What Adam Curry is reading

Three arrested for trying to cut undersea Internet cable - SlashGear
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:45
  Attacks on the submarine cables running along the ocean floors carrying massive amounts of Internet traffic aren't terribly uncommon. A series of the cables were severed for reasons unbeknownst back in 2008, for example, and again early last year, the latter of which cut off Internet service to various locations in Africa. Now three have been arrested for attempting to severe a cable feeding Internet to Alexandria.
  According to Egyptian military spokesman Col Ahmed Mohammed Ali, three men were discovered attempting to sabotage an undersea Internet cable from a fishing boat located approximately 820 yards from Alexandria. As a result, Internet users in Egypt have suffered reduced speeds, something that is no doubt frustrating, and also highlights the vulnerability of an infrastructure the modern world is so dependent on.
  Per the announcement, the men were caught while in the process of cutting the cable. Although the extent of the damage that was caused is unknown, the timing of this attack coincided with reports from Seacom, a cable operator, that multiple lines between Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia were also affected, causing widespread Internet slowing. The specific cable attacked in this event is the SEA-ME-WE 4 main lines in the Mediterranean.
  The attackers' motivation for the attack is unknown, and they are slated for interrogation by law enforcement officials. Whether this attack is in any way related to the problems experienced with other submarine Internet cables in recent days is also unknown. The mens' names have not been revealed. Stay tuned, and we'll keep you updated as more information becomes available.
  [via BBC]Image via Renesys
Guest Post: Second LNG Super Tanker Arrives In UK To Help With Natural Gas Shortage
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  Source: Zero Hedge
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:30
  Submitted by Joao Peixe of Oil Price
  Second LNG Super Tanker Arrives in UK To Help with Natural Gas Shortage
  Due to unseasonably cold weather the UK has seen high demand for natural gas, far higher than anything expected, and the truth is that the country was not prepared.
  The dwindling supplies form the North Sea were unable to meet the high demand, and storage reserves reached dangerously low levels, leading some to suggest that the UK may run out of gas altogether within days. The government denied these reports and began frantically searching for alternative supplies to meet the demand.
  Supplies were not hard to come by as the shortage had caused spot prices in the UK increase to some of the highest in the world, attracting tankers from around the world.
  A giant tanker, the Zarga, has docked at Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire to unload its cargo of LNG. It is the second such tanker to have been diverted to Britain in the last couple of days in search of the high prices that can be charged there. The Mekaines docked at Kent on Sunday. The vessels carried a combined total of more than 500,000 cubic metres of LNG, enough to meet the entire UKs demand for 12 hours.
  The Zarga, one of Qatar's Q-max tankers, the largest LNG tankers in the world at 344metres long, set sail in search of the highest prices on the market, which currently happens to be in the UK.
  This diagram from the BBC shows that route taken by the Zarga from Qatar to Wales, and then the distribution of the natural gas around the UK.
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 4(4 votes)
Giving Syrian opposition seats at Arab League is 'illegal, indefensible' '' Moscow
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  Source: End the Lie - Independent News
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:24
  From Left to Right: Lebanese President Michel Sleiman (R), Ikililou Dhoinine, President of the Union of the Comoros, Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi (3rd R), Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud (C), Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the Crown Prince of Qatar, Omani Deputy Prime Minister Fahd bin Mahmud al-Said (2nd L), and Iraqi Deputy President Khudair al-Khuzai (L) pose for a group photograph during the opening of the Arab League summit in the Qatari capital Doha on March 26, 2013. (AFP Photo)
  The Arab League's move to hand the Syrian opposition the country's official seat at a summit in Doha and the decision to give military backing to the rebels are both against international law, Moscow has said.
  ''In terms of international law, decisions on Syria made by the [Arab] League are unlawful and indefensible, since the government of the Syrian Arab Republic remains the legal representative of the UN member-state,'' Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aleksandr Lukashevich said in a statement.
  See also: ''Outsiders are killing Syrian people, destroying Churches and mosques '' Christian Bishop,'' ''CONFIRMED: US Shipping Weapons to Syria '' Al Nusra's ''Mystery'' Sponsors Revealed,'' ''Survey: US and UK citizens reject regime change or arms supply in Syria'' and ''CIA aids huge arms smuggling to Syria '' report''
  Arab leaders gathered on Tuesday for the League's annual two-day summit in the Qatari capital Doha. To the outrage of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, Syria's opposition National Coalition formally took the country's official seat at the gathering.
  In November 2011, the Arab League suspended the republic's membership in the organization.
  Moscow called the Arab League's decision to invite the Syrian opposition to the summit and give them Assad's chair ''yet another anti-Syrian step.''
  The head of the opposition Coalition's delegation, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, urged Arab leaders to beef up assistance to the opposition, including the provision of military aid and the foreign imposition of a no-fly zone over the country's north. The Russian Foreign Ministry compared such a scenario to the Libyan conflict.
  Khatib also called on ''Arab and friendly'' states for support in granting the National Coalition a seat at the United Nations and other international organizations.
  There was no firm consensus among summit participants that individual members of the League had the right to provide military aid to ''anti-government armed groups in Syria,'' the Russian diplomat pointed out.
  The Doha summit's decisions, ''approved despite objection by a range of member-states, are perplexing, to say the least,'' Lukashevich said, calling the move ''open support for forces that, unfortunately, stand for a military solution'' to the Syrian conflict.
  Lukashevich also argued that the League's decisions contradict the principles for a peaceful political settlement laid out in the Geneva Communiqu(C). The document was enacted on June 30, 2012, by major world powers with the participation of the Arab League's Secretary General and some of the organization's members, including Qatar, Lukashevich pointed out.
  The Communiqu(C) said that an agreement must be reached between the Syrian government and opposition groups. ''But not that some structure, whose legitimacy would be approved by external forces, would be set as opposition to the legal Syrian government,'' the Russian diplomat said.
  Lukashevich said the latest moves ''undermine the mandate'' of the UN and Arab League mediator for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi. Russia has maintained that the only way to stop the bloodshed in conflict-wracked Syria is through a political dialogue with both the government and opposition involved in the negotiations.
  The Arab League's decisions have come under fire in Damascus as well. State-run Syrian news agency SANA said that the organization compromised its ''values for the sake of Gulf Arab and Western interests when it gave Syria's seat to the opposition Syrian National Coalition,'' Reuters reported.
  Source: RT
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Smoking by mentally ill 'ignored'
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  Source: BBC News - Home
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:14
  27 March 2013Last updated at20:30 ETThe NHS in England is not doing enough to help people with mental health conditions quit smoking, an influential group of doctors has warned.
  People with mental health disorders, such as depression, are twice as likely to smoke and tend to be more addicted.
  Yet the NHS is turning a blind eye and not doing enough to help them to stop, the Royal College of Physicians said.
  The Department of Health said it was committed to tackling the issue in the future.
  The report, which was also put together by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, points out that although rates of smoking in the general population have fallen substantially over the past 20 years, there has been little change in people with mental health conditions.
  A third of all cigarettes in England are smoked by someone with a mental health disorder, the report said.
  Yet they are just as likely to want to quit as anyone else but are likely to be more addicted and lack the right support to stop, the report found.
  Smoking has become engrained into the culture in many institutions caring for people with mental health problems and making them totally smoke-free environments should be a priority, it concluded.
  And although the usual smoking cessation treatments such as nicotine replacement therapy is effective, people with mental health conditions may need higher doses or more intensive support, it said.
  High costIt is estimated that the NHS spends around £720m a year treating smoking-related illness in people with mental health disorders - mostly on people with depression or anxiety.
  The failure of smoking prevention and treatment in this group is largely down to an acceptance of smoking as a "normal behaviour" and is an indictment on public health and clinical services, it said.
  The report added that there "was no justification for healthcare staff to facilitate smoking".
  Prof John Britton, director of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies at the University of Nottingham and report chairman, said people with mental health disorders might find it harder to quit smoking but that did not mean they did not want to stop.
  He added in some mental health services there was a culture in which smoking was acceptable.
  "The patients are seen as having a hard time and are ill so they need a cigarette and it is also a way for staff to build relationships and so they end up facilitating smoking breaks, finding time to supervise people who want to go outside to smoke, rather than spending resources on helping them to stop."
  He added that although people with depression and anxiety might start smoking because they find it helps, it soon starts to exacerbate their problems.
  "If they stop smoking, a year down the line, they will feel substantially better," he added.
  Paul Farmer, chief executive at the mental health charity Mind, said: "This report highlights once again that the needs of people with mental health problems are often overlooked or ignored."
  A Department of Health spokesman said: "This is an important issue, and frankly, a difficult one. We are aware that more work needs to be done to tackle it fully."
  He said in the future the government was looking to focus efforts on reducing smoking among vulnerable groups, such as mental health patients.
Bloomberg Expresses Rage Over Failed Plan for Speed-Tracking Cameras
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  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:12
  As it became clear that a proposal to place speed-tracking cameras on New York City's streets would fail in Albany, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg let fly a charged and unusually personal attack against state lawmakers on Wednesday, blaming state senators, by name, for the future deaths of children killed by speeding cars.
  The next time that word of such a tragedy emerges, Mr. Bloomberg suggested at a news conference near Union Square, ''why don't you pick up the phone and call your state senator and ask why they allowed that child to be killed?''
  He said his office would even provide contact information for certain senators: Dean G. Skelos, the Republican majority leader; Simcha Felder, who was elected as a Democrat but chose to caucus as a Republican; and Martin J. Golden, a Brooklyn Republican who has often been a crucial ally to the Bloomberg administration.
  ''Maybe you want to give those phone numbers to the parents of the child when a child is killed,'' Mr. Bloomberg said. ''It would be useful so that the parents can know exactly who's to blame.''
  Scott Reif, a spokesman for Senate Republicans, declined to address the mayor's remarks directly, saying only that ''no one has fought harder or longer than Senate Republicans'' to promote safety in New York City.
  Though speed cameras, long trumpeted by city officials as an important street safety tool, were initially included in a budget package in the State Assembly, they do not appear in the budget that is expected to be approved by the Legislature this week.
  Some opponents of the cameras have called them a warrantless attempt to raise revenue for the city and have expressed doubts as to whether they reduce speeding.
  Mr. Golden said on Wednesday that other areas with speed cameras around the country had found them ''unreliable.''
  Janette Sadik-Khan, the city's transportation commissioner, said on Wednesday that over 100 cities and states were already using cameras ''and study after study has proved that they work.'' The Transportation Department cited the example of Washington, D.C., where the police said last year that speeding at camera locations had fallen significantly since 2001, when the devices were first installed.
  Last week, when New York City announced its final 2012 traffic fatality statistics '-- 274 deaths, the highest since 2008 '-- officials sought to tie the figures to a need for speed cameras, particularly near schools.
  The Transportation Department released a map documenting 100 locations where 75 percent of vehicles were documented as speeding within a quarter-mile of a city school. Near three schools 100 percent of drivers were found to be speeding, according to the department.
  Amid consistent calls from advocates, who are often critical of New York City's traffic enforcement, it appeared that momentum had begun to build in support of the policy, particularly after a spate of high-profile fatal crashes this year.
  Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker and a top Democratic candidate for mayor, pledged her support for speed cameras this month, as did Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner.
  But the plan has faced opposition from the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which, like Mr. Golden, has said that the more effective way to reduce speeding would be to hire more officers.
  Mr. Golden suggested that the state revisit the use of cameras ''if we can prove that the technology is sound, and document unequivocally that it will reduce speeding and fatalities.''
  On Wednesday, Mr. Bloomberg appeared in no mood to wait.
  ''We literally are having kids that are getting killed around our schools because people are speeding,'' he said. ''And they don't want to let us use cameras to stop people from doing that.''
"Everyone Talking About A Cyber 9/11 Worse Than Pearl Harbor Is Actually Going Too Far"
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  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:20
"You have to Destroy the Maastricht Treaty to Save It"
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  Source: Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:17
  There are plenty of news headlines rattling Europe today. Let's take a look at some of them.
  Severe Capital Controls in Cyprus
  In spite of the fact the Maastricht Treaty under which the eurozone was formed mandates a free flow of capital, Cyprus unveils severe capital controls.
  "Cyprus is the first eurozone country ever to apply capital controls, with limits on credit card transactions, money transfers abroad and the cashing of cheques. Depositors will be limited to credit card transactions of up to '‚¬5,000 per month and will be able take a maximum of '‚¬3,000 of bank notes out of the country per trip."
  Capital controls are said to expire in seven days. So, don't worry, its only temporary.
  Hopefully everyone understands the implied theory: "You have to Destroy the Maastricht Treaty to Save It."
  Top Orwellian Comments Of All Times
  An American major after the destruction of the Vietnamese Village Ben Tre: "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."Vice President Joe Biden: "We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt."President George W. Bush: "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."(For a discussion please see The Most Redeeming Feature of Capitalism is Failure)Nancy Pelosi said "We have to pass the health care bill to see what's in it." (YouTube Video)Larry Summers says "The central irony of financial crisis is that while it is caused by too much confidence, too much borrowing and lending and too much spending, it can only be resolved with more confidence, more borrowing and lending, and more spending." (Reuters) But What about those advertised losses of 30% on large Cyprus depositors?Glad you asked. "Laiki depositors holding more than '‚¬100,000 may lose up to 80 per cent of their funds, and only get the remaining 20 per cent back over a period of years, Cyprus's finance minister said on Tuesday."
  Italy Industrial Orders Sink
  Dow Jones reports Italy Industrial Orders Fall in Jan on Declining Internal Demand
  "Italian industrial orders dropped for the third consecutive month in January and were down compared with the same period a year ago, hit by declining internal demand, the national statistics institute reported Wednesday. Orders fell 1.4% in January from December in seasonally-adjusted terms and were down 3.3% from January 2012 in unadjusted terms, Istat reported."
  Merkel Ally Backs Double-Digit Hike in Top Tax Rate
  If you thought Merkel and her CDU party were true conservatives, it's time for you to think again.
  Reuters reports Merkel CDU Ally Backs Double-Digit Hike in Top Tax Rate.
  "A senior conservative ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, premier of the western state of Saarland and a senior figure in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said in a weekend radio interview that Merkel's predecessor Gerhard Schroeder had gone too far by reducing the top rate to 42 percent from 53 percent in the 1990s."
  Is Poland Having Second Thoughts?
  The Financial Times reports Poland opens way to euro referendum.
  "Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, took a big political gamble on Tuesday when he opened the door to a referendum on joining the euro, in the face of strong public opposition to the common currency. The latest opinion survey shows 62 per cent of Poles are opposed to joining, with scepticism increasing markedly since the financial and debt crises hit Europe five years ago. But now Mr Tusk has publicly raised the possibility of allowing a referendum '' demanded by rightwing opposition parties opposed to euro membership '' in return for an agreement with the opposition to push through the necessary constitutional changes."
  Tusk is setting a trap. Tusk wants the constitutional changes now, but will only hold a vote when favorable. Should the vote fail, rest assured there will be another and another and another. Unless of course the eurozone splinters to high heavens in the meantime which of course is a likely possibility.
  The correct move is for the opposition to demand a referendum immediately, and if and only if it passes (it won't), should the constitutional changes be taken up.
  French Unemployment Hits 16-Year High
  President Francois Hollande's socialist policies are firing on all four cylinders now, except in reverse as French Unemployment Hits 16-Year High.
  The Financial Times reports "French unemployment nudged a record level in February as the jobless total rose for the 22nd month in succession to a 16-year high, adding to the acute political pressure on President Fran§ois Hollande as he battles a stalled economy. The OECD predicts unemployment will reach 11.25 per cent, surpassing the record level of 10.8 per cent previously hit in 1994 and 1997."
  Except for Spain, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Slovenia, Luxembourg, France, and various other eurozone countries, everything in the eurozone is quite lovely.
  Mike "Mish" Shedlockhttp://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
"No Bank Account ANYWHERE In The Eurozone Is Safe"
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  Source: The Daily Bail
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:09
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Moynihan: We're Doing God's Work At Bank Of America
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  Source: The Daily Bail
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:02
  Holy shite. Moynihan makes the Blankfein mistake.
  Preview for tonight's Charlie Rose. Watch the first 30 seconds and then skip to 1:25 where he discusses the bailout.
  "I believe we have an obligation to help everybody. Help people who need help. You know it comes from some of the Judeo-Christian training, and going to Notre Dame, you know all that kind of stuff."
  "Banks are big because we reflect the economy."
  ---
  March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan discusses restructuring the firm's balance sheet, shifting focus from acquisitions to being "only about organic growth" and working with mortgage customers to reduce foreclosures.
Virgin Atlantic/Richard Branson Follow-Up
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  Source: BLACKFIVE
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:00
  Posted By Laughing_Wolf ' [March 27, 2013]As long as I am in a highly PO'd mood courtesy of several factors including self-important petty tyrants making legal threats against a brother without cause or need, well, I might as well go whole hog here.
  I first wrote about the despicable and disgusting treatment of PO Howse here, and explained for the slow why I was so upset here. I've been in touch with Virgin Atlantic (and no, no more free links for them), but have not heard from Sir Richard (too busy attacking the 2nd Amendment and freedom, and accusing the NRA of murdering children to reply), and I have not been able to contact PO Howse or her family despite several efforts to do so. That's important, as until a statement is made by her or a representative, the matter is still open as there is no other way to know if she has accepted the apology and/or anything has been done to try to make up for the shameful humiliation to which she was unconscionably subjected.
  Virgin's official statement will be below the fold, but I'm not impressed with it. See my parsing of statements in the previous stories as to why. Feh.
  Sir Richard's contacting PO Howse was via e-mail, apparently too busy talking about being nice to women to do anything substantive about his staff humiliating her. At least the head of customer service had the balls to call her in person.
  No real answers to any of the questions I asked, the statement is all they are saying as they hope this quickly fades away (and swept under the rug one can imagine). Well, I think you can count on my not forgetting, and continuing to follow-up on this.
  Meantime, no links and no business to any part of the Virgin empire if I can help it: Virgin Air, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Travel, Virgin Entertainment, etc. When the founder can't be bothered to call someone wronged as badly as PO Howse was; when it is far more important to talk about supporting women rather than fixing when his empire clearly wronged a woman; and, when it is far more important to attack freedoms in another country because of his, er, shortcomings -- well, that's time for me to take my business elsewhere. What you do is up to you, but at least you have some food for thought as you decide.
  Also, Virgin Atlantic and Sir Richard, the questions I asked in the first two stories still stand. Anyone there have the fortitude and integrity to answer them?
  Below are statements from Virgin Atlantic in regards to the uniformed officer incident at London Heathrow: Virgin Atlantic does not have a policy which prevents passengers traveling in uniform and we are pleased to welcome any military personnel on board our flights in uniform. This was a completely isolated case in which our staff were incorrectly advised by a security agent that the passenger would have to remove her uniform. We have made contact with the passenger in question to express our deep regret for any upset caused. We apologize for any offence caused by the mistaken advice given by one of our officers to Virgin ground staff concerning uniforms on flights. We can confirm an investigation is underway and all security teams and stations have been reminded that military personnel are permitted to travel in uniform.As a major employer of former servicemen and women we regret that this incident happened and will be apologizing to Ms Howse as soon as possible.
  TrackBack URL for this entry:http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bfadb53ef017ee9c9eff6970d
Look Out, Dvorak and Adam... The IRS is about to require withholding on independent contractors' 1099's and outlaw cash
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  Archived Version
  Source: What Mel Cooley is saying.
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:51
  Dennis Brack / Bloomberg News / Getty ImagesAlthough you wouldn't know it by the weather, April is fast approaching. And that means in the coming weeks, millions of Americans will be breaking out their W-2s and their favorite tax software to figure out exactly how much money they owe their government. Of course, in an economy as large and complex as America's there are plenty of folks who don't pay exactly what they owe. These people can range from those engaged in illicit activities like drug dealing to legitimate service industry workers, like babysitters, who are paid in cash. The difference between what is legally owed the federal government and what it actually collects in taxes each year is called the ''tax gap,'' which the IRS recently estimated reached $385 billion in 2006. Other studies have placed that figure higher '-- at upwards of $600 billion.
  So who owes this money and why? The single biggest contributor to the tax gap '-- accounting for 84% of it '-- are people who simply under-report their income. This doesn't usually happen to folks whose employers withholds taxes from their paychecks, as 99% of people in that position end up paying their income taxes in full and on time. The biggest headache for the IRS is collecting business income from the self employed, who must voluntarily report their earnings, and may '-- accidentally or on purpose '' omit items such as income received through bartering, debt cancellation, or kickbacks. The IRS says only 44% of taxes owed on such business income end up getting collected by the agency.
  (MORE: Don't Let Identity Thieves Steal Your Tax Refund)
  Actually recouping much of this money, however, may be tougher than it sounds. Often the resources needed to collect unpaid taxes outweigh the extra revenue that would be collected. But many believe that merely simplifying the tax code would enable the IRS to collect a greater percentage of taxes owed. This is the approach advocated by Susan Striz in a 2010 West Virginia Law Review article. She points to a 2002 study by the Government Accountability Office which showed that ''fifty-six percent of [tax] returns prepared by a paid preparer had errors in comparison to only forty-seven percent prepared by the taxpayer.'' And these errors didn't only include returns that claimed too big a refund, but those that caused the filer to overpay the government. In other words, the tax code is so complicated that even paid professionals screw up more than half the time, and this is a major factor leading to a higher tax gap.
  But the tax gap isn't just a product of the complexity of the tax code. According to a 2011 study by economists Edgar Fiege and Richard Cebula, tax compliance in the U.S. tends to go up during periods of economic growth, and fall during recessions. It also tends to rise when taxes are lower and fall when tax rates are higher. And this hypothesis is supported by a look at tax compliance rates across developed countries. Despite the hundreds of billions in taxes the U.S. government fails to collect each year, it has one of the highest tax compliance rates of any developed country. This can partly be explained by America's relatively low tax rates and effective tax collection regime. But another big factor determining compliance rates is culture: In some countries like the U.S., it's simply standard behavior to pay your taxes, while in others, tax compliance is much less common.
  (MORE:What You Need to Know As Tax Time Rolls Around)
  Behavioral economists call the cultural tendency to pay duties, ''tax morale.'' As James Suroweicki of The New Yorker defines it:
  ''In most developed countries, tax-compliance rates are much higher than a calculation of risks would imply. We don't pay our taxes just because we're afraid of getting caught; we also feel a responsibility to contribute to the common good. But that sense of responsibility comes with conditions . . . we'll chip in as long as we have faith that our fellow-citizens are doing the same, and that our government is basically legitimate. Countries where people feel that they have some say in how the state acts, and where there are high levels of trust, tend to have high rates of tax compliance. That may be why Americans, despite being virulently anti-tax in their rhetoric, are notably compliant taxpayers.''
  So while Americans may pay, in total, far less in taxes than we collectively owe, we're actually much more inclined to pay our dues than most other people in the world. That is probably a product of our relatively low-tax system, but also a product of culture. That being said, we could probably make our tax collection apparatus much more effective by simplifying the tax code '-- as evidenced by the fact that even well-paid tax professionals have trouble not making mistakes.
  MORE: 7 Tax Breaks You Probably Overlooked
Freezing British Easter: Three more weeks of freezing weather predicted, 33 year old man dead after collapsing in snow, could cause a triple dip recession
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  Source: 33 World News
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:43
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Italy's Grillo exposed as tool of State Department, Goldman Sachs
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:42
  It has been about a month since the Italian elections, and no new government has been formed to replace the hated IMF austerity regime of economics professor and Goldman Sachs consultant Mario Monti.
  The power vacuum is largely the work of the right-wing demagogue Beppe Grillo and his band of enraged petty-bourgeois novices. During the current negotiations to form a government to replace Monti and his sociopathic technocrats, Grillo's position has been the same as that of Hitler after the German election of July 1932, when the Nazi leader, citing the fact that he controlled the largest single political party (although not an absolute majority), refused to support anyone but himself to head the next government.
  This is Grillo's precise position today. And despite Grillo's repeated boast that he is now the largest political force in Italy, the social democratic PD turns out to have more votes for both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate now that the votes of Italians living abroad have been counted.
  The resulting log jam of un-governability plays into the hands of the Anglo-American financiers, among other things by preventing Italy from rolling back the destructive austerity measures decreed by Monti and his IMF technocrats.
  In 1932, German President von Hindenburg refused to make Hitler the Chancellor even though he had 37% of the votes. Grillo, by contrast, has about 25% right now. It is assumed that neither the Bersani social democrats nor Berlusconi's center-right group could accept serving in a cabinet under the mentally unstable narcissist Grillo, whose political style always places him on the cusp of a carpet-chewing apoplectic fit.Grillo's actions reveal him as a cynical and power-hungry manipulator much worse even than traditional figures like Bersani or Berlusconi. He is a purveyor of infantile rage, verbal violence, obscene slander, and the voices of the infantile id. Grillo's megalomaniac strategy is plainly to provoke another round of elections in the late spring or summer, with the hope that he will emerge with an absolute majority or at least with enough parliamentary seats to demand the role of Prime Minister.
  It is a calculation dictated by Grillo's insatiable ambition, and not by the welfare of his hapless followers. Some 8 million Italians voted in desperation for Grillo in the hope of immediate relief from the crushing austerity enacted by Monti. They would be best served if Grillo immediately announced his willingness to support a government pledging to pass a short-term program of stopping all foreclosures on homes and factories, abolishing the onerous IMU property tax and other tax increases decreed by Monti, and guaranteeing an immediate minimum guaranteed income of '‚¬1,000 per month for pensioners, the disabled, and the unemployed, paid for by a more robust version of Italy's new Euro 'Tobin levy' on financial trading. But Grillo wants more power for himself, not a concrete rollback of austerity for working people.
  Instead, Grillo's sinister amateur hour focuses on such trifling gestures as cutting the pay and perks of members of Parliament, eliminating provincial governments altogether, and demanding an end to the public financing of political parties - which would weaken the social democrats and make Italian politics into the playground for millionaires and billionaires, just like the United States after the Citizens United ruling. Needless to say, savings from such changes represent mere chicken feed, and would do nothing to alleviate the suffering and desperation of Italian families.
  In the meantime, Grillo's status as a US tool for the destabilization of Italy is now a matter of public record. When the new US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Rome, he told a small group of Italian political leaders that the United States was in no way hostile to Grillo. It was revealed that the previous US ambassador, Ronald Spogli, had informed the State Department that Grillo should be considered a credible partner.
  US ambassador tells Italian students to support Grillo
  On March 13, the current US ambassador David Thorne, Kerry's Yale roommate and a fellow member of the infamous Skull and Bones freemasonic cult, told a group of high school students in Rome that Grillo and his neo-totalitarian Five Star Movement were the preferred alternative from Washington's point of view. ''You can take your country in hand and act, like the Five-Star Movement, for reform and change,'' said Thorne to an assembly at the Liceo Visconti.
  Thorne's comment represented a crass and blatant interference in the internal affairs of Italy, and a deplorable diplomatic incident. A number of Italian politicians from the social democratic PD party demanded that the State Department repudiate Thorne's remarks, but no such statement was forthcoming. Grillo, for his part, prominently displayed Thorne's outrageous endorsement on his flagship blog, which is on the equivalent of the daily Pravda or V?lkischer Beobachter for his besotted legions.
  Grillo's movement represents a further step in the development of that basic Anglo-American destabilization tool, the color revolution. Growing out of CIA operations in Portugal in the 1970s, the Philippines in the 1980s, and later subversion in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine, the standard color revolution has tended to follow a somewhat crude and mechanistic assembly-line approach: to target a country with a strong government, use the Madison Avenue branding techniques of a color and a slogan, plus a telegenic ''reform'' demagogue and a fake exit poll to mobilize swarms of na¯ve adolescents to undertake public demonstrations designed to portray the existing government as intolerably unpopular.
  Then set up an IMF-NATO puppet regime and let the foreign banks asset-strip the country. This cookie cutter approach was perfected by Otpor of Belgrade, which transformed itself into a highly lucrative international consultancy in the service of Washington and London. The main failures of this standard model of subversion came in Lebanon, where the hollow ''Cedars Revolution'' did considerable damage but was defeated by the organized power of Hezbollah, and in Iran, where the Ahmadinejad government refused to be stampeded.
  Italy, the seventh largest industrial power in the world, is a complex Western European society with the remains of a once powerful labor movement and labor-based political party, as well as Berlusconi's bourgeois mass party. During 2011, US-UK intelligence attempted to mount a Purple Revolution against Berlusconi, but this feeble effort was unable to provide much camouflage for the coup d'(C)tat of November 2011 which ousted Berlusconi and replaced him with the incompetent Monti and his gaggle of austerity ghouls.
  The persistence of at least two major political parties has forced the bankers to turn to Grillo, seen more as a short-term wrecking ball for the existing political system than as a long-term dictatorial solution. Once Grillo has further demolished the existing parliamentary democracy, Washington and London can pull out their next option, quite possibly the telegenic Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi, already celebrated by Time magazine as Italy's white Obama, who mounted an unsuccessful challenge to the traditional hack leadership around Bersani in the PD primaries for prime minister. Wall Street and the City of London hope that, with a little bit of luck, Grillo might also be able to wreck the Euro and pitch continental Europe into the abyss of total economic breakdown.
  Goldman Sachs welcomes Grillo as a Trojan horse for new speculative attacks on Italian bonds
  The notorious Jim O'Neill, outgoing boss of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has joined Thorne in his enthusiastic support for Grillo and his myrmidons, the grillini. O'Neill is responsible for coining the insulting label of ''PIIGS,'' used as a catchphrase by cynical hedge fund hyenas and zombie bankers to organize the attack on the government bonds of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain starting in 2009 - all as a means of stabilizing the US dollar and the British pound by wrecking the euro while making enormous speculative profits in the process.
  O'Neill welcomed the results of the late February Italian national elections, obviously because this chaotic situation weakens the Italian Republic and gives more power to predatory financiers like O'Neill himself and his colleagues at Goldman Sachs. According to Business Insider, O'Neill had the following to say about Grillo:
  ''Firstly, perhaps somewhat oddly, I find the outcome quite exciting because it seems to me for a country whose GDP has basically not changed since the EMU started in 1999, something big needs to change. Maybe this election outcome and the peculiar mass appeal of the Five-Star Movement could signal the start of something new? Secondly, for the establishment of Italy and, crucially, the other 'power centers' of old Europe, in particular Berlin and Frankfurt, these results are pretty close to a nightmare.'' (''The Political Nightmare Unfolding in Italy Has Got Me Excited,'' Business Insider, March 1, 2013)
  But at the same time, O'Neill and Goldman Sachs were reported to be dumping any remaining holdings of Italian government bonds, even as they made a series of large-scale bets against Italian government debt with the aid of credit default swaps, the toxic derivatives which speculators use to increase the destructive power of the hot money they deploy against national economies.
  On March 8, Fitch Ratings took advantage of the chaos and un-governability generated by the funnyman Grillo, lowering its Issuer Default Reading (IDR) for Italy from A- to BBB+, with a negative long-term outlook. Actions like this are at the heart of the Anglo American arsenal used to attack European government bonds as a means of damaging the euro. The Fitch downgrade was all the more outrageous because, as O'Neill has admitted, Italy's cyclically adjusted fiscal position is actually in modest surplus, and is much better than that of the United States, Britain, and France, and slightly better than Germany.
  Pro-fascist leads Grillo's caucus in chamber of deputies
  Like Mussolini and Ron Paul, Grillo has long claimed to represent the transcendence of the left-and right dichotomy. Grillo has used this sophistry to declare himself open to cooperation with the neofascist Casa Pound, a slimy operation named after the American fascist traitor, mental case, and poetaster Ezra Pound. In a dialogue with Casa Pound leaders, Grillo refused to describe himself as anti-fascist, and claimed instead to be ''ecumenical'' - meaning ready to work with the heirs of Mussolini. And of course, if Grillo wants to follow through on his plan to wipe out all labor unions while at the same time drastically cutting government pensions as part of his debt-reduction strategy, he may need all the help he can get from the fascist squadristi.
  Grillo's hand-picked chief enforcer for the Five Star caucus in the Italian chamber of deputies is Roberta Lombardi. The petty bourgeois Lombardi is nostalgic for the early years of the fascist movement, commenting: ''Before it degenerated, fascism had a sense of national community (which it took directly from socialism), the highest respect for the state, and the will to protect the family.'' With these words, Lombardi is endorsing the fascist movement which met in Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan in 1919, made up of ex-socialists, war veterans, disillusioned trade unionists, and the self-styled creative intelligentsia. There are in fact many parallels between this primitive
  Grillo trying to stop jailbreak among his parliamentarians
  Ironically, Grillo's calling card has long been a promise of total netroots democracy, with a referendum on every important decision. So far, Grillo and his guru Casaleggio have been making all the decisions on their own. The Five Star Movement has a structure which can only be called autistic. There are no clubs, locals, citywide or regional organizations. There are no party conventions or conferences on any level. There are simply the atomized, alienated, and isolated grillini at their computers, each relating solely to Il Duce and his decrees. Most of Grillo's new members of Parliament had never met each other.
  This would appear to be the Bilderberg/CIA/MI-6 answer to the question of how to create a mass anti-government political party while keeping all of its members in total passivity and isolation, lest they get any ideas about mounting a real challenge to the power of financier oligarchs. Because Grillo and Casaleggio were looking for doglike loyalty and not exceptional ability, many of the Five Star candidates are marginal people, unemployed or underemployed. They are now delighted to be getting the generous salaries paid to deputies and senators, and want very much to avoid the dissolution of Parliament for early elections. They fear the loss of their livelihood, either by getting the ax from Grillo for some petty infraction, or by defeat at the polls. This group is eminently susceptible to bribery, be it through cash-filled envelopes now, or through the promise of lucrative jobs on the other side of the revolving door.
  The obvious alternative for the new parliamentary grillini is to ignore the raving directives issued by Grillo's blog, and to vote in ways that will provide a minimum of institutional stability for Italy, along with a continuation of their own salaries. Grillo is acutely aware of the threat of a jailbreak among his minions. Soon after the elections, he exploded in rage against Article 67 of the Italian Constitution, which bans any so-called imperative mandate subordinating individual members of Parliament to their party organizations.
  Article 67 was part of the backlash against the fascist one-party state of Mussolini. In practical terms, it means that according to Italian law every grillino deputy and senator is free to dump Grillo and stay in office as a member of the independent (or ''mixed'') caucus of Chamber and Senate. Grillo, while claiming not to be a political party, wants instead a complete party dictatorship, as during Italy's two decades of fascist rule. In response to these outbursts, Grillo's blog - until then a theater of unanimous adulation for the unkempt leader - registered its first serious wave of criticism and dissent.Grillo's rage escalated on the Saturday after the Ides of March when about fifteen grillino senators (more than a quarter of his total strength of 53 in the upper house) broke ranks and voted for the social democratic judge Grasso over the Berlusconi candidate for the presidency of the Senate. Grillo, always seeking chaos, had ordered them to vote blank ballot so as to prevent anyone from being elected. In a psychotic outburst on his blog, Grillo demanded the resignation of all senators who had violated the party line. Part of the issue was Grillo's unit rule, by which all grillini must vote together. The unit rule was of course a lockstep favored by southern segregationists at Democratic Party conventions through the 1960s.
  In response to Grillo's arrogant authoritarianism, the comment pages on his blog - filled up to now with fawning idolatry - exploded with anger and scorn for the new Duce. One of the most popular posts accused Grillo of an authoritarian turn aiming at political gains by wrecking the overall Italian situation as much as possible. Grillo was indicted for ''deliriums of omnipotence,'' and his hand-picked caucus chiefs scored as messianic acolytes. Many were the comments warning Grillo that he had lost their vote forever.
  Up to this point, Grillo's blog had been a one-way conveyor belt for top-down orders, with no feedback other than wild applause. But now Grillo and Casaleggio, faced with an overwhelmingly negative reaction, began to show their true dictatorial colors by censoring the comments they did not like. In the dead of night, they removed some 2,250 heretical posts, including some of the most popular ones.
  Grillo has long been extremely paranoid about leading rank and file members of his Five Star Movement take part in Italy's popular weeknight television talk shows. He obviously wanted to keep the attention focused on himself. To better browbeat these wretched senators and deputies, Grillo and Casaleggio now sent in two commissars, overseers, or enforcers - one for each house of parliament - to make their factions toe the line. Grillo decreed a policy of ''press silence,'' similar to wartime radio silence, to prevent nosy journalists from asking embarrassing questions. The press replied by reminding the grillini that press conferences without questions were a contradiction in terms, superfluous since a press release would get the job done. Grillo gives selected interviews to foreign reporters, but never to Italians. Grillo was thus working a true miracle: making the Italian press corps look good.
  Grillo wages war against dissident 'trolls'
  In another apoplectic fit, Grillo lashed out on his blog against ''hordes of trolls, freaks, and multinicks'' hired by his political adversaries, who for several months had been guilty of l¨se majest(C) against his greatness. With his usual obscene rhetoric, Grillo accused these ''locusts'' of creating ''a filthy mess.'' The most popular reply to this demanded that the Five Star Movement agree to vote a limited motion of confidence in a social democratic government based on a specific agenda of clean government process reforms like conflicts of interest, anticorruption, and a new election law. These symbolic petty bourgeois process reforms, needless to say, would do absolutely nothing for hard-pressed Italian working families. Even among Grillo's internal opposition, mass traction material demands remain few and far between.
  Grillo is obsessed that members of his caucus will vote for a social democratic government under Bersani. Bersani had announced soon after the elections that he was ''scouting'' for potential backers among the new grillini. Grillo's witch-hunt will therefore continue. But there is one ''ex-communist'' that Grillo seems ready to support: the current President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano, who is one of the principal Anglo-American assets in Italian politics. It was Napolitano who carried out the November 2011 coup d'(C)tat which ousted Berlusconi and installed the brutal austerity regime of Goldman Sachs employee Monti. A Napolitano-Grillo government would therefore continue and escalate the savage austerity measures which are at the root of the Italian crisis. And this, of course, is what Grillo's controllers want most.
  If Italy is ever to get out of its current economic depression, a massive program of modern infrastructure will have to play a central role. The American New Deal, with agencies like the WPA, PWA, and TVA, makes this point absolutely clear. But not for Grillo and his myrmidons, who often sound like reactionary Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey attempting to block the needed new tunnel under the Hudson River.
  This past weekend, numerous grillini renewed their protest against the high speed rail link for freight and passengers now in the advanced stages of construction in the Val di Susa between Turin in northwest Italy and Lyon in France. This segment is part of the trans-European Corridor Five, which stretches from Lisbon, Portugal to Kiev, Ukraine. This is exactly the kind of infrastructure Europe as a whole requires to recover from the long deficit of the East-West rail links still left over from the decades of the Cold War.
  The existing Fr(C)jus-Modane railroad line was built between 1850 and 1870, and despite successive modernizations, it must now be considered hopelessly obsolete because of its winding path. Building the 57-kilometer tunnel at the heart of this project would enhance the worldwide reputation Italian civil engineering has enjoyed the Italians helped build the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. Economic modernization and job creation make projects like this one indispensable if Italy is to have a future. Interestingly, Grillo's hand-picked Senate faction leader who attended this protest was peppered by demands from militant workers about the Five Star Movement's friendliness to neofascism.
  Another way in which Grillo is already weakening Italy is by reviving the secessionist movement among the German-speaking population in the Alpine region of Alto Adige/South Tyrol. A leader of the South Tyrol separatists has now started a new campaign to get out of Italy using the specter of a Rome government dominated by Grillo.
  Is Grillo a neofascist?
  Across Europe, there is a growing awareness that Grillo represents a controlled opposition designed to ward off any serious attacks on the political dominance of the finance oligarchs. In articles published by the, British New Statesman, the leftist Wu Ming Foundation of Bologna argues that Grillo has been a shock absorber for the Italian bankers, since he directs the rage of the masses overwhelmingly at the ''caste'' of political flunkies, letting the bankers off relatively unscathed. Wu Ming laments that mass mobilization against the IMF austerity in Italy has been hindered by the Grillo, who is personally a multimillionaire and one of the 1%. His blog alone is thought to be worth '‚¬10 to '‚¬15 million per year.
  London Guardian lumps Grillo together with the reactionary US Tea Party, the UK Independence Party, and similar demagogic movements. But Painter cannot grasp that only the killer austerity cuts imposed across southern Europe over the last several years by the IMF and the European Central Bank have made the success of Grillo and his ilk possible.
  Der Spiegel of Hamburg has a better analysis, pointing to the obvious parallels between Grillo and Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who ruled the country from 1922 until 1943-45. Spiegel underlines the point with a cartoon portraying the Genoese comedian in a Mussolini uniform. The method of both is to focus mass rage on politicians in general and the parliament in particular, with bankers and economic issues getting far less attention.
  As Spiegel notes, Grillo's ''anti-establishment rhetoric sounds appealing, [but] at heart it's actually anti-democratic. And very similar to that of an infamous Italian from the past.'' The German Social Democratic Chancellor candidate Peer Steinbr¼ck is thus very wrong to lump Grillo and Berlusconi together under the heading of ''clown.'' Grillo also resembles Il Duce in his claim of overcoming the left-right dichotomy, and of not representing a political party in the traditional sense. (Spiegel, ''Green Fascism: Beppe Grillo is the most dangerous man in Europe'') Grillo's recent raving that, ''We are young. We have no structure, hierarchy, leaders or secretaries. We take orders from no one,'' and his slogan of ''uno vale uno'' - anybody is as good as anybody else - echo the clich(C)s of the young Mussolini.
  Washington Post sees Grillo as ''thrilling example'' of grassroots power
  This growing awareness of Grillo's fascistoid traits contrasts sharply with the whitewash of Grillo dished up by the Washington Post, house organ of the US Federal Reserve. Here Anthony Faiola offers a puff piece comparing the current Italian destabilization to Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. We read: ''For 60 million Italians and political junkies of every stripe, the triumphs of a movement encompassing disenfranchised voters from both the left and the right - think of the tea party, if it included everyone from Michael Moore to Rush Limbaugh - are a thrilling example of the power of the grassroots'.... The rise of the Five-Star Movement, led by a former TV comedian, is the latest manifestation of a growing backlash in Europe to the crippling austerity and entrenched cronyism in the halls of power. It is nothing less than a social experiment underscoring what happens when voters decide to radically alter the status quo.''
  There is nothing about Roberta Lombardi's praise of fascism, nothing about Grillo's flirtation with the fascists of Casa Pound, and of course nothing about the close connections between Grillo's handlers at Casaleggio Associates and the Aspen Institute, the Bilderbergers, and the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy. (Anthony Faiola, ''Newcomers Shake up Politics in Italy: Legislators from Grassroots Movement Promise Change as Leaderless Nation Grapples with Economic Crisis,'' Washington Post, March 25, 2013)
  Italian media veteran: Grillo is controlled opposition designed by Bilderberg
  Grillo's personal Svengali is the aging hippie ideologue and reputed freemason Giancarlo Casaleggio, whose apocalyptic predictions about imminent World War III with billions in deaths are available in his film Gaia, a movie festooned with freemasonic symbols. Italian media insider Carlo Freccero, the director of RAI-4, the fourth program of Italian state television, had earlier called attention to the indispensable role of the well-heeled Milan internet marketing, advertising, and political consulting firm Casaleggio Associates in the creation of the Grillo movement.
  Freccero noted that Casaleggio's film attributes most of the evil in the world to conspiratorial organizations such as the Bilderberg group, which dictate the policies of governments from behind the scenes. How then, Freccero asked, did Grillo and Casaleggio explain the presence as a partner in Casaleggio Associates of Enrico Sassoon, a member of the board of the Aspen Institute of Italy? Sassoon's fellow Aspen board members are largely drawn from the Bilderberg group, for which the Aspen Institute functions as a kind of think tank and cadre school. Freccero was only underlining the obvious when he speculated that the Grillo movement is in fact a controlled opposition to the transatlantic financier oligarchy represented by Bilderberg. Sassoon resigned from Casaleggio Associates soon after Freccero made these remarks.
  Has Grillo already peaked in the polls?
  The most recent poll shows the Berlusconi forces reclaiming first place among the competing coalitions with 31.3%, with the Bersani coalition at 29.3% and Grillo in third place with 26.2%. The Monti forces are down to 7.1%. The SWG poll of a few days earlier shows Grillo at 26.9%, but falling a full 3.1% from the euphoria of his post-election uptick. Judging from internet postings, many Italians are coming to view Grillo as lots of smoke and not much roast beef, as the idiom goes. According to the Rome political website Dagospia, ''the grillini risk becoming the biggest flop in the history of the Italian Republic'' if they are unable to bring home for their voters ''results that are concrete, tangible, and immediately beneficial.''
  Is Dr. Benjamin Carson the American Grillo?
  Anglo-American intelligence sees in Grillo a model for new generation of color revolutions and destabilizations that can be applied in Europe and North America. One possible candidate for the role of American Grillo is Dr. Benjamin Carson, a well-known black neurosurgeon from Johns Hopkins University. Carson, who has been well known for decades as a reactionary ideologue operating under the spurious cover of evangelical Christianity, captured right wing accolades last months by spouting primitive anti-government platitudes at the National Prayer Breakfast, with Obama sitting nearby and forced to listen.
  Immediately thereafter, the Wall Street Journal, the flagship organ of the financier oligarchy, began discussing Carson as a possible presidential candidate. According to the Style section of the March 25 Washington Post, Carson has been calling not just for cuts in the social safety net, but rather for its total abolition: ''at the Conservative Political Action Conference'... Carson suggested that government should rely on churches to provide a safety net for the poor and get out of the social welfare business. 'Why is the government trying to duplicate what [churches] are supposed to be doing?' he asked.'' Time will tell if Carson can match Grillo's success as a demagogue and mass manipulator.
  WT/HMV
About Us | United States Institute of Peace
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:25
  USIP is the independent, nonpartisan conflict management center created by Congress to prevent and mitigate international conflict without resorting to violence. USIP works to save lives, increase the government's ability to deal with conflicts before they escalate, reduce government costs, and enhance our national security.
  Read more:
  Working to Save LivesUSIP works to reduce the costs and risks for American military and civilians deployed to conflict areas abroad by training them to peacefully mitigate and manage conflicts. Our work helps to create safe and stable environments for people living and Americans working in these regions.
  In Iraq, the tribal reconciliation USIP mediated in Mahmoudiya served as the model for the U.S. reconciliation strategy that dramatically reduced American military and Iraqi civilian casualties, as reported by TIME magazine. ''Over the next six months Iraqi civilian deaths in the area fell 75 percent'--from 1,200 per month to 300 per month; while US military deaths fell from a dozen per month to zero.'' (TIME, 19 October 2007)USIP played a leading role in preventing electoral violence in South Sudan and continues to help keep the Sudan Peace Accord on track. USIP has been working with tribal chiefs, state judges, police and other stakeholders to improve cooperation and to develop an integrated approach to the rule of law, so that South Sudan can move beyond its history of violence. | The Two SudansSince 2002, USIP has analyzed Afghanistan's justice systems and recommended methods to strengthen the rule of law. USIP is helping to bridge the gap between informal and formal justice sectors and thereby prevent village and district-level disputes from spiraling out of control.Back to top
  Strengthening the Government's Ability to Manage Conflicts Before they EscalateThrough its professional training programs and networks around the world '' and its collaboration with military, diplomats, development specialists, NGOs and IOs '' USIP is innovative and agile, delivering effective programs at minimal cost.
  USIP is working in Libya training hundreds of mediators and facilitators in postwar conflict prevention.USIP leads the Libya Stabilization Team's Civil Society Committee''constitution making, transitional justice, women rights, education.USIP actively supports the State Department's Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program, teaching conflict mediation and negotiation techniques for African security personnel for peacekeeping missions across the continent. The State Department credited a USIP conflict-negotiation workshop with helping defuse a conflict between the Government of Niger and the rebel Movement of Nigeriens for Justice group. The insecurity had devastated sectors of Niger's economy since its beginning in 2007, but several rounds of peace talks following the workshop helped restore stability to the region.USIP created the International Network to Promote the Rule of Law (INPROL), connecting judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement personnel, legal advisers, and other judicial officials to turn lessons learned into lessons applied.
  USIP created and continues to build networks of facilitators solving community-level disputes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Libya. Once trained by USIP, these in-country facilitators expand the local capacity to resolve conflicts without violence and prevent local disputes from escalating into broader conflicts. | USIP In the Field
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  Reducing Government CostsUSIP's programs are a less costly, effective way to limit and manage global conflicts.
  USIP led electoral violence prevention workshops in Haiti and Sudan.USIP trains and equips local populations in places like Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya with problem solving and conflict resolution skills. | Training in Zones of ConflictUSIP advises in constitution writing - in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Nepal, Democratic Republic of Congo - to address post-conflict judicial and transitional issues. | Rule of LawIn eastern Afghanistan, USIP established Dispute Resolution Councils in the volatile Kunar and Nangarhar provinces. Since March 2010, these councils have participated in and recorded the resolution of more than 160 cases. By strengthening existing traditional justice mechanisms and training the local populations, USIP is helping prevent local disputes from escalating into broader conflicts in an efficient and effective way.Back to top
  Enhancing National SecurityUSIP provides our policy makers with non-partisan national security, defense and foreign policy analysis and expertise.
  USIP organized and administered the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, whose report helped pave the way for the strategy that stabilized Iraq.USIP facilitated the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel, a bipartisan congressional commission co-chaired by former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley. It conducted an assessment of the assumptions, strategy, findings, and risks described in the Department of Defense's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).USIP facilitated the comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear policy under the aegis of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.USIP co-convened the Genocide Prevention Task Force, which stressed early intervention and the need to develop international partnerships to respond to emerging crises. Many of the Task Force's recommendations were adopted by the U.S. government in August 2011.USIP teamed up with the U.S. Army to compile a manual to help individuals in all areas of government to prepare for the transition from war to peace that comes at the conclusion of any conflict. This practical ''how-to'' guide was co-written by USIP, the U.S. Army's Combined Arms Center and the Simon Center for the Study of Interagency Cooperation. It is now considered the blueprint for creating successful transitions around the world. | Interagency Handbook for TransitionsCongress directed USIP to create a bipartisan task force to assess whether the United Nations was fulfilling its mandate and how the international body could be improved. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell served as co-chairs. | Task Force on the United NationsBack to top
Viagra turns 15, but has it helped couples' sex lives? - Health - CBC News
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:21
  The little blue pill that's put the bounce back into the step of millions of men is celebrating 15 years since it was approved for sale in the U.S., changing the conversation (sometimes for the worse) about sex and erectile dysfunction.
  Pfizer's drug sildenafil, commonly known as Viagra, was authorized for sale by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on this day in 1998, two years after it was first developed as a treatment for heart disease and high blood pressure.
  The erectile dysfunction drug has gone on to become one of the most well known pharmaceutical brands, aided by its famed advertising campaign.
  But London, Ont.-based clinical psychologist Dr. Guy Grenier says that despite Viagra's success, it's actually "tremendously overprescribed" by health professionals who shy away from discussing sexual dysfunction with patients.
  "For the people who are uncomfortable, they immediately reach for the prescription pad," Grenier told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition host Craig Norris. "When we've got that sort of quick immediate answer, we end up with people getting the wrong treatment."
  Pfizer's website claims that to-date, over 25 million men in the United States have tried Viagra. Millions more know the commercials that depict middle-aged men experiencing a new zest for life.
  Grenier said marketing the drug as increasing sexual desire continues to create a misunderstanding that it's an all-in-one cure for struggling couples wanting to increase libido.
  "People will seek out Viagra or its cousins thinking that that's going to solve a variety of sexual problems and it doesn't do that," he said.
  The result is a significant majority of men who don't renew their prescription '-- in one study reaching as high as 70 per cent, according to Grenier.
  'People will seek out Viagra or its cousins thinking that that's going to solve a variety of sexual problems and it doesn't do that.''--Person quoted
  Doctors have also coined the term post-Viagra syndrome, used to describe men who have achieved an erection after taking the drug, but who still lack the desire or confidence to have sex.
  "A lot of sexual performance issues have nothing to do with blood flow," Grenier said. "They have to do with relationships issues, or animosity, or attraction, or communication '-- all kinds of things."
  Grenier said Viagra's strength continues to be its marketing power and recommends that people would benefit from more sex education.
  "We have a very sexualized society but we remain a very sexual illiterate society," he said.
Relationship Expert: Love, Sex and Relationship Problems. Get Parenting Tips
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:21
  Sex and TechnologyWith one-third of internet content being pornography, Dr. Wendy Walsh talks about how technology is becoming an extension of our sexuality.
  The 30-Day Love DetoxFrom a dating doyenne of the Sex-And-The-City generation comes this ground breaking prescription for slow-love that blasts traditional dating books and their confusing messages: Be free but not too free. Play hard to get and go after what you want. Keep him close by not letting him know you want a commitment-messages that help women play a game that doesn't always lead to a fulfilling, committed relationship. Dr. Wendy Walsh's outside-the-box approach to...
  Join Wendy at DatingAdvice.com, where she dishes out her patented brand of expert dating advice for men and women alike. The site features articles, how-to's, Q&A sessions, reviews of online dating sites, and other dating resources.
Bisexual Threesome Cumshot Compilation - xHamster.com
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:46
  Newbie
  comments: 46March 21, 2013, 7:25 am Newbie
  comments: 34March 17, 2013, 8:50 pm Super HOT COMBO!!! There isn't one cum shot that I wouldn't want to be part of.Newbie
  comments: 13March 16, 2013, 12:32 am lol seems a lot of cum got wasted. by turned heads /Newbie
  comments: 7March 5, 2013, 1:04 am my GF and I just had sex while watching this. love it!Newbie
  comments: 26March 4, 2013, 10:09 pm Newbie
  comments: 10March 4, 2013, 1:59 am Anyone know the name of the girl in the video that starts around 1:12? she is super hot!
TSA Agent Fiddling With Pepper Spray Sends Six To Hospital: Gothamist
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:32
  Our latest installment in the popular "TSA Follies" security theater series comes to us from JFK Airport, where a TSA agent foolishly discharged pepper spray that was discovered at a checkpoint. A Port Authority source tells the Post the agent, one Chris Yves "Barney Fife" Dabel, was ''playing around'' with the pepper spray after finding it on the floor. In his defense, there's nothing like a thrilling game of Pepper Spray Roulette to alleviate the crushing boredom of working at a TSA checkpoint!
  Dabel was trying to determine if it was real, according to the Port Authority source, who adds that Dabel "thought it was a laser pointer." To test his hypothesis, he proceeded to spray five other TSA agents around him, and then joined them for a trip to Jamaica Hospital. (We're guessing Dabel also refused to believe the hospital was real and tested it out by performing eye surgery on himself.)
  A spokesperson for the TSA gave us this statement: ''Yesterday morning, out of an abundance of caution, six TSA officers at JFK Airport were transported to a local hospital after being exposed to pepper spray. Officers were examining an abandoned item to determine its contents and to move it out of harm's way when it accidentally discharged. Travelers and other airport employees were not exposed to the spray.''
  Yup, this is definitely one for the Hall of Fame. We're putting the plaque up on the wall alongside classics like Salty Security Screener Slings Scalding Sanka After Scolding and Oh D'Oh They Didn't! TSA Posts Airport Screening Manual On Web!
Cyprus plans emergency restrictions on cash withdrawals before banks reopen
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  Source: The Guardian World News
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:08
  An empty ATM at Bank of Cyprus. The island is reportedly preparing emergency restrictions on cash withdrawals before banks reopen. Photograph: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images
  Cyprus is reported to be rushing in emergency measures to stop cash flooding out of the country if it reopens its banks as planned on Thursday. The banks have been shut for 12 days while the nation negotiated a '‚¬10bn bailout.
  According to reports coming out of the stricken island, restrictions will be placed on the amount of cash that can be withdrawn from the banks where savers with more than '‚¬100,000 in their accounts face losing a slice of at least 40% of their money.
  It is thought anyone leaving the island will not be able to take any more than '‚¬3,000 of banknotes with them and will be able to spend no more than '‚¬5,000 a month abroad on credit cards.
  The government is reported to believe that the measures only need to be in place for seven days while it attempts to stabilise the situation following the fallout from the bailout agreed with Brussels, the European Central Bank and the International Money Fund.
  Withdrawal limits on cash machines had already been restricted to '‚¬100 a day although there were suggestions that this could now be raised to '‚¬300 by the time the banks open again.
  The island's second biggest bank, Laiki, is to be closed down and savers with less than '‚¬100,000 transferred to Bank of Cyprus, the largest bank in the country. Depositors with more than '‚¬100,000 in their accounts '' the level at which savings are guaranteed across Europe '' face a levy to raise billions of euros towards the bailout.
  Cheques cannot be cashed although banks will accept deposits as the country struggles to keep deposits in its banks, that have exploded to eight times the size of the economy.
  Families with members studying aboard are reported to be able to send '‚¬10,000 a term to those who are studying.
  The security firm G4S is ready to send 180 staff to all bank branches across the island, John Argyrou, managing director of the firm's Cypriot arm, told the Associated Press.
  The banks were closed a week ago on Friday shortly before Cyprus announced the terms of its bailout which included skimming all savers to raise '‚¬5.8bn. But the terms have since been altered to ensure that those with less than '‚¬100,000 in their accounts are not forced to take a cut, in a move that the European authorities hope will restore faith the bank guarantee scheme across the 27 nations in the EU.
Cyprus Puts Tight Controls on Money as Banks Prepare to Reopen
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  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:55
  Milos Bicanski/Getty Images
  A man sat in front of an automated teller machine outside the National Bank of Cyprus, which has been closed for two weeks, on Wednesday in Nicosia.
  NICOSIA, Cyprus '-- Cyprus's government announced severe restrictions Wednesday on access to the country's bank accounts, hoping to curb what is nonetheless likely to be a stampede to withdraw money when banks reopen on Thursday for the first time in nearly two weeks.
  The measures, which are supposed to be in effect for only a week but could be extended, will bar electronic transfers of funds from Cyprus to other countries. And individuals will not be allowed to take more than 3,000 euros cash outside the country, well below the current restriction of 10,000 euros, or $13,000.
  Credit and debit card charges will be capped at 5,000 euros per person per month. And checks cannot be cashed, although they can be deposited.
  The Cypriot finance minister, Michalis Sarris, said Wednesday that a flood of withdrawals was bound to happen quickly, anyway, but that the restrictions would at least help stem a mass flight of deposits.
  ''Each day that banks remain closed creates more uncertainty and more difficulties for people, so we would like to do our utmost to make sure that this new goal that we have set will work,'' he said.
  Despite those strictures, Cypriot authorities are bracing for as much as 10 percent of the 64 billion euros in deposits in the country's banks to be pulled out on Thursday.
  And some experts predict a much bigger bank run whenever the controls are eventually lifted.
  ''If you don't impose the controls, the money is going to fly,'' said Mujtaba Rahman, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group. ''But when you remove those controls, clearly the money is going to leave anyway. So they're in a Catch-22.''
  Adding to the tensions here, the chief executive of Bank of Cyprus, the nation's largest bank, was fired Wednesday by the central bank. That move came in consultation with the international lenders who are finalizing the terms of a 10-billion-euro bailout of the heavily indebted country.
  Meanwhile, President Nicos Anastasiades opened a criminal investigation into how the country's banks had been brought to the brink of collapse. His aim, he said, was ''to find and attribute responsibility wherever it belongs.''
  Tension has intensified in Nicosia, the capital, in recent days as citizens, confronted with banks that have been closed since March 16, have grown impatient waiting for the bailout deal to be completed so they can get access to their money. Many are also angry at what they see as Mr. Anastasiades's inept political handling of the situation.
  Demonstrations that first attracted hundreds here last week have been swelling into increasingly agitated gatherings of thousands of people amid the dawning realization that their future under the terms of the bailout deal will become increasingly bleak.
  At the same time, a blame game has escalated among the ruling class. Mr. Anastasiades has started making incendiary statements about the central bank president, Panicos O. Demetriades, hinting strongly that he wants to see Mr. Demetriades ousted. That, in turn, has raised concerns about the central bank's independence.
  ''The knives are out,'' said a person involved in the talks, who declined to speak publicly because the talks were private.
  Under European Union treaties, restricting the free movement of capital is forbidden. Critics say that what is happening in Cyprus shows that E.U. rules will be flouted when the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and E.U. leaders find it convenient to do so.
  A person involved in forging the details of how capital controls will be implemented in Cyprus acknowledged Wednesday that such restrictions ideally would be avoided. But ''if you did not have them, then probably 100 percent of deposits would fly out of the country,'' the person said.
  Nonresident depositors, including Russians and businesses with substantial amounts in Cypriot banks, are especially eager to get their money out, the person said.
White House Can't Afford Its Shapeshifting Alien Reptile Guards | Danger Room | Wired.com
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:21
  A shapeshifting reptile from outer space guards President Obama, according to a new conspiracy video. Yet according to the White House, the extraterrestrial heft behind Obama's protection detail is a mere allegation '-- and one that congressionally mandated budget cuts would have to ax, anyway.
  If you believe the video above, recently posted to YouTube, the White House deployed at least one reptile guard as recently as this month. The narrator, using a text-to-speech program, suggests a bald-headed G-Man protecting Obama during his March 4 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ''could be a shapeshifter alien humanoid working for the powers that be, caught in a high-definition video during an event of the Zionist cabal.''
  Could be. It's certainly fodder for Tinfoil Tuesday, Danger Room's occasional look at the internet's most insane conspiracy theories.
  The White House dismissed the alien bodyguards as too costly in this era of budgetary austerity. ''I can't confirm the claims made in this video, but any alleged program to guard the president with aliens or robots would likely have to be scaled back or eliminated in the sequester,'' Caitlin Hayden, the chief spokeswoman for the National Security Council, e-mails Danger Room. ''I'd refer you to the Secret Service or Area 51 for more details.'' We are journalistically obligated to observe that this isn't a flat denial.
  Check out the evidence for the reptiles-from-space theory. The video's narrator teases: ''Even though at first sight he looks like the average Secret Service spook, a series of odd features on his head, face, plus a very strange behavior and creepy movements suggest something else.'' Next, another view of the agent '-- from another angle at a distance and in low lighting '-- makes him appear slightly different. His head is still swiveling back and forth, with his eyes on the crowd. ''His ears, his nose, his chin, cheekbone, jaw and mouth are no longer looking human at all,'' the narrator observes.
  Conclusion: The agent must be ''shapeshifting into some sort of reptilian, nonhuman form,'' since that's a logical explanation. The narrator suggests technology used by the agent to keep his true identity hidden might have glitched out. All this is new evidence of a collaboration between a conspiratorial elite and ''at least one extraterrestrial race'' that is ''pulling the strings of mankind.''
  Crucially, the narrator hasn't figured out just what kind of alien is guarding the president. Is it an ''actual reptilian humanoid?'... Is he an Annunaki?'' That's a reference to the ancient Babylonian deities who some conspiracy theorists believe were ancient aliens who built the ziggurats for a mysterious purpose. ''Is he a tall, grey bio-android?'' The White House didn't answer.
  Not everyone's convinced. Also keeping tabs on the agent are the followers of the ''Grand Order of Draco Slayers,'' which mirrored the video on its YouTube channel, and which touts itself as a ''magical order of spiritual warriors dedicated to the eradication of the reptilian/illuminati current and the full restoration of humankind's liberty and spiritual inheritance.'' The group called the agent a ''weird humanoid,'' but stopped short of alleging reptilian infiltration. One commenter believes the agent could be a ''genetically engineered super soldier or a human-animal hybrid.''
  To believe any of this, you'll have to discard all contradictory evidence. The narrator instructs you to ignore the low lighting; doesn't mention the abrupt shift to a different camera angle; and asks the viewer to ''disregard all the distortions and image artifacts caused by post-editing zooming.''
  But still: alien guards. They've gotten a raw deal through the sequester. The White House didn't clarify if its reptilian Secret Service agents are subject to the furloughs without pay affecting federal employees. But say this for the automatic budget cuts: They may have prevented Obama from falling into the clutches of an intergalactic conspiracy '-- that is, if the president wasn't in on it from the start.
  Spencer Ackerman provided additional otherworldly aid.
Asia Times Online :: TAP surges ahead of Nabucco-West
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:46
  TAP surges ahead of Nabucco-WestBy Vladimir SocorAmong the roles of Gazprom's South Stream pipeline project was that of aborting the European Union-backed Nabucco, merely by threatening to preempt Nabucco's markets along the same route downstream. Conversely, Nabucco's European rival Trans-Adriatic Pipeline project (TAP) can abort Nabucco by preempting the gas supply source upstream.
  Both TAP and the reformated Nabucco-West depend fully on the same source of gas, at Shah Deniz in Azerbaijan. Unlike South Stream targeting Nabucco's markets in southeastern and Central Europe, TAP would divert Azerbaijani gas toward TAP's own
  designated markets in Italy and other European countries.
  While South Stream continues to look doubtful on financing and new gas supplies from Russia, TAP seems to be surging ahead of the Nabucco-West project in a winner-take-all contest for Azerbaijani gas. Thus, Nabucco-West can now be aborted by European hands, not Russian ones, allowing Gazprom in that case to continue exercising its near-monopoly in southeastern and Central Europe.
  At stake is the indivisible volume of 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas planned for export to Europe annually from 2019 onward from Shah Deniz. Arriving by the Trans-Anatolia Pipeline (TANAP) at Turkey's western border, Azerbaijani gas could be forwarded either through the Nabucco-West route (Bulgaria-Romania-Hungary-Austria) to the continental gas distribution hub at Baumgarten near Vienna, or alternatively through the TAP route (Greece, Albania, Adriatic seabed, Italy, Switzerland).
  TAP's prospects have improved significantly since Moscow decided to abandon South Stream's southern branch, from Greece via the Adriatic seabed to Italy. Gazprom's withdrawal from that project helped clear the competitive field for TAP to reach the Italian market. By the same token, it contributed to intensifying the TAP-Nabucco contest over Azerbaijani gas and the choice of the export route.
  Politically as well, Moscow's move gave the green light for TAP to route Caspian gas toward Italy. For its part, Gazprom prioritized South Stream in southeastern and Central Europe, so as to defend Gazprom's near-monopoly there against potential competition from Nabucco.
  Along the Nabucco-West route, Bulgarian and Hungarian state companies have joined South Stream, while those two governments (and others in the region) are hedging their bets. While South Stream poses a perceived threat to preempt Nabucco-West, there is no challenge whatsoever to TAP from Russian interests. This asymmetry seems to work in some key political and corporate decision-making quarters to TAP's advantage.
  The TAP consortium currently includes Norway's Statoil with 42.5% of the shares, AXPO of Switzerland (a holding of energy companies in a number of Swiss cantons) with another 42.5%, and E.ON Ruhrgas with 15%. TAP's main driver, Statoil, is at the same time a partner in Shah Deniz - the only partner holding stakes in the extraction project and a pipeline project simultaneously, from the inception of both projects to date. This situation looked all along like a foot in the door for TAP ahead of Nabucco.
  The Shah Deniz gas producers' consortium is assessing Nabucco-West and TAP comparatively, so as to select one pipeline route while eliminating the other from consideration. The producers' consortium expects these two projects to submit, each, a final commercial and technical offer (''Decision Support Packages'') by March 31, with a view to the ultimate route selection decision in June.
  On March 25, the TAP consortium announced the completion of its Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) for the project; and that it would submit the Decision Support Package (that is,, its offer for the Shah Deniz producers' selection decision) by the March 31 deadline.
  As part of that Package, the FEED has finalized the pipeline's optimal routing, specifications for pipeline materials, design of valves and compressors, and logistical requirements for construction work. Statoil and E.ON Ruhrgas led the FEED work and are set to lead the next phase, that of Detailed Engineering. If selected by the Shah Deniz consortium, TAP plans to start pipeline construction work in late 2014''early 2015 and to complete it by 2018 (TAP press release, March 25).
  Nabucco's Austrian-led management must presumably also announce the completion of FEED and submission of a Decision Support Package by the March 31 deadline. Meanwhile, Nabucco has been changing its main engineering contractors in the run-up to that deadline.
  The London-based Penspen had been in charge of supervising and coordinating the FEED work performed in the Nabucco countries by their respective engineering companies until 2012. In December 2012, the Australian Worley Parsons replaced Penspen in the role of Owner's Engineer for Nabucco-West, with a mandate to coordinate FEED work, verify and review the project's design, capital and operational expenses, and complete a ''constructability review''.
  In January 2013, the Nabucco project company appointed the Italian Saipem as FEED contractor, to perform a ''re-FEED'' for Nabucco-West. It also nominated the Austrian Ingenieurgemeinschaft Laesser-Feizlmayr (ILF, based in Innsbruck) as a subcontractor to Saipem. Saipem is 43% owned by ENI, the Italian state-controlled oil and gas holding.
  Amid a corruption investigation of Saipem in Italy and the resignation of the company's management, the Nabucco project company selected Saipem in a tender, apparently reflecting its confidence in Saipem.
  In view of those precipitous changes in the run-up to the selection decision, TAP looks more stable and credible as a project, despite Nabucco-West's strategic value.
  The German Rheinisch-Westfaelisches Elektrizitaetswerk (RWE, Germany's second-largest energy concern after E.ON), hard hit financially by the phase-out of its nuclear power plants, has disengaged from the Nabucco project. The remaining five consortium members (see above) can hardly match the TAP consortium members' technical, commercial, and managerial expertise, their financial resources and their credit worthiness.
  Using these arguments, the TAP consortium is in a position to appeal more effectively to investors as a corporate business project. It is up to the European Commission to revert to its initial strategic considerations - mainly, undoing Gazprom's quasi-monopoly in southeastern and Central Europe - that had motivated the Commission until recently to endorse the Nabucco project.
  Vladimir Socor is a Senior Fellow of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation and its flagship publication, Eurasia Daily Monitor, and is an internationally recognized expert on the former Soviet-ruled countries in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Socor is a regular guest lecturer at the NATO Defense College and at Harvard University's National Security Program's Black Sea Program. He is a Romanian-born citizen of the United States based in Munich, Germany.
  This article first appeared in The Jamestown Foundation. Used with permission.)
  (Copyright 2013 The Jamestown Foundation.)
Cyberfight slows down the entire Internet
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  Archived Version
  Source: CNET News
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:39
  A fight between a spam-fighting group called Spamhaus and a Dutch Web host Cyberbunker has been called the biggest public DDoS battle in history.
  A cyberwar is being waged between two companies over a recent move made by one of them.
  Spam-fighting organization, Spamhaus, which works with e-mail providers around the globe to block spam from entering Inboxes, has been in a battle over the last week that has watched distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks exceed by several times the typical attacks inflicted on organizations.
  Spamhaus hosts a blacklist made up of servers that it believes, are designed to send spam around the world. Recently, the organization added a Dutch Web hosting company named Cyberbunker to its blacklist. Cyberbunker, which gets its name from its headquarters in a former NATO bunker and allows its customers to maintain their anonymity, has built its business on accepting any and all customers, except those engaged in child pornography and terrorism-related activities.
  A spokesman for Spamhaus told The New York Times in a statement published today that a massive DDoS attack was launched against it on March 19. The attack, which has been ongoing for the last week, is somewhat different from typical DDoS attacks. Over the last week, the attackers have been hitting Spamhaus with attacks peaking at 300 gigabits per second -- six times greater than similar attacks designed to take down sites with powerful defenses, like banks.
  The Spamhaus attack is targeting the organization's Domain Name System (DNS) servers that connect to the underlying infrastructure of the Internet that turns typical Web addresses into numerical information that the technology can understand. That has resulted, according to reports, in some service slowdowns across the Internet, due to the sheer amount of data hitting the DNS through the attack.
  According to the BBC, which earlier reported on the story and spoke with Spamhaus, Netflix is experiencing a slowdown, and it's possible that entire sites will either be slow or inaccessible due to the continued attacks. Spamhaus has, however, been able to stay up, thanks to its massive DNS server system and help from companies, including Google, that have helped carry some of the load.
  For its part, Cyberbunker has not confirmed that it's behind the attacks, but Spamhaus believes that it is. Spamhaus has also alleged that "criminal gangs" from Eastern Europe and Russia are also participating in the attacks.
  CNET has contacted Cyberbunker for comment. We will update this story when we have more information.
Pork found in halal food in Norway
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  Archived Version
  Source: IceNews - Daily News
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:33
  Posted on 27 March 2013. Tags: Halal, Halal food, Halal Norway, pork
  A Norwegian food safety watchdog have discovered large amounts of pork in food being sold as halal throughout Norway.
  The Norwegian Food Safety Authority plan to report Norwegian food company Kuraas to the local authorities after finding that kebab meat they sold to restaurants, which they claimed to be halal, actually contained between five and 30 per cent pork.
  ''We will file a complaint against the producer,'' said Catherine Signe Svinland, who is an adviser at The Norwegian Food Safety Authority. Catherine added, ''In a halal product, there should be no pork at all and when we find such quantities we don't believe it's an accident but it is in fact fraud.''
  In response to these claims, Kuraas have said that they never intended to mislead consumers. The group's marketing manager, Kenneth Kuraas, has argued that an error in the labeling process may be to blame, ''Pork ending up in these products is simply due to routines not being followed.'' He added, ''Our theory is that it happened when the meat was labeled.''
  Regardless of the reason why the mistake occurred, the Kurass company recognizes that eating pork is not allowed in Islam, and so they have sent a letter to the Islamic Council, an organisation that represents Muslims in Norway, apologizing for the error.
  In a separate case recently, chicken sausages that were labeled as halal and served to students in nurseries and schools throughout London were also found to contain traces of pork.
Major Findings In Newly Released Records On Giffords Shooting
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  Archived Version
  Source: TPM News
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:28
  ASSOCIATED PRESS March 27, 2013, 12:01 PMTUCSON, Ariz. (AP) '-- As authorities investigated the rampage that killed six people and wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, they compiled nearly 3,000 pages of documents that include everything from interviews with survivors and victims to police reports filed from the scene of the crime. The documents were released Wednesday, and provide new insight into how the shooting occurred and the motivations behind gunman Jared Loughner. A look at some of the notable findings:
  LOUGHNER
  The gunman was polite and cooperative with authorities who were holding him the afternoon following his morning shooting rampage. The conversation as Loughner sat in restraints in an interview room was mainly small talk. Little was said over the four hours. Loughner asks at one point if he can please use the restroom and says ''Thank you'' when allowed. At another point he complained that ''I'm about ready to fall over.''
  GUNMAN'S PARENTS
  Loughner's mother, Amy, described his run-ins with authorities, his use of marijuana and cocaine, his journals and his increasingly erratic behavior. She also says the parents took a shotgun away from Loughner after he was kicked out of a community college.
  THE SCENE
  Giffords intern Daniel Hernandez helped tend to his boss after she was shot in the head. In an interview, he described the chaos: ''She couldn't open her eyes. I tried to get any responses for her. Um, it looked like her left side was the only side that was still mobile. Um, she couldn't speak. It was mumbled. She was squeezing my hand.''
  ''I did some training as a Certified Nursing Assistant and as a phlebotomist, um, when I was in high school. So I knew that we need to see if she's got a pulse. She was still breathing. Her breathing was getting shallower. Uh, I then lifted her up so that she wasn't flat on the ground against the wall,'' he said.
  THE ENCOUNTER
  Hernandez described how constituents and other people were lining up to see Giffords, and he was helping people sign in. He recalled handing Loughner a clipboard. ''The next thing I hear is someone yell gun,'' he said.
  LOUGHNER FRIEND
  One-time Loughner friend Zachary Osler was an employee at a store where the gunman later bought a Glock before the shooting. He was questioned about seeing Loughner shopping inside, sometime before Thanksgiving. He describes an awkward encounter with his former friend. ''His response is nothing. Just a mute facial expression. And just like he, he didn't care.''
  Osler told investigators he had grown uncomfortable with Loughner's personality, ''He would say he could dream and then control what he was doing while he was dreaming.''
  Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
Largest Cyber Attack In History Is Said To Be Effecting The Entire Internet
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  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:26
Here We Go Again: Spain Says 2012 Budget Deficit "Will Be Bigger Than First Estimated" | Zero Hedge
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:04
  Back in December 2011, Europe swooned and bond yields soared when it was shocked, shocked, to learn that Spain had been lying about its budget deficit all year, a number which was subsequently hiked several more times. Then in 2012, to keep up with the pretense that things are better, Spain once again did what it does best: fudged numbers, this time desperate to make it appear that its actual government deficit was better than expected because one had to 'obviously' exclude all those items that are not part of the government spending... like payments for its broke provinces, or indirect funding for its broke banks. Now it turns out that in addition to fudging the definition of "budget", Spain was, surprise surprise, lying once again. From Bloomberg: "The Spanish government said its 2012 budget deficit will be bigger than first estimated after the European Union requested changes in how tax claims are computed. The budget shortfall excluding aid to the banking sector was 6.98 percent of gross domestic product last year, more than the 6.74 percent predicted on Feb. 28, Deputy Budget Minister Marta Fernandez Curras told reporters in Madrid today. That compares with 8.96 percent in 2011."
  More:
  Spain is seeking an extension from other euro-region governments to reorder its public finances as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy says output may shrink more in 2013 than the 0.5 percent he initially predicted. That's a third of the contraction forecast by the International Monetary Fund. Spain is due to submit budget plans through 2014 to the European Commission next month.
  Naturally, 2013 is already off to a "good" start:
  The central government's deficit for the first two months of the year widened to 2.22 percent of GDP from 1.95 percent last year, according to data calculated using the new methodology, Curras said.
  How long, one wonders, until that number too is revised higher?
  In the meantime, we await patiently to learn just how much more cash Europe will be handing over to Spanish banks. The same cash it refused to hand over to the Cypriots, and to prove that in the European animal house, one's "equality" is directly proportional to one's systemic collapse risk:
  Eurostat, the EU statistics office, told Spain to compute tax refunds in its national accounting as and when they are claimed instead of waiting for the claims to be checked by tax authorities, Curras said. That means Spain must revise its budget-data series that starts in 1995, she said, without commenting on when the figures will be released.
  ''Bond markets need to know the country's exact fiscal metrics,'' Justin Knight, a London-based rates strategist at UBS AG, said by telephone. ''It's so difficult to tell what the real numbers are. We'll have to wait for Eurostat's release.''
  The Budget Ministry delayed tax refunds in the fourth quarter as it intensified controls. Cash-basis data released this month by the national tax agency showed refunds surged 83 percent in January from a year ago after dropping 62 percent in December. Tax refunds declined an average of 7.9 percent in 2012, more than twice as much as in 2011.
  ''It is a bit of an accounting game,'' said Ignacio Conde- Ruiz, a Madrid-based economist who works for the economic research institute Fedea.
  You don't say. The bottom line, however, for Spain is quite clear:
  The central government's interest bill surged 15 percent last year to 26 billion euros, while tax receipts slumped 21 percent. The cost of servicing debt represented 30 percent of the taxes collected at the end of December, up from 20 percent a year earlier.
  In other words: absolutely unsustainable on an actual, truthful, adjusted, revised, recasted, pro forma or simply fraudulent basis.
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 5(2 votes)
'Pannenkoekensector weer in de lift' | nu.nl/economie | Het laatste nieuws het eerst op nu.nl
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:01
  Dat meldde horeca-adviesbureau Van Spronsen & Partners dinsdag.
  Na lichte dalingen van het aantal pannenkoekenrestaurants tussen 2008 en 2010, is er weer een duidelijk opwaartse trend merkbaar.
  Vooral nabij recreatieve en toeristische gebieden kwamen er veel tenten bij. In de grote steden nam hun aantal daarentegen iets af. In 2002 telde Nederland nog 292 pannenkoekenrestaurants.
  Volgens het bureau profiteert de branche van de terugloop in de iets duurdere restaurants. ''De fastservicesector, waaronder ook de pannenkoekensector, heeft sinds 2010 aanzienlijk meer bezoekers aangetrokken. Consumenten zijn de laatste jaren steeds prijsbewuster geworden en zijn voorzichtiger met uitgaven buiten de deur.''
  Van Spronsen & Partners schrijft dat per week zeker 288.000 Nederlanders een pannenkoekenrestaurant bezoeken. Dit zijn vooral senioren en gezinnen met kinderen. Gemiddeld besteedde een gast afgelopen jaar per bezoek 11,50 euro, tegenover 10,30 euro in 2006.
  Door: ANP
Rugby 'victory' was planned to make Wales feel good about itself
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:57
  Even better than being in a choir
  Wales's victory caused an upsurge in national pride for a country embattled by unemployment, inhospitable weather and the literary trend for shit books about talking dragons.
  However excessive gloating by Wales fans caused England sources to reveal that they weren't actually trying.
  Coach Stuart Lancaster said: ''I had spoken with David Cameron who said it was time we did something nice for the Welsh, apart from filming Doctor Who there.
  ''He said he wanted the people of Wales to feel like they lived in a proper country and not just a Tolkeinesque tourist attraction.
  ''He showed me some pictures of Welsh children, their tears had made clean streaks on their coal-smeared little faces. I knew then we had to do something.''
  Television footage of the match has since revealed England players deliberately fumbling the ball while using the phrase ''oops, butterfingers''.
  David Cameron confirmed: ''We just wanted the Welsh to feel special for once.
  ''Unfortunately they got a bit carried away and ruined it. I hope they won't be too devastated that their moment of glory was a pity-inspired travesty.
  ''I think Wales is great. I had some lamb from there once, it was very juicy.''
Nick D'Aloisio: 'It was a massive gamble but a good one' - Telegraph
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:28
  D'Aloisio (full name Nicholas D'Aloisio-Montilla, although he drops the double-barrelled part because D'Aloisio is just, well, cooler) was born in London to expat Australian parents '' Lou, a commodities trader, and Diana, a lawyer '' in 1996. The family moved back to Melbourne shortly after Nick was born. When he turned seven (and his brother, Matthew, was three), the D'Aloisios relocated to Wimbledon, south-west London, where they have been ever since.
  It was here, at the desk in his bedroom, aged 15, that D'Aloisio came up with the idea for Summly, a news summarisation application that shortens longer web articles into three concise paragraphs, making them easier to read on the screen of a smartphone. The app, which has been downloaded a million times and summarised 90 million articles since its launch in 2011, claims to save users enough reading time every day to take a long, hot bath.
  The idea came to D'Aloisio when he was revising for his mock history GCSE. Frustrated by the number of irrelevant articles that kept coming up in web searches, he began experimenting with ways to filter information. ''I'm impatient,'' he explains, ''like a lot of my generation. If this or that isn't interesting to me, I'll stop reading. I don't have the tolerance. I want to know what content is appropriate to me '' and I want to know quickly. That's what Summly does.''
  It's easy to forget you're talking to a 17-year-old when D'Aloisio gets going. Constantly shifting, almost bouncing, in his chair, he's endearingly passionate about technology '' and what the future holds for start-ups like his. Intelligent without being geeky, he throws phrases like ''3D rendering'' and ''product road maps'' into conversation, stopping to explain with great patience when my eyes glaze over in confusion.
  He's interested in more than just computers, too. At school (he's on sabbatical from King's College School in Wimbledon, having stopped full-time classes last year to concentrate on Summly), he's studying for A-levels in maths, physics and philosophy. He's learning Russian and Mandarin, and one day hopes to read PPE at Oxford. His Yahoo! deal involves a full-time job at the company's London office, with schoolwork confined to the evenings. Too much for a teenager to handle?
  ''Education is something that naturally interests me, so I'll be OK,'' he insists. ''If it doesn't work out with school, I can go back when I'm 20 '' or whenever.'' And your parents didn't mind you giving up classes? ''I talked about it with them and my headmaster and we decided it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it would be silly not to run with it. Now, looking back, I can say it was a massive gamble. But it was a good gamble.''
  D'Aloisio's interest in technology started young. ''I've always liked small details; weird, esoteric things,'' he reveals. ''I'm quite obsessive so I really go into depth. Computers became one of those passions.'' Aged five, he became mesmerised by galaxies and the solar system, memorising entire constellations by heart. At nine, he got his first computer '' and aged 10, he was trying out cutting-edge movie software, in a bid to emulate the programmes he watched on TV. He taught himself coding at the age of 12.
  Before Summly, he came up with other smartphone apps, including SongStumblr, a music discovery program, and Facemood, which predicted the mood of a user through Facebook status updates. Summly, first called Trimit, appeared in Apple's App Store in November 2011. It was downloaded 30,000 times and quickly came to the attention of Hong Kong investor Li Ka-shing, the world's eighth richest man, who offered D'Aloisio $300,000 for a share. When the money came through on his 16th birthday, D'Aloisio became the youngest person ever to receive venture capital investment.
  ''Li Ka-shing was the dream investor,'' says D'Aloisio. ''It's a credit to him that he took a gamble on a kid and it worked out OK.''
  Wealthy backers including Kutcher, Fry and Ono came on board within months. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation was one of 250 online publishers to sign up. A year down the line, he still giggles at the mention of his celebrity backers. ''It is a bit weird. Meeting Rupert Murdoch was definitely scary.'' He falters. ''I don't say they're my friends '' I don't know if they'd call me a friend. They've all been great.''
  Famous friends aside, D'Aloisio's life is normal '' ish. He hangs out with schoolfriends at weekends, plays rugby and cricket (''I was on the A-team when I was 14, but I'm not so good now'') and has time for a girlfriend, whom he's been seeing for 10 months. His mother accompanies him on business trips to Hong Kong, Korea and New York. None of this stops comparisons to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, or hides the fact that he has been named one of Forbes magazine's ''30 Under 30'' entrepreneurs to watch. Does he feel pressure to succeed?
  ''I've never thought, 'Oh God, I'm a failure if I don't sell my company','' he says. ''When I was 15, I was naive. There is a story that when Li Ka'‘shing phoned up, I asked when we should meet '' before or after school. People ask me if my age has helped me do well, but Summly has been subjected to so many due diligence tests. The technology works.''
  D'Aloisio's hopes for the future are as ambitious as you'd expect. He wants to invest the bulk of his money; he likes the idea of ''angel investing'' '' that is, giving financial backing and expertise to another tech start-up. He plans to raise awareness of the importance of computer coding '' a subject he hopes will one day be taught in schools. He'd like to expand Summly (which has now closed down, before being integrated into Yahoo!'s software) beyond news '' ''We've looked at summarising Wikipedia, books, blog posts; you name it,'' he reveals.
  These are all long-term goals, however. Like most of his generation, D'Aloisio is enjoying right now. When he and I part, he'll tear off to catch a flight to New York, for yet another packed day of press appearances and publicity. What's next, after that, for the whizz kid from Wimbledon? ''I'm really looking forward to starting at Yahoo!. It's exciting. Ten years from now, I might still be there. I might be at university. I might be in a totally different industry.''
  He looks down at the question mark on his T'‘shirt and grins. ''In other words, I have absolutely no idea.''
Bill Gates' $100 million database to track students
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:21
  By Michael F. Haverluck
  Over the past 18 months, a massive $100 million public-school database spearheaded by the $36.4 billion-strong Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been in the making that freely shares student information with private companies.
  The system has been in operation for several months and already contains millions of K-12 students' personal identification '' ranging from name, address, Social Security number, attendance, test scores, homework completion, career goals, learning disabilities, and even hobbies and attitudes about school.
  Claiming that the national database will enhance education, the main funder of the project, the Gates Foundation, entered the joint venture with the Carnegie Corporation of New York and school officials from a number of states. After Rupert Murdoch's Amplify Education (a division of News Corp) spent more than a year developing the system's infrastructure, the Gates Foundation delivered it to inBloom '' a nonprofit corporation recently established to run the database.
  School officials and private companies doing business with districts might have plenty to be happy about with this information-sharing system, but ParentalRights.org President Michael P. Farris says parents have plenty to worry about when it comes to inBloom's national database.
  ''The greatest immediate threat to children is the threat to their privacy,'' Farris told WND in an exclusive interview. ''The Supreme Court has recognized a sphere of privacy within the family, but this project would take personal information about each child, apart from any considerations of parental consent, and put it into a database being managed and monitored solely by the government agencies and private corporations that use it.''
  And with globalists like Bill Gates (the world's second richest man with a net worth of $61 billion) and big government joining hands in the project, could children's information be abused for ulterior motives?
  ''I cannot speak to Mr. Gates' personal motivations, [but] the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been connected with human rights organizations that promote the internationalist mindset, and this project clearly fits with that agenda,'' Farris explained. ''The Convention on the Rights of the Child committee has repeatedly browbeat nations to create a national database just like this that will allow the government to track children, purportedly to make sure their human rights are being protected '' different declared purpose, same kind of system, same invasion of privacy for government purposes.''
  Michael Farris
  When contacted for comment about the benefits and potential dangers of the database, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did not respond.
  Breach of privacy?
  Holding the legal right to control student information, local education officials reportedly have the authority under federal law to share database files with private companies '' such as Gates' Microsoft '' that sell educational products and services so that they can mine the info to create new tailored products.
  But Farris believes the digital information distribution system violates the constitutional rights of parents to protect their children.
  ''We believe parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education and care of their children,'' asserts Farris, who was named one of the ''Top 100 Faces in Education of the 20th Century'' by Education Week. ''Historically, the Supreme Court has supported that right. That means parents are the primary guardians of a child's privacy.''
  He notes the hypocrisy of many globalist billionaires (such as Gates, whose 11-, 14- and 17-year-old children enjoy the extra security of private schools and for their own protection, have had to wait until the age of 13 to get a cell phone).
  ''This is just one more example of the elite internationalist double standard,'' contends Farris, who also is the founder and chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). ''They are perfectly content to share your child's personal information, while keeping their own children in private schools or under private tutors.''
  Farris, who is also the founding president and current chancellor of Patrick Henry College, sees corporate leaders as using those of lesser means to benefit their own interests.
  ''They protect their own privacy at any cost, but you need to surrender yours for the good of their ideal society,'' Farris adds. ''Ultimately, it doesn't seem so ideal for the rest of us.''
  Farris insists that schools giving in to the corporate interests of billionaires, such as Gates and Murdoch, is a major breach of parental rights.
  ''Now the government is sharing private student information with other organizations without parental consent,'' Farris points out. ''We believe that infringes a child's right to privacy, and it infringes the parents' right to be the first line of defense for that child.''
  Many parents concur and feel uneasy with school administrators having full control over their children's files, especially with states and school districts having full discretion over whether student records are entered into the database.
  ''Once this information gets out there, it's going to be abused,'' parent Jason France told Reuters in Louisiana, which, along with New York, is slated to input virtually all student records statewide. ''There's no doubt in my mind.''
  Illinois, Massachusetts, Colorado, Georgia, Delaware, Kentucky and North Carolina have pledged to contribute student records from various school districts.
  Because federal officials claim that the national database does not violate privacy laws, the Department of Education maintains that no parental consent is needed by schools to share student records with any ''school official'' with a ''legitimate educational interest'' '' which includes school-contracted private companies.
  Gates' real take on security
  Being in the business of contributing to educational technologies for decades, 57-year-old Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has much vested interest in education, and in years past, he has had much to say about the privacy of electronic information.
  ''Trustworthy Computing is the highest priority for all the work we are doing,'' Gates stated a decade ago in a famous company-wide memo at Microsoft. ''We must lead the industry to a whole new level of Trustworthiness in computing.''
  And by ''trustworthy,'' Gates was referring to not letting people's information get into the wrong hands.
  ''Users should be in control of how their data is used,'' explained Gates '' who believes that his customers' information should not be freely distributed, but does not hold that view when it comes to parents and the records of their children.
  ''Policies for information use should be clear to the user. Users should be in control '... it should be easy for users to specify appropriate use of their information '...''
  In fact, when it comes to protecting and courting customers, Gates has spared no cost.
  ''So now, when we face a choice between adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose security,'' states the memo from Gates, whose $150 million, 66,000-square-foot home on Lake Washington has a 2,500-square-foot gym, a 1,000 square-foot living room and a 60-foot swimming pool complete with an underwater music system. ''Our products should emphasize security right out of the box, and we must constantly refine and improve that security as threats evolve.''
  Bill Gates' home on Lake Washington, near Seattle
  Despite his endorsement of the school database, Gates '' who gave up first place in global net worth to Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu ($69 billion) after giving away $28 billion through his foundation '' is a strong backer of International Data Privacy Day, which has this to say about protecting people's information:
  ''In this networked world, in which we are thoroughly digitized, with our identities, locations, actions, purchases, associations, movements, and histories stored as so many bits and bytes, we have to ask '' who is collecting all of this data '' what are they doing with it '' with whom are they sharing it? Most of all, individuals are asking 'How can I protect my information from being misused?' These are reasonable questions to ask '' we should all want to know the answers.''
  Officials of the annual event proclaim endorsement of the very principles that Gates' new public school database evidently tramples.
  ''Data Privacy Day promotes awareness about the many ways personal information is collected, stored, used, and shared, and education about privacy practices that will enable individuals to protect their personal information,'' the events' organizers declare.
  Student security not a priority
  Even though the facilitator of the public school database promises that it will keep a tight rein on students' information, a closer look into inBloom's privacy policy shows another stance.
  ''[inBloom] cannot guarantee the security of the information stored '... or that the information will not be intercepted when it is being transmitted,'' the company's documentation states.
  Unlike most software and Internet users, parents have little recourse when it comes to protecting their children's information on the database. Voicing their concerns with state officials via written protests, parents of public schoolers from Louisiana and New York are up-in-arms. Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) in Massachusetts, as well as attorneys in New York, are following suit.
  But according to Farris, public education is just fanning the flames of parental fears that ''Big Brother'' is tightening its grip on the masses by treating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) as a ''living and breathing document'' to undermine its original intent.
  ''We know the Department of Education quietly modified their understanding of FERPA law in the last two years to allow for a system like this,'' Farris argues. ''Homeschool Legal Defense Association, of which I am chairman, filed a letter with the Department opposing their intended changes, but like all such letters in this particular instance, our input was ignored.''
  And has Bill Gates' personal information been as freely accessible as he would public schoolers' to be? Not exactly.
  Just earlier this month, the now part-timer from Microsoft (since 2008) has been made the latest victim of celebrity data exposure, with his Social Security number, birthdate, credit card number and full credit report being posted online. No comment has been made whether Gates believes the dissemination of his SSN is a breach of privacy, but his heavy involvement in the school database indicates that sharing such information of public school students isn't a breach.
  And just how important is privacy to Gates?
  In 1994, when he married Melinda in a private ceremony on the Hawaiian island of Lanai, he bought out every unoccupied room of all nearby hotels and booked every helicopter in the surrounding area to ensure privacy from photographers.
  Reports also indicate that First Lady Michelle Obama was also a recent victim of having her SSN and credit report posted online. She and a couple dozen celebrities were impersonated by hackers who entered some of their basic personal information into a website '' the same type of information (of students) school officials are entering into their system by the millions.
  President Barack Obama recently expressed his concern over electronic information being exploited by others, and when it comes to info being dispersed about his wife, he is dispatching U.S. authorities to investigate.
  ''We should not be surprised that if we've got hackers that want to dig in and have a lot of resources, that they can access this information,'' Obama told ABC News. ''Again, not sure how accurate but '... you've got websites out there that tell people's credit card info. That's how sophisticated they are.''
  And to make it easy for companies to tap in, inBloom has made its service free, but is likely to begin charging for its use by 2015.
  Opening the Gates agenda?
  Much concern has been expressed over the years regarding the driving force behind Gates and his organizations, which have demonstrated unflagging support of many leftist causes.
  Just last week, the richest man in America lamented that Obama's powers are too restricted.
  ''Some days, I wish we had a system like the U.K. where, you know, the party in power could do a lot and you know, you'd see how it went and then fine, you could un-elect them,'' Gates proclaimed at a Politico event when asked about Obama's performance as president, according to the Daily Caller.
  In a speech just over a week ago at the Global Grand Challenges Summit put on by the Royal Academy of Engineering, Gates said capitalism ''means male baldness research gets more funding than malaria,'' , according to Wired Magazine.
  Since the inception of the Gates Foundation in 1994, the same year Gates spent $30.8 million at an auction for a collection of Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester writings, he has been a staunch supporter of population control through vaccines and other methods.
  Last summer, Gates and his wife represented their foundation at a ''family planning'' summit in London hosted by the U.K. Department of International Development, which included Planned Parenthood and the United Nations Populations Fund, along with other prominent pro-abortion advocates.
  And at the exclusive Technology, Entertainment and Design 2010 Conference in Long Beach, Calif., Gates presented this population-control formula: P (people) x S (services per persons) x E (average energy per service) x C (average CO2 emitted per unit of energy) = CO2 (total CO2 emitted by population per year).
  In his speech titled ''Innovating to Zero!'' he talked about keeping the world population from peaking at an estimated 9.3 billion.
  ''First we got population,'' Gates explained. ''The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.''
  Even though Gates suggested at the invitation-only event that using vaccines is one means to reduce world population, his foundation focuses media attention on other goals, such as eradicating measles and polio.
  But the foundation's extreme measures taken to administer the shots to undeveloped nations are often underreported.
  In 2011, few people knew about partners of the Gates foundation forcing 131 Malawian children against their religious convictions to receive measles vaccinations at gunpoint as part of achieving the goal of vaccinating every child on earth, as reported by Natural News.
  Gates, an ex-Boy Scout, is also an advocate of homosexual behavior, stating at last week's Politico event that the youth organization should ''absolutely'' lift its ban on ''gay'' members when asked his opinion.
  Standing side-by-side with Planned Parenthood '' which has documented that promoting homosexuality is one of its tactics behind population control '' Gates' Microsoft was a major contributors to last year's successful election campaign that worked to legalize same-sex marriage in his native Washington state.
  The future of Gates' database?
  The new school database is not moving forward without legal resistance.
  ''It's a lot of smoke and mirrors,'' contended Electronic Privacy Law Center Administrative Counsel Khaliah Barnes in a statement to the Daily News. ''What happens if a company using the data is compromised? What happens if the company goes out of business? We don't know the answers.''
  The issue over the database is being brought to the forefront as a major civil rights issue.
  ''Turning massive amounts of personal data about public school students to a private corporation without any public input is profoundly disturbing and irresponsible,'' New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna told the Daily News.
  The NYCLU is castigating New York State officials for denying parents the choice to opt out of the controversial program and for failing to warn parents of its implementation.
  To counter Gates' school database project, ParentalRights.org urges Americans to sign a petition supporting the Parental Rights Amendment, which will codify the fundamental right of parents in the U.S. Constitution to direct the upbringing, education and care of their children.
Soviet KGB defector & Communist propaganda expert, predicts Obama's gameplan almost 30 years ago
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:10
SPLC 2013: Still no minorities at the top
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:55
  Last week, Watching the Watchdogs examined the Southern Poverty Law Center's latest ''hate map'' fundraising tool and broke the amazing, astounding, unprecedented news that for the first time in history the number of alleged ''hate groups'' designated by the SPLC's Public Relations chief, Mark Potok, (something even the FBI cannot do'...), actually DECLINED!!
  While this inconceivable turn of events left many investigators gasping in amazement, a quick head-count of the SPLC's top executives reveals a caucus as Caucasian as it was the day Morris Dees opened the doors of the company in 1971. There are still some unbroken traditions that one can count on in this mad, mad world.
  This seeming incongruity was brought to the attention of Mr. Dees 19 years ago by journalists Dan Morse and Greg Jaffe in their week-long expos(C) in the SPLC's hometown newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, in 1994.
  Click to enlarge
  Dan Morse noted in his article, ''Equal treatment? No blacks in center's leadership'':
  Inside, no blacks have held top management positions in the center's 23-year history, and some former employees say blacks are treated like second-class citizens.
  Last week the SPLC released its IRS Form 990 tax return for 2012, listing the names and compensation packages for its top executives (see pages 7-8). And the winners are:
  Richard Cohen '-- President/CEO '-- $340,923Morris Dees '-- Founder and Chief Trial Counsel '-- $344,771Joseph Levin '-- Director and General Counsel '-- $185,102Mary Bauer '-- Legal Director '-- $168,819Teenie Hutchinson '-- Secretary '-- $162,644Wendy Via '-- Development Director '-- $166,760 (+$19,582)Mark Potok '-- Senior Fellow '-- $162,206 (+$10,814)David Utter '-- Director '-- Miami '' $158,013
  And a new (white) face for 2013:Sheila Bedi '-- Deputy Legal Director '' $129,893
  Not shown is Michael Toohey, the SPLC's Former COO, $234,309 (+$4,428). If anyone knows of a public photo of Mr. Toohey, please pass the info along to Watching the Watchdogs.
  Click to enlarge
  Conspicuously absent from the latest monochromatic rogue's gallery, yet again'... is Dr. Heidi Beirich, the SPLC's new ''Intelligence Director.'' Dr. Beirich replaces ''Senior Fellow'' Mark Potok as the chief fundraiser and go-to media ''expert.'' Beirich and Potok both started working at the SPLC in 1999, both are public relations pros, though Dr. Beirich boasts two Masters degrees and a Doctorate to Mr. Potok's B.S. in Poli-Sci, yet Dr. B has yet to be paid as much as her male counterpart.
  Click to enlarge
  Also missing from the list is Lecia Brooks, the SPLC's Outreach Director and highest paid minority, though not as highly paid as her white colleagues. In fact, when the Form 990 included salaries as paltry as $70,000, (they are a ''non-profit'' after all), our Ms. Brooks was nowhere to be found. As Outreach Director, Lecia Brooks' primary concern is fundraising and she has no influence over the running of the company.
  Hopefully, she got a 5-digit raise like the SPLC's other prime fundraisers, Mark Potok and Wendy Via. It was a record-breaking year, after all.
  Lecia Brooks does hold one unique distinction, though. She was allowed to serve as ''Interim Director'' of the SPLC's ''Teaching Tolerance'' program for several months. As Dan Morse noted in his 1994 ''Equal Treatment'' article:
  The Law Center's ambitious new project, Teaching Tolerance, which is designed to promote racial and cultural justice throughout America's schools, is produced by an eight-member all-white staff according to the Law Center.
  ''Teaching Tolerance'' continued to be led by ''whites only'' until 2009, when Ms. Brooks was tapped to keep the seat warm during the interregnum until her successor could be selected, the highly diverse Maureen Costello:
  No report on the all-white nature of the SPLC's leadership would be complete without mentioning the company's first president, Julian Bond, and its diverse Board of Directors. As Dan Morse pointed out in his 1994 article, ''Friendly board: friends, associates fill board,'' the SPLC's board consists of friends and cronies of Morris Dees who rubber-stamp whatever is put before them by Dees. Some of the board members Morse mentioned in 1994 are still on the board today, as is at least one lingerie mogul.
  All of the board members are unpaid, which is not unusual in the so-called ''non-profit'' sector, and almost all of them are located hundreds or thousands of miles from Montgomery. In short, they may be diverse on paper, but they are not highly paid and they have no influence on the day-to-day operations of the SPLC. It's a classic case of ''brownwashing'' to dupe the donors.
  And as we've mentioned numerous times, Morris Dees wrote in his autobiography, A Season For Justice, that he only offered Julian Bond the ''largely honorary position of president'' in exchange for the use of Bond's name on the SPLC's first fundraising letters. Last year, Watching the Watchdogs produced short video for Youtube that describes the history of the all-white leadership of the SPLC, Teaching Tolerance, the Bond paid endorsement and the rubber-stamp Board of Directors.
  The only thing more difficult to believe than the fact that an alleged ''civil rights'' group headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, sitting literally in the back yard of Dr. Martin Luther King's own Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, could remain lily-white at the top for more than 40 years is the incredible fact that well-meaning people sent the SPLC more than $40 million donor dollars last year.
  What could that money have done for real charities closer to home?
  This article originally appeared in Watching the Watchdogs, and is reposted here with permissions.
  Tags: Southern Poverty :Law Center
U.S. General: 'Very Clear' Al-Qaida Threat In Tunisia
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: TPM News
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:21
  ASSOCIATED PRESS March 27, 2013, 9:27 AMTUNIS, Tunisia (AP) '-- The chief of the U.S. Africa Command has warned about al-Qaida attempts to gain a foothold in Tunisia.
  Gen. Carter Ham told Tunisian radio late Tuesday that ''it is very clear to me that al-Qaida intends to establish a presence in Tunisia.''
  The North African nation of 10 million was the birthplace of the 2011 pro-democracy Arab Spring uprisings and has since seen a rise in radical Islamic movements.
  Ham said that following talks with the government, which is led by moderate Islamists, he is convinced it is ''committed to doing everything it can to prevent al-Qaida from establishing a presence.''
  Ham, who took over Africa Command in March 2011 and is stepping down, was on a regional tour that included visits to southern Algeria and Libya.
  Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Knocks at Australia's Door
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  Archived Version
  Source: ZapLog - externe links
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:19
  Australia's first death from XDR-TB '-- extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, which is nearly incurable '-- has alarmed health officials and added new heat to a debate over how to treat immigrants with dangerous diseases. That debate echoes one on the United States' southern border.
  A long string of small Australian islands '-- bits of what was once a land bridge '-- mingle with islands belonging to Papua New Guinea, one of the world's poorest nations. One of those islands, Daru, has a major TB outbreak in its shantytowns. Australia used to have two TB clinics on its islands, but closed them in 2011 and sent many patients back to Daru, instead offering foreign aid to help them be treated at home.
  But the health system in Papua New Guinea is overwhelmed, and there are accusations that the foreign aid has been stolen. A World Health Organization report found serious drug shortages, and Australian television showed XDR patients mingling with others in Daru Hospital tuberculosis wards, raising the risk of spreading resistant strains.
  Catherina Abraham, a 20-year-old Daru woman, went to Australia on a tourist visa in 2012 but ended up as a ''medical refugee,'' spending months in isolation in a Queensland hospital, posing for pictures and giving interviews before she died on March 8, according to an article in The Medical Journal of Australia. Australia, which otherwise has little tuberculosis within its borders, is still debating how to respond. Treatment for drug-resistant TB '-- when it works '-- can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Experts noted that the same problem exists on the borders between the United States and Mexico and between Finland and Russia.
BEREZOVSKY HIDING IN ISRAEL?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: aangirfan
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:14
  IsraelMichael Cherney, now living in Israel, is a friend of Boris Berezovsky.Cherney says he spoke to Berezovsky on the morning of Friday 22 March 2013.
  Berezovsky told Cherney that he was flying to Israel on Monday 25 March 2013.
  Berezovsky asked Cherney to book a hotel for him on the coast just outside Tel Aviv.
  "It turns out that he didn't mean to die," said Mr Cherney.
  Fresh questions over Berezovsky death - FT.com
  Boris Berezovsky allegedly died in the UK on 23 March 2013.
  Boris, former girlfriend Elena and their childrenBoris Berezovsky is still alive?Russian politician Viatcheslav Nikonov says that Berezovsky is probably not dead.
  Berezovsky had financial difficulties; Robert Maxwell had financial difficulties.Some people believe that Jewish tycoon Robert Maxwell faked his own death.
  Reportedly, in January 2013, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) Vladimir Zhirinovsky met with Boris Berezovsky in Israel's city of Eilat.Russian prominent politician claims that British special services ...
Spring Brings Severe Cold Weather Across Europe
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  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:14
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 3/26/2013
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:12
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  March 26, 2013
  James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
  12:33 P.M. EDT
  MR. CARNEY: Welcome to the White House. Thanks for being here. I have no announcements to make at the top, so I'll go to Darlene.
  Q Thank you. On gay marriage, can you tell us at this point whether the President has been brought up to date on the arguments today over at the Supreme Court?
  MR. CARNEY: As you know, the Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett was there; White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler, as well as Associate Counsel Kathleen Hartnett were in attendance. The President has been updated on the arguments, but beyond that I don't have anything for you.
  Q Has he signed the CR?
  MR. CARNEY: He has not, but will, I'm sure, in due time.
  Q And then a quick question about Afghanistan, the meeting that Secretary of State Kerry had with Karzai, where Karzai sort of explained that his comment that the U.S. was conspiring with the Taliban was misinterpreted by the media. Is the White House satisfied with President Karzai's explanation about what he had to say?
  MR. CARNEY: We have a very important relationship with President Karzai. Most importantly, we have a very important relationship with the Afghan people, the Afghanistan government. As you know, on Sunday, Secretary Kerry and Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Kayani had dinner and they discussed a range of bilateral security issues, including combatting terrorism, reconciliation process in Afghanistan and regional security. And of course, as you know, Secretary Kerry was in Kabul yesterday to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to our strategic partnership with Afghanistan, and he met with President Karzai and other Afghan officials as well as the civil society groups to discuss how we can continue to work together to sustain the progress we've made and to advance our shared goal of a stable, sovereign Afghanistan that is no longer a launching pad for al Qaeda and other transnational terrorists.
  As you know, the transfer of responsibility for the facility of Bagram has taken place and we are continuing to work with our Afghan counterparts as we move forward with the President's policies on these issues.
  Yes.
  Q North Korea has renewed some of its threats against the United States. Does this raise heightened concerns, or is this just the usual rhetoric?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, Mark, as you know, North Korea's bellicose rhetoric and the threats that they engage in follow a pattern designed to raise tensions and intimidate others. And as we say consistently, the DPRK will achieve nothing by these threats or provocations, which will only further isolate North Korea and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia.
  We continue to urge the North Korean leadership to heed President Obama's call to choose the path of peace and to come into compliance with its international obligations. This is something that we work on consistently with our international partners. The United Nations Security Council recently took action unanimously in response to North Korean actions that were not in keeping with their international obligations and imposed further sanctions as part of that process.
  So we do look at this as part of a pattern and we respond in the way that we always have.
  Q And if I can just go back to Darlene's question -- I know it's early days yet on the Prop 8 case, but some of Justice Kennedy's comments raise concerns that the Court might not want to fully engage on this topic. Would this be a missed opportunity to settle an issue of such great importance for the country?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I'm not going to evaluate the arguments today, and I, as everyone, I think, will wait for whatever decisions the Supreme Court makes in the case they heard today and the case they'll hear tomorrow. I would wait -- I think we've seen in recent history there's ample reason to be cautious about predicting outcomes in Supreme Court cases based on any particular piece of the puzzle -- in this case, oral arguments. So I'll heed my own caution and not engage in that.
  Q And just one detail -- you've said that the budget submission would come the week of April 8th. Have you narrowed it down to the day of that week yet?
  MR. CARNEY: Between Monday and Friday. (Laughter.)
  Yes. Good to see you.
  Q Let me go to immigration for a moment. This morning Janet Napolitano said --
  MR. CARNEY: And by ''between'' I mean it could include Monday or Friday. (Laughter.) Sorry.
  Q Inclusive, in other words.
  MR. CARNEY: Inclusive of.
  Q Secretary Napolitano said today that triggers are not necessary before comprehensive immigration reform. So what does the White House do to convince those on the other side? Since there are no reliable metrics about border security, what will you do to convince them that the border is secure enough for immigration and a path to citizenship to begin?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I think the question is excellent, and I would note that what Secretary Napolitano has said -- Secretary Napolitano has said that the Department of Homeland Security measures progress using a number of metrics to make sure we are putting our resources where they will have the most impact. And I think that while there are different ways to look at this issue, the fact is, by a host of measures, there has been great improvement in our border security.
  Certainly the facts are there when it comes to the resources that have been applied to border security -- the doubling of border security agents, as well as the other metrics that you will often hear Secretary Napolitano or others discuss. So we look at a variety of measures.
  And I think you can look at what this President has committed to and the record on border security since he came into office to evaluate his assertion that border security is a vital element of comprehensive immigration reform. That has been his position, and it continues to be. And I would note -- and this is something that has been acknowledged by important members of the Senate, Republican members -- the progress that has been made on this very important issue, border security. Much of -- the last time comprehensive immigration reform was essentially abandoned, some of the issues -- the principal reason for that was because of concerns about border security. And many of the metrics that were put forward then have been met -- the goals and the targets that were said to have to be achieved before we could move forward have been met.
  But this is an ongoing issue. This is an ongoing concern, and it's an ongoing project of this administration. And it will certainly be an important part of immigration reform.
  Q Do you -- does the White House oppose commissions or certain triggers before a path to citizenship can begin?
  MR. CARNEY: What we have said and I'll say today is that we are not going to judge the bill before it's been written. And we are working with the senators who are in the Gang of Eight as they make progress, and they've made considerable progress, and that is worth noting. Senator Schumer just the other day talked about where they are in that process and the progress that they've been making, and we were heartened by that.
  But as the President said yesterday, we have to keep pushing. We have to make sure that we follow through on this progress, and that that progress leads to a bill that has bipartisan support and that can be signed by this President. And we're not there yet. Progress is being made. It's being made in the Senate, which is where the President hoped it would be made. And we are very much monitoring that process and engaging in that process. But it's not done yet, and I don't want to prejudge a bill that hasn't been written.
  Q But if I could just press you on it, it does appear as though that Secretary Napolitano did today prejudge. She said the triggers are not necessary. Does the White House agree with that assessment?
  MR. CARNEY: I think what she was saying -- and the assessment we do agree with -- is that there are a variety of metrics by which you can measure, and we do measure, progress on border security. And these are metrics that others use to measure border security, including Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and beyond the Senate, beyond the Congress.
  So we're working with Congress on this, with the Senate on this. Progress has been made. Border security is one of the key principles that the President has put forward that has to be part of comprehensive immigration reform. He has demonstrated his seriousness on this issue, as has Secretary Napolitano. But it is something that we're -- it's not a done project. We have to continue working on it.
  Q Senators Paul, Cruz and Lee say that they plan to filibuster a procedural vote to begin considering gun control legislation. Is the President aware of this and what is his reaction?
  MR. CARNEY: I haven't discussed that with him. I did see him earlier today, but I didn't hear that issue raised. I would simply say that filibusters of efforts to move forward with common-sense measures to reduce gun violence would be unfortunate. We have worked with Congress, with the Senate, to try to advance the elements of the President's plan that require legislative action. And these, again, are common-sense measures.
  Closing gun show loopholes, that's an idea that has something like 90 percent of support in the United States; by some polls, has a majority of support among gun owners in America, support among Republicans and independents and Democrats. We ought to be able to do this.
  But it's hard. And we're continuing to work with Congress to get it done. And as you know, a number of pieces of this have been voted out of committee. That is important progress. Senator Reid has vowed that action will be taken on these elements, and that is important progress. We hope that that takes place.
  A vote ought to be held on all these elements. That was what the President made clear when he announced his plan. It is what the American people deserve. It is what the victims of gun violence deserve. I don't think you need to tell the families of those who have lost their children to gun violence that bills like this might be filibustered -- I don't think that would be welcome news.
  Q Do you think you would be able to overcome that 60-vote threshold?
  MR. CARNEY: I don't have prognostications to make about these measures. What I can tell you is that they have broad support, elements of them have overwhelming support, and they ought to be voted on. And the President backs every element of them.
  Q Also, does the President think the assault weapons ban has any chance of passing as an amendment?
  MR. CARNEY: The President supports strongly the renewal of the assault weapons ban. He has since he was a senator. It is a part of the comprehensive package of proposals that he put forward and he certainly hopes that the Senate will pass it.
  Q What type of pressure is he willing to exert?
  MR. CARNEY: The President has been engaging with lawmakers of both parties on these issues. When he has been having conversations with Democrats and Republicans, much of the attention has focused on fiscal and budget issues in the reporting and much of the conversation has been devoted to those topics. But they have also included conversations about comprehensive immigration reform and moving forward on gun violence measures.
  And that will continue, as will our staff interaction with Congress on these issues. And you'll continue to hear the President in public discuss the need to move forward on these important measures.
  Q Will he really twist arms, though, particularly with members of his own party?
  MR. CARNEY: I think he has and will continue to make clear that this is a measure that he believes ought to pass; that it's a common-sense measure that would not -- and this is true of everything that's part of his plan -- would not take a single firearm away from a law-abiding American citizen; that respects entirely the Second Amendment rights of the American people -- Second Amendment rights that the President supports, but which, as all of the measures do as a package, would help reduce the scourge of gun violence in America, which is an objective that he believes is non-political, non-partisan -- because the victims of gun violence in America are not Democrats or Republicans, and, as we have learned, they're often not even eligible to vote.
  Q Jay, can I follow up?
  MR. CARNEY: Yes.
  Q It appears that background checks are sort of the center of gravity in this legislative debate. And I wonder if the White House believes it's a false construct on its face, both politically and from a policy perspective, that background checks require a federal registry?
  MR. CARNEY: It is not our position that --
  Q But is it a false construct? Did you not have --
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I don't -- that maybe too clever for me to answer. I think the fact is, is that the existing system -- this is something that I think is misunderstood by those who don't follow this issue closely. There is a background check system. What the President believes has to be done, and what the efforts underway in Congress hopefully would do if passed and made law, would close the loopholes in that system, make the system comprehensive so that it is absolutely effective in -- as effective as it can be in preventing weapons from getting into the hands of those who should not have them.
  That's the purpose of the system. And it is -- this idea is supported, as I said earlier, by a huge majority of the American people of all political persuasion.
  Q You are aware that being injected into this debate is a either assertion or a fear that a registry has to be accompanied for this to be effective? I'm curious what the administration --
  MR. CARNEY: Well, we do not believe that's -- whether you would describe that as a false construct or not, we do not believe that. That is not what would happen. And a system that already exists merely needs to be improved so that these loopholes are closed, so that those who should not have weapons cannot obtain them. That is the purpose of this legislation. And it does not involve registries. It is simply a background check system that would do in full what the system already does in part, which is, in a very simple process, ensure that those who don't -- or should not have weapons cannot obtain them.
  Q And that would apply to private transactions, as well?
  MR. CARNEY: The position is, is that the loopholes ought to be closed, all of them. I'm not going to get involved in the specific negotiations underway right now. This is obviously a topic of much discussion among those in the Senate who are engaged in this process.
  But we firmly believe that this element of the President's package is very important, and that it ought to be passed -- as should all elements. This one in particular has enormous support among the American people. It is, on its face, a common-sense measure, and we hope it moves forward.
  Q I want to follow up on Jim's question on immigration, because you mentioned some of the metrics or ways that people thought about measuring things in 2007 when the bill fell apart. Are you saying that those are acceptable means of measuring, and, maybe by certain standards, have already been met, as far as border security?
  MR. CARNEY: I'm simply citing what some lawmakers, including Republicans, have said about the goals that were asserted by some back in that previous debate and how they have been met when it comes to some of these metrics.
  It is a fact that we now have nearly 22,000 personnel along our border. That's an all-time high. And they are deploying unprecedented levels of technology in the effort to make our border more secure. And there are just a variety of metrics that DHS I know has discussed and provided to reporters that confirm the progress that has been made on border security issues. We want to --
  Q -- the 2007 standard, the border is already secure?
  MR. CARNEY: No, I think that what I would say, in echoing some lawmakers, is that much of what was put forward as necessary back in that debate has been achieved. I would not suggest, because the President would not support this proposition, that we do not need to continue to do everything we can to make our border more secure.
  And the President is committed to that. That's why it's a key element of comprehensive immigration reform. Secretary Napolitano is committed to that. And we are working every day to take necessary measures to improve our border security. And that's part of the discussion right now on this important piece of legislation.
  Q Lastly, on the CR, whenever the President signs it, what is the take-away from the White House on the fact that he will sign a CR that in large measure puts into law for the second time sequestration and perhaps casts a shadow over future years? Because the sequestration is there and there are those who look at it now and say this is part of a new normal.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, the CR does not put -- the CR just simply extends budget levels in keeping with the previous budget agreements. The sequester stays into effect. It doesn't alter the fact that the sequester is being implemented in keeping with the law.
  There is no question that we believe we should not have come to this point where sequester would be imposed. There's no question that we believe regular folks out there are being unnecessarily harmed by imposition of the sequester -- which was designed by Democrats and Republicans purposefully never to become law, to be filled with nonsensical approaches to deficit reduction.
  Q And yet here it is?
  MR. CARNEY: And yet here it is. So we would love to see Republicans change their mind about imposition of the sequester. We would welcome a change of heart, maybe a change back to the position they held for much of 2012, which was sequester's imposition would be cataclysmic and terrible for the economy and for our national defense -- that is what they said at the time -- instead of doing what they did on January 1st -- end of the year, January 1st -- instead of doing it, which was to postpone or delay the implementation of sequester with a balanced buy-down, which they were willing to do two months ago and now are suddenly unwilling to do -- or recently became suddenly unwilling to do. We would welcome a reversal of that position.
  Q The President has had to accommodate political realities he finds very negative, right?
  MR. CARNEY: There is no question that Republicans chose to implement the sequester. We cannot -- we have presented ways -- the President has presented ways on numerous occasions to eliminate the sequester entirely, to do that in a balanced way, to do that in a way that asks those who are well-off and well-connected to participate in further deficit reduction --
  Q Right, but you lost that.
  MR. CARNEY: No, we have not lost that. The fact is --
  Q This doesn't mean you've lost that debate?
  MR. CARNEY: On the overall effort to reduce our deficit in a balanced way? No, absolutely not. The fact is the Senate passed a budget that is balanced in its approach to deficit reduction that allows for the key investments that are necessary so that our economy will grow and our kids are educated. It enacts further spending cuts and entitlement reforms. It mirrors the balanced approach that the Simpson-Bowles Commission put forward, that the President's budget proposals and submissions to the sequester and his offer to John Boehner represent.
  And we hope that now that the House has passed a budget and the Senate has passed a budget that we can come together -- Democrats and Republicans -- and reach a compromise. Compromise requires accepting the general proposition you're not going to get 100 percent of what you want. The President has in his own submissions and offers and his budget made clear that he understands that, that he is willing to compromise on things that are difficult for Democrats.
  What we have not seen as of yet is a commensurate willingness by Republicans to compromise. So their position now is we ought to devastate Medicare; we ought to seriously reduce, dramatically reduce our spending on education, research and development, innovation, manufacturing, infrastructure -- just cut, cut, cut to the bone in the name of deficit reduction -- but while we do that, reform our tax code in a way that funnels massive tax cuts for the well-off.
  That's a terrible approach to the problems that we face, because this challenge can be dealt with in a balanced and reasonable way. And that's represented in the President's proposals. It's represented in the budget the Senate passed. And the President hopes that as these conversations continue that he has been engaged in that we can move forward and find common ground. It's going to be hard, because as we've seen in the House, there is an embrace of -- by some -- of the idea that the well-off and well-connected should not only be held harmless, but they should get a huge tax cut.
  Q I understand that, Jay. But that's all -- budget resolutions are all theoretical until you do something in reconciliation. The CR is law. And for the second time now --
  MR. CARNEY: The CR is simply --
  Q You're putting into place that which the White House fundamentally opposes -- originally suggested but hoped never would be implemented but now has to implement.
  MR. CARNEY: I just want to be clear. The CR extends funding level for the government through the fiscal year at the levels already agreed to by both parties. It did not eliminate the sequester. It doesn't address the sequester. The sequester remains law.
  Q It could have, but it didn't.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, look, the Republicans made clear that they went from saying the sequester would be the worst possible thing --
  Q And yet, the President is going to sign this. MR. CARNEY: -- that could ever happen to calling it a homerun; to saying it was a political victory for the tea party.
  Q That the President now shares.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, no, he doesn't. He thinks they were wrong.
  Q But signing it anyway.
  MR. CARNEY: The CR does not -- you're not signing a sequester, Major. I think you've got to understand the CR is not the sequester. Republicans chose to impose the sequester. The sequester was part of the Budget Control Act. So if you're asking me does the President regret that Republicans would not make a common-sense, balanced proposition to postpone or eliminate the sequester -- you bet. Is he continuing to work with lawmakers of both parties on a bigger deal that would not just eliminate the sequester, but reduce our deficit beyond the $4 trillion target that we've all talked about? Yes, he is. And he hopes that Republicans will go along with that, because the American people overwhelmingly support it.
  Q Jay, on Syria, interesting moment today at the Arab League Summit where, of course, President Assad was not there, so a Syrian opposition leader took his seat. I wonder if you could talk about how symbolically important you think that is in terms of getting Assad out of power? But also, when that opposition leader had the microphone, he seemed to be calling on the U.S., some of our key allies, to do more. How do you answer that criticism that you're facing?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I would say a couple of things. One is we support the Syrian Opposition Coalition, as you know. And we do so with our partners. We believe that it is the legitimate representative of the opposition and of the Syrian people in their effort to rid their country of the scourge that is President Assad, a leader with enormous amounts of the blood of his own people on his hands.
  We continue to provide an exceptional amount of humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, the largest amount, I believe, of any country. We continue to provide non-lethal assistance to the opposition and continue to step up the levels of non-lethal assistance that we provide. And we work with our partners.
  As the President said on his trip when he was asked about Syria, this is a problem that we are working with our partners on. It is one, when it comes to our policy, that we are constantly evaluating in terms of what steps we should be taking to help bring about the transition in Syria that the Syrian people so desperately deserve. And we will continue to do that. The fact is that we have provided an enormous amount of humanitarian assistance. We are assisting the opposition and we'll continue to do so, working with our partners.
  Q On that trip, he was obviously in Jordan. And since he's returned from Jordan there have been reports and there's some conflicting information about whether or not the U.S. is training the Syrian opposition inside the boundaries of Jordan. And the question is whether we're directly training the Syrian opposition, or whether we're training the Jordanian forces to then train them. Can you clear that up?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, let me say that we have always been clear that our non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition includes equipment and training to build a capacity of civilian activists, and to link Syrian citizens with the Syrian Opposition Coalition and local coordinating councils. So I can say that much.
  Q So what does that mean in English, though, I guess? (Laughter.)
  MR. CARNEY: That was pretty good English.
  Q Well, I mean, no offense, but --
  MR. CARNEY: There were no dangling participles.
  Q I mean, so are we training the Syrians directly, or are we training them through Jordanian --
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I can just tell you that, again, our non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition includes equipment and training to build a capacity of civilian activists. On some of these other issues, I don't have anything for you. But it is clear that we are providing the kinds of non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition that we've discussed.
  Q Okay. One other quick question on health care. Republicans on the Hill are complaining that there is a draft questionnaire -- or draft application, I should say, for people to apply for insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. And I think it's on page 59, there's a question asking whether you want to register to vote. And Republicans are complaining specifically about the idea that in offering a benefit, there seems to be a suggestion that the administration wants to steer people to register to vote, but to also register for the Democratic Party because you're getting a benefit. Is that the administration is doing?
  MR. CARNEY: Are you suggesting that all benefits -- does that means the Republicans are disowning any ownership of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security? Is that --
  Q This is about the Affordable Care Act.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, actually --
  Q When you apply for Medicare --
  MR. CARNEY: -- the linkage of checking off whether or not you want to register to vote goes back to a 1993 law regarding Medicaid, which maybe Republicans opposed, I can't remember. But again, it goes back to that. It's not about the Affordable Care Act. As a separate measure, I'm not sure that it's such a terrible thing that people might want to register to vote. But I think this predates the Affordable Care Act.
  Yes, sir. Peter.
  Q Jay, back to Syria very briefly. How do we know that the aid, humanitarian or military, in any form that's coming from the United States is going to the right people, is getting to the good guys in Syria right now?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, obviously, we monitor this closely in making our decisions about the kinds of aid that we supply and who we provide it to -- evaluate just these questions. But when it comes to the Syrian Opposition Coalition, we obviously have recognized that organization, and work with our partners and directly with them to help them unify and to provide non-lethal assistance to them. But this is a question I think, going back on this issue in Syria, that we've talked about in the past that we have to make these evaluations all the time.
  Q And do we presently have people on the ground inside Syria helping vet those opposition members to determine -- groups to see exactly who should be recipients?
  MR. CARNEY: Not that I'm aware of, no.
  Q Let me digress very briefly -- I want to ask you a question. Given the fact that the President is a big college sports fan and now we're heading toward the Sweet 16, this is the first year where basketball teams have been disqualified for failing to meet academic requirements. This year one of the teams that failed to make it was Connecticut, because it didn't graduate approaching 50 percent of those necessary to graduate. So would the President be willing to endorse efforts to raise the minimum academic rate, basically -- the minimum graduation rate higher to 60 percent or something like that?
  MR. CARNEY: It's a fascinating question, and I don't know the answer to it. I haven't had that conversation with him. I know he believes strongly in the need for student athletes to be students, but I don't -- beyond that, I haven't had a conversation with him about that particular proposal.
  Q I guess the question, then, to take for consideration -- I'll pose it to you again since we'll have plenty of time to talk basketball -- the gist is, right now, if you have 50 percent, that's viewed as sufficient to play in the NCAA tournament. Does this White House support efforts to try to make it higher than that?
  MR. CARNEY: Again, I wouldn't want to guess whether we have a position or what it is. I can just tell you that the President, in general, believes that it's important for student athletes to be students and not just athletes.
  Roger.
  Q Thanks. Back to immigration and guns for a moment. You said a few minutes ago that --
  MR. CARNEY: I'm driving them away. (Laughter.) Maybe it's you, Roger, I don't know. (Laughter.)
  Q You said a few minutes ago that we will continue to hear the President in public on these two issues. Can you give a little sketch as to what's planned in the next several weeks on pressing immigration and guns?
  MR. CARNEY: No. I can just say that -- I have no scheduling announcements to make. But the President has made clear --
  Q Speeches out of town, trips to the Hill again, one-on-one?
  MR. CARNEY: Again, I don't have any specific scheduling engagement to preview for you. Going back to his State of the Union address and then back even further to the announcement of his plan to reduce gun violence, the President has made clear that he considers this a priority. And he will make that clear, as he has already, in the future, in the coming days and weeks as these issues are being -- as these issues are considered by the Senate and hopefully move forward in the Senate.
  So beyond that, I don't want to preview anything for you, but you can be sure the President will be continuing to discuss what he believes are fundamentally common-sense proposals that would help reduce gun violence in America in a way that is absolutely appropriate and that in no way infringes on our Second Amendment rights; in no way would take any weapons away from any law-abiding citizen. And he believes that we ought to move forward with those measures, and we are working with the Senate as they consider them.
  Q The event in Florida on Friday is on the economy, but could he conceivably touch on these two subjects as well?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I'm not going to preview that event or the President's remarks. I would just say that in coming days and weeks, as these issues move forward in the Senate, the President will want to make clear his support for common-sense measures to reduce gun violence.
  Yes, Alexis.
  Q Can you tell us whether any members of Congress will be with the President at the event? It's supposed to be at the Port of Miami.
  MR. CARNEY: I just don't have anything for you on that. When we're ready to provide more details about the President's schedule we'll offer them to you, but I don't have anything more.
  Q Can you at least suggest that it's trade-related? Can you help us --
  MR. CARNEY: I can promise you that when we have more information to provide that we will provide it -- and it will be excellent.
  Yes, Steve.
  Q To follow up Ed's question, Khatib specifically ask for NATO and U.S. to provide Patriot missile protection for rebels from -- to Syria. That would seem to me to test the non-lethal help. Is that something the U.S. might consider?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, we are aware of the request and at this time, NATO does not intend to intervene militarily in Syria. I think that a Patriot missile battery I think would be -- would fall within the definition of military assistance. The Patriot missile batteries that are deployed in Turkey are for defensive purposes only, to augment Turkey's air defense capabilities to defend its territory and people.
  But again, we will continue to work with the coalition leadership and membership to expand their efforts to provide essential services to Syrians across the country, to deliver assistance to those in need, and prepare for a Syrian-led political transition toward a free and democratic Syria.
  Bill.
  Q Jay, the Italian highest court in Italy has reversed the verdict of Amanda Knox, who is now back in the United States. Is there any way the Obama administration would agree to the extradition of Amanda Knox so she could go -- had to go back to Italy?
  MR. CARNEY: This is a legal matter that's I think still in process. I just don't have any comment on it, Bill.
  Yes.
  Q Thanks, Jay. Back on the gun issue, there have been 381 sheriffs, local sheriffs, that have signed on saying that they would not enforce gun laws that they believe are unconstitutional. Would the administration or the Justice Department have any problems with that if a sheriff at the local level or local law enforcement did not enforce whatever gun package that is passed?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I haven't seen the letters that you reference. I think that as a general proposition we think that people ought to follow the law. And as an absolute matter of fact, in my view and I think many others, including constitutional experts, there's not a single measure in this package of proposals the President has put forward that in any way violates the Constitution. In fact, they reflect the President's commitment to our Second Amendment rights.
  Q Okay, and one more. Today the Democrats For Life filed amicus briefs in two cases regarding the HHS mandate. Would you have any comment on that?
  MR. CARNEY: I don't. I don't have anything for you on that.
  All the way in the back, yes, sir.
  Q Jay, a question on immigration. What's the position of the President with regard to visas for immediate family member, immigrants who will benefit with any immigration reform?
  MR. CARNEY: I know that this is an issue that is part of the discussion as comprehensive immigration reform is being worked on in the Senate. I don't have anything specific for you on it. We want to see what emerges from that process. The President's views on this are reflected in his blueprint, which has been available for sometime online. But I don't want to prejudge a bill -- a bipartisan bill that's being worked on before we've seen the language in that bill.
  Yes, sir.
  Q You said you didn't want to get into the business of predicting Supreme Court case outcomes. Should we expect the President to talk about same-sex marriage at all between now and the Court's decision?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I mean the President's views are clear. He made those views clear last year. He spoke about in a press conference I believe about the amicus brief that the Department of Justice filed, and he spoke beyond that about his own views and how the application of heightened scrutiny in his view would mean that there would be no way to write a law that cleared the bar when it came to justifying discrimination against LGBT Americans.
  But it's certainly possible that either in an engagement with -- in a press conference or some other encounter, he might be asked about and therefore speak about it, but I don't have anything beyond that to preview for you.
  Ann.
  Q To follow on that, does the President have any thought about why there's so much interest in this now, and so many members of Congress and public figures are changing their minds on gay marriage? I think it was Jay Rockefeller and Senator McCaskill has changed, Senator Warner of Virginia. Does he have any thoughts on what it is about an issue like this that has really a very dramatic increase in support in public opinion polls in the last year?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, the President has noted in talking with you about the transformation that's been taking place in American society on these issues. He's talked about his own evolution on these issues. And many other commentators on American society have discussed I think in depth this phenomenon, which is a welcome phenomenon. And I think the only comment that we would have about it -- we'd leave the in-depth studies to sociologists and others -- is that it is a recognition by an increasing number of Americans that gay and lesbian Americans ought not to be discriminated against.
  And that goes to core principles about who we are as a country. The President spoke about this in his inaugural address, and that section of the address was much noted. And it reflects his core beliefs on these issues.
  Donovan.
  Q Thanks, Jay. I just wanted to get back a little bit to the sequester and implementation here at the White House. Has there -- is there further information about that? Like, are people getting furlough notices?
  MR. CARNEY: I'll have to check. We were traveling. I'm not sure what updates I have on that. As we've said in the past, the sequester applies to the White House and the Executive Office of the President as it does to the rest of the executive branch. But I don't have any more details for you.
  Q People have been asking about this for weeks. Is there a way to maybe corral some of the information and put it out, as opposed to just getting the question again and again and again? Because we're going to keep asking again and again.
  MR. CARNEY: Yes, we'll see what we can get for you. This is -- when furlough decisions are made, as I understand it -- and I would have to refer you to OMB -- about the implementation and application of the sequester, there might be furlough notices or reductions in pay. And I'm not familiar with the details. And I don't think -- before those things actually happen -- and we've seen this in other agencies, that before the notices actually go out, we don't have specific information about when that will happen because I think those evaluations are being made in real time.
  Is that it? Thanks, all.
  END 1:12 P.M. EDT
VIDEO-White House Down - Official Trailer (HD) - YouTube
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SPLC 2013: The new hate map is here!
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  Watching the Watchdogs readers of a certain age may remember actor Steve Martin's 1979 debut film, The Jerk. In one memorable scene, Martin's character, the naive country boy, Navin Johnson, is ecstatic to find his name listed in the local telephone directory.
  ''The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here!!'' shouts Navin, as he wildly leaps and prances about. Navin's boss, played by deadpan comic Jackie Mason, observes, ''I wish I could get that excited about nothin'.''
  Navin counters breathlessly, ''I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at this thing every day! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity'... your name in print'... that makes people!!''
  The parallels between this classic comedy scene and the latest iteration of the Southern Poverty Law Center's annual ''Hate Map'' are manifold: Spontaneous publicity. Your name in print. Millions of naive people looking at this thing and getting excited about nothin'.
  For the benefit of new Watching the Watchdogs readers, let's take a moment to recap the key facts about the Hate Map that need to be understood before delving into what is, to borrow a phrase from another classic comedy, '' '... a show about nothing.''
  1. The Hate Map is compiled each year by the SPLC's master Public Relations chief, Mark Potok, and purports to identify the number of ''hate groups'' across America on a state-by-state basis. Mr. Potok's maps always refer to the previous calendar year.
  2. There is no legal definition for ''hate group,'' which is why even the FBI does not, cannot, designate ''hate groups,'' yet somehow a private fundraising outfit can?
  Mr. Potok has no legal or law enforcement background and admits that all of his data are second hand, at best, and that his infamous Hate Map ''does not include original reporting by SPLC staff.'' The SPLC is a private fundraising group run by white millionaires. It has no mandate, receives no outside oversight and has no authority, legal or moral, to designate anything.
  In short, the SPLC has no more authority to designate ''hate groups'' than does the SPCA.
  3. Mr. Potok provides absolutely NO evidence to prove that the groups he is designating actually exist. In many cases, Mr. Potok cannot even provide the name of a city or town where the alleged group is supposed to reside. Investigative journalist Laird Wilcox pointed out this lack of hard evidence as far back as 1998, in his seminal expos(C) of the SPLC and other so-called ''civil rights'' groups, The Watchdogs.
  What [the SPLC] apparently did was list any group they could find mention of, including groups only rumored to exist. These included the large number of ''post office box chapters'' maintained by Klan and skinhead organizations. Some Christian Identity ''ministries'' consist only one person and a mailing list and many ''patriot groups'' consist of but three or four friends.
  They also listed many groups whose actual affiliation is neither KKK nor neo-Nazi and who would argue with the designation of ''white supremacy.'' In short, they misleadingly padded their list. When the SPLC releases their list, either in print or on the Internet, it fails to contain actual addresses that might be checked by journalists or researchers. Several listings refer to ''unknown group'' and the name of a city or town. '-- The Watchdogs, p. 79
  Mark Potok admitted as much a decade later:
  ''Potok says inclusion on the list might come from a minor presence, such as a post office box.'' (www.sanluisobispo.com, March 25, 2009)
  4. As noted, in many cases, Mr. Potok does not even bother to provide a physical location for his alleged groups. Last year, 247 of his 1,017 alleged ''hate groups'' were homeless, or about one in four. This year, 195 of his 1,007 alleged groups are phantoms, or about one in five.
  In 2011, Watching the Watchdogs actually got to ask Mr. Potok in person about these missing groups. As the video clip below shows, Mr. Potok was startled by the question at first, as no one apparently has ever bothered to vet his numbers before, and he then proceeds to stammer out that his ''hate map,'' the keystone of all SPLC claims and fundraising rhetoric, is ''anecdotal,'' ''a very rough measure'' and ''an imperfect process.''
  Sadly, the tens of thousands of well-meaning people who sent Mr. Potok and the SPLC more than $40 MILLION tax-free dollars in 2012, (that's more than $4,600 dollars every single hour of every day) didn't realize that his Hate Map numbers were just a wild guess. Those trusting folks took Mr. Potok at his word that his data were sound.
  So now that we've established Mr. Potok's credentials and the accuracy of his data, let's take a closer look at his actual numbers, which again, is something no professional news outlet seems willing to do.
  Click to enlarge
  In Point 4 above, we skimmed quickly over a monumental and wholly unprecedented event: For the first time in SPLC history'... the number of ''hate groups'' designated by Mark Potok'... actuallyDECLINED!
  Yes. You heard it here first, folks. Something we never thought we'd see has come to pass and gives a very strong indication that the days of Mr. Potok's primary fundraising tool, his much-lauded and oft-quoted Hate Map, are numbered.
  This turn of events comes as a complete surprise, as Mr. Potok is the sole arbiter of the ''hate group'' label, and since no one ever checks on his numbers, why didn't he just pad the numbers a little more as he has always done in the past?
  Every March, Mr. Potok releases his new ''hate group'' numbers in the Spring edition of his flagship ''Intelligence Report'' publication. Mr. Potok ignored the fact that his numbers actually went down for the first time in history, '''...the number of hate groups remained essentially unchanged last year'...,'' choosing to focus on his newest marketing ploy, evil ''militia'' groups. We'll have a look at those numbers in a minute.
  Potok provides a bar graph to illustrate his claim that the number of ''hate groups'' has increased by 67% since 2000:
  It's worth noting at this point that the SPLC's bloated ''Endowment Fund'' has increased by 147% in just the past decade, from $99,000,000 to over $245,000,000.
  Comparing the two charts, a case could be made linking the increase of cash in the Endowment Fund to the increase in ''hate groups.''
  Or maybe it's the other way around'...
  Purely a happy coincidence, no doubt, but it must be getting tougher to sell ''poverty'' to the donors when you've got nearly a quarter-BILLION dollars in cash reserves. Last year, the Endowment Fund generated more than $18 MILLION dollars in tax-free interest.
  Click to enlarge
  In November, 2008, immediately after the election of President Obama, Mr. Potok predicted ''explosive growth in hate groups'' due to '''... the tanking economy and a Black man in the White House. Mr. Potok is still singing this same tune in 2013, but now he says it's the evil militias that are upset:
  Capping four years of explosive growth sparked by the election of America's first black president and anger over the economy, the number of conspiracy-minded antigovernment ''Patriot'' groups reached an all-time high of 1,360 in 2012'...
  According to Mr. Potok's own bar graph above though, we see that for 2009, the first year of the Obama Administration and the worst year of the current recession, the number of ''hate groups'' only rose by 6, or 0.6%. Until this year, that half a percent ''explosion'' was the smallest increase in SPLC history.
  Mr. Potok added 70 new ''hate groups'' in 2010, as if to make up for his anemic performance the previous year, but at the same time, the number of homeless ''hate groups,'' those Mr. Potok can't seem to locate on any map, including his own, jumped by 99, which really represents a net loss.
  Mr. Potok was losing his ''hate groups'' faster than he could designate them.
  In 2011, Mr. Potok's list grew by only 12 new groups, for an increase of just over 1%. That year he added 20 chapters of something he called ''The Georgia Militia'' to that state's Hate Map, but he couldn't seem to locate 18 of them, so he simply added 18 empty slots marked ''Georgia Militia'' to pad out his numbers. No one in the Media ever called him on it.
  In 2012, the number of ''hate groups'' actually dropped by 1%
  Mr. Potok's ''explosive growth'' has turned out to be a damp squib'...
  As for the Georgia Militia, Mr. Potok has revised his figures down to 14 chapters, one of which allegedly resides somewhere in Camden County, one is simply labeled ''statewide'' and the other 12 are nowhere to be found. Must be all that camouflage gear those good ol' boys like to wear:
  Click to enlarge
  In all, 17 of the 53 ''hate groups'' Mr. Potok has assigned to Georgia are invisible. That's one in three. No doubt the rest of Mr. Potok's ''militia'' numbers are at least as accurate.
  While we've already packed a lot of information into this one post, let's crunch Mr. Potok's numbers just a little more to see what his figures actually say.
  Once again, when you strip out all of Mr. Potok's homeless ''hate groups'' you arrive at the surprising conclusion that, according to Potok's carefully researched data, the largest segment of ''hate groups'' are Black, outnumbering the KKK, Neo-Nazis, Racist Skinhead and White Nationalist groups respectively.
  Who knew? Mark Potok knows.
  The Southern Poverty Law Center made its fortune by going after ''hate groups'' in the South, and Mr. Potok is always nattering about evil white Christians, who tend to live in the South, but according to his latest numbers there was a distinct drop in the number of these alleged groups last year:
  Click to enlarge
  Mr. Potok also issues regular alarums about how the Northwest is a magnet for ''radical white nationalists'' but, once again, his numbers have dropped:
  Click to enlarge
  Ironically, (we use that term a lot when dealing with Mr. Potok's fundraising rhetoric), the traditionally more liberal Northeast actually showed a 6.25% increase in ''hate groups'' last year.
  Click to enlarge
  And finally, Mr. Potok has always claimed that the Republican Party is the root of all evil and represents the black heart of all hate-groupdom, but when you look at which states voted Republican in the 2012 Presidential election there are actually 12% more ''hate groups'' located in the Blue States even though the number of states in either camp was roughly even:
  Click to enlarge
  Click to enlarge
  So what are we to make of these capricious numbers at the end of the day? The short answer is: Not much. Mark Potok's ''hate group'' numbers are a marketing ploy and an extremely lucrative brand name. Even Mr. Potok concedes on the legend of his hate map fundraising tool that these groups are doing nothing illegal:
  ''Listing here does not imply a group advocates or engages in violence or other criminal activity.''
  No crime. No violence. Just ''wrong thoughts.''
  Admittedly, some of these groups do engage in what most people would consider inflammatory rhetoric, but as long as they're not breaking any laws'... they're not breaking any laws and neither Mr. Potok nor any other ''civil rights'' vigilante groups have a right to silence anyone.
  Mr. Potok uses his ''hate group'' smear because it allows him to incite his donor base, who were cultivated specifically for their political views, without having to accuse those groups of any actual crimes. His disclaimer may read ''Listing here does not imply'...'' but that is precisely what it does and that's why the donors sent Mr. Potok more than $110,000 tax-free donor-dollars each and every day last year.
  And that, friends, is why Mr. Potok, who has no legal or law enforcement background, is compensated by this law firm to the tune of $150,000 a year. As Navin Johnson observed so many years ago, Mr. Potok's ''Hate Map'' is the kind of spontaneous publicity that makes people.
  Publishers note: This article was originally posted at Watching the Watchdogs, and is reposted here with permission from the author.
  Tags: SPLC
Could Facebook Have Prevented the Georgia Baby Shooting?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:37
  According to Sherry West, last Thursday at 9 a.m., while walking in Brunswick, Ga., with her 13-month-old son Antonio, she was suddenly approached by two young men demanding money. Sherry said she had none, and the men'--boys, really'--made what must have seemed like an absurd statement at the time: ''If you don't give me money, I'm going to shoot your baby.'' Then, West says, the boys walked over to the stroller'--and shot her baby.
  Luis Santiago tries to comfort Sherry West at her apartment Friday, March 22, 2013, in Brunswick, Ga., the day after their 13-month-old son, Antonio Santiago (inset), was shot and killed. (Russ Bynum/AP;ABC)
  Two people'--17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins and a 15-year-old accomplice'--are alleged to have committed the murder and have been charged. There is currently much we do not know about the case: De'Marquise's aunt provided an alibi, but has since been charged with making false statements. On the other hand, West's adult daughter has expressed doubts about her mother's story; De'Marquise's public defender has said, ''My client is absolutely, 1,000 percent not guilty''; and the 15-year-old's grandmother has maintained her grandson's innocence.
  Yet while there is so much information we do not have, one source of insight is readily available: De'Marquise's Facebook page. And on that page, we find haunting evidence of a boy in need of an intervention, whether he killed young Antonio Santiago or not.
  De'Marquise is not alone. Across America, our young people are raising their hands on social media and telling us where both their hopes and problems lie, in thousands of tweets, posts, and ''likes.'' A healthy majority of these posts are the angsty exaggerations of teenagers and breathy recitations of the latest pop trends. But a small, important minority of these social-media clues portend real pain, struggle, even malice and disaster. And if parents, policymakers, faith leaders, social-service agencies, and law enforcement are going to step up to the cultural plate and do something about violence in our society, we better get savvy about social media, and fast.
  De'Marquise, if he did carry out this crime, would provide a telling example. Spending just 30 minutes on his Facebook page after seeing his name in police reports, I learned that De'Marquise, at the ripe old age of 14, had started to claim an affiliation with the notorious Bloods street gang. In photo after photo, dating back at least three years, De'Marquise is ''throwing up'' the common hand signs for the Bloods. He even screams in one caption, ''BLOOD 4 LIFE.''
  Today, the battlefields for our teenagers are Twitter DMs, Tumblrs, and Facebook walls.
  Now here's the thing: De'Marquise lives in Brunswick, Ga., population 15,000. One can't be sure, but despite the shocking pictures, I doubt that small-town Brunswick is a bastion of hardcore gang activity. Whatever De'Marquise thought he was doing in those photos, it's probable that he is like hundreds of other boys I've worked with over the years, from after-school programs in Ohio to halfway houses in Boston. These young men mix testosterone, boredom, loneliness, and the music they hear on their iPods, and paint the most aggressive picture of themselves that they can, often on Facebook and Twitter. For many, it's just an act. But for a very small minority, in a fit of desire, anger, peer pressure, or something akin to insanity, the posturing becomes jarringly real.
  Matthew Murray, who killed two missionaries and wounded two others in Colorado, issued warnings on the Web. The case of two young men who were just convicted of raping a teenager in Ohio was brought to light in part because of social-media postings. And one has to imagine that if Facebook was around when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on their rampage in Columbine, it would have been their wall posts instead of journals that police and parents searched for clues.
  So what do we do with this new reality? Well, the guardians in our culture have to adapt. Parents, teachers, outreach workers, policymakers, law enforcement, and faith leaders have to understand Facebook and Twitter just as well as the young people they work with'--not to stifle them (shutting down a page is often the worst thing a parent can do) but to know the cultural terrain. The goal is not a nanny state where every tweet is monitored, but rather a widespread acknowledgment that the playgrounds and lunchrooms of yesteryear are gone. Today, the battlefields for our teenagers are Twitter DMs, Tumblrs, and Facebook walls.
  It's not a matter of blaming parents, teachers, or society. The fault for the murder of Antonio Santiago lies squarely at the feet of whoever pulled the trigger, and whoever did it should suffer the most severe of consequences. This does not, however, minimize the cultural context. And when it comes to cultural context, Facebook and Twitter are king.
  This Friday, March 22, 2013, photo shows De'Marquise Elkins, 17, one of two teenagers arrested Friday and accused of fatally shooting a 13-month-old baby in the face and wounding his mother during their morning stroll in Brunswick, Ga. (Courtesy of the Glynn County Detention Center via AP)
  As we're on the lookout for indicators of tragedy online, we must be equally vigilant about finding glimmers of hope. Just a short distance from where Antonio was shot and De'Marquise was arrested is Georgia's Brunswick High School. I have to imagine that in that school, there are hundreds of young boys who look like De'Marquise and grew up in the same places, doing their best to graduate and succeed. How can their families, friends, and communities provide encouragement in a way that is meaningful to them? Find their Facebook walls and Twitter pages, post something unexpected, ''like'' their comments, and be present'--online. Likes and tweets are the new gold stars, but unlike gold stars, they can go viral for the world to see.
  Social-media-driven approaches to parenting, outreach, and law enforcement are just one piece of the much more complex puzzle of crime and violence in our communities. But it's a critical piece, and one that often goes unnoticed, until it's too late. It is too late for Antonio Santiago, and perhaps for De'Marquise Elkins; time and a jury will tell. But it's not too late for the millions of other kids whose character is being displayed, tested, and shaped every day, online.
Dionne Warwick Deep In Debt?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Jacky Jasper's Diary of a Hollywood Street King
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:13
  by Jacky Jasper
  Another Artist Bites The Big One?Her wealth may have once been estimated at about $4-million dollars, but Dionne Warwick is now claiming she makes just ten-bucks a month.
  It's all a part of her recent folding '-- after the legendary singer filed for bankruptcy last week. Now, Warwick '' whose 72-years-old '' is recording just $25,000 in assets while claiming more than $10-million in debt.
  Here's what the New York Daily News is reporting:
  ''The 72-year-old singer filed last week in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, listing just $25,500 in assets, and claiming the grand total of $10 a month after covering her expenses.
  The bulk of Warwick's staggering debt stems from unpaid taxes '-- and her publicist, Kevin Sasaki, has blamed negligent and gross financial mismanagement for his client's credit Armageddon '-- explaining that the debt comes from penalties and interest on back taxes that have since been settled.''
  On top of owing Uncle Sam big bucks, does Dionne also owe her former manager $500,000 '-- along with $20,000 in credit card debt? Of course. Don't believe me.. Ask her soon-to-be cash cow, Bobby Kristina.
The war on insanity: Prisoners' mental health examinations down.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: TheCandyman's news feed
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:12
  News 27.3.2013 6:37 | updated 27.3.2013 6:37Turun Sanomat reports that just 100 mental health examinations of criminals take place each year. That compares to around 300 two decades ago.
  Lauerma demanded a doubling in the number of assessments to try and ensure mentally ill criminals are appropriately treated before they are released.
  Prisoners in Finland are also legally entitled to medical care.
  SourcesYleThe ministry estimates the economy will grow this year by 0.4 percent. Between 2014 and 2017 an annual growth rate of 1.7 percent is projected. 14:23
  The German discounter had around 5.5 percent of the grocery store market in 2012, up from 4.8 percent in 2011. Kesko and S-Group had around 80 percent of the market, according to new market research from Nielsen. 13:07
  The government has published details on decisions it made in the previous week's framework budget talks. The package is an attempt to save about 600 million euros. 11:52
  Demand for food banks has dramatically increased in recent months. One Helsinki organisation is to ask clients for ID to try and reduce numbers. 11:52
  The prison mental health hospital's chief physician, Hannu Lauerma, claims that the number of mental health assessments of criminals each year is now one third what it was in the early 1990s. As a result, he says many prisoners suffering from mental illnesses miss out on vital care. 6:37
  Archbishop Kari M¤kinen of Finland's Evangelical Lutheran Church has denied reports that he voiced support for a gender-neutral marriage law in a morning interview with the broadcaster MTV3. 26.3.
  Trade Union Pro has announced a strike set to start Wednesday at 6 AM by TeliaSonera white-collar personnel and subcontracted office staff. 26.3.
  Municipal leaders in central Uusimaa want a study carried out on a possible merger of Hyvink¤¤, J¤rvenp¤¤, Kerava, M¤nts¤l¤, Nurmij¤rvi, Pornainen, Sipoo and Tuusula. If carried out, the merger would create the country's third largest municipality. 26.3.
  Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen said Tuesday that it would be worthwhile for Finland to follow a moderate middle-of-the road policy in European Union integration. He told a gathering of politicians and foreign affairs experts in Helsinki that as a small country, Finland benefits from making its voice heard within the EU. 26.3.
  Markku Koivisto, a charismatic preacher at a revivalist congregation in Nokia, has been given a 15 month suspended jail sentence for sexually abusing a 17-year-old boy. 26.3.
  14:2313:0711:5211:526:3726.3.26.3.26.3.26.3.26.3.26.3.26.3.26.3.26.3.25.3.25.3.25.3.25.3.25.3.25.3.25.3.25.3.25.3.24.3.24.3.24.3.24.3.24.3.24.3.23.3.23.3.23.3.22.3.22.3.22.3.22.3.22.3.22.3.22.3.22.3.22.3.22.3.22.3.21.3.21.3.21.3.21.3.21.3.21.3.21.3.
AUDIO: Is jet stream to blame for bad weather?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:11
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Petraeus Apologizes For Affair That Led To His Resignation
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: TPM News
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:09
  JOHN ROGERS and SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER March 27, 2013, 6:48 AMLOS ANGELES (AP) '-- In his first public speech since resigning as head of the CIA, David Petraeus apologized for the extramarital affair that ''caused such pain for my family, friends and supporters.''
  The hero of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars struck a somber, apologetic tone as he spoke to about 600 people, including his wife and many uniformed and decorated veterans, at the University of Southern California's annual ROTC dinner on Tuesday.
  ''I know I can never fully assuage the pain that I inflicted on those closest to me and a number of others,'' Petraeus said.
  Petraeus has remained largely in seclusion since resigning after the extramarital affair with his biographer was disclosed. His lawyer, Robert B. Barnett, has said Petraeus spent much of that time with his family.
  Dressed in a dark suit and red tie, Petraeus made motions toward a return to public life as a civilian. He spoke of a need for better treatment for veterans and soldiers, though he stopped short of criticizing current practices.
  ''While our country continues to improve its support and recognition for all of our veterans and their families, we can and must do more,'' he said.
  The retired four-star general also noted the challenges of transitioning from military life, saying: ''There's often a view that because an individual was a great soldier, he or she will naturally do well in civilian world. In reality, the transition from military service to civilian pursuits is often quite challenging.''
  He received applause and a standing ovation before he began the evening's program by cutting a cake with a sword in military tradition, a task reserved for the highest ranking person in the room.
  He started his speech by addressing the affair with biographer Paula Broadwell, which was discovered during an FBI investigation into emails she sent to another woman she viewed as a romantic rival.
  ''Needless to say, I join you keenly aware that I am regarded in a different light now than I was a year ago. I am also keenly aware that the reason for my recent journey was my own doing. So please allow me to begin my remarks this evening by reiterating how deeply I regret '-- and apologize for '-- the circumstances that led to my resignation from the CIA and caused such pain for my family, friends and supporters,'' he said.
  At the time the affair was made public, Petraeus told his staff he was guilty of ''extremely poor judgment'' and that the ''such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.''
  As the military leader credited with reshaping the nation's counterinsurgency strategy, turning the tide in the U.S. favor in both Iraq and Afghanistan and making the U.S. safer from terrorism, a friendly audience was expected at the ROTC dinner.
  At least one expert in crisis communications said that if his apology comes across as heartfelt and sincere, the public will indeed be seeing much more of him.
  ''America is a very forgiving nation,'' said Michael Levine who, among dozens of other celebrity clients, represented Michael Jackson during his first child molestation investigation.
  ''If he follows the path of humility, personal responsibility and contrition, I submit to you that he will be very successful in his ability to rehabilitate his image,'' he said.
  Another longtime crisis communications expert, Howard Bragman, said Petraeus has handled the situation perfectly so far. He noted that unlike former President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Sen. John Edwards and other public figures caught in extramarital affairs, Petraeus didn't try to lie his way out of it, immediately took responsibility and moved on.
  ''I think the world is open to him now,'' said Bragman, vice chairman of the image-building company Reputation.com. ''I think he can do whatever he wants. Realistically, he can even run for public office, although I don't think he'd want to because he can make more money privately.''
  While at USC, Petraeus also planned to visit faculty and students at the Price School of Public Policy, which administers the ROTC program, and USC's School of Social Work, which trains social workers in how to best help veterans returning from war.
  Petraeus was presented with a gift of silver cuff links by Nikias after his speech.
  ___
  Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.
  Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
Crowdfunding startups dominate Y Combinator Demo Day
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: CNET News
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:05
  Startups hoping to leverage Kickstarter's success were everywhere during the semi-annual graduation showcase, looking to get in on the crowdfunding action.
  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--If you cringe when you hear a company described as "Kickstarter for" this industry or that genre, yesterday's Y Combinator Demo Day was probably not for you.
  As happens twice a year, a Who's Who of A-list (and B- and C-list) venture capitalists and angel investors descended on the Computer History Museum here for the semi-annual Demo Day. There, the newest graduating alumni of the world's leading tech incubator had the chance to show off their talents -- and wares and/or services -- to the money men and women and reporters who might help to further their ambitions and fill their coffers.
  And throughout the day, Kickstarter was very much on people's minds.
  A couple of years ago, few had heard of the Brooklyn-based startup that was aiming to democratize the way project creators raise money. But now, with a nearly endless collection of success stories under its belt, Kickstarter has become the beast of the crowdfunding world. And everyone wants to break off a piece of that success.
  Over the course of the day, 47 startups took the stage for the three minutes under the spotlights. And no less than five of them were either described as "Kickstarter for" something, or were based on the now-well-understood crowdfunding model -- or trying to profit from that model's general disorganization.
  There was Microryza -- "Kickstarter for science;" Teespring -- "Kickstarter for T-shirts;" Watsi -- a non-profit aiming to leverage the crowd to finance individuals' medical care; Wefunder -- which wants to fund startups using the Kickstarter model; and Backerkit, which has built a CRM system for Kickstarter project creators.
  Plus, there was one company hoping to leverage crowdsourcing to solve difficult to diagnose medical conditions.
  All in all, this felt like a reunion party for the word "crowd." And we have the JOBS Act to thank for that. That legislation, which was designed to let small investors get in on the fun (and risk, obviously) of funding privately-held startups or projects, was passed by Congress passed and signed by President Obama, but has yet to be implemented. Nonetheless, it has inspired the growth of crowdfunding, with Kickstarter and competitors like Indiegogo leading the charge.
  And clearly it has inspired the creation of a number of new startups who, incidentally, are looking for help from the Silicon Valley VC community. Not to worry, though: That community seems eager to offer assistance.
  "I think that's a really interesting technology," said Tim Draper, a principal at the blue-chip VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. "I compare it to social media (like Facebook and Twitter) and I compare it to peer-to-peer file sharing."
  Draper said his firm has already invested in a couple companies trying to leverage the crowd, and noted that he's fully behind Wefunder's concept of trying to crowdsource the funding of startups because of the difficulty these days in raising liquidity through the public markets. "I'm encouraging this kind of thing," Draper added.
  To hear some at Demo Day tell it, crowdfunding is just getting started. Although thousands of projects have raised money using one of the services in the field, there's a limitless number of others who may see the success of some of these efforts and realize that they, too, can turn for help to the public at large for building their house-sized piano, circumnavigating the globe by ultralight, producing a documentary on sloths, or anything else that floats their boat.
  And while many more people find their projects unfunded in the end due to lackluster interest, crowdfunding's success in general doesn't surprise some in the VC community. "I think it's a very interesting area," said Avalon Partners founding partner Kevin Kinsella, "whose boundaries have not been fully explored."
  Given that so many of the companies presenting during Demo Day were focused on crowdfunding, one might conclude that Y Combinator set out to showcase a theme. But that's not at all the case, said Sam Altman, a partner at the incubator. "Sometimes people think Y Combinator has big ideas" about themes," said Altman, himself an alum, and the founder of Loopt. "But really, we just fund the best startups."
  Altman said that one element behind crowdfunding's rapid growth is that there's "finally critical mass" around the concept of the crowd. As proof, he pointed to Reddit, which he termed "the original Y Combinator success." "The crowd's a really powerful force on the Internet," Altman said, "and people finally understand how to harness that."
Talpa produceert formats nu ook zelf in Amerika
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: VK: Home
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:58
  27/03/13, 11:59 '' bron: BuzzE
  (C) anp. John de Mol.
  Talpa verkoopt zijn ideen en formules voor televisieprogramma's aan landen over de hele wereld, maar het bedrijf van John de Mol produceert de formats nu ook zelf in Amerika. Het Nederlandse productiebedrijf heeft verschillende opdrachten van Amerikaanse zenders binnengehaald.
  Het succes van John de Mol in Amerika begon met The Voice, maar daar stopt het niet. Dit voorjaar zijn verschillende producties van het mediabedrijf op de Amerikaanse televisie te zien. Zo maakte Talpa Media USA onder meer een 8-delige serie van de show The Winner Is, dat wordt gepresenteerd door zanger Nick Lachey.
  In Miami vinden op dit moment de opnames voor een 13-delige serie van The Voice Kids plaats. Voor Fox ontwikkelt het bedrijf een datingshow en er wordt een proefaflevering opgenomen van het programma Wedden dat ik het kan, dat in Nederland werd gepresenteerd door Jeroen van der Boom. Het programma gaat Challenge Me America heten.
  Maandag begon alweer het vierde seizoen van de Amerikaanse versie van The Voice. Er keken 13,6 miljoen mensen naar het programma.
Frontrunning: March 27
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Zero Hedge
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:35
  What bread... What circuses... JPMorgan Chase Faces Full-Court Press of Federal Investigations (NYT)European Regulators to Charge Banks Over Derivatives (WSJ) ... but forgive us if we don't hold our breathCyprus readies capital controls to avert bank run (Reuters)Cyprus Capital Controls First in EU Could Last Years (BBG)Damage ripples through Cypriot economy (FT)G4S readies guards as Cypriot banks prepare to open (Reuters)Global pool of triple A status shrinks 60% (FT)Customers Flee Wal-Mart Empty Shelves for Target, Costco (BBG)BOE Says U.K. Banks Have Capital Shortfall of $38 Billion (BBG)U.K. Banks Facing Capital Shortfall (WSJ)Berkshire to Pay Nothing to Be Among Top Goldman Sachs Holders (BBG)Cyprus Details Bank Revamp (WSJ)Kazumasa Iwata Joins Kuroda Naysayers as BOJ to Meet (BBG)BRICS Nations Need More Time for New Bank, Russia Says (BBG)Foxconn Plant in Peanut Field Shows Labor Eroding China Edge (BBG)
  Overnight Media Digest
  WSJ
  * Leave it to Warren Buffett to find a way to get hold of 10 million Goldman Sachs Group Inc shares without handing over a penny. The billionaire chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc accepted the stake in exchange for giving up his company's right to purchase a larger number of Goldman shares at a below-market price, according to terms of the deal announced on Tuesday.
  * Barrick Gold Corp co-chairman Peter Munk signaled he is looking to pass the scepter at the gold-mining giant he founded about 30 years ago. His call comes amid a shake-up in the top ranks of the mining industry, where a raft of high-profile leaders have stepped down, or been replaced, amid shareholder revolts over overpriced acquisitions and generally poor share-price performance.
  * CBS Corp acquired half of TV Guide Network and will enter a 50-50 partnership with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp for the entertainment channel and website.
  * DuPont Co agreed to pay Monsanto Co $1.75 billion as part of a series of licensing agreements for genetically modified seed technology that spell a truce in the rivals' bitter patent disputes.
  * Large global banks' legal tab is poised to soar beyond $100 billion as investors, insurers and municipalities pursue damages for actions tied to the mortgage meltdown, the financial crisis and the rate-rigging scandal.
  * Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is in the process of co-organizing a political advocacy group made up of top technology leaders that would push federal legislative reform on issues ranging from immigration to education, said people familiar with the development.
  * Honda Motor Co Ltd expects its U.S. new-car sales to increase by 8 percent in March over a year ago, led by a surge in demand for its redesigned Accord sedan, a senior executive said on Tuesday.
  * Health-care companies are circling around the $7 billion market for injectable drugs that are widely used by hospitals to treat conditions from cancer to pain - but which have often been in short supply.
  * A highly productive informant has led U.S. federal prosecutors to another group of alleged insider traders, one that includes a hedge-fund analyst and the investment chief for Wyoming's retirement system.
  * Mediaset SpA, Italy's largest private broadcaster, posted its first net loss since going public in 1996, as the company's slow response to new competition and a plummeting ad market in Italy takes its toll.
  FT
  Start-up banks in Britain will not need as much capital as their established rivals starting from April, Britain's Financial Services Authority (FSA) said.
  The Federal Reserve has ordered Citigroup Inc to better police for the risk of money laundering.
  Warren Buffett agreed to become Goldman Sachs Group Inc's biggest shareholders by converting his warrants into shares.
  Deutsche Bank has provisioned for 500 million euros to cover possible fines for the alleged manipulation of Libor interest rates.
  Britain's Kingfisher Plc reported sharply lower profits as cash-strapped consumers cut back on home improvements in the economic downturn. T-Mobile USA will eliminate device subsidies and two-year service contracts that are favoured in the mobile industry to sell expensive handsets.
  NYT
  * In a previously undisclosed case, prosecutors are examining whether JPMorgan Chase & Co failed to fully alert authorities to suspicions about Bernard Madoff, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter.
  * With time running out until Cyprus's devastated banks must reopen their doors to the public, Cypriot and European officials are scrambling to put in place a set of measures that would allow jittery depositors access to their savings while preventing many billions of euros from fleeing the country.
  * CBS Corp announced on Tuesday that it had completed a deal to buy a half-interest in TVGN, formerly the TV Guide Network, fulfilling a longstanding goal of adding a general entertainment basic cable network to the company's media portfolio.
  * American mobile carrier T-Mobile, which has struggled against rivals like AT&T and Verizon, will offer the iPhone 5 cheaper than the competition, and most important, customers would not have to sign a contract.
  * DuPont Co will pay Monsanto Co at least $1.75 billion over 10 years for the rights to technology for genetically engineered soybeans that are resistant to herbicides.
  * Gains in housing and manufacturing propelled the U.S. economy over the winter, according to reports released on Tuesday. Home prices rose 8.1 percent in January, the fastest annual rate since the peak of the housing boom in summer 2006.
  * A squabble between a group fighting spam and a Dutch company that hosts Web sites said to be sending spam has escalated into one of the largest computer attacks on the Internet, causing widespread congestion and jamming crucial infrastructure around the world.
  Canada
  THE GLOBE AND MAIL
  * More than a day after industrial waste water leaked from a Suncor Energy Inc site into the Athabasca River, the oil-sands giant and the province were still trying to determine which, if any, toxic materials were carried into the major Alberta waterway.
  Reports in the business section:
  * Suzuki Canada Inc will end its 30-year run of selling vehicles in Canada next year, the final withdrawal of Suzuki Motor Corp from markets it once thought so important that it manufactured vehicles here.
  * Canadian and South Korean officials are playing down Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's assertion that a free-trade deal between the countries is imminent. Flaherty, who is on a four-day trip to drum up business in Asia, said Monday after a speech in Hong Kong that Canada is "very close" to wrapping up an agreement with South Korea.
  NATIONAL POST
  * Canadians continue to pay more to fund a "gold plated" parliamentary pension plan that spending watchdogs say has taxpayers ultimately contributing more than C$25 for every dollar from MPs. The federal government announced last fall it is overhauling the parliamentary pension plan - including tripling MP contributions and increasing retirement age - after the next election.
  FINANCIAL POST
  * Target Canada president Tony Fisher addressed Tuesday the sticker shock gripping some consumers who expected the retailer's prices would be on par with its U.S. stores when it opened outlets across the country this month.
  China
  CHINA SECURITIES JOURNAL
  -- Net profits at 793 Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed companies hit 1.05 trillion yuan ($169.05 billion) in 2012, according to data from Chinese firm Wind Information.
  -- Poly Real Estate will keep its annual growth at 20 percent over the next seven years, said chairman Song Guangju. Property tightening policies should not change the firm's plans for growth and expansion, he added.
  SHANGHAI SECURITIES NEWS
  -- New loans from China's big four banks in March are estimated to have increased against previous months, and new loans from all financial institutions could reach 850 billion yuan ($136.85 billion), according to the official Chinese daily.
  CHINA DAILY
  -- A week-long drought in northwest China has hit 4.35 million people in Gansu province. The dry spell, expected to last until the end of April, has left 650,000 people facing water shortage and affected 398,667 hectares of farmland, according to the provincial civil affairs department.
  PEOPLE'S DAILY
  -- China will subsidise a total of 170 billion yuan to support grain farmers in 2013, the finance ministry told the official Chinese paper.
  SHANGHAI DAILY
  -- Global tech giant Apple is heading to court this afternoon for a pre-hearing related to a patent dispute over the U.S.-based firm's Siri voice-activated software. The pre-hearing will be held at Shanghai's No.1 Intermediate People's Court.
  -- U.S. retailer Wal-Mart will close three stores in China in May to streamline its sales network. In a statement the firm said it would still continue to invest and open new stores in Shanghai, where it has over 20 currently.
  Fly On The Wall 7:00 AM Market Snapshot
  ANALYST RESEARCH
  Upgrades
  AOL (AOL) upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at BarclaysCapital Product (CPLP) upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at BofA/MerrillCliffs Natural (CLF) upgraded to Neutral from Sell at GoldmanDSW (DSW) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at CitigroupGenomic Health (GHDX) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at LeerinkGol Linhas (GOL) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond JamesMattress Firm (MFRM) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond JamesSykes Enterprises (SYKE) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells FargoTrulia (TRLA) upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche BankVMware (VMW) upgraded to Strong Buy from Buy at ISI GroupViroPharma (VPHM) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan
  Downgrades
  Charles River Labs (CRL) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells FargoCliffs Natural (CLF) downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan StanleyEnphase Energy (ENPH) downgraded to Underperform at Raymond JamesObagi Medical (OMPI) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Roth CapitalSun Bancorp (SNBC) downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Sterne AgeeWestern Alliance (WAL) downgraded to Market Perform at Keefe Bruyette
  Initiations
  Crimson Exploration (CXPO) initiated with a Hold at CanaccordFifth Street Finance (FSC) initiated with an Overweight at JPMorganMasTec (MTZ) initiated with a Buy at Lazard CapitalVascular Solutions (VASC) initiated with an Overweight at Piper JaffrayWeingarten Realty (WRI) initiated with an Equal Weight at EvercoreWestern Digital (WDC) initiated with an Outperform at RBC Capital
  HOT STOCKS
  The BOE says U.K. banks have around GBP25B capital shortfallCBS Corporation (CBS) and Lionsgate (LGF) entered into a 50/50 partnership for TVGN and the website TVGuide.com. The venture will combine CBS's programming, production and marketing assets with Lionsgate's resources in motion pictures, television and digitally delivered contentVenaxis (APPY) announced plans to accelerate European market development for its APPY1 appendicitis testLogMeIn (LOGM) announced that a federal jury in Eastern District of Virginia found that LogMeIn products do not infringe on U.S.Patent No. 6,928,479, as asserted by 01 CommuniqueShah Capital offered to acquire UTStarcom (UTSI) for $3.20 per share
  EARNINGS/GUIDANCE
  Companies that beat consensus earnings expectations last night and today include:Anthera Pharmaceuticals (ANTH), SAIC (SAI), Landec (LNDC), Envivio (ENVI)
  Companies that missed consensus earnings expectations include:Mattress Firm (MFRM), Metabolix (MBLX)
  NEWSPAPERS/WEBSITES
  European authorities may soon bring a case against some of the region's big banks alleging collusion in the $27T market for credit derivatives, the Wall Street Journal reports.Ericsson (ERIC) is in talks to buy Microsoft's (MSFT) IPTV business, Reuters reports.Wells Fargo (WFC) said its online banking website was experiencing an unusually high volume of traffic that it believes stems from a denial-of-service cyber attack, reports Reuters.J.C. Penney (JCP) CEO Ron Johnson has reportedly started to raise prices across the company's stores, the New York Post reports. According to sources, the hikes are "significant," with prices returning to previous levels before the "fair and square" initiative.
  SYNDICATE
  Access Midstream (ACMP) 9M share Spot Secondary being re-offered at $39.86BioMed Realty (BMR) files to sell 15M shares of common stockFrancesca's (FRAN) files to sell 7.4M shares of common stock for holdersGarrison Capital (GARS) 5.333M share IPO priced at $15.00NV5 Holdings (NVEE) 1.4M share IPO priced at $6.00Towerstream (TWER) files to sell 433,673 shares of common stock for holdersTumi (TUMI) files to sell 10.14M shares of common stock
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 5(1 vote)
Eddie Murphy's Life Put On Blast Again!!!
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Jacky Jasper's Diary of a Hollywood Street King
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:30
  by Jacky Jasper
  ''It's the people around him, their mannerisms, and relationships with him that make his apparent 'gayness' obvious. (Miguel Nunez, Assenio, Johnny Gill: three of the gayest Niggas you could ever be around.''~Anonymous Source
  HSK Exclusive - As if we haven't already racked up enough beans on Eddie Murphy, even more are being spilled to HSK! We're not sure exactly why this one-time close associate to the comedian is telling all, but it's obvious Eddie may have sent this source on a vengeance!
  According to the insider '-- if Eddie Murphy had his way he'd fill Rick James' shoes; he didn't only pay Nicole Murphy a MILL ticket for each kid, but also covered the cost of in-vitro for a lesbian couple; he banged a bull dyke for kicks; and he only fronted with Rocsi Diaz just to take a jab at former close firend, Raphael Saadiq. Don't believe them.. Just ask Nicole Murphy, who said to know all of Eddie's secrets.
  Take a sip of this SIZZLING TEA:
  ''Eddie Murphy hates SNL. Know why? Because they clowned him after that tranny incident.Despite him being a comedian and making fun of everyone for a living, you cannot make fun of Eddie Murphy. Ever!!!. Hell, if you laugh at this Niggas jokes too hard he'll get mad. The Nigga is crazy.
  Eddie Murphy really liked Rick James. He even paid for the Nigga's funeral -a long with Red Foxx and a couple other cats who were dead broke when they died. I think in another life Eddie Murphy wishes he was Rick James. A Nigga who did what the fuck he wanted, when he wanted, without apology. Everyone remember, Rick James fucked a couple she-boys back in the day, but never had two fucks to give about what people thought about him. Eddie Murphy wishes he could have that freedom.
  Eddie Murphy paid Nicole $1 million per kid because it was the pre-nup. For almost 20 years and five kids Nicole really didn't get shit, compared to what Eddie Murphy is worth. Hence why she kept having kids. But she's blown all her money. Eddie Murphy still keeps her afloat (despite her being with Michael Strahan). She sometimes shows up to the house to drop their youngest girls back off, Michael will be in the car waiting, and Nicole will still be begging Eddie Murphy to come back home.He always rebuffs her, so she sashays out, hops in the car with Michael, and acts like that's where she wants to be.
  Nicole never graduated high school, and is really just an unintelligent ghetto princess with light eyes. But she knows all his secrets. So he's forever indebted to her.
  Yes he's borderline homophobic. He even rants about how he can't understand how folks think he's gay when he has like 10 kids (as if kids make you straight). I personally, do believe the shit about Johnny ''Mae'' Gill. Know why? It's not because Eddie Murphy who acts gay, quite the contrary, he's very alpha male..shockingly so. But it's the people around him, their mannerisms, and relationships with him that make his apparent 'gayness' obvious. (Miguel Nunez, Assenio, Johnny Gill) three of the gayest Niggas you could ever be around.
  Also, Eddie Murphy had an affair with his bull dyke butch barber! And this girl is like a super dyke. Never been with a man before or after. He cheated with her on Nicole. I'm sure he did it, because to him she was like a virgin. She might not fuck men, but she will fuck me! type of mentality. Nicole found out and was livid, b/c the bull bitch was always up in her house, smiling and shit in her face. He also later on paid over $100,000 for this butch dyke to have in-vitro for her girlfriend, they now have a couple kids thanks to Eddie Murphy's money.
  Anyone in his circle, is a vulture. They don't like nor want anyone new around Eddie Murphy. Not because they care about the Nigga, but because they only care about themselves. If you come in, you threaten to take some crumbs that could instead be thrown to them. It's really a sick, disgusting world up at his house. It's like Count Dracula's mansion. And that nigga is the Count.
  I can tell you any day at anytime, exactly what Eddie Murphy's ass is doing, without even being up at the house. How, you ask? B/c the nigga does the same shit, at the same time, every fucking day. He drinks the same coffee. Goes to the same coffee bean. Watches the same movies. All on repeat.Day in and day out.
  As far as Paige, there was a time when Eddie would have never been caught with a white bitch. That's one credit I would give him. Even though he made sure to get with a woman as close to white as possible (Nicole). White broads, including Miss I dated/bearded for Tyson Beckford, & Russell Simmons, after fucking dame dash '' Paige Butcher''love bearding. They accept whatever comes their way, as long as fame, fortune/lifestyle and some money is attached to it. she's no different. She probably has no problem with Eddie Murphy being cool as fuck for three days, then disappearing for ten. All those suspect Niggas date the same bitches. because the Nigga before him, already gave his stamp of approval for her bearding.
  Eddie Murphy is/was very good friends with Raaphael Saadiq. Raaphael publicly/briefly dated hollywood slore, Rocsi Diaz. For Eddie Murphy to then go publicly to date her after, and for such a short time, tells me that it was never about Rocsi, ever. He clearly had some sort of falling out w Saadiq and just did that shit to say ''I can fuck ya' ol girl too.'' Eddie Murphy never gave two shits about yuck mouth Rocsi. At .all. He was sending a message to Saadiq. Nothing more nothing less.''
Obama Picks Female As New Head Of Secret Service Promising Big Changes
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:27
Senior EU Bureaucrate: We will steal from you all
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:27
  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.
Who Really Killed Osama Bin Laden?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:27
CNN: North Korea Threatens U.S. Mainland!!!
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:27
"I Like The Cyprus Bailout Template"
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:26
Cops Take Class About Bath Salts
  Link to Article
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  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:26
PETER LANZA PHOTO ALBUM; SANDY HOOK MANUFACTURED EVENT
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: aangirfan
  Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:18
  From a Peter Lanza Photo Album containing photosets from 2006 to 2009. The Peter Lanza photo album contains photos of Peter with 'Ryan', but not Peter with 'Adam', nor Peter with 'Ryan and Adam'.This could suggest that Ryan and Adam are the same person?
  Peter Lanza Photo Album: Lanza Family Photos by Kennedy Ray of Insanemedia
  Supposedly this is Ryan. "Same ATF Agent at Ryan Lanza arrest then at Sandy Hook Firehouse.""Could it be that'...Ryan Lanza is Adam Lanza?"He is also listed in the yearbook of 2008; however no photo is provided. Watch the interesting video below:"
  Allegedly, "Ryan Lanza graduated from Quinnipiac in 2010.
  Adam Lanza 2008 NHS Tech Club PhotoVery little information on the Lanzas: I've searched for information on Peter and Nancy Lanza and I've found very little. I'm not finding any birth certificates, marriage certificates, work information, etc. I found more information on the father of Peter Lanza, Peter Salvatore Lanza... I found lots of old census records and past addresses.Joseph A. "Socks" Lanza (1904 - October 11, 1968) New York labor racketeer and member of the Genovese crime family.
  One thing that's odd though, his obituary from 2010 was entered in ''Find a grave'' on 12/16/12, two days after the shootings. Why would someone enter that then? Also, Peter didn't marry Shelly Cudiner until recently, so why is she included in the obituary (from 2010) with family? I understand they were said to have been dating for 3 years, but would anyone include a girlfriend of a child in an obituary? That doesn't make sense to me.I've found even less information on Nancy (Champion) Lanza. There is only one Nancy Jean Lanza in the country, living in Florida and too old to be THE Nancy Lanza.
  I can't find any record of a Peter J. Lanza with the birth date recorded in People Finders.
  I did find a Peter J. Lanza, Boston College yearbook photo (1967). Since the father was from Haverhill, Mass it would make sense that he could have a son attending Boston College but the photo doesn't match and he would be older than what's been reported.There is a Kingston census record but this is odd too. It lists Peter J. Lanza, Nancy J. champion, not capitalized and why is it her maiden name? All the other listings are married names...
  The only photos of the Lanzas appear to be photo-shopped, we have never seen an interview or even a Star or Enquirer photo of Peter Lanza since this happened...
  "The handling of the scene: In a real situation with a shooting and mass casualties, ambulances would have been rushed to the doors of the building, EMT workers would have entered immediately, checked on the status of each victim, placed them on a stretcher and rushed them to a hospital, even if they couldn't get a pulse.
  There would have been efforts to save them. There were none. That defies logic."They would have never allowed bodies to remain in the building overnight. It is unprecedented. No explanation was ever given for this but how can one not conclude that they were hiding the fact that no bodies needed to be transported anywhere because there were none...
  Brigadier General Steve Lanza, spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, 2009.
  "The school itself: I can't prove this but I can't help but wonder about the building. I believe it could have been shut down years ago due to the condition of the roof, the parking lot, no sign of any activity, no flyers on the doors, signs, Christmas decorations and things one would expect to see at an elementary school.
  It has the setting for a municipal building '' a parks and recreation complex, water treatment or testing facility, or something like that. The long road leading to the building isolates it. It's not safe and it's not practical.
  A school should have more than one entrance and exit. There's no reason why there wouldn't be an exit at the back of the building from Crestwood Drive, which is right there.
  Sandy Hook
  There's no history available, no photos from the construction, no old yearbooks, no old articles about the school.
  Well, there is reference to ''Sandy Hook School'' but nothing that confirms ''12 Dickinson'' and the two different spellings of the road bother me. We're missing something.
  Sandy Hook fire house: As much as the school bothers me, so too does this fire station.
  I wrote a recent article about this. I don't believe that building was an active fire house. I believe they altered it and essentially converted it to a fire station. The 9 bay doors at the station are inconsistent with what one would expect to find in a small town. There shouldn't be a need for that many bays. The Newtown fire station only has 4, they are in an old building and have been searching for a new location for many years. It doesn't make sense that Sandy Hook would have such a huge station. I believe they needed a place to stage this and this was a perfect location, near that old building.
  Inconsistent stories: There are so many. I'll list a few of the main ones.
  1.Dawn Hochsprung was interviewed by The Bee even though she was supposed to be dead.
  They retracted it several days later, but how could this happen?
  2.Nancy Lanza was a Kindergarten teacher at the school; later '' no one had ever heard of her.
  3. Gene Rosen had 6 kids in his driveway but those same kids were allegedly picked up by a woman and driven to the police station'...only there were 5 of them in this version. Gene states that the parents picked the kids up there. The parents of Aiden Licata state that they picked him up at the police station and also that they found him at the fire station.
  At the time that Rosen was allegedly with the kids, he was seen in video at the fire station so what's going on with this story?
  Jim Solomon, linked to a 'child abuse' church?4. The glass was broken out by Lanza, then ''glass was broken by police''.
  I won't go on but there's a very long list of inconsistent contradictory statements.
  No information about the people transported to the hospital: We have yet to receive names of the two kids and two adults who were taken to the hospital.
  We have never been given the name of the little girl who walked out of the school covered in blood. Was she not taken to the hospital? Why wouldn't she have been taken to the hospital?People involved are all interconnected: The Halsteads have 3 family members with the fire department, one with Sandy Hook School and the town clerk is engaged to the fire chief.
  The town clerk doesn't want anyone to have access to the children's death certificates even though they are public records and we are entitled to them.The same few people who allege to be associated with the school have been interviewed over and over.
  Many of the people who have spoken up about or written letters in support of gun control or mental health reform have criminal records.
  Some of the families have multiple AKA's associated with their names and very suspicious looking backgrounds.
  Real estate oddities:
  I noticed early on that 12/25/09 appears as the sold date on the majority of the homes in the area.
  The only explanation given by the clerk's office is that they got a new computer system on that date but that doesn't explain why some of the properties do not have that date, such as the Lanza's.Several properties on Riverside were listed for sale just after the shootings; one of them the day after. All of them are in foreclosure now. Two of them are directly across from the fire station. Coincidence?
  The Pozner's home has been abandoned, is being gutted and is in foreclosure. The Gays listed and sold their home in January.
  There's no Google street view for any of the side streets throughout Newtown and Sandy Hook and the imagery is old, most of it from '08 or '09 and it's blurry and dare I say some of it looks photo-shopped or manipulated. This isn't normal.
Let's Say FeedBurner Shuts Down...
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 19:53
  Published March 26, 2013 by Chris Coyier
  A lot of us around here have blogs and a lot of us use FeedBurner to "host" our RSS feeds. I thought it was worth talking about what might happen if we lose FeedBurner, which seems especially likely these days with the impending doom of Google Reader.
  Why did we use FeedBurner in the first place?Most likely, it was so that we could track subscriptions. We wanted to know how many people subscribed to our RSS feeds and FeedBurner was the best and easiest way to do that. To be comprehensive about it, we didn't just offer FeedBurner URL's but often redirected all requests for the native feeds to FeedBurner.
  It may have also been to inject ads to help monetize an otherwise difficult to monetize content stream.
  It may have been to reduce our server load. Feed reading services poll (request at certain intervals) feeds for changes so the thought of thousands of subscriptions hitting out sites hourly (or faster?) may have driven us to a hosted service.
  It may have been the thought that FeedBurner "normalizes" our feed so if we make small mistakes FeedBurner would hopefully correct them so the RSS feed was digestable by all.
  There were some pretty compelling reasons to use FeedBurner. None of us were dumb to use it.
  What are the signs they are shutting it down?There has been no official word that that FeedBurner will be shutting down, but:
  They closed down the API in October 2012.They closed down Google Reader, a (probably) much larger and more beloved RSS service, citing that they want to focus resources.The product has seemed untouched for years.There was a redesign of it you could opt in to that has disappeared.How will Google shut it down, if they do?They could just up and shut it off overnight. They won't, because that would turn what is already going to be a bad PR day into a really nightmarish one. Most likely we'll get a few months of warning and an official date.
  When you create a new FeedBurner feed, you give it an "Original Feed" URL value. I suspect we will be given a date where requests to FeedBurner URLs will respond with a 301 (Moved Permanently) redirect response to our "Original Feed" URLs. Then another date where the service shuts down completely and the URL's 404.
  What should we do ON THE DAY?Speaking for myself, I'm probably going to hang onto FeedBurner with the optimism it sticks around or they handle the shutdown nicely. Perhaps I'll rue the day, but I hope not. If it does shut down, and assuming a graceful shutdown procedure, we should:
  Remove all links on our site to the FeedBurner URL's, replacing with an alternative URL - most likely the RSS feed URL our own sites generate.Remove all feed redirects that may be in place.If Google doesn't automatically do 301 redirects, do whatever steps are needed to get that in place.Hope that our readers feed reading services honor the redirects and keep them subscribed.If you are less optimistic than me, you can get started on this sooner than later by deleting your FeedBurner feed now. They say as you're deleting a feed:
  You have the option for this feed address to permanently redirect to the currently configured source feed.
  So that's encouraging.
  How are feed reading services going to handle this?Popular RSS readers like Feedly and Reeder, as I write, simply sync with Google Reader. Since that's going away, they are going to need to either do their own feed fetching or find/build a new middle man. Apparently this is pretty hard, but I'm sure someone will step up. Feedly seems to be the most likely with their soft-announced Normandy API which proports to be a clone of the Google Reader API (although it's funny how they say it also runs on another Google service in the same breath).
  I use and like Feedly. I've already started using it and am totally off Google Reader. I imagine that Feedly already has all my subscriptions saved in preparation for their "seamless" transition to Normandy.
  The hope is that by the time FeedBurner shuts down (if it does), Normandy (or whatever is the prevailing new feed fetcher) is a really strong and stable service. And most importantly, it is smart enough so that when it gets the 301 redirect, it doesn't keep hitting the old feed, but updates the subscription to hit the new URL from now on. I highly suspect it will.
  The only thing that we we lose as feed publishers are readers using weird RSS reader apps that don't update or don't honor the redirects.
  Here's to hoping that if this happens it will be fairly painless! #RSS4LYFE
  I recommend using Treehouse for learning web design, web development, and iOS development. Their structured course-based learning is like a more modern college at about 1% of the price.
  The Lodge is a member login only area with access to video training on how to build websites from scratch using the best modern tools.
Dr. Ben Carson Strikes Back at MSNBC's Toure Neblett: I'm No Uncle Tom
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 19:49
  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.
De Correspondent behaalt doel: 15.000 leden, 9 ton
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: VK: Home
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:48
  Door Thomas van der Kolk '' 26/03/13, 22:11
  (C) Screen website De Correspondent.
  In ruim een week heeft De Correspondent, het journalistieke project van voormalig nrc.next-hoofdredacteur Rob Wijnberg, haar doel behaald. 15.000 mensen hebben zich aangemeld als lid, en daarmee heeft De Correspondent ook de benodigde 9 ton binnen om het project van de grond te krijgen.
  Dat meldt het twitteraccount van De Correspondent. De leden betalen een jaarlijkse bijdrage van minimaal 60 euro, maar de afgelopen dagen werden er ook grotere bedragen binnengehaald. De deadline werd ruim gehaald, want Wijnberg had zichzelf nog 22 dagen langer gegeven om het benodigde bedrag bij elkaar te sprokkelen.
  Vorige week maandag maakte Wijnberg zijn project wereldkundig. De Correspondent - eerder nog De Vijfde Macht genoemd - moet een platform worden met een site die dagelijks journalistieke artikelen biedt die de waan van de dag passeren. Prominente Nederlanders als Femke Halsema, Jelle Brandt Corstius, Henk Hofland, Ewald Engelen, Alexander Kl¶pping en Arnon Grunberg verlenen er hun medewerking aan.
Letter from the President -- Regarding Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:46
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  March 26, 2013
  Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)
  In accordance with section 5 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013, I hereby designate for Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism all funding (including the rescission of funds) so designated by the Congress in the Act pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended, as outlined in the enclosed list of accounts.
  The details of this action are set forth in the enclosed memorandum from the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
  Sincerely,
  BARACK OBAMA
The Collapse of the Value of a College Education
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: EconomicPolicyJournal.com
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:43
  College education has become expensive and nearly useless. Got that? Price up, quality down. No surprise, when government gets involved. Even WSJ seems to get this (partially). In a recent article, they write:By some measures, nearly half of employed college graduates are in jobs that don't traditionally require a college degree.
  Unfortunately, WSJ seems to blame this on robots:Ia paper released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a team of Canadian economists argues that the U.S. faces a longer-term problem.
  They found that unlike the 1990s, when companies needed hundreds of thousands of skilled workers to develop, build and install high-tech systems'--everything from corporate intranets to manufacturing robots'--demand for such skills has fallen in recent years, even as young people continued to flock to programs that taught them.
  If it was simply a case of robots replacing workers in certain jobs, this would mean that there would be productivity gains for the economy overall, beginning and end of story. But, it is not as though we live in paradise where goods and services are so plentiful that none of us has to work. Something else is going onThe problem is that a college education for the most part does not increase the value of a potential worker for an employer (aside from accounting and engineering degrees). The college system is far from a free market profit oriented system. Almost 100% of colleges take money from government or accept students who receive government loans. This results in colleges being required to meet government guidelines which have dramatically dumb downed the system.
  The Chinese government has created 60 million vacant apartments through its central planning policies, while the U.S. government through its intervention in the education system has created tens of millions of college graduates with vacant minds.
  College for most is really a waste of time, unless you want that accounting or engineering degree, or you are really sharp, can get into an Ivy League school and have a strong enough mind that you won't be corrupted by the system. In this latter category, I suspect no more than 1 in 500,000 could pull it off. Tom Woods did it, but few others. I can think of many more that were swallowed up by the system and now spend their time justifying some intervention in the economy.
  If you are interested in studying Austrian economics, just go to the Mises Institute web site and absorb that material. Studying under Professor Walter Block at Loyola University New Orleans or Richard Ebeling at Northwood University are outlier options, but that is about it. For most who want to advance, they are much better off reading James Altucher than going to college.
Manton Reece: Little Outliner
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:33
  Yesterday Dave Winer and Kyle Shank launched Little Outliner, an impressive JavaScript outliner that uses HTML5 local storage. It's also completely hosted on S3:
  ''Thanks to the W3C and to Werner Vogels (for persisting in getting the ability to access the root of a domain from an S3 bucket). As a result, we get unlimited scaling with zero investment. Consider this an endorsement for both innovations.''
  I used Frontier a lot back in the earlier days of the web, so I'm always looking out for what Dave does next. It'll be fun to see what they build on top of this.
  March 26, 2013 08:27 AM [link] - Tags: outlinersfrontierdavewiners3
Bullying Becomes Hot and Profitable Topic for Publishers
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:28
  Nobody likes a bully '-- but these days the book industry loves having them to kick around.
  Publishing houses are flooding the market with titles that tackle bullying. The books are aimed at all age groups '-- from ''Bully,'' a picture book for elementary-grade students, to the ''The Bully Book,'' for middle school children, about an average kid who suddenly becomes everyone's favorite victim, to ''Sticks and Stones'' by Emily Bazelon, a recent release for adults that includes both stories and analysis. According to World Cat, a catalog of library collections worldwide, the number of English-language books tagged with the key word ''bullying'' in 2012 was 1,891, an increase of 500 in a decade.
  There are even more to come, said Elizabeth Bird, who tracks coming books and trends for youth collections at the New York Public Library. ''Bullying has always been a popular topic, but this year we are seeing bullying titles coming out as never before, and there is no end in sight.''
  The publishing world's preoccupation with bullies does not end at the bookshelf. Several publishing houses, including Random House, Simon & Schuster and even Harlequin, have started antibullying campaigns built around their books. Authors have taken action on their own as well. Two young-adult authors, Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones, assembled an anthology of personal essays, called ''Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories,'' (HarperTeen 2011) by prominent writers like R. L. Stine, with a portion of the proceeds going to charity.
  Ms. Hall and Ms. Jones also came together to form and maintain a Facebook site called Young Adult Authors Against Bullying that identifies cruel Facebook pages and lobbies to have them taken down.
  Bullying has become such a common topic for authors that in October there will be a conference in Missouri for authors of books on the subject. There is space for only 300 participants but already 80 have signed up to attend.
  The surge in antibullying books reflects the broader cultural alarm about the problem, spurred in part by several high-profile cases of cyberbullying that resulted in suicides.
  The White House held its first conference on bullying prevention in 2011. In response to government cues, libraries, schools and even bookstores like Barnes & Noble, the nation's largest retail book chain, have been holding events to talk about the problem and provide help for parents and children. Those resources often come at least in part in the form of books and lectures by authors.
  For publishers and authors it has been hard to miss the perfect synergy that results: They can promote a cause that most people avidly support while promoting their own products.
  ''The intention is service to help the teachers and librarians who are looking for resources,'' said Michelle Fadlalla, director of education and library marketing for Simon & Schuster, which published the early antibullying success ''The Misfits'' in 2003 and this year published ''Justin and the Bully'' by the former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy. ''At the same time it is definitely an opportunity for us to gather sales because it is such a hot topic.''
  A case in point is ''Wonder'' by R. J. Palacio, a book about a boy with facial deformities that came out last year and is No. 1 on the New York Times children's middle-grade best-seller list, with more than 350,000 copies. Although it was not written as an antibullying book, many teachers and librarians began assigning it that way to students. The publisher, Random House Children's Books, saw an opportunity and created a ''Choose Kind'' campaign based on sentiments expressed in the book, in which individuals or classrooms can pledge to do acts of kindness.
  The book's message of tolerance and empathy is so popular that this year both Fairfield, Conn., and Santa Monica, Calif., chose ''Wonder'' for their communitywide reading initiatives.
  Marketing opportunities do not completely explain the boom in the number of titles, however. Heather Brewer, the author of ''The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod'' vampire series, about being an outsider, said that bullying strikes a common chord with many authors.
  ''There is a certain personality to being a writer, a quirky introverted type maybe not as socially adept, and they tend to be picked on a little bit more than others,'' she said in an interview.
  Ms. Brewer is organizing the antibullying writers' conference in October in part because she was a victim herself when she was growing up in Columbiaville, Mich. ''I would have books knocked out of my hand,'' she said. ''I would be pinched and shoved. So letting people know about the dangers of bullying is important to me.''
  Ms. Hall, who collaborated on the ''Dear Bully'' anthology after Phoebe Prince, a bullied high schooler from South Hadley, Mass., committed suicide in 2010, said she had to turn away authors who wanted to be included in the collection.
  ''A lot of the authors say books saved their lives during those difficult teen years,'' Ms. Hall said. And authors, in turn, can be fiercely protective of their vulnerable, bookish readers. ''They know that their fan base is people like them,'' she said, ''people who consider reading as a refuge. We want to be there for teens to let them know it will get better.''
  Surviving a meanspirited peer is an age-old element of young-adult literature of course. But the context has changed, said Gillian Engberg, an editor at Booklist magazine, a publication of the American Library Association. Instead of being a rite of passage that must be endured or to be overcome, it is now analyzed in a much more psychological way. Some books, like ''Leverage,'' which depicts the rape of a male high-school gymnast by three football players, are graphic and decline to offer happy endings.
  Several books now include the perspective of not just the victim but also of the bully, bystanders and even the adults who enable or ignore the behavior. ''There is a nuanced approach,'' Ms. Engberg said. ''We are seeing more and more of these books that take on all of these perspectives.''
  Jay Asher, the author of the best-selling novel ''Thirteen Reasons Why'' (2007), about a girl who sends tapes to people explaining their roles in her decision to take her own life, said the biggest difference for books about bullying now is the level of adult concern about the issue.
  He said he is now asked to speak at schools three or four times a month, as well as to adult groups. What's more he is often asked to speak in conjunction with others, like representatives from suicide-prevention help lines. Mr. Asher, 37, said he sees a real change from the time when he was growing up.
  ''What is different now is that adults really take this stuff seriously,'' he said, ''and they don't want to turn their backs.''
Obama to Name Woman Secret Service Head, Official Says
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:15
  WASHINGTON (AP) '-- President Barack Obama on Tuesday named veteran Secret Service agent Julia Pierson as the agency's first female director, signaling his desire to change the culture at the male-dominated service, which has been marred by scandal.
  Pierson, who most recently served as the agency's chief of staff, will take over from Mark Sullivan, who announced his retirement last month. The agency faced intense criticism during Sullivan's tenure for a prostitution scandal during preparations for Obama's trip to Cartagena, Colombia, last year.
  The incident raised questions within the agency '-- as well as at the White House and on Capitol Hill '-- about the culture, particularly during foreign travel. In addition to protecting the president, the Secret Service also investigates financial crimes.
  "Over her 30 years of experience with the Secret Service, Julia has consistently exemplified the spirit and dedication the men and women of the service demonstrate every day," Obama said in a statement announcing Pierson's appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation.
  At the Secret Service, Pierson has served as deputy assistant director of the office of protective operations, assistant director of human resources and training and chief of staff. She started in 1983 as a special agent in Miami. Before that, she was a police officer in Orlando, Fla.
  "Julia is eminently qualified to lead the agency that not only safeguards Americans at major events and secures our financial system, but also protects our leaders and our first families, including my own," Obama said. "Julia has had an exemplary career, and I know these experiences will guide her as she takes on this new challenge to lead the impressive men and women of this important agency."
  Thirteen Secret Service employees were caught up in last year's prostitution scandal. After a night of heavy partying in the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena, the employees brought women, including prostitutes, to the hotel where they were staying. The incident became public after one agent refused to pay a prostitute and the pair argued about payment in a hotel hallway.
  Eight of the employees were forced out of the agency, three were cleared of serious misconduct and at least two have been fighting to get their jobs back.
  The incident took place before Obama arrived in Colombia and the service said the president's safety was never compromised. But news of the scandal broke during his trip, overshadowing the summit and embarrassing the U.S. delegation.
  Sullivan issued a new code of conduct that bans employees from drinking within 10 hours of starting a shift or bringing foreign nationals back to their hotel rooms.
  Sullivan apologized for the incident last year during testimony before a Senate panel.
  ___
  Associated Press writer Alicia Caldwell contributed to this report.
Russia to Ban Cash Transactions over $10,000
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:15
  Source:Russia Beyond the Headlines
  Russia may ban cash payments for purchases of more than 300,000 rubles (around $10,000) starting in 2015. The move is expected to boost banks' cash reserves and put a damper on Russia's shadow economy. However, the middle class will most likely end up having to pay the price for the scheme.
  Moscow is looking to kill two birds with one stone: Firstly, it wants to bring some of the population's ''grey'' income out of the shadow; secondly, it wants to increase the volume of cash reserves in the banks. The government's bill will introduce the new rule to the State Duma. The document was prepared by the Ministry of Finance and approved by the government.
  The restrictions on cash transactions will develop in two phases. In 2014, a ban on cash payments for purchases worth more than 600,000 rubles (about $19,500) will be introduced; the limit will then be halved to 300,000 rubles in 2015. Furthermore, the document introduces mandatory, cash-free, salary payments.
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Amateur Radio and Linux
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: QRZ Forums
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:44
  For those of you who always wanted to learn more about Linux in Amateur Radio,if you are in the Western Washington area, come on over to the Linuxfest NorthWeston April 27 & 28. I will be giving a talk on Linux and Amateur Radio to bring more Linuxinto the ham shack .And of course for those that want to learn more about Linux in general, there will beother sessions as well.
  http://www.linuxfestnorthwest.org/co...ch-made-heaven
  General info: http://www.linuxfestnorthwest.org/about
  73 Mike
Dionne Warwick Broke '-- Files For Bankruptcy '-- $10.7 Million In Debt!
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Radar Online
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:43
  Dionne Warwick, the Grammy winning performer who had a string of mega hits throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, has filed for bankruptcy, claiming debts of $10.7 million, RadarOnline.com is reporting.
  The 72-year-old filed last week in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, listing just $25,500 in assets, and claiming the grand total of $10 a month after covering her expenses, according to the New York Daily News.
  PHOTOS: Dionne Warwick Visits Whitney Houston's Funeral Home
  The bulk of Warwick's staggering debt stems from unpaid taxes '-- and her publicist, Kevin Sasaki, has blamed ''negligent and gross financial mismanagement'' for his client's credit Armageddon '-- explaining that the debt comes from penalties and interest on back taxes that have since been settled.
  In addition to owing the IRS, Warwick is also in the hole to a former manager for $500,000 and has credit card debt of around $20,000.
  PHOTOS: Whitney Houston Through The Years
  The singer, whose hits include the classics, Do You Know the Way to San Jose?, I Say A Little Prayer and Walk On By, lists her average monthly income as $20,950 and outgoings as $20,940 '-- with assets of two pairs of diamond earrings, two fur coats, furniture, clothes, artwork and a measly $1,000 in cash.
CNBC Anchor Bravely Asks Whether Obama Wants the Sequester to Hurt
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:40
  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.
VIDEO-Cyprus Gets World's First Bitcoin ATM
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:00
  What's This?
  NowThis News 2013-03-26 14:53:37 UTCThe world's first Bitcoin ATM machine will be installed in Cyprus, and it will accept both Bitcoins for cash and cash for Bitcoins. Cyprus recently accepted a bailout from the European Union totaling more than $12.8 billion.
  Homepage image courtesy of NowThisNews
  This article originally published at NowThis News here
  Topics: bailout, Bitcoin, Bitcoins, Business, economy, europe, European Union, money, WorldNowThis News is video news for the mobile and social generation. It's news, but fun. Download the free app: nowth.is/downloadforiOS
It's the Economy: Do Millennials Stand a Chance in the Real World?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:55
  Illustration by Jasper Rietman
  When I was a kid, my grandmother used to spirit packets of oyster crackers from restaurants. She unwrapped gifts meticulously, peeling back the tape with her nails so that she could reuse the paper. She also stockpiled so many coupon-bought cans that she probably could have had her own show on TLC.
  Deep thoughts this week:
  1. The millennials have developed an obsession with money.
  2. Partly because they don't have any.
  3. Will the income gap become a wealth gap?
  These habits, judging by both anecdote and literature, were generational. My grandmother was born in 1917 and entered the work force during the Great Depression. I've been thinking of her generation '-- the one that saved rather than spent, preserved rather than squandered '-- a lot lately. In the past year or so, data have come in regarding how my own generation, often called Generation Y, or the millennials, has adapted to our once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis '-- the one that battered career prospects, drove hundreds of thousands into the shelter of schools or parents' basements and left hundreds of thousands of others in continual underemployment. And some of that early research suggests that we, too, have developed our own Depression-era fixation with money.
  The millennials have developed a reputation for a certain materialism. In a Pew Research Center survey in which different generations were asked what made them unique, baby boomers responded with qualities like ''work ethic''; millennials offered ''clothes.'' But, according to new data, even though the recession is over, this generation is not looking to gorge; instead, they are the kind of hungry that cannot stop thinking about food. ''Call it materialism if you want,'' said Neil Howe, an author of the 1991 book ''Generations.'' It seems more like financial melancholy. ''They look at the house their parents live in and say, 'I could work for 100 years and I couldn't afford this place,' '' Howe said. ''If that doesn't make you focus on money, what would? Millennials have a very conventional notion of the American dream '-- a spouse, a house, a kid '-- but it is not going to be easy for them to get those things.''
  This condition is becoming particularly severe for the group that economists call younger millennials: the young adults who entered the job market in the wake of the recession, a period in which the unemployment rate among 20- to 24-year-olds reached 17 percent, when graduate school competition grew more fierce and credit standards tightened. Many also saw their parents struggle through a pay cut, a job loss or another economic disruption during the recession.
  These troubles, many economists fear, left serious scars, and not just psychic ones. Now that the economy has entered a steady but slow recovery, younger millennials wonder if they can make up that gap. Lisa Kahn, a labor economist at the Yale School of Management, studied the earnings of men who left college and joined the work force during the deep recession of the early 1980s. Unsurprisingly, she found that the higher the unemployment rate upon graduation, the less graduates earned right out of school. But those workers never really caught up. ''The effects were still present 15 or 20 years later,'' she said. ''They never made that money back.''
  Kahn worries that the same pattern is repeating itself. And new research from the Urban Institute augurs that this emerging income gap is compounding into a wealth gap. The institute's research shows that even as the country has grown richer, Generations X and Y, meaning people up to about age 40, have amassed less wealth than their parents had when they were young. The average net worth of someone 29 to 37 has fallen 21 percent since 1983; the average net worth of someone 56 to 64 has more than doubled. Thirty or 40 years from now, young millennials might face shakier retirements than their parents. For the first time in modern memory, a whole generation might not prove wealthier than the one that preceded it.
  Annie Lowrey is an economics reporter for The Times. Adam Davidson is off this week.
Federal Register | Passenger Screening Using Advanced Imaging Technology
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:32
  Submit comments by June 24, 2013.
  You may submit comments, identified by the TSA docket number to this rulemaking, to the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS), a government-wide, electronic docket management system, using any one of the following methods:
  Electronically: You may submit comments through the Federal eRulemaking portal at http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
  Mail, In Person, or Fax: Address, hand-deliver, or fax your written comments to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001; fax (202) 493-2251. The Department of Transportation (DOT), which maintains and processes TSA's official regulatory dockets, will scan the submission and post it to FDMS.
  See SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION for format and other information about comment submissions.
  Chawanna Carrington, Project Manager, Passenger Screening Program, Office of Security Capabilities, Transportation Security Administration, 701 South 12th Street, Arlington, VA 20598-6016; telephone: (571) 227-2958; facsimile: (571) 227-1931; email: Chawanna.Carrington@tsa.dhs.gov.
  TSA invites interested persons to participate in this rulemaking by submitting written comments, data, or views. We also invite comments relating to the economic, environmental, energy, or federalism impacts that might result from this rulemaking action. See ADDRESSES above for information on where to submit comments.
  With each comment, please identify the docket number at the beginning of your comments. TSA encourages commenters to provide their names and addresses. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the rulemaking, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include supporting data. You may submit comments and material electronically, in person, by mail, or fax as provided under ADDRESSES, but please submit your comments and material by only one means. If you submit comments by mail or delivery, submit them in an unbound format, no larger than 8.5 by 11 inches, suitable for copying and electronic filing.
  If you would like TSA to acknowledge receipt of comments submitted by mail, include with your comments a self-addressed, stamped postcard on which the docket number appears. We will stamp the date on the postcard and mail it to you.
  TSA will file all comments to our docket address, as well as items sent to the address or email under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT, in the public docket, except for comments containing confidential information and sensitive security information (SSI). [1] Should you wish your personally identifiable information redacted prior to filing in the docket, please so state. TSA will consider all comments that are in the docket on or before the closing date for comments and will consider comments filed late to the extent practicable. The docket is available for public inspection before and after the comment closing date.
  Handling of Confidential or Proprietary Information and Sensitive Security Information (SSI) Submitted in Public Comments Back to TopDo not submit comments that include trade secrets, confidential commercial or financial information, or SSI to the public regulatory docket. Please submit such comments separately from other comments on the rulemaking. Comments containing this type of information should be appropriately marked as containing such information and submitted by mail to the address listed in FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section.
  TSA will not place comments containing SSI in the public docket and will handle them in accordance with applicable safeguards and restrictions on access. TSA will hold documents containing SSI, confidential business information, or trade secrets in a separate file to which the public does not have access, and place a note in the public docket explaining that commenters have submitted such documents. TSA may include a redacted version of the comment in the public docket. If an individual requests to examine or copy information that is not in the public docket, TSA will treat it as any other request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 U.S.C. 552) and the FOIA regulations of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) found in 6 CFR part 5.
  Please be aware that anyone is able to search the electronic form of all comments in any of our dockets by the name of the individual who submitted the comment (or signed the comment, if an association, business, labor union, etc., submitted the comment). You may review the applicable Privacy Act System of Records Notice published in the Federal Register on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477) and modified on January 17, 2008 (73 FR 3316).
  You may review TSA's electronic public docket on the Internet at http://www.regulations.gov. In addition, DOT's Docket Management Facility provides a physical facility, staff, equipment, and assistance to the public. To obtain assistance or to review comments in TSA's public docket, you may visit this facility between 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding legal holidays, or call (202) 366-9826. This docket operations facility is located in the West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140 at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., Washington, DC 20590.
  You can get an electronic copy using the Internet by'--
  (1) Searching the electronic FDMS Web page at http://www.regulations.gov;
  (2) Accessing the Government Printing Office's Web page at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html; or
  (3) Visiting TSA's Web site at http://www.tsa.gov and accessing the link for ''Stakeholders'' at the top of the Web page, selecting the link for ''Research Center'' in the left column, and then the link for ''Security Regulations'' in the left column.
  In addition, copies are available by writing or calling the individual in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section. Make sure to identify the docket number of this rulemaking.
  I. Executive Summary
  A. Purpose of the Regulation
  B. Summary of Major Provisions
  C. Costs and Benefits
  II. Background
  A. The Evolving Threat to Aviation Security
  B. Layers of Security
  C. Congressional Direction To Pursue AIT
  D. U.S. Court of Appeals Decision in EPIC v. DHS
  III. AIT Screening Protocols
  A. Types of AIT Equipment
  B. Privacy Safeguards for AIT
  C. Safety of AIT
  1. Millimeter Wave Units
  2. Backscatter Units
  D. AIT Procedures at the Checkpoint
  IV. Deployment of AIT
  V. Rulemaking Analyses and Notices
  A. Regulation Evaluation Summary and Economic Impact Analyses
  B. Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 Assessment
  C. Regulatory Flexibility Act Assessment
  D. International Trade Impact Assessment
  E. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act Assessment
  F. Paperwork Reduction Act
  G. Executive Order 13132, Federalism
  H. Environmental Analysis
  I. Energy Impact Analysis
  A. Purpose of the RegulationTSA is proposing to amend its regulations to specify that screening and inspection of an individual conducted to control access to the sterile area of an airport or to an aircraft may include the use of advanced imaging technology (AIT), also referred to as whole body imaging, as a screening method. Terrorists have repeatedly attempted to cause harm with the aid of weapons and devices smuggled aboard aircraft. It is the primary mission of DHS to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States and to reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism. [2] The use of AIT is an important tool in accomplishing that mission.
  This NPRM is being issued to comply with the decision rendered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Electronic Privacy Information Center v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security.[3] In that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals directed TSA to conduct notice-and-comment rulemaking on the use of AIT as a screening method for passengers. The Court did not require TSA to stop using AIT to screen passengers, explaining that ''vacating the present rule would severely disrupt an essential security operation,'' and that the rule is ''otherwise lawful.'' [4]
  B. Summary of Major ProvisionsThe proposed rule codifies the use of AIT to screen individuals at aviation security screening checkpoints. This NPRM discusses the following points regarding the use of AIT:
  The threat to aviation security has evolved to include the use of non-metallic explosives, non-metallic explosive devices, and non-metallic weapons.AIT currently provides the best available opportunity to detect non-metallic anomalies [5] concealed under clothing without touching the passenger and is an essential component of TSA's security layers.Congress has authorized TSA to procure and deploy AIT for use at security checkpoints.TSA implemented stringent safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers undergoing AIT screening when AIT units were initially deployed and enhanced privacy even further by upgrading its millimeter wave AIT units with automatic target recognition (ATR) software. An AIT unit equipped with ATR creates a generic outline, not an image of a specific individual, and eliminates the need for operator interpretation of an image. TSA is removing all units that are not equipped with ATR from its checkpoints by May 31, 2013. [6]The safety of the two types of AIT equipment initially deployed was tested by TSA and independent entities and all results confirmed that both the backscatter and millimeter wave technologies are safe because the x-ray or radio waves emissions are well below applicable safety and health standards, and are so low as to present a negligible risk to passengers, airline crew members, airport employees, and TSA employees. [7]TSA has provided a detailed explanation of AIT procedures on its webWeb site at www.tsa.gov/ait-how-it-works (which allows opt out procedures for passengers) and posted signs at airport checkpoints to notify passengers about AIT and alternative screening procedures. The level of acceptance by passengers has been high; the vast majority of passengers do not object to AIT screening.TSA's experience in using AIT confirms that it is effective in detecting small, non-metallic items hidden underneath passenger clothing that could otherwise escape detection. When an item is detected, additional screening must be performed to determine whether the item is prohibited.C. Costs and BenefitsWhen estimating the cost of a rulemaking, agencies typically estimate future expected costs imposed by a regulation over a period of analysis. As the AIT machine life cycle from deployment to disposal is eight years, the period of analysis for estimating the cost of AIT is eight years. However, as AIT deployment began in 2008, there are costs that have already been borne by TSA, the traveling public, and airport operators that were not due to this rule. Consequently, in the Initial Regulatory Impact Analysis for this rule, TSA is reporting the AIT-related costs that have already occurred (years 2008-2011), while considering the additional cost of this rulemaking to be years 2012-2015. By reporting the costs that have already happened and estimating future costs in this manner, TSA considers and discloses the full eight-year life cycle of AIT deployment.
  TSA reports that the net cost of AIT deployment from 2008-2011 has been $841.2 million (undiscounted) and that TSA has borne over 99 percent of all costs related to AIT deployment. TSA projects that from 2012-2015 net AIT-related costs will be approximately $1.5 billion (undiscounted), $1.4 billion at a three percent discount rate, and $1.3 billion at a seven percent discount rate. During 2012-2015, TSA estimates it will also incur over 98 percent of AIT-related costs with equipment and personnel costs being the largest categories of expenditures. Table 1 below reports the costs that have already occurred (2008-2011) by cost category, while Table 2 shows the additional costs TSA is attributing to this rulemaking (2012-2015). Table 3 shows the total cost of AIT deployment from 2008 to 2015.
  Table 1'--Net Cost8Summary of AIT Deployment From 2008-2011 by Cost Component Back to TopYearPassenger opt outsIndustry utilitiesTSA costsTotalPersonnelTrainingEquipmentUtilities[Costs already incurred in $ thousands'--undiscounted]8TSA removed costs related to Walk Through Metal Detectors (WTMDs) that would have occurred regardless of AIT deployment to obtain an estimated net cost for AIT.2008$7.0$5.7$14,689.1$389.5$37,425.2$18.8$52,535.3200932.25.715,618.688.042,563.620.458328.52010262.2158.2247,566.75,332.8119,105.4241.4372,666.620111,384.2186.7284,938.715,354.455,567.2269.1357,700.2Total1,685.6356.3562,813.021,164.7254,661.3549.6841,230.6Table 2'--Cost Summary (Net Cost of AIT Deployment 2012-2015) by Cost Component Back to TopYearPassenger Opt OutsIndustry UtilitiesTSA CostsRapiscan RemovalTotalPersonnelTrainingEquipmentUtilities[AIT Costs in $ thousands]2012$2,716.5$325.7$375,886.9$12,043.0$116,499.3$473$0.0$507,924.420133,991.7329.3280,844.34,277.551,588.8324.41,809.6343,165.720144,238.7312.0263,677.64,190.551,397.8317.70.0324,134.220155,611.8300.3278,580.24,144.268,052.6365.70.0357,054.9Total16,558.71,267.31,198,969.024,655.2287,538.51,480.91,809.61,532,279.2Discounted 3%15,265.01,178.91,118,459.323,810.2269,233.71,380.71,705.71,431,033.5Discounted 7%13,766.61,075.81,024,344.722,048.8247,810.41,263.81,580.61,311,890.7Table 3'--Cost Summary (Net Cost of AIT Deployment 2008-2015) by Cost Component Back to TopYearPassenger opt outsIndustry utilitiesTSA costsRapiscan removalTotalPersonnelTrainingEquipmentUtilities[AIT Costs in $ thousands'--undiscounted]2008$7.0$5.7$14,689.1$389.5$37,425.2$18.8$0.0$52,535.3200932.25.715,618.688.042,563.620.40.058,328.52010262.2158.2247,566.75,332.8119,105.4241.40.0372,666.620111,384.2186.7284,938.715,354.455,567.2269.10.0357,700.220122,716.5325.7375,866.912,043.0116,499.3473.00.0507,924.420133,991.7329.3280,844.34,277.551,588.8324.41,809.6343,165.720144,238.7312.0263,677.64,190.551,397.8317.70.0324,134.220155,611.8300.3278,580.24,144.268,052.6365.70.0357,054.9Total18,944.41,623.61,761,782.045,819.9542,199.92,030.41,809.62,373,509.9The operations described in this proposed rule produce benefits by reducing security risks through the deployment of AIT that is capable of detecting both metallic and non-metallic weapons and explosives. [9] Terrorists continue to test our security measures in an attempt to find and exploit vulnerabilities. The threat to aviation security has evolved to include the use of non-metallic explosives. AIT is a proven technology based on laboratory testing and field experience and is an essential component of TSA's security screening because it provides the best opportunity to detect metallic and non-metallic anomalies concealed under clothing without the need to touch the passenger. Since it began using AIT, TSA has been able to detect many kinds of non-metallic items, small items, and items concealed on parts of the body that would not have been detected using the WTMD.
  A. The Evolving Threat to Aviation SecurityThe need for security screening at airports dates back to the 1960s when the most significant threat to aviation security was hijacking. To combat this threat, metal detectors were installed at airports and used by air carriers to detect firearms and other metallic weapons. In 1974, Congress passed the Air Transportation Security Act, [10] which directed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to require all passengers to be screened by weapon-detecting devices, and conduct research to develop and evaluate systems, procedures, facilities, and devices to protect persons and property aboard aircraft. Since that time, technological and procedural improvements have been implemented to keep pace with evolving threats.
  Following the events of September 11, 2001, it was clear that the security screening at airports was insufficient to protect the traveling public against the threat posed by Al Qaeda and other terrorists who sought to harm the United States by targeting civil aviation. In response to those events, TSA was created to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce by preventing terrorist attacks, reducing the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism, and effectively securing all modes of transportation, including aviation.
  Pursuant to law, TSA is required to ''provide for the screening of all passengers and property, including United States mail, cargo, carry-on and checked baggage, and other articles, that will be carried aboard a passenger aircraft * * *.'' [11] Regulations restricting the carriage of weapons, explosives, and incendiaries on an individual's person or accessible property and requiring individuals to submit to the screening and inspection of their person and accessible property prior to entering a sterile area or boarding an aircraft were transferred from FAA to TSA in February 2002. [12] TSA took over operation of the screening checkpoints from the air carriers and began instituting additional protocols and new equipment to detect individuals and items that could pose a threat to aviation security.
  The FAA had begun exploring AIT in the mid-1990s and started testing and evaluating AIT in 2000. Once TSA was established, the evaluation of AIT and other technology that could detect metallic and non-metallic threats continued. TSA began testing early AIT equipment and protocols to evaluate the size of the units, image quality, detection capabilities, safety, and other operational issues.
  Since September 11, 2001, the nature of the threat to transportation security has evolved as terrorists continue to test our security measures in an attempt to find and exploit vulnerabilities. As the recent instances described below demonstrate, non-metallic explosives have become one of the greatest threats to aviation security. TSA has responded to the developing threats by deploying new screening protocols and increasing its use of technology to improve its ability to detect weapons, explosives, and incendiaries.
  On December 22, 2001, on board an airplane bound for the United States, Richard Reid attempted to detonate a non-metallic bomb concealed in his shoe. Following this terrorist attempt, screening procedures were revised by enhancing the screening of footwear.
  In 2004, terrorists mounted a successful attack on two domestic Russian passenger aircraft using explosives that were concealed on the torsos of female passengers. TSA responded to this demonstrated security vulnerability by implementing a variety of enhancements to its standard operating procedures. Revised pat-down protocols that increased the thoroughness of pat-downs on the female torso were among the enhancements implemented to improve the ability to detect explosives concealed on the body.
  In 2006, terrorists in the United Kingdom plotted to bring on board aircraft liquid explosives that would be used to construct and detonate a bomb while in flight. Following this threat, TSA again adjusted its security procedures by limiting the amount of liquids that could be brought on board aircraft and enhancing the screening of liquids, aerosols, and gels. TSA also deployed technology to improve detection of liquid explosives.
  On December 25, 2009, a bombing plot by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) culminated in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to blow up an American aircraft over the United States using a non-metallic explosive device hidden in his underwear. TSA's pat-down procedures then in effect may not have detected the device. TSA modified its screening procedures to improve its ability to detect explosives hidden in an area of the body that previously was not thoroughly searched and hastened to expand deployment of AIT to improve its ability to detect non-metallic explosives concealed on the body through the use of technology, rather than the pat-down. [13]
  In October 2010, AQAP attempted to destroy two airplanes in flight using non-metallic explosives hidden in two printer cartridges. TSA immediately instituted new screening requirements for cargo bound for the United States.
  In May 2012, AQAP developed another non-metallic explosive device that could be hidden in an individual's underwear and detonated while on board an aircraft. Fortunately, this device was obtained by an undercover operative and was not given to a potential suicide bomber. The device was provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for technical and forensic analysis and the results indicate that terrorists have modified certain characteristics of the bomb in comparison with the December 25, 2009 bomb in an attempt to avoid the 2009 bombing attempt's design failure.
  As evidenced by the incidents described above, TSA operates in a high-threat environment. Terrorists look for security gaps or exceptions to exploit. The device used in the December 25, 2009 attempt is illustrative. It was cleverly constructed and intentionally hidden on a sensitive part of the body to avert detection. If this attack were successful as planned, the lives of the almost 300 passengers and crew and potentially people on the ground would have been in jeopardy.
  As these examples of the real and ever-evolving threats to aviation security demonstrate, non-metallic explosives are now one of the foremost known threats to passenger aircraft. The best defense against these and other terrorist threats remains a risk-based, layered security approach that uses a range of screening measures, both seen and unseen. This includes the use of AIT, which is proven technology for identifying non-metallic explosives during passenger screening, such as the device Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate on Christmas Day 2009. TSA requests comment on the threat to aviation security described above and the risk-based, layered security approach it has adopted.
  B. Layers of SecurityTSA deploys approximately 50,000 Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) at more than 446 domestic airports with over 700 security checkpoints to screen nearly 2 million passengers each day using various screening methods and technologies. Although the airport checkpoints are the most visible layer of security used by TSA, TSA also relies extensively on intelligence regarding potential and actual terrorist threats to inform and identify what security measures are necessary to meet the nature of those threats. Other security layers include checking passenger manifests against records from the Government known or suspected terrorist watch lists through TSA's Secure Flight program, examining identity and travel documents, using explosives detection systems, and conducting random security operations at the checkpoint and throughout the airport.
  Because even the best intelligence does not identify in advance every individual who would seek to do harm to passengers, aviation security, and the United States, TSA must rely on the security expertise of its frontline personnel'--TSOs, Federal Air Marshals, Transportation Security Specialists-Explosives, Behavior Detection Officers, and explosives detection canine teams, among others'--to help prevent acts of terrorism.
  Effective technology is an essential component of TSA's arsenal of tools to detect and deter threats against our nation's transportation systems. Since its creation, TSA has deployed an increasingly sophisticated range of next generation detection equipment'--including bottled liquid scanners, advanced technology x-ray systems, explosives trace detection (ETD) units, and AIT'--as the threats to aviation security change and become more sophisticated. As recent history illustrates, TSA changes its screening equipment and procedures as needed to respond to evolving threats based on experience and the latest intelligence. TSA's layered approach and its ability to deploy new security methods to respond to the latest threats are necessary to provide adequate security for the traveling public. Advanced Imaging Technology currently provides the best opportunity to detect metallic and non-metallic threats concealed on the body under clothing without physical contact. [14]
  C. Congressional Direction To Pursue AITIn 2004, Congress directed TSA to continue to explore the use of new technologies to improve its threat detection capabilities. [15] Specifically, the law provides:
  Additional references in congressional reports accompanying appropriations and authorizing legislation demonstrate Congress' continued direction to DHS and TSA to pursue enhanced screening technologies and imaging technology, including:
  (1) Explanatory Statement, House Appropriations Committee Print for Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009 (FY09 DHS Appropriations) Pub. L. 110-329 at p. 640:
  (2) H. Rep. 110-862 at p. 64, FY09 DHS Appropriations:
  (3) S. Rep. 110-396 at p. 60, FY09 DHS Appropriations:
  (4) H. Rep.110-259, at Web page 363, Conference Report to Implementing Recommendations of 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, Pub. L. 110-53, sec. 1601'--Airport checkpoint screening fund:
  D. U.S. Court of Appeals Decision in EPIC v. DHSIn July 2010, the EPIC petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for review of TSA's use of AIT as a primary screening device to screen airline passengers. EPIC argued that the use of AIT violated various federal statutes and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and should have been the subject of notice-and-comment rulemaking.
  The Court of Appeals issued a decision on July 15, 2011, which rejected nearly all of EPIC's claims. [17] In ruling on EPIC's Fourth Amendment claim, the Court held that screening passengers at an airport is an administrative search that does not rely on individualized suspicion. ''Instead, whether an administrative search is `unreasonable' within the condemnation of the Fourth Amendment `is determined by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual's privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests'.'' [18]
  The Court found that the ''balance clearly favors the Government here.'' [19] The Court recognized the clear need for AIT screening, and the advantages the AIT provides over the WTMD. The Court stated that ''[t]he need to search airline passengers `to ensure public safety can be particularly acute' and, crucially, an AIT scanner, unlike a magnetometer, is capable of detecting, and therefore of deterring, attempts to carry aboard airplanes explosives in liquid or powder form.'' [20]
  As explained in the decision, the AIT scanners then in use produce a ''crude image of an unclothed person * * *.'' [21] In rejecting EPIC's privacy argument, the Court recognized that TSA has taken steps:
  The Court also noted that three Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) of the AIT program had been completed and were sufficient. ''[T]he petitioners make no more specific objection that would enable us to disturb the [Chief Privacy Officer's] conclusion that the privacy protections built into the AIT program are sufficiently `strong'.'' [23]
  In its decision, the Court acknowledged that Congress authorized TSA to prescribe the details of the screening process. The Court noted that ''Congress did * * * in 2004, direct the TSA to `give a high priority to developing, testing, improving, and deploying' at airport screening checkpoints a new technology `that detects nonmetallic, chemical, biological, and radiological weapons, and explosives, in all forms'.'' [24] The Court observed that TSA responded to this directive through the development and procurement of AIT scanners, which enable the operator of the machine to detect non-metallic objects, such as a liquid or powder, which a metal detector cannot detect, without touching the passengers coming through the checkpoint. [25]
  TSA tested the use of AIT machines in 2009 for primary screening at a limited number of airports. The Court acknowledged that ''based on the apparent success of the test, the TSA decided early in 2010 to use the scanners everywhere for primary screening.'' [26] The Court also pointed out that passengers are not required to go through the AIT screening process. The Court stated ''no passenger is ever required to submit to an AIT scan * * * [and] signs at the security checkpoint notify passengers they may opt instead for a patdown.'' [27] The Court also rejected EPIC's claims that the AIT is unlawful under the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
  In ruling on EPIC's Administrative Procedure Act claim, the Court determined that TSA did not justify ''its failure to initiate notice-and-comment rulemaking before announcing it would use AIT scanners for primary screening.'' [28] Even though privacy precautions had been implemented, the Court stated ''it is clear that by producing an image of the unclothed passenger, an AIT scanner intrudes upon * * * personal privacy in a way a magnetometer does not.'' [29] Thus, the Court found the use of the AIT in primary screening ''substantively affects the public to a degree sufficient to implicate the policy interests animating notice-and-comment rulemaking.'' [30] The Court did not require TSA to stop using AIT. ''[D]ue to the obvious need for the TSA to continue its airport security operations without interruption, we remand the rule to the TSA but do not vacate it * * * .'' [31]
  A. Types of AIT EquipmentTSA engaged in extensive laboratory and operational testing before approving the two types of AIT equipment initially deployed. In February 2007, TSA initiated a pilot operation at an airport to test AIT detection capability in the secondary screening position for aviation passengers who set off the alarm of the WTMD. In January 2008, TSA published a PIA to cover AIT screening of all passengers at the security screening checkpoint. Throughout 2007 and 2008, additional AIT units were tested in the secondary screening position and TSA continued to evaluate different types of AIT equipment, including both general-use x-ray backscatter and millimeter wave. In 2009, TSA began to evaluate using AIT in the primary screening position as an alternative to WTMD. [32] Deploying AIT in the primary position to screen all passengers for both metallic and non-metallic threats allows TSA to use the technology to its full capability. In February 2010, TSA submitted a report to Congress on privacy protections and deployment of AIT. [33]
  TSA has compared AIT to other transportation security equipment and manual processes, including ETD, WTMD, and pat-downs. Based on the testing results, TSA determined that AIT currently offers the best opportunity to detect both metallic and non-metallic threat items concealed underneath clothing, such as the explosives carried by Mr. Abdulmutallab, without physical contact.
  One type of AIT equipment initially deployed by TSA, the Rapiscan Secure 1000, uses backscatter technology. Unlike a traditional x-ray machine, which relies on the transmission of x-rays through an object, general-use backscatter technology projects low level x-ray beams over the body surface at high speed. The reflection or ''backscatter'' of the beam is detected and digitized to create an image. [34]
  The L-3 ProVision, another type of AIT equipment currently deployed by TSA, uses millimeter-length radio waves. Millimeter wave technology bounces electromagnetic waves off of the human body to detectors in the machine, which a computer then interprets in order to create a black and white image. [35]
  Working with the DHS Science & Technology Directorate and private industry, TSA began testing ATR software in 2010. Automatic Target Recognition software generates a generic outline and not an individual image. [36]In July 2011, TSA began installing ATR software on millimeter wave AIT units and completed installation on all millimeter wave units currently in use. This advancement significantly enhances privacy by eliminating the passenger-specific images referred to in the EPIC v. DHS decision.
  As part of the Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, Congress mandated that all AIT units must be equipped with ATR by June 1, 2012. [37] As permitted by law, the deadline was extended to June 1, 2013. While all of the millimeter wave units have been equipped with the ATR software, Rapiscan was unable to develop ATR software that would work on the general-use backscatter units. As a result, TSA terminated its Rapiscan ATR delivery order and all Rapiscan general-use backscatter AIT units currently deployed at TSA checkpoints are being removed from operation by Rapiscan. [38] By June 1, 2013, only AIT equipped with ATR will be used at TSA checkpoints.
  TSA will continue to evaluate current AIT systems and associated screening procedures, as well as any new technologies and procedures that may be considered for deployment, to ensure that they are safe and meet all relevant government and consensus industry standards, are effective against established and anticipated threats, and require the least disruption and intrusion on passenger privacy possible.
  B. Privacy Safeguards for AITThe use of ATR software enhances passenger privacy by eliminating images of individual passengers, as well as the need for a TSO to view the individual images to identify anomalies. [39] Automatic Target Recognition software auto-detects anomalies concealed on the body and displays these on a generic outline, which is viewable on a screen located on the AIT equipment. These anomalies are then resolved through additional screening. Automatic Target Recognition-enabled units deployed at airports are not capable of storing or printing the generic outline that will be visible to passengers. TSA has installed the software on all currently-deployed millimeter wave units. As noted above, AIT units without ATR software are being removed from operation and only ATR-equipped AIT units will be used at the checkpoint as of June 1, 2013.
  Section 222 of the Homeland Security Act requires that the Privacy Office assure that the use of technologies sustain and do not erode privacy protections relating to the use, collection, and disclosure of personal information, and to conduct a privacy impact assessment (PIA) for proposed rules impacting the privacy of personal information (6 U.S.C. 142). Even before the development of the ATR software, TSA instituted rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy of individuals who are screened using AIT. In addition, as noted by the Court in EPIC v. DHS, the DHS Chief Privacy Officer has conducted several PIAs on the use of AIT equipment to ensure that the public's privacy concerns related to AIT screening are adequately addressed. These PIAs meet the requirements of section 222 for this NPRM and describe the strict measures TSA uses to protect privacy. [40] To the extent that TSA receives substantive comments on privacy issues related to the use of AIT, they will be addressed in the final rule and any resulting changes will be addressed appropriately in a revised PIA.
  While graphic images purportedly from TSA's AIT machines have been circulated in the media, those images were not the type produced by TSA's AIT equipment. Neither of the AIT technologies that have been used by TSA produced photographs or images that would enable personal identification. As deployed by TSA, neither technology is able to store, print, or export any image.
  When using the backscatter technology, TSA requirements dictated that a filter be applied to prevent a detailed image of an individual. In addition, the images were viewed by a trained TSO in a locked, remote location. The anonymity of the individual being screened was preserved, since the TSO assisting the individual at the AIT unit never saw the image, and the TSO viewing the image never saw the individual being screened. No TSA personnel were permitted to view both the image and the individual. The backscatter units did not store, print, or export any images. Storage capability was disabled prior to deployment, and TSA airport personnel were not able to activate the storage capability. In addition, the backscatter images were transmitted securely between the unit and the viewing room so they could not be lost, modified, or disclosed. The images produced by the backscatter units were encrypted during transmission. The images were deleted from the screen in the viewing room when the individual was cleared. TSOs in the viewing room were prohibited from bringing electronic devices such as cameras, cell phones, or other recording devices into the room. Violations of these procedures subjected the TSO to disciplinary action, which included termination.
  To give further effect to the Fair Information Practice Principles that are the foundation for privacy policy and implementation at DHS, individuals may opt-out of the AIT in favor of physical screening. TSA provides notice of the use of AIT and the opt-out option at the checkpoint so that individuals may exercise an informed judgment on AIT. Signs are posted that explain the technology and state ''use of this technology is optional. If you choose not to be screened by this technology you will receive a thorough pat down.'' [41] TSA requests comment on the privacy safeguards discussed above and on the ability of passengers to opt-out of AIT screening.
  C. Safety of AITAIT equipment has been subject to extensive testing that has confirmed that it is safe for individuals being screened, equipment operators, and bystanders. [42] The exposure to ionizing x-ray beams emitted by the backscatter machines that are being removed pursuant to statute, as well as the non-ionizing electromagnetic waves from the millimeter wave machines is well within the limits allowed under relevant national health and safety standards. Prior to procuring and deploying both backscatter and millimeter wave AIT equipment, TSA tested the units to determine whether they would be safe for use in passenger screening. As explained further below, TSA determined that the general-use backscatter and millimeter wave technologies were safe for use in screening the public because the x-ray and radio waves emissions were so low as to present a negligible risk to passengers, airline crew members, airport employees, and TSA employees.
  1. Millimeter Wave UnitsThe millimeter wave AIT systems that will be the only technology deployed at the checkpoint as of June 1, 2013 use non-ionizing radio frequency energy in the millimeter wave spectrum to generate a three-dimensional image based on the energy reflected from the body. Millimeter wave imaging technology meets all known national and international health and safety standards. In fact, the energy emitted by millimeter wave technology is 1,000 times less than the international limits and guidelines. The millimeter wave AIT systems that TSA uses must comply with the 2005 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Standard for Safety Levels with Respect to Human Exposure to Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Fields (IEEE Std. C95.1 TM-2005) as well as the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection Guidelines for Limiting Exposure to Time-Varying Electric, Magnetic, and Electromagnetic Fields, Health Physics 74(4); 494-522, published April 1998. TSA's millimeter wave units are also consistent with Federal Communications Commission OET Bulletin 65, Health Canada Safety Code 6, and RSS-102 Issue 3 for Canada. The FDA has also confirmed that millimeter wave security systems that comply with the IEEE Std. C95.1 TM-2005 cause no known adverse health effects. [43]
  2. Backscatter UnitsAs required by statute, TSA will remove all currently deployed Rapiscan backscatter units by May 31, 2013. When in use, TSA addressed potential health concerns regarding the ionizing radiation emitted by general-use backscatter technology. TSA's procurement specifications required that the backscatter units must conform to the consensus radiation safety standard of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) [44] and Health Physics Society (HPS) [45] for the design and operation of security screening systems that use ionizing radiation. That standard is ANSI/HPS N43.17, which was first published in 2002 and revised in 2009. [46]
  The annual dose limits in ANSI/HPS N43.17 are based on dose limit recommendations for the general public published by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements [47] in Report 116, ''Limitations of Exposure to Ionizing Radiation.'' [48] The dose limits were set with consideration given to individuals, such as pregnant women, children, and persons who receive radiation treatments, who may be more susceptible to radiation health effects. Further, the standard also takes into consideration the fact that individuals are continuously exposed to ionizing radiation from the environment. ANSI/HPS N43.17 sets the maximum permissible dose of ionizing radiation from a general-use system per security screening at 0.25 microsieverts. [49] The standard also requires that individuals should not receive 250 microsieverts or more from a general-use x-ray security screening system in a year.
  The radiation dose (effective dose) a passenger receives from a general-use backscatter AIT screening has been independently evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Center for Devices and Radiological Health, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. All results affirmed that the effective dose for individuals being screened, operators, and bystanders was well below the dose limits specified by ANSI/HPS N43.17. [50] These results were confirmed in a report issued by the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) in February 2012. [51] The OIG report found that the independent surveys show that backscatter radiation levels are below the established limits and that TSA complied with ANSI/HPS N43.17.
  Typical doses from backscatter machines are no more than 0.05 microsieverts per screening, well below the ANSI/HPS N43.17 maximum dosage of 0.25 microsievert per screening. An individual would have to have been screened by the Rapiscan Secure 1000 more than 13 times daily for 365 consecutive days before exceeding the ANSI/HPS standard.
  By comparison, a traveler would have to be screened via Rapiscan/backscatter AIT 2,000 times to equal the dosage received in a single chest x-ray, which delivers 100 microsieverts of ionizing radiation. A typical bite-wing dental x-ray of 5 microsieverts would be equivalent to 100 backscatter screenings, and a two-view mammogram that delivers 360 microsieverts would be equivalent to 7,200 backscatter screenings. [52] A passenger flying one-way from Washington, DC to Los Angeles is exposed to approximately 19.1 microsieverts of ionizing radiation over the course of the 4.7 hour flight. [53]
  ANSI/HPS also reflects the standard for a negligible individual dose of radiation established by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements at 10 microsieverts per year. Efforts to reduce radiation exposure below the negligible individual dose are not warranted because the risks associated with that level of exposure are so small as to be indistinguishable from the risks attendant to environmental radiation that individuals are exposed to every day. [54] The level of radiation issued by the Rapiscan Secure 1000 is so low that most passengers would not have exceeded even the negligible individual dose. In fact, an individual would have to be screened more than 200 times a year by a Rapiscan Secure 1000 before he or she would exceed the negligible individual dose and, even then, the exposure would be below the ANSI/HPS N43.17 standard.
  The European Commission released a report conducted by the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) on the risks related to the use of security scanners for passenger screening that use ionizing radiation such as the general-use backscatter AIT machines. [55] The committee found no short term health effects that can result from the doses of radiation delivered by security scanners. In the long term, it found that the potential cancer risk cannot be estimated, but is likely to remain so low that it cannot be distinguished from the effects of other exposures including both ionizing radiation from other natural sources, and background risk due to other factors.
  The ANSI/HPS N43.17 standard also requires that any general-use backscatter machine have safety interlocks to terminate emission of x-rays in the event of any system problem that could result in abnormal or unintended radiation emission. The Rapiscan Secure 1000 had three such features. First, the unit was designed to cease x-ray emission once the programmed scan motion ends. That feature could not be adjusted. Second, the unit was programmed to terminate emission once the requiWeb site number of lines of data necessary to create an image was received. Both of these automatic features reduced the possibility that emissions could continue if the unit malfunctions. Finally, the unit had an emergency stop button that would terminate x-ray emission.
  Upon installation, a radiation emission survey was conducted on each Rapiscan Secure 1000 to ensure the unit operated properly. Preventive maintenance checks, including radiation safety surveys, were performed at least once every six months; after any maintenance that affected the radiation shielding, shutter mechanism, or x-ray production components; after any incident where damage was suspected; or after a unit was moved. The U.S. Army Public Health Command also conducted an independent radiation survey on deployed systems. The report confirmed that the general-use backscatter units tested were well within applicable national safety standards. [56]
  The DHS Office of the Chief Procurement Officer is also requesting the National Academy of Sciences to review previous studies as well as the current processes used by DHS and equipment manufacturers to estimate radiation exposure resulting from general-use backscatter equipment and to provide a report on whether radiation exposures comply with applicable health and safety standards and whether system design operating procedures and maintenance procedures are appropriate.
  D. AIT Procedures at the CheckpointTSA's regulations require that ''[i]ndividuals may not enter or be present within a secured area, air operations area, security identification display area, or sterile area without complying with the systems, measures, or procedures used to control access to such areas.'' [57] In addition, ''[i]ndividuals may not enter a sterile area or board an aircraft without submitting to the screening and inspection of their person and accessible property in accordance with the procedures being applied to control access to that area or the aircraft.'' [58] Federal law also requires that air carriers refuse to transport a passenger who does not consent to a search of his person or baggage, [59] and authorizes air carriers to refuse to transport a passenger or property the carrier decides is, or might be, inimical to safety. [60]
  The specific security procedures, systems, or measures that TSA deploys are included in its Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The SOPs instruct the TSOs how to conduct the screening measures currently in use. Terrorists continue to seek ways to thwart aviation security measures and could use information on TSA procedures, such as the instructions on how to operate AIT equipment and the AIT equipment specifications, to plan and execute attacks. Therefore, the SOPs are SSI and are not made public as such disclosure would prove detrimental to transportation security. [61]
  In response to the decision in EPIC v. DHS, TSA is proposing to add the following language to its current regulations at 49 CFR 1540.107, quoted above, to specifically address AIT screening:
  In addition, TSA has posted information on its Web site on what individuals can expect when submitting to AIT screening. AIT screening is currently optional, but when opting out of AIT screening, a passenger will receive a pat-down. When TSA deploys AIT equipment at a screening lane, a sign is posted to inform the public that AIT may be used as part of the screening process prior to passengers entering the machine so that each passenger may exercise an informed decision on the use of AIT. The sign also indicates that a passenger who chooses not to be screened by AIT will receive a pat-down. However, TSA has found that since 2009, fewer than two percent of passengers opt for a pat-down in lieu of AIT screening. [62]
  TSA's Web site [63] explains that AIT looks for any items, both metallic and non-metallic, that might be anywhere on the body. It recommends that individuals remove all items from pockets and their person and place them in carry-on baggage prior to entering the checkpoint. It notes that removal will lessen the chance that additional screening will be required. The Web site also explains that for AIT units not equipped with ATR, the TSO who views the image cannot see the individual; while for AIT equipped with ATR software, the screen with the generic outline is located on the scanner and is visible to the passenger and the TSO. The Web site states that AIT is optional.
  After any items are removed, individuals are directed to enter the AIT. Once inside, individuals are directed to stand with arms raised, and to remain still for several seconds while the image is created. When using AIT with ATR, the image is not an image of the individual passenger, rather a generic outline that indicates where the anomaly is detected. Individuals are directed to exit the opposite side of the portal. Once the image is reviewed and any anomalies are resolved, the image is deleted. This process usually takes less than a minute.
  TSA has also refined its procedures to make sure that the screening process addresses the needs of families. TSA never separates a child from an accompanying adult and makes sure that the accompanying adult observes the entire screening process. Advanced Imaging Technology is safe for children, and children may undergo screening using AIT as long as they are able to stand with their hands above their head for the five to seven seconds needed to conduct the scan. However, TSA no longer requires children who are 12 years old or younger to be screened by AIT and will direct those passengers to the WTMD unless instructed otherwise by an accompanying adult. [64] TSA has also implemented procedures to accommodate those passengers with disabilities and medical conditions that make them ineligible for AIT screening because they cannot stand in the necessary pose.
  As of February 22, 2013, TSA has deployed over 800 AIT machines at approximately 200 airports in the United States. [65] TSA is removing the 174 Rapiscan general-use backscatter units from its checkpoints and by June 1, 2013, only units equipped with ATR software will be used to conduct screening.
  Since it began using AIT, TSA has been able to detect many kinds of non-metallic items, small items, and items concealed on parts of the body that would not have been detected using metal detectors. Once an anomaly is detected, additional screening is required to determine if the item is prohibited.
  Since January 2010, this technology has helped TSA officers detect hundreds of prohibited, dangerous, or illegal items concealed on passengers. [66] TSA's procurement specifications require that any AIT system must meet certain thresholds with respect to the detection of anomalies concealed under an individual's clothing. While the detection requirements of AIT are classified, the procurement specifications require that any approved system be sensitive enough to detect smaller items, such as a Web pager, wallet, or small bottle of contact lens solution.
  Experience has confirmed that AIT will detect metallic and non-metallic items, including material that could be in various forms concealed under an individual's clothing. For example, a non-metallic martial arts weapon called a ''Tactical Spike'' was discovered in the sock of a passenger in Pensacola, Florida after being screened by AIT. [67] Advanced Imaging Technology is also effective in detecting metallic items. In December, 2011, a loaded .38 caliber firearm in an ankle holster was discovered during AIT screening of a passenger at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. [68] The versatility of AIT in detecting both metallic and non-metallic concealed items without physical contact makes it more effective than metal detectors as a tool to protect transportation security.
  Some of the items discovered concealed on passengers during AIT screening are small items, such as weapons made of composite, non-metallic materials, including a three inch pocket knife hidden on a passenger's back; little packets of powder, including a packet the size of a thumbprint; and a syringe full of liquid hidden in a passenger's underwear. [69] A plastic dagger hidden in the hemline of a passenger's shirt was detected using AIT [70] and a plastic dagger concealed inside a comb was detected in a passenger's pocket. [71] Advanced Imaging Technology's capability to identify these small items is important because in addition to weapons and explosive materials, TSA also searches for improvised explosive device components, such as timers, initiators, switches, and power sources. Such items may be very small. Advanced Imaging Technology enhances TSA's ability to find these small items and further assists TSA in detecting threats.
  A. Regulatory Evaluation Summary and Economic Impact AnalysesChanges to Federal regulations must undergo several economic analyses. First, Executive Order (E.O.) 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993), as supplemented by E.O. 13563, Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review (76 FR 3821, January 21, 2011), directs each Federal agency to propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that the benefits of the intended regulation justify its costs. Second, the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (5 U.S.C. 601et seq., as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) of 1996) requires agencies to consider the economic impact of regulatory changes on small entities. Third, the Trade Agreements Act (19 U.S.C. 2531-2533) prohibits agencies from setting standards that create unnecessary obstacles to the foreign commerce of the United States. Fourth, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA) (2 U.S.C. 1531-1538) requires agencies to prepare a written assessment of the costs, benefits, and other effects of proposed or final rules that include a Federal mandate likely to result in the expenditure by State, local, or tribal governments, in the aggregate, or by the private sector, of $100 million or more annually (adjusted for inflation).
  B. Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 AssessmentExecutive Orders 12866 and 13563 direct agencies to assess the costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety effects, distributive impacts, and equity). Executive Order 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, reducing costs, harmonizing rules, and promoting flexibility. This rule is a ''significant regulatory action'' that is economically significant under sec. 3(f)(1) of E.O. 12866. Accordingly, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has reviewed this regulation.
  In conducting these analyses, TSA has determined:
  (1) This rulemaking is a ''significant regulatory action'' as defined in the E.O.
  (2) An Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis suggests this rulemaking would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.
  (3) This rulemaking would not constitute a barrier to international trade.
  (4) This rulemaking does not impose an unfunded mandate on State, local, or tribal governments, or on the private sector under UMRA.
  These analyses, available in the docket, are summarized below. This NPRM proposes to codify the use of AIT to screen passengers boarding commercial aircraft for weapons, explosives, and other prohibited items concealed on the body. These costs are incurred by airport operators, the traveling public, Rapiscan, and TSA. Some airport operators incur utility costs for the additional electricity consumed by AIT machines. The small percentage of passengers (approximately one percent) who choose to opt out of AIT screening will incur opportunity costs due to the additional screening time needed to receive a pat-down. Rapiscan, a company that manufactures AIT machines, will incur a cost to remove backscatter AIT units in 2013 that have been deployed in previous years. [72] TSA incurs equipment costs associated with the life cycle of AIT machines (testing, acquisition, maintenance, etc.); personnel costs to hire TSOs to operate the AIT machines; utility costs at reimbursed airports; and training costs to train TSOs to operate AIT, and to detect and resolve any anomalies that may be discovered during AIT screening.
  When estimating the cost of a rulemaking, agencies typically estimate future expected costs imposed by a regulation over a period of analysis. Because the AIT machine life cycle from deployment to disposal is eight years, the period of analysis for estimating the cost of AIT is also eight years. However, as AIT deployment began in 2008, there are costs that have already been borne by airport operators, the traveling public, and TSA that were not due to this rule. Consequently, in the Initial Regulatory Impact Analysis for this rule, TSA is reporting the AIT-related costs that have already occurred (years 2008-2011), but TSA considers the additional cost of this rulemaking to be years 2012-2015. By reporting the costs that have already happened and estimating future costs in this manner, TSA will have considered and disclosed the full eight-year life cycle of AIT deployment.
  TSA reports that the net cost of AIT deployment from 2008-2011 has been $841.2 million (undiscounted) and that TSA has borne over 99 percent of all costs related to AIT deployment. TSA projects that from 2012-2015 total AIT-related costs will be approximately $1.5 billion (undiscounted), $1.4 billion at a three percent discount rate, and $1.3 billion at a seven percent discount rate. During 2012-2015, TSA estimates it will also incur over 98 percent of AIT-related costs with equipment and personnel costs being the largest categories of costs. Table 4 below reports the costs that have already happened (2008-2011) by cost category, while Table 5 shows the additional costs TSA is attributing to this rulemaking (2012-2015). Table 6 shows the total cost of AIT deployment from 2008 to 2015.
  Table 4'--Net Cost73Summary of AIT Deployment From 2008-2011 by Cost Component Back to TopYearPassenger opt outsIndustry utilitiesTSA costsTotalPersonnelTrainingEquipmentUtilities[Costs already incurred in $ thousands'--undiscounted]2008$7.0$5.7$14,689.1$389.5$37,425.2$18.8$52,535.3200932.25.715,618.688.042,563.620.458,328.52010262.2158.2247,566.75,332.8119,105.4241.4372,666.620111,384.2186.7284,938.715,354.455,567.2269.1357,700.2Total1,685.6356.3562,813.021,164.7254,661.3549.6841,230.6Table 5'--Cost Summary (Net Cost of AIT Deployment 2012-2015) by Cost Component Back to TopYearPassenger opt outsIndustry utilitiesTSA costsRapiscan removalTotalPersonnelTrainingEquipmentUtilities[AIT costs in $ thousands]2012$2,716.5$325.7$375,866.9$12,043.0$116,499.3$473.0$0.0$507,924.420133,991.7329.3280,844.34,277.551,588.8324.41,809.6343,165.720144,238.7312.0263,677.64,190.551,397.8317.70.0324,134.220155,611.8300.3278,580.24,144.268,052.6365.70.0357,054.9Total16,558.71,267.31,198,969.024,655.2287,538.51,480.91,809.61,532,279.2Discounted 3%15,265.01,178.91,118,459.323,810.2269,233.71,380.71,705.71,431,033.5Discounted 7%13,766.61,075.81,024,344.722,048.8247,810.41,263.81,580.61,311,890.7Table 6'--Cost Summary (Net Cost of AIT Deployment 2008-2015) by Cost Component Back to TopYearPassenger opt outsIndustry utilitiesTSA costsRapiscan removalTotalPersonnelTrainingEquipmentUtilities[AIT costs in $ thousands'--undiscounted]2008$7.0$5.7$14,689.1$389.5$37,425.2$18.8$0.0$52,535.3200932.25.715,618.688.042,563.620.40.058,328.52010262.2158.2247,566.75,332.8119,105.4241.40.0372,666.620111,384.2186.7284,938.715,354.455,567.2269.10.0357,700.220122,716.5325.7375,866.912,043.0116,499.3473.00.0507,924.420133,991.7329.3280,844.34,277.551,588.8324.41,809.6343,165.720144,238.7312.0263,677.64,190.551,397.8317.70.0324,134.220155,611.8300.3278,580.24,144.268,052.6365.70.0357,054.9Total18,244.41,623.61,761,782.045,819.9542,199.92,030.41,809.62,373,509.9This preamble (in the Background section above) has previously explained in detail the need for AIT and the Congressional direction to pursue AIT. In summary, terrorists continue to test our security measures in an attempt to find and exploit vulnerabilities. The threat to aviation security has evolved to include the use of non-metallic explosives, non-metallic explosive devices, and non-metallic weapons. Below are examples of this threat:
  On December 22, 2001, on board an airplane bound for the United States, Richard Reid attempted to detonate a non-metallic bomb concealed in his shoe.On December 25, 2009, a bombing plot by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) culminated in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to blow up an American aircraft over the United States using a non-metallic explosive device hidden in his underwear.In October 2010, AQAP attempted to destroy two airplanes in flight using non-metallic explosives hidden in two printer cartridges.In May 2012, during the most recent terrorist plot thwarted, AQAP developed another non-metallic explosive device that could be hidden in an individual's underwear and detonated while on board an aircraft.As evidenced by the incidents described in the above sections, TSA operates in a high-threat environment. Terrorists look for security gaps or exceptions to exploit. The device used in the December 25, 2009, attempt is illustrative. It was cleverly constructed and intentionally hidden on a sensitive part of the body to avert detection. If detonated, the lives of the almost 300 passengers and crew and untold numbers of people on the ground would have been in jeopardy.
  Advanced Imaging Technology is proven technology which provides the best opportunity to detect metallic and non-metallic anomalies concealed under clothing without touching the passenger and is an essential component of TSA's security. Since it began using AIT, TSA has been able to detect many kinds of non-metallic items, small items, and items concealed on parts of the body that would not have been detected using metal detectors. In addition, risk reduction analysis shows that the chance of a successful terrorist attack on aviation targets generally decreases as TSA deploys AIT. However, the results of TSA's risk-reduction analysis are classified.
  Passengers do not experience additional wait time due to use of AIT equipment because the x-ray screening of carry-on baggage constrains the overall screening process; they wait for their personal belongings regardless of which passenger screening technology is used.
  In Tables 7 and 8 below, we present annualized cost estimates and qualitative benefits of AIT deployment. In Table 7, we show the annualized net cost of AIT deployment from 2012 to 2015. As previously explained, costs incurred from 2008-2011 occurred in the past and are not considered costs attributable to this proposed rule. However, given the life cycle of the AIT technology considered in this analysis is eight years; we have also added Table 8 showing the annualized net cost of AIT deployment from 2008-2015 (a full eight-year life cycle and includes the ''sunk costs'' from 2008 to 2011). Please note that while the total costs of AIT deployment for a full eight-year life cycle (2008-2015) are higher than the total costs of AIT deployment during the four-year period of 2012-2015, the annualized costs ($368,262.8 at seven percent discount) of the full eight-year cycle shown in Table 8 are actually lower than the annualized costs ($387,307.7 at seven percent discount) of the 2012-2015 deployment shown in Table 7. As previously shown in Tables 4 and 5, AIT deployment costs in 2008 and 2009 are relatively low compared with the later year AIT expenditures, resulting in lower annualized costs for the eight-year life cycle of 2008-2015. The costs are annualized and discounted at both three and seven percent and presented in 2011 dollars.
  Table 7'--OMB A-4 Accounting Statement Back to TopCategoryPrimaryestimateMinimumestimateMaximumestimateSource citation(initial RIA,preamble, etc.)[$ Thousands for 2012-2015]BENEFITS Monetized benefitsNot estimatedNot estimatedNot estimatedInitial RIA.Annualized quantified, but unmonetized, benefits000Initial RIA.Unquantified benefitsThe operations described in this proposed rule produce benefits by reducing security risks through the deployment of AIT technology that is capable of detecting both metallic and non-metallic weapons and explosives.Initial RIA.COSTS Annualized monetized costs (discount rate in parenthesis)(7%) $387,307.0 (3%) $384,986.7Initial RIA. Annualized quantified, but unmonetized, costs000Initial RIA.Qualitative costs (unquantified)Not estimatedInitial RIA.TRANSFERS Annualized monetized transfers: ''on budget''000Initial RIA.From whom to whom?N/AN/AN/ANone.Annualized monetized transfers: ''off-budget''000Initial RIA.From whom to whom?N/AN/AN/ANone.Miscellaneous analyses/categoryEffectsSource citation (initial RIA, preamble, etc.).Effects on state, local, and/or tribal governmentsNoneInitial RIA.Effects on small businessesNo significant economic impact anticipated. Prepared Initial Regulatory Flexibility AnalysisInitial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis.Effects on wagesNoneNone.Effects on growthNoneNone.Table 8'--OMB A-4 Accounting Statement Back to TopCategoryPrimaryestimateMinimumestimateMaximumestimateSource citation(initial RIA,preamble, etc.)[$ Thousands, 2008-2015, eight-year lifecycle]BENEFITS Monetized benefitsNot estimatedNot estimatedNot estimatedInitial RIA.Annualized quantified, but unmonetized, benefits000Initial RIA.Unquantified benefitsThe operations described in this proposed rule produce benefits by reducing security risks through the deployment of AIT technology that is capable of detecting both metallic and non-metallic weapons and explosives.Initial RIA.COSTS Annualized monetized costs (discount rate in parentheses)(7%) $368,262.8 (3%) $326,410.1Initial RIA.Annualized quantified, but unmonetized, costs000Initial RIA.Qualitative costs (unquantified)Not estimatedInitial RIA.TRANSFERS Annualized monetized transfers: ''on budget''000Initial RIA.From whom to whom?N/AN/AN/ANone.Annualized monetized transfers: ''off-budget''000Initial RIA.From whom to whom?N/AN/AN/ANone. Miscellaneous analyses/categoryEffectsSource citation (initial RIA, preamble, etc.).Effects on state, local, and/or tribal governmentsNoneInitial RIA.Effects on small businessesNo significant economic impact anticipated. Prepared IRFAIRFA.Effects on wagesNoneNone.Effects on growthNoneNone.As alternatives to the preferred regulatory proposal presented in the NPRM, TSA examined three other options. The following table briefly describes these options, which include a continuation of the current screening environment (no action), increased use of physical pat-down searches that supplements primary screening with WTMDs, and increased use of ETD screening that supplements primary screening with WTMDs. These alternatives, and the reasons why TSA rejected them in favor of the proposed rule, are discussed in detail in Chapter 3 of the regulatory evaluation located in this docket, and summarized in Table 9.
  Table 9'--Comparison of Regulatory Alternatives Back to TopRegulatory alternativeNameDescription1No ActionUnder this alternative, the passenger screening environment remains the same as it was prior to 2008. TSA continues to use WTMDs as the primary passenger screening technology and to resolve alarms with a pat-down.2Pat-DownUnder this alternative, TSA continues to use WTMDs as the primary passenger screening technology. In addition, TSA supplements the WTMD screening by conducting a pat-down on a randomly selected portion of passengers after screening by a WTMD.3ETD ScreeningUnder this alternative, TSA continues to use WTMDs as the primary passenger screening technology. In addition, TSA supplements the WTMD screening by conducting ETD screening on a randomly selected portion of passengers after screening by a WTMD.4AIT Screening (NPRM)Under this alternative, the proposed alternative, TSA uses AIT as a passenger screening technology. Alarms would be resolved through a pat-down.C. Regulatory Flexibility Act AssessmentThe Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) of 1980 requires that agencies consider the impacts of their rules on small entities. For purposes of the RFA, small entities include small businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and small governmental jurisdictions. Individuals and States are not included in the definition of a small entity. TSA has included an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis within the Initial Regulatory Impact Analysis.
  This NPRM proposes to codify the use of AIT to screen passengers boarding commercial aircraft for weapons, explosives, and other prohibited items concealed on the body. The only additional direct cost small entities incur due to this rule is for utilities, as a result of increased power consumption from AIT operation. TSA identified 102 small entities that could have potentially incurred additional utility costs due to AIT; however, TSA
  reimburses the additional utility costs for five of these small entities. Consequently, this rule would cause 97 small entities to incur additional direct costs. Of the 97 small entities affected by this proposed rule, 96 are small governmental jurisdictions with populations less than 50,000. A privately-owned airport is considered small under SBA standards if revenue amounts to less than $30 million. TSA identified one small privately-owned airport.The small entities incur an additional utility cost as a result of increased power consumption from AIT operation. To estimate the costs of the deployment of AIT on small entities TSA uses the average kilowatt hour (kWh) consumed per unit on an annual basis at federalized airports. Depending on the size of the airport, TSA estimates the average additional utility cost to range from $815 to $1,270 per year while the average annual revenue for these small entities ranges from $69.5 million to
  $133.1 million per year. Consequently, TSA estimates that the cost of this NPRM on small entities represents approximately 0.001 percent of their annual revenue. Therefore, TSA's Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis suggests that this rulemaking would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.D. International Trade Impact AssessmentThe Trade Agreement Act of 1979 prohibits Federal agencies from establishing any standards or engaging in related activities that create unnecessary obstacles to the foreign commerce of the United States. Legitimate domestic objectives, such as safety, are not considered unnecessary obstacles. The statute also requires consideration of international standards and, where appropriate, that they be the basis for U.S. standards. TSA has assessed the potential effect of this rulemaking and has determined that it will have only a domestic impact and therefore no effect on any trade-sensitive activity.
  E. Unfunded Mandates AssessmentThe Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA) is intended, among other things, to curb the practice of imposing unfunded Federal mandates on State, local, and tribal governments. Title II of the Act requires each Federal agency to prepare a written statement assessing the effects of any Federal mandate in a proposed or final agency rule that may result in a $100 million or more expenditure (adjusted annually for inflation) in any one year by State, local, and tribal governments, in the aggregate, or by the private sector; such a mandate is deemed to be a ''significant regulatory action.''
  This rulemaking does not contain such a mandate. The requirements of Title II of the Act, therefore, do not apply and TSA has not prepared a statement under the Act.
  F. Paperwork Reduction ActThe Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501et seq.) requires that TSA consider the impact of paperwork and other information collection burdens imposed on the public and, under the provisions of PRA sec. 3507(d), obtain approval from OMB for each collection of information it conducts, sponsors, or requires through regulations. The PRA defines ''collection of information'' to be ''the obtaining, causing to be obtained, soliciting, or requiring the disclosure to third parties or the public, of facts or opinion by or for an agency, regardless of form or format'...imposed on ten or more persons.'' 44 U.S.C. 3502(3)(A). TSA has determined that there are no current or new information collection requirements associated with this proposed rule. TSA's use of AIT to screen passengers does not constitute activity that would result in the collection of information as defined in the PRA.
  G. Executive Order 13132, FederalismTSA has analyzed this proposed rule under the principles and criteria of E.O. 13132, Federalism. We determined that this action would not have a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the National Government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government, and therefore would not have federalism implications.
  H. Environmental AnalysisTSA has reviewed this action for purposes of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) (42 U.S.C. 4321-4347) and has determined that this action will not have a significant effect on the human environment.
  I. Energy Impact AnalysisThe energy impact of the notice has been assessed in accordance with the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), 94, as amended (42 U.S.C. 6362). TSA has determined that this rulemaking is not a major regulatory action under the provisions of the EPCA.
  For the reasons set forth in the preamble, the Transportation Security Administration proposes to amend Chapter XII, of Title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, as follows:
  begin regulatory text
  1.The authority citation for part 1540 is revised to read as follows:
  Authority:49 U.S.C. 114, 5103, 40113, 44901-44907, 44913-44914, 44916-44918, 44925, 44935-44936, 44942, 46105.
  2.In § 1540.107, add paragraph (d) to read as follows:
  § 1540.107 Submission to screening and inspection.* * * * *
  (d) The screening and inspection described in (a) may include the use of advanced imaging technology. For purposes of this section, advanced imaging technology is defined as screening technology used to detect concealed anomalies without requiring physical contact with the individual being screened.
  end regulatory text
  Issued in Arlington, Virginia, on March 20, 2013.
  John S. Pistole,
  Administrator.
  [FR Doc. 2013-07023 Filed 3-22-13; 4:15 pm]
  BILLING CODE 9110-05-P
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: A visualization of drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:47
  The primary data used in this visualization comes from a dataset maintained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) . The BIJ is a not-for-profit organization with the aim of educating the public and the media on both the realities of today's world and the value of honest reporting. While there were other data sources that had listings of drone stikes, the BIJ seemed to have the most unbiased collection of information.Because the US Government does not disclose strike information, the data must be manually collected on the ground by reporters. The challenge is that stories and estimates vary between sources. In cases where there are inconsistencies, a minimum and a maximum number of possible casualties are recorded. We take the average whole number between these estimates for each attack. In a few instances there were casualties confirmed, but the estimated number of casualties was not obtainable. In these cases, we simply omitted the casualties. The list of high-profile targets (the white squares) comes from the New America Foundation.
  The visualization is created in HTML5 and JavaScript. We recommend Chrome for the best viewing experience.
Here We Go Again: EU Lawmaker To Push For Bail-In Resolution Law For Deposits Over '‚¬100K
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Zero Hedge
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:45
  Basically, this is DieselBOOM ver 2.0. How long until someone scrambles to announce that this, too, was taken out of context?
  More as we see it but the EURUSD sure isn't waiting. Instead, it is plunging.
  The European Parliament will demand that big savers take losses if their banks run into trouble, a senior lawmaker told Reuters, adding momentum to a policy unveiled as part of a Cypriot bailout.
  Although some policymakers have sought to portray Cyprus and the losses suffered by depositors at two of its banks as a one-off, many experts believe it marks a dramatic change in tack in how Europe deals with troubled banks, to spare taxpayers who have been on the hook for previous bailouts.
  Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, said on Monday that in future, the currency bloc should first ask banks to recapitalise themselves, then look to shareholders and bondholders and then "if necessary" to uninsured deposit holders.
  Now the likelihood is rising that tough treatment of big depositors will be written into a new EU law, making losses for large savers a permanent feature of future banking crises.
  "You need to be able to do the bail-in as well with deposits," said Gunnar Hokmark, an influential member of the European Parliament, who is leading negotiations with EU countries to finalise a law for winding up problem banks.
  The European Parliament has an equal say alongside EU countries when deciding who must bear the brunt of future bank failures such as those now being seen on Cyprus.
  "Deposits below 100,000 euros are protected ... deposits above 100,000 euros are not protected and shall be treated as part of the capital that can be bailed in," Hokmark told Reuters, adding that he was confident a majority of his peers in the parliament backed this line.
  The law, which will also introduce means to impose losses on bondholders, is due to take effect at the start of 2015. Germany wants provisions for bailing in bondholders and others in the same year, though that may be delayed.
  The European Commission wrote the first draft of the law but left it to member countries and the parliament to decide whether and when savers should face losses, when a failing bank is being salvaged or shuttered. Earlier on Tuesday, it said only that such a step was possible.
  Hokmark urged savers to check their banks' health before taking the risk of depositing money.
  "If you put your money in Royal Bank of Scotland ... or Deutsche Bank, depending on how that bank is working you are taking a risk," he said. "You need to be aware that you are taking a risk.
  "I want us to legislate in a way that makes investors aware of the risk," said Hokmark, adding that savers should be asking whether their bank is solvent. "The bail-in instrument is creating thousands and thousands of supervisory authorities."
  Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades agreed in a last-ditch deal to close down the second-largest bank, Cyprus Popular, and inflict heavy losses on big depositors, many of them Russian, after Cyprus's financial sector ran into trouble when investments in Greece went sour.
  "The markets may be shocked but some principles have to be laid down," said one EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that it would be "unfair" for the new EU law to take a different approach to that used in Cyprus.
Euro crisis sparks anti-German sentiments
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: The Local - Germany's news in English
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:37
  Published: 26 Mar 13 16:11 CET | Print versionOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20130326-48769.html
  Germany imposed its will at the Cyprus rescue talks but at a potentially heavy cost to its image in Europe, where angry protesters in debt-mired states make Nazi slurs and blame Berlin for merciless austerity measures.
  The tough terms of the bailout hammered out early on Monday bear a distinct German signature, which Chancellor Angela Merkel hailed as a "fair" deal that held those responsible for the crisis to account. But commentators fretted Tuesday that the political toll of the brutal negotiations was still being counted."The battle to save Cyprus inflicted deep wounds on the eurozone," the influential news weekly Der Spiegel said on its website. "The price of rescue is high: Germany is again the whipping boy," it said, citing a pattern of recriminations seen in Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Cyprus as the debt turmoil has whipsawed through Europe.
  Each time a eurozone country has sought help from international creditors, Germany as Europe's top economy and effective paymaster has come to the rescue, but prescribed bitter pills as part of the treatment.
  In the case of stricken Cyprus, a '‚¬10-billion lifeline came at the price of depositors in the two biggest banks '' many of them Russian '' paying huge levies on deposits over '‚¬100,000 ($130,000). The deal also effectively shuts down the island's second-largest lender as part of an overhaul of what German politicians, among others, called a "casino" financial sector.
  That plan came after massive uproar over a preliminary agreement a week earlier which would have taken the axe to the savings of much smaller account-holders that was widely seen as German-engineered, though hotly denied by Berlin. It prompted irate demonstrators to take to the streets of the Cypriot capital Nicosia with signs showing Merkel with a Hitler moustache and hundredsof Twitter users to equate today's Germans with the Nazis.
  Respected Spanish daily El Pais went as far as to publish an editorial Sunday stating that Merkel "like Hitler, has declared war on the rest of the continent." It later withdrew the column amid a furious outcry over the inappropriate Nazi comparison.
  There are growing signs that Germany, whose taxpayers foot the bulk of the bailout bills, is growing testy over the mudslinging.
  "It's always the Germans' fault!" the leading tabloid daily Bild said last week. "Yet of all people, we Germans are the target of criticism, even outright hatred, in crisis-plagued countries."
  But the Munich-based daily S¼ddeutsche Zeitung warned on Tuesday that Germany was walking a fine line politically.
  "Careful, careful: Nobody should cave to the populist reflex to apply the same recipe in Cyprus elsewhere, such as in Spain. Germany certainly profits because without the currency union it would slide into crisis. Secondly, if the country continues to be so coldhearted it will pay an immeasurable political price."
  German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle lamented Monday that the "complex negotiations (over Cyprus) were accompanied by shrill slogans in the public arena and the media that were often unjust and hurtful."
  Wolfgang Sch¤uble, Germany's powerful finance minister, offered a bit of schoolyard psychology as an explanation for the Germans being seen as the "bad guys."
  "It's like in school when you get better grades and those having a harder time get a little jealous," he told public television late Monday with a nod to Germany's relative economic strength.
  Merkel, who is vying for a third term in September elections, has tried to maintain an above-the-fray stance, calling the sniping the price of power. Senior German officials note that the United States also garners hatred for its huge global footprint.
  The opposition has struggled to find a line of attack against her in the crisis, with her main challenger Peer Steinbr¼ck this week zeroing in on the old agreement for Cyprus that had already been jettisoned.
  Yet commentators note that Merkel, who routinely breaks popularity records thanks to her stout defence of German interests, had also been guilty of stirring the pot on occasion.
  At the height of the Greek misery, Merkel chided southern Europeans for allegedly retiring at a younger average age than Germans while their governments were seeking a handout.
  AFP/DPA/The Local/mry
NBC's Williams Fawns: Emanuel Brothers 'May Be America's Jewish Kennedys'
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:35
  If the player does not load, please check that you are running the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.
  In an interview with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his two brothers, Hollywood agent Ari and bioethicist Zeke, on Friday's NBC Rock Center, anchor Brian Williams sounded like an adoring fan as he described the prominent family: "Theirs is, after all, a unique American story....It was an unusual family, intellectually rigorous, boisterous, physical, hyper-successful, they may be America's Jewish Kennedys. Their mother marched on Washington and took them to hear Dr. King speak in Chicago."
  On Friday's Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie billed the upcoming segment as "an American success story times three." Williams kept that theme going as he proclaimed: "We're pretty sure they are the most prominent three brothers from any one family in public life in America today....In most families, you hear parents talk about the kid who grew up to be the successful one, or the smart one, or the famous one. But in this family, that's all of them."
  More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.
US Training Syrian Fighters in Jordan: Officials
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:07
  WASHINGTON -- For months now, the United States has been training secular Syrian fighters in Jordan with the goal of bolstering the array of forces battling President Bashar Assad's regime while at the same time strengthening the hand of moderates among the country's fractured opposition, American and foreign officials said. They said the effort is ongoing.
  The training has been taking place since late last year at an unspecified location, concentrating largely on Sunnis and tribal Bedouins who formerly served as members of the Syrian army, officials told The Associated Press. The forces aren't members of the leading rebel group, the Free Syrian Army, they said. The U.S. and others fear the growing role of extremist militia groups in the rebel ranks, including some linked to al-Qaida.
  Officials said the operation is being run by U.S. intelligence. But those in Washington stressed that the U.S. was only providing nonlethal aid at this point, stopping short of a step that is being increasingly advocated by lawmakers in Congress but which the Obama administration opposes.
  Others such as Britain and France are involved, officials added, though it's unclear whether any Western government is providing materiel or other direct military support after two years of civil war that, according to the United Nations, already has killed more than 70,000 people.
  The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the program.
  Officially, the Obama administration has been vague on the subject of what type of military training it may be providing, while insisting that it is doing all it can -- short of providing weapons to the rebels or engaging in its own military intervention - to hasten the demise of the Assad family's four-decade dictatorship.
  White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday the U.S. has "provided some logistical nonlethal support that has also come in handy for the Syrian rebels who are, again, fighting a regime that is not hesitating to use the military might of that regime against its own people.
  "That is something we're going to continue to work to bring to an end," he told reporters.
  It's unclear what effect the training has had in the conflict. It has become a quagmire, with Assad's regime unable to snuff out the rebellion and Syria's opposition incapable thus far of delivering any serious blow to the ruling government's grip on Damascus and control over much of the country.
  Some of the Syrians the U.S. is involved with are in turn training other Syrians inside the country, officials said.
  They declined to provide more information because they said that would go too deep into intelligence matters. Defense Department officials insisted the Pentagon isn't involved with any military training or arms provisions to the Syrian rebels, either directly or indirectly. The CIA declined to comment.
  The New York Times reported Monday that the CIA helped Arab governments and Turkey sharply increase their military aid to Syria's opposition in recent months, with secret airlifts of arms and equipment. It cited traffic data, officials in several countries and rebel commanders, and said the airlift began on a small scale a year ago but has expanded steadily to more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari planes landing at Turkish and Jordanian airports.
  The training in Jordan, however, suggests the U.S. help is aimed somewhat at enhancing the rebels' capacity in southern Syria, the birthplace of the revolution two years ago when teenagers in the sleepy agricultural outpost of Dara'a scribbled graffiti on a wall and were tossed into jail, spurring Syria's own version of an Arab Spring uprising. Much of the violence since, however, has been in the northern part of the country, where rebels have scored several military successes after the Assad regime cracked down brutally on peaceful protesters.
  Despite months of U.S. and international support to build a cohesive political movement, Syria's fractured opposition is still struggling to rally Syrians behind a common post-Assad vision. And the opposition coalition appears as much hampered by its political infighting as its military deficiencies against an Assad regime arsenal of tanks, fighter jets and Scud missiles.
  The coalition's president, Mouaz al-Khatib, resigned his position Sunday because of what he described as restrictions on his work and frustration with the level of international aid. He said Monday he would still represent the opposition this week in Doha, where the Gulf state of Qatar will host a two-day Arab League summit starting Tuesday.
  Al-Khatib's resignation comes only days after the opposition chose Ghassan Hitto, a long-time Texas resident, to head its interim government after intense wrangling over posts and influence that U.S. officials say has strained the opposition's unity and caused friction among its primary benefactors Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.
  It's also unclear how al-Khatib's departure will affect the U.S. goal of political negotiations with amenable members of the Assad regime to end the civil war, given the moderate preacher's support for talks. Much of the Syrian opposition, including Hitto, rejects such talks.
  -- Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Lara Jakes in Washington and Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
  (C) Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Federal Register | Prospective Grant of Exclusive License: Papilloma Pseudovirus and Virus-Like Particles as a Delivery System for Human Cancer Therapeutics and Diagnostics
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:13
  This is notice, in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 209(c)(1) and 37 CFR Part 404.7(a)(1)(i), that the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, is contemplating the grant of an exclusive license to Aura BioSciences to practice the inventions embodied in U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/928,495 entitled, ''Papillomavirus Pseudoviruses for Detection and Therapy of Tumors'' filed May 8, 2007 [HHS Ref. No. E-186-2007/0-US-01], U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/065,897 entitled ''Papillomavirus Pseudoviruses for Detection and Therapy of Tumors'' filed February 14, 2008 [HHS Ref. No. E-186-2007/1-US-01], PCT Application No. PCT/US2008/062296 ''Papillomavirus Pseudoviruses for Detection and Therapy of Tumors'' filed May 1, 2008 [HHS Ref. No. E-186-2007/2-PCT-01], Australian Patent Application No. 2008251615 entitled ''Papillomavirus Pseudoviruses for Detection and Therapy of Tumors'' filed May 1, 2008 [HHS Ref. No. E-186-2007/2-AU-02], Canadian Patent Application No. 2,686,990 entitled ''Papillomavirus Pseudoviruses for Detection and Therapy of Tumors'' filed May 1, 2008 [HHS Ref. No. E-186-2007/2-CA-03], European Patent Application No. 08747407.8 entitled ''Papillomavirus Pseudoviruses for Detection and Therapy of Tumors'' filed May 1, 2008 [HHS Ref. No. E-186-2007/2-EP-04], U.S. Patent Application No. 12/598,684 entitled, ''Papillomavirus Pseudoviruses for Detection and Therapy of Tumors'' filed February 8, 2010 [HHS Ref. No. E-186-2007/2-US-05], and US Patent Application No. 13/763,365 entitled, ''Papilloma Pseudovirus for Detection and Therapy of Tumors'' filed February 8, 2013 [HHS Ref. No. E-186-2007/2-US-06] and all continuing applications and foreign counterparts. The patent rights in these inventions have been assigned to the United States of America.
  The prospective exclusive license territory may be worldwide and the field of use may be limited to the development and use of the Licensed Patent Rights in combination with Licensee's proprietary nanosphere encapsulation technology for the treatment, diagnosis and imaging of cancer tumors and metastases as well as their respective pre-cursor dysplasia states. Licensee's proprietary nanosphere encapsulation technology is understood to consist of: (1) Methods for manipulating the outer proteins of human papillomavirus-derived nanoparticles to create particles targeted to solid tumors and distant metastases; and (2) enhancements for the delivery of particles created by Licensee's proprietary technology.
  Only written comments and/or applications for a license which are received by the NIH Office of Technology Transfer on or before April 25, 2013 will be considered.
  Requests for copies of the patent application, inquiries, comments, and other materials relating to the contemplated exclusive license should be directed to: Jennifer Wong, M.S., Senior Licensing and Patenting Manager, Cancer Branch, Office of Technology Transfer, National Institutes of Health, 6011 Executive Boulevard, Suite 325, Rockville, MD 20852-3804; Telephone: (301) 435-4633; Facsimile: (301) 402-0220; Email: wongje@mail.nih.gov.
  There is extensive literature on the use of viral vectors, particularly those based on the adenovirus, to increase the potency of anti-tumor gene therapy. However, these approaches have had limited success because of limited anti-tumor effects and unacceptable toxicity. This invention describes the use of human papillomavirus pseudoviruses (PsV) as a cancer diagnostic and therapeutic. Preliminary studies showed that PsVs bind to ovarian tumor cells while normal tissues were not affected. PsVs does not infect several other normal intact tissues but continues to selectively infect additional cancer cells. This technology could be an effective anti-tumor therapy because it has shown increased infection of cancer cells with an inability to infect normal cells thereby reducing potential toxicity to patients. In addition to a potential anti-cancer therapeutic, this technology could also be used as a diagnostic tool in the detection of tumor masses. Detection can be achieved through the use of fluorescent dye coupled particles of PsVs that have preferential binding to tumor tissues and not normal tissues.
  The prospective exclusive license will be royalty bearing and will comply with the terms and conditions of 35 U.S.C. 209 and 37 CFR Part 404.7. The prospective exclusive license may be granted unless within thirty (30) days from the date of this published notice, the NIH receives written evidence and argument that establishes that the grant of the license would not be consistent with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 209 and 37 CFR Part 404.7.
  Applications for a license in the field of use filed in response to this notice will be treated as objections to the grant of the contemplated exclusive license. Comments and objections submitted to this notice will not be made available for public inspection and, to the extent permitted by law, will not be released under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552.
  Dated: March 18, 2013.
  Richard U. Rodriguez,
  Director, Division of Technology Development and Transfer,Office of Technology Transfer, National Institutes of Health.
  [FR Doc. 2013-06837 Filed 3-25-13; 8:45 am]
  BILLING CODE 4140-01-P
The Future of TV--Terrestrial Broadcasting Or Video-On-Demand Over Cellular Networks?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: New on MIT Technology Review
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:28
  Replacing terrestrial broadcasts with a cellular network capable of video-on-demand won't make sense unless viewing habits change dramatically, concludes a new study on the future of television
  One of the factors limiting the future of communications is bandwidth. In particular, mobile providers are greedily eyeing the 470-790 MHz frequencies currently used for conventional TV broadcasts.
  The current model is to send the same data to all destinations, a process called broadcasting. So everybody watches the same content at the same time. The advantages of this system is that it guarantees everybody the same high level of service since they are all bathed in the same signal. It's also relatively cheap to continue with because most people already have the necessary receiving equipment.
  By contrast, there is a growing interest in sending different data streams to each user over a cellular network, a process known as unicasting. The big advantage here is that users get video-on-demand allowing them to watch whatever they want, whenever they like.
  But there are disadvantages as well. It's much harder to guarantee all users the same high level of performance, particularly those in rural areas at the edge of the network. What's more, the infrastructure necessary to provide this cellular service is expensive both for providers to build and for users who will need to upgrade their own kit.
  The question is how these various factors balance out given reasonable assumptions about future demand.
  Today, Lei Shi at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and a few pals provide an answer. These guys have a name for the unicast-dominated option over a cellular network''they call it CellTV. Their sobering conclusion is that while CellTV has benefits, it is by no means clear that it makes sense to switch in the near future.
  These guys approach the problem by modelling the future evolution of cellular networks and terrestrial TV broadcasting in Sweden. They argue that Sweden is an excellent example because it has a good combination of isolated rural districts and densely populated towns. It also has a highly developed cellular network as well as terrestrial TV coverage that rivals the best in Europe.
  Lei and co begin with the statistics showing how these two systems are used now. They then make reasonable assumptions about the advances that will be possible with cellular networks by 2020 and then explore whether it makes sense to switch to a cellular-based TV system by then.
  The key factor in all this is the way people watch television. Currently, a large number of viewers watch a small number of channels. This is ideal for a conventional terrestrial broadcasting system. However, video on demand allows a large number of channels to each be watched by a small number of viewers, a system that is ideal for cellular-based unicasting.
  So a crucial question is how viewing habits are likely to change by 2020. Unfortunately, Lei and co do not have an answer to this. ''Our analysis shows that CellTV can be bene¬cial if the current trend towards more specialized programming, more local contents, and more on-demand requests, continues,'' they say.
  But they also say: ''Our work also shows that CellTV is not effective in replacing terrestrial TV broadcasting for the current TV viewing patterns. If the change in the TV service is more modest and linear content is still the major part of the offering, then the gain would be limited.''
  In that case, the deciding factor will be the cost of changing the system. When all the costs are added up, their prediction is decidedly conservative. ''It is doubtful that the expected spectrum saving can motivate the investments in both cellular sites and TV receivers,'' say Lei and co.
  So by this analysis, we're going to have conventional terrestrial TV broadcasts for the foreseeable future.
  The problem, of course, is that this is a chicken and egg situation. It's hard to generate demand when the CellTV system does not exist and without the demand it's hard to justify the investment.
  There are other possibilities though. One is that the evolution of shortrange services, such as the next generation of wifi, will drive demand for unicast services and thereby shape the future of television. Another is that TV over fixed line broadband will come to dominate making terrestrial broadcasting obsolete. Only time will tell.
  Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1303.4924: CellTV - on the Bene¬t of TV Distribution over Cellular Networks: A Case Study
Won't get fooled again: Drummers use their hands to create musical illusions
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:22
  The song remains the same. Or does it? In a new research article published in Percussive Notes, assistant professor Michael Schutz discusses the use of affective gestures to influence how we hear a performance
  John Bonham. Keith Moon. Buddy Rich. The best drummers in modern music history had it all '' groundbreaking technique, lightning speed and an unmistakable panache when it came to performing.
  A new paper from assistant professor Michael Schutz, however, outlines how certain percussionists use ancillary gestures (those not strictly required for sound creation) to "trick" the audience into seeing and hearing things that simply aren't there.
  In a research article appearing this month in Percussive Notes, Schutz and co-author Fiona Manning outline the impact of using ancillary gestures to create an auditory illusion during a performance. Using the marimba as a test case, researchers found that notes may sound "longer" when accompanied by an extended swing of the arm, or "shorter" when the movement is subtle - even if the note itself is exactly the same.
  This video is not supported by your browser at this time.
  Michael Schutz outlines the concept of a musical illusion during a past episode of Cable 14's Hamilton Life.
  "Great performers understand the balance between useful communicative gestures and distracting, unhelpful motions" explains Schutz, who directs the MAPLE (Music, Acoustics, Perception & LEarning) Lab. "It feels like trickery, but raises an important question: 'Where does music truly exist? Outside our ears, or between them?'"According to Schutz, our perception of a musical note is affected by a performer's "post-impact motion." In other words, the distance, time and velocity of the movement after striking the instrument has a big effect on how the preceding note sounds.
  He uses world-famous guitarist and composer Pete Townshend as another example. Renowned for his "windmill" guitar stroke with The Who, Townshend's post-impact motion may have actually "tricked" audiences into thinking the chords were louder and resonating longer than they actually were. Not that the band needed any help in putting on a great show.
  "You could say it's just a quirk of someone's performance characteristics, but it's all part of the listening experience," says Schutz. "The gestures can play an important role in shaping our listening experience."
  During a live musical performance, it's important to note the difference between 'sound' and our 'perception of sound', he explains. Our internal perception of the external world is the final arbiter of the musical experience. In other words, even if the entire audience receives the same auditory information, they will often experience it in different ways.
  "Ultimately, the literal acoustic information is less important than how it is perceived," adds Schutz.
  More information: Want to see a marimba and other percussion instruments in action? The McMaster University Percussion Ensemble will perform at Robinson Memorial Theatre on Tuesday, March 26. The concert is free and open to the public, and will begin at 7 p.m.
  Provided byMcMaster University
What Dijsselbloem Really Said: Full "On The Record" Transcript.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: WT news feed
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:19
  Hopefully the memory of the new Eurogroup head, who in a one day lost more credibility than his admittedly lying predecessor Juncker ever had, will be jogged courtesy of this full transcript provided by Reuters and the FT of what he told two reporters - on the record - and for the whole world to read. Because, by now, we are confident everyone has had more than enough with watching the entire Eurozone rapidly and tragically turn itself into a complete and utter mythomaniac, kletpocratic circus.
  To clarify what Dijsselbloem said, we've decided to post a transcript of the portion of the interview dealing with how the eurozone might deal with bank failures in the future in light of the Cyprus example. The interview we conducted alongside Brussels bureau chief Luke Baker of Reuters (@LukeReuters) lasted about 45 minutes, and the portion on bank resolution lasted for about 10 of those minutes. The interview started out with some Cyprus-specific questions '' like how capital controls might work, whether Dijsselbloem had learned any lessons form the Cyprus experience '' and then shifted to a discussion about whether north-south relations were hampering EU decision making. That's when Baker asked the first question about whether Cyprus set a precedent for future bank rescues...
  Q: To what extent does the decision taken last night end up setting a template for bank resolution going forward?
  A: What we should try to do and what we've done last night is what I call ''pushing back the risks''. In times of crisis when a risk certainly turns up in a banking sector or an economy, you really have very little choice: you try to take that risk away, and you take it on the public debt. You say, ''Okay, we'll deal with it, give it to us.''
  Now that the situation is more calm and the financial markets seem to have become more steady and easier, we should start pushing back the risks. If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be: ''Ok, what are you the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?'' If the bank can't do it, then we'll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders. We'll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank. And if necessary the uninsured deposit holders: ''What can you do in order to save your own banks?''
  In other words, taking away the risk from the financial sector and taking it onto the public shoulders is not the right approach. If we want to have a healthy, sound financial sector, the only way is to say: ''Look, there where you take on the risks, you must deal with them. And if you can't deal with them, you shouldn't have taken them on and the consequence may be that it's end of story.'' That is an approach that I think we should, now that we're out of the heat of the crisis, consequently take.
  I've tried to do so as far as I could in nationalising the SNS bank in the Netherlands. We've completely wiped out the shareholders and the junior bondholders. We have to bring down the tab to be picked up by the taxpayers.
  Q: What does that say for other countries in the eurozone that have very highly-leveraged banking sectors, Luxembourg, Malta even? Much larger than Cyprus'.
  A: It means: deal with it before you get in trouble. Strengthen your banks, fix your balance sheets, and realise that if a bank gets in trouble, the response will no longer automatically be we'll come and take away your problems. We're going to push them back. That's the first response that we need. Push them back. You deal with them.
  Q: That sounds a whole lot like what people were suggesting before Lehman Brothers. They made a bad investment in Lehman Brothers; let it go down. And we saw what happened after that. Is there any risk that this change in thinking risks coming back to the 'too big to fail''...
  A: I think we have to realise before we come to a decision can we let a bank fall over, is it too big to fail, there are a lot of things that can be done. To start with, we should not waste any time in fixing balance sheets. Banks have to build up their reserves, have to become much more stable and strong within themselves.
  Secondly, we need mechanisms to deal with risks in terms of: if a bank is in trouble, can you take out the bits you want to save and let go of the bits you don't want to save, the ''living will'' approach.
  Thirdly, if a bank does get in trouble, to who can we shift the account? Who's going to pay for it? That's what I was talking about just now, to shareholders, etc. Then there comes a point where you, as a government, may have to step in, but that should be the order. You take preventive measures, you make sure banks are more stable, more robust. If there still is a problem, you need mechanisms to address them, to pull banks apart, etc. You need to bail in those people whose equity is involved, etc.
  Q: This is basically the [Michel] Barnier proposal [for a common EU bank resolution regime]. The priority seems to be removing that moral hazard.
  Q2: Those proposals now look like they're going to be delayed, I think, from Barnier. In a way, you've had a chance with Cyprus as a kind of test case, if you like. Does it feel like that?
  A: Like I said, it's very hard to do this if there's a lot of nervousness in the markets and there is still a crisis atmosphere. Now that the crisis atmosphere is disappearing '' we had a little upheaval last week after the levy discussion '' but looking at it a couple of days later now, a week later now, the markets have really been very wise in responding to this whole levy thing. So now that the crisis seems to fade out, I think we have to dare a little more in dealing with this.
  Q: It just makes me think of one thing, off the cuff, which has to do with the ESM [European Stability Mechanism] and the direct recapitalisation of banks. Does that change the kind of calculus in terms of how that is used going down the road? There have been suggestions it may never be used if you have fully-functioning bail-in systems. Is that what we're saying?
  A: I think that's what we should aim at. We should aim at a situation where we will never need to even consider direct recap. The interesting thing of course that in the Spanish situation, because that where the demand for a direct recap instrument started, from the Spanish banking crisis. We are now dealing with the Spanish banking sector '' restructuring it, recapitalising it, bad bank, some bail-in '' without this instrument. If we have even more instruments in terms of bail-in and how far we can go in bail-in, the need for direct recap will become smaller and smaller.
  I can just repeat what I said. I think that the approach has to be: Let's deal with the banks within the banks first, before looking at public money, be it direct recap or any other instrument coming from the public side. Banks should basically be able to save themselves, or at least restructure or recapitalise themselves as far as possible.
  Q: Is that new philosophy, was it hard among the 17 [finance ministers], are there people who it's been hard to convince this is the right approach?
  A: Well, there is still nervousness, understandably, about can we pull it off, what will it mean in the financial markets, how will the financial markets react to the eurozone, to the financial institutions in the eurozone, etc.
  That was one of the reasons why, last week, we didn't go down the bail-in track [in Cyprus] but went down the levy track. Now we're going down the bail-in track, and I'm pretty confident the markets will see this as a sensible, very concentrated and direct approach instead of the more general approach [of] let's levy everyone to gather the money for the banks. So yes, that that is a sort of shift in approach.
  Q: Is this something that you've sort of market tested, if you like, with the market? You've had a lot of feedback? You just said you feel very confident that the market will respond positively to the bail-in approach. Is that the feedback you've had?
  A: You get two kinds of feedback. There's the economic analysts that say this is a sensible approach, it makes sense. And then there's more the investors' reaction, who will say: ''Look, we're not to going to pay the tab, are we? If you do so, we will make our financing more expensive.''
  My reaction would be: Maybe it's inevitable that if you push back the risks, risks will be priced. Because if I finance a bank and I know if the bank will get in trouble I will be hit and I will lose my money, I will put a price on that. I think that's a sound economic principle. And having cheap money because the risks will be covered by the government and I will always get my money back is not leaving to the right decisions in the financial sector, it's not leading to the right risk management in the financial sector.
  So there's those two reactions from the financial markets: the analysts who are saying, let's be real, this is a sensible approach, and the investors. My response is: If risks are going to be priced, then that is probably the right way to do it. It will force all financial institutions as well as investors to think about the risk they are taking on. They will have to realise it may also hurt them, the risks might come towards them instead of pushing them away.
COMMENT: No template, but ESM is last port of call | Reuters
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  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:17
  By Divyang Shah
  Tue Mar 26, 2013 10:30am EDT
  LONDON, March 26 (IFR) - Strictly speaking, eurozone policy makers are correct in saying that Cyprus is not a template for bank restructuring. Which class of investor will take the hit cannot be determined in advance, as it depends on who can contribute the most to reducing the total bailout cost for the eurozone taxpayer. But there is an underlying thesis building that when the next eurozone bank restructuring comes around, the ESM will once again be the last port of call.
  It is worth taking a look at what Dijsselbloem said beyond the headline-grabbing "template" quote. "We should aim at a situation where we will never need to even consider direct recapitalisation," he explained, highlighting the motivation not to use the ESM for that purpose. This is not new, as in early March Reuters reported the ESM head as saying that deep reservations from some European states could ultimately stop the ESM from being used for bank recapitalisation.
  Germany had already said that it wanted to limit ESM funds used to recapitalise banks to EUR80bn. Regling offered us a possible explanation, saying that "if money from the ESM goes into saving banks, then it reduces the ESM's capacity to make loans to needy states." Clearly, the concern is that helping one sovereign with its bank recapitalisation would open the floodgates and reopen the debate over whether the ESM has sufficient firepower. This in turn will raise concerns over an eventual dilution of German creditworthiness, as well as over the weak link of France in the ESM self insurance chain.
  So even if there is no template, now we know the rationale. The game plan, according to Dijsselbloem, is that if a bank is in trouble then "we'll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we'll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders." For Spain's Bankia, that meant bailing in hybrid debt and preference shareholders, and for Cyprus the target was uninsured depositors and bondholders too.
  While bank stocks have fallen and the cost of insuring financials has gone up, the real impact of Dijsselbloem's comments won't be felt until another bank restructuring comes onto the radar screens. This is the new way the eurozone is looking to disconnect financial sector from sovereign risk. Bank stocks, senior debt and bank CDS will now have to discount a higher probability of being bailed in. (Reporting By Divyang Shah, editing by Julian Baker)
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UPDATE 1-Cyprus wants ESM ability to recapitalise banks directly | Reuters
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  Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:54am EDT
  NICOSIA Oct 19 (Reuters) - Cyprus wants the euro zone's ESM bailout fund to be able to recapitalise its banks directly, it said on Friday.
  Finance Minister Vassos Shiarly told reporters Cyprus wanted to be able to transfer any assumed debt for the recapitalisation of its banks to the European Stability Mechanism, once it became active.
  The issue would be of crucial importance to the island in its negotiations with international lenders, he said.
  "This will be one of our firm demands in the final discussions with the troika," Shiarly said, referring to lenders from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. "It is crucial for Cyprus."
  Cyprus sought international help after its banking sector was battered by its exposure to debt-crippled Greece earlier this year. Fellow euro zone members Greece, Portugal and Ireland have also taken international aid and Spain has received help specifically for its banking sector.
  Some estimates put the bill for recapitalising banks at 15 billion euros -- almost equalling Cyprus's 17 billion euro ($22 billion) GDP and raising questions about debt sustainability.
  Earlier Friday German Chancellor Angela Merkel said banks could not be retrospectively recapitalised via the ESM, which is the euro zone's permanent bailout fund..
VIDEO-Summary Eurogroup - 25/03/2013 - YouTube
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Jeroen Dijsselbloem, President of the Eurogroup - Eurozone
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  Jeroen Dijsselbloem, born in Eindhoven on 29 March 1966, lives in Wageningen with his partner and two children.
  Education1985: Secondary school, Eindhoven
  1985-1991: Degree in agricultural economics, Wageningen University (majors: business economics, agricultural policy and social and economic history)
  1991: Business economics research towards a master's degree, University College Cork, Ireland
  CareerIn 1992 Jeroen Dijsselbloem worked as an assistant to the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) Members of the European Parliament in Brussels. He joined the staff of the parliamentary PvdA in The Hague in 1993, where he worked for three years as a policy officer in the area of spatial planning (including the environment, agriculture and nature).
  Jeroen Dijsselbloem sat on the Wageningen municipal council from 1994 to 1997.
  In 1996, he became an advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries in The Hague, a position he held for two years. He was then appointed deputy head of that ministry's advisory section, where he remained until 2000.
  Jeroen Dijsselbloem was a member of the House of Representatives from 28 March 2000 to 22 May 2002 and from 19 November 2002 until taking up his post as minister. He was the party's spokesperson on education and youth and covered a broad range of other policy issues. From 25 April 2007 to 22 December 2008 he chaired the parliamentary investigation committee on educational reform.
  On 5 November 2012 Jeroen Dijsselbloem was appointed Minister of Finance in the Rutte-Asscher government.
  Jeroen Dijsselbloem has been a member of the PvdA since 1985. He became the deputy leader of the PvdA parliamentary party in 2008.
Eurozone Chief Says Savings Accounts In European Countries Will Be Raided To Keep Euro From Failing'...
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  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:00
  Don't think it can't happen here.
  Via Telegraph:
  Savings accounts in Spain, Italy and other European countries will be raided if needed to preserve Europe's single currency by propping up failing banks, a senior eurozone official has announced.
  The new policy will alarm hundreds of thousands of British expatriates who live and have transferred their savings, proceeds from house sales and other assets to eurozone bank accounts in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.
  The euro fell on global markets after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, announced that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future banking crises across Europe.
  ''If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be 'Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?','' he said.
  ''If the bank can't do it, then we'll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we'll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders.''
Cops Pay Convicted Sex Offender $100,000 Dollars To Set-Up Terror Patsy
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"Then You Have To Realize There's Something Sick & Disgusting About This Country!"
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"It's Not Paranoid To Believe Black Helicopters Are Going To Swoop In & Take Everybody's Guns"
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"NO BANK ACCOUNT ANYWHERE IN THE EUROZONE IS SAFE"
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Russian billionaire cash already gone from Cyprus
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  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:50
  Osiris sends -Yesterday, we first reported on something very disturbing (at least to Cyprus' citizens): despite the closed banks (which will mostly reopen tomorrow, while the two biggest soon to be liquidated banks Laiki and BoC will be shuttered until Thursday) and the capital controls, the local financial system has been leaking cash. Lots and lots of cash.Alas, we did not have much granularity or details on who or where these illegal transfers were conducted with. Today, courtesy of a follow up by Reuters, we do.The result, at least for Europe, is quite scary because let's recall that the primary political purpose of destroying the Cyprus financial system was simply to punish and humiliate Russian billionaire oligarchs who held tens of billions in "unsecured" deposits with the island nation's two biggest banks.As it turns out, these same oligrachs may have used the one week hiatus period of total chaos in the banking system to transfer the bulk of the cash they had deposited with one of the two main Cypriot banks, in the process making the whole punitive point of collapsing the Cyprus financial system entirely moot.
Mark Zuckerberg to enter politics with political campaign group
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  Earlier this month he and 99 other chief executives wrote a letter to President Barack Obama and leaders in Congress, urging them to ensure that plans currently being drawn up address this problem.
  "Many high-skilled immigrants who want to stay in America are forced to leave because they are unable to obtain permanent visas," they wrote. "Some do not bother to come in the first place".
  Mr Zuckerberg is also poised to further upset Left-wing admirers whom he shocked earlier this year by hosting a fundraiser in his California home for Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey.
  His new campaign group is to be fronted by Jon Lerner and Rob Jesmer, political consultants from the Right wing of the Republican party, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
  Mr Lerner once produced an advertisement dismissing American liberals as "latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading" freaks.
  However Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary for Bill Clinton and PR chief for Facebook, will also be involved in the campaign group, it was reported.
  Senators from both parties are thrashing out details of a bill to overhaul the US immigration system, which Mr Obama named as his top priority after being sworn in for a second White House term.
  The plan is expected to include a "pathway" to US citizenship for at least some of the 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to be living in the country.
'Geen vervanger Gordon'
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  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:45
  'Geen vervanger voor Gordon in LA The Voices' - Priv(C) | Het laatste Priv(C) nieuws leest u op Prive.nl van De Telegraaf [prive]Uw browser ondersteunt geen javascript of javascript staat uitgeschakeld. Hierdoor kunnen er cookies geplaatst worden waar u geen toestemming voor heeft gegeven.
  Uw browser ondersteunt geen javascript of javascript staat uitgeschakeld. Hierdoor kunnen er cookies geplaatst worden waar u geen toestemming voor heeft gegeven.
Ben Carson doesn't want to be president, he wants to be on TV
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  Source: TheBlaze.com - Blog
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:45
  Some news that will let many conservatives and certainly the editors of the Wall Street Journal down. Dr. Ben Carson doesn't really want to be president. He wants to be a TV star.
  ''I think everyone needs to hear what I am talking about,'' Carson, who gained admiration on the right for his National Prayer Breakfast speech last month, told the Washington Post in a Sunday feature. And he let loose that media, not the presidency, is the best way to do that'...
  After a several-day onslaught from fans and the media, many wanting to know his potential political plans, Carson has eased away from suggestions he may have his eyes on the White House. The 61-year-old doctor now says the likelihood of a presidential run is ''incredibly small.'' What he really wants is a second career in television when he retires from Johns Hopkins later this year.
  ''Maybe if you write about it in your article, somebody will say, 'Let's do it,''' Carson told thePost of his hopes to be discovered as a TV pro.
  After Carson's Prayer Breakfast speech, the Wall Street Journaleditorialized: ''Ben Carson for President.''
  @eScarry
Operations in Afghanistan, Part 2
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  Brookings Institution
  General John Allen talked about his time from mid-2011 through February 2013 as commander of the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan.'‚Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon, just back from a recent research trip to .. Read MoreGeneral John Allen talked about his time from mid-2011 through February 2013 as commander of the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan.'‚Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon, just back from a recent research trip to Afghanistan, joined General Allen in a discussion on the mission has progressed and what to expect in 2013.
  31 minutes |
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"America's Children Deserve An Up Or Down Vote On The Assault Weapons Ban!"
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Journalist Apologize For Misleading World Into War With Iraq (Washington Post Does NOT Apologize)
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The Cyprus Eurocrisis: The Beginning of the End of the Eurozone?
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  Source: Global Research
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:38
  The Cyprus crisis is essentially a Eurozone crisis which threatens the very foundations of the European Union (EU). This small island economy, only 0.2 per cent of the Eurozone, is proving to be 'systemic' at the political, social and economic level. The Cyprus crisis is a manifestation of a deep crisis of democracy and equality in EU institutions, which subordinates the democratic will of the people to finance interests. More significantly, it is threatening the European integration project itself as it is only the beginning of a process.
  In the early hours of Saturday, 16 March 2013, the Eurogroup resolved that the only way for Cyprus to receive its promised banking rescue was to impose a hair-cut tax on deposits including guaranteed deposits (i.e. under '‚¬100,000). This was an unprecedented confiscation of 6.75 per cent of deposits under '‚¬100,000 and 9.9 per cent for those with over '‚¬100,000. It amounted to shock therapy-type liquidation of the banking and financial services of a small island state economy with a banking sector that was (and is no more) 8 times larger than the country's GDP.
  The Cyprus Crisis: A Chronicle of Eurocrisis ForetoldThe Eurogroup decision has already destroyed the finance sector; eventually, there will be an exodus of foreign, most notably Russian companies and deposits from Cyprus, despite the capital controls and emergency measures introduced. The Republic of Cyprus (RoC) is no longer an isolated island: it may prove to be deeply 'systemic,' triggering a domino effect for the periphery of the EU.
  Cyprus, with its complex social and political history, has to be located within its turbulent regional context: it is the border zone of the EU with the Middle East and North Africa. The significant discovery of hydrocarbons off the southern coast of Cyprus and regional wars over the Middle East, the civil war in Syria as proxy war between Israel/West versus Iran and the repercussions for Lebanon, the Arab revolts and the recent Obama-brokered apology of the Israeli Prime Minister to Ankara for the Mavi Marmara massacre, an attempt to mend the regional rivalry between Turkey and Israel '' all these recent developments have a significant part to play in the future of the conflict zones in the Middle East.
  With the transformations in the political and economic architecture of the globe, the roles of global, regional and national forces in the area, its frontiers and fault-lines are also being transformed. Declining U.S. hegemony increases regional rivalries and redefines the fault-lines in regional geopolitical, energy and security contests.
  The Eurogroup Decision on the Cyprus Crisis and its Global ImplicationsIn the regional power games which are articulated within the context of Eurozone politics, the leaders of the Eurogroup seemed to have grossly underestimated and miscalculated some crucial factors.
  Firstly, legal implications aside, the decision over the haircut of the guaranteed deposits was met with severe indignation by the Cypriot people and was condemned across the globe; it was simply politically and socially unacceptable, and accordingly unanimously rejected, causing a shockwave. It remains unclear whose initiative this was between the Cypriot authorities, the Troika or Germany. The fact remains that all parties agreed in the end.
  Secondly, the decision has not only permanently damaged the country's economy, but was also a huge blow to the confidence in international banking in the EU as a whole, unfolding a long crisis with no-one knows what end-result: international investors can no longer trust EU banks. The small economy of Cyprus has not only joined the southern European 'PIGS.' It was unfortunately selected as the 'guinea pig' for a sick experiment of the new 'bail-in proposals' contained in the relevant draft Directive.[1] The draft directive provides:
  ''The bail-in tool whereby the bank would be recapitalised with shareholders wiped out or diluted, and creditors would have their claims reduced or converted to shares. '... To this end, banks would be required to have a minimum percentage of their total liabilities in the shape of instruments eligible for bail-in. If triggered, they would be written down in a pre-defined order in terms of seniority of claims in order for the institution to regain viability.''
  This was essentially a shock therapy treatment that left everyone stunned. As the Economist remarked:
  ''The biggest question Cypriots are asking is perhaps the hardest of all to answer: why are they having to resolve all this in a single weekend? After all, Cyprus asked for a bail-out last June. And a country can hardly change its business model and restructure its two biggest banks in just two days. It will be a long time before Cypriots forgive this week's blunders of the Eurogroup and of their own parliament and government.''
  Perhaps we can now understand what the recent smears accusing Cyprus of being a money laundering country were about. They were preparing the ground for the 'treatment' to come. The fact that the driving force were Dutch and German political leaders is quite remarkable: Germany has an estimated '‚¬50 to '‚¬60-billion ($65-billion to $78-billion (U.S.)) stemming from illegal activities such as blackmail, drugs or arms trading, while the European Commission has launched an infringement procedure in response to Germany's reticence and non-pursuit of money-laundering that might enable the funding of terrorist activities.[2] Interestingly, Russian investors bank with German and Dutch banks such as Rabobank, Deutsche Bank, ABN AMRO Bank etc.; so targeting Russian investors in Cyprus makes a lot of sense.
  Third, as the Troika's decision, a sword of Damocles, hangs over Cyprus, either scenario within the current Eurozone/EU regime will prove to be nightmarish. However, for the 'EU partners' it may well prove to be the beginning of a meltdown of the Eurozone, deeply wounding the EU integration project. The so-called 'optimistic scenario,' i.e. under duress a 'new deal,' as a desperate damage limitation exercise to avoid bankruptcy would mean that the Republic of Cyprus would be transformed into a protectorate of unending economic and social austerity. The Eurogroup proposal has essentially dissolved the country's offshore banking industry. Cypriot banks hold '‚¬68-billion in deposits, including '‚¬38-billion in accounts of more than '‚¬100,000 '' enormous sums for an island of 1.1 million people. It is estimated that the decision on Saturday, despite its rejection by the Cypriot Parliament, has slashed the Cypriot GDP by up to a quarter; unemployment is expected to rise to 20 per cent (currently it already stands at 15 per cent and 57 per cent for under 25s). We are talking about an economic and social crisis reaching proportions as high as those that resulted from the Turkish invasion in 1974, which left the county and people divided by a barbed wire with 34 per cent of its territory under the control of Ankara.[3] The so-called 'pessimistic scenario' is that Cyprus will be forced out of the Eurozone; a new Cypriot pound would be massively devalued and living standards would drop dramatically over night. But in the long run (i.e. in the next five years) the country might well bounce back, as happened with Iceland.
  Unaccountable BankersIn the case of Cyprus, at the heart of the establishment was the banking system, particularly the two big banks that are closing now or being restructured as per the second Eurogroup decision following the Cypriot Parliamentary rejection of what was on the table: Laiki Popular Bank is already wound up; deposits of the Bank of Cyprus will receive a haircut of over 40 per cent. The pro-EU Greek-Cypriot economic and political elites, who were fully committed to EU integration, benefited from the network of business and services around the two major banks '' professionals such as lawyers, accountants, financial and insurance consultants as well as politicians and media tycoons were all in their pay roll. EU accession in 2004 did little if anything to make the bankers accountable; on the contrary, the so-called institutional 'independence' of the Central Bank, that made the Governor of the CB accountable to the ECB rather than having any democratic accountability to the people who would be immediately affected, has made the bankers more unaccountable. A large part of profits of the years 2004 to 2008 were invested in the financial sector where rates of return on capital were increased. In 2009, three billion Euros were given to the banks to boost liquidity in response to the crisis. Instead of fixing the long-term problems of the sector and providing the Cypriot economy with its badly needed liquidity, they chose to take high risk investment in Greek Bonds in the secondary market. During the crisis years, private banks invested heavily in Greek bonds with speculative intent and following bad advice from the Cypriot Central Bank.[4] As a result, the RoC banks were downgraded by international markets.
  Cyprus entered the Eurozone in 2008, four years after accession. Private consumption was the growth engine of the Cypriot economy during the recovery years 2004-2008, although the average real wage did not increase. This apparent contradiction was resolved through plentiful lending to workers' households. Consumer spending and residential investments were fuelled by loans to workers, although the purchasing power of their wages remained constant. Therefore, at the end of this period (2008), profitability was high after five years of constant wages and income redistribution, workers' households were highly indebted, private consumption was approximately 20 per cent higher than in 2004, residential investment and banking profitability were at historical highs, and the current account deficit was unsustainable. The recovery and boom of the years 2004-2008 achieved its exploding profits and financial euphoria at the cost of a historically high current account deficit and the high debt burden of households. These are the reasons that the RoC economy is now in a process of adjustment with falling real wages and domestic demand, slow growth and exploding unemployment, decreasing imports and a current account deficit.
  It is a paradoxical fact that it was during the time when AKEL was in Government that the first austerity measures were introduced: a pre-agreement was forced on Demetris Christofias. The agreement was reached between the Cypriot government and the Troika as regards the terms of the bailout agreement and the measures introduced, even while the Memorandum of Understanding was still being negotiated. The terms included salary cuts and pay freezes in the public sector, an increase in the retirement age, and an increase of the working hours of teachers as well as a number of other measures.
  Many experts and scholars repeatedly warned at the time that the most serious threat to economic growth derived from the exposure of the two larger banks to the Greek crisis '' the only way out was public ownership and control of these banks. Now this is forced on the RoC for reasons related to the IMF, ECB and German agendas. But the options have significantly shrunk: unless there is systemic transformation within the EU, if Cyprus has any hope for equitable recovery and growth it has to depart from the TROIKA-driven austerity programmes, risking being forced out of the Eurozone.
  The Return of the Social Question to PoliticsContrary to the prevailing media coverage about Cyprus, there is a vibrant civic and political culture which cannot be ignored by the elites. From 1 March, the right-wing leader of DISY (Democratic Rally), Nicos Anastasiades took office, carrying a fresh mandate that in any other EU country would be tantamount to the 'right' to bulldoze through Parliament the deal he agreed in the Eurogroup.
  Not in Cyprus; the deal was seen for what it was '' not only illegal but also socially unjust, forcing small earners to pay for the Bank haircut. However, the decision heavily damaged the economy of the country as it amounted to a forcible liquidation of the financial and banking sector by shock therapy. Anastasiades' authority has been badly wounded as a result of submitting to (if not actively encouraging) Eurogroup instructions, but also for his obstinate address to the nation that the package had to be approved, come what may. No one believed him, not even the MPs of the party he presides over responded to his call.
  It is questionable whether he will recover any of his lost authority. He no longer commands a steadfast Parliamentary majority, as he has lost support from the small nationalist parties EVROKO and the Green party, and even his main coalition partner DIKO is shaky. Mr. Anastasiades is now presiding over the worst crisis since 1974 and is pushing for the kind of austerity measures that have wrecked governments throughout Europe. More importantly, we have seen unprecedented mass mobilizations and a process of radicalization of the middle classes and working-class people, who are now bearing the brunt of the crisis.
  Cyprus has a tradition of organized trade unions, a workers and peoples' movement built around AKEL (the continuation of the Communist party of Cyprus) in alliance with PEO, the Pancyprian Federation of Labour, being the largest force.[5] A proper reading of the role of the Left (i.e. AKEL and its allies) within civil society reveals an alternative perspective on the potential role of civil society in the modernization and the development of Cypriot/Greek Cypriot political culture. Historically, the Left played a crucial role in Cyprus' own route to modernity in the twentieth century. But the contest for hegemony between the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot elite resulted in a distorted public sphere and has shaped civil society accordingly.[6]
  The right has been organized around nationalism; the right-wing trade union SEK (Confederation of Workers in Cyprus) is in a difficult position as it has allied itself with the President. Public sector trade unions and mostly banking unions have already been out on the streets.
  The notion of an alternative strategy beyond the Troika and outside the Eurozone is only now emerging. As AKEL is no longer in power and having successfully presided over the EU Presidency for RoC in the second half of 2012, the party is capturing the public mood. It is playing a leading role in the revolt following the Eurogroup decision which outraged 7 out of 10 Cypriots.[7] There has been a similar mood amongst the Turkish-Cypriots for some time now, as they face their own austerity programme imposed by Ankara.[8]
  It is early days yet, but a more militant public mood seems to have been triggered as the RoC enters the era of austerity. What can be termed as the 'social questions' are featuring more strongly than ever and endowing our society with a new politics of protest.
  Post-1974 development in areas under the control of the RoC was depicted as an 'economic miracle,'[9] and indeed the growth rate in the post-1974 years particularly in the early years after the war up to the late 1980s was remarkable, The exhaustion of the model marks the end of a strategy of accumulation as the RoC is nearing the limits of 'development' and convergence with the countries in the Eurozone.
  The 'economic miracle' was structured by a number of 'external' factors such as the Turkish occupation of the north since 1974. This fact, together with a concerted effort by Government, political parties and trade unions, created the conditions for economic growth subsequently experienced in Cyprus based on the massive expansion of 'mass tourism.'
  Despite these socio-economic transformations, up to 1974 the post-colonial social class structure retained essentially the same pyramid of wealth and income: the church continued to be the largest land-owner and expanded its commercial activities, whilst at the same time there was a growth in the Greek-Cypriot commercial classes. An abrupt change occurred in 1974 '' the Turkish military invasion and occupation of the north and the mass expulsion of Greek-Cypriots in 1974, by default created the preconditions for rapid (capitalist) 'modernization,' in what Harvey (2004) refers to as conditions for ''accumulation by dispossession.'' In spite of the severe drop in the GDP during 1973-75 and the sharp rise in unemployment and mass poverty, cheap labour was provided by Greek-Cypriot displaced persons, forcibly expelled and living in government refugee camps. The conditions of rapid development were therefore reminiscent of nothing so much as the early industrialization of western Europe. This fact, together with a concerted effort by the government, political parties and trade unions created the conditions for the development that was subsequently experienced in Cyprus.
  The process of tertiarization has continued undeterred, shaping Cyprus as a 'paradise-like destination' for tourism and a modern EU tax haven. De-industrialization is now setting in as the industrial output to GDP has dropped from 18 per cent in the early 1980s to less than 11 per cent in the late 1990s. The signs of a slowdown began to show as the over-dependence on financial and service sectors made them more susceptible to fluctuations. The post-colonial 'developmental state' took the lead in development and encouraged private investment.[10] Economic growth continued until it was hit by the economic crisis in 2011, yet it was apparent that it was approaching the limits of growth finding itself up against a technological frontier as the limitations of the 'mass tourism model' became more apparent.[11] The dependence on tourism has receded from 22 per cent in 1990 to less than 10 per cent in 2012. Nevertheless, the process of tertiarization continues unabated due to the dominance of the service industry in the economy.
  Examining the economy and society of the small island of Cyprus, one is struck by a number of crucial features.
  First, Cyprus as a ''border society''[12] is well-integrated in the regional economic system; in this sense it is also a border economy, operating as a bridge and a hub in the eastern Mediterranean. It is a southern European economy open to the west as a European Union (EU) member since 2004, which is connected to northeast Africa, Middle East and Asia, drawing on the labour reserves, tourism and financial services exported from its neighbours. It is listed as one of the high-income island economies, an off-shore financial center with associated tourism.
  A second feature is the de facto divide, which generates multiple ''states of exception'' and contradictions in what can be described as a ''non-border'' of the EU[13] tearing the country apart. The so-called ''Green Line'' is not only a buffer zone, but a ceasefire line that since 1974, has been patrolled by one of the longest standing UN-stationed peace-keeping forces. The United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFCYP) has been in the country since 1964. This situation is even today, after the end of the cold war, considered by all interested actors to be unsustainable and unacceptable and may threaten the stability of the southern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the wider region.
  The situation is simultaneously perceived as a ''deluxe partition,'' a tolerable compromise in the absence of a settlement and a ''mini cold war'' in what the UN has described as one of the world's most militarized zones. In this multiplicity of paradoxes, the evidence of growing economic interdependence[14] as well as the various initiatives from trade unions, teachers and activists in the Buffer Zone groups are worthwhile projects which counter the overall disappointing picture in the quest for reunification.
  The third important feature is the centrality of migrant labour, which makes the country comparable to the southern European and Mediterranean island economies.[15] On both sides of the barbed wire, precarious migrant labour is a crucial feature in the accumulation regimes and the developmental models, which is radically affecting economic development and society at large. There are similarities in terms of the exploitation patterns; however there are crucial differences in the regulation and market operation of the migratory system, but this is beyond the scope of this paper.
  The fourth feature is the specific mode of tertiarization of the economy: the motor of the economy is the service-based economy organized around financial/banking services and tourism. Paul Krugman is right to spot the three key characteristics which have allowed for prolonging the ''Cyprus economic miracle'' from the 1980s into the new millennium but which has now turned sour: 'runaway banking'; a big domestic real estate bubble; massive overvaluation. In general the country's economy is based on services: mostly financial services, tourism and education.
  However, it is the long-lasting banking crisis that has generated the immediate problems. Cyprus 'runaway banking' is based on offshore money, low tax, high rates and good opportunities for tax avoidance/evasion. It has an English-law-based system of regulation and implemented the main EU and international regulations on banking and money laundering control and many double taxation bilateral agreements. With the collapse of Beirut as a financial centre in the early 1980s, its geographical location, good relations with its Arab neighbours and with the eastern bloc and later the collapse of the USSR and its allies allowed the sector to grow massively. The financialization of the 1990s and 2000s allowed for the growth of its finance and offshore sector.
  With its accession to the EU in 2004, the RoC managed to preserve a competitive tax regime of 10 per cent for international companies, allowing it to compete favourably with other EU tax havens (Liechtenstein, Gibraltar, Luxembourg and the British Isles). This bloated sector became all too powerful and unaccountable '' as the globalization and EU deregulation programmes steadily allowed this to happen. Banks took high risks for huge returns, fat-cat directors made massive bonuses, various professional companies all benefited as well (accountants, lawyers and financial advice, services etc). Almost 78 per cent of all school leavers continued their studies beyond secondary education, of which 42 per cent attended higher educational institutions abroad and 36 per cent in Cyprus.
  These banks expanded their business massively to Greece, Russia and Ukraine. Then came the crisis, with huge government injections to boost liquidity, but with the former Cyprus Central Governor failing to fulfil his role and the Government which faced pressing internal problems and as a result dried up the local market. Overall, we can say that there are three important conclusions from the dramatic events that brought a small and divided island to the attention of the world stage.
  ConclusionThere will be a lasting legacy of the Cypriot popular mobilization against the Eurogroup and their own newly-elected President's decision which generated the first unanimous Parliamentary rejection to the Troika-imposed austerity programme: the 'guaranteed' '‚¬100,000 for the deposit had to be 're-won' if the EU power-elites were to keep their word. This immediately triggered mass solidarity.
  How will it affect Cyprus, the Eurozone and relations in the eastern Mediterranean? This is a region which has assumed greater significance recently with a renewed interest by all global and regional powers (such as the USA, the EU, Russia, Turkey, Egypt and Israel) as the discovery of gas reserves and the upheavals in the Middle East are causing new turbulence and polarization.
  Mainstream or hegemonic discourses on 'good economic governance' often gloss over and obscure the 'social question.' It was the neoliberal governance model relating to the banking and finance sector that generated the massive bank debt crisis in Cyprus, threatening the robust economy of a country based on services. The Troika 'recipes' have not only sunk the RoC economy into crisis, but are likely to cause a major social crisis of the same proportion to the crisis in Greece.
  The public debt of the RoC was relatively low (65 per cent) compared to the Euro area average (88 per cent) or the corresponding debt of Germany (82 per cent), France (85 per cent), or Italy (120 per cent) at the beginning of the crisis. However, the public debt ratio in Cyprus is set to rise as the government seeks international lending either from third countries or from the EU financial stabilization mechanism in order to finance the banking system's recapitalization requirements and the budget deficit and debt refinancing needs. The banking crisis in Cyprus is mostly related to the Cyprus banks' exposure to Greek public bonds and to the expected bad debts of the subsidiaries of Cyprus banks operating in Greece. This is set to modify dramatically both the public debt level of the Cyprus economy and the future prospects for economic development.
  Cyprus needs a broader vision based on new principles of governance, to break down the ethnopolitical barriers and economic interests that generate and perpetuate its structural problems. Planning for an alternative model of economic and social development with due consideration of environmental protection taken into account means learning from the past, knowing that a continuation of the existing mode of economic and social organization will inevitably lead to renewed limitations and constraints in the not too distant future.
  The institutional framework for the achievement of such objectives, which is made more complicated in a federal state context, must be robust. Embarking on an alternative path of sustainable development is a complex and ambitious objective that requires not only an appropriate institutional and governance framework but also political and social struggles to support it, challenging the resistance of vested interests.
  Essential steps in the direction of an alternative sustainable model of economic development include moving away from the speculative, profit-seeking private banking system to social development banking which includes the cooperative banking sector, and moving beyond the mass tourism model. It means giving priority to knowledge-intensive industries, extending social provision, and protecting the environment. The issue of the democratic accountability and good governance of the banking sector is crucial.
  Cyprus can certainly learn from Iceland when it decided to allow the banks to go bankrupt, fundamentally, and not taking on public debts to rescue the banks. It must protect the depositors who put their savings in the banks, but allow large bondholders, shareholders, and large deposit holders, to take the shock: the banking and financial sectors are completely distinct anyway. The domestic economy must be protected and particularly small deposit holders and businesses.[16]
  The bubble which has maintained within it the bloated Cypriot middle classes and the many sections of the working-class who enjoyed high salaries and privileges, in stark contrast to the lower echelons of the working-class (migrants, precarious workers) '' has burst. Cypriot people seem to have little choice but to struggle, inside or outside the Eurozone. This is a struggle for Cyprus '' it is also a struggle for Europe and the world that is worth believing and living in. '
  Nicos Trimikliniotis is associate professor in law and sociology, at the University of Nicosia.
  1. Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL establishing a framework for the recovery and resolution of credit institutions and investment firms and amending Council Directives 77/91/EEC and 82/891/EC, Directives 2001/24/EC, 2002/47/EC, 2004/25/EC, 2005/56/EC, 2007/36/EC and 2011/35/EC and Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010 /* COM/2012/0280 final.
  2. According to figures issued by the OECD's Financial Action Task Force (FATF), other countries do investigate more thoroughly and detect crimes four to 20 times more frequently than German authorities do, see www.dw.de/germany-a-safe-haven-for-money-laundering/a-16343313.
  4. Former Finance Minister Stavrakis (2012) went further claiming that the Governor of the Bank had advised bankers not to buy RoC bonds and buy Greek bonds.
  5. There are some small organizations to the Left of AKEL influenced primarily by Greek groupings but they do not have any significant mass support.
  7. According to an opinion poll by Insight Market Research (IMR) '' University of Nicosia.
The Real Eddie Murphy Exposed!!!
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Jacky Jasper's Diary of a Hollywood Street King
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:32
  by Jacky Jasper
  ''He has a miserable life, but all the money in the world.''~Insider close to Eddie Murphy's camp
  A Comedian's No Laughing Matter?HSK Exclusive - A source close to Eddie Murphy has spilled some SIZZLING tea in HSK's direction! The shocking set of proclamations paint the legendary comedian as an insecure, depressed, narcissist who may suffer from extreme paranoia. Know why? Because in their own words about Eddie, ''everything around him, his friends, his life'...is a penchant of evil.''
  That's said to be why Eddie chooses to surround himself with 'yes men' - one of whom is reported to be Arsenio Hall. The other? Johnny Gill, who we're told had enough of Eddie's antics before he hauled ass.
  What's worse? The source is outing Eddie as an absentee father of kids who've basically raised themselves. That's while the source says Eddie forces his boys on payroll to join him in watching hours upon hours of a documentary '-- all about HIM!
  We're talking about a reigning comedian who's reported to suffer from OCD, eating the same non-nutritional meal everyday; a troubled actor who's said to be extremely jealous of Michael Jackson and Denzel Washington; and a suspected lost soul who may have all that glitters yet lacks love.
  Here's the drop:
  ''First and foremost, Arsenio is Eddie Murphy's the biggest groupie in life to Eddie Murphy. Assenio, as we all call him, literally competes with Eddie's 'women'for his attention and affection. This includes sitting wide-eyed and starry eyed at Eddie Murphy's television monitor in his 'office' while Eddie makes everyone watch his two hour 'special' about his life.
  Yes, this nigga actually makes his 'guests' aka groupies, whores and male errand boys watch his biography special over, and over and over again. Arsenio actually cheers while watching it, basically salivating at the fucking mouth like Jerry Sandusky at an inner city boys scout meeting, unsupervised.
  What's even weirder is this black gum Nicca actually is featured in the damn biography, so it's like got damn nigga'...you acting like you ain't neva seen this shit in your life, and you in it. GTFOH.
  Next up'...he's also been on Eddie Murphy's payroll forevvvvvvvvver. Eddie Murphy and this ass clown with the 'ET' fingers and high booty, fell out for like ten-years and Assenio just managed to get back in Eddie Murphy's good graces once Johnny Gill and Eddie Murphy fell out (about 6-7 yrs ago)'.... as soon as Johnny 'Mae' Gill had packed his shit up from the guest house'... Assenio swooped in to fill the space of Eddie Murphy's personal bitch boy and number one groupie.
  Eddie Murphy actually and truly Despises this Nigga to his core, along with basically everyone around him, his children included. Eddie Murphy thinks everyone is out to use him, (which they are) '-- but it's only because he's a supreme dick wad with a terrible attitude. So ironically, he keeps low rent, losers like Johnny Mae, his cousin Ray, endless low budget groupies and Assenio around because no matter how badly his films flop, or how whack/non existent his career is today '-- and yes that shit bothers the fuck out of Eddie Murphy despite all his money '-- he really wants respect (which no one gives him). Eddie Murphy knows that as long as he has Niggas around who really don't have shit, he'll always be able to be the top dog and money man pulling all the strings for these Niggas.
  Arsenio is at Eddie Murphy's house like he's the fucking maid, chef, wife, son, daughter, gardener and everything in between. It's ridiculous.
  Here's some more tid bits'...
  Eddie Murphy stages all his photo ops at coffee bean with whatever broad he's fucking that week. The white bitch (Paige Butcher) he's been toting around lately is only around because people were so fucking shocked he took a snow bunny to his comedy special, and white boys went crazy because she's a skinny anorexic bitch with a little boy's body.
  Eddie Murphy hates that people think he's gay. He's borderline homophobic. But the funniest part is, if you get him to sip on something (he hardly drinks) and give his ass some strong weed (he's a weed head) his ass will be vogue-ing and; snapping his neck like a real bitch. (remember vogue-ing in your bowling alley Eddie??? lol).
  Eddie Murphy eats the same shit everyday!!! the Nigga spends like 100,000 a month on like three chefs, has thirteen course meals made everyday but the Nigga only eats one time a day, and its french fries, a fucking burger, a Coke. The nigga is Addicted to Coca Cola. I think it's why his fucking baby teeth are disintegrating. He single handedly keeps coca cola in business. FYI: I have never seen this ashy dry mouth Nigga drink any type of water.
  His kids do whatever the fuck they want. The sons are all a complete mess, losers and druggies. He doesn't even like any of the kids he has that didn't come from Nicole.(like really nigga, you had this village of fuckin children, but you mad at them for being born?????)
  Eddie Murphy is a compulsive liar.
  Eddie Murphy is obsessed with Teddy Pendergrass's gay ass!!! The Nigga dances and gets high in his bathroom watching old videos of gay ass Teddy all fucking day. It's fucking weird and disturbing.
  Eddie Murphy thinks he was, is and always will be bigger than Michael Jackson. The day he said that, I had to snatch the joint from his high ass because he was clearly smoking the bad shit.
  Everyone around him hates him. He has a miserable life, but all the money in the world. It's the saddest shit you could ever witness.
  He wears black all day everyday and has something mentally wrong. One day he'll be fine, then he won't talk or get out of bed for days on end. His kids are raised by themselves, money and nannies. He's barely engaged in their lives at all.
  The only Nigga in Hollywood Eddie Murphy likes is WILL SMITH. (wonder why lol) He's envious of Denzel, and brags all the time that he has more money than Denzel.
  All in all everything around him, his friends, his life'...is a penchant of evil.Money does NOT buy happiness. Trust me. I've seen it with my brown eyes.''
Personal Savings Accounts; The Rules Have Changed.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: The Politics of Conscience
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:28
  Cyprus took a dangerous step forward, and it seems as thus they have set a poor precedent. Last week, I informed you that on Monday of last week, Cyprus would be taking 6% of savings accounts having under 100,000 Euro and 10% of accounts over 100,000 Euro. I neglected the point that those over 500,000 Euro would be losing 15%, which would mostly effect foreign, Russian investors. The plan was accepted, and people began virtual bank runs, with some Russian nationals actually entering the country to get access to their money. In response, the Cyprian government closed the banks until Thursday, during which time account holders could not touch their money, but the government could; a scary situation. This Monday, Cyprus unveiled a new plan: under 100,000 Euro, accounts would not be touched, but over 100,000 Euro the government would be taking 40% of funds. A great protection to those under 100,000 Euro, but highway robbery to those over that amount.The point here is not the amount of money, we would be discussing the wrong point if we were looking at that. The true issue at hand is that the government is taking money at all; they do not have the right. Though they should not, they are assuming they do, and are doing the unthinkable and taking depositors hard earned money. My question remains: what if it happens here?
  My fears have been peaked again with reading the news this morning: Italy and Spain will take the same action against depositors. Though its still in Europe, its a frightening turn of events. They are using taxpayer money to cover up for bad bankers and poor legislators. The unable are penalizing the able. The ability tax is back, and this time they are taking money than ever expected. No longer is it an income tax, they've paid that, along with a VAT tax of as much as 24% in some countries. This is not a producer's tax, this is now a success tax. This will cause a great a lack of faith in banks, as well as the government. Such loss of faith, may start the ball rolling on economce collapse; now people are afraid to deposit their money in banks.
  It is important to see all the data, and in Europe, they do not have an insurance program like the FDIC. However, fail safe measures have not stopped the US government before, and I do not see that stopping them this time. I have worried about them taking IRA and retirement plans for quite a while, congress has talked about it too. Do not be surprised if they come for your savings next.
Eind april duidelijkheid over IMF-bijdrage Cyprus
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: VK: Home
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:28
  26/03/13, 13:08 '' bron: ANP
  (C) afp. IMF-president Christine Lagarde (links) naast Eurogroepvoorzitter Jeroen Dijsselbloem
  Eind april komt er waarschijnlijk duidelijkheid over een bijdrage van het Internationaal Monetair Fonds (IMF) voor Cyprus en over de omvang daarvan. Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem van Financin heeft dat dinsdag aan de Tweede Kamer geschreven.
  Lees hier de brief van Dijsselbloem aan de Tweede KamerOpen pdf (118 kB)In zijn brief legt hij uit hoe het steunpakket aan Cyprus, waarover in de nacht van zondag op maandag overeenstemming werd bereikt, eruit ziet. Volgens de minister is dit beter dan het eerdere pakket, dat op Cyprus geen steun kreeg, maar is het 'overeengekomen in slechtere omstandigheden'. 'Dit akkoord biedt perspectief aan Cyprus en verbetert het uitzicht op herstel van vertrouwen en financile stabiliteit', schrijft Dijsselbloem.
  Dijsselbloem meldt ook dat in het akkoord niet is voorzien in een bijdrage van Rusland. Daarover overlegt Cyprus nog met de Russen. Veel Russische spaarders hebben spaargeld staan in dat land. De eurogroep kijkt uit naar een Russische bijdrage, aldus de minister. In antwoorden op schriftelijke Kamervragen voegt de minister daaraan toe dat de Russische belangstelling om Cyprus een aanvullende lening te geven waarschijnlijk 'beperkt' zal zijn. In 2012 leende Cyprus al 2,5 miljard euro van de Russen.
  CDA-Kamerlid Eddy van Hijum vindt de informatie van Dijsselbloem mager. Hij had graag meer willen weten over de inhoud van het steunpakket en de eisen en randvoorwaarden. De Kamer debatteert later op de dag met Dijsselbloem.
That Giant Sucking Sound...it's the Oligarchs.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: DaDenMan news feed
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:26
  A woman works on a Saturday night at a New York City dry cleaners. (Image: ~BostonBill~ / flickr)
  Truthout doesn't take corporate funding - that's how we're able to confront the forces of greed and regression, with no strings attached. Instead, we need your support: make a donation today by clicking here.
  The oligarchs are sucking dry America's middle and working class, while the rest of us are being left to feed off of their crumbs.
  Paul Buchheit, a professor of economic inequality at DePaul University, has written a brilliant piece, detailing just how large, and outrageous, the wealth gap between the oligarchs and the rest of America has become.
  Let's start off by looking at the Koch Brothers.
  Each of the Koch brothers saw his investments grow by a staggering $6 billion last year, which, if you do the math, means that they each made about $3 million per hour last year, based on a 40-hour workweek.
  Meanwhile, as Buchheit points out, the average restaurant server made just $2.13 per hour last year, less than one millionth of what the Koch brothers pulled in.
  And while these numbers alone seem incredibly startling, they only begin to paint the picture of wealth inequality in America.
  On any given day during the winter of 2012, there were around 633,000 homeless Americans on the streets, trying to survive another day.
  According to Buchheit, based on an annual single room occupancy cost of $558 per month, any one of America's ten richest citizens would have enough money from his 2012 income to pay for a room for EVERY homeless person in the U.S. for the ENTIRE YEAR. One rich person not even sacrificing a penny of their more-than-a-billion-dollars wealth, just setting aside one year's income, could end all homelessness in America.
  And if that's not mind-boggling enough, the total combined wealth of these ten wealthiest Americans is more than the entire U.S. federal housing budget. Even if all ten were to give up a year's income, their wealth is mind-boggling.
  According to a survey by the U.S Conference of Mayors, nearly 20 percent of the homeless population in America is Hispanic, and the number is growing each day.
  In fact, for every single dollar of assets that a single black or Hispanic woman has, a member of the Forbes 400 has over $40 million.
  To put that wealth number in perspective, as Buchheit notes in his piece, for every one can of soup owned by a single Black or Hispanic woman one of our wealthiest Americans owns a $30 million mansion AND a $10 million yacht.
  As of 2009, the poorest 47% of Americans owned an unbelievable zero percent of America's wealth, because their debts exceeded their assets. Contrast that with the era before Reaganomics, when the poorest 47% of Americans owned 2.5% of America's wealth.
  The nation's wealth is now instead in the hands of the wealthiest Americans '' the oligarchs. Right now, the 400 wealthiest Americans own as much wealth as 62% of our nation, which is the driving force behind America having the fourth highest level of wealth inequality in the world.
  But why is it that America's oligarchs have managed to obtain so much wealth, while the rest of us have nearly nothing, and that one of America's wealthiest businessmen can afford to buy a yacht and a mansion, when a Hispanic woman just trying to survive is barely able to pay for a can of soup?
  It's thanks in part to the high levels of financial secrecy in the U.S.
  The Tax Justice Network's Financial Secrecy Index highlights places around the world that provide the safest havens for tax refugees '' otherwise known as millionaires and billionaires who want to escape having to pay their fair share to help their economies so that they can accumulate massive piles of wealth.
  And, not surprisingly, the United States ranks 5th in the 2011 Financial Secrecy Index, behind the traditional tax havens of Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong.
  In other words, as millions of Americans struggle to survive each and every day, the wealthiest Americans, the oligarchs, are accumulating vast sums of wealth, without anyone saying a word, or raising a finger.
  Just look at Mitt Romney.
  During the campaign of 2012, there was a huge battle over his disclosure, or lack thereof, of just how rich he is. And in the end, while Romney did disclose some information about his assets, including the fact that he was able to hide the vast sums of wealth in tax havens across the globe.
  The bottom-line is that the outrageous levels of wealth inequality in America have been driven in large part by our society's coddling of, and the media's willful ignorance towards, our nation's oligarchs.
  For too long, the wealthiest Americans have been able to slip under the radar, while robbing us blind. The Reaganomics era has seen the largest transfer of wealth from working people to the very, very rich in the history of the world '' trillions of dollars. As Elizabeth Warren pointed out a few weeks ago, if workers wages had kept up with productivity in the years since Reagan, like they did during the generations before Reagan, the minimum wage today would be over $22.
  It's time to start calling our oligarchs what they are '' oligarchs. And tax cheats. And people who have corrupted both our politicians, our media, and our market-based economic system.
  When enough Americans have figured out how badly we've been gamed and ripped off, things will start to change. Spread the word. And check out www.nobillionaires.com!
Chairman of the Board of Bank of Cyprus resigns
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: euronews
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:25
  Andrea Artemis, the 59-year-old chairman of the Management Board of the Bank of Cyprus, has submitted his resignation.
  Local media reported that Artemis expressed his disagreement on the plans to recapitalize the bank in a letter sent to the Ministry of Finance.
  On Monday, Dinos Christofides was appointed as Special Administrator for the implementation of reorganisation measures the Bank of Cyprus and Andri Antoniades as a Special Agent for the implementation of reorganisation measures in the People's Bank by the country's central bank.
  Andreas Artemis was elected chairman of the board of the Bank of Cyprus on 29 August 2012, succeeding Theodore Aristodemou.
  More about:Banking, Cyprus, Debt crisisCopyright (C) 2013 euronews
Petraeus Will Apologize For Affair In First Speech Since His Resignation
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: TPM News
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:24
  PAULINE JELINEK March 26, 2013, 8:22 AMWASHINGTON (AP) '-- Former CIA director David Petraeus is making his first public speech since resigning in November over an extramarital affair.
  The former four-star general is speaking Tuesday night at a University of Southern California event honoring the military.
  A prepared text of his speech, obtained by The New York Times, indicates Petraeus will apologize for the affair with his former biographer, Paula Broadwell. Petraeus is expected to acknowledge that he's ''regarded in a different light now'' than he was a year ago and that he'll try to make amends and move forward as best he can.
  Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
Will bloggers be protected? Maybe '' if your blog is ''small''
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Open Rights Group
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:23
  We had a tactical victory yesterday: the Lords passed a government ''holding amendment'' to exclude 'small blogs' but didn't decide what that might mean.
  Lord McNally, for the government, said:
  we do not want to draw in too broad a range of publishers. Our aim has been to capture the main elements of the press, as well as what I find it helpful to refer to as "press-like" activity online.
  I recognise that people have been seeking clarification on how the legislation could apply to small-scale bloggers, and how the interlocking tests work. This is reflected in some of the amendments before us, and includes the suggestion that there may be a case for making an express exemption in respect of small-scale blogs in the new schedule inserted by Commons Amendment 131.
  '...
  To allow a period of reflection in advance of the next round of ping-pong in another place after the Easter Recess, the Government have tabled manuscript Amendment 131BA in recognition of the concerns over Amendment 131. As part of this, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has agreed that her officials will collate and engage with any issues that are raised before submitting a view on how the test will operate and whether there is a need for a further amendment.
  The amendment was
  [As an amendment to Commons Amendment 131]
  131BA* Line 29, at end insert'--
  ''Small-scale blogs
  7A A person who publishes a small-scale blog.''
  But what is ''small scale''? Lord Lucas' amendment to base the question on the Companies Act's definition of a small or medium size enterprise was rejected, but it seems the most plausible definition to us. What other options are there?
  Readership is hard to measure.
  Pixel size, maybe? Blogs of less than 500px wide?
  There are other problems, too. Publishing ''in the course of a business'' covers a very large number of possible blogs. The proposals need a blanket exclusion for all publishers that are not a company or limited liability partnership.
  The "incidental nature" qualification to each of the protected exclusions for hobbyist, industry, professional, social club or other web sites needs to go. None of these sites should be prevented from regularly and routinely covering the news that it interesting to them for fear of the ''costs clause'' stick. It's hard too see why MumsNet wouldn't be caught, as its articles are about citizenship in general.
  Given we have breathing room, now, we will push for whatever improvements we can get to avoid the Bill being a train-wreck for the Internet and UK bloggers.
  If you spot problem, let us know here. Meanwhile: please email David Cameron, Harriet Harman and Nick Clegg about this.
HTML 5 local storage FAQ
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:18
  First, thanks everyone for the enthusiasm and interest in Little Outliner. Yesterday's rollout could not have gone better, imho. It's great because we now have a base of users we can work with, to improve the product, and to try out new ideas. And we have a lot of ideas! So that's pretty good. ;-)
  After having a few thousand people look at the product yesterday, it's clear that some users are uncomfortable with the idea of local storage, and for many, Little Outliner is the first time they have encoutered this HTML 5 feature.
  I looked for a user-oriented FAQ on local storage but all I found were descriptions of the feature for developers. And for developers, there really isn't that much to know. I've put the details under this headline, you can expand it if you care.
  There's a new browser object called localStorage. It behaves like any other JavaScript object except it persists. That means the next time the user comes back to your site, the storage will still be there, exactly as it was last time they visited.
  In most browsers the object is attached to a single domain, so joe.userland.com and mary.userland.com will have different localStorage objects. Apparently Firefox is different, in that joe and mary share a localStorage object. There are reasons to do it either way. It would be nice if they all did it the same way. ;-)
  So here's what I know that may answer some questions users have about local storage.
  1. Where is local storage stored? I don't know. That's up to the browser guys. Some users have explored in the system settings folders on various operating systems and found the files. They look like they're SQL databases.
  2. How much space does it use? The per-domain limit is 5MB.
  3. When you clear the cache does local storage get cleared too? I don't know.
  4. Isn't local storage like cookies? Yes, it's very much like cookies, except cookies are limited to 4K, and local storage can go up to 5MB. The difference in size reflects the difference in times. When cookies were invented, in the mid-90s, computers had a lot less memory. Today it's not uncommon for a new computer to have a terabyte of disk space. 5MB today is like what 4K was back then. It seems silly to live in a world limited by the machines of the past. But cookies couldn't change without risking breakage, of the web itself. So local storage was a good answer. Also local storage is simpler to program than cookies, but not so much simpler as to make a huge difference.
  5. Isn't this a potentially dangerous feature? We are very responsible about our software, we just want people to make outlines and be happy and want to use the new stuff we come out with. This is a business for us. So we would never use it in a harmful way. Not only would it be against our interest, but it would be professionally unthinkable. That said, localStorage is a potentially dangerous feature, in the hands of a malicious website. This is something the browser vendors will probably have to address sooner or later. Probably sooner. ;-)
  6. How can I get rid of what you stored on my computer? I can only answer for our product. If you delete all the text in your outline, that will get rid of most of what we store. There will still be an empty outline in local storage, and a count of the number of times you saved. That takes up about 140 characters, or coincidentally, the size of a tweet. If even this is too much to bear, we can add a way for you to delete that too. (I imagine someone will say that it is, so I'm already preparing to write the code.)
  If you have other questions, ask them below and we'll try to answer them, the best we can.
BEREZOVSKY STILL ALIVE OR KILLED BY SPOOKS?
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: aangirfan
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:14
  Boris, former girlfriend Elena and their childrenBoris Berezovsky is still alive?Russian politician Viatcheslav Nikonov says that Berezovsky is probably not dead.
  Berezovsky had financial difficulties; Robert Maxwell had financial difficulties.Some people believe that Jewish tycoon Robert Maxwell faked his own death.
  Reportedly, in January 2013, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) Vladimir Zhirinovsky met with Boris Berezovsky in Israel's city of Eilat.Russian prominent politician claims that British special services ...
  Boris Berezovsky may have been assassinated, by agents of the British security services, because he knew too much about Western plots.This is according to Sergei Markov, an adviser to Russia's President Putin.
  Reportedly, Berezovsky wanted to return to Russia and he may have agreed to act as a whistleblower on British plots, in return for being allowed to return to Russia. Mr Markov, a former Russian politician, said: "I cannot say no to the version that it was a murder committed by those who were scared Boris Berezovsky would go back to Putin's side."I do not exclude that the secret services joined this work. "I think they may have guessed that Berezovsky would give away all information, and they decided to get rid of him."In the stock of modern secret services, there are many things'‰.'‰.'‰.'‰which can provoke a heart attack and a stroke, and experts will not diagnose it.
  "There is no trust in the British secret services."After their participation in the plot aimed at occupying Iraq, their role in the plot targeting the leader of Libya, then the plot aimed at knocking down the government in Syria, it is clear that their methods are highly dirty."
  dailymail.Britain's top spy Jonathan Evans steps down after just six years as head of MI5. From left: MI6's Sir John Sawers, MI5's Jonathan Evans, GCHQ's Iain Lobban and two other spooks.On 25 March 2013, one family friend of Boris Berezovsky claimed that Boris Berezovsky's body showed 'traces of him being strangled around the neck'.Nikolay Glushkov, 67, said Boris Berezovsky's former wife noticed marks on his neck just after he was found dead.She said: "A scarf was there. There were traces of him being strangled around the neck."Reportedly, detectives have not found any suicide note.dailymail
  Boris Berezovsky's bodyguard said that, on the day of Berezovsky's 'death', he left Berezovsky alone in the house at around 10am to run a series of errands for his boss.
  He returned around 3pm, when he discovered a number of missed calls on Berezovsky's phone.Putin's double or just a wonky facelift?The real Putin.
  Putin after a bad facelift?
  The real Putin.
MSM Continues To Cover For War Crimes Of Obama Administraition
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Is Doctor Ben Carson The GOP's Greatest Hope For Resurrection?
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Cyprus Banks Remain Closed To Avert Run On Deposits!
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CNN: U.S. Lowers Threshold For Going To WAR With North Korea
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"A Death Spiral That Could End Civilization As We Know It!"
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BBC: North Korea Readying It's Combat Missiles For Possible Strike On U.S. Mainland
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Congresswoman Michele Bachmann Under Investigation For Misuse Of Campaign Funds
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U.S. Military Continues Torture War Crimes Under Obama's Leadership! Glenn Greenwald
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Getting started with QRSS
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  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 06:11
  by G4CWX (' )What is QRSS ?To put it quite simply, the QRSS mode is the transmission and reception of slow speed Morse transmissions at the lowest possible levels of power. The most common speed currently in use is QRSS3, where the length of a dot is equal to a transmission of about three seconds.
  Most amateurs transmit a traditional constant wave (or CW) signal, which is very much like holding down the knob of your Morse key for a lot longer than usual. Others favour FSKCW, where the oscillator is shifted very slightly to produce a higher signal frequency for the mark (or positive signal). The shift, however, is very small, usually only a matter of a few Hertz.
  Some of the more industrious and technically brilliant amongst us have even used this mode to transmit Hell Schreiber signals. In graphical terms, this can appear as a series of readable characters which are displayed on a computer monitor.
  There are a significant number of amateurs around the world currently conducting experiments with QRSS on most of the HF bands. Many are designing and building lower power transmitters and standalone receivers specifically for this purpose. The receivers are connected to the input of a computer soundcard. Programs, such as Argo, are then used to analyse a very small portion of the amateur band in use, for example, 30 metres, and then to display in a graphical form, the signals which are being received.
  Why would anyone want to use QRSS ?
  Since the 1960's we have seen a move away from broadband transmissions, such as Amplitude Modulation, to Frequency Modulation and Single Side Band. In the past ten years we have seen the emergence of even narrower band transmissions and an explosion in the use of digital modes. The narrowest of signals, Morse, has stood the test of time, often being used to establish communications where all else fails.
  QRSS is both fun and technically demanding at the same time. Over the past two years more and more amateurs have tried their hand at broadcasting their miniscule signals and have been astounded that they have been heard at great distances. For many, I am sure, this is the cornerstone of QRSS: doing more with less.
  What you need to receive QRSSIf you own an HF receiver and a standard 'home' computer, the chances are that you could be and running within an hour. The audio output from your receiver is fed to the input of your computer's soundcard. Having downloaded and installed a copy of Argo (see QRSS Resources for more information) it is now only a matter of tuning in your receiver and watching the computer's display.
  Many, who take this route, will also include some form of isolation between the computer and the receiver by the use of a dedicated interface. Others will take the homebrew route and create a bespoke solution.
  What you need to transmit QRSSIt is unlikely that any commercial transmitter will be capable of transmitting a QRSS signal. For a quick solution, consider buying one of the many low power (QRP) kits that are currently available. A list of the more common and easily converted kits may be found elsewhere on this blog. They are not expensive and, in most cases, very easy to assemble.
  Next, you will need some means of keying the transmitter. The method chosen by many is a pre-programmed integrated circuit such as the Atmel ATtiny, the AVR, PIC, or perhaps the PICAXE. If you are not an aficionado of this particular type of technology, then help is at hand in the form of commercially available units which come pre-programmed. Once again, I have done my best to include details of what is available in the 'Resources' section of this blog.
  The primary design consideration for a QRSS transmitter is, without doubt, stability. Given that we are transmitting a tiny signal within a very narrow band of frequencies, it is of the utmost importance that our signal does not drift. If you are not fortunate enough to possess a digitally synthesised VFO, then the chances are that you will opt for crystal control. A crystal heater will also aid stability, as will putting the finished article in an insulated box.
  Making the most of QRSS
  One of the things that I have found since getting involved with the QRSS mode is that it makes you far more aware of basics of amateur radio. I have spent a great deal of time making sure that my aerial system is as efficient as I can possibly make it. I have also gone to great lengths to ensure that the output from the transmitter is matched as closely to the aerial as it can be.
  Many of us involved in QRSS have a web site onto which we upload images of our captured signals. Mine, for example, takes a 'snapshot' of the Argo output once every minute and then makes it available for viewing on the web (www.g4cwx.com). Apart from the fact that I can monitor my station remotely, it gives other amateurs the opportunity to see if their signals have reached my receiver. Several amateurs have also taken this one step further by creating web pages which act as compendiums, or aggregators of individual signal grabbers. Thus, you can see on a single page, how many grabbers are receiving your signal.
  As part of the process of getting ready to receive and transmit QRSS signals, I first turned to WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporting). A detailed explanation of how it works is outside the scope of this short piece, but suffice it to say that it is an excellent way to determine how effective your existing station is at transmitting and receiving low power communications from around the world. Joe Taylor's web site at: http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/ is a good place to learn more. One very positive advantage of trying WSPR is that most stations with a standard HF transceiver hooked up to a computer can be on the air in next to no time at all.
  QRSS ResourcesThe following list of resources is by no means comprehensive, but it will provide a good starting point for anyone interested in giving QRSS a sporting chance. I am more than happy to add to this list if anyone can come up with some useful additions.
  Transmitter kits
  I can do no better than direct you to another part of this blog which carries a comprehensive list of the available kits which may well be suitable for use as low power QRSS transmitters.
  http://knightsqrss.blogspot.com/2010/01/qrss-able-kits.html
  CrystalsThere are probably a lot more suppliers out there, but for me this is the first place that I look for those elusive frequencies, such as 10.140. I also have to add that their prices are very reasonable indeed '' especially if you order in bulk and their delivery times are usually very fast.
  http://www.expandedspectrumsystems.com/prod4.html
  Programmed IC keyers
  The two most popular commercial products are:
  http://www.proehl-elektronik.de/cwk/cwk_e.htmlhttp://k1el.tripod.com/index.html
  Web sites
  http://www.qrss.thersgb.net/http://mail.cnts.be/mailman/listinfo/knightsqrss_cnts.behttp://on5ex.be/clipboard_view_unreg.phphttp://www.hanssummers.com/
  Compendiums and aggregatorshttp://digilander.libero.it/i2ndt/grabber/grabber-compendium.htmhttp://www.ik0vve.net/mept6.aspx
  Software
  http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/http://digilander.libero.it/i2phd/argo/index.htmlhttp://digilander.libero.it/i2phd/spectran.htmlhttp://freenet-homepage.de/dl4yhf/spectra1.html
BBC News - Newspaper review: Cyprus crisis not yet over
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  Source: BBC News - Home
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:56
  26 March 2013Last updated at01:34 ETThe crisis in Cyprus continues to dominate the papers, with the Telegraph saying the tragedy is still unfolding.
  Its banking sector is not being restructured so much as demolished thanks largely to Berlin's desire to punish what it sees as a haven for Russian funny money, the paper says.
  The Sun says that across Europe, banks wobble. It says that Brussels has suggested no savings are safe from being seized by the EU in eurozone countries, and that the euro is a dead duck.
  The Daily Mail says that EU leaders have shown a new level of ruthlessness in by-passing democracy to impose their will.
  According to the Independent, the markets have been spooked by the suggestion that the Cypriot bailout deal is a model for future European rescues.
  The Financial Times leads with what it says is "a watershed in how the eurozone deals with failing banks", as the burden of risk is shifted from taxpayers to investors.
  Immigration mattersPrime Minister David Cameron's speech on immigration is dissected in the papers.
  The Telegraph says he will not be able to reach the voters who are most worried about immigration as long as he treats it, as he did on Monday, as primarily an economic issue.
  For many, says the paper, it's not just a matter of jobs being taken or public services being stretched, but of changes in the very character of communities
  The Times says that a political consensus is emerging over immigration, but the question remains over whether anyone can fix the practical problems of meeting its aims.
  While the Star says there is no doubting the prime minister's determination to curb immigration, it asks even though he can talk the talk, can he walk the walk?
  'Too posh to wash'The Guardian reports that nursing students will be required to spend a year on the wards feeding and washing patients before they can qualify.
  It says ministers hope the measure will help to prevent a repeat of the scandal that emerged at Stafford Hospital, where hundreds of patients died of neglect.
  The Daily Mail welcomes an "admirable attempt" to return nursing to its core value of compassion.
  The Daily Telegraph says there's been criticism that some nursing graduates are "too posh to wash".
  Young millionaireSeveral front pages include a picture of 17-year-old Nick D'Aloisio who has apparently made £20m by developing an app and selling it to Yahoo.
  The FT described him as a software prodigy living the Silicon Valley dream. But he won't be moving to California just yet, says the Guardian, as he wants to finish his A-levels.
  The Independent says he has been developing software in his bedroom in Wimbledon, south London, since the age of 12.
  The Express pays tribute to the "heroes of the big freeze". It says mountain rescue teams and RAF helicopters, one flown by Prince William, have helped hundreds of people cut off by heavy snow across the country.
  Many of the papers carry a grainy image of what is purported to be an escaped monkey beneath a tree in a park in Dorset.
  The Sun points out the park is 10 miles from the Monkey World attraction in Wool - though no primates have been reported missing.
Hacked Guccifer Emails Link Tony Blair, Colin Powell, to Secretive Bohemian Grove
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  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:55
  Posted by Alcyone_Featured_, New World OrderMonday, March 25th, 2013(RT) Attending the elusive Bohemian Grove retreat should be a priority for former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, News Corp executive Andrew Knight allegedly writes in an email to US Gen. Colin Powell obtained by RT.
  The mysterious computer hacker known only as Guccifer has once again supplied RT with a trove of presumed personal emails in which the private correspondence between some of the world's most influential men is put under the looking glass. The hacker's target is once again former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and this time the discourse dives into a topic rarely discussed: the annual summer retreat at California's Bohemian Grove.
  Guccifer has previously taken credit for hacking Gen. Powell's Facebook, compromising what are believed to be sensitive emails sent to former-President George W. Bush and even uncovering emails about last year's Benghazi, Libya terrorist attack allegedly sent to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In the latest leaked emails sent to RT, Guccifer showcases a number of emails reportedly sent to Colin Powell's AOL account during the last few years.
  The few dozen emails forwarded to RT offer what appears on the surface to be little insight into Gen. Powell's personal habits, but one email in particular referenced enough other well-known individuals that it couldn't help but raise a red flag: in correspondence dated March 21, 2012, Knight asks Gen. Powell to have a few words with Mr. Blair about preparing for that year's Bohemian Grove retreat, an annual gathering of the rich and powerful that has stayed so elusive for decades that countless documentaries and books have been written about the event '-- and journalists like Vanity Fair's Alex Shoumatoff has even been arrested trying to infiltrate it.
  According to the Sonoma County Free Press, the membership list of Bohemian Grove has included every Republican US president since 1923, as well as titans of the defense sector, banking tycoons and the CEOs of some of the largest corporations in the world. Spy Magazine linked the guest list with millionaires and billionaires from the likes of IBM and Bank of America, as well as leading politicians from Washington and abroad. And when Spy's Philip Weiss snuck into the grove in 1989, he confirmed that attendees congregate at a shrine to an owl described as ''40-foot-tall, moss-covered statue of stone and steel.''
  Weiss adds that during the event's middle weekend '-- the busiest session of the two-week gathering '-- he saw roughly 2,200 guests, all male, on the camp ground. Just last year, though, Powell was asked to ensure that Blair made it for that portion of the festivities.
  ''Might you be able gently/firmly to point out to Tony that you rank the Bohemia Middle Weekend in your diary before allowing any other duties to get in the way?!'' writes Knight, a journalist who currently serves as a director of billionaire Rupert Murdoch's multinational News Corp, in the latest leaked emails. ''Lack of exposure suggests that Tony has not yet got his priorities straight.''
  Also included in the email is a PDF attachment '-- unavailable to RT's reporters '-- said to include a response of sorts from Mr. Blair to George Shultz, a longtime member of Washington's elite that worked as secretary of state underneath US Pres. Ronald Reagan in the late 1980s while Gen. Powell held the position of national security advisor. In his own right, Shultz has been associated with the secretive Bohemian Grove group for decades.
  In the leaked emails, Knight says to Powell, ''I'm going to suggest the same to Henry,'' likely implying that the journalist was determined to make sure Mr. Kissinger '-- who served as secretary of state under Pres. Nixon and Ford, and before that was national security advisor himself '-- was preparing to attend last year's event.
  Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell (AFP Photo / Jim Watson)
  Several sources online tie Powell, Shultz, Knight and Kissinger to Bohemian Grove, but Blair has only been long rumored to be an attendee at the annual soiree. In 2006, Blair did visit San Francisco, California '-- less than 100 miles away from the Grove's gated campsite'--where he dined with Shultz.
  ''There was speculation that Mr. Blair might even have been a guest at the male-only event, following in the footsteps of John Major and Prince Philip,'' the UK's Daily Mail reported at the time. ''As it is, the Shultz party was said to have been littered with guests who had left the Grove in order to meet Mr. Blair.''
  The San Francisco Chronicle also reported that summer that Prime Minister Blair was rumored to be attending the festivities, which have long become a topic of debate and discussion of conspiracy theorists, largely due to the sheer elusiveness of an event that attracts high-profile men of power with a strict embargo on admitting the media.
  ''Less than a mile from us there are millionaires, billionaires, people who control the world, control the central banks, build nuclear weapons. This is their summer playground,'' Sonoma State University sociology professor Peter Phillips told RT in 2011. ''We know for sure that Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan sat down and had conversation about who was going to run for president when and they made a deal.'' The Washington Post has even reported that a planning meeting for the Manhattan Project occurred at the grove in 1942, leading eventually to the creation of the atom bomb.
  Since the list of attendees is kept under lock and key, only a confirmation from Powell or Blair themselves could verify whether or not the four star general did in fact convince the prime minister to attend last year's event.
  In his email to RT, Guccifer signed with the signature, ''illuminati free world.''
  This article originally appeared at RT.
  More from RT'...
  For context, here is some leaked footage from one of the hallmark events of the annual Bohemian Grove retreat, the deeply occult ''Cremation of Care'' Ceremony
Cyprus Bailout Agreement Reached! Savings Accounts Over 100,000 Euros Could Be Taxed 40%!
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  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:54
Myths of Email
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  Source: LewRockwell.com
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:13
  by James Black
  Email is one of the most prevalent forms of communication. Yet, it remains one of the most misunderstood and insecure. The popular conception that email communications resemble a secure version of snail mail has no basis.
  In fact, it is a complete myth.
  Email communications best resemble a postcard in which anyone can read it whilst in transit, since an email has no envelope (i.e. encryption) preventing unauthorized interception.
  Because email is such an integral part of modern life, it is important to bear in mind certain principles in order to utilize email securely and privately.
  EMAIL PRINCIPLES
  Never send sensitive information in an unencrypted email.With few exceptions, never use a full name as an email name.Never use Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or any establishment email services.Avoid pseudo private email services such as Hushmail, Safe-mail, et al.Never open an email attachment from an unknown sender.Exercise caution when opening or reading an email from an unknown sender.With few exceptions, avoid accessing email accounts via public computers.Avoid reading emails in HTML format.Avoid (as much as possible) web mail.Avoid (as much as possible) reading email with active content enabled (JavaScript).HOW TO SELECT THE BEST EMAIL SERVICES
  Quality email services are generally user specific. Choosing an email service often depends on the location, purpose, and paranoia of a person. In almost all instances, however, it is recommended to give preference to an email service outside of one's local jurisdiction. Because offshore email services are outside the jurisdiction of local governments, they can usually ignore complaints by local governments. More importantly, in most circumstances, local governments cannot seize offshore email servers.
  Nevertheless, offshore status alone is no guarantee of email privacy or security. Indeed, some offshore locations are essentially vassal states of certain Western powers dating as far back as the colonial period. Therefore, when considering an offshore email service, it is important to ascertain the status of a government's independence and the facts pertaining to its privacy and data retention laws. In addition to a government's privacy and data retention laws, it is important to ascertain whether an email service is a member of any reputable privacy organizations. In particular, if it is certified to meet or exceed certain privacy standards. Offshore email services with data retention and weak privacy standards should be avoided.
  Commercial email services offered by Google and Yahoo, for example, should be avoided as they are intrusive, insecure, and have poor privacy standards, and they share users' data with government agencies, in addition to the data they retain and sell to third parties. But more than this, however, employees at some email services (i.e. Google) have been known to read through users' emails; and commercial email services have data retention that keep permanent records of users' email accounts and retain a record of their IP addresses with every login.
  Consumers must be perspicacious of many pseudo private email services claiming to be private and secure, when in fact, they are neither. Beware of certain email providers names, which might raise suspicion. Hushmail, for example, seemingly promises great privacy and security. It comes with High-grade Encryption, it sounds impressive, and it hides clients' IP addresses on select services. But a closer examination reveals a few significant red flags. Hushmail is an inappropriate email appellation because it raises suspicion; it has data retention; and, more importantly, Hushmail has been known to divulge data to the Canadian and U.S. Governments.
  Safe-Mail is yet another email service that seemingly offers great privacy and security; however, the company behind it, the location of the servers, and the political ramifications of using Safe-Mail, are all reasons to avoid it. Safe-Mail is an Israeli company, with Israeli servers, with reportedly strong ties to the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad, which has close ties to the CIA and the U.S. Government.
  Special attention should be given to email services operated by privacy activists'--but with cautious reservation. Some organizations are excessively partisan, disseminate misguided politics, and are extremely intolerant of opposing opinions. The organization known as RiSEUP, for instance, is a radical U.S. based socialist Marxist organization that requires full compliance of its political platform by potential applicants to be considered for membership. According to RiSEUP, "If you disagree with this [its social contract], then riseup.net is not for you."
  Although RiSEUP markets its email services to political activists, it should not be used by government whistleblowers. Government whistleblowers require the highest standards of email privacy and security. Due to the sensitive nature of their work and the potential consequences of exposure, government whistleblowers should avoid politically laced organizations as they are the most likely to be infiltrated by government agents or targeted by government agencies.
  Subscription based email services are more private and secure than most free services and offer consumers a better platform, with more features, and enhanced customer support. Although there are a few free exceptional services available that offer superior privacy and security, this is more of an exception than the rule.
  Subscription based email services have a vested interest in protecting the privacy, data, and communications of their clients. In addition to utilizing more advanced protocols and a more secure server infrastructure, subscription services are more innovative, often times coalescing the best open source applications, including the OpenPGP standard, to better facilitate more secure email communications.
  Although considerable preference should be given to email clients, web mail services may be acceptable if they utilize High-grade Encryption, since login data, such as passwords and usernames, may be sniffed without encryption. High-grade Encryption is available in many forms, including AES, Camellia, Blowfish, Twofish, Serpent, and usually in the size of 128 or 256-bit.
  End-to-end encryption of email, however, is only possible through OpenPGP and other similar encryption standards. Do not mistake a web mail's High-grade Encryption to mean sending and receiving emails are encrypted. It only means a login to the mail server is encrypted.
  EMAIL CLIENTS
  Email clients are applications that make it possible to utilize email services without having to log into web mail accounts. Although connection to the Internet is required, email clients make direct connections to email servers, thereby bypassing the need to use web mail. There are sundry advantages to this. Email clients avoid many of the privacy hazards of web based email services, including the need to allow cookies, JavaScript, and other active content, including Java, all of which can deanonymize Internet users. More importantly, email clients have multitudinous security and privacy features built into the software, in addition to privacy and security enhancing extensions. Only open source email clients are recommended, in particular Thunderbird (Iceweasel) and Evolution.
  March 26, 2013
  James Black [send him mail] is the author of The Privacy Book. For more information, please visit www.sovereignpress.org.
  Copyright (C) 2013 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
Marjoram
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  Source: No Agenda Entertainment
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:10
  MarjoramPosted on 25 March 2013 by Dave
  While John Dvorak was thinking of ways to improve his Cat Food Mac'n Cheese recipe, he's sure the herb marjoram will come in handy! Dvorak loves marjoram and buys it in 2 pound batches and often uses it as a salad herb. John explained you can use lots of marjoram and your dish will still taste good. With herbs like oregano it's easy to add to much and your food will taste bitter. Adam researched that to the greeks it's a symbol of happiness.
  Dvorak finished the discussion with the French cook book that describes many recipes for rat! Turns out you cook it pretty much like a rabbit. He mentioned this recipe before while discussing the book Unmentionable Cuisine back in NA 308.
Can Buying Food Contribute to Terrorism?
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  Source: FrontPage Magazine» FrontPage
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:09
  In October 2010, news broke about how the Campbell's Soup company received an Islamic (halal) certification for some of its product line, and many were outraged. There was a legitimate concern '' not with the fact that Campbell's received the certification, but with what organization the certification came from, that being the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a group co-founded by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian.
  In 2007 and 2008, ISNA was named by the U.S. Justice Department as a co-conspirator for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. The defendants of the trials were the leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and HLF itself. In the end, each was found guilty of all charges.
  There was good reason for ISNA being named. For years, since HLF was established in 1987 as the Occupied Land Fund (OLF), the group advertised its mailing address as the same one being used (to this day) by ISNA. ISNA's main youth group, the Muslim Students Association (MSA), asked for donations to be sent to the address in OLF's name.
  This information, along with the backlash Campbell's received, might have contributed to Campbell's ending its association with ISNA and becoming the client of another halal group, the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA). However, Campbell's may have acted too soon, as ISNA has now announced that it and IFANCA have forged an agreement to work together. As was posted this month on ISNA's site, ''ISNA has built an alliance with the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA), the largest Halal certifying body in the U.S., for support in establishing the national Halal standards and accreditation body.''
  But regardless of ISNA's connection to IFANCA, IFANCA has major terror-related problems of its own.
  Ahmad H. Sakr is a member of IFANCA's Board of Directors and has been with IFANCA since its inception. According to Sakr's bio, he ''co-founded the Muslim Students' Association in North America in which he led for some time.'' Established in 1963, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) was the first major Muslim Brotherhood organization within the U.S. Sakr, as well, served as an officer and sat on the Board of Directors of the MSA-created North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), a group named by the U.S. Justice Department as a co-conspirator for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas.
  Also according to his bio, Sakr was ''the first director and representative of the Muslim World League to the U.N.'' As stated by the Anti-Defamation League, the Muslim World League (MWL) ''has a long history of providing financial support to terrorist groups or having organizational links to them, including to Hamas, Abu Sayyaf group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Jemaat al Islamiyya, and Al Qaeda. The MWL also provides a platform for inflammatory speech, including anti-Semitism.''
  In Sakr's book, 'Pork: Possible Reasons for its Prohibition,' he describes Jews as being cursed, monkey-like, filthy and corrupt. He wrote: ''It is known that some of the children of Israel regularly disobeyed Allah and as a result, were cursed. Some of them stagnated spiritually and mentally and hence became idol-worshippers; others lost their mission in life as human beings and became entertainers (if such a term is to be used) like monkeys, apes and chimpanzies [sic], and still others became filthy of mind and body, gluttonous eaters of carnivorous animals, and lived totally a corrupted life as swines [sic].''
  Roger M. Othman sits on the Board of Directors of IFANCA and previously served as the first Managing Director of IFANCA. According to his bio, Othman ''has served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the Mosque Foundation.''
  The Mosque Foundation (MF), located in the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview, has been a haven for Palestinian terror-related activity. MF has held fundraisers for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami al-Arian and Hamas's former American finance wing, the Holy Land Foundation. In July 2007, one of Othman's fellow MF Executive Committee alumni, Muhammad Salah, was convicted of obstruction of justice for making false statements during a legal proceeding and was sentenced to 21 months in prison. According to the FBI, Salah was recruiting and training Hamas members and was raising money for Hamas.
  IFANCA, itself, partners with the Mosque Foundation, as they are both member organizations of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC). Other members include: Islamic Relief (IR), which has been associated with both Hamas and al-Qaeda financing; Helping Hand (HH), which partnered with a Pakistani charity at the same time that charity delivered close to $100 thousand to the residence of the head of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal; and the Muslim American Society (MAS), which has used the internet to propagate materials degrading to women, cursing Christians, and calling for the murder of Jews.
  All of this should be of concern to the numerous companies that give IFANCA big money to place IFANCA's 'Crescent M' symbol on their food products. This includes not only Campbell's soups, but Ben and Jerry's ice cream, Sun-Maid raisins, Nestle chocolate, and according to the bio of IFANCA's President Muhammad Munir Chaudry, Hershey and Pepsi too. In fact, at a 2011 Islamist forum moderated by then-ISNA Secretary General Safaa Zarzour, one of the featured participants, Pepsi's Chief Scientific Officer Mehmood Khan, claimed that Pepsi ''collaborates'' with IFANCA with ''those 24 countries we [Pepsi] have halal certification.''
  This is truly disturbing, given IFANCA's extremist leadership and terrorist ties.
  At the 2011 forum, Chaudry spoke, stating, ''I see only opportunities'... opportunities by Muslim businessmen to create more businesses, and there are opportunities for non-Muslim-owned corporations to service us, to service our needs.'' The question is: Which needs is he referring to? The ones that are food-related or the ones that move his group to associate with co-conspirators?
  Joe Kaufman is an expert in the fields of counter-terrorism, foreign affairs and energy independence for America. He has been featured on all major cable networks, including Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and C-SPAN. Kaufman has served as a consultant to different government agencies, and he has been instrumental in getting U.S.-based terrorist charities shut down and terror-related individuals put behind bars. Exactly one month prior to the September 11 attacks, Kaufman predicted the attacks by stating that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was not an aberration and that it would happen again.
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An Offer Cypriots Can't Refuse
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  Archived Version
  Source: FrontPage Magazine» FrontPage
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:08
  In what has become a depressingly familiar EU template, yet another ''eleventh hour'' deal was reached between the European Central Bank (ECB) the European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) '-- known as the ''troika'' '-- and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades to avoid national bankruptcy. ''It's been yet another hard day's night,'' European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told reporters in Brussels, where the deal was put together. ''There were no optimal solutions available, only hard choices.''
  Hard choices indeed. In return for a $13 billion ($10 billion Euro) bailout, the tiny Mediterranean nation has agreed to wind down Laiki Bank, Cyprus's second largest, wiping out thousands of jobs in the process. Depositors holding more than $130,000 will take potentially huge losses, the percentage of which has yet to be determined. But because the bank is expected to yield approximately $5.4 billion to satisfy the latest agreement, it is estimated that those losses will be as much as 40 percent, more than four times the 9.9 percent that was part of the deal rejected by the Cypriot parliament in a unanimous 36-0 vote last week.
  No parliamentary vote will be required this time around. In the previous deal, the bailout money confiscated from bank accounts was going to be raised by imposing a nationwide tax on bank accounts that were both insured and uninsured. Imposing a tax required a vote by the Cypriot parliament. Because this new grab only targets uninsured accounts at Laiki Bank and the Bank of Cyprus, nine laws passed last Friday by parliament allowing bank ''restructures'' to go forward means no further vote is required.
  Depositors with less than $130,000 in holdings will remain ''fully guaranteed.'' In a deal reminiscent of the TARP bailout, Laiki Bank will be immediately dissolved into a ''bad bank'' containing uninsured deposits and toxic assets, while the remaining insured deposits with be transferred to the ''good'' Bank of Cyprus, the nation's largest lending institution.
  EU-philes and other assorted leftists offered their typical rationale for this latest effort. The New York Times framed the deal as one that would ''prune the size of Cyprus's oversize banking sector, bloated by billions of dollars from Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.'' IMF leader Christine Lagarde called it a ''a comprehensive and credible plan'' to restore faith in the nation's banking system. French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici deemed the deal necessary because Cyprus is ''a casino economy that was on the brink of bankruptcy.'' Cypriot Finance Minister Michalis Sarris claimed that ''we really have avoided a disastrous exit from the eurozone.'' German Finance Minister Wolfgang Shaeuble contended the agreement was ''capable of stabilizing the situation in Cyprus.''
  The realists were far less sanguine. ''This decision is painful for the Cypriot people. This decision was a defeat of solidarity, of social cohesion, which are fundamental freedoms, fundamental principles of the European Union,'' Parliament President Yiannakis Omirou told AP. ''So as soon as possible we have to prepare our economy to go out from the mechanism and the troika,'' he added. Nicholas Papadopolous, chairman of the Cypriot parliament's finance committee, was far more direct. ''We are heading for a deep recession, high unemployment. [The troika] wanted to send a message that the Cypriot economy ought to be destroyed, and they've succeeded in a large part''they've destroyed our banking sector,'' he told the BBC. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev spelled out the meaning of the deal in no uncertain terms. ''The stealing of what has already been stolen continues,'' he said.
  Perhaps the most amazing''and utterly naive''aspect of this deal is the idea that what has happened in Cyprus will stay in Cyprus. UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage called on British expats in Spain to pull their money out of Spanish banks, contending the EU leaders had ''crossed a line'' in Cyprus. ''There is going to be a big flight of money and that flight of money won't just be from Cyprus, it will be from the other eurozone countries, too,'' he warned. ''There are 750,000 British people who own properties, or who live, many of them in retirement, down in Spain. Now that we see the EU are prepared to resort to anything to keep alive their failing euro project, our advice to expats living down in the Mediterranean must be, 'Get your money out of there while you've still got a chance.'''
  Christopher Pissarides, a Nobel prize-winning economist advising President Nicos Anastasiades, contended that the troika is treating Cyprus ''far worse'' than other EU basket cases that needed bailouts, and predicts that ''the way we deal with this situation has implications for the rest of Europe.'' ''We have a German finance minister who comes and tells us Cypriots that 'We don't like your economic model, bankrupt your banks and you can sort it out on the way''...The difference with Cyprus is that it is small. Is Luxembourg going to be next in line? Is Malta going to be next in line? Small members of the Eurozone beware,'' he cautioned.
  In the same Friday session during which bank restructuring laws were passed, the Cypriot parliament also imposed capital controls to prevent a likely stampede of money out of the country. Yet the EC, claiming they were acting on behalf of ''Cypriot authorities'' said that such controls, which violate EU laws regarding the free flow of capital, can only be imposed for a short time. ''This is a restriction on movement that may only last a few days,'' said Michel Barnier, the Commissioner responsible for the EU's single market.
  Cypriot banks are supposed to open today, after imposing cash withdrawal limits at bank machines over last weekend when Cypriots began withdrawing their money in droves. At first, they could withdraw 400 Euros, then 260, and then only 100 Euros, after the central bank in Cyprus stepped into prevent a run. Cash was king over the weekend as well, as several retailers refused to take credit cards or checks. ''It's been cash-only here for three days,'' said Ali Wissom, a restaurant manager in Nicosia. ''The banks have closed, we don't really know if they will reopen, and all of our suppliers are demanding cash''even the beer company.''
  It will undoubtedly get worse. Russians, who maintain accounts totaling $31 billion of the total $88 billion held in Cypriot banks, will surely find other places to put their money, after having been caught flat-footed by this deal. Dozens of them descended on the country last week to vent their anger at Cypriot officials. Fedor Mikhin, who owns an international shipping business, illuminated the implications. ''The locals should understand: as soon as the money leaves, the people who go to restaurants, buy cars and buy property leave too,'' he said. ''The Cypriots' means of living will disappear. They are saying we laundered all the money, but they lived on that money for ten years and forgot about it,'' he added.
  European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso insists the future is less certain.''I am confident that the program will work, but let's be honest. At this moment, we cannot say exactly what the impact is going to be,'' he told reporters. ''It will depend on the level of implementation and the commitment of Cyprus itself.''
  The ''impact'' may be more than monetary. A public poll conducted by Cyprus's Sigma television reveals that more than 66 percent of those surveyed would be willing to drop the euro and move closer to Russia. Much of the island's anger has been directed towards the EU in general, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in particular, whose nation Cypriots consider the chief architect behind the deal. ''There is a clear danger of this area becoming a platform for confrontation between East and West,'' said Harry Tzimitras, director of a research center in Nicosia.
  It already has, and the more than 50,000 Russian-speaking people who have come to Cyprus from the former Soviet Union deeply resent the underlying rationale behind this confiscation of funds. ''We are not criminals, arms dealers or bootleggers,'' said Sergey Ivanov, a Russian who runs a wine business. ''There is a generation of Russian businessmen like me who have lost faith in the Russian government, in Russian banks and in Russian laws. That is why we are in Cyprus.'' A Nicosia-based lawyer was equally contemptuous. ''I don't understand why it is money laundering when it's in Cyprus, when in London it's a perfectly respectable company.''
  There is no question that Cyprus has benefited greatly from its 30-year reputation as a tax haven. Foreign companies pay a flat tax rate of just 10 percent, making it extremely attractive to operate there. That reality may explain what this deal is really all about: to send a message that the socialist beast devouring Europe will brook no challenges to its high-tax, supra-nationalist authority despite the reality that it was the supra-nationlists and their lust for a ''new world order'' under the EU that set the entire ''poor southern Europe versus rich northern Europe'' dynamic in motion. It is a dynamic that has a financially secure Germany berating its spendthrift southern neighbors for being fiscally irresponsible, even as its heavily export-dependent economy requires such nations to buy German goods.
  Ever since the European fiscal crisis began, the bureaucrats in Brussels have successfully convinced the majority of people living in places like Greece, Spain and Italy that national bankruptcy and a return to a national currency would be far more catastrophic than the ongoing austerity measures currently being imposed.
  Yet one has to wonder how long that argument will continue to resonate. In Greece, for example, the unemployment rate reached a record-setting 27 percent in November. Almost unbelievably, that rate soars to 61.7 percent for those in the 15-24 age group. They are in their sixth straight year of a ''recession,'' that is really an outright depression, and their economy shrank another 6.45 percent in 2012. Furthermore, 35 percent of the entire population will be officially living in poverty by the end of 2013, an increase of five percent in just two years, all with no end in sight.
  Can national bankruptcy and a return to the drachma, which would then be devalued to attract foreign investment, be any worse?
  Coming to that conclusion is precisely what the Brussels bureaucrats and the international finance establishment are desperately trying to suppress. Yet in their unrelenting arrogance, they have overplayed their hand. The ultimate fundamental that encourages people to put their money in financial institutions is trust. That trust has now been obliterated. ''We now have a new type of rule and everyone within the euro zone has to sit down and see what that implies for their own finances,'' warned Christopher Pissarides.
  David Folkerts-Landau, chief economist of Deutsche Bank, was far more honest. ''If a single country leaves the euro zone, it sets a precedent,'' he said last week. ''No one will ever again believe that a country will not leave the euro zone.'' Whether it stays or goes, Cyprus is facing a nightmarish scenario. What the people of that nation have to figure out is which scenario puts them in a better position for the future.
  Cypriots might take their cue from Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimson. When that nation faced a banking crisis in 2008, they took a capitalist approach to the problem: they let the banks go under. Five years later, the economy is growing at a three percent clip, and their unemployment rate, which rose to 8.6 percent in January 2011, was down to 5.5 percent in January 2013. At the World Economic Forum in Davos that same month, Grimson posed a fundamental question. ''Why do we consider banks to be like holy churches?'' he wondered. Perhaps Cypriots''along with a lot of other people''might ask themselves the same question.
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Jim Carey in white face paint
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:08
  Let us face one thing perfectly clear, that if Jim Carey had put on black face paint, spit watermelon seeds, lazed in the shade jacking off as he ate chicken, there would be outrage, but since it is rural Americans, Americans suffering from Alzheimer who are all white, then it is all something funny to a racist like Jim Carey in dismantling the United States Constitution.
  The reality is Carey is a racist and that fact is he ignores that black Americans, Asian Americans, most of Indian Americans are all gun owners, and their ranks are growing each day as the thin blue line of showing up 30 minutes after you bled out is the reality of America.
  "Charlton Heston movies are no longer in demand, and his immortal soul may lay forever in the sand. The angels wouldn't take him up to heaven like he planned, because they couldn't pry the gun from his cold dead hand," Carey sings, with help from famous peace advocates Mahatma Gandhi, John Lennon and Abraham Lincoln -- all peace promoters assassinated by gunmen.
  There is problem in Carey being ignorant of history, as Abraham Lincoln was not a peace advocate in he chose war, the most brutal kind of nation rape war on the South in releasing slave terrorists throughout the south.
  Gandhi was quite firearms oriented in this quote.
  "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." -- Mahatma Gandhi ...
  Even John Lennon before his death, had become a staunch supporter of Richard Nixon and the right in America.
  The fact is the "men of peace" that Jim Carey attempts to profane from the grave, chose brutal war, wanted people armed and used pacification to bring down an armed people he could not win a war against, but knew their morals would preclude their murdering him in Gandhi, and John Lennon the dope headed peace twerp, grew up before his death in rejecting all the garbage of the left.
  Jim Carey is in his ignorance exposing more things about Jim Carey in racism in deeming people of brown and black skins not capable of owning firearms nor capable of defending themselves.
  The reality in gun ownership and those who want to deprive ownership is a reality that Jim Carey lost the debate and stooped to using a dead Charleton Heston to drag him around the cinema to make a point, that Carey is a cruel person inside, for he never sees guns defending America, families or children, but deep down Jim Carey sees guns, as he views the world in his heart as something which he could not be trusted with as he would murder people, including children with those guns.
  Carey attempts to use the psychological psychopathy that men who have guns are making up for lack of penis size. With women arming themselves in America, Carey does not even mention women a chauvinist in what they might be attempting to make up for...........as in being raped, robbed and murdered.
  For the reality, people turn to comedy because they are miserable inside and want attention, and hide behind the laughter. Carey never has been like all of these gun grabbers ever been able to carry on a sustained relationship with any human of the opposite sex.As noted Carey, made the point of including children and bending in one of his rants that he calls humor, but exposed Carey to the question of what is really going on in his head in using children as a tool to get what he wants, with sexual undertones.
  I have endured a few of Jim Carey's movies. He is not funny unless one is 3 years old and likes a great deal of screaming and movement. Frankly, Carey should be aware that the very people he is attacking in his rants are the ones who paid for his rich life, as that is the class of people he appeals to mentally.They though are waking up to what Jim Carey is, a broken persona who has not worked in years, and who has a mind that it never crosses the reality that women, blacks, Asians, latinos and Indians are all gun owners, but nary a word is sung about any of those groups as Jim Carey considers this a "white only" issue of people who are "those people" that the Letterman cocktail crowd want aborted out of existence.
  Jim Carey issued a quote which sums up what he is:
  "Thx 4 your input 2day. I don't think i've ever felt so despised and so free at the same time. It's been delightfully. ;^}"
  Interesting in Jim Carey, equates being despised, as he attempts to still be a child in writing juvenile, with being free at the same time.Jim Carey did this to be abused, to be punished, for whatever sins he has harboring inside of hisself, and that is what has freed him as finally he is being punished to a level that makes him feel free from the guilt.
  Analysis is Carey is guilt ridden over taking so much money from poor gun owners for his fantastic existence he is imprisoned in, but he can never do the right thing in returning all the money.
  So many of these white face paint rich artists like Randy Newman, see this as a white world. Jim Carey never seems to notice the piles of dead Muslim children who needed more protection from Barack Hussein Obama than they ever did from anyone on the planet.
  Barack Hussein Obama has murdered more brown skin children than Sandy Hook or the Batman theater, and Jim Carey, Dianne Feinstein or Nancy Pelosi will never call for Obama control.
  That is always interesting in these racists like Jim Carey that dead white children in Sandy Hook matter and the dead brown skinned children created by their donations and support of B. Hussein AKA Barry Chin never crosses their minds.
  So pleased Jim Carey that you decided like your liberal race baiters to expose yourselves again.
  It appears like all of these Obama voters, that they want that Designer Negro to carry out the murders and rapes which Jim Carey dreams about, but never has the balls to act out upon...........but to do it to those bitchy white women like Lara Logan getting dirtied up by Egyptians for rejecting Jim Carey in school and offing those Arab children as there is a difference in Jim Carey between white children and those "other skinned" children.
  Just like there is a difference in Carey Obama's America is different from those "other rural Americans".
  God bless you Jim Carey, in the Holy Ghost of God and the Lord Jesus Christ visiting you with all the necessary means to have you repent in Jesus Name Amen.
  agtG 251
Cyprus Is Going To Have To Accept European Demands
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  Archived Version
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:00
Texas Governor Rick Perry Wants Texas To Hoard Gold by Michael Allen
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:31
  by Michael AllenOpposing Views
  Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) and Texas State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R) have decided to create a ''Fort Knox of Texas'' in order for the state to start hoarding gold.
  Capriglione, who got the idea while attending a tea party rally with Gov. Perry, has introduced a bill to create a Texas Bullion Depository to store $1 billion worth of gold bars that are owned by University of Texas Investment Management Co., reports Star-Telegram.com.
  ''Something on the scorecards of a lot of these businesses in deciding whether they want to come to Texas is stability and gold as being one of those items,'' Capriglione said. ''I think it's been in his consciousness for a while in trying to get some sort of depository in the state of Texas. We don't want just the certificates. We want our gold. And if you're the state of Texas, you should be able to get your gold.''
  Capriglione did not mention which businesses are deciding to move to Texas based upon the location of the state's gold.
  Read the rest of the article
  March 25, 2013
  Copyright (C) 2013 Opposing Views
Setting up DSP Radio - YouTube
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:24
Drones form giant Star Trek symbol in the sky '' bow in fear - PC & Tech Authority
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:14
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VIDEO-Army Officer Warns Of DHS Coup Emergency Report!!!!!!! - YouTube
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:55
With U.S.C. Speech, David Petraeus Is Back in Public Eye
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:35
  But in a speech on Tuesday night, Mr. Petraeus will seek to open a new chapter in his career '-- one that carves out a role for himself as a voice on energy, economic and veterans issues and in the private sector.
  Mr. Petraeus's speech, which will take place at an event honoring veterans and the R.O.T.C. program at the University of Southern California, will begin with an account of the ''personal journey'' he has undergone since his resignation.
  ''Needless to say, I join you keenly aware that I am regarded in a different light now than I was a year ago,'' Mr. Petraeus will say, according to an advance text of his speech that was made available to The New York Times.
  ''I am also keenly aware that the reason for my recent journey was my own doing,'' he will say. ''So please allow me to begin my remarks this evening by reiterating how deeply I regret '-- and apologize for '-- the circumstances that led me to resign from the C.I.A. and caused such pain for my family, friends and supporters.''
  The resignation of Mr. Petraeus, one of America's most decorated four-star generals, marked a stunning end to a meteoric career in which he helped draft the military's field manual on counterinsurgency; commanded the American-led coalition during the troop ''surge'' in Iraq; led the military effort in the more fraught Afghan conflict; and became the director of the C.I.A., where he urged, unsuccessfully, that the White House provide arms to a select cadre of Syrian rebels.
  President Obama accepted Mr. Petraeus's resignation on Nov. 9, after Mr. Petraeus acknowledged the affair with a biographer, Paula Broadwell.
  Overnight, Mr. Petraeus left behind the days in which he would start work at 5 a.m. in a specially constructed intelligence office at his Arlington, Va., home before arriving at the C.I.A. at 7:15 a.m. Instead, he lived a largely homebound existence in which much of his contact with current and former associates was by e-mail.
  After resigning, Mr. Petraeus testified behind closed doors to Congress about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, but avoided public appearances and turned down a stack of news media requests to tell his story.
  In recent months, however, Mr. Petraeus has increasingly appeared in public for lunches and dinners with former colleagues, foreign officials, members of Congress and policy experts. He met not long ago in New York with Fouad Ajami, the Middle East scholar, and recently attended a small off-the-record seminar on Iran at a Washington research institution.
  Acquaintances of Mr. Petraeus say he supported Mr. Obama's decision to nominate John O. Brennan as his successor at the C.I.A., a view he communicated privately to two Republicans, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, as well as to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
  Mr. Petraeus has received offers from the financial community and has taken trips to New York to explore what one of his associates called ''long-term opportunities.'' He has been asked to serve as a consultant to major companies, been offered the opportunity to give paid speeches and is exploring positions in academia. Mr. Petraeus, 60, is also keeping up his physical fitness regimen, alternating between daily seven-mile runs and 25-mile bike rides.
  His post-government life is being managed by Robert B. Barnett, a lawyer who handles book deals for the Washington elite and who counts the last three American presidents as clients.
  Mr. Barnett said that Mr. Petraeus ''has spent a lot of time with his family, and their collective focus is forward.''
  Tuesday's speech was arranged long before Mr. Petraeus resigned. The University of Southern California, which describes itself one of the few universities to have maintained an unbroken relationship with the R.O.T.C. since World War II, has been active in helping veterans.
  A major theme of the speech is the importance of supporting the families of military personnel who have perished in America's wars, caring for wounded service members and honoring the service of veterans.
  ''There is often a view that, because an individual was a great soldier, he or she will naturally do well in and transition effortlessly to the civilian world,'' Mr. Petraeus will say while listing some of the nonprofit veterans groups he is supporting. ''In reality, the transition from military service to civilian pursuits often is quite challenging.''
  Mr. Petraeus's wife, Holly, who works in Washington at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which handles consumer complaints from military service members and their families, will not be attending the event.
  Toward the close of the speech, Mr. Petraeus will return again to his own missteps.
  ''I know that I can never fully assuage the pain that I inflicted on those closest to me and on a number of others,'' he will say. ''I can, however, try to move forward in a manner that is consistent with the values to which I subscribed before slipping my moorings and, as best as possible, to make amends to those I have hurt and let down.''
  Mr. Petraeus will also say that ''life doesn't stop with such a mistake; it can and must go on.''
CONFIRMED: US Shipping Weapons to Syria '' Al Nusra's ''Mystery'' Sponsors Revealed
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: End the Lie - Independent News
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:35
  With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria's opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.
  The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.
  The New York Times piece attempts to spin America's role in arming militants in Syria. The Times continues by stating:
  The American government became involved, the former American official said, in part because there was a sense that other states would arm the rebels anyhow. The C.I.A. role in facilitating the shipments, he said, gave the United States a degree of influence over the process, including trying to steer weapons away from Islamist groups and persuading donors to withhold portable antiaircraft missiles that might be used in future terrorist attacks on civilian aircraft.
  This is categorically false. Already, in 2007, US officials had divulged plans to destroy Syria by arming sectarian extremists, using Saudi Arabia and other regional actors as proxies to launder US and Israel support through '' maintaining a degree of credibility amongst the terrorist receiving the aid, as well as a degree of plausible deniabiliy for Washington and Tel Aviv politically. In Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh's 2007 New Yorker article, ''The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?'' the strategy was described as follows:
  To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has co¶perated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
  Perhaps more importantly, the report would also state:
  Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.
  Clearly, that ''sense that other states would arm the rebels anyhow'' was gleaned from premeditated conspiracies long-ago hatched between Washington, Tel Aviv, and Riyadh. And as the terrible consequences of this conspiracy come to fruition with tens of thousands dead, the West is eager to disclaim any and all responsibility, hoping sincerely that the public hasn't the collective memory or intelligence to pick up a newspaper from 2007 and read what they had already admitted to planning.
  ''Mystery'' ofAl Qaeda's al-Nusra Sponsorship Revealed
  The confirmed admission implicates NATO directly in militarily intervening in Syria's ongoing conflict and reveals the source of arms and cash that have ended up primarily in the hands of Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, US designated terror front, Jabhat al-Nusra. (see here for other examples of US arming listed terror organizations)
  The CIA, Western media, and Western politicians insist that they have taken every precaution to ensure the now admitted torrent of cash and weapons that have been flowing into Syria to compound and perpetuate the bloodbath, did not end up in the hands of terrorists. However, no plausible explanation has been given as to where al-Nusra is getting its cash and weapons from, or how it has managed to eclipse the extensively Western-backed ''moderates,'' to become the premier front in the fight against the Syrian people.
  Indeed, the New York Times' article ''Syrian Rebels Tied to Al Qaeda Play Key Role in War,'' states:
  The lone Syrian rebel group with an explicit stamp of approval from Al Qaeda has become one of the uprising's most effective fighting forces, posing a stark challenge to the United States and other countries that want to support the rebels but not Islamic extremists.
  Money flows to the group, the Nusra Front, from like-minded donors abroad. Its fighters, a small minority of the rebels, have the boldness and skill to storm fortified positions and lead other battalions to capture military bases and oil fields. As their successes mount, they gather more weapons and attract more fighters.
  The group is a direct offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraqi officials and former Iraqi insurgents say, which has contributed veteran fighters and weapons.
  While the London Telegraph reports in their article, ''Syria: how jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra is taking over Syria's revolution,'' that:
  And in recent weeks it is Jabhat al-Nusra, a radical jihadist group blacklisted by the US as terrorists and a group that wants Syria to be an uncompromising Islamic state governed by sharia, that is holding sway.
  The group is well funded '' probably through established global jihadist networks '' in comparison to moderates. Meanwhile pro-democracy rebel group commanders say money from foreign governments has all but dried up because of fears over radical Islamists.
  The effect is changing the face of the Syrian revolution
  ''The group is well funded '' probably through established global jihadist networks '' in comparison to moderates.'' Could the London Telegraph be capable of such incomplete or incompetent reporting regarding what it seems to allude to as an unsolvable ''mystery'' regarding al-Nusra's sponsors?
  In October of 2012, the Land Destroyer Report published, ''NATO Using Al Qaeda Rat Lines to Flood Syria With Foreign Terrorists,'' which traced the logistical network now admitted to by the New York Times. This logistical network was then overlaid with Al Qaeda's regional networks, documented extensively during the US occupation of Iraq by the US Army's own West Point Combating Terrorism Center. The very regions along the Turkish-Syrian border, the Jordanian-Syrian border, and the Iraqi-Syrian border which served as recruiting and staging grounds for Al Qaeda terrorists during the Iraq War, now serve as the primary logistical hubs admittedly overseen by the CIA.
  Image: (Left)West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's 2007 report,''Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq'' indicated which areas in Syria Al Qaeda fighters filtering into Iraq came from. The overwhelming majority of them came from Dayr Al-Zawr in Syria's southeast, Idlib in the north near the Turkish-Syrian border, and Dar'a in the south near the Jordanian-Syrian border. (Right) A map indicating the epicenters of violence in Syria indicate that the exact same hotbeds for Al Qaeda in 2007, now serve as the epicenters of so-called ''pro-democracy fighters.''
  '....
  It is now admitted that thousands of tons of weapons have been smuggled into Syria by the US and its regional allies. While the Western media has attempted in the past to feign ignorance as to where Al Qaeda's al-Nusra was getting their weapons from, it is now abundantly clear '' al-Nusra's power has expanded across Syria in tandem with the CIA's ever-expanding operations along the nation's borders. If the US is working directly with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, to arm militants, who else could possibly be working to arm and fund al-Nusra on a greater scale if not this axis itself?
  This criminal conspiracy appears to have escaped the UN's competence and capabilities, requiring that states around the world mobilize an expedient response to the dangerous, unhinged and genocidal campaign being waged by the West against Syria. If the West refuses to end its direct fueling of the Syrian crisis or answer for how their weapons have ended up almost exclusively in al-Nusra's hands, Syria's allies must begin contemplating open and extensive aid to help the nation defend itself against overt international terrorism.
  Reports indicate that it was al-Nusra who used chemical weapons in Syria's northern city of Aleppo, according to the London Telegraph. An Al Qaeda terror front wielding WMDs, we are told, is the sum of all fears and the ultimate impetus driving the unending ''War on Terror.'' Through direct, intentional actions by the West itself, this nightmare has become a reality '' one that must be addressed, lest the world descend into global anarchy or worse.
  Source: Land Destroyer
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Hanging probable cause of Boris Berezovsky's death
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: The Guardian World News
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:34
  Berezovsky reportedly told a Russian journalist the day before his death: 'I have lost the meaning of life.' Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images
  The exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky hanged himself in the bathroom of his Ascot home, a postmortem examination released last night concluded.
  After two days of speculation about whether the businessman turned Kremlin critic had become a victim of an assassination plot, a statement released by Thames Valley Police said: "The results of the postmortem examination, carried out by a Home Office pathologist, have found the cause of death is consistent with hanging."
  It added there were no signs of a violent struggle. Pathologists will now carry out further tests, including toxicology and histology, which are likely to take several weeks. A formal identification process, which has not yet been carried out, will be completed today. The Guardian understands Berezovsky's ex-wife Galina saw the body on Saturday and saw marks around his neck consistent with strangulation of some kind.
  Berezovsky had been suffering from depression after a shattering high court defeat last year by his former business partner, Roman Abramovich. He was also financially stricken, with assets frozen and legal bills of up to £100m. He was found dead by his bodyguard on Saturday afternoon in a mansion owned by his ex-wife in Mill Lane in an exclusive area of Ascot. The bathroom had been locked from the inside and a scarf is understood to have been found next to his body.
  He had reportedly told a Russian journalist the previous day: "I have lost the meaning of life", telling him at a meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel on Park Lane: "I am 67 years old. And I don't know what to do any more."
  The findings of the postmortem surprised Lord Bell, Beresovsky's PR adviser and one of his closest friends, who had spoken to him regularly over the last few months as he struggled with the judge's findings in the Abramovich case that he was an "unimpressive, and inherently unreliable witness".
  "He struck me as very low, but not that low," Bell said last night. "It is very sad. It is horrible. It won't stop people writing about [other theories of] how he died, because people don't understand suicide."
  Bell said his thoughts were with Berezovsky's family '' he has six children by two wives and a long-term partner. "You would rather think somebody had died by accident," he said. "But we have lost him. How he died is almost beside the point."
  Friends had said they felt he had got over the worst of his depression, which was treated with medication and a spell at the Priory clinic. He had started to travel into London more regularly for lunches and meetings and earlier this month held a conference with his lawyers to prepare for his testimony at the inquest into the death by radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. However, he still lacked his usual ebullience.
  Sasha Nerozina, a close friend of Galina Berezovsky, said the family were keen for a speedy conclusion to the official process so they could bury Berezovsky and get on with their grieving.
  She said they had been distressed by speculation in Russia about the cause of death. "They are trying to be as quiet as possible and grieve on their own,"
  Nerozina said: "For the children it is the most tragic time. They are extremely shocked and devastated. If you look at Russian TV, some are saying he was killed, some are saying he may have staged his own death to appear as if it came from Putin's hand. There are a lot of conspiracy theories and when you lose someone you love, you don't want them to interfere with your grief."
  Nikolay Glushkov, another friend of Berezovsky, was among those who had feared that he may have been murdered, and the finding by the UK government pathologist that Berezovsky's injuries were consistent with hanging is unlikely to end speculation entirely.
  This was the third suspicious death in the past five years to befall a businessman from the former USSR in the area. Less than 10 miles away, Russian supergrass Alexander Perepilichnyy died while jogging last year '' his death remains unexplained '' while 15 miles away, Berezovsky's former business partner, Badri Patarkatsishvili, died suddenly in 2008, sparking fevered speculation. A pathologist concluded that he died of heart disease.
Cringe-Inducing Video: Pelosi Dances Along As Dem Rep. Joe Crowley Sings ''American Pie,'' Changes Lyrics To Include Her In Song'...
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  Archived Version
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:31
  Good luck trying to watch all 4 minutes of this train wreck.
  Via Capital New York:
  The Democratic minority leader was in Manhattan last Thursday for a Crowley fund-raiser, which took place at the top of the Dream Hotel, with about 500 people in attendance. A source at the event passed along this video, where you can see Pelosi grooving along as the Queens congressman plays guitar and sings.
  Pelosi mouths the words to ''American Pie'' as she dances. ''Nancy knows all the words but I'm not going to ask her to sing tonight,'' Crowley tells the crowd.
  At one point, he changed the lyrics to include her name, and then added some other Democrats too: ''The three people I admired most / Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi the most / they caught the last train for the coast,'' he sang.
  Keep reading'...
SCIENCE! Autism and vaccinations may be correlated, according to two new articles
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  Archived Version
  Source: newsweeds.com
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:30
  Recent finds indicate correlations between autism and vaccinations. With the rapid rise of autism in the United States that began in the 1990s, two new articles may answer some questions as to why there is an increase in cases of this disorder.
  Read the original article here onScienceDaily: Latest Science News
Hackers May be Watching You Watching Porn
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  Archived Version
  Source: Dvorak News Blog
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:25
  No audio on my link. I assume the tape is to cover your weblinked camera? But I'd think ''the fact'' of me watching porn is of more concern than pictures of me watching porn===unless you mean more than watching porn?
  Yeah, that does introduce a whole other level of concern. More likely: me drinking beer.
  But I jest'...'...
Funding daily: Big companies, big dreams, big disappointments
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  Archived Version
  Source: VentureBeat » Jolie O’Dell
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:20
  Today's Funding Daily brings you nothing small. We've got a huge new fund for health tech ideas, a massively ambitious plan to turn cars into something from The Jetsons, and a great, big payout from Nasdaq to early Facebook IPO participants.
  Third Rock Ventures racks up $516M for health tech
  Third Rock Ventures is a venture capital fund that supports companies working on health IT, science, biotech, and medicine. It's huge, $516 million Fund III will invest in up to 16 companies with a particular focus on the ''going convergence'' of diagnostics, therapeutics, information technology, and data. Read the full story on VentureBeat.
  GroundCntrl grabs $1.3M
  In a Form D filed with the SEC late last week, we learned about a relatively small round for a new company with a weird name. GroundCntrl is a combination of a software as a service and a mobile app that organizes tasks and employee-incentive programs. It's specifically aimed at companies with a ''mobile workforce,'' businesses that have workers spread out and not necessarily in an office. An example could be a canvassing business, such as the environmental folks you see on the sidewalks asking for a moment of your time. Read the full story on VentureBeat.
  Joyride's seed investors take a spin
  Joyride seeks to make your boring commute time more fun with voice-activated mobile applications that provide a safe and social way to spend the driving hours. The startup is launching publicly today after presenting off-the-record at the Founder Den Demo Day last week and announcing $1 million in funding. Read the full story on VentureBeat.
  Sherpa guides itself to a $1.1M pile of cash
  Sherpa, iPhone app that promises to simplify your day, raised a $1.1 million round of seeding funding, it announced today. The app uses location-based technology to make your commute, routine, and life easier and is designed to work collaboratively with your smartphone's calendar and email, automatically pushing information when you need it. Once installed, Sherpa can let you know when to leave for your next meeting, alert you to traffic jams on your daily commute, and automatically pull up your flight information when you arrive at the airport. Read the full story on VentureBeat.
  Fenwick & West say a good Series A is hard to find
  Silicon Valley law firm Fenwick & West just released the results of its 2012 Seed Financing Survey today. The study showed that the number of startups obtaining Series A financing after a seed round declined significantly in 2012. Cue the sad trombone sound effect! Read the full story on VentureBeat.
  Not so much an exit as a $62M payout for Facebook investors
  The Securities and Exchange Commission gave Nasdaq the green light to pay out up to $62 million to those who lost money after technical glitches held up Facebook's initial public offering by a half hour. The ordeal cost investors money, and a couple weeks later, Nasdaq submitted its proposed compensation plan to the SEC, though it does claim it is not responsible for losses incurred on the trading floor. Read the full story on VentureBeat.
Why are the French drinking less wine?
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  Source: BBC News - Home
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:11
  25 March 2013Last updated at20:22 ETBy Hugh SchofieldBBC News, ParisDoes the seemingly perpetual decline in consumption of France's national drink symbolise a corresponding decline in French civilisation?
  The question worries a lot of people - oenophiles, cultural commentators, flag-wavers for French exceptionalism - all of whom have watched with consternation the gradual disappearance of wine from the national dinner table.
  Recent figures merely confirm what has been observed for years, that the number of regular drinkers of wine in France is in freefall.
  In 1980 more than half of adults were consuming wine on a near-daily basis. Today that figure has fallen to 17%.
  Meanwhile, the proportion of French people who never drink wine at all has doubled to 38%.
  Continue reading the main story''Start QuoteWine has gone from being popular to elitist''
  End QuotePerico LegasseIn 1965, the amount of wine consumed per head of population was 160 litres a year. In 2010 that had fallen to 57 litres, and will most likely dip to no more than 30 litres in the years ahead.
  At dinner, wine is the third most popular drink after tap and bottled water. Sodas and fruit juices are catching up fast and are now just a short way behind.
  According to a recent study in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship, changes in French drinking habits are clearly visible through the attitudes of successive generations.
  People in their 60s and 70s grew up with wine on the table at every meal. For them, wine remains an essential part of their patrimoine, or cultural heritage.
  The middle generation - now in their 40s and 50s - sees wine as a more occasional indulgence. They compensate for declining consumption by spending more money. They like to think they drink less but better.
  Members of the third generation - the internet generation - do not even start taking an interest in wine until their mid-to-late 20s. For them, wine is a product like any other, and they need persuading that it is worth their money.
  "What has happened is a progressive erosion of wine's identity, and of its sacred and imaginary representations," say the report's authors, Thierry Lorey and Pascal Poutet.
  "Over three generations, this has led to the changes in France's habits of consumption and the steep declines in the volume of wine that is drunk."
  The fall in consumption is mirrored in other countries - such as Italy and Spain - which are also historic producers of wine. And it has not dented the prospects for exports of French wine, which continues to hold its own abroad.
  But what worries people are the effects of the change on life inside France, on French civilisation.
  They fear that time-honoured French values - conviviality, tradition and appreciation of the good things in life - are on the way out. Taking their place is a utilitarian, "hygieno-moralistic" new order, cynically purveyed by an alliance of politics, media and global business.
  "Wine is not some trophy product that we roll out to celebrate the grand occasions or to show off our social status. It is a table drink intended to accompany the meal and provide a complement to whatever is on our plate," says food writer Perico Legasse.
  "Wine is an element in the meal. But what has happened is that it's gone from being popular to elitist. It is totally ridiculous. It should be perfectly possible to drink moderately of good quality wine on a daily basis."
  For Legasse, part of the fault is a changing national approach to food and gastronomy as a whole.
  Continue reading the main storyWhat the French drink with mealsDrink19802010Source : FranceAgriMer
  Wine
  50%
  24%
  Tap water
  47%
  44%
  Mineral water
  24%
  43%
  Soft drinks or juice
  5%
  15%
  "For many years people have been steadily abandoning what in our French sociology we referred to as the repas, or meal, by which I mean a convivial gathering around a table, and not the individualised, accelerated version we see today.
  "The traditional family meal is withering away. Instead we have a purely technical form of nourishment, whose aim is to make sure we fuel up as effectively and as quickly as possible."
  Wine drinking in France is certainly part of a long-standing way of life, but it would be wrong to suppose that the French have always drunk as much as they did, say, 50 years ago.
  In the Middle Ages, wine was commonly drunk (at least in wine-growing areas), but it was a weak concoction and popular mainly because - unlike water - it was safe.
  The Revolution of 1789 dispelled the aristocratic image that wine had, by then, acquired, and the economic changes of 19th Century helped it permeate society.
  Denis Saverot, editor of La Revue des Vins de France magazine, says the rise of wine mirrored the rise of the working class. But it was the war of 1914-18 that really secured its position in the hearts of the French.
  Continue reading the main storyA sedative hypnotic drug...The cumulative effects of excessive alcohol consumption, especially when associated with a poor diet, affect every part of the bodyThe two main sites of damage are the liver and the nervous systemAlcoholism is also implicated in diabetes, inflammation of the pancreas, internal bleeding, weakening of the heart, high blood pressure and stroke"Basically the soldiers went over the top pickled on pinard, the strong, low-quality wine which was supplied in bulk. Up until then the Normans, the Bretons, the people of Picardy and the north, they had never touched wine. But they learned in the trenches.
  "After that in France we generalised the consumption of cheap wine so that by the 1950s there were drinking outlets, cafes and bars, everywhere. Tiny villages would have five or six. But that was the high point. The decline in consumption goes back to the 1960s."
  Everyone agrees on the main factors. Fewer people work outdoors, so the fortifying qualities of wine are less in demand. Offices require people to stay awake, so lunchtimes are, by and large, dry.
  Then there is the rise of the car ("wine's worst enemy" for Saverot), changing demographics, with France's large Muslim minority, and the growing popularity of beers and mixers.
  Continue reading the main story''Start QuoteThe village bar has gone, replaced by a pharmacy''
  End QuoteDenis SaverotBut Saverot has another target in his sights.
  "It is our bourgeois, technocratic elite with their campaigns against drink-driving and alcoholism, lumping wine in with every other type of alcohol, even though it should be regarded as totally different," he says.
  "Recently I heard one senior health official saying that wine causes cancer 'from the very first glass'. That coming from a Frenchman. I was flabbergasted. In hock with the health lobby and the politically correct, our elites prefer to keep the country on chemical anti-depressants and wean us off wine.
  "Just look at the figures. In the 1960s, we were drinking 160 litres each a year and weren't taking any pills. Today we consume 80 million packets of anti-depressants, and wine sales are collapsing. Wine is the subtlest, most civilised, most noble of anti-depressants. But look at our villages. The village bar has gone, replaced by a pharmacy."
  Veteran observer of his nation's way of life, Oxford-based French writer Theodore Zeldin agrees that a business-style culture has made huge inroads into France - the bane of all those who prefer to take the time to savour things.
  "Companionship has been replaced by networking. Business means busy-ness, and in that way we are becoming like everywhere else," he says.
  But Zeldin refuses to abandon hope.
  "The old French art de vivre is still there. It's an ideal. It's a bit like the ideal of an English gentleman. You don't often find an English gentleman, but the ideal is there and it informs society as a whole," he says.
  "It is the same with our art de vivre. Of course times have changed, but it still survives. It is that feeling you get in France that in human relations we need to do more than just conduct business. We have a duty to entertain, to converse. And in France - thanks to our education system - we still have that ability to converse in a general, universalist way that has been lost elsewhere.
  "That is the art de vivre. It is about taking your time. And wine is part of it, because with wine you have to take your time.
  "After all, that is one of the great things about wine. You can't swig it."
  You can follow the Magazine onTwitterand onFacebook
CIA aids huge arms smuggling to Syria '' report '-- RT News
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:06
  The CIA reportedly has a hand in clandestine supply of arms to Syrian rebels by Gulf States. At least 3,500 tons of have been delivered - some ending up on the black market, with the Turkish government an active player, a media report says.
  The flow of arms continues with the help of US agents as Washington criticizes Iran and Russia for delivering weapons to the Syrian regime, the New York Times says. Secretary of State John Kerry pressed Iraq on Sunday to close its airspace to Iranian flights just as the latest arms delivery from Qatar for Syrian rebels was landing in Turkey, according to the daily's report.
  The newspaper cites air traffic data, US and foreign officials and rebel commanders in its investigation.
  The airlift reportedly began in early 2012 with a Qatari Emir Air Force C-130 transport aircraft flight. Saudi Arabia and Jordan have joined in in November, when it became a major operation. More than 160 military flights have landed in Turkey over the time. Esenboga Airport near Ankara was the prime destination, but others were also involved, the newspaper claims.
  ''A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,'' Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told the newspaper. He added that it appears as a ''well-planned and coordinated clandestine military logistics operation.''
  Indeed, CIA agents have a direct input on the deliveries, albeit mostly consultative, NYT says. The spy agency reportedly helps with procurement of weapons in Croatia and vets Syrian rebel groups, which would receive the weapons.
  The involvement was supposedly motivated by the fact that the Arab states would supply arms to the Syrian militants anyway. The hopes CIA its can steer away the arms from Islamists' hands and prevent weapons which can potentially be used by terrorist against civilian targets from being delivered, a former US official told the newspaper.
  The operation was a limited success apparently, NYT says, citing two Islamist commanders.
  ''There are fake Free Syrian Army brigades claiming to be revolutionaries, and when they get the weapons they sell them in trade,'' Hassan Aboud of Soquor al-Sham told the newspaper.
  The former official described the program as ''a cataract of weaponry.'' He said: ''People hear the amounts flowing in, and it is huge, but they burn through a million rounds of ammo in two weeks.''
  Instrumental to setting up the operation was David H. Petraeus, the CIA director until November, the official said. He had prodded various countries to work together on it.
  The scale of the operation increased considerably in November, after the Turkish government agreed to it, the report says. The tipping point may also have been the presidential election in the United States.
  Ankara reportedly has oversight over much of the program, down to affixing transponders to trucks ferrying the arms through Turkish territory and across the border. Some in Turkey say Ankara is de facto at war with Damascus because of its involvement in the conflict.
  ''The use of Turkish airspace at such a critical time, with the conflict in Syria across our borders, and by foreign planes from countries that are known to be central to the conflict, defines Turkey as a party in the conflict,'' said Attilla Kart, a member of the Turkish Parliament from the CHP opposition party, who confirmed details about several Saudi shipments. ''The government has the responsibility to respond to these claims.''
  Still, rebel commanders complain that they do not receive enough weapons and do not get heavier kinds of weapons like anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.
  ''The outside countries give us weapons and bullets little by little,'' said Abdel Rahman Ayachi, a commander in Soquor al-Sham, an Islamist fighting group in northern Syria.
  They accuse Washington of blocking such deliveries.
  ''Arming or not arming, lethal or nonlethal '-- it all depends on what America says,'' Mohammed Abu Ahmed, who leads a band of anti-Assad fighters in Idlib Province, told NYT.
  The CIA and General Petraeus would not comment when contacted by the newspaper. Turkish and Saudi Arabian officials declined to discuss the arms flights. Croatia and Jordan both denied any role in supplying weapons to the Syrian rebels, NYT says. Jordanian aviation officials reportedly went so far as to insist that no cargo flights occurred, and cut communication after presented evidence to the contrary.
Sharpton's MSNBC Show Sponsored By Manufacturer Of 'Big, Brutal' Rifles
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  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:05
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  Al Sharpton opens his MSNBC show by praising President Obama's efforts to enact tougher gun control laws. But an ad appears during the show for Henry Repeating Rifles, a manufacturer which describes one of the rifles it manufactures as "big, brutal and beautiful." Henry emphasizes that another, the AR-7 which is based on a military rilfe, permits owners to"carry a large quantity of ammunition."
assholes. everyone involved.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:03
  The US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week - including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.
  The rider, which is officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, has been derided by opponents of biotech lobbying as the ''Monsanto Protection Act,'' as it would strip federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.
  The provision, also decried as a ''biotech rider,'' should have gone through the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees for review. Instead, no hearings were held, and the piece was evidently unknown to most Democrats (who hold the majority in the Senate) prior to its approval as part of HR 993, the short-term funding bill that was approved to avoid a federal government shutdown.
  Senator John Tester (D-MT) proved to be the lone dissenter to the so-called Monsanto Protection Act, though his proposed amendment to strip the rider from the bill was never put to a vote.
  As the US legal system functions today, and largely as a result of prior lawsuits, the USDA is required to complete environmental impact statements (EIS) prior to both the planting and sale of GMO crops. The extent and effectiveness to which the USDA exercises this rule is in itself a source of serious dispute.
  The reviews have been the focus of heated debate between food safety advocacy groups and the biotech industry in the past. In December of 2009, for example, Food Democracy Now collected signatures during the EIS commenting period in a bid to prevent the approval of Monsanto's GMO alfalfa, which many feared would contaminate organic feed used by dairy farmers; it was approved regardless.
  Previously discovered pathogens in Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn and soy are suspected of causing infertility in livestock and to impact the health of plants.
  So, just how much of a victory is this for biotech companies like Monsanto? Critics are thus far alarmed by the very way in which the provision made it through Congress -- the rider was introduced anonymously as the larger bill progressed through the Senate Appropriations Committee. Now, groups like the Center for Food Safety are holding Senator Mikulski (D-MD), chairman of that committee, to task and lobbing accusations of a ''backroom deal'' with the biotech industry.
  As the Washington Times points out, the provision's success is viewed by many as a victory by companies like Syngenta Corp, Cargill, Monsanto and affiliated PACs that have donated $7.5 million to members of Congress since 2009, and $372,000 to members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
  It remains unclear whether the bill's six-month expiration means that the provision will be short-lived. Regardless, Food Democracy Now has begun a campaign calling on US President Barack Obama to veto the Continuing Resolution spending bill, which seems unlikely as HR 933 includes a sweeping amount of government funding.
33% of Americans support gay marriage
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  Source: 33 World News
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:55
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Violence towards immigrants in Greece on rise. Chinese news
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  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:54
  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.
Women Love Apple's iCloud More than Men Do, but only 33% of iCloud users have done so in the last week
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:53
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"We Know How To Deflect Asteroids"
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  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:49
Easily weaponized virus goes missing from Texas lab
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  Archived Version
  Source: USA RSS
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:34
  Whatever you do, don't go making out with any mice for a little bit: a Texas laboratory has misplaced a small vial containing a rodent borne virus that that has been linked to several deaths.
  University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) President David L. Callender says that a vial holding a small portion of the South American virus Guanarito has gone missing.
  The exotic strain, first discovered in Venezuela in the 1980s, can cause infected humans to contract a rare hemorrhagic fever that, with symptoms such as high temperature, convulsions and hemorrhaging has a mortality rate of just over 23 percent. Between 1989 and 2006, Venezuelan government has spotted over 600 cases of the illness.
  Callender insists in a statement emailed to UTMB employees last week that the virus is "not known to be transmitted from person-to-person and therefore poses no appreciable public health risk.'' Because of the very real possibility of terrorists using samples of the virus for biological weapons, however, the US Centers for Disease Control considers Guanarito to be a Biosafety Level 4 risk and requires it to be stored among the most secure facilities in the country.
  ''Biosafety Level 4 is required for work with dangerous and exotic agents that pose a high individual risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections and life-threatening disease that is frequently fatal, for which there are no vaccines or treatments, or a related agent with unknown risk of transmission,'' the CDC explains.
  The school has no idea where the vial went and says routine inspections last week left faculty scratching their head. Per the CDC's Level 4 risk handling requirements, though, all facilities where such viruses are stored must contain a logbook or other means of commenting the date and time of all persons entering the lab which must be maintained at all times.
  ''This is the first time that any vial containing a select agent has been unaccounted for at UTMB,'' Callender says. ''The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was notified immediately, and UTMB simultaneously began a rigorous process to ensure the safety of its researchers, employees and the community. UTMB has confirmed that there was no breach in the facility's security and there is no indication that any wrongdoing is involved.''
  Callender adds that the facility staff suspects the vial was destroyed, but offers no logic or reasoning for that assumption. It is studied at locations like the University of Texas' Galveston national laboratory because the ''federal government prioritizes it for research because it has the potential to be used a weapon by terrorists,'' The Houston Chronicle reports.
  "We don't think anything that happened this past week endangers the community," Scott Weaver, the laboratory's scientific director, adds to the paper. "We think this is an error that any one facility is inevitable and we are going to improve to prevent this in the future."
  Meanwhile, two new government reports suggest that security breaches at facilities just like the one in Galveston could give terrorists the means of using biological weapons to conduct massively fatal operations anywhere in the world. The Government Accountability Office released one study on Monday that said the US is at an increased risk for catastrophic accidents at these laboratories, despite being urged 3 years earlier for scientists to more thoroughly secure their facilities.
  A second study, released in November by the inspector general auditor of the US Department of Agriculture, said "there is increased risk of the misuse of select agents and the potential for serious security violations going undetected'' because of security lapses.
  Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, called the USDA study "very troubling" and, according to USA Today, remarked that "The inadequate and lax inspection practices of USDA raise additional concerns about their ability and independence to conduct effective inspections of CDC's labs to ensure safety.''
NBC's Gregory to Bloomberg: Will You 'Target' Gun Rights Supporters With 'Lots of Money'?
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:56
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  In an interview with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory invited the anti-gun advocate to issue a political threat to gun rights supporters in Congress: "Will you target people, Republicans and Democrats, who do not support a weapons ban, an assault weapons ban, who do not vote for background checks? Will you spend money, lots of money, to target them in 2014, in the midterm race?"
  Bloomberg responded by enlisting Gregory in the gun control crusade: "I think I have a responsibility, and I think you and all of your viewers have responsibilities, to try to make this country safer....And if I can do that by spending some money and taking the NRA from being the only voice to being one of the voices...then I think my money would be well spent..."
  More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.
CNN Asks If Traditional Marriage Defenders Are 'On the Wrong Side of History'
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  Touting "growing support" for same-sex marriage on Monday morning, CNN's Carol Costello asked Austin Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund, who supports California's Proposition 8, if he was "on the wrong side of history."
Are Benghazi Survivors Hiding In A Washington, D.C. Hospital? | Special Operations Speaks
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:39
  Support SOS:Please click here to support Special Operations Speaks PAC.For more than six months since the September 11, 2012 attacks on America's diplomatic outposts in Benghazi, the Obama administration has been unwilling to turn over the names or whereabouts of any survivors. They may be hiding plain sight.Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) has learned that ''as many as seven Americans have been or are currently being treated,'' at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, D.C.'--less than 11 miles from the U.S. Capitol. Rep. Wolf cited two independent confidential sources for his information.
  And the number of survivors may be even larger than previously suspected. There may be more than 30 survivors, including State Department and CIA personnel as well as government contractors, according to a March 1, 2013 letter sent by Rep. Wolf and Rep. Jim Gerlach to Secretary of State John Kerry . As for those government contractors mentioned, they are believed to include former U.S Navy Seals and other former special-forces operators.
  And it seems that the survivors have been told not to talk. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has been in touch with the family members of Benghazi survivors, has said that the survivors have been ''told to be quiet'' by Obama administration officials. ''The public needs to hear from people who were on the ground, their desperate situation. They need to understand from people who were there for months how bad it was getting and how frustrated they were that nobody would listen to them and provide aid.''
  Read the original article at ForbesSupport SOS: Please click here to support Special Operations Speaks PAC.
Cash strapped London brough to sell famous statue as local government funding set to decline 33% in real terms
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:45
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After Cyprus, euro zone faces tough bank regime: Eurogroup head | Reuters
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:45
  (L-R) International Monetary Fund (IMF) executive director Christine Lagarde, Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem and European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn hold a news conference at the end of a Eurogroup meeting at the European Council building in Brussels, March 25, 2013.
  Credit: Reuters/Sebastien Pirlet
  By Luke Baker
  BRUSSELS | Mon Mar 25, 2013 10:42am EDT
  BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A rescue program agreed for Cyprus on Monday represents a new template for resolving euro zone banking problems and other countries may have to restructure their banking sectors, the head of the region's finance ministers said.
  "What we've done last night is what I call pushing back the risks," Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who heads the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, told Reuters and the Financial Times hours after the Cyprus deal was struck.
  "If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be 'Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalize yourself?'. If the bank can't do it, then we'll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we'll ask them to contribute in recapitalizing the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders," he said.
  After 12 hours of talks with the EU and IMF, Cyprus agreed to shut down its second largest bank, with insured deposits - those below 100,000 euros - moved to the Bank of Cyprus, the country's largest lender. Uninsured deposits, those accounts with more than 100,000 euros, face losses of 4.2 billion euros.
  Uninsured depositors in the Bank of Cyprus will have their accounts frozen while the bank is restructured and recapitalized. Any capital that is needed to strengthen the bank will be drawn from accounts above 100,000 euros.
  The agreement is what is known as a "bail-in", with shareholders and bondholders in banks forced to bear the costs of the restructuring first, followed by uninsured depositors. Under EU rules, deposits up to 100,000 euros are guaranteed.
  The approach marks a radical departure for euro zone policy after three years of crisis in which taxpayers across the region have effectively been on the hook for resolving problem banks and indebted governments via multiple rescue programs.
  That process, with governments and taxpayers bearing the costs and providing the back stop, had to stop, Dijsselbloem said. Recent financial market calm meant now was the time to make the change, although he conceded there was some concern that it could unsettle markets again.
  "If we want to have a healthy, sound financial sector, the only way is to say, 'Look, there where you take on the risks, you must deal with them, and if you can't deal with them, then you shouldn't have taken them on,'" he said.
  "The consequences may be that it's the end of story, and that is an approach that I think, now that we are out of the heat of the crisis, we should take."
  If adopted by the euro zone, Dijsselbloem's template could also sound a death knell for a plan hatched nine months ago when the euro zone debt crisis was threatening to blow the currency area apart.
  Then, euro zone leaders agreed that the bloc's future rescue fund should be allowed to recapitalize banks directly, thereby breaking the debilitating link between teetering banks and weak governments forced to bail them out. That may now never happen.
  Asked what the new approach meant for euro zone countries with highly leveraged banking sectors, such as Luxembourg and Malta, and for other countries with banking problems such as Slovenia, Dijsselbloem said they would have to shrink banks down.
  "It means deal with it before you get in trouble. Strengthen your banks, fix your balance sheets and realize that if a bank gets in trouble, the response will no longer automatically be that we'll come and take away your problem. We're going to push them back. That's the first response we need. Push them back. You deal with them."
  ESM
  The marked change in attitude, which Dijsselbloem agreed was a shift in strategy for EU policymakers, has consequences for how banks are recapitalized and for how financial markets react.
  One of the major steps the euro zone has taken over the past three years has been to set up a rescue mechanism with guarantees and paid in capital totaling up to 700 billion euros - the European Stability Mechanism.
  The expectation was that the ESM would be able to directly recapitalize euro zone banks that run into trouble from mid-2014, once the European Central Bank has full oversight of all the region's banks.
  The goal of the ESM and direct recapitalization was to break the so-called "doom loop" between indebted governments and their banking sectors. Now, Dijsselbloem says the aim is for the ESM never to have to be used.
  "We should aim at a situation where we will never need to even consider direct recapitalization," he said.
  "If we have even more instruments in terms of bail-in and how far we can go on bail-in, the need for direct recap will become smaller and smaller.
  "I think the approach needs to be, let's deal with the banks within the banks first, before looking at public money or any other instrument coming from the public side. Banks should basically be able to save themselves, or at least restructure or recapitalize themselves as far as possible."
  Dijsselbloem, 46, who took over as Eurogroup president only in January, said he had discussed the new approach with financial market participants and said he expected that they would adjust to the new regime over time.
  "Now we're going down the bail-in track and I'm pretty confident that the markets will see this as a sensible, very concentrated and direct approach instead of a more general approach," he said.
  "It will force all financial institutions, as well as investors, to think about the risks they are taking on because they will now have to realize that it may also hurt them. The risks might come towards them."
  (Writing by Luke Baker, editing by Mike Peacock)
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Going back to our old commenting system!
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:42
  On Friday, I announced we would upgrade our commenting system. It was tested over the weekend, and ultimately I have decided to go back to the wordpress system. Here are the reasons why:
  1. Our old comments never got transitioned over.
  The intenseDebate system says I can just click a single button and it will import our old posts into the new system. I did this Friday and the page never moved from 0%. I tried again Saturday night, with the 0% import still there this morning(Monday). Our old posts simply never imported. I don't know if it was because our database of comments was so large (I doubt it) or what. I went to contact their support, but found them out for the weekend. That's no big deal, but I wonder if the importer was a manual thing and no one was there to do it? If so, they should probably put a warning on the importer page.
  2. It wasn't failing gracefully.
  I had many emails and comments saying that the comments were not showing when people were using script blockers, or certain android devices. The intenseDebate website claims that their system will show comments even if someone is using a script blocker. I did not personally test this, and frankly I don't have to. Even if those people are mistaken or have peculiar setups, I simply can't ignore complaints that our content isn't even showing.
  3. I couldn't expand all replies by default, or maybe I'm an idiot.
  I didn't see an option anywhere to display all comment threads expanded by default. Maybe I just overlooked it. Maybe there's some css trick to it. We HAVE to have our comments expanded. Often there is more useful information in the comments than the article itself. With replies nested you would have to go through and click every single thread just to see if there was anything useful. This is such an obvious feature that I'm convinced I just went stupid for a while and didn't read the button that enabled it, surely they didn't omit it.
  For these 3 reasons, I removed it. Just like they said it would, it came out with no issue.
Cyprus backs 'painful' bailout deal
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:36
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  "I'm very concerned... for our children, for the future," one Cypriot told the BBC's Tim Willcox
  The government of Cyprus has defended a 10bn-euro bailout deal to save its banks from collapse, amid warnings the island faces deep recession.
  Laiki (Popular) Bank, the country's second largest, will be wound up, but small savers will be protected.
  Depositors with more than 100,000 euros ($130,000; £85,000), many of whom are Russian, face big losses.
  Cypriot finance minister Michael Sarris said his country had avoided a "disastrous exit from the eurozone".
  But correspondents say Cyprus' economy will shrink sharply as offshore banking - its main industry - is effectively shut down.
  President Nicos Anastasiades - who negotiated the deal with the "troika" of the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF in Brussels - is to address the nation in the coming hours.
  It is not clear when Cypriot banks will reopen, or when temporary restrictions on the movement of capital will be lifted.
  'Plundering loot'Continue reading the main story''Start QuoteCyprus has not received the same treatment as other bailed-out eurozone economies''
  End QuoteGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the agreement, saying "a fair burden distribution" had been achieved.
  "We do not want tax payers to save banks, banks must save themselves," she said.
  "This is what will happen in the case of Cyprus."
  But Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said losses imposed on big depositors - many of them Russian - amounted to "stealing".
  "What is going on around Cyprus is that they are continuing to plunder loot there," Mr Medvedev said.
  "It is necessary to understand where this story will lead, and what its consequences will be for the international financial system and our interests," he added.
  Suspicion has been growing in Russia that Europe is using the banking crisis to target Russian money in Cyprus, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says.
  Continue reading the main storyBailout dealTo qualify for 10bn-euro bailout, Cyprus must raise 5.8bn eurosIts biggest bank - Bank of Cyprus - to be restructuredSecond biggest bank - Laiki - to be wound up and split into a "good" bank and "bad" bankAccounts holding under 100,000 euros will be protected in both banksDeposits over 100,000 in Bank of Cyprus are frozen for nowLevel still to be set at which funds on big deposits will be taxedNonetheless, President Vladimir Putin has told Russian officials to restructure a 2.5bn-euro loan extended to Cyprus in 2011 in order to support the restructuring effort.
  The European Central Bank had set a deadline of Monday for the deal, which came a week after the Cypriot parliament rejected a proposed bank levy on small and large deposits.
  On Friday the new bank restructuring plan was passed by Cypriot MPs. No further vote is needed as there is no levy on deposits under 100,000 euros, which are insured under EU deposit guarantee rules.
  However, the Memorandum of Understanding between Cyprus and the EU - the formal agreement that triggers eurozone bailouts - will probably require the Cypriot parliament's approval, according to the Open Europe think tank.
  A "no" vote at that stage could still put Cyprus's eurozone membership at risk.
  'Destroyed'However, Cypriot government spokesman Christos Stylianides said the deal had prevented a "disorderly" exit from the euro.
  "The important thing is that we have reached an agreement that allows us to kick-start the economy and lay the groundwork for a new beginning," he said in a statement.
  "Without doubt that there are painful aspects that will place a burden on all of us."
  IMF head Christine Lagarde said the bailout deal agreed was "a comprehensive and credible plan" to help restore trust in the banking system.
  Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
  IMF chief Christine Lagarde: "We believe that this will form a durable and fully financed solution"
  There will be relief in Cyprus that small depositors have been protected, but the deal comes at a heavy price, BBC correspondents say.
  The chairman of the Cypriot parliament's finance committee, Nicholas Papadopolous, said the agreement made "no economic sense".
  "We are heading for a deep recession, high unemployment. They wanted to send a message that the Cypriot economy ought to be destroyed, and they've succeeded in a large part - they've destroyed our banking sector," he told the BBC.
  EU Commissioner for Economic Affairs Olli Rehn conceded that the "depth of the financial crisis in Cyprus means that the near future will be difficult for the country and its people".
  Financial markets in Asia and Europe rose on news of the agreement.
  Cash capThe deal came after hours of tense negotiations between Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and the "troika" of EU, European Central Bank and IMF leaders.
  Under the agreement all deposits of less than 100,000 euros will be secured.
  Laiki will be split into "good" and "bad" banks, with its good assets eventually merged into Bank of Cyprus.
  The percentages to be raised from uninsured deposits of more than 100,000 euros in Laiki bank and in Bank of Cyprus have not yet been announced.
  Mr Stylianides said the figure could be "around 30%" for uninsured Bank of Cyprus deposits. Other estimates have put the figure at about 40%.
  Banks in Cyprus have been closed since last Monday while politicians and officials tried to work out how to raise 5.8bn euros to qualify for the bailout. Many businesses are only taking payment in cash.
  On Sunday, Bank of Cyprus further limited cash machine withdrawals to 120 euros a day.
  With queues growing outside cash machines across the island, Laiki also lowered its daily limit to 100 euros, Cyprus News Agency reported. The bank's previous limit had been 260 euros per day.
  The details of the reopening of Cyprus's banks were to be discussed on Monday.
  A week ago, the Cypriot parliament rejected a planned bank levy that would have taken 6.75% from small savers and 9.9% from larger investors. The proposal caused widespread anger among ordinary savers.
  In response, the European Central Bank (ECB) had said it would cut off funds to Cyprus's banks by Monday unless a new deal was reached.
  Correspondents say Germany has pushed hard for a levy on investors who have benefited from high interest rates in recent years, rejecting a Cypriot plan to use money from pension funds.
  A Cypriot attempt to secure Russian help was unsuccessful.
Extreme Cold Weather In The UK Leaves Thousands Without Power
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MSNBC's Tour(C)'s Racist Rant Against the GOP and Carson
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:31
  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.
Postal Workers Hold Protest Rallies Across The U.S.
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Sharpton & Barnicle Agree: Anti-Semitism Explains Opposition To Bloomberg On Gun Control
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:21
  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.
Jim Carrey launches into anti-gun tirade on Twitter, releases song
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:48
  Another Hollywood celebrity has jumped the shark in the great gun control debate that courses through America's veins.
  Today, none other than veteran comic (and coincidentally, star of Dumb and Dumber) Jim Carrey began his tirade to his 10,000,000+ Twitter followers, "Some ppl hate when i talk about guns so I decided to sing about it! Check out COLD DEAD HAND 12:01 AM Monday on Funny Or Die and itunes! ;^P"
  UPDATE BELOW: VIDEO EMBEDDED (IT'S NOT FUNNY)
  Some have already argued that Carrey using the issue of gun control to re-ignite his comedy career and fuel the commercial 'Funny or Die' series is less than sensitive to the victims of the recent gun crimes that have plagued the US. However, when challenged, Carrey continued, "How abt developing more non-lethal forms of selfdefense?Too sensible?!"
  When confronted by a various many gun owners and political pundits on Twitter, Carrey seemed unable to answer some simple points. Like why does he have armed guards, but the rest of Americans should hand their guns over?
  Finally, when stumped himself, Carrey ended with, "I'd like to respond to all the conservative bundits out there personally but I'm far too busy NOT stumping for the gun companies!"
  He promises to release a song at midnight tonight (presumably Eastern Time), which we'll update you with in the morning.
  UPDATE - VIDEO RELEASED:
  This is supposed to be funny?
Rep. Jessica Upshaw's death apparent suicide | The Clarion-Ledger
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Monsanto a winner in federal budget action
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:17
  WASHINGTON ' The subject of genetically modified food seldom comes up in Congress even though the government makes weighty decisions frequently about newly engineered crops and rules that govern them.
  For instance, Congress has never seriously debated whether modified food should be so labeled, a requirement that exists in dozens of countries around the world.
  There are reasons: Americans put more faith in science than consumers in Europe, where labeling of food with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) was broadened in 2004.
  Also, in the U.S., the farm lobby exerts more muscle than in many nations, and soybean and corn farmers especially are drawn to the economies of genetically modified crops.
  Lastly, agribusiness companies exert significant influence in Washington.
  For instance, Creve Coeur-based Monsanto Co., the global leader in the spread of GMOs, spent more than $6 million last year to influence decisions in Washington, according to lobbying reports in Congress.
  These factors may have been at play this week in a massive budget bill that contained a somewhat curious non-fiscal provision: Wording that appears to strip courts of the authority to restrict plantings of a genetically modified crop if the Agriculture Department has conducted insufficient environmental studies.
  The provision was inserted in both the Senate and House versions of the so-called continuing resolution that funds the government through September 30. Continuing resolutions have been the means by which the polarized Congress pays the bills given an inability recently to make specific decisions on spending.
  This measure needed to pass by next Wednesday or the government would have shut down. It was sent to the president; it is a done deal.
  The provision known in some circles as the "Monsanto rider" has been around Congress before, but how it got in this must-pass spending bill isn't clear. Published reports say it landed in the legislation at the behest of Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. Pryor's office did not respond to a request about his role.
  Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., did respond, saying that he wanted a vote on his amendment to remove the provision. On the Senate floor, Tester argued that supporters regard the pro-GMO wording as "the farmer assurance provision. But all it really assures is a lack of corporate liability."
  He added: "The provision says that when a judge finds that the USDA approved a crop illegally, the department must re-approve the crop and allow it to continue to be planted regardless of what the judge says. Think about that."
  Tester went on to say that the provision ignores separation of powers in the Constitution and "also lets genetically modified crops take hold across the country even when a judge finds it violates the law."
  In the end, Tester's assertions made no difference. His amendment, like many others, was disallowed by Senate leaders and never heard in the rush to keep government agencies from closing their doors.
DHS Military Equipment Movement on Train in AZ - YouTube
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:43
  DHS Military Equipment Movement on Train in AZ - YouTube Cryptogon News NetworkHome >> DHS Military Equipment Movement on Train in AZ - YouTubeDatabase queries: 36 | Page load time: 0.1s | Memory usage: 5.64 MB | PHP v.5.2.17 | MySQL v.5.5.30-log | Hotaru CMS v.1.4.2
Cyprus strikes last-minute EU bailout deal
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:39
  Cypriots queue at a Laiki ATM. Under the new deal the bank will be closed with deposits over '‚¬100,000 seized and its 'good' assets transferred to Bank of Cyprus. Photograph: Hasan Mroue/AFP/Getty
  European leaders reached an agreement with Cyprus early on Monday morning that closes down the island's second-biggest bank and inflicts huge losses on wealthy savers.
  Russians would lose billions of euros under draconian terms that are aimed at preventing the Mediterranean tax haven becoming the first country forced out of the single currency.
  "Herman Van Rompuy has brokered an agreement between the troika and Cyprus," said an EU source, referring to the president of the European council and Cyprus's trio of creditors: the European commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
  A meeting of eurozone finance ministers that started six hours late reached an agreement in the early hours of Monday morning to finalise the fine print of the deal. Savers with deposits of less than '‚¬100,000 (£85,000) would be spared but it was thought there would be heavy losses inflicted on the deposits of the wealthy.
  Laiki, or Cyprus Popular Bank, is to be closed, with its good assets transferred to Bank of Cyprus, the country's biggest bank, where savers would suffer big losses in return for equity shares. Those with more than '‚¬100,000 in Laiki would also be hit hard.
  Negotiations got under way amid a hardening of the stance by the IMF and Germany, which insisted that depositors must take the hit for bailing out the eurozone's latest crisis economy.
  There were signs of panic in Cyprus as a '‚¬100 limit was imposed on ATM withdrawals, with more stringent capital controls to follow if the deal is finalised.
  The European Central Bank had threatened to cut off funds propping up Cypriot banks on Monday, which would have precipitated the island's exit from the euro if agreement was not reached at the emergency meeting.
  "The numbers have not changed. If anything they've got worse," said Wolfgang Sch¤uble, Germany's finance minister. He said the aims of last week's agreement to raise '‚¬5.8bn '' details of which were rejected by Cyprus '' had to be achieved. This time, however, savers with less than '‚¬100,000 will be spared, meaning the burden falls much more heavily on the wealthy than the 9.9% levy proposed last week for their accounts.
  Germany is determined that the island deflate a bloated financial sector that exceeds the size of the Cypriot economy by a factor of seven.
  "It is well known that I won't allow myself to be blackmailed by no one or nothing," said Sch¤uble. "I'm aware of my responsibility for the stability of the euro. If we take the wrong decisions we'll be doing the euro a great disservice," he told a German Sunday newspaper.
  Russians are estimated to hold more than '‚¬20bn of the '‚¬68bn deposited in Cypriot banks. Bank of Cyprus holds '‚¬28bn in deposits although it was not clear how much of that would qualify for the "haircut". But it was clear that the losses would amount to several billion.
  The Cypriot president, Nicos Anastasiades, held meetings with EU officials in Brussels before the meeting of the euro group '' the 17 finance ministers of the single-currency area '' which included troika representatives Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, and Olli Rehn, European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs.
  Little progress was reported from the earlier meetings on resolving the stalemate over how to structure a '‚¬17bn bailout, with creditors unwilling to offer more than '‚¬10bn while expressing dissatisfaction with Cypriot proposals to supply the remainder.
  The agreement outlined early on Monday came close to what Lagarde had demanded a week ago and which had been rebuffed by Anastasiades.
  Over the weekend Nicosia moved on legislation to wind up Cyprus Popular Bank and introduce capital controls to try to prevent a bank run and the flight of money out of the country.
U.S. Senate Approves Proposed Internet Sales Tax
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:33
  Posted by Alcyone_Featured_, EconomySunday, March 24th, 2013By Gregory Ferenstein | TechCrunch
  An Internet sales tax is inching its way closer to being the law of the land: The U.S. Senate supported a non-binding vote of approval, 75-to-24, for a law that would allow states to collect taxes from Internet retailers. If enacted as is, it would allow states to levy taxes on some online retail purchases from businesses with over $1 million in gross receipts.
  Internet retailers can thank their mostly tax-free existence to a 1992 Supreme Court Case, Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, which declared that companies without a ''substantial nexus'' in a state didn't have to pay sales tax. ''Quill became a seminal case for online retailers: It meant, in essence, that they didn't have to pay state and local sales taxes,'' writes the Washington Post's Ezra Klein.'' That's allowed them to undercut traditional brick-and-mortar stores on price. It's also meant that state and local governments, which rely heavily on sales taxes, have lost enormous amounts of revenue as more and more commerce has moved online.''
  There are some exceptions: Amazon currently charges California residents sales tax, and will soon charge residents of Massachusetts and Connecticut, after new offices and acquisitions gave it a significant presence in those states.
  A score of Internet lobbies, such as Netchoice, representing Facebook, Yahoo, and (TechCrunch's parent company) Aol, argue that the senate's bill ''does nothing to address what the Supreme Court says was an unreasonable burden on interstate commerce,'' explains Steve Delbianco of Netchoice.
  Read the full article
Digitale munteenheid Bitcoin steeds succesvoller
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:30
  Terwijl de crisis rond de euro via Cyprus naar een volgend hoogtepunt strompelt, blijkt de totaal ongereguleerde digitale Bitcoin de 'best presterende munteenheid ter wereld'.
  Kenners voorspelden jaren geleden een snelle ondergang van de digitale munteenheid Bitcoin, maar het tegendeel is waar. Hoewel in 2011 even leek dat het Bitcoin bij een crash weggevaagd zou worden, is de muntsoort dankzij enorme koersstijgingen populairder dan ooit. De totale geldhoeveelheid is de laatste twee jaar toegenomen tot 11 miljoen Bitcoins en met een totale waarde van ongeveer 800 miljoen dollar. Een minuscule omvang wanneer de geldhoeveelheid van bijvoorbeeld de euro in januari 2013 (9,7 biljoen euro) in aanmerking wordt genomen.
  Niet meer weg te denken
  Toch is de Bitcoin interessant om in de gaten te houden. Zelfs de Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) doet dat, zo vertelde een woordvoerder van DNB eind 2011 aan Follow the Money, en ook de Europese Centrale Bank (ECB) toont warme belangstelling voor Bitcoin, zo blijkt uit het rapport Virtual currency schemes uit oktober 2012.
  'Virtual currency schemes are relevant in several areas of the financial system and are therefore of interest to central banks', aldus de ECB. En: 'A virtual currency scheme may also be implemented in order to compete with traditional currencies, such as the euro or the US dollar'. Tot die categorie rekent de ECB de Bitcoin.
  Voor sommigen is de digitale munteenheid dan ook niet meer weg te denken. 'Bitcoin is to banks, what email was to postal offices', aldus Mihai Alisie, de hoofdredacteur van Bitcoin Magazine in gesprek met the Guardian.
  Er is iets bijzonders met Bitcoin. In tegenstelling tot alle andere muntsoorten die ooit werden gecreerd, is er geen mogendheid, autoriteit of instantie die de Bitcoin uitgeeft en controleert of ¼berhaupt kn controleren. Sommigen noemen het daarom de uitvinding van de eeuw die de mensheid kan verlossen van corrupte inflatoire geldsystemen. Anderen zien in Bitcoin 'het gevaarlijkste project ooit'.
  De koers van de Bitcoin in het afgelopen jaar.
  Lees hier het verhaal dat Follow the Money in 2011 over Bitcoin maakte.
Israel fires into Syria after Golan attack on troops
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  Source: StratRisks
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:29
  Source: DS
  Israel said it fired into Syria Sunday and destroyed a machine-gun position in the Golan Heights from where shots had been fired at Israeli soldiers in a further spillover of the Syrian civil war along a tense front.
  It was not immediately clear whether Israel held Syrian troops or rebels responsible for what a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said had been a deliberate attack on Israeli patrols in the occupied territory.
  Israeli forces ''destroyed a Syrian machine gun nest that fired twice in the last 24 hours on Israeli patrols operating to safeguard the border,'' the spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, said on his Twitter page.
  Shells have fallen several times inside Israeli-controlled territory during Syria's civil war. Some of the incidents have drawn Israeli return fire.
  Syria's southern provinces bordering Jordan and Israel have become an increasingly significant battleground as the capital Damascus '' in Syria's south '' comes into play and President Bashar Assad's forces fight hard to prevent rebel advances.
  Rebels fighting Assad's regime have seized a 25-km strip of land stretching from the Jordan border to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the opposition organization the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
  ''Fighters loyal to Al-Nusra Front, Al-Yarmouk Brigade, Al-Mutaz Billah Brigade and others took control of Al-Rai military checkpoint,'' east of Sahem al-Golan town in the southern province of Deraa, the Observatory also reported.
  ''The fighters seized the site after regime forces retreated. The 25-km area located between the towns of Muzrib [near the Jordanian border] and Abdin [in the Golan] is now out of regime control.''
  The Britain-based Observatory said the rebels had Saturday seized a key air base in Deraa after two weeks of fierce battles with loyalist troops.
  The Israeli military said one of its vehicles was hit late Saturday by shooting from across the Israeli-Syrian cease-fire line on the Golan Heights, but no one was hurt.
  Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said, ''Our understanding is that it wasn't stray fire.''
  After a second incident Sunday, Israeli soldiers ''responded with accurate fire toward the Syrian post from which they were fired on.''
  Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement that Israel viewed shooting from Syria ''with severity'' and would not allow ''the Syrian army or any other element to violate Israeli sovereignty by firing at our territory''.
  ''Any '... fire from the Syrian side will be answered immediately by silencing the sources of fire when we identify them,'' Yaalon said.
  Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defense Ministry official, said battles between Syrian government forces and Syrian rebels sometimes took place just a short distance from Israeli lines.
  ''At times, shells or bullets are fired at Israel. Usually the shooting [from Syria] is not deliberate, but it doesn't matter,'' he told Army Radio.
  ''Israel should not be the target of any attack, whether intentional or unintentional '' because after all, if you accept something that was unintentional, that could lead to something intentional in the end,'' Gilad said.
  Israel has said for months that it expects Assad's government to fall and has voiced concern that its chemical weapons could fall into the hands of Hezbollah guerrillas and Al-Qaeda.
  In other violence Sunday, at least 10 civilians were killed in an airstrike in the northern province of Aleppo, while mortar bombs crashed into the building housing state television and radio offices in Damascus, the Observatory said.
  Four children aged under 16 and a woman were killed in an airstrike on the village of Akhtarin, said the Observatory. Amateur video filmed by activists and distributed by the Observatory showed a crowd of people running toward the site of the airstrike, as a tower of smoke rose up into the sky.
  ''Guys, help us, we need to get them out of there,'' said one resident in the video footage.
  In the heart of Damascus, ''several mortars hit the building housing theGeneral Television and Radio Authority, behind the Ministry of Education,'' said the Observatory.
  State news agency SANA blamed ''terrorists,'' the regime's term for rebels, for the mortar attack, reporting that 10 civilians were wounded in the ''new attack on Syrian media.''
  The Observatory said at least 104 people were killed Sunday alone, among them 61 civilians.
  Tags: Al Mutaz Billah Brigade, Al Nusra Front, Al Rai, al-qaeda, Amos Gilad, Assad, attack, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, Golan Heights, Israel, Israeli Defense Ministry, Israeli Syrian, jordan, Ofir Gendelman, Peter Lerner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, province, Syria, Syria Sunday, war
Opposition: Syrian forces fire chemical weapons at rebels
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  Archived Version
  Source: ynet - News
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:28
  Members of Syrian opposition say Assad forces used chemical weapons near Damascus; 2 dead, 23 injuredReuters
  Syrian opposition campaigners said on Monday that Syrian forces fired what they said were chemical weapons from multiple rocket launchers at rebels surrounding an army base in the town of Adra on the outskirts of Damascus, killing two fighters and wounding 23.
  "Doctors are describing the chemical weapon used as phosphorus that hits the nervous system and causes imbalance and loss of consciousness," said Mohammad al-Doumani, an activist in the nearby town of Douma, where the wounded were transported.
  Related stories:
  According to al-Doumani, "the two fighters were very close to where the rockets exploded and they died swiftly. The rest are being treated with Atropine."
  There was no independent confirmation of the attack, which follows the death of 26 people in a rocket attack near the city of Aleppo last week. The authorities and rebels accused each other of firing a missile carrying chemicals there.
  Meanwhile, the Syrian rebels say commander of the Free Syrian Army Riad al-Asaad has sustained injuries when an explosive device placed in his car detonated, the Al-Arabiya network reported.
  Al-Asaad was reportedly injured in his leg and is receiving medical care in Turkey. Louay al-Meqdad, a coordinator for the Free Syrian Army, told Al-Arabiya that al-Asaad's condition was stable and blamed the Syrian regime for assassination attempt.
  Roi Kais contributed to this report
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NRA's LaPierre: Bloomberg 'Can't Buy America,' 'It's Insane the Stuff He Says'
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  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:25
  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.
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Widespread Looting As Central African Republic Rebels Take Control Of Capital
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:22
Police Say No Evidence Of Foul Play In Death Of Billionaire Boris Berezovsky
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:22
Noteworthy News '' March 25, 2013
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  Archived Version
  Source: SurlyTrader
  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:20
  Economy:Our drunken economics explained '' Independent
  Economists See No Crisis With U.S. Debt as Economy Gains '' Bloomberg
  Markets:As Cyprus Implodes, Bitcoin Interest Explodes '' Fox News
  Mike Merrill Is a Publicly Traded Person '' Motherboard
  Home sales reach highest rate since 2009 '' Marketwatch
  Politics:Cyprus weighs big bank levy; bailout goes down to wire '' Reuters
  Forget Cyprus, Nobody Is Stealing from Depositors More than Bernanke '' Daily Ticker
  The beginnings of 'financial repression'? '' BBC
  How Franklin Roosevelt Secretly Ended the Gold Standard '' Bloomberg
  Senate Passes $3.7 Trillion Budget, Setting Up Contentious Negotiations - New York Times
  Banks:Spain braces for 'tsunami' of bankruptcies as banks pull plug on zombie developers '' Financial Post
  Related posts:
  Noteworthy News '' March 18, 2013Noteworthy News '' March 11, 2013Noteworthy News '' March 4, 2013Noteworthy News '' March 29, 2010Noteworthy News '' March 12, 2012
Head Of Cyprus's Orthodox Church Urges Exit Before Eurozone Collapses
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:19
John McLaughlin Predicts Global Hyper Inflation!
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  Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:18