Archive for May, 2011
Avoid Gate Grope, Become a ‘Trusted Traveler’
May 18th, 2011Via: USA Today: Upset with being frisked and having a naked image taken of you at airports? Increasingly, stringent air security screening methods such as these are under question. And they’re not just being questioned by travelers upset at being groped. A consensus is building among the airline industry, business and leisure travel groups and […]
Caption Contest: Bill Gates Promotes Vaccinations
May 18th, 2011Via: Reuters: Research Credit: Noble
NATO in Libya: Besides the Oil, Is It Also a Gold Robbery?
May 17th, 2011Pookie let me know about issue #5 of The Gold Standard (.pdf), which includes an interesting comment from this Wall Street Journal piece about Gaddafi’s vast gold holdings. The comment is no longer posted at the Wall Street Journal: PvC from Belgium comments on Wall Street Journal Blog: “It seems to me that the war […]
Coast Guard Closes Mississippi River Near Natchez
May 17th, 2011Update: Re-Opened, With Restrictions Via: CBS News: Shipping already curtailed because of flooding that is plaguing the Mississippi River was halted for much of Tuesday when officials closed the waterway north of New Orleans in the latest tough decision to try to reduce pressure on levees protecting cities and towns. By late in the day, […]
The Secret Sharer
May 17th, 2011Yet again, we learn that there was a desire to generate dossiers on people that, besides the Internet, financial transactions and telephone surveillance data, included physical tracking information. Bill Binney, the NSA employee who led the team that created the ThinThread system (described below), also alleges that all email “transmitted in America” is archived and […]
Police Can Now Knock On Your Door, Listen for Sounds Suggesting Evidence Is Being Destroyed (Whatever That Means), and Then Break In—No Warrant Necessary
May 17th, 2011Game over. Via: Los Angeles Times: The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision in a Kentucky case, says police officers who loudly knock on a door in search of illegal drugs and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant. The Supreme Court on […]
Was Fukushima a China Syndrome?
May 16th, 2011Via: Time: The China Syndrome refers to a scenario in which a molten nuclear reactor core could could fission its way through its containment vessel, melt through the basement of the power plant and down into the earth. While a molten reactor core wouldn’t burn “all the way through to China” it could enter the […]
‘We are 100% certain that governments will start banning bitcoins in the next 12 to 18 months.’
May 16th, 2011Well, they can’t stop people from transferring bitcoins to each other. As long as the Internet exists, bitcoins can be sent and received around the world. The governments, however, can shut down exchanges that handle national fiat currencies in and out of bitcoins. I wonder if people will continue to be use bitcoin after the […]
U.S. Debt Limit Reached, Government Halts Pension Investments
May 16th, 2011Via: AP: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Monday that he will immediately halt investments in two big government pension plans so the government can continue to borrow money. Geithner informed Congress of his decision in a letter stating that the government had officially reached its $14.3 trillion borrowing limit. He repeated a warning that if […]
Arcimoto Electric Vehicles: Made in Eugene, Oregon
May 16th, 2011Arcimoto
