ''fine.''
  The move was bold, but the battle isn't over yet. The EU has now given Cyprus until Monday to raise the billions of euros it needs to clinch an international bailout or face the threatened collapse of its financial system and likely exit from the euro currency zone.
  The Long-planned Confiscation Scheme
  The deal pushed by the ''troika'' '' the EU, ECB and IMF '' has been characterized as a one-off event devised as an emergency measure in this one extreme case. But the confiscation plan has long been in the making, and it isn't limited to Cyprus.
  In a September 2011 article in the Bulletin of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand titled ''A Primer on Open Bank Resolution,'' Kevin Hoskin and Ian Woolford discussed a very similar haircut plan that had been in the works, they said, since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The article referenced recommendations made in 2010 and 2011 by the Basel Committee of the Bank for International Settlements, the ''central bankers' central bank'' in Switzerland.
  The purpose of the plan, called the Open Bank Resolution (OBR) , is to deal with bank failures when they have become so expensive that governments are no longer willing to bail out the lenders. The authors wrote that the primary objectives of OBR are to:
  ensure that, as far as possible, any losses are ultimately borne by the bank's shareholders and creditors . . . .The spectrum of ''creditors'' is defined to include depositors:
  At one end of the spectrum, there are large international financial institutions that invest in debt issued by the bank (commonly referred to as wholesale funding). At the other end of the spectrum, are customers with cheque and savings accounts and term deposits.
  Most people would be surprised to learn that they are legally considered ''creditors'' of their banks rather than customers who have trusted the bank with their money for safekeeping, but that seems to be the case. According to Wikipedia:
  In most legal systems, . . . the funds deposited are no longer the property of the customer. The funds become the property of the bank, and the customer in turn receives an asset called a deposit account (a checking or savings account). That deposit account is a liability of the bank on the bank's books and on its balance sheet. Because the bank is authorized by law to make loans up to a multiple of its reserves, the bank's reserves on hand to satisfy payment of deposit liabilities amounts to only a fraction of the total which the bank is obligated to pay in satisfaction of its demand deposits.
  The bank gets the money. The depositor becomes only a creditor with an IOU. The bank is not required to keep the deposits available for withdrawal but can lend them out, keeping only a ''fraction'' on reserve, following accepted fractional reserve banking principles. When too many creditors come for their money at once, the result can be a run on the banks and bank failure.
  The New Zealand OBR said the creditors had all enjoyed a return on their investments and had freely accepted the risk, but most people would be surprised to learn that too. What return do you get from a bank on a deposit account these days? And isn't your deposit protected against risk by FDIC deposit insurance?
  Not anymore, apparently. As Martin Hutchinson observed in Money Morning, ''if governments can just seize deposits by means of a 'tax' then deposit insurance is worth absolutely zippo.''
  The Real Profiteers Get Off Scot-Free
  Felix Salmon wrote in Reuters of the Cyprus confiscation:
  Meanwhile, people who deserve to lose money here, won't. If you lent money to Cyprus's banks by buying their debt rather than by depositing money, you will suffer no losses at all. And if you lent money to the insolvent Cypriot government, then you too will be paid off at 100 cents on the euro. . . .
  The big winner here is the ECB, which has extended a lot of credit to dubiously-solvent Cypriot banks and which is taking no losses at all.
  It is the ECB that can most afford to take the hit, because it has the power to print euros. It could simply create the money to bail out the Cyprus banks and take no loss at all. But imposing austerity on the people is apparently part of the plan. Salmon writes:
  From a drily technocratic perspective, this move can be seen as simply being part of a standard Euro-austerity program: the EU wants tax hikes and spending cuts, and this is a kind of tax . . . .
  The big losers are working-class Cypriots, whose elected government has proved powerless . . . . The Eurozone has always had a democratic deficit: monetary union was imposed by the elite on unthankful and unwilling citizens. Now the citizens are revolting: just look at Beppe Grillo.
  But that was before the Cyprus government stood up for the depositors and refused to go along with the plan, in what will be a stunning victory for democracy if they can hold their ground.
  It CAN Happen Here
  Cyprus is a small island, of little apparent significance. But one day, the bold move of its legislators may be compared to the Battle of Marathon, the pivotal moment in European history when their Greek forebears fended off the Persians, allowing classical Greek civilization to flourish. The current battle on this tiny island has taken on global significance. If the technocrat bankers can push through their confiscation scheme there, precedent will be established for doing it elsewhere when bank bailouts become prohibitive for governments.
  That situation could be looming even now in the United States. As Gretchen Morgenson warned in a recent article on the 307-page Senate report detailing last year's $6.2 billion trading fiasco at JPMorganChase: ''Be afraid.'' The report resoundingly disproves the premise that the Dodd-Frank legislation has made our system safe from the reckless banking activities that brought the economy to its knees in 2008. Writes Morgenson:
  JPMorgan . . . Is the largest derivatives dealer in the world. Trillions of dollars in such instruments sit on its and other big banks' balance sheets. The ease with which the bank hid losses and fiddled with valuations should be a major concern to investors.
  Pam Martens observed in a March 18th article that JPMorgan was gambling in the stock market with depositor funds. She writes, ''trading stocks with customers' savings deposits '' that truly has the ring of the excesses of 1929 . . . .''
  The large institutional banks not only could fail; they are likely to fail. When the derivative scheme collapses and the US government refuses a bailout, JPMorgan could be giving its depositors' accounts sizeable ''haircuts'' along guidelines established by the BIS and Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
  Time for Some Public Sector Banks?
  The bold moves of the Cypriots and such firebrand political activists as Italy's Grillo are not the only bulwarks against bankster confiscation. While the credit crisis is strangling the Western banking system, the BRIC countries '' Brazil, Russia, India and China '' have sailed through largely unscathed. According to a May 2010 article in The Economist, what has allowed them to escape are their strong and stable publicly-owned banks.
  Professor Kurt von Mettenheim of the Sao Paulo Business School of Brazil writes, ''The credit policies of BRIC government banks help explain why these countries experienced shorter and milder economic downturns during 2007-2008.'' Government banks countered the effects of the financial crisis by providing counter-cyclical credit and greater client confidence.
  Russia is an Eastern European country that weathered the credit crisis although being very close to the Eurozone. According to a March 2010 article in Forbes:
  As in other countries, the [2008] crisis prompted the state to take on a greater role in the banking system. State-owned systemic banks . . . have been used to carry out anticrisis measures, such as driving growth in lending (however limited) and supporting private institutions.
  In the 1998 Asian crisis, many Russians who had put all their savings in private banks lost everything; and the credit crisis of 2008 has reinforced their distrust of private banks. Russian businesses as well as individuals have turned to their government-owned banks as the more trustworthy alternative. As a result, state-owned banks are expected to continue dominating the Russian banking industry for the foreseeable future.
  The entire Eurozone conundrum is unnecessary. It is the result of too little money in a system in which the money supply is fixed, and the Eurozone governments and their central banks cannot issue their own currencies. There are insufficient euros to pay principal plus interest in a pyramid scheme in which only the principal is injected by the banks that create money as ''bank credit'' on their books. A central bank with the power to issue money could remedy that systemic flaw, by injecting the liquidity needed to jumpstart the economy and turn back the tide of austerity choking the people.
  The push to confiscate the savings of hard-working Cypriot citizens is a shot across the bow for every working person in the world, a wake-up call to the perils of a system in which tiny cadres of elites call the shots and the rest of us pay the price. When we finally pull back the veils of power to expose the men pulling the levers in an age-old game they devised, we will see that prosperity is indeed possible for all.
  For more on the public bank solution and for details of the June 2013 Public Banking Institute conference in San Rafael, California, see here.
  Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute, and the author of eleven books, includingWeb of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free. Her websites are webofdebt.comand ellenbrown.com.
Israeli Army Uses Autonomous Cars to Patrol Borders
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:11
  While it may take a few years for autonomous vehicles to change the way we travel, unmanned machines are already successful in some areas. Autonomous vehicles programmed to detect intruders, for example, guard some of Israel's borders. Since the start of the program in 2008, about eight to 10 autonomous cars have been patrolling Israeli borders. The cars are produced by a company called G-NIUS, while the computer system that operates them has been developed by the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Funded by Israel's Ministry of Defense, the program actually saves soldiers' lives by removing them from dangerous areas.
  According to Hugo Guterman, a researcher for the university, the computer system used by the cars is designed to act like two people '' one drives and the other looks around. The lowest level controls the car, turning the steering wheel, braking or accelerating. The medium level uses GPS to navigate the terrain and gathers information from the car's cameras and sensors. The highest level receives this data and then decides whether to stop and check something suspicious.
  We don't know exactly what happens next, as Guterman didn't comment on whether the cars are fitted with weapons. Leaving this aside, it's worth noting that these cars are usually fully autonomous, running on their own after being programmed to patrol in a certain area. They only require help from remote operators when they run into unforeseen obstacles.
  Most of the time, the autonomous vehicles patrol areas where nobody lives, and are not licensed to drive on roads with heavy traffic. Basically, these cars work similarly to Google's driverless cars, except they don't require a passenger to sit in at all times. Check out the video below to see them in action.
  By Dan Mihalascu
  Story References: Technewsdaily
Submit a Nomination | The White House
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  Archived Version
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:06
  Submit a Nomination for 2013Deadline: March 31, 2013To nominate someone for the 2013 Citizens Medal, please review the criteria for this year's medal and fully answer questions to the right. Additional awardees may be selected outside of the public nomination process.
  In order for an individual to be considered for the Medal:Nominees must be citizens of the United States, as required by the 1969 Executive Order.The nominee's service must have been performed outside of their regular job.All questions on this form must be fully answered.Nominations must be received by Sunday, March 31, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. ET.Learn more about the 2011 Citizen's Medal winners.
  Criteria for NominationThe 2013 Citizens Medal will recognize ''citizens of the United States of America who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.'' Executive Order 11494 (Nov. 13, 1969). It is generally recognized as the second highest civilian award of our Government.
  The 2013 Citizens Medal will recognize U.S. citizens who have performed exemplary deeds of service outside of their regular jobs, including individuals:
  Who have a demonstrated commitment to service in their own community or in communities farther from home. Someone who has engaged in activities that have had an impact in their local community, on a community or communities elsewhere in the United States or on fellow citizens living or stationed around the world.
  Who have helped their country or their fellow citizens through one or more extraordinary acts. Individuals who have demonstrated notable skill and grace, selflessly placed themselves in harm's way, taken unusual risks or steps to protect others, made extraordinary efforts to further a national goal, or otherwise conducted themselves admirably when faced with unusually challenging circumstances.
  Whose service relates to a long-term or persistent problem. Individuals who have made efforts to combat stubbornly persistent problems that impact entire communities, for example those who have taken innovative steps to address hunger, homelessness, the dropout crisis, lack of access to health care, and other issues that plague too many Americans.
  Whose service has had a sustained impact on others' lives and provided inspiration for others to serve.The ideal nominee for a Citizens Medal is a person whose work has had a meaningful and lasting impact on the lives of others.
US Treasury Jews Target Web Money
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  Archived Version
  Source: Real Jew News
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:56
  Internet Articles
  US Treasury Jews Target Web MoneyBy Brother Nathanael KapnerCopyright 2013March 23, 2013
  Articles May Be Reproduced Only With Authorship of Br Nathanael Kapner& Link To Real Jew News (SM)
  Support The Brother Nathanael Foundation!
  Or Send Your Contribution To:The Brother Nathanael Foundation, PO Box 1242, Frisco CO 80443E-mail: brothernathanaelfoundation@yahoo.com___________________________________
  A BACK DOOR INTO INTERNET CONTROL has finally been weaseled into by the Jews at the US Department of Treasury.For no sooner did the Jew, Jacob Lew, take charge of the Treasury, controlling the Internet became his very first order of the day.
  With his fellow Jew, Neal Wolin, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, along with (yes, Jews) David Cohen/Daniel Glaser, Under Secretaries for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Lew decided that money laundering rules should apply to all Web Money'...including the growing Internet trading privacy-oriented currency known as Bitcoin.
  Glaser, as policy maker for ''anti-money laundering,'' oversees the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) which published this past Monday a 'guideline' for Internet sites that use virtual currencies such as Bitcoin to comply with the Treasury's Bank Secrecy Act.
  This Jew-inspired 'guideline' is aimed at fitting ''de-centralized virtual currencies'' into the larger regulatory regime under which government-controlled currencies of all kinds are required to operate.
  Morgan Peck of Tech Talkexplains that the Bank Secrecy Act requires any financial institution that can be defined as a money transmitter to register with FinCEN and help detect money laundering by keeping track of its clients and reporting 'suspicious' activity.
  Those entities that facilitate the exchange of Bitcoins for fiat currency and their online clients will have to take note. Layers of Jewish-tiered bureaucracy, filing, and reporting could soon make Internet trading in virtual currencies a still-born initiative.
  Jon Russell of Next Webobserves that just this month, top domain registrar Namecheap decided to accept payment in Bitcoins, while Finnish software maker Sc5 last week began allowing its staff to receive parts of their salary in the currency.
  Also on the radar by the Jew-run US Treasury is Facebook Credits, which serves a possible base of more than 1 billion users, as well as Kim Dot Com's empire of file sharing followers and the popular Reddit site, both using Bitcoin for online transactions.
  A further explanation of the Treasury's 'guideline' is outlined by Andrew Leonard of Salon who calls the regulation initiative a ''libertarian's nightmare.'' Leonard makes the point that Bitcoin isn't just an elegant way to create money using peer-to-peer networks and cryptography. Bitcoin is a currency with an ideology.
  From the beginning, Bitcoin was envisioned as a form of monetary exchange that didn't need third-party financial institutions or central banks or even governments to validate it or back it up.
  Bitcoin is the fulfillment of a libertarian dream, a currency created out of the workings of the free market, unaffiliated with any state authority, respectful and protective of user privacy and anonymity, and designed to resist inflationary pressures.
  By its very nature, Bitcoin is made for people who don't want other people to know what they are doing.
  But if the Jews at Treasury have their way, all who enjoy the use of Bitcoin will soon be deprived of the privacy and anonymity they currently enjoy.
  In other words, if it works and it's good for the people, the Jews will ruin it. View Entire StoryHere, Here, Here & Here.
  THE DANGER of this Jew-inspired ''guideline'' coming out of the Jew-controlled and run US Treasury, is three-fold:
  ' The users of Bitcoin and other Internet currencies will no longer enjoy the privacy connected with these mediums of exchange. Big Brother Jew will be watching every transaction made.
  ' The Jews will have finally gotten their freedom-hating fingers into the Internet through the back door of monitoring and regulating electronic transactions.
  ' The Jewish encroachment of gradualism will unfold from the drapery of monetary regulation into 'hate purchase' regulation (books and materials the Jews fear) and then on to ''hate speech'' monitoring which will give the Jews TOTAL control of the Internet and the end of exposing their lies and crimes.
  If we don't ACT NOW, our last bastion of free speech will be decimated by the Jews.
  Support The Brother Nathanael Foundation!
  Or Send Your Contribution To:The Brother Nathanael Foundation, PO Box 1242, Frisco CO 80443E-mail: brothernathanaelfoundation@yahoo.com___________________________________
  For More See:Banksters And The End Of CashClick HereAnd:The End Of Sovereign AmericaClick Here
  And:Trends To Watch In 2013Click Here
  Support Brother Nathanael!
  Send Your Donation To:Brother Nathanael Kapner; PO Box 1242; Frisco CO 80443E-mail: bronathanael@yahoo.com
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  Brother Nathanael @ March 23, 2013
WEB EXTRA: Raw interview with Gov. Hickenlooper | Video | 9news.com
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 02:21
  http://www.9news.com/video/2245963782001/1/WEB-EXTRA-Raw-interview-with-Gov-Hickenlooper http://bcdownload.gannett.edgesuite.net/kusa/34295199001/34295199001_2245978790001_th-514cee9de4b06faff9d5abd1-1592194015001.jpg?pubId=34295199001 WEB EXTRA: Raw interview with Gov. Hickenlooper WEB EXTRA: Raw interview with Gov. Hickenlooper. 9NEWS.com. 03/22/13. as seen onasseenonmar13KUSAlocalNewsmarch 2013evenings 06:24
Weekly Address: Helping Protect Our Kids by Reducing Gun Violence
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  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:54
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  March 23, 2013
  It has now been three months since the tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut. Three months since we lost 20 innocent children and six dedicated adults who had so much left to give. Three months since we, as Americans, began asking ourselves if we're really doing enough to protect our communities and keep our children safe.
  For the families who lost a loved one on that terrible day, three months doesn't even begin to ease the pain they're feeling right now. It doesn't come close to mending the wounds that may never fully heal.
  But as a nation, the last three months have changed us. They've forced us to answer some difficult questions about what we can do '' what we must do '' to prevent the kinds of massacres we've seen in Newtown and Aurora and Oak Creek, as well as the everyday tragedies that happen far too often in big cities and small towns all across America.
  Today there is still genuine disagreement among well-meaning people about what steps we should take to reduce the epidemic of gun violence in this country. But you '' the American people '' have spoken. You've made it clear that it's time to do something. And over the last few weeks, Senators here in Washington have listened and taken some big steps forward.
  Two weeks ago, the Senate advanced a bill that would make it harder for criminals and people with a severe mental illness from getting their hands on a gun '' an idea supported by nine out of ten Americans, including a majority of gun owners.
  The Senate also made progress on a bill that would crack down on anyone who buys a gun as part of a scheme to funnel it to criminals '' reducing violent crime and protecting our law enforcement officers.
  Finally, the Senate took steps to reinstate and strengthen a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons, set a 10-round limit for magazines, and make our schools safer places for kids to learn and grow.
  These ideas shouldn't be controversial '' they're common sense. They're supported by a majority of the American people. And I urge the Senate and the House to give each of them a vote.
  As I've said before, we may not be able to prevent every act of violence in this country. But together, we have an obligation to try. We have an obligation to do what we can.
  Right now, we have a real chance to reduce gun violence in America, and prevent the very worst violence. We have a unique opportunity to reaffirm our tradition of responsible gun ownership, and also do more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals or people with a severe mental illness.
  We've made progress over the last three months, but we're not there yet. And in the weeks ahead, I hope Members of Congress will join me in finishing the job '' for our communities and, most importantly, for our kids. Thanks.
  ###
Prosecutor Suggest Death Penalty For Punxsutawney Phil
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:53
Shell Casings in Texas Shootout Match Those Found in Colo. Prison Chief Home
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:45
  Shell casings found at the scene of a high-speed car chase and shootout in Texas match casings found at the home of the slain Colorado prison chief, according to a Texas police search warrant affidavit obtained by ABC News.
  "Hornady 9mm shell casings were recovered at the [Colorado] scene, which are the same brand and caliber used by the ... suspect in the Wise County [Texas] incident," the affidavit read.
  This is the first evidence police have released linking Evan Spencer Ebel, a 28-year-old, paroled Colorado inmate, to the murder of Colorado prison executive Tom Clements.
  Earlier this afternoon, Ebel, a white supremacist gang member who signed his name "Evil Evan," was identified as the shooter who opened fire at police in Texas when they pulled him over during a traffic stop Thursday. According to the affidavit, Ebel used a 9mm Smith and Wesson handgun.
  He died of his wounds today.
  Ebel shot one deputy three times and then started a 100-mph car chase across two Texas counties while continuing to shoot at police on Thursday. The chase ended when the driver was hit by an 18-wheel truck. Ebel emerged from the wreck and kept shooting at cops until he was cut down by return fire, according to Wise County Sheriff David Walker.
  Ebel was flown to John Peter Smith hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, where he was put on life support.
  He was pronounced dead today. Police and medical examiners are performing an autopsy on Ebel's body.
  Ebel, who had the word "hopeless" tattooed on his body, had been in and out of jail for the last 10 years, and was a part of the white supremacist prison gang 211 Crew, his friends told ABC News.
  Clements, 58, was shot and killed at his home. Neighbors told police they saw a black, "box style" car in the neighborhood at the time of the murder. Ebel was driving a black Cadillac with Colorado license plates, a vehicle that that matched the "box style" description.
  Walker said that there is no clear motive for the Texas shootout, but they believed the Cadillac was pulled over as part of a drug stop. They were looking into Ebel's affiliation with the prison gang 211 Crew to help explain why he was in Texas.
  Police were also investigating whether Ebel was involved in the murder of a pizza delivery man in Denver on Sunday. Texas authorities said evidence found in the suspect's car -- including a Domino's pizza uniform jacket and a cardboard pizza box -- may link him to the unsolved murder of Nathan Leon, 27, who was killed delivering pizza near Golden, Colo.
  Friends of Ebel, who grew up in Wheat Ridge, Colo., told ABC News that he had been depressed and on edge for years. He had been in prison on an assortment of assault, robbery and menacing charges dating back to 2005, according to jail records.
  "He was depressed a lot," Ryan Arici, a friend of Ebel's from Wheat Ridge, Colo., told ABC News. "And he was a dark person. His walls were painted black and his windows were blacked out."
  Ebel dropped out of school, where he had been in a special education program for "severely impacted" students. Friends said he "lost it" when his sister, Marin Ebel, was killed in a car crash as a teenager in 2004. The death seemed to set off a string of criminal behaviors and jail stints for Ebel.
  "Everyone was always afraid of Evan. Even the hardest kids were afraid of Evan," one friend told ABC News.
  Ricky Alengi, another friend from Wheat Ridge, said that Ebel had been doing better upon his latest release from prison. Alengi said he was shocked to find out about the shootout in Texas.
  "I thought he was getting better," Alengi said. "He was writing books in prison. His mom and I were going to see him soon."
  His father, attorney Jack Ebel, once testified on his behalf in front of the Colorado legislature about prison conditions for mentally ill inmates. He did not immediately return calls for comment.
  His mother, Jody Mangue, who now lives in Costa Rica, was distraught over the news of her son, friends said.
3 Marines Dead, Including Suspect, at Quantico Marine Base Shooting
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:34
  Three Marines, including the suspected gunman, are dead after a shooting at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
  The suspected shooter, a male Marine, was killed from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound after he allegedly shot and killed another male and a female Marine. Authorities found the suspect's body inside a barracks building near the Officer Candidates School early this morning, Lt. Agustin Solivan told ABC News.
  All three were active-duty Marines assigned to Officer Candidates School and pronounced dead at the scene, Col. David W. Maxwell, base commander at Quantico, said this morning at a news conference.
  The three Marines were junior-enlisted Marines who worked as training personnel at the school, a Department of Defense official told ABC News.
  Maxwell said, "On behalf of Marine Base Corp Quantico and the Officer Candidates School, I want to express my sincere condolences to the families, friends and of the three marines we lost night. My thoughts and prayers are with them at this time."
  The Marine base at Quantico is a sprawling training facility located 37 miles south of Washington. It is also home to the FBI's Training Academy.
  A 911 call was received by the Provost Marshal's office about 10:30 p.m. William County Police and military officials responded and were on the scene within five minutes, but did not report hearing any shots fired, Maxwell said.
  The shooting, Maxwell said, occurred at Taylor Hall, a single barracks at the Officer Candidates School.
  All base residents and employees were notified to remain indoors and keep their doors locked.
  Contrary to previous information distributed by the Marine base, there was no standoff or barricade around the shooter, Maxwell said.
  The lockdown of the base was lifted at about 2:30 a.m. today.
  "Marine Corps Base Quantico is Code Green at this time," Quantico said on Twitter. "All normal activities are cleared to resume."
  The identities of the victims will be withheld until the families are notified, said Maxwell, who expects a lengthy investigation into the shooting.
  "This is truly a tragic loss for the Marine Corps, which has had a number of tragic losses in the last couple of weeks," Maxwell said.
  Seven Marines were killed Monday in a training accident at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada when a mortar round exploded.
  ABC News' Chad Murray contributed to this report.
Belmont Club >> The History of the Future
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:29
  Timmy went straight from the breakfast table to class. Class happened in a sphere 15 feet in diameter magnetically levitated above the floor in a room across from the den. As the holographic displays were activated the rest of his class appeared around him. He got up and walked over to Bob, the floor moving like a treadmill beneath him so that he could walk in any direction endlessly while the virtual images kept their relative positions in 4D (time correct) space.
  Bob returned a game to Timmy. The game representation flickered momentarily in his virtual hand until the 3 TB of data steadied when the download had completed a tenth of a second later. The moving floor and the 360 holographic displays put Timmy in the center of an unlimited virtual world that he had long regarded as real.
  Today's session was titled: Prelude to the Jovian Revolt. Suddenly the class was back in the early 21st century, a hundred years before, in a place that used to be called Manhattan. The people wore crude clothes of the era and carried ridiculously primitive communications devices which they talked into through input devices connected by wires. The voiceover said:
  In 2014 people still identified themselves by 'nationalities' or by 'countries'. Nearly of the people shown walking through these scenes would have said ''I am this nationality''. But even then they were in the irreversible process of moving to subnational identities. Nearly everyone in this scene already carried plastic cards with embedded information which entitled them to do different things; drive cars or fly planes, admit them into certain places, allow them to walk out of a store with certain things. People were already operationally defined, not by national identity, but by their individual identity and status.
  But not all the relevant information was imprinted on a card. The most important descriptor was not stored locally. It existed instead as poorly defined token that other people assigned to the individual. We now know this token as ''reputation''.
  Only after the 30th Amendment, the so-called ''David Gregory'' Amendment did the concept of reputation become formal enshrined. The 30th Amendment, which repeals the Second, reads ''the right of the enlightened people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'' It establishes the primacy of the person over the law; of reputation over fact. It soon became actually impossible for persons of a high reputation to do a legal wrong. The 31st Amendment, sometimes called the ''Ta-Nehisi Coates Rejection amendment'' actually reads ''good people cannot be racist and their actions must be construed in accordance with their high moral standards''.
  From then on the principle that ''it is not what a person does but who a person is'' gained legal momentum. Everywhere people began treating each other in a differentiated manner. Gun companies reserved the right to sell their goods only to selected sorts of people, some stores actually refused to sell weapons to persons who had voted for a President Obama.
  By the same token individuals who belonged to certain races, sexual orientations, etc were accorded special privileges by the Obamites. To counter the 'clingers' the Obamites declared themselves born special and the anti-Obamites retaliated by classifying them as dirt.
  What the law of the land said mattered less and less. What mattered more and more was which group you belonged to. The breaking point came when so-called illegal aliens were given more legal rights by the Obamites than the legal citizens of a given nation. From that time forward the central role of nationality as an identifier was doomed because it was clear it counted for nothing.
  The class found itself walking through Mumbai, 2025. It looked much more modern than Manhattan. And then the scene shifted to public housing in Blackburn, Lancashire. The contrast between dark English speaking professionals and white European drunks collapsed in the walkways was illustrative. Those who were walking in Blackburn spoke in a barely recognizable, almost illiterate form of English. Those in Mumbai were clearly better educated and functional.
  By the second quarter of the 21st century the distinction between the First and Third Worlds was nearly erased. Most research, production and distribution was performed on a largely individual basis. Companies were virtual. Since all workflows were virtual the actual physical location of persons invovled in a process was irrelevant. Remote manufacturing, design and automated logistical technologies made it possible to perform any role except manufacturing anywhere '-- even from an airliner flying across an ocean.
  Parts in large and small sizes were made in a myriad locations and picked up by self-driving vans and combined into vast streams of goods which were aggregated and redistributed endlessly throughout the world. It was possible to be rich anywhere and also to be poor anywhere. Every community resembled every other in the sense that the dividing lines were between individuals rather than by national boundary.
  Mumbai and England are shown here in the process of convergence. By 2040 there would be more educated English speakers in an average Indian town than in Britain, though after the welfare state collapsed in the former United Kingdom a period of of Reform took place (Britain became like the rest of the world) and the standard of wealth and individual education rose again.
  By 2050 income and activity profiles across the world were remarkably flat. By then there was no net benefit to being British or Indian or Chinese. All that mattered was what you knew; where you ''were'' became an increasingly meaningless concept in a world of universal connectivity.
  There only remained one problem. Who would perform the role formerly belonging to the State?
  The class was now walking through a virtual Schipol Airport, 2030. A young man in blue jeans was pulling his travel bags towards the entrance. Suddenly dozen objects, no larger than crickets converged on him from all sides and detonated small shaped charges against his skull. He fell to the ground, smoke pouring from his eye sockets. A gold, ceremonial drone hopped on to him and spray painted on the corpse: ''enemy combatant, US citizen, list number 117.c.8
  You have just witnessed actual scene of Drone Justice reconstructed from security 'video'. The person was killed in connection with an affair that historians are debating to this day. By 2025 jurisdictions were beginning to dissolve.
  The dissolution of borders began is often reckoned from when Barack Obama asserted the right to punish anyone, anywhere for crimes that he alone knew.
  What was not known until later was that other nations began asserting the same rights. A link from the old Internet shows how the same President Obama had tacitly granted immunity to the Chinese for committing crimes in what used to be America. ''President Barack Obama two years ago rejected a series of tough actions against China, including counter-cyber attacks and economic sanctions, for Beijing's aggressive campaign of cyber espionage against the U.S. government and private businesses networks, according to administration officials.''
  It was reciprocal. Obama could kill people and China would remain silent, but other Presidents could do the same and he too would remain silent. And so it went. Washington would ''drone'' its enemies. The Chinese and the Russians and the Islamic power groups would contract assassins to do similar things. Each turned a blind eye to the other for so long as members of key elite groups were left off the list of targets.
  By 2030 it was clear that there was no protection in mere citizenship '-- being 'American' or 'Canadian' meant nothing; it granted no protection. Even in 2015 people would no longer say, as they formerly did ''you can't do this to me! I'm an American! Or I'm British!'' No they would appeal to their individual status. They would say, ''I'm David Gregory or I'm Piers Morgan''.
  In 2032 Jason Boyd established Boyd's of London to fill new need for governance services in the newly fragmented world. People stopped paying taxes to maintain militaries which would not defend them. Instead, they took out policies at Boyd's which guaranteed reprisal against any capricious act of violence directed against you. The way it worked is that if some killed you for an insufficient reason, the policy would fund a reprisal.
  This curbed the capricious drone killings. By 2040, Boyd's was selling the Alpha policy which protected its holder from a unjustifiable murder hit even when ordered by a head of state. A contemporary ad states: ''even the Russian president respects Boyd's Alpha. Alpha: the only game in town.
  All legal processes were now consensual between individuals and their reputation groups. All legal proceedings occurred through what was called the Arbitration. In the Arbitration, evidence was presented against a person and if it was credible and serious, he would be surrendered for punishment or made to perform restitution in exchange for a Reciprocity Coupon, which entitled that Rep Group to points in any Arbitration it brought against any other group.
  The new governance in many ways resembled that of the Ottoman Empire. You belonged to a community. 'Country' was just a geographical descriptor.
  The class is now walking through the near-modern world of 2085. Automated road trains ply the roads. People on physical errands rode self-driving vehicles. There was a lot of bustle, but not a lot of people on the streets. There are almost no signs of differentiating nationality to the scene. The place shown could have been Mumbai. It could also have been Blackburn, Lancashire.
  The next scene pans upward to a time lapse depiction of a lunar city that appears to show it growing like an organism. This was the next revolution.
  This is Moon Base Alpha, 2085: the first self-replicating city in the Solar System. Luna was chosen as a pilot site because of fears by GreenNation that the first commercial nano-construction could spin out of control, like a virus on earth. It was deemed safe enough to try on the moon. There, microprogrammed nanobots soon made anything out of anything. Whole streets, factories, homes, complexes '-- towers a mile high '-- rose directly from the the lunar dust or from material moved around through automated vehicles and handling systems.
  Moon Base Alpha's demonstrated success brought a revolution in costs. Not only did it become unimaginably cheap to build anything out of anything, it tilted the costs of manufacturing from Earth to any place off-world. Once the costs of living and manufacturing in outer space depended only on the local availability, distance became a minor consideration in human expansion. The barriers to economic activity in the Solar System fell everywhere. And the biggest source of raw material was in planets, where cheap development was possible because it did not have to avoid for cultural sites, deal with human governments or build around pre-existing settlements of people, that was where the building happened.
  Then followed the next big project, which as you all know, was the bulk carrier network on the low-energy gravitational pathways of the interplanetary superhighway. Today, more than four billion bulk carriers circulate along this gravitational highway which now plays a role analogous to the sea-routes of the 20th century.
  Trade Routes
  Which brings us to the subject of the Jovian Revolt. Within a few short years human activity had essentially escaped the power of bureaucratic control. By 2099, via the exponential potentialities of self-replication the output of offworld manufacturing exceeded for the first time the entire cumulative economic output of earth. Sensing a crisis, the United Nations attempted to impose what was known as Terran Sovereignty, the principle that all human outposts where ever they might be were ''indissolubly linked'' to the authority of the Human Race as represented by the United Nations and it's ''enlightened representatives''.
  It was, depending on your point of view, either the last gasp of government or the beginning of the present conflict. You know how matters have stood since the colonies on Mars were destroyed. The most burning political question is now whether whether humanity can still move to a reconciliation or whether the off worlders because of the injuries endured have acquired the ''inalienable right to disappear into the heavens''; to hide as it were from those who would reimpose governance.
  In 1776 a group of men on North America, earth, assumed the right ''to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them''. The current dilemma goes much deeper. The issue is whether individuals have the right to free themselves of the powers of the earth entirely and deal directly with God and nature.
  Perhaps the most vocal proponents of the Right of Disappearance are the Jews, who are now secretively based in the Oort Cloud. After the historical Israel was destroyed in 2070 by the Caliphate it became an article of faith among the survivors that God's promise to them of a place flowing with milk and honey still stood; that while the Old Jerusalem had expired in radioactive rubble, a New Jerusalem, far greater than the first, was reserved for them.
  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
  Then the lights in the virtual room dimmed as class was dismissed. Timmy stepped out of the holosphere, and as was his wont, he climbed the stair to the upper cupola. And there above him, through the transparent panels, Saturn cast its soft glow upon his home. Timmy looked up a the vast, beautiful planet. And then he went down to lunch.
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CDC | TB | World TB Day
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:24
  Espa±ol
  Each year, we recognize World TB Day on March 24, often with a variety of activities leading up to the official day. This annual event commemorates the date in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch announced his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacillus that causes tuberculosis (TB).
  World TB Day provides the opportunity to raise awareness about TB-related problems and solutions and to support worldwide TB-control efforts. While great strides have been made to control and cure TB, this disease is still a problem and more should be done so that one day TB is eliminated.
  For the second year, CDC joins the global Stop TB Partnership in adopting the slogan ''Stop TB in my lifetime.'' This slogan goes with the theme of calling for a world free of TB. This two-year campaign allows us to build upon the messages and resources developed during the last World TB Day.
  Both the slogan and theme encourage people all over the world, from the youngest to the oldest, to make an individual call for the elimination of TB, and say what changes they expect to take place in their lifetimes.
  In their lifetimes, today's children should expect to see a world where no one gets sick with TB. And, in their lifetimes, women and men should expect to see a world where no one dies from TB. From a faster treatment, to a quick, cheap, low-tech test that is accessible to all, to an effective vaccine, we all have different hopes.
  Everyone has a role to play so that one day TB will be eliminated. CDC and our partners are committed to a world free of TB.
  Call for a World Free of TBWe can only reach the goal of TB elimination by working together to detect, treat, and prevent this disease.
  The fight to stop TB will only be successful if local, state, national, and international partners from all sectors of our society join resources and collaborate to find solutions.
  Our united effort is needed to reach those at highest risk for TB and to identify and implement innovative strategies to improve testing and treatment among high-risk populations.
  CDC and its domestic and international partners, including the National TB Controllers Association, Stop TB USA, and the global Stop TB Partnership, are taking many steps to stop further spread of TB and to reduce the overall burden of the disease. Efforts range from developing new treatment regimens and increasing the capacity of health professionals to provide adequate treatment, to issuing new recommendations for improved testing and treatment for U.S. immigrants.
  How You Can Become a Partner in the Fight Against TBFind out more about TB services in your area.Reach out to your community and educate them about TB.Because many people are not aware of the impact of TB, local coalitions in many states and countries are convening educational and awareness activities related to World TB Day. Look to see how you can learn more and get involved.
The Fraudulent Marketplace Fairness Act by Glenn Jacobs
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:09
  by Glenn Jacobsby Glenn JacobsPreviously by Glenn Jacobs: An Open Letter to Senator Lindsey Graham
  The Internet is currently our best example of the free market at work. Since the government has not been able to capture the Internet under its thumb, the Net illustrates how well the market really functions when the government stays out of the way.
  But have no fear. Control freak politicians never rest, and a few of the more dedicated ones are working relentlessly to slap chains on the world's most unfettered market. Of course, no exercise in the destruction of free markets would be complete without a rhetorical flourish of socialism's ostensible raison d'etre: fairness. Yes, something must be done to stop the free flow of information and commerce that is the Internet because it's not FAIR.
  The Marketplace Fairness Act is being pushed by three US senators, Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, and Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican. What is the injustice that the Marketplace Fairness Act addresses? Under current US law, states are prohibited from forcing Internet retailers who have no physical presence within their borders to collect sales tax on Internet transactions. This policy gives Internet retailers an advantage over traditional brick-and-mortar retailers who must tack, in some cases, up to 10% onto transactions due to sales tax.
  While it is obvious that on-line retailers do have a tax advantage in this particular area, politicians sure have a perverted sense of "fairness." After all, taxes are a creation of the government. Not all states impose sales taxes and sales tax rates vary among the states and sometimes even on different items within a particular state. So this has nothing to do with the market, but everything to do with government interventions in the market. If politicians were truly interested in fairness, they would eliminate coercive taxation from the marketplace altogether. Granted, US Senators have no power over state sales taxes (yet), but the Marketplace Fairness Act would make these taxes that much more inescapable. For Durbin, Enzi, and Alexander, the definition of fairness means that the iron fist of the government should crush all of us equally.
  By giving state governments the power to tax Internet retailers, the Marketplace Fairness Act further undermines our already moribund system of federalism. One of the key components of federalism is competition between the states. The idea is that the better the state, the more attractive it will be to individuals and businesses. Folks have the ability to "vote with their feet" for the system of government and level of freedom that they prefer. Conceivably, if on-line retailers were capturing sales from brick-and-mortar retailers due to sales taxes, the brick-and-mortar retailers would pressure local officials to lower their tax rates to allow them to be more competitive or, if possible, move to states with lower tax rates. We see this happening all the time when consumers go across state lines to buy products that are cheaper in an adjacent state due to lower taxes there. The Internet represents another competitor for state governments in regard to commerce and taxes. Unfortunately, if there is one thing politicians won't tolerate, it's competition.
  At the state level, the effort to tax Internet commerce is being led by Alexander's fellow Volunteer, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam. Haslam claims that the state of Tennessee is losing between $300 and $500 million a year on untaxed Internet sales. Haslam says, "it's not going to begin eroding the state's tax base; it already is. Something has to happen nationally...It has to be addressed on a national level or we're going to keep playing these kinds of move-around games." What's next, Governor Haslam? Would you support restrictions on individuals and businesses physically moving from higher tax jurisdictions such as California to lower tax jurisdictions such as Tennessee? Isn't that a "move-around game" as well?
  In addition, Haslam's estimate of $300 to $500 million in lost tax revenue is problematic. If folks are forced to pay more for their purchases on the Internet, they will have less money to spend on other purchases. This means that they might not buy as much. Thus, tax revenues may drop in other areas. While tax-and-spend politicians like Haslam are always looking for ways to tighten the onerous net of taxation, they ignore the reality that the more burdensome the tax load becomes the less money they actually collect. Meanwhile, higher taxes further stifle and suffocate the economy. As the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises said, "capitalism breathes through those [tax] loopholes".
  Likewise, many brick-and-mortar retailers may be surprised to find that taxing their Internet counterparts may not necessarily result in increased sales in their own stores. Again, higher taxes mean that consumers have less money to spend on other items. In some instances, consumers will pay higher prices for certain items, in other cases they will simply do without, wait for bargains, etc. Thus, higher revenues for all brick-and-mortar stores are not a guaranteed outcome of the Marketplace Fairness Act. Brick-and-mortar retailers should also realize that the Internet offers consumers more convenience and more choices than traditional shopping does. Put simply, the game has changed, and this controversy about taxes is just one aspect of this evolution.
  Advocating higher taxes, even on your competition, ends up hurting everyone. But the people that are hurt the most are consumers, everyday working families. The Marketplace Fairness Act will end up forcing consumers to pay higher prices for the goods they desire. It will limit consumer choice. As with all tax programs, it will transfer resources from the productive sector of the economy to the parasitic sector, thereby inhibiting capital formation and investment. It will put shackles on one of the economy's fastest growing sectors, Internet commerce.
  As the debt crisis caused by the spendthrift Congress intensifies, Congress will look for more ways to extract tax dollars from Americans. The Marketplace Fairness Act is particularly terrifying because Congress is insinuating itself into an area that has traditionally been left to state governments. Will a national retail sales tax be next? What about a value added tax? Or a "wealth" (property) tax? The Marketplace Fairness Act may be the camel pushing its nose under our tent.
  Don't be fooled by its title, the Marketplace Fairness Act is anything but fair.
  March 20, 2013
  Glenn Jacobs [send him mail] is the actor and wrestlerKane. Visit his blog.
  Copyright (C) 2013 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
  The Best of Glenn Jacobs
Bill Summary & Status - 113th Congress (2013 - 2014) - S.336
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:05
  NEW SEARCH | HOME | HELP{link: 'http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.113s336',title: 'THOMAS - Bill Summary and Status - S.336' }
  S.336Latest Title: Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013Sponsor:Sen Enzi, Michael B. [WY] (introduced 2/14/2013) Cosponsors (26)Related Bills:H.R.684Latest Major Action: 2/14/2013 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Don't serve carbon lies, ACCC warns
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  Sat, 23 Mar 2013 06:46
  "It is business as usual,'' Dr Schaper said.
  But if they blamed the carbon tax they must be able to prove it and not use it as a cover for other price increases related to wages, rent or stock.
  "If a business claims that a price is linked to the carbon price, that claim must be truthful and have a reasonable basis,'' he said.
  Dr Schaper said the warning applied to comments made by staff over the phone, on the shop floor or in meetings.It also covers advertising, product labels, websites, invoices, contracts and contract negotiations.
  The ACCC has the power to force a business to substantiate that a price rise has been caused by the carbon tax.The guide explains what businesses can and cannot do, and provides a checklist to follow.
  Dr Schaper said businesses must be sure price rises were "based on your own costs''.
Used 2005 Ford Expedition Limited Sport Utility 4D $10,915 - VIN: 1FMFU19555LA08437 - Leif Johnson Ford - New and Used Ford Dealer Serving Austin, TX
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Russia, Turkey, EU and Israel scavenging Cypriot carcass: Could Cyprus banking crisis trigger a war?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: newsweeds.com
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:20
  March 22, 2013 News Eric Margolis writes: Realizing they will never be a world power, the Cypriots have decided to settle for being a world nuisance. ~ George Mikes, Hungarian writer
  Cyprus is a big pain in the neck for one and all. Its banks are bust due to reckless lending to Greece. The sunny island is a beehive of tax evasion, money laundering, dodgy trade and espionage.
  Now, the threatened bankruptcy of Cyprus has triggered the latest European financial crisis.
  Russian businessmen and the Russian Mafia have some 30 billion euros stashed away in Cyprus. Russians make up the second largest biggest cohort of Greek Cyprus' 869,000 people. Some 260,000 ethnic Turks live in the isolated Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which no one but Turkey recognizes.
  A 10 billion euro EU bailout is in the works. But the Germans, who will have to fund most of the rescue, are loathe to rescue the Russian mob, and who can blame them?
  Read the original article here onSigns of the Times - Puppet Masters
Love letters and kindness may improve mental health
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:19
  22 March 2013Last updated at21:11 ETBy Lorna StewartHealth Check, BBC World Service"You matter to me. In a way I cannot explain, you matter to me. And you, you are a marvel... you and all the parts of you."
  It's not the kind of thing you normally write to a complete stranger.
  But after graduating from college and moving to New York City, Hannah Brencher was feeling anxious and depressed. She found herself not wanting to be around other people and "just really unravelling".
  Then she started writing love letters to strangers and leaving them all over the city. The first letter she left on a train simply addressed: "If you find this letter then it's for you."
  Since then she has left letters in libraries and cafes, and even hidden them around the United Nations building.
  Continue reading the main storyTo whoever finds this letterYou and I don't know one another. We may never sit and laugh over cups of coffee. We may never dance in the same circles or yawn together by the midnight hour. None of that really matters to me. It is so small and meaningless to the things I wish you would know on a daily basis: that you are lovely. That you are worthy. That those hands of yours were made for mighty, mighty things.
  You probably think I am crazy. You are probably sitting here with this letter in your hands thinking, you cannot know that... you don't know me... you don't know a stitch of me. Yes, you're right. But I know all the things I thought I never deserved. I know how very hard it once was to love myself and value myself and even find myself worth the reflection in the mirror. And so I know I am not alone in needing a boost some days, in needing to know that I matter to someone somewhere.
  You matter to me. In a way I cannot explain, you matter to me. And you, you are a marvel... you and all the parts of you.
  Love,
  A girl just trying to find her way
  "What I noticed was that my sadness and loneliness got backburnered," she told the BBC. "I found something that allowed me to take the focus off of myself."
  Unexpected kindnessHannah and her More Love Letters campaign are part of a growing number of organisations shouting about the beneficial effects of random acts of kindness for givers as well as receivers.
  It might sound a bit like new-age nonsense to some people, but new research suggests being kind might actually be good for your mental health.
  A study published in the journal Emotion reports that performing acts of kindness may help people with social anxiety to feel more positive.
  Dr Lynn Alden and Dr Jennifer Trew, from the University of British Columbia, asked volunteers with high levels of social anxiety to commit multiple acts of kindness on two days a week over a four-week period.
  "Sometimes people would give a small gift to somebody, or picking somebody up from work, visiting sick people, thanking a bus driver. They were actually fairly small acts," explained Dr Alden.
  They were small acts perhaps, but ones which had a much bigger impact.
  Challenging beliefsMore standard treatment for social anxiety disorder is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) adapted specifically for people who fear they will do or say something embarrassing in a social situation.
  Continue reading the main storySocial anxiety disorderIt is the most common of the anxiety disorders.It is more common in women than men and often begins in adolescence.People fear they will do or say something embarrassing in a social situation and avoid those situations as a result.Physical symptoms include signs of anxiety such as blushing, sweating, shaking, heart pounding, muscle tension and upset stomach.As part of this therapy patients are encouraged to face their fears about social contact, by putting themselves into a situation they would normally avoid or initiating conversation with new people.
  In Dr Alden's experiment a comparison group of anxious volunteers were asked to perform small "belief-challenging" tasks similar to these therapeutic ones.
  Just like the kind acts group, this group were also increasing their levels of social contact, engaging in unfamiliar behaviour, and paying attention to others' responses; all things which have been suggested to be important components in overcoming social anxiety.
  At the end of the four weeks, participants in the kind acts group avoided social situations less and also reported increased relationship satisfaction. Performing kind acts appeared to have a bigger effect than CBT-like behaviour tasks.
  Continue reading the main storyThe kindness offensiveA London-based initiative called the Kindness Offensive have been organising give-away events and encouraging kind acts since 2008.
  They hold the world record for the largest ever random act of kindness for distributing 39 tonnes of goods in one day.
  "It's practically impossible to do an act of kindness without feeling good about yourself," said the aptly named David Goodfellow, one of the founding members of the group.
  "If you can make someone's day a little bit better it will actually make your day a little bit better."
  Dr Nick Grey, consultant clinical psychologist and clinic director at the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma in London, was initially wary of the idea that performing kind acts might have therapeutic value for patients with anxiety disorders.
  "I hadn't seen the paper and I was sceptical from the title to be honest. But it's a good paper and comes from a well-respected team.
  "I don't think that's ever going to be a therapy in and of itself, but it could well be the kind of activity that could be integrated as part of a broader treatment."
  Dr Alden suggests that acts of kindness might be an initial step in a longer therapeutic pathway.
  "Engaging in kind acts may help the person to get out and encounter other people and then we can use other techniques to help the person change their beliefs about themselves."
  But she urges caution about performing acts of kindness chosen by someone else or just to impress others.
  "I think it has be done in such a way that the individual has a sense of autonomy. They are performing the act because they want to and not because it's required by the group."
Microsoft's opinion of Google software | Flickr
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:13
  Copy and paste the code below:
  [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8509/8578092598_d4413247d3_t.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8509/8578092598_d4413247d3_s.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8509/8578092598_d4413247d3_q.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8509/8578092598_d4413247d3_m.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8509/8578092598_d4413247d3_n.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8509/8578092598_d4413247d3.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8509/8578092598_b8a522aa68_o.gif[/img][/url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/8578092598/]Microsoft's opinion of Google software[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scriptingnews/]scriptingnews[/url], on Flickr
  Photo license: Some rights reserved
Presidential Proclamation -- Greek Independence Day: A National Day of Celebration of Greek and American Democracy, 2013
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:10
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  March 22, 2013
  GREEK INDEPENDENCE DAY: A NATIONAL DAY OF CELEBRATION OFGREEK AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, 2013
  - - - - - - -
  BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
  A PROCLAMATION
  Each year, America celebrates Greek Independence Day to strengthen the bonds between the birthplace of democracy and the world's oldest republic. We recognize the enduring contributions of Greek Americans, woven into the fabric of our national life. And we reflect on the ancient Hellenic principles that inspired our Founders to vest the powers of government in the hands of the people.
  In both America and Greece, we are inheritors to great republics, entrusted to safeguard the ideals that make representative government work. Our peoples have learned that democracy flourishes when we respect our differences, hold fast to the principles that unite us, and move forward with common purpose. It is a legacy lived by generations of Greek Americans, who for centuries have helped write proud chapters in our country's history and continue to enrich the character of our Nation.
  Today, we congratulate Greece, a valued NATO ally, as it commemorates the 192nd anniversary of its independence, and we pledge our continued solidarity as the country works to rebuild its economy. In the face of hardship, America stands with the people of Greece, confident they can meet the challenges of the 21st century while upholding their ancient ideals.
  NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 25, 2013, as Greek Independence Day: A National Day of Celebration of Greek and American Democracy. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
  IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-second day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.
  BARACK OBAMA
Statement by the President on the Withdrawal of the Nomination of Caitlin Halligan
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:10
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  March 22, 2013
  Today, I accepted Caitlin Halligan's request to withdraw as a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. I am deeply disappointed that even after nearly two and a half years, a minority of Senators continued to block a simple up-or-down vote on her nomination. This unjustified filibuster obstructed the majority of Senators from expressing their support. I am confident that with Caitlin's impressive qualifications and reputation, she would have served with distinction.
  The D.C. Circuit is considered the Nation's second-highest court, but it now has more vacancies than any other circuit court. This is unacceptable. I remain committed to filling these vacancies, to ensure equal and timely access to justice for all Americans.
Thought thats why we have cell phones.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:09
  Lawyers for the Obama administration will argue next week that US authorities are not required to obtain a search warrant before attaching a GPS device to an individual's car in order to keep tabs on them.
  The case, set to be heard on Tuesday by the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, comes over a year after a US Supreme Court decision failed to convince the Department of Justice that warrantless GPS tracking is an infringement on Americans' Constitutional rights.
  ''This case is the government's primary hope that it does not need a judge's approval to attach a GPS device to a car,'' Catherine Crump, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told Wired magazine.
  In January 2012 the Supreme Court overruled an Obama administration assertion that police should be permitted to affix a GPS device to a personal vehicle without a search warrant. Questions were left, however, when the Court declined to answer whether that type of search was unreasonable and when justices could not reach a consensus on how police would need to monitor a suspect before requesting a warrant.
  ''We hold that the government's installation of a GPS device on a target's vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movement, constitutes a 'search,''' Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the five-justice majority last January.
  Scalia stipulated in the opinion that a warrant was not always necessary, but failed to mention any specific examples of when this would be the case.
  Now prosecutors are honing on Scalia's exact language, arguing that the Supreme Court's decision only specifies that the installation of a GPS constitutes a search, while the tracking that follows does not. The government argues that the Supreme Court has given police near free reign in allowing for search warrant exceptions.
  Searches of students, individuals on probation and border crossings are among the proposed exceptions.
  The argument resurfaced after Philadelphia brothers Harry, Michael and Mark Katzin were indicted for a string of late-night pharmacy burglaries in 2010. Suspicious of the Dodge Caravan they thought was used in the robberies, investigators monitored the vehicle with a GPS device for 48 hours and were able to trace the brothers' involvement.
  Arguing in US v. Katzin, government prosecutors claimed that a law requiring them to seek a warrant would seriously impede investigations of terrorist suspects.
  ''Requiring a warrant and probable cause before officers may attach a GPS device to a vehicle, which is inherently mobile and may no longer be at the location observed when the warrant is obtained, would seriously impede the government's ability to investigate drug trafficking, terrorism and other crimes,'' authorities said in court.
  ''Law enforcement officers could not use GPS devices to gather information to establish probable cause, which is often the most productive use of such devices. Thus, the balancing of law enforcement interests with the minimally intrusive nature of GPS installation and monitoring makes clear that a showing of reasonable suspicion suffices to permit use of a 'slap-on' device like that used in this case.''
  While the ACLU accused the government of prosecutorial overreach in the case, it praised a new bill - the so-called 'GPS Act' - that would require law enforcement to get a warrant in order to access an individual's GPS tracking history, whether it be from a vehicle device or a cell phone provider. The bill, which would not affect emergency services but would require police to prove probable cause, was reintroduced into Congress by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mike Kirk (R-IL) and Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT).
  In a statement, Wyden decried the government's blind eye to police overreach.
  ''GPS technology has evolved into a useful commercial and law enforcement tool - but the rules for the use of that tool have not evolved with it,'' he said. ''The GPS Act provides law enforcement with a clear mandate for when to obtain a warrant for the geolocation information of an American'...It protects the privacy and civil liberty of any American using a GPS-enabled device."
Vanity bitcoin address generator/miner [v0.22]
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:07
  Vanitygen is a command-line vanity bitcoin address generator.If you're tired of the random, cryptic addresses generated by regular bitcoin clients, you can use vanitygen to create a more personalized address. Add unique flair when you tell people to send bitcoins to 1stDownqyMHHqnDPRSfiZ5GXJ8Gk9dbjL. Alternatively, vanitygen can be used to generate random addresses offline.
  Vanitygen accepts as input a pattern, or list of patterns to search for, and produces a list of addresses and private keys. Vanitygen's search is probabilistic, and the amount of time required to find a given pattern depends on how complex the pattern is, the speed of your computer, and whether you get lucky.
  The example below illustrates a session of vanitygen. It is typical, and took about 10 sec to finish, using my Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU on x86-64 Linux:
  $ ./vanitygen 1BoatDifficulty: 4476342Pattern: 1Boat Address: 1BoatSLRHtKNngkdXEeobR76b53LETtpyTPrivkey: 5J4XJRyLVgzbXEgh8VNi4qovLzxRftzMd8a18KkdXv4EqAwX3tS
  Vanitygen includes components to perform address searching on your CPU (vanitygen) and your OpenCL-compatible GPU (oclvanitygen). Both can be built from source, and both are included in the Windows binary package. Also included is oclvanityminer, the vanity address mining client. Oclvanityminer can be used to automatically claim bounties on sites such as ThePiachu's vanity pool.Current version: 0.22
  Windows x86+x64 binaries here. PGP signature here
  Get the source from GitHub. Includes Makefiles for Linux and Mac OS X.
  FAQ
  What types of patterns can vanitygen search for?
  Vanitygen can search for simple prefixes or regular expression matches.
  Prefixes are exact strings that must appear at the beginning of the address. When searching for prefixes, vanitygen will ensure that the prefix is possible, and will provide a difficulty estimate. Exact prefixes are case-sensitive by default, but may be searched case-insensitively using the -i option.
  Prefixes are also very fast to search, and a list of thousands of prefixes may be specified with little or no reduction in key search rate.
  Regular expressions are programmable pattern filters. They are very powerful, and can be used to match prefixes, suffixes, varying-length sequences, etc.. For a quick tutorial, see http://www.regular-expressions.info/quickstart.html. To enable regular expressions, use the -r command line option. Unfortunately, regular expressions are very slow, and will have a significant impact on key search rate. Because of this, regular expressions should only be used if their expressive power is needed.
  Oclvanitygen is only effective at searching for prefixes. Regular expressions will not work effectively with oclvanitygen, as oclvanitygen is currently unable to execute the regular expression on the GPU.
  How do I specify a list of patterns?
  Vanitygen can accept a list of patterns to search for, either on the command line, or from a file or stdin using the -f option. File sources should have one pattern per line.
  Upon finding a match for a given pattern, vanitygen will stop searching for additional matches for that pattern. To search for multiple matches for each pattern, use the -k option.
  How do I import the private key into bitcoin?
  If you wish to spend coins received on a vanity address created by vanitygen, you must import the private key into a bitcoin client. There are two popular methods of doing this with the standard Satoshi bitcoin client:
  Use the importprivkey command. To do this, select Help -> Debug Window, and in the window, on the bottom line, enter importprivkey , e.g.importprivkey 5J4XJRyLVgzbXEgh8VNi4qovLzxRftzMd8a18KkdXv4EqAwX3tS
  Jackjack's pywallet script is an all-in-one tool that directly modifies the wallet.dat file. This works with a normal, unpatched bitcoin client, but does require Python with the bsddb package.If I stop vanitygen when it reports 60% complete, how do I have it restart where it left off?You don't need to. The percentage displayed just shows how probable it is that a match would be found in the session so far. If it finds your address with 5% on the display, you are extremely lucky. If it finds your address with 92% on the display, you are unlucky. If you stop vanitygen with 90% on the display, restart it, and it finds your address with 2% on the display, your first session was unlucky, but your second session was lucky.
  When I double-click on vanitygen, a black window appears for a split-second and disappears, what do I do?
  Currently, vanitygen only runs on the command line, and does not have a graphical user interface. To use vanitygen, you need to open a command line window and change to the directory where you extracted the vanitygen program. An easy way to do this in Windows 7, hold down the shift key, right-click on the folder where you unzipped vanitygen, and select "Open command window here." Then, you can type the vanitygen command at the prompt.
  Can I use vanitygen to find someone else's private key from their bitcoin address?
  Yes. Vanitygen is a cryptographic brute-forcing application, and can be used to search for a complete address. However, you will be unhappy with the amount of time required for it to find a match.
  How do I report a bug? What do I do if it crashes?
  Post to this thread, send me a PM, or send me an email! Please run vanitygen with the -v flag for verbose output, and please include the console output in your report.
  How do I build vanitygen from source?
  Please refer to the file INSTALL in the source distribution.
  What key search rate can I expect from hardware X?
  Detailed list forthcoming. Some ballpark estimates are listed below.
  Dual-core desktop CPUs, 32-bit mode: 100-250 Kkey/s.Dual-core desktop CPUs, 64-bit mode: 150-450 Kkey/s.Quad-core desktop CPUs, 32-bit mode: 200-400 Kkey/s.Quad-core desktop CPUs, 64-bit mode: 300-750 Kkey/s.
  As vanitygen performs a lot of large integer arithmetic, running it in 64-bit mode makes a huge difference in key search rate, easily a 50% improvement over 32-bit mode. If you are using a 64-bit edition of Windows, and not using a GPU, be sure to use vanitygen64.exe.
  In custom builds, CPU performance will be less than expected if the OpenSSL library is an older version (
About | HONK!TX 2013 - Festival of Community Street Bands
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 20:12
  HONK!TX is excited to return to Austin for our third fantastic year!This year, scores of musician will descend once more on the city of Austin to bring you the biggest, boldest, and brassiest HONK!TX yet!; our parade organizers are working tirelessly to amp Sunday's spectacle to epic proportions; and for the first time ever, we will be screening films about brass-band culture worldwide! The fun kicks off Thursday evening with a benefit for visiting HONK! bands, followed by three days of music, free and open to the public, from Friday through Sunday.
  What Is HONK!TX?HONK!TX is a nonprofit, community-driven festival that brings brass bands from around the country to perform absolutely free in the public spaces of Austin, TX.
  Performing an array of genres ranging from European Klezmer and Balkan, to New Orleans second-line brass music, spectacular bands will come from far and wide this year to transform everyday locations around Austin into organic stages, where the line between crowd and performers dissolves and music, mirth and mayhem are born. Harking back to a time when festivities and entertainment were not something created for the enjoyment of a passive audience, but rather an experience created through the participation of each and every person involved, HONK!TX is more than just a music festival; it is a celebration of community, collaboration, individuality, and creative expression. Come HONK! with us!!!
  The HONK!TX CommunityAustin Samba School leads the parade for HONK!TX 2012
  The merry mayhem of HONK!TX is only possible by the collective energy and enthusiasm of the local community.
  A committee of fourteen incurably passionate HONK!ers works tirelessly to create the spectacle and magic of HONK!TX with, and for, the Austin community. Along with this troupe of die-hard organizers, scores of volunteers donate time, energy, vehicles, and even open their homes to visiting musicians. Bands travel long distances to perform at great personal expense, having only some of their costs covered. Local businesses and citizens generously support HONK!TX financially and through in-kind donations. Why do so many work so hard and give so generously? Join the revelry this March and you'll soon see!
  Want to help make HONK!TX happen? Donate and Volunteer Now!
  Background & HistoryHONK!TX takes its name and inspiration from Somerville's HONK! fest and Seattle's HONK! Fest West, and draws upon the common themes and visions these festivals share with us: music, community, and public space.
  The first HONK! festival took place in 2006 in Somerville, Massachusetts, when local community street band Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society set about envisioning and creating a festival to celebrate the growing nationwide community of activist marching bands and the community-rooted union of art, activism, and music.
  Since it's birth in Somerville, HONK! Fest has inspired sister festivals to emerge across North America, including HONK! Fest West in Seattle, PRONK! In Providence, RI, HONK! NYC, in Brooklyn, and of course, your very own HONK!TX.
  What is a HONK! Band?''Across the country and around the world, a new type of street band is emerging.''
  Acoustic and mobile, HONK bands borrow repertoire and inspiration from a diverse set of folk music traditions, including New Orleans second line brass bands, European klezmer, Balkan and Romani music, and Brazilian Afro Bloc and Frevo traditions, as well as the passion and spirit of Mardi Gras and Carnaval. These bands all share a commitment to several core principles: everywhere they go, they perform to celebrate; some to protest; some to proclaim; and for all of them: to have fun.
  See this year's lineup of Bands!
  The bands, ranging in size from 4 to 40 members, are inspired to travel long distances at great personal expense to joyously reclaim public spaces and create a music-filled environment. It's an environment where we can all learn and grow from each other musically, personally, politically, socially, and culturally. And, as with all HONK!s, we can have a lot of fun in the process.
  Sometimes featuring uniforms or band colors, playing original, traditional, and borrowed music on a wide variety of instruments, and encouraging lively audience participation, these bands thrive on the flourishing of community interest and delight in destroying the artificial barriers and apathy imposed by contrived political and societal structures. The bands open themselves to diversity in all its forms: not just the conventions of age, gender, and orientation '' but background, upbringing, and for many of them, even level of musical experience. They carry strong messages of hope, unity, and social change in their hearts and their music, and convey it to the audiences around them and to each other.
  As these talented musicians from around the continent share a weekend of collaborative performance, they influence and inspire each other and everyone present. In the public spaces amidst the audiences, the power of music emanating from sousaphones, bass drums, piccolos, trombones, snares, cymbals, clarinets, voices and more speaks to each of us individually, collectively, and purposefully. The festival offers a chance for us to examine how we perceive and interact with our own communities and thus, the world around us. We ask you to join these bands in musical celebration and the reclamation of public space, and lift your heart, mind, and ears to experience all of the wonder and magic this community festival is capable of.
Guccifer releases second trove of Clinton emails '-- RT USA
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:54
  The hacker that has targeted Hillary Clinton and the Presidents Bush has leaked a new trove of classified emails to RT that discuss in detail the Algerian hostage crisis and the relationship between the United States and Egyptian governments.
  An elusive hacker using the moniker Guccifer was credited earlier this week with infiltrating the email account of journalist Sidney Blumenthal and uncovering a collection of highly sensitive memos allegedly sent to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Now for the second time in only a week, the person known only by a three-syllable screen name has provided yet another compilation of correspondence that highlights America's foreign diplomacy in ways that are rarely made public this side of WikiLeaks.
  The first collection of correspondence, published by RT earlier this week, is believed to contain classified emails regarding last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya and shined a significant light on an event that, although culminating in the death of four Americans, remains relatively obscured from major discourse six months later. In the emails obtained by RT on Friday, though, Guccifer relays memos alleged to have been sent from Blumenthal to Sec. Clinton that dive into matters regarding the January 2013 Algerian hostage crisis that left three Americans dead, as well as info about the inner workings of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's office.
  Blumenthal, 64, has neither confirmed nor denied the authenticity of the emails, and his son, journalist Max Blumenthal, told RT that his father would not comment on the leak. AOL, however, has admitted that the former White House aide's account was indeed compromised. As with the correspondence detailing the Benghazi attack, though, the latest intelligence leaked to RT could prove to be quite substantial if and when their authenticity can be verified. And given Blumenthal's relationship with Washington's elite '-- he served as an aid during the administration of the secretary's husband, former-US President Bill Clinton '-- the likelihood that the emails prove to be legitimate is not all that unlikely.
  The four emails received by RT on Friday are all believed to be sent from Blumenthal to Clinton from his since-compromised AOL account and include correspondence dated December 8, 2012, January 18, 2013 and March 3, 2013. A fourth email, undated, discusses the June 2012 election of Egypt's Pres. Morsi and is annotated as originating ''from an extremely sensitive source'' and should be ''handled with care.''
  Cooperation in EgyptIn the undated email, senior intelligence sources explain how the newly elected Egyptian leader plans to interact with the White House during his administration and details other strategies considered during the first days of Pres. Morsi's term. Although the Egyptian election went to Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the emails suggest that his office intended to work with the state's military, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which governed the country from former-President Hosni Mubarak's departure in Feb 2011 up until Morsi was elected that June. In particular, Morsi's officials agreed that cooperation with SCAF leaders, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, would be imperative during the early days of the then-infant presidency.
  ''The SCAF officers reiterated their previous position that Tantawi and the SCAF do not want to rule the country, but they will not tolerate any move that limits either their budget or their position of respect in society,'' the email reads in part. Later on, the source claims that both the Muslim Brotherhood and SCAF leadership agree ''that their first order of business together in the new Egyptian political situation will be developing a coherent police towards Israel,'' which would be done by''maintaining the Peace Treaty with Israel while limiting joint activity and cooperation on sensitive security matters.'' To do as much, the source says Egypt desired more solid ties with the US and other allied nations. Elsewhere, though, the source says that a relationship with the West could mean connecting Egypt's economy more seriously with those in the West.
  Both Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood colleague Mohammed Badie ''are firmly committed to a dual Islamic/Western banking system and good relations with Western firms,'' another section of the email reads. ''[Pres. Morsi] regularly states that the West has dealt with Saudi Arabia for many years, and the system he anticipates for Egypt will be far less restrictive than the one put in place by the Saudi rules. Badie also believes the fact that Morsi was educated in the United States and has many good contacts in that country.''
  The fall of Morsi and help from AmericaIn the second memo, dated Dec. 8, 2012, secret intelligent sources say that Morsi was already confident with his party's impact on Egypt's government, even if public opinion was still split. ''Morsi added that although the ongoing demonstrations against his declaration of emergency powers will continue, and, if anything, become more violent, he firmly believes that at least 60 percent of Egyptian voters continue to support his efforts to eliminate the last vestiges of the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak,'' it reads.
  ''According to a sensitive source, Badie and the leadership of the [Muslim Brotherhood] believe they are on the verge of reaching the goal of their 85 year campaign to gain control of the Egyptian government,'' the memo goes on to state. In a separate email dated March 13 of this year, though, Pres. Morsi's time in office is reflected as one that continues to be marred with not just disapproval but demands for American aid.
  As early as three weeks ago, Badie told sources that ''while ongoing unrest in the country is worrisome,'' a Morsi presidency would be likely for another year. In order to counter the stagnant level of unrest, the source said Morsi was working to develop policies that would allow for a $4.8 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund, which Badie predicted will lead to the US lending another $1 billion.
  ''[Badie] added that [Morsi] interpreted [US Secretary of State John Kerry's] statements following his recent visit to Cairo as indications that the US government recognizes that the Morsi regime is working in good faith to reach an agreement with the IMF, and that this course offers the best chance for stability in Egypt. According to this source, Morsi recognizes that the US expects him to take steps to strengthen the economy and build political unity. He was particularly pleased to learn that the US will released $190 million of the initial $450 million portion of the US pledge. Badie added that Morsi felt that he and his team had convinced the US delegation that these funds were needed to allow planned reforms to go forward, and that the various opposition leaders do not offer credible alternative solutions.''
  Algeria's arrangement with terroristsBut perhaps the most significant of the leaked memos is one from January 18 of this year, roughly two days after al-Qaeda linked terrorists operating under the since-slain Mokhtar Belmokhtar took over 800 people hostage at a gas facility near In Amenas, Algeria. By the time the stand-off ended on January 19, 39 foreign hostages were killed, including three Americans. But according to ''a very sensitive source,'' an informal relationship between the Algerian government and known militants was expected to have thwarted such a situation.
  The source, speaking privately, claims that Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ''was surprised and disoriented with the attacks'' because his government ''reached a highly secret understanding with Belmokhtar'' a year earlier. ''Under the agreement Belmokhtar concentrated his operations in Mali, and occasionally, with the encourage of the Algerian Direction G(C)n(C)rale de la S(C)curit(C) Ext(C)rieure, attack Moroccan interests in Western Sahara, where the Algerians have territorial claims. The Algerian security officials fear that January 17 attacks might mark a resumption of the 20 year civil war and resolved to deal with the situation with extreme force.''
  ''According to these sources, the fate of the hostages is a secondary consideration in this decision.''
  From an unknown senderAs with memos obtained by Guccifer and provided to the media earlier, the hacker apparently attempts to cover his tracks by cloning the original documents and saving the text in an alternate format. Once again with these emails, Guccifer appears to have copied the text of the original memos, and then placed them in a text file '-- after changing the font to Comic Sans '-- where the final image was saved as a picture file.
  Since that breach, Guccifer has published at least eight incredibly sensitive emails, including the trove from earlier this week that linked the Algerian hostage crisis to the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi last September. In those emails, intelligence sources said that al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb funded Mokhtar Belmokhtar, and that with that money Islamic militants likely afforded both the Benghazi and Algerian incidents.
  But perhaps as an attempt to back-up his alleged hack, Guccifer has also this time included a series of other documents '-- namely screenshots from within Blumenthal's inbox and an image of US Gen. Colin Powell and other men posing for a photograph.
  The screenshots supplied to RT, included correspondence involving Blumenthal, Sec. Clinton, a former CIA agent and an attorney and journalist. Attempts to have those sources verify the emails have gone unanswered as well.
  Guccifer has previously been credited with hacking Gen. Powell's Facebook and the email account of former President George W. Bush's sister, in turn leaking a number of oil paintings purported to have been done by the president. The Secret Service has since claimed to be investigating the breach.
CNN Panel Compares Traditional Marriage Supporters to Segregationists, Slave Owners
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:52
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  Watch to see how the lone supporter of traditional marriage on CNN's Friday afternoon panel was treated.
  Anchor Don Lemon led the disgusting display of liberal non-tolerance, comparing supporters of traditional marriage to segregationists.
Gitmo Nation Down Under: internal strife in Labour Party - Gillard going down
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dr. Jones reports
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:04
  Julia Gillard and her supporters arrive for the meeting of the Labor caucus where no one rose to challenge the Australian prime minister for her job. Photograph: Penny Bradfield for the Guardian
  Three ministers have quit Julia Gillard's Australian government and rival Kevin Rudd has declared he will never take up the leadership of the Labor party again after an abortive attempt to replace the prime minister a day earlier.
  Senior party figures forced Gillard to throw her job open to contest on Thursday, inviting a challenge by Rudd, whom Gillard ousted in 2010 via a party room coup. But Rudd refused, saying he was sticking by a promise never again to mount a direct challenge to Gillard, and she was re-elected unopposed by the party caucus.
  The drama immediately claimed the scalp of Simon Crean, the senior Labor government minister who on Thursday said Gillard should either call a "spill" of the leadership or be forced into it on the floor of the party room. Gillard promptly sacked him from the cabinet while calling a leadership election.
  On Friday as the reverberations from Gillard's victory continued, the resources minister, Martin Ferguson, said he would step down, joining departing cabinet colleagues Crean and Chris Bowen, as well as junior minister Kim Carr.
  All had considered Kevin Rudd the party's best hope to reverse polls pointing to a thrashing by conservative opponents at the 14 September elections. But none of them got the chance to vote for him, leading to a situation where ministers were resigning over how they might have voted, rather than what they had actually done.
  The resignations come ahead of a cabinet reshuffle by Gillard that has been made inevitable given the challenge to her authority.
  "I have a view it's the only honourable thing to do. I would have voted for Kevin Rudd yesterday and Simon Crean [who wanted to stand as Rudd's deputy] to try and give this party a fresh start," an emotional Martin Ferguson told reporters at parliament in Canberra.
  Gillard stamped her authority on Labor by being re-elected unopposed after Rudd conceded he did not have the numbers to topple her after a tumultuous day of backroom plotting.
  The treasurer, Wayne Swan '' widely derided by voters despite having steered the G20 member through the last financial downturn with 5.4% unemployment and a 21st year of unbroken economic growth '' was re-elected as Gillard's deputy.
  Rudd said on Friday he would never again run for the leadership. "I don't think it's worth raking over the coals. What's done is done and let's get on with the future," Rudd said. "It's really important that we bind together and that's what the Australian people expect of us."
  Bowen, one of Rudd's key backers and a former immigration minister, said he would also quit, stripping Gillard's cabinet of another of its most effective political talents.
  Ferguson in particular had been an influential advocate for the country's mining industry and helped broker a 2010 deal with major resource companies including BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto to abandon a damaging campaign against a mining profits tax introduced by Labor and later watered down.
  Gillard, the plain-speaking lawyer daughter of Welsh migrants, has consistently failed to arrest a slump in opinion polls, which predict a major defeat in September with Labor losing about 20 seats in the 150-seat parliament.
  But she attempted to draw a line under the divisions and concerns about her leadership, extending a press conference at a road construction site north of Sydney on Friday to face down questions from journalists about the government's stability.
  "This issue is over and done with. This issue has been resolved for all time and I think Kevin's statement reflects that," she said.
  Gillard said she would make changes to her ministry in coming days but faced a headache over who to appoint after the departure of some her most effective talents.
  "I'm someone who is made of I think pretty strong stuff and I think that's been on display. Politics is not an easy business," she said.
Furious Merkel: "Cyprus's Decision To Test Europe Is Unacceptable"
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: What Chad Christian is reading.
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:03
  Europe's paymaster - that would be Germany for those who have not paid attention to events over the past four years - is not used to being snubbed. It certainly is not used to being snubbed by what every empty chatterbox and their kitchen sink will tell you is a "small and irrelevant" country (all the more so in the aftermath of last summer's embarrassing defeat in its head on confrontation with the ECB, in which the Bundesbank showed that sometimes the best offense is a gracious retreat). It most certainly is not used to not being invited to discussions involving the future of its precious mercantilist European union, especially when said union may no longer exist as we know it in 48 short hours. And Germany is angry.
  From Bloomberg:
  As Russia spurned the island nation's bid for a loan, Merkel told a closed-door meeting of legislators in Berlin today that she's annoyed the Cypriot government hasn't been in touch with the so-called troika of international creditors for days, according to a party official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the briefing was private. Cyprus's decision to test Europe is unacceptable, she told them.
  ''We're not ready to accept solutions that are full of wind,'' Michael Fuchs, deputy parliamentary leader of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, said after the meeting. ''I don't think it's appropriate to play poker in this matter, especially when you think that there's a risk that two banks will become insolvent next Monday.''
  In other words, how dare the pesky Cypriots think a "union" is comprised of equal "units", instead of being a despotic tyrrany in which the adjusted version of the golden rule (perhaps explaining why the Buba is pulling all its French and a lot of its NY Fed gold) applies.
  Germany will have none of that nonsense.
  So while "experts" wait with bated breath for the results of today's Cypriot debate and vote, the reality is it is completely irrelevant, and any of the proposed terms and "resolution" ideas are irrelevant. Why? Because without Germany's blessing (which also means the idea should have originated with Germany in the first place), there is no solution, especially not one that benefits the abovementioned paymaster.
  Which means either there is a deposit tax on the wealthy, which was the whole point of this carefully structured, politically punitive exercise, or there is no deal.
  Because in Europe, like everywhere else, it is quid (even if it will soon be quit)-pro-quo.
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 4.8(33 votes)
The Science is IN: Flu shot causing brain disorders
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dr. Jones reports
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:03
  Kenny ValenzuelaActivist PostStepping to the edge of a giant precipice overlooking the medical mayhem and inoculation ineptitudes that have castigated our health and propagated our perceptions -- a paralyzing revelation rises to the surface of the ongoing vaccination population reduction program known as immunizations. The H1N1 vaccination is the toxic injection connected to the new spike in the occurrence of Guillain-Barr(C) syndrome, a paralyzing nervous disorder in which the body's immune system begins to attack itself. A new study out of the Lancet shows conclusive evidence that these cases of Guillain-Barr(C) syndrome have been caused by the 2009 H1N1 Flu vaccination.
  This isn't the first time a flu vaccination has been associated with Guillain-Barr(C) syndrome.
  Back in 1976, the swine flu vaccine caused so many cases of GBS that the Center for Disease 'Creation and Proliferation' had been forced to create a page on their website explaining the matter.Their explanation for the incident states that, In 1976 there was a small increased risk of GBS following vaccination with an influenza vaccine made to protect against a swine flu virus. The increased risk was approximately 1 additional case of GBS per 100,000 people who got the swine flu vaccine.
  This time the number of people poisoned by the toxic brew was 1.6 additional cases of GBS per 1,000,000 people injected with the vaccinators lancet.BE THE CHANGE! PLEASE SHARE THIS USING THE TOOLS BELOW
Woe is Debbie Wasserman Schultz
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: TheBlaze.com - Blog
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:02
  Her staffers can no longer afford ''a good meal'' on Capitol Hill due to the impact of sequester cuts. As Breitbart's Mike Flynn notes, those poor staffers only make two- to three-times as much as the average American taxpayer, but whatevs:
  Wasserman Schultz's top aide earns around $160k a year. She pays two additional aides around $120k a year. She has five additional aides who earn between $60-100k a year.
  This is about fairness. Three dollars for a bowl of soup is unacceptable. (Getty File Photo)
  The Florida Democrat also complains that offering anything less than a six-figure salary makes it difficult to fill Capitol Hill positions:
  ''The more we rob Peter to pay Paul,'' she said, ''the tougher it is for us to compete not only with the private sector but with other federal agencies.''
  ''If it's a $100,000 reduction in your [allowance] you really need to start preparing for a staff change,'' adds Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va. ''That's a whole person!'' That's a whole person in the public sector '-- it's closer to two or even three in the private sector. It's about time Congress started to operate more like a business on a budget.
  And while her staffers are starving to death on their $100k salaries, Wasserman Schultz hopped a flight aboard Air Force One with President Obama to visit Israel. No word on where the funding for her trip is coming from'...
Eurozone Turning to Bitcoins
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dave says...
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:57
  Fearful Spaniards worried of government confiscation of their savings are converting their money'--not just from one currency to another, but from paper to digital.
  Many Spaniards have of late joined a growing number of digital-currency investors buying into a 4-year old online currency known as Bitcoins. Since they are spending euros to buy these Bitcoins, they are effectively converting euros into this digital cyber-currency.
  What has prompted so many Spaniards to exchange their Euros for Bitcoins? AnswersBloomberg, ''The interest in Bitcoin coincided with news that the Cyprus government planned to tax savings accounts as part of the country's bailout program.''
  Bloomberg Businessweekamplifies, ''Fearing contagion on the other end of the Mediterranean, some Spaniards are apparently looking for cover in an experimental digital currency.''
  The reason so many people'--usually the younger, hipper, thumb-your-nose-at-society crowd'--have turned to Bitcoins is for security and protection. They feel that since Bitcoins are not owned by any government, they cannot be confiscated nor suffer the steady erosion of value as paper currencies. So take that, you thieving government officials.
  Yes, well, perhaps it is other thieves who will now be taking their money instead. The problem with these new trustees of your money is that no one really knows who they are. It is like protecting your sack of money from your landlord by handing it to a masked and cloaked figure lurking in the shadows of your back-alley.
  Here's why. If you search the web for information on Bitcoins, you will be hard-pressed to find a clear explanation of what it is or how it works. One description of this digital monetary system is copied and pasted about, and regularly referred to. So let's go there, and sure enough'... it is an anonymous source. Namely, Wikipedia.
  The explanation begins, ''Bitcoin (sign: BTC) is a decentralized digital currency based on an open-source, peer-to-peer internet protocol. It was introduced by a pseudonymous developer named Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.''
  Alrighty-then. Right off the bat we find ourselves in a shadowy alley facing some sort of figure whose shape we think we can sort of define, kind of. The key words that unnerve me here are ''decentralized'', ''peer-to-peer'', and ''introduced by a developer''. Never mind that no one knows who he is, if that isn't disquieting enough. What we have here is a currency that was invented by a computer programmer.
  So, now, what is all this ''decentralized'' and ''peer-to-peer'' stuff all about? Wikipedia answers:
  ''Bitcoin does not operate like typical currencies: it has no central bank and it solely relies on an internet-based peer-to-peer network. The money supply is automated, limited, divided and scheduled, and given to servers or 'bitcoin miners' that verify bitcoin transactions and add them to an archived transaction log every 10 minutes.''
  Hmmm..'... What?
  It seems the only clear information we get out of that is that Bitcoins are not issued by a central bank, hence the previous label ''decentralized''. That it ''solely relies on an internet-based peer-to-peer network'', therefore, implies that all this ''money'' is simply floating around out in cyberspace, moving from one computer user to another.
  As Bloombergexplains it, ''Bitcoin removes financial institutions completely from transactions, allowing users to conduct two-party exchanges over the Internet without a middleman.''
  And yet, despite its being considered ''decentralized'''--(which means ''to reorganize [disperse] '... into smaller more autonomous units'' - Dictionary.com)'--there does seem to be some sort of mechanism controlling it, which is alluded to by, ''The money supply is automated, limited, divided and scheduled, and given to servers or 'bitcoin miners' that verify bitcoin transactions.''
  And just who or what controls this automation, division, scheduling and distribution to 'bitcoin miners'? Well, no one really knows. Except, of course, for that cloaked figure in the dark alley who goes by the pseudonym ''Satoshi Nakamoto''.
  And what of these ''bitcoin miners''? Apparently, you can ''mine'' bitcoin, kind of like mining gold out of the ground. Fair enough. Gold is considered a currency of sorts, and many companies, even individuals, are allowed to mine gold out of the ground, effectively mining their own money.
  The only difference with mining bitcoins, as explained by Beginner's Guide to Mining Bitcoins is that ''Bitcoins are awarded in blocks, usually 50 at a time, and unless you get extremely lucky, you will not be getting any of those coins. In a pool [of multiple users connecting their computers together], you are given smaller and easier algorithms to solve and all of your combined work will make you more likely to solve the bigger algorithm and earn Bitcoins that are spread out throughout the pool based on your contribution.''
  So you can generate your own Bitcoin money by solving algorithms. Yup, that confirms it. The system was designed by a computer programmer. And he's managed to turn it into something of a game, too.
  The interesting thing about this currency-generating game is that you have to spend real money, such as dollars, euros, etc., to buy software, computer equipment, subscriptions to clubs or pools, and who knows what else. And for all the ''contribution'' you are putting into it, all you ever really generate is digital coins, while the other parties that sell you all these products and services are generating real money from you.
  Stay on top of the hottest investment ideas before they hit Wall Street. Sign up for the Wealth Daily newsletter below. You'll also get our free report, Surviving the Coming Economic Collapse by resident expert Greg McCoach.Overlooking this game-like creation of new money in the system, what if someone simply wants to use Bitcoins as a safer store of value than their national currency, such as has been happening in Spain and other European countries lately?
  Bloomberg describes just what level of safety there is in Bitcoins:
  ''The downside is it's a currency that has experienced price fluctuations, occasional hacking and account thefts, and is a favorite for black-market transactions, including almost 2 million a month in illegal online drug purchases at the Silk Road marketplace.''
  ''Experienced'' price fluctuations? It's more like ''plagued by'' price fluctuations. Consider the following graph showing the Bitcoin's relative value to the USD as expressed in US dollars (blue line).
  Source: Business Insider
  Are you kidding me? This is the currency that people are turning to for safety? In just the last 22 months, the value of 1 Bitcoin went from U.S. $1, spiking to almost U.S. $30 in a month, falling to U.S. $3 in 5 months, then up to the low teens within a year, and spiking again from U.S. $13 to $40 (300%) in the last 6 weeks. Not to mention the very recent 12.5% from $40 to $35 in just one day.
  If someone asks if gold or other major currencies have not done the same thing, the answer is no, they have not been nearly this volatile. The value of commodities and national currencies is governed by policy, business activity, revenues and expenses, supply and demand, and reserves.
  Bitcoin, though, being tied to nothing physical at all, is tied to the only thing remaining'--emotion. It is the purest form of barter there could ever be, where people determine its value simply by their own idea of value. And this is all too often skewed to extremes in times of emotional crisis and panic.
  And even though you might think, ''Well, at least the government doesn't have a hand in it,'' consider that it is nothing more than a computer program. Some humans somewhere do have their hands in it. And who is to say what those hands are capable of doing to your holdings?
  Indeed, it is not volatility alone that holders of a currency should concern themselves with. It is standardization, regulation, and backing that one needs to look for in a money.
  Imagine this'... You purchase a car from a large, well-known leading manufacturer. One day you hear in the news that a certain part in your car's model and year has a design flaw and your vehicle is being recalled.
  Are you suddenly going to swear off of automobiles designed by all auto manufacturers and join a club of ''build-it-yourself'' auto enthusiasts to purchase a car built by them? Just some go-cart type machine with no doors or bumpers, no windscreen or roof, no safety-belts or airbags, no insulated wiring, and definitely no warranty?
  Sure, the professionally built auto you owned had a flaw in it. But is this new ''automobile'' you have now purchased better? Does it even come close to what you had before? If one automobile make and model is giving you problems, there are other professionally designed and built makes and models to choose from.
  The national currencies in use today have been in development for hundreds of years. Throughout this time countless regulations, policies, laws, and acts have been introduced, removed, or adjusted. It has been one very long road of continuous refinement.
  Would you really now consider turning to a fresh new currency that is currently at the beginning of its road? How many years does a currency need to wait before a short-coming or major flaw is discovered and rectified through the passing of a new regulation or act?
  Even if this 4-year-old Bitcoin currency really does endure for decades and truly does grow into a bonafide system earning a respect equal to the USD or British Pound, how many growing pains and regulatory fixes will it have to go through before getting to that point? Are you willing to bank on something like that?
  Maybe these back-yard hobbyists really are onto something with their hip and cool new invention. But are you really going to buy one of their go-carts and drive it on the street? Are you really going to entrust your well-being to it?
  As Bloomberg summarized, ''That some Europeans are investing savings in Bitcoin isn't exactly a sign of confidence in European banking.''
  I wouldn't shame European governments or banking institutions for the recent surge of interest in Bitcoins. I would simply attribute it to the current fascination with anything cyber and an adventurous-zeal for anything new and innovative that breaks with tradition.
  Money is only as secure as the institutions that are backing it. If one is worried that their nation's institutions are not strong enough to protect their money, perhaps they might be better off turning to a currency who's institutions are stronger, instead of turning to the currency of an ambiguous, abstract, cyber-spaced entity with no institution governing it, no reserves backing it, and no commonly understood rules or regulations defining it.
  *This opinion is entirely mine and does not reflect the view of my publisher. Nor should you defer your right to formulate your own opinions according to your own judgement and values. '' These comments mine.
  Joseph Cafariello
  Media / Interview Requests? Click Here.
Army Issues RFP For $6 Billion M113 Replacement: Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle Program
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: AOL Defense
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:55
  The Army wants to replace its Vietnam-vintage M113s (pictured) with a new Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, the AMPV.
  WASHINGTON: After 53 years in service, the Army's M113 armored transport might finally get replaced. Last night, the Michigan-based Tank-Automotive Command (TACOM) issued a draft Request For Proposals for a new Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle. The final RFP is expected in June and the contract award in mid-2014. Variants of the General DynamicsStryker and the BAEBradley as the leading contenders. Our industry sources are still poring over thousands of pages of documentation, but here are the highlights.The bottom line: almost $1.5 billion for over 300 vehicles -- for a start. The RFP proposes a $1.46 billion contract in two phases: design, develop, and build 29 prototypes over four years -- the $388 million engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase, 2014 through 2017; and then build up to 289 production models over three years -- the $1.08 billion low-rate initial production (LRIP) phase, 2018-2020.
  Beyond 2020, the Army plans to buy another 2,618 AMPVs over 10 years, for a total of 2,907, at an average manufacturing cost not to exceed $1.8 million per vehicle. (Weapons and electronics will add more, depending on the variant). That's about another $4.7 billion.
  Of course, these are all pre-sequestration figures. President Obama has still not released his 2014 budget request. With Congress having just passed the 2013 spending bills yesterday -- halfway through the fiscal year -- and the automatic cuts of the sequester still set to happen, it's up in the air whether any big programs will survive intact, or at all.
  Already the Army has had to slow down development of the AMPV's big brother, the Ground Combat Vehicle, and give up on competitive prototyping. So for AMPV, as with the revised GCV program, the Army will award just one development contract to one company. This saves money in the short run while raising the long-term risk that you won't like what you've bought but won't have an alternative.
  How will the Army pick a winner? The exact requirements are largely classified, although the public documents make clear that "Underbody Force Protection/Survivability" -- i.e. resistance against IEDs -- is a non-negotiable top priority. Overall, the Army will grade the bidders on the technical design, their program management abilities, the cost, their past performance, and how much small business participation they have, in that order of importance.
  Replacing the M113 is a big deal. First introduced in 1960 to carry foot troops into battle in a tracked and armored transport, it was replaced in combat units by the M2 Bradley in the 1980s but has since taken on a host of support roles. In Iraq, however, M113s proved so under-armored against roadside bombs that commanders restricted them to base. As the Army rebuilds its capability for mobile armored blitzkrieg after a decade of relatively static counterinsurgency work, it needs a support vehicle that can survive and keep up with the tanks.
  Hence AMPV. The Army plans to buy 2,907 vehicles in five variants: 522 general purpose models to haul supplies and whatever else needs protected transport; 386 mortar carriers for quick-reaction fire support; 993 command vehicles packed with radios and computers; and two types of medical vehicle, 790 armored ambulances (or medical evacuation vehicles) for up to six patients and 216 mobile mini-clinics (medical treatment vehicles) to conduct life-saving surgeries as close to the front line as possible.
  Will the Army get all of these, or will the venerable M113 keep limping on until its 70th birthday in 2030? That's ultimately up to the budgeteers, both in the Pentagon and in Congress.
If You See Something, Say Something: NY encouraging snitch culture, 500 USD per gun
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dr. Jones reports
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:52
  WRGB in Albany has a breaking news story posted to their Facebook page, claiming that the state of New York is offering up bribes for people to rat out those possessing illegal firearms '' an interesting development considering the adoption of the new anti-Second Amendment SAFE Act legislation. In other words, a firearm that may have been obtained legally could become illegal under the SAFE Act, and anybody who knows you possess said firearm can report you and earn themselves a cool $500.
  In addition to the Facebook page, Pat Bailey, a reporter from at CBS 6 in Albany, tweeted that he has a letter from the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services explaining the reward program.
  According to Bailey, the Governor's Office is claiming that the program is well over a year old. But the head of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association says that if that is accurate, ''it was a well kept secret''.
  The Troy Record Facebook page also has this announcement:
  NY State has established a toll-free tip line '' 1-855-GUNSNYS (1-855- 486-7697) to encourage residents to report illegal firearm possession. The tip line also allows for information to be submitted via text '' individuals can text GUNTIP and their message to CRIMES (274637). The New York State Police staff the tip line 24 hours a day. Upon receiving a call, troopers will solicit as much information as possible regarding a firearm tip then contact the appropriate police agency with the lead to initiate an investigation. If the information leads to an arrest for the illegal possession of a firearm, the ''tipster'' will be awarded $500.
  Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin also reports on the Snitch Line, calling it ''neighbor vs. neighbor'':
  Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin (R,C,I-Melrose) today released a letter that was emailed from the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) to the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police outlining a new initiative by Governor Cuomo and DCJS that would confiscate illegal firearms, including those that are not registered but were previously legal before the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act (Safe Act) was rammed through the legislature in January. According to the letter, sent out on Tuesday, the state would provide a $500 reward, through tax dollars, to an individual who turns in his neighbor for possessing an illegal firearm. DCJS is planning a ''comprehensive campaign'' to announce this initiative which includes a toll-free tip line and details of how to text to submit a tip against their neighbor.
  ''In December, Governor Cuomo stated that 'confiscation could be an option,' and now it appears he is staying true to his word with this dangerous new initiative,'' said McLaughlin. ''This initiative seeks to turn neighbor against neighbor and use their own tax dollars to pay for the $500 reward. Confiscating these once-legal firearms from law-abiding citizens and pitting neighbors against one another does nothing to address the root cause of violence with guns in our society: illegal handguns used by real criminals. While Albany confiscates firearms, evil will unfortunately still wander our streets.''
  Breitbart's Warner Todd Huston sends along a link which provides the text of a letter sent out in July from the Department of Criminal Justice Services to Police Agencies. The letter reads:
  At a time when all of us are finding ourselves doing more with less, a reminder about a resource available from New York State that can assist you in your efforts to solve cases, prevent crime and better serve and protect your communities.
  The state has established a toll-free tip line '' 1-855-XXXXX to encourage residents to report illegal firearm possession. The tip line also allows for information to be submitted via text '' individuals can text GUNTIP and their message to XXXXXX. While the state will provide the administrative support and fund the rewards, the investigation and validity of the tip will be up to each local department.
  To spread the word about this free resource, New York State is planning a comprehensive campaign, including public service announcements that will air on television and radio stations across Upstate.
  The tip line can provide your agencies with another avenue for receiving intelligence about crimes being committed in your jurisdictions. This initiative is designed for communities where no tip lines are in place and is not meant to replace existing gun tip lines.
  Here's how the tip line operates:
  The New York State Police staff the tip line 24 hours a day. Upon receiving a call, troopers will solicit as much information as possible regarding a firearm tip, while allowing the individual to remain anonymous. The caller will be informed that this program is not the traditional gun buyback program but rather is focused on identifying individuals who are carrying an illegal firearm.
  The State Police will in turn contact the appropriate police agency with the lead to initiate an investigation. Staff from the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) will follow up with that agency to determine the validity of the lead. Once the investigation is completed, the police agency would convey to DCJS the outcome of the investigation.
  If the information leads to an arrest for the illegal possession of a firearm, the ''tipster'' will be awarded $500. DCJS staff will handle all of the financial transactions.
  State Police staff will explain the program in its entirety upon notifying an agency that a lead has been generated for their jurisdiction. If you have any questions in the interim, please contact DCJS Deputy Commissioner Tony Perez in the Office of Public Safety at 518''XXXX.
  Janine Kava
  Director of Public Information
  New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services
  We will post video of the CBS report as soon as possible. WRGB's site is under construction, but they have been updating via Facebook.
  Update: Video of the news report can be found here'...
Living the American Dream: 300% interest on pay-day loans
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  Source: Dr. Jones reports
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:51
  Step aside, Tony Soprano: Big banks will now lend money at 300 percent interest without threatening to break a leg.
  Then again, the payday loans some big banks are offering can have other ill effects, such as financial ruin, according to a new study by the Center for Responsible Lending. Even as public anxiety grows about the dangers of payday lending, with 15 states recently banning the practice, many big banks are offering the service to their customers.
  "Despite federal banking regulators' recognition of the abuses of payday lending and aggressive action blocking previous bank partnerships with payday lenders, a few large banks have begun offering payday loans directly through checking accounts," the study says. Large banks offering the service include Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Regions Bank and Fifth Third Bank.
  The average annual percentage rate on a bank payday loan is 225 to 300 percent, the study says. Banks that offer payday loans extract payments automatically from the borrowers' checking accounts on the next pay cycle. In some cases, that withdrawal cleans out a borrower's checking account, leading to bounced checks. According to the study, users of paycheck advances are twice as likely to overdraw their bank accounts, leading to even more fees for the banks. And that's just the start of the potential problems.
  "Research has shown that payday lending often leads to negative financial outcomes for borrowers," the study says. "These include difficulty paying other bills, difficulty staying in their home or apartment, trouble obtaining health care, increased risk of credit card default, loss of checking accounts, and bankruptcy."
  The elderly, already financially vulnerable and short on retirement savings, are making increasing use of these loans. According to the study, more than a quarter of bank payday loan borrowers are on Social Security.
  Wells Fargo spokeswoman Richele Messick said the bank has been offering a payday loan service it calls "Direct Deposit Advance" since 1994. Available only to Wells Fargo customers, this loan has a set fee of $7.50 per $100, regardless of the length of the loan, which Messick said compares to the payday loan industry standard of about $17 per $100.
  "It is an expensive form of credit, and we're very clear with our customers that it is an expensive form of credit and not to be used as a long-term solution," Messick said. "We have policies in place to make sure customers don't use the service in the long term."
  Wells Fargo will not clean out a borrower's account when taking money to pay itself back for payday loans, Messick said. The bank makes sure the customer gets to keep at least $100 from each paycheck, and if customers use the service for six months in a row, Wells Fargo will cut them off from more paycheck advances for a bit -- what the CRL study calls a "cooling-off" period.
  The study singles out this Wells Fargo practice for criticism, saying it's not enough to keep borrowers out of trouble.
  "After six consecutive months with loans, a borrower will typically have paid hundreds of dollars in fees and still effectively owe the original principal on the loan -- a deep hole from which to recover," the study says. "As currently structured, banks' cooling-off periods allow borrowers to become mired in a significant, destructive cycle of debt before the cooling-off period is triggered."
  Like Wells Fargo, Regions Financial also warns its customers that its payday lending service, called Ready Advance, is expensive. It charges $1 per every $10 advanced during an early probationary period and 70 cents thereafter. (Non-bank payday lenders typically charge between $1.50 and $2 for every $10.) It also charges high interest if a customer wants to pay back the loan in installments -- 21 percent above prime rate.
  "We introduced the product after extensive research with our customers, who told us that they were either already using a non-bank advance loan product, or would like for Regions to offer an alternative," Regions spokeswoman Evelyn Mitchell said in an statement to The Huffington Post. "Ready Advance is intended to meet the credit needs of existing Regions Bank customers who have a checking account in good standing. Our fees are generally half what customers would pay elsewhere and we offer customers a pathway to qualify for less expensive credit products."
  Fifth Third, which calls its payday-loan service "Early Access Advance," costing $1 per $10 advance, declined to comment on CRL study.
  "Our goal is to give customers access to funds in the case of an emergency," U.S. Bank spokeswoman Teri Charest said in an email to the Huffington Post. "We make it very clear that [U.S. bank's payday-loan product] Checking Account Advance is for short-term use only, and that lower cost alternatives may be available. Of those that have used the advance, more than 96 percent say they are satisfied or very satisfied with the service."
  Even banks that do not directly offer payday loans themselves often help the less-scrupulous lenders who do, giving them access to customers' bank accounts to extract payments for loans at interest rates that sometimes run to 500 percent. JPMorgan Chase recently said it would do more to help protect its customers from these lenders, making it easier for them to block withdrawals and close accounts. The bank will also offer a discount on the fees it charges to customers whose accounts have been picked clean by payday lenders.
  JPMorgan's policy shift comes as regulators, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, are investigating how banks help payday lenders, The New York Times reports. Those lenders are in turn scrambling offshore and online as they come under increasing scrutiny in the U.S.
  Related on HuffPost:
Man Tied To Colorado Corrections Chief Killing Dies In Texas
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  Source: TPM News
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:48
  Eric Lach March 22, 2013, 12:07 PMThe man reportedly tied to the murder of Colorado Department of Corrections chief Tom Clements this week has died in Texas, according to the Denver Police Department.
  The suspect, identified in media reports as Evan Spencer Ebel, on Thursday led law enforcement officers in Texas on a high-speed chase that ended in a crash and then a shoot-out with sheriff's deputies, where he was wounded. The suspect, who has not been officially identified, was driving a car that matched the description of the vehicle being sought in connection with Clements' murder. Reports had also indicated that Ebel was a suspect in the killing of a pizza deliveryman in Golden, Colo. on Sunday. On its official Twitter account on Friday, the Denver Police Department also confirmed that the suspect involved in the Texas shoot-out was a suspect in the Golden killing.
  ''[W]e are confident [the Texas] suspect is also '... [a] suspect in Denver/Golden case,'' the department wrote.
  The deliveryman has been identified in media reports as Nathan Collin Leon, 27, who was shot on Sunday. Clements was shot and killed Tuesday evening while answering the front door of his home in Monument, Colo.
  Ebel, 28, was identified as a suspect in the Clements case by anonymous federal and state officials who spoke with The Denver Post. According to the Post, Ebel was a parolee and member of a white supremacist prison gang called the 211 Crew. Ebel's criminal record included robbery, menacing, and weapons charges. A Department of Corrections employee, who also spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity, said officials were investigating the possibility that the killing was a ''hit'' ordered by the gang.
  Evan Ebel, Tom ClementsEric LachEric Lach is a reporter for TPM. From 2010 to 2011, he was a news writer in charge of the website's front page. He has previously written for The Daily, NewYorker.com, GlobalPost and other publications. He can be reached at ericl(at)talkingpointsmemo.com
Silk Road: the online drug marketplace that officials seem powerless to stop
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  Source: The Guardian World News
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:45
  Mark Johnson* rifles through his mail as he gets home from work. Among the usual bills is a small padded envelope. Though it doesn't have his name on, it's the package he's most interested in: inside lie two grams of, he hopes, relatively pure MDMA.
  Johnson has no idea who has sent him the envelope: he has never met his dealer, and never will. The delivery was facilitated through a website called Silk Road, an underground eBay-like site which has become the core marketplace for buying and selling drugs online '' and despite law enforcement authorities across the world being fully aware of its operation they have, so far, been powerless to stop it.
  The site has been shrouded in secrecy even since it was founded in February 2011, but research due to be formally published later this year tracked its growth during six months of last year. Over those months, sales on the site doubled, hitting $1.7m a month.
  Johnson, a TV executive, is one of those contributing to those monthly takings. Describing himself as "not excited or impressed by drugs per se", but "interested" in them, he explains how he came to the Silk Road.
  "I heard about it at a party, from the type of guy you only ever meet at parties," he said. "I missed the last train. I might as well go hard. His brown envelope proved to be a veritable party bag, reminiscent of Hunter S Thompson. Where had he found all this? The Silk Road."
  Link to video: Bitcoin: the fastest growing currency in the worldJohnson said his view was that Silk Road was a site for connoisseurs: an easy way to track down better quality '' not cheap '' drugs. The site "isn't easy to use", but doesn't require particular expertise: "If you can set up a direct debit and follow a recipe for risotto then you'll work it out."
  Once you're in, it works much like eBay: sellers' reputations are verified through feedback, building trust. Money is typically held in an escrow (a trusted middleman) until delivery, with missing packages qualifying for partial refunds.
  In all, he concludes, the quality is more consistent, the sale is safer, and the experience better than trying to find a street dealer. Johnson even claims the site helps combat addiction.
  "There are some highly addictive and dangerous substances available on Silk Road, so instant access wouldn't be advisable," he concludes. "You must undertake the purchase soberly, with plenty of occasions to confirm your intentions."
  Silk Road today lists more than 10,000 items, 7,000 of which are drugs, with erotica, books and fake IDs among the rest. Notably missing are weapons of any sort (a sister site selling weapons shut due to lack of demand last year) and child pornography, both of which are banned.
  Dr Nicolas Christin, who researched the site, believes Silk Road is far bigger today than it was in July 2012 when his fieldwork ended. "It's not a matter of the police locking a few guys up to end this," he said. "It is very distributed: we are looking at more than 600 sellers each month."
  How has a marketplace with millions of pounds of revenue survived the long arm of the law? The answer, according to its users, lies in the way it is structured.
  Silk Road is no secret to law enforcement, who know where to find it online '' indeed, shortly after the site's existence was first reported in 2011, the senior US senator Chuck Schumer vowed to shut it down.
  "It's a certifiable one-stop shop for illegal drugs that represents the most brazen attempt to peddle drugs online that we have ever seen," he said.
  The site continued uninterrupted, thanks to two technological innovations that make it all but impregnable.
  The first is that Silk Road runs as a "hidden service" on a popular internet anonymising tool known as Tor. This makes identifying the physical location of the computers operating the marketplace '' or anyone visiting it '' all but impossible.
  The legitimate uses of Tor make disrupting the service morally difficult: it is a staple of activists avoiding internet censorship or government crackdowns the world over, including in China, Iran and Syria. Indeed, a large proportion of Tor's funding comes '' albeit indirectly '' from the US state department's internet freedom budget.
  In his paper, Christin raised the possibility that authorities might instead try to disrupt Silk Road's other protection: its use of the anonymous, stateless, encrypted online currency known as Bitcoin. But that's a task that's only getting harder.
  Bitcoins are a currency controlled by no government, no company, and no group, but rather by maths: a series of complex cryptographic calculations rule how many Bitcoins are in existence and how many are traded.
  Silk Road is probably the biggest use of the currency, followed by an unregulated online gambling site known as Satoshidice.
  But more mainstream services are adopting the currency: the blogging platform Wordpress accepts Bitcoins, as does the social news site Reddit. WikiLeaks opened up to Bitcoin when the mainstream banking system blockaded the site.
  At the currency's birth, Bitcoins were almost worthless '' five cents each. Today, a single Bitcoin trades at $70 (£46) '' and the total value of all the world's Bitcoins has topped $800m (£500m). On the face of it, this makes Bitcoin the fastest-growing currency in the world.
  Mihai Alisie, editor of Bitcoin Magazine, and Amir Taaki, a Bitcoin developer and activist, in a squat in London. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the GuardianDespite the present value of what they have created, several of the key players in the currency's community can be found occupying a "political squat" in central London, mere minutes away from the financiers they intend to disrupt.
  Walking through a corridor of conference rooms rearranged into makeshift lounges, Amir Taaki '' a Bitcoin developer and activist, and convenor of Bitcoin conferences '' rejects concerns that Bitcoins' biggest use is unethical.
  "People want drugs. The drugs war is probably a failed war," he says. "I want to get rid of cartels. The way to do that is for people to buy their drugs straight from the producer. That's what's cool about things like Silk Road '' you can bypass gangs."
  Taaki claims freedom to purchase is freedom of speech '' and illustrates his argument by raising a service which allows Bitcoins to exist purely as a passphrase in a user's head, 'spent' by typing (or saying) the key phrase.
  "Can you imagine if we had restrictions of speech, or the surveillance state, 400 years ago? We wouldn't have had the Reformation, or the Enlightenment, or the scientific revolution. Those would have been stopped '' and we're having other kinds of revolutions now."
  For many of those involved, Bitcoins are far more than a handy way to buy drugs. Instead, they are a challenge to the orthodoxies of mainstream finance: "extortionate" fees to transfer money, real-time customer tracking of every credit card foundation, even government oversight of banks.
  Bitcoins' value might be a bubble caused by people trying to cash in on soaring value, or a result of panicked savers in Cyprus and Spain looking for somewhere to move their money, or the result of people looking to buy drugs. To Mihai Alisie, editor of Bitcoin magazine, it hardly matters.
  "At this point there's no penalty for politicians saying 'yeah, let's ban Bitcoin, you can buy drugs online, so let's ban it'. But if politicians would ban Bitcoin for that, it is like burning an entire village to roast a pig. It's like shutting down the internet because someone's posting pornography," he says.
  "Bitcoin is definitely more than a get-rich scheme. I think it's the next big technology that will revolutionise our society. It's as big as the internet '' or maybe bigger."
  Interviews concluded, Taaki and Alisie climb to the roof of the office block that is their current home. Taaki walks to the edge, looks over to the clustered skyscrapers that make up the City of London, and raises his middle finger.
  Miles across London, Mark Johnson slips his MDMA into his back pocket, getting ready to sample his latest delivery over the weekend.
  *Names have been changed.
The Saudi Connection To The Murder Of Head Of Colorado's Prison Industrial Complex
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:43
To require a site operator of an international travel Web site to provide information on its Web site to consumers regarding the potential health and safety risks associated with overseas vacation destinations marketed on its Web site. (H.R. 1370) - GovTr
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:40
  GovTrack's Bill SummaryWe don't have a summary available yet.
  Library of Congress SummaryThe summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.
  No summary available.
  House Republican Conference SummaryThe summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
  No summary available.
  House Democratic Caucus SummaryThe House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.
  So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference's summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That's because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.
  We'll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.
Advertisers tune in to YouTube 'Generation C'
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  Archived Version
  Source: LIVE@LEEDS
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:39
  Lina Saigol 03/22/13 Financial Times
  When YouTube emerged as one of the internet's most popular sites in 2005, some tech analysts were quick to dismiss it as a fad.
  Eight years later, however, the home of Korean pop music videos, ''Charlie bit my finger '' Again!'' and budding filmmakers and musicians has reached a milestone that TV networks would kill for: one billion unique monthly viewers.
  Driving that stratospheric growth is a new demographic group, dubbed Generation C by researchers at Google (which bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65bn) because they thrive on four 'C's: connection, creation, community and curation.
  Generation C, Google says, has taken up permanent residence on YouTube, making the site one of their primary daily destinations.
  YouTube plays to the way this generation consumes media '' in bite-size chunks that become talking points in the same way TV shows do.
  One of the biggest contributors to this growth has been South Korean pop sensation Psy, who took the world by storm with his hit 'Gangnam style'.
  Parodies of the kooky music video quickly proliferated as the original version reached one billion views in December 2012, surpassing teen heartthrob Justin Bieber's 2010 ''Baby'' video as YouTube's most-viewed clip.
  Generation C is defined not by its age but by so-called ''connected behaviour'' '' constantly switching between devices, thriving on the community around them and finding the content they want to consume. They tend to be in the 18-34 age group and inhabit a multi-screen world of smartphones, tablets and PCs '' 67 per cent watch YouTube on two devices or more, Google found.
  Advertisers have taken notice of YouTube's phenomenal rise. Audience size is key to attracting advertisement dollars from companies looking to extend their marketing reach. Nielsen Research Group says Generation C could influence $500bn of spending a year in the US.
  In January, a Google executive said in a company earnings call that 'Gangnam Style' had generated $8m from YouTube, with 1.2bn views yielding a royalty of about 0.6 cents a viewing.
  Howard Davies-Carr's ''Charlie Bit My Finger '' Again'' '' a 56-second home video of a boy and his baby brother in which the latter bites the former's finger '' is another of YouTube's most watched videos. As of October 2012, Mr Davies-Carr had made about $500,000 from the clip.
  What YouTube has not yet figured out, however, is what makes a ''viral success.''
  Jonah Berger, a professor at Wharton, studied the success of ''Charlie Bit My Finger '' Again!'' and concluded its popularity was down to the ''visceral emotions it arouses in viewers.''
  The study suggested that ''the popularity of such videos is rooted in the way they excite the body, inducing a spectrum of physiological changes''. That causes people to become more likely to share information, which in turn can be associated with the video's success.
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  This entry was posted on March 22, 2013 at 10:20 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
"BOOZE, SEX AND REALITY CHECKS" New Mandatory Class For ALL Incoming Freshmen At WSU
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:38
TSA Releases Video To Prove Congressman Duncan Hunter Lying About Them Molesting A Veteran
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:38
14 Year Old Straight A Student Dies From Huffing Compressed Air
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:37
State Of Emergency Declared In Burma After 20 Killed In Violent Clashes Between Buddhist & Muslims
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:37
Zbigniew's Advice To Obama: Tell Netanyahu No War To Stop Iran Getting Nukes
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  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:37
  If the player does not load, please check that you are running the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.
  On Morning Joe, Zbigniew Brzezinski advises President Obama to privately tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that America will not go to war against Iran.
3 Dead, Including Suspect, in Quantico Shooting
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:09
  QUANTICO, Va. -- A Marine killed a male and female colleague in a shooting at a base in northern Virginia before killing himself, officials said.
  It began with a shooting around 11 p.m. Thursday that left one dead at Marine Base Quantico, base spokesman Lt. Agustin Solivan said. That shooting led to a standoff between authorities and the suspect, who was barricaded in barracks at the base.
  Authorities entered the barracks early Friday and found the suspect dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound along with a second victim. Solivan could not say what prompted authorities to enter the barracks, which are at the base's officer candidate school.
  No names were immediately released but Solivan said the suspect and both victims were Marines. Authorities believe the suspect was a staff member at the officer candidate school, Solivan said.
  Solivan said the shooting was isolated to the school and authorities were confident there were no other casualties. The base was put on lockdown after the shooting but the lockdown was lifted early Friday. During the lockdown, residents were warned over a loudspeaker to stay inside.
  The base, which is about 37 miles south of Washington, is also home to the FBI's training academy.
  In 2010, the base was one of several targets of an ex-Marine reservist who, during five nighttime shootings, fired on military targets including the Pentagon. Yonathan Melaku, on two separate occasions, fired at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico. No one was injured and Melaku was ultimately sentenced to 25 years in prison.
  (C) Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Push To Expand Involuntary Commitment For Violent Mentally Ill
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:36
WHY RUSSIA WOULD NOT SAVE CYPRUS
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:34
  Putin and Erdogan, firm friends.Russia wants to remain friends with Turkey, so, Russia would not save Turkey's 'enemy', Greek Cyprus.Russia rebuffs Cyprus, EU awaits bailout Plan B | Reuters
European Space Agency Releases Image Of 14 Billion Year Old Light From Begining Of The Universe
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:33
Merkel Warns Cyprus "Don't Try Our Patience!"
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:32
When the Whole World Has Drones - NationalJournal.com
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:09
  A slim aircraft glided through Israeli airspace, maintaining low altitude and taking a winding path to avoid detection. It flew over sensitive military installations and was beginning its approach to the Dimona nuclear reactor when it was blown from the sky by the Israel Defense Forces. The plane was pilotless, directed by agents elsewhere, and had been attempting to relay images back home. Whether they were successfully transmitted, Israelis won't say, perhaps because they don't know. But here's what's certain: It wasn't American. It wasn't Russian or Chinese. It was an Iranian drone, assembled in Lebanon and flown by Hezbollah.
  The proliferation of drone technology has moved well beyond the control of the United States government and its closest allies. The aircraft are too easy to obtain, with barriers to entry on the production side crumbling too quickly to place limits on the spread of a technology that promises to transform warfare on a global scale. Already, more than 75 countries have remote piloted aircraft. More than 50 nations are building a total of nearly a thousand types. At its last display at a trade show in Beijing, China showed off 25 different unmanned aerial vehicles. Not toys or models, but real flying machines.
  It's a classic and common phase in the life cycle of a military innovation: An advanced country and its weapons developers create a tool, and then others learn how to make their own. But what makes this case rare, and dangerous, is the powerful combination of efficiency and lethality spreading in an environment lacking internationally accepted guidelines on legitimate use. This technology is snowballing through a global arena where the main precedent for its application is the one set by the United States; it's a precedent Washington does not want anyone following.
  America, the world's leading democracy and a country built on a legal and moral framework unlike any other, has adopted a war-making process that too often bypasses its traditional, regimented, and rigorously overseen military in favor of a secret program never publicly discussed, based on legal advice never properly vetted. The Obama administration has used its executive power to refuse or outright ignore requests by congressional overseers, and it has resisted monitoring by federal courts.
  To implement this covert program, the administration has adopted a tool that lowers the threshold for lethal force by reducing the cost and risk of combat. This still-expanding counterterrorism use of drones to kill people, including its own citizens, outside of traditionally defined battlefields and established protocols for warfare, has given friends and foes a green light to employ these aircraft in extraterritorial operations that could not only affect relations between the nation-states involved but also destabilize entire regions and potentially upset geopolitical order.
  ''I don't think there is enough transparency and justification so that we remove not the secrecy, but the mystery of these things.'''--Dennis Blair, former director of national intelligence
  Hyperbole? Consider this: Iran, with the approval of Damascus, carries out a lethal strike on anti-Syrian forces inside Syria; Russia picks off militants tampering with oil and gas lines in Ukraine or Georgia; Turkey arms a U.S.-provided Predator to kill Kurdish militants in northern Iraq who it believes are planning attacks along the border. Label the targets as terrorists, and in each case, Tehran, Moscow, and Ankara may point toward Washington and say, we learned it by watching you. In Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan.
  This is the unintended consequence of American drone warfare. For all of the attention paid to the drone program in recent weeks'--about Americans on the target list (there are none at this writing) and the executive branch's legal authority to kill by drone outside war zones (thin, by officials' own private admission)'--what goes undiscussed is Washington's deliberate failure to establish clear and demonstrable rules for itself that would at minimum create a globally relevant standard for delineating between legitimate and rogue uses of one of the most awesome military robotics capabilities of this generation.
  THE WRONG QUESTIONThe United States is the indisputable leader in drone technology and long-range strike. Remote-piloted aircraft have given Washington an extraordinary ability to wage war with far greater precision, improved effect, and fewer unintended casualties than conventional warfare. The drones allow U.S. forces to establish ever greater control over combat areas, and the Pentagon sees the technology as an efficient and judicious force of the future. And it should, given the billions of dollars that have gone into establishing and maintaining such a capability.
  That level of superiority leads some national security officials to downplay concerns about other nations' unmanned systems and to too narrowly define potential threats to the homeland. As proof, they argue that American dominance in drone warfare is due only in part to the aircraft itself, which offers the ability to travel great distances and loiter for long periods, not to mention carry and launch Hellfire missiles. The drone itself, they argue, is just a tool and, yes, one that is being copied aggressively by allies and adversaries alike. The real edge, they say, is in the unparalleled intelligence-collection and data-analysis underpinning the aircraft's mission.
  ''There is what I think is just an unconstrained focus on a tool as opposed to the subject of the issue, the tool of remotely piloted aircraft that in fact provide for greater degrees of surety before you employ force than anything else we use,'' said retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the Air Force's first deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. ''I think people don't realize that for the medium altitude aircraft'--the MQ-1 [Predator] and MQ-9 [Reaper] that are generally written about in the press'--there are over 200 people involved in just one orbit of those aircraft.'... The majority of those people are analysts who are interpreting the information that's coming off the sensors on the aircraft.''
  The analysts are part of the global architecture that makes precision strikes, and targeted killing, possible. At the front end, obviously, intelligence'--military, CIA, and local'--inform target decisions. But in as near-real time as technologically possible, intel analysts in Nevada, Texas, Virginia, and other locations watch the data flood in from the aircraft and make calls on what's happening on target. They monitor the footage, listen to audio, and analyze signals, giving decision-makers time to adjust an operation if the risks (often counted in potential civilian deaths) outweigh the reward (judged by the value of the threat eliminated).
  ''Is that a shovel or a rifle? Is that a Taliban member or is this a farmer? The way that warfare has advanced is that we are much more exquisite in our ability to discern,'' Maj. Gen. Robert Otto, commander of the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency, told NationalJournal at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. ''We're not overhead for 15 minutes with a fighter that's about to run out of gas, and we have to make a decision. We can orbit long enough to be pretty sure about our target.''
  Other countries, groups, and even individuals can and do fly drones. But no state or group has nearly the sophisticated network of intelligence and data analysis that gives the United States its strategic advantage. Although it would be foolish to dismiss the notion that potential U.S. adversaries aspire to attain that type of war-from-afar, pinpoint-strike capability, they have neither the income nor the perceived need to do so.
  That's true, at least today. It's also irrelevant. Others who employ drones are likely to carry a different agenda, one more concerned with employing a relatively inexpensive and ruthlessly efficient tool to dispatch an enemy close at hand.
  ''It would be very difficult for them to create the global-strike architecture we have, to have a control cell in Nevada flying a plane over Afghanistan. The reality is that most nations don't want or need that,'' said Peter Singer, director of the Brookings Institution's Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and one of the foremost experts in advanced military technology. ''Turkey's not looking to conduct strikes into the Philippines.... But Turkey is looking to be able to carry out long-duration surveillance and potentially strike inside and right on its border.''
  And that's a NATO ally seeking the capability to conduct missions that would run afoul of U.S. interests in Iraq and the broader Middle East. Already, Beijing says it considered a strike in Myanmar to kill a drug lord wanted in the deaths of Chinese sailors. What happens if China arms one of its remote-piloted planes and strikes Philippine or Indian trawlers in the South China Sea? Or if India uses the aircraft to strike Lashkar-e-Taiba militants near Kashmir?
  ''We don't like other states using lethal force outside their borders. It's destabilizing. It can lead to a sort of wider escalation of violence between two states,'' said Micah Zenko, a security policy and drone expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. ''So the proliferation of drones is not just about the protection of the United States. It's primarily about the likelihood that other states will increasingly use lethal force outside of their borders.''
  LOWERING THE BARGovernments have covertly killed for ages, whether they maintained an official hit list or not. Before the Obama administration's ''disposition matrix,'' Israel was among the best-known examples of a state that engaged, and continues to engage, in strikes to eliminate people identified by its intelligence as plotting attacks against it. But Israel certainly is not alone. Turkey has killed Kurds in Northern Iraq. Some American security experts point to Russia as well, although Moscow disputes this.
  In the 1960s, the U.S. government was involved to differing levels in plots to assassinate leaders in Congo and the Dominican Republic, and, famously, Fidel Castro in Cuba. The Church Committee's investigation and subsequent 1975 report on those and other suspected plots led to the standing U.S. ban on assassination. So, from 1976 until the start of President George W. Bush's ''war on terror,'' the United States did not conduct targeted killings, because it was considered anathema to American foreign policy. (In fact, until as late as 2001, Washington's stated policy was to oppose Israel's targeted killings.)
  When America adopted targeted killing again'--first under the Bush administration after the September 11 attacks and then expanded by President Obama'--the tools of the trade had changed. No longer was the CIA sending poison, pistols, and toxic cigars to assets overseas to kill enemy leaders. Now it could target people throughout al-Qaida's hierarchy with accuracy, deliver lethal ordnance literally around the world, and watch the mission's completion in real time.
  The United States is smartly using technology to improve combat efficacy, and to make war-fighting more efficient, both in money and manpower. It has been able to conduct more than 400 lethal strikes, killing more than 3,500 people, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and North Africa using drones; reducing risk to U.S. personnel; and giving the Pentagon flexibility to use special-forces units elsewhere. And, no matter what human-rights groups say, it's clear that drone use has reduced the number of civilians killed in combat relative to earlier conflicts. Washington would be foolish not to exploit unmanned aircraft in its long fight against terrorism. In fact, defense hawks and spendthrifts alike would criticize it if it did not.
  ''If you believe that these folks are legitimate terrorists who are committing acts of aggressive, potential violent acts against the United States or our allies or our citizens overseas, should it matter how we choose to engage in the self-defense of the United States?'' asked Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. ''Do we have that debate when a special-forces team goes in? Do we have that debate if a tank round does it? Do we have the debate if an aircraft pilot drops a particular bomb?''
  But defense analysts argue'--and military officials concede'--there is a qualitative difference between dropping a team of men into Yemen and green-lighting a Predator flight from Nevada. Drones lower the threshold for military action. That's why, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, unmanned aircraft have conducted 95 percent of all U.S. targeted killings. Almost certainly, if drones were unavailable, the United States would not have pursued an equivalent number of manned strikes in Pakistan.
  And what's true for the United States will be true as well for other countries that own and arm remote piloted aircraft.
  ''The drones'--the responsiveness, the persistence, and without putting your personnel at risk'--is what makes it a different technology,'' Zenko said. ''When other states have this technology, if they follow U.S. practice, it will lower the threshold for their uses of lethal force outside their borders. So they will be more likely to conduct targeted killings than they have in the past.''
  The Obama administration appears to be aware of and concerned about setting precedents through its targeted-strike program. When the development of a disposition matrix to catalog both targets and resources marshaled against the United States was first reported in 2012, officials spoke about it in part as an effort to create a standardized process that would live beyond the current administration, underscoring the long duration of the counterterrorism challenge.
  Indeed, the president's legal and security advisers have put considerable effort into establishing rules to govern the program. Most members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees say they are confident the defense and intelligence communities have set an adequate evidentiary bar for determining when a member of al-Qaida or an affiliated group may be added to the target list, for example, and say that the rigor of the process gives them comfort in the level of program oversight within the executive branch. ''They're not drawing names out of a hat here,'' Rogers said. ''It is very specific intel-gathering and other things that would lead somebody to be subject for an engagement by the United States government.''
  BEHIND CLOSED DOORSThe argument against public debate is easy enough to understand: Operational secrecy is necessary, and total opacity is easier. ''I don't think there is enough transparency and justification so that we remove not the secrecy, but the mystery of these things,'' said Dennis Blair, Obama's former director of national intelligence. ''The reason it's not been undertaken by the administration is that they just make a cold-blooded calculation that it's better to hunker down and take the criticism than it is to get into the public debate, which is going to be a hard one to win.''
  ''Consistently, nations have gone down the pathway of first only surveillance and then arming.'''--Peter Singer, Brookings Institution
  But by keeping legal and policy positions secret, only partially sharing information even with congressional oversight committees, and declining to open a public discussion about drone use, the president and his team are asking the world to just trust that America is getting this right. While some will, many people, especially outside the United States, will see that approach as hypocritical, coming from a government that calls for transparency and the rule of law elsewhere.
  ''I know these people, and I know how much they really, really attend to the most important details of the job,'' said Barry Pavel, a former defense and security official in the Bush and Obama administrations who is director of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council. ''If I didn't have that personal knowledge and because there isn't that much really in the press, then I would be giving you a different rendering, and much more uncertain rendering.''
  That's only part of the problem with the White House's trust-us approach. The other resides in the vast distance between the criteria and authorization the administration says it uses in the combat drone program and the reality on the ground. For example, according to administration officials, before a person is added to the targeted strike list, specific criteria should be met. The target should be a 1) senior, 2) operational 3) leader of al-Qaida or an affiliated group who presents 4) an imminent threat of violent attack 5) against the United States.
  But that's not who is being targeted.
  Setting aside the administration's redefining of ''imminence'' beyond all recognition, the majority of the 3,500-plus people killed by U.S. drones worldwide were not leaders of al-Qaida or the Taliban; they were low- or mid-level foot soldiers. Most were not plotting attacks against the United States. In Yemen and North Africa, the Obama administration is deploying weaponized drones to take out targets who are more of a threat to local governments than to Washington, according to defense and regional security experts who closely track unrest in those areas. In some cases, Washington appears to be in the business of using its drone capabilities mostly to assist other countries, not to deter strikes against the United States (another precedent that might be eagerly seized upon in the future).
  U.S. defense and intelligence officials reject any suggestion that the targets are not legitimate. One thing they do not contest, however, is that the administration's reliance on the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force as legal cover for a drone-strike program that has extended well beyond al-Qaida in Afghanistan or Pakistan is dodgy. The threat that the United States is trying to deal with today has an ever more tenuous connection to Sept. 11. (None of the intelligence officials reached for this article would speak on the record.) But instead of asking Congress to consider extending its authorization, as some officials have mulled, the administration's legal counsel has chosen instead to rely on Nixon administration adviser John Stevenson's 1970 justification of the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, an action new Secretary of State John Kerry criticized during his confirmation hearing this year.
  Human-rights groups might be loudest in their criticism of both the program and the opaque policy surrounding it, but even the few lawmakers who have access to the intelligence the administration shares have a hard time coping with the dearth of information. ''We can't always assume we're going to have responsible people with whom we agree and trust in these positions,'' said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. ''The essence of the Constitution is, it shouldn't matter who is in charge; they're still constrained by principles and rules of the Constitution and of the Bill of Rights.''
  PEER PRESSUREObama promised in his 2013 State of the Union to increase the drone program's transparency. ''In the months ahead, I will continue to engage Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention, and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world,'' the president said on Feb. 12. Since then, the administration, under pressure from allies on Senate Intelligence, agreed to release all of the legal memos the Justice Department drafted in support of targeted killing.
  But, beyond that, it's not certain Obama will do anything more to shine light on this program. Except in situations where leaks help it tell a politically expedient story of its skill at killing bad guys, the administration has done little to make a case to the public and the world at large for its use of armed drones.
  Already, what's become apparent is that the White House is not interested in changing much about the way it communicates strike policy. (It took Sen. Rand Paul's 13-hour filibuster of CIA Director John Brennan's nomination to force the administration to concede that it doesn't have the right to use drones to kill noncombatant Americans on U.S. soil.) And government officials, as well as their surrogates on security issues, are actively trying to squash expectations that the administration would agree to bring the judicial branch into the oversight mix. Indeed, judicial review of any piece of the program is largely off the table now, according to intelligence officials and committee members.
  Under discussion within the administration and on Capitol Hill is a potential program takeover by the Pentagon, removing the CIA from its post-9/11 role of executing military-like strikes. Ostensibly, that shift could help lift the secret-by-association-with-CIA attribute of the program that some officials say has kept them from more freely talking about the legitimate military use of drones for counterterrorism operations. But such a fix would provide no guarantee of greater transparency for the public, or even Congress.
  And if the administration is not willing to share with lawmakers who are security-cleared to know, it certainly is not prepared to engage in a sensitive discussion, even among allies, that might begin to set the rules on use for a technology that could upend stability in already fragile and strategically significant places around the globe. Time is running out to do so.
  ''They're not drawing names out of a hat here.'''--Mike Rogers, chairman, House Intelligence Committee
  ''The history of technology development like this is, you never maintain your lead very long. Somebody always gets it,'' said David Berteau, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ''They're going to become cheaper. They're going to become easier. They're going to become interoperable,'' he said. ''The destabilizing effects are very, very serious.''
  Berteau is not alone. Zenko, of the Council on Foreign Relations, has urged officials to quickly establish norms. Singer, at Brookings, argues that the window of opportunity for the United States to create stability-supporting precedent is quickly closing. The problem is, the administration is not thinking far enough down the line, according to a Senate Intelligence aide. Administration officials ''are thinking about the next four years, and we're thinking about the next 40 years. And those two different angles on this question are why you see them in conflict right now.''
  That's in part a symptom of the ''technological optimism'' that often plagues the U.S. security community when it establishes a lead over its competitors, noted Georgetown University's Kai-Henrik Barth. After the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States was sure it would be decades before the Soviets developed a nuclear-weapon capability. It took four years.
  With drones, the question is how long before the dozens of states with the aircraft can arm and then operate a weaponized version. ''Pretty much every nation has gone down the pathway of, 'This is science fiction; we don't want this stuff,' to, 'OK, we want them, but we'll just use them for surveillance,' to, 'Hmm, they're really useful when you see the bad guy and can do something about it, so we'll arm them,' '' Singer said. He listed the countries that have gone that route: the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, China. ''Consistently, nations have gone down the pathway of first only surveillance and then arming.''
  The opportunity to write rules that might at least guide, if not restrain, the world's view of acceptable drone use remains, not least because this is in essence a conventional arms-control issue. The international Missile Technology Control Regime attempts to restrict exports of unmanned vehicles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, but it is voluntary and nonbinding, and it's under attack by the drone industry as a drag on business. Further, the technology itself, especially when coupled with data and real-time analytics, offers the luxury of time and distance that could allow officials to raise the evidentiary bar for strikes'--to be closer to certain that their target is the right one.
  But even without raising standards, tightening up drone-specific restrictions in the standing control regime, or creating a new control agreement (which is never easy to pull off absent a bad-state actor threatening attack), just the process of lining up U.S. policy with U.S. practice would go a long way toward establishing the kind of precedent on use of this technology that America'--in five, 10, or 15 years'--might find helpful in arguing against another's actions.
  A not-insignificant faction of U.S. defense and intelligence experts, Dennis Blair among them, thinks norms play little to no role in global security. And they have evidence in support. The missile-technology regime, for example, might be credited with slowing some program development, but it certainly has not stopped non-signatories'--North Korea and Iran'--from buying, building, and selling missile systems. But norms established by technology-leading countries, even when not written into legal agreements among nations, have shown success in containing the use and spread of some weapons, including land mines, blinding lasers, and nuclear bombs.
  Arguably more significant than spotty legal regimes, however, is the behavior of the United States. ''History shows that how states adopt and use new military capabilities is often influenced by how other states have'--or have not'--used them in the past,'' Zenko argued. Despite the legal and policy complexity of this issue, it is something the American people have, if slowly, come to care about. Given the attention that Rand Paul's filibuster garnered, it is not inconceivable that public pressure on drone operations could force the kind of unforeseen change to U.S. policy that it did most recently on ''enhanced interrogation'' of terrorists.
  The case against open, transparent rule-making is that it might only hamstring American options while doing little good elsewhere'--as if other countries aren't closely watching this debate and taking notes for their own future policymaking. But the White House's refusal to answer questions about its drone use with anything but ''no comment'' ensures that the rest of the world is free to fill in the blanks where and when it chooses. And the United States will have already surrendered the moment in which it could have provided not just a technical operations manual for other nations but a legal and moral one as well.
  This article appeared in the Saturday, March 23, 2013 edition of National Journal.
  Get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox. Sign up for National Journal's morning alert, Wake-Up Call, and afternoon newsletter, The Edge. Subscribe here.
EUobserver.com / Institutional Affairs / Ashton to leave EU foreign policy job next year
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:03
  BRUSSELS - EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has said she will step down next year, noting that she is tired of all the travel.
  Speaking at a debate in Brussels on Saturday (16 March) organised by the German Marshall Fund, a think tank, she said: "There's no possibility of having a second term and it [the post] needs to go to someone else next '... You lay the foundations, but there are people who can do things with this that probably I couldn't do. So, it would be good to hand it over."
  She added that the job is physically taxing.
  "It's quite hard and there's a lot of travel and a lot of sitting on planes. My dear friend Hilary Clinton [the US ex-secretary of state] and I talked about this a few times. It is exhausting at times," she said.
  Ashton's mandate is due to end on 1 December 2014.
  It is unclear what she meant by "no possibility" of staying on, as there is nothing in the EU treaty which says she could not be reappointed.
  There is speculation that her successor could be Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen. But he says he has no interest in it.
  Past candidates for the role, such as Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, could also come back into the race.
  But one EU diplomat warned the new foreign policy chief will be chosen as part of a "package" of EU top jobs designed to please big member states and political groups, not on personal merit.
  The contact added that with so much time to go before December 2014, it would be "inadvisable" for any candidate to come out now.
  Ashton said her main legacy will be the creation of the European External Action Service as an institution.
  She said she did it at a tricky time, referring to the EU financial crisis and to the Arab Spring, and that it was hard to combine institution-building with diplomacy.
  "I've often described it as trying to fly a plane when you are building the wings at the same time," she noted.
  Bashed in the past on a range of issues - poor management skills, chaotic planning of foreign ministers' meetings, lack of courage and charisma - one EU diplomat told EUobserver that her early announcement on stepping down is itself a mistake.
  "I think it weakens her. I think it was unnecessary," the contact noted.
  But for her part, Ashton said she has grown a thick skin. "It's not about the criticism. I've had enough of that. I'm not worried about that anymore," she noted.
  She acknowledged there are limitations to how much EU countries really want to co-operate on foreign policy, especially in military matters.
  "These are national [military] services and the decision to deploy and put people in harm's way are national sovereign decisions," she said.
  But she denied the European Commission has tried to undermine her work in order to defend its turf.
  "He [commission head Jose Manuel Barroso] has always been hugely supportive," she said.
  "Why would he be jealous? Blimey. No. I don't think he's jealous at all. I think he really wants this to succeed," she added.
Van Rompuy to quit politics in 2014 : Voice of Russia
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:01
  The issue of underage sex abuse in the Catholic Church is one that the new Pope, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is expected to address and deal with. How he plans to do this is something many want to know. Despite being hailed as a man who stands with the poor backing his own nation, Pope Francis, as he is now known, has had a controversial past with regards to pedophilia.
BBC News - Drug-resistant pandemic swine flu 'community risk'
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:59
  18 March 2013Last updated at12:04 ETBy Michelle RobertsHealth editor, BBC News onlineAustralian experts are concerned about the threat of a new type of drug-resistant pandemic flu that is circulating in the population at large.
  The swine flu strain has learned how to dodge the antiviral Tamiflu and, though rare, is emerging outside of hospitals.
  The team who have studied it say the virus is "fitter" than other drug-resistant strains and the world should be on alert for outbreaks.
  UK experts say they have seen a handful of similar cases.
  The UK's Health Protection Agency said it would be closely monitoring the situation.
  The Australian investigators presented their findings at a meeting on major infectious diseases.
  Continue reading the main storyH1N1 caused a swine flu pandemic (an extensive outbreak in many countries) in 2009 infecting a fifth of the populationMany people now have some immunity to H1N1 as a result of this exposureVaccines are available that can stop H1N1 infectionsSome people - the sick, elderly, young infants and pregnant women - are at particular risk of complications of they catch H1N1Antiviral drugs like Tamiflu can lessen the severity of symptoms in those who catch H1N1Experts at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases heard how the 'H1N1pdm09' swine flu virus is still sensitive to another antiviral drug Relenza (zanamivir).
  But Tamiflu (oseltamivir) is now powerless against the strain that has been found in people in the community rather than sick patients with serious underlying conditions and weak immune systems.
  Vaccines can prevent infection occurring in the first place.
  Lead investigator Dr Aeron Hurt, from the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne, said: "The greatest concern is that these resistant viruses could spread globally, similar to that seen in 2008 when the former seasonal H1N1 virus developed oseltamivir resistance and spread worldwide in less than 12 months."
  The new strain that they have been examining is emerging among people who have never been treated with Tamiflu, suggesting it is very good at spreading from person to person.
  Dr Hurt says animal studies by his team confirm this.
  Although the Tamiflu-resistant strain is still relatively rare, affecting about 2% of people with swine flu in the Australian population that they studied, Dr Hurt is concerned that it has the potential to turn global.
  Similar resistant strains have been detected in Europe but at this stage only on an ad hoc basis, says Dr Hurt.
  "The widespread transmission and circulation of oseltamivir-resistant H1N1pdm09 viruses remains a risk in the future.
  "Close monitoring of resistant viruses in both treated and community patients remains important."
  Pandemic potentialIn the UK, the HPA has recorded eight cases of oseltamivir-resistant H1N1pdm09 in the community setting.
  The HPA's head of flu surveillance Dr Richard Pebody said: "While the frequency of oseltamivir resistance in community settings has increased slightly since the 2009-10 pandemic from 1-2% in the 2012/13 flu season, rates of detection remain low."
  Swine flu (H1N1) infected a fifth of people during the first year of the pandemic in 2009, data suggest.
  It is thought the virus killed 200,000 people globally.
  Although the pandemic has been declared by officials as over, the virus is still circulating.
  During the pandemic, the H1N1 virus crowded out other influenza viruses to become the dominant virus. This is no longer the case. Many countries are reporting a mix of influenza viruses.
Despite evidence, parents' fears of HPV vaccine grow | Reuters
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:55
  March 19 | Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:09pm EDT
  March 19 (Reuters) - More parents of teen girls not yet fully vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV), which protects against cervical cancer, are intending to forgo the shots altogether - a trend driven by vaccine safety concerns, according to a U.S. report.
  Researchers, whose findings appeared in Pediatrics, found that about three-quarters of girls ages 13 to 17 were not up to date on their HPV vaccine series in 2010.
  And the proportion of parents of those girls who said they didn't plan to get their daughters the rest - or any - of their HPV shots rose from 30 percent to 44 percent.
  "These are wonderful vaccines which are preventing severe diseases," said study leader Paul Darden from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City.
  "HPV is the first vaccine that will prevent cancer, which is a tremendous health benefit."
  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all children, both boys and girls, receive three HPV shots as preteens.
  "There were a lot of very sensationalized anecdotal reports of (girls) having bad reactions to the vaccine," said pediatrician and vaccine researcher Amanda Dempsey from the University of Colorado, Denver.
  "Safety concerns have always risen to the top of the pile, in terms of being one of the main reasons people don't get vaccinated, which is unfortunate because this is one of the most well-studied vaccines in terms of safety and is extremely safe," added Dempsey, who wasn't involved in the new study.
  Darden and his team got their data from a national immunization survey that involved phone calls to almost 100,000 parents.
  They found that from 2008 to 2010, the percentage of teens who were up to date on their Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis), MCB4 (meningococcal) and HPV had all risen slightly.
  But aside from the fact that a majority of girls were not up to date on their HPV shots in 2010, the researchers also found that the proportion of parents of those girls who said they didn't plan to get their daughters the rest - or any - of their HPV shots rose from 30 percent to 44 percent.
  At the same time, the proportion who cited safety concerns as their reason for abstaining from getting the HPV vaccine increased from less than five percent to 16 percent.
  For all three vaccines covered in the survey, the other reasons parents gave for skipping their teenagers' shots included not thinking they were necessary, not having had a specific vaccine recommended by a doctor and, for the HPV vaccine, believing that ther child was not sexually active.
  Dempsey said past research has suggested that although more girls are being vaccinated against HPV, vaccine rates haven't increased as quickly as for other shots.
  Parents shouldn't rely on the media or Internet to learn about vaccines, Dempsey said, since it's hard to tell what information is legitimate.
  "If they have questions or concerns, they should trust their provider to give them accurate information about the vaccine," he added.
  Darden reports having been a consultant for Pfizer, and one of his co-authors is on a safety monitoring board for vaccine studies funded by Merck, which makes Gardasil, one of the HPV vaccines. SOURCE: bit.ly/cxXOG (Reporting from New York by Genevra Pittman at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)
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Doctors urge mental health screenings with physicals
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:54
  Your regular doctor can give you a mental health checkup during your yearly visit if you ask.(Photo: Dan Garrow, The News Journal, Wilmington, Del.)
  Story HighlightsEarly heads up would save money, grief in long termThe screening is a series of questions to answerOnly if patient shows symptoms of a mental illness does a specialist need to get involvedWould you be offended if someone told you to get your brain checked out?
  Doctors worldwide are asking you to not be.
  STORY: Mental health drugs vital for seniors
  STORY: Rules to guide mental health equality
  A new study from the University of Cambridge suggests everyone should get their mental health checked as often as they have an annual physical.
  Essentially, treat your brain just like any other organ.
  "Unfortunately, most people don't address mental health issues until they are drastically interfering with their lives," said Dr. Nizar El-Khalili, medical director of Alpine Clinic in Lafayette, Ind. "If they were just more aware of mental health from the start, problems could be avoided long before it complicates their lives and costs them thousands of dollars."
  Mental health screenings can be administered during most annual checkups. Some doctors always screen their patient's mental health, but El-Khalili recommends that all patients, no matter their age or family medical history, ask for a screening during their checkup.
  Mental health screenings typically include a series of questions about lifestyle, eating and drinking habits and mental wellness designed to check for potential mood or anxiety disorders, including depression substance abuse and post-traumatic stress.
  If a doctor finds that a patient shows symptoms of a mental illness, he or she might recommend the patient see a psychiatrist or psychologist. These brain doctors also are more than qualified to administer a mental checkup.
  It's estimated that 25% of American adults suffer from some form of mental illness each year. But many attempt to cope with the illnesses for an average of 10 years before seeking treatment, according to Mental Health America, formerly the National Mental Health Association.
  El-Khalili said that trend needs to change. Common mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety and substance abuse in their early stages often are highly treatable through basic coping methods.
  Prompt recognition of an illness can also help patients avoid large medical bills down the road, he said.
  STORY: Insanity plea expected in Aurora, Colo., shootings
  This is especially important for low-income families. The federal sequester, recent forced government spending cuts that will make mental treatment through federally supported health care programs increasingly difficult to access, is likely to affect that group.
  These impending budget cuts will slash $168 million from the the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administation, according to Pew Charitable Trusts. The Obama administration estimates that more than 373,000 mentally ill adults and seriously emotionally disturbed children will lose mental health services.
  Along with improving quality of life and saving money, health professionals say annual mental checkups would help reduce the stigma attached to mental illness.
  The National Alliance on Mental Illness works to change people's views of what it means to be mentally ill. The organization's executive director in west central Indiana, Pattie Wollenburg, said recognizing that mental illness could happen to anyone is key to cultural acceptance.
  "People shouldn't be apprehensive about going to a psychiatrist," Wollenburg said. "Mental health is just as important as physical health. You just need to take care of both."
  ---
  Warning signs
  Symptoms that could turn into a mental illness later in life, according to Dr. Nizar El-Khalili, medical director of Alpine Clinic in Lafayette, Ind.
  Disturbance in sleepLow tolerance to frustrationsPeriods of sadness for no apparent reasonOvereating, drinking or using recreational drugs as a way to deal with stressFears for no apparent reasonFrequent changes in personality
Republican Party at a crossroad? | Fox News Video
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:52
  This transcript is automatically generated
  Conservative Political Action Conference held its annual meeting this week and if you can belabor it a presidential straw poll for 26 date here are the results.
  Tea Party favorite Kentucky senator Rand Paul won with 25%.
  Senator Marco Rubio was a close second at 28 race and former presidential candidate Rick Santorum a distant third at 8%.
  The -- pac meeting highlighted the disagreement over the best way for the party to broaden its base.
  Activity as president of freedom works a leader of the Tea Party movement former congressman Steve -- to read as head of the Republican main street partnership and gentlemen.
  Welcome to FOX News Sunday.
  Thanks thanks -- congressman lot threat during the lame duck session in December you talked about the forty to fifty chuckle heads.
  Your phrase in the house.
  -- blocking senator -- Rada speaker Boehner from making a budget deal with the president.
  What is it about the Tea Party freshman.
  That make them -- hats.
  Another guy would say that's -- -- Tea Party freshman -- since forty or fifty and 112 congress that.
  Seems more interested in voting no and going home and governing and and that comment was made after -- be.
  And have to recognize and plan B was to just raise taxes on people make -- over a million dollars yeah and it was the opening gambit and then would have given the speaker the opportunity to go to the White House and over the -- and -- here.
  I have a package and now let's continue our negotiations.
  When you take it down as the speaker said their meeting after that you send them to the White House naked he's got no -- he's -- -- -- Well looking forward mister -- what is it about.
  The Tea Party and its views on spending.
  And taxes.
  That members of the Republican establishment like congressman lot to -- don't get.
  Why you have to take a step back and understand the only reason we're talking about a balanced budget the only reason that we're having a serious debate about sixteen plus trillion in debt.
  Is because of the Tea Party class from 2010 and and they -- the folks we -- -- in 2012.
  You have to stop.
  This process this this bipartisan process of just kicking the can down the road creating these in these artificial crises.
  On New Year's Eve.
  And say let's put some ideas on the table let's stop playing this game and that's what we have done.
  And we're never gonna fix this problem just by by pretending.
  That that the process of bipartisanship somehow gets to real problem because that's how we got here.
  This this crisis was created by both Republicans and Democrats.
  Not willing to make tough choices I think that.
  That flies in the face what we did in the 1990s.
  Bill Clinton was president -- case it was a budget -- and Newt Gingrich was the speaker.
  And we created the balanced budget act of 1997.
  And quite frankly it was during the bush years.
  Of spending multiplied now by the bombing years.
  That that we have this mess and at the end of the day my difficulty with the -- and freshman isn't that they that true passion that they bring to this -- important part of the Republican Party.
  My difficulty is at the end of they have to -- just saying no.
  He doesn't get any thing and that it creates these false crises that you you can get past the false crises.
  If you can work something out it doesn't mean surrendering principal doesn't mean becoming a Democrat or rhino -- dying now it means working together.
  In a way that you get 60% of what you want.
  We've got to go back is that I don't think the Tea Party has created the budget crisis we came and -- our members and tried to do something about it I remember a day when.
  When April 15 is when the house and senate had to pass a budget resolution I remember when they had their -- reconciled with thirteen appropriations bills.
  I remember day when the president actually had to introduce his budget and today we don't do any of that stuff and that that's how we got to the sixteen trillion.
  And there is something rational about but about standing on the tracks and saying you know what we can't do it this way anymore we have to do with some other way.
  Listen if that was is that if that was the way these guys were operating I'd -- all all for that but for instance we couldn't even get I was -- I was an appropriate.
  We couldn't get their labor health and human services -- the biggest of the bills besides defense out.
  Because three of our members wouldn't support the chairman's mark now.
  That's not that's not trying to solve the problem and you'll always hear sorry but I'm telling him he he can't get it done.
  And just voting no and then holding your nose and say boy if it passes -- I can go home.
  My local Tea Party groups and say I voted no that's ridiculous that's what makes some -- Let me switch to another subject mr.
  Kennedy one of the reasons -- in the party.
  And we saw in the last week has been over national security.
  You back Rand Paul's filibuster of the president's drone policy in the senate.
  You also -- the sequester -- across the board -- even in the Pentagon but isn't.
  One of the GOP's strengths.
  With the American people that it's tough on national security.
  Where you can be fiscally responsible and tough on national security I think it it would will be -- has nothing to do with the with the fiscal issues that's -- that's what we're certainly.
  So so there's two issues here one and one is about basic civil liberties and I think I think the new GOP reflected by it by Rand Paul's willingness to challenge the status quo.
  In both Republican and democratic parties not a healthy thing.
  And young people in particular there looking.
  Four for leadership that that's willing to challenge the idea that the -- always right -- I think that's where we are as well.
  But on defense and on any frankly any budget any program any department of the federal government.
  Let's all acknowledge that there is waste and things that need to be eliminated.
  And -- -- of defense would be very healthy thing.
  And you -- you have to put everything on the table you can't say that this sicker cal cannot be -- I think the GOP's made a mistake.
  Congressman -- to -- Rand Paul and his -- see pat talked about defense hawks like John McCain.
  And Lindsey Graham as as stale and moss covered.
  There is a war weariness in the country should the Republican Party and its truck at -- trying to grow the party and appeal to new voters should it be pulling back on national defense well.
  You know I grew up -- there of the 800 dollar hammer in the 600 dollar toilet seats on -- -- efficiencies there.
  But if you are looking for the kind to the constitution for something that the government's actually supposed to be involved and -- defending the country.
  And the sequestration was most ham handed way of dealing with things.
  And we only got there because of this function that exist because the Democrats won't give an inch.
  And you know it's it's it's incumbent upon us to find that sweet spot Boehner tried to do with the president the president isn't willing.
  But we got to find that -- but that includes -- public.
  Which is a dysfunction and you kind of -- in mr.
  Kennedy -- direction do you think the Tea Party.
  Is as adding to the dysfunctional Washington none at all I think that Tea Party is an important part of the coalition that is the Republican Party -- my difficulty with.
  Not necessarily -- -- group of other groups like his.
  Is that there's summed up now some kind of litmus test that what makes a good Republican or -- bad Republican.
  And the reason that we don't have a Republican president today in my opinion.
  Is that we don't represent the whole country we don't have one member of congress who's a Republican from the entire eastern seacoast to get out of the the Carolinas and Virginia.
  You you can't govern the country unless you look like the country.
  And so I I think -- an important part of the coalition but they are not the Republican Party they're part of the Republican.
  And how do you respond to that that that in a sense you've.
  You may have energized the party but you've also narrowed.
  I don't think so if you if you look at C -- you look at the rock stars of the GOP the next generation of people that that were excited about.
  These are Tea Party freshman Rand Paul Ron Johnson from the very purple maybe Blue States pat and -- Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania and of course Marco Rubio -- -- Diversity.
  We've brought energy and most important I think we brought ideas because we're color -- about all of this stuff but if you want to come.
  To the senate come to the congress and offer a plan to balance -- budget.
  We're gonna support you put your ideas on the table that's what's lacking in this whole debate.
  Like I gotta say that that sadly what they've also brought us is Harry Reid is the majority leader continuing in the senate.
  If you look at that the Nevada race Sharon angle if you look at Richard Murdoch and in -- -- if you look at that.
  I always forget -- name the -- and Delaware Christine O'Donnell thank you.
  You -- we could have functional control the United States senate today but for this litmus -- that exists today there were a lot of establishment candidates Republican candidates who went down in this last election to ever went down went down in from the standpoint that they lost to Democrats unlike.
  Some of these mr.
  Murdoch for instance I mean we're supposed to wonders of Murdoch Indiana Indiana why we don't have the women's vote in this country when we have a candidate suggesting that a child born.
  As a result of of rape as a gift from god.
  I I'm not wondering why we don't have more women voting for Republican.
  But let me ask you about -- and that's the last thing we're gonna get into here Karl Rove and he's going to be on the -- started -- -- -- conservative victory project.
  To try to get into the primaries to make sure that there are more electable Republicans people that can win the -- -- going to win the general election.
  -- a lot to -- your obstruct your -- super pac to promote.
  Electable candidates in Republican primaries -- have any problem -- because I well what are -- first -- -- why do you think that's wrong.
  Well -- I think the definition of electable as what we're debating here and you look at who's been winning elections it's been.
  Interesting exciting young energetic people like -- like Marco Rubio.
  And I think if you applied this this sort of establishment litmus test which tends students had to be biased for.
  People that are already in office you're not gonna get that new energy -- we have gotten Pat -- remember Karl Rove supported.
  The Arlen Specter as far back as 2004 against Pat Toomey because a logic was Pat Toomey can't possibly win.
  Arlen Specter later flipped parties when it was convenient for him became the sixtieth vote for Obama care.
  So I think we need to be careful about what it means to be electable certainly the Tea Party -- about a thousand.
  But at least.
  Were winning elections were bringing new people into the party were not in a position where the Democrats can jam something through sixty votes in the senate because of the Tea Party.
  Yeah I gotta tell you that there is no litmus test the vote in mainstream I'm happy to have anybody that labels him herself as a Republican.
  And wants to represent the entire country.
  We're not talking about electing the governor of South Carolina governor taxes the governor of Utah if we ever want to -- -- national party we have to look like America today.
  We look like -- a bunch of guys white guys from below the Mason Dixon line.
  So how do you look more like America.
  You you have to begin to talk about issues in a way that I have to talk about issues for instance I never read anything in in my Republican playbook and have been a Republican since -- -- I was born.
  That says that Republicans and trade Unionists can't get along together at the -- the operating engineers.
  But it's somehow this whole war.
  On prevailing wage is now become a plank of the Republican Party no it's not the same thing with the environment I live only here we don't -- To be opposed to everything.
  That helps us get clean air and clean water that's not a Republican test but but if you look at the key votes that some of these groups are scoring.
  An eighteen votes was scored by by mr.
  QB's group out of thousand that took place last -- -- not -- you can make like a poll you can make it look anyway you want to.
  All right you get the last word mister -- I think if you look at the new Republican Party the party that stands for something you look at names like Tim Scott and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and -- Labrador.
  And just in a march.
  Me a lot of almost got through.
  -- this is the new future and it's based on ideas we don't care about the colors -- We're gonna have to leave it there but to be continued mr.
  candidate congressman lot threat thank you both coming in and we'll stay on top of this debate and.
Russian Leader Warns, ''Get All Money Out Of Western Banks Now!''
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:38
  World's Largest English Language News Service with Over 500 Articles Updated Daily
  "The News You Need Today'...For The World You'll Live In Tomorrow."
  What You Aren't Being Told About The World You Live In
  IronMountainApocalypse: The True Story Of 2013
  A ''must have'' book for those seeking to understand the true events surrounding the most troubled years of our modern times. (Continued)
  Picking up the Pieces: Practical Guide for Surviving Economic Crashes, Internal Unrest and Military SuppressionBy: Sorcha Faal ''In the span of less than 3 months gasoline prices will rise 500%. The prices of both food and shelter rise over 300%. (Continued)
  Partisans Handbook:By: Sorcha Faal ''Essential Survival Guide For Resisting Foreign Military Occupation, Escape And Evasion Techniques, Surviving Interrogation, Facing Execution, Wilderness Survival (Continued)
  March 21, 2013
  Russian Leader Warns, ''Get All Money Out Of Western Banks Now!''
  By:Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
  A Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) ''urgent bulletin'' being sent to Embassies around the world today is advising both Russian citizens and companies to begin divesting their assets from Western banking and financial institutions ''immediately'' as Kremlin fears grow that both the European Union and United States are preparing for the largest theft of private wealth in modern history.
  According to this ''urgent bulletin,'' this warning is being made at the behest of Prime Minister Medvedev who earlier today warned against the Western banking systems actions against EU Member Cyprus by stating:
  ''All possible mistakes that could be made have been made by them, the measure that was proposed is of a confiscation nature, and unprecedented in its character. I can't compare it with anything but ... decisions made by Soviet authorities ... when they didn't think much about the savings of their population. But we are living in the 21st century, under market economic conditions. Everybody has been insisting that ownership rights should be respected.''
  Medvedev's statements echo those of President Putin who, likewise, warned about the EU's unprecedented private asset grab in Cyprus calling it ''unjust, unprofessional, and dangerous.''
  In our 17 March report ''Europe Recoils In Shock After Bankster Raid, US Warned Is Next'' we noted how Russian entities have '‚¬23-31 billion ($30-$40) in cross-border loans to Cypriot companies tied to Moscow, and '‚¬9 billion ($12 billion) on deposit with Cypriot banks [as compared to the '‚¬127 billion ($166 billion) being kept in similar circumstances by 60 of the United States largest corporations in offshore accounts to avoid paying American taxes] which are in danger of being confiscated by EU banksters.
  Unbowed by the misery they have inflicted upon the entire continent, however, and in spite of Russian warnings, European Union officials hardened their stance against Cyprus today by announcing that if the Cypriot government did not allow the raiding of private bank accounts by Monday they would be forced to destroy their banks, which remain closed for the seventh straight day and have no signs of opening soon.
  In an editorial agreeing with Russian leaders anger against the EU over Cyprus, Canada's Globe and Mail News Service further writes:
  ''The parliament of Cyprus was right this week to reject a proposal to confiscate money from modest-sized bank deposits. The idea was a reductio ad absurdum of the euro zone's policy on the sovereign debt of some of its member-countries.
  It would be better for the government of Cyprus to default outright on some of its obligations rather than to seize part of the savings of the proverbial widows and orphans, as well as retirees or those approaching retirement '' while purporting to levy a tax. This is especially true in a country that has deposit insurance for up to '‚¬100,000, in order to protect small savers.
  Until a few years ago, Cyprus '' which is really the ethnically Greek section of Cyprus, the Turkish section being a de facto protectorate of Turkey '' had a fiscal surplus, but its close relationship to Greece resulted in a downturn when Greece fell into a severe recession. The government's debt in itself is still manageable, but Cypriot banks have become shaky because of their loans to Greece.''
  In the face of massive popular outrage, however, Cypriot MPs spectacularly voted earlier this week against the EU plan to steal their bank depositors money, thus leaving the Euro Zone reeling, a situation that was, in fact, created by European banksters who had forced Cyprus banks to lend money to nearly bankrupt Greece in the first place.
  Even worse may be what is in store for the Americans, who on 31 January lost an unlimited US government guarantee that was granted on over $1.5 trillion of their bank deposits during the 2008 financial crisis to assure skittish customers that their cash was safe.
  According to Kremlin sources, though, President Obama's sudden visit to Israel this week, the first he has made since being elected in 2008, was to personally warn top Israelis of his regimes ''plan'' to begin confiscating his citizen's bank deposits too.
  Interesting to note is that the Obama regimes ''master plan'' to steal their citizen's wealth that is no longer protected was detailed by the global management consulting giant, and the world's leading advisor on business strategy, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) who in their 2011 September report titled Collateral Damage: Back to Mesopotamia? The Threat of Debt Restructuring warned of the US governments plan confiscate up to 30% of not just the Americans people bank accounts, but also of their other wealth.
  The highly respected Zero Hedge financial newsletter in commenting on this dire BCG report grimly stated:
  ''Denial. Denial is safe. Comforting.Religiously and relentlessly abused by politicians who don't want nor can face reality.A word synonymous with "muddle through." Ah yes, that "muddle through" which so many C-grade economists and pundits believe is the long-term status quo for the US and the world just because it worked for Japan for the past three decades, or, said otherwise, "just because."
  Well, too bad. As the following absolutely must read report, which comes not from some trader of dubious credibility interviewed by BBC, nor even from an impassioned executive from a doomed Italian bank, but from consultancy powerhouse Boston Consulting Group confirms, the "muddle through" is dead. And now it is time to face the facts.
  What facts? The facts which state that between household, corporate and government debt, the developed world has $20 trillion in debt over and above the sustainable threshold by the definition of "stable" debt to GDP of 180%.
  The facts according to which all attempts to eliminate the excess debt have failed, and for now even the Fed's relentless pursuit of inflating our way out this insurmountable debt load have been for nothing.
  The facts which state that the only way to resolve the massive debt load is through a global coordinated debt restructuring (which would, among other things, push all global banks into bankruptcy) which, when all is said and done, will have to be funded by the world's financial asset holders: the middle-and upper-class, which, if BCS is right, have a ~30% one-time tax on all their assets to look forward to as the great mean reversion finally arrives and the world is set back on a viable path.
  But not before the biggest episode of "transitory" pain, misery and suffering in the history of mankind. Good luck, politicians and holders of financial assets, you will need it because after Denial comes Anger, and only long after does Acceptance finally arrive.''
  To the evidence that the masses of Americans or Europeans average citizens will begin protecting themselves against this apocalyptic outcome their remains little evidence as their so-called ''mainstream'' media continues to cover-up this coming catastrophe. But, and as Russia has now warned, the time for protecting oneself is fast running out, and the only survivors will be those who listened.
  March 21, 2012 (C) EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.
  [Ed. Note: Western governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagrees with in believing that it is every human beings right to know the truth. Due to our missions conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their 'agents' against us has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit and which is addressed in the report ''Who Is Sorcha Faal?''.]
  You May Already Be To Late'...But It Has Begun!
  They Are Going To Come For You'...Why Are You Helping Them?
  Return To Main Page
Details of Used 2002 Nissan Pathfinder LE, Austin, TX - Yahoo! Autos
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  What happens next?Expect to be contacted at the phone number or email address you provided. For faster service, you can call the seller directly.
  You can also check out Similar Cars for more search recommendations.
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Exclusive: Dying Iraq War Veteran Tomas Young Explains Decision to End His Life | Democracy Now!
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  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:00
  This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
  JUAN GONZLEZ: Today, in a Democracy Now! special on this week's 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we spend the hour looking at the remarkable life and imminent death of one Iraq veteran: 33-year-old Tomas Young. He recently announced he's decided to end his life by discontinuing his nourishment, which comes in the form of liquid through a feeding tube.
  Tomas Young's tragedy goes back to 2001. Just two days after the 9/11 attacks, he signed off'--he signed up for the military after hearing President Bush's Ground Zero pledge to go after those responsible. He wanted to deploy to Afghanistan, but instead he was sent to Iraq. On the fifth day into his deployment in Iraq, on April 4th, 2004, Tomas's unit came under fire in Sadr City. He was left paralyzed, never to walk again. Released from medical care, he returned home to become an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
  AMYGOODMAN: He was wounded on the same day that Cindy Sheehan's son, Casey Sheehan, was killed, April 4th, 2004. Tomas Young's story was the subject of the award-winning documentary Body of War, made by the legendary talk show host Phil Donahue and the filmmaker Ellen Spiro. The 2007 film follows Tomas's rehabilitation, his struggles with his injuries, his political awakening to become one of the most prominent antiwar U.S. veterans of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
  The film includes a speech Tomas made in 2005 at the Lafayette Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, New York, about President George W. Bush and the Iraq War. His physical troubles were evident even then, as he repeatedly paused to put his head between his knees in his wheelchair.
  TOMASYOUNG: You'll have to excuse me for a little bit. I get a little lightheaded every now and again, so hold on. I'd also like to'--that during this speech, I may say the word "uh" a lot and stammer a little bit, so forgive me for sounding a bit presidential.
  I called my recruiter on around September 13, 2001, when, if you all can remember, the president stood on the rubble with a bullhorn and said we were going to get the evil-doers that did this. And, oh, man, hold on a second; I'm starting to'--thank you. Alright, let's hope that's a little better. But'--and he led the rah-rah around the country and got everybody really excited, and I was excited. And I wanted to go to Afghanistan and get the people that did this to us. But after I joined the Army, it became clearer and clearer to me that we weren't going to go to Afghanistan, that we were going to go to Iraq.
  And more and more, it began to feel'--with statements like George Bush saying that he sought the approval of a higher father than his own and things like that, it really concerned me that President Bush was trying to use Jesus Christ as an advocate for the war, but I always remembered, at least from the Bible that I read, Jesus Christ was always about peaceful things and love and "whatsoever you do unto the least, my brother, you do unto me." And it just shocks me that a man who tries to live his life by such devout Christian philosophies seems to skew so much on this one issue.
  I don't really'--I have to'--excuse me, again. Sorry, it's a little hard to regulate my body temperature, and it is hot up here.
  But I heard somebody once say that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. So just everybody keep together and stay strong, and one day we'll get what we need to get done. And thank you all for waiting, and I hope I didn't disappoint.
  JUAN GONZLEZ: That was Tomas Young speaking in December 2005, captured in the film Body of War, a documentary by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue.
  Well, in early February of this year, Tomas stunned an audience gathered to watch the film when he joined them via Skype and made this announcement. You'll need to listen closely.
  TOMASYOUNG: In July of last year, I began to experience sharp pains in my abdomen. And I went to the VA, and they treated me like I was a second-class citizen, a junkie looking for pain medicines just to get high, even though I was genuinely in pain. I went to a private hospital, was treated much better. They suggested a colostomy, where they would remove my colon. I thought that would reduce the pain. It did for a few days, but the pain came rocketing back. And I decided to go on hospice care, where I have a pump that provides the same IV medications the hospital provided. And after my one-year anniversary with my wife, I will begin to wean myself off of food and one day go away.
  AMYGOODMAN: "And one day go away." Iraq War veteran Tomas Young. At the age of 33, he has said he has decided to end his life.
  This week he published his letter titled "The Last Letter: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran." In it, Tomas writes, quote, "You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans'--my fellow veterans'--whose future you stole," he wrote.
  Well, for more, we're going right now to Kansas City, where Tomas Young joins us from his home along with his wife Claudia Cuellar. Here in New York, we're joined by Phil Donahue, longtime friend of Tomas. He's co-director of Body of War, that documentary that came out in 2007. Phil Donahue is one of the best-known talk show hosts in U.S. television history, his show on the air for more than 29 years. In 2002, he returned to the airwaves, but he was fired in 2003 on the eve of the war by MSNBC because, well, coming out in a secret memo from NBC later, it said there were too many antiwar voices on the air.
  We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Tomas, we thank you so much for being with us. We know this is very difficult for you. But if you could tell our audience why you have come to this decision to end your life, what has the journey been, most recently, with you and your wife Claudia?
  TOMASYOUNG: Well, since about two thousand'--or, July of last year, I started experiencing sharp pain in my stomach. And we would go to the VA, and the problem would get fixed, in their eyes, and everything was fine, and they'd send me home. And one time I was there for two weeks, and they gave me what's called a gastric lavage, which goes through your nose and down your throat into your stomach. And this alone dries your mouth out very fast. The point of this regime is to suck up any bad things in the stomach, but it also sucks up anything you drink while the tube is in there. And so, I would drink, because I had an extremely dry mouth, and the feel of something cold going down your throat is just refreshing.
  And so, the next day, a doctor came in, and I asked, "The doctor from last night said I could get it taken out this morning." And they looked at the cup where the suction goes to and saw that it was pretty full, because I had drank a lot of fluid that night. And so, the doctor said, "Oh, no, we have keep it in until tomorrow night." And so, that was when I called my wife and said, "I'm going AMA, against medical advice, so come and get me." So we left the hospital.
  Two days later, I experienced some chest pains, like a gas bubble in my chest. And I went to the local private hospital here, St. Luke's North, and they not only fixed the pain in my chest problem, they also immediately found out what was going on in my stomach. And they took out my colon and gave me a colostomy bag, and I figured, great, the pain will go way now, because'--but'--and for a few days, that was the case. But pretty soon, it came back with a vengeance, and I had to go to the hospital again. And nobody could figure out why I was in pain. And so, I went into hospice care, and they gave me a pain pump, which delivers the IV medication to me directly. And that was about two months ago. And that, in itself, has been a good thing.
  But'--and back to your original question, the reason I decided to do this now is I am, on one hand, sick and tired of being sick and tired, and on the other hand, I don't want to watch my body waste away.
  JUAN GONZLEZ: Phil Donahue, the'--his story is like many, many veterans who were severely injured, come back from the war, and yet our country still has not even dealt with the reality of the responsibility of those who took us to war. You've been a friend of Tomas now for years, since making the film. Your reaction to his decision and to the lack of accountability still in our country for what happened in Iraq?
  PHILDONAHUE: I understand his decision. So does Claudia. The people closest to him understand his position. Tomas told me'--this is a couple years ago, after the embolism, which, by the way, he presented at the emergency room with a swollen arm, and it hurt, and they gave him pain pills, and the next morning he was found in a coma in bed. And now, he's not only a paraplegic, he can't hold silverware. Tomas has to be fed. When he and Claudia were able to go out, they would go to a restaurant, and they'd find'--she would find a corner where she could feed him without being stared at.
  What you see in this story is a drama that is playing itself out behind the closed doors of literally thousands of homes in this country, homes occupied by young men and women who have come home from Iraq and Afghanistan with heinous injuries. We've had faces blown off. And as you know, modern medicine, triage, more and more of these people are surviving. And sadly, Tomas is not alone in his decision to end his life.
  What's remarkable about Tomas is that he wants'--he wants his life to be a statement. He wants to make a point. And I admire him so much for'--this is a very unusual act of moral courage. He wants people to see this, because he came home from the most sanitized war of my lifetime. We don't see this. But less than 5 percent of us, maybe 1 percent'--I should know'--have made a personal sacrifice for this war. And Tomas is one of them. And his colleagues, who are similarly situated, are hidden. They are not seen. And we couldn't take pictures of the coffins. And what this means is that it's going to be easier to go into another war.
  AMYGOODMAN: Claudia Cuellar, you married Tomas last year. You've been together for five years. You've been at his side. Your feelings right now about Tomas's decision?
  CLAUDIACUELLAR: It's really emotional, and it's overwhelming. But it is so'--it is so hard to describe in words how difficult it is to watch the person you most love in the world suffer immeasurably all day, every day. During the time we were together the first, you know, three, three-and-a-half years, we lived with a certain amount of suffering that we accepted. But last year when the medical problem started beginning and we had to be in the hospital the whole time, then we kind of crossed a threshold where he was suffering so much more than he was able to live or enjoy anything about his life, so we gave the ostomy surgery a shot. We considered hospice last fall. And'--
  AMYGOODMAN: Where is the VA in all of this?
  CLAUDIACUELLAR: '--we thought the surgery would fix it.
  TOMASYOUNG: The VA, when I went to them and I had to have the colon removed, the GI team at the Kansas City VA, which is one of the more highly regarded in the country, said they will only'--they've only done colon removal on cancer patients, never a spinal cord injury patient. So they transferred me to St. Louis, which is the spinal cord-based hospital. It's the nearest spinal cord facility run by the VA. We called them. They said they couldn't get us in for a while, right?
  CLAUDIACUELLAR: Yeah, there weren't beds available. And since Tomas had taken himself out of the VA against medical advice because of the way he was treated, they knew him as someone that was going to leave, and they'--they just were reluctant to offer a bed, quite frankly.
  AMYGOODMAN: We're going to go to a break, and then we're going to come back and also talk about the letter you have written, Tomas, the letter that you've written to, well, former President Bush and Vice President Cheney. We're speaking with Tomas Young. He says he has decided to end his life in May or early June, end the nourishment he's taking through a tube and his medications. Claudia Cuellar is at his side, as she has been for the last five years. They're at their home in Kansas City. And in studio with us is legendary talk show host Phil Donahue, who did a film about Tomas, oh, six years ago called Body of War, when he returned from Iraq. He was shot five days after coming to Iraq in Sadr City. This is Democracy Now! We'll be back in a minute.
  [break]
  AMYGOODMAN: Eddie Vedder singing "No More," which he wrote for Tomas and for the film Body of War about Tomas Young. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzlez.
  The 2007 documentary Body of War, directed by Phil Donahue, who is here with us today, and the filmmaker Ellen Spiro, tells the story of Tomas Young, beginning with a shot of Tomas going about the daily ordeal of dressing himself, made extremely difficult by his paralysis caused by a gunshot to the spine in Sadr City, Iraq, April 4th, 2004. Interposed are the voices of the lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, who voted for the Iraq War in October 2002, including Senators Schumer and McCain, Ensign and Hillary Clinton. They're followed by one of the few congressional dissenters who stood up to the Bush White House: the late Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. But the film opens with the opening bars of the song "No More" by the musician Eddie Vedder, a song he wrote for Tomas Young.
  EDDIEVEDDER: [singing ''No More'']I speak for a man who gave for this land,took a bullet in the back for his pay,spilled his blood in the dirt and the dust,and he's come back to saythat what he has seen is hard to believe,and it does no good to just pray.He asks of us to stand,and we must end this war today.
  SEN. CHUCKSCHUMER: Now, Mr. President, today we're faced with the most solemn decision a lawmaker can make: whether or not to authorize the use of military force.
  SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Voting for a course of action that will send young Americans off to fight and die for their country is the most solemn responsibility every member of this Congress will undertake.
  SEN. JOHNENSIGN: We need to approach this issue as if we are sending our very own children to war.
  REP. DICKARMEY: When he puts on that uniform, he's my baby, and I have fear.
  SEN. HILLARYCLINTON: This is probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make.
  REP. TOMLANTOS: The great debate we begin today represents the opening act of a drama that promises to define the 21st century.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: My hands tremble, but my heart still throbs. I read this quote: "Naturally, the common people don't want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." Hermann Goering, president of Reichstag, Nazi Parliament, 1934.
  JUAN GONZLEZ: That was a clip from Body of War, the late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd. Several years ago, Tomas Young met Byrd of West Virginia, one of the lone voices in the U.S. Senate who took a stand against the decision to invade Iraq. This is a clip of Robert Byrd during that meeting. It's from the same film, Body of War.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: This will be a blot on the Congress and the chief executive of the United States forever, for having cast a political vote to send our men and women to war and to possible death in a country that never attacked us, a country that never invaded us, a country that did not'--I say did not'--then and does not now constitute a threat to my country.
  TOMASYOUNG: Absolutely.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: I've been in this Senate now'--I'm in my 48th year. I have cast over 17,000 roll call votes'--
  TOMASYOUNG: Wow!
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: '--in this 48 years. And that was the most important vote I have ever cast. I stood, and 22 other senators stood with me: no, we will not turn this power to declare war, which the Constitution says Congress shall have the power to declare war, Article I'--
  TOMASYOUNG: Absolutely.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: '--Section 8. So that was no problem to me. I stood by the Constitution. I'm proud of it. And there were 23 of us. The immortal 23, I often refer to it in that way.
  AMYGOODMAN: Senator Robert Byrd went on to read the names of the 23 senators who voted against the war, with the help of Tomas Young.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: I'm going to read you the names of these'--
  TOMASYOUNG: The immortal 23?
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: The immortal 23. Alright, here we are. H.J. Res. 114, that's the resolution.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Senators voting in the negative.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Here are the 23: Akaka.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Akaka, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Bingaman.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Bingaman, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Boxer.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mrs. Boxer, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Byrd. B-Y-R-D, right there.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Byrd, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Chafee, Republican.
  TOMASYOUNG: He's a good man.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Chafee, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: He stood with us. Conrad.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Conrad, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: What's that one?
  TOMASYOUNG: Look like Jon Corzine.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Corzine, yeah.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Corzine, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: I don't have my glasses on. What's that one there?
  TOMASYOUNG: Dayton.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Dayton, yeah. God bless him. He's leaving us after this year.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Dayton, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Who's that?
  TOMASYOUNG: That's Senator Durbin.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Durbin. This one?
  TOMASYOUNG: Senator Feingold.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Feingold.
  TOMASYOUNG: That would be Bob Graham from Florida, I think, Senator.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Yes, it would be.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Durbin, no. Mr. Feingold, no. Mr. Graham of Florida, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: And we go all the way down here to Daniel Inouye.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Inouye'--
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: There's a man who has really sacrificed. He gave his arm.
  TOMASYOUNG: From Hawaii, yeah.
  SENATEROLLCALL: No.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Yes, sir. He's a real hero.
  TOMASYOUNG: Here's another one of my heroes.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Jim Jeffords.
  TOMASYOUNG: Senator Jeffords, the one that switched sides of the aisle.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: He's one of my heroes, too.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Jeffords, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Kennedy, Leahy and Levin.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Levin, no, no, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Mikulski.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Ms. Mikulski, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Murray.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mrs. Murray'--
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Patty Murray.
  SENATEROLLCALL: No.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Reed from Rhode Island, Sarbanes.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Reed of Rhode Island, no. Mr. Sarbanes, no.
  TOMASYOUNG: Stabenow.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Yeah, Debbie Stabenow.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Ms. Stabenow, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Wellstone, that's the man who gave his life shortly thereafter.
  TOMASYOUNG: And then Wyden.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: And Wyden. He's still here.
  SENATEROLLCALL: Mr. Wellstone, no. Mr. Wyden, no.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Twenty-three. Seventy-seven to 23. The immortal 23. Our founders would be so proud. Thank you for your service. Man, you've made a great sacrifice. You served your country well.
  TOMASYOUNG: As have you, sir.
  SEN. ROBERTBYRD: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
  AMYGOODMAN: The late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd meeting with Tomas Young, as they read the list, as they said, of the immortal 23. Tomas, as you look at this film, Body of War, about you, your body of war, talk about that meeting with Senator Byrd and what it meant to you.
  TOMASYOUNG: Well, the meeting with Senator Byrd, I was quite excited about, because I had known he was the rock star on C-SPAN to speak up, downplaying all the threats that Iraq posed and saying it was a dangerous thing to give congressional powers over to this one man. And I admired him. And when I rolled into his office, he treated me like I was some sort of long-lost grandchild. And we went and sat next to his desk, and we talked for a few minutes. And then he had the copy of the bill framed. And that was when we started reading off the names. And then, the final scene of him and I is, we're walking down the hall of'--I think it was the Rayburn Building, and I say'--he's on a cane, and I say, "Well, it looks like we both got some mobility issues." And it was just truly a great experience.
  And I was very sad to see him go, because we, as Democrats, lost not only Ted Kennedy, but Robert Byrd, two of the fiercest antiwar senators around. And, I mean, it was just'--first of all, being a kid that was born into a level just above poverty and to being sitting in the office of a U.S. senator was mind-blowing. If you had told me when I was eight years old that some day I would be meeting a sitting senator, I wouldn't have believed you. So it was just'--it was surreal and real at the same time.
  Show full transcript >
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The World Trade Center Property Insurance Trial: Lessons Learned? - Insurance
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:06
  Had the tragic events on 9/11/01 not occurred, we would have never learned about negligence, mistakes, errors and omissions, inconsistencies, and confusion that plagued the placement and negotiation of the property insurance program for the WTC and brought to light during the WTC trial.
  The primary parties involved in the litigation were 13 WTC insurers, including Lloyd's syndicates, counted as one, the broker Willis and their client, Silverstein Properties, the leaseholder. The insurers contended that they were bound by the WilProp 2000 form, which defines "occurrence" and would limit the WTC claim to $3.5 billion, while Silverstein's position was that the Travelers' form applied, which does not define occurrence and would respond to the each of the WTC towers separately, resulting in a $7.0 billion loss payment.
  After the brilliant work by lawyers on behalf of the parties to this litigation, determination of what form applied to the 9/11/01 claim was left to a jury, unfamiliar with insurance, which was so confused early in the trial that it sent a note to the judge asking, "what is this case about" and, during their deliberations, asking whether Munich Reinsurance and Swiss Reinsurance were a part of Lloyd's.
  Although this was a complicated and large insurance placement that taxed the world market capacity and there was pressure to complete it to meet the 7/24/01 deadline for the closing of the WTC lease, there is no excuse for the failure of the parties to reach explicit agreement on which form applied when coverage was bound, let alone by 9/11/01, almost two months after binding. By no means was this a unique placement as there are many other large insurance programs just as large and complicated, which must be placed in a relatively short time frame. Undoubtedly, various issues and problems that led to litigation in this case exists in many other instances but will remain hidden absent of a claim and subsequent dispute about coverage.
  As this article is written, jurors rendered verdict in favor of ten, and against three of the 13 insurers. Regardless of the verdict, there are no winners in this case. The causes of this litigation could have been avoided and the fact remains that none of the parties to this case are blameless.
  However, it is not the purpose of this article to castigate anyone involved in the placement and negotiation process, rather, by highlighting key issues that were the subject of the litigation, it is to identify some of the lessons learned or should be learned and to prompt insurers, brokers and risk managers to reexamine their role and involvement in the insurance placement and negotiation process.
  Based on trade press reports, the following are some of the key issues that emerged during the trial:
  The broker's intention to switch from the WilProp form, that was part of the underwriting submission, to the Travelers form was not communicated properly to the insurersNone of the insurers identified the applicable form in their binders.Several insurers waived their right to approve the formOn 9/11/01, the final policy form has not been agreed upon and the broker was still analyzing the Travelers formSilverstein's risk manager authorized to bind on the basis of the Travelers form in July without obtaining and reviewing it and he did not have copy of it on 9/11/01When the form was requested from Silverstein's risk manager on 9/12/01, he released the WilProp formNone of the parties adequately documented their negotiationsIt is obvious, that clear agreement did not exist between the parties as to what form applied on 9/11/01, almost two months after binding. The most important lesson, applicable to each of the parties, simply boils down to the need for documentation of all substantive communications to ensure that there is a meeting of minds during the placement and negotiation process and, when coverage is bound, all parties have an explicit agreement regarding the form. Agreement to any subsequent form changes must also be fully documented.
  Furthermore, each of the parties, by adhering to the following rather elementary principles or procedures, can substantially reduce the potential for disputes and litigation:
  Insurers should:
  not bind coverage without obtaining and reviewing the proposed form?indicate the applicable form in their bindersnot waive their right to approve form changesaffirm their agreement in writing to any form changesBrokers should:
  indicate intent to switch or change forms in writingnot assume that lack of response from insurers means agreement to form changes and follow up to obtain written responsesensure that risk managers are adequately engaged in coverage negotiations, understand the implications of form changes and provided copy of forms and changes theretowork expeditiously to facilitate finalization of policy wordingRisk managers should:
  actively participate in the negotiation processbe proactive and initiate corrective action, if neededreview and approve the form and major form changesascertain that coverage bound by insurers is sufficiently clear and provides acceptable coverageUnfortunately, the clock cannot be turned back in this case but policyholders, brokers and insurers should examine their procedures and controls pertaining to insurance placement and negotiations and take corrective steps, if necessary, to prevent recurrence of similar disputes.
  By: Akos Swierkiewicz, CPCU Email:info@ircosllc.com The author is president of IRCOS in Morrisville, Pa. He is also an expert witness in insurance and reinsurance underwriting matters.
Bill would create $200 fine for teachers who fail to report bullying
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 06:55
  Teachers and other school district employees would face $200 fines if they fail to report bullying incidents under a bill being circulated by a Republican lawmaker.
  But some school advocates worry the bill would have unintended consequences.
  ''I think it creates incentives in the wrong directions,'' said Dan Rossmiller, director of government relations for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
  He said he fears the proposal could lead to teachers over-identifying student behavior as bullying due to fears of being penalized, or districts narrowing the definition of bullying in an effort to avoid exhausting school resources on a flood of bullying investigations.
  But the bill's sponsor, Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, said parents have told him they talked to teachers about bullying problems and ''nothing was ever done.''
  He added that another measure, which became law in May 2010, already requires school boards to develop policies to combat bullying in their schools, including defining bullying and establishing reporting procedures, but that law doesn't include penalties for those who fail to report the behavior.
  ''I thought maybe we need to put more incentive into somebody following through,'' Bies said. ''If we do this in the beginning, more drastic situations won't be happening.''
  Definitions of bullying and specific procedures for reporting it depend largely on school districts' policies. The law required the Department of Public Instruction to develop a model school policy on bullying, which provides guidance to school districts, but school boards can make extensive changes to create their district policies.
  The DPI model policy defines bullying as ''deliberate or intentional behavior using words or actions, intended to cause fear, intimidation or harm.'' It says bullying behavior can be physical, verbal, or indirect, such as spreading rumors, social exclusion, or cyber bullying. Bullying may be repeated behavior, involve an imbalance of power, and can be motivated by a number of characteristics, including age, national origin, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and a disability, the model policy says.
  And it says that all school staff members and school officials who ''observe or become aware of acts of bullying'' are required to report them '-- verbally or in writing '-- to a specific school staff member or administration designated by the Board of Education so reports can be investigated. The model policy also says districts should maintain records about the numbers and types of bullying reports that are made as well as any resulting penalties, and that an annual summary reports should be presented to school boards and be made available to the public.
  Bies' bill would make those district officials or employees who fail to report bullying subject to $200 forfeitures.
  ''To me, it's an insurance policy,'' he said.
  Patrick Gasper, spokesman for DPI, had no comment about the bill.
  Christina Brey, spokeswoman for Wisconsin Education Association Council, did not respond to requests for comment.
Cyprus government proposes setting up investment fund to secure bailout
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 06:47
  Mar 21, 2013 05:16 PM
  FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - After long talks the government in Nicosia has decided to create an ''Investment Solidarity Fund" on Thursday afternoon in order to be able to strike a deal on the rescue program with the Eurozone and the IMF before the ECB withdraws liquidity to the Cypriot banking sector on Monday. The investment fund would be backed by various state assets such as church property or revenues from the country's natural gas reserves.According to the government spokesman Christos Stylianides: ''For this purpose draft, legislation is being prepared by the Law Office of the Republic, which will be presented before the Council of Ministers in a meeting today at 6pm.''
  Asking Russia for assistance is also being considered. Cypriot finance minister Michalis Sarris flew to Moscow yesterday to discuss this possibility and is due to hold a meeting with two Russian ministers in the evening. His aim is to convince the Russian government to invest in the solidarity fund.
  ''Cyprus does not need another loan from Russia. What it needs is Russian investment,'' he said. ''We are asking for help clearly, but something that would make also economic sense for Russia.''
  Nevertheless, the levy on private deposits hasn't been completely rejected, according to an unnamed Cypriot government official. Russian president Dmitry Medevdev said on Thursday that he hoped the tax would not be necessary.
  '† Forex Flash: US economy approaching escape velocity? '' UBSForex: NZD/USD kiwi rally capped at 0.8347 '†'News provided by FXstreet.com
Firebrand comedian Beppe Grillo plans to ask Italy's president to let his group form a government.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: WT news feed
  Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:42
  MILAN'--Beppe Grillo, the firebrand comedian trying to transform Italian politics, will ask Italy's president Thursday to let his grassroots movement form a government.
  And if his Five Star Movement members agree, he's ready to become prime minister.
  ''It will be a prime minister decided by members of the movement,'' Grillo said in an exclusive interview with the Star. ''It's not a given it will be me.''
  If chosen, ''I would be a transitional prime minister,'' he added. ''I would do it in anticipation of the next election.''
  Still, Grillo holds little hope that Italian President Giorgio Napolitano will give him the nod when the two meet in Rome, even though his movement rocked Italian politics by grabbing the balance of power in February's national election.
  ''He won't give us this opportunity,'' said Grillo, noting that the 87-year-old Napolitano will likely soon be replaced. ''Poor Napolitano doesn't have the strength any more. He wants to leave. He will let the next president decide.''
  Grillo predicts the next big political battle will be over who becomes the new president, an appointment made by parliament. That likely means more political deadlock for a country with a 2 trillion euro debt, so massive that a default might destabilize the world economy.
  The movement founded by Grillo, a comedian turned social activist, rode a wave of popular disgust at a pampered, bloated and sometimes corrupt political class to capture 25 per cent of the vote '-- more than any single party.
  The group '-- which insists it's not a political party '-- achieved it through the widespread use of Internet blogs and social media, and massive rallies that headlined Grillo passionately condemning a whole political system as corrupt and spent.
  Grillo's movement has refused to strike a coalition with parties of the left, led by long-time apparatchik, Pier Luigi Bersani, or with parties of the right, led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose latest legal troubles include accusations of bribery and sex with a minor.
  ''These are people grabbing onto marble life jackets,'' said Grillo, 65. ''They should go home, after paying restitution for all that they've done.''
  Berlusconi has been calling for a coalition with the centre left. But he has been snubbed by Bersani, who considers an alliance with the media magnate an electoral kiss of death.
  Observers predict either a new election or the appointment of a non-party government made up of technocrats, like the one economist Mario Monti led until his austerity measures turned the country against him.
  Grillo, who does not sit in parliament, said political parties of the left and right have secretly been in cahoots for years and generally have the same policies. So he won't be surprised, he said, if Berlusconi and Bersani eventually team up.
  ''They'll try to blame me. They'll say they were forced to do it because Grillo would otherwise throw the country into chaos,'' he said.
  Whatever government is formed, Grillo said his movement will support laws that jibe with its program, including removing taxes crippling small- and medium-sized businesses and sweeping electoral reform that would, among other things, restrict lawmakers to two terms in office, allow voters to directly elect candidates, ban public funding of political parties and ban convicted criminals from running for office.
  If it can't form the government, Grillo insists his movement must head key parliamentary committees. ''Keep in mind that we won 25 per cent of the vote,'' he said. ''We want the positions that are due to us. They are ours by democratic right.''
  He named two: the committee that oversees the state-owned Rai TV and radio network '-- a network that in the late 1980s banned him from appearing because he ridiculed the then prime minister in a comedy skit. The other is the committee that oversees Italy's secret services.
  Grillo laughed at the thought. ''We'll take a certain satisfaction from it '-- what do you think?''
Michele Bachmann Turns Tail and Flees Interviewer
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Crooks and Liars
  Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:38
  God forbid conservatives should actually be held accountable for their lies. Michele Bachmann, who has a history of saying the most ridiculous, outrageous things about President Obama and who holds herself up as a high and mighty holy roller, has some real problems with the truth.
  When CNN confronts her, she dodges and feints and ultimately runs. In the process, she looks like the liar and fool she is. Via Mediaite
  For Tuesday night's ''Keeping Them Honest'' segment, CNN host Anderson Cooper turned to Dana Bash's encounter with Rep. Michele Bachmann who, asked about comments she made about President Obama enjoying a lavish lifestyle at the taxpayer's expense, repeatedly dodged the questions and ''literally raced away.'' Bash was ''speechless.''
  ''A new book is out talking about the perks and the excess of the $1.4-billion-a-year presidency that we're paying for,'' Bachmann said in the speech. ''And this is a lifestyle that is one of excess.'' She added:
  ''Now we find out that there are five chefs on Air Force One. There are two projectionists who operate the White House movie theater. They regularly sleep at the White House in order to be readily available in case the first family wants a really, really late show.''
  Bash sought to confront her about those comments '-- which got four Pinocchios from theWashington Post '-- and found herself chasing after the congresswoman. ''She literally raced away from our Dana Bash,'' Cooper remarked.
  Gee, I wonder why. It's one thing to drop BS on stupid CPAC attendees, and quite another to actually have to answer for it. The day she is booted from Congress will be a day of celebration for me. She's just clinging to Sarah Palin's heels for the Worst Conservative Woman ever.
Thug mentality: How two dick jokes exploded into DDoS and death threats
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:34
  Sunday afternoon, Adria Richards was sitting in a lecture hall at Python's Pycon conference when she heard something that didn't feel right. In the row behind her, a pair of attendees were telling jokes about "forking a repo," and the benefits of a large dongle. They were childish jokes and, given the male-dominated setting, she didn't like them. Onstage, she saw a photo of a young girl, part of Pycon's Young Coders program, and she thought about the kind of life that girl would face in the industry.
  Then she did something that's drawn an almost unbelievable amount of controversy in the past few days: she tweeted a picture of the attendees and wrote about it. Within minutes, conference organizers saw the tweet and pulled the two men from the event for a private talk. One was revealed as Alex Reid, a core engineer at Playhaven. The other, still unnamed, was fired a few days later.
  "An explosion of lulz and collateral damage."
  After that, the flamewar started. Yesterday, an anonymous statement on Pastebin started climbing Hacker News. A user named "mr-hank" came forward claiming to be the fired Playhaven dev, a father of three now unemployed. "The sexual context was applied by Adria, and not us," he said in the comment. "Her hard work and social activism speaks for itself. With that great power and reach comes responsibility."
  Playhaven has since backed off on the story, claiming the firing happened for a number of reasons '-- but by then, the torches had been lit. A Pastebin post this morning promised an Anonymous-affiliated attack '-- "an explosion of lulz and collateral damage." The only way to forestall the damage, the message said, was to fire Richards. 4chan's /pol/ board also promised an attack. Shortly after, a massive DDoS attack brought down Sendgrid.com, and forced Richards to shield her personal site behind Cloudflare's anti-DDoS service.
  A few hours later, Sendgrid announced it had fired Richards, effective immediately. With no site to post on, they had to make the announcement on Facebook, saying "we have taken action that we believe is in the overall best interests of SendGrid." A little after 3:30 EST, the site came back online.
  Any legitimate questions have already been lost in the flood of vitriol
  What's left is a lot of questions and no clear answers: the biggest one being whether Richards was fired in response to the DDoS attack. Sendgrid declined to comment, despite repeated attempts to contact the company. [UPDATE: A company representative referred us to this post by the CEO.] Many have asked if taking a picture of the men crossed a line. One commenter even compared the act to Reddit's infamous "creepshots." Many wondered why she didn't just tell the playhaven duo they were bothering her.
  the conversation has become an echo chamber of horrible
  But any legitimate questions have already been lost in the flood of vitriol against Richards, including outright death threats. Nearly 200 comments have been left on Sendgrid's Facebook post, including a number of racial epithets. (Richards is African-American.) Hacker News has been aggressively moderating the discussion, and has deleted a number of threads on the topic. Seeking to repair the damage, a number of figures have already come forward to offer Richards a job.
  It has all the hallmarks of a flamewar, a conversation dominated by the loudest and most offensive voices. The conversation has become an echo chamber of horrible, with the worst offenses of each side trotted out in place of anything resembling equanimity. Defending Richards '-- a woman who, it bears repeating, is still receiving racially motivated death threats '-- is seen as equivalent to casting a father of three into the poorhouse. She "got him fired," as a thousand comments will remind you. Playhaven, the company which did the actual firing, seems to have gotten off scot-free, in both the comments sections and the Anon-affiliated chat rooms of the world. As it turns out, sometimes the internet is a terrible place.
  What we most want, across the board, is for this not to have happened. It was such a simple joke, in the beginning '-- the kind of thing high school boys tell, before enough women call them out on it and they stop. Why couldn't Richards have called them out the same way? Over and over, observers have put forward the same fantasy, in which Richards talks to the developers face-to-face, they fess up, and the whole thing lives and dies as a quiet argument in the tenth row of an otherwise-boring tech conference.
  But in a world where thousands of anonymous men can instantly gather to deliver swift retribution against any perceived threat, it's easy to understand why more women don't speak out.
Hacker "Guccifer" leaks emails from noted venture capitalist
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Reuters: Technology News
  Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:33
  SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Mar 21, 2013 6:51pm EDT
  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - John Doerr, a venture capitalist known for early investments in companies such as Amazon and Google, has become the latest victim of the hacker known as Guccifer, according to the Smoking Gun website.
  The hacker sent the online publication several emails from Doerr's AOL email account as well as a screenshot of Doerr's email address book, including Steve Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson, the Smoking Gun said.
  A spokesman for Doerr, the face of the high-profile venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
  Guccifer rose to prominence earlier this year after leaking the emails of several Bush family members, including former President George W. Bush.
  The hacker has also accessed emails of former secretary of state Colin Powell and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.