“You Make It, We’ll Take It”: DEA Took a Young Man’s Life Savings Without Ever Charging Him with a Crime
May 12th, 2015Via: Washington Post:
Joseph Rivers was hoping to hit it big. According to the Albuquerque Journal, the aspiring businessman from just outside of Detroit had pulled together $16,000 in seed money to fulfill a lifetime dream of starting a music video company. Last month, Rivers took the first step in that voyage, saying goodbye to the family and friends who had supported him at home and boarding an Amtrak train headed for Los Angeles.
He never made it. From the Albuquerque Journal:
A DEA agent boarded the train at the Albuquerque Amtrak station and began asking various passengers, including Rivers, where they were going and why. When Rivers replied that he was headed to LA to make a music video, the agent asked to search his bags. Rivers complied.
The agent found Rivers’s cash, still in a bank envelope. He explained why he had it: He was starting a business in California, and he’d had trouble in the past withdrawing large sums of money from out-of-state banks.
The agents didn’t believe him, according to the article. They said they thought the money was involved in some sort of drug activity. Rivers let them call his mother back home to corroborate the story. They didn’t believe her, either.
The agents found nothing in Rivers’s belongings that indicated that he was involved with the drug trade: no drugs, no guns. They didn’t arrest him or charge him with a crime. But they took his cash anyway, every last cent, under the authority of the Justice Department’s civil asset forfeiture program.
Your Cyberpunk Games Are Dangerous
May 10th, 2015Via: BoingBoing:
How roleplaying games and fantasy fiction confounded the FBI, confronted the law, and led to a more open web.
Wrightspeed Unveils New Turbine Range Extender for Medium and Heavy-Duty Electric Powertrains
May 10th, 2015Via: Green Car Congress:
Wrightspeed Inc., a developer of range-extended electric vehicle powertrains for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (earlier post), has unveiled the Fulcrum, a new proprietary turbine generator for use in its Route family of electric powertrains (Route for Class 3-6, Route HD for Class 7-8). The new 80 kW Fulcrum is a radial inflow, axial turbine, intercooled and recuperated. Fulcrum is a single shaft machine, the generator runs at turbine speed (~100,000 rpm). Weighing in at 250 lbs (113.4 kg), the Fulcrum is approximately 1/10th the weight of its piston generator counterparts and it is designed to have a 10,000-hour lifetime.
The Route extended range electric powertrains incorporate a range-extending genset designed to recharge the high-power battery pack (currently from A123 Systems) and Wrightspeed’s own geared traction drive (GTD) (earlier post). Wrightspeed, founded by Ian Wright, one of the original co-founders of Tesla Motors, has used a 65 kW Capstone microturbine in earlier Route powertrains. The 65 kW Capstone unit weighs 300 lbs (136.1 kg), for a power-to-weight ratio of 478 W/kg; by comparison, Wrightspeed’s new Fulcrum microturbine offers a power-to-weight ratio of 750 W/kg. With Fulcrum, on which the company has been working for about 3 years, Wrightspeed now owns 100% of the Intellectual Property of its powertrain products.
Update to “Thoughts on Tesla’s Powerwall”
May 10th, 2015I’ve included information from Tesla’s Q1 2015 earnings call, which is definitely interesting.
At Least Two Children Killed, 37 Sickened After Reactions to Vaccine in Mexico
May 10th, 2015There’s hardly any coverage.
Via: AFP:
At least two children died and another 37 were sickened after babies were vaccinated in a remote village in southern Mexico, officials said Saturday.
The Chiapas state government said the dead children were both just a year old. One of the sick is in critical condition and 14 others are in serious condition.
Brainwave-Reading Patents Spike on Increase in Commercial Mind-Reading Apps
May 9th, 2015Via: Network World:
More developers are creating commercial applications that use brainwave-reading technology that was previously found only in the medical field.
Disclosure: I’m Long Enphase Energy, Inc. (ENPH)
May 9th, 2015That’s as of Friday morning during the depths of the bloodbath.
Congress Tells Court That Congress Can’t Be Investigated for Insider Trading
May 8th, 2015Via: First Look:
In a little-noticed brief filed last summer, lawyers for the House of Representatives claimed that an SEC investigation of congressional insider trading should be blocked on principle, because lawmakers and their staff are constitutionally protected from such inquiries given the nature of their work.
The legal team led by Kerry W. Kircher, who was appointed House General Counsel by Speaker John Boehner in 2011, claimed that the insider trading probe violated the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branch.
In 2012, members of Congress patted themselves on the back for passing the STOCK Act, a bill meant to curb insider trading for lawmakers and their staff. “We all know that Washington is broken and today members of both parties took a big step forward to fix it,” said Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, upon passage of the law.
But as the Securities and Exchange Commission made news with the first major investigation of political insider trading, Congress moved to block the inquiry.
Americans Living Abroad Set Record for Giving Up Citizenship
May 7th, 2015Via: Bloomberg:
More Americans living outside the U.S. gave up their citizenship in the first quarter of 2015 than ever before, according to data released Thursday by the IRS.
The 1,335 expatriations topped the previous record by 18 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Those Americans are driven to turn in their passports in part because of laws that have expanded bank reporting and tax compliance requirements for expatriates.
The increase in early 2015 follows an annual record in 2014, when 3,415 Americans gave up their citizenship.
An estimated 6 million U.S. citizens are living abroad, and the U.S. is the only country within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that taxes citizens wherever they reside.
Priest Who Ran Meth Ring Bought Sex Shop to Launder Drug Money
May 7th, 2015Via: NBC:
A suspended Connecticut Roman Catholic priest who authorities say dealt pounds of methamphetamine and bought a sex shop intending to launder his drug money will spend another three years in prison after being sentenced on Thursday.
