Japanese Communities Record Chernobyl-Level Radiation
October 20th, 2011Some of the Geiger counters shown in the video max out.
Via: ABC Lateline:
Seven months on from Japan’s nuclear meltdown, thousands of people are still unable to return to their homes around the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
And for many of them, the terrible realisation is sinking in that they may never go back.
Some communities have been found to be radiation hotspots, with levels comparable to those found at Chernobyl.
Many of those affected say they’ve had little help from the Japanese government as they struggle to come to terms with what’s happened.
The ABC’s North Asia correspondent, Mark Willacy, travelled to one of the Fukushima hotspots and talked to some of those dealing with the ongoing legacy of this disaster.
Related: Neutron Ray Measured in Tokyo [???] Thanks Tochigi.
Mighty Ape
October 20th, 2011Cryptogon is now a Mighty Ape affiliate. Readers in New Zealand can start Mighty Ape sessions via Cryptogon and they will pay me a 5% commission on whatever you buy.
I’ve added a link to the Partners list on the sidebar of the Home page for future reference.
It’s understandable if you’ve given up on web based retailing in New Zealand, but Mighty Ape is great. Their website doesn’t crash, the checkout always works, items listed as in stock are in stock and the service is fast and reliable. If you’re not familiar with them, here’s their about page.
Thanks for supporting Cryptogon by conducting your business through affiliate relationships! Every little bit helps.
Facebook Is Building Shadow Profiles of Non-Users
October 20th, 2011Via: Slashdot:
“As noted previously, Max Schrems of Europe Versus Facebook has filed numerous complaints about Facebook’s data collection practices. One complaint that has failed to draw much scrutiny regards Facebook’s creation of Shadow Profiles. ‘This is done by different functions that encourage users to hand personal data of other users and non-users to Facebook… (e.g. synchronizing mobile phones, importing personal data from e-mail providers, importing personal information from instant messaging services, sending invitations to friends or saving search queries when users search for other people on facebook.com). This means that even if you don’t use it, you may already have a profile on Facebook.'”
‘Rise of the Machines: America’s Jobs Challenge’
October 20th, 2011Via: Reuters:
For decades, American workers and their machines advanced in tandem. As companies invested in technology, more workers were needed to operate machines.
That relationship is now looking unsteady.
Since 1999, business investment in equipment and software has surged 33 percent while the total number of people employed by private firms has changed little.
The gap between man and machine widened even further after the 2008-09 recession, helping explain why the United States is struggling to bring down an unemployment rate stuck above 9 percent.
The revolution in information technologies is taking a deeper and deeper hold in the U.S. economy.
Throughout history, technology revolutions have paved the way to forms of employment: Britain’s 19th century industrial revolution threw artisans out of work but eventually created mass employment in factories.
But a decade-long drought in jobs in the United States is raising questions whether there is a fundamental shift in the structure of the labor market.
MTV Real World Casting Call for Occupy Wall Street Protestors
October 20th, 2011An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.
—Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
So, Obombya, the Goldman Sachs’ shill, and MTV are now behind this Occupy Wall Street situation. [Update: Mikhail Gorbachev: Protests leading to New World Order.]
Sign wavers will not like Gustave Le Bon’s old book, but it’s an operations manual for those who take advantage of crowds. There are free versions of it all over the Internet, and on Amazon for the Kindle.
Via: Reuters:
Occupy Wall Street protesters may get a new platform to voice their opinions after MTV’s “The Real World” reality TV show posted a casting call reaching out to supporters of the movement.
The casting call, posted on Monday this week by “Real World” production company Bunim/Murray on website Craigslist, stated they were “seeking cast members to tell their unique stories” and specifically asks people if they are part of the Occupy Wall Street movement and in their 20s.
“The producers of Bunim/Murray productions are targeting young passionate people to be a part of the next cycle,” of the TV show, an MTV spokesperson told Reuters on Wednesday.
A Long, Steep Drop for Americans’ Standard of Living
October 20th, 2011Via: Christian Science Monitor:
Think life is not as good as it used to be, at least in terms of your wallet? You’d be right about that. The standard of living for Americans has fallen longer and more steeply over the past three years than at any time since the US government began recording it five decades ago.
Egypt’s Top ‘Facebook Revolutionary’ Now Advising Occupy Wall Street
October 19th, 2011Via: Wired:
One of the key activists behind Egypt’s “Facebook Revolution” is now giving advice to a new group of protesters: the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The protesters in New York’s Zuccotti Park — and their offshoots around the country — often cite the mass demonstrations earlier this year in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as their inspiration. So maybe it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Ahmed Maher, one of the leading figures in those Egyptian protests, has been corresponding for weeks with the Occupy Wall Streeters, whom he calls “our brothers.”
Maher is one of the founders of the April 6 Youth, which used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to galvanize Egyptians against President Hosni Mubarak. Recently, however, his attention has turned toward America, where he’s been chatting online with Occupy activists. Those conversations center around practical advice from a successful Egyptian revolutionary. Usually, they occur through Facebook. On Tuesday, for the first time, they happened face to face.
State Department Shakes Down Employee of 23 Years Over Book Describing Absurd “Reconstruction” Antics in Iraq
October 19th, 2011Via: Tom’s Dispatch:
On the same day that more than 250,000 unredacted State Department cables hemorrhaged out onto the Internet, I was interrogated for the first time in my 23-year State Department career by State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) and told I was under investigation for allegedly disclosing classified information. The evidence of my crime? A posting on my blog from the previous month that included a link to a WikiLeaks document already available elsewhere on the Web.
As we sat in a small, gray, windowless room, resplendent with a two-way mirror, multiple ceiling-mounted cameras, and iron rungs on the table to which handcuffs could be attached, the two DS agents stated that the inclusion of that link amounted to disclosing classified material. In other words, a link to a document posted by who-knows-who on a public website available at this moment to anyone in the world was the legal equivalent of me stealing a Top Secret report, hiding it under my coat, and passing it to a Chinese spy in a dark alley.
The agents demanded to know who might be helping me with my blog (“Name names!”), if I had donated any money from my upcoming book on my wacky year-long State Department assignment to a forward military base in Iraq, and if so to which charities, the details of my contract with my publisher, how much money (if any) I had been paid, and — by the way — whether I had otherwise “transferred” classified information.
Had I, they asked, looked at the WikiLeaks site at home on my own time on my own computer? Every blog post, every Facebook post, and every Tweet by every State Department employee, they told me, must be pre-cleared by the Department prior to “publication.” Then they called me back for a second 90-minute interview, stating that my refusal to answer questions would lead to my being fired, never mind the Fifth (or the First) Amendments.
Why me? It’s not like the Bureau of Diplomatic Security has the staff or the interest to monitor the hundreds of blogs, thousands of posts, and millions of tweets by Foreign Service personnel. The answer undoubtedly is my new book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. Its unvarnished portrait of State’s efforts and the U.S. at work in Iraq has clearly angered someone, even though one part of State signed off on the book under internal clearance procedures some 13 months ago. I spent a year in Iraq leading a State Department Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and sadly know exactly what I am talking about. DS monitoring my blog is like a small-town cop pulling over every African-American driver: vindictive, selective prosecution. “Ya’ll be careful in these parts, ‘hear, ‘cause we’re gonna set an example for your kind of people.”
Research Credit: Pookie
Federal Reserve Now Backstopping $75 Trillion Of Bank Of America’s Derivatives Trades
October 19th, 2011Via: Daily Bail:
This story from Bloomberg just hit the wires this morning. Bank of America is shifting derivatives in its Merrill investment banking unit to its depository arm, which has access to the Fed discount window and is protected by the FDIC.
This means that the investment bank’s European derivatives exposure is now backstopped by U.S. taxpayers. Bank of America didn’t get regulatory approval to do this, they just did it at the request of frightened counterparties. Now the Fed and the FDIC are fighting as to whether this was sound. The Fed wants to “give relief” to the bank holding company, which is under heavy pressure.
This is a direct transfer of risk to the taxpayer done by the bank without approval by regulators and without public input. You will also read below that JP Morgan is apparently doing the same thing with $79 trillion of notional derivatives guaranteed by the FDIC and Federal Reserve.
What this means for you is that when Europe finally implodes and banks fail, U.S. taxpayers will hold the bag for trillions in CDS insurance contracts sold by Bank of America and JP Morgan. Even worse, the total exposure is unknown because Wall Street successfully lobbied during Dodd-Frank passage so that no central exchange would exist keeping track of net derivative exposure.
Research Credit: ms
China: People Ignore Dying Child Who Was Run Over by Two Different Vehicles
October 18th, 2011Via: New Zealand Herald:
Footage of a two-year-old girl being run over by a van and lying bleeding on the road as more than a dozen people pass her by has sparked outrage and soul searching in China.
The video surveillance footage posted widely on Chinese social media sites starts with the young girl being hit by a van in a narrow street in Foshan city.
Its driver stops for a short time before driving away, crushing the girl again beneath his rear wheels.
She is left bleeding on the road as passersby walk or cycle around her.
After the girl is hit by a second truck, a woman pulls her to the side of the road and her mother enters the shot.
Chinese hospital staff reportedly told media the girl was now on life support in a deep coma. However, some state media said she had died.
