Treasury Will Run Out of Borrowed Money by October 17
October 6th, 2013“Or maybe it’s just a date in a video game”:
The Last of Us
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Via: USA Today:
The United States will run out of borrowed money “no later than Oct. 17” unless Congress raises the $16.7 trillion debt limit, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said in a letter to Congress Wednesday.
Lew’s letter marks the first time he has given a date certain for when the government would hit the debt ceiling and comes as Congress is at another impasse on how to keep the government running and pay its past bills.
STORY: Senate votes to avert government shutdown
It’s not a coincidence that Oct. 17 is a Thursday, said Steve Bell, economic policy director for the Bipartisan Policy Center.
That’s because the Treasury typically rolls over $100 billion in debt every Thursday, as old bonds mature and most investors simply use the proceeds to buy new bonds. Some bond holders may park their money elsewhere. Others may demand higher yields. “But at what price? That;s the big imponderable,” Bell said.
On the Possibility of Social Security Payments Not Going Out
October 6th, 2013I’m almost sure that they won’t let this situation hit the wall, but beware: If the dole train stops running for any reason, the U.S. will be facing a large scale internal collapse situation very fast.
Again, my guess is that the Social Security and Food Stamp band will keep playing on for now.
Via: Forbes:
In a speech in Rockville, Maryland today, President Barack Obama blew up the Democratâs social-security “third rail” in eighteen words. Usually, Obamaâs gaffes come off-the-cuff. Todayâs remarks were, however, prepared; namely:
âIn a government shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time. In an economic shutdown â if we donât raise the debt ceiling â they donât go out on time.”
Cryptogon Reader Contributions in October
October 5th, 2013Thank you very much.
Pookie $75
DM $15
Banana Farmers $50
JB $30
RD $50
In addition to the financial support, people have sent lovely cards celebrating Niamh’s birth. We’ve made a little shrine out of all of these cards in our kitchen/living room area. The Banana Farmers also sent a heavy box of homegrown delicacies from their tropical paradise; Kona coffee, dried pineapple rings, dried bananas and insanely delicious dark chocolate.
So, yes, daytime updates on Cryptogon are currently being fueled by homegrown Kona coffee from the Banana Farmers. Wow! It’s remarkably smooth and delicious coffee. I normally drink coffee with milk, cream and sometimes about half a tea spoon of raw sugar. Not with this stuff. For me, black is the way to go to fully appreciate the flavors in this coffee.
September Earnings
October 5th, 2013Earnings in September totaled $1383.49, which is a fantastic result. Thanks very much to everyone who sent funds and conducted business via Cryptogon’s affiliate links.
Laurel Farm Creamery
October 5th, 2013Via: Laurel Farm Creamery:
Laurel Farm Creamery is a small farm outside Asheville, NC. For years we have raised dairy animals and made cheese, and we have finally decided that, since thereâs nothing any of us enjoy more, we should be doing it for a living. This blog will chronicle our adventures as we make the transition from small family homestead to full fledged micro dairy.
We milk Jersey cows right now, but are doing a bit of cross-breeding for hardiness and steady production on grass. Our first Jersey/Red Poll cross will be on the ground in June. We donât plan to ever milk goats again, though we love to buy goat milk to play with in the cheese kitchen. We have a lovely little flock of milky sheep that contribute milk in the summer.
We will sell cheese in and around Asheville, and from the farm for those adventurous souls who would like to come out and see us!
‘Implanted Electrodes Reboot Brain Out of Intractable Depression’
October 5th, 2013Via: Scientific American:
Psychological depression is more than an emotional state. Good evidence for that comes from emerging new uses for a technology already widely prescribed for Parkinsonâs patients. The more neurologists and surgeons learn about the aptly named deep brain stimulation, the more they are convinced that the currents from the technologyâs implanted electrodes can literally reboot brain circuits involved with the mood disorder. Thomas Schlaepfer, a psychiatrist from the University of Bonn Hospital and a leading expert in researching deep brain stimulation, describes in the interview that follows the workings of the technique and why it may help the severely depressed.
Swiss to Vote on Basic Income for All Adults and Maximum Wage Limits for Executives
October 5th, 2013Via: Reuters:
Switzerland will hold a vote on whether to introduce a basic income for all adults, in a further sign of growing public activism over pay inequality since the financial crisis.
A grassroots committee is calling for all adults in Switzerland to receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,800) per month from the state, with the aim of providing a financial safety net for the population.
…
In March, Swiss voters backed some of the world’s strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation.
A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than what the company’s lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called 1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote on November 24.
Attacking Tor: How the NSA Targets Users’ Online Anonymity
October 5th, 2013Via: Guardian:
After identifying an individual Tor user on the internet, the NSA uses its network of secret internet servers to redirect those users to another set of secret internet servers, with the codename FoxAcid, to infect the user’s computer. FoxAcid is an NSA system designed to act as a matchmaker between potential targets and attacks developed by the NSA, giving the agency opportunity to launch prepared attacks against their systems.
Once the computer is successfully attacked, it secretly calls back to a FoxAcid server, which then performs additional attacks on the target computer to ensure that it remains compromised long-term, and continues to provide eavesdropping information back to the NSA.
…
To trick targets into visiting a FoxAcid server, the NSA relies on its secret partnerships with US telecoms companies. As part of the Turmoil system, the NSA places secret servers, codenamed Quantum, at key places on the internet backbone. This placement ensures that they can react faster than other websites can. By exploiting that speed difference, these servers can impersonate a visited website to the target before the legitimate website can respond, thereby tricking the target’s browser to visit a Foxacid server.
In the academic literature, these are called “man-in-the-middle” attacks, and have been known to the commercial and academic security communities. More specifically, they are examples of “man-on-the-side” attacks.
They are hard for any organization other than the NSA to reliably execute, because they require the attacker to have a privileged position on the internet backbone, and exploit a “race condition” between the NSA server and the legitimate website. This top-secret NSA diagram, made public last month, shows a Quantum server impersonating Google in this type of attack.
The NSA uses these fast Quantum servers to execute a packet injection attack, which surreptitiously redirects the target to the FoxAcid server. An article in the German magazine Spiegel, based on additional top secret Snowden documents, mentions an NSA developed attack technology with the name of QuantumInsert that performs redirection attacks. Another top-secret Tor presentation provided by Snowden mentions QuantumCookie to force cookies onto target browsers, and another Quantum program to “degrade/deny/disrupt Tor access”.
This same technique is used by the Chinese government to block its citizens from reading censored internet content, and has been hypothesized as a probable NSA attack technique.
Related: GCHQ Report on ‘MULLENIZE’ Program to ‘Stain’ Anonymous Electronic Traffic
Introducing WildCat
October 4th, 2013Via: Boston Dynamics:
WildCat is a four-legged robot being developed to run fast on all types of terrain. So far WildCat has run at about 16 mph on flat terrain using bounding and galloping gaits. The video shows WildCat’s best performance so far. WildCat is being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA’s M3 program.
U.S. Capitol Shooting
October 3rd, 2013Update: Miriam Carey Family’s Lawyer Arrested Over Debts
Via: Newsday:
A lawyer for the family of the woman who was killed after attempting to crash into the White House two weeks ago was arrested Tuesday by federal marshals because he continually failed to pay money owed to various debtors, officials said.
The lawyer, Eric Sanders, who lives in Melville, but practices mainly in New York City, was taken into custody at his home on the orders of a federal bankruptcy judge in Central Islip, according to Charles Dunne, the chief marshal for the Eastern District.
The arrest was unrelated to his representation of the family of Miriam Carey, who died in a hail of police gunfire two weeks ago in Washington D.C., officials said.
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Update: Capital Shield 2014 and Miriam Carey Incident
Sent in by HongPong.
Via: HongPong:
The US government runs a lot of exercises, which usually happens for ordinary training reasons. On the other hand, many researchers of geopolitics and covert politics note that exercises serve other geopolitical purposes — for example demonstrating a military alliance with an ally state in front of its rivals. Some argue that exercises can be used as cover for covert operations. Hence wherever there is some dramatic event in the US, it’s always interesting to see if there are any coincidental exercises.
In today’s case the exercise called Capital Shield 2014 or CS 14 involves 34 agencies. Even if there isn’t some cloak-n-dagger twist to this event, doesn’t an active exercise sort of encourage more aggressive behavior by officials?
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Update: Capitol Suspect Miriam Carey Believed Obama Electronically Monitored Her
See: “My ELF Weapon”
Via: ABC:
The woman who led police on a high-speed chase near the U.S. Capitol before being shot dead had a history of mental illness and believed President Obama was electronically monitoring her Connecticut home in order to broadcast her life on television, sources said.
Sources told ABC News that Connecticut police had twice in 2012 been called by Miriam Carey’s boyfriend, who reported the woman was delusional, acting irrationally and putting her infant daughter in danger.
…
According to sources Carey believed she was the “prophet of Stamford” and was capable of communicating with Obama.
Her mother, Idella Carrey, told ABC News that her daughter had been hospitalized after suffering post-partum depression.
On Dec. 10, 2012, police were called to Carey’s home by her boyfriend Eric Francis, 54, father of her baby. Francis told police Carey was emotionally disturbed and he believed his daughter was in danger, according to sources.
Carey told police President Obama had placed Stamford on lockdown and had arranged to have her home electronically monitored and her life broadcast on television, sources said.
Police handcuffed Carey and remanded her for a mental health evaluation. According to sources, Carey had a family history of schizophrenia and was taking medication for a mental illness.
On Dec. 21, Francis again called police to report his girlfriend was “off her medication” and acting erratically.
In January, the source said, a state social worker met with Carey and Francis and Francis told the social worker that Carey was “100 percent back to normal.” Carey told the social worker she had been diagnosed with post-partum depression, was on prescription medication, and was receiving treatment, the source said.
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Update: “Woman in DC Chase May Have Thought Obama Was Stalking Her”
Via: NBC:
Investigators have found indications that the woman who led authorities on a chase from the White House to the Capitol before she was shot to death by police thought that President Barack Obama was stalking her, law enforcement sources told NBC News.
The sources said that the woman, Miriam Carey, had a history of mental health problems.
The chase, on Thursday afternoon, stirred panic in the capital and briefly stopped the mechanisms of government. It happened two weeks after a man shot 12 people to death at the Washington Navy Yard.
Members of the House and Senate, in a standoff over the government shutdown, were ordered to stay in place. One lawmaker was cut off mid-sentence during a speech. A swarm of police startled tourists who were taking in Washington on a summery day.
Carey, 34, was a dental hygienist living in Stamford, Conn. Details of her background began to emerge in the hours after the episode.
Dr. Barry Weiss, a dentist, told NBC Connecticut that Carey was working for him in January 2012 when she suffered a fall and missed two to three weeks. He said that she appeared increasingly stressed after an unplanned pregnancy. Relatives have said that she may have suffered postpartum depression.
Weiss said that he fired her in August 2012 after patients complained that she was too rough.
Carey was driving a black Infiniti sedan when, just after 2 p.m. ET, she struck a security fence outside the White House. She took off after hitting a Secret Service officer with her car.
From there, police said, she sped up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, reaching 80 mph at one point. Police and the Secret Service stopped her at the foot of the Capitol, but she jammed the car into reverse and took off again as police opened fire.
Carey led police on a chase around the perimeter of the Capitol and crashed her car outside a Senate office building a few minutes later, police said. The police shot at her, and she died a short time later.
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Update: Miriam Carey
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Via: Washington Post:
She had a toddler with her, confounding everyone who watched her black sedan crash through barriers and lead police through the heart of high-security Washington.
Law enforcement officials said the Infiniti was registered to a young mother named Miriam Carey, a 34-year-old dental hygienist from Stamford, Conn. They believe it was Carey, with her 1-year-old daughter sitting behind her, who flattened barricades outside the White House, striking officers and then leading others on a high-speed pursuit up Constitution Avenue. D.C.
Police confirmed that the driver was shot and killed after careening around the Capitol grounds and crashing at Second Street NE. There was no sign that she was armed, police said.
Video images showed a young child, her hair in braids, being carried by an officer to the back of a patrol car.
The immediate portrait of Carey that emerged in the hours after the shooting suggested a person unlikely to be found in the center of such violence. Carey, according to public documents, friends and family, had finished college and established a long work history as a dental hygienist.
Her sister, Amy Carey, a Brooklyn nurse, was incredulous when she was reached Thursday afternoon and told what had happened outside the Capitol.
âThatâs impossible. She works, she holds a job,â said Amy Carey, who confirmed that her Stamford-based sister drove a black car. She said she knew of nothing that would bring her sister to Washington. âShe wouldnât be in D.C. She was just in Connecticut two days ago, I spoke to her. .?.?. I donât know whatâs happening. I canât answer any more.â
Denis Jones, a friend of the Carey family who said he is acting as a spokesman, said the family would release a statement. He would not discuss any more details of the case and would not say whether the police had approached the family.
People who knew Carey described her as friendly and dedicated.
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Update: Female Suspect Shot and Killed by Police After She Tried to Ram Vehicle Through White House Barricade
Via: ABC:
Police tell ABC7’s Jennifer Donelan that the incident reportedly started when an unidentified woman tried to drive through a barricade at the White House. She had a baby in the back seat of her vehicle. The woman fled the area and ended up at the Capitol, where she tried to drive through another barricade.
Authorities opened fire on the vehicle, killing the woman, authorities say.
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Update: U.S. Capitol no Longer on Lockdown
Via: Bloomberg:
Capitol police say Capitol no longer on lockdown
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Update: Several Injured
Via: Reuters:
The U.S. Capitol was in lockdown on Thursday after gunshots were fired outside the building, injuring several people including a law enforcement officer, a Senate aide and a Capitol police officer said.
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Update: U.S. Capital — Shelter in Place
Via: TPM:
The U.S. Capitol was placed under lockdown on Thursday following reports of a possible shooting outside the west front of the building, the Associated Press reported.
Capitol Police sent out the following notice to all Hill staff:
SHELTER IN PLACE. Gunshots have been reported on Capitol Hill requiring all occupants in all House Office Buildings to shelter in place. Close, lock and stay away from external doors and windows. Take annunciators, Go Kits and escape hoods; and move to the innermost part of the office away from external doors or windows. If you are not in your office, take shelter in the nearest office, check in with your OEC and wait for USCP to clear the incident. No one will be permitted to enter or exit the building until directed by USCP. All staff should monitor the situation. Further information will be provided as it becomes available.
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Via: AP:
US Capitol Police: Capitol in lockdown; reports of gunshots and injured Capitol police officer.
