Archive for February, 2016
Record Number of U.S. Citizens, Green-Card Holders Cut Ties With U.S. in 2015
February 7th, 2016Via: Wall Street Journal: A record 4,279 individuals renounced their U.S. citizenship or long-term residency in 2015, according to data released by the Treasury Department. Last year was the third year in a row for record renunciations, according to Andrew Mitchel, an international lawyer in Centerbrook, Conn., who tallies and tracks renunciation data. The Treasury […]
Zika Virus Made Available to Researchers by Rockefeller Foundation in 1953
February 7th, 2016From ATCC Product Page, Zika Virus (ATCC® VR-84™): Via: ATCC Press Release: ATCC, the premier global biological materials resource and standards organization, is poised to assist the medical and life science researchers that are working to address the evolving concerns around Zika Virus infection. Zika virus is a single-stranded RNA virus of the Flaviviridae family, […]
The Hidden Legacy of 70 Years of Atomic Weaponry: At Least 33,480 Americans Dead
February 5th, 2016Via: McClatchy: Byron Vaigneur watched as a brownish sludge containing plutonium broke through the wall of his office on Oct. 3, 1975, and began puddling four feet from his desk at the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant in South Carolina. The radiation from the plutonium likely started attacking his body instantly. He’d later develop breast […]
Trump Calls for Iowa Election Do-Over, Plane Makes Emergency Landing Hours Later
February 3rd, 2016Trump is talking about cutting off cheap labor for jobs that can’t be outsourced, and, he wants to, in effect, ban outsourcing to keep jobs in the U.S. All together now: “Not going to happen.” However, daring to broach the vote fraud issue this early… Maybe that falls into a different category of indiscretion. Donald […]
Military Leaders: Register Women for Draft
February 2nd, 2016Via: Military Times: The Army and Marine Corps’ top uniformed leaders both backed making women register for the draft as all combat roles are opened to them in coming months, a sweeping social change that could complicate the military’s gender integration plans. Both services, along with the Navy, have begun work to open all military […]
Open Thread: Presidential Selection Season Again in Duhmerica
February 2nd, 2016Well, it’s that time again. You guys know that I don’t pay too much attention to this pointless claptrap, but you can count on me to have ceaseless hostility toward whichever goon is eventually installed. Again, not that any of it matters. When Lockheed Martin opens its blood slathered maw and roars, “Feeeeeeeeeeeed me,” who […]
Bloomberg Op-Ed Calls For An End Of Cash
February 1st, 2016Via: ZeroHedge: Bring On the Cashless Future Cash had a pretty good run for 4,000 years or so. These days, though, notes and coins increasingly seem declasse: They’re dirty and dangerous, unwieldy and expensive, antiquated and so very analog. Sensing this dissatisfaction, entrepreneurs have introduced hundreds of digital currencies in the past few years, of […]
“No Cost” License Plate Readers Are Turning Texas Police into Mobile Debt Collectors and Data Miners
February 1st, 2016Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: Vigilant Solutions, one of the country’s largest brokers of vehicle surveillance technology, is offering a hell of a deal to law enforcement agencies in Texas: a whole suite of automated license plate reader (ALPR) equipment and access to the company’s massive databases and analytical tools—and it won’t cost the agency a […]
Private Browsing Microsoft Style
February 1st, 2016All browsing done with Edge in “InPrivate” mode is logged. haha It even flags the “InPrivate” visits in the log. Is anyone actually using Edge, besides security researchers attempting to see how screwed it is? Via: Kinja: So just how private is InPrivate Browsing mode in Microsoft Edge? Not as private as Microsoft would lead […]
UK Approves Genetic Editing of Healthy Human Embryos
February 1st, 2016Via: MIT Technology Review: It’s a world first: a U.K. government panel has given the go-ahead for researchers, led by Kathy Niakan at the Francis Crick Institute in London, to edit healthy human embryos. This isn’t the ethical morass it might at first appear to be. The researchers will use the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, […]
