California License Plates Could Go Digital
June 21, 2010
NBC
By: Robin Hindery
California drivers may soon come bumper to bumper with the latest product of the digital age: ad-blaring license plates.
State lawmakers are considering a bill allowing the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles.
The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is moving but would switch to digital messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds in traffic or at a red light.
In emergencies, the plates could be used to broadcast Amber Alerts or traffic information.
The author of SB1453 says California would be the first state to implement such technology if it decides to adopt the plates on a large scale.
Supporters say license-plate advertising could generate much-needed revenue in a state facing a $19 billion deficit.
Dubai To Have Security Cameras ‘Everywhere’
June 21, 2010
AFP
UBAI (AFP) – Dubai, where a top Hamas commander was killed in January in an assassination blamed on Israel’s Mossad spy agency, is to have security cameras “everywhere,” the police chief was quoted as saying on Sunday.
The bustling Gulf city currently has 25,000 security cameras, but “surveillance needs to be ramped up to meet the growing requirements of an expanding city,” Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan told The National newspaper.
“We need to work according to a well-studied strategic plan and not only react to events as they come along… We will have cameras everywhere,” said Khalfan of the 136-million-dollar (110-million-euro) project.
Hamas commander Mahmud al-Mabhuh was killed at a luxury hotel in the emirate, and Khalfan said police were able to track down the suspected killers with the help of security cameras.
“With the al-Mabhuh murder we were able to play back time through the footage captured by cameras,” said Khalfan, adding they analysed 1,700 hours of images and “were able to pull the strings together and identify the suspects.”
Napolitano Sells Homegrown Terrorism To Pitch Net Monitoring
June 21, 2010
Napolitano
WASHINGTON — Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation’s homeland security chief said Friday.
As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans’ civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents.
“The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet,” Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
Napolitano’s comments suggest an effort by the Obama administration to reach out to its more liberal, Democratic constituencies to assuage fears that terrorist worries will lead to the erosion of civil rights.
The administration has faced a number of civil liberties and privacy challenges in recent months as it has tried to increase airport security by adding full-body scanners, or track suspected terrorists traveling into the United States from other countries.
“Her speech is sign of the maturing of the administration on this issue,” said Stewart Baker, former undersecretary for policy with the Department of Homeland Security. “They now appreciate the risks and the trade-offs much more clearly than when they first arrived, and to their credit, they’ve adjusted their preconceptions.”
Underscoring her comments are a number of recent terror attacks over the past year where legal U.S. residents such as Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and accused Fort Hood, Texas, shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan, are believed to have been inspired by the Internet postings of violent Islamic extremists.
And the fact that these are U.S. citizens or legal residents raises many legal and constitutional questions.
Napolitano said it is wrong to believe that if security is embraced, liberty is sacrificed.
She added, “We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable.”
As an example, she noted the struggle to use full-body scanners at airports caused worries that they would invade people’s privacy.
The scanners are useful in identifying explosives or other nonmetal weapons that ordinary metal-detectors might miss — such as the explosives that authorities said were successfully brought on board the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is accused of trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear, but the explosives failed, and only burned Abdulmutallab.
U.S. officials, said Napolitano, have worked to institute a number of restrictions on the scanners’ use in order to minimize that. The scans cannot be saved or stored on the machines by the operator, and Transportation Security Agency workers can’t have phones or cameras that could capture the scan when near the machine.
FCC Will Tame Internet, Or Kill It
June 21, 2010 by Duffy
Filed under Government
June 21, 2010
CNBC
By: Dennis Kneale
For almost two decades the U.S. government has kept its meddlesome mudhooks off the Internet, freeing it to spread its kudzu-like tendrils into the global economy. And it worked.
The FCC took a big step this week to end all of that. For the first time, the Federal Communications Commission proposes using a set of 75-year-old phone regulations to oversee the Net of the 21st century and have a say in the prices that companies like AT&T and Comcast can charge. And set rules for what traffic they must carry. (Comcast is acquiring a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal’ CNBC’s parent company. The deal is awaiting regulatory approval.)
Some telecom execs say the FCC’s agenda is downright radical. It could thwart high hopes for the wireless Internet, centerstage of the next digital revolution. The agency assault could restack the pecking order of winners and losers and reshape their stock prices, affecting the portfolios of millions of retirees and investors. It would impose new burdens on big carriers, while granting new power to content purveyors like Google and Yahoo .
At stake is billions of dollars that carriers like Verizon and AT&T spend each year to spruce up their networks to carry more digital bits. They will slash their spending if the feds restrain their upside; that could hurts jobs growth in high-tech, which employs well over two million people in the U.S.
If the FCC foray is imminent, “We have to re-evaluate whether we put shovels in the ground,” is how AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, put it this week.
The last time the FCC tried such a major incursion, in the mid-1990s, Stephenson, then the company’s chief financial officer, cut annual capital spending by more than half, from $12 billion to $5 billion dollars a year. That cut lasted for four years, until the courts threw out the FCC overreach.
This time around, the agency’s push is in direct contradiction to a ruling in April from the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. The backstory: In 2008 the FCC had chastised Comcast for slowing traffic from one particular website—BitTorrent, used for massive video downloads of movies and TV shows. Comcast sued, arguing the FCC had legal standing to dictate how the company handles its Internet traffic.
Two months ago the DC appeals court unanimously agreed: the FCC had no such authority.
What to do? Make it up!
To do that, the FCC proposes a nifty little change in definitions. It wants to re-classify the Internet and say it no longer is an “information service”—which gets a light hand. Now the Net shall be called a “telecommunications service”—a phone service, basically, that gets subjected (and subjugated) to a lot more government oversight.
Four feet good. Two feet better!
Technically, the FCC wants to take Title II of the Communications Act—first adopted when the agency was formed 75 years ago to regulate phone service—and slap it on the Internet.
“It’s so archaic. It’s a regulation that was written for the old rotary dial telephone back in 1934,” AT&T’s Stephenson said on CNBC’s new show, “The Strategy Session,” earlier this week. (Watch video of the interview here.)
It is “a terrible idea,” Verizon’s regulatory chief, Tom Tauke, says in a company statement, predicting “severe . . . ramifications for decades. It is difficult to understand why the FCC continues to consider this option.”
Google played a key role in sparking this spat, under the well-crafted buzzwords “net neutrality.” The search behemoth basically wants the FCC to guarantee that a big carrier can’t refuse to deliver Google’s content on its network.
But wait a minute—why does Google, a preternaturally fearsome, multibillion-dollar profit machine, need special protection from a feeble and backward-looking government bureaucracy? If Comcast blocked access to a hotspot like Google, millions of customers could quit and force the company to cave in. Free-market enforcement, guys.
The FCC, prodded by Google, wants to ban giant carriers from differentiating the way they handle various kinds of traffic, requiring them to treat all content—whether it’s a fat video downloaded from YouTube or a slender little photo zapped from your cell phone—”in a nondiscriminatory manner.” Some telecom execs fear this would lead to de facto price controls.
Wouldn’t Hugo Chavez in Venezuela be proud? The shareholders of AT&T and Verizon and Comcast and
Time Warner Cable
paid to build those fat pipes—not government. And the carriers made that investment without monopoly protection, unlike the phone networks erected over a century ago.
Some telecom execs privately have signaled to the FCC that they may accept some new FCC rules on wireline service into homes, if the FCC would back off and let the mobile Internet remain unfettered and footloose.
Don’t bet on it. The Obama Adminstration’s FCC, backing off an opportunity to expand its regulatory hegemony over a trillion-dollar industry? Why would we ever believe this FCC is capable of doing a wise thing like that?
Rahm Emanuel Expected To Quit White House
June 21, 2010 by Duffy
Filed under Government
June 21, 2010
Telegraph.co.uk
by Alex Spillius
Washington insiders say he will quit within six to eight months in frustration at their unwillingness to “bang heads together” to get policy pushed through.
Mr Emanuel, 50, enjoys a good working relationship with Mr Obama but they are understood to have reached an understanding that differences over style mean he will serve only half the full four-year term.
Friends say he is also worried about burnout and losing touch with his young family due to the pressure of one of most high profile jobs in US politics.
“I would bet he will go after the midterms,” said a leading Democratic consultant in Washington. “Nobody thinks it’s working but they can’t get rid of him – that would look awful. He needs the right sort of job to go to but the consensus is he’ll go.”
An official from the Bill Clinton era said that “no one will be surprised” if Mr Emanuel left after the midterm elections in November, when the Democratic party will battle to save its majorities in the house of representatives and the senate.
It is well known in Washington that arguments have developed between pragmatic Mr Emanuel, a veteran in Congress where he was known for driving through compromises, and the idealistic inner circle who followed Mr Obama to the White House.
His abrasive style has rubbed some people the wrong way, while there has been frustration among Mr Obama’s closest advisers that he failed to deliver a smooth ride for the president’s legislative programme that his background promised.
“It might not be his fault, but the perception is there,” said the consultant, who asked not to be named. “Every vote has been tough, from health care to energy to financial reform.
“Democrats have not stood behind the president in the way Republicans did for George W Bush, and that was meant to be Rahm’s job.”
There were sharp differences over health care reform, with Mr Emanuel arguing that public hostility about cost should have forced them into producing a scaled down package. Mr Obama and advisers including David Axelrod, the chief strategist, and Valerie Jarrett, a businesswoman and mentor from Chicago, decided to push through with grander legislation anyway.
Mr Emanuel has reportedly told friends that his role as White House chief of staff was “only an eighteen month job” because of its intensity.
Regarded as the most demanding after president, it involves controlling the president’s agenda, enforcing White House message discipline as well as liaising with Congress.
His departure would regarded as another sign of how Mr Obama’s presidency has been far more troubled than expected.
Mr Emanuel has privately expressed a readiness to run for mayor of Chicago, which is also his home town though he was never part of the Obama set and did not endorse the then senator in the Democratic primary in 2008.
That would however depend on Mayor Richard Daley stepping down when he is up for re-election in 2011.
The chief obstacle to taking the White House job originally was doubts about moving his three children from Chicago. According to another former Clinton official, he has let friends know that he is “very sensitive to the idea that he is not a good father for having done this”.
One of Washington’s more colourful characters, Mr Emanuel is the son of Jewish immigrants and was an accomplished ballet dancer at school. He served as a civilian volunteer with the Israeli Defence Force in the 1991 Gulf War.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
FDA Admits Drugs For Crohn’s And Arthritis May Promote Cancer
June 18, 2010
NaturalNews
By David Gutierrez
(NaturalNews) The FDA has ordered makers of drugs for a variety of inflammatory diseases to add a “black box warning” about an increased risk of cancer in children and adolescents.
A black box warning is the most severe warning that the FDA can place on a product without withdrawing it from the market.
The FDA began analyzing the drugs, known as tumor necrosis factor (TNF) blockers, when reports emerged that dozens of children had developed cancer while taking the drugs. TNF blockers are used to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis. They include adalimumab (marketed as Humira), certolizumab pegol (marketed as Cimzia), etanercept (marketed as Enbrel), golimumab (marketed as Simponi) and infliximab (marketed as Remicade.
“FDA announced that it has completed its analysis of TNF blockers and has concluded that there is an increased risk of lymphoma and other cancers associated with the use of these drugs in children and adolescents,” spokesperson Crystal Rice said . “This new safety information is now being added to the boxed warning for these products.”
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Child Cancer Survivors 10x Greater Risk Of Heart Disease
June 18, 2010
NaturalNews
By David Gutierrez
(NaturalNews) Survivors of childhood cancers are nearly 10 times more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease as adults than people who did not have cancer as children, according to a study conducted by researchers from Emory University and published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
Researchers remain unsure of the exact reason for the increased risk, but the effects of radiation therapy appear to play a significant role.
“Mechanistically, we are not yet sure why this is, but the association is definitely there,” said researcher Lillian R. Meacham.
Using data from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, researchers compared data from 8,599 cancer survivors with data from 2,936 of their cancer-free siblings.
They found that cancer survivors had a 60 percent higher chance of being on cholesterol medicine, a 70 percent higher chance of suffering from diabetes and nearly a 100 percent higher chance of being on blood pressure drugs. They were no more likely that their siblings to suffer from obesity, however, suggesting that something more than lifestyle factors are at play.
“These risk factors are manifesting at about age 32, which is much younger than a non-cancer survivor would exhibit signs of cardiovascular risk factors,” Meacham said. “Some have suggested that when you are a cancer survivor there are parts of you that wear out early, so we need to be vigilant about our follow-up of these patients in order to find these late effects early and intervene.”
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Corporate Greed Could Destroy Human Civilization
June 18, 2010
NaturalNews
By Mike Adams
NaturalNews) What’s most striking about the present BP oil catastrophe is not that it is an aberration but rather part of a dangerous pattern of mankind’s propensity to destroy nature. To destroy life in a large region of an ocean isn’t even new: The world already has over two hundred “dead zones” where fish can’t live because the ocean water has no more oxygen left thanks to the runoff effects of man-made chemicals.
Not content with mere deforestation and the vast destruction of biodiversity on land, Man has now expanded to destroy the oceans through overfishing, ocean acidification from CO2 emissions, agricultural runoff, flushing pharmaceuticals down the drain and unleashing crude oil directly into the ocean waters. It almost seems as if mankind were somehow bent on destroying itself by first destroying everything else on the planet just to see what happens.
Human beings, by any honest accounting, are repeat offenders engaged in crimes against nature. This article, by the way, isn’t some clever way to try to push us all toward a U.N.-controlled world government where every human action is regulated by environmental cops; it’s merely an observation of what’s really happening right now on our planet. I’m a Constitutionalist and remain strongly opposed to UN control as much as any properly-informed American. In no way do I support suppressing our individual freedoms or liberties. In fact, the problems here are not with the People but rather with the corporations.
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Go Out And Buy Gold!
June 18, 2010
Reuters
By Carole Vaporean and Amanda Cooper
(Reuters) – Gold bullion came just short of its all-time high and U.S. gold futures ran up to their highest close ever on Thursday on both concern over Europe’s credit problems and downbeat U.S. data which encouraged a fresh sweep into safe-haven assets.
Euro strength also propelled gold’s advance after European ministers jointly backed the publication of so-called bank “stress tests,” along with a successful Spanish bond auction.
Spot gold advanced to $1,244.45 an ounce by 2:29 a.m. EDT from $1,229.60 an ounce late Wednesday. Its session high reached $1,250.65 an ounce, just short of its all-time peak at $1,251.20 hit on June 8.
U.S. gold futures for August delivery surged $18.20 to finish at $1,248.70 an ounce, its highest close on record.
“There’s no consistency right now in terms of good news coming out of the euro zone. And, because of that, it’s making investors feel a bit uncertain about going into riskier assets. Gold is obviously a safe-haven asset to offset that,” said Fred Jheon, managing director of U.S. product development at ETF Securities in San Francisco.
Euro’s push to a three-week high against the dollar also renewed gold buying among some investors who are seeking the precious metal as a substitute currency.
“At the macro level, we’re seeing central banks being net buyers of gold versus being net sellers for the first time in many years. So there’s appetite at that level,” said Jheon.
He added; “Investors are looking at the degradation of the dollar or the euro and are saying, ‘Rather than hold a fiat currency, holding a hard currency like gold is a better investment.”
Fiat currency is a currency that is legal tender by government fiat but has no fixed value against a hard asset such as gold or silver.
The euro gained after a Spanish bond auction soothed worries about the country’s finances and worse-than-expected U.S. data weighed on the dollar.
“Gold is looking for any and every opportunity to go higher, and we all know the reasons why–the safe-haven factor, sovereign debt risks and so on,” said Peter Hillyard, head of metals sales at ANZ Investment Bank.
“The mood is with gold right now, the momentum is with gold and the market will either do nothing or go up,” he said.
Weaker U.S. economic data showing Mid-Atlantic factory activity plummeted in June and a rise in the number of U.S. workers filing for unemployment benefits last week also drove anxious investors to return to gold as a safety play.
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US May Reach Their Borrowing Limit
June 18, 2010
Bloomberg
Jacob Greber
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. may soon face higher borrowing costs on its swelling debt and called for a “tectonic shift” in fiscal policy to contain borrowing.
“Perceptions of a large U.S. borrowing capacity are misleading,” and current long-term bond yields are masking America’s debt challenge, Greenspan wrote in an opinion piece posted on the Wall Street Journal’s website. “Long-term rate increases can emerge with unexpected suddenness,” such as the 4 percentage point surge over four months in 1979-80, he said.
Greenspan rebutted “misplaced” concern that reducing the deficit would put the economic recovery in danger, entering a debate among global policy makers about how quickly to exit from stimulus measures adopted during the financial crisis. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said this month that while fiscal tightening is needed over the “medium term,” governments must reinforce the recovery in private demand.
“The United States, and most of the rest of the developed world, is in need of a tectonic shift in fiscal policy,” said Greenspan, 84, who served at the Fed’s helm from 1987 to 2006. “Incremental change will not be adequate.”
Rein in Debt
Pressure on capital markets would also be eased if the U.S. government “contained” the sale of Treasuries, he wrote.
“The federal government is currently saddled with commitments for the next three decades that it will be unable to meet in real terms,” Greenspan said. The “very severity of the pending crisis and growing analogies to Greece set the stage for a serious response.”
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