A Florida School District is Taking Attendance by Scanning Students’ Fingers
October 7th, 2011Via: Popular Science:
Roll call is going high-tech in Washington County, Fla. Rather than the usual name calling and response, students are now checking into class with finger scanning devices. And to keep better track of students from the minute they come under district supervision until they are delivered safely home again, the scanners are now moving from the school building to the school bus.
Finland: 79 Children Will Require Lifetime Medical Care After Receiving Swine Flu Vaccine
October 7th, 2011Via: AFP:
The Finnish government and major insurance companies announced Wednesday they will pay for lifetime medical care for children diagnosed with narcolepsy after receiving the swine flu vaccine.
“The compensation will provide much-needed financial assistance for the families, although it cannot take away the emotional distress caused by this condition,” Social Services and Health Minister Paula Risikko said in a statement.
Finnish and international researchers recently found a conclusive link between the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine and new cases of narcolepsy, a chronic nervous system disorder which causes people to often uncontrollably fall asleep.
The Finnish Pharmaceutical Insurance Pool (LVP), which represents insurance companies, said Wednesday it would honour all insurance claims in this category.
LVP said it would review each claim individually to calculate the scope of the payout.
The Finnish government meanwhile agreed to cover any medical costs exceeding the insurance claims.
In Finland, 79 children between the ages of four and 19 developed narcolepsy after receiving the Pandemrix vaccine in 2009 and 2010.
Of these cases, an unusually high number, 76, also suffered from bouts of cataplexy, suffering hallucinations or paralysing physical collapses, according to Finnish research.
Japan: Food Radiation Checker
October 7th, 2011Send the bill to Tepco? *groan*
Via: Cnet:
For many Japanese, food safety is an urgent concern in light of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, from which radiation has entered the food supply.
Kyoto-based scientific equipment maker Horiba is trying to help with a radiation detector kit that can tell users if their food is contaminated.
It’s basically a transparent bucket with a radiation monitor in the bottom and an upper compartment that holds rice and other foods. It also works with soil.
The bucket works with Horiba’s new PA-1000 Radi monitor, which was being shown off here at Ceatec trade show outside Tokyo ahead of its release this month.
Priced at 125,000 yen ($1,628), the Radi can detect radiation ranging from 0.001 to 9.999 microsieverts per hour and has a buzzer option for alerts.
Georgia May Use Prisoners to Fill Farm Labor Gap
October 7th, 2011Via: AP:
State officials have set their sights on another potential pool of workers to help bridge Georgia’s severe farm labor gap: prisoners.
The idea is to put nonviolent inmates — who are spending the end of their prison terms at one of the state’s 13 transitional centers — to work picking fruits and vegetables across Georgia.
This is at least the state’s second attempt to tackle the labor shortages since enacting a tough new immigration law many farmers blame for their problems.
Research Credit: dh
Bank of England Governor: World Facing Worst Financial Crisis in History
October 7th, 2011So, the green shoots are off then?
Via: Telegraph:
The world is facing the worst financial crisis since at least the 1930s “if not ever”, the Governor of the Bank of England said last night.
Sir Mervyn King was speaking after the decision by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee to put £75billion of newly created money into the economy in a desperate effort to stave off a new credit crisis and a UK recession.
Economists said the Bank’s decision to resume its quantitative easing [QE], or asset purchase programme, showed it was increasingly fearful for the economy, and predicted more such moves ahead.
Sir Mervyn said the Bank had been driven by growing signs of a global economic disaster.
“This is the most serious financial crisis we’ve seen, at least since the 1930s, if not ever. We’re having to deal with very unusual circumstances, but to act calmly to this and to do the right thing.”
Announcing its decision, the Bank said that the eurozone debt crisis was creating “severe strains in bank funding markets and financial markets”.
IMF Advisor: Could See Eurozone ‘Meltdown’ in 2 Or 3 Weeks
October 7th, 2011“The US investment banks and the rating agencies are now attacking these French banks. They know where the bodies are buried, and they are using the weapons they sold them to attack them… This is part of a new era on Wall Street – they go after sovereign debt. Wall Street and rating agencies are working together to destabilize the sovereign debt of these countries.”
BBC: More confetti. More confetti. We need a comprehensive plan for more confetti.
Via: Business Insider:
In an interview on the BBC (via ZeroHedge), IMF advisor Robert Shapiro said some incredibly alarmist things.
He tells broadcasters that if eurozone leaders don’t address the crisis properly we will see a meltdown as soon as later this month.
UBS Systems Detected £1.3bn Rogue Trader; Warnings Were Ignored
October 6th, 2011Via: ComputerWorldUK:
UBS has insisted its IT systems did detect unusual and unauthorised trading activity, before rogue trader Kweku Adoboli ran up a $2 billion (£1.3 billion) loss on the bank’s derivatives desk.
Interim chief executive Sergio Ermotti, who is running the company following Oswald Grubel’s resignation last month, sent a memo to employees saying the bank is aware that its systems did detect the rogue activity.
In the memo, seen by the Wall Street Journal, Ermotti wrote: “Our internal investigation indicates that risk and operational systems did detect unauthorised or unexplained activity but this was not sufficiently investigated nor was appropriate action taken to ensure existing controls were enforced.”
Feds Target Pot Dispensaries for Closure
October 6th, 2011The government and the pharmaceutical industry don’t like the competition.
Via: AP:
Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law.
In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry, at least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week stating they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California.
Mario Cal: The Mysterious Suicide That Has Rocked The Vatican
October 6th, 2011Via: Independent:
On a Monday morning in July, a gunshot rang out in the administration section of Milan’s San Raffaele hospital. Seconds later, a frightened secretary entered the office of the institution’s vice-president, Mario Cal, and found him lying in a pool of blood. Mr Cal clung briefly to life, but the Smith and Wesson revolver had done its job. Before long he died on one of his hospital’s own operating tables.
The suicide of the hospital administrator went largely unnoticed outside Italy. But for the powers that be at the Vatican, it was more dreadful news. The global scandal over clerical paedophilia may be the story that dominates the headlines, but as the Vatican attempts to repair its stained reputation and mend diplomatic fences after spats with Beijing and Dublin, the death of Mario Cal was an ugly reminder of problems much nearer home.
Three hundred miles north of the capital, in Italy’s second city, the battle is on to prevent a third body blow to the Vatican. This time cardinals are having to deal not with a moral abyss but a financial chasm – a shortfall of €1.5bn on the balance sheet of Milan’s San Raffaele teaching hospital, an institute with links to the Vatican whose founder, Don Luigi Verzè, is a priest and a good friend of the city’s most famous son, Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
The San Raffaele is highly regarded for the quality of its medical care and its research. But as Mr Cal’s death made clear, it is in a crisis.
Thanks to bad investments and profligate expenses unrelated to medical care that would make a tycoon blush – including personal aircraft, hotels in Sardinia, and mango plantations in South America – the hospital is on the verge of collapse, something that was said to have been distressing Mr Cal greatly, and would have proved a huge embarrassment to the Vatican.
Bush Regime Also Carrried Out Gun-Walking Program: Wide Receiver, Possibly Others
October 6th, 2011Via: AP:
The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers — the same tactic that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama’s administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and other Republicans have been hammering the Obama Justice Department over the practice known as “letting guns walk.” The congressional target has been Operation Fast and Furious, which was designed to track small-time gun buyers at several Phoenix-area gun shops up the chain to make cases against major weapons traffickers. In the process, federal agents lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation.
When Bush, a Republican, was president, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Tucson, Ariz., used a similar enforcement tactic in a program it called Operation Wide Receiver. The fact that there were two such ATF investigations years apart in separate administrations raises the possibility that agents in still other cases may have allowed guns to “walk.”
