Private Prisons: The More Americans They Put Behind Bars The More Money They Make
March 12th, 2013Via: InvestmentWatchBlog:
How would you describe an industry that wants to put more Americans in prison and keep them there longer so that it can make more money? In America today, approximately 130,000 people are locked up in private prisons that are being run by for-profit companies, and that number is growing very rapidly. Overall, the U.S. has approximately 25 percent of the entire global prison population even though it only has 5 percent of the total global population. The United States has the highest incarceration rate on the entire globe by far, and no nation in the history of the world has ever locked up more of its own citizens than we have. Are we really such a cesspool of filth and decay that we need to lock up so many of our own people? Or are there some other factors at work? Could part of the problem be that we have allowed companies to lock up men and women in cages for profit? The two largest private prison companies combined to bring in close to $3,000,000,000 in revenue in 2010, and the largest private prison companies have spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions over the past decade. Putting Americans behind bars has become very big business, and those companies have been given a perverse incentive to push for even more Americans to be locked up. It is a system that is absolutely teeming with corruption, and it is going to get a lot worse unless someone does something about it.
Homeless Houston Veteran Ticketed for Dumpster Diving for Food
March 12th, 2013This guy must not have gotten the memo. After serving the Empire, WalMart is hiring.
Via: News92FM:
A homeless Navy veteran faces up to a $500 fine for dumpster diving in downtown Houston. Veteran James Kelly was cited for “disturbing the contents of a garbage can” on Thursday morning of last week in front of the Hobby Center.
Fewer Americans Than Ever Trust U.S. Government
March 12th, 2013In other news, 1.6 Billion Rounds Of Ammo For Homeland Security? It’s Time For A National Conversation:
The Denver Post, on February 15th, ran an Associated Press article entitled Homeland Security aims to buy 1.6b rounds of ammo, so far to little notice. It confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. As reported elsewhere, some of this purchase order is for hollow-point rounds, forbidden by international law for use in war, along with a frightening amount specialized for snipers. Also reported elsewhere, at the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending less than 6 million rounds a month. Therefore 1.6 billion rounds would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years. In America.
Add to this perplexing outré purchase of ammo, DHS now is showing off its acquisition of heavily armored personnel carriers, repatriated from the Iraqi and Afghani theaters of operation.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows…
Via: CBS News:
The Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. has found that fewer Americans than ever trust the decisions made by the government.
Data collected from a survey taken in January of this year indicates that all demographics and partisan groups experienced an increasing lack of faith in government leadership, according to a release posted on the Pew Research website late last week.
“However, there are disparities,” the official summary noted. “[M]ore than twice as many Hispanics as whites (44 percent vs. 20 percent) trust the federal government, and more blacks (38 percent) than whites trust the government.”
Researchers additionally observed that younger Americans trust the government more than their older counterparts, and that more liberals believe in the administration of President Barack Obama than either independents or Republicans.
Conversely, distrust of federal government is presently at 73 percent. Earlier on in the Obama administration, it reportedly hit a record high of 80 percent, according to a graph constructed and presented by researchers at Pew.
James Holmes: ‘Narco Analytic Interview’
March 12th, 2013Via: Sky:
The student accused of the Colorado cinema massacre could be given “truth serum” to help determine whether he is insane, a judge has ruled.
James Holmes, 25, who is accused of killing twelve people and injuring 70 others during a shooting rampage at a Batman movie premiere, is expected to enter a plea today.
Defence lawyers have indicated that the former neuroscience graduate might plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
If he does, the judge has ruled, he might have to submit to a “narco analytic interview” – including the use of what some have dubbed a “truth serum” – as part of the evaluation of his mental state.
A narcoanalytic interview is a decades-old process in which patients are given drugs to lower their inhibition.
The judge said Holmes could also be given a lie detector test as part of the evaluation.
Holmes will face 166 counts during an arraignment hearing in connection with the shooting spree at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, last July.
Facebook Reveals Secrets You Haven’t Shared
March 12th, 2013Via: Financial Times:
The increasing amount of personal information that can been gleaned by computer programs that track how people use Facebook has been revealed by an extensive academic study.
Such programmes can discern undisclosed private information such as Facebook users’ sexuality, drug-use habits and even whether their parents separated when they were young, according to the study by Cambridge university academics.
In one of the biggest studies of its kind, scientists from the university’s psychometrics team and a Microsoft-funded research centre analysed data from 58,000 Facebook users to predict traits and other information that were not provided in their profiles.
The algorithms were 88 per cent accurate in predicting male sexual orientation, 95 per cent for race and 80 per cent for religion and political leanings. Personality types and emotional stability were also predicted with accuracy ranging from 62-75 per cent.
Facebook declined to comment.
‘Algae-Like Structures Inside a Sri Lankan Meteorite Are Clear Evidence of Panspermia’
March 11th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review:
On 29 December 2012, a fireball lit up the early evening skies over the Sri Lankan province of Polonnaruwa. Hot, sparkling fragments of the fireball rained down across the countryside and witnesses reported the strong odour of tar or asphalt.
Over the next few days, the local police gathered numerous examples of these stones and sent them to the Sri Lankan Medical Research Institute of the Ministry of Health in Colombo. After noticing curious features inside these stones, officials forwarded the samples to a team of astrobiologists at Cardiff University in the UK for further analysis.
The results of these tests, which the Cardiff team reveal today, are extraordinary. They say the stones contain fossilised biological structures fused into the rock matrix and that their tests clearly rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination.
Study: The Polonnaruwa meteorite: oxygen isotope, crystalline and biological composition
Ohio Judge: Traffic Cameras Are a Scam Against Motorists
March 11th, 2013Via: Columbus Dispatch / AP:
A southwestern Ohio judge yesterday ordered a halt to a speeding-ticket blitz in a village that installed traffic cameras, saying it’s “a scam” against motorists.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman blasted the cameras and the thousands of $105 citations that resulted. He ruled that they violate motorists’ constitutional rights to due process and said the village’s enforcement was stacked against drivers.
“Elmwood Place is engaged in nothing more than a high-tech game of 3-Card Monty,” Ruehlman wrote, referring to a card game used by con artists. “It is a scam that motorists can’t win.”
Microsoft Phone App Collects Audio from Bars and Restaurants to ‘Deduce the Current Atmosphere’
March 11th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review:
An app called Bing Now, demonstrated at Microsoft’s headquarters last week, could give Web searchers a way to gauge the current vibe of a bar or restaurant before they book a table.
Smartphones can already deliver directions to a restaurant, endless reviews, and other static information. But without making a phone call, or actually going, there’s no means of knowing if a place is busy and playing loud rock music or empty and playing quieter tunes. Microsoft researchers think that smartphone owners who are already there could collect this kind of up-to-the-minute information.
“Every time a user checks in to a business, he actually explicitly tells us where he is going, and we actually know the phone is in the user’s hands,” says Dimitrios Lymberopoulos, who is in the sensing and energy group of Microsoft Research. When a person checks in, as a Foursquare user would, the phone could collect 6- to 10-second audio samples, process them on the device, and send off the extracted data. From this information, software models developed by Microsoft’s researchers could tease out the size of the crowd, the level of chatter, and the music volume and classify them as “low,” “normal,” or “high.” The app could even tell a searcher what song is playing.
Electronic Sensors Printed Directly on the Skin
March 11th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review:
Taking advantage of recent advances in flexible electronics, researchers have devised a way to “print” devices directly onto the skin so people can wear them for an extended period while performing normal daily activities. Such systems could be used to track health and monitor healing near the skin’s surface, as in the case of surgical wounds.
So-called “epidermal electronics” were demonstrated previously in research from the lab of John Rogers, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; the devices consist of ultrathin electrodes, electronics, sensors, and wireless power and communication systems. In theory, they could attach to the skin and record and transmit electrophysiological measurements for medical purposes. These early versions of the technology, which were designed to be applied to a thin, soft elastomer backing, were “fine for an office environment,” says Rogers, “but if you wanted to go swimming or take a shower they weren’t able to hold up.” Now, Rogers and his coworkers have figured out how to print the electronics right on the skin, making the device more durable and rugged.
Thousands of Dead Pigs Found in Shanghai River
March 11th, 2013Drinking water quality normal, comrade.
Via: South China Morning Post:
Chinese officials have found a total of 3,323 dead pigs in a Shanghai river as of Monday afternoon and discovered swine virus in one of them, but they have stressed that the disease is not known to be infectious to humans.
The virus is known as Pocine Circovirus type 2, or PCV-2, a statement posted on Shanghai Agricultural Commission’s official account on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo said on Monday morning. The statement stressed the virus is not known to cause disease in humans but noted China had seen an increasing occurrence of this kind of virus causing sickness in pigs.
On Thursday, dead pigs were found floating at the Songjiang district section of the Huangpu River that flows through Shanghai. The city’s Water Authority reported the number of dead pigs found to be 3,323 as of Sunday evening, local internet portal Xinmin.cn reported on Monday morning.
The commission conducted tests on multiple organs from five samples, and found the virus present in one sample, while ruling out five other commonly seen diseases, it said in a statement.
The city’s water authority said it had closely monitored the quality of tap water since the dead pigs were discovered and said the water quality remained “normal”, state media Xinhua reported.
Based on the labels found on the dead pigs’ ears, officials said the pigs were raised in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, which is located on the upper reaches of Huangpu River.
Jiaxing local media reports last week said more than 18,000 pigs from one village had died from illness in the last two months. The reports have sparked fears that residents dumped all of the diseased animals in the river.
CCTV reported local residents near Huangpu River saying that dumping dead, diseased pigs in the river was common practice. “After the sick pigs died [they] just dumped them in the river…Constantly. Every day,” one villager said.
“They are everywhere, and smell very bad,” another said.
Research Credit: ottilie
