Toyota Halts U.S. Sales in Massive Recall of Eight Models with Sticking Accelerator Pedals
January 27th, 2010Via: New York Daily News:
In a massive and unprecedented move, Toyota halted U.S. sales of eight models, including the best-selling Camry, with potentially faulty gas pedals.
“This action is necessary until a remedy is finalized,” Bob Carter, Toyota’s group vice president and general manager, told the Associated Press.
The models affected by the “stop sale” were among the 2.3 million recalled last week due to faulty accelerators that could get stuck, causing rapid acceleration. This is the second big recall for Toyota in the U.S. in the past four months.
Verizon to Cut 13,000 Jobs
January 27th, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
Verizon Communications Inc., coping with subscriber losses at its fixed-line phone business, plans to cut about 13,000 jobs at the division this year after posting fourth-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates.
The cuts will follow reductions of a similar size last year, Chief Financial Officer John Killian said on a conference call today. This year’s eliminations equal to 11 percent of the staff at the unit, which had about 117,000 workers at year-end.
28% of Orlando-Area Housing Units Vacant
January 27th, 2010Via: Orlando Sentinel:
Orlando had more vacant houses, condos and apartments than any other major U.S. city during the third quarter, driving down rents and sparking landlord concessions just five years after finding an apartment was virtually impossible.
The four-county metro area had a vacancy rate of 28 percent for all housing in the late summer months of 2009, according to the newest U.S. census information. Orlando’s vacancies surpassed those of any of the other top 75 metropolitan areas in the country.
The information, drawn from a sampling with a 7 percent margin of error, is yet another indicator of the magnitude of the housing slump in this market. The Orando area has the nation’s 11th-highest foreclosure rate and what may be the country’s largest drop in condo prices.
The abundance of vacant foreclosures and condominiums for rent has created a new market for tenants, driving the vacancy rate at established apartment complexes to 12 percent — its highest level in decades.
Local experts talk of rent reductions and unprecedented concessions, with some landlords offering months of free rent. Apartment-complex managers who would have shunned foreclosure victims in the past are now more willing to overlook that transgression on applicants’ credit histories. Still others are offering prospective tenants deals on parking and storage.
Mind Control Cults
January 27th, 2010Research Credit: LP
Better Off Deadbeat: People Get Into Debt, Learn the Law, Become “Credit Terrorists”
January 27th, 2010Via: Dallas Observer:
While most Americans with unpaid bills dread the collector’s call, Cunningham sees them as lucrative opportunities. Many collection and credit card companies, intentionally or not, violate little-known consumer rights laws, and Cunningham’s favorite pastime is catching them doing so and then suing them. In fact, it’s a profitable side job.
Call it ironic, but the only house on the block that appears to be the foreclosed end to some sad financial story is in fact the home of one of the debt collection industry’s emerging and persistent threats. Cunningham calls himself a private attorney general—someone who files private lawsuits in the public interest. Debt collectors call him a credit terrorist.
Patrick Lunsford, who edits InsideARM, a trade magazine for the debt collection industry, knows the term. “There is a sub-group out there that does actually advise people on how to bait [collectors],” he says. “That’s something that really gets under the skin of, well, obviously, collectors.”
Cunningham beats the debt collectors at their own game. He turns their money-making practice into a financial liability. He is a regular guy who has become a radical enemy of the banking system.
Research Credit: JH
Four Charged in Phone Scheme at Senator Landrieu’s Office
January 27th, 2010Via: USA Today:
The four men accused of trying to tamper with Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office phones share a common experience as young ideologues writing for conservative publications.
Federal authorities said two of the men posed as telephone workers wearing hard hats, tool belts and flourescent vests when they walked into the senator’s office inside a federal building in New Orleans on Monday. The other two were accused of helping to organize the plan.
The most well-known of the suspects is James O’Keefe, a 25-year-old whose hidden-camera expose posing as a pimp with his prostitute infuriated the liberal group ACORN and made him a darling of conservatives.
O’Keefe and suspect Joseph Basel, 24, formed their own conservative publications on their college campuses. A third suspect, Stan Dai, 24, served as editor of his university’s conservative paper and once directed a program aimed at getting college students interested in the intelligence field after 9/11.
And the fourth suspect, Robert Flanagan, 24, wrote for the conservative Pelican Institute and had recently criticized Landrieu for her vote on health care legislation. O’Keefe was a featured speaker at a Pelican Institute luncheon days before his arrest. Flanagan is the son of the acting U.S. Attorney for northern Louisiana.
It’s not yet clear whether the plan was a prank intended to be captured on camera or a more serious attempt at political espionage, as claimed by state Democrats who dubbed it “Louisiana Watergate.”
A witness told authorities that O’Keefe was already sitting in the waiting area of the office and appeared to record Basel and Flanagan on his cellphone when they arrived posing as phone workers.
A federal law enforcement official said one of the suspects was picked up in a car a couple of blocks away with a listening device that could pick up transmissions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not part of the FBI affidavit. Another official said Dai was the suspect arrested outside.
All four suspects were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Head of Davos Security Dead, Just Before Start of Meeting, Police Suspect Suicide
January 27th, 2010Via: BBC:
The police commander in charge of security at the World Economic Forum in Davos has been found dead in his hotel room, local authorities have said.
Markus Reinhardt, 61, had been head of police in the Swiss canton of Graubunden since 1984.
“All indications point to a suicide,” local police said in a statement.
Police captain Marcus Suter will take over the security operation in Davos, where the five-day forum starts on Wednesday.
Some 2,500 business and political leaders from around the world are expected to attend.
Cryptogon Reader Sends Contribution
January 27th, 2010Thanks to TruthIsTreason for sending $15.
Americans Sign Petition to Repeal the First Amendment
January 26th, 2010I need a Zombies category.
U.S. Navy Veteran Arrested With Heavy Arsenal; Also Found Was “Middle Eastern Red and White Traditional Headdress”
January 26th, 2010Via: Star-Ledger:
Somerset County investigators seized a cache of weapons including a grenade launcher and hundreds of rounds of ammunition today from the Branchburg motel room of a Virginia man, who also had maps of a U.S. military facility and an out-of-state civilian community.
Lloyd Woodson, 43, whose last known address was Reston, Va., today faces multiple offenses, including second-degree unlawful weapons possession and fourth-degree possession of prohibited weapons, Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest said.
At the time of his arrest, Woodson was wearing a military-style ballistic vest with a reinforced steel plate and carrying a .223-caliber assault rifle that had been altered to fire .50-caliber ammunition, Forrest. He was also carrying four loaded magazines with hollow-point ammunition, Forrest said.
Branchburg police confronted Woodson at 3:55 a.m. at the Quick Chek convenience store on Route 28 after receiving a call reporting a suspicious person. Branchburg Patorlman Steven Cronce noticed a large bulge beneath the green, military-style jacket that Woodson was wearing, which was later determined to be the assault rifle with a defaced serial number, Forrest said.
Woodson appeared “extremely nervous” as Cronce questioned him, and he ultimately ran from the convenience store toward the Regency Trailer Park on Route 22, Forrest. Officers found Woodson hiding in the bushes and he attempted to run, Forrest said.
Officers tackled him and used pepper spray to subdue Woodson, Forrest said.
Detectives later searched Woodson’s room at the Red Mill Inn on Route 22 and found weapons including a .308-caliber semi-automatic assault rifle with a defaced serial number, a grenade launcher, hundreds .50-caliber and .308-caliber rounds, a police scanner, and the maps of a U.S. military installation and an out-of-state civilian community, Forrest said. Woodson, who is a Navy veteran, had been staying at the hotel since last week.
Investigators also found Middle Eastern red and white traditional headdress, Forrest said.
Calls placed to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington D.C. and the FBI’s Newark office late this afternoon were not immediately returned.
The investigation is ongoing, Forrest said. Anyone with information is asked to call Branchburg police at (908) 526-3830, the prosecutor’s office at (908) 231-7100 or Crime Stoppers of Somerset County at (888) 577-TIPS (8477). Citizens can also go online to www.888577tips.org and click “Give Tips” or www.scpo.net and click “Crime Stoppers.”
Update: FBI Finds no Terrorism Link to Virginia Man with Weapons Cache in N.J. Motel Room
Via: AP:
The FBI said a man charged with multiple weapons offenses after a cache of weapons and maps of a military facility were found in his New Jersey motel room has no known terrorism link.
Special Agent Bryan Travers said the FBI was asked to investigate after Lloyd Woodson of Reston, Va. was arrested early Monday. The arrest came after a report that the 43-year-old was acting suspiciously in a convenience store before dawn in Branchburg.
Prosecutors said he was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a semiautomatic rifle. Authorities found a cache of weapons in his motel room, including rifles, a grenade launcher and a night vision scope. They said he also had maps of a U.S. military facility and a town outside New Jersey.
Woodson is expected to be arraigned today.
Flashback: Two British SAS Soldiers Dressed as Arabs, Shoot at Iraqi Police


