IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office
May 17th, 2013Via: ABC:
The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.
Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.
Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.
U.S. Congress Restricts Government Purchase of Chinese Computer Equipment, Citing Cyber-Espionage Concerns
May 17th, 2013haha. Good luck with that.
Via: The Verge:
The latest US appropriations bill, signed into law just this week, includes a provision that is likely to further raise tensions between the country and China. The provision requires the Department of Justice, Department of Commerce, NASA, and the NSF to perform a formal assessment of risk of cyber-espionage before purchasing computer systems and other IT equipment. There is a clause in the bill that states that the assessment must specifically analyze — with the assistance of the FBI — any “such system being produced, manufactured or assembled by one or more entities that are owned, directed or subsidized” by the People’s Republic of China to determine if the purchase is “in the national interest of the United States.” Stewart A. Baker first wrote about the provision on his blog yesterday, and Reuters published a report on the restriction earlier today.
Research Credit: noguru
And Now… ‘Boston Bombings Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Left Note In Boat He Hid In’
May 16th, 2013Oh sure.
Via: CBS:
Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a note claiming responsibility for the April 13 attack on the Boston Marathon, reports CBS News senior correspondent John Miller.
Sources tell Miller that Tsarnaev wrote the note in the boat he was hiding in as police pursued him, and as he bled from gunshot wounds sustained in an earlier shootout between police and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It reads as part manifesto, part suicide note, and part justification for the killing and maiming of innocent civilians.
The note — scrawled with a marker on the interior wall of the cabin — said the bombings were retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and called the Boston victims “collateral damage” in the same way Muslims have been in the American-led wars. “When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims,” Tsarnaev wrote.
‘Pentagon Spec Ops Chief Sees ’10 to 20? More Years of War Against al-Qaida’
May 16th, 2013Via: Wired:
The war in Afghanistan may be winding down. But the Pentagon’s chief of irregular warfare still sees a war against al-Qaida that will last decades, all over the world — a prospect that prompted astonishment and constitutional debate in the Senate.
Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, “At least ten to twenty years.”
Related: Baseworld
Want to Take Pictures of a Federal Courthouse at 3am?
May 16th, 2013Via: Photography Is Not A Crime:
Raymond Michael Rodden was bored this week, so he drove to downtown Phoenix and began walking around, snapping photos of the federal courthouse and the state capitol with his iPhone.
The 33-year-old man ended up jailed, unemployed and homeless; his iPhone, iPad and Macintosh laptop confiscated as “evidence.”
All because they found it odd he was taking photos at 3 a.m.
“They told me they’re going to keep my computer because they want to see my search history,” he said Saturday evening in a telephone interview with Photography is Not a Crime.
“They wanted to know if I belonged to any extremist groups like the national socialist movement or sovereign citizens. They wanted to know what kind of books I checked out of the library.”
U.S. Government Lobbies Worldwide for Monsanto and Other GMO Firms
May 16th, 2013Via: Guardian:
If you have a feeling that genetically modified (GM) foods are being forced upon the population by a handful of business interests and vociferously defended by the scientists that work in the agriculture industry or at the research institutions it funds, you might be onto something.
The zeal with which GM proponents evangelize transgenic seeds (and now, transgenic food animals) is so extreme that they are even pouring vast sums of money to defeat popular efforts to simply label GE foods – like the nearly $50m spent to defeat the popular 2012 ballot measure to label GE foods in California, Proposition 37. What’s more, it’s not just happening in the United States. I am the head of Food & Water Watch, and we have spent months looking at the extent to which the US State Department is working on behalf of the GM seed industry to make sure that biotech crops are served up abroad whether the world wants them or not.
Our report analyzes over 900 State Department diplomatic cables from 2005 to 2009 and reveals how far the US government will go to help serve the seed industry’s agenda abroad, knowing that resistance to GMOs worldwide is high.
Here are some of the tidbits gleaned from our comprehensive look at the cables:
• Between 2007 and 2009, annual cables were distributed to “encourage the use of agricultural biotechnology”, directing US embassies to “pursue an active biotech agenda”.
• There was a comprehensive communications campaign aimed to “promote understanding and acceptance of the technology” and “develop support for US government trade and development policy positions on biotech” in light of the worldwide backlash against GM crops.
• Where backlash was high, some embassies downplayed efforts. In Uruguay, the embassy has been “extremely cautious to keep [its] fingerprints off conferences” promoting biotechnology. In Peru and Romania, the US government helped create new pro-biotech nongovernmental organizations.
• The State Department urged embassies to generate positive media coverage about GE crops. Diplomatic posts also bypassed the media and took the message directly to the public; for example, the Hong Kong consulate sent DVDs of a pro-biotech presentation to every high school.
• The State Department worked to diminish trade barriers to the benefit of seed companies, and encouraged the embassies to “publicize the benefits of agbiotech as a development tool”.
Monsanto was a great beneficiary of the State Department’s taxpayer-funded diplomacy, helping pave the way for the cultivation of its seeds abroad: the company appeared in 6.1% of the biotech cables analyzed between 2005 and 2009 from 21 countries. The embassy in South Africa even informed Monsanto and Pioneer about two recently vacated positions in the agency that provided biotech oversight, suggesting that the companies advance “qualified applicants” to fill the position. Some embassies even attempted to facilitate favorable outcomes for intellectual property law and patent issues that would benefit the company.
The Too Big to Fail Gravy Train
May 16th, 2013Via: Bloomberg:
These six banks — Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Citigroup Inc. (C), Goldman Sachs Group Inc., (GS) JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC). — have also benefited from tax breaks and Federal Reserve largesse since the end of 2008 in the form of additional income from the central bank’s mortgage-bond purchases and the interest it pays for bank deposits.
All told, the financial advantages for the six biggest banks since the start of 2009 amounted to at least $102 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“The big banks have the taxpayers standing behind them, so people who lend them money know they’ll be paid back,” says Cornelius Hurley, director of the Center for Finance Law & Policy at Boston University and former assistant general counsel at the Fed. “That too big to fail no longer exists is not credible.”
Australia: ISPs Must Block Sites Specified by Government
May 16th, 2013Via: Delimiter:
The Federal Government has confirmed its financial regulator has started requiring Australian Internet service providers to block websites suspected of providing fraudulent financial opportunities, in a move which appears to also open the door for other government agencies to unilaterally block sites they deem questionable in their own portfolios.
The news came tonight in a statement issued by the office of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, following a controversial event in April which saw some 1,200 websites wrongfully blocked by several of Australia’s major Internet service providers.
On April 12, Melbourne publication the Melbourne Times Weekly reported that more than 1,200 websites, including one belonging to independent learning organisation Melbourne Free University, might have been blocked by “the Australian Government”. At the time, Melbourne Free University was reportedly told by its ISP, Exetel, that the IP address hosting its website had been blocked by Australian authorities. The block lasted from April 4 until April 12.
Subsequently, the US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a media release linking the issue to the Labor Federal Government’s various Internet filtering initiatives, especially the voluntary filtering scheme currently implemented by a number of major ISPs including Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.
TrackingPoint Weapon System
May 16th, 2013Make sure the firewall on your rifle is up to date.
Via: Guns:
TrackingPoint, operating out of Austin, Tex., developed the truly unique shooting system that fundamentally changes how a person operates a rifle. By using a smart scope and an electronic trigger system TrackingPoint’s “Precision Guided Rifles” can guarantee hits even with the most novice shooters.
It’s a very simple system to use. While you’re looking down the “Intelligent Digital Tracking Scope” you mark your target with the push of a button. When you’re ready to shoot, you pull the trigger, which will not cause the rifle to fire until you move the crosshairs to the point where the scope has corrected for windage and elevation. When you move the crosshairs to the corrected position, the gun will automatically fire.
Related: Aimbot
Stem Cells Produced from Cloning Technique for First Time
May 16th, 2013Via: Los Angeles Times:
For the first time, scientists have created human embryos that are genetic copies of living people and used them to make stem cells — a feat that paves the way for treating a range of diseases with personalized body tissues but also ignites fears of human cloning.
If replicated in other labs, the methods detailed Wednesday in the journal Cell would allow researchers to fashion human embryonic stem cells that are custom-made for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and other health problems.
Theoretically capable of reproducing themselves indefinitely, these stem cells could be used to grow replacements for a wide variety of diseased cells — those of the blood, skin, heart, brain, muscles, nerves and more — that would not risk rejection by the patient’s immune system.
The report also raises the specter that, with a high-quality donor egg, a bit of skin, some careful tending in a lab and the womb of a willing surrogate, humans have cracked the biological secret to reproducing themselves.
Very Good Sci-Fi: Moon
