U.S. Jobless Rate Drops for the Worst of All Reasons
September 10th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
The unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent, but that was only because 368,000 people left the labor force. The share of working-age people who are either working or looking for work—known as the labor-force participation rate—fell to its lowest level since September 1981.
Related: Real Unemployment Rate: 20+%
Even Government Admits Fracking Mess in Wyoming
September 10th, 2012“The one—and only—place in the nation where fracking is causing water contamination…”
Mmm hmm.
Via: Bloomberg:
Louis Meeks, a hay farmer in Pavillion, Wyo., holds a mason jar under a faucet in his house and turns on the water. It’s a demonstration he’s given to a slew of neighbors and government officials. The water, drawn from his backyard well, is cloudy and smells like diesel. “Would you want to drink it?” he asks.
Meeks blames the bad water on fracking, the process in which thousands of gallons of water are mixed with sand and chemicals and blasted underground to free natural gas.
After sampling and analyzing his water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last December issued a preliminary report citing the Pavillion area as the one—and only—place in the nation where fracking is causing water contamination. Far from thanking Meeks for raising the alarm, his neighbors in the town (population: 231) now say he’s responsible for driving real estate buyers and business away. “It was instantaneous, like the spigot was turned off,” says Ginny Warren, describing how sales at her restaurant dried up. “I’m stuck with a property that I couldn’t give away if I wanted to.”
Related:
Fracking Industry Executives Suggest Military PSYOP Techniques to Peers for Dealing with Public
Research Credit: almaverdad2
Sniffing Open WiFi Networks Is Not Wiretapping
September 9th, 2012I don’t know why anyone would use unencrypted wi-fi at this point, but it’s the privacy equivalent of standing on a soap box with a bullhorn.
Via: Ars Technica:
A federal judge in Illinois has ruled that intercepting traffic on unencrypted WiFi networks is not wiretapping. The decision runs counter to a 2011 decision that suggested Google may have violated the law when its Street View cars intercepted fragments of traffic from open WiFi networks around the country.
Rochester City Employees Don’t Have to Pay Fines When Caught by Red-Light Cameras
September 8th, 2012Via: Democrat and Chronicle:
Over the past 18 months, city of Rochester employees have committed at least 119 red light violations while driving city vehicles, records show.
But while employees can be disciplined for the violation, “payment of the related fine will not be required,” according to a newly adopted city procedure for handling the violations.
Open Thread: The One About Organic Food vs. Conventionally Produced Food
September 8th, 2012I saw the headline come up in a few places in my feed reader, but I didn’t bother to click through. I’m sure you know the one I’m talking about.
Readers are submitting it now.
Feel free to discuss, agree or disagree with it, but this one is like debates about Republicans and Democrats to me now. It’s below my threshold of interest.
Some of you, however, are wild over this, so let it rip if you like.
As context, I’d recommend, Trust Us We’re Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber:
The authors of Toxic Sludge Is Good for You! unmask the sneaky and widespread methods industry uses to influence opinion through bogus experts, doctored data, and manufactured facts.
We count on the experts. We count on them to tell us who to vote for, what to eat, how to raise our children. We watch them on TV, listen to them on the radio, read their opinions in magazine and newspaper articles and letters to the editor. We trust them to tell us what to think, because there’s too much information out there and not enough hours in a day to sort it all out.
We should stop trusting them right this second.
In their new book Trust Us, We’re Experts!: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, authors of Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, offer a chilling exposé on the manufacturing of “independent experts.”
Public relations firms and corporations know well how to exploit your trust to get you to buy what they have to sell: Let you hear it from a neutral third party, like a professor or a pediatrician or a soccer mom or a watchdog group. The problem is, these third parties are usually anything but neutral. They have been handpicked, cultivated, and meticulously packaged in order to make you believe what they have to say—preferably in an “objective” format like a news show or a letter to the editor. And in some cases, they have been paid handsomely for their “opinions.”
And now…
Via: NPR:
Yes, organics is a $29 billion industry and still growing. Something is pulling us toward those organic veggies that are grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.
But if you’re thinking that organic produce will help you stay healthier, a new finding may come as a surprise. A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds scant evidence of health benefits from organic foods.
Related:
California: The Companies Trying to Stop Mandatory Labeling of Products Containing GM Ingredients
Monsanto’s GM Corn Damages Organs
Research Credit: Eileen
Silvio Berlusconi’s ‘James Bond-Style’ Underground Cave
September 8th, 2012Via: Telegraph:
Silvio Berlusconi’s summer retreat on Sardinia’s exclusive Costa Smeralda, which gained notoriety for parties with topless models, features an underground cave, complete with an emergency escape exit to the sea.
Cryptogon Reader Sends $50
September 8th, 2012Thanks to JM for sending $50.
Next Generation Identification (NGI) System: FBI Launches $1 Billion Nationwide Biometric Database
September 8th, 2012Via: ExtremeTech:
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun rolling out its new $1 billion biometric Next Generation Identification (NGI) system. In essence, NGI is a nationwide database of mugshots, iris scans, DNA records, voice samples, and other biometrics, that will help the FBI identify and catch criminals — but it is how this biometric data is captured, through a nationwide network of cameras and photo databases, that is raising the eyebrows of privacy advocates.
Until now, the FBI relied on IAFIS, a national fingerprint database that has long been due an overhaul. Over the last few months, the FBI has been pilot testing a facial recognition system — and soon, detectives will also be able to search the system for other biometrics such as DNA records and iris scans. In theory, this should result in much faster positive identifications of criminals and fewer unsolved cases.
According to New Scientist, facial recognition systems have reached the point where they can match a single face from a pool of 1.6 million mugshots/passport photos with 92% accuracy, in under 1.2 seconds [PDF]. In the case of automated, biometric border controls where your face and corresponding mugshot are well lit, the accuracy approaches 100%. Likewise, where DNA or iris records exist, it’s a very expedient way of accurately identifying suspects.
Judge Says Family’s 10 Rare Gold Coins Worth $80 Million Belong to Uncle Sam
September 7th, 2012Via: Good Morning America:
A judge ruled that 10 rare gold coins worth $80 million belonged to the U.S. government, not a family that had sued the U.S. Treasury, saying it had illegally seized them.
The 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle coin was originally valued at $20, but sold for as much as $7.5 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2002, according to Courthouse News.
After President Theodore Roosevelt had the U.S. abandon the gold standard, most of the 445,500 double eagles that the Philadelphia Mint had struck were melted into gold bars.
However, a Philadelphia Mint cashier had managed to give or sell some of them to a local coin dealer, Israel Switt.
In 2003, Switt’s family, Joan Langbord, and her two grandsons, drilled opened a safety deposit box that had belonged to him and found the 10 coins.
When the Langbords gave the coins to the Philadelphia Mint for authentication, the government seized them without compensating the family.
Amino-Acid Deficiency Underlies Rare Form of Autism
September 7th, 2012Someday, the people who claim to be doing autism research will read, Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia by Natasha Campbell-McBride. Until then, here are some minuscule tidbits from the grant swindling industrial complex.
Via: Nature:
A rare, hereditary form of autism has been found — and it may be treatable with protein supplements.
Genome sequencing of six children with autism has revealed mutations in a gene that stops several essential amino acids being depleted. Mice lacking this gene developed neurological problems related to autism that were reversed by dietary changes, a paper published today in Science shows1.
Some children with autism have low blood levels of amino acids that can’t be made in the body.
“This might represent the first treatable form of autism,” says Joseph Gleeson, a child neurologist at the University of California, San Diego, who led the study. “That is both heartening to families with autism, and also I think revealing of the underlying mechanisms of autism.”
