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Homeland Security keeps keeps Americans safe from Copyright and Trademark Violations Yesterday, we reported that the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement office had seized Torrent-Finder.com, a site that linked to other sites that hosted and shared torrent files of copyrighted material. The news itself was not too unusual; what struck us as out of order was that the site had been shut down without the owner being notified and without a court conviction or, to our knowledge, any other legal proceedings. At the time, we knew that several other websites had also been seized;
however, today, we are hearing reports that as many as 77 different
websites have been seized and shut down, all without any notification
or warning to the owners. More
Former Pennsylvania judge found guilty in kids-for-cash scheme Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was accused of taking $2.8 million in bribes and kickbacks for putting juveniles into detention centers owned by friends. The jury in Scranton found him guilty of racketeering, money-laundering conspiracy, fraud and filing false income tax returns. The jury found him not guilty, however, of seven counts of extortion and 10 counts of bribery. Prosecutors said he took kickbacks from Robert Mericle, the builder
of the PA Child Care detention center near Wilkes Barre, and from Robert
Powell, a co-owner of the center. More
Academic freedom under assault That joke in class has Robert Engler, a 12-year sociology professor at Roosevelt University, fighting for his career. It elicited two written complaints in the spring of 2010 as ethnically offensive, and what followed was a protracted argument that eventually included the termination of his employment from the fall semester. Administrators have also discontinued his course "City and Citizenship," previously a requirement for graduation. Now his attorney, Doug Ibendahl, is about to file suit. Ibendahl believes
university administrators are dragging their feet over a "harmless joke
that would not be considered offensive by any reasonable standard."
More
Using Your Blackberry In Illinois Could Send You To Prison Moore is scheduled to go on trial early next month for recording Internal
Affairs investigators when she filed a sexual harassment complaint.
Moore claims the investigators tried to get her to drop her complaint,
so she took out her Blackberry and started a recording which resulted
in her arrest. Drew goes on trial in April for recording his conversation
with Chicago police officers, without their permission, when he was
arrested for selling art without a permit. It’s just a misdemeanor to
sell art with no permit, but the voice recorder is causing much bigger
problems. More
Piece Corps? In some cases, victims say, the Peace Corps has ignored safety concerns and later tried to blame the women who were raped for bringing on the attacks. "I have two daughters now and I would never ever let them join the Peace Corps," said Adrianna Ault Nolan of New York, who was raped while serving in Haiti. She is one of six rape and sexual assault victims who agreed to tell
their stories, in hopes the Peace Corps will do a better job of volunteer
training and victim counseling. More
Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said. That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department
to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates
including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland
Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil liberties
groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of
police and intelligence agencies. More
Top US Official Murdered After Arkansas Weapons Test Causes Mass Death According to this report, John P. Wheeler III, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, Washington, D.C. from 2005-2008, when he became the Special Assistant to the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Logistics and Environment, was found brutally murdered and dumped in a landfill, and as we can read as reported by Fox News: “Delaware Police are investigating the apparent murder of a former
Bush official who also championed the fund-raising effort to build the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Wheeler’s
body was found in Wilmington on Friday. More
British cops swoop in drug raid, find only guinea pigs Pam Hardcastle, 42, said officers from West Yorkshire Police obtained a search warrant and mounted a raid on her family's home when they thought they had uncovered a specialist heating system designed to grow cannabis. Elevated heat levels recorded at the property by a police surveillance
helicopter sparked the raid, but instead of drugs, cops found her 10-year-old
son's two guinea pigs - named Simon and Kenny - cuddled up in the garage
in front of a heater. More
The TSA's New Security Procedures Touch a Nerve The new scanners, which have been introduced in more and more airports over the last few months, provide a full, head-to-toe picture of a passenger. Depending on the technology, the image is either pretty grainy and abstract or damn near NSFW. You can opt out of the full-body scan, but that means enduring an "enhanced pat-down" with a TSA agent. In the new pat-down, introduced on November 1, agents use the front of their hands and "women’s breasts and all passengers’ genital areas are patted firmly." Sounds awkward to say the least. Protests over the new procedures have exploded online, with sites
like Boing Boing, Gizmodo, and the Drudge Report raising the alarm.
More
FBI: New 'Video Girl Barbie' Could be Used by Pedophiles "Video Girl Barbie" has a camera in her chest that can record up to 30 minutes of video, which can be streamed to a computer. In a Nov. 30th memo, the FBI dubbed the doll a "possible child pornography production method." Authorities say there have been no incidents so far. In response, Barbie-maker Mattel released this statement: "The FBI is not reporting that anything has happened. Steve Dupre from the FBI Sacramento field office has confirmed there have been no incidents of this doll being used as anything other than its intent. Mattel products are designed with children and their best interests in mind. Many of Mattel's employees are parents themselves and we understand
the importance of child safety - it is our number one priority." More
Obamacare waivers given to 111 businesses, but few know where to apply for it Approved Applications for Waiver of the Annual Limits Requirements of the PHS Act Section 2711 as of November 1, 2010. Unfortunately, to receive a waiver it appears you must have political
capital with the administration to be accepted. For most small businesses,
you will be incurring the new taxes, fees, and programs that will add
thousands to your bottom line, and in more than a few cases, might cause
a small business to close their doors. More
Oil change reignites debate over GPS trackers The wire was attached to a strange magnetic device that puzzled Afifi and the mechanic. They freed it from the car and posted images of it online, asking for help in identifying it. Two days later, FBI agents arrived at Afifi's Santa Clara apartment and demanded the return of their property _ a global positioning system tracking device now at the center of a raging legal debate over privacy rights. One federal judge wrote that the widespread use of the device was
straight out of George Orwell's novel, "1984". More
Disabled Woman Goes Through Airport Security in Her Underwear Police were called to question the woman, Tammy Banovac, who was then allowed her to proceed to security. She was given an "enhanced" pat down because she was in a wheelchair. However, during the screening procedure for her carry-on items an alarm for nitrates was triggered, according to the TSA. Authorities said nitrates could legitimately be present in medication, or if someone was hunting recently and there were traces of nitrates from the bullets. But the TSA refused to allow her to board her Southwest Airlines flight to Phoenix. Officials said they had no idea why Banovac acted the way she did,
or if she was attempting to protest airport security. More
Unemployment Offices To Add Armed Guards No specific incidents prompted the action, Department of Workforce Development spokesman Marc Lotter told 6News' Norman Cox. Lotter said the agency is merely being cautious with the approach of an early-December deadline when thousands of Indiana residents could see their unemployment benefits end after exhausting the maximum 99 weeks provided through multiple federal extension periods. "Given the upcoming expiration of the federal extensions and the increased
stress on some of the unemployed, we thought added security would provide
an extra level of protection for our employees and clients," he said.
More
TSA says man who refused screening under investigation John Tyner, 31, a software engineer who captured his Saturday confrontation with TSA agents on his cell phone and posted it on the Internet, could not be reached for comment Monday. On Sunday, he said he didn't know whether the agency was going to fine him. But he said the detailed narrative of his experiences Saturday at Lindbergh Field now featured on his blog was originally written as documentation of his side of the story in case the agency sued him. He also said he expected he might not be allowed to fly anymore, but that he was prepared for that. He won't be planning airplane trips with his wife and infant son anyhow,
he said, because he doesn't want them subjected to body scans or pat-downs.
More
The New Tax Man From Ancient Rome As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reported this week, big banks and hedge funds in the U.S. have been quietly collecting taxes on hundreds of thousands of homes. The process, called "tax farming," is simple: A company goes to a local government and reimburses it for taxes that citizens aren't paying. In return, the company gets to act like an old-fashioned tax thug -- the kind rabbis condemn in the Bible -- charging up to 18 percent interest and thousands of dollars in legal fees, simply because it can. As the District of Columbia attorney general told the HuffPost Investigative Fund, there's "no oversight at all." Like many great American traditions, the tax farming game was perfected
by the ancient Romans. Provincial governors, and later Rome itself,
sold tax-collection rights to private companies called publicani. As
in modern America, this was a speculative bet -- a company paid a local
government's tax debt, and then tried its own hand at recouping the
loss. The Roman version was plainly brutal. In ours, the brutality is
subtle. But in the estimation of one expert in ancient finance, it's
just as bad: In our own way, we're sliding toward the conditions of
ancient Rome, where private tax collectors employed soldiers to wring
excessive amounts of cash from debtors. More
Texting bans may add risk to roads The findings, to be unveiled at a meeting here of 550 traffic safety professionals from around the USA, come amid a heightened national debate over distracted driving. "Texting bans haven't reduced crashes at all," says Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, whose research arm studied the effectiveness of the laws. Thirty states and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving;
11 of the laws were passed this year. The assertion that those efforts
are futile will be a major issue at this week's annual meeting here
of the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA)." More
U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments Many of those infected were encouraged to pass the infection onto others as part of the study. About one third of those who were infected never got adequate treatment. On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered extensive apologies for actions taken by the U.S. Public Health Service. "The sexually transmitted disease inoculation study conducted from
1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical," according to the joint
statement from Clinton and Sebelius. "Although these events occurred
more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research
could have occurred under the guise of public health. We deeply regret
that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected
by such abhorrent research practices." More
Kids swap DNA for fairground rides This week, researchers from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis are collecting DNA from young fair-goers and their parents as part of an effort to uncover genetic influences on normal child health and development. Logan Spector, a paediatrics researcher who is leading the project, dubbed the Gopher Kids Study, feels the fair provides an innovative opportunity to attract participants. His team hopes to recruit 500 children aged 1–11. Along with DNA from cheek cells, Spector's team is measuring volunteers'
height, weight, waist size and blood pressure. Participating children
also have the option of donating blood-spot samples and nail clippings,
which can be used to measure hormones and micronutrients. More
Want a mansion? Just take one Jill Lane, who was arrested on a charge of trespassing after two weeks in the house, is not contrite, The Seattle Times' Danny Westneat reports. Not only did she try to take over the mansion, with its wine cellar, home theater, six bedrooms and nine baths, she has staked a claim to 10 other bank-owned houses in the Seattle area. "Banks do whatever they want and nobody holds them accountable," Lane told Westneat by phone from Disneyland, where she went on vacation after she was released by the police. She and her partner ran a company that pledged to "eliminate mortgages"
and help others move into empty foreclosed homes. More
How your Apple iPhone spies on you While police have tracked criminals by locating their position via conventional mobile phone towers, iPhones offer far more information, say experts. "There are a lot of security issues in the design of the iPhone that lend themselves to retaining more personal information than any other device," said Jonathan Zdziarski, a former computer hacker who now teaches US law enforcers how to retrieve data from mobile phones. "These devices organise people's lives and, if you're doing something criminal, something about it is going to go through that phone." Apple has sold more than 50 million iPhones since the product was launched in 2007. Mr Zdziarski told The Daily Telegraph he suspected that security had been neglected on the iPhone as it had been intended as a consumer product rather than a business one like rivals such as the Blackberry. An example was the iPhone's keyboard logging cache, which was designed to correct spelling but meant that an expert could retrieve anything typed on the keyboard over the past three to 12 months, he said. In addition, every time an iPhone's internal mapping system is closed
down, the device snaps a screenshot of the phone's last position and
stores it. More
Quebec student shaken by U.S. border ordeal "It was a horrible experience," said Nina Vroemen, 20, who was on her way to volunteer at a California organic farm. "There was no need for that humiliation and mistreatment of a young, female Canadian volunteer." Vroemen, who studies theatre at Concordia University, set off from Montreal on May 5 on a Greyhound bus. She had found the volunteer job in California through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and planned to spend a month helping run art workshops at the farm. She thought she would explore the U.S. by bus on the way there. "You can go to a farm anywhere in the world and help out," she told
CBC's Ottawa Morning. "You gain friends and experience…you travel, it's
low cost and you feel good." More
Republicans vandalize school Sarah Thompson said she plans to raise the issue when the committee meets on May 19. She has asked Superintendent Jim Morse to contact City Manager Joe Gray so the committee will have a clear understanding of policies and legalities related to the rental and public use of school buildings. "We allowed them to use the space and I'm appalled that they would go through a teacher's things, let alone remove something from a classroom," Thompson said Wednesday. "We want the public to use school spaces, but they need to respect that it's a school and understand that they should leave it the way they find it." The Republican State Convention was held at the Portland Exposition
Building, which is on Park Avenue, near the middle school. Party members
from Knox County caucused in a classroom used by eighth-grade social
studies teacher Paul Clifford. When Clifford returned to school on Monday,
he found that a favorite poster about the U.S. labor movement had been
taken and replaced with a bumper sticker that read, "Working People
Vote Republican." More
Privacy fears over device that can eavesdrop on crimes Their call comes after microphones that can detect aggression by the tone of someone’s voice were installed in Coventry, where they will cover an area blighted by drunken violence. The Coventry decision has raised the prospect of microphones coming to Scottish cities, as Glasgow was one of the places where a trial was conducted. The system, called Sigard, is able to direct CCTV cameras towards suspicious sounds, which can also be gunshots or the smashing of glass. Operators can then direct police straight to a confrontation, in the
hope they can stop violence before it erupts. More
Activists blast Mexico's immigration law But in Mexico, illegal immigrants receive terrible treatment from corrupt Mexican authorities, say people involved in the system. And Mexico has a law that is no different from Arizona's that empowers local police to check the immigration documents of people suspected of not being in the country legally. "There (in the United States), they'll deport you," Hector Vázquez,
an illegal immigrant from Honduras, said as he rested in a makeshift
camp with other migrants under a highway bridge in Tultitlán. "In Mexico
they'll probably let you go, but they'll beat you up and steal everything
you've got first." More
Facebook’s Gone Rogue Facebook used to be a place to share photos and thoughts with friends and family and maybe play a few stupid games that let you pretend you were a mafia don or a homesteader. It became a very useful way to connect with your friends, long-lost friends and family members. Even if you didn’t really want to keep up with them. Soon everybody — including your uncle Louie and that guy you hated from your last job — had a profile. And Facebook realized it owned the network. Then Facebook decided to turn “your” profile page into your identity
online — figuring, rightly, that there’s money and power in being the
place where people define themselves. But to do that, the folks at Facebook
had to make sure that the information you give it was public. More
Eye in sky finds illegal Pierce County buildings Gordon Aleshire, assistant director of the county's planning department, told a County Council committee Monday that the program has prompted hundreds of property owners to seek amnesty for their illegal buildings. And it has generated more than $107,000 in revenue for the county as property owners seek building permits they should have obtained in the first place. But council members remain critical of the program, which some local
residents see as a Big Brother-style high-tech surveillance program.
"This has been a troubling program to a number of council members,"
Chairman Roger Bush, R-Frederickson, said at a meeting of the council's
Community Development Committee on Monday. More
Data mining for fun and profit It's a virtual epidemic of child pornography, and to fight it, law enforcement officers from all over are converging on a cavernous building in South Florida. Here they have access to the most advanced technology for finding pedophiles. But this isn't run by any government agency. The desks, computers, technology — all are provided free by a former drug smuggler named Hank Asher. Called a "mad scientist'' by one employee, Asher has made a fortune
collecting public records — deeds, lawsuits, voter registrations
— and combining them into databases that can be invaluable in
locating people. Plug a name into Accurint, Asher's best-known product,
and you'll see addresses, possible relatives, licenses held. More
Jolly Rancher lands third-grader in detention for a week
School officials in Brazos County are defending the seemingly harsh sentence. The school’s principal and superintendent said they were simply complying with a state law that limits junk food in schools. But the girl’s parents say it’s a huge overreaction. “I think it’s stupid to give a kid a week’s worth of detention for
a piece of candy,” said Amber Brazda, the girl’s mother. "The whole
thing was just ridiculous to me." Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch
Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was
in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them
the detention notice. More
FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited
FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting. As far back as a 2006 speech, Mueller had called for data retention
on the part of Internet providers, and emphasized the point two years
later when explicitly asking Congress to enact a law making it mandatory.
But it had not been clear before that the FBI was asking companies to
begin to keep logs of what Web sites are visited, which few if any currently
do. More
NJ Mom Recognizes Census Worker as Sex Offender
As soon as the man left her Pennsauken home, Schmalbach realized where she had seen him before: on the state’s sex-offender registry. "I figured this is a government worker, I'm safe," Schmalbach, 33, told the Inquirer. She had given him names and birthdates of her family to the man who called himself “Jamie.” The man’s real name is Frank J. Kuni, but goes by many aliases, including
Jamie Shepard. It was under the name “Jamie Shepard” that he applied
for a door-to-door job with the census bureau. More
Seattle police OK to stun pregnant woman
Malaika Brooks was driving her son to Seattle's African American Academy in 2004 when she was stopped for doing 32 mph in a school zone. She insisted it was the car in front of her that was speeding, and refused to sign the ticket because she thought she'd be admitting guilt. Rather than give her the ticket and let her go on her way, the officers
decided to arrest her. One reached in, turned off her car and dropped
the keys on the floor. Brooks stiffened her arms against the steering
wheel and told the officers she was pregnant, but refused to get out,
even after they threatened to stun her. More
FBI May Be Behind Your New Facebook Friend
U.S. law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting. Think you know who's behind that "friend" request? Think again. Your new "friend" just might be the FBI. The document, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, makes clear that U.S. agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips. Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects' alibis by comparing
stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their
whereabouts. More
School condemned after pupils left in tears by mock shooting
The youngsters, aged between 10 and 13, thought they were taking part in a fire drill when an alarm bell rang and they were ushered out into the playground. But they were left in terror as a man appeared brandishing a gun and appeared to shoot dead Richard Kent, their science teacher, as he ran across a field. Following a loud bang simulating a gunshot, other staff involved in the act rushed to the teacher's aid and appeared to try to resuscitate him. There was a delay of 10 minutes before weeping pupils were taken back
to the assembly hall where teachers explained that the pretend shooting
had been laid on as part of a science lesson. More
Employer told not to post advert for 'reliable' workers because it discriminates against 'unreliable' applicants So recruitment agency boss Nicole Mamo was especially careful to ensure her advert for hospital workers did not offend on grounds of race, age or sexual orientation. However, she hadn't reckoned on discriminating against a wholly different section of the community - the completely useless. When she ran the ad past a job centre, she was told she couldn't ask for 'reliable' and 'hard-working' applicants because it could be offensive to unreliable people. 'In my 15 years in recruitment I haven't heard anything so ridiculous,'
Mrs Mamo said. 'If the matter wasn't so serious I would be laughing
out loud. More
TSA Forces Disabled 4 Year Old to Remove Leg Braces When the police officer complained, the supervising TSA screener turned around and walked away. Then a Philadelphia police officer asked what was wrong and "suggested he calm down and enjoy his vacation." Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday. The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk. The screener told them to take off the boy's braces. More
Marines split over openly gay service
"If you don't bother me and you don't bring it to work, I don't care," the 20-year-old Chicago native said Tuesday as he headed into an Oceanside dry cleaner. "If people aren't blatant about it, I think they should be able to serve." Interviews with several active-duty and retired Marines revealed different opinions as the Pentagon begins a review, mandated by President Barack Obama, aimed at repealing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly. North County and Southwest Riverside County congressional representatives oppose any immediate change, though one left the door open to an eventual repeal. The interviews also showed that many in the Marines, a force that
prides itself on its warrior ethos, are conflicted. While saying they're
not bothered by homosexuality, some Marines say having gays and lesbians
serve in the open could hurt order and discipline. More
Gun-toting investigators raid Venice raw foods grocery Then, guns drawn, four officers fanned out across Rawesome Foods in Venice. Skirting past the arugula and peering under crates of zucchini, they found the raid's target inside a walk-in refrigerator: unmarked jugs of raw milk. "I still can't believe they took our yogurt," said Rawesome volunteer Sea J. Jones, a few days after the raid. "There's a medical marijuana shop a couple miles away, and they're raiding us because we're selling raw dairy products?" Cartons of raw goat and cow milk and blocks of unpasteurized goat
cheese were among the groceries seized in the June 30 raid by federal,
state and local authorities — the latest salvo in the heated food fight
over what people can put in their mouths. More
Pennsylvania School Accused of Cyberspying on Students Christopher McGinley, the superintendent of Lower Merion School District
of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, released a statement yesterday admitting the
MacBook cameras could be remotely activated without the user's knowledge.
McGinley claimed the remote camera activation was meant as a theft-prevention
measure. "The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam
for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever," McGinley said.
More
Clothing destroyed while people are too poor to buy it At the back entrance on 35th Street, awaiting trash haulers, were bags of garments that appear to have never been worn. And to make sure that they never would be worn or sold, someone had slashed most of them with box cutters or razors, a familiar sight outside H & M’s back door. The man and woman were there to salvage what had not been destroyed. He worked quickly, never uttering a word. A bag was opened and eyed,
and if it held something of promise, was tossed at the feet of the woman.
She said her name was Pepa. More
Romulus Police Disgust other Police Agencies "Under the bridge might be an unmarked Dodge Charger that’s there to nail you," said airport spokesman Mike Conway. Conway said Romulus police are pulling over record-number of drivers in an effort to raise cash. "To us, it’s more of a revenue generation for the city of Romulus than traffic safety enforcement," he said. Conway said court records show the city has written 10,000 tickets since July 1st. The Wayne County Airport Authority has even begun circulating fliers that read, "The Romulus Police Department has dramatically increased its patrols
at the entrances and exits to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, using unmarked
vehicles. Please be careful to observe all speed limits and traffic
laws." More
Jet diverts to Philly over teen passenger's prayer The 17-year-old on US Airways Express Flight 3079 was using tefillin, a set of small boxes containing biblical passages that are attached to leather straps, Philadelphia police Lt. Frank Vanore said. When used in prayer, one box is strapped to the arm while the other box is placed on the head. "It's something that the average person is not going to see very often,
if ever," FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver said. More
What Should You Worry About? So how can we find out what's truly dangerous? Economics. Upon hearing the word, most people think of incomprehensible charts and jargon and promptly change the subject. However, we can use the field's powerful ideas and tools, along with
huge piles of data, to understand topics that aren't typically associated
with economics. Topics like shark attacks. More
Raped by lookalike foods: ammoniated beef The company, Beef Products Inc., had been looking to expand into the hamburger business with a product made from beef that included fatty trimmings the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil. The trimmings were particularly susceptible to contamination, but a study commissioned by the company showed that the ammonia process would kill E. coli as well as salmonella. Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed
the company’s ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E.
coli “to an undetectable level.” They decided it was so
effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of
meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef
Products. More
Cop shoots fire chief in Ark. court over tickets The response from cops? They shot him. Right there in court. Payne ended up in the hospital, but his shooting last week brought
to a boil simmering tensions between residents of this tiny former cotton
city and their police force. Drivers quickly learn to slow to a crawl
along the gravel roads and the two-lane highway that run through Jericho,
but they say sometimes that isn't enough to fend off the city ticketing
machine. More
New scanners break child porn laws Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to "virtual strip-searching" and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved. Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws. They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to
ensure that images from the scanners, including those of celebrities,
do not end up on the internet. More
Britain’s first employee carbon rationing scheme is about to be extended, after the trial demonstrated the effectiveness of fining people for exceeding their personal emissions target. Unlike the energy-saving schemes adopted by thousands of companies, the rationing scheme monitors employees’ personal emissions, including home energy bills, petrol purchases and holiday flights. Workers who take a long-haul flight are likely to be fined for exceeding
their annual ration unless they take drastic action in other areas,
such as switching off the central heating or cutting out almost all
car journeys. More
Motorists run gauntlet on highway The gangs, which are also attacking construction workers upgrading the highway, have left a trail of terror behind them over the past three months. The gang's ambushes, which have included attacks on businessmen and a US Aid agency employee, have left at least four motorists and a security guard at a construction site seriously injured after they were shot by the robbers. he most recent attack took place last Tuesday night when a businessman
was shot in the legs as he was changing a flat tyre on his car. More
Danish Police Arrest Over 1,000 Protesters Hundreds of protesters under arrest were forced to sit on the cold ground for up to five hours before being taken to the special detention cages on the outskirts of Copenhagen. By far the largest protest of the COP15 took place on Saturday, where
up to 100,000 people were involved. The huge crowd started out at the
Danish Parliament and was en-route to the Bella Center, where COP15
is taking place, when police made their presence known by arresting
between 3,400 protesters in a pincer movement at the back of the demonstration.
More
San Diego PD ignore child prostitution, illlegal camps The San Diego Police Department’s slow reaction has caused many to scratch their heads wondering why it is taking police so long to remove the illegal migrant campers. “What are you doing out here?” asked one resident about this reporter. “If it wasn’t for you reporting this nothing would be done. I’m scared to visit the canyon any more.” After several days of speculation, SDPD Capt. Rosario said there would be a mobile command van placed in the canyon as well as some quads and horses. A quick visit inside the police mobile command unit shows a communication
network, radios and a television for the officers who are stationed
inside the van. Again, there was no word about the SDPD actually being
on foot inside the canyon where the prostitution is taking place. More
Milking the Poor: One Family's Fall Into Homelessness At the moment, Emma's fiance, Wilkins, sits in a windowless cell of the Lynnwood City Holding Facility serving a 30-day sentence for driving with a suspended license--the result of an unpaid ticket for driving without insurance. Though the term 'debtor's prison' evokes Dickensian inequalities of a past era, I find it difficult to characterize Wilkins's incarceration as anything more just. "If you don't have money for insurance, and you get pulled over, then
you'll never have money again," Emma explains, summarizing the painful
lesson realized through her entanglement with Washington law. "Fines
rack up every time they make a judgment against you. If you don't respond,
if you don't get the notice, then it goes to collections, additional
penalties are levied. It just gets worse and worse. And that's how our
hole got deeper and deeper." More
Man accused of using Twitter to direct protesters during G20 summit Elliot Madison, 41, from Queens, had his home raided and was put on $30,000 (£19,000) bail after he and Michael Wallschlaeger, 46, were tracked to the Carefree Inn motel in Pittsburgh during the summit on 24 and 25 September. The pair were found sitting in front of a bank of laptops and emergency frequency radio scanners. They were wearing headphones and microphones and had many maps and contact numbers in the room. Official police documents allege the two men used Twitter messages
to contact protesters at the summit "and to inform the protesters and
groups of the movements and actions of law enforcement". More
Geely pops a big wheelie for metro cop For, on April 26, they caught Midrand motorist Francisca Al-Halaseh on two cameras. One was near the Canada Road Bridge on the N12 South and the second, 4.6km later, at the Randshow Road Bridge on the N12 South. But despite the cameras being 4.6km apart, the time difference between the two clips is a mere 19 seconds. This means Al-Halaseh, who was driving the Geely, should have been
driving 871km/h and not the 102km in an 80km zone that she was caught
at. More
US Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ”open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day. Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more
than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online
forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. (It doesn’t touch
closed social networks, like Facebook, at the moment.) Customers get
customized, real-time feeds of what’s being said on these sites,
based on a series of keywords. More
'Naked' scanner in airport trial The authorities say it will speed up security checks by quickly revealing any concealed weapons or explosives. But the full body scans will also show up breast enlargements, body piercings and a clear black-and-white outline of passengers' genitals. The airport has stressed that the images are not pornographic and will be destroyed straight away. Sarah Barrett, head of customer experience at the airport, said most passengers did not like the traditional "pat down" search. Ms Barrett said: "This scanner completely takes away the hassle of
needing to undress." More
Thumbprint rule at Tampa Bank of America stymies armless man trying to cash check "She said, 'Obviously you aren't going to be able to give us a thumbprint,' " Valdez recalled. The teller went to get the branch manager to find out what to do, Valdez said. Valdez was born without arms, and this wasn't his first time cashing a check at someone else's bank. The check was from his wife, so he took it to her bank Thursday, thinking that would make it simple. Not this time. He could not understand why his two forms of photo ID were unacceptable. He said the manager gave him two options: open an account or come back with your wife. He did neither. More
Obama Youth to patrol American cities He has made good on that promise. Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor. The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed. “United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued. The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts
of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people
in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating
border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s
longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police
officers and firefighters. More
Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor? City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless
or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,”
a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole
France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic
equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.”
More
State to Mom: Stop Baby-Sitting Neighbors' Kids Regulators who oversee child care, however, don't see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, she'd be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers. "I was freaked out. I was blown away," she said. "I got on the phone immediately, called my husband, then I called
all the girls" — that is, the mothers whose kids she watches —
"every one of them." More
Hot tiles a headache for San Onofre Southern California Edison, the plant's owner, reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday that a shipment of various materials from the seaside plant was rejected at Terminal Island in Long Beach Harbor after a "portal monitor" detected radiation. Edison spokesman Gil Alexander said Tuesday that an inspection performed after the shipment was returned to San Onofre found the radiation reading stemmed from a common ingredient in ceramic tiles, not anything absorbed at the plant. "They were garden-variety standard retail decorative tiles," Alexander
said. "The clay in them can give off a very low level of natural background
radiation." More
Obama: We Need To Bail Out Newspapers Or Blogs Will Run The World "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said. He said he would be happy to look a bills that could give tax newspapers
tax-breaks if they were to restructure as 50 (c) (3) educational corporations.
One of the bills is that of Senator Ben Cardin, who has introduced the
"Newspaper Revitalization Act." More
Blackwater’s ‘License to Kill’ under the Lens The latest revelation: The company’s contractors help assemble and load missiles and smart bombs on the CIA’s Predator drones. The firm, the Times reports, also provided security at secret bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That latter point should come as little surprise to Blackwater-watchers.
According to Robert Young Pelton’s Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns
in the War on Terror, Blackwater first got into the security business
to provide protective details for the CIA in Afghanistan post-9/11.
More
Ridge accuses Bush White House of political use of terror alert system Ridge, a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, says that he refused the entreaty just before the election from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, according to a summary of the book from publisher Thomas Dunne Books. Ridge writes that there was a "vigorous, some might say dramatic, discussion" about raising the threat level. He says his aides told the White House that doing so would politicize national security. "I believe our strong interventions had pulled the 'go-up' advocates
back from the brink," Ridge writes. "But I consider the episode to be
not only a dramatic moment in Washington's recent history, but another
illustration of the intersection of politics, fear, credibility and
security." More
Newborn's Blood Samples Raise Questions of Privacy "They're just taking DNA from young kids right out of the womb and putting it into a warehouse," said Brzica, of Victoria, Minn. "DNA is what makes us who we are. It's just not right." The couple is among a group of parents challenging Minnesota's practice
of storing babies' blood samples and allowing researchers to study them
without their permission. The confrontation, and a similar one in Texas,
has focused attention on the practice at a time when there is increasing
interest in using millions of these collected "blood spots" to study
diseases. More
Whoops! Cash For Clunkers Payments Are Taxable! "That means they need their title, their damage disclosure, their bill of sale and the dealers have 30 days to get that to them," Minnehaha County Treasurer Pam Nelson said. But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable. "They didn't realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don't realize
that. So they're not happy and kind of surprised when they find that
out," Nelson said. More
Legal Immunity Set for Swine Flu Vaccine Makers The last time the government embarked on a major vaccine campaign against a new swine flu, thousands filed claims contending they suffered side effects from the shots. This time around, they will have no recourse. The 2006 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (the PREP
Act) allows the DHHS Secretary to invoke almost complete immunity from
liability for manufacturers of vaccines and drugs used to combat a declared
public health emergency. More
Obama's Science Czar: Eugenics is wonderful The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both? These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations)
were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed
Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy,
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair
of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology --
informally known as the United States' Science Czar. In a book Holdren
co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy
in this country wrote that: • Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether
they wanted to or not; Judge sentences man to 6 months in jail for yawning As Circuit Judge Daniel Rozak handed down the cousin's sentence -- 2 years' probation -- Williams, 33, stretched and let out a very ill-timed yawn. Williams' sentence? Six months in jail -- the maximum penalty for criminal contempt without a jury trial. The Richton Park man was locked up July 23 and will serve at least 21 days. "I was flabbergasted because I didn't realize a judge could do that,"
said Williams' father, Clifton Williams Sr. "It seems to me like a yawn
is an involuntary action." More
Unsafe tractor-trailer and bus companies ordered to shut down still on US highways The study by the Government Accountability Office comes a year after an unlicensed charter bus carrying a Vietnamese-American Catholic group blew a retreaded tire installed on a steering axle and skidded off a Texas highway, killing 17 people in one of the nation's deadliest bus crashes. The use of recapped tires on the steering wheels is a violation of federal regulations, the study stated. The GAO report found that at least 20 of the roughly 220 commercial
bus companies that had been fined and ordered out of service in 2007
and 2008 by federal regulators evaded compliance by setting up shop
under a new name, the same tactic used by the bus operator in the Texas
crash. More
Police chief denounces 'cowardly' iPhone users monitoring speed traps That has irked D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who promised her officers would pick up their game to counteract the devices, which can also help drivers dodge sobriety checkpoints. "I think that's the whole point of this program," she told The Examiner.
"It's designed to circumvent law enforcement -- law enforcement that
is designed specifically to save lives." More
School bans pupils from wearing goggles Authorities at the school say they're following advice from the British Association of Advisors and Lecturers in Physical Education (BAALPE). The BAALPE advice states: "Head teachers should inform parents and
carers that goggles can be a hazard and cause permanent eye injury.
More
Researchers: Social Security Numbers Can Be Guessed Many numbers could be guessed at by simply knowing a person's birth data, the researchers from Carnegie Mellon University said. The results come as concern grows over identity theft and lawmakers
in Washington push legislation that would bar businesses from requiring
people to supply their Social Security number when purchasing a good
or service. More
Police Check Into Kids' Lemonade Sales But police say it was all a misunderstanding. A neighbor called Haverford Township police July 10 about the sales. He said the youngsters were going door to door and he didn't think they were being properly supervised. A responding officer told the kids they were violating an ordinance
that bans sales without a permit. But Deputy Chief John Viola said the
officer didn't know the law doesn't apply to anyone under 16 years old.
More
People on terrorist watch list allowed to buy guns That's the finding of a new report by the Government Accountability Office, sent to lawmakers last month and released publicly Monday. From February 2004 to February 2009, 963 background checks using the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System "resulted in valid matches with terrorist watch list records; of these matches, approximately 90 percent were allowed to proceed because the checks revealed no prohibiting information," the GAO report says. About 10 percent were denied. More
Single father turned away from swimming pool by health and safety rules Phillip Smith and sons Jake, aged five, and Aiden, three, were not allowed to enjoy a swim at the leisure centre because under-eights must be accompanied on a one-to-one basis by adults. He was told sessions were available for single parents with more than one child, where there is extra supervision available, but these were early in the morning at weekends or during school hours in the week. Mr Smith, 37, from Killamarsh in Sheffield, who is separated from his
sons' mother, accused the leisure centre of 'discriminating against
single parents'. More
Americans Fed Up with Out of Control Airport 'Searches' But two court cases in the past month question whether TSA searches—which the agency says have broadened to allow screeners to use more judgment—have been going too far. A federal judge in June threw out seizure of three fake passports
from a traveler, saying that TSA screeners violated his Fourth Amendment
rights against unreasonable search and seizure. Congress authorizes
TSA to search travelers for weapons and explosives; beyond that, the
agency is overstepping its bounds, U.S. District Court Judge Algenon
L. Marbley said. “The extent of the search went beyond the permissible
purpose of detecting weapons and explosives and was instead motivated
by a desire to uncover contraband evidencing ordinary criminal wrongdoing,”
Judge Marbley wrote. More
Kids touring prisons get stun-gunned A total of 43 children were directly and indirectly shocked by electric stun guns during simultaneous ''Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day'' events gone wrong at three state prisons last month. One was a warden's daughter. The bizarre descriptions of kids being exposed to tear gas and shocked
while holding hands in circles were revealed during a Friday news conference
by Walter McNeil, the surprised chief of the Florida Department of Corrections.
Three prison guards have been fired, two have resigned and 16 others
will be disciplined for what happened on April 23, McNeil said. More
Shelter scans fingerprints of homeless Dermot Baldwin, head of the Calgary Drop-In Centre, said people who have been barred from the shelter use fake identification to get in. The homeless shelter is testing a new $150,000 security system that scans clients' fingerprints, and Baldwin said he expects it will be fully up and running in a few weeks. Brian Edy, a civil rights lawyer, suggested that the centre rely on metal detectors or install lockers for people to leave their belongings outside as alternatives to the "intrusive" fingerprinting. "We can give that helping hand without requiring fingerprints before
you get a bowl of soup." More
Key health care senators have industry ties Members of both parties have industry connections, including Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin, in addition to Dodd, and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, John Kyl and Orrin Hatch, financial reports showed Friday. . Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of the Connecticut Democrat, is on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals. Other publicly available documents show Mrs. Dodd last year was one
of the most highly compensated non-employee members of the Javelin Pharmaceuticals
Inc. board, on which she has served since 2004. She earned $32,000 in
fees and $109,587 in stock option awards last year, according to the
company's SEC filings. More
Banks Use Life Insurance to Fund Bonuses Banks took out much of this life insurance during the mortgage bubble, when executives' pay -- and the IOUs for their deferred compensation -- surged, and banking regulators affirmed the use of life insurance as a way to finance executive pay and benefits. The insurance policies essentially are informal pension funds for
executives: Companies deposit money into the contracts, which are like
big, nondeductible IRAs, and allocate the cash among investments that
grow tax-free. Over time, employers receive tax-free death benefits
when employees, former employees and retirees die. More
New South Africa law forces registration of cell phones The new law came into effect on July 1 2009. It seeks to assist the country’s law enforcement agencies investigate and combat serious crimes. All cell phone subscribers have to show proof of identity as well as present a utility bill to show proof of residence to be registered. When registering, customers would need to have with them their cell
phone number, full names and surname, and ID number or passport number.
Proof of identity should be provided by a green barcoded ID document,
an ID card, temporary ID certificate, or passport. More
Firms With Bailout Cash Find Money to Fund Lobbying The biggest spenders among major firms in the group included General Motors, which spent nearly $1 million a month on lobbying, and Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, which together spent more than $2.5 million in their efforts to sway lawmakers and Obama administration officials on a wide range of financial issues. In all, major bailout recipients have spent more than $22 million
on lobbying in the six months since the government began doling out
rescue funds, Senate disclosure records show. More
Suspect Dies After Being Tased During Arrest Salem Police Lt. Dave Okada says the incident began at 7:38 p.m. when Salem Police were called to an apartment at 1251 Royvonne Ave SE #5 regarding a report of a male trespassing at that location. "While investigating the trespass situation, officers encountered and attempted to arrest 37-year old Gregory Rold, who violently resisted the officers," Okada said. "Rold continued to violently resist the officers' attempts to take him into custody, causing the officers to deploy their Tasers and ASP batons." Okada says once Rold was restrained and handcuffed, "officers noticed
that Rold was unconscious and unresponsive. Officers called for immediate
medical assistance and rendered emergency medical aid to Rold until
medical assistance arrived." More
Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force's air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft. The latest intrusions provide new evidence that a battle is heating
up between the U.S. and potential adversaries over the data networks
that tie the world together. The revelations follow a recent report
that computers used to control the U.S. electrical-distribution system,
as well as other infrastructure, have also been infiltrated by spies
abroad. More
Census Takers Recording The GPS Coordinates Of Homes Address verification is a critically important step to assure that every housing unit receives a census questionnaire in March 2010. Address verification will take approximately six to eight weeks to complete. “We go to all communities and neighborhoods to make sure that
we have correct addresses,” said Dennis Johnson, Regional Director.
“This is the first publicly visible activity of the 2010 Census.
Census workers are not in uniforms, they will have official identification
and they’ll use hand-held computers equipped with GPS to increase
geographic accuracy. We’ve also sent notices about this operation
to law enforcement agencies. ” More
Airline sorry for omitting Israel The moving maps marked Islamic holy sites but showed only the city of Haifa in Israel, identified by its Arabic name, Khefa. Israeli officials accused BMI of trying to "hide the existence of Israel". But BMI said it was a technical error - the maps had not been changed
since the planes were taken over from a former airline which flew to
the Middle East. More
Ex-Pentagon Official Sentenced For Child Porn Wade Sanders, 69, will surrender in July to begin serving the federal prison term handed down by U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan. Sanders told the judge that he pleaded guilty to possession of child
pornography because that's what he did. Sanders had faced a maximum
of 10 years in prison. More
Debtors’ Prisons make a comeback in Amerika Apparently, though, some states and county jails never got the memo. Welcome to the debtors’ prisons of the 21st century. “Edwina Nowlin, a poor Michigan resident, was ordered to reimburse a juvenile detention center $104 a month for holding her 16-year-old son,” the New York Times wrote in an editorial. “When she explained to the court that she could not afford to
pay, Ms. Nowlin was sent to prison. The American Civil Liberties Union
of Michigan, which helped get her out last week after she spent 28 days
behind bars, says it is seeing more people being sent to jail because
they cannot make various court-ordered payments. That is both barbaric
and unconstitutional.” More
Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Discussing Aid for AIPAC Defendants In return, the Israeli agent pledged to help lobby for Harman to become chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee. Two former senior national security officials, one who has read a transcript of the wiretap and a second who was briefed on its contents, said Harman agreed during the conversation to “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference.” Their accounts were confirmed by a third source with knowledge of the wiretapped conversation and subsequent events. AIPAC is the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.
More
The Bilbray case: $50,000 gets you $26 million The earmark request is raising eyebrows for two reasons: It bypasses the normal process for Pentagon spending, and the company that builds the planes has given Bilbray thousands of dollars in political contributions. The Solana Beach Republican recently announced the request on his Web site, along with another request for $6 million to upgrade an imaging system to help the California National Guard track natural disasters, such as wildfires. General Atomics, the San Diego-based firm that makes the Predator,
has contributed $50,000 to Bilbray through its political action committee
since 1997, according to figures kept by the Federal Election Commission.
More
Police Chief Jailed for Using Taser on Wife Ivy's warrant was apparently issued after authorities had investigated a possible past incident in his home. A teletype had been sent out Monday morning advising law enforcement agencies that a "wanted individual was a peace officer possibly in possession of a badge, police radio and weapons". He was arrested in nearby Anderson County shortly after that. Anderson
County then transferred Ivy to Leon County where he is being held on
a $100,000 bond. More
Michelle Obama's organic garden angers US farming companies Mrs Obama started work on the kitchen garden with a gang of schoolchildren last month. Media coverage of the first White House food plot since Eleanor Roosevelt "dug for victory" in the Second World War garnered media coverage across the world. But to the consernation of Big Ag, Mrs Obama has said the project
will not use chemical products to tackle pests or give her plants a
boost, the Times reports. More
Social network sites 'monitored' The Home Office said it was needed to tackle crime gangs and terrorists who might use the sites, but said it would not keep the content of conversations. It is part of a plan to store details of all phone calls, e-mails and websites visited on a central database. Civil liberties campaigners have called the proposals a "snoopers' charter". Tens of millions of people use sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace
to chat with friends, but ministers say they have no interest in the
content of discussions - just who people have been talking to. More
Mom says Patriot Act stripped son of due process But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15. The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said. "Undoubtedly, they were given false information, or they would not
have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three
cats," Lundeby said. More
Deadly new flu virus in US and Mexico may go pandemic Ironically, after years of concern about H5N1 bird flu, the new flu causing concern is a pig virus, of a family known as H1N1. Flu viruses are named after the two main proteins on their surfaces,
abbreviated H and N. They are also differentiated by what animal they
usually infect. The H in the new virus comes from pigs, but some of
its other genes come from bird and human flu viruses, a mixture that
the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "very unusual".
More
Senator's husband's firm cashes in on crisis Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate
Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over
FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from
bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars. More
US Marshals Use Taser On Wrong Man Surveillance cameras at a Grandview community center captured video of Stuart Wright at a men's basketball game when the marshals burst in, guns drawn and a Taser gun deployed. "I've never been through anything like this before. I was in shock," said Wright. Wright played basketball in college and even the semi-pros, but now
his biggest accomplishments are his kids. More
Homeland Security officials say US is fertile ground for recruiting by right-wing extremists In an intelligence assessment issued to law enforcement last week, Homeland Security officials said there was no specific information about an attack in the works by right-wing extremists. The agency warns that an extended economic downturn with real estate
foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit could foster
an environment for extremists to recruit members who may not have been
supportive of these causes in the past. More
Safety team warns of 'catastrophic' wiring in Iraq The team said the use of a required device, commonly found in American houses to prevent electrical shocks, was "patchy at best" near showers and latrines in U.S. military facilities. There also was widespread use of uncertified electrical devices and "incomplete application" of U.S. electrical codes in buildings throughout the war-torn country, the team found. At least three U.S. service members have been electrocuted in Iraq
while taking showers in the six years since the U.S.-led invasion of
the country. More
Finding a Way to Review Surveillance Tape in Bulk The goal is to identify "well established patterns of clearly suspicious behavior" of individuals outside the United States. The research program, called Video Analysis and Content Extraction,
has been underway since 2001 and is being undertaken by the Office of
Incisive Analysis, part of the government's Intelligence Advanced Research
Projects Activity (IARPA). It is one of several IARPA research projects
aimed at developing systems that would permit subject-based review of
massive video and other databases for counterterrorism and other intelligence
purposes. More
America Occupied: TSA Thugs TSA agents claim having a large sum of money which could be any amount over $50.00 is cause to be detained and interrogated. When Mr. Bierfeldt asks if the interrogation over having cash is lawful he was threatened with further detainment and investigation by DEA and FBI. TSA contacts an FBI agent who quickly discovers the funds being transported
are political contributions the FBI agent tells Mr. Bierfeldt he is
free to go. However the lead TSA agent quickly responds that he must
contact his supervisor first because Mr. Bierfeldt is a “suspicious
person” in his opinion. More
Here is an excerpt from audio recorded by Mr. Bierfeldt. There is no documented instance of any passenger threatening or endangering an aircraft with cash.
Are peanut allergy people nuts? Actions like that are no doubt overdue in the minds of organizations
like the 30,000-member Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN),
a Virginia-based advocacy organization that has led the fight to raise
awareness about peanut and other food allergies in both children and
adults. Go to its Web site and you'll see some eyebrow-raising points.
More
Man Robs Stores With Klingon Sword A surveillance picture released by police shows a man armed with what appears to be a small Klingon sword, holding up a 7-Eleven convenience store. That same man robbed another 7-Eleven store store a half-hour later, and remains at large, Colorado Springs police Lt. David Whitlock said. The first robbery was reported at 1:50 a.m. The clerk told police a white man in his 20s, wearing a black mask,
black jacket, and blue jeans, entered the store with a weapon the clerk
recognized from the Star Trek TV series. More
War vet pulls 13 of his teeth out So instead he took drastic action and removed them himself. The 42-year-old, from Beverley, East Yorks, had not had his teeth looked at since seeing the army dentist in 2003. And he has not registered with a dentist of his own since 2001. He
said: “I’ve tried to get in at 30 dentists over the last eight years
but have never been able to find one to take on NHS patients. More
Would You Pay $103,000 for This Arizona Fixer-Upper? The story of the two-bedroom, one-bath shack on West Hopi Street, is the story of this year's financial panic, told in 576 square feet. It helps explain how a series of bad decisions can add up to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Less than two years ago, Integrity Funding LLC, a local lender, gave
a $103,000 mortgage to the owner, Marvene Halterman, an unemployed woman
with a long list of creditors and, by her own account, a long history
of drug and alcohol abuse. More
PTSD pushed Marine to abandon family and service By the end of an emotional court-martial, Hering emerged with a sentence of time served behind bars since his Nov. 16 arrest, a fine of $1,166 and an administrative discharge from the service. Marine Corps officials refused to characterize the nature of the discharge, saying it was subject to privacy regulations. Hering's case was different from others in that authorities acknowledged
he had not been treated for post-traumatic stress syndrome before leaving
Iraq in the summer of 2006, even though he sought counseling, according
to unchallenged testimony heard Friday. More
Teenager dies after being tased by Martinsville Police It happened at 307 Rives Road. When 10 On Your side came to the apartment on Friday afternoon, the door was already open, but nobody was inside. What appears empty now, was swarming with police and investigators Thursday night. Justin Gregory, 15, says his friend, 17-year-old Derick, died after
a Martinsville officer used a taser on him. Gregory told us Derick and
Derick’s mother had only lived in the home for about a week; however,
the boys were alone on Thursday night. Although friends say the victim’s
name was Derick, police have not released the victim’s name; therefore,
Ten On Your Side has decided not to release the victim’s full name,
yet. More
Bailed out banks sought foreign workers for high-paying jobs The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice
the median income for all American households. More
Laws to Track Sex Offenders Encouraging Homelessness Strict new laws aimed at keeping track of sex offenders after they
leave prison appear to be having the opposite effect, encouraging homelessness
in a population believed more likely to re-offend if cast into the streets
without structure or family support, say prosecutors, police, parole
officials and experts on managing sex offenders. More
Now, when he dials another student, researchers know. When he sends an e-mail or text message, they also know. When he listens to music, they know the song. Every moment he has his Windows Mobile smartphone with him, they know where he is, and who’s nearby. Mr. Brown and about 100 other students living in Random Hall at M.I.T.
have agreed to swap their privacy for smartphones that generate digital
trails to be beamed to a central computer. Beyond individual actions,
the devices capture a moving picture of the dorm’s social network. More
Suit claims Halliburton, KBR sickened base Joshua Eller, who worked as a civilian computer-aided drafting technician with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, said military personnel, contractors and third-country nationals may have been sickened by contamination at the largest U.S. installation in Iraq, home to more than 30,000 service members, Defense Department civilians and contractors. “Defendants promised the United States government that they would
supply safe water for hygienic and recreational uses, safe food supplies
and properly operate base incinerators to dispose of medical waste safely,”
according to the lawsuit, filed Nov. 26 in U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of Texas. “Defendants utterly failed to perform their
promised duties.” More
Barky: A Luo tribesman in the White House?
We must all hope that, like King's, Mr. Obama's dream is "deeply rooted in the American dream." But before giving him the keys to the White House, Americans might like to know a little more about the content of Mr. Obama's dream. Let me propose an unlikely place to start looking: Kenya. Even in the midst of the primaries, the horrific scenes from that country since the disputed election on December 27 will not have escaped most people. In particular, the burning of a church with up to 50 men, women, and children inside, while machete-armed mobs slaughter up to 600 more people, have evoked memories of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The opposition leader, Raila Odinga, has had a good press in the West,
after he accused the president, Mwai Kibaki, of rigging the election.
But the victims of the recent violence have mostly been members of Mr.
Kibaki's tribe, the Kikuyu, while those who have gone berserk are supporters
of Mr. Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement, which is dominated by the
rival Luo tribe. More
Big Brother is watching, but seniors don't mind Player is one of 68 residents of the Masonicare retirement community participating in a study that aims to determine whether keeping a technological eye on seniors can help them live longer independently in their own homes. Player's place has a motion detector in the corner of each room, a
sensor on her refrigerator that keeps track of her eating habits, a
sensor on the medicine cabinet to see if she's taking her medications
on time, and a pressure sensor underneath the mattress of her bed to
track her sleeping. More
Blue Pills Help CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan Four blue pills. Viagra. "Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam. The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned
four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered
up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes
-- followed by a request for more pills. More
Anti-terror powers used to spy on paperboys Campaigners accused the council of acting like a "jumped up version
of the A-Team" by using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA)
to target the former postmistress Rashmi Solanki and her husband Dips,
who run the local shop. It is the latest in a series of incidents where
local authorities have used surveillance powers to investigate minor
matters from dog fouling to underage smoking. More
Troop Surge for President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural
Government officials are set to deploy an additional 3,000 troops - for a total of 7,000 - and an extra 2,000 cops, bringing the tally to 10,000 police, sources said. The joint security and transportation plan disclosed yesterday by authorities included this understatement: "Access into Washington, D.C. will be limited" on Jan. 20. All four bridges over the Potomac River from Virginia into D.C. will
be closed to traffic, except for buses and authorized vehicles, and
boat traffic on the river will be banned. More
Former 'Yuppies' struggle for cash
So-called Yuppies or Young Urban Professionals epitomised 1980s success, and were infamous for their high spending, Filofaxes, having the latest gadgets and splashing out on expensive dining. But 20 years on, 45% of former Yuppies claim they are struggling financially or failing to live within their means, according to Liverpool Victoria friendly society. At the same time, seven out of 10 former Yuppies, now aged between
45 and 55, say they should have saved more money earlier in their career
and 32% worry about how they would cope if their regular income stopped.
More
The Cold War's Missing Atom Bombs Journalists from around the world had gathered on the beach of the small village of Palomares to report on the two families' spring bathing outing. Their interest would have been surprising, if it hadn't been for the hydrogen bomb lying on the ocean floor only a few kilometers away, a bomb with more than 1,000 times the explosive force of the one that flattened Hiroshima. Only a few weeks earlier, on Jan. 17, 1966, the worst nuclear weapons
incident of the entire Cold War had taken place off Spain's southeastern
coast. During an aerial tanking maneuver, an American B-52 bomber and
a KC-135 tanking aircraft collided in mid-air at 9,000 meters (29,000
feet), and both planes exploded in a giant fireball over Palomares.
There were four hydrogen bombs in the hold of the B-52. One landed,
unharmed, in tomato fields near the village. The non-nuclear fuse detonated
in two others causing bomb fragments and plutonium dust to rain down
on the impact site. More
Girl sues police over assault, wrongful arrest Dymond Milburn, from Galveston, Texas, was grabbed by three plain-clothed police officers out the front of her house and told, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me”, according to the lawsuit. After struggling with the men and screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy”,
the girl had her mouth covered and was struck in the face and throat,
leaving her with black eyes and throat and ear drum injuries, her lawyer
said. More
$1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages. Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company
jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional
money management, a review of federal securities documents found. The
total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs
for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars. More
German Parliament Passes Anti-Terror Law Recently, a partial answer finally came, when the lower house of the
German parliament, the Bundestag, approved anti-terrorism legislation
that will vastly expand the cyber-spying powers of the federal police
to gather information from the computers, telephone lines and homes
of suspected terrorists. More
All that money you've lost — where did it go?
Whether you're a stock broker or Joe Six-pack, if you have a 401(k), a mutual fund or a college savings plan, tumbling stock markets and sagging home prices mean you've lost a whole lot of the money that was right there on your account statements just a few months ago. But if you no longer have that money, who does? The fat cats on Wall
Street? Some oil baron in Saudi Arabia? The government of China? More
al-Qaida has funds despite economic woes
One reason is that al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorists have been forced to avoid using banks, relying instead on less-efficient ways to move their cash around the world, analysts said. Those methods include hand-carrying money and using informal transfer networks called hawalas. While escaping official scrutiny, those networks also are slower and
less efficient — and thus could hamper efforts to finance attacks. More
First sight of the ID cards that will soon be compulsory
A coalition of opposition parties, trade unions and civil liberties campaigners condemned the symbolic release of the pink and blue cards, which will be introduced for foreign nationals living in Britain from next month. The plastic permits, containing the personal details, fingerprints and immigration status of foreign nationals, offer the first glimpse of what ID cards for British citizens will look like. Critics attacked the project as a dangerous waste of money that would undermine hundreds of years of civil rights and warned that targeting foreign residents could lead to discrimination and abuse. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said the scheme would protect against
identity fraud, illegal working and cut organised crime and terrorism.
More
China: 1,500 raccoon dogs die from tainted feed
The revelation comes amid a crisis over dairy products tainted with melamine that has caused kidney stones in tens of thousands of Chinese children and has been linked to the deaths of four infants. The raccoon dogs — a breed native to east Asia whose fur is used to
trim coats and other clothing — died of kidney failure after eating
the tainted feed, said Zhang Wenkui, a veterinary professor at Shenyang
Agriculture University. More
Economic Tough Times Hit Nevada Brothel Her new boss, Susan Austin, had spared no expense and the woman was quickly whisked into a waiting limo at the Reno, Nev., airport. For the sake of privacy, we're calling the woman "Kimberly," and the coveted job she got was as a prostitute at one of the few places in America where it's legal -- the self-proclaimed "world famous" Mustang Ranch. "I'm nervous, you know," said Kimberly, who would be working as a prostitute
for the first time. "I've got a little shake. I'm more nervous than
I think I've ever been in my life." More
Judge: Blackwater guards must report to DC court
The Justice Department called the shooting a shocking and devastating violation of human rights. The harsh words echoed the outrage of Iraqis, who have waited more than a year to see how the U.S. would respond to the shooting on a busy street in the Iraqi capital. The five security guards surrendered in federal court in Utah, where
one of them lives. The five guards walked wordlessly through a phalanx
of reporters. A judge ordered the guards to report to a Washington courthouse
Jan. 6, where they were expected to plead not guilty. More
Democrats' victory leads to boom in gun sales
And Mark Cortis, who conducts concealed weapons license training and sits on the Oakland County gun board, has had people from as far away as Iron Mountain and Traverse City call about classes. Both Cortis and Mundy say the prospective students fear President-elect
Barack Obama will try to take away gun owners' rights. And people also
are afraid that as the economy worsens, crime will increase. The permits
allow people to legally carry a loaded firearm in most places. More
Vice president, former AG, state senator indicted
The indictment, which had not yet been signed by the presiding judge, was one of seven released Tuesday in a county that has been a source of bizarre legal and political battles in recent years. Another of the indictments named a state senator on charges of profiting from his position. Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra himself had been
under indictment for more than a year and half before a judge dismissed
the indictments last month. This flurry of charges came in the twilight
of Guerra's tenure, which ends this year after nearly two decades in
office. He lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March. More
IRS computer systems faulted
The office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said Internal Revenue Service officials failed to ensure that identified weaknesses had been addressed before putting the new systems into use. Inspector General J. Russell George said it was "very troublesome"
that the IRS "was aware of, and even self-identified, these weaknesses."
More
Blackwater Sees Treasure in Pirates
The Moyock, N.C., company has a ship in Hampton Roads ready to begin patrolling the Gulf of Aden to protect merchant vessels against pirates. The company has spoken to about 10 shipping firms but as yet has no takers, said Bill Mathews, Blackwater Worldwide executive vice president. "There's definitely a need and a desire," Mathews said during a tour of the 183-foot vessel, named McArthur, on Friday. It's moored at a commercial pier at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base. Somali pirates in late September seized a Ukrainian ship loaded with
military vehicles in the Gulf of Aden and still hold the ship while
demanding a multimillion-dollar ransom. The standoff is being monitored
by the U.S. Navy. More
Grizzlies on the prowl in urban Alaska
Some now wonder if an environmental success story -- the restoration of salmon runs in Anchorage streams -- has set the stage for an unfolding community crisis. They are wondering whether a mandate to maintain salmon runs at maximum sustainable levels will make the growing bear-human problems in the city even worse. What garbage is to black bears, salmon are to grizzlies. Salmon lure
bears into the city. The attendant problems became painfully clear this
summer. More
'Constitution-Free Zone' 100 miles from border
An associate professor at Point Loma Nazarene University, Johnson says he took his two children, aged 8 and 10, to Border Field State Park in Imperial Beach in June. Scores of border patrol agents were on the scene, Johnson said, and some were recording license plate numbers from protesters' cars parked a more than a mile away from the border. It seems that Johnson's participation in the anti-fence demonstration
may have landed him on a government watch list that has inhibited his
ability to travel freely between the US and Mexico. A professor of Music,
Johnson said he traveled to Tijuana about a week after the protest;
upon returning to the US, Johnson says he was handcuffed and arrested
by customs agents after a listing associated with his name pegged him
as armed and dangerous. "I was thoroughly and aggressively searched.
... Every inch and crack and crevice of my body was poked and prodded,"
Johnson said. "I was in complete bewilderment of what was going on;
I felt violated and frankly was embarrassed." More
Researchers warn of 'clickjacking' threat
Jeremiah Grossman, chief technology officer of White Hat Security, and SecTheory chief executive Robert Hansen, began publicly discussing their research into what they call clickjacking, following the public release of a proof-of-concept exploit by another researcher. Clickjacking is a set of different techniques for disguising elements
such as dialogue boxes and links, so that the user can be fooled into
changing security settings or visiting malicious websites, Grossman
and Hansen said. More
Air Force pirates software, court says okay
Last week, a US Court of Appeals upheld a ruling on software piracy. The organization doing the piracy, however, happened to be a branch of the US government, and the decision highlights the significant limits to the application of copyright law to the government charged with enforcing it. Most significantly, perhaps, the court found that because the DMCA is written in a way that targets individual infringers, the government cannot be liable for claims made under the statute. The backstory on the case involved, Blueport v. United States, borders
on the absurd. It started when Sergeant Mark Davenport went to work
in the group within the US Air Force that ran its manpower database.
Finding the existing system inefficient, Davenport requested training
in computer programming so that he could improve it; the request was
denied. Showing the sort of personal initiative that only gets people
into trouble, Davenport then taught himself the needed skills and went
to work redesigning the system. More
Army Brigade to patrol Homeland
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell
in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled
from various posts and mobilized to those areas. But this new mission
marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment
to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command
and control for federal homeland defense efforts. After 1st BCT finishes
its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed,
active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent
one. More
Woman Handcuffed and Booked Over Overdue Library Books
Heidi Dalibor, 20, a cosmetology student and beloved neighborhood baby sitter in Grafton, was arrested, fingerprinted and booked earlier this month for violating an "overdue library materials" ordinance, authorities said. The Grafton Public Library sicced the law on Dalibor after she failed
to return Dan Brown's "Angels & Demons" and Janet Fitch's best-selling
"White Oleander." More
Credit Card Debt: This Popping Bubble Is Going to Hurt
You know exactly what I am talking about. We all have credit and debit cards. We all use them, and many of us keep our lives going because of them. That is, until the bill becomes due. The sad truth is that we are all complicit in our own economic servitude even if, at bottom, it's not our fault because we live in a consumption society, and don't feel we could live without them. While many eyes are focusing on the housing meltdown and its hugely negative effect on an economy clearly moving into recession, few are paying attention to the next bubble expected to burst: credit cards. You would never know it by watching those slick VISA card ads on the Olympic TV broadcasts. Combined with the subprime losses, such a credit card nightmare has
the potential, experts say, of bringing down the entire financial system
and global economy. More
Over 1,000 laws will let the state into your home
Nearly half have been introduced since Labour came to power 11 years ago. They include the right to: • Invade your home to see if your pot plants have pests or do not have a 'plant passport' (Plant Health England Order 2005). • Survey your home and garden to see if your hedge is too high (Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003). • Seize fridges without the correct energy rating (Energy Information Household Refrigerators and Freezers Regulations 2004). The rise in clipboard-wielding state inspectors flies in the face
of repeated pledges by Ministers to curb the power of bureaucrats. More
Feeble dollar sends Americans to European hostels
With prices as low as $31 in some of Europe's most expensive cities — and luxury options such as digital camera chargers for hire — hostels are shedding their image of bedbug-ridden dorm rooms and mildewed showers. Annie Worth, a 21-year-old from Orinda, Calif., said she and her friends were used to staying in nice hotels with their parents on vacation, but had chosen to stay in no-frill hostels during an 11-country backpacking trip through Europe. "Especially with the euro being so strong and the U.S. dollar being
so weak, I think a lot of younger people who had initially avoided them
are staying there because they are hearing so many great things about
them and money is tight," she said. More
Journalist Censored by Military
According to what Zoriah wrote on his blog about the situation the
photographer was contacted by a high ranking Public Affairs Officer
who notified him about the governments request to remove any and every
photograph from the Zoriah blog. The journalist claimed that in the
grizzly photos of the carnage no person was recognizable and the killed
soldiers could be portrayed in images as long as their name tags and
identifiable features are not shown. Furthermore, Zoriah claimed that
he made sure the images he published followed every single guideline.
See
the blog (warning: graphic images) Apple sued for slavery
Filed in the US District Court for Southern California, the complaint claims that many Apple employees are routinely subjected to working conditions resembling indentured servitude. Lead plaintiff David Walsh was employed by Apple as a network engineer
from 1995 until 2007. His complaint says he was often required to work
more than 40 hours per week, miss meals, and spend his evenings and
even entire weekends on call without any overtime pay or meal compensation.
He fielded technical support calls that often came after 11 pm. More
Lone accountant takes on IRS and wins
The accountant from Baxter, Minn., challenged the method the IRS has used for more than 20 years to tax shares and cash distributed by mutual life insurance firms to their policyholders when they reorganize as public companies. A federal court recently agreed with his interpretation. "There's a tremendous amount of money at stake," said Robert Willens,
a New York City-based tax analyst at Robert Willens LLC. "Tens of thousands
of people could be in line for a refund." More
U.S. tightens security along Great Lakes border
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is slated to open an air and marine border-monitoring outpost just north of the Detroit-Windsor border at Selfridge Air National Guard Base on Lake St. Clair in Michigan. The $17-million Great Lakes Air and Marine Branch will help fight human and drug smuggling, U.S. officials said. The post will use 11 aircraft, including a Black Hawk helicopter, and five boats to patrol the Great Lakes waterways daily, said Eric Rembold, director of aviation operations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Windsor West MP and NDP border critic Brian Masse voiced his concern Thursday about the implications of the new surveillance measures. "If we're going to continue to see weaponization that is used in conflicts
like Afghanistan and Iraq put on the Canada-U.S. border, saying that
it's required for safety and security, it really changes the nature
of our relationship," he said. More
Mexican soldiers enter US, hold border agent at gunpoint
The incident Sunday was the Mexican military's 43rd incursion across the U.S. border since October, the agency said. However, it was unusual because firearms were involved. The Border Patrol and the Mexican government are investigating, Border Patrol spokesman Mike Scioli said. Details remain sketchy, but the incident occurred at 2 a.m. on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation about 50 miles southeast of Ajo. The incident took place just north of the border in sight of the new border fence. The soldiers held their weapons on the agent for several minutes until
he identified himself in Spanish, whereupon they lowered their guns
and walked back across a gap in the fence, Scioli said. More
America goes to the Dark Side - torture for fun and profit
In a new book, The Dark Side, Mayer puts together the major conclusions
from her articles and fills in a number of important gaps. Most significantly,
we learn the details on the torture techniques and the drama behind
the fierce and lingering struggle within the administration over torture,
and we learn that many within the administration recognized the potential
criminal accountability they faced over these torture tactics and moved
frantically to protect themselves from possible future prosecution.
More
Feds to snoop your eBay, Amazon transactions
Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd's 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America's small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill's managers without debate this week, would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government. FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey commented: "This is a provision with
astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week.
Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America,
such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill
specifically targets payment systems like eBay's PayPal, Amazon, and
Google Checkout that are used by many small online businesses. The privacy
implications for America's small businesses are breathtaking." More
Navy prosecutor claims flight 93 shootdown in trial
"If they hadn’t shot down the fourth plane, it would’ve hit the dome," the al Qaeda leader supposedly told his deputy, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahari, referring to the U.S. Capitol. With his first words to a military jury, a Pentagon prosecutor, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone, evoked a conversation — a conspiracy theory, actually — that defendant Salim Hamdan had revealed to the Americans after his arrest. Bin Laden told his No. 2 that U.S. forces, not heroic passengers,
stopped the hijackers from slamming United Airlines Flight 93 into the
Capitol. It crashed into a Pennsylvania field instead. More
Drug smugglers bribing U.S. agents on Mexico border
Former colleagues say Zuniga used to wait until agents in the south Texas town of Harlingen were distracted with paperwork, then slip down to the river and help smuggle in drugs from Mexico. The increasing use of bribes by Mexican drug cartels to corrupt U.S. agents comes as Washington is sending $400 million to help Mexico's army-led war on the trafficking gangs, whose brutal murders have surged to unprecedented levels. "Zuniga was a good agent and a hard worker. I can't understand why
he would do this. We're supposed to be protecting our borders," said
Border Patrol agent Daniel Doty, a former colleague. More
Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them to Provoke War
In Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources. According to Hersh, "There was a dozen ideas proffered about
how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t
we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like
Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next
time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up."
More
O'Reilly, Savage, Hannity on accused church shooter's reading list
Knoxville police Sunday evening searched the Levy Drive home of Jim David Adkisson after he allegedly entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children's musical. Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because "he expected to be killed during the assault." Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder"
by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show
host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show
host Bill O'Reilly. More
Overzealous drug war claims another casualty
Deputy Police Chief David Golt defended the use of the Special Response Team, Pembroke Pines' version of SWAT, to carry out the 6:30 a.m. raid that left Hodgkiss, 46, dead. "We use SRT to serve all narcotics warrants," Golt said Friday. "You never know what you're going to encounter." In addition to providing a special court review of lawsuits against
telecommunication companies, the bill would increase oversight of U.S.
intelligence activities and bolster privacy protection -- but not as
much as civil liberties groups and a number of lawmakers want. More
Barky woos Germans, gets cheered
He started off his speech with a blatant lie. He denies being a presidential candidate, as if he were giving his delegates over to Hillary Clinton. “I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before,” Obama said, confronting the delicate issue of campaigning abroad. “Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen — a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.” His speech went downhill from there. He mentioned the "burdens of global citizenship" and that "Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more" as if Americans and Europeans had voted to do more, which they had not. The public has no choice as it will be forced on them. This requirement comes from his own personal desires, and those of his hidden backers. They desire to put a burden on the public. You have been warned! “Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe,” Obama
said. “No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens
of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership
in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century,
Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more — not less.
Partnership and cooperation among nations is not
a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common
security and advance our common humanity.” More
Hear a dictator in the making.
Dick Cheney denies veterans a pot to piss in
The veep had planned to speak to the Disabled American Veterans at 8:30 a.m. at its August convention in Las Vegas. His staff insisted the sick vets be sequestered for two hours before Cheney's arrival and couldn't leave until he'd finished talking, officials confirmed. "Word got back to us ... that this would be a prerequisite," said
the veterans executive director, David Gorman, who noted the meeting
hall doesn't have any rest rooms. "We told them it just wasn't acceptable."
More
Fake Government set up in India
The office, run by an employee of Jhansi Nagar Nigam, not only employed over 20 people, but was also performing civic works and collecting taxes and even issuing birth and death certificates. It was only after the authorities got a whiff that the person running it, Shyam Valmiki alias Shyam Netaji, was caught. Jhansi district magistrate (DM) Rajeev Agarwal, shocked by the manner in which the entire racket was operating, says: "It would've been difficult for me to believe that a racket like this could exist, had we not actually stumbled upon this." Police believe the racket was initially confined to fake appointment
of sweepers. Valmiki's idea, according to the police, would have primarily
been to pocket Rs 40 lakh in the name of ensuring their appointment
and then disappear. "But he later seems to have decided to carry on
with the office as it didn't appear to be a loss-making proposition.
And when he tried to change his decision, things went out of hand,"
said a police officer. More
Congressmen's Plane Makes Emergency Landing
Les Dorr, an FAA spokesman, said the plane, from Houston enroute to Washington D.C., was being inspected in New Orleans, where Continental Flight 458 landed late Tuesday. After a loss in cabin pressure, the pilot declared a mid-air emergency and oxygen masks dropped from overhead compartments. He said the agency routinely reviews such incidents and that it made no difference that seven national lawmakers were aboard. The aircraft and its maintenance records are being reviewed to see "if there was any kind of possible correlation," Dorr said. He said that there could have been a number of reasons why the plane made the emergency landing. The seven congressmen, all from Texas, were trying to get back in
time for a Tuesday night vote on an aviation safety bill when the flight
landed without incident, a spokesman for one of the representatives
said. No injuries were reported among the 128 crew and passengers. More
Police, Firefighters, Utility Workers Trained as “Terrorism Liaison Officers”
It's a tactic intended to feed better data into terrorism early-warning systems and uncover intelligence that could help fight anti-U.S. forces. But the vague nature of the TLOs' mission, and their focus on reporting both legal and illegal activity, has generated objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians. "Suspicious activity" is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior
that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic
value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or
conversing in code. More
San Diego Comes Under Mock Bio-Terror Attack
"Operation Golden Phoenix 2008" began Monday and will put physicians, nurses, Marines, Border Patrol agents and city and county officials to the test, with cameras recording every move. Its all part of a mock bio-terrorism attack on San Diego, in which the city comes under a fake anthrax contamination. Officials said the drill involves the simulation of terrorists sneaking in anthrax at the border. Temporary houses made of foil covered with foam and tape were setup
for victims along with a reunification center for families affected
by the mock drill. More
McCain, Obama address racial supremist group
“Obama spoke to all the important issues to our community. It was a very good speech that helped connect him to the Latino community,” said Raul Yzaguirre, who served as NCLR’s president from 1974 to 2005. “Incredibly, McCain did not even address the issues of the war in
Iraq or his policy on health care. On immigration it was more of the
same: secure the borders and no stop to the raids,” said Angela Sambrano,
an NCLR board member and director of the National Alliance of Latin-American
and Caribbean Communities. More
War on Photography: No freedom on July 4th
Chris Owens said he was handcuffed, thrown into the back of a police car and harassed for taking pictures of a car crash scene Monday evening. He said he witnessed the end of a high-speed chase while riding his scooter down N Classen Blvd. Monday. "That black SUV passed me doing about 120," Owens said. "I stopped, pulled off on the median, had my camera and just walked around and shot a few pictures." Much to Owens' surprise, when police saw him taking the pictures, they demanded he hand them over or go to jail. Owens said three troopers and an Oklahoma City police officer were present during the incident. Troopers told Owens he was inside a crime scene and had no right taking pictures. Owens said he was outside the tape, but deleted the pictures fearing he would be thrown in jail. "Where's the checks and balances? Who lets them run like unleashed
dogs," Owens said. More
Monopoly money increases in value relative to Dollar
In 2008 the game sells for a typical price of $20 and still includes the same amouint of game money as in 1934. Even is the game currency is only a fraction of the value of the game, this represents an astonishing plummet in value of the dollar, relative to a cheaply printed pretend currency. The US Treasury and Federal Reserve offered no explanation as to why their policies would cause this steep devaluation to occur to the dollar. “Strike teams” invade Iowa flood victims’ homes
Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff said that he was pleased with the federal government’s virtually invisible response to the Midwest flooding, which in some areas exceeded 500-year plan levels and has destroyed millions of acres of crops across six states and displaced tens of thousands of people. In Cedar Rapids, where the Cedar River crested at 31.1 feet, flooding nine square miles and displacing over 24,000 people, police have cordoned off large areas of the town and have sent in so-called “strike teams” to “inspect” houses as floodwaters begin to recede. Police chief Greg Graham said that while firefighters would enter
homes through unlocked doors and windows, law enforcement would not
enter homes. Yet video evidence has surfaced that police officers were
not only entering homes, but breaking down locked doors and windows
to do so. More
Chinese Olympics clean-up: death camp for cats
Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around. Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city. The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the
diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets
of them. More
"Goatse" Congress gives it up for Bush
On a vote of 80-15, mostly Republican supporters of the bipartisan measure, which would also implement the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. spy laws in decades, easily mustered the 60 needed to clear a Democratic procedural roadblock. Overwhelmingly approved by the House of Representatives on Friday, the bill may win needed Senate concurrence before Congress begins a holiday break the end of this week. President Bush has promised to sign the measure, which would replace a temporary surveillance law that had expired in February. In addition to providing a special court review of lawsuits against
telecommunication companies, the bill would increase oversight of U.S.
intelligence activities and bolster privacy protection -- but not as
much as civil liberties groups and a number of lawmakers want. More
Irish voters say no to Fourth Reich
European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said all indications were that Ireland had indeed rejected the treaty. He called for other states to continue their ratification processes and said a solution should be sought. The treaty must be ratified by all 27 members. Only Ireland has held
a public vote on it. More
Michael Reagan advocates sexual assault of children
Speaking of Arab babies, Mr. Reagan said, "You know what I'd get them for their first birthday? I'd put a grenade up their butts and light it. Happy birthday baby, bye-bye." Later in his program, Reagan stated that we will achieve peace "when everybody in the Middle East is dead." Reagan wrote an autobiography in which he claims he was sexually abused as a child. Being well paid to catapult neocon propaganda, he apparent draws on his unresolved emotional anguish to do his job. Raped by lookalike foods: The Tomato Caper
Health officials said all indications pointed to a single geographic region as the source of the outbreak, which has sickened 228 people in 23 states. David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on a conference call that nine people who became ill with Salmonella had eaten at two different outlets of the same restaurant chain. He declined to name the chain or the location of the restaurants. "That represents a small cluster within this outbreak," he said. The outbreak has been disastrous for the U.S. tomato industry, which
produced $1.28 billion of the fruit last year. More
Ms. Clinton, shown here with a supporter, also told her supporters they should join her in the fight to help Obama win the White House. Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been,'' Clinton, 60, told a crowd of more than 1,000 supporters gathered at the National Building Museum in Washington. ``We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next president.'' This news did not find acceptance from Harriet Christian, an alleged Clinton supporter, who ranted angrily about how inadequate Obama is and how she was now going to vote for McCain.
Council snoopers use terror powers to scour people's phone records
Other bizarre investigations carried out under surveillance powers designed to track terrorists include a rogue pharmacist and unburied animal carcasses. A survey of Big Brother spying Town Halls revealed that one council used the powers almost 100 times to monitor private phone calls and emails. It comes just a month after it was revealed Poole Council in Dorset had spied on a family because it wrongly suspected the parents of abusing rules on school catchment areas. In total councils looked into 936 people's private communications
data - who they phoned and emailed - under the Regulation Of Investigatory
Powers Act (RIPA) in the 2006/2007 financial year. More
States make room for DNA samples
When the $5.3 million Bismarck facility is completed in October, the spacious quarters will easily accommodate the current staff, who soon will be asked to process and maintain an increasing amount of DNA. A rapid expansion of DNA sampling is corresponding with a building and hiring boom in North Dakota and other states to accommodate the collection of hundreds of thousands of new genetic profiles. Five states are slated to begin new sampling of suspects arrested
for felony offenses between July and January 2009. Of those, North Dakota,
California, Maryland and Kansas are spending millions of dollars to
prepare for the additional testing. South Dakota, which will begin additional
sampling in July, built a new lab in 2006. More
Unsafe Deposit Boxes Thanks to States Greed
Unclaimed property consists of things like forgotten apartment security
deposits, uncashed dividend checks and safe-deposit boxes abandoned
when an elderly relative dies. Banks and other businesses are required
to turn that property over to the state for safekeeping. The problem
is that the states return less than a quarter of unclaimed property
to the rightful owners. More
Aboriginal stolen children 'were used in leprosy tests'
The allegations surfaced at a Senate inquiry this week into plans to compensate the "stolen generation" of aboriginal Australians who were taken from their families as part of a government programme. "As well as being taken away, they were used... There are a lot of things that Australia does not know about," Kathleen Mills, a member of the Stolen Generations Alliance and an indigenous elder, told the hearing. Ms Mills said children held at a compound in Darwin were injected with serums designed to be used in the treatment of leprosy – a practice which seriously damaged their health. Her uncle, who worked there as a medical orderly, had told her about the sinister goings-on. "He said it made our people very, very ill. The treatment almost killed
them," she told reporters outside the hearing. "It was a common experience
and a common practice." More
Food Rationing begins in US
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks. At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers
grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched
in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy. More
Vancouver transit riders tasered for not paying fares
According to documents provided in response to a Freedom of Information request, police patrolling public transit in the Metro Vancouver area have used tasers 10 times in the past 18 months, including five occasions when victims had been accosted for riding free. In one incident, a non-paying passenger was tasered after he held onto a railing on the SkyTrain platform and refused to let go. "After several warnings to the subject to stop resisting arrest and the subject failing to comply with the officers' commands, the taser was deployed and the subject was taken into control," said the report provided by TransLink, the region's transit authority. An internal review of the incident concluded that the action taken
by transit police officers complied with the force's policy and was
within guidelines "set out in the National Use of Force Model,"
the report said. More
Experts dubious about 3rd-graders’ plot
Police say the plot at Center Elementary School began because the children, ages 8 to 10, were apparently angry after the teacher disciplined one of the students for standing on a chair. Students brought a crystal paperweight, a steak knife with a broken
handle, steel handcuffs and other items as part of last week's plot,
police said Tuesday. They said nine students were involved, but prosecutors
are seeking juvenile charges against only three of them. More
Absolut vodka pulls ad showing California in Mexico
Ruminating over the loss to the U.S. of what had been Mexican territories
before the Mexican-American war of 1846-1848 may have been an ad maker's
idea of a good way to sell hard liquor and get a chuckle south of the
Rio Grande, but some up north didn't find it so funny. After a barrage
of complaints on its Internet site and threats to boycott the Swedish-made
brand in the U.S., Absolut announced it was withdrawing the advert.
"In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate
an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American
sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues," wrote Absolut spokeswoman
Paula Eriksson on the company website. "Instead, it hearkens to a time
which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal." More
Possible Japan Ban For Chinese Torch 'Thugs'
Japan is the latest country to consider banning the boys in blue from protecting the Olympic torch, according to Japan's Kyodo News Agency. National police chief Shinya Izumi told the agency that security would be firmly maintained by Japanese police, adding: "We do not know what position the people who escorted the relay are in…If they are for the consideration of security, it is our role." The comments mirror the position of Australian prime minister Kevin
Rudd, who was adamant that security should be the preserve of the country
hosting the torch relay. "We will not be having Chinese security forces,
or the security services, providing security for the torch when it's
in Australia," Rudd told reporters on Wednesday. "We in Australia will
be providing that security." More
TSA nipple ring nightmare
The woman involved -- Mandi Hamlin -- told reporters earlier Friday she was humiliated by last month's incident, in which she was forced to painfully remove the piercings behind a curtain as she heard snickers from male TSA officers nearby. The incident occurred at the Lubbock, Texas, airport. The officers "rightly insisted that the alarm that was raised be resolved," the TSA said in a statement posted on its Web site Friday afternoon. "TSA supports the thoroughness of the officers involved as they were acting to protect the passengers and crews of the flights departing Lubbock that day.". However, "TSA has reviewed the procedures themselves and agrees that
they need to be changed," the statement said. "In the future, TSA will
inform passengers that they have the option to resolve the alarm through
a visual inspection of the article in lieu of removing the item in question."
More
Police insert fingers into woman's vagina to search for drugs
They were part of the Street Drug Unit, an aggressive squad assigned to help rid Albany's neighborhoods of drug dealers and addicts blamed for much of the city's problems. It was early evening and already dark when the patrol car's emergency lights flashed in the rearview mirror of Lisa Shutter's Mitsubishi sedan on Quail Street, just off Central Avenue. Police records show the officers called out a "Signal 38" to alert a dispatcher they were onto something suspicious and about to pull someone over. They would later write in a report that they had pulled her over for "failure to signal," although no ticket was issued, according to police records shared with the Times Union. The actions of police in the minutes that followed would end in controversy rather than with an arrest. They would also leave Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter's vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs. When it was over, "I pulled off down the road and I just cried for
probably a half hour," Shutter said. "I called my dad. ... I felt like
I had been basically raped." More
FBI spawns 'shoot-to-kill' citizens
According to an article published in the Progressive magazine, these businessmen impart vital information to the FBI in return for secret intelligence about 'terrorist threats' prior to informing the public and perhaps even government officials. "One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members
are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation-and
what their role might be," author Matthew Rothschild quoted a whistleblower
as saying. More
Canadians with disabilities to pay single fare - including the obese
The agency has ordered Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz and WestJet to adopt a one-person, one-fare policy to allow persons with severe disabilities to travel on flights within Canada without having to pay twice. One of the Canadians who launched the case, a B.C. woman who is confined to a wheelchair, was thrilled with the decision. "It means we have the same rights as everyone else," said Joanne Neubauer
from her home in Victoria. "I've always wanted to go to the Maritimes,"
she said. "I've seen pictures but I've never been because I haven't
been able to afford (two seats.)" More
80-year-old Texan puts attacker in hospital
One of the suspects is in the hospital and both are facing charges. Two men obviously thought James Pickett, 80, was an easy target when they showed up at his home on Saturday with a knife. "He just came through that door, stabbing and beating," said Pickett. Captain Clint Pullin said it looked as though the men wanted to kill
him. More
It's the immigration theme park
The Parque EcoAlberto is a 3,000 acre eco-park owned by the Hñahñu Indians in Hidalgo, Mexico. It does not border the United States but is in central Mexico, about 700 miles south of the actual crossing. The park opened in 2004 with funding from the Mexican government and
created the caminata nocturna - nighttime hike - in July of the same
year. It costs 200 pesos (about $18 USD) to become "illegal" for about
four hours. More
I hear voices: highly directional sound advertising
You’re walking down a street in New York when all of a sudden, “Who’s that?” - whispers a woman’s voice. “Who’s There?” No. You weren’t having a schizoid episode. And, “There’s more going on here,” says a spooky voice with heart-beats in the background. This time, it’s an online ad for Paranormal State, “a ghost-themed series premiering on A&E this week”. The voice you heard in New York meant you were being subjected, without
your permission, to an “audio spotlight” from a rooftop speaker. More
Sean Hannity Lies 3 Times in Rapid Succession
The problem is that these are outright lies. It is unclear whether he made up these lies on the spot, or he carefully scripts his lies, but here are the facts. The number of jobs created when Reagan presided was 16 million. Adjusted for inflation, revenue increased under Reagan by only 15%. The unadjusted figure is 50%, not anything like the manufactured figure of doubling. Finally, economic growth lasted 92 months under Reagan, while it lasted 120 months under Bill Clinton. The lesson is clear. When something comes out of the mouth of a paid propagandist, you can be sure it is a blatant lie! Evil Canadian seeks to jail political opponents
At a Montreal conference last Thursday, the prominent scientist, broadcaster and Order of Canada recipient exhorted a packed house of 600 to hold politicians legally accountable for what he called an intergenerational crime. Though a spokesman said yesterday the call for imprisonment was not meant to be taken literally, Dr. Suzuki reportedly made similar remarks in an address at the University of Toronto last month. Addressing the McGill Business Conference on Sustainability, hosted by the Faculty of Management, Dr. Suzuki's wide-ranging speech warned against favouring the economy to the detriment of the ecology -- the tarsands in Northern Alberta being his prime example. Toward the end of his speech, Dr. Suzuki said that "we can no longer tolerate what's going on in Ottawa and Edmonton" and then encouraged attendees to hold politicians to a greater green standard. "What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying
to see whether there's a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders
into jail because what they're doing is a criminal act," said Dr. Suzuki,
a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. More
Lakota group secedes from U.S.
"We are now a free country and independent of the United States of America," Means said in a telephone interview. "This is all completely legal." Means said a Lakota delegation on Monday delivered a statement of "unilateral withdrawal" from the United States to the U.S. State Department in Washington. The State Department did not respond. "That'll take some time," Means said. Meanwhile, the delegation has delivered copies of the letter to the
embassies of Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile and South Africa. "We're asking
for recognition," Means said, adding that Ireland and East Timor are
"very interested" in the declaration.. More
San Diego, California - This is a Blackwater vehicle parked out front of the cigar shop on 7094 Miramar Road in a handicapped spot, although there is no apparent handicapped placard hanging from their rearview mirror. Tent city in suburbs is cost of US home crisis
The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the US housing crisis. The unraveling of the Inland Empire region reads like a 21st century
version of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's novel about families
driven from their lands by the Great Depression. More
Maine steals unused gift card funds
Ever wonder what will happen if someone sticks a gift card from Circuit City, Target, Barnes & Noble or another retail chain into your stocking this holiday season and you lose it, forget about it or can't find anything you want to buy with it? If you don't use it within two years, the card will become dormant. Once that happens, you'll inadvertently do your small part to fuel a face-off between the state and dozens of out-of-state retailers over who should get that $25, $50 or $100 that you misplaced or tossed aside. It's a high-stakes game involving dueling claims of ownership and
unresolved legal issues. And for state government, it represents more
- a multimillion-dollar hole in the budget. More
What New Yorkers know about Rudy Giuliani
He dropped out of a 2000 Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Besides, no New York City mayor had gone on to higher office since 1868. Newsweek referred to pre-9/11 Rudy as “unpopular” and “irrelevant.” What a difference a day can make. Later that day, the American public was introduced to Giuliani, covered
in soot, addressing his city with a strength and poise not lacking the
emotional weight of the tragedy. He was on the scene, not holed up in
a bunker, and he commanded from the streets, just as at-risk as the
people he was charged to serve. Holding impromptu press conferences
amongst falling buildings and chaos, he displayed the valor of a true
leader. That day, even New Yorkers who had long called their mayor a
“fascist” and “Adolph Giuliani” loved Rudy. More
TSA Kicks Off New Year With Battery Restrictions
Starting January 1, passengers will not be able to put loose, lithium-based
batteries in their checked bags due to the possibility of fire, according
to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Batteries that
are attached to their designated devices, however, are permitted. Batteries
rolling around with your clothes? Denied. Batteries installed in that
extra digital camera? Good to go. Spare batteries must be packed with
carry-on luggage.. More
The 10 most dangerous toys of all time
Recently, Target recalled 10 of its Kool Toyz-brand play sets, citing hazards like "lead paint," "sharp points," and "puncture wound potential." The toys, which included plastic aircraft carriers, dinosaurs, and tanks, all appeared harmless enough. But according to the killjoys at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, children—at least those prone to eating plastic objects as big as their head—were at serious risk. Not to be outdone, Mattel recalled 4.4 million Polly Pocket dolls and accessories because kids were swallowing the toy's magnets. The Associated Press reported, "If more than one magnet is swallowed, they can attach to each other and cause intestinal perforation, infection or blockage." Three children required surgery. In recognition of these wonderful toys, Radar presents the 10 most
dangerous toys of all time, those treasured playthings that drew blood,
chewed digits, took out eyes, and, in one case, actually irradiated.
To keep things interesting, they excluded BB guns, slingshots, throwing
stars, and anything else actually intended to inflict harm. Visit
the toy box from hell Can cyborg moths bring down terrorists?
But this will be no ordinary moth. Inside it will be a computer chip that was implanted when the creature was still a pupa, in the cocoon, meaning that the moth’s entire nervous system can be controlled remotely. The moth will thus be capable of landing in the camp without arousing
suspicion, all the while beaming video and other information back to
its masters via what its developers refer to as a “reliable tissue-machine
interface.” More
Terrorsmack: Scuba Terrorism
These terrorists would hide behind rocks and then spring out at the unsuspecting Nelson. There would usually be a struggle which resulted in someone getting their air hose cut. Strangely, Mike Nelson would go right back each week and swim again in terrorist infested waters as if nothing had happened. Now the FBI has warned dive shops about would be SCUBA terrorists that might seek training. Warning signs of possible terrorism include requests for specialty
training, including odd inquiries that are inconsistent with recreational
diving. These may include: Requests to dive in murky water or sewer
pipes. Inquires about procedures such as diver towing. More
A Haircut in the two Americas
In the other America, a haircut can cost as much as $1200 and emit tons of carbon emissions as the barber jets around to the location. That is the America of John Edwards. Joe Torrenueva, a Democrat, said he began cutting Edwards' hair for
free but wound up charging him $300 to $500 per haircut, plus the cost
of airfare and hotel stays. That's because Torrenueva was often forced
to meet Edwards on the campaign trail to shear his locks. More
New laws are equating environmentalists with Al Qaeda
That's because his alleged crime doesn't involve something he actually did. Rather, it only involves something he said. In 2003, Coronado gave a public speech about animal rights in Hillcrest attended by about 100 people and hosted by a vegetarian group. It was, he says, his "standard" speech at the time, talking about his own extreme efforts to protect wildlife, including a 1991-92 arson campaign against fur farms as an agent of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), for which he served 57 months in prison. During a Q&A period after the speech, someone asked him how he once made his incendiary devices. Having long retired from that kind of action, and having paid for it with prison time, he answered the question. U.S. attorneys now say Coronado's brief response—the actual words themselves—is a federal crime. Not only that, it's terrorism. And that word—"terrorism"—is new to the environmental movement when
it comes to punishment for crimes. The word "eco-terrorist" was coined
in 1982 by Ron Arnold, a prime mover in the anti-environmentalist "Wise
Use Movement," but only recent laws make ecologically motivated speech
a terrorist crime. The attorneys aren't even totally certain how it
works. More
Canada to launch no-fly list in June
The move, nearly six years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, amounts to a flight blacklist of people "reasonably suspected" by federal officials as immediate threats to the safety of commercial aircraft, passengers or crew. Under the rules, as passengers check in for flights, whether at kiosks or counters, their names will be automatically screened against the government's list, known as the "Passenger Protect" program. The no-fly list will be drawn up by Transport Canada, with input from the RCMP and CSIS. If a name is red-flagged as a possible match with a name on the no-fly list, the traveller will be directed to a flight agent, who will contact Transport Canada for a decision on whether to allow boarding. Airlines are responsible for protecting the passenger's confidentiality. People denied access to a flight will be able to challenge their inclusion on the list, but in the short haul, they will be grounded. And the airport or local police will be notified. Critics say the plan will not make air travel safer, and will likely
lead to the kinds of "false positive" identification of people that
has plagued a similar list in the United States. The most celebrated
example involved Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, who was barred from
boarding a flight when he was wrongly identified as being on the list.
Infants have also been banned. More
Accounting Rules 'hiding' trillions in debt
The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used. The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006. Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later. The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition. Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion
in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348
for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average
of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt
combined. More
Why are there so many Girly Men?
Roughly 95 percent of all baby bottles currently on the market are made of polycarbonate. As the poly in polycarbonate implies, this plastic is a polymer—a chainlike molecule constructed by linking up individual units of a common chemical. In this case, each link is a molecule of bisphenol A. Toxicologist Koji Arizono of the Prefectural University of Kumamoto,
Japan, and his colleagues tested 10 different brands of polycarbonate
baby bottles—purchased in the United States, Germany, Japan, Korea,
Malaysia, and the Philippines—along with other types of clear-plastic
tableware. When heated, all leached bisphenol A, a chemical that mimics
the hormone estrogen, into the liquids they held. More
Remains of 9/11 Victims May Fill NYC Potholes
Eric Beck says debris powders - known as fines - were put in a pothole-fill mixture by crews at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, where more than 1.65 million tons of World Trade Center debris were deposited after the Sept. 11 attacks. "I observed the New York City Department of Sanitation taking these fines from the conveyor belts of our machines, loading it onto tractors and using it to pave roads and fill in potholes, dips and ruts," Eric Beck said. In his first few months on the job, Beck said mechanical sifters found
2,000 bones per day. He recalled finding "bones, fingers, skulls, feet
and hands" as well as a man's chest and "the full body of a man dressed
in a suit." The remains were catalogued and turned over to the city,
he said. But Beck said he was pushed to sift the debris quickly, and
that remains may have been missed. More
Cicada Brood XIII: Prepare to be invaded!
It's been 17 long years, but they're coming back again. Cicada Brood XIII is on the verge of emerging from the ground, and swarming all over parts of the American Midwest. Based on the warmth of the ground, which should be a temperature of at least 64 degrees, together with rain moisture content, experts are predicting that the first cicadas will be emerging around May 21 or 22. Then the pesky little flying critters will be flitting about for a couple of weeks after that. This current crop of Periodical Cicadas, going by the genus term Magicicada, are the same ones that tunneled into the ground in 1990. But these teenagers will soon be back, and they'll be looking for mates. The males will be doing it noisily, making that shrill, "screeeee"-ing sound for days and days. The females will be quiet, more or less. The cicadas usually have demonic-looking little red eyes, although
a small percentage may have white, pale blue, orange, or even chocolate
brown eyes. They grow to a length of 1 to 1.5 inches, and have a black
"W" near the tips of their forewings. More
Feds go gunning for endangered species
Fortunately, most Americans realize that killing endangered critters isn't just ethically heinous; it's also a big legal no-no. Which raises this question: Why is a federal agency using taxpayer dollars to kill such animals, and then playing hide-and-seek with the facts? Welcome to the world of Wildlife Services. Southern Arizona residents will recall this U.S. Department of Agriculture division for its shooting spree last year in the San Rafael Valley near Sonoita. Invited by several area ranchers, airborne federal gunners ultimately sniped 200 coyotes. But coyotes are just the beginning. The most recent stats available
(finally, and perhaps grudgingly, posted on the agency's Web site) present
a grim tally. In 2005, Wildlife Services killed 1.7 million animals.
And a sizable slice of those were endangered, threatened or otherwise
specially protected animals. More
Where's the Bees?
In an inconspicuous office suite here -- the home of Bee Alert Technology Inc. -- scientists are feverishly working to solve an entomological mystery: What happened to tens of thousands of honeybee colonies in at least 24 states? These are crime scenes without bodies. Beekeepers have been opening hives and instead of finding thriving colonies with as many as 60,000 bees, they find an apian ghost town. "It's called Colony Collapse Disorder," said Jerry Bromenshenk, a
University of Montana professor and head of Bee Alert who has studied
honeybees for more than three decades. "We don't know that it's a disease,
we don't know if it's due to management practices by beekeepers. There
are so many variables. We can't yet find a common denominator." More
War on Drugs becomes War on Soap
It was just another average day in the flamboyantly messy life of Don Bolles, once the drummer for the legendarily messy, flamboyant Los Angeles punk band, the Germs. On April 4, Bolles had picked up his girlfriend, the 21-year-old drummer for a band called Civet who goes by the name Cat Scandal, from a Newport Beach rehab, where she had, as he put it, “a day off.” They had just had coffee and were on their way to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Cat Scandal was riding in the passenger seat of Bolles’s 1968 Dodge Van and they had just crossed out of Newport Beach into Costa Mesa when they were pulled over by police, who told Bolles that he allegedly had a broken brake light. But what he really had was a crazy old van, a wild Russian fur cap, long hair, and a gorgeous young girlfriend. Bolles called it a classic case of profiling: driving while weird. And then they found the soap. “It’s hilarious. A Germ arrested for soap,” says Bolles, 50, talking
Monday via cell phone as he ran errands for a Friday court appearance.
“It’s just ridiculous. I’ve already been in jail almost four days over
this, and it’s completely wrong. It’s soap. It’s peppermint Dr. Bronner’s
soap.” More
Support the Iraq War - Pay Your Taxes!
Defunding the war in Iraq begins at home if you're John Schwiebert, a 68-year-old pastor at Metanoia Peace Community United Methodist Church in Northeast Portland. This week, while the rest of us scrape together money to feed insatiable Uncle Sam, Schwiebert and his 62-year-old wife, Pat, one "seriously pissed-off granny" (see "Surge Protection Brigade," WW, Feb. 21, 2007), won't be filing federal taxes at all. Instead, in an effort to prevent their money from paying for bloodshed
overseas, they're redirecting the $3,500 they figure they owe the Internal
Revenue Service to a government without a standing army—in this case,
Multnomah County. (Although they say they oppose filing federal taxes,
the Schwieberts don't object to paying state and local ones.) More
1944 Miss America Defends Farm With Gun
Venus Ramey knows it would be easy for someone to take advantage of her. She's 82 and needs a walker to get around. "I'm an old woman. They figure they can get away with a lot," Ramey said. Last Friday, she says some people tried to get away with some of her scrap metal. They were caught in the act and police say Curtis Parish was the ringleader. "And he said if you get out of my way, we'll leave. And I said oh
no you won't and I shot 2 shots in one of their tires," Ramey said.
More
CIA Thief Gets 3-Year Term for Treasure Hunt
Anita Boss, testifying at the sentencing hearing for George C. Dalmas
III, said the 48-year-old father of two had a "transvestic fetishism,"
which involved wearing women's clothes not for erotic reasons but to
comfort himself. She said he also had a schizotypal personality disorder,
making it difficult for him to form long-term relationships. The combination
of the disorders "can be very disabling," Boss said. More
Army Bills Combat Soldiers for Missing Gear
Yet Preston now faces a fresh battle—with his superiors in the Oregon Army National Guard. Preston, whose six-year commitment to the Guard ends in October, learned in February that the Guard was planning to charge him $4,000 for military equipment it now considers missing from the year-plus he spent fighting in Iraq. That list of personal equipment includes two canteens Preston says he had to leave on the battlefield under enemy fire. It also includes several other items—from Kevlar vests to body armor breast plates—that Preston says he left in military custody when he departed the Middle East. This was not an isolated incident. Thousands of soldiers have been
billed, including a
West Virginia soldier who was seriously wounded by a roadside bomb
was required to pay up for missing gear. More
Circuit City fires thousands for earning too much money
The company said the dismissals had nothing to do with performance but were part of a larger effort to improve the bottom line. The firings represent about 9 percent of the company's in-store workforce of 40,000. "Retail is very competitive and store operations just have to contain their costs," said Jim Babb, a Circuit City spokesman. "We deeply regret the negative impact that was had on these folks. It was no fault of theirs." However, this
SEC filing shows that there has been no effort to contain costs
of CEO and executive compensation over the last three years, with Chairman
W. Alan McCollough raking in over $2 million in salary and bonus. More
Bananas and Terrorism: The Chiquita Connection
The settlement resolves a lengthy Justice Department investigation into the company’s financial dealings with right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels the U.S. government deems terrorist groups. In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said the Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials. The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia’s
civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country’s cocaine
exports. The U.S. government designated the right-wing militia a terrorist
organization in September 2001.. More
National Guard Troops Attacked by Armed Mexicans
In a story that should have rang alarm bells in very newsroom across the nation, armed Mexicans entered the United States and attacked unarmed National Guard troops working at a border patrol post near the US-Mexican border. The troops had to retreat to safety. According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region on January 3rd. The guardsmen were forced to retreat. Unfortunately, President Bush and his Administration did not even comment
on this vicious attack on unarmed US troops as well as the unbridled
assault on American sovereignty. During a press conference held on Friday
afternoon by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, there
was not one word about this unprovoked attack on soldiers.
More
Saddam Hussein Lynched
Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court were also lynched. The lynching came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill the dictator in 1982. "Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Saddam was removed from office by an invasion force that has caused nearly 3000 American soldiers to be sent to their deaths, as well as an estimated half million Iraqis. Disguised duo get new licenses at Virginia DMV
The video was made by Will Carsola and Dave Stewart. Carsola and Stewart said that they knew they were crossing the line, but did it solely for comedic value. "Honestly, I think DMV is a little at fault for letting us get away with it, with terrorists and stuff going on now," Stewart added. The filmmakers' actions were not illegal, Foy said, though it is against DMV policy to obscure faces with objects such as hats or sunglasses, which none of them did. They had beards and heavy brows, but there are no laws against facial hair. Headgear is allowed in an ID photo so long as it is for medical or religious purposes. "Clearly these individuals abused the system," Foy said.
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Dead Ducks Found in Idaho
Officials have determined that some 2,500 ducks that died near here over the last week were the victims of a fungus often found in moldy grain, among other things, according to an Idaho Fish and Game press release issued late Friday. The respiratory tract infection, officially termed acute
aspergillosis, is found in soil, dead leaves, moldy grain, compost piles
or other decaying vegetation, the release said. “They ruled out Avian
flu,” said Cassia County Sheriff Jim Higens early Friday.
More
Border Fence Contractor Eyed for Hiring Illegal Labor
Federal authorities said there is no indication that the company, Golden State Fence Co., which has an office in Oceanside, hired undocumented workers on the fence project. Over the past year, Golden State has been the focus
of an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for allegedly
hiring undocumented workers on several projects, including those at
military bases. No charges have been filed. More
Nazi Laws Alive and Well in Germany
In 1937, the Hitler said, "The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing." In 2006, his legacy still lives on in Germany. More
Florida Diebold machines help pick the right candidate
For instance, Gary Rudolf, a voter at a polling site
near Ft. Lauderdale, tried to vote for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis
(D); however, when the Diebold machine gave him the final review screen,
it showed his vote was about to be cast for Charlie Crist (R). The problem
took three tries to get resolved with the help of a local poll worker.
More
Al-Qaeda Wants Republicans to Win
Last April, a National Intelligence Estimate, representing the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community, concluded that Bush’s Iraq War had become the “cause celebre” that had helped spread Islamic extremism around the globe. In June, U.S. intelligence also learned from an intercepted al-Qaeda communiqué that bin Laden’s terrorist band wants to keep U.S. soldiers bogged down in Iraq as the best way to maintain and expand al-Qaeda’s influence. “Prolonging the war is in our interest,” wrote “Atiyah,” one of bin
Laden’s top lieutenants. More
Papers, Please: Travel Only if Permitted by Our Leader
The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed that airlines
cruise lines, and operators of all other ships and planes -- including
charter flights, air taxis, fishing vessels, etc. -- be required to
get individual permission (”clearance”) from the DHS for each passenger
on all flights or ocean voyages to, from, or via the USA. Unless the
answer is “Yes” -- if the answer is “no” or “maybe”, or if the DHS doesn’t
answer at all -- the airline wouldn’t be allowed to give you a boarding
pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane.. More
US Army headed downhill
Last year, despite NASCAR, professional bull-riding, and Arena Football sponsorships; popular video games that doubled as recruiting tools; TV commercials dripping with seductive scenes of military glory; a "joint marketing communications and market research and studies" program actively engaged in measures to target for military service Hispanics, drop outs, and those with criminal records; and at least $16,000 in promotional costs for each soldier it managed to sign up, the U.S. military failed to meet its recruiting goals. Brad Knickerbocker of the Christian Science Monitor noted, "The Army
has had to recruit more soldiers from the ‘lowest acceptable' category
based on test scores, education levels, personal background, and other
indicators of ability." Even Undersecretary of Defense Chu admitted
in July that almost 40% of all military recruits scored in the bottom
half of the Armed Forces' own aptitude test. More
Recently, in a combative interview on "Fox News Sunday," former President Clinton defended his handling of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, saying he tried to have bin Laden killed and was attacked for his efforts by the same people who now criticize him for not doing enough. Clinton said he "worked hard" to try to kill bin Laden. "We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody's gotten since," he said, in an animated manner that was menacing to host Chris Wallace. Clinton's insistence of his obsession to kill bin Laden gives new life to the Clinton Body Count document, since he forcefully admits his desire to commit homicide. Bush administration seeks amnesty for any war crimes
Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would
grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections
against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996.
That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing
conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees
die in custody from abusive treatment. More
U.S. Citizens Watched by Rifle Toting Guards in Airports
Guards armed with rifles stood watch in several airports, and the governors of California, New York and Massachusetts said they were sending National Guard troops to bolster security. The "War on Terror", which President Bush has demonstrably
faked up, is being turned inward against U.S. citizens. Many of them
voted for Mr. Bush, and believed he was going to protect them from an
enemy, but get treated like suspects instead. More
Southwest Co-pilot suspected of intoxication
Carl Fulton, 41, of Fort Worth, Texas, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion of operating a common carrier while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, a federal offense. Federal Aviation Administration officials will conduct an investigation.
More
Hooters Offers to Reimburse FEMA $200 for Champagne
The purchase was discovered as part of an investigation by the GAO
into improper spending of over a billion dollars by supposed victims
and has been highly publicized in various news stories about the investigation
following recent Congressional hearing on the matter.
More Homeland Security accepts fake ID
Retired New York City policeman Bruce DeCell, who had arranged to meet with DHS officials to lobby for document security, purposely used a forged version of identification that Mexican consulates in the United States issue to their nationals living here illegally. Undocumented Mexicans can use the cards at banks and other institutions
that accept them. The cards are not valid for entry into federal government
buildings.
More FEMA hurricane funds spent on sex change, divorce
Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address, and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to wrongly get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency. To demonstrate how easy it was to fool FEMA, the GAO told of an individual
who used 13 different Social Security numbers, including the person's
own, to receive $139,000 in payments on 13 separate registrations for
aid. The payments were sent to one address.
More Database Nation: Ordering Pizza in 2010
Data that has been traditionally unavailable to the government because of constitutional issues can now be purchased from private firms such as Choicepoint. This circumvention of the law allows government databases to be more comprehensive. For a humorous and cautionary look at what this could mean, follow
this link.
Order your pizza 'Get More' info on RFID
These microchips each contain a unique ID number that can be linked to a database and accesed over a network. The database can contain anything, including the product manufacture date, lot number, shipping route and dates, vendor, price, buyer ID, and location in real time each time it passes by a chip reader that is connected to the network. This lovely lady is going to demonstrate how RFID tagging works with
technology that is already implemented today. More
How is the Drug War going?
Now it seems even the Teletubbies, stars of the popular television
show bearing their name, have gotten involved in the drug trade. A recent
bust uncovered millions of dollars worth of cocaine that was branded
with the Teletubbies images. Perhaps alarmed pundits should quit sniping
at Tinky Winky for carrying a purse, and take a closer look at what
the allegedly gay character is carrying in the purse. More
More recently it has come to light that a large database is being built by the NSA that contains records of phone calls made by customers of AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, despite previous denials by Bush of scrutinizing domestic only calls. If you ever wanted to hear what an NSA analyst would listen to, now
you have a chance. StaggerOn.org has obtained some exclusive SIGINT
(signal intelligence) intercepts of American citizens who thought their
phone calls were private, even as they were being eavesdropped on. More
The video clip was submitted by an Oceanside student who did not identify him/her self, but made a brief statement. "My father was born in Mexico and came here before I was born," the source said. "I have gone back with him to his home, and I can see why he left. No human would want to live there." "I think it's a joke that many of the activists of immigration
scream about their opponents being rascist, while they call theselves
La Raza. That means The Race in English. So I burned these flags and
made a video to show how stupid that is." Watch
the Video Shell has higher profits, watered down gas
The problem? Watered down gasoline, part of a bad shipment. A big shipment - totaling tens-of-thousands of gallons of fuel supplied by the Shell Oil Company and distributed out a Newark refinery. Darnell told us as soon as he "pulled out of the lot, the car started
sputtering, and backfiring." More
Bush warns children - jobs to go to India
The President was addressing a magnet school in Rockville, Maryland, on Tuesday, stressing among other things, the criticality of such subjects as Mathematics and Science. "It's important to understand, if children don't have those skill sets needed to compete with a child from India or a child from China, the new jobs will be going there," Bush told the students. "And so, in order to make sure we remain the leader of the world, we have got to continue our focus in education on high standards, accountability, and a new focus and intense focus on math and science, just like as what's happening in this school," he said. The most important factor in jobs going abroad, and left unmentioned
by Bush, is that none of the training in math and science prepare a
student in the skills they really need to compete. The skills they really
need is to learn how to live on a wage of a dollar an hour, because
that is what they are really competing with, and why those jobs are
sent elsewhere. More
Oil companies pay people to explain why you must pay them more for the same amount of fuel. The story is usually some variation on higher costs to them being passed along to you at the pump. It could be higher crude oil prices one week, a refinery explosion the next week, and reduced capacity on another week, creating costs that must be passed on.
Exxon's retiring chairman was able to get the company to share the wealth with him.The company is giving Lee Raymond one of the most generous retirement packages in history, nearly $400 million, including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes. That kind of compensation should keep Mr. Raymond stocked with plenty
of groceries in his larder. The company car will insulate him from paying
the escalating fuel prices the rest of us a stuck with. Perhaps the
windfall will motivate him to replace his poorly crafted hairpiece with
expertly done hairplugs. Next time you are getting fuel in your vehicle,
it would be interesting to do a calculation of how much you are contribution
to the Lee Raymond retirement package. More
US Government caught in a lie about Iraq occupation
A new U.S. Embassy the size of Vatican City, is being constructed beside the Tigris River. Having the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, the fortresslike compound is a monument to an occupation force that plans to dig in and stay a long while, perhaps permanently. The embassy complex - 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee report - is taking shape on riverside
parkland in the fortified ''Green Zone,'' just east of al-Samoud, a
former palace of Saddam Hussein's, and across the road from the building
where the ex-dictator is now on trial. More
Evil Texan wants to kill most humans
The University of Texas Professor has grand schemes for wholesale liquidation of human populations that would dwarf the grandest ambitions of Stalin, Hilter and Mao combined, by using the Ebola virus. "Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine," Eric Pianka cautioned students and guests at St. Edward's University on Friday. Pianka's words are part of what he calls his "doomsday talk" - a 45-minute presentation outlining humanity's ecological misdeeds and Pianka's predictions about how nature, or perhaps humans themselves, will exterminate all but a fraction of civilization. Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures. Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number. In an account by Forrest M. Mims III, (known for authoring those Radio
Shack technical booklets instructing in the use of logic chips) Pianka
advocated for the extermination of 90 percent of the human species in
a most horrible and painful manner. Apparently at the speaker's direction,
the speech was not video taped by the Academy and so Forrest's may be
the only record of what was said. More
Homeland Security official arrested in online sex sting
Unfortunately, his intelligence gathering abilities did not include watching recent news reports about undercover officers setting up stings to catch adult men trying to seduce underage girls, and he got caught sending pornographic movie clips and having sexually explicit conversations via the internet with someone he was tricked into thinking was a 14 year old girl. Brian J. Doyle, 55, was arrested at his residence in Maryland on charges of use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of harmful material to a minor. The charges were issued out of Polk County, Fla. On several occasions, Doyle instructed the girl to perform a sexual
act while thinking of him and described explicit activities he wanted
to have with her, investigators said. More
Reconquest of "Aztlan" march in "Alta California"
The size of the march and rally surprised the world and the nation. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department made a statement on Thursday, to the local media, that they expected between 10,000 to 15,000 to participate in the march. The LAPD is now reporting that over 500,000 participated. In their account of the march, pro-reconquest site La Voz de Aztlan reports:
La Voz de Aztlan also stated their goal to eventually "elect our
own governors" of all the states within "Aztlan." More
Federal lawyers tell doctors how to practice medicine
Dr. William Hurwitz, a pioneering pain physician, was tried and convicted of violating the Controlled Substances Act -- which is intended to curb the illicit use of drugs -- and is serving a 25-year term in federal prison. He was also fined $2 million. These are but two of hundreds of cases in which, in its zeal to stamp out the illegal drug use, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is cracking down on doctors who prescribe medications to relieve chronic pain, and the patients who depend on these drugs to live normal lives. The DEA’s dilemma is separating legitimate prescribers and users from
drug dealers. And the DEA’s task is made more difficult, not only by
its zeal, but by the fact that those investigating and prosecuting are
not doctors but lawyers and law enforcement agents. More
Fort Hood Soldier Charged In Child Injury Case
One of Bush's shock troops used his skills to get his 3-year-old daughter to fight a 5-year-old boy his wife was babysitting. Dennis Michael Bittinger, 22, a Fort Hood soldier, was arrested and
charged with injury to a child in connection with a videotaped attack
on a 5-year-old boy, Killeen police said. He was ordered held in lieu
of $100,000 bond. More
More lessons from Katrina: Help is NOT on the way
The most important lesson is that you are on your own. There is no state, local, or federal agency that have any legal obligation to look after your safety and well being. Some agency might help, or they might make it worse for you. It is unwise to include help from any agency in your emergency plans. Any assistance you receive will be an added unplanned bonus. So you must take stock of your needs and plan ahead. Another important lesson is that many people in your same situation will share resources and abilities to get you through the crisis. Even while the authorities who are chartered to help you turn against you, there are individuals who will pitch in and do their part to help in survival. One other lesson is that there are people who will prey on you, and you must plan for this. Whether your plan involves hiding and avoidance, or self defense, you must consider this as a possibility. In New Orleans, the authorities were the perpetrators. While a third of the police force was on a self appointed junket in places like Las Vegas, some of the remaining police, along with National Guard, were forcibly removing some people, and stripping others of firearms, leaving them defenseless against the looters that they refused to protect them from. Video These are lessons that are best to never be forgotten. If you live somewhere that will have storms, fires, flooding, quakes or infrastructure breakdown, these lessons may some day be very relevant to you. Brokeback Presidency: The Bush-Fox legacy
Mexico has very strict enforcement of crossing it's southern border with Guatemala, with armed troops turning back would be immigrants from the south. However, if the U.S. were to have the same policy towards it's southern neighbor, Mexico would find that unacceptable. Mexico prefers for it's nationals to have unrestricted access to the U.S. with an open border. Vicente Fox has been able to convince Bush to adopt the Mexican policy, in spite of Bush's insistence that there is a war on terror that requires some control of who immigrates. One view is that Fox is able to keep Bush in line on this policy because he posesses something incriminating, such as a video of sexual improprieties. It is likely to be a much simpler issue than that. Bush is in love with Fox. .He has strong romantic feelings that Fox is willing to exploit for his own national interests. Since Fox is the alpha male or "top" in the relationship, he rations out affection. This maintains Bush in a state of desire to win the adoration from Fox, even at the expense of U.S. interests. Observe their body language when they are together. Who stands ramrod straight in one position, and who moves about, fawning over the other? Watch a video, or view pictures and see for yourself. This gives an important indication of who is the dominant male in the relationship, and who is taking a submissive role. This star crossed, forbidden relationship between these two men has an impact on the destiny of millions of people in both nations.
Section 9528 grants the Pentagon access to directories with students names, addresses and phone numbers so that they may be more easily contacted and recruited for military service. Prior to this provision, one-third of the nation’s high schools refused recruiters’ requests for students’ names or access to campus because they believed it was inappropriate for educational institutions to promote military service. And you thought NCLB was implemented to create better readers, testers and homework-doers. One of the consequences of this program was to give adult men close access to underage teen girls. The result of this, which could be argued was unavoidable, is that many of these recruiters have been "recruiting" for more than just military "service". One intrepid recuiter, Indiana National Guard Sgt. Eric P. Vetesy,
has been accused of sexually assaulting six female recruits he met during
his 18 months as a full-time recruiter. Hamilton County investigators
said Monday he is accused of raping at least one recruit. More
In another case two women have said two U.S. Marine Corps recruiters
forced them to have sex after they expressed interest in joining the
force while they were 17 year old students. They have sued in a complaint
alleging that one of them was raped on three separate occasions in,
each time telling her that she had to have sex with him if she wanted
to join the Marines." More
These cases, and the other like them, may not be all that unusual. It may be part of a training program for running prisons in Iraq and other locations in the alleged war on terror. Another Patriot Act Gotcha: paying off your credit card
That bit of financial responsibility could get you snared as a possible terrorist by the Patriot Act. Walter Soehnge and his wife, Deana, of Rhode Island found out about this recently. The Soehnges decided to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense. They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522. And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable. And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs. They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed. They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the
little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center,
that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly
payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that
normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money
doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted. More
Patriot Act passed, used to lock up US citizens, not terrorists
The latest incarnation of the Patriot Act includes provisions sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jim Talent, R-Mo., which would require a would-be purchaser to show identification to buy cold and allergy medication. The purported reason for this law is to halt the production of methamphetamine, an illegal drug that cannot be made without a key ingredient of everyday cold and allergy medicines. Besides providing more evidence that the War on Drugs is another administration
miserable failure, this provision of the Patriot Act could have a perverse
effect, to drive methamphetamine production away from American soil,
making it an imported product. This adds a new layer of profits for
those who will traffic in the drug, including terrorists. More
Catapulting the Propaganda, for a price
However, there are still staunch defenders of Bush, who are able to put aside the facts, squelch any internal doubts, and attack any critics of their Fearless Leader. But you have to pay someone rather well to hold their nose and surrender their soul to this thankless duty.
Rush Limbaugh leads the pack at a healthy $31 million. These numbers get a bit fuzzy, because in addition to base salary there are speaking fees, and reimbursed expenses. Sean Hannity commands a $100,000 speaking fee, plus expenses. If money is his motive, he chose the right side. Michael Moore gets about half of that for a speaking engagement. Al Franken gets paid, for his oratory at Air America, a paltry $1.7 million. The important point here, is that for most Americans it would be difficult to get in front of a microphone, or in front of a camera, and lie to their fellow citizens. It would be hard to keep a straight face while insisting black is white, up is down, and war is peace. It would cause many sleepless nights knowing that those lies were causing people to live with more hardships, and could even die from the consequences of them. There is a saying, "Drag a few million dollars through a cesspool and you are sure to get a few bites."
The AP had started promoting a videotape that shows a presidential videoconference briefing, made on Aug. 28, 2005. The tape showed former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown issuing stark warnings. "We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," said Brown. Brown told colleagues on the tape that one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to New Orleans' Superdome would be safe and have adequate medical care. But his concerns were disregarded by Bush, who didn't ask any questions. He reassured state officials that the federal government was prepared to handle the storm and its aftermath. "I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm," he said. History would prove otherwise. More
Attorney General Gonzales still sniffing around in panties
The FBI put their agents in trench coats and sent them into porn theaters throughout the U.S. in 1972-73 for a sticky investigation of Deep Throat. The movie, not the Watergate leaker. This time, instead of nasty dives in the seedy parts of town, agents can remain in their offices with a computer and broadband net connection. They might want to get some pointers from the old report, preserved here by the Memory Hole, so as not to reinvent the wheel. Gonzales might keep in mind, while he is busy sniffing those panties, he might overlook the next terror attack. On September 11, 2001, FBI agents were busy listening to wiretaps of a brothel in New Orleans - a much more important job than say, investigating soon to be terrorists attending flight school. There is no information if Gonzales' stepson Jared Freeze, who
used to work for Larry Flynt, is helping Pops with the investigation.
Rumsfeld wanted to hit Iraq after 9/11
"Hard to get good case. Need to move swiftly," the notes say. "Near term target needs - go massive - sweep it all up, things related and not." The handwritten notes, with some parts blanked out, were declassified
this month in response to a request by a law student and blogger, Thad
Anderson, under the US Freedom of Information Act. Anderson has posted
them on his blog at outragedmoderates.org. More
KBR awarded Homeland Security contract worth up to $385M
That is the official story. Haliburton may be getting $385 million,
but they are not going to be building detention camps for illegal aliens.
That is an outright lie, propped up by disinformation. So the fact is
that we do not know what service, if any, Haliburton is going to perform
to get that money from the American taxpayers. The official Bush policy,
whether it gets put into law or not, is that illegal aliens are no longer
considered "illegal". They are to be given amnesty and mainstreamed
into the economy. Despite another Bush lie, they are not just doing
the "jobs that Americans will not do". You are not able to afford to
buy a house with money earned from picking lettuce. See this article.
More
Hurricane relief funds spent on porn
Tens of millions of dollars of relief money for Hurricane Katrina was squandered in scams and poorly thought out projects, US government auditors reported yesterday. As many as 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under
an emergency cash assistance program - which included giving $2,000
debit cards to evacuees - based their requests on duplicate or invalid
social security numbers, or false addresses and names. More
Identity theft problem was created by the government
It was a 1996 federal law that makes the availability of federal welfare funds contingent upon states collecting SSNs to assist in the enforcement of child support laws. This was passed by the Congress presided over by Newt Gingrich, and signed off by Bill Clinton. Most stated complied with this law instead of jumping through the hoops set up if a state wanted to opt out. It was questionable if it ever was effective at collecting any more child support, but one gift that it gave us to merge the drivers license and Social Security number was the rampant identity theft we have enjoyed since then. It is so bad that new legislation has been passed ordering states to not display the SSN, though they must still collect it. Unfortunately, communication has been botched between state and federal governments in many states, so many licenses are still issued with the number and others are recalled. Thanks Newt and Bill. More
Iraq veteran gets hit with "friendly fire" in USA Unfortunately, he was shot in California by a San Bernadino sheriffs deputy. The incident began Sunday night, officials said, when Carrion was a passenger in a blue Corvette that was speeding about 100 mph near the Chino Hills, California, area, east of Los Angeles. The driver, whom authorities didn't identify, failed to pull the car over after police signaled to do so, leading to a five-minute chase that ended abruptly when the vehicle crashed into a brick wall, said Cindy Beavers, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. The incident was taped by a witness. On the tape, it sounds like one
of the deputies tells Carrion to get off the ground. He does and that`s
followed by a number of shots. Police say Carrion was hit four times.
The driver of the vehicle was eventually arrested. More
Bush calls for less dependence on Mideast oil "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world," Bush said as he sought to drive the election-year agenda in his annual State of the Union address. "Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years," the president said. "Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. By targeting only Mideast oil, Bush was ignoring the largest sources of American oil consumption, such as Mexico and Canada. Imports of oil and refined product from the Persian Gulf make up less
than a fifth of all imports and 11 percent of total consumption, according
to Energy Department statistics. More
Drug smugglers and invaders in Mexican military uniforms The smugglers, spotted on the U.S. side of the border in remote western
Texas on Monday afternoon, hastily fled back into Mexico, leaving behind
nearly a half ton of marijuana and setting one of their vehicles ablaze.
More
The disturbing unanswered question for the Bush administration is:
How can you tell the people you are fighting a war on terror abroad
when you can not effectively secure your own border? This is one incident,
there are many others More
FBI questions student over doodle Munir Rashed is a 16-year-old high school student from Elk Grove and a fourth generation American. Two years ago, while attending Elk Grove High, a teacher confronted him. Munir Rashed, Palestinian American student: "I had PLO on my folder
as a doodle." More
Weapons for the Terror War, energy beams and stun guns Like the phasers on "Star Trek', which' could be set to kill or merely stun, the U.S. military has desired a new kind of firepower that is instantaneous, precise and virtually inexhaustible: beams of electromagnetic energy. The hallmark of all directed-energy weapons is that the target -- whether a human or a mechanical object -- has no chance to avoid the shot because it moves at the speed of light. At some frequencies, it can penetrate walls. Once this technology becomes commonplace, and relatively inexpensive,
how will it be deployed at home against civilians by the military and
police departments? More
Now, she qualifies as an ''Alien of Extraordinary Ability'' -- but that legal designation may not be enough to get her back into the United States. The 29-year-old Argentine sexpot -- blessed with copious curves and
a seemingly boundless capacity to promote them -- was deported with
her husband/manager Alejandro Schiff on Jan. 5, after five years in
Miami as an illegal immigrant and Hispanic media star. More
When Cops trade donuts and coffee for alcohol... Public safety goes in the tank when this happens. Then we are all in
danger. More Military researched "Gay Bomb"
The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale. Considering the law of unintended consequences, this may have been
a bad idea. Instead of facing adversaries preoccupied with decorating
the mess tent, or playing with Barbies, U.S. forces may have ended up
facing some leather clad bears willing to rip their arms out of their
sockets. More
US Border Patrol uniforms made in Mexico
For more than a year, the shirts and pants worn by agents and inspectors with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been made in Mexico. The uniforms are supplied by VF Solutions of Nashville, Tenn., which subcontracts its work to plants in the United States, Mexico, Canada and the Dominican Republic.
The illegal flow of immigrants across the border also include gang members and fugitives from Mexican justice who might welcome a chance to get their hands on a Border Patrol uniform. There is also the possibility that unscrupulous gang members might help sneak terrorists into the country if the price is right. "Who's going to miss a few dozen uniforms?" said Bonner, "That could
be very dangerous to the agents. You see a uniform, and you assume that's
one of the good guys.".
More Screw up your job really badly? Be a consultant instead
“If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses — because that goes straight to the bottom line — then I hope I can help the country in some way,” Brown said. The problem is, he does not know much about preparedness, except preparing a jacked up resume that makes him look like he is capable of doing something worthwhile. Whether it is horse shows, or his recent dog and pony show, the old adage comes to mind when thinking about anyone contracting for his "sevices". You get what you pay for. The miserable
failure principle is at work here.
More Sneaking across the border in style, with new sneakers Argentine artist Judi Werthein gave away 50 pairs of expensive high top sneakers in Tijuana at a migrant shelter. These sneakers are unique, with a compass and flashlight dangling from one shoelace. The pocket in the tongue is for money or pain relievers. A rough map of the border region is printed on a removable insole.Werthein waved the insole and pointed to Interstate 8, the main road between San Diego and Phoenix. "This blue line is where you want to go," Werthein, 38, said in Spanish.
More US Attorney General Gonzales on a panty sniffing crusade
A Homeland toy story Homeland security agents work tirelessly to protect us from terrorists
and disasters. Right? Well, not exactly. Showing us a textbook case
of "mission creep", homeland security agents in Portland terrorize
a toy store owner in an effort to purge America of the menace of lookalike
toys. More
Bush to lead Katrina emergency response failures U.S. President George Bush wants to get to the bottom of what went wrong with the response to Hurricane Katrina. He announced Tuesday that he will oversee an investigation. Whether it is the misdeeds of his good pal Brownie, or FEMA personnel blocking private aid to victims, Bush will investigate and take corrective measures to prevent future disasters. So he says. More
‘We’re not like New Orleans’ says China South-eastern China braced itself as tropical storm Damrey was upgraded
on Saturday to a typhoon, though officials insisted the country’s experience
dealing with cyclones would prevent a New Orleans-style disaster. More
Bush Presidents seen fishing in New Orleans flood water
Presidents George H., and George W. Bush were seen fishing in the New Orleans flood water on Tuesday. Both men were aboard a fishing boat, motoring down the flooded streets and trolling for freshwater fish. At one point George W. was observed poking at a human corpse with a stick. "Yes, I was poking at that stiff," George W. said, "poor fellah was taking a real dirt nap. Or I should say, water nap. Hehehehe. Heheehee." George H. pointed out the benefits that were brought by the hurricane and flood. "This area has been blighted for a long time, with the economy thing. Now we have a unique opportunity to bring forth a new economic order" "With all those useless eaters flushed away, we can now develop this area for business and for recreation." the elder Bush noted.
Mr. Bill knew, Mr. Bush didn't
Someone better give FEMA a map and compass Could FEMA find you in a disaster? Would they know where to take you
to safety? Probably not. They took one planeload of, uh, evacuees to
the wrong state. Perhaps their motto is "any port in a storm".
More Getting
rescued: better than beads
"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel
saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've
got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts. When the girls
refused, they said 'Fine' and motored off down the road in their boat."
More
Babies seen as terrorist threat: Could your child be a potential hijacker? Homeland Security says yes! You hurry to get to the airport early. You make sure you are not carrying
any Forbidded Items. You also wear shoes that are easy to slip off for
inspection. All this in order to get through the Transportation Security
gauntlet and board the plane easily. But wait! You overlooked something.
You brought your baby and your govenment thinks the cute little tyke
is a terrorist. Oops! More
Lance Armstrong wants to focus on a war against Americans' true enemy, cancer Tour de France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong on Sunday
said the United States, which is embroiled in a costly war in Iraq,
should focus more effort on a war facing many Americans — the one against
cancer. More
A Homeland toy story Homeland security agents work tirelessly to protect us from terrorists
and disasters. Right? Well, not exactly. Showing us a textbook case
of "mission creep", homeland security agents in Portland terrorize
a toy store owner in an effort to purge America of the menace of lookalike
toys. More
Terrorists beware: American women are watching you!
"This is a huge untapped market with people that live and work in this country and are capable of buying homes to realize the American dream," said Chan Peterson, executive vice president and head of community banking at Banco Popular, one of the earliest banks to enter this field. "It's institutionalizing illegality," said Marti Dinerstein, president
of Immigration Matters, a New York-based think tank. "Now there's no
distinction being made between the people that follow all the rules
and those who break our laws by entering the country or overstaying
their visas." Dinerstein also worried that lack of knowledge on the
part of illegal immigrants could pave the way for abuse in the form
of predatory lending. More
Port Security Flawed Latest detection machines are not doing the job, and
YOU pay for it.
More
Mexican flag placed higher than American flag in Oregon state office Mexican flag gets hoisted above the Stars and Stripes on the back wall of Oregon state-run employment office. Despite this being a violation of federal and state
law, office staff is indifferent to complaints.
More
DHS Fraud and Waste to be Investigated Inspector General to investigate IT contracts, and other
Homeland Security programs,
Think those airport patdowns you endure make you safe?
Think again!
More
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The
U.S. government’s crackdown on file sharing and counterfeiting has taken
a new and disturbing turn.
A federal jury found a former Pennsylvania judge guilty in a so-called
kids-for-cash scheme, in which he took money in exchange for sending
juvenile offenders to for-profit detention centers.
"A
group of sociologists did a poll in Arizona about the new immigration
law. Sixty percent said they were in favor, and 40 percent said, 'No
hablo English.'"
This is one of those technology and legal stories that is hard to believe
in this day and age. If you are in Illinois, you better be careful where
you point your cameraphone or voice recorder. Chris Drew, a Chicago
artist, and Tiawanda Moore, a former stripper, are facing up to 15 years
in prison for eavesdropping, according to a story in the Chicago News
Cooperative. Drew used an Olympus voice recorder to commit his crime
and Moore used her Blackberry.
More
than 1,000 young American women have been raped or sexually assaulted
in the last decade while serving as Peace Corps volunteers in foreign
countries, an investigation has found. 
STANFORD,
Calif. - President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department
authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet
ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.
A shocking report prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Foreign Military
Intelligence Directorate (GRU) states that one of the United States
top experts in biological and chemical weapons was brutally murdered
after he threatened to expose a US Military test of poison gas that
killed hundreds of thousands of animals in Arkansas this past week.
COPS
have been forced to apologise to a British mum after they swooped on
the family home in Bradford searching for a cannabis factory and instead
found an electric heater keeping two pet guinea pigs warm, the Yorkshire
Evening Post reported yesterday.
America
is in the middle of a vigorous privacy debate. The Transportation Security
Administration's full-body scanners and new "enhanced pat-down" procedures
have (ahem) touched a nerve.
LOS
ANGELES -- The FBI is warning parents that a new Barbie doll could be
used against little girls, possibly by pedophiles.
The
Obama administration has given waivers for the new Healthcare program
to 111 corporations and entities so far, but few know where the application
is to apply for it. On the Health and Human Services (HHS) website,
it takes clicking through six pages of information and misdirection
to find the waiver application, and also to see a list of approved businesses
who have opted out.
Yasir
Afifi, a 20-year-old computer salesman and community college student,
took his car in for an oil change earlier this month and his mechanic
spotted an odd wire hanging from the undercarriage.
OKLAHOMA
CITY -- Airport security got a surprise on Tuesday when a woman in a
wheelchair approached a checkpoint wearing only a black lace bra and
panties.
INDIANAPOLIS
-- Armed security guards will be on hand at 36 unemployment offices
around Indiana in what state officials said is a step to improve safety
and make branch security more consistent.
The
U.S. Transportation Security Administration is investigating an Oceanside
man's refusal to submit to security screening at Lindbergh Field over
the weekend, and he could face up to $11,000 in civil penalties, the
agency's San Diego security director said Monday.
Sheila
Rice, who sold her Maryland home to avoid foreclosure, was surprised
to learn JPMorgan Chase was her property tax collector. But the bank
can't claim to be the first private company to play the role of tax
man: It's taken part in a more than 2,000-year-old tradition that, from
its very start, has been tainted by abuse.
KANSAS
CITY, Mo. — Laws banning texting while driving actually may prompt a
slight increase in road crashes, research out today shows.
U.S.
government medical researchers intentionally infected hundreds of people
in Guatemala, including institutionalized mental patients, with gonorrhea
and syphilis without their knowledge or permission more than 60 years
ago.
If
attendees at the Minnesota State Fair aren't too busy revelling in the
performances of Kiss or "Weird Al" Yankovic, or enjoying a celebrity
cow-milking contest, they might just try spitting for science.
For
years, the 8,000-square-foot mansion in suburban Seattle sat vacant
and for sale, the price gradually coming down from $5.8 million to $3.3
million. One day in June, a 30-year-old woman, a man and two children
took down the for-sale signs, changed the locks, moved in and declared
it their home. They didn't actually buy the house, or even rent it.
They just moved in and declared it their house. 
As
the communications device grows in popularity, technology experts and
US law enforcement agencies are devoting increasing efforts to understanding
their potential for forensics investigators.
A
young woman from Gatineau, Que., says she was strip-searched and stranded
in Windsor, Ont., in the middle of the night by U.S. border officials.
PORTLAND
- One School Committee member, saying she's "appalled" by the behavior
of some of the Republicans who used a room at King Middle School last
weekend, wants to protect the city's public schools from future harm.
Civil-liberties
campaigners have demanded a controversial audio surveillance system
be kept out of Scotland.
TULTITLN,
Mexico — Arizona's new law forcing local police to take a greater role
in enforcing immigration law has caused a lot of criticism from Mexico,
the largest single source of illegal immigrants in the United States.
Facebook
has gone rogue, drunk on founder Mark Zuckerberg’s dreams of world domination.
It’s time the rest of the web ecosystem recognizes this and works to
replace it with something open and distributed.
TACOMA,
Wash. -- Pierce County has identified more than 3,200 illegal garages
and other structures under a controversial program that uses aerial
photographs to spot buildings constructed without a permit.
BOCA
RATON — At any one time, some 750,000 pedophiles are prowling
the Internet, the United Nations says. They might be lurking in chat
rooms. Or swapping images of adults having sex with kids.
ORCHARD, Texas – A third-grader at Brazos Elementary was given a week’s
detention for possessing a Jolly Rancher.
WASHINGTON--The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record
which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years,
a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations
of child pornography and other serious crimes.
A man with a U.S. census badge knocked on Amy Schmalbach’s door on May
4. Thinking that answering the door to a government worker was a safe
bet, she did. And then she wondered why he looked so familiar.
SEATTLE - Three Seattle police officers were justified when they used
a stun gun on a pregnant mother who refused to sign a traffic ticket,
a federal appeals court ruled Friday in a case that prompted an incredulous
dissent.
The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.
Blackminster Middle School in Evesham, Worcs, faced condemnation from
parents after their children were left traumatised by the mock shooting.
When
it comes to hiring staff, there are plenty of legal pitfalls employers
need to watch out for these days.
Philadelphia
TSA screeners forced the developmentally delayed, four-year-old son
of a Camden, PA police officer to remove his leg-braces and wobble through
a checkpoint, despite the fact that their procedure calls for such a
case to be handled through a swabbing in a private room.
Lance Cpl. Daniel Beasley will shoulder a portable missile launcher
when he's on patrol in Afghanistan in a few weeks. He said it won't
matter whether the Marine next to him is gay.
Investigators recently entered an organic grocery with a search warrant
and ordered the hemp-clad workers to put down their buckets of mashed
coconut cream and to step away from the nuts.
PA
Philadelphia-area school district finds itself under scrutiny after
remotely activating a MacBook Web cam and capturing a young student
engaging in "improper behavior at home." The student was confronted
by a Harrington High School official and shown photographs of his actions.
These photographs set off privacy alarms and have led to a class-action
lawsuit alleging that the school district has been spying on its students
in their homes.
In
the bitter cold on Monday night, a man and woman picked apart a pyramid
of clear trash bags, the discards of the HM clothing store that reigns
in blazing plate-glass glory on 34th Street, just east of Sixth Avenue
in Manhattan.
ROMULUS,
Mich. -- Romulus police officers are being so aggressive that another
police agency is warning drivers to be wary of a so-called “speed
trap.” Detroit Metropolitan police are outing Romulus officers
who are pulling over drivers for speeding in the area of Interstate
94 around the airport.
A
Jewish teenager trying to pray on a New York-to-Kentucky flight caused
a scare Thursday when he pulled out a set of small boxes containing
holy scrolls, leading the captain to divert the flight to Philadelphia,
where the commuter plane was greeted by police, bomb-sniffing dogs and
federal agents.
Humans
are good at many things—typing, inventing stuff—but we're
quite bad at assessing risk. Day after day, we get bent out of shape
over things we shouldn’t worry about so much, like airplane crashes
and lightning strikes, instead of things we should, like heart disease
and the flu.
Eight
years ago, federal officials were struggling to remove potentially deadly
E. coli from hamburgers when an entrepreneurial company from South Dakota
came up with a novel idea: injecting beef with ammonia.
JERICHO,
Ark. - It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the
same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne
didn't hesitate to tell the judge what he thought of the police and
their speed traps.
The
rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens
to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images
of children, the Guardian has learned.
People
who emit more than their fair share of carbon emissions are having their
pay docked in a trial that could lead to rationing being reintroduced
via the workplace after an absence of half a century.
Pretoria,
South Africa - Gangs of armed robbers are attacking motorists on the
R21 Highway - the main road linking OR Tambo International Airport to
Pretoria.
One
week into the COP15 and protesters are taking to the streets of Copenhagen.
Police are using the recently passed protest package laws to the full,
having detained more than 1,000 protesters for up to 12 hours and charging
only six of these.
Nearly
two weeks after a group of illegal immigration activists stumbled upon
prostitution in McGonigle Canyon in San Diego, there is little to show
the community in the form of action.
The
descent into homelessness can be equated to falling off a cliff. Wealth
buys passage on toll roads a safe distance from the edge, but poverty's
foot path runs along the craggy and unstable lip of a gaping precipice.
Emma and her family hit a few ledges on the way down, blown by winds
of misfortune every time they began to regain stable footing. As Emma
describes their story: "It's too much bad luck for anyone to believe."
A
New York-based anarchist has been arrested by the FBI and charged with
hindering prosecution after he allegedly used the social networking
site Twitter to help protesters at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh evade
the police.
South
Africa - Can a Chinese-made Geely car cover 4,6km in just 19 seconds
- at 871km/h? Yes say the Joburg metro police, this is quite possible.
America’s
spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter
updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon.
A
trial of a scanner that produces "naked" images of passengers has begun
at Manchester Airport.
TAMPA
— Steve Valdez used one of his prosthetic arms to slip a check
to the teller at Bank of America downtown.
In
Barack Obama’s July 2, 2008 speech calling America to national
service, Obama promised he would develop a paramilitary force of unmatched
size, "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve
the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a
civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong,
just as well-funded."
IT’S
too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s
almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping
in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor,
you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities
of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering.
Each
day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhood's children,
Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their
children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.
SAN
ONOFRE ---- At the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, even throwing
out a batch of old ceramic tiles sets off alarms.
Obama
yesterday expressed concern at the sorry state of the news industry
and said that he will look at a news paper bailout , because otherwise,
blogs will take over the world, and that would be a threat to democracy,
The Hill reports.
Did
the non-disclosure clauses just expire for some former Blackwater Xe
executives? It would seem to be the case, based on the New York Times‘
series of scoops on the company’s more-intimate-than-previously-reported
ties to the CIA.
In
his new book, the first Homeland Security chief, Tom Ridge, accuses
top aides to President George W. Bush of pressing him to raise the terror
alert level to influence the 2004 presidential election.
Matthew
Brzica and his wife hardly noticed when the hospital took a few drops
of blood from each of their four newborn children for routine genetic
testing. But then they discovered that the state had kept the dried
blood samples ever since -- and was making them available to scientists
for medical research.
The
Cash For Clunkers program is adding to the activity at treasurers' offices
all around South Dakota. First, people were asking for proof of ownership,
so they could show they owned their vehicle for a full year, allowing
them to cash it in. Now, they'll be returning to register their new
vehicle. And when they do, new owners need to bring every bit of paperwork
provided to them by their dealer.
Department
of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius has not only
given immunity to the makers of Tamiflu and Relenza for injuries stemming
from their use against swine flu, she has granted immunity to future
swine flu vaccines and “any associated adjuvants”.
Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A "Planetary Regime" with the
power of life and death over American citizens.
Clifton
Williams arrived at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet and sat in
the fourth-floor courtroom where his cousin was pleading guilty to a
felony drug charge.
WASHINGTON
— Hundreds of tractor-trailer and bus companies ordered to shut
down because of federal safety violations ranging from suspended licenses
to possible drug use have stayed on the road by using different names,
investigators say.
Area
drivers looking to outwit police speed traps and traffic cameras are
using an iPhone application and other global positioning system devices
that pinpoint the location of the cameras.
Teachers at St Sidwells Primary school, Exeter, Devon, have told parents
of pupils goggles can now only be worn by children who have an 'adverse
reaction to chemicals in water'.
Researchers
have found that it is possible to guess many -- if not all -- of the
nine digits in an individual's Social Security number using publicly
available information, a finding they say compromises the security of
one of the most widely used consumer identifiers in the United States.
HAVERFORD, Pa. -- Seven suburban Philadelphia children had a brush with
the law for selling lemonade without a permit.
When
people on the government's terrorist watch list have tried to buy guns
or explosives in recent years, the government has let them the vast
majority of the time.
A single father was left stunned after he was turned away from a swimming
pool when staff told him he could not provide proper supervision for
his two sons.
The
Transportation Security Administration has moved beyond just checking
for weapons and explosives. It’s now training airport screeners
to spot anything suspicious, and then honoring them when searches lead
to arrests for crimes like drug possession and credit-card fraud.
TALLAHASSEE -- Children held hands so 50,000 volts could pass through
their fingers. Other children were dangerously close to breathing tear
gas.
A
Calgary shelter is scanning the fingerprints of its homeless clients,
citing problems with gang members and drug dealers sneaking into the
facility.
Influential
senators working to overhaul the nation's health care system have investments
and family ties with some of the biggest names in the industry. The
wife of Sen. Chris Dodd, the lawmaker in charge of writing the Senate's
bill, sits on the boards of four health care companies.
Banks are using a little-known tactic to help pay bonuses, deferred
pay and pensions they owe executives: They're holding life-insurance
policies on hundreds of thousands of their workers, with themselves
as the beneficiaries.
South Africa has passed a new law that compels all cell phone users
to register their SIM cards. Users who fail to register would be barred
from their network services.
Top recipients of federal bailout money spent more than $10 million
on political lobbying in the first three months of this year, including
aggressive efforts aimed at blocking executive pay limits and tougher
financial regulations, according to newly filed disclosure records.
SALEM, Ore. - Police say a Salem man died Saturday night after physically
resisting officers of the Salem Police Department during his arrest.
WASHINGTON -- Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's $300 billion
Joint Strike Fighter project -- the Defense Department's costliest weapons
program ever -- according to current and former government officials
familiar with the attacks.
The Census Bureau has launched a massive field operation to kick off
the 2010 Census. More than 140,000 temporary U.S. Census Bureau workers
are now verifying addresses across the nation as the first major field
operation of the 2010 Census began is underway. It is called address
verification or address canvassing.
British airline BMI has apologised after in-flight maps on its London-Tel
Aviv service did not identify Israel.
SAN
DIEGO -- A former decorated swift-boat captain in the Vietnam War, who
went on to become an official at the Pentagon, was sentenced Monday
in San Diego to 37 months behind bars for keeping hundreds of child
pornography images on his computers.
The jailers of the 19th century — even in the pre-Civil War South
— largely abandoned the practice of imprisoning people for falling
into debt as counterproductive and ultimately barbaric. In the 1970s
and ’80s, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that incarcerating people
who can’t pay fines because of poverty violates the U.S. Constitution.
Rep. Jane Harman , a California Democrat long involved in intelligence
issues, was overheard on a 2005 National Security Agency wiretap telling
a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department
to reduce espionage-related charges against two former officials of
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Rep.
Brian Bilbray is asking Congress to approve a special funding request
known as an earmark and spend $26 million to buy two Predator unmanned
airplanes for the military.
He's been the Oakwood Police Chief for almost two months. Now he's out
of a job and jailed on a warrant for aggravated assault with a deadly
weapon. The Leon County community had sworn in Oly Yahnson Ivy, 30,
just two months earlier as its police chief.
Michelle
Obama's decision to make her new White House vegetable garden entirely
organic has angered America's powerful agribusiness lobby who are urging
the First Lady to consider the use of appropriate "crop protection products".
Social networking sites like Facebook could be monitored by the UK government
under proposals to make them keep details of users' contacts.
Oxford, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby's bedroom in his
mother's Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images
of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on
the wall.
A novel flu virus has struck hundreds of people in Mexico, and at least
18 have died. It has also infected 20 people in five states in the US,
and appears able to spread readily from human to human. The US has declared
a public health emergency, and the World Health Organization is holding
emergency meetings to decide whether to declare the possible onset of
a flu pandemic.
On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein
introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government
agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative
contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher
than the industry norms.
GRANDVIEW, Mo. -- A local man said he was shocked to be rushed by U.S.
marshals at a basketball game Wednesday.
WASHINGTON - Homeland Security officials are warning that right-wing
extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election
of the country's first black president to recruit members to their cause.
A military team sent to evaluate electrical problems at U.S. facilities
in Iraq determined there was a high risk that flawed wiring could cause
further "catastrophic results"—namely, the electrocutions of U.S.
soldiers.
An agency under the director of national intelligence is seeking to
develop an automated computer program that could process millions of
feet of videotape, such as surveillance-camera data from countries other
than the United States, according to a report released last week.
Steve Bierfeldt was traveling from a regional meeting of a conservative
political organization known to advocate sound money, small government,
civil liberties and belief in The United States Constitution when he
was detained and interrogated by Transportation Security Administration
officials for having cash in his possession.
Peanut-allergy panic has spread across the nation. In a recent essay,
Harvard physician and sociologist Nicholas Christakis relates an incident
in which a peanut was spotted on the floor of a school bus, "whereupon
the bus was evacuated and cleaned (I am tempted to say decontaminated),
even though it was full of 10 year olds who, unlike 2 year olds, could
actually be told not to eat off the floor."
Have
the Klingons fallen on hard times?
A BRITISH Gulf War veteran pulled out 13 of his teeth with pliers when
he could not find an NHS dentist. TA soldier Ian Boynton could not afford
to go private for treatment after suffering with excruciating toothache
since 2006.
AVONDALE, Ariz. -- The little blue house rests on a few pieces of wood
and concrete block. The exterior walls, ravaged by dry rot, bend to
the touch. At some point, someone jabbed a kitchen knife into the siding.
The condemnation notice stapled to the wall says: "Unfit for human occupancy."
CAMP PENDLETON ---- Marine Lance Cpl. Lance Hering says the war in Iraq
pushed him to abandon his family and his service. On Friday, two years
after he faked his own death and deserted his unit, the 23-year-old
Hering stood in a Camp Pendleton courtroom.
State Police are investigating the death of a 17-year-old after Martinsville
Police used a stun device on a teenager Thursday night.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Major U.S. banks sought government permission
to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying
jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were
getting laid off, according to a review of visa applications.
LOS ANGELES -- Upon release from state custody, Ross Wollschlager began
an intensive search for a home, one that abided by the restrictions
imposed on convicted sex offenders in California -- and, in various
versions, by about 30 other states. Obliged by law to return to Ventura
County, the convicted rapist was forbidden to sleep within 2,000 feet
of a school or a park. He ended up in a tent on the dry bed of the Ventura
River.
HARRISON BROWN, an 18-year-old freshman majoring in mathematics at M.I.T.,
didn’t need to do complex calculations to figure out he liked this deal:
in exchange for letting researchers track his every move, he receives
a free smartphone.
A
Georgia man has filed a lawsuit against contractor KBR and its former
parent company, Halliburton, saying the companies exposed everyone at
Joint Base Balad in Iraq to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from
the burn pit there.
As he reminded us again after losing narrowly to Hillary Clinton in
New Hampshire, Barack Obama likes to evoke Martin Luther King's "I have
a dream" speech.
Sensors keep track of just about everything Shirley Player does in her
apartment, but she's not worried that Big Brother is watching. Far from
it. "I feel very safe with it," Player said. "It's nice to know you're
being watched."
The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded
face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch
and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an
opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift. 
Cambridgeshire County Council sent undercover officers to monitor whether
eight children delivering papers in Melbourn, Cambs, were doing their
rounds without the correct paperwork.
The latest U.S. troop surge will be much closer to home - in the nation's
capital to secure Barack Obama's Inauguration Day.
Nearly half of people who were dubbed Yuppies in the 1980s say they
now struggling financially, according to a report.
It
was a little early to be swimming in the Mediterranean that year. But
in early March 1966, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, the Spanish information
minister at the time, and Biddle Duke, the American ambassador in Madrid,
together with their respective families, plunged into the chilly waters
off the Costa Cálida.
A 12-year-old girl wrongfully arrested as a suspected prostitute, beaten
by police and then arrested for assaulting a public servant has launched
a lawsuit against the officers, the Houston Press reports. 
Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives
nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year,
an Associated Press analysis reveals. The rewards came even at banks
where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent
them to Washington for a government rescue.
For
months, a large number of Germans have fretted over whether federal
lawmakers would grant federal police aggressive evidence-gathering abilities
to combat terrorism. They feared they could be similar to the highly
developed -- and criticized -- ones enjoyed by the FBI or those portrayed
in "The Lives of Others," the Oscar-winning film about an eavesdropper
working for the Stasi, the secret police of the former East Germany.
Trillions in stock market value — gone. Trillions in retirement savings
— gone. A huge chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money
you're saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll
— gone, gone, gone.
Al-Qaida, which gets its money from the drug trade in Afghanistan and
sympathizers in the oil-rich Gulf states, is likely to escape the effects
of the global financial crisis.
The Government was accused yesterday of cynically targeting immigrants
to boost support for its controversial £4.7bn compulsory identity cards
scheme as the Home Office unveiled the documents it plans will eventually
be held by every adult in Britain.
BEIJING - Some 1,500 raccoon dogs bred for their fur have died after
eating feed tainted with melamine, a veterinarian said Monday, raising
questions about how widespread the industrial chemical is in China's
food chain.
A
woman who had just scored a precious high-paying job in the midst of
a disastrous economy was willing to fly in from out of town to take
it. 
WASHINGTON -- Wild, unprovoked gunfire and grenades killed 14 innocent
Iraqis and hurt dozens more in a 2007 Baghdad attack, prosecutors said
Monday in announcing charges with mandatory 30-year prison terms against
five Blackwater Worldwide security guards.
In the weeks since the presidential election, Justin Mundy, who owns
Wolverine Shooting Sports Inc. in Brownstown Township, has held four
classes for those seeking concealed weapons permits instead of the usual
once-a-month course.
McALLEN, Texas — A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President
Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on state charges
related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal
detention centers.
WASHINGTON - Two new IRS computer systems that will eventually cost
taxpayers almost $2 billion are being put into service despite known
security and privacy vulnerabilities, a Treasury watchdog said in a
report yesterday.
VIRGINIA BEACH -- Blackbeard, meet Blackwater. Worldwide.
As winter creeps down the Chugach Mountains and the grizzly bears start
the move toward their dens, wildlife biologists and others have begun
to contemplate whether the city's summer of bears was an aberration
or the face of what is to come. 
This past summer, Craig Johnson joined dozens of other activists in
a San Diego-area park to protest the expansion of a fence along the
US-Mexico border.
Researchers have begun publishing details of a new type of attack called
'clickjacking', which can lead users to malicious websites by tricking
them into clicking on unseen elements in a web browser.
American
expect the Air Force to be part of the team that protects them from
those who would harm them, but it turns out that Americans have no protection
from an Air Force that would prey on them.
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of
the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping
restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they’re
training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.
A young Wisconsin woman was cuffed by cops, perp-walked down her parents'
suburban driveway and hustled into a waiting cruiser - all because she
hadn't returned two library books or paid the library's $38 fine.
Let me try a few words out on you: "Charge It," "Swipe It" and "Priceless."
UK — The march of the Big Brother state under Labour was highlighted
last night as it was revealed that there are now 1,043 laws that give
the authorities the power to enter a home or business.
The tumbling U.S. dollar is forcing a new experience on many Americans
traveling through Europe: a stay in a youth hostel.
Zoriah
Miller is a photo journalist who was embedded withe the military in
Iraq. When he took photographs of the aftermath of a recent suicide
bombing, he was asked to delete these photographs. He also got booted
by the military and got asked to remove the photographs from his web
blog. The suicide bombing that Zoriah photographed happened in Anbar
Province a few, one of the last few days of June and more than 20 people
lost their lives including a few marines.
A LAWSUIT filed Monday in California seeks class action status alleging
that Apple denied technical staffers required overtime pay and meal
compensation in violation of state law.
It took seven years, but Charles Ulrich did something many people dream
about, but few succeed at: He beat the IRS in a tax dispute. Not only
that, but tax experts say potentially millions of other taxpayers could
benefit from his victory.
The United States will unveil new border surveillance measures Friday
in a move that has one New Democratic MP decrying what he sees as the
"weaponization" of the Canada-U.S. frontier.
Four Mexican army soldiers entered southern Arizona and pointed their
rifles at a U.S. Border Patrol agent early this week, the Border Patrol
said.
In a series of gripping articles, Jane Mayer has chronicled the Bush
Administration’s grim and furtive dealings with torture and has exposed
both the individuals within the administration who “made it happen”
(a group that starts with Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff,
David Addington), the team of psychologists who put together the palette
of techniques, and the Fox television program “24,” which was developed
to help sell it to the American public.
The U.S. Congress puts on a big show about "doing something"
to solve your many problems, but they really contrive ways to monitor,
control and feed off of your life energy.
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The Pentagon opened its first war
crimes prosecution Tuesday with words purportedly from the mouth of
Osama bin Laden, overheard by his driver in the aftermath of 9-11:
U.S. Border Patrol agent Reynaldo Zuniga was arrested last month lugging
a bag of cocaine up from the Rio Grande, one of a growing number of
law enforcement officers accused of taking bribes from drug gangs.
Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month,
Seymour Hersh — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker
— revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently
in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with
Iran.
Police found right-wing political books, brass knuckles, empty shotgun
shell boxes and a handgun in the Powell home of a man who said he attacked
a church in order to kill liberals "who are ruining the country," court
records show.
The question isn't whether a Pembroke Pines police officer was justified
in fatally shooting Vincent Hodgkiss in his home early Thursday morning,
or whether illegal drug activity was taking place there. The real question
is this: Was a paramilitary-style dawn raid the best way to go about
serving a drug-related search warrant?
In a stirring speech in Germany on Thursday, U.S. presidential candidate
Barack Obama called on the world to look to Berlin as a symbol of strength
and hope that persevered against the threat of communism.
WASHINGTON - Vice President Cheney's invitation to address wounded combat
veterans next month has been yanked because the group felt his security
demands were Draconian and unreasonable.
In Uttar Pradesh, new-age fraudsters are redefining trickery. Authorities
here have unearthed a fully functional "branch" office of a "Nagar Nigam"
in Jhansi.
Houston, TX — The Federal Aviation Administration has started investigating
the emergency landing in New Orleans of a Continental Airlines Boeing
737 carrying former presidential candidate Ron Paul and six other members
of Congress, officials said.
Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers
have been trained and recently dispatched as "Terrorism Liaison Officers"
in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for "suspicious activity"
— and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.
A four-day training exercise stretching from the U.S.-Mexico border
to East County puts more than 70 agencies to the test during a fake
anthrax attack.
Republican nominee John McCain and Democratic nominee Barack Obama spoke
at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, which in
English is translated as "The Race", and is an extreme Hispanic
lobby group that advocates a militant "reconquista" of the Southwestern
United States.
As millions of Americans celebrated a holiday that marks their freedom,
an Oklahoma man got a real look at what it is like to have that freedom
taken away by thugs and bullies.
The popular board game Monopoly was introduced by Parker Brothers company
in 1934 and sold for five cents.
So far the federal government has done little to respond to the historic
floods in eastern Iowa which are among the worst in recorded history.
In order to maintain tyranny in the flooded areas, local governments
have had to step up to meet the challenge.
Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners
and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive
drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.
WASHINGTON - A White House-backed spy bill to protect telecommunication
companies from billions of dollars in possible privacy lawsuits passed
a Senate test vote and headed toward final congressional approval.
Substantial vote tallies across Ireland show the European Union Lisbon
reform treaty has been rejected, Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern
has said.
Michael Reagan, son of former president Ronald Reagan, advocated sexually
abusing Arab children by anally assaulting them with a foreign object.
He made the comments on his publicly aired radio program.
The source of the Salmonella that has sickened hundreds of people through
tainted tomatoes may be in Mexico and South and Central Florida, according
to U.S. investigators.
Hillary
Clinton has finally ended her pretend campaign against Barak Obama and
has conceded to his effort to be elected president of the United States.
Council snoopers using terror powers have delved into almost 1,000 peoples'
phone records in a bid to probe anything from a bogus faith healer to
dog smuggling.
At last fall's groundbreaking ceremony for North Dakota's 7,300-square-foot
crime laboratory, state Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said space
at the existing facility was so "desperately" short, some staffers had
resorted to "cutting mouse pads in half to make them fit."
The 50 U.S. states are holding more than $32 billion worth of unclaimed
property that they're supposed to safeguard for their citizens. But
a "Good Morning America" investigation found some states aggressively
seize property that isn't really unclaimed and then use the money --
your money -- to balance their budgets.
The Australian government has launched an investigation into claims
that aboriginal children seized from their parents during the 1920s
and 1930s were secretly used as guinea pigs for leprosy treatments.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket
of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food
rationing.
VANCOUVER, Canada — The country's only armed transit police have been
tasering passengers who try to avoid paying fares.
WAYCROSS, Ga. - Allegations that third-graders hatched an elaborate
plot to knock out, handcuff and stab their teacher were met with shock
by neighbors and with doubt by psychiatry experts who said it is unlikely
that children that young seriously intended to hurt anyone.
The contours of the billboard map of Mexico and its neighbors may have
been familiar, but not its political boundaries: California, Arizona,
Nevada, New Mexico and Texas were shaded in the green of a Mexico that
stretched from close to Canada to the jungles of Guatemala. "In an Absolut
World!" the billboard proclaimed, alongside the image of a bottle of
Absolut vodka.
LONDON - The mysterious Chinese guardians of the Olympic flame, whose
charming blue tracksuits do not make them seem any less sinister, may
have to hang up their fanny-packs when they return to the Pacific.
LOS ANGELES, CA - The Transportation Security Administration said Friday
its officers at a Texas airport appear to have properly followed procedures
when they allegedly forced a woman to remove her nipple rings -- one
with pliers -- but acknowledged the procedures should be changed.
ALBANY, NY - The cops in the marked patrol car had circled through West
Hill a couple times keeping an eye on their female target.
An
alliance dubbed the 'InfraGard', which reportedly consists of over 23,000
representatives of the US' private sector in addition to the FBI and
the Department of Homeland Security, is engaged in secret activities
to maintain elements of 'critical national infrastructure'.
GATINEAU,
Que. - Canadian airline passengers with disabilities, including passengers
in wheelchairs and the severely obese, will no longer have to pay double
fares for an extra seat on domestic flights, the Canadian Transportation
Agency has ruled.
Investigators say they were definitely going to rob him - possibly even
kill him. But an 80-year-old North Texan wasn't about to let that happen,
so he took action.
Ever
wonder what it's like to be an illegal border crosser? Mexico's Parque
EcoAlberto offers tourists the chance to find out with caminata nocturna
- a staged adventure that simulates illegally crossing the Rio Grande
from Mexico into the United States.
Advertising:- They’re determined to get into your head by one means
or another, and a US company has found yet another way of invading your
privacy in the name of forcing you to pay attention to advertisements.
Sean
Hannity gets paid very generously to catapult propaganda, and he is
very enthuthiastic about what he does, In this clip, from his program
in which he is speaking with former California governor, Jerry Brown,
Hannity credits Ronald Reagan with creating 21 million new jobs, doubling
income to federal government, and the longest peacetime period of econimic
growth in history.
David Suzuki has called for political leaders to be thrown in jail for
ignoring the science behind climate change.
Political
activist Russell Means, a founder of the American Indian Movement, says
he and other members of Lakota tribes have renounced treaties and are
withdrawing from the United States.
ONTARIO,
California--Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing
planes sits "tent city," a terminus for homeless people. It is not,
as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming
suburbia of Southern California.
Having
a ravenous apetite for funing sources, the state of Maine has contrived
a way to take funds set aside to cover unused gift cards.
When
Rudolph Giuliani awoke on the morning of September 11, 2001, his political
career was in the toilet. Nearing the end of his second term as mayor
of New York City, a tenure marred by conflict and personal scandal,
his approval rating was in the dismal 30th percentile, and he was term-limited
from running again.
Battery
enthusiasts who enjoy lining their checked baggage with excess power
supplies are out of luck in 2008 under new government travel regulations,
but it looks as though the average traveler with a laptop, cell phone
or digital camera will not encounter nearly as much hassle as they might
should they be holding more than 3 ounces of moisturizer.
Lawn
Darts, Clackers, Sky Dancer, are all dangerous toys that serve the purpose
of weeding the gene pool and must be taken away.
At
some point in the not too distant future, a moth will take flight in
the hills of northern Pakistan, and flap towards a suspected terrorist
training camp.
In
the 1960's Lloyd Bridges starred in a television program called Sea
Hunt. As Mike Nelson, he would encounter terrorists almost every week
while he was diving underwater investigating things.
In
one America, a haircut costs $5-10 and consumes ten minutes of electricity.
Rodney
Coronado is caught up in a prosecution he never could have foreseen
and which has the environmentalist community, in particular, digging
in for a long fight with the federal government.
OTTAWA–A
Canadian "no-fly" list of people to be barred from boarding domestic
and international airline flights is set to take effect June 18, just
as the busy summer flying season gets underway.
Are
you an American? Then you owe over $500,000 in debt. Pay up now!
Parents
become rightly upset when they read news accounts of federal inspectors
finding insect bits, pesticides, and other contaminants lacing foods
that their children will eat. A new Japanese study now suggests that
the plastic tableware and containers from which we often serve foods
may contribute adulterants of their own—hormone-mimicking building blocks
of a plastic.
The
pulverized remains of bodies from the World Trade Center disaster site
were used by city workers to fill ruts and potholes, a city contractor
says in a sworn affidavit filed yesterday in Manhattan Federal Court.
The
bees may have gone AWOL, but the cicadas have arrived!
Most
people think the the US federal government is responsible for protecting
endangered species of plants and animals. Their assumption is wrong.
MISSOULA,
MT - The disappearance and deaths of millions of honeybees in nearly
half of the nation's states is a mystery seemingly befitting an episode
of "CSI" and is threatening an estimated $14 billion in crops that rely
on pollination.
The
so called War on Drugs has been raised to a new height of absurdity,
or perhaps descended to a new low of effectivness.
Millions
of Americans who claim they oppose the war in Iraq recetly paid to keep
it going.
She's 82 years old and today says she's not afraid to use a gun to protect
her community. This comes after she did just that shooting at a man's
car she says was trying to steal metal near her home in Pulaski County.
A
CIA employee who broke into McLean homes, stealing valuables and 1,074
pairs of women's undergarments, suffered from several mental health
disorders, a forensic psychologist testified yesterday. Among other
compulsions, he kept his fingernail clippings for 20 years and carefully
inspected his pens for fear that they were bugged.
Two years and 7,000 miles separate Spc. Ryan Preston of Gresham from
his service in Iraq.
Los Angeles, CA - Circuit City fired 3,400 employees in stores across
the country yesterday, saying they were making too much money and would
be replaced by new hires willing to work for less.
Banana
company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday it has agreed to
a $25 million fine after admitting it paid terrorists for protection
in a volatile farming region of Colombia.
Tucson,
AZ - President George Bush had ineptly handled the military mission
in Iraq, while his efforts to safegaurd the homeland have also proven
to be a dismal failure.
Baghdad,
Iraq - Saddam Hussein, the man who was president of Iraq for three times
longer than George Bush has been president of the US, was taken to the
gallows and lynched on Saturday.
Richmond,
VA - A video is making rounds on the Internet with men donning disguises
for a DMV photo. Posted last week, the nearly two-minute clip has already
prompted the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to revisit policies
regarding how the state agency reissues driver's licenses and how photographs
appear on IDs.
Oakley,
ID- Ten dead ducks were reported by hunters on Friday, Dec. 8. By Dec.
10, the number climbed to 500. Several Idaho and federal agencies concluded
an investigation this week and counted around 2,500 carcasses when cleanup
was complete Thursday. Most were found along the banks of Land Springs
Creek, 14 miles south of Burley.
Washington
DC – A California company under investigation on suspicion of hiring
undocumented workers won a contract in the late 1990s to help build
the San Diego border fence with Mexico to thwart illegal immigration,
federal records show. 
Under
a law enacted by Hitler in 1938 to enable the Reich to indoctrinate
children, if you practice home schooling in Germany youcan get police
forcing their way through your door, with you taken away and imprisoned
in an undisclosed location.
Diebold's
easily hacked voting machines have made voting to be an unpredictable
endeavor. Down in the Sunshine State, during a week of early voting
before next week's nationwide midterm election, certain Diebold machines
have been registering some votes for Democrats as selections for the
Republican candidate.
George
W. Bush’s blunt assertion that a Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 elections
means “the terrorists win and America loses” misses the point that Osama
bin Laden stands to advance his strategic goals much faster with a Republican
victory.
Should
you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed
to get on a plane or cruise ship? ("Mother, may I?")
Military recruiting in 2006 has been marked by upbeat pronouncements
from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, claims of success by the White
House, propaganda releases by the Pentagon, and a spate of recent press
reports touting the way the military has made its wo/manpower goals.
For
years Bill Clinton has been dogged by persistent rumors about killing
or having killed sevearal of his various enemies. Many of these are
listed in a document called the Clinton Body Count, and they include
several Arkansas enemies, as well as Vincent Foster. Foster allegedly
commited suicide during the Clinton administration, but a cloud of suspicion
remains concerning details of his death. 
An
obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago
has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved
in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes,
and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.
Growing
lines of irritated travelers snaked through U.S. airports Thursday as
people waited hours to reach security checkpoints, then had to dump
their water bottles, suntan lotion and even toothpaste following the
discovery of a terror plot in Britain.
Salt
Lake City, UT - A Southwest Airlines co-pilot was arrested minutes before
takeoff Sunday, after a security screener reported that his breath smelled
of alcohol, authorities said.
Atlanta,
GA - Hooters of America announced that it is prepared to reimburse FEMA
for the cost of a $200 bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne that was purchased
with government funds at a San Antonio Hooters during the Hurricane
Katrina relief efforts conducted by the Federal Agency.
A
man using a fake identification card was able to enter the Department
of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, even though the type
of Mexican-issued "matricula consular" card he used is not recognized
as valid by the United States government.
WASHINGTON,
D.C. - The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance
to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, getting hoodwinked to pay
for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce
lawyer, congressional investigators have found.
With
the proliferation of government and private databases, which are often
linked together, a simple transaction could take on a new character
in the near future.
RFID
tags are becoming more common, and will one day replace the Universal
Product Code we have all been familiar with for over 30 years.
The
War on Drugs was started to rid society of illicit drugs by arresting
suppliers, traffickers and users. After more than 40 years of effort,
and hundreds of billions of dollars spent eradicating illicit drugs,
the drug business is doing quite well. It would not be difficult to
conclude that the drug wars have cause the drug trade to prosper.
There
has been an ongoing story of the NSA listening to phone calls of Americans
who are talking to people in other countries. President Bush has authorized
this spying on Americans without warrants and has told the American
people it is okay to do this because 
Oceanside,
Alta California - A video was submitted to StaggerOn.org that shows
Mexican flags and a sign the says "La Raza" (The Race) being
consumed in fire.
PATERSON, NJ - Darnell Greene had a bone to pick today with this Delta
gas station attendant in Paterson, all due to yesterday's ten-dollar
fill-up.
Washington,
DC - President George W Bush has warned the country's schoolchildren
that if they did not have the skills needed to compete with their counterparts
from India and China, new jobs would go to those countries.
Each
trip to the gas pump digs a little deeper into your pocket. As you pay
more and more for the fuel to run your transportation needs, you have
less to spend on your other needs in your life. This cuts your standard
of living to a lower level.
Somehow,
in spite of all these hardships suffered by the oil companies, one of
them did quite well. Exxon did so well, in fact, that it had record
profits of $36 billion.
BAGHDAD,
Iraq - Claims by the Bush administration or the Pentagon of completing
the mission in Iraq and ordering troop withdrawal have been shown to
be a lie.
Austin,
Texas - Perhaps Homeland Security agents might want to take a break
from cruising the net for young teen poon and take a look at Eric R.
Pianka.
Miami,
Florida - One Homeland Security official got tired of connecting dots
leading to terrorists and botching emergency aid, so he decided to whet
his appetite for sexual encounters with young teen girls. 
Los
Angeles, California - A crowd of pro-immigration demonstrators estimated
at over 500,000 marched on downtown Los Angeles on Monday. 
Wheelchairbound
multiple sclerosis patient Richard Paey is serving 25 years in a Florida
prison for “trafficking” 1/2 gram of OxyContin, even though the prosecutor
concedes that Paey never sold any of his medications. In prison, he
now receives more pain-killing drugs than he was convicted of having.
KILLEEN, Texas -- The "special training" that a soldier gets
to complete missions like say, guarding Iraqi prisoners, is often useful
at home.
The
historic 2005 storm Katrina taught some very important lessons to those
who will learn from them.
It
is curious that George W. Bush appears to be administering a border
policy that is dictated to him by the Mexican president, Vicente Fox.
One
of the little goodies hidden in the Bush Administration "No Child
Left Behind" program is that it gives military recruiters closer
access to children in school.
You
may have been listening to the financial gurus who admonish you about
carrying a large amount of debt, so you decide to pull your resources
together and pay off your credit card.
Despite
reassurances from Bush aministration paid propagandists, the Patriot
Act is used to harass and annoy Americans, with almost no prosecution
of terrorists being done.
With
the Bush administation being synonymous with "miserable failure"
it is increasingly difficult to find supporters who defend any of the
policies that have strip mined American assets and squandered so many
lives.
In
the week that Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on the southeast U.S.
coast in August 2005, Bush administration officials knew what to expect,
and reassured others that they would have the assets in place needed
to deal with the disaster.
U.S.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is on a mission from God. In between
solving cases of terrorism, or some cynics would insist instead of
solving terrorism cases, Gonzales is on a crusade to eradicate pornography.
He may be acting on behalf of certain elements of the Bush administation's
religious supporters who get apoplectic at the sight of a Victoria's
Secret catalog. He could learn a lot from past investigations of this
sort.
Hours
after a commercial plane struck the Pentagon on September 11 2001 the
US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was issuing rapid orders to his
aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, according to notes
taken by one of them.
SAN FRANCISCO -
KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co.,
said Tuesday it has been awarded a contingency contract from the Department
of Homeland Security to supports its Immigration and Customs Enforcement
facilities in the event of an emergency. The maximum total value of
the contract is $385 million and consists of a 1-year base period with
four 1-year options. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 to
2005. 
For
many years states have required the collection of Social Security numbers
in order to issue a drivers license. Many people may not recall why
this is.
CHINO,
Calif. - Elio Carrion is an Air Force policeman who spent six months
deployed in Iraq. He was to have rejoined his unit Tuesday.
WASHINGTON
- Although 5 years of policy and action do not support his suggestion,
President George W Bush called for a cut of U.S. dependence on Mideast
oil by 75 percent.
U.S.
and Mexican officials on Tuesday were investigating a bizarre encounter
between Texas lawmen and heavily armed intruders who were wearing Mexican
military uniforms while evidently escorting a caravan of sport utility
vehicles that was smuggling marijuana into the United States.
Elk
Grove, California - The FBI and local school officials are under fire
after a high school student was interviewed by federal agents while
on campus. The FBI interview and resulting controversy was prompted
by a tip.
Is
Captain Kirk to be employed in the War on Terror?
Dorismar
-- aka Dora Noemi Kerchen -- has been many things: Playboy Playmate,
calendar pinup, performer at a Democratic National Convention party
and purveyor of sophisticated soft-core videos inspired by Girls Gone
Wild.
The
US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy
soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say.
Demonstrating once again that the Bush administration is out of touch
with the concerns of the American people, the latest example of this
disconnect concerns the uniform of the Border patrol, which has the
duty of securing U.S. borders, including a border with Mexico. 
"It's
embarrassing to be protecting the U.S.-Mexico border and be wearing
a uniform made in Mexico," says T.J. Bonner, president of the National
Border Patrol Council, a 6,500-member union.
That
is the career strategy of former FEMA director Michael Brown. He is
starting a new disaster preparedness firm.
With
the terrorists at large, as well as public corruption, narcotics and
other menaces to the nation, it would seem that the US Attorney General
would be judicious in how he allocates resources to protect public safety.
Not so. It appears he has a fascination with the affairs of what consenting
adults do in private. His panty sniffing mission is the latest development
in the Bush War on Porn. Agents are not so eager to join his crusade,
sharing such comments as, "I already gave at home", and "Honestly, most
of the guys would have to recuse themselves." The largest resistance
comes from the very large, and very mainstream porn industry, which
includes many very well known corporations.
Hello.
My name is Mr. Bill. I knew that New Orleans was in danger from a hurricane
and flooding for many years. I even made a video of it with my friends.
See what I knew and the president did not know. 
Flashing
your breasts in New Orleans can get you something better than beads.
You might even get authorities to rescue you from flood water.