Italy Deploys 20,000 to Protect Sensitive Targets After Shooting, Letter Bombs
May 18th, 2012Via: AP:
Italy increased security Thursday at 14,000 sites, and assigned bodyguards to protect 550 individuals after a nuclear energy company official was shot and letter bombs directed to the tax collection agency.
Under the enhanced measures, Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri deployed 20,000 law enforcement officers to protect individuals and sensitive sites. In addition, 4,200 military personnel already assigned throughout Italy will be redeployed according to new priorities.
Spain: Bankia in Trouble
May 17th, 2012Via: BBC:
Shares in Spanish bank Bankia have continued their dramatic decline on concerns over the firm’s finances.
The share price was down another 15% on Thursday, taking losses for May to 45%.
Spain denied a report in the El Mundo newspaper that customers had taken more than 1bn euros ($1.3bn; £800m) out of the bank, which is set to be part-nationalised, over the past week.
The government, meanwhile, has had to pay sharply higher rates of interest to borrow money on the bond markets.
Apple Sends Siri to Re-Education Camp Over Double Plus Ungood Statements
May 17th, 2012Via: BBC:
The debate over “what is the best smartphone ever?” took an unexpected twist after Apple’s voice-activated assistant Siri appeared to favour the iPhone’s rival.
Over the weekend, users of Siri were told the answer was Nokia’s Lumia 900.
But Siri now responds to the same question with a jovial: “Wait… there are other phones?”
Nokia has accused Apple of “overriding the software” after the quirk was noticed.
Apple would not confirm that a change had been made.
Britain: Met Police Uses ‘Quick’ Mobile Data Extraction System on Suspects’ Mobile Phones
May 17th, 2012Via: Computerworld UK:
The Metropolitan Police has rolled out a mobile device data extraction system to allow officers to extract data “within minutes” from suspects’ phones while they are in custody.
The capability would be particularly useful if the police force were to face a similar situation to the riots last August, which were reportedly coordinated mainly via BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). At the time, there appeared to be confusion around whether or not police could access the data from rioters’ phones, although BlackBerry owner RIM promised to co-operate fully with the police.
The new system being used by the Met is Radio Tactics’ ACESO data extraction system across 16 boroughs in the capital.
And Now: Ex-Patriot Act
May 17th, 2012Wow. The full text of this should be interesting.
What’s next? Punishing the family members of people who flee?
Via: ABC News:
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has a status update for Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin: Stop attempting to dodge your taxes by renouncing your U.S. citizenship or never come to back to the U.S. again.
In September 2011, Saverin relinquished his U.S. citizenship before the company announced its planned initial public offering of stock, which will debut this week. The move was likely a financial one, as he owns an estimated 4 percent of Facebook and stands to make $4 billion when the company goes public. Saverin would reap the benefit of tax savings by becoming a permanent resident of Singapore, which levies no capital gains taxes.
At a news conference this morning, Sens. Schumer and Bob Casey, D-Pa., will unveil the “Ex-PATRIOT” – “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy” – Act to respond directly to Saverin’s move, which they dub a “scheme” that would “help him duck up to $67 million in taxes.”
The senators will call Saverin’s move an “outrage” and will outline their plan to re-impose taxes on expatriates like Saverin even after they flee the United States and take up residence in a foreign country. Their proposal would also impose a mandatory 30 percent tax on the capital gains of anybody who renounces their U.S. citizenship.
The plan would bar individuals like Saverin from ever reentering the United States again.
JP Morgan Bad Trade Loss $1 Billion Worse Since Announcement
May 17th, 2012Via: New York Times:
The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank’s initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.
When Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, announced the losses last Thursday, he indicated they could double within the next few quarters. But that process has been compressed into four trading days as hedge funds and other investors take advantage of JPMorgan’s distress, fueling faster deterioration in the underlying credit market positions held by the bank.
The Inequality Speech That TED Won’t Show You
May 17th, 2012I’ll never be for anything that hands more money to the state, but I do like the idea of a maximum compensation ratio applying to all employees of corporations. This is an old comment of mine on the subject:
One of my impossible to implement ideas would be to have a maximum total compensation ratio for the top and bottom tiers of employees of corporations. The CEO can only make some multiple of whatever total compensation amount the janitor makes. Total compensation doesn’t just mean salary. It means total compensation. Everything. Stock options, dividends, bonuses, etc. Contractors/temps are not exempt from this.
This would just apply to corporations. Sole proprietors would not have this constraint.
In general, big is bad, so, I thought, how can we deal with super-sized corporate fascism without requiring complex regulations?
This is a simple, structural mechanism that would cause more people to have the resources to become entrepreneurs. More entrepreneurs = more competition = rat poison for corporate fascists.
If sole proprietors are psychopaths, there’s only so much damage that they can do on their own without the absurd responsibility avoidance mechanisms that corporations enjoy. If they decide that they want the protections associated with a corporation, fine, then the maximum total compensation ratio rule kicks in.
I don’t agree with everything on this chart, but I agree with a lot of it:
If you think that taxing the rich is a far out topic for TED, their heads would explode if someone wanted to talk about a maximum compensation ratio rule.
The following link contains the text of Nick Hanauer’s speech.
Via: National Journal:
Prepare to meet Nick Hanauer. He’s a venture capitalist from Seattle who was the first non-family investor in Amazon.com. Today he’s a very rich man. And, somewhat jarringly, he’s screaming to anyone who will listen that he, and other wealthy innovators like him, doesn’t create jobs. The middle class does – and its decline threatens everyone in America, from the innovators on down.
You’ll read a lot more about Hanauer in the next installation of Restoration Calls, which drops tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the full text of a speech Hanauer gave in March at the TED University conference. You can’t find the talk online, because TED officials have declared it too politically controversial to post on their web site.
More: Nick Hanauer’s Powerpoint Slides from Censored TED Talk
DEA Rampage in Honduras Leaves Civilians Dead
May 17th, 2012The death toll is listed as four; two men and two pregnant women. I guess the AP leaves it up to the reader to decide if the babies that the murdered women were carrying should be counted.
Via: AP:
People in Honduras’ predominantly Indian Mosquito coast region burned down government offices and demanded that U.S. drug agents leave the area, reacting angrily to an anti-drug operation in which a local mayor said police gunfire killed four innocent people, including two pregnant women.
Animosity is being aimed at both Honduran authorities and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which confirmed on Wednesday that some of its agents were on a U.S.-owned helicopter with Honduran police officers when the shooting happened Friday on the Patuca River in northeastern Honduras.
Honduran and U.S. officials said only the police officers on the anti-drug mission fired their weapons, and not until the helicopter was shot at first. The officials said the aircraft was chasing a small boat suspected of carrying drugs on the river.
Local officials said the two men and two pregnant women killed weren’t drug smugglers. They said the victims were diving for lobster and shellfish.
“These innocent residents were not involved in the drug problem, were in their boat going about their daily fishing activities … when they gunned them down from the air,” Lucio Vaquedano, mayor of the coastal town of Ahuas, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Will Smith’s Son Talks Aliens at The White House
May 17th, 2012The BBC clip is below:
Via: Silver Screen Saucers:
Men in Black 3 star Will Smith today told BBC Radio 1 host Chris Moyles that his 13-year-old son Jayden (himself a Hollywood star) put President Obama on the spot recently during a private tour of the White House. The subject of Jayden’s enquiry – aliens!
Remarkably, Obama anticipated Jayden’s question before the young star even had chance to ask it, and the President’s response was suitably tantalising:
“The aliens, right? OK, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of extraterrestrials but I can tell you if there had been a top secret meeting and if there would have had to have been a discussion about it, it would have taken place in this room.”
DHS Considers Collecting DNA From Kids
May 17th, 2012Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Documents just released by US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) in response to one of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act requests show that DHS is considering collecting DNA from kids ages 14 and up—and is exploring expanding its regulations to allow collection from kids younger than that.
The proposal appears to be working its way through DHS in the wake of regulations from the Department of Justice that require all federal agencies—including DHS and its components such as ICE—to collect DNA from individuals arrested for federal crimes as well as “from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States,” whether or not they have been involved in criminal activity. While the law specifically exempts a few classes of “aliens,” the documents we received show DHS may start DNA collection from anyone it fingerprints. Currently, that’s any child over 14 who’s detained, but we also found records that show ICE could lower that age even more.
DHS estimates that as many as 1 million people who are subject to administrative detention or arrest annually could now be subject to DNA collection. But it’s important to note that many of these people are not involved in criminal activity. Collecting DNA from anyone detained by the government for any number of non-criminal reasons—especially juveniles—seems to be yet another step on the slippery slope to collecting DNA from everyone in the United States, no matter their status.
