Fusion Center Director: We Don’t Spy on Americans, Just Anti-Government Americans
March 31st, 2013Via: Russia Today:
Law enforcement intelligence-processing fusion centers have long come under attack for spying on Americans. The Arkansas director wanted to clarify the truth: centers only spies on some Americans – those who appear to be a threat to the government.
In trying to clear up the ‘misconceptions’ about the conduct of fusion centers, Arkansas State Fusion Center Director Richard Davis simply confirmed Americans’ fears: the center does in fact spy on Americans – but only on those who are suspected to be ‘anti-government’.
“The misconceptions are that we are conducting spying operations on US citizens, which is of course not a fact. That is absolutely not what we do,” he told the NWA Homepage, which supports KNWA-TV and Fox 24.
After claiming that his office ‘absolutely’ does not spy on Americans, he proceeded to explain that this does not apply to those who could be interpreted as a ‘threat’ to national security. Davis said his office places its focus on international plots, “domestic terrorism and certain groups that are anti-government. We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information.”
Texas District Attorney, Wife Found Dead
March 31st, 2013Via: Dallas Morning News:
Kaufman County’s district attorney and his wife were found slain Saturday, raising fears that their deaths may be part of a plot that included the death of one of the county’s assistant district attorneys in January.
Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh and other officials confirmed that Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia Woodward McLelland, had been shot at their home near Forney.
Their deaths followed the Jan. 31 slaying of Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse.
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A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity described the scene at the McLellands’ home as an awful scene where the door appeared to have been kicked in.
“There are shell casings everywhere,” the official said. “This is unprecedented. This is unbelievable. This is huge.”
Direct Conversion of Australian Dollar Into Yuan
March 31st, 2013Via: The Australian:
A CURRENCY deal enabling the Australian dollar to be converted directly into Chinese yuan, slashing costs for thousands of businesses, is set to be the centrepiece of Julia Gillard’s mission to China next weekend.
Australia would become the third country, after the US and Japan, to secure such an arrangement from China, which is Australia’s top trading partner, with exports and imports totalling $120 billion last financial year.
CYPRUS: DEPOSITORS MIGHT BE ISSUED BANK STOCK WORTH 37.5% OF AMOUNTS OVER 100,000 EUROS, “WHILE THE REST OF THEIR DEPOSITS MAY NEVER BE PAID BACK”
March 30th, 2013Via: Reuters:
Big depositors in Cyprus’s largest bank stand to lose far more than initially feared under a European Union rescue package to save the island from bankruptcy, a source with direct knowledge of the terms said on Friday.
Under conditions expected to be announced on Saturday, depositors in Bank of Cyprus will get shares in the bank worth 37.5 percent of their deposits over 100,000 euros, the source told Reuters, while the rest of their deposits may never be paid back.
The toughening of the terms will send a clear signal that the bailout means the end of Cyprus as a hub for offshore finance and could accelerate economic decline on the island and bring steeper job losses.
Officials had previously spoken of a loss to big depositors of 30 to 40 percent.
Related: Betray Your Bank Before Your Bank Betrays You
Florida County Spends Tens Of Thousands On Ambulance For Obese Patients
March 30th, 2013Via: CBS:
The Orange County Fire and Rescue spends tens of thousands of dollars for an ambulance to transport patients that weigh up to 1,100 pounds.
Central Florida News 13 reports that the ambulance was purchased after emergency responders had to transport at least two dozen patients who weighed more than 500 pounds last year.
“With some of these morbidly obese patients, we have to send more firefighters just to lift and to move the patient. So once they’re in and we get them to the hospital, someone has to be at the hospital to unload them,” one Orange County fire official told News 13. “That’s pulling a lot of resources from emergency calls just to do that.”
Orange County paid $23,000 alone for the lift gate and stretcher and the stretcher is 10 inches wider than the average one.
Ex-Schools Chief in Atlanta Is Indicted in Massive Cheating Scandal
March 30th, 2013Via: New York Times:
During his 35 years as a Georgia state investigator, Richard Hyde has persuaded all sorts of criminals — corrupt judges, drug dealers, money launderers, racketeers — to turn state’s evidence, but until Jackie Parks, he had never tried to flip an elementary school teacher.
It worked.
In the fall of 2010, Ms. Parks, a third-grade teacher at Venetian Hills Elementary School in southwest Atlanta, agreed to become Witness No. 1 for Mr. Hyde, in what would develop into the most widespread public school cheating scandal in memory.
Ms. Parks admitted to Mr. Hyde that she was one of seven teachers — nicknamed “the chosen” — who sat in a locked windowless room every afternoon during the week of state testing, raising students’ scores by erasing wrong answers and making them right. She then agreed to wear a hidden electronic wire to school, and for weeks she secretly recorded the conversations of her fellow teachers for Mr. Hyde.
In the two and a half years since, the state’s investigation reached from Ms. Parks’s third-grade classroom all the way to the district superintendent at the time, Beverly L. Hall, who was one of 35 Atlanta educators indicted Friday by a Fulton County grand jury.
Dr. Hall, who retired in 2011, was charged with racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses, conspiracy and making false statements. Prosecutors recommended a $7.5 million bond for her; she could face up to 45 years in prison.
During the decade she led the district of 52,000 children, many of them poor and African-American, Atlanta students often outperformed wealthier suburban districts on state tests.
Those test scores brought her fame — in 2009, the American Association of School Administrators named her superintendent of the year and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, hosted her at the White House.
And fortune — she earned more than $500,000 in performance bonuses while superintendent.
Judge Dismisses Most Claims In Libor Lawsuits, Ruling In Favor Of Big Banks
March 30th, 2013😯
Via: Reuters:
A judge on Friday dismissed a “substantial portion” of claims facing a number of banks in a barrage of lawsuits accusing them of interest-rate rigging.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled for the banks, which include Bank of America Corp , JPMorgan Chase & Co and others, of allegedly manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate, commonly known as Libor.
The judge granted the banks’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ federal antitrust claims and partially dismissed their claims of commodities manipulation. She also dismissed racketeering and state-law claims.
The decision is a significant setback for private plaintiffs, whose lawsuits had been consolidated before the New York judge as part of a multidistrict litigation proceeding.
In Search Of… The Complete Series
March 30th, 2013This is how it all started for me, the trailhead, if you will. I wonder if there’s a picture of me as a five-year-old watching this… on our orange shag carpet…
In Search Of… The Complete Series (1976):
Leonard Nimoy, hosts and narrates this documentary series that takes you to the world of Unsolved Mysteries and those strange and unusual things in the world that defy explanation and often understanding. The world is filled with unexplained mysteries, paranormal phenomena, strange creatures, and other things that go bump in the night. The topics are entertaining and engrossing. Lost civilizations, extraterrestrials, myths and monsters, missing persons, magic and witchcraft, unexplained phenomena. ”In Search Of…” cameras travel the world, seeking out these great mysteries.
Obama’s ‘No Fly’ List for FedEx and UPS
March 30th, 2013Via: The Future of Freedom Foundation:
The Obama administration is notorious for crony capitalism, through which big businesses reap huge riches by virtue of their cozy association with government. Big oil, big car companies, big agrobusinesses, big banks, and big drug corporations are among the legally privileged cronies who are profiting at the expense of nonprivileged competitors and of customers who pay higher prices.
Now the Department of Justice (DOJ) is trying to institute the shipping version of a “no fly” list on behalf of the big pharmaceutical companies and in the name of the war on drugs. The DOJ wants America’s two largest courier/delivery services to open and report on the shipments from online pharmacies, allegedly to staunch the flow of illegal pharmaceuticals. Here’s the catch: the DOJ wants packages opened even when there is no reason to suspect illegal contents.
FedEx spokesman Patrick Fitzgerald explained, “sealed packages … are being sent by, as far as we can tell, licensed pharmacies. These are medicines with legal prescriptions written by licensed physicians.” Fitzgerald added, “We are a transportation company that picks up and delivers close to 10 million packages every day. They are sealed packages, so we have no way of knowing specifically what’s inside and we have no interest in violating the privacy rights of our customers.”
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Online and foreign pharmacies are popular sources of legal pharmaceuticals because they usually offer low prices and high convenience. This competition constitutes a widening crack in the pharmaceutical monopoly that big drug companies would like to enjoy in the United States.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
Shocker: ‘Underwear Bomber’ Run by U.S. Intelligence
March 30th, 2013Via: Atlantic Wire:
According to five people familiar with the call, Brennan stressed that the plot was never a threat to the U.S. public or air safety because Washington had “inside control” over it.
Brennan’s comment appears unintentionally to have helped lead to disclosure of the secret at the heart of a joint U.S.-British-Saudi undercover counter-terrorism operation.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
