Archive for February, 2010
Obama Signs Patriot Act Extension
February 28th, 2010Via: AP: President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the nation’s main counterterrorism law, the Patriot Act. Provisions in the measure would have expired on Sunday without Obama’s signature Saturday. The act, which was adopted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, expands the government’s ability to […]
Military Allows Twitter, Other Social Media
February 28th, 2010Military personnel are no different than any other target population that needs to be monitored and tracked. Who knows what will actually be done with the surveillance data that will be collected from this… Via: Reuters: The Pentagon announced on Friday it has authorized the use Twitter, Facebook and other so-called “Web 2.0” sites across […]
Bill Gates: Lower World Population with Vaccines
February 28th, 2010During his recent TED talk, Bill Gates said that the world population is headed to 9 billion people. Then he said, “Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services—we could lower that perhaps ten or fifteen percent.” I’m not sure what the nothing-to-see-here explanation is for Bill […]
Images of Earthquake Devastation in Chile
February 28th, 2010Via: Boston Globe Big Picture: At 3:34 am local time, today, February 27th, a devastating magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Chile, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. More: Cryptome
U.S. Secret Service Uses 1980s Mainframe
February 28th, 2010Via: ABC News: A classified review of the United States Secret Service’s computer technology found that the agency’s computers were fully operational only 60 percent of the time because of outdated systems and a reliance on a computer mainframe that dates to the 1980s, according to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. … Sources tell ABC News […]
AIG Still Hemorrhaging
February 28th, 2010Via: Bloomberg: American International Group Inc. posted a wider-than-expected loss after setting aside more reserves for insurance claims and paying down bailout debts. The shares fell 10 percent in New York trading. The fourth-quarter net loss of $8.87 billion, or $65.51 a share, narrowed from $61.7 billion, or $458.99, a year earlier when AIG recorded […]
Cybersecurity Bill to Give President New Emergency Powers
February 28th, 2010Via: The Hill: The president would have the power to safeguard essential federal and private Web resources under draft Senate cybersecurity legislation. According to an aide familiar with the proposal, the bill includes a mandate for federal agencies to prepare emergency response plans in the event of a massive, nationwide cyberattack. The president would then […]
Questions on the Dollar
February 27th, 2010WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. There have been a few emails from people who are wondering about the dollar. My analysis from February 19th, 2010 is in force. The dollar has multiple resistance levels just overhead, as indicated previously. On Friday, we also saw a breakdown […]
Officials Puzzle Over Millions of Dollars Leaving Afghanistan by Plane for Dubai
February 26th, 2010Via: Washington Post: A blizzard of bank notes is flying out of Afghanistan — often in full view of customs officers at the Kabul airport — as part of a cash exodus that is confounding U.S. officials and raising concerns about the money’s origin. The cash, estimated to total well over $1 billion a year, […]
IBM Researchers Develop Energy Efficient Method to Analyze the Quality of Data at Record Speeds
February 26th, 2010Via: IBM Press Release: Research today unveiled a breakthrough method based on a mathematical algorithm that reduces the computational complexity, costs, and energy usage for analyzing the quality of massive amounts of data by two orders of magnitude. This new method will greatly help enterprises extract and use the data more quickly and efficiently to […]
