Archive for January, 2014
Covert Action in Colombia
January 24th, 2014Via: Washington Post: The 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once considered the best-funded insurgency in the world, is at its smallest and most vulnerable state in decades, due in part to a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more […]
Watchdog Report Says NSA Program Is Illegal and Should End
January 23rd, 2014Captain Obvious checking in on Cryptogon this morning. Via: New York Times: An independent federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down. The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, […]
The Mysterious Web That Connects All Galaxies In The Universe
January 22nd, 2014Via: Business Insider: For the first time, astronomers were able to see a string of hot gas known as a filament that is thought to be part of the mysterious underlying structure that dictates the layout of all the stars and galaxies in our universe. Scientists believe that matter in the universe is arranged into […]
Utah Is Ending Homelessness by Giving People Homes
January 22nd, 2014Via: Nation of Change: In eight years, Utah has quietly reduced homelessness by 78 percent, and is on track to end homelessness by 2015. How did Utah accomplish this? Simple. Utah solved homelessness by giving people homes. In 2005, Utah figured out that the annual cost of E.R. visits and jail says for homeless people […]
Army Studying Replacing Thousands of Grunts with Robots
January 21st, 2014Via: Military Times: During remarks at the Army Aviation Symposium in Arlington, Va., on Jan. 15, Cone quietly dropped a bomb. The Army, he said, is considering the feasibility of shrinking the size of the brigade combat team from about 4,000 soldiers to 3,000 over the coming years, and replacing the lost soldiers with robots […]
Files Show Chicago Archdiocese Hid Decades Of Child Sex Abuse
January 21st, 2014Via: CBS: For decades, those at the highest levels of the nation’s third-largest archdiocese moved accused priests from parish to parish while hiding the clerics’ histories from the public. In some cases, abuse by priests happened while there were in seminary school before they were ordained. In other instances, priests were promoted, despite knowledge of […]
Chinese Bootcamps for Internet Addicts
January 21st, 2014Via: news.com.au: CHINA is the first country to label internet addiction a clinical disorder. But instead of shutting the laptop and going for a stroll, in China there are guarded boot camps intended to deprogram hooked teens. … This addiction and social detachment is striking nationwide concern across China, so to stamp it out the […]
Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom
January 21st, 2014A buddy of mine did damn near the same thing, except he slept in his lab at the university, as well as his vehicle. He had a Toyota pickup with a shell on the back. This was at a university with a very heavy cop presence. They would have definitely busted someone in a van. […]
Ukraine Tracks Protesters Through Cellphones
January 21st, 2014Via: New York Times: The Ukrainian government used telephone technology to pinpoint the locations of cellphones in use near clashes between riot police officers and protesters early on Tuesday, illustrating that techniques that can be used to target commercial information can serve law enforcement as well. People near the fighting between riot police and protesters […]
Syria: Senior War Crimes Prosecutors Say Photographs and Documents Provide ‘Clear Evidence’ of Systematic Killing of 11,000 Detainees
January 21st, 2014Via: Guardian: Syrian government officials could face war crimes charges in the light of a huge cache of evidence smuggled out of the country showing the “systematic killing” of about 11,000 detainees, according to three eminent international lawyers. The three, former prosecutors at the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone, examined thousands […]
