California: Female Inmates Pressured Into Accepting Sterilization Procedure
July 8th, 2013Via: Center for Investigative Reporting:
Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.
From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.
The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison.
Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.
Solar Powered Plane Completes Cross-Country Flight
July 8th, 2013Via: AP:
A solar-powered aircraft completed the final leg of a history-making cross-country flight Saturday night, gliding to a smooth stop at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The Solar Impulse touched down at JFK at 11:09 p.m., completing the final leg of the cross-continental journey that started in California in early May. For Saturday’s final leg, the aircraft left Dulles International Airport a little before 5 a.m.
The flight plan for the revolutionary plane, powered by some 11,000 solar cells on its oversized wings, had called for it to pass the Statue of Liberty before landing early Sunday at New York. But an unexpected tear discovered on the left wing of the aircraft Saturday afternoon forced officials to scuttle the fly-by and proceed directly to JFK for a landing three hours earlier than scheduled.
Pilot Andre Borschberg trumpeted the milestone of a plane capable of flying during the day and night, powered by solar energy, crossing the U.S. without the use of fuel.
“It was a huge success for renewable energy,” Borschberg said while standing in front of Solar Impulse on the runway at JFK. “The only thing that failed was a piece of fabric.”
Egypt: Clashes Between Army, Protesters Kill 54
July 8th, 2013Via: CBC:
Egyptian soldiers and police clashed with Islamists protesting the military’s ouster of the president in bloodshed that left at least 51 protesters and three members of the security forces dead, officials and witnesses said, and plunged the divided country deeper into crisis with calls by the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party for all-out rebellion against the army.
The carnage outside the Republican Guard building in Cairo — where toppled President Mohammed Morsi was first held last week — marked the single biggest death toll since massive protests forced Morsi’s government from power and brought in an interim civilian administration.
Even before all the bodies were counted, with more than 300 wounded, there were conflicting accounts on how the violence began. Morsi’s backers said the troops attacked their encampment without provocation just after dawn prayers. The military said it came under assault first by gunmen.
Firefox 22: How to Zoom Text But Not Images
July 8th, 2013With version 22, Firefox is now paying attention to the system wide zoom setting in Windows 7. This is resulting in both the text and images being enlarged in Firefox for those of us who set the global zoom at “Medium – 125%” or “Larger – 150%” in Windows 7 Control Panel – Appearance and Personalization – Display.
Ok, so what if those of us with high pixel density screens want to enlarge just text while leaving images to display at their native resolutions in Firefox 22? (I don’t want to see larger images in Firefox if they’re blurry.)
First, tell Firefox to ignore the global system zoom setting:
Type about:config into the Firefox address bar. Change the value of layout.css.devPixelsPerPx from -1 to 1.
You’ll notice that everything now looks pretty small in Firefox. That’s ok. Install No Squint. This will allow you to set global and page specific text-only zoom settings for Firefox.
If you find that Firefox’s interface text is now too small (I did) you may also install Theme Font & Size Changer. This is a very simple addon that will allow you to bump up the size of the text used in Firefox’s interface.
The New Warrior Cop Is Out of Control
July 8th, 2013Via: Salon:
SWAT teams raiding poker games and trying to stop underage drinking? Overwhelming paramilitary force is on the rise.
Book: Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces by Radley Balko
Mexican Police Chief Killed with Rifle from Fast and Furious Program
July 8th, 2013Via: Los Angeles Times:
A high-powered rifle lost in the ATF’s Fast and Furious controversy was used to kill a Mexican police chief in the state of Jalisco earlier this year, according to internal Department of Justice records, suggesting that weapons from the failed gun-tracking operation have now made it into the hands of violent drug cartels deep inside Mexico.
Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga, the police chief in the city of Hostotipaquillo, was shot to death Jan. 29 when gunmen intercepted his patrol car and opened fire. Also killed was one of his bodyguards. His wife and a second bodyguard were wounded.
Local authorities said eight suspects in their 20s and 30s were arrested after police seized them nearby with a cache of weapons — rifles, grenades, handguns, helmets, bulletproof vests, uniforms and special communications equipment. The area is a hot zone for rival drug gangs, with members of three cartels fighting over turf in the region.
A semi-automatic WASR rifle, the firearm that killed the chief, was traced back to the Lone Wolf Trading Company, a gun store in Glendale, Ariz. The notation on the Department of Justice trace records said the WASR was used in a “HOMICIDE – WILLFUL – KILL –PUB OFF –GUN” –ATF code for “Homicide, Willful Killing of a Public Official, Gun.”
In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of NSA
July 7th, 2013…people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage, cyberattacks and _____<---fill in the blank. Via: New York Times:
In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation’s surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say.
Deutsche Boerse to Launch Cloud Exchange to Trade Computing Power
July 6th, 2013Via: Reuters:
German financial markets operator Deutsche Boerse is planning to commoditize computing power with the launch early next year of the world’s first independent exchange for trading cloud computing capacity.
The advent of cloud computing, whereby a remote network of computers is made available online, has not only enabled users to ditch much of their own costly hardware but also to switch between third-party machines according to where processing power is cheapest.
Deutsche Boerse said the Cloud Exchange will open as a spot market in the first quarter of next year to companies and other organizations which outsource their data storage and computer processing needs, enabling them to buy capacity just like they would commodities such as oil and electricity.
Dozens Killed in Egypt as Gunfire and Running Battles Erupted in Several Cities
July 6th, 2013Via: AP:
Egyptian officials say the country’s interim president has held talks with the army chief and interior minister following a deadly day of clashes across the country that killed at least 30 people.
Adly Mansour met with army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who is also the defense minister, as well as Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of the police, at the Ittihadiya presidential palace Saturday.
It was the first time Mansour, who formally dissolved the parliament Friday, has worked out of the president’s main offices since he was sworn-in Thursday as the country’s interim leader. Mansour, who was appointed by the military, took over a day after the military overthrew Mohammed Morsi, who was the country’s first democratically elected president.
And Now… Talking Train Window Advertisements
July 6th, 2013When I saw this yesterday, I was sure that it was a hoax.
I guess it’s real.
Via: BBC:
A German firm is proposing to transmit adverts via train windows so that the sound appears to “come from inside the user’s head” when passengers lean against them.
The idea would use bone conduction technology, a technique that transmits sound to the inner ear by passing vibrations through the skull.
The concept has been developed by ad agency BBDO Germany on behalf of broadcaster Sky Deutschland.
