U.S. Arrests 130 Puerto Ricans, Including 90 Police Officers, on Charges Related to Drug Trafficking
October 7th, 2010Clear out the upstarts. Eliminate the competition. Keep prices high.
Via: AP:
Hundreds of FBI agents flew into Puerto Rico to round up dozens of police officers accused of aiding drug traffickers Wednesday — one of the darkest days yet for a force tarnished by recent allegations of brutality, discrimination and incompetence.
In pre-dawn raids, about 1,000 federal agents swept up about 130 people, including nearly 90 law enforcement officers accused of providing security to drug dealers on a U.S. territory where police are struggling to curb spiraling crime and rampant drug smuggling.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said it was the largest police corruption investigation in the FBI’s history.
“We will not allow the corrupt actions of a few to destroy the good work of so many,” Holder said at a news conference in Washington. “The people of Puerto Rico deserve better.”
The suspects include a dozen prison guards, two soldiers in the U.S. Army, three National Guard soldiers and civilians.
The indictments allege law enforcement officers provided security for drug deals in exchange for payments ranging from $500 to $4,500, Holder said.
Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 Million?
October 6th, 2010There are, however, a few metrics by which “victory” for the U.S. in Afghanistan may be measured.
First of all, the fact that mayhem continues is a victory for the corporations that profit from the absurd war-related contracts.
There’s the unknown billions of heroin related dollars that are generated from covert operations in Afghanistan. The transformation of Afghanistan into a narcostate is a victory for black money operators.
Ultimately, victory will mean that Afghanistan becomes pacified in a manner that facilities effortless corporate rape. The purpose of the U.S. military is to tie the victim down. Then the people in the suits step into the room…
Profits.
Via: Kabul Press:
The Pentagon will not tell the public what it costs to locate, target and kill a single Taliban soldier because the price-tag is so scandalously high that it makes the Taliban appear to be Super-Soldiers. As set out in this article, the estimated cost to kill each Taliban is as high as $100 million, with a conservative estimate being $50 million. A public discussion should be taking place in the United States regarding whether the Taliban have become too expensive an enemy to defeat.
Passat BlueMotion Enters Record Books: Travels 1,527 Miles Without Refueling
October 6th, 2010This is impressive, but you don’t need to own a fancy car to improve mileage by slowing down:
Slow down. Air resistance goes up as the square of velocity. The power consumed to overcome that air resistance goes up as the cube of the velocity. Rolling resistance is the dominant force below about 40 mph. Above that, every mph costs you mileage. Go as slow as traffic and your schedule will allow. Drive under 60-65 since air grows exponentially denser, in the aerodynamic sense, the faster we drive. To be precise, the most efficient speed is your car’s minimum speed in it’s highest gear, since this provides the best “speed per RPM” ratio. This is usually about 45 to 55 miles per hour.
Via: VW PR / Auto Blog Green:
A Volkswagen Passat BlueMotion has set a new Guinness World Record for the longest distance travelled by a standard production passenger car on a single tank of fuel.
The attempt, carried out by a team from The Sunday Times, involved driving from Maidstone in Kent to the South of France and back. The Passat BlueMotion finally ran out of fuel close to Calais after completing a distance of 1,526.63 miles.
The route mainly followed French autoroutes, but included some town driving, resulting in an average speed of just over 45 mph.
Gavin Conway, for The Sunday Times, drove the Passat BlueMotion during the three-day record-breaking trip, accompanied by a navigator and video crew. Two AA patrolmen followed the entire attempt in their van to witness the journey independently for the Guinness World Records organisation, which accredited the record.
Reminder: Possible DX Support Ahead
October 5th, 2010Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Gold is sharply higher today, with the spot metal reaching a new record high of $1342.30.
Let’s look ahead a few days to a couple of weeks.
Gold may pull back a bit if DX sees the support ahead, but the really interesting show could be INDU to the shortside. INDU longs should be careful in the 11,000 – 11,250 zone. There’s a potential double top in there that may be about to sync with support on the DX. If the DX rallies with the Dow somewhere between 11,000 – 11,250, we could be looking at a sharp sell off on the equities.
If this set up happens, I’ll consider buying November puts on DIA.
U.S. Dollar Index, Weekly Interval
Super-Rich Investors Buy Gold by Ton
October 5th, 2010Via: Reuters:
The world’s wealthiest people have responded to economic worries by buying gold by the bar — and sometimes by the ton — and by moving assets out of the financial system, bankers catering to the very rich said on Monday.
Fears of a double-dip downturn have boosted the appetite for physical bullion as well as for mining company shares and exchange-traded funds, UBS executive Josef Stadler told the Reuters Global Private Banking Summit.
“They don’t only buy ETFs or futures; they buy physical gold,” said Stadler, who runs the Swiss bank’s services for clients with assets of at least $50 million to invest.
UBS is recommending top-tier clients hold 7-10 percent of their assets in precious metals like gold, which is on course for its tenth consecutive yearly gain and traded at around $1,314.50 an ounce on Monday, near the record level reached last week.
“We had a clear example of a couple buying over a ton of gold … and carrying it to another place,” Stadler said. At today’s prices, that shipment would be worth about $42 million.
September Earnings
October 5th, 2010Earnings in September came to a spectacular $1919.64. The U.S. Amazon commissions alone totaled $794.79, or a whisker under 80% of the monthly earnings goal of $1000. This was the best Amazon result ever. There were several unusually large purchases on Amazon in September; high end audio gear, expensive digital cameras, etc. After months of very slow BlueHost activity, several readers signed up for hosting in September. With direct contributions and other affiliate commissions added in, earnings were nearly twice the goal.
September earnings corresponded to Becky needing some expensive dental work (damaged mercury fillings needed to be replaced with ceramic ones). We’re extremely lucky to have a local dentist who specializes in removing mercury fillings. He left a standing room only type practice in Britain for a slower and quieter life down here in rural New Zealand. While I’m sure his services are reasonably priced, compared to places like Auckland and Wellington, it still helps to steady oneself before hearing the cost of the visit!
Thank you to everyone who supported Cryptogon in September.
James Corbett: The Truth About Terrorism
October 5th, 2010Research Credit: mja
Not The Onion: RatCar
October 5th, 2010This attempt was a flop, but with endless grant swindles, more quackademics each year and a steady supply of creatures to butcher in the spirit of Dr. Mengele, who knows?
Via: IEEE:
RatCar
“The vehicle moved forward synchronously with a rat when it was placed inside,” says Fukayama, but he adds that the degree to which the car was being controlled by the rat itself was unclear.
Since the rat would be forcibly moved along with the car, measuring its real intentions became a challenging problem. Another difficulty was that only a small percentage of the electrodes actually recorded neural activity, and the recorded neurons didn’t necessarily correlate with target movements.
Related:
DARPA: Cyborg Beetle Piloted by Remote Control
Schneier on Proposed Key Escrow Rules
October 5th, 2010The most imminent danger would be believing that any of the services mentioned below are actually secure from government surveillance. The new rules would just make it easier for the government to conduct the surveillance on closed systems on a massive scale.
Via: Schneier:
On Monday, The New York Times reported that President Obama will seek sweeping laws enabling law enforcement to more easily eavesdrop on the internet. Technologies are changing, the administration argues, and modern digital systems aren’t as easy to monitor as traditional telephones.
The government wants to force companies to redesign their communications systems and information networks to facilitate surveillance, and to provide law enforcement with back doors that enable them to bypass any security measures.
The proposal may seem extreme, but — unfortunately — it’s not unique. Just a few months ago, the governments of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and India threatened to ban BlackBerry devices unless the company made eavesdropping easier. China has already built a massive internet surveillance system to better control its citizens.
Formerly reserved for totalitarian countries, this wholesale surveillance of citizens has moved into the democratic world as well. Governments like Sweden, Canada and the United Kingdom are debating or passing laws giving their police new powers of internet surveillance, in many cases requiring communications system providers to redesign products and services they sell. More are passing data retention laws, forcing companies to retain customer data in case they might need to be investigated later.
Obama isn’t the first U.S. president to seek expanded digital eavesdropping. The 1994 CALEA law required phone companies to build ways to better facilitate FBI eavesdropping into their digital phone switches. Since 2001, the National Security Agency has built substantial eavesdropping systems within the United States.
These laws are dangerous, both for citizens of countries like China and citizens of Western democracies. Forcing companies to redesign their communications products and services to facilitate government eavesdropping reduces privacy and liberty; that’s obvious. But the laws also make us less safe. Communications systems that have no inherent eavesdropping capabilities are more secure than systems with those capabilities built in.
Any surveillance system invites both criminal appropriation and government abuse. Function creep is the most obvious abuse: New police powers, enacted to fight terrorism, are already used in situations of conventional nonterrorist crime. Internet surveillance and control will be no different.
Mystery Mercenary Group Is Blackwater’s 34th Front Company
October 4th, 2010Update: Ackerman Screwed Up on the House
The link below now states:
If International Development Solutions, a mysterious firm partially owned by Blackwater, has its own independent office, it’s hard to find. A business records search co-locates one of the jackpot winners of a State Department contract worth up to $10 million with Kaseman LLC, the well-connected private security security firm that partnered with Blackwater arm U.S. Training Center to win the contract.
That would suggest International Development Solutions — a company few industry experts have heard of, sporting a generic, Google-resistant name — is yet another front group the company set up to win government contracts while concealing its tainted brand. More of a mystery is why the State Department let the company get away with it. Again.
An earlier version of this story reported on the results of a different business records search that turned up a listing for the company in a residential neighborhood of Washington DC. But since it’s more likely that the firm be headquarted in Virginia with Kaseman — who didn’t return phone calls for this story, like Blackwater — I’m removing information on that house, along with an image of it, and hereby issue a full and frank apology to its owner; IDS; Kaseman; Blackwater/U.S. Training Center; and you, the reader; and a shout-out goes to Scrarcher in comments for calling me out on this.
—End Update—
Via: Wired:
This tasteful, quaint red-brick house on a tree-lined street in northwest Washington doesn’t appear to be the headquarters for a private security company that stands to make millions in a war zone. But the online trail for a mysterious firm, partially owned by Blackwater, leads here. And that company not only just won part of security contract with the State Department worth up to $10 billion last week. It’s also the latest in a series of cutouts used by the notorious mercenary firm to hide its work from public scrutiny. The business that’s listed at this house? Blackwater’s 34th front company, if you’re counting.
