Monday, September 24, 2012

Monday 09-24-12

Using racism, it is politically correct?  Her great grand parents were probably driving the bus, not riding in the back.  It amazes me that they have the nerve to even bring it up.
At Black Caucus dinner, Michelle Obama urges members to get out the vote
Michelle Obama used a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation on Saturday night to urge delegates to register voters and encourage African Americans to turn out in November’s election.
Speaking in Washington at the foundation’s annual Phoenix dinner, the first lady likened turning out the vote to the civil rights struggles of previous eras.
“Make no mistake about it, this is the march of our time,” Obama told the audience at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “Marching door-to-door registering people to vote, marching everyone you know to the polls every single election.” That effort, she said, “is the movement of our era — protecting that fundamental right, not just for this election but for the next generation and generations to come.”
Obama did not refer explicitly to voter-ID laws that that have been passed or proposed in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, but she warned against being dissuaded from voting.
“We cannot let anyone discourage us from casting our ballots,” she said. “We cannot let anyone make us feel unwelcome in the voting booth. It is up to us to make sure that in every election, every voice is heard and every vote is counted. That means making sure our laws preserve that right.”
Republicans have backed voter ID laws, which often require photo identification, arguing that they help prevent ballot fraud. Democrats and voter advocates say the measures could be used to keep some poor and minority voters away from the polls because it can be more burdensome for them to get the required IDs. Opponents have mounted several legal challenges to the laws.
This year’s dinner issued honors to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; film director George Lucas; Harvey Gantt, the first African American mayor of Charlotte; and Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.).
Earlier at the convention center, issues of faith dominated the final day of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference
Faith leaders discussed one of the most controversial issues facing them in the black community: President Obama’s public support for same-sex marriage.
Opening a roundtable session by calling for a civilized discussion, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) noted that the president “has not asked anybody to introduce legislation on same-sex marriage. What the president did is stand up one day and say, ‘This is my position.’ That’s it.”
Views on the issue differed. The most unequivocal opposition to the president’s stance on same-sex marriage came from the Rev. Annette Wilson.
“When God says a man should not lie with another man as a woman, that’s what he meant,” she said. “When He says that two women should not lie together as a man would a woman, that’s what he meant. He meant what he said, and we have to give an account for it. . . . When we know what God says and then go against it, there are consequences.”
Another panelist who disagreed with Obama explained why she would not let her view change her support for him. The Rev. Mankekolo Mahlangu-Ngcobo said that “even though I was not in favor of what the president has said,” she supported Obama “because as an African immigrant, his immigration policy is what I can support. I am an educator — his education platform is what I can support. I am in health care, and his health-care — Obamacare — he really cares.”
Jesse L. Jackson, by contrast, said that he supported same-sex marriage but that he could not see why the issue had gained prominence.
“I support the proposition. I cannot put it on the front of the line,” he told the assembled delegates. “Don’t win the same-sex debate and lose the right to a house, health and education.”
This was a view echoed in remarks from the Rev. S. Todd Yeary of Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore, who said the issue was being used as a wedge to divide black voters.
“David slew Goliath with five stones,” he said. “We’ve got to decide when we’re going to stop stoning one another for the issues we really don’t all understand.”
The final day of the 42nd conference opened with the caucus’s annual prayer breakfast, addressed by Noel Jones, pastor of the City of Refuge Church in Gardena, Calif., who preached that God alone empowers people to make a difference in someone else’s life.
“We are living in a time when we as African Americans have given everybody else the rights to our lives because we believe that we need everybody to make our lives work,” Jones said in an interview after his sermon. “At the end of the day, we are responsible for whatever happens in our lives to make our lives work.”
With the November election only weeks away, the Rev. Barbara Williams Skinner reminded people in her prayer that lawmakers represent those who have no voice. She prayed for the children for whom “nobody checks their homework, nobody looks at their report card, nobody cares whether they come home or not.”
Drawing applause more than a dozen times during her speech later that evening, Michelle Obama’s remarks fared better than the president’s did at the same event last year.
Calling on the caucus to back his jobs bill, the president urged the audience in 2011 to “take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes” and support him, comments that were not well received by some present.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/at-cbcf-conference-faith-leaders-discuss-same-sex-marriage/2012/09/22/9cb60d0e-04ea-11e2-9146-c0cef8e81262_story.html

Michelle Obama to Congressional Black Caucus: "our journey is far, far from finished" Transcript
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2012/09/michelle_obama_to_congressiona.html

I have been over the Verrazano bridge a number of times.  It is testing the waters, they throw a high number out to get them to settle for a lower increase and they will be thankful when they get the lower increase, people are so gullible.

Staten Islanders Furious As MTA Considers A $15 Toll To Cross Verrazano Bridge


NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – One woman told 1010 WINS’ Steve Sandberg that she doesn’t even have to leave Staten Island to feel the burden of high tolls.
“It’s actually cheaper for tolls in Brooklyn than for tolls in Staten Island,” she said Saturday.
Now, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority wants to hike the Verrazano Bridge toll to $15, and Staten Islanders are banding together to say “enough is enough” with all these tolls.
“It’s totally ludicrous,” one man said. “It keeps on going up. There’s no (stopping it). When is it going to end?”
“No matter which way we go we have to put our hand in our pocket to leave the island, and I think it’s unfair,” another man added. “And it’s a burden on us.”
But the toll hike won’t happen if Congressman Michael Grimm gets his way. He hopes to put up a roadblock — a federal law to cap toll hikes at 10 percent over five years, or lose millions.
“If this is enacted by 2013, they will have to roll their toll back to $12.10 for five years for them to be eligible for that federal funding,” Grimm said. “In 2008, the Verrazano Bridge (toll) was $10. So in 2013, that bridge could not be raised more than $1 — 10 percent of the $10 — to $11. In 2013, the next five-year period, they can raise it another 10 percent.”
Grimm’s bill would force a toll cut.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/09/22/staten-islanders-furious-as-the-mta-considers-a-15-toll-to-cross-verrazano-bridge/

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Saturday 09-22-12

I guess if had a "religion"  This may offend me, but because i have a saviour and way of life it does not bother me.



I guess there is hope after all

Iran Cleric Pummeled by ‘Badly Covered’ Woman After Warning

An Iranian cleric said he was beaten by a woman in the northern province of Semnan after giving her a warning for being “badly covered,” the state-run Mehr news agency reported. Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti said he encountered the woman in the street while on his way to the mosque in the town of Shahmirzad, and asked her to cover herself up, to which she replied “you, cover your eyes,” according to Mehr. The cleric repeated his warning, which he said prompted her to insult and push him.
.“I fell on my back on the floor,” Beheshti said in the report. “I don’t know what happened after that, all I could feel was the kicks of this woman who was insulting me and attacking me.”
Since the 1979 revolution that brought Shiite Muslim religious leaders to power, women in Iran have been required to cover their hair and body curves in public with head-scarves and loose-fitting coats, to protect religious values and “preserve society’s morals and security.”
The government condemns short, tight and colorful coats and loosely tied head-scarves, and routinely organizes police patrols to enforce the Islamic dress code. Public surveillance increases in summer when some women opt for flimsier clothing.
Beheshti said he was hospitalized for three days. The Iranian cleric said it was his religious duty to apply the principle of “commanding right and forbidding wrong,” and that he would continue to do so even after living through what he called “the worst day of my life.”
It isn’t the first time that clerics in Iran have been beaten up after delivering warnings, Mehr said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-19/iran-cleric-pummeled-by-badly-covered-woman-after-warning-her.html

In case you did not know already, but things maybe changing a little, all they have to do is ask now.  They need a warrent to find out what movies you rent, or what library books you check out, but not to have access to your emails.  

Cops might finally need a warrant to read your Gmail

Major surveillance law change arrives in the Senate—and it might well pass.

Right now, if the cops want to read my e-mail, it’s pretty trivial for them to do so. All they have to do is ask my online e-mail provider. But a new bill set to be introduced Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee by its chair, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), seems to stand the best chance of finally changing that situation and giving e-mail stored on remote servers the same privacy protections as e-mail stored on one's home computer.
When Congress passed the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a time when massive online storage of e-mail was essentially unimaginable, it was presumed that if you hadn’t actually bothered to download your e-mail, it could be considered "abandoned" after 180 days. By that logic, law enforcement would not need a warrant to go to the e-mail provider or ISP to get the messages that are older than 180 days; police only need to show that they have "reasonable grounds to believe" the information gathered would be useful in an investigation. Many Americans and legal scholars have found this standard, in today’s world, problematic.
Leahy, who was one of ECPA’s original authors, proposed similar changes in May 2011, but that was never even brought to a vote in the committee. The new version, which keeps the most important element of the 2011 proposal, will be incorporated into a larger bill aimed at revising the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).
A more politically-palatable maneuver

As we reported last year, the House passed a revision to the VPPA, making it easier for online video rental services (yep, Netflix is a fan of this bill!) to share information about customers’ rental history through a simple online consent form, rather than explicit, printed, written consent. This is a legislative moved aimed squarely at making the bill more palatable to Republicans (who comprised 8 of 10 members on the Judiciary Committee), and who are generally opposed to weakening law enforcement tools.
Leahy’s new amendement would provide a major change to the privacy standard of all electronic correspondence by finally requiring a probable cause-driven warrant. If this bill does pass, it would instantaneously provide significantly more privacy to everyone in America who sends e-mail, uses Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, or communicates online in essentially any way.
"[Currently] there’s a standard for what’s electronic communications services, and that’s where there’s the 180-day rule," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, in an interview with Ars.
"There’s a whole class of remote computing services, which were ones that did data processing back in the 1980s], but are now cloud computing. What this does is eliminate the distinction between the two and eliminate the 180 day rule and raise them all up to a warrant. It’s very solid legislative language. It covers all private communications and would require a warrant to access them. Something that’s long overdue. We’re talking about a huge class of very private information and stuff that is so undisputedly private."
Judicial clarity

Many advocacy groups and tech companies, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Dropbox, Google, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Facebook, the ACLU and many others (collectively under an umbrella group known as Digital Due Process) have been lobbying Congress for some time now. All of these entities likely would be in favor of such a bill.
"The ECPA fix would be a major step forward for e-mail privacy," wrote Lee Tien, a staff attorney at the EFF, in an e-mail to Ars.
But more interestingly, beyond the list of usual suspects of supporters (groups like the EFF and the ACLU), are the other parties supporting the bill.
On Wednesday, members of the Judiciary Committee received copies of two letters from prominent former government officials: former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) and Marc J. Zwillinger, who spent three years prosecuting cybercrime from the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. Barr is also a former federal prosecutor and Zwilinger is now in private practice and also teaches law at Georgetown University.
Both men argued that one of the primary reasons for the new bill’s passage would be to provide clarity between current case law and investigatory practice. In 2010, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Fourth Amendement protecting unreasonable searches and seizures also protects e-mail, even if it’s over 180 days old.
Because online e-mail providers (like Google’s Gmail, for instance) can’t know if their customers fall under the Sixth Circuit jurisdiction, many have taken to requiring a warrant from law enforcement when they may not need to
"This has created uncertainty the Leahy amendment would replace with clarity: law enforcement officers would no longer wonder whether they should seek communications content without a warrant, or whether the warrant requirement applies in one jurisdiction but not another," wrote former Rep. Barr. "This clarity will help ensure that seized evidence will not be suppressed at the end of the prosecution, thereby allowing a guilty party to escape punishment."

The content of an e-mail would be protected, other data, less so

In a further bid to potentially assuage conservative committee members, Zwillinger also points out that the new amendment would "leave in place lower legal standards for the building blocks of law enforcement investigations."
Such information could include name, address, e-mail address, IP addresses, and other transactional data such as when, where, with whom and for how long someone communicated.
"This is the type of information that prosecutors use to build probable cause that enables them to seek court-ordered access to more sensitive information, such as communications content," Zwillinger wrote.
Ars e-mailed staffers of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the committee’s ranking Republican, to see what the senator thought of the Leahy amendment—as of press time they had not responded.
"E-mail and its eventual successors are simply too important to be governed by inconsistent and confusing standards," wrote Woodrow Hartzog, a professor at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, in an e-mail sent to Ars. "While more comprehensive and adaptable privacy protections for electronic communications are needed, I imagine dramatic improvement in the electronic surveillance regime will be politically and logistically challenging."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/cops-might-finally-need-a-warrant-to-read-your-gmail/

2C-I or 'Smiles': The New Killer Drug Every Parent Should Know About


Witnesses described the 17-year-old boy as "shaking, growling, foaming at the mouth." According to police reports, Elijah Stai was at a McDonald's with his friend when he began to feel ill. Soon after, he "started to smash his head against the ground" and began acting "possessed," according to a witness. Two hours later, he had stopped breathing.
The Grand Forks, North Dakota teenager's fatal overdose has been blamed on a drug called 2C-I. The night before Stai's overdose, another area teen, Christian Bjerk, 18, was found face down on a sidewalk. His death was also linked to the drug.
2C-I--known by its eerie street name "Smiles"--has become a serious problem in the Grand Forks area, according to local police. Overdoses of the drug have also be reported in Indiana and Minnesota. But if the internet is any indication, Smiles is on the rise all over the country.
DEA cracks down on new versions of hard drugs
"At the moment I am completely and fully submerged, if you can't tell by my eyes, in a psychedelic world known as 2C-I," says a man who appears to be in his late teens or early 20s on a YouTube video posted back in October. His pupils are dilated. He struggles to formulate a description of what he's feeling-it's hard to tell if its because his experience is profound or if his speech skills are simply blunted. He's one of dozens of users providing Youtube "reports" of their experiences on the synthetic drug.
Smile's effects have been called a combination of MDMA and LSD, only far more potent. Users have reported a speedy charge along with intense visual and aural hallucinations that can last anywhere from hours to days.
"At first I'd think something was extremely beautiful and then it look really strange," another user says in a recorded online account."I looked at my girlfriend's face for a minute and it was pitch black…the black started dripping out of her eye."
Because the drug is relatively new--it first surfaced around 2003 in European party scenes and only recently made its way to the states--the most readily accessible information about 2C-I comes from user accounts, many of which detail frightening experiences.
Elijah Stai's fatal overdose has prompted a crackdown on the drug in North Dakota.

On an internet forum one user describes the high as a "roller coaster ride through hell," while another warns "do not drive on this drug," after recounting his own failed attempt on the roadway.
Over the past few years, synthetic drugs like K-2, Spice and Bath Salts, have become increasing popular with teenagers and young adults. Their ingredients are relatively easy to obtain and order online and until recently, they weren't classified as illegal substances. But as they come under legal scrutiny, one by one, they've triggered a domino effect of newer, altered, and more potent versions.
"I think [the drugs] just keep changing to try to circumvent the law," Lindsay Wold, a detective with the Grand Forks police department, told Yahoo Shine. "Anytime we try to figure something out, it changes." Since July, her department has launched an awareness campaign in an effort to crack down on 2C-I's growing popularity with teens and young adults in the area. While reports of overdoses have spiked, Wold says it's difficult to measure it's growth in numbers.
The horrifying side effects of Bath Salts drug
According data obtained by the American Association of Poison Control, half of those exposed to 2C-I in 2011 were teenagers. That statistic was before two fatalities and multiple overdoses were linked to the drug in North Dakota.
"The unfortunate thing is if kids who are overdosing on 2C-I go in to the hospital with a physical problem, a lot of times they can't test for it so it doesn't show up as a drug overdose," says Wold.
The fact that 2C-I is untraceable in tests makes it more of a challenge for doctors to treat. It also contributes to drug's growing popularity among high school and college-age kids.
"Synthetic drugs don't generally show up on drug tests and that's made it popular with young adults, as well as people entering the military, college athletes, or anyone who gets tested for drugs," Barbara Carreno, a spokesperson for the Drug Enforcement Agency, tells Shine.
2C-I may be undetected in drug tests, but it's effects are evident in emergency rooms.

According to James Mowry, the director of Indiana's Poison Control Center, 2-CI overdoses--on the rise in the state--and have been known to cause seizures, kidney failure, and fatally high blood pressure.
"They do something that is called 'uncoupling." Mowry told an Indianapolis news station this month. "Basically, their muscles get to the point they cannot uncontract, so they sort of get rigid and then your temperature goes up really high and if you don't treat them really aggressively, those people usually end up dying."
Officials are taking aggressive measures to address this new national drug problem. In July, the DEA announced Operation Log Jam, the first nationwide coordinated US Law enforcement strike specifically targeting designer synthetic drugs. That same month, 2C-I was classified as a Schedule 1 subtance, making possession and distribution of the drug illegal. Those caught distributing even a small amount are facing serious criminal charges. Stai's friend, who allegedly obtained the drug that caused his overdose, has been charged with third degree murder.
While the drug's potential for overdose is apparent, the specific cases of fatalities are confounding. According to one site designed as a "fact sheet" for users, the dosage of the drug, which also comes as a liquid or a pill, is difficult to measure in powder form. When users snort the drug they could end up taking more than they realize, prompting an overdose. But in the case of Stai, the powder wasn't snorted, but melted into a chocolate bar and eaten.
Some speculate those "hobby chemists"--making the drug using powders shipped from China, acetone and plant-based materials--are to blame for concocting particularly strong or toxic batches.
"Anybody with a little money to front can import chemicals, mix, and sell it," says Carreno. "Many of these types of drugs were originally designed for research to be used on animals, not people." In fact, 2C-I was first synthesized by Alexander Shulgin, a psychopharmacologist and scientific researcher. He's responsible for identifying the chemical make-up of the so-called "2C" family, a group of hyper-potent psychedelic synthetics. In 2011, 2C-E, a twin sister drug to 2C-I, was blamed for the death of a Minnesota teenager and the overdose of 11 others.
Because of his medical research, Shulgin has unintentionally become a godfather of the synthetic drug movement, and his work has been reprinted and reduced to plain language on drug-related web forums.
"Drugs used to take longer to get around but now with the internet they can spread by word of mouth online," says Carreno. If drugs like Smiles are as viral as an internet meme, they have a similarly brief life-span. Already, a newer, re-booted version of the drug is cropping up on the other side of the planet, and by early accounts it's terrifying.
The new drug called 25b-Nbome, is a derivative of 2C-I, that's sold in tab form. This past month, the drug has been linked to the non-fatal overdoses of two young adults in Perth, Australia. It's also be blamed for the death of a young man in the same area, who died after repeatedly slamming his body into trees and power line poles while high on the drug.
"Overdose on these drugs is a reality... and can obviously result in dire consequences," a Perth police department official warned.
It isn't obvious to everyone. "I can't recommend for anyone to go out and use this legally," says one alleged 2C-I user in a YouTube video with 12,000 views, "but why not?"
The rise in dangerous synthetic drugs and how officials are trying to curb the problem.
http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/2c-smiles-killer-drug-every-parent-know-234200299.html

Friday, September 21, 2012

Friday 09-21-12

What is the problem here, i really hope there is more to the story.  It is hard to believe that this could go on in America.

Mom sues police and neighbor after she is arrested for letting her kids play outside




Allowing your kids to play on scooters outside the house on a quiet street seems innocent--and common--enough. But a Texas mom was arrested and spent the night in jail after a neighbor complained that the children were unsupervised.
The parent, Tammy Cooper, disputes the "humiliating" charge, saying she was watching the kids, ages 6 and 9, the whole time from a lawn chair.
But police took the neighbor at her word, and a few hours after the call, arrested Cooper for child endangerment. Cooper told KPRC that the arresting officer told her, "We're here for you."
The accused parent spent the night behind bars. "Orange jump suit, in a cell, slammed the door, for 18 hours," she said.
Cooper is suing the La Porte Police Department, the officer, and the neighbor who made the call. In a statement, the police department said it was "confident of the known actions of the officers on the scene that evening." The neighbor had no comment.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/mom-sues-polices-she-arrested-letting-her-kids-134628018.html

I guess the buck stops at the top only when it is convenient.  Mr. Holder it appears is off the hook, like it happens so many times in DC.  But to the point of the article, are we really expected to believe that the White House had no internal emails about this?  Please we are stretching the truth to the breaking point i think.
...DOJ Fast-and-Furious Report: WH Aide Declined Interview With IG; 'White House Did Not Produce Any Internal White House Communications'

cnsnews.com) - The report on Operation Fast and Furious released today by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General says a member of the White House National Security staff declined to be interviewed for the inspector general's investigation and that the White House itself did not produce internal documents for the investigation because the White House said it was "beyond the purview" of the inspector general.
The report said that gun traffickers purchased more than 2,000 weapons during Fast and Furious and that U.S. law enforcement officers eventually only recovered about 100 of these because "of a strategy jointly pursued by ATF and the U.S. Attorney's Office that deferred taking overt enforcement action against the individual straw purchasers while seeking to build a case against the leaders of the organization."
Two AK-47 rifles purchased by one of the traffickers ended up--11 months after their purchase--at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
The report said that an official with the White House National Security Staff declined an interview with the inspector general's office about his communications with William Newell, who the report said was the Special Agent in Charge of ATF’s Phoenix Field Division.
"We also sought to interview Kevin O’Reilly, an official with the White House National Security Staff, about communications he had in 2010 with Special Agent in Charge William Newell that included information about Operation Fast and Furious," says the IG report. "O’Reilly declined through his personal counsel our request for an interview."
"We sought to interview O’Reilly in light of e-mail communications he had with Special Agent in Charge Bill Newell in 2010," the IG report said in a footnote.
"Newell told us that he had known O’Reilly during previous field office assignments and that the two shared information about firearms trafficking issues relevant to their geographic areas of responsibility," the report said. "According to Newell, O’Reilly was also friends with ATF’s White House Liaison and through that relationship O’Reilly would be included on some information sharing between Newell and the ATF Liaison about ATF’s efforts on the Southwest Border, and that O’Reilly eventually communicated with Newell directly.
"Newell told us that he did not have direct contact with the White House other than through O’Reilly," said the report. "We requested from the White House any communications concerning Operation Fast and Furious during the relevant time period that were sent to or received from (a) certain ATF employees, including Special Agent in Charge Newell, and (b) certain members of the White House National Security Staff, including Kevin O’Reilly. In response to our request, the White House informed us that the only responsive communications it had with the ATF employees were those between Newell and O’Reilly. The White House indicated that it previously produced those communications to Congress in response to a similar request, and the White House provided us with a copy of those materials.
"The White House did not produce to us any internal White House communications, noting that 'the White House is beyond the purview of the Inspector General’s Office, which has jurisdiction over Department of Justice programs and personnel,'" said the report.
"The records the White House produced did not contain any communications between Newell and O’Reilly that referred to Operation Fast and Furious by name, and the communications that referred to the 'large OCDETF case'--which was Operation Fast and Furious--did not include any information about the case strategy or the tactics agents were using to conduct the investigation.
"We were unable to further investigate the communications between Newell and O’Reilly because O’Reilly declined our request for an interview," said the IG report.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/doj-fast-and-furious-report-wh-aide-declined-interview-ig-white-house-did-not-produce

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Thursday 09-20-12

Why does it take this long to find this out.  I think this a trick  Obama In 1998: "I Actually Believe In Redistribution" it is a trick on us the taxpayer




This will only increase, so you remain aware of it.  As it becomes more profitable to fake it, it will be done more and more.   The article says the Secret Service (our version of the SS) is looking into it, but i having a feeling my friend Jerry D. Young is right.  He writes in some of his stories, that the BATF will take over the confiscation of PM's and it will be called the BATFPM.  It is only a matter of time before the start confiscating PM's, but they will rob the retirement accounts of the public and private sectors first (like the lol "lockbox") of Social Security.

Fake gold bars turn up in Manhattan
MYFOXNY.COM - In jewelry stores on 47th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the important trust between merchants has been violated. A 10-ounce gold bar costing nearly $18,000 turned out to be a counterfeit.
The bar was filled with tungsten, which weighs nearly the same as gold but costs just over a dollar an ounce.
Ibrahim Fadl bought the bar from a merchant who has sold him real gold before. But he heard counterfeit gold bars were going around, so he drilled into several of his gold bars worth $100,000 and saw gray tungsten -- not gold.
What makes it so devious is a real gold bar is purchased with the serial numbers and papers, then it is hollowed out, the gold is sold, the tungsten is put in, then the bar is closed up. That is a sophisticated operation.
MTB, the Swiss manufacturer of the gold bars, said customers should only buy from a reputable merchant. The problem, he admits, is Ibrahim Fadl is a very reputable merchant.
Raymond Nessim, CEO Manfra, Tordell & Brookes, said he has reported the situation to the FBI and Secret Service.
The Secret Service, which deals with counterfeits, said it is investigating.
In March, gold bars filled with tungsten showed up in England. With New York now hit, it may mean an international ring is involved.

http://www.myfoxny.com/story/19578206/fake-gold-bars-turn-up-in-manhattan

More from the religion of peace...

US shuts Indonesia consulate amid film protests

MEDAN, Indonesia (AP) -- The U.S. temporarily closed its consulate in Indonesia's third-largest city Wednesday due to ongoing protests over an anti-Islam film produced in America.
About 300 members of the pan-Islamic movement Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia rallied Wednesday morning in front of the consulate in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province. Later, about 50 Muslim students protested, marking the third straight day of demonstrations there. Both groups called on Washington to punish the makers of the film, "Innocence of Muslims," which denigrates the Prophet Muhammad.
The embassy sent a text message to U.S. citizens saying the consulate would be temporarily closed due to the demonstrations.
In Jakarta, around 300 members of the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party rallied outside the U.S. Embassy. They dispersed after throwing eggs on a mock U.S. flag.
Indonesia's leaders and prominent Muslim clerics have urged calm, but convicted radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has called for a strong response to the film, urging Muslims to wage violent protests similar to those that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya last week.
"What happened in Libya can be replicated," Bashir told the Islamic news portal voa-islam.com, which interviewed him in jail. "Punishment for defaming God and the Prophet is death. ...There is no excuse."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_INDONESIA_PROPHET_FILM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-09-19-06-56-46

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Wednesday 09-19-12

Amazing fact (i guess it is true), having been a fan of MASH when i was young, some of the trivia is fascinating.

Where did the theme song come from?


The music for the "M*A*S*H" theme song was written by Johnny Mandel. The lyrics were written by Mike Altman, the 14-year-old son of the film's director, Robert Altman. It was originally penned for a scene in the movie, where a faux funeral was staged in hopes of talking a suicidal character out of his plans. Two of the men at the unit sang "Suicide Is Painless." An instrumental version of the song was subsequently used as the theme for the TV series. The young Altman went on to make millions in royalties off the song, while his dad was paid just $70,000 for directing the film.

http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/emmys/m-h-40-years-later-must-know-trivia-230438120.html

More common sence, it is the same with everything else, why should this be any different?    Things never stay the same.  We have super bugs now because of an over use of antibotics.

Weeds That Like A Sip of Roundup Now and Then


In Gene Logsdon Blog on September 5, 2012 at 4:41 am



First the glorious days of advanced farming brought us corn stalks that eat tractor tires. Now there’s a weed that likes to drink weed killers, especially Roundup. Recently Palmer amaranth “completely overran” most of the soybean test plots at Bayer CropScience’s test plots in Illinois, in the words of DTN/Progressive Farmer editor, Pam Smith, despite having an arsenal of herbicides thrown at it. She describes some of the plots as “forests of pigweed.” I shouldn’t joke about this because it really is a serious problem, but I just can’t help it. At least 20 years ago, in New Farm magazine, a Rodale publication I was working for at the time, we reported weeds becoming immune to herbicides and the herbicide industry hee-hawed us for being organic nitwits. So pardon me while I hee-haw right back.
Palmer amaranth is one of about 60 recognized kinds of pigweed or amaranth (we call it redroot in my neck of the woods). The Palmer type is native to the arid southwest but finds other climates just fine, especially in drought years. First it marched across the southern states and now is invading the Midwest. I have a great hunch that other pigweeds like the kind that plagues my garden will also become glyphosate-resistant if they haven’t already. Ironically, the weedkiller industry is now advocating crop rotation along with their herbicides as the way to control weeds, which of course is what wise farming understood long before Roundup came around.
What makes this situation almost amusing is that Palmer amaranth is at least 8000 years old and makes nutritious food for humans. Amaranth was a staple in the Aztec diet as well as Mississippian Indian cultures of the mound-building era. To this day, the seeds or grains of this “weed” are popped and mixed with honey to make a popular snack in Mexico called alegria. Grain amaranth is still found in seed catalogs (Seeds of Change, for one). Back in the 1970s and 80s, the Rodale Institute, under the aegis of Bob Rodale, began seriously to experiment with pigweed and the Rodale Institute remains today an excellent source of information on it. The first time I saw a whole field of pigweed in neat, long rows on the Rodale farm, I nearly went into cultural shock. This weed, which I had been taught from childhood was consummate evil, was arrayed in agronomic splendor across the landscape. But I became convinced that Bob was onto something and for quite a few years wrote enthusiastically about farmers and gardeners who tried to grow amaranth as a food crop.
But American society is not geared for pigweed farming. The seeds are so tiny that they are devilish hard to harvest and handle with piston engine power. Prehistoric hunters and gatherers painstaking gathered and ground the grain into good food because that’s what they did. We will still hunt and gather wild nuts, berries, mushrooms and fish for fun but not for work. We don’t do pigweed because we don’t need to do it and there’s no cultural glamor in it. We could change, I suppose. Harvesting marijuana is just as painstaking as harvesting pigweed but quite a few people are willing to do that, it seems. There may come a day when that will be true of pigweed too and it won’t be illegal. Until then, we must try to poison nutritious free food into extinction to suit the goals of industrial grain production. Some days I wonder if it might not be better to culturally engineer humans to enjoy small scale garden farming than to genetically engineer weeds to save large scale agribusiness.

http://thecontraryfarmer.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/weeds-that-like-a-sip-of-roundup-now-and-then/#more-6075

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Tuesday 09-18-12

An illustration of inflation

In 1920 thanks in large part to ever increasing manufacturing efficiencies the base price of a Ford Model T was $260 (according to Wikipedia).


The dollar was backed by Gold at an exchange rate of $22 per Ounce Troy (oz/T).

So the cost of the car was 11.81 ounces Troy if paid for in gold.
The invoice price of a base 2013 Ford Fusion is $20,235 (according to Edmonds) The dollar was taken off the Gold Standard in 1971 by Executive Order signed by Richard Nixon. Today the spot price of one ounce Troy of Gold is $1693.70 (according to Kitco). So the cost of the car is 11.94 oz/T if paid for in Gold.
And you get more car for your gold… Of course we’re not really talking about Fords. We’re talking about fiat… You see, gold is not over priced - the dollar is circling the bowl.
What’s that whooshing sound I hear?

http://theeclecticdragonfly.blogspot.com/2012/09/thought-for-day.html   This what is happening in our "learning institutions'?  More like the book 1984 "Education Centers"   College suspends professor for allegedly attempting to force students to vote for Obama

A college professor has been placed on leave after she allegedly forced her class to sign a pledge to vote for President Obama in the upcoming elections.Early last week Professor Sharon Sweet at Brevard Community College (BCC) allegedly told students to sign a pledge that reads: “I pledge to vote for President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket.”

The pledge was printed off of GottaVote.org, a website funded by the Obama campaign.
University administrators said they learned about the incident late Thursday afternoon and launched an investigation, after they received a phone call from a concerned parent.
“Based on the allegations, Associate Professor Sweet has requested, and been granted, a leave of absence without pay effective immediately,” reads a statement put out by John Glisch, Associate Vice President for Communications at BCC.
“The college will continue its investigation into the matter, which will include interviews with all students in her class,” continues the statement.
Sweet’s actions may have also violated Florida’s election laws.
Section 104.31, of Title IX in chapter 104, states that “no officer or employee of the state... shall... use his or her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election or nomination of officer or influencing another person’s vote or affecting the result thereof.”

http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4364

Monday, September 17, 2012

Monday 09-17-12

The whole mess makes me sick, our marines are not even issued bullets to defend themselves?

Video Purports To Show US Ambassador Dragged From Benghazi Consulate - UPDATES




YouTube user "Abdalgadar Fadi" has uploaded a video on the arabic language version of the video sharing site purporting to show US Ambassador Christopher Stevens dragged from the consulate in Benghazi.


The translation of the text below the video reads: "Moment directed the U.S. ambassador before his death" and the headline translates to: “U.S. Ambassador and the people of Benghazi rescue attempt before his death.”
The victim in the video appears to be wearing the same pants, belt and t-shirt seen in this photo of Amb. Stevens.
The validity of the video and the accuracy of the description of the events it depicts are still under investigation, but through Twitter and Facebook the video has already taken a life of its own.

UPDATE 9:15 PM ET
Various tipsters have offered differing interpretations of what they hear and witness on this video. The shouts of "Allauha Akbar" are clearly heard and many assume that the cry is meant as a celebration of the attack on the consulate and Amb. Stevens.
However, Arab-speaking readers have pointed out that they hear people saying “Lift him” and "bring him out." But they can’t discern why the crowd is cheering.
Jenan Moussa, who identifies herself as a "Roving Reporter for Arabic Al Aan TV from Dubai" took to Twitter when the video first broke. Moussa claims that some men in the video were saying "he's alive" and "lift him" (referring to Amb. Stevens.) She writes that after reviewing the video she believes the crowd began cheering because the man was found alive.

UPDATE 10:05 PM ET
The New York Times now offers their translation to the events int he video:
“I swear, he’s dead,” one Libyan says, peering in.
“Bring him out, man! Bring him out,” another says.
“The man is alive. Move out of the way,” others shout. “Just bring him out, man.”
“Move, move, he is still alive!”
“Alive, Alive! God is great,” the crowd erupts, while someone calls to bring Mr. Stevens to a car.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/09/16/BREAKING-Video-Purports-To-Show-Ambassador-In-Libya

All the president will do is meet the bodies at the airport.  Oh that right lets question the man that made the movie, we really don't care about free speech.  Lets go after the guy that made the movie not the ones really responsible.  We arrest the man that called someone a name instead of arresting the one that shoots him?  Makes a lot of sence.

More details emerge on U.S. ambassador's last moments

Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.


Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.

He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn't good for international business.
"The situation is frightening, it scares us," Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded.

Inside the U.S. consulate in Benghazi

Slain ambassador returns

Possible security leak in Libya Mabrouk said it was not the first time he has warned foreigners about the worsening security situation in the face of the growing presence of armed jihadist groups in the Benghazi area.

The main building in the compound is in charred ruins.

Disagreement over how attack began

The suite where the body of the ambassador was found was protected by a large door with steel bars; the windows had steel bars.

His body was recovered after looters broke into the room. It appears his security detail left him in the room while they tried to deal with the attack.

There are numerous questions about what happened at the consulate where protesters had gathered to demonstrate against the film "Innocence of Muslims," which reportedly was made in California by a filmmaker whose identity is unclear.

Chief among the questions is what happened to U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who went missing during the attack.

The State Department has not released details about how Stevens died, though numerous media reports have said the ambassador was taken from the consulate to the Benghazi medical center by locals.

Clinton demands Arab Spring nations protect embassies

He arrived at the hospital, according to the reports, unresponsive and covered in soot from the fire. A doctor was unable to revive him and declared him dead, the reports said.

According to one of the Libyan security guards who was stationed at one of the gates armed with only a radio, the assault began simultaneously from three directions.

Heavy machine guns and rocket -propelled grenades were used, according to the guard. He said masked men threatened to kill him at gunpoint for 'protecting the infidels. He declined to appear on camera for fear of repercussions.

Ex-SEALs among Benghazi dead

The February 17th Brigade -- a militia connected to the government but not part of Libya's armed forces -- was closely involved in the rescue of the American staff trapped after the attack Tuesday night.
After the consulate was attacked and set on fire, a number of Americans escaped to a safe-house in another part of the city. But that came under attack too.

Mabrouk said he received a call from an official in Tripoli, who said he had been called by a "terrified" American in Benghazi.

The official was at the safe-house. Mabrouk says the Brigade asked the Americans if they needed help -- but were told that while the situation was dangerous, it was under control.

A few hours later, Mabrouk said he received another call from Tripoli about the arrival of a U.S. team at Benghazi airport that needed transport into the city.

He met the seven Americans, who were heavily armed but not in military uniform, on the runway and provided them with an armed escort, he said.

As soon as the two vehicles carrying the seven Americans arrived at the safe house, they came under intense attack -- including a volley of grenades and machine-gun fire. The assailants then fled.

The Libyan government has vowed to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice. But on a visit to the heavily-damaged consulate, the country's president said Libya expected help form its friends in the international community.
Asked whether the government was not capable of controlling extremist groups, he responded "You are not far from the truth."
What the Mideast protests reveal

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/15/world/meast/libya-diplomats-warning/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Alleged 'Innocence of Muslims' filmmaker taken in for interview

Just after midnight Saturday morning, authorities descended on the Cerritos home of the man believed to be the filmmaker behind the anti-Muslim movie that has sparked protests and rioting in the Muslim world.
Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies escorted a man believed to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula to an awaiting car. The man declined to answer questions on his way out and wore a hat and a scarf over his face. He kept his hands in the pockets of a winter coat.
Sheriff's officials could not be reached by The Times, but department spokesman Steve Whitmore told KNBC News that deputies assisting the federal probation department took Nakoula to the sheriff's substation in Cerritos for interviewing.
[Updated at 1:40 a.m. July 15, 2012: Whitmore told The Times that Nakoula was taken in for a voluntary interview with probation officials and has not been arrested or detained.
TIMELINE: 'Innocence of Muslims' unrest
Authorities waited until most media had left for the day to take Nakoula in.
Earlier Friday, sheriff’s deputies had to escort attorneys through a scrum of news cameras into Nakoula’s home. When the man was taken away early Saturday, authorities had to dodge only a lone photographer for The Times and a few lingering reporters.
Nakoula has told the Associated Press that he was a logistics manager on the "Innocence of Muslims" movie, not the director. He told a Coptic Christian bishop on Thursday that he had no role in it, the clergyman told The Times.
Nakoula is believed to use the alias Sam Bacile, which was the name a caller who took credit for the film gave to the AP and the Wall Street Journal.
On Friday, U.S. courts spokeswoman Karen Redmond said the Office of Probation in the Central District of California was reviewing whether Nakoula, who has been convicted on bank fraud charges, violated terms of his probation in relation to the video and its uploading onto the Internet.
PHOTOS: Protests over anti-Islam film spread
He had been ordered not to own or use devices with access to the Internet without approval from his probation officer -– and any approved computers were to be used for work only. "Defendant shall not access a computer for any other purpose," the terms read.
Restrictions were also placed on him enlisting others to get on the Internet for him.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/09/anti-muslim-film-nakoula-basseley-innocence-muslims.html

Friday, September 14, 2012

Saturday 09-15-12

Happy 22 year anniversary to my wife and i.



Texas Posse Hunting for Halliburton’s Missing Radioactive Device


Texas may call out the National Guard in the hunt for a seven-inch radioactive rod used in drilling natural-gas wells, lost this week by Halliburton Co. (HAL) somewhere in a 130-mile swath of the state’s western oil fields.
The Texas Department of State Health Services said yesterday it sought help from an Austin-based National Guard unit that has equipment to locate the radioactive item, which can pose a health risk if touched or held for several days.
A device similar to the missing radioactive probe is shown.
A device similar to the missing radioactive probe is shown. Source: Texas Department of State Health Services via Bloomberg

.Halliburton lost the unit on Sept. 11, according to a report yesterday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Pickup trucks with detection gear retraced the route of a vehicle that carried the radioactive rod before it was lost. The trucks drove at 10 miles an hour between Pecos, where the device was used on a well, and Odessa without finding the unit, the report said.
“It’s not something that produces radiation in an extremely dangerous form,” Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the health department, said in an interview. “But it’s best for people to stay back, 20 or 25 feet.”
Oil-field service companies lower the radioactive units into wells to let workers identify places to break apart rock for a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which frees trapped oil and natural gas. While the loss of such a probe occurs from time to time, it has been years since a device with americium-241/beryllium, the material in Halliburton’s device, was misplaced in Texas, Van Deusen said.

Missing Device

Loss of a device of this type hasn’t been reported to the NRC within at least the past five years, Maureen Conley, an agency spokeswoman, said in an interview. She said the material would have to be in someone’s physical possession for several hours for it to be considered harmful. The agency was notified because it works with states to regulate use of radioactive materials.
Halliburton called the Reeves County sheriff’s office in Pecos after discovering the item was missing, police sergeant Jerry Millan said.
“They told us they had lost a radioactive rod,” he said in an interview. “I’ve worked in the oil fields, so I knew what it was. We’ve been assisting with the search.”
The seven-inch stainless-steel cylinder is about an inch in diameter and marked with the radiation-warning symbol, Halliburton said in a statement yesterday. The cylinder is marked “do not handle.”
Halliburton told the state that workers discovered on Sept. 11 that a lock on the container used to transport the device was missing, along with the unit, after driving a truck to a well south of Odessa from from a site near Pecos, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) away, according to the NRC report. The company is offering a reward and is working with local law enforcement, the highway patrol and health officials in the search, the company said.

“Halliburton is working with authorities to resolve this matter as quickly as possible,” the company said in its statement.

The workers went back to the Pecos site and searched for the unit without success, according to the report.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-13/halliburton-hunting-for-missing-radioactive-probe-in-west-texas.html

Will Virginia EMT’s Be Granted Right To Carry Firearms?

Well, to be precise, it wouldn't be granting anything.
More properly, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is considering recognizing a human right that supercedes any state regulation.
Continuing the general regulatory trend started by Governor Mark Warner (D), and continued by Governor Bob McDonnell (R), Virginia is continuing to strike more state regulations banning gun carry. This time it's Old Domination ambulance crews who will regain their right to bear arms.
Allow me to make a prediction on what will happen if Virginia ambulance crews start to carry weapons:
NOTHING.
No blood in the streets, no Wild West-style shootouts (largely a Hollywood fiction in which most anti-gun types fervently believe), no EMT's bustin' caps in unruly patients, no unruly patients disarming those ignorant, untrained EMT's and shooting them with their own weapons, no EMT's barging into unsafe scenes bolstered with a misplaced sense of invulnerability because they're packing heat.
NOTHING.
Each one of those arguments is a favorite of people who fear guns, know little about guns, and project their own fear and ignorance on everyone else who would potentially carry a gun. And they keep not happening.
I remember at an EMS convention a few years back, I was invited to participate in a live podcast from the exhibit hall floor. The event was co-located with a major law enforcement expo, and as a result, there were plenty of tables and booths crowded with pistols, sniper rifles, M4 carbines and other tactical gear, sandwiched between the EMS booths.
I arrived late, just in time to begin recording, and as I got miked up, one of the podcast hosts teased me that the reason I arrived late is that I was distracted by all the tables of shiny weapons on the way in. Another guest, a good friend and respected EMS educator and innovator, remarked that he was happy to be from one of the few states left that banned concealed carry of firearms.
I smiled and said, "Not for long," as his state had shall-issue concealed carry legislation pending (which eventually passed). He replied, "Well, at least no one is carrying guns here."
I leaned in and whispered, "How do you know that? There are no signs posted as required by law at every entrance and exit, at least not in the parking garage entrance. There might be someone carrying a weapon sitting right next to you. Considering the state we're in, I wouldn't doubt that 20% of the people here are packing."
Apparently, he didn't consider me a threat, because we continued the podcast and even went out to sign karaoke together later that night. And as his state's concealed carry legislation neared passing, we kept up a friendly dialogue about the process.
People will be resorting to vigilante justice.

Didn't happen.

Just watch, some CCW holder is going to get shot by police, or vice versa, in some tragic mixup.

Didn't happen.
They're gonna let people carry weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol. I can just see the drunken shootouts now.
Didn't happen.
Lord, people are applying by the thousands. I never knew my state had so many bloodthirsty rednecks.
So far, no reports of those bloodthirsty rednecks engaging in crime.
Of course, that's the point. Everywhere gun rights restrictions are eased, people afraid of guns keep making dire predictions, and those predictions keep not happening.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on May 5, 2012 that concealed carry laws applied even on college campuses.
Any drunken fraternity shootings? Any professors shot by students dissatisfied with their grades?
Didn't happen.
I predict that allowing concealed carry by EMT's in Virginia will have exactly the same effect that allowing college students to carry had in Colorado: none.
None, except that ambulances and college campuses are no longer guaranteed victim disarmament zones. That's sort of the point.
I don't carry a weapon on duty at The Borg. Number one, it's against company policy, and when I cash The Borg's paycheck, I agree to abide by their rules. I leave my activism at the door to the ambulance station. Number two, I really never felt the need to carry at work. Now, if The Borg and the state of Louisiana suddenly decided to take a page from Virginia's book, would I carry?
Yes, definitely.
I'd have the same mindset that I have every day I carry a weapon in civilian clothes, the same mindset shared by 99.9% of all people who choose to carry a firearm: "Please God, don't let me have to shoot anyone today."

And we'd take those steps necessary to make that possibility unlikely; we'd be wary of our surroundings, and we'd avoid places and situations that put us in danger if at all possible. But it's the unpredictable dangers that make carrying a weapon necessary. No one purchasing a fire extinguisher plans to have their house catch fire, after all.

I wouldn't carry openly at work. I don't believe much in the deterrent factor anyway, nor do I believe it makes me a likelier target for attackers. But I do believe it would erase a line in the minds of some of my patients who view police as the adversary and medics to be, if not friendlies, at least non-combatants. Playing the "You can trust me, I'm not the po po," angle is useful to me in my line of work. I'd like to keep the ability to do that.

When I carried openly before I got my concealed hangun license, activism was as much a goal as self defense. I wanted people to see a guy carrying a gun openly who wasn't being a complete asshole itching for a confrontation with the cops; just a benign neighborly type, non-threatening, Ned Flanders with a 1911.
Carrying openly at work, it simply isn't possible to project that image.

If the idea of your EMT's carrying weapons fills you with trepidation, I know exactly where you're coming from. In fact, I used to have the same concerns. Here's what I said back then:
I’m not saying EMTs shouldn’t defend themselves. I’m not even opposed to the abstract idea of CCW while on the job. It’s just that most EMTs I know who insist on carrying weapons are just the sort of EMTs who shouldn’t…well…be EMTs. Much less armed EMTs.

They cannot communicate effectively. They lack empathy and compassion. They’re hotheaded. Every patient encounter is an adversarial relationship. They conduct patient interviews like police interrogations. When the feces strike the thermal agitator, they’re the type who thinks shouting orders and throwing their weight around constitutes effective leadership and good crisis management. They’re just not…reasonable people. A reasonable person with a concealed weapon is one of the safest people you will ever meet…and one of the most dangerous, depending on how you approach him. An unreasonable person with a firearm is just plain dangerous, regardless of whether you’re law abiding or not.

Here’s a hint: if you have shown off your carry weapon to your co-workers, you’re just the sort of goober I’m talking about. And here’s the sad thing – most law enforcement agencies wouldn’t have you either, Sergeant Tackleberry.

My opinion was based on classic selection bias; all the people I knew who carried on-duty were idiots, therefore I assumed that every EMT who carried on-duty was an idiot. I later learned that was not the case.
Not every EMT in Virginia is going to rush out to the gun store, Visa card in hand, and breathlessly ask, "Say buddy, what's the best heater for taking down a 300-pound meth-head in excited delirium when 5 of Haldol IM, 10 of intranasal Versed, three shocks with a Tazer and several whacks with a D oxygen cylinder have failed to slow him down? Gimme two of those, and a 30-round mag… just in case."

Much more likely to happen is that a bunch of EMT's who already have concealed carry permits – all over 21, having passed a criminal background check and completed a training course, I might add – will start carrying at work… and very few others will.

And those permit holders are already among the most law-abiding citizens in society.
About 6.3 times less likely to break the law than the average member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, in fact.
http://ambulancedriverfiles.com/2012/09/13/virginia-emts-granted-right-to-carry/

Friday 09-14-12

This is not "cool" it is stupid.  What happened to survival of the fittest?  Even though evolution is a wrong concept also.


Endangered Eyeless Spider Indefinitely Delays $15M Texas Highway Project


SAN ANTONIO, Texas (CBS Houston) — An endangered eyeless spider is holding up a $15 million Texas highway project.




Construction of the highway underpass project on Texas 151 was indefinitely delayed after a biologist consultant with the Texas Department of Transportation discovered the Braken Bat Cave meshweaver, according to San Antonio Express-News.
The Express-News reports the spider, which is about the size of a dime, was added to the endangered species list 12 years ago.

Dr Jean Krejca of Zara Environmental told the paper the finding of this spider is like ”stumbling on a new Galapagos Island.”
Department spokesperson Josh Donat says it’s just now a wait-and-see plan on what to do.
“We have to wait until the Fish and Wildlife Service gives us the thumbs up for plan B or plan C or whatever plan we end up going with,” he told KSAT-TV.
Donat added that the finding was a “huge surprise.”
“It’s phenomenal. Those who are really into spiders geek out about it,” Donat told KSAT. “This is really cool.”
Construction for the $15 million highway project started in April.
This is the second time this type of spider has been found in the world, both times being in Bexar County, Texas.

http://houston.cbslocal.com/2012/09/12/endangered-eyeless-spider-indefinitely-delays-15m-texas-highway-project/

Questions?  Why wait 11 years, and why would you think the people in charge can do any better in the next 11 years then they have done in the first?

GOP to TSA: Eleven years after 9/11 attacks, it's time to change


After holding a moment of silence Tuesday in honor of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee took the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to task for the airport security techniques that have become commonplace since then.
"I know anybody that's watched TV this morning shares my sentiments that it's just a tough day when you think about all those lives and those families who are remembering their loved ones that they lost on that tragic day," the chairman of the panel's subcommittee on Transportation Security, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), said.
"Since TSA's creation after 9/11, the agency has gone down a troubling path of overspending, limiting private sector engagement, and failing to sufficiently protect passenger privacy," he quickly added.

Touting a report produced by the Transportation Security subcommittee, Rogers said it was time for TSA to be "rebuilt" into a "smarter, leaner organization."
Among the panel's suggestions are increasing the number of risk-based security programs that are used by TSA and "enlisting the private sector to modernize and automate the passenger screening process.
"Here is the bottom line: It is time to reform TSA," Rogers said. "In fact, it’s been a long time coming."
TSA officials defended the agency, saying that it was working with private companies to develop new risk-based security techniques.
"We understand that this has got to be a joint effort," TSA Deputy Administrator John Halinski said. "It's not just the government, quite frankly. It's going to be the private industry."
"TSA continues to take steps to further enhance our layered approach to security through state-of-the-art technologies, better passenger identification techniques and other developments that strengthen our capabilities to keep terrorists off commercial aircraft," he added in testimony submitted to the committee before the hearing.
Halinski dashed hopes for a move to a completely risk-based airport security system, however, saying "TSA will always incorporate random and unpredictable security measures throughout the airport and no individual will be guaranteed expedited or modified screening."
At one lighter point in Tuesday's hearing, Rogers asked a panel to grade TSA's performance since the 9/11 attacks.
"TSA has made progress, but the grade is clearly incomplete as you look at what the opportunities are with Pre-Check," U.S. Travel Association Chief Operating Officer Geoff Freeman responded.
Rogers responded with a quip about recent comments from President Obama about his handling of the U.S. economy in which he also said he would give himself an incomplete.
"You've been watching the convention, haven't you?" Rogers said to laughter.

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/tsa/248817-gop-to-tsa-eleven-years-after-911-its-time-to-change

The key to the presidents success, is to only play against white people.  (lol)



Thursday, September 13, 2012

Thursday 09-13-12

I guess the question begs to be asked is how they got them in the first place?

Millions Of iPhone, iPad IDs Stolen


The hacker group AntiSec released a file of a million and one UDIDs--unique device identifiers--which it claims to have hacked it off an FBI computer via a Java vulnerability. UDIDs are unique IDs for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. Apple and the developers of any apps you install gain access to this string.
The group's Pastebin posting claims that the stolen list was taken from the notebook computer of FBI Supervisor special agent Christopher K. Stangl's computer in March 2012 using a Java AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability. The purloined file was named "NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv" and contained UDIDs for 12,367,232 iOS devices, although not all of them with full personal information. AntiSec chose to disclose only the smaller number of UDIDs.
The "NCFTA" part of the file name might stand for the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance, which defines itself as an alliance of SMEs (subject matter experts) in industry, academia, and government with broad goals for addressing computer security threats. The relevance of "Intel" in the file name is tough to figure; no iOS devices run on Intel processors, so perhaps it's just short for "intelligence.
The file allegedly included other personal information, such as "...full names, cell numbers, addresses, zipcodes, etc" but the group stripped those out of the list.
The potential for privacy problems via UDID disclosure is an old issue. Normally, app distributors get the UDID of a device when that device installs an app, and Apple already has begun to restrict access to them in favor of less-problematic methods.
Although many reports indicate that the disclosed UDIDs are valid, there has been no official recognition by the government that they were the source of the data, nor has there been any explanation of why the FBI would have such a file.
For instructions on determining the UDID of your own iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, see WhatsMyUDID.com.
Click here for a tool that checks to see if your UDID is in the list.

http://www.informationweek.com/byte/news/240006685

Oldest Message in a Bottle Found A Scottish skipper has found the oldest message ever in a bottle at sea, Guinness World Records said.
According to the record-keeping organization, Andrew Leaper, skipper of the Shetland fishing boat "Copious," made the discovery on April 12 when hauling in his nets in the North Sea off the coast of Shetland.

He later learned that the message in bottle had been adrift for 97 years and 309 days. This surpasses the previous record by more than five years.

Amazingly, it was Leaper's friend Mark Anderson who set the previous record in 2006 by retrieving another Scottish bottle as he was skippering the same boat.
"I spotted the bottle neck sticking out and I quickly grabbed it before it fell back into the sea," Leaper said.
"It was an amazing coincidence that the same Shetland fishing boat that found the previous record-breaking bottle six years ago also found this one. It's like winning the lottery twice," Leaper said.

Labeled as drift bottle 646B, the record-breaking bottle contained a postcard asking the finder to write down the date and location of the discovery and return it to the "Director of the Fishery Board for Scotland." The postcard promised a reward of six pence.
The water-tight glass bottle was released on June 10, 1914 by Captain C H Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation.
It was one of 1,890 scientific research bottles specially designed to sink downwards and float close to the seabed.
Each contained the same postcard asking the finder to record the date and location and return it for the six pence reward.
"Drift bottles gave oceanographers at the start of the last century important information that allowed them to create pictures of the patterns of water circulation in the seas around Scotland," Bill Turrell, head of Marine Ecosystems with Marine Scotland Science, said.
He added that the conclusions of those pioneering oceanographers were right in many respects.
"For example, they correctly deduced the clockwise flow of water around our coasts. However, it took the development of electronic instruments in the 1960s before the true patterns of current flows, and more importantly what causes them, were unlocked," Turrell said.
Of the batch released in 1914, 315 bottles have been found so far. Captain Brown's original log, now held by Marine Scotland Science in Aberdeen, is still updated each time a bottle is tracked down.
"It's amazing that nearly 98 years of bottles are still being returned to the Marine Laboratory -- and in such fantastic condition," Scottish environment secretary Richard Lochhead said.
"With many bottles still unreturned there is always the chance in the coming years that a Scottish drift bottle will once again break the record," Lochhead said.

http://news.discovery.com/history/oldest-message-in-bottle-120906.html