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The government of Denmark has released a 326-page report affirming that endocrine disrupting chemicals are probably continuing to the birth of fewer males and the "feminization" of existing ones.
The report centers on chemicals like PVC, flame retardants, phthalates, dioxins, PCBs and bisphenol-A, all of which mimic the action of estrogen in the body. The researchers concluded that due to the prevalence of these chemicals, children could easily be exposed to high enough levels to place them at "critical risk" of harm.
The chemicals have been blamed for falling sperm counts among men worldwide, and their full effects remain unknown. A study by researchers at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, found that male children who had been exposed to PCBs and dioxins while in the womb were more likely to dress up in female clothes and play with dolls than boys who had not been. Other research has documented a connection between prenatal phthalate exposure and "feminization" of male genitals, including smaller penises.
Source/Full Story: naturalnews.com
More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.
Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership’s four Austin-area lots.
“We initially dismissed it as mechanical failure,” says Texas Auto Center manager Martin Garcia. “We started having a rash of up to a hundred customers at one time complaining. Some customers complained of the horns going off in the middle of the night. The only option they had was to remove the battery.”
The dealership used a system called Webtech Plus as an alternative to repossessing vehicles that haven’t been paid for. Operated by Cleveland-based Pay Technologies, the system lets car dealers install a small black box under vehicle dashboards that responds to commands issued through a central website, and relayed over a wireless pager network. The dealer can disable a car’s ignition system, or trigger the horn to begin honking, as a reminder that a payment is due. The system will not stop a running vehicle.
Source/Full Story: Wired.com
Effective April 16, Walgreens drugstores across the state won’t take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement.
The company, which operates 121 stores in the state, will continue filling Medicaid prescriptions for current patients.
In a news release, Walgreens said its decision to not take new Medicaid patients stemmed from a "continued reduction in reimbursement" under the state’s Medicaid program, which reimburses it at less than the break-even point for 95 percent of brand-name medications dispensed to Medicaid patents.
Walgreens follows Bartell Drugs, which stopped taking new Medicaid patients last month at all 57 of its stores in Washington, though it still fills Medicaid prescriptions for existing customers at all but 15 of those stores.
Doug Porter, the state’s director of Medicaid, said Medicaid recipients should be able to readily find another pharmacy because "we have many more pharmacy providers in our network than we need" for the state’s 1 million Medicaid clients.
Source/Full Story: Seattle Times Newspaper
More charges for the man accused of killing Salvation Army Major Philip Wise.
After more than eight hours of questioning, Laquan Fitzpatrick, 19, faces burglary and robbery charges in addition to capital murder. He reportedly confessed to committing a residential burglary November 17th plus robbing a Radio Shack two days after Thanksgiving. Little Rock police have also named him as a suspect in the kidnapping of a minor last March.
Kuykendall says he cannot say yet whether Fitzpatrick belonged to a gang. He credits police work as the reason Fitzpatrick is behind bars.
Police are still searching for a second suspect in the Christmas Eve murder of Philip Wise. Wise was shot December 24 outside the North Little Rock Salvation Army where he served, in front of his three young children.
Fitzpatrick is being held without bond until his first court appearance 9 a.m. Thursday morning, March 18th.
Source/Full Story: Channel 7 News
For hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, the check won’t be in the mail — at least not on time. New York State has stopped paying tax refunds and won’t start again until next month.
The tax refund delay is part of a bigger cash crunch.
Message to New Yorkers: don’t start spending your tax refund money because it’s going to be delayed.
Half a billion dollars’ worth of refund checks were put on hold last Friday, and state beancounters won’t start sending you your money until at least April 1.
“I apologize that we had to do this. I hope it serves notice on the public of how serious our financial situation is,” Gov. David Paterson said.
…
The governor said the move was unavoidable. He’s also planning to withhold $1.5 billion in school payments and aid to local governments.
Source/Full Story: wcbstv.com
I’d like to see the face of this Laquan Javaris Fitzpatrick.
A 19-year-old man has been arrested and charged with capital murder in connection with the Christmas Eve shooting death of a Salvation Army major in North Little Rock.
Officers arrested Laquan Javaris Fitzpatrick on Tuesday at a home in Helena-West Helena, Ark.
North Little Rock police spokesman Sgt. Terry Kuykendall said Fitzpatrick had long been a suspect in the case. Fitzpatrick was still being questioned late Tuesday afternoon.
Philip Wise, 41, was gunned down as he returned to the Salvation Army office after dropping off two bell ringers on the last day of the organization’s kettle drive. Investigators said robbery was the motive.
Police said they didn’t know if Fitzpatrick had an attorney yet.
Source/Full Story: KHBS NW Arkansas
US Vice President Joseph Biden First Visiting Foreign Dignitary to Lay Wreath at Tomb of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the political movement we have come to know as Zionism.
US Vice President Joe Biden, with wife Dr. Jill Biden, lay a wreath at the tomb of
Theodor Herzl on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem within the framework of activities to mark
the 150th anniversary of the birth of Herzl.
…
Merom gave Biden a copy of Herzl’s book, Altneuland, a novel devoted to Zionism.
In response Biden said: "You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist. I also see myself as a Zionist."
Biden said he grew up in a Christian home in which his father taught him about the values of the Jewish people and that they are entitled to their own country. He said he participated in several meetings of the World Zionist Organization and assisted in raising funds for the organization. In the guest book near Herzl’s grave, Biden wrote that he felt "profound respect for the man of vision."
On June 15, 2010, the 36th Zionist Congress of the World Zionist Organization will convene in Jerusalem, 113 years since the First Zionist Congress in 1897.
Source/Full Story jewishagency.org
A magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck near Los Angeles on Tuesday, awakening residents but causing no apparent damage in the second largest U.S. city, the U.S. Geological Survey and witnesses said.
Police at the epicenter of Pico Rivera, 11 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, said there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the light quake.
It hit at 4:04 a.m. local time (1104 GMT) and lasted a few seconds, rousing many from their beds and prompting local television stations to issue bulletins. The quake was at a depth of nearly 11 miles on the Whittier fault.
Home to 10 million people, Los Angeles County had its last strong earthquake in Northridge in 1994, which killed some 60 people.
Source/Full Story: Reuters
U.S. employers won’t hire enough workers this year to lower the jobless rate much below the level of 9.7 percent reached in February, three Obama administration economic officials said today.
The proportion of Americans who can’t find work is likely to “remain elevated for an extended period,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, White House budget director Peter Orszag and Christina Romer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in a joint statement. The officials said unemployment may even rise “slightly” over the next few months as discouraged workers start job-hunting again.
“We do not expect further declines in unemployment this year,” the officials said in testimony prepared for the House Appropriations Committee. They predicted the economy would add about 100,000 jobs a month on average — not enough to bring the jobless rate down substantially.
Source/Full Story: Bloomberg.com
The European Parliament delivered a political blow to Hollywood and the Obama administration, voting Wednesday 663 to 13 in opposition to a proposed and secret intellectual property agreement being negotiated by the European Union, United States and a handful of others.
Wednesday’s developments concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting and Trade Agreement are substantial because the European Union’s 27 countries vastly outnumber the remaining countries negotiating the deal. They are Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. Ambassador Ron Kirk, the top U.S. trade official, is spearheading the deal that began being crafted under the George W. Bush administration.
Kirk’s office declined comment.
To be sure, there is a dispute and heavy confusion concerning whether internet service providers under ACTA would be forced to punish customers deemed copyright scofflaws by reducing or eliminating service, according to a string of leaked documents. So parliament members also agreed Wednesday to oppose the measure if it contains so-called “three strikes” or “graduated response” policies — regardless of whether that’s now in the text.
And because of the text’s secrecy, parliament on Wednesday also demanded (.pdf) that the private agreement still under negotiation be publicly released.
Whether parliament’s action scuttles ACTA is another matter.
Source/Full Story Wired.com
Flights were grounded and trains suspended amid a nationwide general strike Thursday, as Greek police fought running street battles with anarchist youths in fresh and violent signs of anger at the government’s austerity plans.
Unions called a strike to protest wage and benefit cuts being put in place to trim Greece’s swollen budget deficit as the country draws closer to a financial reckoning. An estimated 50,000 people took to the streets.
Greece must refinance a chunk of its giant debt next month, and Greek leaders are leaning hard on counterparts in richer European states to provide some measure of support that could ease those debt sales. Eyes are on European Union finance ministers’ meetings early next week.
In the capital city Thursday, masked and hooded youths went well beyond protest—throwing rocks and bottles, smashing shop windows, setting alight trash cans and burning at least one private car. Police fired tear gas and detained more than a dozen people.
There were also separate clashes outside the Greek parliament, Agence France-Presse reported. Greece has a history of sometimes-violent anarchist protesters, though they are well outside the mainstream.
Source/Full Story: WSJ.com
Thailand braced for anti-government demonstrations that began Friday and were expected to peak over the weekend with as many as 150,000 protesters on the streets.
In anticipation, the government has mobilized 50,000 security forces, said acting spokesman Panitan Wattanayakorn.
The mass rallies are expected to be peaceful but Army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkumnerd said that crowd-control measures will be used if necessary.
“We will exercise the most effort to explain to demonstrators not to resort to violence, but if worse comes to worst, we may have to apply tear gas,” he said.
Source/Full Story: CNN.com
A scan of brain activity can effectively read a person’s mind, researchers said Thursday.
British scientists from University College London found they could differentiate brain activity linked to different memories and thereby identify thought patterns by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
The evidence suggests researchers can tell which memory of a past event a person is recalling from the pattern of their brain activity alone.
“We’ve been able to look at brain activity for a specific episodic memory — to look at actual memory traces,” said senior author of the study, Eleanor Maguire.
“We found that our memories are definitely represented in the hippocampus. Now that we’ve seen where they are, we have an opportunity to understand how memories are stored and how they may change through time.”
Source/Full Story: Yahoo! News
As they scrambled recently to trace the source of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds around the country, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention successfully used a new tool for the first time — the shopper cards that millions of Americans swipe every time they buy groceries.
With permission from the patients, investigators followed the trail of grocery purchases to a Rhode Island company that makes salami, then zeroed in on the pepper used to season the meat.
Never before had the CDC successfully mined the mountain of data that supermarket chains compile.
“It was really exciting. It was a break in the investigation for sure,” CDC epidemiologist Casey Barton Behravesh said.
At least 245 people in 44 states have been sickened in the outbreak. That includes 30 in California, 19 in Illinois, 18 in New York and 17 in Washington state.
The victims included Raymond Cirimele, a 55-year-old Chicago man. He said no one asked for his shopper-card data, but he would have provided it if someone had.
“I don’t have any secrets, so I’m not worried about it,” he said. “It’s kind of like the whole airport security and all that. I’d rather fly on a safe plane.”
…
Some privacy advocates, though, are troubled.
Longtime shopper-card critic Katherine Albrecht, director of a group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, said she worries that the practice could lead to a switch from a voluntary system to mandatory use of such cards.
“That sends chills down my spine,” she said.
Source/Full Story: Yahoo! News
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland told a congressional hearing on Thursday that the regulator is considering whether to make “black boxes” mandatory for all new vehicles. [ID:nN11246251]
The devices can capture data on speed, braking effort and other details which can be vital in reconstructing accidents.
Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles globally to address the risk that accelerator pedals on a range of its vehicles could become stuck because of a loose floor mat or a glitch in the pedal assembly.
Unintended acceleration in the company’s Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been linked to at least five U.S. crash deaths since 2007. Authorities are investigating 47 other Toyota crash deaths over the past decade.
Source/Full Story: Reuters
Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties Knight In Shining Armor many were expecting.
Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.
When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the 18 states, including the federal government, that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.
Source/Full Story: Wired.com
Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties Knight In Shining Armor many were expecting.
Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.
When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the 18 states, including the federal government, that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.
Source/Full Story: Wired.com
The unusual e-mail sent to Senate staffers this week warning them not to visit The Drudge Report for fear of a virus has some critics crying foul, suggesting the missive is the latest attempt by Democrats to stifle dissent in the media.
The Drudge Report, a popular Web site which aggregates news links, often trumpets headlines critical of Democratic leaders. Known for getting insider news, Drudge’s scoops on the primitive-looking site commonly show up in mainstream media coverage every day.
So when the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms sent out an e-mail warning those on Capitol Hill not to visit Drudge or whitepages.com because they “are responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate,” conservatives objected.
“I suspect somebody was trying to make it look as if there’s a virus there to discourage people from using Drudge,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., told CNSNews.com. “Then, somehow, I guess someone in the Capitol got a hold of it and said, yes, we are advising you not to use it.”
He said “the liberals, the extremists” want to obscure the stories that site founder Matt Drudge is featuring.
The Drudge warning was just the latest sign of what critics see as a flirtation with censorship.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., introduced a bill last year that would allow the president to take control of the Internet in the case of a “cybersecurity emergency.” The Obama administration recently released details of a plan, drafted under the Bush administration, to secure the Internet from a range of threats.
The Obama administration also has made scolding the media, and dissuading others from following cable television news and blogs, somewhat of a routine during his presidency.
Just last month, Obama urged Democratic senators to “turn off” their televisions and extract themselves from the political jibber-jabber of the Internet.
“You know what I think would actually make a difference? … If everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, your — just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs and just go talk to folks out there instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics,” Obama said.
That was after the administration spent several weeks last fall criticizing Fox News as a fake news outlet and encouraging its competitors to marginalize the network. Last September, in the middle of a big health care reform push, Obama used a string of major network and cable interviews to scold the media for playing up “rude” and “outrageous” political comments. That was in the wake of the “You lie!” outburst by Republican Rep. Joe Wilson during the president’s health care address to Congress.
Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com
The unusual e-mail sent to Senate staffers this week warning them not to visit The Drudge Report for fear of a virus has some critics crying foul, suggesting the missive is the latest attempt by Democrats to stifle dissent in the media.
The Drudge Report, a popular Web site which aggregates news links, often trumpets headlines critical of Democratic leaders. Known for getting insider news, Drudge’s scoops on the primitive-looking site commonly show up in mainstream media coverage every day.
So when the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms sent out an e-mail warning those on Capitol Hill not to visit Drudge or whitepages.com because they “are responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate,” conservatives objected.
“I suspect somebody was trying to make it look as if there’s a virus there to discourage people from using Drudge,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., told CNSNews.com. “Then, somehow, I guess someone in the Capitol got a hold of it and said, yes, we are advising you not to use it.”
He said “the liberals, the extremists” want to obscure the stories that site founder Matt Drudge is featuring.
The Drudge warning was just the latest sign of what critics see as a flirtation with censorship.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., introduced a bill last year that would allow the president to take control of the Internet in the case of a “cybersecurity emergency.” The Obama administration recently released details of a plan, drafted under the Bush administration, to secure the Internet from a range of threats.
The Obama administration also has made scolding the media, and dissuading others from following cable television news and blogs, somewhat of a routine during his presidency.
Just last month, Obama urged Democratic senators to “turn off” their televisions and extract themselves from the political jibber-jabber of the Internet.
“You know what I think would actually make a difference? … If everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, your — just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs and just go talk to folks out there instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics,” Obama said.
That was after the administration spent several weeks last fall criticizing Fox News as a fake news outlet and encouraging its competitors to marginalize the network. Last September, in the middle of a big health care reform push, Obama used a string of major network and cable interviews to scold the media for playing up “rude” and “outrageous” political comments. That was in the wake of the “You lie!” outburst by Republican Rep. Joe Wilson during the president’s health care address to Congress.
Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com
Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican”, according to the Holy See’s chief exorcist.
Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican’s chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as “cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon”.
He added: “When one speaks of ‘the smoke of Satan’ [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia.”
He claimed that another example of satanic behaviour was the Vatican “cover-up” over the deaths in 1998 of Alois Estermann, the then commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife and Corporal Cedric Tornay, a Swiss Guard, who were all found shot dead. “They covered up everything immediately,” he said. “Here one sees the rot”.
Source/Full Story: Times Online
Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican”, according to the Holy See’s chief exorcist.
Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican’s chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as “cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon”.
He added: “When one speaks of ‘the smoke of Satan’ [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia.”
He claimed that another example of satanic behaviour was the Vatican “cover-up” over the deaths in 1998 of Alois Estermann, the then commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife and Corporal Cedric Tornay, a Swiss Guard, who were all found shot dead. “They covered up everything immediately,” he said. “Here one sees the rot”.
Source/Full Story: Times Online
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to purchase twenty-seven (27) REMINGTON BRAND MODEL 870 POLICE 12/14P MOD GRWC XS4 KXCS SF. RAMAC #24587 GAUGE: 12 BARREL: 14″ – PARKERIZED CHOKE: MODIFIED SIGHTS: GHOST RING REAR WILSON COMBAT; FRONT – XS CONTOUR BEAD SIGHT STOCK: KNOXX REDUCE RECOIL ADJUSTABLE STOCK FORE-END: SPEEDFEED SPORT-SOLID – 14″ LOP are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.
The required date of delivery is March 22, 2010.
Source/Full Story: Federal Business Opportunities
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to purchase twenty-seven (27) REMINGTON BRAND MODEL 870 POLICE 12/14P MOD GRWC XS4 KXCS SF. RAMAC #24587 GAUGE: 12 BARREL: 14″ – PARKERIZED CHOKE: MODIFIED SIGHTS: GHOST RING REAR WILSON COMBAT; FRONT – XS CONTOUR BEAD SIGHT STOCK: KNOXX REDUCE RECOIL ADJUSTABLE STOCK FORE-END: SPEEDFEED SPORT-SOLID – 14″ LOP are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.
The required date of delivery is March 22, 2010.
Source/Full Story: Federal Business Opportunities
The number of Americans with little or no retirement savings increased for the third straight year, according to an annual survey released Tuesday.
Those who socked away less than $10,000 for their nest egg jumped to 43 percent this year, up from 39 percent in 2009, the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 20th-annual Retirement Confidence Survey found. Among the respondents, 27 percent said they had less than $1,000, compared to 20 percent last year.
“Americans’ attitudes toward retirement have clearly tracked the economy the last couple of years, and that seems to be the case in 2010,” said Jack VanDerhei, research director for the Washington, D.C.-based institute and a co-author of the study.
retirement-confidence-survey.JPGView full sizeThose who have said they saved for retirement fell to 69 percent, from 75 percent last year. In addition, nearly one in four respondents said they have postponed their planned retirement age in the last 12 months, compared to 14 percent in 2008.
The national survey — billed as the most comprehensive of its kind — randomly polled 1,153 individuals aged 25 and older in January. The percentage of unemployed respondents was one in 10, more than double that of 2008.
VanDerhei attributed the findings to job insecurities, layoffs, stock market losses and a trend among many companies last year to freeze 401K contribution matches. However, suspending savings and postponing retirement are only temporary solutions, he said.
Source/Full Story: NJ.com
The recall of products containing a potentially salmonella-tainted flavoring ingredient ballooned this week with the addition of 1.7 million pounds of ready-to-eat beef taquito and chicken quesadilla products from a Houston firm.
Ruiz Foods of Denison, Texas, also recalled 115,700 pounds of Tornados Ranchero Beef & Cheese roll-ups.
All the recalled products contained hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP). That is an MSG-like flavor enhancer made by Basic Food Flavors of North Las Vegas, Nev., which on March 4 announced a recall of its entire production dating to Feb. 17, 2009. The company has declined to comment.
To date, 105 products containing the ingredient have been recalled, including bouillons, dip mixes, salad dressings, gravy mixes, snacks, soups and ready-to-eat foods. The Food and Drug Administration is continuously updating the recall list at www.foodsafety.gov.
Source/Full Story: USATODAY.com
The Greek economy is set to shrink by more than expected this year, the government said on Wednesday, as it braced for nationwide strikes protesting its plans for bringing the country’s budget deficit under control.
Greece, grappling with a ballooning deficit and a 300 billion euro (272 billion pound) debt pile, told the European Union that 2010 gross domestic product (GDP) would “most likely” shrink by more than the 0.3 percent currently forecast.
It also said the drop may exceed an alternative, more pessimistic, scenario published in Greece’s Stability and Growth Programme in January envisaging a 0.8 percent contraction.
Economists and ratings agencies have warned that a sharper than expected slowdown in the economy is one of the biggest threats to Greece’s commitment to cut its budget deficit to 2.8 percent of GDP by 2012 from close to 13 percent last year.
Source/Full Story: Reuters
A funny thing happened on the way to this week’s column — I got “targeted,” “frozen,” “personalized” and “polarized.”
In other words, I got lumped in with the majority of Americans as the “radical right” — you know, the scary people who believe in God, the Constitution, family values, and an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
“Targeting” the opposition is the tactic made famous by left-wing political theorist Saul Alinsky, who wrote in “Rules for Radicals,” that one key route to power is to “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” This goes along with another of Alinsky’s rules: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule.”
That’s the methodology employed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a so-called human-rights group, in a new report called “Rage on the Right,” which seeks to convince Americans that “the anger seething across the American political landscape” as represented by the Tea Party movement is “shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.”
As an example of how “targeting” works, you have to realize that this SPLC report is allegedly a review of “The Year in Hate and Extremism,” but there is not one mention of Islamic extremism included — nothing about the alleged murder of 13 people at Fort Hood by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan; nothing about the Muslim convert who apparently killed a soldier at a recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark.; nothing about the father who allegedly killed his daughter by ramming her with a car for being “too Westernized”; nothing about the founder of a Muslim TV station in Buffalo, N.Y., who was charged with beheading his wife for seeking a divorce; nothing about the murder of a college professor in New York state by his Muslim student, allegedly in revenge for “persecuted” Muslims.
Just plain nothing.
Source/Full Story: dailyinterlake.com
A funny thing happened on the way to this week’s column — I got “targeted,” “frozen,” “personalized” and “polarized.”
In other words, I got lumped in with the majority of Americans as the “radical right” — you know, the scary people who believe in God, the Constitution, family values, and an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
“Targeting” the opposition is the tactic made famous by left-wing political theorist Saul Alinsky, who wrote in “Rules for Radicals,” that one key route to power is to “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” This goes along with another of Alinsky’s rules: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule.”
That’s the methodology employed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a so-called human-rights group, in a new report called “Rage on the Right,” which seeks to convince Americans that “the anger seething across the American political landscape” as represented by the Tea Party movement is “shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.”
As an example of how “targeting” works, you have to realize that this SPLC report is allegedly a review of “The Year in Hate and Extremism,” but there is not one mention of Islamic extremism included — nothing about the alleged murder of 13 people at Fort Hood by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan; nothing about the Muslim convert who apparently killed a soldier at a recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark.; nothing about the father who allegedly killed his daughter by ramming her with a car for being “too Westernized”; nothing about the founder of a Muslim TV station in Buffalo, N.Y., who was charged with beheading his wife for seeking a divorce; nothing about the murder of a college professor in New York state by his Muslim student, allegedly in revenge for “persecuted” Muslims.
Just plain nothing.
Source/Full Story: dailyinterlake.com
All dogs are to be compulsorily microchipped so that their owners can be more easily traced under a crackdown on dangerous dogs to be unveiled today.
The package will include extending the dangerous dogs law to cover attacks by dogs on private property to protect postmen, and making third-party insurance compulsory so that victims can be financially compensated.
The measures will be set out by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, who will point to rising public concern that “status dogs” are being used by some irresponsible owners to intimidate communities or as a weapon by gangs.
Source/Full Story: The Guardian
All dogs are to be compulsorily microchipped so that their owners can be more easily traced under a crackdown on dangerous dogs to be unveiled today.
The package will include extending the dangerous dogs law to cover attacks by dogs on private property to protect postmen, and making third-party insurance compulsory so that victims can be financially compensated.
The measures will be set out by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, who will point to rising public concern that “status dogs” are being used by some irresponsible owners to intimidate communities or as a weapon by gangs.
Source/Full Story: The Guardian
European countries are blocking Wall Street banks from lucrative deals to sell government debt worth hundreds of billions of euros in retaliation for their role in the credit crunch.
For the first time in five years, no big US investment bank appears among the top nine sovereign bond bookrunners in Europe, according to Dealogic data compiled for the Guardian. Only Morgan Stanley ranks at number 10.
Goldman Sachs doesn’t make the table. Goldman made it to number five last year and in 2006, and number eight in 2007, the data shows. JP Morgan was in the top ten last year and in 2007 and 2006 but doesn’t appear this year.
“Governments do not have the confidence that the excessive risk-taking culture of the big Wall Street banks has changed and they still cannot be trusted to put the stability of the financial system before profit,” said Arlene McCarthy, vice chair of the European parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee. “It is no surprise therefore that governments are reluctant to do business with banks that have failed to learn the lesson of the crisis. The banks need to acknowledge the mistakes that were made and behave in an ethical way to regain the trust and confidence of governments.”
Source/Full Story: guardian.co.uk
European countries are blocking Wall Street banks from lucrative deals to sell government debt worth hundreds of billions of euros in retaliation for their role in the credit crunch.
For the first time in five years, no big US investment bank appears among the top nine sovereign bond bookrunners in Europe, according to Dealogic data compiled for the Guardian. Only Morgan Stanley ranks at number 10.
Goldman Sachs doesn’t make the table. Goldman made it to number five last year and in 2006, and number eight in 2007, the data shows. JP Morgan was in the top ten last year and in 2007 and 2006 but doesn’t appear this year.
“Governments do not have the confidence that the excessive risk-taking culture of the big Wall Street banks has changed and they still cannot be trusted to put the stability of the financial system before profit,” said Arlene McCarthy, vice chair of the European parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee. “It is no surprise therefore that governments are reluctant to do business with banks that have failed to learn the lesson of the crisis. The banks need to acknowledge the mistakes that were made and behave in an ethical way to regain the trust and confidence of governments.”
Source/Full Story: guardian.co.uk
Turkish officials say an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 has destroyed homes in several villages in the country’s east, killing at least 41 people and injuring 50 others.
Turkey’s Kandilli Observatory says the quake struck the province of Elazig early Monday at 4:32 a.m. local time and was centered near the town of Karakocan. The [...]
Transportation officials announced Friday 11 more United States airports will begin receiving full-body imaging machines
“By accelerating the deployment of this technology, we are enhancing our capability to detect and disrupt threats of terrorism across the nation,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement.
Despite concerns of privacy and their effectiveness, the 11 airports are to get the 150 machines beginning Monday at Boston’s Logan International Airport, and one at the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. In all, 30 U.S. airports will employ the scanning devices.
Fliers declining to submit to the machines that create X-ray-like virtual images of the body may get intense pat-downs from Transportation Security Administration authorities. The combined 150 imaging machines are being bought, in part, by $1 billion the government set aside from its $787 billion federal bailout bill.
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By summer, TSA expects the units, made by California-based Rapiscan, to be deployed at airports in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; San Jose, San Diego, Los Angeles and Oakland, California; Columbus, Ohio; Charlotte, North Carolina; Cincinnati; and Kansas City.
Source/Full Story: Wired.com
The growing threat of a stealth tax on the rubbish we throw away was exposed by startling figures yesterday.
More than 2.5million homes now have wheelie bins fitted with microchips to weigh their contents.
This is an increase of nearly two-thirds in just a year. The bins, which can be electronically identified and weighed, are designed for ‘pay-as-you-throw’ rubbish tax schemes.
Under such schemes – which are likely to be hugely unpopular – families who put out more waste will pay higher taxes to their local council.
Disclosure of the rapid spread of chipped bins followed the announcement this week of the first council to bring in a bin tax. Bristol City is presenting its scheme as a reward for recyclers, with cash payments to homes that leave out less rubbish.
The spread of chipped bins marks the revival of a tax idea that the Government appeared to have abandoned last year.
Gordon Brown promised to ditch bin taxes in the spring of 2008, at a point when the unpopularity among voters of fortnightly collections, strict bin rules, and the threat of pay-as-you-throw was at its height.
In January last year, ministers acknowledged that not one council had applied to test pay-as-you-throw schemes.
But yesterday, research by the Big Brother Watch campaign group showed that the use of chipped bins has quietly spread over the past year.
Source/Full Story: Mail Online
China’s central bank chief laid the groundwork for an appreciation of the renminbi at the weekend when he described the current dollar peg as temporary, striking a more emollient tone after months of tough opposition in Beijing to a shift in exchange rate policy.
Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, gave the strongest hint yet from a senior official that China would abandon the unofficial dollar peg, in place since mid-2008. He said it was a “special” policy to weather the financial crisis.
“This is a part of our package of policies for dealing with the global financial crisis. Sooner or later, we will exit the policies.”
Mr Zhou’s comments contrasted with recent Chinese comments on its currency policy in the face of international criticism that the renminbi was undervalued. In December, premier Wen Jiabao said: “We will not yield to any pressure of any form forcing us to appreciate.” Chinese officials have repeatedly emphasised the need for a stable exchange rate.
Source/Full Story: FT.com
You’ve accepted the idea that TV makes you dumber. You know there are lots of more edifying things you could be doing with your time than cheering on the contestants on “Survivor.”
And unless you’re working out to an exercise video, you know those hours sprawled out in front of the screen are going to make you fatter — not to mention the impact of all that junk food you’ve been tempted to scarf down during the commercial breaks.
But you’ll be surprised to learn the host of other bad things TV can do to you.
Source/Full Story: msnbc.com
Narus is developing a new technology that sleuths through billions of pieces of data on social networks and Internet services and connects the dots.
The new program, code-named Hone, is designed to give intelligence and law enforcement agencies a leg up on criminals who are now operating anonymously on the Internet.
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Hone works in tandem with NarusInsight. By Nucci’s own admission, however, it can do some pretty “scary” things.
The software’s user creates a target profile, and Hone then proceeds to link what Nucci calls “islands of information.” Hone can analyze VOIP conversations, biometrically identify someone’s voice or photograph and then associate it with different phone numbers.
“I can have a sample of your voice in English, and you can start speaking Mandarin tomorrow. It doesn’t matter; I’m going to catch you.”
It uses artificial intelligence to analyze e-mails and can link mails to different accounts, doing what Nucci calls topical analysis. “It’s going to go through a set of documents and automatically it’s going to organize them in topics — I’m not talking about keywords as is done today, I’m talking about topics,” he said.
That can’t be done with today’s technology, he said. “If you search for fertilizers on Google… it’s going to come back with 6.5 million pages. Enjoy,” he said. “If you want to search for non-farmers who are discussing fertilizer… it’s not even searchable.”
Hone will sift through millions of profiles searching for people with similar attributes — blogger profiles that share the same e-mail address, for example. It can look for statistically likely matches, by studying things like the gender, nationality, age, location, home and work addresses of people.
Source/Full Story: Narus develops a scary sleuth for social media
A dozen House of Representatives Democrats opposed to abortion are willing to kill President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan unless it satisfies their demand for language barring the procedure, Representative Bart Stupak said on Thursday.
“Yes. We’re prepared to take responsibility,” Stupak said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked if he and his 11 Democratic allies were willing to accept the consequences for bringing down healthcare reform over abortion.
“Let’s face it. I want to see healthcare. But we’re not going to bypass the principles of belief that we feel strongly about,” he said.
Source/Full Story: Reuters
Two police officers at the Pentagon were wounded Thursday evening when a man walked up to the entrance of the complex’s subway station and, without a word, opened fire on them, Pentagon officials said.
Policemen patrolled the Pentagon after a shooting in Washington on Thursday.
Police officers quickly returned fire, fatally injuring the gunman after hitting him once in the head and once in the shoulder. The gunman was identified as John Patrick Bedell, 36, according to a police official here assisting with the investigation.
The injured police officers, whose names were not released, were wearing ballistic vests and were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to Richard S. Keevill, the Pentagon police chief. In a Friday morning news conference, officials said one of the officers had been struck in the shoulder and one in the thigh, and that both had been released from the hospital.
Pentagon officials said that the motive for the shooting remained unclear, but said the gunman appeared to have acted alone.
“It appears to be a single individual who had issues,” Chief Keevill said Friday morning.
Source/Full Story: NYTimes.com
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Supplies against Swine Flu These are some supplies you should consider acquiring, wherever you can obtain them from, but you should act quickly because I suspect they will be going fast.
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