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Cops commit sex crimes almost 3 times as often as public
Rapists with a Badge
by Paula Parmeley Carter, Cop Block
According to the 3rd Quarter Report of The National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, police officers were accused of sexual assault at a rate of 79 per 100,000 law enforcement personal. That is over two times the rate in the general public (28.7 per 100,000). The fact that rapists seem to be concentrated among a group of armed individuals who have the purported authority to detain and arrest other individuals should be more than a little alarming for even the most prolific police bootlicker. In just the last month, several stories of officers committing disgusting crimes have been in the news.
(Im leaving out author's examples, read them at the link)
How is woman supposed to protect herself from a “predator with a badge”? The weapon of choice for many of the above officers was their purported authority. When the perpetrator can threaten you with time in a cage, how likely are you to stand up for yourself? When the perpetrator is armed with a sidearm, pepper spray, a Taser and handcuffs, how is even the toughest person supposed to fight off unwanted advances?
Unfortunately, there may be few things you can do to protect yourself from a rapist with a badge. Even if you successfully resist an attack, you still may end up doing time for “resisting arrest” or assaulting a police officer. You may still be victimized. But, there is one weapon you have at our disposal to help prevent yourself from becoming a victim of a badged rapist; the video camera. Use it. Every time you interact with a police officer, you should record that interaction. If they want to know why you are recording them, tell them the truth, “I fear for my safety. You could be a rapist.”
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=34433
Gas companies blamed for more than 30 earthquakes in two cities in four days
A rash of earthquakes affecting two small American cities in the past week have baffled geologists - though locals are blaming gas companies.
The north-central Arkansas cities of Greenbrier and Guy have been affected by more than 30 earthquakes since Sunday ranging in magnitude from 1.8 to 3.8.
Geologists are still trying to discover the exact cause of the recent seismic activity but have identified two possibilities.
Geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey Scott Ausbrooks, said: 'The quakes are part of what is now called the Guy earthquake swarm — a series of mild earthquakes that have been occurring periodically since 2009.
It could just be a naturally occurring swarm like the Enola swarm, or it could be related to ongoing natural gas exploration in the area.'
But locals of the cities are not convinced.
Guy Police Chief Dave Martini said they continue to blame the gas companies for the quakes: 'We have a disposal well here just outside of the city. People are suspecting that to be causing it, even though there isn't any proof of that.'
Martini said the earthquakes started increasing in frequency over the past week and that the disposal well has seen an increase in use recently.
The biggest quake this week occurred this morning and measured 3.8. At least 16 others occurred yesterday, two of which were magnitude 3.2 and 3.5.
A total of 700 earthquakes have occurred in the region in the last six months.
A major source of natural gas in Arkansas is the Fayetteville Shale, an organically-rich rock formation in north-central Arkansas.
Drillers free up the gas by using hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking' — injecting pressurized water to create fractures deep in the ground.
Mr Ausbrooks said geologists don't believe the production wells are the problem, but rather the injection wells that are used to dispose of 'frack' water when it can no longer be re-used. The wastewater is pressurized and injected into the ground.
He said: 'We see no correlation between natural gas production wells and earthquakes, but we haven't ruled out injection wells.
'If production wells were the cause, the earthquakes would be scattered all over the region underlain by the Fayetteville Shale formation and not in just one area.'
Lawrence Bengal, director of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, said a six-month moratorium was established in January on new injection wells in the area.
The moratorium, which is expected to end in July, is intended to allow time to study the relationship — if any — between the injection wells and earthquakes in the area.
The largest quake of the Guy Earthquake Swarm was a magnitude 4.0, which occurred in October, Ausbrooks said. The region could possibly see quakes reaching as high as 5.0, but he said anything above 6.0 is unlikely.
Mr Ausbrooks said: 'These periods of high activity are not uncommon. I don't think it's anything to be overly concerned about. We always encourage people to keep tuned in to what's going on and to always have an all-hazards disaster preparedness kit.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1358107/Gas-companies-blamed-spate-earthquakes-days.html
Dueling Demonstrations in Madison
Tens of thousands of demonstrators have been making their case at the Capitol. For the first time since the protests began early in the week, Tea Party activists set up stage Saturday, although they were greatly outnumbered by...(4:18 of Audio)
http://www.wuwm.com/media/news/news_021911153225.mp3
Navy’s Superlaser Blasts Away a Record
NEWPORT NEWS, Virginia — Walking into a control station at Jefferson Labs, Quentin Saulter started horsing around with his colleague, Carlos Hernandez. Saulter had spent the morning showing two reporters his baby: the laboratory version of the Navy’s death ray of the future, known as the free-electron laser, or FEL. He asked Hernandez, the head of injector- and electron-gun systems for the project, to power a mock-up electron gun — the pressure-pumping heart of this energy weapon — to 500 kilovolts. No one has ever cranked the gun that high before.
Smiling through his glasses and goatee, Hernandez motioned for Saulter to click and drag a line on his computer terminal up to the 500-kV mark. He had actually been running the electron injector at that kilovoltage for the past eight hours. It’s a goal that eluded him for six years.
Saulter, the program manager for the free-electron laser, was momentarily stunned. Then he realized what just happened. “This is very significant,” he says, still a bit shocked. Now, the Navy “can speed up the transition of FEL-weapons-system technology” from a Virginia lab to the high seas.
Translated from the Nerd: Thanks to Hernandez, the Navy will now have a more powerful death ray aboard a future ship sooner than expected, in order to burn incoming missiles out of the sky or zap through an enemy vessel’s hull.
“Five hundred [kilovolts] has been the project goal for a long time,” says George Neil, the FEL associate director at Jefferson Labs, whose Rav 4 license plate reads LASRMAN. “The injector area is one of the critical areas” of the whole project.
The free-electron laser is one of the Navy’s highest-priority weapons programs, and it’s not hard to see why. “We’re fast approaching the limits of our ability to hit maneuvering pieces of metal in the sky with other maneuvering pieces of metal,” says Rear Adm. Nevin Carr, the Navy’s chief of research. The next level: “fighting at the speed of light and hypersonics” — that is, the free-electron laser and the Navy’s Mach-8 electromagnetic rail gun.
Say goodbye to an adversary’s antiship missiles, and prepare to fire bullets from 200 miles away, far from shoreline defenses. No wonder the Navy asked Congress to double its budget for directed-energy weapons this week to $60 million, most of which will go to the free-electron laser.
It won’t be until the 2020s, Carr estimates, that a free-electron laser will be mounted on a ship. (Same goes for the rail gun.) Right now, the free-electron laser produces a 14-kilowatt beam. It needs to get to 100 kilowatts to be viable to defend a ship, the Navy thinks. But what happened at Jefferson Labs Friday shrinks the time necessary to get to 100 kilowatts and expands the lethality of the laser. Here’s why.
All lasers start off as atoms that get agitated into becoming photons, light that’s focused through some kind of medium, like chemicals or crystals, into a beam operating on a particular wavelength. But the free-electron laser is unique: It doesn’t use a medium, just supercharged electrons run through a racetrack of superconductors and magnets — an accelerator, to be technical — until it produces a beam that can operate on multiple wavelengths.
That means the beam from the free-electron laser won’t lose potency as it runs through all the crud in ocean air, because its operators will be able to adjust its wavelengths to compensate. And if you want to make it more powerful, all you need to do is add electrons.
But to add electrons, you need to inject pressure into your power source, so the electrons shake out and run through the racetrack. That’s done through a gun called an injector. In the basement of a building in Jefferson Labs, a 240-foot racetrack uses a 300-kilovolt injector to pressurize the electrons out of 200 kilowatts of power and send them shooting through the accelerator.
Currently, the free-electron laser project produces the most-powerful beam in the world, able to cut through 20 feet of steel per second. If it gets up to its ultimate goal, of generating a megawatt’s worth of laser power, it’ll be able to burn through 2,000 feet of steel per second. Just add electrons.
And that’s why Hernandez’s achievement is so important. He shrugs, concealing his pride. A powerful accelerator at Cornell University is “stuck at 250? kilovolts, he grins. And he’s on a roll. Hernandez’s team fired up the injector in December with enough pressure to prove the FEL will ultimately reach megawatt class. Steel: Beware.
“It definitely shortens our time frame for getting to 100 kilowatts,” Saulter says, and it produces a “more powerful light beam.” But he won’t speculate on how much sooner this means the laser can get into the fleet. In any case, the Navy doesn’t yet have the systems to divert the amount of power from its ships’ generators necessary to operate the laser, but anticipates it will by the 2020s.
There are still a lot of obstacles to getting the free-electron laser onto a ship. The 240-foot racetrack that Neil built at Jefferson Labs — a scale model of one that’s underground here, seven-eighths-of-a-mile long — is way too big. Boeing has a contract to build an initial workable prototype by 2012, but by 2015 the racetrack has to be much, much smaller: 50 feet by 20 feet by 10 feet. And as the model shrinks, it’s got to get more efficient in harvesting photons from electrons.
But that starts by getting more electrons out of the power source.The better the injector is at that, the more powerful a beam results, even presuming that the engineers can’t keep finding efficient ways of getting their photons. Walking into a conference room, Saulter is still stunned. He figured he’d just wind Hernandez up by putting the project’s ultimate goal in his colleague’s face. “I had no idea he’d get up to that today.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/unexpectedly-navys-superlaser-blasts-away-a-record/
The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has issued a report card on the teaching of history to K-12 students, and a lot of states won’t want to see their grades.
http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2011/20110216_SOSHS/SOSS_History_FINAL.pdf
7,500 Online Shoppers Accidentally Sold Their Souls To Gamestation
April Fool's 2010 saw some pretty clever online pranks. Google, for instance, changed its name to Topeka for the entirety of April First. This came in response to a stunt by Topeka, KS, which temporarily changed its name to 'Google' in a bid to win Google's ultra-fast broadband.
But one prank, so unique in its maleficence, distinguishes itself. The devious prank, pulled by GameStation, an online gaming store, resulted in the voluntary surrender of 7,500 souls.
The soul-snatching was made possible through what Switched calls the "immortal soul clause" buried in the site's terms and conditions. The clause, as published by GameStation, reads,
"By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorized minions."
Fox News commented on the poignancy of the prank: "No one reads the online terms and conditions of shopping, and companies are free to insert whatever language they want into the documents."
Indeed, only 12 percent of purchasers noticed the ruse, GameStation even included a hyper-linked option that read "click here to nullify your soul transfer" and rewarded astute shoppers with a coupon worth 5 GBP. Nevertheless, 88 percent of the day's transactions included human souls.
Now that April Fool's Day has passed, the benevolent GameStation has nullified all claims to their customers' souls.
Feeling the Radiohead, bumping Immortal Technique - The 4th Branch
How do we even define what a law is anymore? When you can buy your way out, or be granted exception? How many laws are there? Does anyone even know what they all are? Didn't CA alone pass about 725 new ones for 2011?
House votes to block funds for health overhaul law
WASHINGTON -- The House has voted to block money to implement President Barack Obama's health care law, a victory for Republicans trying to derail the program.
Lawmakers voted to deny the money by a near party-line vote of 239-187.
Republicans say the health care overhaul, enacted last year, was an overstepping of power by Washington and would hurt the economy. Democrats say by preventing government agencies from carrying out the law, Republicans would harm families and help the insurance industry.
The provision was made part of GOP bill cutting federal spending this year.
The House voted earlier this year to completely repeal the health program. But support for the overhaul by Obama and the Democratic-run Senate means House Republicans will almost certainly have to settle for less.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/18/AR2011021804124.html
House votes to continue military sponsorship of NASCAR teams
The House voted 281-148 on Friday against Minnesota Congresswoman Betty McCollum's amendment to ban military sponsorship of NASCAR teams.
Most Democrats backed McCollum's amendment, while Republicans overwhelmingly voted against it.
The measure failed in a recorded vote just before 2 p.m. Eastern. It had failed by voice vote on Thursday night, but McCollum called for a recorded vote.
The National Guard sponsors Dale Earnhardt Jr., the U.S. Army sponsors Ryan Newman and the U.S. Air Force sponsors AJ Allmendinger.
The Army pays $7.4 million to sponsor Newman's car. The Air Force pays under $2 million, including activation, to sponsor Allmendinger. The National Guard decreased its sponsorship fees 35 percent from last year when it paid $20,075,000 in sponsorship fees on the No. 88 team last year and $12,700,000 in sponsorship fees for the No. 24 team at Hendrick Motorsports (for a total of $32,775,000 in sponsorship fees).
Officials from the various military branches have defended their programs, saying they help with recruitment and awareness.
Lt. Gen Benjamin Freakley could not say how many potential Army recruits reached through the NASCAR program joined the military but said there’s more to it than that.
“It’s to get them to be more aware and get them to be more engaged in having the discussion … of should the military be for me,’’ Freakley said at Daytona International Speedway. “There’s less and less discussion about the military in my future as young person from what our statistics tell us.’’
He noted that the Army had leads with more than 150,000 candidates through its motorsports programs.
Freakley also said that “we look year-to-year at these programs and make sure we’re getting the best return on investment.’’
U.S. Senator Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said in a phone interview that he supported the military sponsorship of NASCAR teams.
“I don’t think (McCollum) appreciates the recruiting value of sponsors in NASCAR,’’ he said. “The only reason companies sponsor cars or races is because they can see marketing value from the exposure that they get or they wouldn’t do it. Nobody wants to throw away their money.
“The same thing is true when the military has sponsored cars. If the military thinks this is the best way to do their recruiting, along with the other things they do, I think you have to let them make that decision. They’re going to spend money on recruiting one way or the other.’’
http://hamptonroads.com/2011/02/house-votes-continue-military-sponsorship-nascar-teams
FBI to announce new Net-wiretapping push
The FBI is expected to reveal tomorrow that because of the rise of Web-based e-mail and social networks, it's "increasingly unable" to conduct certain types of surveillance that would be possible on cellular and traditional telephones.
FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni will outline what the bureau is calling the "Going Dark" problem, meaning that police can be thwarted when conducting court-authorized eavesdropping because Internet companies aren't required to build in back doors in advance, or because technology doesn't permit it.
Any solution, according to a copy of Caproni's prepared comments obtained by CNET, should include a way for police armed with wiretap orders to conduct surveillance of "Web-based e-mail, social networking sites, and peer-to-peer communications technology."
The last example, which was floated last fall, is likely to be the most contentious. When an encrypted voice application like Phil Zimmermann's Zfone is used, the entire conversation is scrambled from end to end. It's like handing a letter directly to its recipient--bypassing workers at the neighborhood post office, who could be required to forward a copy to the FBI.
Forcing companies like Zfone and Skype, which also uses encryption for peer-to-peer calls, to build in back doors for police access was rejected in the 1990s and would mark a dramatic departure from current practice. And anyone hoping to foil the FBI could download encrypted VoIP software from European firms like Lichtenstein-based Secfone, which sells it for Android phones.
Caproni's remarks don't, however, include a specific proposal. "Most our interception challenges could be solved using existing technologies," she says, "that can be deployed without re-designing the Internet and without exposing the provider's system to outside malicious activity." In addition, she says, "the Going Dark problem does not require fundamental changes in encryption technology."
The FBI's announcement comes amid two countervailing trends: a coalition of advocacy groups and technology companies including AT&T and Google is pressing to rewrite federal law to include additional privacy protections for cloud computing and mobile devices. Meanwhile, the Justice Department and some conservative Republicans have proposed that Internet service providers (and perhaps Web companies as well) be required to keep records of what their customers are doing, a concept called data retention.
Yesterday some members of that same coalition--the American Library Association, the Center for Democracy and Technology, NetCoalition (Google, Yahoo, and CNET are members), and TechFreedom--released an open letter expressing concerns about the FBI's push to broaden wiretapping laws. At the very least, the letter says, the bureau must "identify the particular services or technologies most in need of additional surveillance capability" and demonstrate that alternatives to new laws won't work.
The FBI is couching its arguments in broad terms, saying it's only trying to preserve the ability to conduct wiretaps as technology advances. "Any solution to the Going Dark problem should ensure" that once a judge has approved a wiretap request, Caproni is expected to tell a House of Representatives committee tomorrow, "the government is technologically able to execute that court order in a timely fashion."
Today's capabilities
Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kevin Bankston said this evening that the FBI already can intercept messages on social-networking sites and Web-based e-mail services with existing law. (This was the purpose of the FBI surveillance system known as Carnivore, later renamed DCS1000.)
"Facebook messages and Gmail messages travel in plain text over those same broadband wires for which the FBI demanded wiretapping capability just a few years ago," Bankston said. "Why has that new capability not been sufficient?"
Congress should investigate exactly how the FBI has used its existing interception capabilities, he said, before contemplating "adding to that capability and forcing online communications service providers to redesign their systems to introduce new security vulnerabilities to facilitate government wiretapping."
Under a 1994 federal law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, telecommunications carriers are required to build in back doors into their networks to assist police with authorized interception of conversations and "call-identifying information."
As CNET was the first to report in 2003, representatives of the FBI's Electronic Surveillance Technology Section in Chantilly, Va., began quietly lobbying the FCC to force broadband providers to provide more-efficient, standardized surveillance facilities. The Federal Communications Commission approved that requirement a year later, sweeping in Internet phone companies that tie into the existing telecommunications system. It was upheld in 2006 by a federal appeals court.
But the FCC never granted the FBI's request to rewrite CALEA to cover instant messaging and VoIP programs that are not "managed"--meaning peer-to-peer programs like Apple's Facetime, iChat/AIM, Gmail's video chat, and Xbox Live's in-game chat that do not use the public telephone network.
In the last few years, according to Caproni's prepared remarks, investigations have been hindered because of the lack of built-in back doors. Examples she cites include a two-year Drug Enforcement Administration investigation into cocaine importation that was thwarted because an unnamed communications provider lacked intercept ability, and a 2009 child pornography prosecution where neither the (unnamed) social networking site nor the (unnamed) communication provider could intercept the communications.
"On a regular basis, the government is unable to obtain communications and related data, even when authorized by a court to do so," Caproni's statement says. It adds, however, that the Obama administration does not have an official position on whether any legislative changes are necessary.
If Congress does nothing, law enforcement still has options. Police can obtain a special warrant allowing them to sneak into someone's house or office, install keystroke-logging software, and record passphrases. The Drug Enforcement Agency adopted this technique in a case where suspects used PGP and the encrypted Web e-mail service Hushmail.com. And the FBI did the same thing in an investigation of an alleged PGP-using mobster named Nicodemo Scarfo.
Another option is to send the suspect spyware, which documents obtained by CNET through the Freedom of Information Act in 2009 showed the FBI has done in cases involving extortionists, database-deleting hackers, child molesters, and hitmen. The FBI's spyware is called CIPAV, for Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier.
Update 12:00 a.m. PT Thursday: I should have noted that the EFF obtained some relevant documents via FOIA a few weeks ago that they posted on Wednesday, just in time for the House hearing. Among the high points: the FBI's Operational Technology Division says that the Going Dark program is one of the FBI's "top initiatives." There's a five-pronged Going Dark program that includes extending existing laws and seeking new federal funding to bolster lawful intercept capabilities. Going Dark has been an FBI initiative since at least 2006 and has involved writing checks to consultants at RAND Corporation and Booz, Allen and Hamilton to come up with solutions.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20032518-281.html
THEONION: Al Qaeda Populating U.S. With Peaceful 'Decoy Muslims'
http://www.theonion.com/video/al-qaeda-populating-us-with-peaceful-decoy-muslims,18980/
"As part of his campaign platform, Walker proposed cutting state employee wages and benefits and rolling back 2009 state tax increases on small businesses, capital gains, and income for top earners. Supporters said that tax cuts for businesses would reduce the cost of labor, which would ultimately promote consumer demand and more job growth. As a candidate, Walker indicated he would refuse an $800 million dollar award from the federal Department of Transportation to build a high speed railroad line from Madison to Milwaukee because he believed it would cost the state $7.5 million per year to operate and would not be profitable. The award was later rescinded and split among other states"
My .02
Walker is a politician who started young, and knows how the game works. While I do not agree with it, we all know politicos advance their careers by horse-trading with big money, regardless of us commoners. Maybe people should have listened to what he was saying before he was elected Gov. No surprise with Red Versus Blue games, high speed rail, Obama drama, etc.
In short, everyone involved in acting in their own financial self-interest. Of Course! Who always wins in a system controlled by money?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Walker_%28politician%29
http://www.followthemoney.org/database/uniquecandidate.phtml?uc=20394
"Former employees of the US Institute of Peace will be transferred to the department of kicking ass and blowing shit up"
Democrats flee Wisconsin to protest union curbs
Wisconsin state Senate Democrats fled the state on Thursday to protest a Republican plan to sharply curtail union rights for public employees, and President Barack Obama weighed in on their side.
"We were left with no choice," Democrat Sen. Jon Erpenbach said of the decision to leave Wisconsin rather than debate the plan in the legislature. He was speaking to WisPolitics, an online news service.
Asked when the Democrats would return, Erpenbach said, "The question is when are the Republicans going to sit down seriously with the other side on this issue and try to work something out."
Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed sharply curbing the bargaining rights of public unions in order to make immediate budget savings. The move sparked outrage among union workers who protested at the Wisconsin state house this week.
Speaking about the issue Thursday in a television interview, President Barack Obama said that while he understands state governments' need to make cuts, the Wisconsin proposal seems like "an assault on unions."
"Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions," Obama said.
Capitol police estimated 25,000 people, many carrying signs protesting the Republican plan, converged on the state Capitol building on Thursday, including 5,000 packed inside. The protests, which began on Monday, have grown in numbers every day this week, police said.
Scheduled debate on the proposal was scrapped because a quorum of 20 senators was needed and there are 19 Republicans. The state House of Representatives also has a Republican majority.
Walker issued a statement Thursday calling Democratic legislators "disrespectful" and calling on them to return to work.
Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said that Wisconsin pioneered collective bargaining for state workers in the 1960s.
"All this is taking place against a backdrop of mass protest in Cairo and elsewhere where people are trying to form unions..." said Shaiken. "It's an unusual moment with high stakes -- and not just for Wisconsin ... It has huge political implications."
U.S. state and local governments are struggling to balance their budgets this year, after the recession decimated their finances. Some states such as Wisconsin, Texas, Arizona and Ohio are trying to make deep cuts in spending to balance the books. Others such as Minnesota and Illinois, are raising taxes.
In Ohio, where the state Senate is considering a similar law known as SB5 that would eliminate collective bargaining for many state workers, thousands of demonstrators, some carrying signs that read "Kill SB5" or "Stop SB5" packed the lawn outside the state Capitol.
Among the protesters was former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat who lost the election last year to Republican John Kasich, who supports the measure.
By late afternoon, the Ohio protesters had moved into an atrium adjacent to the old state Capitol where loudspeakers were set up to monitor the debate inside the Senate chamber.
Many Wisconsin schools throughout the state closed Thursday -- the second consecutive day in the capitol of Madison -- after the state's largest teachers union called for members to join the protests at the state Capitol.
"This is not about protecting our pay and benefits. It is about our right to collectively bargain," teacher's union President Mary Bell said.
A component of Walker's plan that calls for a bond restructuring put the legislation on the fast track for approval. The governor wants the state to push principal payments on its general obligation bonds into future years to save $165 million.
Because those payments are due on March 15, the bill must be passed by February 25 to allow for time to sell the debt. The deal would involve about $210 million of bonds priced through lead underwriter Citigroup, according to Frank Hoadley, the state's capital finance director.
Senate Joint Finance Committee co-chair Alberta Darling, said the choice facing Wisconsin was either to get the concessions from unions, or lay off public employees.
"It's not like we're choosing to do this. We are broke," she said.
The Wisconsin battle is gaining national attention, with both liberal and conservative talk shows highlighting the issue and saying that this is a national fight over union rights.
The Wisconsin boycott is reminiscent of 2003, when Republicans took control of the Texas Legislature. Texas House Democrats fled to Oklahoma to avoid a vote on congressional redistricting.
The move blocked the Texas House from acting for four days. Senate Democrats later traveled to New Mexico, also to prevent a redistricting vote. Despite the Democrats' efforts, redrawn maps that favored Republicans, and were backed by then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, ultimately passed.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/18/us-wisconsin-protests-idUSTRE71H01920110218
My credit card had a 79.9% APR
Toni Riss had a credit card with a 79.9% interest rate.
The 58-year-old woman from Texas thought she struck gold when she found the First Premier card, which is aimed specifically at consumers with poor credit.
"I had an accident on a motorcycle, went through bankruptcy to pay for medical expenses and my credit went to hell in a hand basket, so I was looking for credit cards for people with bad credit" Riss said.
They granted her a card with a $300 limit -- typical for new customers -- and a starting rate of 29.9%, which Riss said she considered decent given her credit score.
But about six months after opening the card -- at the end of 2009 -- she received an unwelcome surprise in the mail.
"I about had a heart attack when I got a disclosure notice saying that my starting rate of 29.9% was going up to 79.9%," said Riss. "It was ludicrous. Talk about a highway robbery."
At that same time, First Premier Bank launched a new credit card with the sky-high 79.9% rate.
The card proved popular with consumers, said First Premier Bankcard CEO Miles Beacom, but the performance was bad: "A lot of the people ran up the card, defaulted and went directly to charge off."
As a result, they dropped the rate to 59.9%. "We also tested it at 23%, 33%, 45%, but 59.9% is the one that shows the best performance and where the organization can market the product," he said.
Since then, nearly 700,000 people have signed up for the 59.9% card -- and more than half of them carry a monthly balance, Beacom said. (The company later clarified that 280,000 people have an active 59.9% card -- 700,000 have applied for First Premier prodcuts since late 2009.)
And yes, that rate is completely legal. The Card Act, which was passed in late 2009 to protect consumers from predatory lenders, only prevents issuers from raising rates retroactively. Credit card issuers are free to charge whatever rate they want at the front end.
Beacom, however, denied that Riss would have had her rate jacked up. He said they only issued new cards at that APR.
Still, Riss insisted that she was offered the 79.9% rate, and that when she tried to cancel the card, it took nearly six months. And, she said, First Premier charged fees the entire time and then put her in collections when she didn't pay.
Amex offered my 3-year-old a card
Beacom didn't deny that First Premier has high fees. In fact, he said that before the Card Act capped the charges at 25% of the credit line, First Premier relied on them to offset the risk of its customers.
"Before the new regulations we had the ability to hold specific individuals accountable for their own actions by charging these fees," he said. "Now we must spread this risk out among all our customers through higher APRs."
First Premier charges a total of $135 per year in fees. It starts with a $45 processing fee to open the account. Then there's an annual fee of $30 for the first year -- $45 for every subsequent year. Plus, there's a monthly servicing fee of $6.25 (or $75 a year).
Cash advances will cost you $5 or 3%, whichever is greater; late payments ring up at $35. The bank will also charge you $35 if a payment on your account is returned due to insufficient funds or any other reason.
But Beacom said the bank used to charge $175 for just the processing fee and annual fee alone.
And yet the customers keep coming. The company said it serves nearly 3 million customers nationwide and receives anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 applications a month.
There is a huge -- and growing -- need for cards serving customers with "less than perfect credit," Beacom said. However, he added, the company is now more cautious due to the Card Act, so it is only opening about 50,000 accounts a month.
The company said this has forced it to cut its workforce by more than 20% last year, and it will reduce its headcount by another 400 to 500 people this year.
In an attempt to find a new product that will bring in fees and customers without being as risky, First Premier plans to start testing a card with a $700 limit and a 25% interest rate.
"The approach is much like high-risk auto insurance," Beacom said. "If you have a bad driving record, you have to pay more and once your driving record has improved, your premiums will come down When the cardholder's credit score improves, they may start to qualify for more traditional types of credit card offers with better rates and less fees."
That's what Riss has done, but no thanks to First Premier. She said she has slowly built up her credit since ditching the card and eventually qualified for a card with a much lower interest rate and fewer fees.
"I eventually picked myself up and re-established myself, but I want to be a warning to people who would ever think this is a good deal," said Riss.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/07/pf/credit_card_interest_rate/index.htm
Dems missing from Wis. Capitol ahead of union vote
Police officers were dispatched Thursday to find Wisconsin state lawmakers who had apparently boycotted a vote on a sweeping bill that would strip most government workers of their collective bargaining rights.
The lawmakers, all Democrats in the state Senate, did not show up when they were ordered to attend a midday vote on the legislation.
The proposal has been the focus of intense protests at the Statehouse for three days. As Republicans tried to begin Senate business Thursday, observers in the gallery screamed "Freedom! Democracy! Unions!"
Republicans hold a 19-14 majority, but they need at least one Democrat to be present before taking a vote on the bill.
"Today they checked out, and I'm not sure where they're at," Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said. "This is the ultimate shutdown, what we're seeing today."
Democratic Minority Leader Mark Miller released a statement on behalf of all Democrats urging Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans to listen to opponents of the measure and seek a compromise. His statement did not address where Democrats were or when they planned to return.
Bill opponents in the Senate gallery cheered when Senate President Mike Ellis announced that there were not enough senators present to proceed.
The bill came to the Senate after the Legislature's budget committee endorsed it just before midnight Wednesday.
Walker and Republican leaders have said they have the votes to pass the plan.
That didn't stop thousands of protesters from clogging the hallway outside the Senate chamber beating on drums, holding signs deriding Walker and pleading for lawmakers to kill the bill. Protesters also demonstrated outside the homes of some lawmakers.
Hundreds of teachers called in sick, forcing a number of school districts to cancel classes. Madison schools, the state's second-largest district with 24,000 students, closed for a second day as teachers poured into the Capitol.
Hundreds more people, many of them students from the nearby University of Wisconsin, slept in the rotunda for a second night.
"We are all willing to come to the table, we've have all been willing from day one," said Madison teacher Rita Miller. "But you can't take A, B, C, D and everything we've worked for in one fell swoop."
The head of the 98,000-member statewide teachers union called on all Wisconsin residents to come to the Capitol on Thursday for the votes in the Senate and Assembly.
"Our goal is not to close schools, but instead to remain vigilant in our efforts to be heard," said Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell.
The proposal marks a dramatic shift for Wisconsin, which passed a comprehensive collective bargaining law in 1959 and was the birthplace of the national union representing all non-federal public employees.
But so far, Democrats have been powerless to stop the bill.
"The story around the world is the rush to democracy," said Democratic Sen. Bob Jauch of Poplar. "The story in Wisconsin is the end of the democratic process."
In addition to eliminating collective bargaining rights, the legislation also would make public workers pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage — increases Walker calls "modest" compared with those in the private sector.
Republican leaders said they expected Wisconsin residents would be pleased with the savings the bill would achieve — $30 million by July 1 and $300 million over the next two years to address a $3.6 billion budget shortfall.
"I think the taxpayers will support this idea," Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said.
Wisconsin has long been a bastion for workers' rights. It was the first state to grant collective bargaining rights to public employees more than a half-century ago. And the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was founded in 1936 in Madison.
But when voters elected Walker, an outspoken conservative, along with GOP majorities in both legislative chambers, it set the stage for a dramatic reversal of the state's labor history.
Under Walker's plan, state employees' share of pension and health care costs would go up by an average of 8 percent.
Unions still could represent workers, but could not seek pay increases above those pegged to the Consumer Price Index unless approved by a public referendum. Unions also could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized.
In exchange for bearing more costs and losing bargaining leverage, public employees were promised no furloughs or layoffs. Walker has threatened to order layoffs of up to 6,000 state workers if the measure does not pass.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_wisconsin_budget_unions;_ylt=AjvDcv2SiG5U59HEKC1Kcwms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNxdmN2Y240BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwMjE3L3VzX3dpc2NvbnNpbl9idWRnZXRfdW5pb25zBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMgRwb3MDNwRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDZGVtc21pc3Npbmdm
Freedom Watch 2/16/11, Good stuff this episode on WI Protest/Unions/SS/Budget
Iran will send two warships through the Suez Canal.
U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’
The US Government has yet again shuttered several domain names this week. The Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE office proudly announced that they had seized domains related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. What they failed to mention, however, is that one of the targeted domains belongs to a free DNS provider, and that 84,000 websites were wrongfully accused of links to child pornography crimes.
As part of “Operation Save Our Children” ICE’s Cyber Crimes Center has again seized several domain names, but not without making a huge error. Last Friday, thousands of site owners were surprised by a rather worrying banner that was placed on their domain.
“Advertisement, distribution, transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography constitute federal crimes that carry penalties for first time offenders of up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution,” was the worrying message they read on their websites.
As with previous seizures, ICE convinced a District Court judge to sign a seizure warrant, and then contacted the domain registries to point the domains in question to a server that hosts the warning message. However, somewhere in this process a mistake was made and as a result the domain of a large DNS service provider was seized.
The domain in question is mooo.com, which belongs to the DNS provider FreeDNS. It is the most popular shared domain at afraid.org and as a result of the authorities’ actions a massive 84,000 subdomains were wrongfully seized as well. All sites were redirected to the banner below.
This banner was visible on the 84,000 sites
The FreeDNS owner was taken by surprise and quickly released the following statement on their website. “Freedns.afraid.org has never allowed this type of abuse of its DNS service. We are working to get the issue sorted as quickly as possible.”
Eventually, on Sunday the domain seizure was reverted and the subdomains slowly started to point to the old sites again instead of the accusatory banner. However, since the DNS entries have to propagate, it took another 3 days before the images disappeared completely.
Most of the subdomains in question are personal sites and sites of small businesses. A search on Bing still shows how innocent sites were claimed to promote child pornography. A rather damaging accusation, which scared and upset many of the site’s owners.
One of the customers quickly went out to assure visitors that his site was not involved in any of the alleged crimes.
“You can rest assured that I have not and would never be found to be trafficking in such distasteful and horrific content. A little sleuthing shows that the whole of the mooo.com TLD is impacted. At first, the legitimacy of the alerts seems to be questionable — after all, what reputable agency would display their warning in a fancily formatted image referenced by the underlying HTML? I wouldn’t expect to see that.”
Even at the time of writing people can still replicate the effect by adding “74.81.170.110 mooo.com” to their hosts file as the authorities have not dropped the domain pointer yet. Adding mooo.com will produce a different image than picking a random domain (child porn vs. copyright), which confirms the mistake.
Although it is not clear where this massive error was made, and who’s responsible for it, the Department of Homeland security is conveniently sweeping it under the rug. In a press release that went out a few hours ago the authorities were clearly proud of themselves for taking down 10 domain names.
However, DHS conveniently failed to mention that 84,000 websites were wrongfully taken down in the process, shaming thousands of people in the process.
“Each year, far too many children fall prey to sexual predators and all too often, these heinous acts are recorded in photos and on video and released on the Internet,” Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano commented.
“DHS is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to shut down websites that promote child pornography to protect these children from further victimization,” she added.
A noble initiative, but one that went wrong, badly. The above failure again shows that the seizure process is a flawed one, as has been shown several times before in earlier copyright infringement sweeps. If the Government would only allow for due process to take place, this and other mistakes wouldn’t have been made.
http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-shuts-down-84000-websites-by-mistake-110216/
New Monopoly trades money and dice for no-nonsense computer
Jeopardy isn't the only game being threatened by computer domination.
A new version of board game staple Monopoly will ditch the dice and paper money in exchange for an ominous computer tower that monitors player activity. Hasbro unveiled the product --somewhat ironically dubbed "Monopoly Live" -- at this week's Toy Fair in New York, reports The New York Times.
The ten-inch tower sits in the middle of the game board, using infrared technology to keep track of the action while barking out instructions to players. Move one too many spaces? The (all-seeing eye) computer tower will know. It even rolls the (virtual) dice for you.
Thankfully, the core element of the Monopoly board -- the location of properties -- has remained unchanged, so you can still set up your favorite hotel chains, land on free parking and scoop up dough by passing "Go." But say goodbye to that brightly colored Monopoly money and those Community Chest and Chance cards -- if it's made of paper, it's pretty much gone. Instead, players will buy and sell properties by holding their hands over special decals and will check their accounts by inserting ATM cards into the tower.
The Big Brother-like move is intended to revive interest in the dwindling board game market.
"How do we give them the video game and the board game with the social experience? That's where Monopoly Live came in," Jane Ritson-Parsons, global brand leader for Monopoly, told the Times.
The newfangled Monopoly is sure to have detractors, however. Players have long considered the basic Monopoly rules to be more a set of loose guidelines, and have traditionally livened things up by encouraging sneakier tactics like hiding money and making deals with other players on the fly. With the tower overseeing every move, such casual cheating will be a thing of the past.
With Monopoly Live, Hasbro is hoping to appeal to younger players more accustomed to the fast-paced world of digital downloads and bite-sized game apps (the biggest of which, Angry Birds, will be getting the board game treatment later this year.) It's planned to be a shorter, quicker experience that doesn't require thumbing through an instruction manual, and will even include random mini-games -- such as a horse race or sudden property auction -- to break up the game's oft-criticized monotony.
The game goes on sale this fall for $50. Other Hasbro franchises will receive a similar upgrade in the future, with Battleship going under the hi-tech knife later this year.
http://blog.games.yahoo.com/blog/396-new-monopoly-trades-money-and-dice-for-no-nonsense-computer/
(( I don't think it's fair Hasbro is the only company alllowed to make and sell this game ))
Another Study Confirms Anti-Cancer Effects of THC and CBD
Over the last decade there have been numerous publications demonstrating the anti-cancer effects of plant and synthetic cannabinoids. Notably, the main ingredient of Cannabis, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), has demonstrated the ability to kill multiple types of cancers in a variety of cancer research models. CBD (cannabidiol), another common plant component, has also shown the ability to kill cancer cells, recently it has been used to successfully treat breast cancer in a mouse research model of the disease.
Certain types of brain cancer appear to be vulnerable to cannabinoids such as THC and CBD. Scientific research has demonstrated that THC and other cannabinoids can kill extremely aggressive brain cancers known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) or grade IV astrocytomas. Researchers have also experimented with combining different cananbinoids for the treatment of aggressive brain cancers. So far, the results have been extremely promising. There is a need for new treatments for GBMs, as current treatments for these cancers can extend life for up to 15 months, if you're lucky.
Last year, the journal of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics published research demonstrating that combination's of THC and CBD, the two most abundant cannabinoids on the plant, can lead to a greater-than-additive or synergistic inhibition of cancer growth. Now, nearly a year to the date, the journal has published another article studying the anti-cancer effects of THC and CBD. The new article takes the next steps towards getting this therapy in to the clinic by testing THC and CBD in animals along side a common brain tumor drug TMZ (temozolomide).
The study was conducted in Spain, and the experiments analyzing the effects of cannabinoids were conducted with tumors or brain cancer cells from human samples and a tumor xenograft mouse model. A tumor xenograft model is basically a cancer that is induced into an animal that has a compromised immune system. This allows researchers to give a mouse a tumor consisting of human cells, thus a promising anti-cancer treatment can be tested on a human tumor in a more natural environment, than a petri dish.
The plant cannabinoids used for this study were "kindly provided by GW pharmaceuticals." THC and CBD were also provided as plant extracts or "botanical drug substances," meaning they contained small amounts of other cannabinoids. Allowing these researchers to construct a custom anti-cancer, Sativex-like substance. Other synthetic cannabinoids such as SR141716A and SR144528 were donated by Sonafi-Aventis.
In the figure provided it shows that THC and TMZ can drastically inhibit the size of tumor. The pictures on the graph are of tumors after 15 days of treatment.
In other experiments the authors also examined combinations of THC,CBD, TMZ , and SAT-L (a "botonical drug substance" or extract containing a 1:1 ratio of THC and CBD, 7.5mg each). Interestingly their results also showed that TMZ resistant cells, can be killed by cannabinoids or in combination with cannabinoids.
The researchers conclude that:
"Taken together, our observations support that the administration of cannabinoids, and in particular of Sativex, which is currently used for palliative applications in patients with cancer and multiple sclerosis, alone or in combination with TMZ, could be of potential interest for the management of GBM."
Cannabis-based medicines are most often prescribed to increase quality of life or treat symptoms of disease. As research continues on this ancient medicine, scientific data suggests that cannabinoids are not only promising treatments but represent potential cures.
http://www.examiner.com/medical-marijuana-in-philadelphia/another-study-confirms-anti-cancer-effects-of-thc-and-cbd-1#ixzz1Cuzhaq2E
Not condoning the idea, but the parody made me chuckle..
I Am The Very Model of a Singularitarian
RT: Tsunami of anti government protests sweeps through Arab world
NY Releases Doomsday Manual for Possible Apocalyptic Event
It seems like something out of a Hollywood movie such as “I am Legend” or “2012.”
How should judges, lawyers, and public health officials respond to a chemical weapon attack? What happens if a mass terrorist attack forces a quarantine, large-scale evacuations, or the slaughter of private animals? Those are the questions that a new doomsday manual put out by the New York state court system and the state bar association hopes to answer.
The manual’s title, “New York State Public Health Legal Manual,” may be boring but the subject matter is not. The book doesn’t mandate new law but encourages officials to think through the application of current rules and regulations when it comes to apocalyptic situations.
How should judges, lawyers, and publich health officials respond to an apocalyptic terrorist attack?
“It is a very grim read,” Ronald P. Younkins, the chief of operations for the state court system, told the New York Times. “This is for potentially very grim situations in which difficult decisions have to be made.”
The Times explains:
The manual provides a catalog of potential terrorism nightmares, like smallpox, anthrax or botulism episodes. It notes that courts have recognized far more rights over the past century or so than existed at the time of Typhoid Mary’s troubles. It details procedures for assuring that people affected by emergency rules get hearings and lawyers. It mentions that in the event of an attack, officials can control traffic, communications and utilities. If they expect an attack, it says, they can compel mass evacuations.
But the guide also presents a sober rendition of what the realities might be in dire times. The suspension of laws, it says, is subject to constitutional rights. But then it adds, “This should not prove to be an obstacle, because federal and state constitutional restraints permit expeditious actions in emergency situations.”
When there is not enough medicine for everyone in an emergency, it notes, there is no clear legal guidepost. It suggests legal decisions would most likely involve an analysis that “balances the obligation to save the greatest number of lives against the obligation to care for each single patient,” perhaps giving preference to those with the best chance to survive. It points out, though, that elderly and disabled people might have a legal claim if they are discriminated against at such moments of crisis.
“In its matter-of-fact way, it conjures an image of the courts muddling through in an apocalyptic city,” the Times goes on to say, before mentioning the manual’s instructions that in the event of a chemical attack court officials might need to use respirators in the courtroom.
“In today’s world, we face many natural and man-made catastrophic threats, including the very real possibility of a global influenza outbreak or other public health emergency that could infect millions of people,” New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman writes in the manual’s forward.
“While it is impossible to predict the timing or severity of the next public health emergency, our government has a responsibility to anticipate and prepare for such events.”
http://www.nycourts.gov/whatsnew/pdf/PublicHealthLegalManual.pdf
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ny-releases-doomsday-manual-for-possible-apocalyptic-event/
Ron Paul: Congress Won’t Stop Spending until the Dollar Fails
Obama, how can this guy have any credibility left?
National Debt = 14.1T$
Monetary Base = 2.1T$
Rioting hits Libyan city of Benghazi
Hundreds of people clashed with police and government supporters overnight in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, a witness and local media said, in a rare show of unrest in the oil exporting country.
Protesters angered by the arrest of a human rights activist threw petrol bombs, set cars ablaze and chanted "no God but God!" in clashes that left dozens injured, according to reports from the city.
Libya has been tightly controlled by leader Muammar Gaddafi for over 40 years but has also felt the ripples from popular revolts in its neighbours Egypt and Tunisia.
Libyan state television said that rallies were held in the early hours of Wednesday morning across the country in support of Gaddafi, who is Africa's longest serving leader.
Reports from Benghazi, about 1,000 km (600 miles) east of the Libyan capital, indicated the city was now calm but that overnight, protesters armed with stones and petrol bombs had set fire to vehicles and fought with police.
The protesters were angry about the arrest of a human rights campaigner and demanded his release.
Gaddafi opponents used the Facebook social networking site to call on people to go out onto the streets across Libya on Thursday for what they described as a "day of rage."
Quryna newspaper, which is based in Benghazi, quoted Abdelkrim Gubaili, the director of a local hospital, as saying 38 people were hurt in the clashes, most of them members of the security forces. He said they had all been discharged.
"Last night was a bad night," a Benghazi resident, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters by telephone.
"There were about 500 or 600 people involved. They went to the revolutionary committee (local government headquarters) in Sabri district, and they tried to go to the central revolutionary committee ... They threw stones," he said.
"Now Benghazi is quiet. The banks are open and the students are going to school," the same witness said later.
Some Libyans complain about high unemployment, income inequality and limits on political freedoms, but analysts say an Egypt-style revolt is unlikely.
A video clip posted on the YouTube site by someone who said it was recorded in Benghazi Tuesday night showed a crowd of people outside what looked like a government building chanting: "No God but God!" and "Corruption is the enemy of God."
Quryna newspaper said people demanding the release of the rights activist, Fethi Tarbel, were armed with petrol bombs and threw stones at police in Benghazi's Shajara square.
HISTORY OF DISTRUST
People in Benghazi and the region around it have a history of distrust of Gaddafi's rule. Of the hundreds of people jailed in Libya over the past decade for membership of banned Islamist militant groups, many are from the city.
One analyst said it was unlikely unrest would spread nationwide, but that the violence in Benghazi could add to the numbers taking part in the protest planned for Thursday.
"Our argument has always been that Libya is very different from Tunisia and Egypt because they have got the money to buy off people," said Charles Gurdon, a Libya expert at consultancy Menas Associates.
"Having said that, after Tunisia people said that Egypt would not be the same," he said. "A lot will depend on how heavy-handed the security forces are."
Libyan state television showed footage of an early-morning rally in the Libyan capital of government supporters, while the state-run Jana news agency reported pro-Gaddafi rallies in other cities, including Benghazi.
The agency reported that participants held up portraits of Gaddafi and chanted: "We sacrifice our blood and souls for you, our leader!" and "We are a generation built by Muammar and anyone who opposes it will be destroyed!"
At the Abu Salim prison near Tripoli, 110 men jailed for membership of the banned Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) were set free, though local rights activists overseeing the release said it had nothing to do with events in Benghazi.
"I am pleased to be out after 13 years in prison," Mustafa Salem, from Benghazi, told Reuters as he prepared to walk out of the prison gate. "I hope I will be able to ... rebuild my life."
The prison, which has been used to hold government opponents and Islamist militants, was the scene of violent clashes in June 1996 in which 1,000 inmates were shot dead.
Dozens of men accused of membership of the LIFG have been freed since last year, when its leaders renounced violence.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-libya-rioting-benghazi-idUSTRE71F6JI20110216?pageNumber=2
Madison Schools Close After Unionized Teachers Call in Sick
A spokeswoman for the state teachers’ union says no district has been forced to close Wednesday due to high absences other than Madison. That district, the state’s second largest, closed after more than 40 percent of its union-covered workers call in sick so they can protest Gov. Walker’s proposal to take away collective bargaining rights for public workers. Wisconsin Education Association Council Spokeswoman Christina Brey says she knows of no other school forced to close. There have also been no reports of higher than usual absences at state prisons. Walker has said the National Guard stands ready to step in to operate the prisons if workers fail to show up.
http://www.wuwm.com/programs/news/view_news.php?articleid=7803
Today's posts remind me of a nine inch nails song.
Happiness In Slavery Lyrics;
slave screams he thinks he knows what he wants
slave screams thinks he has something to say
slave screams he hears but doesn't want to listen
slave screams he's being beat into submission
don't open your eyes you won't like what you see
the devils of truth steal the souls of the free
don't open your eyes take it from me
i have found
you can find
happiness is slavery
slave screams he spends his life learning conformity
slave screams he claims he has his own identity
slave screams he's going to cause the system to fall
slave screams but he's glad to be chained to that wall
don't open your eyes you won't like what you see
the blind have been blessed with security
don't open your eyes take it from me
i have found
you can find
happiness is slavery
i don't know what i am i don't know where i've been
just hurt and so much skin
stick my head through the cage of this endless routine
just some flesh caught in this big broken machine
Source of the Iraqi WMD Claims Comes Clean … And Shows that the American and British Governments Willfully Manipulated the Evidence
As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, everyone knew that Iraq didn’t have WMDs.
The Guardian just interviewed the the infamous “Curveball” who provided false evidence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Curveball admitted that he knowingly lied about WMDs, in order to topple Saddam Hussein. The Guardian has a series notes in a series of articles out today on the issue which reinforce the conclusion that the American and British governments deliberately manipulated the evidence to justify the Iraqi invasion.
In one article, the Guardian notes :
The former head of the CIA in Europe … Tyler Drumheller, who says he warned the head of the US intelligence agency before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that Curveball might be a liar ….
***
“My impression was always that his reporting was done in January and February,” said Drumheller, adding that he had been warned well before 2003 by his counterparts in the German secret service (BND) that Curveball might not be reliable. “We didn’t know if it was true. We knew there were real problems with it and there were inconsistencies.”
He passed on this information to the head of the CIA, George Tenet, he said, and yet Curveball’s testimony still made it into Colin Powell’s famous February 2003 speech justifying an invasion. “Right up to the night of Powell’s speech, I said, don’t use that German reporting because there’s a problem with that,” said Drumheller.
***
He recalled a conversation he had with John McLaughlin, then the CIA’s deputy director. “The week before the speech, I talked to the Deputy McLaughlin, and someone says to him, ‘Tyler’s worried that Curveball might be a fabricator.
“And McLaughlin said, ‘Oh, I hope not, because this is really all we have.’ And I said, and I’ve got to be honest with you, I said: ‘You’ve got to be kidding? his is all we have!’”
In a second article, the Guardian reports:
A senior aide to Colin Powell at the time of his pivotal speech to the United Nations said on Tuesday that Curveball’s admission raised questions about the CIA’s role.
Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to the then US secretary of state Powell in the build-up to the invasion, said the lies of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, also known by the codename Curveball, raised questions about how the CIA had briefed Powell ahead of his crucial speech to the UN security council presenting the case for war.
In particular, why did the CIA’s then director George Tenet and his deputy John McLaughlin believe the claim by Curveball, “and convey that to Powell even though the CIA’s own European chief Tyler Drumheller had already raised serious doubts.
“And why did Tenet and McLaughlin portray the presence of mobile biological labs in Iraq to the secretary of state with a degree of conviction bordering on passionate, soul-felt certainty?”
***
“This is very damning testimony and an indictment of the work the US put into the pre-war intelligence. The decision to go to war, to spend billions on sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the region, was in large part taken on the basis of an admitted liar,” said Ashwin Madia, head of an organisation of progressive US military veterans, VoteVets.
***
Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst on Iraq now at the National Defence University in Washington, said … “There were people at the time who doubted what Curveball was saying, but if the administration doesn’t want to believe it, it doesn’t make much difference.”
In a third piece, Carne Ross – Britain’s former Iraq expert at the UN security council, and the person responsible for liaison with the weapons inspectors – writes:
Again, we will be confronted with the “not my fault!” excuse from those who manufactured the case for an avoidable war.
But once again, they are trying to mislead. Here’s why.
As I learned in my work on Iraq’s WMD in the late 90s and early 2000s, when I was Britain’s Iraq expert at the UN security council and responsible for liaison with the weapons inspectors, intelligence on WMD is a confusing and complicated issue. There was a great deal of data, much of it contradictory, from an array of different sources – intercepts of communications, aerial and satellite imagery and “humint” from defectors or agents inside Iraq. Our task in the government was to try to make sense of all this, and interpret from the data a reasonably plausible and coherent picture of what was actually going on.
***
Given the complexity of the data, no single source could ever be taken as authoritative. And the least convincing sources – by their very nature – were defectors. We knew full well that, for very understandable reasons, defectors had a powerful incentive to exaggerate the nature of Iraq’s development of WMD. They hated Saddam and wanted him gone. Long before Curveball, there were other defectors who made sometimes wild claims about Iraq’s weapons programmes. I remember one report that suggested Iraq had armed its Scud missiles (none of which, in fact, existed, it later emerged) with nuclear warheads, ready to be launched at Israel and other targets. Defector intelligence was, therefore, lowest in the hierarchy of evidence; photographic or signals intercepts were, for obvious reasons, treated as more plausible.
***
All evidence had to be tested by the simple method of seeking corroboration from other sources. This method was used across Whitehall, and in the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office in particular, and was the basis for the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments of the WMD threat, several of which I contributed to. In the years I worked on the subject (1997-2002), the picture produced by this method was very clear: there was no credible evidence of substantial stocks of WMD in Iraq.
And it was this method – clearly – that was abandoned in advance of the war. Instead of a careful cross-checking of evidence, reports that suited the story of an imminent Iraqi threat were picked out, polished and formed the basis of public claims like Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN security council, or the No 10 dossier. This was exactly how a false case for war was constructed: not by the deliberate creation of a falsehood, but by willfully and secretly manipulating the evidence to exaggerate the importance of reports like Curveball’s, and to ignore contradictory evidence.
***
Others of my former colleagues in the MOD and Foreign Office have freely admitted to me that this is precisely what took place. Yet, for all its subtlety and secrecy, we should name this process for what it was: the manufacture of a lie.
And in a fourth report, Guardian reporters Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd – who interviewed Curveball and have been reporting for years on the run up to the Iraq war – provide additional details in a question and answer format:
Is this one of those rare occasions when we should have shot the messenger?
Answer: At the very least he should have been treated with far more skepticism. He told us that all the technical discussion he had with the German spooks could have been managed by any first year chemical engineering student. He even had with him a chemical engineering dictionary that he said was given him by a scientist to help ‘him. Coaching, or assisting. A very fine line …
Did the BND or CIA attempt to corroborate his intelligence? Why was he believable as an intelligence source? I’d tell you David Cameron is from outer space if you offered me a chocolate bar – but me saying it doesn’t make it true though does it? Was there any attempt to verify his information or did the BND and CIA swallow the lie because it was convenient to them? Did he give them any evidence of his claims?
Answer.
He gave them names, dates, locations and the basics of a story that seemed plausible. Trouble is, it was checked out – before the war – and did not stack up. The key location of the supposed bioweapons factory, was meant to have a fake wall that allowed mobile weapons trucks to drive-in, reload, and leave to loaded up with biotoxins. The site was visited in 2002. The wall didn’t exist. His boss was visited late that year. He told the BND and British intelligence officers that Curvevall was a fabulist. The CIA did not speak with him until well after the invasion. [The Iraq war started on March 20, 2003]
***
If the Source was effectively discredited prior to his intelligence being used as a pretext for Iraq, do you think this will have any bearing on the investigation in the Iraq war inquiry?
If it was clear to intelligence agencies that the information provided by Curveball was at best unreliable, then presumably this would have been communicated to Tony Blair and others responsible for pedaling it to a public skeptical about going war.
If the unreliability of the intelligence wasn’t communicated to Tony Blair / George Bush, then those in the intelligence community responsible for not doing so surly need to be prosecuted.
If that was passed on, then Blair / Bush etc should be prosecuted.
Answer
What British intel knew, and when they knew it is something that still eludes me after two years of looking at this story. Tyler Drumheller, the CIA’s former main man in Europe says the Brits were more skeptical about Curveball than the BND. We believe at least two British spooks were at a meeting with Curveball’s boss in Dubai in 2002, at which he refuted his underlink’s key claim about bioweapons. However, as my colleague Peter Beaumont points out, the late-Dr David Kelly was tasked with trying to find these mysterious weapons trucks. He said the trucks that had been found were to launch weather balloons (which is correct). However, the news was not received well in Downing St.
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Anyone who read Bob Drogin’s ‘Curveball’ which came out in 2007 would already have been aware of all this and the fact he was a paranoid alcoholic and there was a huge battle in US intelligence services as to whether to take his info seriously or not- with those naysayers being severely ostracised.
Answer
This is true.
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Is [Curveball] saying that he told BND that his earlier allegations were not accurate when he was questioned about the information given to them by his boss in 2002? …
[Answer] He says that after he told them about the mobile trucks they sought out his boss, Dr Latif, who was then in Dubai. The BND went to see him there, along with two British intelligence officers. When they returned to Germany they told Curveball that Dr Latif had said he was a liar. He says he told them to believe his boss, instead of him. He claims he thought the game was up at that point.
***
It should be re-emphaised that there were many people in the intelligence communities in the US and Germany who were hugely sceptical about his evidence but were simply not listened too as it did not fit the required narrative- which is as a big a scandal in its own right.
[Answer] Agreed. Tyler Drumheller speaks convincingly about this. As does Poweel’s former chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson who now describes the UN speech as the lowest point of his career.
***
[Answer] Curveball says he was as surprised as you that the BND came back for more at the end of 2002 and in 2003 in the run-up to the invasion. I can only assume that the BND were under a lot of pressure from the CIA to give them more “evidence” to back the case for war. Tyler Drumheller says the Germans always put a safety warning on their Curveball reporting – they never said “this guy is lying”, but they said “we cannot corroborate this”. He says he passed that up to Tenet.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/02/source-of-the-iraqi-wmd-claims-comes-clean/
Unfrickenbelievable, checked this using usdebtclock.org.. Counted 27 (Mississippi's) for our debt to increase $1Million, that same amount of time total federal tax revenue was $55,000.
I was not there, not a fan of labor unions. First thing I have seen people of my state get up and protest so much, of course, as it directly affects their own income.
Killed by Tylenol overdose? Better make it illegal, gotta protect the children..
re: WI budget protests..Thousands of Protesters at the Capitol, but no Disorder or Violence
The state Joint Finance Committee held the only hearing Tuesday on Gov. Walker’s budget repair bill, which is moving rapidly through the Legislature.
The state Department of Administration estimates that 10,000 protesters showed up outside the capitol building in Madison, to weigh in on the proposal. About 3,000 more filled the building’s rotunda.
http://www.wuwm.com/programs/news/view_news.php?articleid=7784
Here's the bill per State of South Dakota Legislature website
http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2011/Bill.aspx?Bill=1171
Mubarak ordered Tiananmen-style massacre of demonstrators, Army refused
(snippet)
"But the critical moment came on the evening of 30 January when, it is now clear, Mubarak ordered the Egyptian Third Army to crush the demonstrators in Tahrir Square with their tanks after flying F-16 fighter bombers at low level over the protesters.
Many of the senior tank commanders could be seen tearing off their headsets – over which they had received the fatal orders – to use their mobile phones. They were, it now transpires, calling their own military families for advice. Fathers who had spent their lives serving the Egyptian army told their sons to disobey, that they must never kill their own people."
http://www.americablog.com/2011/02/mubarak-ordered-tiananmen-style.html
Fed dictator Bernanke needs to be toppled
Commentary: Forget Mubarak, it’s Fed reign of terror that must end
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Fed boss Ben Bernanke is the most dangerous human on earth, far more dangerous than Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s 30-year dictator, ever was. Bernanke rules a monetary dictatorship that will trigger the coming third meltdown of the 21st century.
But this reign of economic terror will end.
Hundreds of police marched in Cairo's Tahrir Square Monday to show solidarity with protesters who helped to topple Hosni Mubarak.
Just as Mubarak was blind to the economic needs of the masses and democratic reforms, Bernanke is blind to the easy-money legacy that’s set the stage for revolution, turning the rich into super rich while the middle class stagnates and peanuts trickle down to the poor.
Warning, Egypt also had a huge wealth gap before its revolution. Bernanke is the final egomaniac in America’s bubbling 30-year wealth gap, where the top 1% went from owning 9% of America’s wealth to owning 23% during this dictatorship.
Bernanke’s ruling ideology is the culmination of a 30-year economic war that has forged together Reaganomics for the super rich, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s toxic allegiance to Wall Street, the extreme Ayn Rand’s capitalist dogma, culminating in the toxic bailouts of Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner, two Wall Street Trojan Horses corrupting government from within.
Since 1981 this monetary dictatorship has caused enormous collateral damage, systematically sabotaging democracy, capitalism and the American dream while fueling the rise of our most dangerous new enemy, China. See “Secret China war plan: trillions in U.S. debt.”
When Obama reappointed Bernanke a couple years ago, “Black Swan’s” Nicholas Taleb was “stunned.” Bernanke “doesn’t even know that he doesn’t understand how things work,” that Bernanke’s economic methods are so inadequate they make “homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.”
We called Bernanke, the “Captain of the Titanic,” warning that he was setting up the third meltdown of the 21st century, predicted by “Irrational Exuberance’s” Robert Shiller, a coming crash worse than the 2000 dot-com crash and the subprime credit meltdown of 2008 combined. See “Capt. Bernanke sinks the U.S.S. Titanic.”
Inside the Fed: Cassandras, Chicken Littles, governors crying wolf
Unfortunately, as with Egypt’s dictator, the 30-year dictatorship now headed by Bernanke must end soon: And this class war will not be pretty. But it is no black swan; no one can claim they didn’t see a new crash coming.
For several years before the 2008 meltdown we reported on money managers, economists and financial gurus warning of a coming meltdown. They included two Fed governors who warned Greenspan in the early Bush years. And yet, as late as summer 2008 Bernanke, Paulson and Greenspan were systematically dismissing mounting evidence of a mega crash dead ahead.
That’s why Time magazine’s cover story about Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, grabbed me. David Von Drehle’s “The Man Who Said No to Easy Money” is a warning to all America.
Like Ed Gramlich and William Poole, the two Fed Governors who warned Greenspan during the Bush years, Hoenig regularly dissented from Bernanke’s easy-money policies that have been favored by Wall Street throughout this 30-year dictatorship.
We’re paraphrasing Drehle’s interview with Hoenig as 10 warnings because it brilliantly reveals the broader historical tragedy of the Fed’s 30-year monetary dictatorship driving America to the edge of another 1930s economic revolution, one that will be triggered by a repeat of the 1929 wake-up call.
1. Commodity price inflation will soon end the Fed dictatorship
Hoenig consistently “cast his lonely ballot against the indefinite reign of easy money. Eight meetings, eight no votes … an unyielding point of view, one that has become ever more relevant now that rising commodity prices have put inflation worries back on the economic radar screen.”
In short, global commodity inflation may soon do what Hoenig could not, put an end to America’s self-destructive easy money reign of economic terror, and more importantly finally end the Fed’s 30-year “monetary dictatorship.”
2. Central bank dictatorship destroying America’s democracy
Hoenig was America’s lone voice against the Bernanke monetary dictatorship, says Drehle: “For all the headlines over the past quarter-century about the death of American manufacturing and the twilight of community banks and the vanishing farmer, those humble building blocks of a sound economy still figure significantly in Hoenig’s perspective. The way to strengthen them … is not by pumping money into a financial system that encourages megabanks to engage in high-risk speculation. You build them up by encouraging savings, which form capital for investment, which builds stronger businesses, which hire workers and pay dividends, which leads to more savings and more investment.”
3. Near-zero rates, banks richer, masses poorer, meltdown
Honenig’s opposition to Bernanke dictatorship is also clear, says Drehle: “By keeping interest rates near zero indefinitely, the Fed is asking savers to continue to subsidize borrowers. What incentive is there to save and invest?”
Earlier in his long career, Hoenig was heartsick as an “irrationally exuberant Alan Greenspan kept piling so much money onto the economic bonfire that led to the Great Recession” in 2008. Now the “time’s come to start sobering up.” Except Wall Street’s addicted to easy money, won’t sober up.
4. Easy money blowing new speculation bubble … pops soon
“This is how bubbles are formed,” warns Hoenig, whose long career as president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank made him leery of the power buildup by the central banks monetary dictatorship. So again, “rocketing land and energy prices are telltale signs … too much money sloshing around. When you put this much liquidity into the system, it has to go somewhere.”
But with the Fed keeping interest rates near zero, easy money won’t go into savings. Instead, “money starts chasing assets with higher yields — like land, the once again booming stock market and energy” and “as more money joins the chase, asset prices rise and keep rising until … pop,” a new meltdown.
5. Bernanke’s narcissistic illusion of monetary power
The Fed has too much power: Hoenig “watched uncomfortably as the central bank began playing a larger and larger role in the public’s perception of the economy. Monetary policy came to be seen as the solution to more and more economic issues. It has been used to deal with one crisis after another,” stock .market crashes, recessions, the tech bubble, after the 9/11 attacks, during the Iraq war, then the 2008 meltdown.
Hoenig warns against the Fed’s power: “People came to feel that all you had to do was ease interest rates and everything would be fine. But that’s what gives us these bubbles.”
6. Easy money fueling worldwide inflation, and a new meltdown
Yes, Hoenig’s an inflation hawk: “The sequence of events that led to runaway inflation in 1979 got started back in the mid-1960s. That’s … long term.” Drehle captures the shift in Hoenig’s position: At first backing “the Fed’s dramatic actions in 2008 and 2009 to pour trillions into the staggering financial system.”
But now it is time to stop. As easy money chases higher returns across the world, in places like Brazil and China, Hoenig warns that “inflation is rising sharply. Global food prices have risen 25% in the past year, according to the U.N., and many nations are starting to hoard commodities.”
7. Fed policies favor the rich, sabotaging American Dream
In favoring Wall Street bankers, Bernanke’s monetary dictatorship is clearly feeding the conditions that, as happened in Egypt, will ignite a class war in America: “The poorest 60% of American households spend 12% of their income on energy alone, compared with the 3% spent by the richest 10% … Inflation is so unfair … it is the most regressive tax you can impose on the public … eroding the buying power of the poor and people on fixed incomes. The people who have money and are savvy come out ahead. In fact, they end up stronger than before.”
8. Unfortunately, the Fed learned nothing from the 2008 crisis
A lot more than the Fed’s toxic alliance with Wall Street bothers Hoenig: America “learned little from the crisis … government policy continues to smile on Wall Street but not on Main Street. Instead of breaking up the financial giants whose gambles crashed the economy, the government has let the biggest banks grow even bigger. Now they’re gorging on free money.”
9. Market economy? A joke, big-money lobbyists run America
Remember folks, 20 years ago in the S&L bank crisis 3,800 bankers were jailed. This time? Wall Street robbed us, got away with it, are still robbing us. Hoenig asks: “Where’s the penalty for failure? … We don’t have a market economy.” American capitalism is now “crony capitalism … who you know, how big your political donation is.”
10. America must end easy money, add new Glass-Steagall
What would Hoenig do as Fed chairman? “High savings rates, low leverage and a strong currency.” Finally, Drehle says Hoenig would bring back the Depression-era Glass-Steagall rule that barred commercial banks from taking excessive risks. He would reduce government debt and promote a manufacturing revival, but it won’t be easy, there is no painless approach.”
Unfortunately, none of this will happen until America gets hit over the head by brutal wake-up call, like 1929 and the Great Depression 2. Until then, the 30-year monetary dictatorship now headed by Bernanke will keep pushing its self-destructive easy-money policies, ignoring the warnings of Thomas Hoenig and all of the other Cassandras, Chicken Littles and Americans Crying Wolf, over and over again.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/story/print?guid=C2362CBE-3870-11E0-9DE4-00212804637C
Keiser Report: Shoe Throwing Index (E121)