Carnival Cruise Lines Hit With $20 Million Penalty For Environmental Crimes
June 5th, 2019A $20 million fine isn’t even a slap on the wrist for Carnival. On revenue of $18.8 billion, I wonder, in which column on their spreadsheet this will go?
Chicken Feed?
Pocket Lint?
F-U-We’ll-Do-It-Again?
Via: NPR:
The cruise line giant Carnival Corporation and its Princess subsidiary have agreed to pay a criminal penalty of $20 million for environmental violations such as dumping plastic waste into the ocean. Princess Cruise Lines has already paid $40 million over other deliberate acts of pollution.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz approved the terms of the deal during a hearing Monday in Miami. She had appeared to grow increasingly frustrated as the company continued to flout environmental laws during the course of the years-long case.
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Miami-based Carnival pleaded guilty Monday to six probation violations, including the dumping of plastic mixed with food waste in Bahamian waters. The company also admitted sending teams to visit ships before the inspections to fix any environmental compliance violations, falsifying training records and contacting the U.S. Coast Guard to try to redefine what would be a “major non-conformity” of their environmental compliance plan.
…
Carnival has had a long history of dumping plastic trash and oily discharge from its ships, with violations dating back to 1993.
Australia: Police Raid ABC Over Leaked Information That Detailed Special Forces Killings of Civilians in Afghanistan
June 5th, 2019Via: ABC:
Australian Federal Police officers have left the ABC’s Sydney headquarters more than eight hours after a raid began over a series of 2017 stories known as the Afghan Files.
The stories, by ABC investigative journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, revealed allegations of unlawful killings and misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan and were based off hundreds of pages of secret Defence documents leaked to the ABC.
The search warrant named Oakes, Clark and the ABC’s director of News Gaven Morris.
Related: The Afghan Files
Research Credit: D
Los Angeles: Homeless Disaster Getting Worse
June 4th, 2019I hope Catherine Austin Fitts investigates California’s spending on the homeless situation. Something is obviously very wrong.
Who is winding up with the billions of dollars?
Via: KTLA:
The number of homeless people counted across Los Angeles County jumped 12% over the past year to nearly 59,000, with more young and old residents and families on the streets, officials said Tuesday.
The majority of the homeless were found within the city of Los Angeles, which saw a 16% increase to 36,300, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said in presenting January’s annual count to the county Board of Supervisors.
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Three years ago, Los Angeles voters approved a tax hike and $1.2 billion housing bond to make a decade’s worth of massive investments to help solve the homeless crisis. That bond money has been committed to build more than half of the 10,000 new housing units planned countywide over the next decade, Lynn said.
Related: California: The Poverty Capital of the U.S.
Apple Forces Developers to Place Its Login Button Above Google, Facebook
June 4th, 2019Just a few days ago, someone was asking me how to sign into the AirBNB app on her iPhone without using Google or Facebook credentials. I thought that there would be an option to enter her email and password, but there wasn’t. That app forces users to supply either Google or Facebook credentials.
I don’t trust Apple, but I trust Google and Facebook even less.
The alternative to Single Sign On in this case was to simply use the phone’s browser to sign in to her AirBNB account using her email and password. Probably not as nice as the app, but there you go.
I proposed using the AirBNB website from a computer and I might as well have suggested that she flap her arms up and down to take flight. Not happening.
I do try to explain that worrying about privacy while using a hardware and software platform designed specifically for surveillance is folly, but I think people need to feel in control somewhat as things spiral further out of control. However, by using one crook’s single sign on widget over another crook’s single sign on widget YOU’RE STILL USING SOME CROOK’S SURVEILLANCE BLOB IN THE APP.
By all means, though, go ahead and press the button if it makes you feel better!
As cynical as I am about this, I did grin at Apple’s optional trick of assigning random email addresses and then forwarding messages to your real email address. Sounds great! Just keep in mind, now Apple is in the middle of your email correspondence with these entities. You’re needing to trust Apple even more with your privacy.
Via: Reuters:
Apple Inc will require developers to position a new “Sign on with Apple” button in iPhone and iPad apps above rival buttons from Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc, according to developer guidelines released this week.
The move to give Apple prime placement is significant because users often select the default or top option on apps. And Apple will force apps to offer its button if they want to offer options to login with Facebook or Google.
Apple unveiled its login button on Monday, emphasizing users’ privacy and also introducing a feature that randomly generates an email address to avoid revealing the person’s true email.
Thirty Years After Tiananmen…
June 3rd, 2019Via: Reuters:
Three decades after China’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, increased government suppression of rights activism has pushed the demonstrators’ original goals further away than ever.
In April 1989, weeks before Chinese leaders ordered a military assault to clear the protesters from central Beijing, tens of thousands of students got behind seven key demands – including a free press and freedom of speech, disclosure of leaders’ assets and freedom to demonstrate.
With the demands embodied in a 10-metre (33 ft) high “Goddess of Democracy” sculpture modeled on the Statue of Liberty and printed on thousands of leaflets, the students defied Beijing’s declaration of martial law in calling for reforms to a government rife with corruption and a country shaken by growing inequality.
But rights advocates say the ruling Communist Party, which on Tuesday faces the highly sensitive June 4 anniversary of Chinese troops opening fire on their own people, has in the past 10 years suppressed a civil society nurtured by years of economic development.
“It is much, much worse than 1989,” Shao Jiang, one of the student leaders instrumental in crafting the list of demands, told Reuters from London, where he lives in exile.
More Americans Working in Their 70s
June 3rd, 2019Via: Quartz:
Katharine Abraham, an economics professor at the University of Maryland, was chatting with her hairdresser one night about retirement plans. The economist said she plans to continue working because she wants to and has no plans for retiring. The hairdresser agreed but for different reasons: She needs the money.
Both scenarios are contributing to a big increase in the number of people in the US working into their 70s. Over the past 20 years, the share of Americans working in their 70s has risen from less than 10% to nearly 15%, according to US Census bureau data.
U.S. Forces Blow Up Three Oil Tankers In Syria Enforcing Oil Embargo
June 2nd, 2019Via: OilPrice:
US-led forces have blown up three oil tankers in Syria as the United States increases its pressure on Syria by thwarting the oil trade between the PKK/YPG and the Assad regime, according to local sources quoted by several media sources.
The strike was carried about by coalition planes, which hit three oil tankers, leaving four dead. The coalition has not yet made a statement about the attack. In the area controlled by Assad, oil consumption stands at around 136,000 bpd. Production, meanwhile, is only 24,000 barrels per day. This means that the regime must import significant volumes of crude oil at an estimated expense of more than $2 billion per year.
The attack comes a couple weeks after the EU extended its sanctions on the Assad regime for one year after the Syrian regime upped the ante in repressing the Syrian people, bringing the Syrian crisis to a boiling point.
Pentagon: “Mr. Elizondo Had No Responsibilities with Regard to the AATIP Program While He Worked in the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence”
June 2nd, 2019Via: The Intercept:
There is no discernible evidence that he ever worked for a government UFO program, much less led one.
Yes, AATIP existed, and it “did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena,” Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood told me. However, he added: “Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI [the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence], up until the time he resigned effective 10/4/2017.”
That directly contradicts an email sent by a spokesperson for To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, a UFO research and entertainment company that Elizondo joined after he left the Defense Department.
Deloitte: Net Worth of Average 18 to 35-Year-Old Has Plummeted 34 Percent Since 1996
June 1st, 2019Via: The Hill:
The net worth of the average 18- to 35-year-old has plummeted 34 percent since 1996, according to new study from accounting group Deloitte.
Despite stereotypes that millennials overspend on entertainment and dining out, the Deloitte study found that the generation is paying more for education, food, transportation and other basic needs, while their incomes have stayed steady.
The group’s average net worth is now below $8,000, putting today’s millennials in a worse financial position than previous generations.
Televangelist on Needing to Use Three Private Jets: “It’s a Biblical Thing”
June 1st, 2019If you don’t believe in the Devil, you might after watching this.
Via: Daily Mail:
Televangelist Kenneth Copeland has appeared in a bizarre interview where he defends using three private jets to travel the world after previously claiming he didn’t want to fly commercial with ‘demons’.
The 82-year-old’s chat with Inside Edition features him angrily pointing and staring the interviewer in one of the instances where he flares up after being confronted about his lavish lifestyle.
But at other moments Copeland has a cheerful demeanor and deflects questions by complimenting her on her eyes, praying for her, and even kissing her hand.
Lisa Guerrero caught up with Copeland – estimated to be worth $760million in October 2018 – after he last year purchased a $3million Gulfstream V private jet from producer and actor Tyler Perry.
