Disclosure: I’m Long United States Oil Fund
May 23rd, 2010WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
I bought United States Oil Fund (symbol: USO) on Friday afternoon. Since this trade represents a potential conflict of interest with some of the subject matter dealt with here I felt that you should be aware of it.
Jefferson Parish Officials Commandeered All of BP’s Hired Boats in Grand Isle
May 23rd, 2010Via: WWLTV:
Jefferson Parish Emergency managers say they have commandeered all of BP’s hired boats in Grand Isle.
A representative for Jefferson Parish Emergency chief Deano Bonano said they requested immediate action after oil moved into the marsh passes and onto the beaches in Grand Isle.
He said more than 40 boats were sitting idle while he watched the oil rush into the passes.
At around 5:30 p.m., Jefferson Councilman Chris Roberts confirmed the boats have been commandeered by JP emergency managers.
Backyard Gardens Become Income Generators in Lean Times
May 23rd, 2010Of course, the Dervaes family is the center of gravity for urban farming in Los Angeles. If you’re wondering about what’s possible along those lines, you won’t find a more astonishing and encouraging example than Path to Freedom-Urban Homestead.
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Locking up his station wagon, the one with the scratched paint and unpaid bills covering the floor mats, Cam Slocum crossed the parking lot and stepped into the kitchen of the swanky French restaurant Mélissein Santa Monica.
A cook set down his knife and walked over to greet the stranger. Slocum held out a Ziploc bag filled with lettuce.
“Hi,” said Slocum, 50, his deep voice straining to be heard. “I grow Italian mache in my backyard. It’s really good, only $8 a pound. Would you like to buy some?”
A few feet away, chef de cuisine Ken Takayama glanced curiously at the lanky stranger in jeans and a worn plaid shirt. He’s heard this sort of pitch before.
“Every day, every week, it’s something new,” Takayama said. “You name it, they have it.”
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In the South, hunters are selling venison and wild boar meat. In the Midwest, people are combing the forests for morel mushrooms, which can fetch $10 to $40 a pound.
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In Los Angeles, it’s unclear whether such entrepreneurship is legal: A 1946 zoning ordinance allowed “truck gardening” but didn’t define what that meant or identify what could be grown for sale in residential areas. Because of the ambiguity, the city has shut down some backyard enterprises, but not others.
An outcry by urban farming advocates last summer prompted Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti to introduce a motion dubbed the Food and Flowers Freedom Act, which would allow people to grow “berries, flowers, fruits, greens, herbs, ornamental plants, mushrooms, nuts, seedlings or vegetables for use on-site or sale or distribution off-site.”
The city’s building and safety department has stopped enforcing the old ordinance for now. The City Council is expected to vote on the proposed ordinance Friday.
Related: “What if the millions of so-called dropouts are onto something?”
Research Credit: ltcolonelnemo
USC/DARPA LittleDog Robot
May 23rd, 2010House Votes to Expand National DNA Arrest Database
May 23rd, 2010Via: CNet:
Millions of Americans arrested for but not convicted of crimes will likely have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to a national database, according to a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.
By a 357 to 32 vote, the House approved legislation that will pay state governments to require DNA samples, which could mean drawing blood with a needle, from adults “arrested for” certain serious crimes. Not one Democrat voted against the database measure, which would hand out about $75 million to states that agree to make such testing mandatory.
“We should allow law enforcement to use all the technology available to them…to reduce expensive and unjust false convictions, bring closure to victims by solving cold cases, better identify criminals, and keep those who commit violent crime from walking the streets,” said Rep. Harry Teague, the New Mexico Democrat who sponsored the bill.
But civil libertarians say DNA samples should be required only from people who have been convicted of crimes, and argue that if there is probable cause to believe that someone is involved in a crime, a judge can sign a warrant allowing a blood sample or cheek swab to be forcibly extracted.
“It’s wrong to treat someone as guilty before they’re convicted,” says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute. “It inverts the concept of innocent until proven guilty.”
California Throws Away Enough Food to Fill 35 Stadiums Per Year
May 22nd, 2010Over at Technofascism Blog, Tony writes, “Keep this story in mind next time you hear that nonsense from people like Bill Gates insisting we need GM crops to feed a hungry world.”
Besides Atomic Audit, this represents just about the clearest proof that the depth of our society’s madness is infinite.
Via: San Francisco Chronicle:
Farmers, restaurants and supermarkets throw away millions of tons of edible food each year at a time when a growing number of Californians struggle to put food on the table.
More than 6 million tons of food products are dumped annually, enough to fill the Staples Center in Los Angeles 35 times over, state studies have found. Food is the largest single source of waste in California, making up 15.5 percent of the state’s waste stream, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board.
An examination by California Watch and the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California found shortcomings along California’s food distribution chain that allow vast amounts of food to go to waste in landfills, despite incentives that encourage food donations.
SSL Enabled Google Searches
May 22nd, 2010“Your investigative staff will collect its best evidence while users are lulled into a false sense of security afforded by web, e-mail or VOIP encryption.”
—Governments Using Forged SSL Certificates for Man in the Middle Attack on “Secure” Web Sessions
A reader asked me if SSL enabled Google search was worth using.
I would say that this is probably worth using for most people. It will prevent teenagers and some other miscreants on the wire from intercepting your search sessions. However, this does nothing to keep your data private from intelligence organizations that can decrypt SSL at will. Also, Google still maintains your files for law enforcement to access.
If you have half a role of Reynolds Wrap around your skull, you might think that intelligence agencies will pay extra close attention to the searches conducted via SSL enabled pages.
My guess, though, is that the benefits of keeping things secure from just about everyone except Google, law enforcement and intelligence agencies outweighs any possible additional scrutiny this might bring from those organizations. I mean, they have it all when you use the standard session anyway, so, why not cut your boss (assuming that you can use your own computer on your office’s network; this won’t do crap for you if you’re using a machine provided by your employer), your neighbor’s teenage son, who has cracked the encryption on your wi-fi base station, and the freak who owns the coffee shop, etc. out of the picture when it comes to your search queries?
Via: Google:
As people spend more time on the Internet, they want greater control over who has access to their online communications. Many Internet services use what are known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections to encrypt information that travels between your computer and their service. Usually recognized by a web address starting with “https” or a browser lock icon, this technology is regularly used by online banking sites and e-commerce websites. Other sites may also implement SSL in a more limited fashion, for example, to help protect your passwords when you enter your login information.
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When you search on https://www.google.com, an encrypted connection is created between your browser and Google. This secured channel helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third party on your network.
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A few notes to remember: Google will still maintain search data to improve your search quality and to provide better service. Searching over SSL doesn’t reduce the data sent to Google — it only hides that data from third parties who seek it. And clicking on any of the web results, including Google universal search results for unsupported services like Google Images, could take you out of SSL mode. Our hope is that more websites and services will add support for SSL to help create a better and more consistent experience for you.
FDIC: ‘Problem’ Banks at 775 or 10% of the Total
May 21st, 2010Via: Wall Street Journal:
A total of 775 banks, or one-tenth of all U.S. banks, were on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s list of “problem” institutions in the first quarter, as bad loans in the commercial real-estate market weighed on bank balance sheets.
Poor loan performance in other sectors also continued to hurt banks, with the total number of loans at least three months past due climbing for the 16th consecutive quarter, FDIC officials said in a briefing on Thursday.
“The banking system still has many problems to work through, and we cannot ignore the possibility of more financial market volatility,” FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said.
BP Admits Underestimating Oil Leaking from Gulf of Mexico Well
May 21st, 2010Imagine our shock.
Via: Telegraph:
BP was on Thursday accused of seriously underestimating the flow of oil from its Gulf of Mexico well.
In a further blow the beleaguered oil giant was also ordered to use less toxic chemicals to disperse its growing slick.
It came as more damaging, heavy crude hit Louisiana’s coastal wetlands and experts warned that the Gulfstream current could carry the slick round Cuba and into the Florida Keys.
The British energy major – already under pressure from the US government – admitted the well was gushing out more than the 5,000 barrels a day it had previously estimated. It could not give a new figure for the flow, three weeks after the Deepwater Horizon rig owned and operated by its contractor Transocean exploded and sank, killing 11 men.
It is now siphoning 5,000 barrels a day up to a boat, but said although the flow had “noticeably reduced” there was still a plume of oil leaking into the ocean.
One scientist, Steve Wereley, associate mechanical engineering professor at Purdue University, believes as much as 70,000 barrels could be emerging per day, based on a video released by BP.
“This is not rocket science,” Mr Wereley told a US congressional panel. “All outside estimates are considerably higher than BP’s.”
Cryptogon Readers Sign Up for Hosting with BlueHost
May 21st, 2010Thanks to the owners of worldwatchers.info and birthcenterofgainesville.org for signing up for hosting with BlueHost. Cryptogon received $180.
