Unemployed Banker Stands on NYC Street Wearing ‘For Hire’ Sign
June 27th, 2008Via: USA Today:
Call it a sign of the times. An unemployed banker has taken to the streets of Manhattan — wearing a pinstriped suit and an “MIT Graduate for Hire” sign draped over his shoulders.
Joshua Persky, an unemployed financial engineer, says he’ll be passing out resumes during the lunch hour all week.
On Monday and Tuesday, he promoted himself in front of the Charles Schwab building at 50th Street and Park Avenue.
Persky lost his job six months ago as an investment banking consultant.
His wife and five kids are moving to her native Nebraska while he continues to look for work in New York.
Telecom Amnesty Flip-Floppers Got More Telecom Dollars
June 27th, 2008People wonder, “What’s a good investment?”
Corporations buy off elected representatives for bum change. It’s not quite something for nothing, but owning an elected representative for a few grand seems pretty close to it.
Via: Wired:
Democrats who switched from opposing to supporting legal amnesty to telecoms that aided the government’s warrantless wiretapping program received twice as much money, on average, from telcom political action groups than Democrats whose opposed the idea in March and again last Friday, according to an analysis of campaign donations by Maplight.org.
220 Democratic members of the House voted against telecom amnesty in March, when the Democrats unexpectedly rejected a Bush-backed Senate spying bill. But, 94 of those switched their vote last Friday, supporting a bill ironed out by the House leadership that expands the government’s ability to conduct blanket wiretaps inside American telecom facilities and freeing those companies from the 40 or so lawsuits pending in Federal court.
Maplight.org analyzed the contributions to both sets of the Democrats and found that those who switched their votes received, on average, 40 percent more money in campaign contributions over the last three years from Sprint, Verizon and AT&T’s political action committees.
On average, those who changed their votes collected $8,359 dollars from those PACs from January 2005 through March 2008, while those who did not change their opposition collected $4,987.
For all House members, including Republicans, those supporting immunity collected nearly twice as much money from those PACs than those who did not: $9,659 to $4,810.
U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects
June 27th, 2008Do you get it yet?
Via: New York Time:
Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.
The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.
But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.”
Much of the 119 million surface acres of federally administered land in the West is ideal for solar energy, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, where sunlight drenches vast, flat desert tracts.
Galvanized by the national demand for clean energy development, solar companies have filed more than 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management since 2005. They center on the companies’ desires to lease public land to build solar plants and then sell the energy to utilities.
Related: America’s Military Spending and Clean Energy
Barclays Warns of a Financial Storm as Federal Reserve’s Credibility Crumbles
June 27th, 2008Via: Telegraph:
Barclays Capital has advised clients to batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm, warning that the US Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle and let its credibility fall “below zero”.
“We’re in a nasty environment,” said Tim Bond, the bank’s chief equity strategist. “There is an inflation shock underway. This is going to be very negative for financial assets. We are going into tortoise mood and are retreating into our shell. Investors will do well if they can preserve their wealth.”
Barclays Capital said in its closely-watched Global Outlook that US headline inflation would hit 5.5pc by August and the Fed will have to raise interest rates six times by the end of next year to prevent a wage-spiral. If it hesitates, the bond markets will take matters into their own hands. “This is the first test for central banks in 30 years and they have fluffed it. They have zero credibility, and the Fed is negative if that’s possible. It has lost all credibility,” said Mr Bond.
The grim verdict on Ben Bernanke’s Fed was underscored by the markets yesterday as the dollar fell against the euro following the bank’s dovish policy statement on Wednesday.
Traders said the Fed seemed to be rowing back from rate rises. The effect was to propel oil to $138 a barrel, confirming its role as a sort of “anti-dollar” and as a market reproach to Washington’s easy-money policies.
The Fed’s stimulus is being transmitted to the 45-odd countries linked to the dollar around world. The result is surging commodity prices. Global inflation has jumped from 3.2pc to 5pc over the last year.
U.S. Stocks Tumble, Sending Dow to Worst June Since Depression
June 27th, 2008Equities are drifting lower again this morning. The dollar is still falling / oil still rising / gold gapping higher.
Via: Bloomberg:
U.S. stocks tumbled, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst June since the Great Depression, as record oil prices, credit-market writedowns and a slowing economy threatened to extend a yearlong profit slump.
General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, plunged the most in three years as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised selling the stock and crude rose by $5 a barrel. Citigroup Inc. led the KBW Bank Index to an almost 10-year low as Goldman said the lender may report an $8.9 billion second-quarter charge and cut its dividend. Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry, posted its biggest drop since 2001 on concern competition with Apple Inc.’s iPhone is reducing earnings.
U.S. Government Seizing Laptops and Cameras Without Cause
June 27th, 2008I’ve posted about this several times, but the practice is so abhorrent that it’s worth monitoring.
Via: U.S. News and World Report:
Returning from a brief vacation to Germany in February, Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. Agents searched Hogan’s luggage and then popped an unexpected question: Was he carrying any digital media cards or drives in his pockets? “Then they told me that they were impounding my laptop,” says Hogan, a freelance investigative reporter whose recent stories have ranged from the origins of the Iraq war to the impact of money in presidential politics.
Shaken by the encounter, Hogan says he left the airport and examined his bags, finding that the agents had also removed and inspected the memory card from his digital camera. “It was fortunate that I didn’t use that machine for work or I would have had to call up all my sources and tell them that the government had just seized their information,” he said. When customs offered to return the machine nearly two weeks later, Hogan told them to ship it to his lawyer.
A ruling this year by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that DHS does indeed have the authority to search electronic devices without suspicion in the same way that it would inspect a briefcase. The lawsuit that prompted the ruling was the result of more than 20 cases, most of which involved laptops, cellphones, or other electronics seized at airports. In those cases, nearly all of the individuals were of Muslim, Middle Eastern, or South Asian background.
Travelers who have their computers seized face real headaches. “It immediately deprives an executive or company of the very data—and revenue—a business trip was intended to create,” says Susan Gurley, head of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, which is asking DHS for greater transparency and oversight to protect copied data. “As a businessperson returning to the U.S., you may find yourself effectively locked out of your electronic office indefinitely.” While Hogan had his computer returned after only a few days, others say they have had theirs held for months at a time. As a result, some companies have instituted policies that require employees to travel with clean machines: free of corporate data.
Research Credit: Tron
ATF Raids Blackwater Armory, Seizes Automatic Weapons
June 27th, 2008Via: AP:
Federal agents have raided an armory owned by security contractor Blackwater Worldwide.
The North Carolina-based company said the raid was part of an investigation into a deal that allowed a local sheriff’s office to store high-powered assault rifles at the company’s armory at its headquarters in Moyock.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell says that investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched Blackwater’s armory Tuesday.
She said she did not know whether the weapons in question were seized.
Tyrrell said ATF has known about the arrangement for a long time and that the company believes it is lawful and proper.
Both ATF and U.S. Attorney George Holding declined to comment.
cryptogon.reddit.com
June 27th, 2008For over a year, I’ve wanted a Reddit-type system for Cryptogon. A lot of people submit links to me and I thought it might be easier for everyone involved if a social bookmarking system was in place. There are a few software packages that I could install on my own server, but before I pound my head against that wall, I’d like to get a feel for the level of interest and quality of the submissions from Cryptogon readers.
Reddit now allows anyone to create subreddits—on any topic. I created a Cryptogon subreddit, as an experiment.
Submit anything that you think other Cryptogon readers might be interested in, especially far off the radar articles, blogs, books, etc. You never know, I might think “it” belongs on the Cryptogon main page…
Consider this to be a noisy, but potentially interesting backchannel, an informal way of sharing Cryptogon themed information.
Just be warned: All order of bullshit is going to show up there because, initially, the subreddit is open to all, and that includes trolls and the full time .mil perception management types who have tried to spread nonsense on Cryptogon before. From experience, I can assure you that the Kill Off advocates will try it out, as well as the Nazis. If it starts to suck too much, I can ban them, and even require submitters to be authorized by me.
I considered making this an invite only board, for high quality information contributors and readers that I know and trust. If the public version of this doesn’t go so well, I might try invite only.
Well, let it rip:
What to Do with All the Sandbags? Never Mind the Millions of Acres of Farmland Flooded in Toxic Soup
June 27th, 2008The water that flooded millions of acres of farmland is so dangerously polluted that the sand and the sandbags—used for flood control—need to be disposed of in landfills.
Of course, the Associates Press doesn’t mention those millions of acres of flooded farmland in the piece below. Maybe the topsoil that didn’t wash away can just be taken to the dump as well…
Via: AP:
When Mayor Jo Anne Smiley looks down Washington Street at the soggy fortress of sandbags protecting her town, she knows it’s a view she will have to get used to.
The sandbags are ugly. They clutter the streets in the picturesque town of 500, blocking access to the century-old brick storefronts housing antiques stores and arts shops. Some of the bags — soaked with God-knows-what from the flooded Mississippi River — stink.
But they’re staying put.
“Certainly it will be the end of July before we even think about taking down the sandbags,” Smiley said. “No choice. We have to be diligent through the summer. We have to leave them up until we know the river has crested for the last time.”
As the waters finally begin to recede across the Midwest, dozens of flooded-out towns must now decide what to do with the millions of sandbags that were painstakingly filled and stacked against nature.
Dry sandbags can safely be kept for future use. The Army Corps of Engineers recommends, though, that communities remove their wet sandbags and take the filthy, contaminated sand to the dump once the threat of flooding has passed.
“Those sandbags can be contaminated with a lot of bad things from the river — feces, chemicals, all kinds of bacteria,” said Corps spokesman Ron Fournier. “You don’t know what could be in the water, and that absorbs into the sandbags.”
But removing them will be a monumental task, just as filling them was. And with the long-range forecast calling for a wet summer, many communities are keeping their sandbags in place for now, or they are storing them nearby, just in case.
“We are anticipating an entire summer of yo-yoing river levels,” said Jeff McReynolds, who led the effort to fortify the levee protecting Canton, Mo., with three feet of sandbags. “Are we concerned? I’m very concerned. Sandbagging efforts will remain intact for the rest of the summer.”
…
Both the bags and the sand inside them can be taken to landfills. Most of the bags are made of polypropylene that will break down after several months. A few are made of burlap, which will decompose more slowly.
The sand from the bags should not used in sandboxes or for other recreational purposes because of contamination from polluted river water, experts say.
Long Time Cryptogon Reader Sends Contribution
June 27th, 2008I received a kind email and $25 from MR today. He’s been reading Cryptogon for years and decided to contribute. Thanks, MR and all the best to you and your family with your land purchase.
Cryptogon wouldn’t exist without the financial support from the readers who find it useful. While thousands of people are reading every day (many for years), only a fraction of 1% do anything to support the effort. Thanks to all of you who keep Cryptogon on the air.
