No Agenda Episode 606 - "Get Ready to Rubble"
by Adam Curry
- Direct [link] to the mp3 file
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- Previous Episode's Art: MartinJJ
- Executive Producers: Sir AJ Rystad, Sir Grand Duke Steven Pelsmaekers, Richard Henderson, Sir Evil Kraut Brothers of 89th and Bluegrass, Matthew McNulty, Sir Robert Alter, Sir Dennis Nutting
- Associate Executive Producers: Sir Nate Wilson, Tom Haney
- Founding Executive Producer: Richard Henderson
- Founding Associate Executive Producer: Tom Haney
- 606 Club Member:Sir AJ Rystad
- Become a member of the 607 Club, support the show here
- Knighthoods:Dennis Nutting
- Titles:Evil Kraut Brothers of 89th and Bluegrass -->> Baronet
- New: Directory Archive of Shownotes (includes all audio and video assets used) nashownotes.com
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- TODAY
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- Happy birthday, Satoshi Nakamoto : Bitcoin
- Today, 5 April, seems to be Satoshi Nakamoto's (symbolic) birthday. Congrats.
- Ning/P2P Foundation requires a birthdate for signups, and displays for every member an age calculated from that birthdate. This is the basis for ages given for Satoshi. However, the age changes each year; for example:
- Since the displayed age yesterday (4 April 2014) was 38, and today (5 April 2014) it is 39, I infer that his birthday is 5 April and his birthdate is 5 April 1975 (2014 - 39).
- There is, as far as I can tell, nothing special about 5 April; it's not a round number, it's not a symbolic date, it's not your usual fake birthday like 1 January or April Fools, it's not the day Satoshi signed up for P2P ("Satoshi Nakamoto is now a member of P2P Foundation Feb 11, 2009"), it's not related to when Bitcoin was released (January) or when the domain was registered (August) etc etc. So it seems like a good guess at a birthday.
- EDIT: edlund points out I missed an entry in the Wikipedia list which might be very important to libertarians:
- On April 5th 1933 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs two executive orders: 6101 to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps, and 6102 "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates" by U.S. citizens.
- This raises another question: if the choice of birthday was symbolic, then is there additional symbolism in the choice of birthyear and/or claimed age when he registered? Is there anything special about 1975 or '34' in a libertarian context? edlund points out there is for 1975, and in fact, it's directly connected to the April 5 fact:
- Another important thing about the year 1975 - it was the year in which gold ownership was legalized for the mere mortals in the US
- I find this pretty convincing. Well played, Satoshi, well played indeed - even now, >5 years after you registered that profile, we're still finding easter eggs you left for us.
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- Presidential Proclamation -- National Volunteer Week, 2014
- Office of the Press Secretary
- NATIONAL VOLUNTEER WEEK, 2014
- BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- Through countless acts of kindness, generosity, and service, Americans recognize that we are all bound together -- that we move this country forward by giving of ourselves to others and caring for those around us. Every day, Americans carry forward the tradition of service embedded in our character as a people. And as we celebrate National Volunteer Week, we embrace our shared responsibility to one another and recommit to the task of building a more perfect Union.
- By performing acts of service, we can shape a Nation big enough and bold enough to accommodate the hopes of all our people. Across our country, volunteers open doors of opportunity, pave avenues of success, fortify their communities, and lay the foundation for tomorrow's growth and prosperity. They are often equipped with few resources and gain little recognition, yet because of their service, our country is a better and a stronger force for good.
- My Administration is dedicated to engaging Americans through service. Through the Corporation for National and Community Service, we administer programs like AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, and we have designed innovative initiatives such as School Turnaround AmeriCorps and VetSuccess AmeriCorps. In giving their time and talent, our volunteers can learn new skills and focus their vision, energy, and passion on projects ranging from improving disaster relief, delivering better education, and assisting returning veterans and military families. And by establishing the Task Force on Expanding National Service, we are creating new opportunities to support our communities through service.
- The American experience stands apart because our triumph is found in the example of our people. With unity of purpose and unmatched resolve, we confront our shared challenges as one people and emerge stronger than before. We saw this spirit in action when, in the wake of a devastating mudslide in Washington State, Americans stepped in to provide food, shelter, and support to survivors. We saw it last year when a tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, and volunteers came together to rebuild homes, schools, and hospitals -- because we are a Nation that stands with our fellow citizens as long as it takes. As we renew our commitment to each other during National Volunteer Week, I encourage you to visit www.Serve.gov to learn more about service opportunities in your area.
- NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 6 through April 12, 2014, as National Volunteer Week. I call upon all Americans to observe this week by volunteering in service projects across our country and pledging to make service a part of their daily lives.
- IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand fourteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.
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- Presidential Proclamation -- National Crime Victims' Rights Week, 2014
- Office of the Press Secretary
- NATIONAL CRIME VICTIMS' RIGHTS WEEK, 2014
- BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- This year marks 30 years since the passage of the Victims of Crime Act and the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, and two decades since the Violence Against Women Act became law. These milestones represented major steps toward upholding the rights of millions of Americans who become victims of crime each year -- from women seeking shelter after leaving abusive relationships to families demanding justice for a loved one's murder to children struggling to rebuild their lives after escaping trafficking rings. During National Crime Victims' Rights Week, we stand with these men, women, and children, and offer our support to crime victims everywhere.
- My Administration is taking action to prevent crime, especially against those most at risk. Every American should have a chance to pursue their education in peace and security, yet one in five women is sexually assaulted at college. Because this is unacceptable, I created the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. And to achieve justice for more survivors of sexual assault from every walk of life, my new budget proposes funding to help process rape kits, develop units to pursue cold cases, and support victims throughout the process.
- We also know that young men of color are most likely to become victims of violent crime, and the odds are often stacked against them in ways that require targeted solutions. Earlier this year, I launched the My Brother's Keeper initiative, a program focused on helping boys and young men of color stay on track through some of life's most critical moments. With partners across the public and private sectors, we will give more young Americans the support they need as they face great obstacles, and we will work to decrease their chances of becoming victims of crime.
- This week, let us recommit to preventing crime and strengthening rights and services for all victims. Together, we can expand opportunity and build a safer, more just world.
- NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 6 through April 12, 2014, as National Crime Victims' Rights Week. I call upon all Americans to observe this week by participating in events that raise awareness of victims' rights and services, and by volunteering to serve victims in their time of need.
- IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand fourteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.
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- Joint Statement by the United States of America and the Tunisian Republic
- Office of the Press Secretary
- In their meeting today at the White House, President Obama and Prime Minister Jomaa reaffirmed the strategic partnership between the United States and Tunisia. The two leaders discussed the historic progress made in Tunisia as its political and civil society leaders have worked together to advance Tunisia's democratic transition and secure a more peaceful and prosperous future for Tunisia. The two leaders also emphasized their commitment to advancing our shared interests in a secure, stable, and prosperous Maghreb, Africa, and Middle East and to furthering the strong friendship between the peoples of the United States and Tunisia.
- Support for Tunisia's Historic Democratic Transition:Prime Minister Jomaa briefed President Obama on recent developments in Tunisia's transition to democracy, including the ratification of the new Tunisian Constitution on January 26, 2014, that enshrines equality between women and men. He also noted the establishment of the Independent Elections Commission and the progress that the National Constituent Assembly has made towards finalizing an elections law. Prime Minister Jomaa reiterated the Tunisian government's intention to give all necessary support to ensure the holding of free, fair, and transparent parliamentary and presidential elections before the end of 2014. The President commended the compromises made by all of Tunisia's political parties to secure the country's democratic progress and to set out a pathway towards elections later this year. He lauded Tunisia's efforts to advance its democracy through the adoption of a progressive constitution that protects the rights of all its citizens. The President welcomed Tunisia's efforts to hold elections this year and noted that the United States is prepared to provide additional assistance for the elections and to participate in the delegation of international election observers. Since the revolution began over three years ago, Tunisia has been a model in the region and beyond.
- Advancing Economic Cooperation and Development:The two leaders emphasized that the United States and Tunisia are dedicated to working together to promote economic development and business opportunities in Tunisia. The Prime Minister briefed the President on steps his government is taking to implement economic reforms, keep on track with its International Monetary Fund program, and improve Tunisia's prospects for long-term economic stability. To respond to Tunisia's near-term economic challenges and support the Prime Minister's reform agenda, the President announced the Administration's intent to provide a second loan guarantee for $500 million to facilitate Tunisia's access to international capital markets.
- The United States and Tunisia seek to broaden and deepen bilateral trade and business relations. To that end, the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) Council will next meet on June 16, 2014 in Tunis. The TIFA Council plans to address specific issues aimed at facilitating trade and investment, including in the areas of market access, entrepreneurship, information and communication technology services, and intellectual property. It also expects to explore additional ideas for building a more robust bilateral trade and investment relationship and for liberalizing the exchange of goods and services.
- Recognizing the central role of the private sector in creating economic growth, the United States and Tunisia will organize a U.S.-Maghreb Entrepreneurship Conference this fall in Tunis that will bring a high-level U.S. business and government delegation to Tunisia.
- Educational and Cultural Cooperation:In keeping with the importance of people-to-people ties between Tunisia and the United States and of education for advancing long-term development, the United States has provided $10 million through the Thomas Jefferson Scholarship program to support Tunisian students . The United States has requested from Congress an additional $10 million to expand these opportunities to other deserving Tunisians. This effort builds on the long history of educational exchange under the U.S.-Tunisia Fulbright Program and other educational and cultural exchanges. Both leaders committed to strengthening ties and increasing mutual understanding between Tunisian and American youth and expanding the existing university linkage programs.
- The Governments of Tunisia and the United States underscore their shared desire to enhance their cooperation by negotiating and concluding a new Science and Technology Agreement. Both sides stressed the economic, educational, and commercial benefits of expanded scientific and technological cooperation.
- The President commended the Prime Minister for the support he expressed for Tunisia's participation in the J. Christopher Stevens Virtual Exchange Initiative and for his dedication to the values it seeks to promote by connecting youth from all different age groups in the Middle East and North Africa with youth in the United States through virtual exchange.
- Security and Counterterrorism Cooperation:The United States and Tunisia have a shared interest in increasing security cooperation to address common threats in Tunisia and across the region. The two leaders committed to advancing increased bilateral contacts between our governments regarding security and defense cooperation, counterterrorism programs, and security assistance. They look forward to continued progress in these areas at the meeting of the Joint Military Commission to be held in Tunis in May 2014.
- Broader cooperation on legal matters is a priority for both countries to help advance our security goals and to combat transnational crime. The leaders noted the progress made in negotiations on the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty and committed to finalizing the treaty as soon as possible.
- Prime Minister Jomaa expressed to President Obama Tunisia's deep and sincere regret for the September 14, 2012 attack against the U.S. Embassy and the American Cooperative School of Tunis. Prime Minister Jomaa stated that his government intends to do everything in its power to resolve remaining issues, including bringing to justice those involved in the attack. The Prime Minister emphasized the importance Tunisia places on the security of all diplomatic facilities in Tunisia and confirmed that Tunisia is continuing to provide all requested security assistance to U.S. Government facilities and personnel.
- Conclusion:The President and the Prime Minister closed the meeting by emphasizing their shared commitment to advancing ties between the United States and Tunisia. They welcomed the progress made during the inaugural session of the U.S.-Tunisia Strategic Dialogue led by Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Foreign Minister Mongi Hamdi at the Department on April 3. They look forward to a future session of the U.S.-Tunisian Strategic Dialogue to be held in Tunis in 2015. Today's meeting between the two leaders demonstrates the depth and breadth of the partnership and friendship between the United States and Tunisia as well as our shared commitment to supporting Tunisia's historic democratic transition and its economic growth and security.
- Saw Wolf of Wall Street - Shite
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- MH370
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- Xinhua-Chinese search vessel discovers pulse signal in Indian Ocean - Xinhua | English.news.cn
- ABOARD PATROL SHIP HAIXUN 01, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Chinese patrol ship Haixun 01, searching for the missing Malaysian passenger jet MH370, detected a pulse signal with a frequency of 37.5kHz per second in southern Indian Ocean waters Saturday.
- A black box detector deployed by the Haixun 01 picked up the signal at around 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longtitude. It is yet to be established whether it is related to the missing jet.
- Chinese air force plane spots new floating objects in south Indian Ocean
- PERTH, Australia, April 5 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese air force plane searching for missing Malaysian passenger jet MH370 spotted a number of white floating objects in the search area Saturday.
- The plane photographed the objects over a period of 20 minutes after spotting them at 11:05 local time. Full story
- Chinese patrol ship intensifies efforts to detect MH370 black box
- ABOARD HAIXUN 01 PATROL SHIP, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese patrol ship Haixun 01 has intensified its effort to detect signals emitted from the black box of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 since Friday morning off the Australian western coast.
- On Friday, Haixun 01 arrived at the new search area to the north of the 1.15 million square-kilometer patch earlier designated by Australia, according to a Xinhua reporter aboard the Chinese search vessel. Full story
- China continues MH370 hunt
- BEIJING, April 4 (Xinhua) -- China has vowed to keep searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and another Chinese aircraft took off from Perth in Australia on Friday morning to join the hunt.
- The People's Liberation Army Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke said at Friday's press conference that the Chinese Air Force is conducting its search with the support of Malaysia, Australia and other sides, and will improve its the quality and efficiency of the search "by all means." Full story
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- Freescale Patent Holders Weren't On Flight 370
- Freescale Patent Holders Weren't On Flight 370One of the stories being promoted by the alternative media is that four patent holders of a new fabrication technologyand employees of Freescale Seminconductor were on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. This turns out not to be the case. Even though it is true that several employees from Freescale are listed in the manifest none of the aforementioned patent holders are listed.
- This is important to point out because it appears as if a bunch of these stories detailing a conspiracy to kill the patent holders to benefit the Rothschild family and others is at best poor journalism or at worst disinformation. If you look at the official Flight 370 manifest supplied by Malaysia Airlines and an even a more descriptive passenger list provided by New York Daily News, it is clear that none of the patent holders names are listed.
- It is quite possible that this business surrounding Freescale, patent holders, the Rothschilds etc.. is just a manufactured rabbit trail to distract alternative researchers. A hat tip to Dahboo7 and his YouTube channel for exposing this. Check out his video on the same topic below.
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- BlackListedNews.comCopyright 2006-2014
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- Ukraine F-Russia
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- Sideways drilling email
- Please keep me anonymous, just wanted to chime in about your comments on the last show about drilling under
- the border for natural gas.
- I design oilfield equipment and typically you when doing directional drilling they drill about 5-6km from
- the well site. If they were drilling right on the border, I'd agree they could be stealing gas. You can't
- really drill much further/deeper because you reach the limits of the casing & drill pipe.
- FYI I sent this using my own email server. Thanks for pushing me to do it.
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- LEAKED MEMO-Nasa cuts ties with Russia over Ukraine crisis, except for space station | Science | theguardian.com
- After insisting that space relations would not be altered by earthly politics, Nasa on Wednesday said it was severing ties with Russia over the Ukraine crisis, except for the International Space Station.
- Nasa employees cannot travel to Russia or host visitors until further notice. They are also barred from emailing or holding teleconferences with their Russian counterparts because of Russia's actions in Ukraine, according to a memo sent to workers.
- Activities related to the space station are exempt. Nasa and Russia's space agency will "continue to work together to maintain safe and continuous operation" of the space station, Nasa said in a statement released late on Wednesday.
- Since the retirement of the space shuttle, Nasa has depended on Russia to hitch rides to the giant orbiting outpost, paying nearly $71m for a seat on the Soyuz.
- A Russian rocket last week delivered three astronauts, including American Steve Swanson. The laboratory is a partnership of the US, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada. US astronauts train in Russia before flying to the space station and the new directive was not expected to affect that.
- Previously Nasa had insisted US-Russia space relations were fine despite the tensions over Ukraine.
- "Right now, everything is normal in our relationship with the Russians," Nasa administrator Charles Bolden said on 4 March. Nasa reiterated the sentiment last week after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
- "We do not expect the current Russia-Ukraine situation to have an impact on our longstanding civil space co-operation with Russia, which goes back decades," an agency statement said.
- After the memo leaked on Wednesday, Nasa confirmed it was suspending most contact with Russia. But it also took a swipe at Congress, noting that it wouldn't be relying on Russia to fly to the space station if funding had not been cut. The space agency said it was looking at private rocket companies to ferry astronauts in 2017.
- Space policy experts said they were not surprised with the latest guideline because similar memos suspending Russian contact went out to other federal agencies.
- Earlier this week, Congress and Nato took steps to punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine. Congress sent Barack Obama a bill to provide $1bn in loan guarantees to Ukraine and add to sanctions against Russia. Nato's foreign ministers ordered an end to civilian and military cooperation with Russia.
- Scott Pace, space policy director at George Washington University, said it was noteworthy that co-operation on the space station remained intact.
- "We and the Russians have a very deep and integrated relationship. We are reliant on them as they are on us," he said. "Divorce is not an option."
- Pace said there would probably be disruptions for Nasa scientists who trade data or work on experiments with Russian researchers.
- The contact ban applies only to direct communication between Nasa and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos. It does not include meetings attended by Russia and other countries.
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- Russian Ambassadors Discuss Invading Miami, California In Leaked Call | Washington Free Beacon
- BY:Washington Free Beacon StaffApril 3, 2014 5:55 pm
- A leaked conversation between two Russian ambassadors appears to show the diplomats joking about the crisis in Ukraine and the possibility of future incursions in the United States and Eastern Europe.
- The video posted under the YouTube account ''Michael Berkan'' involves Igor Nilokaevich Chubarov and Sergey Viktorovich Bakharev, the Russian ambassadors to the African nations Eritrea and Zimbabwe and Malawi, respectively.
- The call begins with Chubarov congratulating Bakharev on Zimbabwe's vote against the UN resolution that declared Crimea's referendum invalid. Chubarov expressed surprise that Eritrea abstained from the vote.
- After exchanging pleasantries, Chubarov then jokes he is trying to drive home the message to the EU Heads of Mission that the Crimea referendum and further Russian imperialism is only the beginning:
- IGOR NILOAKAEVICH CHUBAROV: Now I have a very simple task, for the time being I'm saying the only key thing to those EU HoMs. I'm repeating: ''Guys, we've taken away Crimea but it's not the fucking end. [laughter] In the future we'll take away your [laughter] fucking Catalonia, Venice, as well as Cattleland (Scotland), and Alaska. And we'll never rest content with that'' [laughter].
- SERGEY VIKTOROVICH BAHAREV: At first stage we will.
- CHUBAROV: Agreed, only at first stage, and later we'll think it over. All those fucking limitrophes, e.g. Latvia, Estonia, and other Europeans as well as Romanians, and Bulgarians, we'll kick their asses in the right direction '' where they have to be.
- VIKTOROVICH BAHAREV: Oh no, it's better not to touch them, we are not going to kick them in. It'll be better for us to disturb ''Californialand,'' ''Miamiland,'' that sort of desolated regions [laughter]
- CHUBAROV: You're right, there's practically fucking 95 percent of our citizens in ''Miamiland'' [laughter]
- VIKTOROVICH BAHAREV: Exactly.
- CHUBAROV: We have full right to hold a referendum.
- VIKTOROVICH BAHAREV: As well as ''Londonland!''
- CHUBAROV: Yes certainly, you're right. We'll leave for a while Romanians and Bulgarians, let them stay so far in the EU [laughter]
- VIKTOROVICH BAHAREV: Together with the Baltic shit.
- In a slightly more serious tone, Chubarov then tells his comrade that the EU told him Russia should take back Romania and Bulgaria:
- CHUBAROV: By the way, the EU HoD and I recently had a chat, you know, about all kinds of things, just being lost in the crowd, and he asked: ''Listen, take back those Romania and Bulgaria.'' ''Definitely, no,'' I answered. ''Guys, nothing will come of it.''
- VIKTOROVICH BAHAREV: Enjoy yourself with all that stuff [laughter]
- The leaked recording of the Russian officials follows the YouTube disclosure of a candid conversation between the State Department's Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt.
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- What About The Dollar: Russia, Iran Announce $20 Billion Oil-For-Goods Deal
- Spot what is missing in the just blasted headline from Bloomberg:
- IRAN, RUSSIA SAID TO SEAL $20B OIL-FOR-GOODS DEAL: REUTERSIf you said the complete absence of US Dollars anywhere in the funds flow you are correct. Which is precisely what we have been warning would happen the more the West and/or JPMorgan pushed Russia into a USD-free corner.
- Image: Vladimir Putin (Wiki Commons).
- Once again, from our yesterday comment on the JPM Russian blockade: ''what JPM may have just done is launch a preemptive strike which would have the equivalent culmination of a SWIFT blockade of Russia, the same way Iran was neutralized from the Petrodollar and was promptly forced to begin transacting in Rubles, Yuan and, of course, gold in exchange for goods and services either imported or exported. One wonders: is JPM truly that intent in preserving its ''pristine'' reputation of not transacting with ''evil Russians'', that it will gladly light the fuse that takes away Russia's choice whether or not to depart the petrodollar voluntarily, and makes it a compulsory outcome, which incidentally will merely accelerate the formalization of the Eurasian axis of China, Russia and India?''
- In other words, Russia seems perfectly happy to telegraph that it is just as willing to use barter (and ''heaven forbid'' gold) and shortly other ''regional'' currencies, as it is to use the US Dollar, hardly the intended outcome of the western blocakde, which appears to have just backfired and further impacted the untouchable status of the Petrodollar.
- Iran and Russia have made progress towards an oil-for-goods deal sources said would be worth up to $20 billion, which would enable Tehran to boost vital energy exports in defiance of Western sanctions, people familiar with the negotiations told Reuters.
- In January Reuters reported Moscow and Tehran were discussing a barter deal that would see Moscow buy up to 500,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil in exchange for Russian equipment and goods.
- The White House has said such a deal would raise ''serious concerns'' and would be inconsistent with the nuclear talks between world powers and Iran.
- A Russian source said Moscow had ''prepared all documents from its side'', adding that completion of a deal was awaiting agreement on what oil price to lock in.
- The source said the two sides were looking at a barter arrangement that would see Iranian oil being exchanged for industrial goods including metals and food, but said there was no military equipment involved. The source added that the deal was expected to reach $15 to $20 billion in total and would be done in stages with an initial $6 billion to $8 billion tranche.
- Surely an ''expert assessment'' is in order:
- ''The deal would ease further pressure on Iran's battered energy sector and at least partially restore Iran's access to oil customers with Russian help,'' said Mark Dubowitz of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a U.S. think-tank.
- ''If Washington can't stop this deal, it could serve as a signal to other countries that the United States won't risk major diplomatic disputes at the expense of the sanctions regime,'' he added.
- You don't say: another epic geopolitical debacle resulting from what was originally intended to be a demonstration of strength and instead is rapidly turning out into a terminal confirmation of weakness.
- Also, when did the ''Foundation for Defense of Petrodollar'' have the last word replaced with ''Democracies''?
- Finally, those curious what may happen next, only not to Iran but to Russia, are encouraged to read ''From Petrodollar To Petrogold: The US Is Now Trying To Cut Off Iran's Access To Gold.''
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- Popular discontent grows with German media lies in Ukraine crisis
- By Anna Rombach4 April 2014An unprecedented wave of anti-Russian propaganda has dominated the German media in the wake of the US- and German-backed coup in Kiev. Leading publications such as Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, S¼ddeutsche Zeitun g and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, but also so-called ''alternative'' media outlets such as the taz (which has close links to the Greens) are loudly demanding military action against Russia, outdoing one another with menacing attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin who they describe as a new Hitler and aggressor.
- This propaganda campaign, reminiscent of the conformist press of totalitarian dictatorships, has so far had a limited effect. Many readers are repulsed by the campaign and have responded angrily. This is reflected in the letters pages of newspaper and online comment pages.
- On 19 March the editorial office of the Berliner Zeitung was forced to admit: ''German newspapers and radio stations have received bags of letters and readers' comments complaining about one-sided reporting. Russia's intervention in the Crimea has been met with a great deal of understanding. The German media, on the other hand, is accused of conducting an anti-Russian campaign.''
- Even the conservative Berliner Tagesspiegel noted that 80 percent of the 12,000 readers who took part in an on-line survey regarded official criticism of Moscow as ''hypocritical''. A mere 4 percent favored ''military intervention by NATO,'' or Russia's exclusion from the G8.
- A poll by the ARD television channel, released in early March, found that 82 percent of respondents were against the use of military force against Russia. Two-thirds rejected economic sanctions against Russia.
- In letters and comments to editorial offices, many readers and radio listeners refer to the active role played by the US, EU and Berlin on Independence Square, which led to the coup against the elected government in Kiev.
- A reader of the M¼nchener Merkur comments: ''In my opinion, the demonstrations in Kiev, with Klitschko to the fore, are controlled logistically and financially by the West (i.e. US and Europe) '' the former Treasury Secretary of US President Reagan referred to $5 billion. Since the reintroduction of capitalism in Eastern Europe the US has sought to weaken and isolate Russia, and eliminate it as a superpower.''
- The comment continues: ''The US and EU have now brought the Baltic States and almost all of the countries of the former Eastern Bloc into NATO and the EU. Now they are going to move ahead with the proposed admission of Ukraine, up to the western border of Russia, and provoke the Russian Black Sea Fleet.''
- Many readers are disgusted with the trivialisation of the role of the fascist Svoboda party, and the assertion that the events in Kiev's Independence Square had something to do with democracy. A number of reports and YouTube videos available on the Internet clearly reveal the role played by ultra-violent fascist forces.
- On 10 March the M¼nchener Merkur published a comment by Dr. K.H.B. who wrote: ''The first casualty of war is the truth. It is war, and therefore I believe neither the Russian mainstream press, including state television, nor ours.''
- Another reader is outraged by an article in the Th¼ringer Allgemeine of 18 March; ''The annexation of Crimea is reminiscent of [Hilter's invasion of] Sudetenland'' and writes, ''Once again the attempt is being made to shamelessly equate Putin and Hitler.''
- An angry listener wrote to Radio Germany: ''I must tell you that I'm tired of listening to the half-truths and biased reports on everything to do with Russia transmitted by your station. If I am correctly informed Radio Germany is the direct successor to the RIAS radio station, which had a reputation for agitational propaganda. It seems to me you have remained true to your heritage.''
- E. P. from Erfurt referred to allegations that Russia is an ''aggressor using methods from the 18th Century'' as ''deliberate slander''.
- Concerns over the escalating danger of war are universally felt. H.M., who still hopes that NATO countries will limit themselves to verbal threats, writes that no one is interested in ''dying on behalf of the interests of the Kiev extremists. An economic war with the resource-rich Russia would also have fatal consequences for all sides.''
- In his letter to the Braunschweiger Zeitung H.S. warns: ''Is a war on the horizon? This must be avoided at all costs!''
- In response to the article ''Merkel warns Putin'' in the Badische Zeitung, UK writes: ''Attention! Especially in Germany it should be clear: humiliation in bilateral and multilateral policy can have terrible consequences! The humiliating Treaty of Versailles in 1919 were the cause of the Second World War ...''
- Several listeners of Radio Germany drew direct parallels to the fascist propaganda of the World War II era: ''I have the impression that your transmitter is once again calling for a war against Russia. Your station is replicating the megalomania of the Greater German Reich.''
- Another comment added, ''Whoever listens to the 'Stahlhelm [i.e. Nazi] station on a daily basis, i.e. the campaign by Radio Germany against Russia, aimed at keeping the public fixated on NATO's course, then one fears for our security and peace in Europe.''
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- US Sanctions on Russia To Affect... Miley Cyrus? In Finland? - Hit & Run : Reason.com
- Rob Sinclair CC BYPresident Obama promised that he'd put the hurt on Russia and its oligarchs for violating Ukraine's sovereignty and annexing Crimea. Boy, did he ever. Those targeted economic sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin's cronies may just stop any more abominable atrocities committed by... Miley Cyrus. In Finland.
- Cyrus and pop singer Justin Timberlake are supposed to perform in the Nordic nation next month. The venue, the Hartwall Arena, happens to be owned by three members of Putin's "inner circle" on the U.S.'s hit list for sanctions. In a real case slightly more absurd than The Onion's satirical post about cutting off Putin's personal Netflix account, Financial Timesreports:
- David Johnson, a partner at Vinson & Elkins, a Washington law firm with a sanctions practice, noted the U.S.
- sanctions stated that no U.S. person could deal with an entity or property, either majority-owned or controlled by one of the sanctioned individuals. "The bottom line is no U.S. person can transact business with this hotel," he said, adding that the same appeared to be true for Hartwall Arena, given the clear ownership....
- "Everyone is sitting with their lawyers and wondering what to do and how to behave," [Alexis Rodzianko, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia] said.
- Live Nation, which is the world's largest promoter and ticket seller, said: "We are currently reviewing our portfolio and we will work to ensure the U.S. sanctions against the identified Russians are upheld."
- The singers have not yet spoken on the issue.
- English Russia blogAmericans themselves aren't entirely keen on the sanctions. The latest Reason-Rupe poll indicates that only 31 percent of people think the Obama administration should keep imposing them on Russia. After all, such restrictions typically have little effect at best. And, Russia effectively hurt its own already-weak economy with the high cost of invading Crimea.
- Cyrus isn't the only nausea-inducing American export with an uncertain future in the east. Citing "manufacturing reasons," McDonald's is suspending operations in Crimea.
- Zenon Evans is a staff writer and editor.
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- Bank$ters
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- CIA Official Dies in Apparent Suicide
- CIA Official Dies in Apparent Suicide
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- Ex-ABN Amro CFO found dead - 29 Jun 2009 - Financial Director Analysis
- The former chief financial officer of Dutch bank ABN Amro has been found dead with shotgun wounds near his home in Surrey, the BBC has reported.
- Huibert Gerard Boumeester was found dead yesterday, Sunday, with shotgun wounds, one week after being reported missing and ''vulnerable''. Reports claim he was found with two shotguns which he had brought from his home, though Thames Valley Police say his death is currently being treated as "unexplained".
- Boumeester, 49, left his role as CFO encompassing responsibility for group-wide finance, risk management, investor relations, communications and strategic decision support in March 2008 citing "personal reasons" six months after ABN Amro was bought by Fortis, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander. The Dutch government now owns Fortis Bank and has taken direct ownership of its stake in ABN Amro. The British government owns most of RBS.
- An ABN Amro careerist who joined over 20 years previously as a management trainee, Boumeester had served on the management board prior to his appointment as CFO and had been the board member responsible for the group's merger and acquisition portfolio and group risk management and served as chief executive of ABN Amro Asset Management. Latterly he was a director at ABN Amro Asset Management, Montag & Caldwell and Artemis Investment Management.
- There are suggestions that Boumeester took his own life, echoing the apparent suicide of Freddie Mac CFO David Kellerman just two months ago.
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- ABN Amro Ex-CEO Found Dead
- A mere two weeks since former JPMorgan banker, Kenneth Bellando jumped to his death, Bloomberg reports that the former CEO of Dutch Bank ABN Amro (and his wife and daughter) were found dead at their home after a possible "family tragedy." This expands the dismal list of senior financial services executive deaths to 12 in the last few months. The 57-year-old Jan Peter Schmittmann, was reportedly discovered by his other daughter when she arrived home that morning. Police declined to comment on the cirumstances of his (and his wife and daughter's) death. This is not the first C-level ABN Amro banker to be found dead. In 2009, former CFO Huibert Boumeester was discovered with (assumed self-inflicted) shotgun wounds.
- Former ABN Amro Group NV Netherlands Chief Executive Officer Jan Peter Schmittmann, his wife and a daughter were found dead at their home today after a possible ''family tragedy,'' Dutch police said.
- ''The bodies of a father and mother and their daughter were found at the property'' in the town of Laren, 32 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Amsterdam, Dutch police said in a statement on their website today. Leonie Bosselaar, a police spokeswoman, said in a telephone call with Bloomberg News that the deceased were Schmittmann and two family members.
- The police received a call around 10:30 a.m. local time from a family acquaintance who said something may be wrong at the property, according to the statement. Bosselaar declined to comment further on what may have happened.
- The Dutch newspaper AD reported, without citing anyone, that the family was discovered by Schmittmann's second daughter when she arrived home this morning. She was scheduled to travel to India with her parents, where she had an internship lined up, the newspaper said.
- Schmittmann, 57, joined ABN Amro in 1983 as assistant relationship manager and was named head of the lender's Dutch unit in 2003. He stepped down from the Amsterdam-based bank in December 2008, after the company was nationalized earlier that year.
- Sadly, given recent trends, the default assumption is that it is suicide until proven otherwise which is just as disturbing from a sociological perspective. (on the bright side, at least as far as we know, we was not involved in HFT) but further to that, this is not the first ABN Amro seniot executve to be found dead. In 2009, Schmittmann's former CFO was found dead from shitgum wounds:
- The former chief financial officer of Dutch bank ABN Amro has been found dead with shotgun wounds near his home in Surrey, the BBC has reported.
- Huibert Gerard Boumeester was found dead yesterday, Sunday, with shotgun wounds, one week after being reported missing and ''vulnerable''. Reports claim he was found with two shotguns which he had brought from his home, though Thames Valley Police say his death is currently being treated as "unexplained".
- Boumeester, 49, left his role as CFO encompassing responsibility for group-wide finance, risk management, investor relations, communications and strategic decision support in March 2008 citing "personal reasons" six months after ABN Amro was bought by Fortis, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander. The Dutch government now owns Fortis Bank and has taken direct ownership of its stake in ABN Amro. The British government owns most of RBS.
- There are suggestions that Boumeester took his own life...
- Schmittmann owned 2phase2 (apparently an asset management company) and was a co-founder of 5 Park Lane (what appears to be a private equity / management consultancy) according to his LinkedIn profile:
- This brings the sad list of senior financial services exectives who have died in the last few months to 12:
- 1 - William Broeksmit, 58-year-old former senior executive at Deutsche Bank AG, was found dead in his home after an apparent suicide in South Kensington in central London, on January 26th.
- 2 - Karl Slym, 51 year old Tata Motors managing director Karl Slym, was found dead on the fourth floor of the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok on January 27th.
- 3 - Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old JP Morgan employee, died after falling from the roof of the JP Morgan European headquarters in London on January 27th.
- 4 - Mike Dueker, 50-year-old chief economist of a US investment bank was found dead close to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State.
- 5 - Richard Talley, the 57 year old founder of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado, was found dead earlier this month after apparently shooting himself with a nail gun.
- 6 - Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, also died last month, however the circumstances surrounding his death are still unknown.
- 7 - Ryan Henry Crane, a 37 year old executive at JP Morgan died in an alleged suicide just a few weeks ago. No details have been released about his death aside from this small obituary announcement at the Stamford Daily Voice.
- 8 - Li Junjie, 33-year-old banker in Hong Kong jumped from the JP Morgan HQ in Hong Kong this week.
- 9 - James Stuart Jr, Former National Bank of Commerce CEO, found dead in Scottsdale, Ariz., the morning of Feb. 19. A family spokesman did not say whatcaused the death
- 10 - Edmund (Eddie) Reilly, 47, a trader at Midtown's Vertical Group, commited suicide by jumping in front of LIRR train
- 11 - Kenneth Bellando, 28, a trader at Levy Capital, formerly investment banking analyst at JPMorgan, jumped to his death from his 6th floor East Side apartment.
- 12 - Jan Peter Schmittmann, 57, the former CEO of Dutch bank ABN Amro found dead at home near Amsterdam with wife and daughter.
- Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 4.9(27 votes)
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- SDR
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- Russia prepares to attack the petrodollar
- The existence of ''petrodollars'' is one of the pillars of America's economic might because it creates a significant external demand for American currency, allowing the US to accumulate enormous debts without defaulting. If a Japanese buyer want to buy a barrel of Saudi oil, he has to pay in dollars even if no American oil company ever touches the said barrel. Dollar has held a dominant position in global trading for such a long time that even Gazprom's natural gas contracts for Europe are priced and paid for in US dollars. Until recently, a significant part of EU-China trade had been priced in dollars.
- Lately, China has led the BRICS efforts to dislodge the dollar from its position as the main global currency, but the ''sanctions war'' between Washington and Moscow gave an impetus to the long-awaited scheme to launch the petroruble and switch all Russian energy exports away from the UScurrency.
- The main supporters of this planareSergey Glaziev, the economic aide of the Russian PresidentandIgor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft, the biggest Russian oil company and a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Both have been very vocal in theirquestto replace the dollar with the Russian ruble. Now, several top Russian officials are pushing the plan forward.
- First,it was the Minister of Economy, Alexei Ulyukaev who told Russia 24 news channel that the Russian energy companies must should ditch the dollar.''They must be braver in signing contracts in rubles and the currencies of partner-countries,''he said.
- Then, on March 2, Andrei Kostin, the CEO of state-owned VTB bank, told the press that Gazprom, Rosneft and Rosoboronexport, state company specialized in weapon exports, can start trading in rubles. ''I've spoken to Gazprom, to Rosneft and Rosoboronexport management and they don't mind switching their exports to rubles. They only need a mechanism to do that'', Kostin told the attendees of the annual Russian Bank Association meeting.
- Judging by the statement made at the same meeting by Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament, it is safe to assume that no resources will be spared to create such a mechanism. ''Some 'hot headed' decision-makers have already forgotten that the global economic crisis of 2008 - which is still taking its toll on the world - started with a collapse of certain credit institutions in the US, Great Britain and other countries. This is why we believe that any hostile financial actions are a double-edged sword and even the slightest error will send the boomerang back to the aborigines,'' she said.
- It seems that Moscow has decided who will be in charge of the ''boomerang''. Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft, has been nominated to chair the board of directors of Saint-Petersburg Commodity Exchange, a specialized commodity exchange. In October 2013, speaking at the World Energy Congress in Korea, Sechincalled for a "globalmechanism totradenatural gas" and went on suggesting that "it was advisable to create an international exchange for the participating countries, where transactions could be registered with the use of regional currencies".Now, one of the most influential leaders of the global energy trading community has the perfect instrument to make this plan a reality. A Russian commodity exchange where reference prices for Russian oil and natural gas will be set in rubles instead of dollars will be a strong blow to the petrodollar.
- Rosneft has recently signed a series of big contracts for oil exports to China and is close to signing a ''jumbo deal'' with Indian companies. In both deals, there are no US dollars involved. Reuters reports, that Russia is close to entering a goods-for-oil swap transaction with Iran that will give Rosneft around 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day to sell in the global market. The White House and the russophobes in the Senate are livid and are trying to block the transaction because it opens up some very serious and nasty scenarios for the petrodollar. If Sechin decides to sell this Iranian oil for rubles, through a Russian exchange, such move will boost the chances of the ''petroruble'' and will hurt the petrodollar.
- It can be said that the US sanctions have opened a Pandora's box of troubles for the American currency. The Russian retaliation will surely be unpleasant for Washington, but what happens if other oil producers and consumers decide to follow the example set by Russia? During the last month, China opened two centers to process yuan-denominated trade flows, one in London and one in Frankfurt. Are the Chinese preparing a similar move against the greenback? We'll soon find out.
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- 6 Week Cycle
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- Questions remain over widow of Boston Marathon bomber
- She was known as Katie, a pretty, popular girl from a well-respected Rhode Island family. In high school, she excelled at music and art and worshipped David Bowie. As a freshman at Suffolk University, she majored in communications, and she and a gaggle of friends modeled themselves after the girls on ''Sex and the City.''
- She thought about joining the Peace Corps.
- That was before 2010, when she met the man she'd drop out of school to marry, the man for whom she'd convert to Islam, the man who, three years later, would leave her with a baby daughter and the threat of jail time.
- Today, at 25, Katie Russell is best known as the widow of the Boston bomber. As the first anniversary of the attack nears, she remains one of its biggest mysteries '-- how she was drawn into her husband's world, and what she knew about his plans.
- In November, Russell's brother-in-law, Dzhokhar ''Jahar'' Tsarnaev, will stand trial. Russell has not been charged, nor is it clear whether she'll be a witness. But authorities still wonder: Was she a willing accomplice? Or a witless victim?
- Russell, the oldest of three girls, was raised on a tree-lined street in the comfortable suburb of North Kingston, RI, right off a bike path called Sage Trail. Her dad, Warren, is an emergency-room doctor, her mom, Judith, a nurse.
- The girls were raised Catholic and went to public schools. Katie was most comfortable in jeans and T-shirts. ''She was a great girl, and a good student, and normal,'' a family friend told The Washington Post. ''She was normal.''
- Aside from one incident when she was 18 '-- she was arrested for shoplifting $67 worth of merchandise at an Old Navy '-- Russell was never in trouble. (The charges were dropped after she did community service and paid a $200 fine.) Her personal credo, according to high-school friends, was, ''Do something about it or stop complaining about it.''
- ''It was a fairly tight-knit family,'' said the family friend, adding that the girls ''had plenty of freedom .'.'. not like some kids where it's not allowed for boys to see girls or girls to see boys.''
- One night in 2009, two years after enrolling at Suffolk University in Boston, she met a charismatic young boxer named Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a nightclub. At the time, he had a girlfriend: 19-year-old Nadine Ascencao, whom he had been dating for three years.
- But Tsarnaev, who emigrated with his refugee family from a former Soviet republic in 1995, had undergone a sudden religious conversion. In 2008, he went from smoking pot, partying and dressing ''like a pimp, kind of Eurotrash,'' a neighbor said, to hanging out at the local mosque.
- ''One minute, he's this funny, normal guy who liked boxing and having fun, the next he's praying four times a day, watching Islamic videos and talking insane nonsense,'' Ascencao told Britain's Sun tabloid. ''Tamerlan said I couldn't be with him unless I became a Muslim. He wanted me to hate America like he did.''
- He became controlling and abusive, telling Ascencao she was no longer allowed to listen to the radio or watch TV. She'd lost her virginity to him, but now, he said, they had to stop having sex. As long as they were unmarried, it was against Muslim law. He told her she had to drop all of her old friends and socialize only with Muslim girls.
- ''He once ripped a pair of my jeans and hit me in the face with them,'' she said. Another time, he slammed her head into a car after she wore shorts and a tank to a party. She called 911 but declined to press charges.
- Toward the end of their relationship, when Ascencao finally relented and wore a hijab, he'd taunt her about the other American girl he had been seeing, the one who took Islam far more seriously than she did.
- ''He once made me learn a verse of an Islamic prayer,'' she recalled. ''And if I got it wrong, he'd say, 'Well, Katherine can do it.''''
- Katherine Russell, wife of Boston Marathon bomber suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, leaves the law office of DeLuca and Weizenbaum, in Providence, R.I.Photo: AP
- In 2009, Tsarnaev dumped Ascencao and began seriously seeing Russell. Russell began pulling away from her family and friends. Her parents were suspicious of Tsarnaev, mainly because he had no job and no plans to get one. He told everyone he was going to be an Olympian.
- A close family friend told The Washington Post he attempted to intervene and invited Russell to dinner. He was too late. Russell declared that she was becoming a Muslim and that he'd soon be seeing her in a head scarf.
- ''The psychology of it isn't understood by any of us,'' he said. But ''Katie didn't care.''
- She was, friends said, infatuated, seemingly oblivious to the stares she was drawing on campus. Russell's college roommate was convinced it was an abusive relationship.
- ''She stopped drinking and wouldn't come around as much and kind of judged us for wanting to go out, and he would forbid her for wanting to go out with us,'' she told CBS News. ''He became very violent with her and was brainwashing her into converting into Muslim.''
- Other roommates told NPR that Tsarnaev called her ''slut'' and ''a prostitute'' and threw pieces of furniture at her. Despite his supposed piety, Tsarnaev and Russell had premarital sex at least once. By early 2010, she was pregnant with their daughter, Zahara.
- By that spring, Russell was living near Tsarnaev '-- who still resided with his family '-- in Cambridge, Mass. They married six months after they met, on June 21, 2010, on the third floor of a ramshackle mosque in Dorchester. There were no guests, just two witnesses, and the ceremony lasted 15 minutes. The imam who married the couple had never met them before and never saw them again.
- Russell changed her name. Now she was Karima Tsarnaeva. She dropped out of school and moved into the cramped Tsarnaev family apartment. The whole family, including Tsarnaev's younger brother, Dzhokhar, and two sisters lived there. His parents were on and off welfare, and the rent was subsidized by a Section 8 voucher.
- The whole Tsarnaev family was loathed by the neighborhood. They were loud, obnoxious, entitled, the father dumping his waste into other people's garbage cans and taking up parking spaces with the beat-up cars he tinkered with. Their landlord begged them to move out. Every month, they'd haggle over rent.
- None of them, except Russell, had a job. ''He wasn't really willing to work,'' a family friend of Russell told The Washington Post. ''That, in my mind, made him an unsuitable husband. She worked like crazy for him.''
- According to one of her attorneys, Russell put in 80-hour weeks as a home health-care aide. Still, she and Tsarnaev found themselves on food stamps, too.
- ''He was a douche bag,'' her friend Jesse Coyle told People magazine. ''Her friends didn't like him. He made her get rid of her Facebook account, and she always had to text him and let him know what she was doing.''
- It was unclear what her husband did all day while she was at work, but Russell knew not to ask. In his presence, she shrunk and went silent. ''He's a very strong personality,'' a clerk at their grocer told The Washington Post. He added that Tsarnaev would boss her around, that only he would choose the food and pay for it, that she would make no eye contact and say nothing.
- Tamerlan TsarnaevPhoto: AP
- ''Maybe she loved him a lot,'' the grocer said. ''But it seemed odd. She's a woman living in America. This is America.''
- Where Russell was on April 15, 2013 '-- the day of the Boston Marathon bombings '-- is still unknown. According to a report in The Associated Press, her lawyer, Amato DeLuca, said that the last time she saw her husband was early in the morning as she left their apartment for work on April 18.
- It was the last day of Tsarnaev's life. He and Dzhokhar had been identified by the FBI, then the media, as the bombers. They were now the targets of a nationwide manhunt.
- They went on the run, killing a cop on the MIT campus and carjacking a Mercedes SUV before a Watertown officer spotted them a little after 1 a.m. A wild gunfight ensued, and while Tamerlan sustained gunshot wounds to his torso and extremities, he was killed when his brother, making his escape, ran over him with the SUV. Dzhokhar was later captured alive.
- Russell has always claimed to be shocked and appalled by her husband's actions, and to have had no knowledge whatsoever of what he was planning. She has also maintained that she never helped him try to escape, and when police reported that Tamerlan was also a suspect in a grisly triple murder in Waltham, Mass., that took place on Sept. 11, 2011, she claimed ignorance, too.
- One source in the investigation told People that one theory has Russell as not so much a co-conspirator but an abused, unknowing enabler. ''The big question is, what did she either wittingly or unwittingly do to help her husband?'' the source asked.
- Phone records show that Russell spoke to Tsarnaev on April 18, and another law-enforcement source told The Weekly Standard that after seeing the brothers identified on television, she called her husband.
- ''She notified him,'' said the source, ''and there certainly didn't seem to be any notion of surprise '-- just a report that 'you're being watched.''''
- Following her husband's death, Russell fled to her parents' home back in North Kingston, and the FBI descended on the tiny apartment in Cambridge. There they found bomb-making residue in the kitchen sink, in the bathtub, and on the kitchen table.
- On Russell's laptop, they found the first issue of the al Qaeda online magazine Inspire, which included an article titled ''How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.''
- Russell said nothing. Through her lawyer, though, she made it known that she would not be claiming her husband's body. Her parents tacked a self-pitying note on their front door, pleading with the press for mercy.
- ''Our daughter lost her husband today, the father of her child,'' it read. ''Please respect our family's privacy in this difficult time.''
- When the FBI showed up at her parents' home on April 21, 2013, Russell refused to speak with them, and when it was reported, on May 3, that no trace of her DNA was found on any of the explosive material, she made it clear she would not cooperate.
- Authorities have yet to bring charges, but have made it clear that spousal privilege '-- which holds that one spouse cannot be compelled to testify against the other '-- no longer applies when one of them has died.
- It remains unclear whether Russell will face a grand jury, or be called to testify. In the meantime, she has allowed family, friends and her lawyer to tell the world how she is reverting to the normal, all-American girl she once was. She was now going to movies, listening to rock 'n' roll, wearing nail polish, eating at fast-food joints and drinking coffee at Starbucks '-- all the things forbidden in her life with Tamerlan.
- She took back her maiden name and hired New York City-based lawyer Joshua Dratel, who has represented dozens of high-profile terrorists. (Dratel declined comment for this article.)
- As recently as four months after the bombings, ''we're seeing glimpses of the old Katie again, and it's wonderful,'' a relative told People. But not everything has changed.
- ''She has made it clear to her entire family that she is a Muslim and will remain a Muslim. That's non-negotiable.''
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- Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice
- 5.0 out of 5 starsEngrossing read, captures what I love about Boston, April 5, 2014
- This review is from: Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City's Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice (Kindle Edition)
- This is not only a book you stay up late reading, it answers the questions you might have about the bombing, and the background conveys some of the flavor, qualities and attitudes of Boston and Bostonians. For me, it ranks up there with Helter Skelter as a narrative of a horrible crime.
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- Hillary 2016
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- $6 Billion Goes Missing at State Department | The Fiscal Times
- The State Department has no idea what happened to $6 billion used to pay its contractors.
- In a special ''management alert'' made public Thursday, the State Department's Inspector General Steve Linick warned ''significant financial risk and a lack of internal control at the department has led to billions of unaccounted dollars over the last six years.
- The alert was just the latest example of the federal government's continued struggle with oversight over its outside contractors.
- Related: Government Blatantly Wastes $30 Billion This Year
- The lack of oversight ''exposes the department to significant financial risk,'' the auditor said. ''It creates conditions conducive to fraud, as corrupt individuals may attempt to conceal evidence of illicit behavior by omitting key documents from the contract file. It impairs the ability of the Department to take effective and timely action to protect its interests, and, in tum, those of taxpayers.''
- In the memo, the IG detailed ''repeated examples of poor contract file administration.'' For instance, a recent investigation of the closeout process for contracts supporting the mission in Iraq, showed that auditors couldn't find 33 of the 115 contract files totaling about $2.1 billion. Of the remaining 82 files, auditors said 48 contained insufficient documents required by federal law.
- In another instance, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement issued a $1 billion contract in Afghanistan that was deemed ''incomplete.''
- Related: Government Wastes More Money Than You Think
- The auditor recommended that the State Department establish a centralized system to track, maintain and retain contract files.
- The department responded and said it concurred with the recommendations to address the ''vulnerability'' in its contracting process.
- Before Linick took office last fall, the State Department had been without an inspector general position for five years'--the longest IG vacancy in the government's history, as noted in The Washington Post.
- Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
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- Management Alert (Contract File Management Deficiencies) - 224580.pdf
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- Haiti
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- Heineken investeert 100 miljoen in bierbrouwerij Haiti
- Bewerkt door: redactie '' 05/04/14, 00:20 '' bron: AP
- (C) ap. De Heineken bierbrouwerij op Ha¯ti.
- Bierbrouwer Heineken gaat 100 miljoen dollar (zo'n 77 miljoen euro) investeren in Ha¯ti. Het Caribische eiland kampt nog altijd met de naween van de verwoestende aardbeving die vier jaar geleden aan vele tienduizenden mensen het leven kostte.
- Volgens Jos(C) Matthijsse, de Nederlandse directrice van het Ha¯tiaanse Heineken-kantoor, is bijna een kwart van het totale bedrag direct in een nieuwe bierbrouwerij ge¯nvesteerd dat al in december werd geopend. Daarmee is de bierproductie op het Caribische eiland in (C)(C)n klap verdubbeld.
- De rest van het geld wordt gebruikt om de productie verder te verhogen en voor de aanschaf van onder meer vrachtwagens en generatoren. Dat heeft het bedrijf vrijdag bekend gemaakt.
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- Shut Up Slave!
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- Gun drama at the Palace Queen's Guard points bayonet at 'intruder' | UKNW
- A QUEEN'S Guard points his rifle at a ranting man who tried to force his way into Buckingham Palace.The ceremonial soldier, with bayonet fixed, broke royal protocol by dashing 50 yards to intervene.
- The suspect had screamed at cops for five minutes and walked towards the Palace gates.
- Warehouse supervisor Gareth Scanlan, of Rugby, Warwicks, who was at the scene, told The Sun on Sunday: ''He was trying to get closer or inside.
- ''There was a lot of shouting before the guard went in with his bayonet '-- it was shocking.
- Sightseer Gareth, 32, added: ''The man said, 'Oh, you're a big boy now,' and the guard '-- who I think was Scottish judging by his accent '-- said, 'Yes, I am a big boy.
- ''Then the guard actually pushed the guy away.''
- Police ushered the man away and gave him ''words of advice''. No arrests were made.
- Army chiefs are believed to have backed the soldier, from the Coldstream Guards, though they must not normally leave their posts unless a royal is under threat.
- SAS hero Andy McNab said: ''He should get a promotion for having the balls to go and stop something. He was on ceremonial duties, but he is still there to protect the Palace.
- ''If it happened at the White House, someone would have got shot. Yet here we think it's OK to have a pop at the people protecting our country.''
- Colonel Richard Kemp, ex-Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, said: ''The soldier was absolutely right to get involved if he felt there was a risk of the situation escalating.''
- The drama happened near the Palace's North Centre Gate on Friday.
- An Army spokesman said: ''We are very clear that the Metropolitan Police lead on royal security arrangements including outside the Palace itself.''
- QUEEN'S Guards are fully operational soldiers who have often completed tours of Afghanistan.
- They are on sentry duty for two hours at a stretch and can stamp and shout if visitors try to hinder them.
- If a threat continues, they are allowed to point their weapons.
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- Cities to Carpoolers: Sharing Your Car is Illegal, We Will Seize Your Cars
- Taxi unions say government regulation is essential to "safeguard" the public from itselfThe U.S. isn't exactly a "free market" at times, with outright bribery -- condoned by the U.S. judicial system -- or collusive public-private cartels leading to some products and services being banned from the market. Just ask Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA) whose electric vehicles have been banned from sale in many states. That debacle arose due to the fact that Tesla has no dealerships and fearful dealership lobbyists banded together to pay off state politicians to ban direct auto sales.
- I. Carpooling Gets Digital Era Makeover
- Now the same principle is being applied to stymie the emergency of another set of companies in the transportation sector -- cloud-driven ride-sharing services.
- Ridesharing -- also known as carpooling -- involves members of the public contacting each other via a smartphone or PC internet networking service and arranging to ferry each other to various destinations for fees. The practice in informal form is almost as old as the automobile itself, but in the digital age app-enabled ridesharing has seen an explosion in interest, threatening the commercial taxicab industry and the city officials who depend on that industry for revenue.
- California often is characterized as a leader in onerous regulation, but at times it can flirt with being laissez-faire. On a state level, that has been the case with ride-sharing. Many companies in the field are based in California and rolled out their first services in the state. Startup ridesharing services Sidecar, Uber, and Lyft are all based in San Francisco, Calif.
- After initially threatening fines against these in-state startups, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) backed down and agreed to create a new regulatory category [PDF] -- "Transportation Network Companies". While perhaps not as good as no regulation at all, the move has allowed the service to grow within California without fear of being banned at the behest of the threatened taxicab lobby.
- Elsewhere, the trio are proving less lucky. All of the ride-sharing companies operate on the same principle, claiming that their fares are "voluntary" and admittedly fluctuating based on supply and demand. Because they aren't charging rigid rates, they claim they are not subject to local ordinances in various cities that require taxicabs to pay per-cab tolls to city transportation departments/agencies.
- Cities transportation agencies are pretty upset about not getting their cut of the pie. They've circled the wagons in many jurisidictions, backed by the traditional taxicab industry who views these disruptive new players as an unlawful threat.
- II. Philadelphia Shows Sidecar Drivers no "Brotherly Love"
- The funny thing is that many cities supported ride-sharing as part of "eco-concious" initiatives when it was on a smaller scale and largely greenwashing. But once it expanded and money became involved many cities had seen enough.
- Sidecar -- a Google Inc. (GOOG) funded venture -- opened operations in Philadelphia, Penn., the "City of Brotherly Love" in late 2012. But of late there's been little love for the disruptive startup from the city government.
- In 2013 the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) -- a city authority that derives its revenue from taxicab licensing -- decided it was time to put a stop to the business, which hadn't paid its toll. It conducted a sting, seizing cars, ticketing drivers, and shutting down the operation. Marty O'Rourke a PPA spokesman told TechCrunch:
- [Sidecar drivers are] passing themselves off as taxis and they're not. It's clearly not about technology. This is about public safety. [The sting] was an operation to impound vehicles because they were operating illegally. If we find them out there again, we'll impound them again.
- Sidecar vigorously disagreed. It points out that its drivers don't claim to be taxi drivers and are simply engaging in the time honored practice of carpooling with a small fee for the time and gas.This month Sidecar was in court to try to defend itself, but it has yet to win the right to deliver services again or get some of its property back in Philadelphia.III. Gotta Ban 'em All
- Likewise Austin, Texas saw outcry from taxicab drivers who successfully petitioned the Austin City Council to in Feb. 2013 send cease and desist letters to the ride-sharing service ahead of the yearly South-by-Southwest (SXSW) festival. Sidecar took advantage of the publicity, offering rides for free to spite city regulators. But later in 2013 it had basically ceased operations in the city. It's trying to petition the City Council to reconsider via a Change.org petition (which closed with 3,727 signatures), and local business leaders have also asked the council to change its mind. But so far there has been no breakthrough.
- Sidecar's last opportunity for action in Austin is the courts, where it filed a lawsuit in Mar. 2013. Company VP Margaret Ryan blogs:This lawsuit is bigger than Austin, Texas. What happens here matters for the entire sharing economy. Sharing resources is not a crime '' it's a solution for a better and more sustainable way of life. Rideshare is good for Austin and we're going to defend this position in Austin City Court.
- Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar all operate in Seattle, but in February the city council passed an ordinance that Sidecar says will effectively ban ridesharing in the city, if it takes effect. That oridinance does not outright prohibit ridesharing, but limits each company to 150 passengers/drivers on the road at once.Minneapolis, Minn. in Feb. 2014 announced it would ban/ticket any Lyft drivers who did not file for expensive taxicab licenses and would do likewise for participants in any other popular ride-sharing service.
- In New York City -- where taxicab licenses ("medallions') cost up to $1M USD -- crackdowns are also picking up steam. Efforts are also under way to ban the services in Las Vegas, Nev., Washington D.C., Chicago, Ill., and Cambridge, Mass.. In short the number of cities where paid carpoolers can legal operate is dwindling at an alarmingly rapid rate.At this point quite literally the risk of carpooling is becoming that you will get your car impounded/seized and be forced to pay steep fines.
- IV. California City Officials: If Paid Carpooling is Allowed Taxi Businesses Will Fail
- But perhaps the most dire sign for Uber, Sidecar, and Lyft is that in their home state -- where they supposedly "won", local officials are threatening to do what state officials would not -- ban ridesharing.
- Officials at the San Francisco International Airport in April 2013 banned the ridesharers from picking up or dropping off passengers at the airport.
- In June 2013 Los Angeles also banned ridesharing. Los Angeles Yellow Cab manager William Rouse was elated at America's "captialist" system disallowing competition via strong-handed regulation. He comments:
- These rogue taxis are bypassing all safety regulations created to protect riders and drivers. Not only are these high-tech bandit cabs unsafe, they are breaking regulatory standards and disenfranchising safe, legal taxi drivers.
- And in San Francisco this month, city officials and taxicab drivers were eyeing a knockout blow to the carpoolers. Comments Supervisor John Avalos:We've gotten to almost a crisis mode. We cannot let [the taxicab] industry fail.
- Mark Gruberg, a spokesman for United Taxicab Workers, claims that carpoolers are a menace to society, stating:People are being injured while they are fiddling, and their rules do not protect the public. These are taxicabs in every sense of the word.
- Critics are using a New Years Eve incident as a rallying cry. On Dec. 31, 2013, a 6-year old in San Francisco was struck and killed by an Uber driver. The driver was not transporting anyone at the time, but taxicab unions and the city departments that profit off them have gleefully seized upon the death as evidence that carpooling is "unsafe".V. Taxi Business Owner Compares Carpoolers to Napster, Implies They're Stealing and Killing
- Atlanta, Geor. Checker Cab owner/CEO Rick Hewlett writes in an op-ed:
- Government has no more important responsibility than to provide for public safety, and many of our laws are for this purpose, including regulations covering vehicles for hire.Because there is a clear potential for harm to life and limb when individuals are transported in automobiles by strangers, the reasons for regulating vehicles for hire, such as taxicabs and limousines, are obvious and crucial. Accordingly, there is a compelling need for government oversight and standards pertaining to all aspects of the vehicle for hire business.
- Chris Dolan, the San Francisco lawyer who is suing Uber over the New Year's Eve death comments to Mr. Hewlett:New technology does not eliminate well-established legal principles.
- But if carpooling is illegal, the question becomes where should the government stop. After all, what about a roommate who gives you money for a ride to the grocery store? What about a group of friends who pool their money to go to a concert? If app-connected carpooling is illegal, aren't those people also breaking the law?Mr. Hewlett didn't write about such examples, but he did compare Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar to Napster, the infamous P2P company that based its business on stealing musicians' copyrighted work.
- No matter how crazy that comparison it is, it's not atypical. Ride sharing and carpooling for pay in the U.S. -- once a booming field of dreams -- has been methodically shut down and beaten back by the loving hand of government regulators and taxicab industry. Thanks to those cartels, this once thriving sector is now on the death's door, as the nation's top cities approach a ubiquitous ban on sharing, which they say is anything but caring.Sources: SF Examiner, Lyft and Sidecar, Fox News, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) [PDF]
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- The Smart Grid Is the Control Grid And It's Coming to Your Living Room '' LewRockwell.com
- Recently by Roger Toutant: A New Doomsday Clock
- The legal principle that a man can enter upon another man's property only by invitation has been part of English common law for centuries. In 1628, Sir Edward Coke wrote, ''For a man's house is his castle and each man's home is his safest refuge.'' That used to be the case before the state walked right through our front doors in the name of tax collection, environmental protection, building code and bylaw enforcement, etc. Now, thanks to the smart grid, our safest refuge is about to be invaded by the folks who supply our electrical energy. In fact, they're going to sit right next to us on our sofas and they're going to insist on taking over the remote control.
- The propaganda about the smart grid leads us to believe that the grid must become smart otherwise we will be left in the dark and without power. By accepting the smart grid, smart meters and smart-grid compatible appliances, the big thinkers claim that we will be doing our part in ensuring a bright and happy future for us and our families. Plus, they promise that the smart grid will offer us cheaper rates during off-peak hours via the miracle of time-of-day billing. They make it sound like a positive step forward.
- However, the reality is much more sinister. Beneath the propaganda is a technological monitoring and control system that will reach deep into our homes. It will not only monitor our energy consumption to the minutest detail, but it will offer the ability for central planners to remotely control our appliances and energy consuming devices by either turning them down or completely off.
- Why would central planners want to monitor and control our appliances? The first answer is that we are an increasingly technological society that promotes central planning. The smart grid is simply part of the unnatural progression to an all-encompassing control matrix. The second answer is that some very powerful central planners, namely the UN and many national leaders, have entirely succumbed to the green lobby and believe that mankind is using way too much energy. These self-appointed protectors of the earth insist that we must be forced to consume less. Of course, without a commensurate increase in energy efficiency, less energy consumption means a decrease in our standard of living. Hardest hit will be the poor and middle class. But the big thinkers never talk about that.
- How can total energy consumption be decreased without causing revolution? The planners' preferred method is to force an increase in the cost of energy. Remember the politician who promised that the price of coal-generated energy will necessarily skyrocket due to the cost of new environmental regulations? If you've seen wind farms and solar panels popping-up in your neighborhood, then you're witness to another strategy of increasing energy cost: replace coal, natural gas and nuclear with renewable energy sources, namely wind and solar.
- Wind and solar satisfies the green lobby's criteria for carbon emissions, but they fail big-time when it comes to cost. For example, solar is ten times more expensive then traditional sources. By funneling billions of tax dollars into these hyper-expensive forms of energy production, governments are ensuring that the price of energy will definitely not be cheaper even during off-peak hours. Will the coming massive increase in the price of power reduce demand? You bet it will. Will it avoid revolution? We'll see.
- In addition to higher prices, another big drawback of wind and solar compared to traditional sources, such as coal, is that their energy production profiles are not as predictable. When the clouds move in, the seasons change or the wind dies down, then these renewable energy sources do not produce as much power. Today, if power demand is close to exceeding capacity, then customers are asked to reduce their power consumption voluntarily. When worse comes to worse, rolling blackouts can be triggered. However, people hate blackouts because all power is removed. Not only are T.V.'s turned-off, but so are refrigerators.
- The greater the role that wind and solar play in energy production, the more destabilized the grid will become. This is where the smart grid comes in. Once the smart grid reaches into smart grid-enabled appliances in our homes (and they are now being rolled-out into the marketplace), then it will be possible for the central planners to selectively turn-down our energy consuming devices. For example, an air conditioner or dishwasher could be disabled, but a refrigerator could be left running (possibly at a warmer temperature). Such actions will be required when renewable sources are unable to meet customer demand.
- In the future, it is certain that the selective turning-down of appliances and devices will not be voluntary. The argument will be made that it is the central planners who know best what to do. After all, we simpletons do not know how many watts our toasters consume, nor how much power our hot water heaters draw. However, the guy turning them off will know. When the grid enters chronic criticality, then everyone will be called upon to do their part by submitting to the imposed energy controls. And no consumer will be capable of mounting a legal or moral defense to justify any other course of action because arguments for freedom and privacy will not be relevant in the technological decision making process.
- But it will not be just our toasters and hot water heaters that will be monitored by the folks at the other end of the wires. The two-way communication capability of the smart grid will enable central planners to record every detail of how and when we use energy. Imagine for a moment how personal that information is. Our patterns of energy consumption largely define how we live our lives. For example, it will be possible to record how many times we use a toaster each day and how many loads of laundry we do every week or every day. And this information will, undoubtedly, be made available not only to our energy providers and state-sanctioned regulators, but also to organizations and third parties who successfully lobby for such access in the name of the public good. Having access to this type of information is a central planner's dream come true.
- With this type of information, any degree of inspection and control of our private lives will be possible. For example, it is possible to imagine a scenario where the number of loads of laundry permitted per week will be tightly regulated. Perhaps we will need to obtain a permit to do an extra load. Or, perhaps a mayor like Bloomberg will insist on limiting the number of pieces of bread that can be toasted per day in order to ensure optimum health.
- Some people might claim that such scenarios are absurd because they seem so far-fetched. However, only a few decades ago, the idea that we would need a government permit to perform construction on the inside of our homes would have been deemed equally absurd. The trend in our loss of freedoms and privacy indicates that the controls that will be imposed upon us will be limited only by the technocrats' imaginations.
- It is unfortunate that the government has turned a wonderful market, the production of energy, into something so dysfunctional and potentially tyrannical. In a normal, functioning market, suppliers would compete to offer all the power we need at the cheapest price. They would not care about how we use our energy. But the government has long treated energy production like it has treated most other sectors of the economy: like a political football. As a consequence, our standard of living is set to suffer a marked decline. Ironically, the smart grid will be hailed as the solution to the chaos created by the state's interventionist and destructive actions.
- As the technocrats celebrate the end days of individual freedom and personal privacy, our last refuge is set to be invaded by the prying eyes and hands of big brother. In the future, the term "private life" will be thought of as an anachronism. No longer will our homes be our castles, nor our safest refuges. There will be no escape from the smart grid '-- the control grid. The central planners are moving in.
- Roger Toutant [send him mail] has practiced electrical engineering in private industry for more than 20 years and is currently licensed in Ontario.
- The Best of Roger Toutant
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- 22TH
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- CIA Official Dies in Apparent Suicide | Washington Free Beacon
- BY:Bill GertzApril 4, 2014 11:46 pm
- A senior CIA official has died in an apparent suicide this week from injuries sustained after jumping off a building in northern Virginia, according to sources close to the CIA.
- CIA spokesman Christopher White confirmed the death and said the incident did not take place at CIA headquarters in McLean, Va.
- ''We can confirm that there was an individual fatally injured at a facility where agency work is done,'' White told the Washington Free Beacon. ''He was rushed to a local area hospital where he subsequently died. Due to privacy reasons and out of respect for the family, we are not releasing additional information at this time.''
- A source close to the agency said the man who died was a middle manager and the incident occurred after the man jumped from the fifth floor a building in Fairfax County.
- Many agency employees are known to work under stressful conditions and high stress is considered a part of the profession, for the three general types of employees: Intelligence analysts and support personnel, technical services operators, and members of the clandestine services, the agency's elite spying branch.
- The CIA is known to operate or rent space in a number of semi-secret locations in the country, including at least one high-rise building in Tysons Corner.
- The agency also operates a number of top-secret facilities used by its clandestine service officers, including agency safe houses.
- No other details of the death could be learned.
- The agency is currently engaged in a high profile dispute with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
- Sen. Diane Feinstein (D., Calif.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has said the CIA has blocked efforts by the committee to investigate harsh interrogation of terrorists.
- Committee staff members working at a CIA facility in Northern Virginia to investigate agency interrogation practices also have charged that the CIA covertly searched the agency's computers that were being used in the investigation.
- The agency subsequently reported that several Senate staff members had improperly and possibly illegally removed classified material from the CIA. The FBI was asked to investigate the mishandling of classified information in the case.
- The agency is under pressure from Congress to declassify a 6,000-page report on agency interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, used to glean information from al Qaeda terrorists captured after the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.
- The agency also this week came under scrutiny from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence over the agency's role in obscuring the facts surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
- Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell told the committee that agency analysts concluded that a protest took place in advance of the attack that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
- Morrell testified that ''subsequent information revealed this judgment to be incorrect.''
- The CIA was operating a facility in Benghazi with a large number of agency personnel whose activities had not been made public.
- Speculation about the CIA annex in Benghazi has focused on the agency's role in supplying weapons to Libyan militias that in turn were shipping the arms to Islamist rebels in Syria.
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- HCDG
- Dutch banks no longer taking Hospital's risk / debt funding
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- Banks no longer lending to hospitals
- zaterdag 5 april 2014, 7:47Ziekenhuizen hebben grote moeite om aan geld te komen. Ook als het gaat om noodzakelijke vervanging van hun verouderde operatiekamers.Dat is volgens NRC Handelsblad een direct gevolg van onduidelijke regelgeving en onzekerheid over declareren in de zorg. Veel bankloketten blijven voor ziekenhuizen gesloten.
- Michel van Schaik van Rabobank zegt dat 'het systeem begint te kraken in zijn voegen''. Hij spreekt van een opeenstapeling van financile risico's in de zorg. Ziekenhuizen zijn tegenwoordig zelf financieel verantwoordelijk voor hun huisvesting, vroeger was de overheid dat.
- Banken perken kredieten in en veranderen de voorwaarden. Bij het Medisch Centrum Alkmaar wordt de mogelijkheid tot rood staan rap ingeperkt. Verbouwing is voor het ziekenhuis geen rele mogelijkheid.
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- Drone Nation
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- Military drone crashes near Pennsylvania elementary school
- Published time: April 05, 2014 00:59AFP Photo / Saul Loeb
- A nearly 400-pound unmanned aerial vehicle crash-landed near an elementary school in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania on Thursday afternoon, irritating members of the community and alarming civil liberties advocates nervous about drones flying over the US.
- The drone, an RQ-7 Shadow, is 11 feet long with a 14 foot wingspan. Why it was flying in the air above Lickdale Elemantary School is unknown, but Major Ed Shank, a public affairs officer for the Pennsylvania National Guard, told Les Stewart of the Lebanon Daily News that drones operate out of Fort Indiantown Gap, an Army post in Lebanon County.
- The 375-pound craft endured what officials called a ''hard landing'' before being run over by a civilian vehicle. No one was hurt in the incident, but the drone '' reportedly worth $150,000 '' was a ''total loss'' and rendered useless after slamming into the ground.
- ''Here at Fort Indiantown Gap, that's the first time something like this has happened,'' Maj. Shank told WHTM News in Lebanon. ''When it does happen we investigate it very thoroughly to figure out what happened and then let the public know and let our own aviators know so that it doesn't happen again.''
- Local affiliates reported that the US Army and Marine Corps are known to use such aircraft for reconnaissance and surveillance overseas. Without elaborating, spokesman Shank maintained that the drone that went down was engaged in ''training exercises.''
- Lisa Cooper, who lives right down the street from where the crash occurred, said residents in the area have grown used to hearing aircraft buzzing overhead.
- ''I have listened to it for the past couple of years and I was a little unsteady with it going over my house because look what happens,'' she said. ''You just don't know what it could have been.''
- Earlier this year, a US Border Patrol drone went down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern California, costing the federal agency $12 million. The crash suffered a mechanical failure and was deliberately flown into the sea, whereupon it broke apart on impact.
- That incident came after a more serious one, when a drone undergoing military exercises slammed into a US Navy battleship and injured two sailors last November. The Navy Times reported at the time that the ship ''was heavily damaged by the impact of a test target,'' while the 13-foot UAV ''crippled a key computer center integral to the ship's cutting edge combat systems.''
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- Agenda 21
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- Europe's earth-monitoring Sentinel satellite heads into space
- It is a revolutionary eye in the sky in what has been dubbed the most ambitious Earth observation venture ever.
- European radar satellite Sentinel-1a is being launched on Thursday.
- A fleet of other Sentinels will follow in coming years as part of Copernicus, a monitoring initiative led by the European Commission and European Space Agency (ESA).
- Each satellite will be able to provide imagery in near real time, the rapid data a major boost in dealing with emergencies.
- ''It will be able to monitor basically all surfaces of the earth, the ocean, the ice surfaces, land surfaces and it will react very quickly in case of natural disasters to support imagery to the support teams on the ground,'' said ESA Spacecraft Operations Manager, Frank Juergen Diekmann.
- Sentinel 1-a will begin its all-important mission later on Thursday, launched into space from French Guiana on a Soyuz rocket.
- Watch Live at 23:02 CEST (21:02 GMT) the Sentinel-1 launch on a Soyuz rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.
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- How did the IPCC's alarmism take everyone in for so long? - Telegraph
- Looking at the Summary for Policymakers, however, we see how the scaremongers are still playing their same old game. On pages 12-14, for instance, they are still trying to whip up fears about extreme weather events, killer heatwaves, vanishing tropical islands, massive crop failures and so on, although little of this is justified by the report itself, and even less by the evidence of the real world, where these things are no more happening as predicted than the temperature rises predicted by their computer models.
- This latest report has aroused markedly less excitement than did its hysterical predecessor in 2007. They have cried wolf once too often. The only people still being wholly taken in, it seems '' apart from the usual suspects in the media '' are all those mindless politicians still babbling on about how in Paris next year they are finally going to get that great global agreement which, if only we put up enough wind farms and taxes, will somehow enable us to stop the climate changing.
- They can dream on. But alas, the rest of us must still pay the price for their dreams.
- Nigel Farage misses an open goal
- What was most terrifying about how Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage came across in their second shoot-out on ''Europe'' was the realisation that such a sad, and not particularly pleasant, little muppet as Clegg could actually be our Deputy Prime Minister. What was most disappointing, however, was how, when Farage was yet again given the chance to put forward the only practical alternative to Britain remaining in the increasingly dysfunctional EU, he muffed it.
- He allowed Clegg to get away with seriously misrepresenting the position enjoyed by the two most prosperous countries in Europe, Norway and Switzerland, as members of the European Free Trade Association (Efta) outside the EU. Instead of correcting Clegg's errors, Farage's response was such waffle that David Dimbleby gave him a second chance to put across a clear and simple message: that by invoking Article 50 and joining Efta, freed from the rest of the EU's increasing political baggage, Britain could not only continue to trade as freely with the single market as we do now, but have much more influence over shaping its rules, too. This would give us all what so many people say they want.
- But, offered this open goal, Farage simply kicked the ball gently and rather clumsily into touch. If Ukip wants Britain to leave the EU, why doesn't Nigel explain the only practical way that this could be done?
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- Green 'smear campaign' against professor who dared to disown 'sexed up' UN climate dossier | Mail Online
- Richard Tol claims he is fighting a sustained attack on his reputationProfessor from Sussex University is a highly respected climate economistCriticised by campaigners after saying report summary was 'alarmist'In his opinion, it focused on 'scare stories'By David Rose
- Published: 18:19 EST, 5 April 2014 | Updated: 18:33 EST, 5 April 2014
- Accused: Professor Richard Tol, who said the new report by the UN was 'alarmist' and focused on 'scare stories'
- The professor who refused to sign last week's high-profile UN climate report because it was too 'alarmist', has told The Mail on Sunday he has become the victim of a smear campaign.
- Richard Tol claims he is fighting a sustained attack on his reputation by a key figure from a leading institution that researches the impact of global warming.
- Prof Tol said: 'This has all the characteristics of a smear campaign. It's all about taking away my credibility as an expert.'
- Prof Tol, from Sussex University, is a highly respected climate economist and one of two 'co-ordinating lead authors' of an important chapter in the 2,600-page report published last week by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
- He has been widely criticised by green campaigners after he claimed that the much shorter 'summary for policymakers' '' hammered out in all-night sessions between scientists and government officials over a week-long meeting in Yokohama, Japan '' was overly 'alarmist'.
- In his view, the summary focused on 'scare stories' and suggestions the world faced 'the four horsemen of the apocalypse'.
- He said he did not want his name associated with it because he felt 'uncomfortable' with the way the summary exaggerated the economic impact of global warming.
- The source of the alleged smear campaign is Bob Ward, director of policy at the London School of Economics's Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.
- Mr Ward '' neither an economist nor a climate expert '' claimed on the institute's website that he was waging 'an ongoing struggle' to force Prof Tol to correct 'errors' in his work.
- Mr Ward had earlier sent an email disparaging Prof Tol's research to several leading IPCC scientists and officials.
- Source: The man behind the alleged smear campaign is Bob Ward, director of policy at the London School of Economics's Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change
- They included Prof Tol's fellow co-ordinating lead author, Doug Arent, director of America's National Renewable Energy Laboratory; and Professor Chris Field of Stanford University, the overall chairman and editor of the IPCC report.
- The email claimed that Prof Tol's 'antics' were 'likely to reflect badly on the IPCC and his co-authors'. In response Professor Arent informed Mr Ward that the chapter he co-ordinated with Prof Tol was 'double and triple checked'.
- He added that after Mr Ward '' one of the IPCC's registered 'reviewers' '' found a tiny, statistical error in an earlier draft, it was revised.
- And polar bears? For once, they are not mentioned, but scientists agree that they are doing well, with a rebound in their numbers of up to 500 per cent since hunting was banned in the 1970s
- On the website, Mr Ward said he spotted errors in three of Prof Tol's papers in October and raised them in an email to him. But according to Mr Ward, Prof Tol 'refused to give any undertaking to correct them'. In one email seen by this paper, Mr Ward admits the errors are 'small'. Mr Ward added that after further correspondence, Prof Tol 'seemed determined not to correct his papers'.
- Yet weeks before Mr Ward published his article, Prof Tol volunteered to correct a handful of highly technical, minor numerical mistakes. And almost a month before Mr Ward's article appeared, a scientific journal had asked him to write his own article, saying what he found wrong with Prof Tol's work.
- Prof Tol said yesterday: 'Ward claims I refused to correct errors, but it's not true.' He added that the errors made no difference to his conclusion that global warming of up to 2.5C may have a net beneficial impact on the world economy.
- Ward admitted yesterday that the journals which published Tol's papers told him weeks ago that he was prepared to correct some of his alleged errors, and that he had been asked to write a paper of his own.
- He denied his actions were a smear campaign, insisting he was merely fulfilling his role as an IPCC reviewer and claiming that he still did not know which 'errors' Tol was prepared to correct. He said: 'If Tol thinks I am engaged in a smear campaign because I have pointed out his errors he is redefining what a smear campaign means. It is his behaviour that is unreasonable.'
- He said that Tol had called him an 'attack dog' in his own blog and that this was 'abusive'.
- How IPPC report was ramped up to predict wars, extreme weather and famine... while its authors slept on the jobBy BEN PILE
- According to Raj Pachauri, chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), its report last week was its most terrifying yet, portending famine, disease, extreme weather and wars, proving 'no one on this planet is going to be untouched'.
- But a Mail on Sunday analysis shows that the 47-page 'summary for policymakers' of a much more detailed 2,600-page document '' 'sexed up' some of the key findings.
- Its 'alarmist' spin led Professor Richard Tol to demand his name be removed from it.
- Neither report covers the science of climate change, only possible impacts. Many of these, the full document admits, are difficult to forecast.
- In any case, computer models say the world should already be warmer '' as this newspaper has reported many times.
- The strangest thing about the summary is the way it was produced. For seven days, about 200 people '' 120 of them government officials, not scientists '' sat in a hall in Yokohama, Japan, trying to hammer out a final draft reflecting the full text.
- Big issues were not resolved until the final session, which started at 9.30pm and ended at 10am next day. Long before that, many delegates had left or fallen asleep. 'Important decisions were made by a handful of countries which were still there, including the UK and US,' says one source. 'It's no wonder the summary isn't a true reflection of what the scientists wrote.'
- Here are some of the discrepancies .''.''.
- Real cost of Climate McCarthyism, apart from big bills, is to free speechBy DAVID ROSE
- At the heart of the current, poisoned debate about global warming lies a paradox. Thanks to the 'pause', the unexpected plateau in world surface temperatures which has now lasted for 17 years, the science is less 'settled' than it has been for years.
- Yet, despite this uncertainty, those who use it to justify a range of potentially ruinous energy policies have become ever more extreme in their pronouncements. Their latest campaign is an attempt to silence anyone who disagrees.
- This reached a new and baleful milestone last week, with a report from the Commons Science and Technology Committee saying BBC editors must obtain special 'clearance' before interviewing climate 'sceptics'.
- The committee's chairman, Labour MP Andrew Miller, likened sceptics to the Monster Raving Loony Party, suggesting they should be allowed to express their views with similar frequency.
- Opinion: Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey, often calls climate change deniers 'sceptic'
- High profile commentators, including the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey, often describe climate change sceptics as 'deniers', on a par with those who reject evidence of the Holocaust.
- One Sunday columnist recently insisted the parallel was exact, because the evidence of global warming is as strong as that for Auschwitz.
- Academics who deviate from the perceived 'correct' line risk vilification. The most recent example is Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University, who had the temerity to remove his name from a UN climate report because he said it was 'alarmist'.
- Another is Prof Roger Pielke Jnr of Colorado. His 'crime' is to have published evidence that, so far, hurricanes have not become more frequent, while financial losses from extreme weather have not increased as a result of climate change. His reward has been an organised campaign demanding he be sacked.
- The Breakthrough Institute '' an influential, and very green '' US think tank has described those who try to close down debate in this way as 'climate McCarthyites', after the infamous 1950s Senator who sought to root out Communists from American public life.
- It is an increasingly apt analogy. Miller, Davey and their allies often cite a study showing that 97 per cent of academic papers dealing with climate say that human-induced global warming is real.
- But here is the thing: so do almost all of those attacked as 'deniers', including Lord Lawson, whose appearance on the Radio 4 Today show in February sparked the current furore over sceptics getting airtime.
- Where they differ from the supposed mainstream is not over the existence of warming, but its speed, and how to deal with it.
- Then, so do many scientists. The 'pause' means that the climate computer models, on which most forecasts are based, say the world should already be rather warmer than it is: in one expert's words, they are 'running too hot'.
- Opposing: A US think tank has described those who try to close down debate as 'climate McCarthyites', after the infamous 1950s Senator (pictured) who sought to root out Communists from American public life
- Why is this? Many scientists are engaged in honest attempts to answer this question. Some suggest that the 'climate sensitivity' '' a measure of how much the world will warm in response to a given increase in carbon dioxide '' may be significantly lower than was widely believed only a few years ago.
- Moreover, the response to rising CO2 adopted thus far palpably has not worked. The emissions cuts agreed by the EU and other countries at the 1997 Kyoto Treaty and imposed by our own Climate Change Act have made energy more expensive, and exported jobs and prosperity to countries such as China '' which adds billions of watts of coal fired power to its grid each year. CO2 emissions have continued to rise.
- The architects of such policies know they have failed, but they have no alternative except more of the same. Maybe it's because their argument is weak that they resort to climate McCarthyism. The cost, apart from higher energy bills, is to democracy, and free speech.
- Controversial: Labour MP Andrew Miller, likened sceptics to the Monster Raving Loony Party
- Share or comment on this article
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- John Kerry Says Denying Climate Science Is 'Malpractice'
- (DailySheeple) - The sky may not exactly be falling (yet), but the climate is definitely changing enough to screw us all and it's all our fault on top of it according to the latest report released by the scaremongerers scientific cabal over that the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
- The laundry list of ever-growing threats now includes more death, more natural disasters, more poverty, catastrophic food and water shortages and even potential wars, all because of what they are 95% sure is man-made global warming.
- Upon the report's release, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a statement on how dire things really are:
- Unless we act dramatically and quickly, science tells us our climate and our way of life are literally in jeopardy. Denial of the science is malpractice.
- There are those who say we can't afford to act. But waiting is truly unaffordable. The costs of inaction are catastrophic.
- Kerry has also recently warned that global warming is more dangerous than WMDs, saying it is, ''perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction,'' a message he's been spreading as part of a three-nation tour across Asia via jet (a carbon-dioxide spewing one).
- The IPCC also claims the devastation of man-made climate change will hurt poor people the most. It was not clear if they were specifically referencing carbon taxes or not.
- But Reuters points out that, ''Still, many governments have pleaded for greater scientific certainty before making billion-dollar investments in everything from flood barriers to renewable energies.''
- Al Gore, who The Telegraph noted was poised to ''become world's first carbon billionaire,'' and his venture capital firm were probably sad to hear it.
- In addition, not everyone agrees with the IPCC according toThe Wall Street Journal:
- A body known as the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change on Monday released a 1,062-page report citing studies done in the peer-reviewed literature and came to different conclusions. Its analysis found that higher carbon dioxide concentrations and rising temperatures are causing ''no net harm to the global environment or to human health and often finds the opposite: net benefits to plants, including important food crops, and to animals and human health.''
- The report noted, with ''medium confidence,'' that since 2007 there had been several periods of rapid food and cereal price increases following climate extremes in key producing regions, and that ''several of these climate extremes were made more likely as the result of [man-made] emissions.''
- So we better take drastic, multi-billion-dollar steps to fight man-made climate change, you know, based on ''medium confidence.''
- Some have also concluded that the latest IPCC report is a bit'...too alarmist. ''Some'' includes ex-IPCC report author and Sussex University Professor Richard Tol, who withdrew from the writing team after concluding that the report was'...too alarmist.
- It's also a good thing they changed the phraseology to ''climate change'' (something which, of course, will always and has always happened no matter what, kind of like how the wind will always blow) from ''global warming,'' considering the Earth has actually entered a cooling period despite greenhouse emissions.
- Melissa Melton is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple , where this first appeared, and a co-creator of Truthstream Media. Wake the flock up!
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- Ministry of Truth
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- AJAE information manipulation paper
- Fuhai Hong' andXiaojian ZhaoFuhai Hong is an assistant professor in the Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University. Xiaojian Zhao is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.Correspondence may be sent to: fhhong@ntu.edu.sg.The authors thank Larry Karp, Madhu Khanna, Jinhua Zhao, two anonymous referees, and participants in the Conference on Global Environmental Challenges: the Role of China for their helpful comments.
- It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric information. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare. From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous.
- JEL codes(C) The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
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- BBC News - Robot writes LA Times earthquake breaking news article
- 18 March 2014Last updated at 07:12 ET The Los Angeles Times was the first newspaper to publish a story about an earthquake on Monday - thanks to a robot writer.
- Journalist and programmer Ken Schwencke created an algorithm that automatically generates a short article when an earthquake occurs.
- Mr Schwencke told Slate magazine that it took around three minutes for the story to appear online.
- "Robo-journalism" is increasingly being used in newsrooms worldwide.
- The LA Times is a pioneer in the technology which draws on trusted sources - such as the US Geological Survey - and places data into a pre-written template.
- Continue reading the main storyThis is the article generated by the LA Times algorithm: A shallow magnitude 4.7 earthquake was reported Monday morning five miles from Westwood, California, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 6:25 a.m. Pacific time at a depth of 5.0 miles.
- According to the USGS, the epicenter was six miles from Beverly Hills, California, seven miles from Universal City, California, seven miles from Santa Monica, California and 348 miles from Sacramento, California. In the past ten days, there have been no earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and greater centered nearby.
- This information comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service and this post was created by an algorithm written by the author.
- Read the newspaper's full report here.
- As well as the earthquake report, it also uses another algorithm to generate stories about crime in the city - with human editors deciding which ones need greater attention.
- Other news organisations have experimented with algorithm-based reporting methods in other areas, particularly sports.
- The generated story does not replace the journalist, Mr Schwencke argued, but instead allows available data to be quickly gathered and disseminated.
- "It's supplemental," he told the magazine.
- "It saves people a lot of time, and for certain types of stories, it gets the information out there in usually about as good a way as anybody else would.
- "The way I see it is, it doesn't eliminate anybody's job as much as it makes everybody's job more interesting."
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- Star-Ledger cuts 167 jobs, including 40 newsroom positions | NJ.com
- By Ted Sherman and Mark Mueller
- In a grim day of reckoning at the state's largest newspaper, the owners of The Star-Ledger today said they were eliminating the jobs of approximately 167 people, including 25 percent of the newsroom.
- The sweeping job loss was part of a plan announced last week in an effort to greatly reduce costs and combine resources by consolidating the operations of The Star-Ledger, along with its sister publications in New Jersey and its online partner, NJ.com, which also announced cutbacks today.
- The Star-Ledger, which has won three Pulitzer Prizes and several national awards, currently has 750 employees, of which approximately 500 are non unionized. None of the cuts announced today will affect unionized personnel, who are covered under existing labor contracts.
- The cuts will mean the loss of 40 of the 156 reporters, editors, photographers and support staff in The Star-Ledger newsroom, which had already seen a parade of people leaving in recent weeks over concerns about the paper's future and the continuing fiscal pressures affecting newspapers across the country. One of those leaving voluntarily had been slated to be cut.
- The newsroom is not unionized.
- Elsewhere at the Newark-based paper, where whole offices now stand vacant, attesting to tremendous loss of personnel through buyouts and earlier layoffs, 127 more are losing their jobs across all departments.
- The cuts were not unexpected, with the announcement last week of the creation of a new media company'--NJ Advance Media'--which is to provide content, advertising and marketing services to all the newspapers owned by Advance Publications in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Sales and marketing functions of the new company will launch in June, with content operations to begin in September, according to executives.
- More job eliminations were announced at NJ.com, which serves as the online home of the New Jersey Advance Publications newspapers and had hired its own staff of reporters, some in beats already covered by The Star-Ledger.
- Officials last week said by consolidating services and eliminating positions'--including a combined newsroom staff in the new company'--they expected to see significant savings at a time of great upheaval for the newspaper industry, which has struggled to remain profitable as advertising dollars migrated to the internet or evaporated outright in the recent recession.
- Despite the consolidations, all four of the daily newspapers'--The Star-Ledger, The Times of Trenton, The South Jersey Times and The Express-Times of Easton, Pa.'--will continue to publish seven days a week, the executives said.
- The Star-Ledger remains New Jersey's largest daily newspaper, with a print circulation of 167,600 and 265,500 on Sunday, not including digital circulation, which boosts that to 285,200 daily and 369,700, based on audited numbers for the six-month period ending September 2013.
- Industry analysts say newspapers across the country, hit hard by the digital age, have been experiencing a steady decline in readership and dramatic declines in ad revenues, with many large public newspaper companies reducing their work forces by 30 percent to 42 percent since 2006.
- Other Advance-owned newspapers around the country, including the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Oregonian, have already experienced severe job losses, and in some cases reduced the frequency of publication or home delivery, as the company has pursued an aggressive ''click-based'' digital strategy, questioned by critics, aimed at driving traffic to its websites in hopes of generating revenues.
- Company officials say The Star-Ledger was on track to lose $19 million this year. Advance Publications, owned by the Newhouse family, is privately held and does not publicly disclose earnings.
- The Star-Ledger, which once had a job security pledge for its non-union employees, has already gone through a round of layoffs'--eliminating 34 jobs, including 18 full-timers in the newsroom last year. The owners of the paper then threatened to shut it down without significant concessions from its production unions, which ultimately ratified new four-year contracts and agreed to buyout packages for at least 55 workers.
- The paper has seen its news gathering staff drop significantly over the past five years, from a high of 350, through buyouts and attrition. In 2008, Advance Publications, citing millions in losses, threatened to sell the newspaper if it could not win union concessions and persuade a large number of non-union, full-time workers to take buyouts. Ultimately, 304 people agreed to buyouts, including 151 in the newsroom.
- Even as the staff was reduced, though, the paper continued to win national prizes and was voted newspaper of the year by the New Jersey Press Association.
- Those being let go will not necessarily leave immediately. In packets that were being handed out this morning, those being told their jobs were being eliminated were offered severance packages if they agreed to stay with the newspaper until NJ Advance Media, new media company being formed, is up and running.
- Star-Ledger employees receiving offer letters of jobs with the new company in some cases were being given different positions or titles, some at lower pay. They will have a week to decide to accept the offer, the offer letters said.
- NJ Advance Media's main newsroom is expected to open in September just outside Metropark in Woodbridge. The Star-Ledger and other affected newspapers will retain a smaller number of news and production employees.
- NJ.com President Matt Kraner will serve as president of NJ Advance Media. The Star-Ledger's editor, Kevin Whitmer, will serve as editor and vice president of content at NJ Advance Media. Lamar Graham, now NJ.com's chief content officer, will serve as a vice president of audience development. Barb Chodos, currently NJ.com's general manager, and Steve Alessi, a vice president of sales for The Star-Ledger and NJ.com will both serve as vice presidents of sales for the new media company.
- RELATED COVERAGE' Amid changing media landscape, Star-Ledger, NJ.com and affiliates form new company
- ' Star-Ledger announces layoffs of 34 employees, including 18 newsroom staff
- ' Star-Ledger unions ratify new 4-year contracts, agree to buyouts
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- 30 Clients Using Computer-Generated Stories Instead of Writers - GalleyCat
- Forbes has joined a group of 30 clients using Narrative Science software to write computer-generated stories.
- Here's more about the program, used in one corner of Forbes' website: ''Narrative Science has developed a technology solution that creates rich narrative content from data. Narratives are seamlessly created from structured data sources and can be fully customized to fit a customer's voice, style and tone. Stories are created in multiple formats, including long form stories, headlines, Tweets and industry reports with graphical visualizations.''
- The New York Times revealed last year that trade publisher Hanley Wood and sports journalism site The Big Ten Network also use the tool. In all, 30 clients use the software''but Narrative Science did not disclose the complete client list.
- What do you think? The Narrative Science technology could potentially impact many corners of the writing trade. The company has a long list of stories they can computerize: sports stories, financial reports, real estate analyses, local community content, polling & elections, advertising campaign summaries sales & operations reports and market research.
- Here's an excerpt from a Forbes earnings preview story about Barnes & Noble, written by the computer program:
- While company shares have dropped 17.2% over the last three months to close at $13.72 on February 15, 2012, Barnes & Noble (BKS) is hoping it can break the slide with solid third quarter results when it releases its earnings on Tuesday, February 21, 2012.
- What to Expect: The Wall Street consensus is $1.01 per share, up 1% from a year ago when Barnes & Noble reported earnings of $1 per share.
- The consensus estimate is down from three months ago when it was $1.42, but is unchanged over the past month. Analysts are projecting a loss of $1.09 per share for the fiscal year.
- The company originated with two electrical engineering and computer science professors at Northwestern University. Here's more about the company: ''[It began with] a software program that automatically generates sports stories using commonly available information such as box scores and play-by-plays. The program was the result of a collaboration between McCormick and Medill School of Journalism.'¨'¨To create the software, Hammond and Birnbaum and students working in McCormick's Intelligent Information Lab created algorithms that use statistics from a game to write text that captures the overall dynamic of the game and highlights the key plays and players. Along with the text is an appropriate headline and a photo of what the program deems as the most important player in the game.''
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- SnowJob
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- U.S. knocks plans for European communication network
- WASHINGTONFri Apr 4, 2014 6:13pm EDT
- A man types on a computer keyboard in Warsaw in this February 28, 2013 illustration file picture.
- Credit: Reuters/Kacper Pempel/Files
- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday criticized proposals to build a European communication network to avoid emails and other data passing through the United States, warning that such rules could breach international trade laws.
- In its annual review of telecommunications trade barriers, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative said impediments to cross-border data flows were a serious and growing concern.
- It was closely watching new laws in Turkey that led to the blocking of websites and restrictions on personal data, as well as calls in Europe for a local communications network following revelations last year about U.S. digital eavesdropping and surveillance.
- "Recent proposals from countries within the European Union to create a Europe-only electronic network (dubbed a 'Schengen cloud' by advocates) or to create national-only electronic networks could potentially lead to effective exclusion or discrimination against foreign service suppliers that are directly offering network services, or dependent on them," the USTR said in the report.
- Germany and France have been discussing ways to build a European network to keep data secure after the U.S. spying scandal. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone was reportedly monitored by American spies.
- The USTR said proposals by Germany's state-backed Deutsche Telekom to bypass the United States were "draconian" and likely aimed at giving European companies an advantage over their U.S. counterparts.
- Deutsche Telekom has suggested laws to stop data traveling within continental Europe being routed via Asia or the United States and scrapping the Safe Harbor agreement that allows U.S. companies with European-level privacy standards access to European data. (www.telekom.com/dataprotection)
- "Any mandatory intra-EU routing may raise questions with respect to compliance with the EU's trade obligations with respect to Internet-enabled services," the USTR said. "Accordingly, USTR will be carefully monitoring the development of any such proposals."
- U.S. tech companies, the leaders in an e-commerce marketplace estimated to be worth up to $8 trillion a year, have urged the White House to undertake reforms to calm privacy concerns and fend off digital protectionism.
- In the report, the USTR also criticized restrictions on Internet telephony in India and China, foreign investment limits in countries, including China, and efforts to increase the rates U.S. telecommunications operators must pay in order to connect long-distance calls in Pakistan, Fiji, Tonga and Uganda.
- (Reporting by Krista Hughes; Editing by Dan Grebler)
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- ANOTHER SPY DEVICE_Amazon Dash
- You have no upcoming deliveries
- We're processing your order.
- Simply say it or scan it '-- add items to your shopping list from anywhere in your home.Easy to use for the whole family '-- everyone can help.Add items as you go '-- shop effortlessly throughout your day.Never forget an item again '-- Dash remembers so you don't have to.Sign up for a free Dashby invitation only
- Every member of the family can use Dash to easily add items to your AmazonFresh shopping list. Keep it on your kitchen counter or hang it on the refrigerator. Did your kids just eat the last of the cereal? Conveniently refill and restock your home's everyday essentials, and have fun doing it.
- Dash connects to your home Wi-Fi network and works directly with your AmazonFresh account. Say or scan items into your Dash, and then view the list on your desktop or mobile device to purchase and schedule delivery.
- Sign up for a free Dashby invitation only
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- Obama's NSA overhaul may require phone carriers to store more data | Reuters
- By Mark Hosenball and Alina Selyukh
- WASHINGTONThu Apr 3, 2014 6:46pm EDT
- A National Security Agency (NSA) data gathering facility is seen in Bluffdale, about 25 miles (40 kms) south of Salt Lake City, Utah, December 17, 2013.
- Credit: Reuters/Jim Urquhart
- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's plan for overhauling the National Security Agency's phone surveillance program could force carriers to collect and store customer data that they are not now legally obliged to keep, according to U.S. officials.
- One complication arises from the popularity of flat-rate or unlimited calling plans, which are used by the vast majority of Americans.
- While the Federal Communications Commission requires phone companies to retain for 18 months records on "toll" or long-distance calls, the rule's application is vague for subscribers of unlimited phone plans because they do not get billed for individual calls.
- That could change if the Obama administration pushes through with a proposal to require carriers - instead of the NSA - to collect and store phone metadata, which includes dialed numbers and call lengths but not the content of conversations. Under the administration's proposal, the phone companies would be required to turn over the data to the NSA in response to a court-approved government request.
- U.S. officials said the carriers might be forced to create new mechanisms to ensure that metadata from flat-rate subscribers could be monitored. They said these issues will require further discussion between the White House, Congress and industry.
- "These are very complex systems," said one industry source familiar with data storage policies. "I doubt there are companies out there that have a nice, neat, single database that can tell you how long records are kept universally."
- To great fanfare last month, the Obama administration unveiled a proposal to end the NSA's bulk collection of millions of records of phone calls. But the announcement glossed over key practical issues in implementing the new procedures.
- The potential gap in records for flat-rate subscribers, as well as the telecommunications companies' strong opposition to onerous data retention requirements, underscores the still-fluid nature of the NSA reforms.
- "We applaud these proposals to end Section 215 bulk collection, but feel that it is critical to get the details of this important effort right," Verizon Communications Inc General Counsel Randal Milch said in a blog post last week, referring to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the law that authorized the NSA program.
- "At this early point in the process, we propose this basic principle that should guide the effort: the reformed collection process should not require companies to store data for longer than, or in formats that differ from, what they already do for business purposes," Milch wrote.
- Obama's proposal, whose full details have yet to be formally released, is a response to public outcry over revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the spy agency's bulk collection of phone records.
- A senior Obama administration official said: "As questions arise with respect to the proposal, we look forward to working through them with Congress and relevant stakeholders."
- One former senior U.S. official said that because of the growing popularity of unlimited-calling plans, over the years the NSA program ended up collecting less and less of the metadata it was legally authorized to acquire.
- This former official, and a non-government expert who had access to details of the NSA program, said that the agency recently had only been collecting 25 percent to 33 percent of the total U.S. metadata it was authorized to collect.
- "The change in the nature of billing data means that there's a lot less such data than there used to be," said Stewart Baker, a former senior official at both the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security.
- Another former U.S. official said he believed phone companies were still obliged to supply the NSA with some kind of record of the metadata other than billing records.
- The NSA can request business records from phone companies, and carriers do generally keep some phone records for business purposes, such as to manage traffic flow in networks or monitor traffic exchanges with other carriers, said the first industry source.
- However, those databases are fluid, complex and rarely comprehensive, as they are driven by constantly changing network needs. And that has become a key concern for phone companies in the proposed changes to NSA surveillance.
- "It strips from us the ability to make business decisions as the technology evolves," the industry source said. "It would cause us to continue to collect stuff that we don't need."
- If NSA wants to search flat-rate subscribers' metadata, it would only be able to do so on calls going forward from the date that the search is requested, since no earlier data could easily be retrieved, officials said.
- Under the proposal, the NSA would have to get approval from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to examine phone data for information about calls made to or from a U.S. number.
- A bill drafted by the House Intelligence Committee would allow the NSA itself to directly request metadata from a phone company under a broad authorization from the FISA court. But the court would later be required to review metadata NSA collected to see if the spying had been legitimate.
- AT&T Inc declined to comment. Sprint Corp said, "We are reviewing the Obama administration's proposal with great interest and look forward to seeing additional details."
- (Editing by Warren Strobel and Tiffany Wu)
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- NWO
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- EUobserver / Secret EU lawmaking: the triumph of the trialogue
- BRUSSELS - The setting could not be less spectacular '' one of the more nondescript rooms in the European Parliament's glass towers overlooking Place Luxembourg in Brussels, where a handful of officials gather with armfuls of papers.
- At intervals, members of the Parliament's catering staff silently walk round the room offering tea and coffee. Unless you were involved, you wouldn't know that the meeting '' one of around 1,000 so-called 'trialogue' meetings to take place in 2013 '' was actually happening.
- At this particular gathering to discuss plans to re-write the EU's accounting directive in March 2013, MEPs from the Parliament's legal affairs committee '' Klaus Lehne, Arlene McCarthy, Eva Lichtenberger, Alexandra Thein and Saj Karim '' made a breakthrough.
- They secured rules that will shine a light on the payments made to governments by companies working in the controversial extractive industries '' rules that should help prevent corruption and dodgy dealing between companies and governments.
- An Irish government official, whose country has been tasked with leading the talks (because Ireland held the rotating EU presidency at the time), agreed that, without exception, all payments over '¬100,000 must be publicly disclosed. This will apply to every individual project or contract undertaken by a company.
- The new reporting requirements will mark a sea-change in how the industry is regulated yet the trialogue meeting where it happened remains a closed process.
- Search for any mention of trialogues in the EU treaties and you will draw a blank.
- This is because despite being an accepted part of the lawmaking landscape, in legal terms trialogues don't exist.
- All trialogue meetings are informal and the timing of the meetings are not known to most MEPs, let alone the ordinary public. There are no formal minutes taken. Some are over within a few minutes. Others can go on all day and well into the night.
- The last trialogue on the single resolution mechanism (SRM), the final, and arguably most controversial piece of banking union legislation, lasted 16 hours through the night on 19 March as lawmakers sought (successfully) to close a deal in time for the end of the parliamentary term.
- Despite the sense of intrigue that should surround a lawmaking process that few people are aware is happening, attending the average trialogue meeting would be a perfect cure for insomniacs, as civil servants and politicians drone through a bill line by line, article by article.
- But they matter. If the EU's bi-monthly leaders' summits are the glamorous (in the loosest sense of the word) side of the EU, the trialogue meetings are the main engine driving the sausage factory that churns out EU laws in Brussels.
- The triumph of the trialogueIn terms of numbers, the volume of legislation does not appear to have changed much in the past two legislatures. MEPs and ministers adopted a total of 447 laws in the 2004-9 parliament. By November 2013, politicians had signed off on 395 files and, even with a wild flurry of activity as they seek to conclude as much legislation as possible before May's elections, the total number of files is likely to be around 500.
- But what has changed is the way the laws are agreed.
- The formal structure for breaking the impasse between the institutions mentioned in the treaties is the conciliation committee.
- The conciliation committee, which also features MEPs together with European Commission and EU Council officials, but which is chaired by one of the parliament's vice-presidents, kicks in at the final stage of the lawmaking process '' the third reading.
- But in the post-Lisbon treaty era, in which lawmakers are actively encouraged to go faster in agreeing legislation, the conciliation process has been almost eliminated in recent years. In the 1999-2004 parliament, 89 of the 403 pieces of EU law were completed after conciliation. In the first half of the current parliament term, the figure was down to a mere 4 percent.
- Around 80 percent of EU laws are now agreed at first reading, with research by the parliament estimating that the average law agreed at first reading takes 14.4 months from start to finish.
- The trialogue process, which starts as soon as the institutions agree an initial position on a law, is designed to speed the process up.
- Set up to broker agreements between MEPs and ministers, the number of trialogue attendees varies from file to file but the format remains the same. As a rule the rapporteur, shadow rapporteurs from other political groups and committee chair, comprise the Parliament's negotiating team on a law.
- Meanwhile, at other seats around the table are officials from the European Commission and either the minister or senior civil servants from the country holding the EU Council presidency.
- The participants are invariably armed with four-columned documents representing the starting position of the three institutions, with the fourth column left for the compromise text that is meant to emerge.
- Though they might not say so publicly, most MEPs and their staff, who frequently find themselves at the heart of lawmaking, enjoy the experience. For professional politicos, the novelty of piloting a piece of law through from the commission proposal to the end result adopted by MEPs and ministers takes a while to wear off.
- Despite the ostensibly dubious health and social benefits of sitting in a poorly lit room for hours on end haggling with men and women in grey suits over the EU's milk quotas, many enjoy the sense of "being where the action is".
- Perhaps they have to. The staff of one MEP reveal that their boss attended over 40 trialogues in 2013. On average, around 25 separate trialogue meetings take place each week that the parliament is sitting. Tough work if you get it.
- Power gamesBut some claim that the parliament goes into the average trialogue at an immediate disadvantage. The commission, they say, often sees itself not just as a broker between the two legislative bodies, but depending on which approach suits it best, decides whether it wants to behave like a "political executive" or as an "impartial civil service".
- French socialist Liem Hoang Ngoc, who locked swords with the commission over plans to increase the independence and transparency of the EU's statistical agency Eurostat, says that the EU executive tried to appoint itself as "judge and jury" on the bill.
- "It used the full extent of its powers, including threatening to withdraw the legislation and requesting a unanimity vote at the council, to prevent the council from signing off on the agreement," he says.
- "The civil servants we have been dealing with over the last few months seem to have some difficulties in grasping the concept of representative democracy."
- In one sense, the commission has an inbuilt advantage. As the EU's civil service, it is the one of the three institutions with the most permanence. Both MEPs and government ministers have to seek re-election. The rotating council presidencies only last six months.
- The commission also has two legal trump cards: it can withdraw its proposal, and can insist that legislation can only be adopted with the unanimous support of council.
- It also has an inbuilt expertise advantage from having more technical staff and experts than the other institutions.
- "The legal affairs committee is criminally understaffed," one parliament official quips. As a result, he says, it was the EU executive which took the lead in the accounting directive negotiations, drafting compromises.
- "It was impossible for the parliament's committee to match them so we asked them to propose possible compromises simply because they had the resources," the official adds.
- "Legislation in a black box"Others complain that democracy and transparency are the losers. The two points at which MEPs vote for laws, in committee before and at the end of the trialogue process, and the final vote among all 751 deputies, are both in public, but this only camouflages the fact that most of the negotiations are held behind closed doors with no public access.
- For their part, national parliaments complain that the process makes it even tougher for them to influence the process. Back in 2009, a report by the UK parliament's EU committee noted that the use of informal trialogues "makes it harder for national parliaments to conduct effective scrutiny of EU legislation".
- Meanwhile, a report published by the same committee last month describes them as "something of a 'black box' for those not directly involved in them".
- During an evidence session with two MEPs, Elizabeth Symons, a member of the British upper house, remarked: "We have gone through this enormously complex edifice and at every point my heart sinks as I recognise the dilution of the relationship between the electors and the decision-takers."
- And it is not hard to have some sympathy with this stance.
- Only a handful of committee members are involved in a trialogue process, and the deal that emerges at the end invariably bears little resemblance to the documents agreed by lawmakers in the parliament and council.
- Democracy in danger?For one parliament official, trialogues are "an arrangement that has evolved in a way that isn't favourable to the parliament. It just simply gives way too much power to the council and commission".
- "The commission is able to go to the [council's] Coreper working group meetings, the EP is not there, so you clearly have the council and commission on one side and the parliament on the other," he says, adding that "the parliament's answer to this is simply that the council and commission don't sit next to each other in the trialogues".
- "Members here tend to get institutionalised," he says. "They take pride in building a network, of meeting ministers and commissioners, and so there is this culture of being nice to each other."
- But this is not a view shared by everybody.
- In a report on the effects of the Lisbon treaty on the power dynamics between the institutions, Portuguese centre-right MEP Paulo Rangel says that "the commission has, in practice, lost some of its political influences within the EU institutional architecture".
- Meanwhile, British centre-left MEP Arlene McCarthy, a former chair of the assembly's internal market committee and rapporteur on the bloc's bank bonus legislation, is more positive about the process.
- "The parliament punches its weight much more now than it used to and where it works as a team," she says, "particularly if we go into a negotiation with four or five key priorities and have a clear hierarchy of these and how to get them".
- Improving the system"At the end of the day political decisions in this parliament are not taken by negotiations because they've all got to go back to the political groups," says McCarthy, who puts the burden of responsibility on shadow rapporteurs to make sure that colleagues in their political group know how negotiations are going.
- McCarthy also has little sympathy for deputies who complain that they have little idea on what they are being asked to vote for.
- "MEPs should know what's going on from their shadow rapporteur," she adds, commenting that "there is no reason why you can't have people informed on the main issues."
- "It's largely up to the shadows to take a mandate from their group and to get support from their group because at the end they've got to sell it to their group before the final vote."
- The parliament's internal rules also require that committees are regularly updated on the progress of negotiations. Rule 70, agreed in 2013, states that "documents reflecting the outcome of the last trialogue shall be made available to the committee".
- McCarthy also questions the idea that MEPs should dot every i and cross every t, arguing that they should focus instead on the main political objectives of a bill.
- "We shouldn't spend so much time on technical detail. Our job is to set a political framework. The political priorities are what we are good at," she argues.
- The public interest testIt would be easy to dismiss the trialogue process as secretive and undemocratic, and it is certainly an oddity that the EU treaties contain not a single mention of the mechanism which is now a driving force for the vast majority of the bloc's new laws.
- Moreover, for institutions which constantly trumpet how transparent they are, it is hard to justify the secrecy that surrounds the trialogue process. It is not as if lobbyists, NGOs and journalists do not get access to the decisions that are made. One commission official comments that it is common practice for parliament officials to leak the outcome of trialogues to sympathetic lobbyists within hours of their conclusion.
- An old saying, much beloved of political hacks, is that the process of making laws and sausages are things which nobody wants to really know about.
- Moreover, if trialogue meetings and their minutes were opened up to the public, lawmakers would just find another way of negotiating in secret.
- In truth, the trialogue meetings themselves are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to secret lawmaking. The papers held by one official working on the accounting directive detail a plethora of meetings with officials and so-called 'non-papers' with offers and counter offers of compromise texts bouncing between the institutions.
- But that is not to say that improvements to the transparency and accountability of the system could not be made.
- For his part, Dick Roche, Ireland's former Europe minister, admits to having "a feeling of unease" about the democratic implications of lawmaking by trialogue, but describes the process as "an understandable but pragmatic response to enormous pressure".
- To McCarthy, what matters most is that parliament, and the other EU institutions, are able to assess whether good law has been made. "We should pay more attention to the transposition of law," she states. "We have to be able to demonstrate that we legislated in the public interest."
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- EUROLand
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- 'No more cuts!' Thousands across Spain stage anti-govt protests
- Published time: April 04, 2014 13:33Edited time: April 04, 2014 14:58A woman shouts slogans as she protests during a demonstration against European and Spanish austerity measures in Madrid April 3, 2014. (Reuters/Sergio Perez)
- Thousands of people in dozens of Spanish cities have taken to the streets to voice their discontent with harsh government policies and the EU's plans for further austerity cuts which they claim are destroying their country.
- The residents in over 50 Spanish cities, including the capital, Madrid, have taken part in the anti-government protests on Thursday, reported the local press.
- The demonstrators were holding banners saying "Rise up European peoples" and "No social cuts, no pensions of misery."
- Among those who rallied were also the employees of the local Coca-Cola factory in Spain, which is threatened with closure. "Don't drink Coca Cola" said their banners.
- The rallies have been backed by over 100 organizations, including Spain's largest trade unions, the Workers' Commissions (CCOO) and General Union of Workers (UGT).
- The protesters, waving red-and-white labor-union flags, have marched through the streets of Madrid behind a large black-and-white banner reading, "The austerity policies must end."
- "With the so-called austerity it is the same people who are being left with nothing, those who already have little," said retired civil servant Maria Cruz Otero, 67, who attended the Madrid rally, reported AFP.
- According to Cruz Otero, tax hikes, freezes and reductions in public sector pay have caused a "brutal loss in purchasing power" for many people.
- Meanwhile, on the eve of the protest, the workers unions said they wanted 2 percent of Spain's GDP invested in their plans to stimulate those sectors of the economy which have been hard hit by austerity cuts, according to the Local.
- ''No more cuts! We must stop the austerity policies," CCOO posted on its official website.
- ''This is what the EU has done,'' wrote UGT on its official website, ''26 million unemployed, and 8 million young people with no future, increasing poverty rates in Europe'...''
- The demonstrations were held on the eve of the big march which was planned in Brussels by European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), an organization which represents workers at the European level. The aim of the protests was the same '' to end austerity policies in the European Union.
- At least 50,000 workers from more than 20 European countries are expected to take part in the demonstration in the capital of the EU on Friday to express their unhappiness with the economic policies being pursued in Europe.
- Spain has recently seen a wave of rallies, starting on March 22, when protesters clashed with police in Madrid to protest government policies and EU-imposed austerity during the so-called 'March for Dignity'. Police arrested at least 29 protesters following the clashes which took place after the march. According to emergency service, 101 people were injured - 67 of them police.
- Just a week later, on March 27, thousands of university and high school students flooded central Madrid to protest massive cuts in education funding imposed by the government.
- Spain has recently been struck by economic and political crisis. In 2012, Prime Minister's Mariano Rajoy's conservative government introduced a set of changes to the country to contain annual deficits by raising taxes, freezing public salaries and curbing spending in areas such as education and healthcare.
- The economy fell into a recession in 2011 with the unemployment rate rising to 27 percent. In 2013 the government said it would save 6.5 billion euro ($8.6 billion) by 2015 by renovating the public sector. According to that project, at least 57 public entities, including weather agencies and competition watchdogs, would be shut down or merged.
- Another 'notable' trait of the economic crisis in Spain is home evictions. At the end of March, Spanish courts reported that 67,189 people have been evicted in 2013 as debt-struck residents struggle with the aftermath of a 2008 property crash. It means that every day of 2013 at least 184 people became homeless in Spain.
- This, combined with an enormous unemployment rate of 26 percent, the second-highest in Europe after Greece, left many Spaniards with nothing. This is reflected in the growing number of suicides in the country. According to Spain's National Institute of Statistics, at least eight people take their lives every day across the nation.
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- Common Core
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- STEM-COMMON CORE-MotorolaSolutions - About Us - Newsroom - Press Releases - Motorola Solutions to Give Chicago Students a Boost in Technology-Related Careers by Supporting New Early College STEM School
- SCHAUMBURG, Ill. '' Feb. 28, 2012 ''Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI) and the Motorola Solutions Foundation, the charitable arm of Motorola Solutions, today announced a grant to Chicago Public Schools to support one of five Early College STEM Schools (ECSS) offering an increased focus on technology skills and career readiness '' as well as the opportunity to earn college credits.
- The Motorola Solutions Foundation will sponsor the Chicago Vocational Career Academy, which will feature a unique curriculum focused on STEM and will incorporate Motorola Solutions employee mentors.Each student will be able to graduate in four-years with a high school diploma and college credits.Motorola Solutions has a history of supporting STEM education. Through its Innovation Generation program, the Motorola Solutions Foundation has provided more than $25.5 million since 2007 to STEM organization in the U.S.Since 2008, Motorola Solutions and Motorola Solutions Foundation have provided $11.5 million in support to educational and charitable efforts in Chicago. The majority of those funds are directed to science, technology, engineering and math education.From after-school robotics programs to the Chicago Public School science fair, Motorola Solutions employees also donate their time to STEM organizations in the Chicago area.SUPPORTING QUOTES
- Greg Brown, chairman and CEO, Motorola Solutions''As a company with a history of engineering solutions, we have a first-hand understanding of the value of an education in science and technology, and are thrilled to partner with Chicago Public Schools to help develop a local pipeline of technology leaders. From our commitment to employment in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, to our support of education through the Motorola Solutions Foundations' STEM funding, we appreciate the opportunity to support our neighbors.''
- Mayor Rahm Emanuel, mayor, City of Chicago ''These schools will focus on skills graduates need in the modern workforce and information technology industry. Students will also have the option to earn college credits and complete a six-year program with an associate's degree. Thanks to the involvement and commitment of our corporate partners, we continue to invest in our schools to equip our students with the skills they need for a successful future.''
- SUPPORTING RESOURCESFor complete details on Motorola Solutions' philanthropic commitment to education, visit the Motorola Solutions Foundation education website.Follow the Motorola Solutions Foundation on Facebook and Twitter.
- ###About Motorola Solutions FoundationThe Motorola Solutions Foundation is the charitable and philanthropic arm of Motorola Solutions. With employees located around the globe, Motorola Solutions seeks to benefit the communities where it operates. The company achieves this by making strategic grants, forging strong community partnerships and fostering innovation. The Motorola Solutions Foundation focuses its funding on public safety, disaster relief, employee programs and education, especially science, technology, engineering and math programming. For more information on Motorola Solutions Corporate and Foundation giving, visit www.motorolasolutions.com/giving.
- About Motorola SolutionsMotorola Solutions is a leading provider of mission-critical communication solutions and services for enterprise and government customers. Through leading-edge innovation and communications technology, it is a global leader that enables its customers to be their best in the moments that matter. Motorola Solutions trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ''MSI.'' To learn more, visit www.motorolasolutions.com. For ongoing news, please visit our media center or subscribe to our news feed.
- Notes To EditorsMOTOROLA, MOTO, MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS and the Stylized M Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motorola Trademark Holdings, LLC and are used under license. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. (C)2012 Motorola Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- The Origin of Compulsory Schooling | Article
- ''In our dream we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply."
- - Rev. Frederick T. Gates, Business Advisor to John D. Rockefeller Sr., 1913 [1]
- The current American school system took root around the turn of the century. In 1903, John D. Rockefeller founded the General Education Board, which provided major funding for schools across the country and was especially active in promoting the State-controlled public school movement.
- Rockefeller Education Board, 1915
- The General Education Board was not interested in encouraging critical thinking. Rather, its focus was on organizing children and creating reliable, predictable, obedient citizens. As award-winning former teacher John Gatto puts it, ''school was looked upon from the first part of the 20th Century as a branch of industry and a tool of governance.'' The Rockefellers, along with other financial elite and their philanthropic organizations (such as the Gates, Carnegies, and Vanderbilts) have been able to mold society by funding and pushing compulsory state schooling for the masses.Here's a timeline to show the radical shift in education and the influence of the financial elite.
- Pre 1840: Literacy Rates High, Schools Predominantly Private and Locally Controlled
- Up until the 1840's, the American school system was mainly private, decentralized, and home schooling was common. Americans were well educated and literacy rates were high.
- 1852: Massachusetts Passes First Mandatory Attendance Law
- 1902: John D. Rockefeller Creates the General Education Board
- At the ultimate cost of $129 million, the General Education Board provided major funding for schools across the nation and was very influential in shaping the current school system.
- 1905: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is Founded
- 1906: NEA Becomes a Federally Chartered Association
- 1913: Frederick T. Gates, Director of Charity for the Rockefeller Foundation, Writes ''In our dream'...the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand''
- Frederick T. Gates wrote in The Country School of Tomorrow, Occasional Papers Number 1:
- ''In our dream we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply."
- 1914: National Education Association (NEA) Alarmed by the Activity of the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations
- At an annual meeting in St. Paul Minnesota, a resolution was passed by the Normal School Section of the NEA. An excerpt stated:
- ''We view with alarm the activity of the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations'--agencies not in any way responsible to the people'--in their efforts to control the policies of our State educational institutions, to fashion after their conception and to standardize our courses of study, and to surround the institutions with conditions which menace true academic freedom and defeat the primary purpose of democracy as heretofore preserved inviolate in our common schools, normal schools, and universities.''
- 1917: NEA Reorganizes and Moves to Washington DC
- The NEA is the largest labor union in the U.S., representing public school teachers and other school faculty and staff. It generally opposes merit pay, school vouchers, accountability reforms, and more.
- 1918: Every State Requires Students to Complete Elementary School
- 1932: ''Eight Year Study'' '' Largely funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the General Education Board
- This laid the groundwork for education reform and the schooling system we have today.
- 1946: Rockefeller Foundation grants the General Education Board $7.5 billion
- 1953: Reece Committee of the US House of Representatives Reveals Agenda of Carnegie Endowment and Rockefeller Foundation on Education
- ''It seems incredible that the trustees of typically American fortune-created foundations should have permitted them to be used to finance ideas and practices incompatible with the fundamental concepts of our Constitution. Yet there seems evidence that this may have occurred.''
- -Norman Dodd, Director of Research, Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations, 1954[2]
- 1968: Edith Roosevelt's Article ''The Foundation Machine'' Indicts Carnegie Funded Textbooks
- Carnegie funded ''Programmed Textbooks'' were distributed to ''culturally deprived areas.'' Edith Roosevelt stated that ''these young children are being indoctrinated with a pattern of anti-social ideas that will completely and violently alienate them from the mainstream of American middle-class values.''
- 1979: US Department of Education Created
- 1986: Carnegie Teaching Panel Charts New Teacher Framework & Provides $900,000 in Grants for Reforms
- 2003: 14% of American Adults are Illiterate
- The National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) administered tests which revealed 14% of US residents would have extreme difficulty with reading and written comprehension. In 2003, some 30 million American adults had Below Basic prose literacy, 27 million had Below Basic document literacy, and 46 million had Below Basic quantitative literacy.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_United_States
- http://www.wealthbuildingcourse.com/devastating-effect-education-system-wealth.html
- http://www.schoolandstate.org/Case/case1.htm
- http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
- [1] Frederick T. Gates, "The Country School of Tomorrow," Occasional Papers, no.1 (New York: General Education Board, 1913), p. 6.
- [2]http://www.scribd.com/doc/3768227/Dodd-Report-to-the-Reece-Committee-on-Foundations-1954
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- TPP FTZ
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- Port of Long Beach - Foreign Trade Zone
- The Port of Long Beach operates Foreign Trade Zone 50 (FTZ-50), covering Orange County, western San Bernardino County and most of Los Angeles County. Qualifying businesses in FTZ-50 can reduce costs by deferring, reducing and potentially eliminating customs duties. To learn more, click here.
- You can read our Foreign Trade Zone 50 brochure online or download it here.
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- LGBBTQQIAAP - Gay Inc.
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- [Jonathan H. Adler] An ''ugly, illiberal footnote'' to a ''happy, hopeful story.''
- Conor Friedersdorf on the forced resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich for having donated $1,000 to support California's anti-same-sex marriage Proposition 8 six years ago and refusing to apologize for it.
- Calls for his ouster were premised on the notion that all support for Proposition 8 was hateful, and that a CEO should be judged not just by his or her conduct in the professional realm, but also by political causes he or she supports as a private citizen.
- If that attitude spreads, it will damage our society. . . .
- It isn't difficult to see the wisdom in inculcating the norm that the political and the professional are separate realms, for following it makes so many people and institutions better off in a diverse, pluralistic society. The contrary approach would certainly have a chilling effect on political speech and civic participation, as does Mozilla's behavior toward Eich. . . .
- Mozilla says, ''While painful, the events of the last week show exactly why we need the web. So all of us can engage freely in the tough conversations we need to make the world better.'' Again, Mozilla's actions will undercut tough conversations by making fewer people willing to engage in them. If you believe that an open, robust public discourse makes the world better, as they purport to, they've made the world worse. This action is a betrayal of their values, not a reflection of them.
- At least that's what this Mozilla user and fervent gay-marriage proponent believes.
- Additional thoughts on the campaign to oust Eich fromJonathan Rauch(''intolerant and obnoxious'') andAndrew Sullivan(''the whole episode disgusts me'').
- Also on The Volokh ConspiracyFederal judge to force Ohio to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages
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- Neil Clark Warren, eHarmony Founder, Says Gay Marriage 'Damaged His Company'
- CheeriosNot only will this breakfast cereal reduce your family's cholesterol but it will reduce your family's moral integrity as well, according to The National Organization for Marriage. As part of the General Mills family of products, Cheerios is one of the brands that has been boycotted by NOM for opposing the Minnesota Marriage Amendment.
- Betty CrockerThe staple of American domesticity is part of the General Mills family of products, which has been boycotted by the National Organization for Marriage for opposing the Minnesota Marriage Amendment. What better way to celebrate the stand against intolerance than Betty Crocker's Rainbow Chip cake? Correction on July 24 at 1:35pm ET: The original version of this slideshow misidentified the name of the Minnesota Marriage Amendment. It has been corrected on this slide and several others throughout the slideshow.
- Levi'sIn 1992, Levi's found itself at odds with the Boy Scout's 'Three Gs' principle that had guided the Scouts' membership model for more than 80 years -- that everyone is welcome, provided they are not gay, godless, or a girl. San Francisco-based Levi's pulled its Boy Scout funding, due to the group's exclusion. In response, Republican Dana Rohrabacher encouraged a 'grassroots' counter-boycott of Levi Strauss and his Texan colleage, Tom DeLay, was even more extreme in his reaction: "When Texans find out that the Levi's they have on go toward attacks on the Boy Scouts of America... they'll take off those Levi's and burn them in the streets."
- American ApparelIn 2009, American Apparel put its "Legalize Gay" t-shirt in storefront windows in Washinton, D.C. When a group of anti-LGBT vandals broke the store's windows, the company didn't back down, but rather agreed to send shirts to any group in D.C. that was fighting for gay rights.
- OreoIn June 2012, Oreo posted a photo of a rainbow sextuple-stacked cookie to its Facebook page in honor of Pride month. While the responses were mostly positive, some commenters were outraged, even calling for a boycott of the product. Still, Basil Maglaris, Kraft's associate director of corporate affairs, said that the positive comments on the post "far outweighed" the negative ones.
- Disney WorldAlthough Walt Disney World's Gay Days are not officially sanctioned by the theme park, they were the object of a Florida Family Association warning. The anti-LGBT group paid to have two planes fly over the park, with warning banners, to deter unsuspecting families from attending the park during Gay Days.
- StarbucksIn January 2012, when Starbucks released a memorandum voicing support of gay marriage, NOM launched DumpStarbucks.com to urge people to boycott the coffee chain.
- WheatiesAs part of the General Mills family of products, which has been boycotted by NOM for opposing the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, there are attempts to dethrone Wheaties as the "Breakfast of Champions."
- Tide DetergentIn 2004, Procter and Gamble angered conservatives by opposing an anti-gay rights statute that would exempt gays and lesbians from special civil rights protection in its hometown of Cincinnati. In response, the American Family Association issued a boycott of some of P&G's most popular products, including Tide Detergent, and gathered petition signatures from almost 365,000 families urging Procter & Gamble to change its policy.
- MicrosoftIn 2005, Microsoft came under fire from anti-LGBT activists, including evangelical preacher Ken Hutcherson, for its support of a bill in that would outlaw discrimination against homosexuals at work in the state of Washington. In response, Microsoft withdrew its support of the bill, prompting outrage from gay and liberal activists and criticism from its staff and other big businesses. In response, Bill Gates backtracked again and admitted that he was surprised by the vehemence of the reaction. When the bill was defeated by a single vote, Microsoft's liberal critics blamed its withdrawal of support for the loss.
- Home DepotA May 2012 post on the American Family Association web site proclaims, "AFA is promoting a boycott of Home Depot until it agrees to remain neutral in the homosexual culture war. The total number of people who have signed the Home Depot boycott pledge is 719,037." The pledge condemns Home Depot for giving "financial and corporate support to open displays of homosexual activism," because this helps expose "small children to lascivious displays of sexual conduct by homosexuals and cross-dressers." In response to the pledge, which was delivered at Home Depot's annual shareholder meeting, Chairman Blake responded, "We are, and will remain, committed to a culture that fosters an inclusive environment for our associates, our customers and communities in which we exist."
- Pampers DiapersDiapers are essential to fulfilling the straight family-making dream, which make them an odd target of a 'pro-family' boycott. However, in 2004, Proctor and Gamble angered conservatives by opposing an anti-gay rights statute that would exempt gays and lesbians from special civil rights protection in its hometown of Cincinnati. In response, the American Family Association issued a boycott of some of P&G's most popular products, including Pampers Diapers, and gathered petition signatures from almost 365,000 families, urging Procter & Gamble to change its policy.
- PepsiCo ProductsAfter it was discovered that PepsiCo gave a combined $1,000,000 to the Human Rights Campaign and PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) to promote the so-called "homosexual lifestyle" in the workplace, the American Family Accociation posted a "Boycott Pepsi Pledge," urging conservatives to stay away from Pepsi drinks, Frito Lay chips, Quaker Oats, and Gatorade.
- SafewayIn June of 2009, Safeway honored Pride by putting large gay/lesbian Pride posters in its stores across America. In response to this celebration of the "gay lifestyle," the American Family Association urged conservatives to contact their local Safeway, and ask it to "stop promoting homosexuality," and "let Safeway know if they continue, you will consider grocery shopping with their competitors."
- Crest ToothpasteIn 2004, Procter and Gamble angered conservatives by opposing an anti-gay rights statute that would exempt gays and lesbians from special civil rights protection in its hometown of Cincinnati. In response, the American Family Association issued a boycott of some of P&G's most popular products, including Crest Toothpaste, and gathered petition signatures from almost 365,000 families, urging Procter & Gamble to change its policy.
- Old NavyIn 2011, when Old Navy planned to sell shirts to benefit the anti-suicide, anti-bullying It Gets Better project, the American Family Association urged members to "drop by your Old Navy store in your community and tell them you're not going to shop at Old Navy until they get their minds right."
- Girl ScoutsIn 2011, when The Girl Scouts decided to allow a transgender youth to participate, The American Family Association urged members to contact Girl Scout leadership, "expressing your disappointment in their recent decision to allow boys as troop members," and to "let them know you will not support the Girl Scouts as long as it continues down a path of destructive policies."
- Macy'sIn December 2011, a Macy's dressing room attendant prevented a transgender woman from using a female dressing room, because it violated her religious beliefs. After the woman was fired for refusing to abide by Macy's pro-LGBT policies, the American Family Association lamented, "The LGBT agenda has become the theater of the absurd" and urged members to contact the Macy's headquarters to "express... outrage at this injustice to female employees and customers."
- TargetIn May 2012, Target announced that 100% of the purchase price of any of its Pride merchandise would be donated to the pro-LGBT Family Equality Council. The American Family Association lamented that "Target is joining President Obama in ramming same-sex marriage down the throats of the American people" and urged members to contact Target Chairman Gregg Steinhafel, to "let him know that a majority of Americans oppose same-sex marriage and are able to use their pocketbooks to voice their opposition to companies that support it." It should be noted that Target has also come under fire from gay advocates. In 2011, Lady Gaga nixed a deal with Target for an exclusive special edition of her "Born This Way" album after it was revealed that the brand had donated $150,000 to MN Forward, a group that was backing Tom Emmer's gubernatorial bid in Minnesota. Emmer was known for being especially conservative and not supporting equal rights for LGBT citizens.
- J.C. PenneyAside from One Million Mom's infamous boycott of the department store for choosing Ellen DeGeneres as its spokesperson, J.C. Penney also came under fire in June 2012 when its catalog featured two men on the floor playing and hugging their two children at home indicating, according to the American Family Association, that the company made a "departure from its moorings to God's Word and Mr. Penney's leadership by taking sides in the cultural war in celebration of homosexuality." The AFA urged members to "call or visit your local J. C. Penney store manager to politely inform them that you will not be shopping at their store this Father's Day," and added, "If you have a store credit card or hold stock with the J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE: JCP), you might consider closing your account and divesting until they become neutral in the culture war."
- PillsburyPillsbury is part of the General Mills family of products, which has been boycotted by NOM for opposing the Minnesota Marriage Amendment.
- Walgreen'sIn 2006, Walgreen's was a Platinum-Level sponsor of the Chicago "Gay Games." According to Tom Kovach of RenewAmerica.com, "by its very definition, the 'Gay' Games will invite people from all over the world to come to Chicago this summer and have homo-sex," and Walgreen's support contradicted it "squeaky-clean, family-friendly corporate image." Kovach wasn't alone in his condemnation -- the Illinois Family Institute voiced opposition and considered urging members to boycott the Pharmacy chain.
- FordIn 2005, the American Family Association launched a boycott campaign against Ford for being "the company which has done the most to affirm and promote the homosexual lifestyle." The group criticized Ford for donating money to gay-rights organizations (Ford offered to give up to $1,000 to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for every Jaguar and Land Rover it sells to a member of GLAAD) and complained that Ford had sponsored Pride celebrations, advertised in gay-oriented publications and was "redefining the definition of the family to include homosexual marriage."
- GapWhen Gap launched an ad campaign featuring two men pressed together under a shared t-shirt, anti-LGBT group One Million Moms, which is part of the American Family Association, launched a boycott, stating, "GAP Inc. Brands, including Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime, and Athleta, does not deserve, nor will it get, money from conservative families across the country. Supporting GAP is not an option until they decide to remain neutral in the culture war. GAP needs to seriously consider how their immoral advertising affect the youth of our nation."
- Green GiantThe frozen vegetable brand is part of the General Mills family of products, which, in June 2012, was boycotted by NOM for opposing the Minnesota Marriage Amendment.
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- Vaccine$
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- States rebel against powerful new painkiller
- BARRE, Vt. (AP) '-- State officials around the country are rebelling over a powerful new painkiller that law enforcement and public health authorities fear could worsen the nation's deadly scourge of heroin and prescription drug abuse.
- On Thursday, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin announced an emergency order that would make it harder for doctors to prescribe Zohydro, an extended-release capsule that contains up to five times the amount of narcotic hydrocodone previously available in pills.
- Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick went even further last week, ordering an outright ban on prescribing and dispensing Zohydro until it is marketed in a form that is difficult to abuse.
- Some health authorities say addicts can crush the capsules, thwarting their slow-release properties, and then snort or inject the drug for an immediate and extremely powerful high that can prove lethal.
- The Food and Drug Administration approved Zohydro last fall, and it hit the market last month.
- "What puzzles all of us is the recent FDA action to approve a new opiate that's stronger and likely to be even more addictive because of its strength," Shumlin said. "Zohydro has been approved by the FDA to the bewilderment of many of us."
- Vermont Health Commissioner Harry Chen said of the FDA decision: "One might wonder if they're on the same planet."
- Prescription drug abuse is the nation's fastest-growing drug problem, with more than 4.5 million Americans abusing pain relievers, according to a 2013 Drug Enforcement Administration report.
- Law enforcement and public health officials say that for many people, prescription painkiller abuse can pave the way to heroin addiction. In January, Shumlin devoted the bulk of his State of the State address to Vermont's "full-blown heroin crisis."
- The backlash against Zohydro has been growing since the FDA approved the drug against the recommendation of an FDA advisory committee.
- Late last year, 28 state attorneys general signed a letter asking the FDA to revoke the drug's approval or require the manufacturer to reformulate the drug to make it harder to crush.
- Also, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., introduced legislation that would compel the FDA to withdraw the drug.
- San Diego-based Zogenix, which makes Zohydro, said that it has set up a board of experts to guard against abuse and that its sales representatives are not being paid based on volume, but rather on their efforts to ensure prescribers, pharmacists and patients understand the medication's risks and benefits.
- Zohydro belongs to a family of medicines known as opiates or opioids. Others include morphine, heroin and oxycodone, the painkiller in OxyContin.
- Its painkilling power comes from hydrocodone. Other medications, such as Vicodin, contain the same narcotic but also include acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol.
- The FDA said Zohydro meets its standards and provides an important option for patients with chronic pain. The agency, which in 2010 approved a crush-resistant version of OxyContin to discourage abuse, said abuse-deterring formulations of Zohydro are in the early stages of development.
- Vermont's emergency rule governing Zohydro includes requirements that prescribers conduct a thorough medical evaluation and risk assessment.
- Associated Press reporter Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vt., contributed to this report.
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- Well-educated, higher-income parents are more likely to be vaccine refusers-Vaccine Refusal by Parents on ADVANCE for NPs & PAs
- Vaccine refusal by parents of infants and children presents a particular challenge to healthcare providers. The ability of vaccinations to decrease the incidence and prevalence of what once were common childhood illnesses has resulted in a population that has little firsthand knowledge or experience with the serious and deadly effects of diseases now prevented by immunization. At the same time, greater exposure to information from a variety of sources and personal interactions has contributed to suspicion and mistrust of immunization.1
- The intent of this article is not to discuss the benefits and risks of vaccines; this information is readily accessible and based on years of empirical experience and scientific evidence. Instead, the article presents suggestions for working with parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. Suffice it to say that strong scientific evidence proves that the benefits of immunization substantially outweigh the risks. Therefore, it is the responsibility of all healthcare providers to promote the vaccination of patients in their care, especially the most vulnerable. A well thought out, rehearsed response and action plan to address vaccine refusal will assist providers in meeting this important challenge.1-4
- It is imperative that NPs and PAs are knowledgeable and prepared to discuss all current recommendations and evidence-based practice literature on the subject of vaccinations. Furthermore, providers should stay informed about common vaccine-related parent concerns and refusal rationale, especially those stemming from past and current misconceptions often presented as fact in the media.
- The first step in any patient-provider relationship is the establishment of trust built on mutual respect. When presenting any medical information, providers should keep in mind the characteristics unique to each family, such as health literacy, religion, socioeconomic status, cultural values and relationship supports. Parents who are considering or have already decided not to vaccinate are often concerned that providers do not value their opinion or listen to their concerns. It is essential that providers are cognizant of how their tone of voice and body language can reduce parent receptiveness and promote parent defensiveness and rigidity to medically sound information. If parents do not feel respected, they tend to be less receptive to the provider's advice. It is important that parents feel they are heard and that providers empathetically acknowledge parents' concerns.3-6
- Identify and Address Issues
- The most appropriate first response when a parent refuses to consent to vaccination, especially in the neonatal period, should feature one or two questions: "What is your concern about vaccination?" or "Why do you not want to have your child vaccinated?" These questions are open ended and require the parent to verbalize his or her concerns. The answer will provide insight into how to direct the conversation to best address the primary issue of concern for each family. The answer - and the parent's body language - can provide clues to the degree of motivation or interest in considering alternative vaccination views. A parent's response may suggest he or she is fearful that the child will be harmed or he or she has heard "bad stories" about vaccines from friends or relatives. This type of parent may only need reassurance and basic information about vaccine safety.3 Another parent might share detailed information, gathered from a website or friends, that supports his or her anti-vaccination position.
- Well-educated, higher-income parents are more likely to be vaccine refusers.6,7 This type of parent requires a more thoughtful and prepared response - and a greater time investment. This type of parent may benefit from a "slow and soft approach" delivered over multiple appointments.1,3,5,7 It is vital that this first conversation end with a statement by the provider confirming that based on the scientific evidence, a commitment to immunization is the single best investment a parent can make for the health of his or her child and other children and adults in the community.
- Some common reasons cited for vaccine refusal include: vaccines are unsafe (due to the actual biological agent or toxin introduction) and thus result in serious adverse events and chronic health problems; vaccines are not necessary today because diseases prevented by immunization are not serious; and that vaccines tax the immune system by exposing a child to too many antigens at once.1,3,5-7 Every provider who treats children should have an informed answer or "script," supported by scientific literature, to address each of these concerns. In addition, the provider should be prepared to supply parents with appropriate resource material (verbal, printed or web-based) that can be reviewed at home.5
- A Vaccine Communication Model
- One approach to vaccine communication, developed by Alison Singer, founder of the Autism Science Foundation, is called "Making the CASE for Vaccine Communication."8 This approach can be used by providers to address common reasons for vaccine refusal. A short video discussing the model can be found on the American Academy of Pediatrics website in the section on Immunization (see citation for url link).8
- The CASE method uses empathy and common ground to begin conversations, progresses to the science and then concludes with advice to vaccinate.9 CASE is simple to remember, is proactive rather than reactive, and utilizes a conversational style to structure and guide an evidence-based discussion.
- The CASE acronym reflects the four steps in the process: Corroborate, About me, Science and Explain. The provider acknowledges (corroborates) the parents' concern by finding some point of common ground, such as "I have also heard media reports about contaminated vaccines and I agree that it is concerning." In step 2, the provider relates what he or she has personally done (about me) to build on the parents' knowledge and expertise to address the concern they have in common. "I did a search of studies related to this, and I am confident, based on this information, that the vaccine supply is safe."
- The next step is to build on the previous one by following up with the specifics (the provider's "script") that support the provider's conclusion (the science).
- Finally, the provider should deliver advice (explain) in a direct, concrete and not easily misconstrued manner, supported by scientific evidence that immunization is in the best interest of the child and other children and adults in the general population.8
- Depending on the direction the conversation takes and the style of the provider (how "soft and slow" he or she wishes to progress), some additional comments can be used to cement the conversation and explain the role vaccines play in the protection of the community.
- Freeloading is a type of heuristic thinking in which parents refuse to vaccinate their child based on the theory that because other children get the vaccine, the risk to their child is not significant.1,4 In such a case, the provider can explain how refusal of vaccines perpetuates the possibility of renewed incidence and prevalence of the disease state itself, which history and science have proven causes more morbidity and mortality than any proven or disproven adverse vaccine consequence.
- The provider should also reiterate to the parent that an unvaccinated child has a greater chance of contracting the disease. For example, the risk of measles is 35 times higher in exemptors even if they live in communities with herd immunity greater than 90%.10 As herd immunity decreases, vaccine-preventable diseases can spread to other children and adults who, because of medical conditions and immunosuppressed states, have an increased susceptibility to severe, possibly deadly outcomes related to the disease.
- Providers can explain to parents that their decision to not vaccinate, combined with other parents who make the same choice, can have a direct impact on public health. An approach that can be used to illustrate the impact of immunization and public responsibility is to agree with the parent that the current risk of disease is significantly less than in the past, but to follow up with a reminder that the child's protection is only possible because millions of parents in previous generations chose to vaccinate their children.1,6
- For parents who express concern about the cost of vaccination, assure them that vaccines are available at no cost or low cost and that every effort will be made to assist them to identify financial options. Parents should be educated that the disease states for most vaccine-preventable diseases are prolonged and severe (pertussis) and could result in lifelong disability and suffering (polio, mumps) - even death. These will require an investment of money and time away from other responsibilities to care for the ill child.
- Some healthcare practices have established policies that they will not provide care to children whose parents refuse immunization. This is a drastic step that is ethically problematic because it may deny the child access to necessary medical care and will remove the opportunity to successfully revisit immunization at a later date.
- Although universal immunization is strongly supported by the federal government and all medical associations, it is not legally required in federal law.1,5 State and school district requirements are highly variable. Vaccine refusal is a recognized condition (ICD code 464.05) and should be treated as such. Choosing not to vaccinate may impact the health of a patient and all people he or she comes in contact with. But it is unlikely that healthcare practices or organizations would attempt to exclude people who refuse flu shots. These people present a similar dilemma when they move about in the community or seek healthcare (infected patients waiting to be seen could communicate disease to healthy and immunocompromised people). As presented by the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Disease in its policy on disease transmission prevention in pediatric ambulatory settings,9 "most disease outbreaks reported in ambulatory facilities were associated with nonadherence to recommended infection prevention and control procedures," and as such the focus of disease prevention in the outpatient setting should be on environmental modifications and infection control procedures and not refusal to treat the patient.
- Full childhood immunization should be the goal of providers, but strict insistence may lead to a lack of well-child care and fragmentation of care for ill children. A "slow and soft" approach to vaccination is more likely to result in appropriate medical care oversight and eventually in vaccination.3,5-7 Although not ideal or proven to provide optimal protection, alternative vaccination schedules open the door to vaccination and may lead to full immunization once parent concerns are addressed.1,5,6 Reassuring parents that the provider's primary interest is the health of the child and stating a desire to continue working with them to identify the right vaccination fit for their family is in line with the founding principles of all healthcare disciplines.5-7
- Healthy People 2020 identifies vaccines as the most cost-effective clinical preventive service.10 In fact, for each birth cohort that is immunized with the standard schedule, 33,000 lives are saved, 14 million cases of disease are prevented, healthcare costs are reduced by $9.9 billion, and $33.4 billion in indirect costs are saved. The document concludes that "childhood immunization programs provide a very high return on investment."10
- Based on evidence-based practice outcomes alone, all providers need to commit to the Healthy People 2020 objective to "reduce, eliminate or maintain elimination of cases of vaccine-preventable diseases" in their patient and community population.10
- It's understandable that exasperated healthcare providers confronted with vaccine refusal by parents would wonder whether the time and energy required to do so is worthwhile. The answer is yes, since it ensures healthcare oversight of the child.
- 1. Marshall GS. Addressing concerns about vaccines. In: The Vaccine Handbook: A Practical Guide for Clinicians. 3rd ed. West Islip, NY: Personal Communications, Inc.; 2010: 191-240.
- 2. Some common misconception about vaccination and how to respond to them. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. www.cdc.gov/print.do?url=http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/
- 3. Talking with parents about vaccines for infants. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/patient-ed/conversations/conv-materials.html
- 4. Kimmel SR, Wolfe RM. Communicating the benefits and risks of vaccines. J Fam Pract. 2005;54(1 Suppl):S51-S57.
- 5. Fernbach A. Parental rights and decision making regarding vaccinations: ethical dilemmas for the primary care provider. J Am Acad Nurse Pract. 2011;23(7):336-345.
- 6. Fredrickson D, et al. Childhood immunization refusal: provider and parent perceptions. Fam Med. 2004;36(6):431-439.
- 7. Insel K. Treating children whose parents refuse to have them vaccinated. Virtual Mentor. 2012;14(1):17-22.
- 8. Singer A. Making the case for vaccines: A new model for talking to parents about vaccines. Immunization, Risk Communication Videos. American Academy of Pediatrics. http://www2.aap.org/immunization/pediatricians/riskcommunicationvideos.html
- 9. American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Disease. Infection prevention and control in pediatric ambulatory settings. Pediatrics. 2007;120(3):650-665.
- 10. Healthy People 2020 Overview/Objectives. Immunization and Infectious Disease. http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/overview.aspx?topicid=23
- Judith Gromek is a family nurse practitioner at East Side Pediatrics in Pittsburgh. She has completed a disclosure statement and reports no relationships related to this article.
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- 99 Fists
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- The Supreme Court ruling on campaign donations: Government of, by and for the rich
- 4 April 2014The United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday to remove the cap on the total amount of money individuals can contribute to political campaigns, eliminating yet another constraint on the direct domination of the financial oligarchy over political life.
- The ruling in the case of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission overturns a 1976 Supreme Court decision that upheld the limit, currently at $123,000 on total campaign contributions during each two-year election cycle. While the ruling leaves in place the limit on contributions to individual candidates, currently set at $2,600 per candidate per election, it is only a matter of time before this too is struck on the basis of the same logic.
- In a dissent from the bench, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer noted that the ruling increases the maximum amount of political contributions to ''the number infinity.'' He added that ''today's decision may well open a floodgate'' to campaign contributions by the rich.
- Instead of being limited to donating $48,600 to federal candidates and $74,600 to state and local political party committees per election cycle, the decision means that a wealthy donor who wanted to give the maximum legal contribution to every local and national candidate in their party could donate up to $6 million per election, according to Reuters.
- The ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, offers an oligarchic and anti-democratic reinterpretation of the First Amendment. Roberts argues that, in effect, under the guise of defending ''freedom of speech,'' the First Amendment protects the right of tiny layer of the population to unfettered control over the political system.
- Roberts writes that ''we have made clear that Congress may not regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others.'' It adds, ''Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects.''
- The ruling is the latest in a series of anti-democratic decisions relating to election law. It is an extension of the reactionary principles expressed in the 2010 ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which the Supreme Court ruled that for-profit corporations are ''persons'' that can not be restricted in ''independent'' political expenditures. That decision paved the way for the proliferation of ''Super-PACs,'' funded by the ultra-rich, which now have the ability to spend unlimited funds to manipulate elections.
- In June of last year, the Supreme Court effectively overturned the 1965 Voting Rights Act by removing the law's enforcement mechanism, which requires states to pre-clear any changes in voting procedures with the federal government. Immediately following the decision, the states of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Virginia all announced new measures aimed at excluding workers, the poor and minorities from voting.
- Such decisions solidify a process in which elections in the United States are contests between various agents of big business, Democrats and Republicans alike, over who can raise the most money from millionaire and billionaire donors. Ever-greater sums are raised by candidates to fund enormous marketing operations designed to sell big business politicians to an increasingly disinterested and hostile population. In the 2012 election cycle, including both the presidential and congressional elections, candidates spent a staggering $6 billion, more than twice what was spent in 2000.
- Government ''of the people, by the people, for the people,'' as proclaimed by Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address just over 150 years ago, has become government ''of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.'' Not only are the politicians controlled by the wealthy, they are increasingly drawn directly from the ruling class itself. Earlier this year, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that, for the first time in history, most members of the US Congress are millionaires.
- The terminal decay of the election system is part of a broader collapse of all democratic norms in the United States. This collapse extends back decades, but was escalated immensely following the theft of the 2000 elections and the installation, by several of the same justices that voted in this week's ruling, of a candidate who lost the popular vote.
- Every fundamental constitutional protection has been gutted, under Bush and then Obama, by a government that declares the right to spy on the population, torture and assassinate US citizens without due process. All of these attacks are expressions of a state that functions ever more nakedly as an instrument of the financial aristocracy, determined to meet any opposition with military and police repression.
- The split in the Supreme Court over the ruling reflects concerns from sections of the ruling class about the far-reaching political implications of these developments. ''Today's decision,'' wrote Breyer, ''eviscerates our nation's campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.''
- Breyer's concerns about ''grave problems of democratic legitimacy'' are well-founded. All the institutions of bourgeois rule'--from Congress, to the presidency, to the high court itself'--are deeply discredited, with a growing understanding among the population as a whole that the state is nothing more than an instrument of the rich.
- Whatever the qualms of liberals such as Breyer, however, there is no solution to this problem within the framework of the capitalist system that they defend. The collapse of democratic forms is the political expression of profound social processes'--the decline of American capitalism, the growth of parasitism, the relentless attack on the social conditions of the working class and, above all, the incredible growth of social inequality.
- Genuine democratic forms cannot be established within the framework of the existing institutions, but only through the overthrow of these institutions through the revolutionary mobilization of the working class, in the United States and internationally, as an independent force. The aim of this political movement must be the restructuring of the social and economic relations, replacing the domination of the corporate and financial elite with social equality and the democratic control of economic life on the basis of social need, that is, through the establishment of socialism.
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- NA-Tech
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- BBC Radio 4 - Podcasting - The First Ten Years, Episode 1
- Stuck for a definition of online on demand radio shows, journalist Ben Hammersley coined the term 'podcasting'. Ten years on it's become a global phenomenon.
- In this 2-part series, award-winning podcasters Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann, trace its origins among the geek/tech community, its arrival in mainstream media thanks to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry and its development into the niches where conventional broadcasting can't reach.
- From the whistle blowing air hostess Betty With A Suitcase to comedian Marc Maron's WTF, from Phil Cornwell's Spurs Show to sex advice on the Savage Lovecast, from the weirdness of Night Vale and Radiolab to personalities like The Grammar Girl and One Bad Mother, it's a whole new world of audio production where programmes meet listeners without the need for radio stations.
- In the first of two programmes, Ben Hammersley explains why he regrets inventing the word, self-styled 'podfather' Adam Curry talks about the early pre-iPod days in the US and, while recording their own podcast, Answer Me This!, Helen and Olly take an audio journey through the podosphere.
- Producer: Trevor DannA Trevor Dann production for BBC Radio 4.
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- Chiner$
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- China, Netherlands agree to enhance military cooperation
- Chinese military leaders on Friday met with visiting Dutch Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert to promote bilateral cooperation in a broader way.Xu Qiliang, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, told Hennis-Plasschaert that the People's Liberation Army is ready to enhance cooperation with the Dutch armed forces to promote bilateral ties to a higher stage.
- Praising President Xi Jinping's recent visit to the Netherlands, Xu said the consensus between the two countries to build an open and pragmatic partnership for comprehensive cooperation will strongly push forward bilateral relations.
- Hennis-Plasschaert said her visit to China is short but very impressive, stressing the Dutch armed forces are willing to strengthen cooperation with the Chinese armed forces in various areas.
- State Councilor and Defense Minister Chang Wanquan held a welcoming ceremony for Hennis-Plasschaert. During their talks, Chang said the Chinese side is willing to work with the Dutch side to promote exchanges at various levels and cooperation in more fields.
- Hennis-Plasschaert said it is important for the two sides to enhance mutual communication and understanding so as to push forward bilateral cooperation in a pragmatic way.
- By leaving a comment, you agree to abide by all terms and conditions (See the Comment section).
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- VIDEO-CLIPS-DOCS
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- VIDEO-NBC Promotes Global Warming Special: 'Did Climate Change Just Hit Home?' | MRCTV
- More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.
- Teasing an upcoming special on global warming hosted by Ann Curry, on Friday's NBC Today, news anchor Natalie Morales hyped the danger: "The head of the World Bank is warning that climate change will lead to violent conflict over shortages of food and water. And this Sunday night, NBC's Ann Curry shows us how ordinary people are already witnessing the impact of rising global temperatures."
- In the preview that followed, Curry proclaimed: "It feels like an all-out assault. For the last year and a half, it seems mother nature has thrown everything at us. What on Earth is going on?" She touted how "for more than a year" she and her news crew had been "searching for answers to what's causing these weather extremes."
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- VIDEO-FOX 5 San Diego Report: Hillary Clinton Visit Cancelled by Protestors | MRCTV
- MRC TV is an online platform for people to share and view videos, articles and opinions on topics that are important to them '-- from news to political issues and rip-roaring humor.
- MRC TV is brought to you by the Media Research Center, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit research and education organization. The MRC is located at: 1900 Campus Commons Drive, Reston, VA 20194. For information about the MRC, please visit www.MRC.org.
- Copyright (C) 2014, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
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- VIDEO-CBS Hosts Thrilled By Prospect of 'Powerhouse Women' Like Hillary Clinton 'Ruling the World' | MRCTV
- More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.
- On Friday's CBS This Morning, co-host Norah O'Donnell touted Hillary Clinton attending the Women in the World summit alongside International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde: "One of the highlights, their reaction when moderator Thomas Friedman of the New York Times suggested that Lagarde would one day lead the European Union and Clinton could become President of the United States."
- After playing the clip of Friedman fawning over them amid a cheering audience, O'Donnell declared: "It was interesting to see that reaction about women ruling the world, the two of them together." Fellow co-host Gayle King chimed in: "Yeah. But it was a great moment between '' to see two powerhouse women, I think, is always very exciting."
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- VIDEO- U.S. Government Orders ALL Contact Between NASA And Russian Space Program To Cease - YouTube
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- VIDEO- "If There Had To Be A Terrorist Attack Somewhere In The US..." New Book On Boston Bombing - YouTube
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- VIDEO- 17 Countries Said They Haven't Found The Plane But NOT Indonesia? "I CAN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT IT" - YouTube
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- VIDEO-Girlfriend Of Passenger On Flight 370 Says A Family Member Saying Plane Was Followed By Fighter Jets - YouTube
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- VIDEO- Fmr Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Says GOVERNMENT IS LYING About Missing Flight 370 - YouTube
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- VIDEO- CNN Host Accuses China Of Knowing Where Flight 370 Has Been All Along! - YouTube
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- VIDEO-Holder: 'Postal Service...Being Used to Facilitate Drug Dealing' | CNS News
- Attorney General Eric Holder (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
- (CNSNews.com) - "The postal service -- the mails -- are being used to facilitate drug dealing," Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.
- "And we need to work with the Postal Service to come up with ways in which we get at that problem. It is shocking to see the amount of drugs that get pumped into communities all around this country through our mail system.
- "And we have to deal with it -- that's a major problem we have to deal with."
- Holder was responding to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who told the committee that the only way to get heroin and other drugs into Alaska's very remote communities "is through the mails."
- "Through the post office?" Committee Chair Barbara Mikulsi (D-Md.) interjected.
- "Through the United States Post Office, Madam Chairwoman," Murkowski confirmed.
- Murkowski said the drugs are "in some cases are wiping out families."
- Holder told Murkowski that she'd raised an issue "that I really think we need to focus on."
- He said he'd had "the same reaction that the chair did when I first heard about this."
- Holder was testifying about the Justice Department's Fiscal Year 2015 budget request.
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- VIDEO-Watch Nigel.Farage.Who.Are.You.REPACK.PDTV.x264-PVR.mp4.mp4
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- VIDEO-Rep. McDermott Has "The Cock Brothers" on His Brain...Again - Daily Surge
- Given Harry Reid's various meltdowns/obsession over the Koch Brothers over the past few weeks, it's highly unlikely that any prominent Democrat in Washington doesn't know who these high-profile Republican donors are'...and how to pronounce their name. Yet, Rep. Jim McDermott insists on referring to them as ''The Cock Brothers.''
- There's no doubt in my mind that he's doing this on purpose''just a juvenile excuse to get away with uttering the word ''cock'' on the House floor (and C-SPAN), with the added benefit of dissing the GOP at the same time. A small victory for a bumblebrain like Old McDermott, but I wouldn't expect any less from him.
- Now, you might think I'm being a little nit-picky here, but the truth is that this is a pattern by the Washington Democrat. It's not the first time he's said it, and despite being corrected by Daily Surge's own Jason Mattera more than one year ago, I suspect it won't be the last:
- On the other hand, it's at least a slightly more entertaining insult than Obama's ''Meanwich'' attack against Republicans this week, so I'll give him that.
- Matt FoxSenior EditorFox has history in broadcasting that spans two decades. From his early days as an FM host and club DJ in the mid-90'²s to his later experiences in political talk radio, he has always had a knack for combining topical news with his love for popular culture. Those experiences culminated in his position as executive producer for several radio shows featured in the TALKERS Heavy 100. Originally from New York, Fox has made the great pilgrimage down to sunny south Florida.
- We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse. Read more.
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- VIDEO- Ft. Hood Survivor: 'More Guns' Would Have Prevented Latest Shootings - YouTube
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- VIDEO-EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Senator Dan Coats Asks Wrong Question to Wrong Person at Wrong Hearing
- WaPo reports:Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) was prepped for an appropriations hearing on the defense budget when he took his turn Wednesday afternoon, flipping papers on his lap, reading from them and commending the witness for his department's prompt response to a letter Coats had sent about a military accounting office in his home state.
- It was all fairly innocuous except for one problem: Coats was in the completely wrong hearing complimenting the wrong witness.
- After he'd finished a lengthy opening to his question, a staffer slipped Coats a piece of paper. Coats read it to himself, looked up, and said, ''I just got a note saying I'm at the wrong hearing.''
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- VIDEO-New revelations about mom killed by Capitol cops
- WASHINGTON '-- First they called her a terrorist threat.
- When she turned out to be an unarmed suburban mother, they said she was on drugs.
- Now, WND has exclusively learned, without a trace of doubt, that was wrong, too.
- WND can also now report Miriam Carey was shot in the back of the head by U.S. Capitol Police officers and uniformed Secret Service agents six months ago, on Oct. 3, 2013.
- The official police investigation still has not been released. But Carey family attorney Eric Sanders obtained the toxicology and autopsy report on this macabre anniversary.
- The report showed there were no drugs in Carey's system, prescription or otherwise, when she was shot dead.
- The report was prepared by Dr. Nikki Mourtzinos of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia.
- After the terror threat was discarded, the media had tried to portray Carey as mentally unbalanced, citing prescription medications she was reportedly taking.
- Sanders spoke to WND at the Garfield traffic circle, on the edge of the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, which is where the Carey family believes Miriam was fatally wounded before driving a few blocks farther.
- And Sanders believes the autopsy report provided the evidence proving that theory, because it showed that Carey was severely wounded in the back of the head. Sanders suspects that was the fatal shot, but adrenaline allowed Carey to drive to Maryland Ave. and Second St., where her car crashed at a Capitol Police guard shack.
- The report said Carey was shot numerous times but did not specify exactly how many.
- When Miriam's sister, Valarie Carey, learned that her sister was shot and killed from the back, the former New York Police Department sergeant was too distraught to speak with WND on camera.
- The video below shows officers fired at least seven shots at Carey in a crowded public space after they inexplicably failed to block her car at the traffic circle.
- Sander's told WND what he believed happened in the video at the top of this page.
- Columnist Mark Steyn memorably remarked, ''Ms. Carey does not appear to be guilty of any act other than a panic attack,'' and, ''We are told Ms. Carey was 'mentally ill,' although she had no medications in her vehicle and those at her home back in Connecticut are sufficiently routine as to put millions of other Americans in the category of legitimate target.''
- But now, it is a certified fact that Carey did not even have prescription drugs in her system when she was shot to death.
- Even before that confirmation, it became clear months ago that there was no good explanation for why Carey was shot, and the story disappeared entirely off the mainstream media radar.
- In fact, no media other than WND showed up Thursday to a press conference Sanders announced. The event marked six months since the bizarre and deadly chain of events that were set in motion after Carey strapped her baby girl into the back seat of her black Nissan Infiniti in Stamford, Conn., and drove 270 miles to Washington, D.C.
- Upon arriving, she apparently made a wrong turn into a White House entrance, tried to leave, was chased by heavily armed officers and ultimately shot dead by police in the shadow of the Capitol.
- Why she was killed is a mystery to this day because, according to the initial police report, she never crashed a security gate or a barrier, though media reports claimed she had.
- Read the initial police report on the Miriam Carey case, Page 1 and Page 2.
- She simply tried to make a U-turn and leave.
- Yet, uniformed Secret Service agents and U.S. Capitol Police officers tried to stop her, then hunted her down and shot her to death.
- And to this day, a half-year later, no one knows why.
- Carey's care after she was shot to death near the Capitol on Oct. 3, 2013
- The official investigation into the incident, conducted by the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department and turned over to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has still not been released.
- And the Carey family is tired of the excruciating wait for answers.
- When WND asked Sanders if he had any idea why the official investigation still had not been released, the former New York Police Department officer said, ''I am just as curious as you, and I'm trying to understand it from a law-enforcement perspective.''
- ''The shooting is not complex. It's very simple. They have all the evidence. They have video,'' he said. ''What's taking six months? I don't understand this. It's not that complex.''
- He said the Carey family called the news conference to make their feelings known and because, ''Six months have passed and there still is no official version of what happened to Miriam Carey. And she matters.''
- Sanders also had a word of warning: What happened to this unarmed, suburban mother could happen to anyone.
- ''The people of this country should be very, very concerned when the police feel like their actions are beyond reproach,'' he said. ''That's not what the framers of the Constitution intended.''
- When Carey was shot to death by federal law-enforcement officers on Oct. 3, they were initially treated as heroes and even given a standing ovation in Congress.
- But then WND began asking questions about what exactly happened, and the mainstream media narrative began to unravel.
- At first, police justified their actions because they presumed Carey posed a possible terrorist threat. When it turned out she posed no such threat and, in fact, was a suburban mother with her child strapped into the back seat of her car, officials defended their actions by saying they essentially had no choice but to shoot first and ask questions later.
- But WND consulted with law enforcement and civil-liberties experts and learned that not only were those police actions contrary to the policies of most major police departments, they were probably unconstitutional.
- Constitutional law expert and famed civil libertarian Nat Hentoff told WND it was a plain case of murder.
- WND contacted 87 members of Congress to inform them about the misconceptions, unusual circumstances and unanswered questions surrounding the death of Miriam Carey and has yet to receive a single response.
- ''Well, if it's not on their agenda, no one wants to talk about it,'' Sanders said. ''How do you justify shooting an unarmed woman?''
- He added, ''How do you justify shooting at a car as it is driving away? Everyone knows, but it's not politically correct to say it was unjustified.''
- Sanders and the Carey family have now begun their own attempt to get the government to listen.
- ''We have a petition urging Congress to finally do its job and investigate '' to see what happened in this shooting. Obviously, we don't want it to conflict with the criminal investigation,'' Sanders told WND.
- The attorney noted that just recently, Congress had finally begun to show at least a little interest in the case. On March 23, members of the House Appropriations Committee asked a smattering of questions about Carey to Capitol Police Chief Kim Dines.
- ''His comments are laughable,'' is how attorney Sanders described the chief's statements after he defended his department's use of force in the deadly shooting of Carey.
- Dines told members of the House Appropriations Committee that the high-speed car chase from the White House to the Capitol involved a ''very, very quick, very fluid set of circumstances.''
- But Sanders wasn't buying it. The attorney, who represents the Carey family in a $75-million wrongful death claim against the Capitol Police and the Uniformed Division of the U.S. Secret Service, disputed what his clients saw as the ''shoot first, ask later'' approach used by federal officers.
- Sanders said he was certain officers didn't follow training guidelines.
- ''If he's telling me that's the way law enforcement officers are trained in the District of Columbia, especially Capitol Police, then Congress and the rest of the district should be afraid, because that's not how you want your police officers responding,'' observed Sanders.
- Dine justified his officers' deadly response by telling Congress, ''These officers are out there every day putting their lives on the line and they have to make split-second decisions, and it's easy for any one of us to obviously sit here and second guess them.''
- Sanders reminded WND that he has a law enforcement background and speculated the reason the chief responded that way was likely because ''what law enforcement tends to do is close ranks. If he's so confident in his statement, they could have released the policy already. It's very easy.''
- The attorney was referring to the Capitol Police Department's official policy on the use of deadly force, which has not been made public.
- Sanders provided WND with a copy of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department's guidelines on the use of force, ''because it would only make sense that the Capitol Police and Secret Service would operate under similar guidelines.''
- The Metro Police guidelines read:
- ''[N]o member shall discharge a firearm in the performance of police duties except to defend himself or herself or another from an attack which the officer has reasonable cause to believe could result in death or serious bodily injury.''''No member of the the Metropolitan Police Department shall discharge his/her firearm '... at or from a moving vehicle unless deadly force is being used against the officer or another person. For purposes of this order, a moving vehicle is not considered deadly force.''That last point is critical. Because a moving vehicle is not considered deadly force, Carey would be legally considered both unarmed and not a threat. Nonetheless, she was shot and killed by officers.
- When Rep. James Moran, D-Va., asked Dines if officers should have shot at the tires rather than the driver '' especially considering Carey was unarmed and had her baby in the backseat of her car '' the chief responded, ''There's a lot of opinions out there, but most of them are wrong and uneducated.''
- Initial reports after the shooting indicated Capitol Police officers may have had difficulties communicating with Secret Service agents on an antiquated radio system, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., asked Dine if the radio system had hindered the department's response.
- That system was finally replaced in March, but Dine said it had not been a problem on Oct. 3 and that officers were able to communicate using a two emergency channels.
- U.S. Capitol Police Chief Kim C. Dine
- Five days after the shooting death of Carey, however, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, expressed alarm that the faulty radio system might have been an issue.
- ''If these communication failures are in fact accurate, it is extremely concerning that this problem still has not been resolved after years of experience with such situations, as well as billions of dollars spent to resolve our weaknesses in interoperable communications systems,'' said the former chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
- But Valarie Carey, Miriam's sister, told WND she believes a bigger issue was inexperience on the part of the officers who killed Miriam.
- Valarie was concerned officers may have panicked, and she suggested they might not have ever experienced such a situation.
- ''The more experienced an officer is, the better equipped that officer is to address the situation, even if there had been a problem with radio contact,'' she said, recalling her own law enforcement training. ''If someone can't decide when to take someone's life, they should not be put in that position.''
- At the end of January, attorney Eric Sanders informed WND he had filed the $75-million claim against the U.S., the uniformed division of the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Capitol Police for ''numerous intentional, grossly negligent and reckless actions of police officers, supervisors, managers and other related employees.''
- Sanders said that after months of waiting for the release of the official investigation and after an exhaustive review of all publicly available data, the Carey family has concluded the shooting was not justified.
- The suit maintains Carey was still alive after she was shot numerous times by officers and then taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
- Carey was mortally wounded by gunfire during the chase, according to the suit. But, out of panic, she continued driving until she finally came to a stop and was taken from her car, a few blocks away from the initial shooting.
- The suit said the incident began because Carey ''mistakenly drove past the first guard post at the White House entrance because the entrance was negligently maintained, covered and supervised by police officers, supervisors, managers'' and others, and then tried to make a lawful U-turn to leave.
- However, according to the claim, ''for some inexplicable reason,'' instead of simply allowing Carey to leave, a police officer ''without provocation or legal justification, inconsistent with his or her police training, negligently and recklessly threw a bicycle rack at the vehicle, striking it.''
- The suit goes on to maintain that Carey had not violated any law and, therefore, police had ''no legal basis to stop her or use any amount of physical force against her.''
- Sanders claims officers endangered Carey's safety, not the other way around. He contends the ensuing car chase also endangered the public, outweighing ''the benefit of investigating a harmless mistaken entrance through the White House entrance gate.''
- Sanders has filed the wrongful death claim on behalf of Carey's mother, Idealla, Carey's estate and her 1-year-old daughter, who was in the backseat of the car during the chase and, apparently, during the shooting. The suit is seeking $25 million for each claimant. Sanders said the suit is to compensate the family for their ''great loss of a daughter, mother, friend and confidant.'' But he insists the case is about more than the death of just one woman. He said it represents a threat to the rights of all Americans.
- ''Somehow, the Bill of Rights did not apply to Miriam. Miriam's life did not seem to be so important. Thus far, Miriam's death is being treated as simple collateral damage in the government's zeal to protect itself from terrorism,'' Sanders said.
- He said that zeal should not eclipse the importance of human life.
- ''The framers of the United States Constitution fought for, died for and demanded it. We should expect no different in today's society either,'' he said.
- Sanders, a former New York Police Department officer, has told WND numerous reasons why he believes officers should never have fired at Carey.
- Media reports claimed Carey tried to ram a White House gate or barrier with her car, but the initial police report did not mention an attempt to ram anything;The police report said Carey tried to make a U-turn after arriving at a White House checkpoint;She apparently broke no laws until fleeing after being confronted by heavily armed guards;Police justified the shooting out of fear Carey might be a terrorist, but Sanders pointed out, if officers feared Carey had a bomb, that would be reasonnotto shoot at her;Additionally, WND found information that officers would have known within minutes that Carey was not a terrorism threat;Sanders and law enforcement experts also told WND the policy of most major police departments is to never shoot at moving vehicles;Non-lethal means, such as tire spikes, apparently were not used to try to stop the car;Non-lethal means, such as pepper spray or a Taser, apparently were not used to subdue Carey before officers shot her to death;Video showed officers shooting at Carey in a crowded public space at least seven times after officers inexplicably failed to block her car at a traffic circle.Miriam Carey
- In announcing the $75-million lawsuit, the Carey family apparently grew tired of waiting for the release of the official investigation conducted by the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police.
- That investigation has been turned over to the U.S. Attorney at the Justice Department for review, which, the department tells WND, is standard practice for investigations that include officer-involved shootings.
- When two months had passed, Sanders told WND it was not an unusual length of time for such a multifaceted investigation involving more than one law-enforcement agency. But, when five months had passed, the family apparently had exhausted its patience.
- ''The Carey Family calls for immediate identification and termination of all police officer, supervisors, managers and other related employees' involved in this matter who failed to order the immediate termination of pursuing Miriam and failed to establish firearms control; thereby, collectively causing the avoidable death of Miriam,'' said the attorney.
- Sanders said, unless authorities are seriously considering criminal charges, they should have taken what they have learned from the Carey case on car stops, vehicle pursuits and the use of force and announced policy changes to the public.
- ''These public disclosures are absolutely necessary because Miriam's death unfolded right before the international community via live television,'' said Sanders.
- Sanders wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder to request a civil rights investigation, but he told WND he never received a response.
- Valarie has been calling for a congressional investigation.
- ''The United States Congress using its legislative powers must investigate Miriam's death. It is in the public's interest to ensure our government acted responsibly not only from a criminal or a civil perspective but from an internal agency perspective. It is also in the public's interest avoid a similar tragedy in the future,'' she said.
- WND has contacted dozens of lawmakers in Congress for comment on the case but has not received a single reply.
- Meanwhile, police have virtually admitted they have video of law enforcement officers shooting to death the unarmed 34-year-old woman, but they're deliberately withholding it from the public.
- WND attempted to obtain video of the shooting death of Carey by filing a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request. The request was denied by Metro Police. By telling WND that releasing the video might adversely affect any criminal proceeding, police have essentially admitted such video might cast a bad light on the conduct of officers and agents. The withholding of the video also confirmed that authorities are at least considering the possibility of pressing charges against officers and agents involved in the shooting.
- A WND investigation revealed the presence of at least seven security cameras in positions to capture video of the shooting at Constitution Avenue NE & 2nd Street. The incident was also likely captured by numerous dash-cams on police cruisers.
- WND has appealed the denial of its FOIA request for the video to the office of Vincent Gray, the mayor of Washington, D.C., and had also filed a FOIA request seeking the forensics report on the shooting but received no reply to multiple inquiries regarding the status of the request.
- Miriam Carey shooting press conference. WND photo by Garth Kant.
- Meanwhile, police departments in other major cities such as Philadelphia and Las Vegas have released videos of officer-involved shootings before their investigations were complete.
- The Secret Service, Capitol Police, Washington Metro Police and U.S. Attorney have withheld virtually all details of the shooting from the family of Carey and the public. The details include forensics reports that would show how many times Carey was shot, her cause of death, the position of the body at the time of death, video and photos, multiple eyewitness accounts and an explanation as to why police believed deadly force was necessary to subdue her while she was unarmed and had her infant daughter with her.
- WND confirmed the existence of video of the shooting by approaching the guard shack where Carey was shot, about a block from the Capitol dome, and asking a U.S. Capitol police officer on duty a few simple questions:
- If a major crime such as a rape or murder were to happen within blocks of the Capitol, would there be video of it?
- ''Oh yeah,'' he answered, nodding his head vigorously.
- What about the shooting of Miriam Carey, is there video of that?
- ''Yes,'' he said without hesitation, while adding he had not seen it personally.
- Apparently no one has seen it, other than perhaps a few select members of law enforcement.
- Police could be reluctant to release that video because it might confirm what legal experts and civil libertarians from both left and right sides of the political spectrum have told WND, that they believe Carey was, in effect, murdered by police.
- After Sanders previously called upon Congress to investigate the shooting death, he told WND no members of Congress have contacted the family.
- In fact, lawmakers, who were told that police fired because of concerns of terrorism, congratulated officers for shooting the young, unarmed mother with a 30-second standing ovation shortly after her death.
- Sanders is also calling for the firing of the officers who shot at Carey, as well as their supervisors.
- An unknown number of Secret Service officers and two U.S. Capitol Police officers involved in the shooting of Carey has been shifted to desk work while the incident is under investigation.
- ''While we understand police shootings must be carefully investigated because of their social and political ramifications, by now, there should have been a preliminary analysis released in the public venue,'' explained the attorney.
- Sanders said many ''troubling'' questions remain, but the main question is whether federal law enforcement officers were justified in firing at Carey.
- The U.S. Capitol Police and the uniformed division of the Secret Service have not made public their ''Use of Force'' policies.
- Sanders believes that is ''absolutely necessary'' now, particularly regarding the policies on firing upon moving vehicles, ''because Miriam's death unfolded right before the international community via live television.''
- As WND reported, officers fired at Carey on at least two occasions during the car chase that began at the White House. At least seven shots fired in a crowded public space can be heard on a video recording after officers failed to stop Carey's car at a traffic circle just south of the Capitol.
- A few minutes later, Carey crashed her car a block northeast of the Capitol.
- First Amendment expert Nat Hentoff told WND the evidence that officers killed recklessly was strong.
- ''[T]his is a classic case of police out of control and, therefore, guilty of plain murder,'' he said.
- Constitutional law expert John Whitehead, president and founder of the nonprofit civil-liberties organization the Rutherford Institute, agreed, telling WND that from what he'd seen, it looked like murder.
- Press waiting for a police statement. WND photo by Garth Kant.
- Political activist and former Graham County, Ariz., Sheriff Richard Mack called it ''sloppy'' police work and saw ''no justification whatsoever'' for the use of deadly force against Carey.
- Dan Bongino, former Secret Service agent and author of the New York Times bestseller, ''Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All,'' was reluctant to second-guess the actions of law-enforcement officers in a fast-moving and confusing situation and loath to evaluate their decisions in hindsight.
- But even he felt the situation, involving Secret Service agents at the White House, could have been handled better and doubted that those involved, or their superiors, would dispute that.
- Saying the incident was absolutely not handled effectively, Bongino predicted it would lead to changes, including retraining and security modifications.
- Serious questions from the start
- WND reported from the scene of the shooting that there were immediately serious questions as to how Carey ended up dead.
- Carey was initially portrayed in the media as a national security threat, but when that proved not to be true, she was characterized as mentally unstable.
- Major media outlets such as the New York Times, NBC and ABC News all reported that Carey tried to ram a White House gate or checkpoint.
- However, as WND noted, the police report never mentioned a White House gate, a barrier or any attempt to ram anything.
- The report described the location as ''a vehicle checkpoint to the White House'' and said the driver ''refused to stop at the vehicle checkpoint and made a U-turn and began to flee.''
- The report did say a Secret Service officer ''attempted to block the vehicle with a bicycle rack, however, the vehicle pushed over the bicycle rack, knocking the officer to the ground.''
- Bongino believes the problem actually originated almost 200 years ago because the South entrance to the White House, although secure, was designed in the early 1800s.
- He thinks there will be ''a serious remodel'' of some of the security on the South side of the White House, following the incident. The former protector of the president didn't want to divulge too much about security measures there, but he said there did appear to be an access-control issue.
- Amy, Valarie and Miriam Carey
- ''She turned into a little pocket there, and anybody can turn in there,'' he said. ''She got caught up and sped off. You wouldn't be able to do that at another secure government building. They use vehicle traps.''
- Bongino had tremendous empathy for his former colleagues in the uniformed branch of the Secret Service and declined to second-guess their split-second decisions in a confusing situation.
- Noting the unique nature of the White House, he pointed out how agents working up to 20-hour days are surrounded by threats.
- The White House is a big target, he explained. The president is an even bigger target.
- ''When the president's in the White House, it's even worse,'' he said. ''You're constantly on edge.''
- Still, Bongino conceded that the authorities may have overreacted.
- ''The libertarian in me thinks this was a very dangerous incident for civil liberties,'' he said. ''The fact you could have, perhaps, a condition and an extremely bad day and wind up dead, of course, should bother all of us.''
- A WND review of the known facts revealed police may have posed a greater threat to public safety than Carey did. It appears she never violated any law until police began pursuing her car. Officers, on the other hand, fired numerous shots at her in a crowded public space near the White House, as the video above shows.
- ''What happened to this woman is an extraordinary example of how police have no limits when they get into this sort of situation,'' maintained Hentoff.
- Mack and Whitehead both strongly believe the police should have handled the car chase much differently and that they ignored a number of non-lethal alternatives.
- Bongino felt it wasn't a black-and-white situation.
- ''When you watch that video '... you see that car being whipped around,'' he said. '... [I]t should be obvious to anyone watching that a car is a weapon like anything else. As a matter of fact, sometimes it's even more dangerous a weapon than a firearm, especially when you don't know who is behind the wheel.''
- So, why is Miriam Carey dead?
- Valarie insisted ''deadly force was not necessary.''
- ''They could have rammed the car or disabled the car. But in this incident, they used very, very poor judgment,'' she said. ''And this is something those officers will have to live with.''
- Sanders wondered, ''How do you shoot at a person who is unarmed, sitting in a car?''
- The day after Sanders held a press conference announcing he was calling for the Justice Department to look into the death of Miriam Carey, the attorney was arrested.
- The New York Post reported Sanders was arrested after a judge had decided the attorney had missed too many payments owed to a former employee.
- When WND asked Sanders if he felt his arrest was an attempt to either silence or intimidate him, the attorney laughed aloud.
- ''Of course I think it was! I can't prove it,'' he said. ''I loved the timing of it '' the day after our press conference. Exactly one day after I said don't trust the government.''
- Sanders added: ''I am clean. That's the way I was as a cop. That's the way I am as an attorney. I was a police officer in New York. I've never been arrested in my life. The questions is, why was I picked up?''
- See these other WND stories on the Miriam Carey Mystery:
- Cops opt for 'the fix' after mom's puzzling deathCovering chaos: The Capitol Hill ShootingWhy did Capitol cops cut down 'innocent' woman?Legal Experts: D.C. cops murdered womanFamous Security Expert: Was this Murder?Missing! Video of mother killed by policeCops knew suburban mom was no terroristEx-NYPD cop hunts for truth on mom slaying
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- VIDEO-MH370 Malaysia Airlines: Anwar Ibrahim says government purposefully concealing information - Telegraph
- In an interview with The Telegraph, he said that he had personally authorised the installation of ''one of the most sophisticated radar'' systems in the world, based near the South China Sea and covering Malaysia's mainland and east and west coastlines, when he was the country's finance minister in 1994.
- It was ''not only unacceptable but not possible, not feasible'' that the plane had not been sighted by the Marconi radar system immediately after it changed course. The radar, he said, would have instantly detected the Boeing 777 as it travelled east to west across ''at least four'' Malaysian provinces.
- Mr Anwar said it was ''baffling'' that the country's air force had ''remained silent'', and claimed that it ''should take three minutes under SOP (standard operating procedure) for the air force planes to go. And there was no response.''
- He added: ''We don't have the sophistication of the United States or Britain but still we have the capacity to protect our borders.''
- It was ''clearly baffling'', he said, to suggest that radar operators had been unable to observe the plane's progress.
- A Malaysian soldier at Kuala Lumpur International Airport reads messages about the missing Malaysia Airlines plane (AP)
- He said the families of the 153 Chinese victims on board were right to demand information from the Malaysian government, which had permitted a multi-national search operation to spend a week searching in what it must have known was the wrong place.
- ''Why didn't we alert the Chinese, the Vietnamese that the operation should cease in the South China Sea and let them spend millions on search and rescue in a place that they know fairly well cannot be the site of the plane?''
- As hope fades of recovering the plane's black box before its batteries start to fail '' which could be as early as Monday - Mr Anwar said it was ''at the least, incompetence'' on the part of the Malaysian government that it is still not known what happened to the plane, but there was also a deliberate ''intention to suppress key information''.
- ''Unfortunately the manner in which this was handled after the first few days was clearly suspect,'' he said. ''One fact remains. Clearly information critical to our understanding is deemed missing.
- ''I believe the government knows more than us. They have the authority to instruct the air force '... or Malaysia Airlines. They are privy to most of these missing bits of information critical to our understanding of this mysterious disappearance of MH370.''
- Mr Anwar indicated that it was a possibility that officials on the ground were complicit in what happened on the plane.
- However, he later added that ''the realm of possibilities is so vague, I mean, anything can have happened'', adding: ''Whether they (the authorities) are complicit in a terrorist act, I'm not in a position to comment.''
- A source close to the government claimed that Mr Anwar was attempting to exploit the tragedy for political gain.
- ''The international media response, completely condemning Malaysia, is unfair. It's been partly orchestrated by Malaysia's opposition,'' the source said.
- ''The government has a duty to the families not to release uncorroborated information that leads to false hope or wild goose chases which hamper the investigation. At every step, international investigation protocols have been followed.
- ''The situation is unprecedented. And the search has actually been handled well. The government is coordinating an enormous operation, and both the commanders on the ground and all the international investigators involved have been complimentary about Malaysia's efforts.''
- Relatives of Chinese passengers onboard the Malaysia Airlines MH370 stand near messages of well wishes (AP)
- ''Far from avoiding questions or withholding information, since day one the Malaysian authorities, including ministers, military chiefs, the department for civil aviation and Malaysia Airlines have made themselves available to the media daily. As soon as information has been corroborated, it has been released.''
- Malaysian authorities did not respond officially to requests for comment on Mr Anwar's accusations, but have previously accused him of politicising the crisis.
- Efforts to recover the plane in the southern Indian Ocean, more than 1,000 miles off the coast of Perth, continued on Thursday night over a search area roughly the size of Poland. A British Trafalgar-class nuclear submarine is helping to hunt for wreckage, including the black box '' before it stops emitting pings.
- A member of the Australian team continues the search in the Indian Ocean (EPA)
- Mr Anwar, 66, was once deputy prime minister in Malaysia's ruling coalition, which has governed the country since independence from Britain in 1957.
- However, after falling out with the country's leaders, he was charged with sodomy, imprisoned twice and beaten in custody. He now leads a pro-democracy coalition of parties that lost last year's election despite winning over 50 per cent of the popular vote amid allegations of widespread corruption by the government.
- Mr Anwar was convicted for sodomy, an offence under Malaysian law, for the third time just hours before the flight went missing and is currently on bail pending appeal. He claimed that the government moved his court date to stop him standing in provincial elections.
- Investigators and media have focused on the plane's pilot, Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a passionate supporter of Mr Anwar's pro-democracy opposition coalition, despite there being no evidence against him.
- Reports have claimed that Capt Zaharie was a ''fanatic'' who could have hijacked the plane in despair at the latest setback to the opposition leader.
- A graphic showing the north-westerly view of the search area (Geoscience Australia, Dr Beaman, James Cook University)
- However, both Mr Anwar and Capt Zaharie's family have strongly denied any such possibility.
- ''After personally having been subjected to such unjust accusations, I strongly feel that you should not cast aspersions against people until you have evidence to support it,'' he said.
- ''If you say or suggest that the pilot may have been involved, what about the concealing (of information)? He could not have concealed the radar readings. He could not have instructed the air force to remain completely silent. Or the prime minister to remain completely silent. The investigations have got to be far-reaching and open.''
- Describing him as an ''ardent supporter'', Mr Anwar said he had had several exchanges with Capt Zaharie and that he ''was nice, smart, articulate '' but there was clearly a strong passion for justice. He is known to be very attached to the family, a family man.
- ''To condemn a person because he is a supporter of democracy is totally unjustified. Having said that, there's nothing stopping the police or the authorities from conducting an open and fair investigation into anybody '' including the radar operators, the defence minister '' why are they concealing this information?''
- The disappearance of MH370 has placed the Malaysian government under unprecedented international scrutiny, with persistent criticism that the release of official information has been both inaccurate and inconsistent.
- Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's defence and transport minister was criticised on Thursday for claiming that MH370's disappearance was a ''blessing in disguise'' because its loss meant he now ''understood the beauty of unity, the sweetness of having each other''.
- Mr Anwar said that ''to save the image of the country and to save the country'', an international committee should be established consisting of representatives of countries whose nationals were among the passengers, who included Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysians and Australians.
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- VIDEO-We're in a Tech Bubble Now, Admit It: Zachary: Video - Bloomberg
- Your next video will start in
- Click to email this video:April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Charles River Ventures Partner George Zachary discusses wearable computing on Bloomberg Television's ''Bloomberg West.'' (Source: Bloomberg)
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- VIDEO-BBC News - White House confirms US involvement in 'Cuban Twitter'
- The US created a text-message social network designed to foment unrest in Cuba, according to an investigation by the Associated Press news agency.
- In a daily news conference at the White House, Obama administration spokesman Jay Carney confirmed US involvement in the project, saying it was neither "covert nor an intelligence programme".
- "This was a programme that has been invested in and debated by in Congress," Mr Carney said.
- "The GAO [Government Accountability Office] has reviewed this programme in detail less than two years ago and found it was conducted in accordance with US law and under appropriate oversight controls."
